Building the foundation for success is as important as working for that success. Having a good foundation, the right mindset and hard work will put you on the fast track. In this episode, Sam Wilson speaks to motivational speaker, peak performance coach and author Jeff Wickersham about his work in helping people develop their foundation and mindset. We hear about Jeff and his sure-fire methodology, the Morning Fire method, and how you can apply it to your daily life. Tune in and be inspired today.

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Discover Your Morning Fire: Awakening The Right Mindset With Jeff Wickersham

Jeff Wickersham is a sought-after peak-performance coach whose mantra is rise, fight, love, repeat. It’s also the title of his number one best-selling book Rise, Fight, love, Repeat: Ignite Your Morning Fire. He is the Founder of the Morning Fire Coaching and leader of Kings of Sparta Mastermind. He’s also crazy. He’s got 1,452 straight days of meditation and 1,110 days of cold shower/ice bath. There’s something wrong with you, which is why I’m glad to have you on the show. We like people who aren’t have all their screws tight to come on the show and tell us how to live. I’m excited to have you on the show. Jeff, welcome.

Sam, thanks for having me.

The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show. Can you quickly tell us where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there?

I started very middle-class and had a great family growing up but I was on that safe and certain. I was in that lane that society tells us to go down. Where I’m at now is completely different. You said the ice bath/cold shower. I am operating at a level that, quite honestly, looking back, I would have never expected or thought could have been possible.

I love pushing the needle every single day. Where I’m headed? I’m going to change one million lives. I want to impact one million people in a positive manner, either changing their awareness, shifting their perspective, and developing a bulletproof morning routine that lights them up on fire every day. That’s my mission moving forward.

Talk to us about a time maybe before you had this passion and fire for helping a million people. What was life before this and what was the defining moment where you said, “There’s a different way?”

 

I was in Corporate America in different jobs and roles. I went to college and got a job out of college. I’ve got the traditional path that people go down. I always felt like a square peg in a round hole in any corporate setting when I was working for smaller companies with much more of an entrepreneurial field that struck a deeper coordinate.

The life event that changed everything is, unfortunately, I lost my mom to breast cancer. When you watch the woman that brought you into this world leave this world, it fundamentally changes you at your core. That’s when I questioned everything, “What I was doing, having to be bound out of bed on fire?” The answer was exacting no.

I made a shift. I jumped into the fitness business and what organically grew out of that was peak performance coaching. How do you get the best out of yourself every single day? I see it in society. It is a world full of walking zombies who are going through the motions and not planning all out every single day. You have so many choices you can make each day to live the best version of yourself. My mission is to wake people up and have them live in their truest potential.

When you say choices, can you expound on that?

The choices happen when the alarm clock goes off in the morning. You have the choice to control the day or the day controls you, and many people give up that control the moment the alarm clock goes off. Maybe they hit snooze a couple of times, drag their butt to the shower, grab a cup of caffeinated coffee, and they are playing defense. They are hustling because they are behind. I flip that. I guide clients to wake up half an hour earlier, stack all these wins, physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. You are going to be so much more prepared, in control, and on the offensive rather than defensive.

You can shift from that one choice your perspective, energy level, focus, and productivity. I always relate to it. I know we talked a little bit about my sons. I coached them in basketball. When you play defense, the moment the alarm clock goes off, you are playing defensive basketball. Your knees are bent. Your quads are burning after a minute but you do that all day long. Many people flop on the couch at the end night, exhausted, stressed, got nothing left and say, “I can’t believe I’ve got to do this again tomorrow.” It’s because you are playing defense.

We need to fight for what we truly want and desire. Love loving yourself. If you love yourself, you can love all those around you that much better.

This has been a pretty defensive year for me when there have been a lot of things that have been quite honestly 100% outside of my control, and you go, “I am doing my best.” I’m not the only one. I bring this up because I think it’s a relevant question in that. There are times when you go, “I am white-knuckling it doing my best.” What do you say to those people to help them get through that tough periods?

One, without those tough periods, you are not going to have great periods. If you don’t have the depths, you are not going to have that bounce and when you get out of it, it’s going to feel that much better when you get that bounce. With every depth, there is a rise. With every darkness, there is a light in the days. Know that you are going to have a bounce and get through it. You can look back in your life. You have probably experienced some things that, “That was harder than this. I’ve got through it. I know I can get through it now.”

We are constantly conditioned to, “We need to be good in every area.” It doesn’t happen that way. We are going to have depths, bad times, and going to white-knuckle it. Know that you are going to have the bounce, you are on the spot and you can get through it. Everybody does. It’s so hard sometimes when you are living in it to say, “I’m going to get through it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” You know full well you can and when you have an outside influence that says that, “You’ve got this.” Surround yourself with somebody that’s got some positive energy. You are going to start that depth. You are going to start that rise out at depth and it’s incredibly powerful.

What is one of the first exercises you take someone through when they come on board with you?

One is changing their state. I love taking it three power breaths, through the belly, up through the chest, breathing out and I love countdown 3, 2, 1, and then we pound our chest at the top of our lungs because that instantly changes your physiology. Many times, we are not operating at higher energy. Our physiology is down. If you change your state, all of a sudden, you snap into action, and many times, we feel depths. We don’t do something to change our physiology and we wonder why we are not operating at a peak level.

I see you are standing up so am I. I can’t sit still anyway but even the act of standing, when we are sitting here talking, brings more energy into the conversation. That’s fascinating. What’s the next step? What’s something else that you go through that you say, “This is where I see people have a breakthrough?”

 

We all have 1 or 2 negative beliefs that we carry from our childhood. It’s either taken from our parents or something we have heard. It could be about money, self-worth or we are never going to be good enough. It could come from a teacher or coach. We are trying to slam down that gas pedal and go fast but that other foot is on that break. Know that we all have those because so many times, as human beings, we feel like we are unique. We are the only one that thinks that way. We all do. We do all have depths and we all go through a lot of stuff.

The other piece is, how do you get past that? You’ve got to be aware of it, write it down, and see it. I was taught this by a coach. Let’s say, “I’m not worthy.” You’ve got that overriding negative belief of self-worth. Write it down, “I’m not worthy.” If you are a parent or got a spouse, your kid’s name is next to it. I would write my oldest son, Jackson, like. “Jackson, you are not worthy.”

All of a sudden, it gives you one second of space to say, “Would I ever say that to my son? Absolutely not, and then why am I saying that about myself and giving you that little space to move past it. It is changing your state and getting past some of those overriding negative beliefs that play in the back of your mind that stop you so much from action because you’ve got fear and self-doubt. Those are two powerful tools.

We will probably spend the rest of our lives figuring out the limiting beliefs and things like that. It’s one of those things where you get through one, and then there’s another. Maybe it’s a chipper. You keep working at it and it keeps whittling it down. It is a fascinating exercise when you start to discover things like the poverty mentality. That’s something that I know personally. Coming from a poor background, it’s like, “Am I not worthy? Why not?”

I heard money doesn’t grow on trees so often. Why have I struggled in my past with money? Money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s a scarce resource. Even though it is so bountiful and plentiful, it is a game-changer.

Let’s talk about your book a little bit, Rise, Fight, Love, Repeat: Ignite Your Morning Fire. Can you give us some insight on why you write it and what is the big idea behind it?

Ninety percent of what we do is through our habits and rituals, repeating it over and over again so it becomes the foundation for personal professional success in your life.

I started writing this at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. My late mother was a Reading teacher and loved books. I know she was looking down when I published it saying, “I can’t believe I’m not there to celebrate it with you.” It’s a four-step methodology that I take my clients through. I relate Rise to a phoenix rising from the ashes each day being reborn, new possibilities, and new opportunities. The Fight portion is you are fighting for your physical, mental, nutritional, and emotional fitness. As adults, we lose that fight dog mentality. We need to get it back. We need to fight for what we truly want and desire. Love is loving yourself, most importantly.

If you love yourself, you can love all those around you that much better and that secret sauce is the repetition because so much of what we do can be 80%, 85% to 90% through our habits and rituals repeating it over and over again. It becomes the foundation for personal and professional success in your life. It’s incredibly powerful. It’s simple and not easy to be consistent in doing it day after day. When you build a real estate project, you start with the foundation. If you have the foundation solid, whatever happens during your days, you are still going to be rock solid in your path forward.

I’m not sure how I’m going to butcher the quote but it’s something like, “You have to choose your hard.” It’s hard to eat good food and get your nutrition. It’s also hard going to the doctor to treat your problems because you didn’t put the right nutrition in, and now you are sick. I like that idea of discipline. Talk to us about your disciplines on that note, the crazy 1,110 days of a straight cold shower/ice bath. What in the world?

I love challenging myself physically. We are physical beings and when you challenge yourself physically, the mental gifts that come out of that outweigh the physical gifts. You break through mental hurdles and the cold shower/ice bath. I’m a Wim Hof fan. I started taking that up a couple of years ago to the point where every day when I take a shower, it is ice cold.

I live up in the Northeast of the United States. In the Wintertime, it gets pretty darn cold but it’s that mental challenge of saying, “Jeff, you are crazy. Turn it on warm. Why are you going in here now?” Many times, we listen to our minds because they keep us safe and certain. That process of going through and saying, “I am not going to listen to you. I’m going to move forward.” You are dictating to your mind how you are going to act and that can transfer to everything else in life.

When you feel that fear creep in from your mind, you can say, “Go sit in the corner. I’m moving forward.” It’s that practice of getting in that habit of doing it that can be so incredibly powerful. There are some other benefits to it but it’s amazing. I feel like $1 million when I get out of there. A quick side story. My family likes the hot water heaters going in winter and I’m like, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I haven’t taken a warm shower in quite some time. You’ve got to back up for a while and take a minute warm shower.”

I’m sure your junior high age kids were right on board like the cold shower in the morning. I liked the idea of the mental gifts that come along. I have, for a while, struggled. Not with physical fitness but with the potential pride that can go along with that like, “Go to the gym and you work out.” You are like, “You slice meatheads. They are all shredded.” It’s okay but I have always enjoyed it, and I have never been able to quite identify it. You hit it because there is the mental gift that goes along with seeing accomplishing a goal, sticking to a discipline, coming out on the other side with like, “I am capable of this.” What are some of the things that you do that produce the mental gifts that you want?

Two things in 2021. One was in March. I don’t know if you are familiar with David Goggins. He’s a former Navy SEAL, author of Can’t Hurt Me. He’s an ultra-marathon runner who broke the Guinness Book of World Records for 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. He’s one of the toughest men on the planet. He throws down this challenge where you run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours straight. You are doing 48 miles in a weekend.

One of the guys in my Kings of Sparta Mastermind challenged me to do it with him. I did this past March 2021 and I’m not a runner. I don’t particularly like running long distances but here, in March, I ran started at [11:00] PM on Friday night every four hours up until [7:00] PM Sunday. I almost ran two marathons in a weekend and you only get an hour and a half of sleep.

You’ve got sleep deprivation, nutrition, and all these things but to be able to push myself to complete it without walking once, I mentally know I have so much more in the tank and any obstacle that comes in front of me, I want to attack and going to beat it. It might not be now, next week or a year from now but I will eventually win because I’m going to be relentless and tenacious. That’s number one.

This 2021, I did 100,000 pushups as well and set a goal for that. I was doing that day in and day out. I had a mark of 300 pushups a day. I hit it in late November 2021 and it’s that discipline of doing it every single day. Before I get on a show, I drop into 30 pushups. It’s that nature of when it can start to mold your mind through the physical pieces. There are so many gifts and you become unstoppable in what you are going to do.

In this sedentary existence that we have had office chairs and Zoom calls, not the Zoom call now but you lose that even more animalistic grit that we had to develop early on. We have lost touch with some of that. Your body is far more capable than your mind. Getting your mind in shape is a valuable skill. I have certainly enjoyed this. Let’s talk about some other things here real quick before we jump into the final four. Talk to us about what you have defined maybe as a failure in your life and then how did you overcome it?

You need to treat real estate like a business, not like a hobby.

My first business as a gym owner was a failure. I have $100,000 in debt. I didn’t know jumping into the entrepreneurial space, and now I have learned so many lessons from that as far as discipline from a finances perspective and do the work that truly matters in your business, not the busy work that you can all fall into those traps on your business. That was a tough pill to swallow. I don’t like to necessarily say anything was a failure but that was. I have learned from it and grown. Now, I feel so much more equipped to take on anything in my life.

Tony Robbins said, “There is no failure, only feedback.”

If you frame it up that way, all of a sudden, it feels light. What do I need to adjust? You keep moving forward. It’s that constant growth, progress, and gets better than you were yesterday. Focus on that, and tomorrow, get better than you are now. If you can have that mindset, amazing things can happen.

What does it mean for you personally to be successful?

Freedom to do what I want when I want as well as impact as many people as possible. The freedom to design my life the way I want to.

Let’s jump here to the final four questions. What’s one tool or resource you find you can’t live without?

 

My meditation app. Meditation every single day has calmed my mind and being able to sit in silence for 10 to 15 minutes and focus on my breath has been a game-changer.

My second question is a real estate-related question but I’m not sure it’s going to apply because I’m not even sure if you are in real estate. If you could help our readers avoid one mistake in real estate or let’s even tweak it a little bit and say, “It’s one mistake that people are making in mindset, goal setting or anything that you want to add in here.” What is one mistake you could help our readers avoid?

I am in real estate and I have owned rental properties for a couple of years. You need to treat it like a business, not like a hobby.

When it comes to investing in the world, what’s one thing you are doing now to make the world a better place?

Giving my time to those kids that I coach in youth sports. Guiding them, not only in the sports arena but sharing lessons they are going to teach them and guide them in life.

How can our readers get in touch with you or learn more about you?

They can go out to www.TheMorningFire.com. I’ve got tons of content there and links to the podcast and my book. You can find my book out on Amazon, Rise, Fight, love, Repeat: Ignite Your Morning Fire, as well as you can search up Morning Fire for Entrepreneurs on all your major podcast providers.

Jeff, thank you so much for your time. I do appreciate it.

Sam, thank you so much.

Important Links:

• Rise, Fight, love, Repeat: Ignite Your Morning Fire
• Morning Fire Coaching
• Kings of Sparta Mastermind
• Can’t Hurt Me
• Morning Fire for Entrepreneurs
• www.QueensOfSparta.com

About Jeff Wickersham

Jeff Wickersham is a sought-after peak-performance coach who’s mantra is Rise, Fight, Love, Repeat … which is also the title of his #1 Best Selling Book – Rise, Fight, Love, Repeat – Ignite Your Morning Fire.