Unstoppable Mindset with Alden Mills (Part 2)

🎧 Episode 127: Unstoppable Mindset (Part 2)

Ready to dive deeper into developing an unstoppable mindset? In this powerful continuation, Sonnie and Alden Mills explore the impact of social media on our psyche, the valuable lessons hidden in failure, and the surprising connection between physical fitness and overall success. Whether you're battling self-doubt, seeking to elevate your leadership skills, or simply looking to tap into your fullest potential, Alden's hard-won wisdom will challenge you to redefine what's possible in your own life and career.

Alden shares invaluable insights on:

• The influence of social media on our mindset and the importance of selective engagement
• Strategies for "pattern interruption" to break negative thought cycles
• The power of persistence and learning from failures
• The connection between physical fitness and overall life success
• The importance of focusing on your unique gifts and strengths

🔑 Key takeaways:

1. Practice awareness by constantly asking yourself, "Is this helpful or hurtful to me?"
2. Failure is an inevitable part of trying something new - embrace it as a learning opportunity
3. True success often follows periods of selfless giving and service to others
4. Great leaders are often great followers first - empathy and relatability are crucial
5. Focus on developing your unique gifts rather than trying to master everything

💡 Quotes to remember: "If you haven't failed at trying something new, then you really didn't try something new for yourself." - Alden Mills "Leadership is an art. Every single one of us is different." - Alden Mills "Unstoppable is a choice." - Alden Mills

📚 Resources Mentioned:

•  https://www.alden-mills.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/alden_mills/
• Pick up a copy of Alden's book:https://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Mindset-What-Have-Want/dp/1637744846 

If you're looking to develop an unstoppable mindset, improve your leadership skills, or overcome personal challenges, this episode offers valuable insights and strategies from someone who's excelled in multiple fields. Remember, as Alden says, "Unstoppable is a choice" - and it's a choice you can make today!

A rising tide raises all ships, and I invite you along on this journey to Evoke Greatness!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to Evoke Greatness. We are officially entering year three of this podcast and I am filled with so much gratitude for each and every one of you who've joined me on this incredible journey of growth and self-discovery. I'm Sunny, your host and fellow traveler on this path of personal evolution. This podcast is a sanctuary for the curious, the ambitious and the introspective. It's for those of you who, like me, are captivated by the champion mindset and driven by an insatiable hunger for growth and knowledge. Whether you're just beginning your journey or you're well along your path, you're going to find stories here that resonate with your experiences and aspirations. Over the last two years, we've shared countless stories of triumph and challenge, of resilience and transformation. We've laughed, we've reflected and we've grown together. And as we've evolved, so too has this podcast. Remember, no matter what chapter you're on in your own story, you belong here. This community we've built together is a place of support, inspiration and shared growth. Where intention goes, energy flows, and the energy you bring to this space elevates us all. So, whether you're listening while commuting, working out or enjoying your morning coffee, perhaps from one of those motivational mugs I'm so fond of, know that you're a part of something special. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your curiosity, your openness and your commitment to personal growth. As we embark on year three, I invite you to lean in, to listen deeply and to let these stories resonate with your soul. I believe that a rising tide raises all ships and I invite you along in this journey to evoke greatness.

Speaker 1 1:56

I am so glad you're back for part two with my amazing guest, alden Mills. In this episode you're going to hear him share what his thoughts are on how social media influences our mindset. He also opens wide up in his lessons around what his biggest failure was and what his most powerful lesson was out of that failure, and stay till the end where I ask him a question he's actually never been asked before. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have. Hope you enjoy this as much as I have. I'm curious your thoughts on how much do you think social media influences today's mindset. You know there's algorithms that are thrown at us that are, you would say, created based on your behavior patterns, but also I think there's some that are put out there very strategically. How do you think it's influenced kind of today's mindset overall?

Embracing Failure for Leadership Success

Speaker 2 2:55

Well, first of all, I have to fully confess, though I send positive things out on social media, I rarely look at social media unless somebody's had a response. And I decide to say and think, when you start to appreciate that these awareness glasses and you don't really need to put them on all the time, you just own them all the time, and the better you start to practice your awareness, hey, is this helpful or hurtful to me at this moment? By the way, folks, if there's only one thing you walk away from today with me and Sunny, walk away with saying is this helpful or hurtful to me? Get in that habit. If you wear a watch or a little wristband, move it every time from wrist to wrist. Get into the little pattern recognition for yourself of being aware enough to say is this helpful or hurt? And once you can start to do that, then you're pumping the brakes, just like Sonny. You mentioned that. You pump the brakes and you say, oh, pattern change. Or what do you say?

Speaker 2 4:17

Pattern, interrupt, pattern, interrupt, right, and that's Sonny's way of pumping the brakes and say wait a second, not helpful, not going down there, I'm in charge. That's all it is and that's a brilliant way to do it and it works for you, right? And you know, my wife and I come up with a pattern interrupt when things might get a little friction on a conversation and I'll say and you people are like what, it's kind of funny, you just say it. We heard it one time on like a national geographic documentary and the way that people were saying and I'm like that is hilarious. So that's our pattern. Interrupt between couples when we're like hey, we've gone beyond difference of opinion, it's starting to get heated here, we don't need to go there. And somebody calls out pow, pow, new Guinea.

Speaker 1 5:15

That's awesome and you both understand what it means. There's a common understanding of what that means. That's a flag.

Speaker 2 5:20

It doesn't clear up because we waited a little too long to use it and we're going to go back to our corners for a little while. But over time Jennifer and I have been married over 27 years We've only had to use that a couple of times. Once you get used to doing that, you become aware, right, because you're wearing, you've built your own set of awareness contacts and you're starting to get comfortable with saying, hey, that's not helpful, it's hurtful, and I get to decide that. You get to decide that Everybody listening gets to decide that you are in charge. That's leading yourself. And then, going back to our beginning portion of this conversation, watch what happens when you show up to other people that may be doing something that's self-destructive to them and say, well, this is how I think of it and I do this, this and this, and they'll be like, whoa, hey, tell me more about that. That's helpful to me.

Speaker 1 6:17

Let's go back to you know, as we talked about it, looking at 40 years under your belt of experience and failing and succeeding in a number of different fields, what do you feel like has maybe been one of those biggest failures that you felt like was in the moment? Right, Because that's what it is. We feel like there's failure in that moment. It's that perceived failure but it led you to a significant breakthrough, a powerful insider lesson to help you in your breakthrough in leadership success overall. What's something that stands out to you as one of those pivotal moments?

Speaker 2 6:52

Okay, I have two points I want to stress to everybody. I have failed at every single thing I've ever tried. And, by the way, I'm not exaggerating and I would be brutally honest with yourselves If you haven't failed at trying something new, then you really didn't try something new for yourself, because we're not going to be good at the new thing at first. You're going to suck at it. It's going to take some while to get going at it.

Speaker 2 7:21

I failed at rowing. I almost failed out of the Naval Academy. I almost failed out of SEAL training. I had problems with missions in SEAL training. Thankfully nobody got injured or died.

Speaker 2 7:31

But I've failed multiple businesses. But I will tell you the business. The first major business failure that I had I'm doing a little show and tell it would be this this is the body rep. I love this thing. This is the rotating weight system.

Speaker 2 7:52

I raised $1.5 million from 37 of my closest friends and family and then I learned $1,475,000 worth of ways not to launch this product. I'm broke. I'm using my wife's credit cards. I'm totally embarrassed. People are telling me go get a job. You have to go bankrupt. That's the only option you have. Of course, everybody telling me that has never launched a product before they're just sitting on the critic from the outside right, and I was able to convince my small team of five people, total including me and we launched this perfect push-up right. Everyone said we couldn't do it and we we said we're going to just focus on 90 days. That's what we're going to do 90 days. We launched in 87 days and it's now sold. I mean, I've left the business, but I think we've sold nearly a half a billion dollars worth of pushups. So this is generation one right, but at the time I left, we had sold 15 million pictures.

Speaker 1 8:56

We have a set of those in our gym right now. Still, we've had them for years.

Speaker 2 9:00

Of course, the next question is do we use them? Because I go in and out of phase of using them myself, but you don't have to answer that. So there's a spectacular failure that led to an insanely focused, much simpler product, helped me understand the difference between an invention, an improvement and an innovation, because I didn't know what I was doing. They didn't teach you that in business school because most people haven't done that kind of hard work before. By the time we launched the push-up now I had five years under my belt. I've just been grinding away. So that was an example of a spectacular failure that led to a spectacular success.

Speaker 2 9:45

If I am to map and this is where I've spent a fair amount of my time, mapping every failure and then mapping every success I find two common themes. All right, well, maybe three. The third one is that I kept trying. I'll say that one first, but assuming you're going to keep trying, then you have to change and pivot and do those things. Number one was I was giving to something other than to myself or other people, and what I mean by that was these moments where I was giving to a community, I was giving to a charity, I was doing something above and beyond selflessly. I was giving without expectation of return. I was even saying I can't even believe I'm doing this right now, I don't really have the time for this, but it was necessary because they needed my particular skill set.

Speaker 2 10:49

And when I talk about giving, I'm not just saying, okay, here's a check or I'll go put some cupcakes out. You're giving the best of you, you're giving your gift, and what I mean by that is everybody has a gift. They have something they're really good at. You know it takes time to unlock the gift and really work at it. It's not like you came out of the womb and go look, I'm super great at this gift, but you have a propensity to something that over time, can be really helpful. And when you learn that gift, learn to give it away.

Speaker 2 11:23

When that happens, then the persistence of driving through the failure and being honest with yourself. Okay, why did this failure really fail? I probably could have gone a lot faster with the body ramp because with that product that I first held up to you, that was version 3.0. I had version 1.0, version 2.0. I probably should have figured it out after version 1.0. This wasn't the right path. I know it sounds a little out there, but every single one of the things that I have done always followed from a portion when I was giving and then separating what doesn't work from what does and really having someone else help me understand that I find a success, and, obviously, the persistence.

Speaker 1 12:19

Yeah, and I think that's the thing. Persistence is so key because, to your point, everyone has failed. No one's line to success is a straight line. It is so jagged and up and down, and sometimes rock bottom and sometimes sky high. What is it? It takes 10,000 hours to be an overnight success. Right, it takes those miserable failures, but more than anything because you can fail and you can succeed as many times, but if you don't continue trying, that's death, that's where it all ends. And some people live 75 years and really they live to be 75 years old and they stopped living at 25.

Speaker 2 12:57

Correct. And, oh my gosh, if there is one negative narrative that I have in my head is to not stop. Trying is to not stop at something. Now I use the not stop. That's a negative form of something. That is the only time I'll probably use that, because I want to keep going, I want to keep learning, I want to keep using curiosity, I want to keep living.

Speaker 2 13:25

Yes, our biological clocks are ticking, but that doesn't mean that we can't create our greatest moment in life each and every day. Picasso's greatest works of art happened after he was 50. Some of the greatest pieces of art in history were all at the very end of someone's artist of life. And I like to use art as an example, because we are all in the business of art. Leadership is an art. Every single one of us is different. We are one unique individual. How you lead doesn't fit neatly into a 16 square box. Yes, I appreciate there's certain kinds of personalities. You can do disc profiles and all that, but you are one of one. You can be a very introverted person and be very persuasive and get people to follow you all depending on how you lead yourself. Because you're the model, you will model it. People will look at it and say I think I like that, I want to be part of that. You show up consistently every day, and how you show up consistently becomes what you and others will want to show up to be as well.

Speaker 1 14:37

And to that point you've mentioned that great leaders are actually great followers. First Can you talk a little bit about? Just that's a super counterintuitive idea, right? And to that point you've mentioned that great leaders are actually great followers. First Can you talk a little bit about? Just that's a super counterintuitive idea, right, but it's incredibly important and insightful to becoming a great leader.

Speaker 2 14:55

Think of leadership a little bit like on a number line, and on this side of the number line, instead of negative or positive, you have selfish, and on this side of the number line, you have selfless, and you are somewhere on this spectrum at any given time. Now an interesting side note you sometimes have to be selfish so you can be selfless, and what I mean by selfish is hey, I don't think this job is set up perfectly for what I can contribute. I need to make sure I position myself to be in the right place so I can be more selfless with what I'm doing. That is a piece where I think selfish works. The other piece is learning to be selfless is learning to follow.

Speaker 2 15:47

In the beginning, you won't just walk out and say look at me, I'm the leader of the world, follow me. When people have that or have been coached to be that way, it becomes very hard for them to relate with people that they're asking to follow them. It's very hard to be empathetic and really prove your empathy if you haven't already walked in their shoes as a follower yourself, which I would argue is one of the great lessons learned at the Naval Academy and in the Navy or in any branch of service, you must be a follower and prove your ability to be a teammate as a follower before you get into the leadership position.

Speaker 1 16:33

And then when it comes to equipping yourself, I'm sure the skill set, I'm sure you amassed incredible skills throughout being a Navy SEAL, but I think probably as you pivoted, there were new skills that you had to learn, and I think that's sometimes where people get a little confused, like okay, I'm going to get all of this skill set and it's going to serve me no matter what path I go, and so that then prevents us from actually learning and acquiring these new skills. No-transcript.

Creating an Unstoppable Mindset

Speaker 2 17:10

So I'm 55. When I was 30, I went to business school and realized oh my goodness, there are a lot of things I don't know. I didn't know how to do Excel, didn't know how to do Word, barely had learned how to type. I had to learn how to type by myself on a submarine, because I was so bored and I needed to keep my brain going. Because I was so bored and I needed to keep my brain going. I didn't even learn how to type at the Naval Academy, because there they were like look, you're going to have people in admin that will type up for you. You don't have to do that. Well, you need to know how to type.

Speaker 2 17:43

And in the beginning I really got overwhelmed because, oh, I've got to learn how to code. I've got to learn how to do accounting. I've got to learn how to do accounting. I've got to learn how to do marketing. I want to be an entrepreneur. I've got to learn all these different things. And the fact of the matter is, no, you'll never be able to learn more. You can learn enough to be conversant in what kind of questions to ask and stay curious on that.

Speaker 2 18:17

But the other piece of this equation is really being aware of what you're great at, not just good, I'm talking great. Where are you going to be exceptional and take your greatness to this just element of just unstoppably awesome? And from my 30-year-old Alden to the 55-year-old Alden, the biggest change I've made is saying you know what, never going to be great at making PowerPoints, never going to be great at accounting, never going to be great here, here, here, here, here, here, here. But I can be great here.

Speaker 2 18:45

I'm going to continue to expand and look for ways to improve my ability to communicate and coach people to be unstoppable. That's going to be my sweet spot and I will be a learning machine until the moment of my last breath on how I can develop that gift, because I get so much joy out of watching people do things they originally didn't think they could do. I call that becoming unstoppable. When they get that opportunity to build the courage to do something they didn't think they could do and it starts to snowball. So my big transition for this has been stop overwhelming myself on all the things I don't know. Admit it, go find the great people around you, surround yourself with it. Oh, admit it. Go find the great people around you, surround yourself with it, learn enough about it that you can ask the right questions and then move on to staying focused on your gift and honing it and learning to give it every single day.

Speaker 1 19:46

Your mind has seemed to be like all the way from being very young. You've had this view of like creating something new. You have had a ton of patents and inventions. A lot of them have leaned into physical fitness and caring for your body. What do you think is the connection there between focusing on those things, really caring for yourself, that your mind was thinking about developing new ways of other people to be able to do that? What is the connection there with the success you've had in your career and life, sunny?

Speaker 2 20:25

great question. Haven't been asked that before? I love that. I love that. The great first connection was on a physical ailment that I found out I had at the age of 12. And that physical ailment was asthma and a doctor in the big city of Wista Massachusetts I grew up in Central Mass who put me through all these tests and I remember this very vividly. He's like Mrs Mills, I know what the problem is with your son here. He's got asthma and he was born with small and average size lungs. He needs to lead a less active lifestyle. I suggest a game of chess and at that moment I accepted that, okay, this is what I have. I I have to leave.

Speaker 2 21:17

I was not an inactive child, but I kept stumbling up against this, wheezing and running out of breath so quickly. And it was really my mom who, even back then, she had me leave the doctor's office the moment he started saying this is what he can't do, can't do, can't do. And she just tapped me leave the doctor's office the moment he started saying this is what he can't do, can't do, can't do. And she just tapped me on the shoulder. She goes why don't you go? Wait in the lobby, I'll talk to the good doc Came out and I'm having a full pity party. And she said what's wrong with you? And I'm like mom chess, I'm terrible at checkers, how am I going to learn chess? And she had how am I going to learn chess? She had these long French cuticle nails. She dropped down to her knee and dug them like little velociraptor claw into my arm. She said now you look at me. Nobody defines what you can or can't do but you. I'll get you that medicine, but you have to decide what you can do. You hear me.

Speaker 2 22:13

And it was through that constant tough love of keep trying, keep trying, get up, do it again. So what if you scored on your own team on basketball? Go try, you know, finish this sport out and go try another sport. Even though I scored against my own team in basketball, I tried another sport, scored against that team too. That was lacrosse. I was a goalie, very easy score to get yourself there. Then soccer, then hockey. Then I found rowing. In rowing I found confidence, and that confidence over time gave me the ability to put the obstacle of asthma in the right context, and that took me to the Naval Academy. Getting to the Naval Academy I rode there took me to SEAL Team. Seal Team took me to Entrepreneurial Adventures. Entrepreneurial Adventures took me to another Entrepreneurial Adventures.

Speaker 2 23:04

And my point of saying all of that and Alden, why did you come up with these fitness products first, is that when I was at my lowest moment, leaving the tech world, not sure if I should even be a civilian anymore, what was the one thing that I knew in my heart that was so helpful to me that maybe it would be helpful to others? And that thought process was let's start with your body, let's take control of our body. If we can learn the basic building blocks of taking control of our body, those same skill sets are the ones we can use for anything else in life. And that became the perfect promise, which was our manifesto in perfect fitness. And that is hey. If you learn how to take control of your body, you'll be able to take control of your life.

Speaker 2 23:53

I summarized the purple books with the whole page, but that's how we came to focus on fitness and as I grew in the learning about fitness, to me it wasn't just enough, because there are four quadrants of things we can control Fitness our physical body, our mental, emotional and our spiritual components. And when we start to look at all of those. Then we start to look at how we can go out and live our dreams. We can go out and start accomplishing something that we manifested in our head to our reality, and that's where I want people to be unstoppable. That's what gets me fired up. Get out of bed every day.

Speaker 1 24:41

You embody both in the way you show up, in everything that you put out there for everyone else to consume. You embody that unstoppable mindset and I've been so grateful to just be able to like, soak in and have the questions and have the conversation. Selfishly right for me, but also it's about-.

Speaker 2 25:03

Well, I love it and it's. You know, we're kindred spirits here. Yes, yes, you know I just brought this along because I don't often do it, but I have this hat, the unstoppable hat, but on the inside it has the phrase unstoppable is a choice and you, sunny, made that choice for a while now to create this podcast to help people go be unstoppable. Now, those are my words, but you're invoking greatness and to me that's the same. That's what we're all in for, and what a joy it is when people start to join in the same ministry that we're all doing to inspire people like, hey, we got this, we can go do this together. We're better together. Get out there and try.

Speaker 1 25:55

That's right, that's right. Well, that is one heck of a way to come to a close in this hour. That's gone by way too fast. I want to encourage everybody to go out and get a copy of Unstoppable Mindset. This was just a little sprinkling of what Alden puts out there. I really encourage everybody to do that. But, alden, for everyone who wants to find out more about you, follow you, get your books. Where can they find all that information out?

Speaker 2 26:23

Alden-Millscom, that's A-L-D-E-N, hyphen or dash M-I-L-L-Scom, and they can find Unstoppable Mindset at pretty much every bookstore Amazon, barnes, noble and I love hearing from people, so reach out. I have a free monthly newsletter, put out a bunch of blogs. You can find me on Instagram at different places, but if you're interested in being unstoppable, I'm interested in helping you be unstoppable.

Speaker 1 26:56

Well, thank you for fully showing up and just being so generous with all you've learned and all the wisdom that you have garnered over the course of your life, and you're just you're pouring it out to everybody who's willing to take it in. And so thank you for showing up that way for the show as well.

Speaker 2 27:13

You're welcome and thank you, Sunny. I hope we see each other again soon.

Seeking Feedback and Sharing Wisdom

Speaker 1 27:17

Absolutely. Thank you so much for listening and for being here on this journey with me. I hope you'll stick around If you liked this episode. It would mean the world for me if you would rate and review the podcast or share it with someone you know. Many need to hear this message. I love to hear from you all and want you to know that you can leave me a voicemail directly. If you go to my website, evokegreatnesscom, and go to the contact me tab, you'll just hit the big old orange button and record your message. I love the feedback and comments that I've been getting, so please keep them coming. I'll leave you with the wise words of author Robin Sharma Greatness comes by doing a few small and smart things each and every day. It comes from taking little steps consistently. It comes from making a few small chips against everything in your professional and personal life that is ordinary, so that a day eventually arrives when all that's left is the extraordinary.