We hear about athletes going to entrepreneurship all the time. But what about entrepreneurs giving up all they have to become a professional athlete? That is the path that Coach Luke Haefele took. He once ran multiple six-figure businesses. One day he made the bold decision to switch gears, packed everything into a U-haul and moved to Las Vegas to become a professional boxer. One thing led to another and he’s now running an amazing company called AE Coaching. AE stands for Accelerated Expansion. To say that Coach Luke has a different style of coaching is an understatement. If you want a support group that will boost your confidence to do the things that are already expected of you, then this is definitely not going to be your cup of tea. Coach Luke is brutally honest about what each person needs to unlock their full potential. Tune in and get your mind blown with his unique approach to coaching!

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

Coach Luke Haefele – Accelerated Expansion

I am here with Coach Luke Haefele. Luke, what’s up?

What’s up? Thanks for having me on.

Thanks for jumping on. Coach Luke comes to us. You’ve got an awesome journey and a great story. You’ve had multiple six-figure businesses. You’ve made a bold decision at one point in your life to switch gears. I want to talk to you about what you’re doing. You’ve got an amazing company, AE Coaching. We’re going to dive into that. Give us a little overview. What are you up to? How did you end up here? We will do a deep dive and unpack it all.

I lived in the same town for close to 39 years. I had created some successful businesses over there. I found myself not fulfilled spiritually, mentally and emotionally. I found out that money wasn’t everything and isn’t everything. Long story short, we liquidated it all, packed everything into a U-Haul and moved to Las Vegas/Henderson inside a 20-foot U-Haul to chase my passion to become a professional athlete and get my family in a better space.

That’s flying through it. You and I had a call prior to us doing this show here. I want to share some of the stuff too because you say, “We packed it up.” That wasn’t a plan. We’re going to dive into a lot of that. More so, you have an event coming up too with AE Coaching. One of the things that I love about the show is connecting with people.

When you get with men, women, entrepreneurs and people that are leaders in their community and making a difference, the ability and the resilience to make a decision, cut and go are mind-blowing. That’s what I loved about our conversation. If it’s okay, talk about how that decision came about because you were in the same place for 39 years. You shared a story with me where something had happened with your kid in the car. You were a done deal, “We’re out.”

The town I lived in had a very low population and a high crime rate. I don’t want to put the town on blast because I love the place, yet I had grown callous to what was going on. We had a business and a beautiful house. I’m driving home with my son. He was fourteen at the time. We’re driving down the road. Right in front of where we drive every day, these two guys are in the street with guns carjacking the car in front of us. I’m thinking, “I want to get home and eat some chicken.” My son was shaking. He’s like, “I’ll be strong but there’s no future for my little brother and sister here.”

At that moment, everything I said I wanted to do was being held up by my inaction. I went home. My wife and I like to hang out inside her bathroom. It’s massive. I said, “I have an idea.” I had to explain to her what happened. She was shocked too. I said, “Let’s liquidate everything. I want to become a professional boxer. Do you want to be a housewife? We are not passionate about business anymore. Let’s sell the houses, get rid of everything and move to Henderson, Nevada.” She’s like, “Why Henderson?” I said, “It has been a little bit different than where we’re at. I want to get my kids an opportunity to succeed.” Here we are.

Kudos to you. That takes some balls. You take that on. You have no idea what it looks but you know you want better for your kids and you will figure it out. You’re a professional athlete. Let’s talk about where you were physically at that point to have made that decision. Were you killing it physically?

At that moment, I was killing it physically, although a year and a half prior to it, I was 240 pounds and an alcoholic, sitting inside my Hummer and thinking to myself, “I hate what I’ve become. There’s no way this is it.” As I’m sitting there, I made a goal to go to the gym and quit drinking. I’ll go into the drinking side in a second. I don’t have a problem with alcohol although there was a problem that seemed to be existing that wasn’t controlled. I go to the gym and see these goofballs down here boxing. I’m like, “Look at these guys. I must have some energy toward it.”

I go down there, pay a coach 2 to 3 months in advance and say, “I want to train at 4:00 AM every single day for sure on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I can have that accountability to myself.” Two weeks after, I’m sitting inside my truck and saying, “I’m going to become a professional boxer at the age of 36 and a half overweight.” Everyone is like, “Are you crazy? You’re out there. That’s another little loop story.” Fast forward, that’s where I am at.

You’re training and everything. It’s not like you were in your twenties. You were 36 and a half. I love how you threw that in there.

I had the house in there.

Once you’re over 30, your body is a little different.

That’s coming right around the corner for me.

It’s not as easy to go and take that physical journey and commit to it. There has to be something that in your mindset to be able to make these decisions and go. Is there anything in your life that you’ve gone through that has been the foundation, “This is how it has to get done?”

The journey is crazy. Prior to it, I probably had seven years of high-level personal development experience in coaching and things like that. I found inside those systems that there’s a lot of, “Do as I say,” not as I do on the back end of it. I call it going into the darkness or getting in my cage. I told my wife, “I’m going to spend time keeping my word to myself.” She’s like, “What does that mean?” I was like, “When I silently say I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it because I’m tired of lying.”

One of those things was an ice bath. I hated the ice. I was like, “I’m going to get on the ice every single morning.” She’s like, “Are you serious?” For two years straight, I didn’t miss it. I got inside the water. I hated it. I shifted it from the morning time to the evening because eventually, I was happy getting up in the morning, “Let’s get in,” but in the evening, I didn’t choose to.

I switched it to the evening because that’s when I hate it the most. I still hate it the most. I practiced in what’s called the darkness. I was sitting in there, listening to a video and myself and thinking, “There is something better on this planet.” As I started keeping my word to myself, I started pushing away the people that didn’t fit the direction I was going. I didn’t even know I was on a trajectory for it.

I said I was going to move. I’ve seen people die in the street 100 times. I said I was going to physically leave the planet in front of me and I never did it. I was like, “I’m going to leave.” I never had. This time, everything is gone, “We’re done. Let’s go. I want to give my kids the opportunity.” I told my wife, “If something bad happens to one of us, it is 100% my fault for not moving. I’m not going to let that happen.”

That’s a lot of accountability. That’s awesome. Accountability is so huge. Many people say, “If you have a goal, share it with somebody. Post it out there,” but to keep it within yourself and hold yourself accountable is another level of discipline because it’s just you. Nobody else is going to push you to get on the ice and kick you in the ass. If you don’t do it, you don’t do it. If you keep that commitment, that’s the most powerful commitment somebody can make to themselves because that’s all heart and all drive. It’s all you.

I’ll expand on that fast. It didn’t start with me getting on the ice. It started with me staying on the treadmill. I got to the gym and realized that I said I was going to walk an hour on the treadmill. I was getting off. I timed myself. I was telling people I was on for 1 hour and I was only on for 30 minutes between taking a piss, wiping my nose and getting off back and forth. I made a commitment, “I’m going to get on this thing and walk until it turns off, which is 65 minutes.”

“You have a 60-minute cycle and a 5-minute cooldown. If I get off, I have to restart it. If I have to take a shit, pee or do any of that stuff, I’m going to stay on it.” That’s a baby step. We will get into Accelerated Expansion. I talked myself at over 6,000 miles of treadmill time, practicing being in discipline every single day for 2 years straight. It was 3 to 5 miles at a free pace. I’ve spent hundreds and thousands of hours in the darkness at 4:00 AM watching life and learning about myself. It started on the treadmill.

For someone that might be at that point where they need to take that first step, one of the things I always like to do here on the show is to hit somebody that can take some nuggets away from this and say, “I’m in that space. I’m out of shape and overweight. I’m a miserable person that might be killing it.” You were killing it. You had multiple six-figure incomes. I’m sure you’re driving the Hummer. I’m sure people looked at you and were like, “Luke is killing it,” but inside, you weren’t fulfilled. You weren’t getting that work-life balance. If somebody is there, how do you pull out the first step? You don’t go from that to, “I’m going to be a professional boxer and jump in the ring.”

The reason the company is called Accelerated Expansion is to expand at a massive rate. It’s tiny steps. I have a big thing called frequency and intensity. That’s what I teach. A lot of times, we have too much intensity added to too little frequency. I say, “What is the one small thing frequency-wise? Do you hit your snooze button? Start right there. If you’re hitting your snooze button, you are starting the day with an L. You made a commitment that you were going to get up when you set that commitment.”

A lot of times, when I coach men and women, I tell them, “The commitments are not what you make out loud that are big to people. They’re the silent ones you keep to yourself that are small and no one knows about.” When I started practicing, I started my business so I didn’t have to get up at a certain time. Once I started, I said, “I will get up between 4:00 and 4:30 every day. There’s my time block.” I didn’t say, “I’m going to get up at 3:00 AM.” “At 4:00 and 4:30, here’s my time block. I’ll get up at any time between that. I will not hit the snooze button.” I left the snooze button enabled because I wanted to have the option to let myself down.

Trust me, there were hundreds of times when I let myself down and hit this thing. I knew I had broken the commitment and it bothered me. I would start there. Some guys are good at getting up. If you’re good at getting up, what’s the next thing? Maybe it’s drinking. I can turn my drinking on and off. My wife said that it’s something that I have a problem with. Someone told me, “If you can’t let it go for 30 days, then it’s an addiction.” I turned it off. I was like, “I will not put myself inside this space where she could be stumbled,” if that makes sense. I went on a tangent there.

It all filtered back to me keeping my word to myself of getting up in the morning time. It transitions into the next thing and then the next thing. I flipped the tractor tire up a mountain because I told them I was going to do it, not because Luke was this great guy. I was the laziest partying dude there was with a big house and all this stuff. Inside, I knew I was a liar. All I did was lie. I’ll tell you, “I do this.” I was not keeping my word to myself. There are very small things. I track them every day.

Food is a big one. I love food. If I cannot control what I put into my body, I have no control over my output. I don’t care what anybody says. If I’m not able to control what’s going in my mouth and what I’m drinking, which is one of the few things we do have control over, there’s no way I can control what my output is. I can lie to myself. Trash food creates trash energy, which creates trash output. If I’m not able to control that, then I’m not able to say I’m optimum for what’s in me. It’s an exposure to myself of what I’m not able to do and live at my full highest potential.

One of the things I wanted to unpack a little bit too is this. Sometimes I’ve even been to one of these conferences. I’ve done a lot of self-development, coaching and training. I’m a self-proclaimed junkie for all this stuff, which is why I’m here to get more of it and get my fix but for some people that are getting into it or maybe they are into it and they’re burning out, “I have to get up at 4:30. I have to eat plain chicken and rice,” where’s the balance? Is there an ability to balance and still get to where you want to get without being this machine robot? That’s where some people fall off.

We’re going to go funny. This is Coach Luke’s space. I step away from the cliche personal development space of balance. I believe there’s no such thing as balance inside the universe. The universe itself has proven that balance is not something that exists. Anytime we are in pursuit to create something that doesn’t exist, we are going to fail miserably every single time and find ourselves wanting. We can convince ourselves that we’re balanced, yet even the idea that balance happens, if it’s fleeting, would create unbalance inside another space.

There's no such thing as balance in the universe. Anytime we are in pursuit to create something that doesn't exist, we are going to fail miserably and find ourselves wanting. Click To Tweet

I can say, “It’s balanced right here,” especially with men. I love this. When a man is physically comfortable, he is mentally uncomfortable. I don’t care how much he lies to himself. When a man is physically uncomfortable and that dude pushed more weight than he thought he could in a moment when he said he was going to do it, he feels like he unlocked the world, “Do you know what I did when I came home? I took my wife out. I was dead tired. I kept that promise to take her out and play with the kids when I wanted to sit down and be comfortable on the couch.” The fulfillment that they have is massive.

When we speak about comfort, for one, I don’t believe in comfort. If there’s comfort, it’s fleeting. The moment that you’re comfortable, you’re uncomfortable. If you hit up six figures, those six figures now are not what it was when you thought you would be comfortable there. A lot of times, we will lie in that space, “I’m financially comfortable.” I was the most comfortable overweight human there was. Inside my soul, I was dying. Comfort overall did not exist for me. I had houses, cars and all those things.

 

I started getting punched in the face by other men. I got the dog shit beat out of me in the ring so I can win in life. That’s how I learned. I have a deviated septum and all that stuff. It’s the most uncomfortable thing, yet I am so on fire. When we go back to balance and take comfort, comfort doesn’t exist. Become a master at discomfort. You’ve been sitting in a chair. Someone is reading this. There’s a level of discomfort happening somewhere in their body. They’re managing it. At one moment, it’s no longer manageable. They’re going to shift their way. It exists. It’s the level at which it comes.

When we go back to balance and how I believe this is not there, I’m big on obsession. We’re working with a lot of men and women in this. Give yourself permission to be obsessed and then learn how to control it. What are you great at? What’s good? “My bank account is on fire.” There’s some level of obsession. If you figured out how that works, that’s great. What is not on fire? My physical. Why don’t we take 30 days and do something crazy? You obsess over it for three hours a day. You’re going to space this out, turn off your phone and obsess over it. I found this in myself. I practice it with others. They indirectly will bring the other areas up because they have to keep pace.

When you give yourself a moment or permission to be obsessed, in those moments, you create so much and learn about the rest of you that’s hiding out. When someone says, “I’m financially comfortable,” if that dude was living crazy physically, his finances would be different. He’s convincing himself that, “Some guys are shredded up. They look like God’s gift. They have no money.” I’m like, “You would be even more physically tough if you were to shift everything you know about working out over to your financial side. Be obsessed. You wouldn’t lose your body. It wouldn’t go. You would learn how to bring both up at the same time.”

That’s how I feel about balancing comfort. It’s nonexistent. This will be a good one for everyone out there. I said this in front of a bunch of insurance agents on accident. I forgot what room I was in. I said, “Motivation, balance and comfort are like pissing on yourself in the cold. It’s warm and comfortable and then you’re wet the rest of the day. It sucks. It’s for a second gone. It’s fleeting. I’m not going to say it again.” That’s why I am in those spaces. It’s about the equivalent.

Motivation, balance, and comfort are like pissing on yourself in the cold. It's warm and comfortable, and then you're wet the rest of the day. It sucks. Click To Tweet

I love it. It doesn’t get any more real than that.

Another thing you touched base on was people who love men and women. I call it the seminar junkie mindset. It’s always looking for the next tool. Inside our culture, especially the American culture, there is no shortage or a lack of resources. There are millions of resources in personal development, diet and business. Generally, if you pick one of them and were to stick to it for 90 to 100 days, you would have a massive result. There’s no shortage of resources.

The issue is execution or the application long-term consistently of whatever I stick to. If I start to do any of that and it doesn’t work, I shift to the next one without fulfilling it. Did you say can do that for a year? Do it for a year. Don’t pivot when it gets tough. Many people are pivoting. Do you know what happens in boxing if you keep pivoting? You’re pivoting in a circle and getting punched. Did it work? It’s not working.

Go back to the corner, switch it up and execute that game plan until you either knock the guy out or he knocks you out. That’s how I feel about the seminar stuff. That’s the direction that my company is going to be going. You have everything in you. To whoever is reading this, you have it in you. You know what you need to do. You might have to take 100 days of doing it in the dark while things look like they’re falling to see the result.

You have it in you. You know what you need to do. You might have to take 100 days of doing it in the dark while things look like they're falling to see the end result. Click To Tweet

I love becoming obsessed too. That’s why I get a lot of people that ask about balance. Before I did a lot of professional development work, that was me. I was like, “I work too much. I have to spend more time with my kids. I have to be a better husband. I have to find some hobbies.” I was trying to create this harmonious balance. I went to one of these things. They were something very similar. They were like, “It doesn’t exist. Where do you want to make the change? Go hard. Go all in on that and then maybe shift.” It’s going to level up indirectly what you were thinking you needed to do. There are so many people who chase that balance. I love you bringing me back to that point as well.

Here’s another thing. I used to have men and women I would train. They would come to me and say, “I want to look like I did in high school.” I’m like, “You’re 40 years old. That body is gone with time. It’s not coming back.” If you set the goal like you were in high school, you are setting a goal that is impossible to achieve. There’s no way. It’s setting a goal like, “I’m going to going to walk to the moon.” You’re going to be let down because you’re never going to get there.

What I like to do is say, “What is a goal that’s attainable, that’s a stretch and that we can go crazy over and you can see yourself hitting?” A lot of times, we set unattainable goals because we have no intention of following through, “You don’t know how hard that was.” Another thing is pivoting. When men and women pivot in business or their health, it’s the number one reason why they don’t have the results. They keep repeating the same cycle. I say that from experience.

 

I was overweight. I became a bodybuilder. I weighed in on stage at 178 pounds and did a bodybuilding show. 10 years later, I found myself 240 pounds again. I lost the weight and gained all the weight back. With the weight that came was depression. Money was always there although the depression came. When I lost weight, I didn’t understand the power of why I was doing what I was doing. People were asking me for advice. Could you imagine asking a 240-pound guy for weightlifting advice? It was horrible. You don’t go to McDonald’s and ask them about brain surgery. It’s the same thing.

I love everything we’re diving into here. People are going to get a lot out of this. There are so many good nuggets. We’re talking about goals. It’s something attainable but what are some ways through your process in Accelerated Expansion that you have people measure those milestones? You’re here. People might not see it but you’re at one end of the spectrum. Your goal is at the other end. If you’re like, “I need to lose 40 pounds and get in shape,” and then you’re not measuring and holding things accountable, what’s your system and process for making sure that you’re on target and accountability within yourself or however that looks?

I like that because it goes against habitual thinking in regard to smart goal setting and things like that. I have a lot of men that set goals of running a 10K. That’s a thing. They set a goal. I’m like, “If I was going to kill you if you didn’t make 10K right now, would you be able to run 10K?” They say, “Of course.” Making a goal to do something that you are already physically capable of doing doesn’t push you into what’s called transformation. It pushes you into a cycle of feeling good, “I feel good. I hit my 10K.” I love mud runs, don’t get me wrong and Spartan Races, yet the culture that complains about everyone getting a trophy does mud runs, not for time. They do Spartan Races not for time.

They do it so they would be like, “I did it.” The issue is if you’re not becoming something greater out of that, you keep running the same circles like a track. When you said milestones, what I like to do is say, “What is a transformation that almost seems unreasonable, yet it is attainable? What would it be?” They’re making $1 million a year and they want to take it to $10 million. We know that’s a stretch. We are going to reverse engineer what that $10 million looks like. Your milestones are going to be your goals. We’re breaking the atmosphere here. We’re not going to fly around in circles.

This is what I believe. Some people don’t like it. If you set a goal that is big enough, in any area of your life, there will be a physical change. If you want to be a better husband and you set that goal, there is going to be a different way you carry yourself. If you want to make more money, you’re going to then begin to present yourself differently. It’s not a flaunt thing. You would carry yourself differently. If you want to lose weight, your body will reflect what that direction is. If you say, “I want to be a boxer,” you’re going to not look like a marshmallow. You’re going to look like a boxer.

When somebody makes a goal and says, “There’s no physical change going on,” 1) The goal is not big enough or 2) They’re lying about what they’re putting into it. I looked at myself. I had amazing goals. There was no physical change. What I found is I was inside of a cycle to make the same money and keep the same struggle. We set some smart goals. There’s Grant Cardone and a couple of other guys. I would rather miss the moon than shoot for the clouds. Maybe he does it.

If I’m shooting for the moon, I’m not going to say, “Let’s go to Mars.” I’m going to say, “There’s a star. Let’s figure it out. How are we going to get there?” Here’s the original reason I started boxing. This is going to sound crazy. I wanted a six-pack. This is what’s crazy. I said, “I will not eat and work out to get a six-pack. I’ll get about two and shit it off because I don’t want to do the work.” If I have to get in the ring and fight somebody that’s 180 pounds, I thought at the time and I’m 240, I need to cut the weight. My body will resemble what I wanted to look like because I don’t want to get my ass kicked.

I start moving it forward. It turned out I had to be 178 pounds, which I didn’t even think was possible, which was possible. I just didn’t know it. My body began to reflect on my actions. I always choose, “Do you want to look like a truck driver to pick up anything? Do you want to look like a guy that runs? Let’s set a goal that sets you up to create whatever that is indirectly.”

I’m big on it. Another thing is small steps. I used to do this. I have no ligaments in my left knee when I started boxing. I don’t tell people that. You are the first to know it. That’s the first thing. I don’t have any ligaments. It pops out. I have a rule that says, “My feet stay on the ground.” I started boxing because I keep my knees bent and they’re not activated. I’m able to do that. I don’t do jiu-jitsu or none of that. They’re like, “Why not?” My knee will pop out. We will go to the hospital and put it back in.

When you’re going down a road, there’s pain and risk involved, yet when you’re going down those spaces, you have to erase the things that are holding you back and look past them. I forever didn’t do cardio because I said I had a bad knee and now I’m a professional fighter. I’m going to be fighting right after this. I allowed a limitation that I thought was slowing me down to keep me from losing the weight that I wanted to lose. We can go into pain. We might go there but my idea of pain is a whole different look than a lot of the personal development spaces that like to talk about pain and negative self-talk. It’s up to you. We can take them down a rabbit hole of this.

Pain is a gift. I look at pain as a gift. We’re not going to avoid it. We like to think we’re going to avoid it. Pain avoidance creates negative results almost all the way around the spectrum. If you want to lose weight, it’s going to be painful. You don’t have to go to the gym. It’s just your diet, “That sucks. There was pain involved. My stomach is scrambling. I don’t get to have a beer when I said I wanted one.” That’s going to be uncomfortable. There’s pain.

 

I’m going to go. I want to learn how to fight. You hear people use the word warrior a lot. I’m becoming very literal. Look up the word warrior, see what it says and tell me if you’re that because even I am not a warrior and I’m gassing myself up. I’m not a beast. A beast is a four-legged animal that runs. I am the culprit of typing beast mode, monster mode and all these things. I wasn’t convincing you. I was attempting to convince myself that I was a beast. Once I got into a space of not loving pain but loving the results that navigating through pain creates. When you come out, you come out stronger and tightened. You might have failed, “This is another direction I can go.” I had pain avoidance.

Let’s dive into pain avoidance real quick. I share this all the time but some people might be reading this for the first time. FUEL is an acronym for Foundations Under Extraordinary Lives. We all have the foundation that our lives are built on and the extraordinary people that we meet. It’s not just financial. It’s in business. It’s husbands and wives. You’re living an extraordinary life. They went through that foundation. There has been some pain, struggle and hard work to lay the foundation that’s strong enough to hold up that extraordinary person.

People think it’s, “I got my fuel.” There’s some meaning behind it. What you said is so key. I have two daughters. We’re going through the college search with my oldest. She’s like, “I don’t want to do this one. It’s a little too far. It’s this and that.” I’m like, “Get uncomfortable,” but it’s so tough for younger people to understand that concept because we don’t want to feel any pain. As you get older and you look back on all that pain, you’re like, “I am who I am. That’s my FUEL. That’s the foundation under my extraordinary life.”

I’m going to branch off that because I like the direction you’re going. You’re inside the real estate industry. Everyone who’s our age would understand. If you ever do a remodel, it can be painful. You tear the bathrooms apart. Your wife is mad. You can’t find the right sinks. We’re going to put new flooring in. You have to move everything out. The foundation that gave me the extraordinary life that no longer served me had to be torn down to the dirt. That foundation had to go. I had to dig up the ground, relay the pipes and compact all the dirt.

A lot of times, when I work with people, they are attempting to build a skyscraper on a single home foundation. They’re attempting to add 3 or 4 stories to a trailer. There’s nothing wrong with those spaces. I used to have a restoration company. The pain of tearing a bathroom down and the pain of tearing out all the concrete down to the rebar are two different pains. They take a lot more time.

My brain came back to it. There’s a massive difference between an accurate assessment of who and what you are and negative self-talk. Inside personal development, there are a lot of realms like, “Speak positivity and things like that.” There is value there, yet don’t be inside the avoidance of who and what we are. I looked at myself in the mirror. This may go against cultural standards. I’ve got a belly hanging out. I told my wife I was 6 weeks away from a 6-pack. I swear to God I believed it because I always was gassing myself up. I have those pictures online.

You would look at it and be like, “You’re six weeks away from a heart attack,” but I thought that because I never would stand in front of the mirror. Goggins was initially triggered in my mind in the dark. He was like, “Tell yourself you’re fat if you’re fat.” I was looking. I was like, “You’re a fat piece of shit. You’re lying to yourself. You’re overweight. You’re going to eat and post beast mode after a workout while taking a picture with a filter on. What the fuck is going on?” As one of your audiences, one of the biggest things I could say is, “Accurately assess and audit who you are.”

Take inventory.

Whom do you want to be? There’s nothing wrong with saying, “I want to be somewhere better,” but the person you are now is not going to get you there. You want to become a 7 or 8-figure earner. That’s a different person we’re talking about. We might have to tear comfort out. It’s not about getting up early. It’s about keeping your word to yourself, the people around you and your kids. When I say I’m going to do it and I don’t want to do it, no one knows.

Accurately assess and audit who you are. There's nothing wrong with saying, “I want to be somewhere better,” but the person you are now is not going to get you there. Click To Tweet

That’s what it comes down to. That’s some of the most uncomfortable stuff because if you don’t, you’re a liar. Tell yourself, “I’m a liar. How do I become not a liar or be okay with being a liar?” Don’t tell me some Tony Robbins shit. The number in regard to Tony Robbins of people that go versus application is extremely low. It has nothing to do with Tony Robbins. His content is amazing. It has to do with, “When I leave there, what am I doing?” Inside that thing, I was like, “I’m going to do this.” I go home and two days later, that’s out the window.

Tony is not there.

The music is not playing. I don’t feel good. They say, “Always keep your commitment even when the emotional state the commitment was made has left because it’s gone.”

It’s impossible to stay in that peak emotional state.

It’s exhausting.

I love all this. I’m sure you and I could go on all day. There’s so much here to unpack but we’re going to wrap it up a little bit. For people that want to keep this conversation going and want more of the applications and the things that you’re talking about, we were talking before we jumped on here that you’ve got an event coming up.

It’s tentatively set for July 18th, 2023. I’m working on one final location. It’s what’s called a three-day live event. It’s an experiential event and a co-ed event. It’s going to be the first of its kind inside the personal development arena. I’ve done a lot of personal development on both spectrums. The spectrum has very hardcore and almost militaristic-style events. I’ve picked apart what’s not working and then the softer seminar-style events. I call them softer and it’s not a negative thing.

What we’re doing is bringing a combination of the two and making it co-ed. I have a couple of other professional athletes whom I work with. It’s taking the professional athlete mindset and applying it to your life. One of the things I’ve become very big on is being literal. Have you ever heard somebody say, “This is Christopher. This is what champions do?” That’s cool but is whoever said that a champion? If they’re not, then they’re speaking from a space of hearsay. If they are, at what level are we speaking? Are you a high school champion? Are you a college champion? Are you a professional boxing champion?

A lot of the things that are said in that space to make people feel good are not applicable. I fight with guys that are on their way to being champions. I met champions. Half of that shit isn’t how champions are. What champions are is they don’t quit. They don’t give up. They will go through whatever they can to get that single prize. That doesn’t necessarily mean getting up at 6:00 AM. Most of them don’t even get up until 10:00.

I want to bring a different mindset. A lot of the stuff out there is not attainable. It’s also being taught by people who have no idea what they’re talking about. It just sounds good. Here’s an example. I love Les Brown. He says, “If you get knocked down, try and land on your back because if you can look up, you can get up.” I love that until I got knocked the fuck out and landed on my back. I physically landed on my back. I didn’t know where I was.

When you get knocked out, you want to land on your face because it’s going to wake you up. You can get your hands under you. This has happened to you. You can stumble to your feet because nobody gets up on their back. I’m taking the realism, “This is what I’ve applied and what my athletes have applied,” and applying it to your life. You’re going to get knocked out. Your nose is going to bleed. Land on your face because if you land on your face, I can yell at you to get onto your hands. If you land on your back, the fight is over. We will come back again. That’s an approach we’re going to take inside the event.

I hate the word mastermind. I’m recreating a mastermind because I believe that men and women in the darkness working on their understanding that they’re alone in their heads and starting to work alone in their heads and they come together as a group of individuals that are moving in the same direction, will outpace and out-track any mastermind on the planet because those become more support groups.

If you’re here and you need a support group to pump you up to do the things that are expected of you, then we are probably not the people for you. If you want to learn how to be a self-starting person who is going to not stop whether they’re alone or whether there are 100 of them, that’s a person I want to work with and train because when I take those men and women and put them together, we will have a team of people that will be unstoppable.

That’s badass. I love how you’re marrying the two concepts. I don’t want to pigeonhole the date of this particular event because this is where you’re going, whether it’s this event or the next event.

It’s every 60 days.

How do people connect with you on social? What’s the best way to hook up and follow you?

I have a webpage that’s under creation. They’re building a simple webpage. My Facebook is Luke Haefele. My IG is @CoachLuke_. I have an actual YouTube channel that none of my friends hardly know about. It’s Coach Luke. You will find it. My TikTok is @Thanos_LV. We could go into the Thanos side. I have my alter ego that I run around. If you watch Marvel, you know who Thanos is. I put Las Vegas because I’m the Las Vegas version of that.

Tim Grover talks about the Mamba mentality. A lot of people don’t understand the Mamba mentality is a space that Kobe took on inside his mind from what Tim Grower says so that he could go and be the Mamba, come out and be Kobe Bryant. I heard that in a book while I was walking thousands of miles. I was like, “I need to apply that.” Thanos is whom I become.

When I go into the office, you have to deal with Coach Luke and the Thanos mentality. If I get in the gym, it’s Thanos. Don’t call me. I’m getting in my cage. I’ll talk to you when I’m done. When I come out, Thanos has to go into the little spot. I had a picture of him locking a key to lock himself in because that guy comes out when he needs to come out. I’ve got a whole lot on that. We will be here for two more episodes if we go that way.

We will have to catch another round. This has been awesome.

Anytime. I love it. You’re great. I want to thank you and your audience for having me on because you know how to lead a show. A lot of men and women need what you’re doing here and they don’t get it from shows anymore. I want to acknowledge that. It was great being on.

I appreciate it. If they got something out of this, they can connect with Coach Luke. If you did get something out of this, share it on social media, give us a five-star rating on iTunes and spread the word. I appreciate your time, Coach Luke.

Thank you and your audiences. You are amazing.

We will have to do round two at some point. We just scratched the surface but thanks for jumping on. On that note, we’re out.

 

Important Links

• AE Coaching – Facebook
• Luke Haefele – Facebook
• @CoachLuke_ – Instagram
• Coach Luke – YouTube
• @Thanos_LV – TikTok
• iTunes – FUEL with Chris Swartz

 

About Coach Luke Haefele

Coach Luke’s story is one of incredible transformation. He achieved remarkable success in his professional life, building multiple six-figure businesses. However, despite outward success, he realized that true happiness was eluding him. This realization prompted him to make a bold decision and follow his long-held passion for sports before he turned 40.

With unwavering determination and boundless enthusiasm, Coach Luke embarked on a journey to become a professional athlete. He pushed his physical and mental limits, facing challenges and setbacks along the way, but never giving up. Through hard work, perseverance, and a deep commitment to his dream, he achieved his goal and became a professional athlete.

But Coach Luke’s journey didn’t end there. He recognized that his passion, drive, and knowledge could be harnessed to make a positive impact on the lives of others. Drawing from his own experiences and challenges faced during his athletic pursuit, he decided to use his unique blend of athleticism, entrepreneurship, and coaching expertise to help individuals better themselves both personally and professionally.

Coach Luke founded his coaching company and developed programs that empower individuals to unlock their full potential, overcome obstacles, and achieve their goals. Through his coaching, he has helped numerous clients elevate their performance, boost their confidence, and achieve breakthrough results in various aspects of their lives.

Now, as a devoted husband and a loving father to three boys and one girl, Coach Luke understands the importance of family and relationships in one’s overall well-being. He incorporates principles of work-life balance, effective communication, and leadership into his coaching, recognizing the holistic nature of personal and professional development.

Join Coach Luke on the Fuel podcast as he shares his incredible journey of pursuing his passion for sports, building a successful coaching company, and making a positive impact on the lives of men and women seeking personal and professional growth. Get ready to be inspired and motivated as Coach Luke’s unwavering passion, drive, and commitment to excellence continue to fuel his mission of empowering others to unlock their full potential and thrive in both their personal and professional lives.

 

Tags: Accelerated Expansion, AE Coaching, Mamba Mentality, Pain Avoidance, Peak Performance, Professional Athlete