PP 608: You Deserve To Be Happy with Josh Wagner
“There’s absolutely no inherent reason that you don’t deserve whatever it is that’s in your heart that moves you, that makes you happy, and that you really want.” –Josh Wagner
To be deserving is a choice you have to make. The reasons that stops you from doing the things that make you happy, are no reasons at all but mere excuses. Life is as short as a breath. You only have a lifetime to spend on things that matters more than undeserving beliefs. Today’s podcast will help you walk towards your happiness and avoid the traps and pitfalls along your journey. Meditate on your goals and see the end result. Then, you will know that you are worth it.
HIGHLIGHTS:
01:44 The Journey to Happiness
07:07 Meditation– The Way to Your Goals
12:26 The One Question that Changes Life
21:04 Four Traps of Traditional Goal-Setting
29:06 Cultivate Your Happiness
34:01 Worthiness
39:39 Happy Not Broke
41:39 You Deserve It
Resources:
You Deserve It- The Missing Answer to the Life you Want by Dr. Josh Wagner
Inspirational Quotes:
“You deserve to be happy. And there’s nothing, nothing more important than that.” –Josh Wagner
“The people who are supposed to be taking care of us, often, they forget to take care of themselves.” –Kim Sutton
“No one was born with undeserving or deserving beliefs; they were all learned and put in us …that means they can be changed. And they’re not all encompassing over your entire life, meaning you don’t deserve or not deserve.” –Josh Wagner
“Just knowing the concept isn’t going to change it, you have to do the work.” –Josh Wagner
“If you really commit yourself every day to giving yourself self-permission to believe you deserve it and putting in the work, you will see things change that have never changed before.” –Josh Wagner
“We can easily fall into the trap of we need to do things for money but what about for heart? –Kim Sutton
“Productivity without being positive is not worth it.” –Josh Wagner
“If it’s not positive, it’s not joyful, it’s not inspiring, there is definitely an undeserving belief present in that specific area.” –Josh Wagner
“Deserving has nothing to do with anyone outside of you or anyone else’s viewpoint of you. Deserving is completely your choice, which is great, because that means you have the ability to change it.” –Josh Wagner
About Josh:
Dr. Josh Wagner is a Chiropractor by trade until he recognized that his real passion was in helping others achieve their happiness. As a Speaker, Author, Mentor and Trainer, he endeavors to help as many individuals go from where they are to where they want to be. He travels across 18 countries to spread his message: You deserve It!”
Website: https://drjoshwagner.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drjoshwagnerdc/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrWagnerPPFS/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perfectpatientfunnelsystem/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuuZNON2PXlVxefuro8d4jQ/videos
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
“There’s absolutely no inherent reason that you don’t deserve whatever it is that’s in your heart that moves you, that makes you happy, and that you really want.”
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Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. This is your host, Kim Sutton, and today I am excited to introduce you to Dr. Josh Wagner. Josh is an author, speaker, and mentor, and has chiropractic roots. Before I really jumped, throw the microphone over to Josh, there’s my first blooper of the episode I wanted to share, if you haven’t heard before that a chiropractor back in 2009 changed my life, and if you haven’t heard about that before, I’ll put a link in the show notes. But to sum it all up until that point I had been living with a dark cloud over my head. And my friend Dr. Ed, introduced me to the law of attraction, and in that very moment my life changed because I realized I had a right to be happy. I deserve to be happy and so do you, and that is going to be, I feel an overarching theme of today’s episode. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to Josh Wagner. Josh, I’m so happy to have you here today.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Thank you so much Kim. I’m really happy to be here, and I can’t wait to share with your audience. Thank you again.
Kim Sutton: Oh, you are so welcome. I would love if you would give a brief introduction to yourself, and share with the listeners how you got to where you are today.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Absolutely. So, I’m a chiropractor by trade. Came to me randomly at around 21 years old as an undergrad at New York University in Manhattan, created a practice from scratch in Manhattan, and then realized I could make a much bigger difference for both my profession and the general public. Just like you said, Kim, the chiropractor changed your life. What I share with my profession is, a lot of chiropractors don’t believe that they are changing patient’s lives, for instance, by whether it’s just getting out of pain, restoring health, but just as importantly, and more importantly what your chiropractor made such a beautiful, insignificant difference for you is instilling in you that not only you deserved to be healthy and pain free, but you deserve to be happy. And there’s nothing, nothing more important than that. And after five years of working exclusively with chiropractors and doctors helping them in practice, what I’ve evolved to understand is that one single belief, whether or not you deserve, you believe, you deserve what you’re going after is the fundamental element that makes productivity a lot easier. It makes it a lot more positive, and allows us to move forward in the direction of our dreams, and invigorates life’s idiosyncrasies and synchronicities to actually have what we’re going for, whether it’s health, relationships, business, finances, peace of mind, which to me is more important than anything. So it’s been a career of ups and downs, speaking all over the world, working with individuals of all walks of life, and it’s not going well all the time, and it’s not have always been positive, and it’s not always productive. But sticking through the course, and I’m just looking forward to sharing some of that with all of you and help you on your process today.
Kim Sutton: Oh, I’m so excited about it. And listeners, I just want to put this disclaimer in that at this present moment, Josh is at the top of a hill at a retreat, a quiet retreat, so he is actually outside. So bear with us if you ever hear the wind pickup, I don’t expect it. I mean, I’ve only heard it once so far, Josh, so I don’t want you to be at all concerned about it, but I just love, oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine a quiet retreat. Are you supposed to be quieting your brain too? Sorry, I don’t want to dig too much into the retreat. I want to be digging into you, but my brain is constantly going.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Well, first off, I’m an open book, so how I live my life is what I share and preach, and I do what I recommend. So this is supposed to be a silent retreat outside of Neal. It’s a small retreat center with five people, and yes, of course the points of being silent throughout the day is to contribute to quiet in the mind. Now that’s probably the hardest thing I know of out there, and that’s why over the past 10 years I’ve been meditating. I started 10 years ago, 20 minutes a day. Now I work on many days when I’m at my best two hours a day of meditation, and specific types to help quiet the mind, and then multiple times a year choose to detach from the business of the internet, and the cities, and the travel, and give myself a week of rejuvenation and quiet. And I understand Kim, you have five children, listeners out there have so many different circumstances that are unlike mine that may not be possible every quarter to do something like this. But every day if you can take 20 minutes and do a meditation, or follow along to an audio so you don’t have to do it on your own, and I’ll have one at the end that can provide to all the listeners my treat. It makes such a profound difference in the quality of your life, the lessening the inner voice of whether it’s doubt, uncertainty, pessimism, that we all have the inner critic, and really starting to go with the flow of life rather than the friction, or trying to, what’s a good analogy? Just trying to push the rock up the hill, so I can’t endorse an active practice every single day of 20 minutes of meditation more than anything I’ve experienced in all of my growth and productivity learning.
Kim Sutton: Oh, wait a little bit. Now I want to share with you that on January 1st, I didn’t create a new year’s resolution for myself for this year, and rerecording in 2019, and that comes into play because I made it on19 in 2019 list. And a couple of those items had to do with mindset, and just my own personal self care. But the biggest one that stemmed from taking care of my mind was that I wanted to stay out of the hospital this year. And I know that might be like alarming to some people, and to listeners who have already heard this, you know, I repeat myself sometimes, but by taking care of my mind so far, I mean we’re halfway through July and I haven’t stepped anywhere close to a doctor. Whereas in 2018 the stress, and the overwhelm, and the anxiety, by this time in 2019 I had already been in the ER twice and admitted to the hospital once. So, I love what you’re talking about because I’ve seen significant growth. While it might seem huge from 2018 to 2019 that you can imagine how much worse, or how much more growth there was in the last decade by being able to take control of my mental health, and the growth I’ve seen there.
Dr. Josh Wagner: That’s amazing. Congratulations on that.
Kim Sutton: Thank you.
Dr. Josh Wagner: And this was only six months. So imagine of the end of the year, years to come, like how much stronger your mental health, and just peace of mind, and stamina will be, and hopefully as well, keeping out of the hospital, or needing to see doctors. You know, a lot of people who aren’t meditators, and this isn’t new preaching you’ve got to become a mediator, but they look at it from a different angle. They think of it as, just something relaxing, or a hobby. Something that just people who do yoga, and that they’re losing that amount of time of the day, whether it’s a 20 minute meditation or an hour, and like yoga 10, 20 years ago has becoming more accepted in mainstream, and utilized, increase utilization. That’s what’s starting to happen with meditation because more prominent figures, more influencers, more science, more studies are coming out, and it’s becoming a lot more accepted like I’m seeing now, meditation centers pop up like yoga centers, we’re popping up all over cities 20 years ago, and what you get in 20 minutes for the most typical person will give you two to three more hours in your day of worthwhile, whether it’s productivity, peace of mind, time off, so you’re not actually losing the time. When you decide to meditate, you’re gaining so much more and that’s just one slice of the pie when it comes to the internal physiological effects that has on the body, that peace of mind, and then when you do a really active meditation, because there’s thousands of different types out there, but when you’re really intentional with certain types of meditation, you can really start changing the gears of your life, and how this world works to assist you in moving forward wherever you want to go. Again, whether that’s relationships, self esteem, peace of mind, financial, nothing’s off limits.
Kim Sutton: The biggest change for me in meditation came as a result of this podcast, actually. I don’t know that I’ve ever said it on the air here, but I feel like I’ve received millions of dollars of free coaching off my episodes. And I expressed to one guest that meditation was really hard for me because my head kept on getting in the way, and I don’t remember if it was on the air, off the air, but the guests said: “Have you tried turning into your heart instead of your head, or while you’re meditating?” And in that instant, meditation became so much easier, and I don’t even know that I can call it meditation, but more on my quiet time because most of the time happens in bed. But I’ll just lie there reflecting on how my heart feels, you know?
Dr. Josh Wagner: That’s wonderful, and you nailed it. If someone tries to meditate by just not thinking and clearing their mind, it is the hardest thing in the world. It’s not possible, a lot of people try that for one session. Realize, this is so frustrating and give up. So that was great advice of tapping into your heart, and to other people that may just be, feel your body, sense what’s going on internally, feel your feelings, yeah, trying to not think, not have thoughts is never going to work. And that’s why I recommend starting off with a guided audio meditation visualization type, and specifically one that is focused on an area of your life that you really committed to changing and making better rather than just making a relaxation technique.
Kim Sutton: I love that you said an area of your life that you’re committed to making better in regardless of your religious practices. And I’m talking to listeners here, I actually found that an app, I have an iPhone, but I found an app called abide, A-B-I-D-E earlier this year, which actually uses Bible verses in meditation. And that is one of my areas of focus for this year is improving my faith, my Christian faith, so I love that I put that together. And until you said that there’s thousands of different types of meditation practices, I guess I hadn’t really thought about it before, so thank you. Now before I moved out to Ohio in 2004 I was living outside of New York city, and I joked with family who would come visit that you would go to the grocery store, and rather than just picking up your groceries if you weren’t careful, sometimes you could also pick up a really rushed and bad mood too. Am I being too rude about the New York city area? I mean, everybody’s in a hurry. It feels–
Dr. Josh Wagner: Oh no, and it’s only increased. That’s why I lived in Manhattan for many, many years, I don’t anymore, I haven’t missed it one second. I enjoy going back for short spouts as a tourist, but yeah, it’s a very hustle bustle, rat race, doggy dog energy, and you’re absolutely right.
Kim Sutton: Do you still have your chiropractic practice?
Dr. Josh Wagner: No. So that’s years ago was, I moved on from that and went professionally online so I don’t have to have a fixed location both in the consulting and coaching for doctors, and now in the deserving process, and the book, and speaking, and seminars.
Kim Sutton: I find it so fascinating, you know, that you did focus on doctors because for the people who are supposed to be taking care of us, often they forget to take care of themselves.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Absolutely right, and it was also, obviously I know chiropractors intimately well being one, so I know their struggles. I saw where things were toughest and practice, and I saw that I had some of the answers in certain areas like delivering an incredible new patient experience, and I also saw a few years into it, how could I give the same exact strategies to two doctors in the same exact town with the same size office? Yet one of them takes it, and does phenomenally well, everything gets easier, and the other nothing changes. Maybe they procrastinate, the self sabotage, they act on them, but it just doesn’t work out. And that’s when I came to discover the entire premise of what I do now, what I share with the world is that one single belief that separates those who get where they want to go, or have would they want to have compared to those who end up self-sabotaging, and relate this to your life. If you’re listening, maybe it’s a weight loss goal, maybe it’s a financial savings goal, maybe it’s a relationship goal, and you’ve probably tried lots of different endeavors, savings routes, weight loss diet, dating. And if you’re not making real progress, if things aren’t changing, I want you to answer this one question in your mind. It’s a simple yes or no answer, but it’ll give you one area to look at as to why it may not be changing. So think of the end result you’re going for in any area of your life, nothing’s off limits. And then just answer this question, do you truly believe that you deserve having that end result? Do you truly believe you deserve have been that end results? And if you got no answer, then that’s really the no. And for 95 plus percent of us, if we’re stuck, or not moving forward, we’re not making progress. We know we’re self-sabotaging, or completely procrastinating, it’s due to an undeserving belief. That’s what I realized was in doctors, because doctors are human. We’re all the same flesh and blood, and we have all the same thoughts and insecurities, and undeserving beliefs. And when I started introducing that, everything changed in all different aspects of their life. So at the end of the show, I’ll give you a link to be able to get an audio for the meditation. Everything is focused on creating and increasing your deserving in the area of life that’s most important to you. Here are some other aspects that are really important, you’re not born like if you, if you asked yourself that question and got to no, don’t get down in yourself. Don’t beat yourself up because we all have it in different areas. No one was born with undeserving or deserving beliefs. They were all learned and put in us from the people we grew up around, whether it’s our parents, teachers, friends, society. So since they were learned, that means they can be changed, and they’re not all encompassing over your entire life, meaning you don’t deserve or not deserve, it’s every single area of your life. Like, you may have the relationship that you love, but you can’t lose that 20 pounds. Well, you may have an undeserving beliefs in having the body, or the weights that you created, or the financial savings, or stability. So it has nothing to do with your gender, your age, your religion, none of that. In this world, and you’re living in this world, there’s no inherent reason that you don’t deserve happiness or experience in it. And a lot of it for many people is just giving yourself permission to know that you deserve having what you want. Because in our self-talk, our past, all of our experiences sometimes beats us down so much to truly believe we don’t deserve what we want. And there’s no truth behind that. There’s no reason. And starting from right now looking forward in your life, you can draw this sleep, naked blank, truck clean, and start moving forward with a deserving beliefs. And the actions you take will actually have new results, you’ll see things differently. People will come out of the woodwork to help and support you. Go for whatever you want, everything will start changing. Yet just knowing the concept isn’t going to change it, you have to do the work. And that’s where I know the easiest way I know is to every day do this 20 minute deserving process. It’s a meditation, it’s a guided audio. And if you really commit yourself every day to giving yourself permission to believe you deserve it and putting in the work, you will see things change that have never changed before. And that’s what I love hearing about from the seminars I deliver, the people I work with, every different walks of life, and all the different countries of the world. And that’s what moves me, and that’s what I’m passionate about sharing, and Kim, I’m grateful to have me on to share this with your wonderful audience.
Kim Sutton: You have my head spinning because I’m going to pick on my husband here for a second. He was married twice before me, and then a number of other relationships before me, and repeatedly got the short end of the stick. I mean, was cheated on multiple times, had plates thrown at his head, you know, just imagine all those cookie stories that you could possibly hear, and he had that. So we started dating and I was not like anybody he had dated before, and he didn’t feel like he deserved it. I mean, we’ve had conversations about this, so he actually sabotaged us and we broke up for a few months, but I’m persistent and stubborn, and I knew that we were meant to be together. And now nine years later, you know, we’ve been married for seven years. So he saw that, and then he kept on losing his job, and I asked him: “Well, you know, do you think this could be a message from God that maybe you’re not supposed to be working in the warehouses, or the factories. Maybe it’s time for you to go to school and pursue your dream career?” He was very hesitant because he didn’t feel like he deserved that. He’s like: “Why?” And I said: “Why not? This is your opportunity.” So, I want to ask you, you know, I have my own beliefs on this, I know that it starts with us, but what about the people around us?
Dr. Josh Wagner: So that’s an excellent story. One great job contributing to your husband, and two to exemplify the point that I left out is, if you recognize, know, or suspect that you have an undeserving belief in an area of life that’s important. I don’t mean to say that my deserving process that I’ve created is the only way to change it, it’s just a very easy, simple way, if you can commit to 20 minutes every day. But Kim, you’re absolutely right, the people in your life have a tremendous impact. And just like oftentimes, parents, or other influencers as we grew up, flipped or switches down inadvertently, or accidentally, great people in our lives can flip them back on. And you can be just as much of an influence for the other people in your life. Like, think about Kim, your children, or if you’re listening to this and you have children, or family, or anyone in your life who respects you, you can be an influence to them in building their deserving beliefs. And you know what? It can start by just letting them know that they deserve it. You don’t have to have any authority. You don’t have to have any magic spell, or anything like that, just telling people. So that’s what we get into at seminars is, especially for the people who can’t do the meditation, they can’t make the time for it, something like that. There’s many other ways where your deserving switch can be flipped on, and it’s not just the process. So thank you for bringing up that example, Kim.
Kim Sutton: Oh, you’re welcome. Yeah, one of the, I think the people in my house would probably be irritated by a frequently asked question, which is why not?
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah (laughs).
Kim Sutton: why not? Like, yes it does apply to, you know, why didn’t you get your chores completed? But also, you know, why can’t you, you know, think bigger, just think bigger. Yes, there are struggles, but why not? I have a 16 year old who keeps on turning around and sort of eyeballing me, but I asked him what he wanted to do in a couple of years when he graduates high school. And his first response was being an accountant. And I asked him: “Why?” And he said: “For the money.” I said: “Okay, but do you really get excited to think about that?” “No.” “So can you do? What do you want to do?” And he actually, you may be fascinated to know that one of the areas of these interests right now is chiropractic care. So yeah, but you know, we can easily fall into the trap of we need to do things for money, but what about for heart?
Dr. Josh Wagner: Absolutely. And coming onto this podcast, knowing your message, and Positive Productivity, I was thinking of a theme I share in all my seminars, the four traps of traditional goal setting. But I could rename it productivity because obviously you know, and your listeners know, Hey, productivity without it being positive is not worse than, and I factor in the deserving belief there where, hey, you could be making progress, but if it’s not positive, probably don’t believe you deserve having all of it, meaning the end results and feeling great. So those four traps are, thinking you should be someplace you’re not, but not having that clear vision, and inspiring vision of where you want to get to. And again, whether it’s relationship, finances, health, everything is included. So in society more than ever with social media and technology, we’re bombarded with how life should be. And for someone your age, and your gender, this is how it should be. And it’s very easy to not have your own inspiring vision and feel like you’re stuck. And so that’s the first trap is just feeling stuck without a vision. The second is plotting that course, doing that 90 day action plan, waking up earlier, cutting out those foods, doing all those things that aren’t comfortable. And all along the process we’re feeling burnt out. We’re feeling like things are moving and we end up quitting, failing, changing directions constantly, which is another form of self sabotage. And that’s the second forum, the whole journey and the pathway not feeling inspiring and positive. And then the third and the fourth are actually worse. And those are for those small percentage who actually do achieve what they’re after. Again, whether it’s the relationship, a money goal, health goal, a weight goal, we get it through a long, arduous, exhausting process. And then two days later realize, is this it? What’s next? And everything we worked for, we feel the same way as before we even started. But we got to the top of that now, and now we just feel like, okay, well now this is the status quo, this is the baseline, what’s next? That’s not fun. And if you’re listening to this, and you’re an achiever, you know what that’s like.
Kim Sutton: Well, it’s really fascinating that you said that before you go into number four. I do marketing automation for clients, and I’ve heard, not just from my clients but also with other mentors. They get, you know, they go, they have their launch, the launch ends, and regardless of how successful it was, there’s sort of that depression that comes afterwards because they got there, they got it done, and now, now what?
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah, and now it’s really quiet.
Kim Sutton: Yup.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Perfect example. And that ties into the fourth one, which is, you accomplish what you set after. Still, it’s almost inevitable that within 15 minutes to two days you feel, is that it? What’s next? So you’re at the bottom of another mountain. But then what’s worse is that, whatever it took you to get that accomplishment, like the time you put in, the extra discipline, when the weight loss, the financial savings, we forget that we have to maintain that. And the second we don’t, we start to slip and go backwards. So it’s not like, oh, we attained something, maybe it’s a relationship. It’s not like you change who you are to attract an amazing person, and amazing relationship. And then once the ring goes on the finger, you can go back to your old ways. If you do, you’re going to sabotage that relationship. So–
Kim Sutton: I’m over here laughing. You’re talking about my parents (laughs).
Dr. Josh Wagner: It’s not just, is this it? It’s, whoa, I’ve got to keep up everything I’ve been doing, and actually work a lot harder if I want to keep increasing, I can’t coast because the definition of coasting is you’re going downhill. And each one of those factors, those four, no vision, the grinding grueling process that you quit, achieving, but realizing immediately, is this it? What’s next? And then on top of that, the fourth one, having to maintain everything you’ve done to accomplish. If it’s not a joyful, inspiring journey, which doesn’t mean there’s going to be ups and downs, and challenges, and hurdles, of course there is, that’s life. But as the overall theme, if it’s not positive, it’s not joyful, it’s not inspiring. There is definitely an undeserving belief present in that specific area, so that’s something instead of trying to change the goal, or the action list, the 90 day plan is really hone in, and focusing on strengthening, or creating. Your deserving belief in that area, so you don’t fall into one of those four traps of traditional goal setting, which is just so common in our, especially society with everyone wanting more, and comparing themselves to others, they compare, and despair phenomena of social media. So, all comes back to your inner self deserved, and there’s no reason. Anyone listening to this doesn’t deserve what they truly want and care about. There’s no inherent fundamental reason, and that’s really important.
Kim Sutton: One of the things that I thought would help me get to what I wanted, which by the way, for the longest time, I would say until about three years ago, I always thought that things would be better, when? Or I’ll be happy, when? And I don’t remember what caused it, but there was finally the click of, I’m happy now. Anything that comes beyond will be, like a perk, right? But I always thought that I had to say yes to anybody, and anything that came my way in order for me to get what I wanted. And what I realized was that, I was just digging myself a big hole. I want to go back to what you said though about changing direction, and swapping projects, and all that. Our listeners have heard over and over again that I have what I call chronic idea disorder. I’ll start a project, get distracted by something else, start a new project, and then I wind up with a whole bunch of unfinished projects, no money coming in, no results being attained. And I’ve gotten so much better about it to the point that I’m finally writing my book, but I realize that was not helping in any way. Sure. It’s great to be creative, but you’ve got to get one thing done at a time. And when you have all these little finish things, all those little finish things can easily add up to something big. I was also thinking about, just for example, like people with gastric bypass surgery, you know, there’s work that has to be done before they can even have the surgery, and there’s expectations of how they’re gonna treat their body, and what they’re going to eat after they’re done. But I’ve heard several stories of people who just slipped back into their former ways, and then all of a sudden we’re back to the weight that they were in before they even got there.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah, just like lottery winners–
Kim Sutton: Exactly.
Dr. Josh Wagner: The most common thing, you know, within a few years, you’re in the same financial situation.
Kim Sutton: If not worse.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah, yeah. And usually worse within seven years. So you said a brilliant comment just now is, about getting to a place of happiness rather than focusing on being now, and traveling through life, and wherever you go, being happy, and that is a profound statement and understanding. Just like, you’re not going to get to a place in the future where it’s, okay, let’s focus on the deserving beliefs. If you don’t, you deserve to be an incredible romantic relationship. If you’re listening to this, or have the waistline you want, or have the amount of savings you want in the bank, you’re not going to have that deserving belief. Once that happens in a year or five years, you have to have that deserving belief first in order for it to happen, no differently than, you can’t plan on being happy six months from now after you lose 20 pounds, or save those extra thousands of dollars. You have to choose to be happy now, and then that’s going to assist you in actually creating what you want, and then you stay happy because you were happy before, you’re happy after, unlike, what I was mentioning in the traps and goal setting is, you think something’s going to change once you reached the top of the goal. But anyone who’s achieved a lot realized that the majority of the time within two days after an achievement, you know, you feel great, you feel accomplished, you’re proud of yourself within two days, you actually feel the same as before you started on the journey, and that’s what causes this stuff. Now we need something bigger, and better, and tougher to get. And it’s just this endless grueling struggle that I’ve experienced for years, and years, and years, and many people do for their entire lives. So cultivating how you want to feel, believing you deserve to feel how you want to feel even before you get the tangible outcome, the results, the books written, the businesses flowing, and the money’s coming in, you have a relationship, you have a body, or hell, that’s the real prize in life. How you feel on a day to day basis. And by the way, this isn’t just about feeling good, it’s when you’re feeling good, you’re actually gonna be your best in life, and be able to make the most change, and do what you want to do when you’re feeling the best without the results happening.
Kim Sutton: Absolutely. I’ve seen that in my business when I’m working on clients who I, you know, are outside of my ideal client, avatar? When I’m working on their work, my lack of interest shows in my lack of care, and my lack of success in the project, but what I’m working on, when I’m working with clients who I really love what they’re doing, and fit my ideal avatar, then I’m so in it and you can tell–
Dr. Josh Wagner: And easier.
Kim Sutton: Yes, and it’s so much easier, and I’m excited to work on it every day, and the other ones I’m like, oh, another email? Now, I made that shift 2016, 2017, where I don’t take on the ones who I’m not passionate about anymore, and right away I started to see the business shift, like income went up significantly when I started working on the people I was passionate about. When did this huge shift happen for you? Was there a pivotal moment where you were like, wow, this is what I want to be doing.
Dr. Josh Wagner: It was a few years into primarily focusing on helping doctors with their practice growth, and seeing how could I be giving you the same exact strategies, and lessons, and understandings. But some doctors take it and succeed, and some doctors do nothing. And just realizing there’s gotta be a missing link. And I’m a student of self growth and personal development, and it’s in my book, there’s a conversation with a mentor of mine who’s been successful his whole life. And he made the comment offhand at dinner one night, and he always believed he deserved it. And to him, it didn’t mean anything. And that stuck with me and I realized I don’t see, of all the beautiful wisdom and personal growth material out there. I don’t see anyone else having that as the real linchpin, the common denominator of what makes all the difference. Because, I’m also not saying that all of the other factors like discipline, and integrity, and commitment, and you know, you have a whole list that those don’t play a role, of course they do. But if you don’t believe you deserve, you’ll self-sabotage, even with having all the resources, and the money, and the world, and if you do believe you deserve, even without the resources, you’ll find a way to move forward. And so, it really was, through my own life experience, and epiphany as a mentor of mine inadvertently said, relating back to his life and his success that, planted the seed, and then I just started going deeper and deeper, and realizing this is the missing link.
Kim Sutton: Is there a difference, do you think between believing that you deserve something? And believing that you’re entitled to it, or are they one in the same to you?
Dr. Josh Wagner: There are slight differences. Interestingly, a lot of people often ask what about worthiness? Rather than entitlements, like how is deserving different than worthiness? I’ll address both, but in case listeners have the worthiness question in my mind, I see a person feeling they’re worthy, or not as something that’s outside of them, imposed on them by a superior figure. Whether that’s religious, whether that’s parents, whether that’s a teacher, and deserving has nothing to do with anyone outside of you, or anyone else’s viewpoint of you. Deserving is completely your choice, which is great because that means you have the ability to change it. Again, it wasn’t stamped on your forehead at birth, it’s not in your DNA. So that’s an extremely deserving and worthiness entitlement. Growing up as a child definitely is similar, and contributes to deservingness, you probably can think of the children, the stereotypical trust fund baby who got everything they needed, or wanted, and you know, would never have an issue growing up financially because they’re going to be taken care of. So that child growing up who views the world as, oh, I’m always going to have whatever I want, and that without a doubt sets them a deserving beliefs. Well, I’m going to have whatever I want. Then what happens through the rest of their life though can definitely change that. So, if they have a deserving belief, I can do whatever I want, but act carelessly with it, it’s done, you know, cause and effect, karma, however you want to describe it, life’s not gonna allow that to happen. But if they have a deserving belief, and it’s something that’s actually they choose to do, something positive and productive with that, then there’s no reason, life isn’t going to still give them abundance. So that’s a short, that there’s more to it, but that’s a short relation to entitlement. That entitlement growing up definitely contributes to a deserving belief.
Kim Sutton: I love how you went into detail because I’m actually thinking about a couple of the mentors that I’ve had on my journey, specifically Todd Herman and Brendon Burchard. I mean, Todd Herman grew up on a farm, and I remember when he was going through a launch once, somebody said something along the lines of: “Well, it’s easy to make money when you have money.” Well, he didn’t grow up having a lot of money, and Brendon Burchard, I mean, his parents never made more than a combined $40,000, and now he’s making millions, like probably eight figure plus every year.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Great.
Kim Sutton: So, I would love to ask him that question sometime unless you’ve already asked him about how he feels about the word deserve, you know, just–
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah, cause you know, so from the opposite end of the spectrum, if you grew up with little to no means. Similarly, I wasn’t, I didn’t grow up entitled, my parents didn’t have access. I had to work summer jobs, and buy my own car, when I was able to drive, even though most of my friends were given brand new cars, for some people that plant seeds differently. So, for some people that creates a deserving belief of, well that’s the lifestyle I should have, what my parents had because that’s just how I see the world, and that’s what seems fair. And some people don’t want to surpass their parents because they feel ashamed of it, or they feel like–
Kim Sutton: Guilty?
Dr. Josh Wagner: Guilty for other people, like for me, there was no shame to me. I didn’t feel guilty if I surpassed how much my father made, whatsoever. And in fact, a story that illustrates that is, when I was really, really young, probably three years old on a car ride back with the family from a long day at the park. My brother was asleep next to me. I was trying to fall asleep, so my eyes were closed, my parents were in the front seats arguing about money, which was a common thing I’d hear. And, or I heard my dad really just break down in one final sentence before he silent, and he said: “We don’t have any money left.” And I’m a three year old child looking up to my dad as the most significant men in the world, which every child is going to look up to their father as. And I saw him completely broken and weak, and we get back home, and my father says: “Okay, I’m going to order pizza for dinner.” And I crawled up on his lap on the couch and said: “Dad, how are you going to order pizza if we don’t have any money?” And he just said: “Don’t worry about it.” And brushed me off, none of that got resolved. But the decision I made in that moment was, I’m never going to allow that to happen to me. Like I’m never going to allow a lack money to make me feel broken and weak, because the most important nail figure in my life, that’s what I saw happen to him. And so, there was no ever competition. I don’t mind the goals of my business, and my income is not to have more than other people, or to show off. It’s purely at the most basic level. It’s, that I never have to be stressed, and feel broken, or weak about money. And I know that also contributed to my parents splitting up and getting divorced. And I also attributed, hey, if the finances don’t work, the relationship doesn’t work. So, we all, again, have our mindset that are deserving beliefs implanted and imprinted through different ways in the same exact, three people could grow up in the same way, but take on very different deserving beliefs just from the perception of what happened. So that’s just a quick understanding of how, yeah, I didn’t grow up with much means, but I didn’t allow that to say that that’s what I deserve as well.
Kim Sutton: So, my oldest two at this present moment are 13, and 16, and one thing that I’ve been trying to impress on them, especially in the last year, is I don’t want them to think that they have to work really hard for finances to be easy. And I want to thank you because out of our discussion today is, like I’ve just taken on a new deserve that, I deserve to be abundant in finances without, you know, breaking my body to do so, if that makes sense.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Absolutely.
Kim Sutton: Like, I don’t have to be sleep deprived to be comfortably financially. And while I’ve already been working on that significantly this year, I’ve never said that before. I deserve to be healthy financially without being broken physically or mentally.
Dr. Josh Wagner: That’s wonderful. And I’ve got an audio that will help you even strengthen on that (laughs).
Kim Sutton: Thank you. I don’t want to take you away from your retreat any longer, and this has been such a phenomenal conversation. Listeners, I would love to invite you to leave your feedback on the show notes page, which you’ll find it at thekimsutton.com/PP608, so I’ll say that one more time, thekimsutton.com/PP608. But Josh, where can listeners find you online, connect, and get to know more, and find that awesome meditation.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah, so my main site is D-R-J-O-S-H-W-A-G-N-E-R.C-O-M, So drjoshwagner.com, and to find that meditation, I’m going to give you the secret link that’s inside the book for readers, but it’s yours for free. It’s drjoshwagner.com/deservingsecrets.
Kim Sutton: Awesome listeners, if you are driving, if you’re trying not to burn dinner, we will have that link for you in the show notes. So don’t feel like you need to be unsafe right now to write that down.
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah. Thank you.
Kim Sutton: Josh. Thank you much again for joining us today. Do you have a parting piece of advice, or a golden nugget that you could share with listeners?
Dr. Josh Wagner: Yeah. There’s absolutely no inherent reason that you don’t deserve whatever it is that’s in your heart that moves you, that makes you happy, and that you really want.
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