Fortune Favors the Bold with Joseph McClendon’s Consistent Activity

In this conversation, we cover the biggest challenges people face and how to overcome them using clear steps from neuroscience to go further, faster, plus how the real key is activity and how that’s different from taking action. The lessons imparted during this conversation significantly impacted my life and certainly hold true today. So I wanted to be able to share that with you.

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Join us and get show notes at livefitignitechange.com or for short, livefic.com. All right. To jump into this episode for background on Joseph, he went from being homeless, literally living in a cardboard box to being one of the most sought after performance specialists in the world. As a doctor of neuropsychology, Joseph taught at UCLA Lectures at Harvard ignites performance at Fortune 500 companies, electrifies crowds in his keynotes.

And is presented to over 3 million people around the globe. Joseph’s tell show do teaching and coaching creates rapid personal change that effectively moves people to take more consistent action and go further, faster with their personal and business achievements. In 1986, he teamed up with Tony Robbins and we had this conversation at Tony Robbins unleashed the power within event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Tony led two days of the seminar and Joseph led the other two days. We recorded this, overlooking the marina there in Fort Lauderdale. So that’s what we’re referencing here in this conversation. To take you back to this time this was 2011 after the 2008 financial crisis. And many people were still saying that we were in an economic crisis. Personally at the time, my wife and I had two young boys at the ages of four and one.

Patrick: Previously, I’d been working as VP of marketing in a real estate construction firm. And well, that industry pretty much went away in this time. So I helped, I helped the company transition to be able to sustain and voluntarily left my position there. So while we were kind of wondering how to pay our bills, and I also took a step back to see what the most successful people in the world were doing. I found they all had commonalities to get, have a morning routine to get up and get your body in motion, have a compelling vision about the future.

So it was around this time that we planted that seed of taking a trip around the world, living in New Zealand for three months. And now at this time we had no idea how it happened, but it was that vision.

And as you heard in the previous episode, how that came to be yet, it was the little daily actions, the events and the conversations like this one with Joseph that helped along that path to make it. Yeah. So without further ado, we’ll jump into the conversation. Just be aware my audio was not perfect, but there’s just so much value here. Thought it was certainly worth sharing. So. Here’s the conversation with Joseph McClendon.

Patrick: Hello, I’m Patrick O’Donnell here in beautiful south Florida with Joseph McClendon. We have been in an event with over 4,000 people. And what Joseph just did to that room was absolutely amazing. I was blown.

Joseph: Oh stop it. Stop, please.

Patrick: It was an honor to be here with them and, I guess I’ll start off right.

With one of the things that just blew me away at the conference purpose. It was right in line with what, what I believe and it was your philosophy on most of the people here in this world. Maybe you, do you think we’re in an economic crisis right now? In your response to that?

 Joseph: Well, one of the things that I, I, my true belief is, is perception is everything. It truly is.

And you heard me say this yesterday in, there’s never been more, more pain in terms of business and finances then in decades and decades, actually almost a hundred years now, uh, on one side, but there’s never been more opportunity on the other side. And there’s so much more opportunity. Warren buffet, as you heard, we talk about, uh, said not too long ago, that there’s going to be more money made in the next three years and has been made in the last 100 years and always through time.

Whenever, there’s what we call an economic crisis there’s always unbelievable opportunity. And those that see that and look for that are gonna be the ones that don’t just survive, but thrive. So I think it’s all perception more than anything. Are there challenges? Absolutely. However, with every challenge, a challenge means that there’s gonna be growth behind it.

Patrick: Exactly. So well said, and the growth is what it is all about around finding it. And speaking of finding it, the other thing that I’ve always had, the old Bible verse. Seek and you shall find.

Joseph: Yes.

Patrick: Well, Joseph has taken that to another level and I just had to share that with you guys as well.

Joseph: Well, I, I don’t like to say that I improved on the Bible, but I’m my thing is seek and it shall find you. In other words, it’s out there looking for you. There’s, you know, here we are. I don’t know if you can see behind me, we got Steven Spielberg yacht and right down here, there’s yachts all over the place. The money is still around from a, from, from a, from a financial standpoint, it’s still around and most of us are looking somewhere else for it or looking and saying, it’s not here.

It’s not here. Well, it’s, it’s out there. And the reality is, you know, from a, from a, a psychological standpoint, if you’re looking from, from something or shall I say from a physiological and a psychological standpoint, human beings, we have, what’s called a reticular activating system that this mechanism in our brain says that whatever we look for, we’re going to find more of. We’ve all had the situation where we’re, you know, you wanted to buy a new car or an article of clothing or something.

And we started noticing more of them around. Well, they may have been there all the time or maybe they’re popping out more. My belief is, as you look for them, they’re gonna pop out more to you just because that’s the way your brain and your body works. So I, I believe in that and you know, don’t get me started on the whole attracting stuff to you because it’s gonna find you as well.

Patrick: Sure. Absolutely.

Joseph: It’s Science now, by the way.

Patrick: The science. Yeah. And that’s where, where it leads too is, um, with, with you and your background, because not being in psychology, I haven’t been exposed to as much of that, but if you have a second just share what your background was and how you’ve gotten into this, this field and have proof behind that philosophy.

Joseph: Yeah. Um, it’s actually, it was, it’s been an interesting journey. I, I, uh, my background is psychology and in school I studied psychology for, you know, several years, but to be honest with you, as I look at it now, I studied it going, okay, well, this is a career path that I wanted to do, but I really studied it cuz I was pretty screwed up myself.

You know, I had some challenges going on in myself, some fears and so on and so forth. I won’t go into that whole thing. Uh, but that was my reason for doing that. And I was right. I came from a place where. You know, I was always raised that you help your fellow man and so on and so forth. But there was a time in my life that I was homeless when I was 19 years old, I lived in a cardboard box and it wasn’t cuz I had a bad family or bad upbringing.

It had, it was, you know, a bunch of other things that had happened, uh, in my life. And I, I had low self worth and low self-esteem. And what got me out of that make a real long story short. Was a kind person introduced me to the whole concept of personal development, gave me a book called think and grow rich greatest book of all times in terms of yeah, personal development.

Joseph: And I read the book and changed my life. And that’s what got me on my journey to do that. But to answer your question, what brought me to this place and what brought me to want to help. So many people was when I went back to this gentleman and I said you’ve changed my life. Thank you so much.

What can I do for you? How do I repay you? He said how you repay me is you do the same that I’ve done for you for as many people as you possibly can for the rest of your life.

Patrick: Awesome.

Joseph: And, uh, you know, at the risk of sounding noble, that’s why I, I do it as well as what I shared with you guys yesterday is what I believe is that it’s not going to be you know, our government, I love my country more than anything. It’s not gonna be our government, uh, that, that changes things. It’s gonna be people like you and I, and hopefully you, that, that have the, uh, fortitude for lack of a better term and go out and do business and, and look and think differently and create the financial bedrock that we need for this country.

It’s gonna be small and mid-sized business that makes things happen.

Patrick: Amen. Can be true. Completely agree. Um, taking that a little step further too. When you talk about becoming the small business midsize business, whoever the people that are doing it. A lot of us in, in my field, we go out, we find the tools.

We have the ability, the greatest latest thing. But then you kind of get stuck.

Joseph: Mm-hmm

 Patrick: and where this comes to is as some, you know, my friends, they say I made up the word, let’s have an active night because I’m all about activity and going out and doing things right. You are the master of activity. If I can say it that way.

Joseph: Well, thank you.

Patrick: The psychology activity, um, you would share a little bit more on kind of what that is, what the whole psychology of activity.

Joseph: I, I came from a place as, as I said, I opened a practice doing traditional psychology. Actually, I, I, you know, make a very long story short. I, I am, am and, and educated for lack of a better term in traditional psychology.

But when I learned about the neurosciences, which is really kind of a shortcut for lack of a better term to, you know, get to the same place in a shorter way, I opened a practice in Los Angeles and I did a lot of fears and I did you know really thousands by now, fears and phobias and emotional challenges and things like that with people, helping them get over things in a short amount of time.

And, um, what I found is there, there really are very few things that people, that challenge people and the biggest thing is their fear. You know, their fear of, uh, you know, their self worth is fear based. Their, their, their, uh, their need to go forward, but not doing it is fear based. And to answer your question in business in, you know, we all want more, whether it be finances, better body, you know, better relations, or we all want more.

And most of us even know what to do. And most of us, you know, will, will attempt to go after. But we don’t follow through, you know, you mentioned action and activity action is the name of the game. It’s across the board. It’s no secret that those of us that take more action that do more, create more. That’s it, bottom line, but it’s gotta be the right action.

It’s gotta be the right activity because you’ve got people that all, you know, all over the world that are working hard every day. You’ve got salt of the earth, hardworking people, and they’re not getting ahead. They’ve gotta do something different. They know they’ve gotta do something different, but they’re not necessarily doing.

So to make a long story short. Um, what I recognized is that procrastination, hesitation, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, and the list goes on and on. That’s what stops people, people with the best of intentions, I don’t care if you’re you wanna lose weight. I don’t care if you’ve got a program to make money.

 I don’t care if you’ve got, you know, whatever it is. There are steps to take to do it, but most people get it and then they stop. So what I did was I took the neurosciences and applied it to that, to help people get beyond those fears and all those things to do it. And it, you know, it just works like a charm for lack of a better term.

Patrick: Just like that.

Joseph: Yeah. So, but it’s not just like that, but it is, it is a rapid, you know, people follow through.

Patrick: So people like me that didn’t know the neurosciences mm-hmm , but can apply what you did. Go take action.

Absolutely. Uh, and

Joseph: it’s not just action. I’ll, I’ll make a distinction that, that, uh, you know, we, we’ve heard this before.

That knowledge is not power. Everybody knows that. Knowledge is only potential power. We know what to do. Um, and then we also have heard that action is power and that is true. However, action is only temporary power, power, meaning getting something done and creating something. Okay. Action is, is doing something once or twice, or maybe even 10 times.

The real key is activity. Activity is doing it until over and over until that’s the name of the game. That’s how we build a muscle. That’s how we build a business. That’s how we create wealth. If you will, is doing something over and over until people with the best of intentions will say again, you know, I use dieting or, you know, making money, people will say, you know, I’m, I’m, you know, every day I’m going to do this, but they’ll do it for a week or two.

And then life takes over.

Patrick: Exactly.

Joseph: Or they get afraid and they don’t start, or they don’t, they don’t finish. And, uh, so it’s about activity and that’s what, what, uh, you know, my, my process, if for lack of a better term that I help people do is to continually take that activity. I love it. Get over and over until, until you reach your goal until actually to surpass your goal.

Keep, keep raising beyond that.

Absolutely. It’s okay.

Patrick: Back to the present day for a quick comment. So much of what separates the most successful people in the world and those that are not are these daily actions, many refer to it as grit, which can be called the passion and perseverance for long term goals.

And the way that we look at it, you basically see your ideal future. And then take action over and over and over. So it’s not just one, two or 10 times, but until you surpass that goal and that’s the concept that we’ll cover in the next episode on Darren Hardy’s compound effect. It really is these daily actions that you take over and over and over.

This is what leads to the life that you’ve always imagined. And now looking back, it’s so interesting. What daily habits I’ve put into place over the past 11 years since this conversation that have led exactly. To the outcomes that I desired. We’ve talked about automating businesses to be able to travel the world, living on water at the beach, being in peak shape, you know, et cetera, et cetera, whatever it may be, the list goes on and on all of these were on vision boards before they became a reality.

And all of the biggest successes come back to the same thing, having the vision of the ideal. And then it’s the daily habits and the activity that Joseph is talking about here, doing that over and over until, and that is what brings about the ideal future. So just wanted to chime in there with a couple comments.

And now let’s jump back into the conversation.

And so you’ve turned this into a, a product to actually help, help others.

Joseph: Yes.

Patrick: Helping people like me and others that want to be able to apply that psychology activity to our life. Tell us a little bit more about.

Joseph: Well, I, I gotta be honest. You say people like, like yourself.

Patrick: Yes.

Joseph: I made it for myself to be honest with you.

People like us, people like us because you know, I’m, I’m a, a staunch believer in you better be eating your own cooking otherwise, you know, You know, you don’t have the right to be preaching it or teaching to somebody else. And quite honestly, I took a look at, you know, early in my life. There were things that I wanted to do, said I was going to do and even started out doing, and I didn’t finish them.

And then I took a look. Here’s some reasons why, and here’s what was happening. And you know, my old saying is that that most of us don’t know how electricity works. However, every single one of us can go over there and hit the light switch and get the result. So instead of you having to learn how this works yourself, or you say you don’t know the neurosciences, most people don’t, instead of doing that, I have created what, what I call this psychology of activity.

And I’ll break it down for, for you. The psychology is just how we think it’s just a big word for how we think. And our thought process is nothing more than what we’re saying to ourselves, or we’re saying out loud or what we’re looking at or focusing on. Imagine that’s it that’s that’s, you know, simply said, that’s what we think when we think you’re either making pictures in your head, or you’re saying something in your head or both.

So, if you can change those pictures and change those words in a quick way, in a, in a, in a rapid way and then make it conditioned. So it becomes natural. Then you can overcome the challenges very, very quickly. So taking with, you know, I I’ve been with, well, you’re here with 4,000 people at this event that we’re doing now, but over the past, Quarter of a century.

Now I’ve been with over two and a half million people. And, you know, and I, you know, my, my background is I’m, what’s known as an ultimate performance coach or, or, uh, specialist. And all that means is people hire me to, to help them, you know, get over their, their challenges. And I have worked with some movie stars and actors and actresses and so on and so forth.

But the reality is, you know, that’s great. And, and all those people that that’s really great. But we, as the average person, you know, or the normal person, what are we going to do? Because, you know, so I’ve taken what I teach them, distilled it down and turned it into a program program’s called the Psychology of Activity.

It’s a three week program, but meaning it, it takes three weeks to go through. But it’s, it’s broken down and each week I give you things to do, and it’s not a matter of just listening to me talk and you learning the knowledge, it’s things that you’re literally going to do. And each step that you do, it’s like turning on that light switch, which rewires the brain.

So by the time that you’re finished, then you you’re, you’re inactivity, you’re doing activity actually along the way.

Patrick: So great. Absolutely. I love hearing how it’s structured to be able to apply what you have up here to be able to help us, cuz I mean, I really must. What happened yesterday, he is truly one of the most inspiring men I’ve ever been around him.

Not just saying this you’re here right now and talking to you, but I think those of you watching this know, I have always lived my life an incredibly high standard and always raising my standards. But what happened. Yesterday, when you were speaking, when right before lunch, it’s like, that is life changing and what, what, I can’t wait to go forward and apply all of this right now and make it happen.

So, I mean, that’s why we’re doing this to be able to share what I’ve experienced from you and try to help other people see that this is great.

Joseph: I thank you. Thank you.

Patrick: So if you could share where people might go to find more about this.

Joseph: Absolutely. And let me say one other thing.

Patrick: Sure.

Joseph: And that is, I love doing seminars. I love doing workshops and, and what I do. And thank you so much for the compliment and what my outcome is to put the tools in your hand, to put the tools in your hand.

So you don’t need me to inspire you. Inspiration comes from the outside and empowerment comes from the inside. So, so what I would rather do what my outcome is, what my, my, my goal is, is to put the tools in your hands, in your hands, so that you make the changes with inside yourself so that you are in you’re, you know, you, the whole thing, I always say to people, what it is that makes you get up early, stay up late and do all the things that necessary to get, make the things happen.

Let’s find out that’s called your pho. Let’s find out what it is. I’m gonna show you how to cultivate it, but not just cultivate it in yourself, but so that it happens automatically. So you don’t have to remind yourself. So that you’re automatically doing it. You find yourself encouraged to do the things that maybe even are uncomfortable in the very beginning, but become natural.

And then you’re one of those guys, or one of those ladies that, that everybody’s looking at going, how do they do that?  so, uh, yeah, you can go to psychologyofactivity.com and, uh, and, and actually. I, I, I literally give this stuff away. If you go and you just go through for, for the first part of it, you go through and there’s some things that I’m going to have you do.

And it’s not, again, it’s not about just me talking to you and telling you there’s some things that you’ll do and you’ll start to get some results right away. So just go there, you know, sign on, go on that site. You’ll you’ll see everything right there and it starts the process right then and there.

Patrick: Absolutely. Start it. Get going. Yeah, name it again. All right. Just to chime in again here, that URL is no longer. So you can go to josephmcclendon.com and also check out his book dare to be magnificent and his podcast, the cure for the common life. All of these links are linked in the show notes at livefitignitechange.com/joseph or livefiic.com/joseph.

And. Back to the interview.

Again, wonderful stuff, incredible person. And I thank you for the gift that you’ve given to me and I really, I look forward to being able to share that with, with others in my own life and through what you.

Joseph: My pleasure, my pleasure. And if I can say one other thing, I like to close things out by saying two things.

Number one is that, um, you know, I created this and, and you and I are here talking right now because. We owe it to others, for lack of a better term for, to help them go further, faster. As I said, you know, the gift was given to me and now the gift that has been given to me, I get to give to you, you get to give it to somebody else and that’s that processional effect that’s going to make the difference.

So I one, unless your last thing I always like to say is that life is exactly what you dare to make it. And fortune favors the bold. So the trick is, is to boldly step up as much as you possibly can and dare to make your life magnificent.

Patrick: Amen. well said. Thank you very much.

Joseph: My pleasure. Thank you.

Patrick: Wow. That is yet another quote that has stuck with me over the years, for sure.

So thank you for putting up with the less than perfect audio, but I’m sure you’ll agree. That was worth it. Again, you can find everything we discussed in the show notes at livefitignitechange.com. If you resonated with this and would like to live, fit and ignite change in your life, you can get started for free at livefitignitechange.com/start, where you can join our community of high performers and get access to our kickstart resources for free. You can choose if you’d like to start on the path to getting in the best shape of your life and or ignite the change you’d wish to see by casting a vision and taking the steps to get there. You can get plugged in at livefitignitechange.com/start or for short, livefic.com/start. Also my family and I, we’re igniting the change that we wish to see in the world by helping others live fit.

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