March 17, 2026 • 52 mins
In episode 57 of The Adaptive Mindset, Brett Gallant interviews Randy Gage, a Speaker Hall of Famer, bestselling author, and globally renowned “Entrepreneur Whisperer", as he shares his powerful transformation story — from overcoming self-worth issues and breaking free from limiting beliefs, to building a thriving business empire.
Tune in for actionable strategies, powerful self-reflection prompts, and practical breakthroughs to help you lead boldly, act with confidence, and thrive in any environment.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:00:02] Introducing Randy Gage: From Jail Cell to Global Thought Leader
[00:02:39] Breaking Limiting Beliefs & the Power of Identity
[00:04:31] Questioning Core Foundational Beliefs
[00:13:31] Mentorship, Environment, and Challenging Your Mindset
[00:21:17] Imposter Syndrome: Luxury Problem or Growth Mindset?
[00:24:52] Mastermind Groups & Team Growth: Find the Right Room
[00:30:42] Money, Power, and AI—Leveraging Technology for Breakthroughs
[00:43:15] Prosperity Habits: The Secret to Founder Success
[00:47:29] The Power of White Space: Creation & Implementation
[00:51:25] Actionable Takeaways & Closing Thoughts
QUOTES
- "Once you create that identity, you have this conformational bias so that every decision you’re faced with, you’re going to make the decision that conforms to that identity." – Randy Gage
- "If you're the smartest person in the room, you need a bigger room." – Randy Gage
- "We think we need to be the hero, but the hero in your own story is fine asking the question. Finding another way." – Brett Gallant
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Brett Gallant
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Randy Gage
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/randy_gage/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randygage/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/randygage/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjpLoOAz3wjTbJ5H7ed7d_A
WEBSITE
Adaptive Office Solutions: https://www.adaptiveoffice.ca/
Randy Gage: https://randygage.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to The Adaptive Mindset. I'm Bret Gallant, cybersecurity thoughtleader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't
just talk tech. We unlock the strategies, stories, andmindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and
thrive in a digital world. Let's get started.
Welcome back to The Adaptive Mindset. Today's guest issomeone who doesn't talk about prosperity. He
(00:28):
challenges everything you believe about it.
Randy, Randy Gage is a Speaker Hall of Famer, bestselling author,author of 15 books, and known globally as the
Entrepreneur Whisperer. From a jailcell as a teenager to becoming a multimillionaire
(00:49):
entrepreneur, Randy has spent 3 decades helpingfounders and leaders rewrite the mental programming that keeps
them playing small. His books,including Risky Is the New Safe, Mad Genius, and
Radical Rebirth, have been translated into more than25 languages. He's been featured in
(01:10):
Forbes, Fortune, Fox News, and SuccessMagazine. But what makes Randy different
he doesn't give you motivation. Hechallenges your conditioning. Today we're talking about
reinvention, prosperity in the AI age,imposter syndrome, and why earning a lot of money
(01:33):
quickly may actually be easier than earning a littleslowly. Randy, welcome to The Adaptive Mindset.
Hey, great to be on with you. It'ssuch a pleasure. I, I was looking at
your, your story, and there's a lot of lotof areas where I can
(01:56):
identify with, but just being a man who's rebuilt hisidentity and reborn in just my
mindset, I was really lookingforward to this conversation. And I just
see so many, so many opportunities for peopleto, to, you know, thrive. And
(02:20):
so many of our listeners are going to benefit from what you haveto share, Randy. So it's really, really great to have you.
So, um, soyou've, you've gone from the thing that really connected
with me a lot— you've gone from a jail cell to a global thought leader.
What belief had to die first for that transformation to happen?
(02:47):
That one— the belief that had to die for thatis the belief that you're not worthy.
Yeah, that I had. You probably had.
Most people watching or listening probably had,because there's a— there's an entire
ecosystem dedicatedto beating you down and
(03:14):
convincing you that you're not worthy and you don'tdeserve success or happiness or wealth.
And organized religion is a very guilty partyhere. Governments are a guilty party. The education
system is a culprit. And then just socialmedia, all the haters and the trolls and
(03:37):
the— and then just all of the opportunisticmarketers who only can make money if they
convince you that you're not worthy. But if you buytheir $477 ebook,
then you will be worthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that would probably be— that's what jumps to my mind as the—to make that jump that we're talking about here
(04:04):
is a fundamental rewiring of youroperating system. Yeah.
How do people actually do that? I mean, we live in thisworld where there's so much change and so much
programming coming at us.
Um, how, how would you say for someone, uh, best way tohandle that and navigate that in this— these times change?
(04:31):
First, you have to recognize what are your core foundational
money and success, work and career,health and wellness, marriage and relationships, God
and religion. Uh, you look at thoseand then you say, what are my core foundational beliefs?
(04:54):
Because most people had them all imprinted onthem before they were 8 years old, or by the time they
were 8 years old. And they've been programmed thatmoney is bad, rich people are evil, spiritual
to be poor. They have core beliefs aboutrelationships because one of their parents cheated on
(05:16):
the other or was abusive to the other. And if that'syour formative years, you grow,
and that's your perception, that's how relationships work.
So you grow up and you get married and you want to live happily everafter, and instead you recreate the
dysfunctional relationship your parents had if youdon't go and question those beliefs. If you don't—
(05:42):
health and wellness. Most people grow up with thebelief that you have items in your pantry that
have an expiration date 4 years from now, and likethat those are healthy and nutritious
to eat, and that you're gonna get an extra 5, 10pounds in your 20s, and you're gonna add 5, 10 pounds in your 30s,
(06:05):
and another 5, 10 in your 40s, and decade afterdecade. And by the time you're 60, you should be on
10 prescriptions. And time you're 70, you should beon 15 prescriptions. And if you,
'cause that's what you see in front of you, that'sthe model you were raised in. So if you don't go
(06:28):
back at some point and do the critical thinking andcheck and say, well, wait a minute, What are my core
foundational beliefs in this area? What arethe mind viruses that I got programmed with?
I wrote a whole book about this, which you mentioned at the start, called RadicalRebirth. That's what that whole book is about, is
(06:51):
how we get programmed and how we canrecognize that programming, blow it up,
and then replace it with programming thatempowers us. Yeah, I—
number one, I am going to buy that book,um, because I've been through that rebirth. I, I had a
(07:14):
pivotal moment a couple of years ago, Randy, where I wasspeaking with my coach and I said, uh, I didn't have time to get to
the gym. And my, my, my coach questionedme, challenged me like a good coach. Should. So, Brett, you
mean to tell me you own your own business and you can't get to thegym? I was
(07:35):
at that time, I was 330 pounds. Myhighest was 349. Wow. Now, as
of today, uh, I'm 210pounds. So I challenged
that. I was reborn. Yeah.
And so that old programming that you were talking about,uh, I had these old mindsets and identities and beliefs.
(08:02):
You said a really important word there— identity.
Yes, we get— we create identities. And then once you createthat identity, you have this, this
conformational bias so that every decisionyou're faced with, you're going to make the decision that
conforms to that identity.. And when youdo it the right way, which is, hey, I've
(08:27):
created this identity of becoming thehighest possible version of myself, it's one
thing. But when you create that other identities at thelower levels, that's when it turns into
prison sentences. Yeah. And people don't even realizethey're trapped there. Until they come
(08:50):
across a new way or, or somebody likeyourself that can guide them through that.
We are asking a better question, challenging that belief andthat identity, like letting the shackles of it go.
So yeah, I get asked all the time, like, you're telling me I'm blowing upmy marriage because of a belief I got when I was 7? And I'm
(09:11):
like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you. You're tellingme I manifested getting fired and I'm
self-sabotaging my results because of programming I got as a kid? Yeah, that'sexactly what I'm saying. Yeah, um, but
we don't even realize it. People don't even realize ituntil they see it.
(09:36):
So can you give us a few examples of how you've helped some people inthe past? So identify that
or tactics that people can use tobreak, break free? Well, step one would
be that book, Radical Rebirth. I put those6 main areas. In other words, your life is going to be
(09:58):
determined by your belief in those areas. And in eachsection, I put the, the most deadly or
the most negative or the most toxicbeliefs in that area, like the money one, right? Money is bad. Rich
people are evil. It's spiritual to be poor. Tobe successful in the corporate world, you have to be a
(10:21):
terrible parent. To run a successful company, you haveto exploit the workers and plunder the
environment. These are the core mind viruses, millionsof them circulating around the world. So you
recognize Oh yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Or take thereligious ones, you know, the, uh, you're
(10:44):
not supposed to get the good stuff here, you're going to get the good stuffin the afterlife. You should be paying penance all
this lifetime because you're not worthy. You should makeyourself worthy that the God
entity, supernatural being, is going to let youget into the afterlife, and then you're going to get the the
(11:04):
72 virgins, or you're going to get to live in heaven, or you're going toget to reincarnation, or you're going to reach
bliss or enlightenment. But so if you've got a corefoundational belief that you're paying penance here in
this lifetime because you were a camel thief in the lastlifetime, what's the odds you're going to let yourself be healthy, happy,
(11:27):
prosperous? If you have a core belief that youneed 192 lifetimes to reach
enlightenment and you're only on lifetime number106, what's the probability you're going to let yourself get
there? If you had the Catholic schoolnurses rapping your knuckles with a ruler and telling you that you
(11:49):
were born a sorry sinner and you better beg forforgiveness so you can— Jesus is going to allow you into the
kingdom. How does that work while you're here?
So it takes really confronting thesebeliefs and recognizing. So for me,
(12:09):
obviously by this point, you and everybody listening has realized,wow, Randy isn't afraid to get in, get up in my grill
and challenge my most sacred corebeliefs. Because that's the only— that's where the breakthroughs are.
I see, like religion, right? That's such a trigger for most people. They're justgonna go haywire when you question that.
(12:33):
And I always just say, question thepremise. The premise is solid, it will withstand
the scrutiny. And do you— somy premise would be, if there really is
this supernatural being that createdyou, why wouldn't they want you to be healthy, happy, and prosperous
(12:55):
while you were alive? Why would they think you shouldgo on and be negative and limited
and hold yourself back for 90 years, and if you dothat, then you're gonna get the good stuff? Does that
really make sense? You know, is that a belief that servesyou, or is there another belief that might empower you in
(13:18):
a better way. Well, and I would argue part of thattoo, it could be the programming or the
perception from the family that they were raised in, theenvironment. That 100%. I did a, um, I
did a debate with a fundamentalist Christian guywho wanted to debate me in a podcast of his, so I did
(13:42):
it. Yeah. And, and I'm, and I don't, I'm not heretrying to convert people to atheism, and I'm not
trying convert them to devil worshiping. You know, I'm justsaying, be a critical thinker. And he told the story of how
his mother was, I don't know, drug addictor something, divorced many times, and he kept getting
(14:05):
bounced around. And then she met this guy, and he was awonderful guy who adopted him and became
his, you know, adopted father and taughthim Christianity and raised him. And now he's So
healthy and happy. And I said, great, I loveit. But do you recognize that if your mother had
(14:26):
been born in Saudi Arabia and met theguy, this same guy, he would have been Muslim and he would
have taught you Islam and your faith would be exactlyas strong as it is now? And he
said, yeah, I admit that. But I, but I knowthat Jesus is the right one. The true one. I said,
(14:48):
no, that's what you think. But if you were born in Tehran orAbu Dhabi or Doha or wherever, you would think it
was Muhammad or Hindu or Buddhist or whatever. Weare creatures of our environment, whether we like it or not. Of course we
are. Yes. So, and again, everybody listening,I'm not telling you you have to renounce your religion.
(15:10):
I'm saying Maybe you do some mindful thinkingabout it and say, does—
do these beliefs serve me, or arethey limiting me? And you're
speaking to aperson that has questioned beliefs
(15:33):
of what exactly— what you said, like, evenlooking at my own life growing up, my
father, his beliefs that moneywas— I'm not going to do it justice here, but he had
a limiting belief aboutmoney. I, on the other hand, have a
(15:57):
different belief. He thoughtpeople that were successful would never be
kind. And I'm not doing it justice, Dad. Sorry about this,but But, but I look at
money can be a tool to helppeople. Yeah, it amplifies whatever you want to do, whoever you want to
(16:23):
be. Money can amplify that, right? And sothere's these identities and beliefs that we have that are— that
come from our environment, whether we like it or not. AndI've always chosen to look
at whatever that was around me. Okay, isthis true? Is there information
(16:45):
out there that can show me anotherway? And, and from my identity on my
fitness transformation to my business, towhere I've grown my business,
I, I've proven that there is anotherway. I'm not stuck in a box of what,
(17:09):
what is what I believe to be true right now. There's alwaysa better question. There's always another
way. So, amen.
Preach. You know, I, I'm so passionate about this,even from, um, from
Being an entrepreneur, a burnt-outentrepreneur that was working 16-hour
(17:36):
days, getting nowhere, to, you know, reclaiming my identityand being able to be spending time with my
family. We, we think we need to be thehero, but the hero in your own story is fine asking the
question. Yeah, finding another way. I willriff on that a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
(18:02):
What often happens is we think we need to be thehero in the hero's journey story. Yes. And then
we think we need a more heroic hero'sjourney story, so we have to get
divorced 3 times to provehow resilient we are. And we have to defeat
(18:24):
cancer 4 times to show how tragic,how much tragedy has been thrown our way to overcome.
A lot of times people come to my workshops and we'll work throughprosperity stuff and they will break down in tears and tell
me, oh my God, it's— that's exactly what I did.
I kept manifesting a more businessfailure after business failure because I kept— or I
(18:50):
manifest becoming a millionaire and then losing it all and earning it allback because I wanted to prove how heroic I was.
Because I know, because that's what I did. And then Irealized, you know,
it's, um, I always had— I've always said I could— if I losteverything tomorrow, I'd be a multi-millionaire again within 2
(19:13):
years, and then I proved it. And then I thought I was so clever becauseI proved that, and I proved it again, right? And then I
thought, you know, it just might be smarter tonot feel like I had to prove that. Maybe I don't have
to lose everything. Maybe I can start with thisposition of great strength and just build on it.
(19:36):
Do, have, and become more. I don't need— what Iwas doing in my case was I was creating a
more heroic hero's journey because I couldn'taccept love. I had been sheltered, hurt in
my childhood and built this wall around meso nobody could love me because if they loved me, they
(19:57):
could withdraw that love and then I would be rejected andthen I wouldn't know where to go. So I just figured, If I
built this wall around me and I don't allow myself to loveanyone and I don't allow anyone to love me, nobody can hurt
me. Well, at some point you realize that's notreally a great strategy for life.
(20:20):
No, no. And sadly, there's a lotof, a lot of people that, that live that
way, you know, like Like, uh, yeah,I, I, I feel it's different transitions
in my life. I, I've, I've lived that way myselfat different points, but then you realize and you catch yourself, no,
(20:43):
this is not, this is not the way. It's notsustainable. It's not, this is not what, why I'm
here. Um, I, I have, um Wrote thisquestion down. I talk about it a
lot with— I'm in a few masterminds and peer groups over theyears, and a lot of times we've talked about
(21:09):
head trash, or AKA impostersyndrome. Um, in your mind, is that real, or is it just a luxury
problem? Uh, I kind of have a contrarian take onthat. I have suffered from imposter
syndrome multiple times, and I'm really glad Ido because I feel like if you're
(21:37):
not experiencing some imposter syndrome at some point, you'renot really challenging yourself. You're not getting
up to that higher possible version ofyourself.. And then you realize, okay, I have imposter
syndrome and everybody has imposter syndrome.
Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban,Elon Musk, pick whoever your superstar hero
(22:04):
is in any arena. And I guarantee you at somepoint they faced imposter syndrome. And that's a good
thing. I want to always be challenging myself. SoI do feel a little of that.. But then I also recognize that
a lot of that is just, there arenegative, there are haters, right? So if we're really doing
(22:26):
something amazing, we're gonna attract some haters. We're gonna attractsome trolls. And if you haven't attracted any
haters or trolls, then you're probably not really done anything amazing. Becauseif you do something amazing, there's people are gonna
be bitter, petty, jealous, and they're gonna attack you.
And just accept that that's all part of the game.
(22:49):
And when they throw all that garbage at you, you say, thankyou for sharing, I wish you the best Merry Christmas
ever. Thank you for sharing, I wish you thegreatest week ever. You know, thanks, uh, great day. Alrighty
then, thanks for sharing, let'smove on. And that's the end
(23:11):
of that story. So what you're saying is I got to shine alot brighter than
Randy. I'm usually saying that to most people. Yes. BecauseI think most people, we have a tendency
of human nature as we surround ourselves with peoplewho give us permission to stay the way
(23:33):
we are. Yeah. And that's what theydo. Because they know we like to hear that. And so we put
those people around us.
I work assiduously to put people aroundme who won't do that, who will challenge me. You mentioned
you've been in mastermind. I can't tell you how manymasterminds I left, right? Yeah. I always say, hey, if you're the smartest person
(23:59):
in the room, you need a bigger room.
Well, yeah. I'm almost always the smartest person inthe room. And I don't say that to be an arrogant jerk. And I don't
say that as a flex. I'mautistic. I've got— that's a curse. It's a blessing and it's
a curse. The blessing is it's a very— I have a veryhigh IQ. The curse is I have the social skills
(24:24):
of an eggplant. So there is atrade-off there. But so I get in a lot of masterminds and
I say I'm doling out allkind of beneficial generosity to this group, but I'm not able
to— I'm not receiving it back that I could quantifythis as a good use of my time.
(24:49):
I need something more so to challenge me.
That's why. That's exactly why I've exited amastermind. Mind, because I wouldn't say— maybe I did outgrow it,
or,or the, the, the parameters around the mastermind changed.
(25:09):
And so I knew it was no longer serving me. It,it brought me to a place in my
journey, and I had to face the uncomfortable truth ofbeing honest with myself that it
was no longer the right room for meto be in. Yeah. In my case, I started my
(25:31):
own program. It's called Breakthrough U, and it'sfor entrepreneurs. And I had 3 levels of it so that people who
aren't ready to engage at that top level, they don't have the resources,the money, the time, the talent. Okay. There's a middle level
to help, and then there's a beginning level. To for people who arejust like, I got $35,000 in credit
(25:54):
card debt and I can't be— all right, great. Start atthe beginning level, right? And then I've got a level for people who are getting
after it, but they just can't break that million dollar ayear income for whatever reason. And then I have high level people
at what I call the anarchist level.
Well, I created that groupfor me. Totally selfish. I wanted
(26:20):
the most brilliant people in the world that Icould be brainstorming, masterminding, and just
working through the principles of prosperity. And so that's—that was the driver for me creating that program.
Well, I think some— a lot of times we, we do, like you,you alluded to earlier, we need to have people to
(26:43):
challenge us. And when you said that earlier, being in a roomwith people that challenge you, like, you know, I'm paraphrasing,
made me think of this moment where I had the privilegeto be— sit in with a group. I, I was at,
at this event in Phoenix a couple years ago,and I, I was witness to a
(27:05):
group of peers that had their own mastermind for anumber of years. And they were talking about a challenge. Somebody in the
group was talking about a challenge. And this gentlemanimmediately— we're at this table— he leaned over
and he said to the gentleman inthe group, said just two words.
(27:29):
I've never forgotthem. Do better. It, it, it was
the— it was magic to my ears because somebody had the courageto challenge him, call him out on
his own BS, that the challenge that hehad was part of his own doing and he had
(27:56):
to do better. Good. You know, so weneed to surround ourselves with people that can call us
out on that. And I love how you created yourown, selfishly created your own
level. Is that group still running? Yeah, that's my BreakthroughU program. The beginning level is called the Apprentice level.
(28:21):
The middle level is the Alchemist level, right? Foralchemy. And then the top level is the Anarchist level. And
those are the rebels and the daredevils andthe risk takers and the Change makers,
right? So yeah, I— and they join that group because Ican give them that value back that I seek from them. For
(28:43):
a lot of them, I'm the only person who willtell them their stupid idea is stupid, right? Because
they've got a whole company they've built, they'vegot 5 vice presidents or 10 vice
presidents who turn into sycophants and rubberstamp everything they say, and I'm the only person in their world to say, wait
(29:04):
a Wait a minute, let's just take a timeouthere. Let's question the premise, right? Let's
question the premise. And I'm not going to let them just come inand bowl us over with their billion-dollar
stories, right? Because the money only isn't great.
(29:24):
You got a Gulfstream, you got 5 houses, you gotall the bling-bling, but your spouse isn't talking to you.
Okay, that's not prosperity. Or your kids don't want to bewith you. That's not prosperity. Or you're 2 cheeseburgers
away from a diabetic coma or a stroke.
That's not prosperity. Matter of fact, so while it's on my mind, let's give alittle gift to your listeners, viewers. Yeah. If
(29:51):
you go to RandyGage.com,that's my website, RandyGage.com, right on the home
page. Is a free PDF,The 7 Elements of an Abundant Life. So
I encourage everybody, download that after you're done with the show,go through and read it, and kind of
(30:12):
paints the holistic picture of what Ibelieve
prosperity is. Nice. What you just said there, that whole, yeah, I call it theyes man, sick man in this, and leads me to a
question I had for money, power,and AI, because AI is the biggest
(30:39):
yes man in this world. But, well, here's a,here's a tip on that. For instance, I've
created an AI co-CEO to workwith my company. So I've custom programmed that with
my books, my blogs, my— I want it toknow my thinking and I have trained it. I do
(31:01):
not need a sycophant. I do not need someone whoagrees with me. I need you. And so I've trained it that way to say,
hey, look at— I've got a— here's a book concept I'm thinkingabout. These are my 18 chapters. Would you look at
it and tell me Did I jump the shark anywhere?
Is there something missing? Is there alogical progression? And it'll give me real feedback. And then every now
(31:28):
and then, it seems after 2 months, it'llsay, Randy, that book is— it's directly on
brand. It speaks exactly to the demo. This is the best work you've ever done.
And I'll say, whoa, whoa, whoa. We've hadthis talk before. I don't need you to puff me up. I need
you to be somebody I can check thingsout. And please, I didn't hear any
(31:54):
constructive criticism. And literally, if you say that,the algorithm, it will say, you're right,
I was very flattery there. You do—there are some things you could do that would make
this book stronger. Between chapter 3 and chapter 4,if you added another chapter on such and such,
(32:17):
it would create a better flow for the reader. Andon chapter 7 and chapter 8, you might want to reverse that, you know what
I mean? It'll give you real feedback, but you'vegot to be, you know, willing to challenge it and
say, no, no, no, don't pander to me. I need youto give me constructive feedback. And then, and we
(32:39):
can do the same thing with people, butunfortunately with people, if you are that vice president to one
of my clients and they make$350,000 a year and they've got access to the corporate jet and
the company car and the Roth IRAplan and whatever, they still might be afraid to tell the truth
(33:04):
to the this skill. Oh yes, itdoes. Yeah, 100%. And as long as we're aware of that, we, like,
I love how you frame that. You need to bearound people that challenge you, and you need to have your AI
challenge you. My, along somebody that's in my network fora long time, she introduced me to
(33:28):
a prompt called Absolute Mode, and she madeShe said, I
made AI my bitch. Literally, that's what she said. And she'san incredible lady. But we
have to have AI challenge us. So this leads meto this question. In the age we're living
(33:51):
in, what have— like, in the AI age, which we're in rightnow, what habits or beliefs right now are in your opinion,
are gonnamake entrepreneurs obsolete? There's nothing that will ever make
entrepreneurs obsolete, is my opinion. Good. Yeah, yeah, well, we're seeing thatchallenge right now. People are saying that, so yeah. Yeah, and by
(34:14):
the way, since we're talking freeresources for people, I literally just wrote a
blog post on this, onAI and business, and I'm going to suggest people read that.
Anybody who's doing anything with AI. Yeah, it's calledUnleashing AI for Business. Maybe you can put it in the show notes. Yeah,
(34:36):
I know I will. I will put this in the show notes. Okay.
AI is something I'm very passionate about. It's beena huge driving point in, in, in business that I'm
doing. I do cybersecurity, but I've also been doingAI readiness with with northern municipalities
in Canada. So yeah, so passionate about that. Here's my take onit in that blog post, which is, okay, great, you're
(35:02):
using it to summarize emails orcreate emails or filter this. But it's like
I have a collection of essays from Montague overthere on my bookshelf, right? I could use it
for a doorstop. And work beautiful. I could use it fora paperweight, works beautiful. But that isn't the highest good
(35:25):
of that. And the same way, usingAI to summarize an email is not the highest good of
AI. I use AI where I'm, first of all, I've created anumber of custom agents. So when I have a lot of
functions that are automated now that freed up 12 or13 or 15 15 hours a week that allow me to be
(35:47):
creative genius zone stuff. And then I just use it to challenge me.
I will put in and say, okay, here'smy business model. Tell me if I was a competitor,
how would I disrupt this business model? Ican put in, I'm a professional speaker. One of
the standard practices of professionalspeakers is ABC. Is anything changed in the market that you think that's no
(36:13):
longer a viable strategy? Is there something better?
And when you ask, as you know, of course, whenyou ask smart questions like that to
the AI, now you getreal breakthrough answers. Whereas if you just
say, okay, read this 800-page book andgive me a 20-word summary. Okay,
(36:40):
I guess you could fake it at a cocktail party,but did you really learn the book if you didn't
have to go through it and process itfor 8 hours and think about it? Can you really
get the same benefit by just asking it to summarize somethingfor you? And no, you have to engage in AI
(37:02):
as a thought partner. I haveit challenge my thinking, and I even have
my own AI virtual board of directorswith personas. And I want you to look at this,
and based on everything you know about me, tell me how this bookapplies to my life. Give me 2 obvious
(37:24):
and 3 non-obvious ways that thiscould, that this book can help me, ask me one question
at a time, and I get— oh, I get some amazing— oh, Ibet you do. Like, oh yeah, see, that's what I'm saying.
That's the higher use of AI that we shouldjust be celebrating and shouting from the rooftops. But
(37:47):
most people, they don't, they don't know it yet because they're just still playingaround and learning as a glorified email writer. But You put garbage into
AI, you're gonna get garbage out. So,you know, like,
no, I'm challenging,inviting everybody to check out that article. It will be
(38:11):
in the show notes. You'll bebetter for it. I believe that the
way you approach AI is quite similarto me, so. Happy to send people that
way, your way. So just, just for the people who don't seeme, they're only listening to this, you should
(38:35):
know I'm veryold. So, okay, if you're watching, you've already figured that out, but if
you're just listening, you might think, oh yeah, these young kids withtheir— no, I'm not a young kid. I'm going to be 67 years old
in a month. I didn't grow up with the internet. I didn'tgrow up with electronic games. I didn't grow up
(38:57):
with social media. I didn't grow up with AI. I'm having to figureit out just like you all are having to figure it out. But
I also realized 2 years ago, AI isgoing to be the most
cataclysmic disruption in my lifetime, and I haveto take it seriously, and I have to become a
(39:20):
student of this.
Yeah. And I'm sure in your mastermind you've surroundedyourself with people that challenge you on that as well.
Yeah. Lifted you up. Yeah. And so I haveall these AI agents. I'm doing, I'm doing more with— I would— here's—
I'm going to make this claim that people are going to saywhat an arrogant jerk he is. He's drinking his own Kool-Aid. Bring
(39:46):
it on. Yeah, I bet I knowmore about AI than 97% of
the peopleon Earth. 97%. And that means I'm just
a dangerous idiot because thereare the 3%, right? Sam Altman at OpenAI and we
(40:09):
got Elon and We got Anthropic and all, youknow, all those people of those in those spaces. They know
more than I do. I get it. But Iknow more than 97% of the people on Earth. And
I'm an old guy and I'm ahigh school dropout. So people should— I say that again, not to
(40:31):
be an arrogant jerk, but to say you don'tneed those degrees. You don't need permission from anyone else. You don't
have to be a certain age. Demographic. Youjust like now, right? You could have studied
how to program for 8 years in college. Ican do the exact same thing you could
(40:54):
do if I'm curious and I know how to askgood questions and I speak, because that's how we
program now. We vibe code by saying, hey, I want tobuild an app that washes my dishes and then stacks them
in there and calls mymother and whatever. If you're a curious person who
(41:17):
can ask good questions, you're nowthe equivalent of an MBA computer programmer. That's what
people have to recognize today. So we'reliving in the greatest time in human
history. There's never been a better time to be alive.
So we got to celebrate that andparticipate in that. I think that's brilliant what you just said. If you're a curious
(41:43):
person and ask better questions, we tie this rightback to the beginning of our conversation. We were talking about
identity and rebirth. That's true for everything.
Yeah. Curious person, you ask a better question. Thequestions are the magic. It's not the answer, it's the
questions. No. And are you courageousenough to ask the better question and
(42:10):
face yourtruth? Yes. 'Cause I know when my coach
asked me the question, "Brett, you mean to tell me you own your ownbusiness and you don't have time to go to the gym?"
That was a question I neededto hear. Yeah. Yeah. And we need to ask ourselves those
(42:34):
type of questions. But tying itback into AI, asking the questions
the right way and not accepting the answer at face valueand interacting with it and getting something
useful that canimpact you. So, um, last— one of the last questions I want to
(43:02):
ask you, Randy, um, um, but I, I mean, I'm— because I'm very curiousto see what, uh, your viewpoint is on this.
What's one prosperity habit every foundershould adopt immediately? Oh, I'll give you one they'll
never expect. Yeah. Yeah. One prosperity habit every foundershould adopt immediately is to
(43:25):
charge their phone overnight in a room theydon't sleep in. Oh yeah. I'll give
you a bonus one. Number 2, get off socialmedia. If you need social media to promote your business
like I do, most people do, great. Go inthere as a content creator.
(43:47):
Not as a consumer. Yes.
And you will, if once you get off the— and now theresearch is just starting to really come out, like Jonathan Haidt and
some of the other authors who are looking atthe studies of short-form video and what they're
doing to kids' minds, how much the kids'learning ability has gone down since we put
(44:13):
put laptops and smartphones in classrooms.
The research is overwhelming.
These brilliant mini computers, which are so convenientand so helpful in our lives in so many ways, have
a really dangerous downside. And like some ofthe people in my entrepreneur program, what I have to
(44:35):
teach them, they might run a multimillion-dollar business, for20 years and I have to teach them how to take
a day off. And when I suggest how they have to take a dayoff and I say, "And you're gonna have to have
a no device policy during these hours,"they look at me like I just suggested
(44:58):
they should ax murder their mother or something, right?
Because they're like, "My phone is on 24/7. I have to be,I get alerts." 217 times a— yes. And that's why you
have the attention span of a gnat onespresso. That's why you can't concentrate. That's why you— I
have a client. He's a 23-year-old. He's in thetop level, the anarchist level.
(45:25):
This kid is mad genius. I don't want togive away his model, but I would tell you he, he works
in social media marketing. His own company, he founded it.
He had more than 20 billion views lastyear on his accounts. And
I'm trying to coach him how to be a better CEO andscale his company. And I couldn't
(45:51):
get him to, we kept agreeing that he would read20 minutes, a book, a physical book every
morning. And he couldn't do it.. And I kept saying, okay, you didn't like thatbook. Let's try this book. You didn't. Okay, let's
try. And finally, after listening to Haidt and another psychologistwho was on the Diary of a
(46:14):
CEO podcast, I realized, oh my God, allday, every day, he's creating and watching and
swimming around in short-form video. So of course there's no bookon earth. No attention span. Yeah, right. So now, like, I have
to coach him like, hey, this is what we've got to do. Wehave to retrain your brain so you can concentrate and
(46:38):
you're going to have to have no device days and you're going to have tohave blocks of time. Like, I wrote another book
called Mad Genius. And of all the emails and DMsand everything I get about that book, the thing that
resonated most with people is I say set aside45 minutes every week for
(47:02):
thinking. Yes. No devices. You get anotepad like this, a pen, and a cup of
green tea or coffee. And you sit in a nice comfortable chair. You go outon your balcony, you do it at the beach,
and you just think. And you think about what youwant to think about. And I get more feedback from the book
(47:25):
than what the breakthroughs people have. But that's, youknow, that's so— that's why I say I heard right now, like, I know
it. And I'll tell you why. There's multiple timesin my life every year, annually, I go with the scout group
and we go for 3 to 4 days,no phone, no technology. And I come back refreshed with great
(47:48):
ideas. But this time last year, Yeah, and Ialso, I, I often escape in nature because that's where I get reconnected and I,
I get away from a screen for an hour and ahalf hiking in nature. This time last year, I made a decision that I was
going to take every Wednesday off for8 weeks. I went to a nearby
(48:12):
mountain, the 2-hour drive, and once you get to thisplace, Mount Carleton is the area, there is
no cell phone access. So I put mysnowshoes on and I snowshoed up this
mountain called Mount Bailey. 4.5 hours. I got up to the top. There's a picnictable. I don't know how it got there, but it's a wonderful picnic
(48:35):
table. I loved it. Ihad about 6 or 7 ideas that just
came to my mind. 2 of them I implemented right awaywhen I came back. Best trip that I had that
year where I just had to— where I disconnected. Andit was only for 4 hours that I had
(49:00):
no technology. Best trip ever. And I, I— ofwhat you said, like, even, even 45 minutes, if, if we allowed
ourselves even those 45 minutes, what magic could itdo? And you literally— you have to program it if you want to really
blow your mind. I read Who Not How byDan Sullivan. Oh, I love that book. Yeah, Ben Hardy. And
(49:22):
then the 10x is better than 2x. So I really tookthat to heart. So I brought in a new
executive assistant, farmed off everything, andI tell him, okay, you have 2 days a
week to book me anything andeverything— chiropractor appointment, doctor appointment, blood test. If I want to meet with
(49:45):
Miss Cleo in the psychic hotline in the astral plane. IfI'm going to record a podcast as a guest, if I'm recording
my podcast, I'm doing coaching calls with my clients,I'm doing calls with— you have everything has to be booked in those
2 days. You're the 5th. You're literally the 5th podcastI'm recording today, right? Because it's one of my record days. And then
(50:08):
the other 5 days, I told them, you're not allowed tobook anything. That's my time. So I
won't be snowshoeing up the mountain. I'll be walking along thebeach in South Beach. So it's a little— but,
or I will be writing a book,writing a long-form podcast, a long-form blog. I'll
(50:30):
be doing my thinking time. I will beworking in my genius zone
without interruptions. And without appointments. SoI literally, if people think, oh, I'm such a
good CEO, I've got my whole calendar booked out every weekand they've got, I've got 13-minute meetings scheduled and then it's
(50:53):
followed by a 22-minute meeting and I'm like, you'reoutta your fricking mind. Okay, if you just knew
what putting, so here's the $3 million bonusto your original question is now go back, all you founders,
and look at— because I know what it is to found a business. I knowwhat it is to grind 14 hours a day. There's time
(51:14):
to do that. But there's also the time when yousay, no, it's the white space in
my calendar where the breakthroughs live. Bingo. Yeah. Andwe need to give ourselves permission to do that, Randy.
And we don't. We don't.
We don't allow ourselves to go for thatwalk on that beach. So with that, I, I think this is a
(51:42):
perfect time to end with that. But I wantto encourage our audience to share
this episode with someone in your network that can beimpacted by what Randy has shared today. We unpacked quite a
bit today. This went— always these, these when they're great like this,they go in different directions. And I really appreciate you
(52:04):
being here, Randy. It was, was avaluable short time with you. So I appreciate you. Thank
you. Thanks for bringing me in, Brett.
Yeah, no, it's great. Thanks for tuning into The Adaptive Mindset. If youfound value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a
review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in thedigital age. Stay secure, stay adaptable, and I'll see you next time.
Welcome to The Adaptive Mindset. I'm Bret Gallant, cybersecurity thoughtleader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't
just talk tech. We unlock the strategies, stories, andmindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and
thrive in a digital world. Let's get started.
Welcome back to The Adaptive Mindset. Today's guest issomeone who doesn't talk about prosperity. He
(00:28):
challenges everything you believe about it.
Randy, Randy Gage is a Speaker Hall of Famer, bestselling author,author of 15 books, and known globally as the
Entrepreneur Whisperer. From a jailcell as a teenager to becoming a multimillionaire
(00:49):
entrepreneur, Randy has spent 3 decades helpingfounders and leaders rewrite the mental programming that keeps
them playing small. His books,including Risky Is the New Safe, Mad Genius, and
Radical Rebirth, have been translated into more than25 languages. He's been featured in
(01:10):
Forbes, Fortune, Fox News, and SuccessMagazine. But what makes Randy different
he doesn't give you motivation. Hechallenges your conditioning. Today we're talking about
reinvention, prosperity in the AI age,imposter syndrome, and why earning a lot of money
(01:33):
quickly may actually be easier than earning a littleslowly. Randy, welcome to The Adaptive Mindset.
Hey, great to be on with you. It'ssuch a pleasure. I, I was looking at
your, your story, and there's a lot of lotof areas where I can
(01:56):
identify with, but just being a man who's rebuilt hisidentity and reborn in just my
mindset, I was really lookingforward to this conversation. And I just
see so many, so many opportunities for peopleto, to, you know, thrive. And
(02:20):
so many of our listeners are going to benefit from what you haveto share, Randy. So it's really, really great to have you.
So, um, soyou've, you've gone from the thing that really connected
with me a lot— you've gone from a jail cell to a global thought leader.
What belief had to die first for that transformation to happen?
(02:47):
That one— the belief that had to die for thatis the belief that you're not worthy.
Yeah, that I had. You probably had.
Most people watching or listening probably had,because there's a— there's an entire
ecosystem dedicatedto beating you down and
(03:14):
convincing you that you're not worthy and you don'tdeserve success or happiness or wealth.
And organized religion is a very guilty partyhere. Governments are a guilty party. The education
system is a culprit. And then just socialmedia, all the haters and the trolls and
(03:37):
the— and then just all of the opportunisticmarketers who only can make money if they
convince you that you're not worthy. But if you buytheir $477 ebook,
then you will be worthy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that would probably be— that's what jumps to my mind as the—to make that jump that we're talking about here
(04:04):
is a fundamental rewiring of youroperating system. Yeah.
How do people actually do that? I mean, we live in thisworld where there's so much change and so much
programming coming at us.
Um, how, how would you say for someone, uh, best way tohandle that and navigate that in this— these times change?
(04:31):
First, you have to recognize what are your core foundational
money and success, work and career,health and wellness, marriage and relationships, God
and religion. Uh, you look at thoseand then you say, what are my core foundational beliefs?
(04:54):
Because most people had them all imprinted onthem before they were 8 years old, or by the time they
were 8 years old. And they've been programmed thatmoney is bad, rich people are evil, spiritual
to be poor. They have core beliefs aboutrelationships because one of their parents cheated on
(05:16):
the other or was abusive to the other. And if that'syour formative years, you grow,
and that's your perception, that's how relationships work.
So you grow up and you get married and you want to live happily everafter, and instead you recreate the
dysfunctional relationship your parents had if youdon't go and question those beliefs. If you don't—
(05:42):
health and wellness. Most people grow up with thebelief that you have items in your pantry that
have an expiration date 4 years from now, and likethat those are healthy and nutritious
to eat, and that you're gonna get an extra 5, 10pounds in your 20s, and you're gonna add 5, 10 pounds in your 30s,
(06:05):
and another 5, 10 in your 40s, and decade afterdecade. And by the time you're 60, you should be on
10 prescriptions. And time you're 70, you should beon 15 prescriptions. And if you,
'cause that's what you see in front of you, that'sthe model you were raised in. So if you don't go
(06:28):
back at some point and do the critical thinking andcheck and say, well, wait a minute, What are my core
foundational beliefs in this area? What arethe mind viruses that I got programmed with?
I wrote a whole book about this, which you mentioned at the start, called RadicalRebirth. That's what that whole book is about, is
(06:51):
how we get programmed and how we canrecognize that programming, blow it up,
and then replace it with programming thatempowers us. Yeah, I—
number one, I am going to buy that book,um, because I've been through that rebirth. I, I had a
(07:14):
pivotal moment a couple of years ago, Randy, where I wasspeaking with my coach and I said, uh, I didn't have time to get to
the gym. And my, my, my coach questionedme, challenged me like a good coach. Should. So, Brett, you
mean to tell me you own your own business and you can't get to thegym? I was
(07:35):
at that time, I was 330 pounds. Myhighest was 349. Wow. Now, as
of today, uh, I'm 210pounds. So I challenged
that. I was reborn. Yeah.
And so that old programming that you were talking about,uh, I had these old mindsets and identities and beliefs.
(08:02):
You said a really important word there— identity.
Yes, we get— we create identities. And then once you createthat identity, you have this, this
conformational bias so that every decisionyou're faced with, you're going to make the decision that
conforms to that identity.. And when youdo it the right way, which is, hey, I've
(08:27):
created this identity of becoming thehighest possible version of myself, it's one
thing. But when you create that other identities at thelower levels, that's when it turns into
prison sentences. Yeah. And people don't even realizethey're trapped there. Until they come
(08:50):
across a new way or, or somebody likeyourself that can guide them through that.
We are asking a better question, challenging that belief andthat identity, like letting the shackles of it go.
So yeah, I get asked all the time, like, you're telling me I'm blowing upmy marriage because of a belief I got when I was 7? And I'm
(09:11):
like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you. You're tellingme I manifested getting fired and I'm
self-sabotaging my results because of programming I got as a kid? Yeah, that'sexactly what I'm saying. Yeah, um, but
we don't even realize it. People don't even realize ituntil they see it.
(09:36):
So can you give us a few examples of how you've helped some people inthe past? So identify that
or tactics that people can use tobreak, break free? Well, step one would
be that book, Radical Rebirth. I put those6 main areas. In other words, your life is going to be
(09:58):
determined by your belief in those areas. And in eachsection, I put the, the most deadly or
the most negative or the most toxicbeliefs in that area, like the money one, right? Money is bad. Rich
people are evil. It's spiritual to be poor. Tobe successful in the corporate world, you have to be a
(10:21):
terrible parent. To run a successful company, you haveto exploit the workers and plunder the
environment. These are the core mind viruses, millionsof them circulating around the world. So you
recognize Oh yeah, that's exactly what I thought. Or take thereligious ones, you know, the, uh, you're
(10:44):
not supposed to get the good stuff here, you're going to get the good stuffin the afterlife. You should be paying penance all
this lifetime because you're not worthy. You should makeyourself worthy that the God
entity, supernatural being, is going to let youget into the afterlife, and then you're going to get the the
(11:04):
72 virgins, or you're going to get to live in heaven, or you're going toget to reincarnation, or you're going to reach
bliss or enlightenment. But so if you've got a corefoundational belief that you're paying penance here in
this lifetime because you were a camel thief in the lastlifetime, what's the odds you're going to let yourself be healthy, happy,
(11:27):
prosperous? If you have a core belief that youneed 192 lifetimes to reach
enlightenment and you're only on lifetime number106, what's the probability you're going to let yourself get
there? If you had the Catholic schoolnurses rapping your knuckles with a ruler and telling you that you
(11:49):
were born a sorry sinner and you better beg forforgiveness so you can— Jesus is going to allow you into the
kingdom. How does that work while you're here?
So it takes really confronting thesebeliefs and recognizing. So for me,
(12:09):
obviously by this point, you and everybody listening has realized,wow, Randy isn't afraid to get in, get up in my grill
and challenge my most sacred corebeliefs. Because that's the only— that's where the breakthroughs are.
I see, like religion, right? That's such a trigger for most people. They're justgonna go haywire when you question that.
(12:33):
And I always just say, question thepremise. The premise is solid, it will withstand
the scrutiny. And do you— somy premise would be, if there really is
this supernatural being that createdyou, why wouldn't they want you to be healthy, happy, and prosperous
(12:55):
while you were alive? Why would they think you shouldgo on and be negative and limited
and hold yourself back for 90 years, and if you dothat, then you're gonna get the good stuff? Does that
really make sense? You know, is that a belief that servesyou, or is there another belief that might empower you in
(13:18):
a better way. Well, and I would argue part of thattoo, it could be the programming or the
perception from the family that they were raised in, theenvironment. That 100%. I did a, um, I
did a debate with a fundamentalist Christian guywho wanted to debate me in a podcast of his, so I did
(13:42):
it. Yeah. And, and I'm, and I don't, I'm not heretrying to convert people to atheism, and I'm not
trying convert them to devil worshiping. You know, I'm justsaying, be a critical thinker. And he told the story of how
his mother was, I don't know, drug addictor something, divorced many times, and he kept getting
(14:05):
bounced around. And then she met this guy, and he was awonderful guy who adopted him and became
his, you know, adopted father and taughthim Christianity and raised him. And now he's So
healthy and happy. And I said, great, I loveit. But do you recognize that if your mother had
(14:26):
been born in Saudi Arabia and met theguy, this same guy, he would have been Muslim and he would
have taught you Islam and your faith would be exactlyas strong as it is now? And he
said, yeah, I admit that. But I, but I knowthat Jesus is the right one. The true one. I said,
(14:48):
no, that's what you think. But if you were born in Tehran orAbu Dhabi or Doha or wherever, you would think it
was Muhammad or Hindu or Buddhist or whatever. Weare creatures of our environment, whether we like it or not. Of course we
are. Yes. So, and again, everybody listening,I'm not telling you you have to renounce your religion.
(15:10):
I'm saying Maybe you do some mindful thinkingabout it and say, does—
do these beliefs serve me, or arethey limiting me? And you're
speaking to aperson that has questioned beliefs
(15:33):
of what exactly— what you said, like, evenlooking at my own life growing up, my
father, his beliefs that moneywas— I'm not going to do it justice here, but he had
a limiting belief aboutmoney. I, on the other hand, have a
(15:57):
different belief. He thoughtpeople that were successful would never be
kind. And I'm not doing it justice, Dad. Sorry about this,but But, but I look at
money can be a tool to helppeople. Yeah, it amplifies whatever you want to do, whoever you want to
(16:23):
be. Money can amplify that, right? And sothere's these identities and beliefs that we have that are— that
come from our environment, whether we like it or not. AndI've always chosen to look
at whatever that was around me. Okay, isthis true? Is there information
(16:45):
out there that can show me anotherway? And, and from my identity on my
fitness transformation to my business, towhere I've grown my business,
I, I've proven that there is anotherway. I'm not stuck in a box of what,
(17:09):
what is what I believe to be true right now. There's alwaysa better question. There's always another
way. So, amen.
Preach. You know, I, I'm so passionate about this,even from, um, from
Being an entrepreneur, a burnt-outentrepreneur that was working 16-hour
(17:36):
days, getting nowhere, to, you know, reclaiming my identityand being able to be spending time with my
family. We, we think we need to be thehero, but the hero in your own story is fine asking the
question. Yeah, finding another way. I willriff on that a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
(18:02):
What often happens is we think we need to be thehero in the hero's journey story. Yes. And then
we think we need a more heroic hero'sjourney story, so we have to get
divorced 3 times to provehow resilient we are. And we have to defeat
(18:24):
cancer 4 times to show how tragic,how much tragedy has been thrown our way to overcome.
A lot of times people come to my workshops and we'll work throughprosperity stuff and they will break down in tears and tell
me, oh my God, it's— that's exactly what I did.
I kept manifesting a more businessfailure after business failure because I kept— or I
(18:50):
manifest becoming a millionaire and then losing it all and earning it allback because I wanted to prove how heroic I was.
Because I know, because that's what I did. And then Irealized, you know,
it's, um, I always had— I've always said I could— if I losteverything tomorrow, I'd be a multi-millionaire again within 2
(19:13):
years, and then I proved it. And then I thought I was so clever becauseI proved that, and I proved it again, right? And then I
thought, you know, it just might be smarter tonot feel like I had to prove that. Maybe I don't have
to lose everything. Maybe I can start with thisposition of great strength and just build on it.
(19:36):
Do, have, and become more. I don't need— what Iwas doing in my case was I was creating a
more heroic hero's journey because I couldn'taccept love. I had been sheltered, hurt in
my childhood and built this wall around meso nobody could love me because if they loved me, they
(19:57):
could withdraw that love and then I would be rejected andthen I wouldn't know where to go. So I just figured, If I
built this wall around me and I don't allow myself to loveanyone and I don't allow anyone to love me, nobody can hurt
me. Well, at some point you realize that's notreally a great strategy for life.
(20:20):
No, no. And sadly, there's a lotof, a lot of people that, that live that
way, you know, like Like, uh, yeah,I, I, I feel it's different transitions
in my life. I, I've, I've lived that way myselfat different points, but then you realize and you catch yourself, no,
(20:43):
this is not, this is not the way. It's notsustainable. It's not, this is not what, why I'm
here. Um, I, I have, um Wrote thisquestion down. I talk about it a
lot with— I'm in a few masterminds and peer groups over theyears, and a lot of times we've talked about
(21:09):
head trash, or AKA impostersyndrome. Um, in your mind, is that real, or is it just a luxury
problem? Uh, I kind of have a contrarian take onthat. I have suffered from imposter
syndrome multiple times, and I'm really glad Ido because I feel like if you're
(21:37):
not experiencing some imposter syndrome at some point, you'renot really challenging yourself. You're not getting
up to that higher possible version ofyourself.. And then you realize, okay, I have imposter
syndrome and everybody has imposter syndrome.
Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban,Elon Musk, pick whoever your superstar hero
(22:04):
is in any arena. And I guarantee you at somepoint they faced imposter syndrome. And that's a good
thing. I want to always be challenging myself. SoI do feel a little of that.. But then I also recognize that
a lot of that is just, there arenegative, there are haters, right? So if we're really doing
(22:26):
something amazing, we're gonna attract some haters. We're gonna attractsome trolls. And if you haven't attracted any
haters or trolls, then you're probably not really done anything amazing. Becauseif you do something amazing, there's people are gonna
be bitter, petty, jealous, and they're gonna attack you.
And just accept that that's all part of the game.
(22:49):
And when they throw all that garbage at you, you say, thankyou for sharing, I wish you the best Merry Christmas
ever. Thank you for sharing, I wish you thegreatest week ever. You know, thanks, uh, great day. Alrighty
then, thanks for sharing, let'smove on. And that's the end
(23:11):
of that story. So what you're saying is I got to shine alot brighter than
Randy. I'm usually saying that to most people. Yes. BecauseI think most people, we have a tendency
of human nature as we surround ourselves with peoplewho give us permission to stay the way
(23:33):
we are. Yeah. And that's what theydo. Because they know we like to hear that. And so we put
those people around us.
I work assiduously to put people aroundme who won't do that, who will challenge me. You mentioned
you've been in mastermind. I can't tell you how manymasterminds I left, right? Yeah. I always say, hey, if you're the smartest person
(23:59):
in the room, you need a bigger room.
Well, yeah. I'm almost always the smartest person inthe room. And I don't say that to be an arrogant jerk. And I don't
say that as a flex. I'mautistic. I've got— that's a curse. It's a blessing and it's
a curse. The blessing is it's a very— I have a veryhigh IQ. The curse is I have the social skills
(24:24):
of an eggplant. So there is atrade-off there. But so I get in a lot of masterminds and
I say I'm doling out allkind of beneficial generosity to this group, but I'm not able
to— I'm not receiving it back that I could quantifythis as a good use of my time.
(24:49):
I need something more so to challenge me.
That's why. That's exactly why I've exited amastermind. Mind, because I wouldn't say— maybe I did outgrow it,
or,or the, the, the parameters around the mastermind changed.
(25:09):
And so I knew it was no longer serving me. It,it brought me to a place in my
journey, and I had to face the uncomfortable truth ofbeing honest with myself that it
was no longer the right room for meto be in. Yeah. In my case, I started my
(25:31):
own program. It's called Breakthrough U, and it'sfor entrepreneurs. And I had 3 levels of it so that people who
aren't ready to engage at that top level, they don't have the resources,the money, the time, the talent. Okay. There's a middle level
to help, and then there's a beginning level. To for people who arejust like, I got $35,000 in credit
(25:54):
card debt and I can't be— all right, great. Start atthe beginning level, right? And then I've got a level for people who are getting
after it, but they just can't break that million dollar ayear income for whatever reason. And then I have high level people
at what I call the anarchist level.
Well, I created that groupfor me. Totally selfish. I wanted
(26:20):
the most brilliant people in the world that Icould be brainstorming, masterminding, and just
working through the principles of prosperity. And so that's—that was the driver for me creating that program.
Well, I think some— a lot of times we, we do, like you,you alluded to earlier, we need to have people to
(26:43):
challenge us. And when you said that earlier, being in a roomwith people that challenge you, like, you know, I'm paraphrasing,
made me think of this moment where I had the privilegeto be— sit in with a group. I, I was at,
at this event in Phoenix a couple years ago,and I, I was witness to a
(27:05):
group of peers that had their own mastermind for anumber of years. And they were talking about a challenge. Somebody in the
group was talking about a challenge. And this gentlemanimmediately— we're at this table— he leaned over
and he said to the gentleman inthe group, said just two words.
(27:29):
I've never forgotthem. Do better. It, it, it was
the— it was magic to my ears because somebody had the courageto challenge him, call him out on
his own BS, that the challenge that hehad was part of his own doing and he had
(27:56):
to do better. Good. You know, so weneed to surround ourselves with people that can call us
out on that. And I love how you created yourown, selfishly created your own
level. Is that group still running? Yeah, that's my BreakthroughU program. The beginning level is called the Apprentice level.
(28:21):
The middle level is the Alchemist level, right? Foralchemy. And then the top level is the Anarchist level. And
those are the rebels and the daredevils andthe risk takers and the Change makers,
right? So yeah, I— and they join that group because Ican give them that value back that I seek from them. For
(28:43):
a lot of them, I'm the only person who willtell them their stupid idea is stupid, right? Because
they've got a whole company they've built, they'vegot 5 vice presidents or 10 vice
presidents who turn into sycophants and rubberstamp everything they say, and I'm the only person in their world to say, wait
(29:04):
a Wait a minute, let's just take a timeouthere. Let's question the premise, right? Let's
question the premise. And I'm not going to let them just come inand bowl us over with their billion-dollar
stories, right? Because the money only isn't great.
(29:24):
You got a Gulfstream, you got 5 houses, you gotall the bling-bling, but your spouse isn't talking to you.
Okay, that's not prosperity. Or your kids don't want to bewith you. That's not prosperity. Or you're 2 cheeseburgers
away from a diabetic coma or a stroke.
That's not prosperity. Matter of fact, so while it's on my mind, let's give alittle gift to your listeners, viewers. Yeah. If
(29:51):
you go to RandyGage.com,that's my website, RandyGage.com, right on the home
page. Is a free PDF,The 7 Elements of an Abundant Life. So
I encourage everybody, download that after you're done with the show,go through and read it, and kind of
(30:12):
paints the holistic picture of what Ibelieve
prosperity is. Nice. What you just said there, that whole, yeah, I call it theyes man, sick man in this, and leads me to a
question I had for money, power,and AI, because AI is the biggest
(30:39):
yes man in this world. But, well, here's a,here's a tip on that. For instance, I've
created an AI co-CEO to workwith my company. So I've custom programmed that with
my books, my blogs, my— I want it toknow my thinking and I have trained it. I do
(31:01):
not need a sycophant. I do not need someone whoagrees with me. I need you. And so I've trained it that way to say,
hey, look at— I've got a— here's a book concept I'm thinkingabout. These are my 18 chapters. Would you look at
it and tell me Did I jump the shark anywhere?
Is there something missing? Is there alogical progression? And it'll give me real feedback. And then every now
(31:28):
and then, it seems after 2 months, it'llsay, Randy, that book is— it's directly on
brand. It speaks exactly to the demo. This is the best work you've ever done.
And I'll say, whoa, whoa, whoa. We've hadthis talk before. I don't need you to puff me up. I need
you to be somebody I can check thingsout. And please, I didn't hear any
(31:54):
constructive criticism. And literally, if you say that,the algorithm, it will say, you're right,
I was very flattery there. You do—there are some things you could do that would make
this book stronger. Between chapter 3 and chapter 4,if you added another chapter on such and such,
(32:17):
it would create a better flow for the reader. Andon chapter 7 and chapter 8, you might want to reverse that, you know what
I mean? It'll give you real feedback, but you'vegot to be, you know, willing to challenge it and
say, no, no, no, don't pander to me. I need youto give me constructive feedback. And then, and we
(32:39):
can do the same thing with people, butunfortunately with people, if you are that vice president to one
of my clients and they make$350,000 a year and they've got access to the corporate jet and
the company car and the Roth IRAplan and whatever, they still might be afraid to tell the truth
(33:04):
to the this skill. Oh yes, itdoes. Yeah, 100%. And as long as we're aware of that, we, like,
I love how you frame that. You need to bearound people that challenge you, and you need to have your AI
challenge you. My, along somebody that's in my network fora long time, she introduced me to
(33:28):
a prompt called Absolute Mode, and she madeShe said, I
made AI my bitch. Literally, that's what she said. And she'san incredible lady. But we
have to have AI challenge us. So this leads meto this question. In the age we're living
(33:51):
in, what have— like, in the AI age, which we're in rightnow, what habits or beliefs right now are in your opinion,
are gonnamake entrepreneurs obsolete? There's nothing that will ever make
entrepreneurs obsolete, is my opinion. Good. Yeah, yeah, well, we're seeing thatchallenge right now. People are saying that, so yeah. Yeah, and by
(34:14):
the way, since we're talking freeresources for people, I literally just wrote a
blog post on this, onAI and business, and I'm going to suggest people read that.
Anybody who's doing anything with AI. Yeah, it's calledUnleashing AI for Business. Maybe you can put it in the show notes. Yeah,
(34:36):
I know I will. I will put this in the show notes. Okay.
AI is something I'm very passionate about. It's beena huge driving point in, in, in business that I'm
doing. I do cybersecurity, but I've also been doingAI readiness with with northern municipalities
in Canada. So yeah, so passionate about that. Here's my take onit in that blog post, which is, okay, great, you're
(35:02):
using it to summarize emails orcreate emails or filter this. But it's like
I have a collection of essays from Montague overthere on my bookshelf, right? I could use it
for a doorstop. And work beautiful. I could use it fora paperweight, works beautiful. But that isn't the highest good
(35:25):
of that. And the same way, usingAI to summarize an email is not the highest good of
AI. I use AI where I'm, first of all, I've created anumber of custom agents. So when I have a lot of
functions that are automated now that freed up 12 or13 or 15 15 hours a week that allow me to be
(35:47):
creative genius zone stuff. And then I just use it to challenge me.
I will put in and say, okay, here'smy business model. Tell me if I was a competitor,
how would I disrupt this business model? Ican put in, I'm a professional speaker. One of
the standard practices of professionalspeakers is ABC. Is anything changed in the market that you think that's no
(36:13):
longer a viable strategy? Is there something better?
And when you ask, as you know, of course, whenyou ask smart questions like that to
the AI, now you getreal breakthrough answers. Whereas if you just
say, okay, read this 800-page book andgive me a 20-word summary. Okay,
(36:40):
I guess you could fake it at a cocktail party,but did you really learn the book if you didn't
have to go through it and process itfor 8 hours and think about it? Can you really
get the same benefit by just asking it to summarize somethingfor you? And no, you have to engage in AI
(37:02):
as a thought partner. I haveit challenge my thinking, and I even have
my own AI virtual board of directorswith personas. And I want you to look at this,
and based on everything you know about me, tell me how this bookapplies to my life. Give me 2 obvious
(37:24):
and 3 non-obvious ways that thiscould, that this book can help me, ask me one question
at a time, and I get— oh, I get some amazing— oh, Ibet you do. Like, oh yeah, see, that's what I'm saying.
That's the higher use of AI that we shouldjust be celebrating and shouting from the rooftops. But
(37:47):
most people, they don't, they don't know it yet because they're just still playingaround and learning as a glorified email writer. But You put garbage into
AI, you're gonna get garbage out. So,you know, like,
no, I'm challenging,inviting everybody to check out that article. It will be
(38:11):
in the show notes. You'll bebetter for it. I believe that the
way you approach AI is quite similarto me, so. Happy to send people that
way, your way. So just, just for the people who don't seeme, they're only listening to this, you should
(38:35):
know I'm veryold. So, okay, if you're watching, you've already figured that out, but if
you're just listening, you might think, oh yeah, these young kids withtheir— no, I'm not a young kid. I'm going to be 67 years old
in a month. I didn't grow up with the internet. I didn'tgrow up with electronic games. I didn't grow up
(38:57):
with social media. I didn't grow up with AI. I'm having to figureit out just like you all are having to figure it out. But
I also realized 2 years ago, AI isgoing to be the most
cataclysmic disruption in my lifetime, and I haveto take it seriously, and I have to become a
(39:20):
student of this.
Yeah. And I'm sure in your mastermind you've surroundedyourself with people that challenge you on that as well.
Yeah. Lifted you up. Yeah. And so I haveall these AI agents. I'm doing, I'm doing more with— I would— here's—
I'm going to make this claim that people are going to saywhat an arrogant jerk he is. He's drinking his own Kool-Aid. Bring
(39:46):
it on. Yeah, I bet I knowmore about AI than 97% of
the peopleon Earth. 97%. And that means I'm just
a dangerous idiot because thereare the 3%, right? Sam Altman at OpenAI and we
(40:09):
got Elon and We got Anthropic and all, youknow, all those people of those in those spaces. They know
more than I do. I get it. But Iknow more than 97% of the people on Earth. And
I'm an old guy and I'm ahigh school dropout. So people should— I say that again, not to
(40:31):
be an arrogant jerk, but to say you don'tneed those degrees. You don't need permission from anyone else. You don't
have to be a certain age. Demographic. Youjust like now, right? You could have studied
how to program for 8 years in college. Ican do the exact same thing you could
(40:54):
do if I'm curious and I know how to askgood questions and I speak, because that's how we
program now. We vibe code by saying, hey, I want tobuild an app that washes my dishes and then stacks them
in there and calls mymother and whatever. If you're a curious person who
(41:17):
can ask good questions, you're nowthe equivalent of an MBA computer programmer. That's what
people have to recognize today. So we'reliving in the greatest time in human
history. There's never been a better time to be alive.
So we got to celebrate that andparticipate in that. I think that's brilliant what you just said. If you're a curious
(41:43):
person and ask better questions, we tie this rightback to the beginning of our conversation. We were talking about
identity and rebirth. That's true for everything.
Yeah. Curious person, you ask a better question. Thequestions are the magic. It's not the answer, it's the
questions. No. And are you courageousenough to ask the better question and
(42:10):
face yourtruth? Yes. 'Cause I know when my coach
asked me the question, "Brett, you mean to tell me you own your ownbusiness and you don't have time to go to the gym?"
That was a question I neededto hear. Yeah. Yeah. And we need to ask ourselves those
(42:34):
type of questions. But tying itback into AI, asking the questions
the right way and not accepting the answer at face valueand interacting with it and getting something
useful that canimpact you. So, um, last— one of the last questions I want to
(43:02):
ask you, Randy, um, um, but I, I mean, I'm— because I'm very curiousto see what, uh, your viewpoint is on this.
What's one prosperity habit every foundershould adopt immediately? Oh, I'll give you one they'll
never expect. Yeah. Yeah. One prosperity habit every foundershould adopt immediately is to
(43:25):
charge their phone overnight in a room theydon't sleep in. Oh yeah. I'll give
you a bonus one. Number 2, get off socialmedia. If you need social media to promote your business
like I do, most people do, great. Go inthere as a content creator.
(43:47):
Not as a consumer. Yes.
And you will, if once you get off the— and now theresearch is just starting to really come out, like Jonathan Haidt and
some of the other authors who are looking atthe studies of short-form video and what they're
doing to kids' minds, how much the kids'learning ability has gone down since we put
(44:13):
put laptops and smartphones in classrooms.
The research is overwhelming.
These brilliant mini computers, which are so convenientand so helpful in our lives in so many ways, have
a really dangerous downside. And like some ofthe people in my entrepreneur program, what I have to
(44:35):
teach them, they might run a multimillion-dollar business, for20 years and I have to teach them how to take
a day off. And when I suggest how they have to take a dayoff and I say, "And you're gonna have to have
a no device policy during these hours,"they look at me like I just suggested
(44:58):
they should ax murder their mother or something, right?
Because they're like, "My phone is on 24/7. I have to be,I get alerts." 217 times a— yes. And that's why you
have the attention span of a gnat onespresso. That's why you can't concentrate. That's why you— I
have a client. He's a 23-year-old. He's in thetop level, the anarchist level.
(45:25):
This kid is mad genius. I don't want togive away his model, but I would tell you he, he works
in social media marketing. His own company, he founded it.
He had more than 20 billion views lastyear on his accounts. And
I'm trying to coach him how to be a better CEO andscale his company. And I couldn't
(45:51):
get him to, we kept agreeing that he would read20 minutes, a book, a physical book every
morning. And he couldn't do it.. And I kept saying, okay, you didn't like thatbook. Let's try this book. You didn't. Okay, let's
try. And finally, after listening to Haidt and another psychologistwho was on the Diary of a
(46:14):
CEO podcast, I realized, oh my God, allday, every day, he's creating and watching and
swimming around in short-form video. So of course there's no bookon earth. No attention span. Yeah, right. So now, like, I have
to coach him like, hey, this is what we've got to do. Wehave to retrain your brain so you can concentrate and
(46:38):
you're going to have to have no device days and you're going to have tohave blocks of time. Like, I wrote another book
called Mad Genius. And of all the emails and DMsand everything I get about that book, the thing that
resonated most with people is I say set aside45 minutes every week for
(47:02):
thinking. Yes. No devices. You get anotepad like this, a pen, and a cup of
green tea or coffee. And you sit in a nice comfortable chair. You go outon your balcony, you do it at the beach,
and you just think. And you think about what youwant to think about. And I get more feedback from the book
(47:25):
than what the breakthroughs people have. But that's, youknow, that's so— that's why I say I heard right now, like, I know
it. And I'll tell you why. There's multiple timesin my life every year, annually, I go with the scout group
and we go for 3 to 4 days,no phone, no technology. And I come back refreshed with great
(47:48):
ideas. But this time last year, Yeah, and Ialso, I, I often escape in nature because that's where I get reconnected and I,
I get away from a screen for an hour and ahalf hiking in nature. This time last year, I made a decision that I was
going to take every Wednesday off for8 weeks. I went to a nearby
(48:12):
mountain, the 2-hour drive, and once you get to thisplace, Mount Carleton is the area, there is
no cell phone access. So I put mysnowshoes on and I snowshoed up this
mountain called Mount Bailey. 4.5 hours. I got up to the top. There's a picnictable. I don't know how it got there, but it's a wonderful picnic
(48:35):
table. I loved it. Ihad about 6 or 7 ideas that just
came to my mind. 2 of them I implemented right awaywhen I came back. Best trip that I had that
year where I just had to— where I disconnected. Andit was only for 4 hours that I had
(49:00):
no technology. Best trip ever. And I, I— ofwhat you said, like, even, even 45 minutes, if, if we allowed
ourselves even those 45 minutes, what magic could itdo? And you literally— you have to program it if you want to really
blow your mind. I read Who Not How byDan Sullivan. Oh, I love that book. Yeah, Ben Hardy. And
(49:22):
then the 10x is better than 2x. So I really tookthat to heart. So I brought in a new
executive assistant, farmed off everything, andI tell him, okay, you have 2 days a
week to book me anything andeverything— chiropractor appointment, doctor appointment, blood test. If I want to meet with
(49:45):
Miss Cleo in the psychic hotline in the astral plane. IfI'm going to record a podcast as a guest, if I'm recording
my podcast, I'm doing coaching calls with my clients,I'm doing calls with— you have everything has to be booked in those
2 days. You're the 5th. You're literally the 5th podcastI'm recording today, right? Because it's one of my record days. And then
(50:08):
the other 5 days, I told them, you're not allowed tobook anything. That's my time. So I
won't be snowshoeing up the mountain. I'll be walking along thebeach in South Beach. So it's a little— but,
or I will be writing a book,writing a long-form podcast, a long-form blog. I'll
(50:30):
be doing my thinking time. I will beworking in my genius zone
without interruptions. And without appointments. SoI literally, if people think, oh, I'm such a
good CEO, I've got my whole calendar booked out every weekand they've got, I've got 13-minute meetings scheduled and then it's
(50:53):
followed by a 22-minute meeting and I'm like, you'reoutta your fricking mind. Okay, if you just knew
what putting, so here's the $3 million bonusto your original question is now go back, all you founders,
and look at— because I know what it is to found a business. I knowwhat it is to grind 14 hours a day. There's time
(51:14):
to do that. But there's also the time when yousay, no, it's the white space in
my calendar where the breakthroughs live. Bingo. Yeah. Andwe need to give ourselves permission to do that, Randy.
And we don't. We don't.
We don't allow ourselves to go for thatwalk on that beach. So with that, I, I think this is a
(51:42):
perfect time to end with that. But I wantto encourage our audience to share
this episode with someone in your network that can beimpacted by what Randy has shared today. We unpacked quite a
bit today. This went— always these, these when they're great like this,they go in different directions. And I really appreciate you
(52:04):
being here, Randy. It was, was avaluable short time with you. So I appreciate you. Thank
you. Thanks for bringing me in, Brett.
Yeah, no, it's great. Thanks for tuning into The Adaptive Mindset. If youfound value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a
review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in thedigital age. Stay secure, stay adaptable, and I'll see you next time.
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