OoM 022： Overcoming Struggle and Achieving Greatness with Division I, All-American Wrestler, Jim Harshaw
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
219.74338
Summary
As men, we ve all had struggles and adversity. What separates the triumphant from those that get lost in the despair is an ability to overcome pain and suffering. My guest today, former NCAA All-American wrestler Jim Harshaw, teaches us how we can do just that and achieve greatness in the process.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
As men, we've all had struggles and adversity. What separates the triumphant from those that
00:00:04.100
get lost in the despair is an ability to overcome pain and suffering. My guest today,
00:00:08.180
former Division I All-American wrestler Jim Harshaw, teaches us how we can do just that
00:00:12.600
and achieve greatness in the process. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest,
00:00:17.740
embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up
00:00:22.920
one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
00:00:30.000
This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,
00:00:35.680
and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:00:41.020
Guys, what is going on? Welcome back to the Order of Man podcast. Of course,
00:00:44.540
we've got a great one lined up for you today, as always. For those of you who have been listening
00:00:48.200
to the show for any amount of time, you know that I'm a huge fan of sports. I played football,
00:00:53.100
baseball, and I wrestled in high school. And although I did not achieve nearly the same
00:00:57.340
level of success as my guest today, and some of the other guests that I've had on,
00:01:01.180
I've learned a ton from competitive sports about how to succeed in life. Jim Harshaw and I are going
00:01:06.100
to talk all about that today and more. But two quick things before we get into the interview.
00:01:11.120
First, and as always, thanks again for the ratings and reviews. I really appreciate those
00:01:15.200
as a vote of thanks for what we're doing here at the Order of Man. If you haven't left a review yet,
00:01:19.560
you can head over to orderofman.com slash iTunes and let us know what you think of the show.
00:01:24.400
Let us know how we're doing. I will be grateful if you did. Also, many of you have probably heard
00:01:29.300
of the new app Periscope, which is a live streaming app that is taking the social media world by storm.
00:01:34.900
I've got to tell you, I'm hooked. I've got the bug. If you are on Periscope or interested in
00:01:38.960
checking it out, be sure to follow us at Order of Man. I've done a scope of morning rituals. I did a
00:01:44.080
live preview of the treehouse I'm building for my sons. We talked about eight skill sets every man
00:01:48.440
must master. And I even did a behind the scenes sneak peek into my workshop slash office slash
00:01:54.220
recording studio slash house storage. We've got a lot going on out there. And I did a behind the
00:01:59.060
scenes sneak peek into that on our Periscope. So again, check it out on Periscope at Order of Man.
00:02:04.140
And we're going to use the hashtag scope of man for the show. So be sure to check that out.
00:02:08.620
Now, let me introduce you to our guest today. He is a former division one, all American wrestler.
00:02:13.520
His name is Jim Harshaw. Jim has learned a ton of valuable lessons about life on the wrestling mat.
00:02:18.060
And he has set out on a mission to share those stories of struggle and of pain and suffering,
00:02:22.600
but most importantly, how to achieve greatness. He's won three ACC championships for the University
00:02:28.740
of Virginia. He's trained at the Olympic Training Center, and he's also competed overseas for Team
00:02:33.440
USA. He's got a lot going on. His goal is really to relate those powerful lessons of failure, struggle,
00:02:38.980
setbacks. And really what he wants to do is empower his audience to overcome their own challenges
00:02:43.360
and achieve success, but despite some of those inevitable failures. So you can find him podcasting
00:02:49.240
on the Wrestling With Greatness podcast. Jim, hey, thanks for joining us on the show today. I'm
00:02:53.880
excited to have you here. Likewise, Ryan. Great thing. Thanks for having me on the show.
00:02:57.860
So we've got some common interest in wrestling. You wrestled a lot more and your skills were a lot
00:03:02.820
better than mine was. I only wrestled for two years, but I think we'll have a good conversation
00:03:06.300
about wrestling and life and all that fun stuff. Yeah, man. Once a wrestler, always a wrestler.
00:03:09.920
That's right. That's right. So my first question for you is, I'd like to know a little bit about
00:03:14.920
your backstory, how a former Division I All-American goes from wrestling to now in this business world
00:03:21.100
and the business space and leadership and self-development. Sure, sure. This could be a
00:03:25.300
long story, but I'm going to abbreviate it as best I can. So I grew up about a half an hour north of
00:03:29.220
Pittsburgh. And Pennsylvania, the roots of wrestling run deep in Pennsylvania. And I played baseball and
00:03:39.360
football and soccer and ran cross country. And I've done a lot of different sports, but wrestling was
00:03:43.960
that sport that stuck with me. It's the sport that I excelled at. And I learned early on that
00:03:49.980
the harder I worked, the more successful I was. I didn't have to depend on teammates for me to
00:03:55.880
succeed. And that was attractive to me. And that's also the hardest part of the sport is that you don't
00:04:01.220
have anybody to blame or to hide behind or to really share in the pains and struggles like you
00:04:09.380
do in a lot of team sports. So I had a successful high school career for the most part. Failed to
00:04:16.720
achieve my dream, which was becoming a state champion. As a matter of fact, I never even made
00:04:22.720
it onto the podium. I actually never placed in the high school state championships. Basically,
00:04:27.220
I was more or less a recruited walk-on at the University of Virginia. I was part of a top
00:04:32.240
10 recruiting class in the country. I was not part of the reason why we were ranked top 10. But
00:04:36.880
by the end of it, I ended up winning three ACC championships and becoming an All-American.
00:04:43.560
So by those stats, I was probably the most successful wrestler out of that recruiting class. So I just
00:04:51.720
enjoyed the hard work and really thrived on that. And then he asked about leadership and kind
00:04:56.920
of how I got into, you know, where that sort of came from. And I've done a lot of jobs. But one
00:05:03.960
of the, I was a Division I coach for seven years, two of those years as a Division I head coach for
00:05:10.820
a small school in Pennsylvania, Slippery Rock University. It was a Division II athletics. We
00:05:15.380
wrestled Division I, opted to wrestle up the Division I level because we had a lot of historical
00:05:20.100
success with the program. And, you know, once you get into coaching, it just kind of, you hear
00:05:25.420
yourself repeating all these things that leaders throughout your life have said. And, you know,
00:05:31.440
just like when you become a parent, you know, you're a father and I'm a father. And when you become a
00:05:35.860
parent, you hear these things that you've had other people in your life telling you growing up,
00:05:40.220
teachers and parents and coaches, et cetera. And I found myself saying those same things and just
00:05:45.760
really have really thrived on self-help books and reading and lifelong learning. And that's led to
00:05:53.220
just some different opportunities and speaking opportunities. And now I have my platform, which
00:05:58.880
is jimharshaw.net and then the Wrestling and the Greatest Podcast. So I'm curious how things changed
00:06:06.080
for you in your life because you said you never even reached the podium in high school, but all of a
00:06:09.760
sudden you go into college and you start wrestling there and, you know, you have your titles and
00:06:15.500
things there. What changed for you? Was it just physical changes? Was it mental changes?
00:06:19.880
Yeah, yeah. It was a lot of those things. Gosh, physical changes, I was a late bloomer for one.
00:06:25.300
And then mental changes, you know, I finally had, you know, I always had great people in my life and
00:06:32.060
just great coaches who really molded me and shaped me through the years. And my parents were just
00:06:37.920
unbelievable supporters of me through the years, as well as my sisters who were my wrestling partners on
00:06:43.400
the living room floor and I was practicing two moves at home. But really, you know, what changed is
00:06:50.620
I finally, I had a coach. I'll give you one example. I had a coach, and I'll give you one specific
00:06:55.860
example. I had a coach whose name is John McGovern. He's actually the head wrestling coach at Division
00:07:00.980
3 Dubuque University. He was our assistant coach at Virginia. And he convinced me, I was at the
00:07:08.460
national championships my sophomore year, and I had to wrestle the number one ranked wrestler in the
00:07:12.480
country. He was undefeated, number one ranked wrestler. He had won two national championships
00:07:16.300
already. He actually, the year he didn't win, he actually got second. So he's a three-time national
00:07:21.580
finalist. He's one of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport. He's from Iowa. We're in Iowa,
00:07:28.020
and there's 20,000 people in the arena. And I've got to wrestle this. I've got to wrestle this,
00:07:32.680
right? And while John actually used to be the assistant coach at Iowa, so he knew this guy.
00:07:40.000
And John got in my head, now he's my assistant coach, and he convinced me that I'm going to beat
00:07:44.720
this guy. And I stepped on the mat, not just believing that I was going to beat him, but like
00:07:49.440
I knew for a fact, I'm going to beat this. Like it was just, I walked on the mat with 100% confidence,
00:07:53.560
I'm going to beat this guy. And I went out, and I proceeded to get completely dismantled.
00:07:59.220
So not the ending of the story that you'd like to hear, but this was a turning point in my life,
00:08:06.120
because I finally realized that my only shot was if I believed. So my chances went from like
00:08:13.040
one in 1,000 to beating this guy to one in 100, you know? And sure, it's one in 100, but
00:08:18.280
they were 10 times better. The odds were 10 times better if I just believed. And so I realized that
00:08:24.200
believing, there was no harm in that, right? So I went out in the very
00:08:29.120
next match, and I beat the highest ranked wrestler in the country who I'd ever beaten.
00:08:32.700
It was a guy ranked sixth in the country, and I beat him, because I walked on the mat with
00:08:36.280
this same sort of idea in my head. It's like, I'm going to beat him. And deep down, you go,
00:08:42.180
well, even if I don't, it doesn't matter. I'm still going to beat this guy. I'm going to
00:08:45.960
pretend I'm going to beat him. I'm going to act like I'm going to beat him. I'm going to have
00:08:48.400
the confidence and the belief, self-belief that I'm going to beat him. And if you fail,
00:08:53.260
well, you fail, but your best shot is believing. So this was kind of a turning point in my life
00:08:58.480
where I stopped having as much self-doubt. You know, I just had so much self-doubt in my whole
00:09:06.100
life. And at that point, I realized, well, self-doubt doesn't do me any good. So why not
00:09:11.120
just believe big, big things, and maybe, just maybe, you have a shot at achieving them. So that
00:09:17.820
kind of, that was a turning point in my life. How does somebody go from maybe not having any
00:09:23.600
success in one certain area to all of a sudden, because we hear this fake till you make it type
00:09:27.780
thing. And how do you go from not having any success in one area to, I'm just going to fake
00:09:31.940
it. I'm going to believe that I can. What's that transition like? And how does that work for men
00:09:37.040
who maybe don't have any success in a certain area that they're trying to accomplish any degree of
00:09:41.640
success in? Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So over the years, you see successful people,
00:09:47.500
right? Whether it's in wrestling or business or politics or Hollywood or anything, right? And we
00:09:55.080
just, all of us, you know, the listener, you and me, we all know successful people, right? We all
00:10:00.680
sort of see these people who we want to emulate, or maybe that's our boss or this leader in our
00:10:04.800
community or a friend who's just achieved at a high level or a coach that we had. And when you look
00:10:12.060
at all these people, there are commonalities, right? There are things that they do, experiences
00:10:19.240
that they've had and things that they create that help them become successful. And, and I've sort of
00:10:24.960
boiled this down to a formula that just by doing a lot of research and, and, and it's, it kind of goes
00:10:30.540
like this. So, so successful people, when you look at the highest level, it's just successful people.
00:10:35.180
They understand their values, right? They understand what they want. And when you understand
00:10:43.500
deep down what you want, you can, you understand where to set goals. So for example, you can ask
00:10:48.280
yourself if I made another, let's pick a number, $50,000 a year. Starting today, I make another $50,000
00:10:56.040
a year, every year for the rest of my life. You know, even, you know, I get my raises and make more
00:11:00.640
money, whatever, add $50,000 to that. You got this annuity coming in at 50 grand a year.
00:11:05.620
What does that change in your life? So what, so what, what pressures does it relieve? And what does
00:11:11.440
it, what does it make you excited to do? So maybe it's saving for your, you know, you and I are dads,
00:11:17.400
you know, and tuition's going up ridiculous rates. You know, for me, I would say, well, it's going to
00:11:20.980
make, it's going to be, it's going to help me pay for my children's college, right? So it's going to
00:11:25.500
help me when my parents, as my parents age, it's going to help them, you know, relieve their financial
00:11:30.360
burdens as, as they age and kind of help out when, when I need to help out and step into their
00:11:34.860
lives. It's going to help me take that dream vacation to, to Tahiti with my wife that I've
00:11:40.860
always dreamed of taking, you know, it's going to help. So when you answer these kinds of questions,
00:11:44.700
it helps you identify your values. Okay. So what's important to me? Education is important to me for
00:11:49.360
my children, you know, taking care of my mom and dad, my family, you know what I mean? My closest family
00:11:54.300
taking care of that family is very important to me. My wife, my, you know, relationship with my wife,
00:11:59.080
experience and adventure is important to me. So these are sort of things that are important to
00:12:04.220
me in my life. And when you ask yourself these questions, you understand your values. And then
00:12:08.360
you go from there, you go, okay, if those are my values, what are my goals? And I, I, there are
00:12:13.080
four areas in your life where, where you should be setting goals and it's relationships, self, health,
00:12:19.620
and wealth. So relationships is for me, it's, it's my wife. It's, it's the number one relationship in my
00:12:24.260
life. And my self goals are, uh, around, you know, skills you need to develop knowledge,
00:12:30.760
knowledge you need to acquire experiences you need to acquire in order to get to the next level,
00:12:35.720
achieve your biggest goals. And health is, you know, what are my fitness goals? What do I want to,
00:12:41.560
you know, my diet, do I want to lose 30 pounds? Um, do I want to run a marathon? What are my fitness
00:12:46.600
goals and health goals? And then finally, and these are in order of importance and is your wealth goal?
00:12:52.140
Cause if you could have all the money in the world, you can win the lottery tomorrow. But if
00:12:55.480
you have a broken relationship with your spouse and, and you don't feel like you're growing or
00:12:59.320
learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge and your health is in terrible shape, then all the
00:13:04.620
money in the world is irrelevant. You know, you're not right. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
00:13:08.560
Right. And then you look at successful people. So they have these, these, these clear values,
00:13:12.780
they have these clearly identified goals, and then they have this environment of success,
00:13:16.680
right? This is this, they have, um, you hear a lot about mastermind group, you know,
00:13:21.460
a lot of the most successful people in the world and the planet in any industry are surrounded by
00:13:26.080
either on purpose or it just happens. But if you're, if it's not just in your life, the listener,
00:13:30.880
you've got to create these, these, this group of people around you. It's like a mastermind group.
00:13:35.260
You know, Jim Rohn said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
00:13:39.900
Well, you know, change the people you want to, that you're spending the most time with. If you need
00:13:44.980
to bring in more successful people in your life, you got to create that. So for me,
00:13:49.120
it's creating that environment means, um, getting around the right people. It means
00:13:53.020
filling, listening to podcasts like order of man on my drive to work instead of, I like that. Yeah.
00:13:58.000
Instead of ESPN radio, I love ESPN radio, but you know what? Listening to your podcast is,
00:14:03.660
is more powerful for me and, and more life changing. It's going to help me get closer to my
00:14:07.640
goals than listening to ESPN radio. Um, and, uh, and, and, and then choosing the words that you say
00:14:13.140
to yourself, you know, I have a mantra that I repeat to myself every day on my drive to work and,
00:14:17.520
uh, just building yourself up, controlling that self-talk. So those are things that successful
00:14:21.820
people do. And then when you do those, you know, you, once you get on that path and you feel like
00:14:28.000
you're on the right path, you have a clear path in front of you, you know, your path, then,
00:14:32.960
then you, you instantly feel more successful because you know where you're going, you get clarity and
00:14:37.760
you, um, you know, you just sleep better at night and you wake up more passionate, excited about
00:14:41.620
the day. Even if, even if you're going to, you know, you're still facing the same struggles as
00:14:45.220
everybody else, but you face them with a different mindset. So I have a ton of men that I talk with
00:14:49.700
on a daily basis who are asking me questions like, what should I do to be successful? And I love how
00:14:54.420
you lay that out because I think once you identify your values and you put yourself in the right
00:14:59.520
environment and all of those things, you have those goals that you talked about, the actions almost
00:15:03.840
come naturally. Like it's almost like self-fulfilling once you get your head right, it seems like.
00:15:08.720
Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Like, you know, I, I was, uh, give you an example. I was, I was voted
00:15:14.700
the team's hardest worker, my sophomore, junior, and senior year on my college wrestling at UVA
00:15:20.280
in Virginia. And, and, you know, it's like, well, how I look back, I'm like, how in goodness name did
00:15:26.620
I ever put myself through the amount of pain and struggle and torture that I did to achieve the,
00:15:32.180
you know, it's the highest level. And it's like, well, it wasn't that hard at the time because
00:15:36.320
I knew my values. I knew, I knew what my values were. I knew what my goals were. So therefore,
00:15:41.820
when I faced struggle and defeat and setbacks, it's, I could overcome them more easily than
00:15:47.520
other people. Not easily, but it's still hard. I mean, I mean, there's still pain and struggle
00:15:52.100
and days where the self-doubt was just overwhelming. But when you're clear, like you said, clear on those
00:15:58.020
things, you can overcome those, those obstacles and setbacks and failures that are just inevitable.
00:16:04.260
What are some of the struggles that you dealt with as a college athlete? And then how does that
00:16:08.300
translate over into everyday life now that you're, you're, uh, you're a business owner and then doing
00:16:14.740
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it was just, I'll give you two examples. Um, the first one is self-doubt. I mean,
00:16:22.660
the self-doubt that I had in my life was just, it was exceeded the, uh, uh, the, the necessary amount
00:16:30.820
that I should have had because I had had success prior to that. But when you just, um, when you have
00:16:35.860
that self-doubt, it just holds you back, you lower your dreams, you lower your goals. And I've
00:16:39.740
been doing that my whole life. And, and then once I realized, you know, it's okay to believe in dream
00:16:44.440
big and go for it at the highest level, then everything changes. So that was my biggest struggle
00:16:50.020
as a self-doubt, but I'll give you a physical challenge that I had. And I had, um, fairly severe
00:16:55.100
asthma. Uh, I'd be the guy over in the corner, you know, half an hour before my match breathing
00:17:00.320
into a machine. It's called a nebulizer for anybody out there who has asthma or has kids
00:17:04.860
who have asthma. Um, and they, and they know what a nebulizer is, but it's a, this machine
00:17:09.100
that you put a medicine and you breathe into it. And, and I had to struggle with this stuff,
00:17:12.880
man. And, and I would, um, struggle a lot of days in practice with my asthma. Um, and honestly,
00:17:18.820
my mindset became, well, you know, so I'm having, you can have an asthma attack on a scale
00:17:23.900
from zero to a hundred, you know, so an asthma attack, they're not all the same, you know,
00:17:27.340
you can have mild ones and I would have a lot of mild ones during practices. And I decided
00:17:33.520
to look at them as, um, as a benefit for me as this sort of unfair advantage, because my
00:17:41.360
body had to work harder to do the same things in practice that everybody else had to do.
00:17:46.820
Like I wasn't taking in as much oxygen, but I was doing the same things as everybody else.
00:17:50.540
And so therefore my body was, I was actually getting in better condition.
00:17:53.900
You know, because, uh, you know, because I was struggling more to, to make it through
00:17:58.560
practice than the other guys. And, uh, so therefore my body had to, to use oxygen more
00:18:02.680
efficiently. And that's basically what you're doing when you're, when you're conditioned,
00:18:05.260
doing any kind of conditioning. Um, so it's, you know, that change in mindset that helps,
00:18:09.840
but those are two obstacles that, uh, certainly as I had.
00:18:12.400
No, no, it's interesting. You're the second athlete in two weeks that I've talked with that
00:18:16.040
has had that exact same issue and pretty close to the same response. And you both have,
00:18:20.000
both have achieved on a very, very high level. So that's pretty interesting to hear.
00:18:24.580
What, uh, keeps men from believing big? I mean, that's one of the things you said is,
00:18:29.520
is you came to this realization that it's okay to dream big and to go after these things,
00:18:33.920
but I don't think a lot of people feel that same way. And so I'm really curious as to your take on
00:18:39.080
why men don't dream big and take those big actions and those big risks in their lives.
00:18:43.860
Yeah. We're programmed for it, Ryan. You know, we're, you know, from a young age,
00:18:48.300
we're programmed to, to pull back and to, you know, um, to lower our goals and to lower risk
00:18:55.180
really, you know, I mean, it's really programmed into us from our caveman days is, you know,
00:18:59.620
we're programmed to lower risk and lower pain and, and avoid pain and struggle. And, um, yeah,
00:19:05.820
I've, I've, I've a good friend who was, uh, the national NCAA national soccer player of the year,
00:19:10.780
uh, you know, we're, we're classmates. And I remember talking to him once that we would both
00:19:16.220
finished our career. He was actually in med school at the time. And I was, uh, um, I was the assistant
00:19:21.060
wrestling coach. And he said, do you know, Jim, he said, you know, if you're willing to go through
00:19:25.620
enough pain and struggle, uh, what do you say? Um, pain and suffering, you, you can achieve anything.
00:19:32.760
And I thought about that. I'm like, that's so true. Now, most people are, we, we want to avoid it,
00:19:38.060
right? We want to avoid failure and pain and struggle. So we sort of take this,
00:19:42.160
I don't want to say the easy way out, but we, we, we lower our goals a little bit because those are,
00:19:46.580
you know, there's a little bit, maybe a less, um, uh, struggle to, to get there. But when you
00:19:52.140
think about it, you know, if you, if you take your goals and you double it or triplet or quadruplet,
00:19:57.320
you still have the same 24 hours in the day, right? You're still, everybody listening to the show
00:20:02.300
works really hard. You're not going to talk to anybody who said who's, especially who's listening to
00:20:05.620
this show. You know, people who listen to this show are, are successful. People want success,
00:20:09.720
want more, who are working hard. They're investing time into themselves. So we're talking to the right
00:20:14.320
audience here. So they're the kind of people who already work hard. So if you're, you don't have
00:20:19.860
any more hours in the day, if you double your goals, but the phone calls you're going to make
00:20:24.500
might be to a different person. The, the things that you do with your days are going to be a little
00:20:31.340
bit different. The thing you're going to have the same number of hours, but you just do different
00:20:34.480
things. Setting your goals higher doesn't actually take more time or effort necessarily, but you just
00:20:40.620
do different things. So set your goals higher. And, and, and if you set your goals big enough, I mean,
00:20:45.680
it's really hard to completely fail. I mean, I'll be honest, my, my goal in college is to be a national
00:20:50.200
champion, but I failed and I was still on all American, all Americans top eight. If you finish in
00:20:54.520
the top eight, you're all American. But had I not set my goal to be a national champion, I probably would
00:20:58.200
have never been an all American. So set your goals big, set your goals high, but it's against our
00:21:03.960
programming. It's against our programming. So you have to have sort of a process that allows you
00:21:09.460
to create this mindset and sustain it. You know, Zig Ziglar said something, I'm going to, I'm going to
00:21:14.180
butcher this quote, but he said something like they says, uh, some people say that motivation doesn't
00:21:18.500
last, but that's why we need to do it every day. Just like, you know, neither does, oh, he says,
00:21:23.500
neither does taking a shower or taking a bath. That's why we recommend it every day, you know? And so you
00:21:29.180
have to continually motivate yourself. And that's what I'm talking about with this, this environment,
00:21:33.440
creating a mastermind group, having a mantra that you repeat to yourself, listening to podcasts,
00:21:38.240
they're going to build you up and inspire you and, and cause you to think bigger and take bigger
00:21:44.200
actions on a daily basis. You can't listen to the show and go, okay, well, great. I'm good now.
00:21:49.260
Now I'm not going to do it. I'm upset. You know, my mindset's good. Now you got to do this on a
00:21:53.020
regular basis. So what are some of the, you know, quote unquote, pain and suffering that,
00:21:58.080
that you are currently putting yourself through that's helping you get to the next level? Because
00:22:02.660
I know you have big dreams now. So what are some of the things that you do? Yeah. Um,
00:22:07.340
so when you look at these things, you know, they're, they're pain and struggle that it's just
00:22:11.700
getting outside of your comfort zone. But again, they're easier because I'm very clear on my values.
00:22:16.120
I'm clear, very clear on my goals. So these things that used to be hard for me or might seem hard to
00:22:21.780
maybe the listener are very easy actually once you get clear on your values and your goals. So
00:22:27.480
a couple of examples is, um, is I wake up at 5am every day and I used to, I remember I graduated
00:22:34.300
from college thinking I was afraid to get a job, like a real job in the real world because I didn't
00:22:39.080
want to have to wake up early every morning, go to work. And so I'm not a morning person, but I get up
00:22:46.240
with filled with energy and passion every single morning because it's the time before my kids wake
00:22:52.580
up and before the family gets gone where I have peace and quiet. And it's this sort of magical,
00:22:57.980
mystical time of day where you can just get so much done and, and you know, you have this fresh new day
00:23:02.700
in front of you. And so that's one thing. So I get up at 5am every day. Um, I work out on a very
00:23:08.260
regular basis and, um, that's, I think painful to a lot of people. Um, I, I eat right. I've, I've
00:23:14.660
health goals, which, you know, involves my, not only my workouts, but my diet. And so I have a,
00:23:20.500
I, by no means a very, really strict diet. So I'm pretty comfortable with my health, but you know,
00:23:24.440
I eat the right foods and I, I've, you know, I've, I gave you one small, uh, almost ridiculous
00:23:29.000
example. It's like, uh, I used to drink cream and sugar on my coffee eventually. So I cut out sugar
00:23:34.060
and then eventually I cut out cream and now I just drink my coffee black. And it's like,
00:23:37.220
it was really hard to go through those two weeks of just making that change. But now I'm taking in
00:23:41.760
less calories, less sugar, less fat every day in my diet. Um, just doing things like that. And,
00:23:47.060
uh, but really, you know, it's being disciplined, creating these, these peak performance routines.
00:23:51.720
You know, you look at successful people and they have these peak performance routines. They have
00:23:55.180
these habits that, that are just common among a lot of successful people. And it's like getting up early,
00:24:01.820
uh, working out, um, being clear on your daily goals, things like that, being just discipline,
00:24:07.760
executing discipline on a daily basis. So what are some of the things that you're doing?
00:24:12.040
Well, I'm really curious. Let me back up here because we hear a lot about morning rituals and
00:24:15.960
morning routines. I, in fact, I just did a YouTube video on how to create the perfect morning routine,
00:24:20.180
but we very rarely hear anything about the end of the days. You're winding things down or settling
00:24:25.440
things down for the day. Are there some things that you're doing at the end of the day to
00:24:28.680
kind of clear out your day and think about what's ahead? Yeah. The, the biggest thing that I do at
00:24:34.120
the end of my day and my, and I don't do this at night rather it's, it's, it's at the end of my
00:24:38.320
work day. And every day at four 30, I have an alarm that goes off on my phone and it's the reminder to
00:24:43.240
set my goals for the next day. I'm, I'm deeply in, you know, I'm ensconced in my work at the time.
00:24:48.840
And I know what I haven't had time to do today and what I need to do next. Um, and it's much easier to
00:24:56.440
do that when you're in the moment, when you're, when you're in your work day, as opposed to
00:25:00.860
starting the next work day and going, okay, what do I need to do again? So I actually set my work,
00:25:05.680
set my goals for the next day, uh, the day before. So this afternoon I'm going to set my goals for
00:25:11.480
tomorrow and it, uh, and it really helps me, uh, just start my day with, you know, with high
00:25:18.140
productivity. And I always ask myself, what's the most important thing? So if I, if I can only get
00:25:21.800
three things done on my to-do list tomorrow, what are the three things that when I walk out of the
00:25:26.980
office, when I leave, that are going to make me feel most satisfied with my work day? So that's,
00:25:32.760
that's, that's the biggest thing for me in terms of productivity and getting things done.
00:25:36.860
So Jim, I want to jump back to something you said in the very beginning of the interview,
00:25:39.580
you talked a lot about why wrestling resonated with you so well and, and why you valued wrestling
00:25:44.980
over some of the other sports that you've played. Are there some specific lessons that you take
00:25:48.860
from wrestling and then have applied in your life? And what are some of those lessons that we can
00:25:52.360
apply in our lives? Yeah, geez, you know, probably a ton, tons. And, and wrestling isn't, you know,
00:26:00.760
I think wrestling is just a great, you know, a great arena in which to learn life lessons because
00:26:07.580
it's an individual sport, because it's so physical and painful and challenging in so many ways. Um, and
00:26:14.720
you're out there alone by yourself, but really, I mean, any sport, I, gosh, my, my one son, uh,
00:26:19.700
he's seven, he plays piano and it's the same thing for him. I, I tell my kids, I, they know this quote
00:26:26.280
off by heart. If I said it, if you, if I said the first couple of sentences or a couple of words of
00:26:30.120
it, they would repeat the rest of it. But I tell them, you get tough by doing tough things. You get
00:26:34.440
tough by doing tough things. And what does tough mean? I mean, tough means being resilient and being
00:26:39.800
disciplined and, um, being able to get up when you get knocked down and, and being able to do
00:26:46.160
things that are challenging or otherwise, you know, something you don't want to do. And, and
00:26:50.900
that's, I mean, you can get tough from playing piano. You know, I tell my seven year old, it's
00:26:54.200
like, you've got to practice, practice piano when you don't want to, you know, if you want to get
00:26:58.080
better at it, which he does. And he plays baseball and basketball and wrestling. He, you know, if you
00:27:04.200
want to get better at piano, you've got to go through the same pain and suffering that my buddy,
00:27:07.900
my soccer player, but it was telling me about, you know, he's like, you got to go through that
00:27:11.220
same pain and suffering, whether you're learning to play piano or wrestling or football or trying to,
00:27:17.860
um, you know, whatever it, you're trying to excel at anything, you know, becoming a, trying to master
00:27:23.280
anything. And, and so that's what, what I've taken is, is hard work. You know, that's the biggest
00:27:28.740
thing. And I've had people, you know, tell me, Jim, you're just wired differently than the rest of us,
00:27:33.260
you know? And, and I, I think, you know, I take that as a compliment because my goal is to outwork
00:27:38.080
everybody every day. Um, and when you do that, you're just going to, you're going to get better.
00:27:43.820
And that's the secret to success is, you know, people, you know, always looking for a formula
00:27:47.960
or a secret. It's like, it comes down to hard work, you know, successful people really work hard.
00:27:53.460
Now you're going to find the, every once in a while, you're going to find that person who doesn't work
00:27:56.780
hard, but they're successful. And it's like, that's the anomaly, you know, that's the one in 10,
00:28:01.080
that's a one in 100. The rest of the successful people out there, their nose is the grindstone
00:28:06.280
and they work hard. And that's the biggest thing I take from athletics, but, but also just the
00:28:10.660
process of goal setting of struggle and failure. You know, I, I gave a Ted talk. If you Google
00:28:19.280
Jim Harshaw Ted talk, it'll come up, but I did a Ted talk called why I teach my children to fail.
00:28:25.320
And a lot of it is based around my experiences, uh, failing in the sport of wrestling. And that's
00:28:32.600
the, you know, it's one of the biggest thing that you take from athletics is like you fail,
00:28:35.740
but you, you learn from those failures and you get up and you apply those to your life. And so,
00:28:40.280
so most people don't stop long enough to think about how do I apply those lessons from when I was
00:28:46.520
an athlete or a wrestler or otherwise, and how do I apply them to my life today? Okay. Well, I,
00:28:52.460
you know, I didn't make that last sale. I was trying to make a big sale at work and I didn't
00:28:55.900
make it or, um, gotten an argument with my wife or, you know, uh, whatever the case may be, you know,
00:29:02.380
there's a million things that, you know, failures and things that go wrong in life. You know, you get
00:29:05.900
in a car accident, you know, and it's not your fault, but you get blamed for it and, and you got
00:29:09.760
to pay for it. You know, like there's all these things in life. It's like, well, hold on. I've dealt
00:29:13.740
with this kind of thing before. What's the best way for me to handle this? You know, what's,
00:29:19.380
what's the best way for me to overcome this obstacle, this failure, this setback,
00:29:23.440
this challenge in my life and apply those lessons that you've already learned. You know,
00:29:27.540
what would your coach tell you? You know, that coach, that person you respect the most
00:29:31.240
that, that, you know, that molded you, you know, what would that person tell you? How would they
00:29:36.600
tell you to handle it and handle it that way? No, that's great advice. Have you read the book
00:29:40.700
resilience by Eric Greitens? I've not, but I've heard of it and I got on my, uh, my reading list.
00:29:45.600
Yeah. It's definitely one worth reading and it talks a lot about what you're talking about is
00:29:49.800
going through struggle and hardship in life and how to overcome that and what type of value and
00:29:53.540
what type of man you need to be to overcome some of the trials and adversity of life. I think you'd
00:29:57.840
really enjoy it. Yeah. I'm going to write that. I'm going to star that one next to my, uh,
00:30:02.300
yeah, you bring list. So let's go back to one of the things that you said that intrigued me is
00:30:07.240
you said some people have told you that you're wired differently. Let's talk about that. Do you think
00:30:11.300
that there are certain people that are wired for success or do you think this is something
00:30:14.840
everybody can achieve? Do some people have to work harder at it? Tell me a little bit about
00:30:18.600
the differences in personalities and how that relates to their ability to succeed in life.
00:30:23.320
I used to believe that the success was for other people. I used to believe it, you know,
00:30:27.860
when I was in high school as a rest, I keep, you know, I'd go back to my wrestling career because
00:30:30.880
that was just such a focal point in my life that taught me so many lessons. But I always used to just
00:30:35.300
think that success was for the other guy, you know, and I had training partners who went on to be
00:30:41.340
national champions and state champions in high school. And I always just kind of thought
00:30:45.160
deep down, that's for those guys. I'm just, I'm not at that level. And, and, but I've realized that
00:30:52.700
success can be for anybody, for anybody, but you've got to do these certain things, you know,
00:30:57.960
and I look at the successful people that were around me then who, who I didn't, you know, I didn't
00:31:03.000
have my goals and dreams set as big as them. And I look at the things that they had in their life
00:31:06.220
or why they were more successful. It's like, well, first of all, you know, a lot of them,
00:31:10.380
and I honestly, a lot of my worked as hard as them. So I had the same work ethic and some of them,
00:31:14.560
I, maybe I even worked harder than them, but I didn't have the same self-belief. You know,
00:31:19.940
I had this self-doubt that was just more overwhelming than it was justified to have. And so,
00:31:26.920
you know, when you understand, you know, especially as adults now, we can look at this and go, okay,
00:31:31.420
what are my values? What are my goals? And how do I create this environment of success around
00:31:39.320
myself? And, and once you do those things, anybody can be successful. So you can be an introvert or
00:31:45.540
an extrovert. You can come from a poor family or a wealthy family. You can have been a wrestler or a
00:31:52.140
piano player, any walk of life, any type of person. You can be young, you can be old, you can live in a
00:31:58.120
city, you can live in a, in a rural area. I mean, it doesn't matter. Success comes in all shapes and
00:32:03.920
sizes and success is defined differently by different people. You don't, success doesn't
00:32:08.500
mean making a million dollars a year. We always want to go straight to that wealth goal, you know,
00:32:13.000
but I said before, you know, you got to start with the relationships because if relationships are
00:32:17.100
right in your life, you're going to be happy. I mean, that's the, that's the baseline. You know,
00:32:21.520
when your relationships are right, we, you know, we want to, we want to make more money, but it's like,
00:32:25.560
wait, maybe I just need to take my wife out for dinner a little more often or tell her I love her
00:32:29.560
or, or, or fix my relationship with my parents or children or whatever the case may be. But get,
00:32:35.760
you know, work on the relationships in your life and then work on growing yourself and building
00:32:39.540
yourself and your personal skills and, you know, uh, you know, become a better marketer, learn how to
00:32:45.060
build a website, you know, get, uh, read a book on sales, uh, or, or read a book on, on self-help,
00:32:51.040
you know, um, you know, having those self goals and then having those health goals.
00:32:54.700
So if you're making the right moves in one area of your life, maybe you're trying to improve
00:32:58.640
relationships with your family or your wife, or you're trying to increase your business,
00:33:02.040
all of those other things are naturally going to improve because you're doing the right things
00:33:05.400
and their principles, they apply to every walk in every area of life.
00:33:08.820
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the formula is the same, you know, it's be, it's understanding what you want
00:33:14.500
and, and setting the goals and identifying the people and organizations that can help you,
00:33:19.400
you know, understanding what failures and setbacks you're going to have along the way,
00:33:22.660
you know, putting a deadline on all those things. Yeah, they apply to, you're right, man.
00:33:26.800
They just, they apply to anything in your life, Ryan.
00:33:28.940
So I'm really fascinated with this idea of adaptability when it comes to wrestling.
00:33:32.100
One of the things that always intrigued me when I was wrestling is that there was guys that I would
00:33:35.620
look at across the mat and think, Oh, I could whoop this guy, you know, I'm stronger, I'm bigger
00:33:39.220
than this guy. And all of a sudden he's got me in a hole that I can't escape from because he's learned
00:33:43.220
how to use the strengths and the abilities that he has. Are there some things and some abilities
00:33:48.260
and strengths that you've seen men be successful with in life that maybe are hidden or, or aren't
00:33:54.060
immediate strengths that men can use to be successful in their lives?
00:33:58.200
Yeah, I would say, you know, when, you know, when you look at it, when you look at successful
00:34:05.060
people, it tends to be the people who, who can overcome failure more easily and, and who are more
00:34:12.740
willing to go through that pain and suffering, like I talked about that are, are successful.
00:34:16.960
So if you can get knocked down and get back up that you, you're going to, you're going
00:34:21.660
to be much more likely to be successful versus if you get knocked down and, and you don't
00:34:26.040
get back up or you lower your goals when you get knocked down and say, okay, well, I'm
00:34:29.340
going to lower my goals a little bit. I'm going to change my goals. But, but you listen
00:34:32.340
to any, you talk to or listen to or read the books of any successful people. And it's, you
00:34:36.880
know, gosh, Abraham Lincoln, you know, he failed like seven times, you know, in, in politics,
00:34:42.120
you know, he's defeated seven times in politics before he won an election. You know, I
00:34:45.660
mean, he had a nervous breakdown before he became president of the United States. I
00:34:49.040
mean, this guy, he overcame obstacles and setbacks and struggles before he became president.
00:34:53.500
And that's just a, it's, it's a common theme among successful people. And, you know, I've
00:35:00.640
always been a type of person who I feared rejection, you know, and then I got a sales
00:35:04.340
job at one point where I had to make like 20, 30 calls a day. Actually, no, I was making
00:35:08.600
closer to 40 phone calls, cold calls a day for a short time. And it's like, oh man, did I go
00:35:13.020
over, I got over my fear of rejection so easily with that job. It's like I was outside of my
00:35:17.360
comfort zone, but now it's a skill that I have and it's made me a stronger, better person
00:35:23.060
Well, Jim, we're running down on time today. So I've got a couple more questions as we
00:35:26.240
wrap up. The first question I have for you is what does it mean to be a man?
00:35:31.100
Gosh, great question. Um, for me, I, I, I know you didn't have this father figure in your
00:35:36.880
life. So I really feel blessed to have this father figure of my, my father, my dad in my
00:35:42.040
life. And, and, you know, he's, he, you know, he's a man's man, you know, I mean, he's, he
00:35:47.560
hunts and fishes and, uh, you know, he makes homemade beer and wine. He was a, you know, he's
00:35:52.680
a retired construction sheet metal worker. Uh, he, he was a boxer who grew up in, you know,
00:35:57.140
in the city of Pittsburgh, you know, blue collar city. And, and, uh, he was a boxer in
00:36:01.380
the army and, you know, he's just, he's just the toughest person I know, you know? So I kind
00:36:06.180
of look at that as, as a big part of being a man is, you know, like I even saw on your
00:36:10.240
website, you know, you know, it's like, I think it was eight skills. Every man must
00:36:14.720
master. And one of them's like changing your own oil and, and, uh, you know, uh, manly
00:36:19.500
skills, like how to swing a hammer and basic electrical and plumbing and things like that.
00:36:24.020
And it's like my dad nailed every single one of those, you know, but, uh, but it's also
00:36:29.260
this idea of self leadership, you know what I mean? Being a leader, first of all, but if
00:36:34.860
you're not in a leadership position, you're still a leader. People look to you and you can
00:36:39.580
be a role model, whether you're leading from in front or behind, you know, leaving
00:36:43.560
from the middle or whatever, but, uh, you know, leading yourself, being disciplined
00:36:48.280
to do the right things, you know, to, to be the best person you can be not only for
00:36:54.020
yourself, but for the people who are within your sphere of influence. That's, that's, I
00:36:58.960
would say, I've never been asked that question, but I think that would probably be my, my best
00:37:04.260
Jim, if somebody wants to connect with you and learn a little bit more about wrestling with
00:37:07.300
greatness and some of the things that you have going on, how do they connect with
00:37:10.340
Yeah. Jimharshaw.net. Jimharshaw.net is my website. Probably the best place to go. And
00:37:16.140
really everything there, I, I, I, my target audience, at least at this point is wrestling.
00:37:21.120
It's going to be expanding here down the road, but everything there is really relevant for
00:37:25.260
anybody who's ever strived to be good at anything, whether it's wrestling or any other
00:37:29.960
sport or playing an instrument or just learning to master a skill. If you've gone through pain
00:37:35.760
and suffering, trying to achieve at any level, then everything on my, you know, my website,
00:37:39.680
my content is, is, is very relevant for you. So it's jimharshaw.net. And then on Facebook,
00:37:45.000
jimharshaw.net. If you just search jimharshaw.net on Facebook, you'll find me there. I tweet most
00:37:52.040
actively on my handle, Wrestle Greatness. So without the second E in Wrestle. So W-R-E-S-T-L
00:37:59.540
Greatness. So Twitter wouldn't let me spell the whole thing out. So Wrestle Greatness without
00:38:04.540
the second E on Wrestle. Those are the best ways to find me. Awesome. Jim, I appreciate your insights
00:38:09.340
and you being on the show and taking your time to be with us today. Thanks again. I appreciate
00:38:12.380
your time, Ryan. Thanks. Good luck with the show. There you go, guys. Big thanks to Jim for taking
00:38:17.460
time out of his day to share some ideas around what again is inevitably going to happen to us. And
00:38:21.660
those are the setbacks. So I hope that this gave you some inspiration. If you're dealing with some of
00:38:25.720
those things right now, failure does not define us unless we make the decision to let it. Let's get out
00:38:30.960
through this week. Work through the pain. Work through the struggle and suffering and accomplish
00:38:34.800
greatness in our lives. Now, if you need to pick up any of the resources or want to refresh or review
00:38:38.780
of what we talked about today, go to orderaman.com slash 022 for the show notes. Also, if you enjoyed
00:38:44.840
the show and or learned something new, head over to orderaman.com slash iTunes. Show us some love.
00:38:50.280
Show the support for the show by leaving us your rating and review. Now, remember to connect with me
00:38:55.200
this week on Periscope so you can access the live streaming videos that we'll be sharing on how to
00:39:00.620
become a better man. Now, I cannot even begin to tell you how excited I am to have next week's guest
00:39:05.300
on. His name is Mr. Brett McKay. And if you don't know who that is, I really don't know what to tell
00:39:10.600
you. He runs the largest online men's magazine. And we have a great conversation about what it means
00:39:15.900
to be a man in today's world and what all of us can do to live the lives that we want. Exciting stuff,
00:39:21.000
guys. I hope you tune in for that. Please subscribe to the show if you haven't already. Guys,
00:39:24.600
I look forward to talking with you next week. But until then, take action and become the man you
00:39:28.420
were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge
00:39:34.020
of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at