Ep 120 - Pattern Breaking for Elevating Personal and Business Capacity with Aaron Velky

Another wonderful guest on Elevate Your Equity podcast, Aaron Velky, an entrepreneur, writer, high-performance coach, speaker and author from Baltimore, Maryland. Join us as he shares how he became interested with real estate investing and his intentionality of living and how to achieve this. We also talked about:

• The mindset and the importance of pattern interruptions.
• The most common thing you see among people who are stuck in their patterns
• How important health is to those who are looking to live intentional lives, so stay tuned.

More about Aaron. He’s the CEO of Money Club, an organization dedicated to helping growth-minded people create whole life wealth. Money Club is a community designed for people looking for a proven, formulaic approach to build generational wealth, produce passive income, and make smart decisions along their journey toward financial freedom. They also offer employee wellness programs to businesses, financial education programs to schools and youth groups. He’s a principle and a personal performance coach with Men On Purpose, an organization that helps men find purpose and create a life of intention.

They host a podcast, a community, online mastermind programs, and retreats to help others clarify their vision, define their mission and discover their purpose. He’s coached several hundred athletes and released his first book called Let Her Play that guides parents and coaches through a framework that creates better communication, more psychological safety, and increased physical performance on the field and in the classroom. And to balance it all out - he’s an athlete, artist, reader, adrenaline junky and comic book nerd. As it is for Aaron, the first investment made must be in you.

Connect with Aaron on wearemoneyclub.com and on Facebook/Instagram: Men on Purpose Community.

Thanks a bunch Aaron Velky for coming on the show!

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5 Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

• on our website for blogs & other podcast interviews! elevateequity.org
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• our book/audiobook! amazon.com/dp/ebook

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of o

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

• on our website for blogs & other podcast interviews! elevateequity.org
• our YouTube channel! youtube.com/channel/derekclifford
• our book/audiobook! amazon.com/dp/ebook

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Transcript

Introduction: 0:03

Welcome to the Elevate Your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals, leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial.

Derek Clifford: 0:16

And today, we've got an amazing guest on the show. His name is Aaron Velky. Hey Aaron, how are you today?

Aaron Velky: 0:23

Derek? I'm doing awesome, man. Glad to be here and very grateful for your time.

Derek Clifford: 0:27

Yeah, man. Good to see you. Again. I know that we were hanging out a little bit in the Go abundance event back in January out in Park City. But it's good to connect one to one again in the summertime, virtually but still connecting them less. So it's good to have the min Lulu. So for those of you who do not know Aaron, Aaron is athlete, a coach artist, he thrives on living and designing life with great intentionality. It's in this intentionality that he finds himself open to opportunity and believes when aware of your own patterns. This intentionality increases your own value and value doesn't come from doing but rather being intentional with your life. And, Aaron, it's an awesome statement. And I'm really excited to be able to kind of jump into what all of this means I think it's going to be a lot more apparent to our listeners. But before we do that, why don't we talk a little bit about where you are today, if you own any real estate, because I know this may be a different show in the fact that it's gonna be more mindset based than anything else. But tell us a little bit about where you are today, how you got here, and maybe how real estate ties into

Aaron Velky: 1:30

some of this? Well, I do own a piece of real estate down in Florida in Bradenton, and my primary my driver, and much of the intention, and I'm sure we'll talk about is owning a couple of companies that are based in either development, personal development, or in financial education. So this world, man, the pathway here has largely been two commitments on is, I believe, really audaciously, that anything I learned, I tried to throw it up, down. And I'm committed to making trying into doing so if I learn it, I grow it, I throw the rope down. And in order to be good at that I have to keep growing. So that's a really powerful way to keep me moving. I also believe in shattering all of the things that my family was limited by and building something that is not only good, I'm a conscious capitalist and social entrepreneur in many ways. But doing it doing the things that normally are done in investing and wealth building and all those things in a way that has a slant towards being a bit more benevolent or perhaps intentional. And this recent run of yours has been growing an organization that works globally to make people better through financial education and personal development each company. And now I find myself just having moved to Arizona getting ready to have a kid and my partner and I are gonna be first time parents. She first Saw Mommy first time, dad, congrats. That's awesome. It Yeah, it's like so much is changing. And with this piece of real estate that I own with two other partners down in Florida, we're in the middle of reimagining what it looks like to go from one to two to four to six to eight in the next several years. So it's pretty exciting.

Derek Clifford: 3:12

That's great man now, but I want to back up and talk a little bit about what you're doing. Because I actually, you know, I've known you since our M one days, I believe, right? Because we're both in M one. I don't know, if we were in the same group, I want to say that we were in that same like how they bring people in in groups every quarter or something. I think we were in that in that same group together. But in any event, what happened during that to get you to where you are today. That was a good like, what, five years ago, six years ago. So what journey did that kind of put you on to get you to where you are today?

Aaron Velky: 3:43

A couple of transformations had to happen. The first and probably the most difficult was the journey of self awareness and one was a great battleground for self awareness. Do I know me? Do I know what's happening? Do I know my patterns? Do I know my thoughts? There's a great reframe for that. What it also matched and mirrored really significantly was that my business intention was very pure, I hadn't figured out how to be more capitalistic, and that often has a skew of its own and emotion tied to it. What I mean is I hadn't learned how to make impact and profit coexist. I've only found a way to do one or the other. Yeah. And then the third major transformation was me coming into my own understanding my own value, understanding my own skill set what I can do better than everyone else, and letting go of the things that I felt I had to do because I was filling a gap and trying to make things work. So really letting go of some of that, like powered everything growing and exploding like a, you know, a plant that's finally getting the water and the soil that it needs to grow.

Derek Clifford: 4:56

I love the analogy there too because if you take away any one of those As it becomes the bottleneck, right? Like it becomes the ball. And as soon as that one piece that missing piece gets installed, then it's like the sky's the limit. Right? It's really, really cool. So I love that analogy there. That's awesome. All right. So today we're talking about breaking patterns. And, you know, you mentioned the intentionality of living, you know, can you go a little bit deeper into this, like, what does this mean for you? And how do you think people out there who are working a full time job and maybe married and maybe are starting to lose hope that there's going to be an end to this, that they're going to be working until they're 60 years old? What does that look like? What does intentionality of living look like? How is it important for people like that?

Aaron Velky: 5:40

One important framework to begin with, is that it is very possible for someone to initiate intention, through frustration, it's really important to start there. What often happens is you get in this low, you get in this routine, and you dug verts or you disconnect from your frustrations, and you put all those dreams aside or those aspirations to say, hey, there's more for me, or, Hey, it's possible, or I saw that guy doing it, can I do it, and you set it to the side, rather than letting yourself feel the frustration. Intention, by contrast, is no longer doing things by accident, or as a result of the reason you did it before. And most individuals and younger me did almost everything, by accident, or by repeating what had already been done. And if we look at what that is going to create for your future, none of those trajectories are aligned with what's most connected to your potential. It's wasted potential. So I think of intention as thoughtfulness, I think of intention as your why it could be your personal mission, there's a lot of way to create more intention in your life. Those often felt really far from me. If you're listening, whether it's you, you and your partner. What matters when you think of intention most to me is Do you feel excited about the thing you're doing? And if you're not excited about the things you're doing, my guess is you are not intentional, because no one would intentionally do something over and over and over and over work career profession doesn't matter, that they're not excited about intentional. Well, thank

Derek Clifford: 7:23

you for sharing that. Because I think that speaks to the hearts of a lot of people who are listening out there that maybe need some sort of hope or something which, you know, brings us to pattern interrupts right. Let's say that there are people out there who are not feeling that spark, they're not feeling the passion, they're not waking up excited, doing what they're doing. And I would actually venture to guess that most people are like that. Maybe it starts out that way. And it starts veering off the path, right? Like, people change, jobs, change, relationships, change, everything changes, that's the only constant in life is change. So can you tell us a little bit about how what pattern interrupts are and why this is important and how it connects with intentional living.

Aaron Velky: 8:03

The best analogy I can give you is, if you think about intention, as a lack of focus or purpose, you are asleep. If you're living by accident, or without conscious choices, it's going to take something to jar you awake, whether that be a nudge could be me hitting a symbol could be playing music at decibels that are damaging. Regardless, you need something to catalyze what the pattern is, and take you out of it. So a pattern interruption can be a lot of things in the world of coaching and business and education. A Pattern Interrupt often requires awareness, you can't transform anything or change anything until you're aware of it. So most often a pattern disruption is a punch to the nose of Do you see where you are, that may be someone doing a budget, many people are afraid to do a budget that may be comparing in a healthy way, what is possible and what's happening with your peers to what you're doing. That may be getting in a circle. And with trusted individuals, having someone call out your flaws and the things that frustrate them about you. A pattern interruption is also a catalyst for the pattern continuing, if there's not intention, so we come back to the same word again, if you pattern interrupt, then I say hey, Derek, you know, I noticed this pattern and you say, I don't need to change the pattern. The pattern disruption was successful, the choice you made, and the data you had didn't necessarily reflect the change. But the pattern disruption was successful. And it's up to us as individuals that want more. If you're here, you're listening because you want more in some capacity. It's your job to determine what happens after the disruption. Because the disruption will happen regularly. They are all over the place if we listen for them.

Derek Clifford: 9:59

I love This now can you talk a little bit more about what you found, because this is something that you do on a regular basis when you're working with your clients. What usually hampers people from even wanting to see pattern interrupts or acting on them? Because I know like, there's two layers, right? Like there's people that maybe experienced a pattern interrupt, and then they just sweep it under the rug, or they're not aware they're doing it. And then there's another awareness where they're like, I see it, but it's too scary. Like, can you talk maybe about that mechanism that you see like what hampers people from even wanting to approach doing these?

Aaron Velky: 10:33

The hamstring is fear. For most individuals, there's a tenacity that fear has to cripple and redirect us away from what we most want. That crippling is only able to exist. When there is also doubt when fear and doubt are BFFs. That's when dreams get squashed very quickly. Fear and courage are really important to coexist, and they courage can topple fear, with tremendous accuracy, and consistency, it's maintained. What happens when we start to really lean into a life that's different than ours, is all the fears get loud, and our courage gets silent. And we want to make sure that voice of courage remains incredibly loud. The second thing that often cripples people is a lack of clarity. So when they go to make a move, when they say, Hey, I want to invest, or hey, I want to build a life that's different than what my father's father's father could have ever imagined. And I want to change this family for generations. When that happens, if we're not clear on what it looks like the vision of it, we start to make decisions out of either fear or lack of clarity, neither of which take us forward. And we're creatures on momentum we build when you know, when we get that dopamine blasts, that's when we start to double down. And when you start playing a bigger and bigger levels, there's a need for momentum to take over so that your systems start to say, keep doing this, even if it's difficult. There's a reward inherently in it without the reward, it's very difficult, and it's hard to get a reward without clarity or courage.

Derek Clifford: 12:13

Hmm, interesting. What would be the most common thing that you see with people who are stuck in their current patterns? Like, you know, is it the awareness? Is it lack of awareness? Is it the fear that they keep getting shown things? Or are they going out of their way to avoid pattern interruptions or breaking their patterns? Which is nominal question.

Aaron Velky: 12:33

Derek. Wow, it's a great question. While I would say most people experience a pattern disruption, most people experience the things that you want, there's a fundamental flaw in most people's understanding of an outcome. Most will target an outcome and fixate on an outcome rather than understand and develop a process. And the flaw in this is that the lack of understanding and how things are created and how things are built is the culprit for the lack of outcome. No individual real estate, investing business, personal fitness has ever been successful once and been called a success. It's a process that you indoctrinate into yourself. And as you go about that, you learn how to repeat it, if you can't repeat it, then you have a significant problem at your hands again. So even if you pattern break, and you find a way to win, if you can't win again, you've got to go back to the fundamental understanding of how to get and achieve and build it over and over and over. And this is why I love personal development and education. They are the patterns and the pathways, rather than the outcomes. I can't sell an outcome without selling a process. And I do believe in selling a process and an outcome together.

Derek Clifford: 13:58

Thank you very much. Yeah, I think that is inseparable. I think that now that reflecting on what you said, a lot of people want the results but not the hard work that comes with it. At least you know, when you're standing from a point of view of like you're looking up at the mountain, you're like, This person is achieving so much, right? You can't help but identify that pattern inside of your own psyche, right? And say, oh my gosh, like, what can I do? And by breaking those patterns, right, by interrupting it, you're giving yourself the opportunity to instead of staring at the mountain actually putting a plan together to get there and do it. It all starts back with the mindset piece of it. And the strength of that. So what I want to talk about now is maybe can you give us a sneak peek of what you do to help people break these patterns? I know that we kind of talked about it in theory, right? But are there any like tools or techniques that you can use? Like, you know, for instance, meditation is a great way for elevating mindfulness, right. That's one of the things that at least I've been turned on to over the last couple of years. But is there any tools or things that we can do with a co We are on our own to really start to bring these pattern interrupts more to life.

Aaron Velky: 15:05

The easy answer, just because of my profession is to say, coaching and education. Now, there's two things that matter most when I talk about this, and I'm going to preach this until the day that I'm dead, because it has changed my life. Some believe that investing in like, let's say, education, is about the education. And I would argue it's actually about the investing practice, what we're doing is we're taking our capital, we're deploying it into an asset, in this case, the asset being us. And we're letting that be the generator of more income. So if I invest in me as an earning vehicle, I'm now putting my dollars into my future earnings. I've started the process now of understanding assets, and investable income, and how you generate wealth. The same could be said, for coaching, I'm the asset, I'm deploying capital into the asset. And now I'm expanding the earning potential of that asset. And earning potential of us as human beings dramatically changes based on our awareness, our transformation, or pattern disruption, our support beams our environment. What matters in this pattern that we're creating this new pattern is that we take the information to coaching the education and then deploy it. So that's really step two is you got to deploy it. When I think about what I've been doing for many years inside of money club, we've been taking really awesome, very successful individuals and distilling their information down into courses and content and development and all that. Part of that is to help people understand how wealth is built that process. The other part is giving them a community, a neighborhood that they can live in to start their process. What's fascinating though, is I and the team have to go regularly into an environment where someone knows more, and distill it down and break it. So it's an investment in us, we might have to pay the door ticket to get kids some of these individuals to then break down their education. And when there's a pattern disruption, or there's something that someone says, Hey, look, I have woken up, I know I want more I know I'm capable of more if that guy can do it, I can do it. What really is required is are you spinning the investing wheel $5 a week, $10 a week, 300 a month, 3000 a month 30,000 A year doesn't necessarily matter the amount. Investing is a practice, equity is a byproduct of an action. And the conversation of equity often sounds to many people younger me included, sounds like I'm already in the door and someone handed me equity, rather than I fought my way to the door and bought equity as a practice. And if you're tuned into a podcast like this, you've got the resources around you now it's simply a matter of are you regularly committing to the process of higher equity, you don't necessarily buy the only consumable goods and then decide to invest in property, you've learned to invest and then invest in property. And that's the misnomer that I see over and over with individuals that want to change their future.

Derek Clifford: 18:12

How does someone who is looking to break patterns? How are they gauging their progress on this? Because I know, you know, for me when I was first exploring this idea, because I'm picking up everything that you're putting down, I completely get, you know, the fact that we've got to start stretching our mindset a little bit and investing in thinking differently, right, pushing the bounds of our capacity, because right at the bounds of the capacity, that's where fear is. And that's where we get resistance and pushback. And that's where the patterns that have served us in the past are serving us. And then outside of that they break down because they're outdated, or they're not useful for that whatever that new identity is, or that new thing right outside of the bounds of your capacity. How would you say that people can gauge their progress if they're making a conscious effort to battle these patterns and fears?

Aaron Velky: 19:01

It is actually a really important question. Measurement. And what you measure is critical to your success in the long run. The failure of goal setting, seminars, workshops and concepts is in what are you actually measuring? I think all of us can say, Well, I'm gonna measure my net worth, I'm gonna measure how many properties I have. That's great. That's a failed measurement, though. What is important is to measure the small micro steps to create the outcome. So the way I describe them in the way I teach them is to say these are the leads, these are the things that gets the outcome, the legs that we want. So as an example, we'll use health. Many individuals I used to I was a soccer coach for a long time professional soccer coach for young adults, and would happen in the realm of fitness is you would say, Well, I want to be this weight, I want this outcome, this speed, etc. And I would have young athletes measure how many times they ran about how far they ran or how fast they ran, how many times they went to the gym, and the number of healthy meals they made, that alone catalyzed 10 to 15% improvement in their fitness, and there was a different measurement, then I ran a seven minute mile, I'm not fast enough, your mind will shut down anything it doesn't believe is progressive. So our measurements have to denote progress, or they will quickly be overwritten.

Derek Clifford: 20:28

Yeah, I love that. You know, before I asked them this question here, I've been to so many different, like seminars and mastermind, or I guess events, right, as you call it, you fly to the event or you drive to the event. And you know, at the beginning, these were awesome, because you're getting breakthrough after breakthrough, you know, because you're surrounded by all these incredible people, and you're leveling up your experiences, it's a brand new thing. But then, you know, I mean, I'm sure you've come across as Aaron, like, as you go to these events, you start to understand you're like, Yeah, I've heard this before. And then the perceived progress that you perceive in your brain is that nothing is happening, right. And so now you're just going to those events just to be there with the people. Right. And I think that's a natural progression. But there's something to be said about identifying those key performance indicators, those KPIs in the mindset by looking at external things. So do you have any tips for people I know that like health is an easy one to measure, because you're looking at how many times you go to the gym minutes works. You can log on your app, you can look at heart rate, like all these really cool things you've got? Is there anything that maybe you can suggest for mindset, like any metrics that you look at for improving someone's mindset that people can act on right away just a few?

Aaron Velky: 21:38

Well, let's lean on the mindset of an investor, and let's lean towards real estate. So I've had a big aversion to real estate, I always felt incongruent with it, that has changed over time. And part of that is my ecosystem. And the individuals that helped us frame all of our education. Part of that is also digging in on this set of metrics. So I measured four things on the way to investing in a property. One was, how many times do I look at a property online? There's no pain in that just how many properties do I look at? And the goal was to look at about four a day, which on Zillow is an exhilarating experience. The second was, how many conversations can I have with someone that is already an investor? That was number two? Number three, how many conversations can I have with someone that isn't necessarily investing? But is interested? Can I start to field my ecosystem for potential partners, etc? And then number four, how many times can I share my dream, all four of those things mind you do not feel like I'm investing in real estate. And yet, they all created the ripple. That was my clarity. And it reinforced my courage to say, Wow, I know where I'm going, I know that the ship is going west. And any wind that got behind that I could say this is amazing. Eventually, the metrics changed. I had to evolve into measuring how much I was saving and setting aside for the downpayment, I had to measure, am I putting things in an analysis tool that we created, I needed to elevate my measurement, I just want to encourage anyone listening to really, really simplify what they're measuring to begin with, so that they can make progress without feeling defeated. If you pick the wrong goal really early, you will be riddled with defeat very quickly. And all of a sudden, you find yourself three 410 20 years later saying, you know, I wish I should I really regret that I didn't.

Derek Clifford: 23:41

I love this. And I guess to bring the point home, I'm kind of a visual, practical kind of person. I'm really curious how in the beginning stages before this became a habit, how you're able to track all this, like what mechanism? Did you use like a spreadsheet that you logged in every day at the same time? And said I did this or that? Or did you have like piece of paper on the wall on the front door? Or the door of your bedroom? Brave? How were you bringing this into your actual daily routine to make sure this was happening?

Aaron Velky: 24:10

Great question. And also something I'm very excited to share here. I think more than anything where you put your goals matters. So I had two major systems. One was a glass board. I've got three of them now, that sit in front of me at all times. And every week, every month, every quarter, I just was writing this down. If that sounds like overwhelmed by one glass board and just use it for goals for your week. That's plenty to get you started. The other thing I had was a spreadsheet where I looked at okay, if I want to have, let's say five a week, out of 52 weeks, I'm talking about 260 Some quantification points on me hunting for properties, and I guess it'd be 2600 If I did that math, right. The goal of that is to say I've done 100 Every month I'm doing 20, every month I'm doing 50, whatever your number is, you start to see a percentage and seeing that progress bar is another dopamine push. What was interesting is, is that as I've done this, it went from two columns, to two columns, and a percentage to two columns, and a percentage and a pie chart there, like filled out the circle as I want it. So it's always evolving. Having something in front of me though, at all times, right? Where I look regularly, the fridge, the bathroom, the bedroom doesn't matter where wherever you see, it often will help you most I really believe where you put your goals changes whether or not you're attentive to them.

Derek Clifford: 25:42

Yeah, you know, I love this concept here. And obviously, for someone like me, I'm constantly traveling. So there's even the digital version of this Aaron, right? Like, why not put it on the lockscreen in your phone, or on the background on your, on your computer, write something like that. And I think that that's really, really powerful. Because what you surround yourself around, really like that expression that says the people that you spend the most time with, like the, the, you're the average of the five people that you're around the most right? I honestly think that that's while that's true, I think it's whatever your brain engages in the most are in around you. So even if it's a book, right, or if it's, you know, a chart, like a really inspiring quote, or something that's always around, it's almost like an energetic presence there that almost counts as a person's like a de facto person, but it's like an influence in your life. And the more time and energy that is spent engaging with that, that's where your brain is going to go. And that's where you're where all of your, your mindset and your your entire being is going to move towards. And so I think that's super powerful that having things front and center all the time is going to make a big difference.

Aaron Velky: 26:49

I wish I could rewrite that, quote, If I could rewrite it, it would say, you are the average of the five people you're around the most and respect. The reason that's so important is if if I'm around, let's say you all the time, and you're doing incredibly well, but I don't respect you, I am automatically going to discount anything you do or say as false. And it's incredibly important that it's the people you respect. So that when you say, Erin, it's possible that your five year plan happens in one year, do you understand that? I don't discount that I immediately am like, wow, I've really respect this guy. I'm in a circle. I see him all the time. I want this. This is a good challenge. This uplifts me, if I don't respect you, it's very hard for me to take suggestions, coaching insight, advice, with any kind of seriousness, or any kind of action behind it. And that quote undermines the respect component.

Derek Clifford: 27:47

Yeah, that's so great. Man. I love that it should be added. How do we get that? How do we get that done?

Aaron Velky: 27:52

I don't know. Somebody listened and help us out with this.

Derek Clifford: 27:56

Yeah, let's figure it out, like, right in the comments how we can get this done. One last question I have for you before we head into the Rapid Round. This is a real estate show. It's very much tied into mindset. Because it often means when you're doing the side hustle that you've got to work on your mindset. Because without your mindset, you can't do you know, the capacity and what you can do and the things that you think you can do. It just stifles your progress, right. So it all starts with mindset, that's where everything begins. Now, I also want to touch on though health because health is one of these things that I can tell you've taken seriously from the beginning ever since I met you, you know, as a soccer coach, it was just part of your identity from things that I knew about about you from early days of M one. And we have at Elevate equity, we have what's called the three degrees of freedom. It's actually the three plus one degrees of freedom, which is, you know, location, time and financial independence. And then there's the plus one, which is health. Because if you don't have any of that, I mean, even if you have location time, or financial freedom, and you don't have health, it doesn't really matter. So let's talk a little bit about this connection between breaking patterns and health. And maybe is there a way that you can use health as kind of like an accelerator for your mindset? Or do they both happen at the same time? or what have you observed in your practice? For why health is so important to mindset and becoming a bigger individual.

Aaron Velky: 29:25

The body is a really intelligent vehicle. For anyone that wants more out of life, they'll need to do more. If you're unwilling to do more, you are unwilling to have more. That's not to say you need to trade time however early on in your side hustle, you're often trading time for very little return on investment. And if you are plummeting from a health perspective, you simply lack the stamina to perform at a high level. An athlete has several different Are things at their disposal. At the high level though, the difference is their mindset because the plane is the same as far as fitness and their physical prowess, when you start looking at the individuals that are very successful, whether or not they are athletically proudest in their physical fitness or not, they are often very committed to their health in other ways. Mental Health alone is well worth talking about, as is your stamina, as is your ability to stay up late or produce extra when you're tired. And there's an interesting overlap of mindset and health. So mind and body, there are times where the body can tell the mind to push, there are times where the mind has to tell the body to push, and vice versa, they go both ways. If someone is, let's say, unskilled at the connection there, and how to manifest and ultimately achieve an outcome, using whichever vehicle is necessary, there are days where I need my mindset to take over my body because I'm tired. There are days where my body takes over because my mind is tired. And I can push through and I understand that dynamic. What I would encourage anyone to recognize is that you as a human being have two major machines that you're running. And if they don't work in sync, they are by default, defunct, and they have to work collaboratively. If you want more, it is the most important question that I love to ask anyone I meet. There's two, what do you want to be when you grow up, which is a playful way to meet someone? And then the second is, what do you want more of the body and mind have to work collaboratively or they are, again, by default, defunct, and going to be pulling you away. And side hustle is hard, hot side hustle is not for someone that gets tired after eight hours, because you're already going to be at zero. When you start the day, you've got to find a second year. And that is very linked to health and wellness.

Derek Clifford: 32:07

Yeah, man, that's that's very well said, what we're trying to say here for the listeners out there, and Aaron, I just want you to quickly confirm this or not, but is that everything is all related. It always is if you think that if you just work on your mind, or just on your body that you'll be all set, right. But all these things are related. And it goes against conventional wisdom, where you know, if you try to focus on one thing, then that one thing starts expanding. And while that is true in a certain aspect, when it comes to the human body and capacity and mindset and business and thinking and everything like that, it's all connected, like a wheel, you know, if you think a wheel with all these spokes coming out of it, you're only as strong as your weakest spoke, because if one breaks down, it won't be a wheel anymore, and it won't turn it won't move. It just kind of sits there and it starts dragging along, right. And so that's something that you don't want. So I love that you talked about the connectivity between health and mindset. And then also wealth, it steps in. Like it's just a byproduct of being healthy, being mindfully aware of your patterns, getting coaching, and just being a well rounded individual with good relationships, all that stuff starts adding up. Because if your relationships break down, you have everything else. Well guess what you're gonna be spending all of your time trying to like put fires out on its time and energy and health even on relationships.

Aaron Velky: 33:27

So the two things that I feel really compelled to share, what's the value of a what's let's say, Alexis, on on the lot, give me give me a number.

Derek Clifford: 33:37

I don't have we don't have cars, I don't know, 5060 grand, I guess perfect.

Aaron Velky: 33:42

How much is that car worth with only three wheels? Not very much. And that's the connection that's really important. One of those wheels is your body. One of those is your mind. Another important wheel is is your money. There are so many studies, we have a lot of really successful employee wellness programs. And part of that is coming into a business and uplifting the culture and the engagement and the team building by teaching people about money. Because if your money is not right, and you're stressed about that, everything else is effect I have been there, I know that pain. And a car with three wheels has zero value. That's that's a magnificent thing to observe. It goes from 60 to zero with one if I take one wheel off, and it doesn't go from 60 to 45 doesn't go from 60 to 25. It goes from 60 to zero like that, if I get rid of one tire, and one of those tires is your health. One of those is your mindset. One of those is your money and then one of those is either could be your faith your spirituality could also be the way that you perceive the world and your actions or your family. And all of those things matter. One tire the whole value is disrupted.

Derek Clifford: 34:55

Yeah, man such well put very well put I love it. I love it. All right, man. Well, so We got to start moving towards the end of the show here, just because I know we could talk about this for hours, because we're so much in alignment here. But what I want to do is I want to head over to our Rapid Round, which is the same five questions we ask every one of our guests, and they're meant to be answered in about 30 seconds. So if you're ready, we'll just go ahead and rapidly ask them to you ready? All right, number one, what book has had the biggest impact on you? And why? And we ask that it not be the real Bible or the purple Bible, which is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Aaron Velky: 35:31

The War of Art? phenomenal book, Steven Pressfield.

Derek Clifford: 35:35

Hmm, yeah, I heard a lot about that one. And why? Why do you like that one?

Aaron Velky: 35:39

It's a reminder of all the things needed to be different to be creative. And in the world of investing, challenge your own patterns. It's about what do you do in response to resistance in order to be creative and do something you've never done? And it's a very good reminder of all the struggles that we have, and how to deal with them.

Derek Clifford: 35:59

Yeah, great, great book. I think I have to repeat that one. Okay. Number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what do you think is the first actionable thing that they could do to follow in your footsteps,

Aaron Velky: 36:12

I would encourage them to write down three to five things that they care most about, and then audit their bank statement and their calendar to see if any of those things are showing up in their money choices or their events. If not, it's time to make a series of adjustments, find some help, or get educated about how to do that, so that your values are matching your actions and your money.

Derek Clifford: 36:37

That's some hugely useful advice out there. Everyone, you got to start doing that right now. Like, seriously put, press pause on this podcast, go do that. Amazing. Number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three months? That has helped you save time? And or effort?

Aaron Velky: 36:56

I would say hiring an assistant would be one I'm going to go more granular though. What has helped me save time is a very simple practice of saying no, this is a skill in itself. It doesn't sound like a skill. It sounds like something you would put on the back of a like Snapple lid. The practice of saying no, is the practice of saying yes. And the better you can get at. I know what my values are. I know what I'm marching towards. I'm clearer, the better you will get there because knows will eliminate all of your distractions. And for someone like me with a lot of things happening, and very object syndrome prone and very excitable, knows a Power Word.

Derek Clifford: 37:42

That's awesome. You know, it's really funny, Aaron, I remember back I think two years ago, Tim Ferriss was really, really fixated on this concept of saying no, and I think he almost wrote a book on it. But he has a lot of great podcast for so for listeners out there who are looking to explore more. First of all, look up Aaron Wright. He had talked to you about this since he's gone through this journey. But secondly, look up Tim Ferriss too, because he's had a lot of thoughts on this particular subject. And it's super, super important. So I love that you said that. Sometimes eliminating Aaron is just as important as adding. So I think that's really, really great. Number four, if the people you know how to describe you with one word, what do you think that word would be?

Aaron Velky: 38:23

Probably the most complimentary is intention. Someone has said that, hey, you're really intentional. And not in all things. I'm not perfect. That is a big word that would really resonate and land and just fill my heart with a lot of joy.

Derek Clifford: 38:39

Yeah, that's great, man. That is a very much a compliment. Love it. Alright, last question. Number five. What is one small thing that most people do not know about you? Hmm. Great, great question. And it may be difficult because a lot of my more public guests who have like a, you know, an outward facing thing. This one's more difficult, but take your time.

Aaron Velky: 39:05

You know, the thing that stands out the most when I was a kid, I loved to read and draw and play video games. And as an adult, especially as an entrepreneur, I've not made a lot of time for video games, and I am coming back into a full video game swing. Where I'm like, I'm like trying VR, and I'm enjoying being a kid again. Playing and plugging in. It's flippin Awesome. Hey, heck yeah, man.

Derek Clifford: 39:30

That's awesome. You're getting ready for the little baby right? So you can start with the kids. That's how I like to call it right. For me, I can't resist playing some strategy games like just to unwind myself once a week like an hour or two I'll just I'll just decompress by playing some civilization or some sort of strategy based game something like that. Just to just to help get my mind right you know? So.

Aaron Velky: 39:55

Age of Empires. All of those games are great.

Derek Clifford: 40:01

Yeah, it's good stuff do love it. Well, hey, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. This was awesome. We explored a lot of stuff about overcoming the habitual patterns that we fall into and identifying them, the tools and processes that you use or recommend to people to start thinking about them and re evaluating them and why it's important. So ton a ton of stuff here, I recommend most people, including myself, go back through and listen to this again, because this will be one of those shows, where if you listen to it three or four times, you're gonna pick up something each time you do. So please do do that. And, you know, before we go, Aaron, how can people find out more about what you have going on? How can they contact you?

Aaron Velky: 40:37

I appreciate that. This is this has been a lot of fun. You have some good questions. If you have a question about me about ways I can help or any of the things related to what I've built. A great place to start is Instagram, just my name Aaron Velky, you can check out our website for Money Club, this is our financial education platform where we do employee wellness, and courses, content and community for individuals. So if you want to learn about real estate, you want to learn about investing, you want to learn about building wealth, the website is wearemoneyclub.com. If you want to refer this to your employer, so they bring us in to do financial education isn't a workplace benefit. certainly welcome to contact us there. We're in the middle of building a couple of different organizations on the personal development side, the best way to reach me there is to either Instagram me, or you can go online to Men on Purpose Community on Facebook, and find out more about what we're doing there. So lots of really cool things happening. I'm very excited about it. I'm an email away, I'm a DM away. And I'm trying to be as engaged with my overall audience as I possibly can. So don't be shy.

Derek Clifford: 41:45

Awesome. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been a blast. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And for you, listeners who have been with us this whole time, we want to thank you. Because without you guys on the show, like we wouldn't have the show, obviously. And we're doing everything here to try to add as much value as we can to you and the audience. So please, wherever you're watching or listening this please engage with us, rate, comment, subscribe, like, whatever you can to engage with the podcast, we would really, really appreciate that. So that that way we can get exposure to more people and appease those algorithm gods. It's always a big thing. We always try to do that. So all right, take care of one. This is Derek. We'll see you next week. Talk to you soon.