Read This or Die!
Persuading Yourself to a Better Life

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #538: Read This or Die! Persuading Yourself to a Better Life

Jeff Sanders
I have taken a long time to get to this recording.

I sat on the idea for a while, debating and going back and forth if I should even share these topics and this content.

And really what I did was I hesitated because what I'm going to share is more vulnerable than most content you're gonna hear in this podcast.

And honestly, it's hard to share struggles, failures, low moments even, but struggle is part of my story and it may be part of yours too.

This is the 5AM Miracle, episode number 538.

Read this or die, persuading yourself to a better life. (gentle music) In the episode this week, I'm gonna break down Ray Edwards' latest book, which is called Read This or Die, Persuading Yourself to a Better Life.

I'm gonna break down a few of the life lessons that I pulled from, honestly, the incredible experience that I had of not just reading the book, but also applying the lessons directly to a few of my biggest challenges that I was going through in a very specific and challenging season of my life, which I'm gonna break down in a lot more detail.

So let's dig in. (gentle music) Ray Edwards was one of the very first guests on this podcast.

He was featured over 10 years ago, back in episode number 11, where we discussed copywriting, entrepreneurship, profitable habits, and other topics.

And sometime after that episode aired, Ray revealed to the world that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

And in his book, Read This or Die, he discusses that journey in a very frank and profound way.

And I read this book in the early months of 2024, right in the middle of winter.

And in a bit of ironic timing, I read this book on the heels of learning about the passing of one of my greatest mentors and friends, Mr.

Dan Miller.

Now, Dan was also an early guest on this podcast, featured back in episode number 15.

Well, Dan died of cancer in January of this year, having only six weeks notice.

And not only was Dan an early guest in this podcast, but he's also one of the guys who I followed very early on in my business journey and personal growth journey.

I read numerous books from him and I've been to his house.

So I know his family.

I know people that Dan knows.

Like he lived in Nashville for a long time, where I live now.

And he moved to Florida years ago, mostly for retirement purposes, I assume.

And he passed away recently in a way that was so dramatic, so sudden.

And honestly, like it's hard because I don't have a lot of experience with close people that I know dying.

I just, I don't have a lot of that to relate to.

And so it's a lot of my friends online shared a lot of their stories of Dan right after he passed away.

I did not.

I waited and I'm only talking about it now because I didn't really know what to say.

I don't know how to process this kind of stuff.

I don't know how to, honestly, I don't know how to get through hard times.

And Dan's passing wasn't necessarily that personal to me, but it fell in this season that was personal.

And so this is a long-winded way of saying that in my own personal growth journey, I have focused primarily, almost exclusively even, on goals that I want to achieve, on positivity that I wanna add to my life, on just looking forward to better days and then working hard in the present to make a better future for myself and my family.

And that's been my focus.

But there's almost no conversation in my podcast, my books, my journey at all, about what you do when things go sideways, when things suck, when people die, when difficult seasons show up.

I've alluded to it in a lot of ways.

I give it some sort of conversation, but I don't actually have a lot of that personal experience to draw from, and not in a way that's been meaningful.

Now, during this season, I also, I wanna throw out this video that I watched that I thought was really helpful.

It's an interview with Anderson Cooper and Stephen Colbert talking about grief and people that they have known personally who have died and how they dealt with that.

And I'll have a link in the show notes at jeffsanders.com/538.

I only throw that out there because I thought it was really poignant.

It was one of those touching interviews I've ever seen.

And it also, to me, highlighted how when you are ready to listen and to learn, you know, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

When you are in a season of life where you are open to learning about a certain component of yourself, of opening up self-awareness, then those resources will appear.

And so is it ironic timing that when Dan passed away, I read this book from Ray Edwards?

Maybe not, maybe it was, I was supposed to do that as a way to process not just Dan's passing, but also the season of life that I've been going through, which I'm gonna break down here in just a minute.

But this book from Ray, let's get to the point of the conversation today.

Ray Edwards was a guest on the show.

He's also a great friend.

I went to one of his conferences years ago, spent a lot of great time with him, learning from him as someone who is an expert in marketing and sales and copywriting.

And this book is specifically titled "Read This or Die" because there is a very clear, I guess, we'll call it a metaphor, but really is a very clear, not even a metaphor, it's a very clear example of how Ray uses marketing and sales and a literal sales letter to convince himself, to persuade himself to live a better life in the middle of his struggle with Parkinson's.

But then of course, the point of the book is that you as the reader can relate to your own personal struggle, identify a very specific area of your life that is challenging, and then use marketing and sales tactics and whatever you possibly can to literally persuade yourself to get out of a difficult season and into a better future.

It's a very unique strategy.

I have never read anything like this.

Literally the day I finished the book, I emailed Ray immediately to tell him how much I love the book.

I wrote a review on Amazon right away.

I just, I had to share that this book was transformative for me.

It was, it is.

I have the book right here with me.

It's just one of these that I'm gonna reread this book in the future, probably during any difficult season I go through as a reminder of what it means to not just go through something difficult, but to have a framework for how to process what's happening.

This is not therapy.

I'm not a therapist.

I'm not giving therapeutic advice here, but it does have that impact.

It does have that sense of here is a, to a sense, a step-by-step guide to process what you're feeling, to come to terms with it in a very direct way, and then to take direct action towards the thing that's gonna make the biggest difference in your current season and situation you're going through.

So having prefaced all of this, I wanna get to these five life lessons that I pulled from the book.

There are so many more, but I pulled five out that I thought would probably best exemplify what I was able to extract from this.

And in order to, I guess, preface that one more time, the season of life that I'm referring to that I went through, and to a certain degree still am, was in essence a business failure.

And to really kind of paint this picture in a more clear way, I had revenue streams in my business that disappeared very quickly, and my backup systems failed.

And I went through a season of financial turmoil and a lot of chaos, a lot of stress, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of very difficult, I didn't have panic attacks, which I have a whole season of my life where that happened.

I've discussed that before in my second book and in this podcast.

Fortunately, I didn't have any of those, but I was on the verge of them.

It was definitely one of those seasons that pushed my buttons to the point I made earlier about how I don't have a lot of experience of going through difficulties that are just laid at my doorstep like that, and then having to figure out how to pivot and move forward and be solutions-oriented and be positive.

And as far as self-awareness and personal growth are concerned, this is one of the most transformative seasons of my life I could possibly point to.

And I'm still in it, right?

It's still not resolved yet.

I still have things to work through, but I'm far enough removed from that initial kind of smack in the face moment that I can discuss it now with a little more objectivity.

So from that, what basically happened was the business experienced these massive financial challenges, and I had to figure out ways to not just pivot and figure out ways to fix those direct issues, but also manage health challenges that I was having because the stress was causing more back pain.

And I had back surgery years ago, so this was like a reoccurring health issue that then showed up, which made things more complicated.

Of course, I have two young girls who need to have a dad who's around and doing things to care for them.

I want to be here for my wife, Tessa.

I want to continue to push my life forward.

So it's complicated, right?

And when a problem occurs, it is almost impossible to give all of your attention to that one issue because the rest of life goes on.

It's still happening.

It's not like I could just ignore everything else and go hardcore into one direction.

And even if I could in this scenario, it's still a complicated solution, which makes the whole thing, you can see how the stress could mount here over time if you're thinking to yourself, well, I've got 12,000 problems to solve all at once.

That's where overwhelm kicks in.

That's what overwhelm is, is trying to do more than you have time to do.

And I've had to figure out how to prioritize in a way that I've never had to be challenged on before, at least in this direct way. (upbeat music) It's so hard to explain in words or on a podcast, the emotion that comes from the kind of struggle that people go through, right?

Everyone has difficulties.

I was discussing this recently on a podcast interview with my friend, Ted Rice, who was just featured on the show recently.

And I was sharing with Ted how, if you have a difficulty, if you have pain, if you have a really hard day, how do you relate that pain to someone else?

There's no scale, right?

I can guess, on a scale of one to 10, it's an eight and a half, or it's impossible to explain pain to someone else.

And I don't wanna relate my struggle to someone else's because it's completely likely and is true, others have experienced things far worse.

And so part of that is therapeutic.

And this is where things get really wonky.

Part of what I've had to do in my brain to frame the conversation is to admit, other people have things worse.

Your problems, Jeff, are not that bad.

And other people have solved very similar problems and they've moved on and it's been fine.

So stop being a baby about this, fix the issue, and go forward.

All right, these are the voices in my head that I hear.

And they're true, they're real.

And it is helpful to a certain degree to be able to say the struggles you're facing, whatever they are, I guarantee you someone else has been through a very similar experience and solved the problem.

That may be something that you live with long-term, if it's grief or loss, it's impossible to ever fully get over those kinds of things.

But it is possible to move forward.

And it is possible to find a solution that you can grab ahold of, that is actionable and beneficial and healthy.

And that's the place I wanted to get myself to.

And that's what Ray's book does a great job of providing that kind of framework.

So enough chatter from me about that.

Let's get to these five life lessons and I'll explain more of my story as we go through.

So the first major lesson, and this is probably the most jarring, upfront smack in the face that Ray's book provides, is what he calls amplify the pain.

And specifically, amplify the pain to the point of necessary action.

This is in all honesty, kind of the crux of what the transformation rests upon.

And what I mean by that is, is that we as people act out of necessity or on the fear of pain, much more so than we ever act on a desire to achieve something we want.

This was something I failed to realize in my many years of goal achievement, and personal growth struggles and challenges.

I never really admitted how true it is that we as people tend to act when we're forced to.

When our back is against the wall, that's when we make change.

But if change is optional, we tend to ignore it or procrastinate on it.

We postpone it until the deadline is here, until the worst case scenario is at our doorstep, until the consequence is real.

We tend to avoid doing something because we technically don't have to yet.

And so we just don't.

Right, we tend to change only when we must.

And the only person who can convince us that change is necessary is ourselves.

That's a direct quote from Ray right there.

"The only person who can convince us that change is necessary is ourselves."

And so Ray's, his take on this, his perspective is that, let's say you have a pain.

In my case, it's financial, right?

But in a very clear way, that's what is other things going on too.

But the primary issue for me is financial.

And so what Ray argues is you want to amplify the pain to the point of necessary action.

In other words, take that challenge, in this case finances, and let's imagine the worst case scenario on purpose.

Take it as far as you can to imagine, you know, if this thing collapses and then this failure takes place and this debt shows up and then, you know, long story short, you're homeless and have no money.

When you do that kind of game in your brain and you amplify it that far, the intention behind it is to make that pain so real in the present moment that you take action to prevent whatever future catastrophe might take place.

And so right away, you can tell that what this is, these are mind games.

We're trying to persuade ourselves to do things we otherwise would not do.

This is in many ways, just an act, right?

It's an affirmation of saying, you know, my life could be X, Y, Z, but let's make that true in the present moment so that we're forced to take action now before that consequence is real.

Amplify the pain artificially in our brains now so we can prevent whatever we think is possible down the road.

It's hard initially, at least from my perspective, and Ray says in the book as well, we tend to not want to do this because it feels fake.

I'm the kind of guy who acts on necessity, who acts on things that are real and tangible, but the thing is, I don't have to amplify the pain of a future consequence if the current reality is already bad, right?

If what I'm already going through is difficult, well, then I'm simply going to act now.

But to his point, I think this is where I failed in the last few years.

I could have done this years ago.

I could have prevented the financial catastrophe that I went through by creating better systems years ago so this kind of a scenario wouldn't have happened.

And I knew that was possible.

This is the kicker.

I knew I could have taken action years ago, and I chose not to because I believed that my systems were fine.

They're fine.

Things are gonna be good.

No big deal, right?

Basically ignoring on purpose the reality that no, my systems were not fine, right?

They were only fine if everything worked out well.

But if things start to not work out well and the whole thing, you know, a house of cards all of a sudden collapses, well, you're left holding the bag.

And so if you can amplify the pain now for whatever your issue happens to be, you can take the action now that prevents whatever you think could happen down the road.

So that's the first major component here.

Amplify the pain to the point of necessary action.

Life lesson number two.

The success you seek is simple, but not easy.

This is a life lesson that goes far beyond what this book discusses, but it's one that I have discussed before in different words here on this show, which is that most of the time, we don't need more information to solve a problem or take action.

We just need to take action, right?

We don't need another book or diet or podcast or action plan.

We actually just need to do the thing we already know must be done.

But so far, we have failed to do anything at all.

This is the example I just gave.

That years ago, I already knew my systems were weak and I failed to reinforce them or build new ones back then.

Right, the success that we want is, it's founded on this idea of taking the necessary action.

And it's generally speaking, very straightforward, right?

Running a marathon, the example I use all the time, is simple.

You put one foot in front of the other and you don't stop until you cross the finish line.

That's it.

It is simple, but it's far from easy.

And so the question becomes, how do you construct a life where you can convince yourself to do the necessary work, to allow that result to happen and not find yourself in that procrastination loop of just endlessly never doing the thing that was necessary, which long-term results in regret and guilt and shame and all these negative emotions about, oh my gosh, I put myself here.

The problem was me the whole time.

And so if you're thinking about the success that you want or the problem you're trying to solve, ultimately, you're not gonna need more information in most cases.

We just need to admit to ourselves, here is the path forward, let's go do it now.

Artificially give this thing the urgency that it now needs.

That's where this really kicks in.

Artificially apply urgency.

When that takes place, all of a sudden, boom, you're off to the races.

I'll go back to my interview with Ted Rice I just did.

I think was really poignant here, this example as well, which is that Ted and I were talking about people who have really bad health, like a heart attack, for example.

The person who had the heart attack, in most cases, probably already knew their health wasn't stellar.

They probably were overweight for a long time, had other health issues going on, had been to the doctor numerous times, and their doctor had told them, you've got an issue, you need to take care of this or else.

And so this person's like, well, yeah, I've got some issues, I'm fine.

Until one day they're not fine.

One day there's a heart attack.

And then what happens?

Well, after the heart attack, all of a sudden, well, now I can take the action because now the consequence is real.

And if I don't, I'm literally going to die.

But we don't wanna get ourselves into that position.

We don't want to literally have to experience a consequence that's that severe.

We wanna take action now.

Right, the success that we seek is simple.

The path may be challenging, but we know what it is.

We know there's certain things to do.

We just have to do them. (upbeat music) Life lesson number three.

You must come to terms with what you truly believe, what you fear, and what your actual real life failures are.

You know, forward motion only comes from a place of authenticity.

Self-awareness I discuss all the time is all about this.

It's an objective view of reality.

It is looking yourself naked in the mirror.

In the metaphorical sense, in the literal sense, like actually giving yourself the real data, the real truth, whatever you need to acknowledge where you currently are.

Because when you hide from the truth, you're not gonna find freedom there.

When you postpone the inevitable, it's not going to release you of the burden that that thing is having on your life.

We have to be real with ourselves.

We have to face the reality that this is hard.

This might suck.

We might be in a bad place, but it's only then that you know, okay, here I am.

Therefore, here's how I can move forward.

One thing that I rested on quite a bit in this last season was I will call kind of extraordinary negativity.

It was the amplify the pain component that Ray discusses.

And I was trying to amplify the pain in a way that was as kind of intensely emotional as possible.

And not in the artificial sense, in the real sense of finally admitting to myself exactly what was true and where I had authentically failed.

And I'm not one to rest in failure.

I'm not one to admit failure very often, even to myself.

Because generally speaking, I find it to be a waste of time.

Generally speaking, this is kind of my philosophy and personal growth that has been true for a long time, which is now shifting.

But for a long, long time now, my take on personal growth has been, let's just think about the thing we want and go towards it without an authentic realization or acknowledgement of what the failures have been.

And there's some good stuff to that.

It does work if you're able to say, here's what I want.

Let's just go towards it.

And then the failures kind of fade in the background.

They disappear because you've moved forward with a great solution.

But a large component of life and struggles and difficult seasons, you're only gonna be able to get through those with authenticity.

You're only gonna be able to discover where to go next based on an authentic view of where you actually are.

Otherwise you run the risk of the problems getting worse.

You run the risk of ignoring reality and therefore never taking the action necessary.

And then those problems could resurface in the future and be even worse.

The goal of this is to get a full comprehensive view of what is true and take the necessary action to fix the problems, overcome the fears, change your belief systems so that your future is objectively better than your present.

This is hard.

This is one of the most difficult components of growth, which is being able to admit to yourself what is true now.

But when you do so, that's when the growth shows up.

That's when the solutions are real and you're not faking it.

It's authentic.

Life lesson number four, changing your beliefs is at the core of changing your results.

Ray spends a lot of time in this book talking about beliefs.

It is the kind of the core message that runs through all of this is that what you believe then ultimately comes out of you in terms of your actions and your habits.

And those beliefs dictate your results.

And when you change your beliefs about yourself and your circumstances and what's possible for you, well, you then find yourself moving forward in a different way, taking different actions, new habits, new daily routines that have new results and hopefully much better ones.

But it's that changing your beliefs is at the core of the transformation that we want.

Right, it goes back to that old saying, if you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right.

And that statement is true.

And our goal is to believe that we can, to believe in the solution, to authentically understand that this is possible, that I can dig myself out of whatever hole that I'm in, that someone else has had this way worse and they have succeeded and I can do the same thing.

Right, believing in the future you seek is a phenomenal path forward to actually stepping into that future.

So first you acknowledge your present, but then you also have to believe in the future and that it's possible.

And when that belief is real, then the actions you take are based in authenticity and then you move forward in a way that's tangible and real and the results are not fake, the results are not fantasy, they're real and they're happening.

And then they get better over time.

Now the process to change your beliefs, Ray goes through it in the book, I'm not gonna go through that here, but it is part of this journey and it is extremely powerful and yes, it works.

All right, the fifth and final lesson is one that I've already alluded to numerous times, but I wanna belabor this point because it is one of the most transformative realizations I have had in the last few years.

And it is this, I am the problem.

Even saying those words right now, it just makes me just, ugh, like I could feel the emotion when I say that.

But no matter how I try to rewrite my history, I am always at the center of my own biggest problems.

I am the cause, but I'm also the effect.

I am the reason the problem exists, but I am also the solution that I seek.

And this is gonna sound weirdly selfish and egocentric, but it's a necessary realization to accept 100% responsibility for your life, which is both an immense burden, but also the most freedom you're ever going to experience.

And when you're able to authentically admit to yourself, I am the problem.

At first, it sucks.

At first, it is a smack in the face you do not want to feel.

But then once that emotion has set in and you've accepted that, well, then the next and most glorious kind of realization shows up, which is that I am the solution.

Whatever I want, I can make happen.

Whatever is possible next, I'm the one to bring that to reality.

Whether your issue is a health problem, a financial problem, a relationship problem, a struggle in your current season of trying to deal with grief, to deal with a loss.

Now, maybe the loss itself was not your fault.

It's not guilt here.

It's not admitting blame here.

But what we're acknowledging is, is that the solution is going to come from inside, from you.

And you're going to be changing, that your circumstances are what they are.

We don't control our exterior life, but we do control the interior.

We do control our thoughts, our actions, our habits, what we focus on, what we choose to ignore.

You have a lot of power, a lot of power.

I literally end every episode of this podcast saying you have the power to change your life.

And that's what this is.

And it's not just having the power to change, but it's the responsibility of that power, of saying for better and for worse, the good and the bad.

When things go sideways or things go awesome, it's all, I'm there in all of this.

And I need to be willing to admit that if there's going to be a better future for me, it's because I did something.

I didn't wait around for someone else to bring me some lottery victory, that I set out to do the thing that made the results possible.

And yes, the initial impact of accepting responsibility is never fun.

No one likes that, right?

It's emotionally jarring.

It's a smack in the face to your ego.

But the end result of that transformation, that acceptance is the owning of the solutions, which this is the part that I love, the creativity that shows up, the amazing potential for thinking about, well, here are all the different various ways I could solve this problem.

Here are all the different possible routes that I have to take myself forward.

And then it gets exciting.

Then you're filled with hope and possibility and joy.

And that the creative element that shows up is so powerful.

And yes, you can get those creative ideas from reading books and listening to podcasts and talking to great mentors, and that's all gonna be part of the process.

But that, the owning of the creativity itself is where I think I find a lot of my energy and enthusiasm and joy from the process of moving forward.

And one of the elements of personal growth I've always loved so much is seeing growth happen, right?

The definition of success I've used for years is that success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal or goal, which means you are getting better day by day.

And it's really fun to see growth happen.

And you only get to see it happen if you're actively involved in the process in a direct manner, which comes from admitting where you are, own the problem, now we own the solution.

And then as the solution is coming to fruition, and you're experiencing that, and you're collecting the data on that to see the numbers getting better, to see the impact improving.

It's fun, it's a cool, cool process.

And that's the part that I like to rest my daily energy on and thought process on is that pivot to the positive, that pivot to the growth and the progressive nature of problem solving and goal achievement.

And that in effect is what this podcast has always been about.

And it's a glorious thing.

Let me say we're glorious a lot here.

It just, it feels really, really great to be in a position to say, I've been through hard times.

I'm on a new path forward.

I have a plan, even if I don't know if it's gonna work out or not, I feel good actively working on a plan and feel really good knowing I have other ideas and other plans to pursue.

And there is hope in this, and there is a better future in all of this.

And so if you're going through a hard time right now, if you are struggling, if your season sucks, I feel you, I hear you.

And I want you to know that there is gonna be a better future.

There's gonna be something awesome coming for you.

And you may not see it in the moment, but it's there.

And it may take a book like "Raised", it may take a podcast like this one.

It may take a lot of things to dig you out of the hole you may feel like you're in.

But when you start to see that path forward and you grab a hold of that and you pivot your thoughts in that direction, oh, it's just great.

It's really great.

So for the obvious action step this week, yes, of course, read "Raised" book, read this or die, persuading yourself to a better life.

But more importantly than reading "Raised" book, I really just want to acknowledge the journey that personal growth exemplifies and that growth is only possible if we start somewhere we don't wanna be and we go somewhere that we do.

That's the journey.

That's what life is.

Finish lines are not the point, right?

Medals and big achievements are not the point.

The journey is the point.

And to find acceptance in the journey and love the process, even when it's difficult, that's what life is.

And having that ability to say tomorrow morning, I'm gonna get up with a new plan, a new sense of energy, new enthusiasm, I'm gonna get at it again and again and again.

That's some pretty cool stuff right there.

That's, I think, what makes life worth living is that hope and that joy that comes from tomorrow morning is gonna be even better.

And isn't that really fun?

So yes, until next time, you have the power to change your life and all that fun begins bright and early.

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