The Most Important Life Skill
The Amplified Impact Podcast
January 9th, 2023
In today’s episode, Anthony discusses the concept of identity and how it shifts and changes throughout our lifetime.
He shares his personal experience of being labeled as “slow” as a child and how that has affected his identity and self-perception.
He also talks about the challenges of overcoming internal and external biases and expectation when trying to change an identity that doesn’t serve us, and the power of intentionally adopting new identities.
Anthony reflects how ADHD affected his life and how he has learned to leverage it as a life skill, rather than letting it define him.
He encourages us to be aware of identities they are taking on and to choose them intentionally, like wearing a mask or persona.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“When you try to change your identity, you have to overcome both your own internal biases, your own internal reasons for clinging onto that identity. Because change is scary. But now you also have to battle the external expectations of your loved ones, of your friends, of the world around you and what they say you are.” – Anthony Vicino
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Let’s Connect On Social Media!
instagram.com/theanthonyvicino
Join an exclusive community of peak performers at Beyond the Apex University learning how to build a business, invest in real estate, and develop hyperfocus.
Learn More About Investing With Anthony
Invictus Capital: www.invictusmultifamily.com
Multifamily Investing Made Simple Podcast
Passive Investing Made Simple Book: www.thepassiveinvestingbook.com
Episode Transcript:
Anthony: [00:00:00] I find the concept of identity so fascinating because we go through our lives and we wear so many different id. And we go through these seasons of our life where that identity is going to shift and it’s going to change. You know, when you’re in school, maybe you’re a student or a student athlete, or then you go into the corporate world and suddenly you’re a manager, or you have kids and now you’re a father, you get married and you’re a husband.
Anthony: You’re all these different things. And generally our identities are these deeply rooted and held beliefs that we have about ourselves, and we try to operate within a paradigm of consist. with that identity, and that can be problematic when that identity doesn’t serve us. I’m an alcoholic or I’m unhealthy.
Anthony: And when you try to change that identity, you have to overcome both your own internal biases, your own internal reasons for clinging onto that identity. Because change is scary. But now you also have to b, battle the external expectations of your loved ones, of your [00:01:00] friends, of the, the world around you and what they say you are, right?
Anthony: When you decide, I’m no longer an alcoholic, but the world around you has only ever known you as that thing, it can be very difficult to shift that identity. And so we have to be very cognizant of what are those identities that we’re taking on that we’re adopt. , and we can do this very intentionally. We, it’s like wearing a mask.
Anthony: The whole, the, the word persona or personality or person, if I, if I’m remembering this correctly, it derives itself from discrete concept that in plays, people would step onto the stage and they would put on these masks, these personas, and it would project. To the audience of this is, this is who they are.
Anthony: So they were very much more expository back then where they’re like, this person is the direct manifestation of luck, . So that’s the persona that they’re wearing. So you get to wear all these different identities and you get to choose them. And I remember for myself, when I was six years old, an identity was [00:02:00] foisted onto me.
Anthony: You know, my teachers, they went to my parents and they said, there’s something wrong with Anthony. He’s a little bit slower than the other kids at the time. Like, this obviously didn’t register to me. but they’re having this conversation. Many years later. They would tell me about this, and it turns out I wasn’t slow.
Anthony: I had ADHD and you guys know a lot of that story, but one of the, I’ll rehash it here because I think it’s really important. As we, as we tried to identify today in this podcast, the most important entrepreneurial. Not only I, I, I think it’s even beyond entrepreneurship honestly. It, it’s the skill that has redirected my life.
Anthony: And it, once I figured out how to, to leverage this skill, my life changed. So it’s not just an entrepreneurial skill, but it’s a life skill. And it took me until I was about 28, 29, 30 years old to actually start to understand this concept. So how, what’s this have to do with identities? What’s this have to do with ADHD?
Anthony: Well, for so long I had this identity as a person who has ADHD, who can’t focus, who can’t be held responsible. [00:03:00] And for the first, from when I was 16 until I was 16, I was on Ritalin. So the better part of a decade and. That drug had the side effect of making me feel very trapped inside of my body. It, it sapped me of all my energy.
Anthony: It made me just feel lethargic and tired, and I would go into what’s known as the hyper-focused state, where I would just hyper-focus on whatever, whatever was in front of me. And I, I hated how that made me feel. It made me dislike my body. It made me dislike. And so when I was 16, my parents gave me the choice of going off of that, off of Redland, and I said, yes, a hundred percent.
Anthony: I’m never going on that again. Cause I hated how it made me feel. It made me feel trapped like a prisoner. But the problem was, Coming off of that drug, you know, I was a 16 year old kid who didn’t have any systems, habits, or routines or anything that would allow me to control my biology and focus it in a way that I could make meaningful progress towards a goal.
Anthony: And so if freedom is my highest value, [00:04:00] I chose freedom. In that instance, going away from riddling cause I wanted to be free and, and have control over my body, but I didn’t realize that there was a different type of tying a different type of prison. That I was finding myself in, and I would find myself there for the better part of the next decade, which is the, the, the prison of infinite potentiality or infinite options.
Anthony: And when you can go in every single d different direction, but you have no way of, of, formulating a decision on which way I’m going to go in. Then actually holding yourself accountable and, and staying on that path long enough to see progress. Like it doesn’t matter that you have all the options in the world because you can’t make meaningful progress towards the acquisition of the.
Anthony: And that’s really where I found myself in school and, and coming out of, coming out of college and then, going kind of in the corporate world and like I was just getting fired all the time. So what ended up happening was like, I just chose this life. Away from accountability and responsibility and what I thought was like the Peter Pan’s version of freedom.
Anthony: So I, you know, I went [00:05:00] and became a rock climber. That’s all I did for my, for the better part of a decade. We just climbing rocks and wasn’t accountable to anybody but myself. And, but the problem was like, there came a point in my life where I wanted to marry a woman and then like that didn’t really work out because I couldn’t be held account.
Anthony: To, to the world, which leads me to this most important skill for entrepreneurs, but also for life in general, which is the skill of discipline more, more specifically, self-discipline. See, I believe that discipline does equal freedom, and you hear Jocko willing to talk about this. It’s a concept that goes all the way back to Seneca Marcus Aureus, stoics, that if you can’t discipline yourself, somebody else will have to.
Anthony: And what I didn’t understand, When I, I kind of shirked responsibility in society’s expectation and kind of went off and did my own thing. I said, nobody’s going to be able to discipline and hold me accountable, which is why I was a terrible student, a really bad friend, and just like a really bad employee, like it makes sense that nobody else could discipline me.
Anthony: I rebuked against that [00:06:00] authority, but I did not insert myself as the authority either, and I would not hold myself accountable. I did not have the ability to hold, discipline. And that seems like such a, seems like such a simple concept like, but until you can do that and so you can hold yourself accountable and discipline yourself, you will not be able to sustain motivation towards any long-term goal.
Anthony: It just won’t happen. Motivation wanes. And when that does, if you don’t have discipline to step in and fill the void, you’re going to stop making progress. Discipline beats motivation every single time, and I didn’t really get this until. I was at rock bottom and really forced into a situation where I ne I had no other choice, but I needed to start disciplining myself because I could see that the path I was on the trajectory would not lead me to a happy, fulfilled life.
Anthony: So something had to change. And the thing that changed was realizing if I could create [00:07:00] structure in discipline around myself, and I could start holding myself accountable. I could stop telling lies. I could start keeping the promises that I make to myself when I say, I’m going to go do this thing. If I could hold myself to that expectation, then things started to change really rapidly, remarkably quickly.
Anthony: In fact, And when it comes to entrepreneurship, why I think this is the most important entrepreneurship skills, because nobody’s coming to save you. Nobody’s going to be there to hold you and say, like, wake you up in the morning and say, you got to get after it. You have to do this and this and this and this.
Anthony: If you don’t do it, the to-do list just kind of spirals into the next day, into the next day until you reach this catastrophic inflection point. Or the, all the, the wheels fall off simultaneously. The, and the wagon burns down while rolling off of a cliff. So like , the moral of the story there is that if you can’t discipline yourself, Everything’s going to end catastrophically.
Anthony: So that is today’s message. That’s today’s lesson. It’s maybe one of the most important lessons that any of us can [00:08:00] learn. if you’re on this journey and you’re thinking about, well, how do I, how do I create a habit around this? How do I start disciplining myself? How do I, how do I become that person?
Anthony: Starts with the things that I mentioned before. Like number one is stop breaking the promises that you make to yourself. It’s a, it’s really simple when you set a goal, when you set an expectation, when you say you’re going to do something, step one is do the thing at all cost. It’s so easy just to move the goalpost on yourself.
Anthony: So if you want to establish discipline, stop doing that. It’s that simple. So hopefully this brought you guys some value. If you don’t know who I am, I’m Anthony Vicino, bestselling author, serial entrepreneur. Tens of millions of dollars of real estate. just trying to help entrepreneurs maximize their return on life by hope, hyper focusing on the things that matter.
Anthony: Hopefully this, hopefully this brought you some value, and if it did, go drop a review. If [00:09:00] not, don’t. either way, I’ll see you guys in the next episode. So, peace.
This Week On YouTube
These 3 Daily Habits Made Me A Millionaire in 3 Years
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Unleash your hyperfocused mind to dominate life, business, and everything in between? Here’s how:
→ The Hyperfocused Masterclass: the exact system I used to overcome ADHD, write 12 books, build 4 businesses, and acquire $70M of real estate.
There are a handful of spaces left in The Hyperfocus Masterclass for those who want to snag the early bird preorder special discount of $49.
Email anthony@anthonyvicino.com to let me know you want on the waitlist.
2. Learn to passively invest in commercial real estate with better returns, less risk, and zeo hassle.
→ Invictus Capital: my real estate private equity firm.
→ Multifamily Investing Made Simple: Top Apple Podcast.
→ Passive Investing Made Simple: Amazon Best Selling Book with 100 5 star reviews.
3. Want more like this? Check out these 3 popular articles from the vault:
