Ready, Fire, Aim Spotlight : Byron Ovenstone

Byron Ovenstone and I got on an Instagram Live a couple weeks back, to talk over some crucial aspects of what it takes to build confidence, stack wins, and jump into the dark that so many are afraid of in life.

Here I’ve taken the biggest points for you,

Enjoy this Q&A that’s so full of insight into a guy who’s had a roller coaster of accomplishment and breakthroughs, all of which came from a place inside that we all have access to, only if you tap into it..

Byron: So what do you want to know?

Julian: Let me give you a briefing on my following. They read the blogs, and I circle my blogs around the truth behind what it actually takes to create momentum, progress, to build that confidence for yourself, and really just the truth behind everything, exposing the truth because there’s a lot of bs out there, there’s a lot of people out for their own game tryna tell you how to make it, how to do it, when it’s either something they’ve never done, something they’re not actually putting into practice and so its pinpointing the truth & you are one of the first people that I wanted to bring on to expose that truth because I know that you’re a living testament to that of putting in the work and you’re the truth dude!

Byron: Thanks!

Julian: tell my people a little bit about what you do right now with what I know is gonna be the next big supplement company

Byron: Ok, fair enough. So I’m a finance guy. I work in numbers, that’s my thing is numbers, and data, and stuff like that. Previously I worked in banking and I was a finance guy, financial analyst, whatever you want to call it. I ran multiple projects across the largest, biggest banks in the world and just did a lot of finance related stuff. Cutting data, understanding data and then figuring out how we can use that data to serve the bank in a way that makes them more money and reduces costs, stuff like that. I then did the project which we’ll get into. I decided that I didn’t like that anymore but those skills that I learned, they are transferable into other industries. So I came over to the US, I chatted with Erin and he was like “Oh TrueLean can use someone like that.” So I do a lot of finance stuff for TrueLean as well, which is the supplement company you just mentioned.

Julian: Alright, so what exactly did it take and what took place that sparked in your mind “Hey I need to get to California for this and stop what I’m doing in the UK” on a dime and take a trip to California. Why would you do that?

Byron: Ok, we’ll reverse and go back to right at the beginning. I was a professional cricketer. So from the age of 13, I got paid to play sports, which was wicked. Basically living my dream from 13 years old. Initially, obviously it wasn’t cash payments, it was things like free kicks, free shoes, all that cool stuff. Then as I got older, I started playing for real money and started making good money playing cricket. Then, I fractured my back which put a massive stop on the game and they told me “you’re gonna need 6 months out.” And I said “psshh, you don’t know what you’re talking about bro, I need maybe 3 months at most.” I came back after 3 months, and fractured my back the other way. So I had a double fracture in the lower part of my back. The doctor basically said to me, “Dude, you do that again, you’re never gonna walk. You’re gonna be in a wheelchair.” Cricket career comes to a hold, game over. What now? And I just went on to google.. “Highest paying jobs in London.” And it was financial consultants. And I was like, “Well, that sounds good, I wanna make a ton of money. Finance consulting is the one.” So I just reverse engineered what a financial consultant is. Someone that has a handful of degrees, blah blah blah. I was like, “Shit.. I don’t have any degrees, I have to figure that out.” So I came over to the US, drove heavy whole trucks from Texas to Montanna for 9 months with Will. I earned the money that I needed to be able to study in the UK. So I ended up back in the UK studying, got a 3 year degree in 18 months, which was my first finance degree. I then did my MBA on top of that, cause I figured MBA people get paid more than just regular BA people. I did that in a year. I worked for a consulting firm and realized they were charging me out $500-900 a day, and I was getting paid around $150 of that $900. This is bull, I’m not a big fan of that. So I decided to set up my own consulting firm, and the rest is history. That’s a long story cut short and to the point. There’s a whole lot of stuff in between there.

Julian: The crazy part is that you brush over these huge points that for anybody else, that’s the accomplishment of their life.. at least somewhere where I come from, a small little city up North in California. You got a 3-year degree in 18 months.. That would be the city’s kid. That would be the highlight of the city. You brushed over that you realized you weren’t getting paid enough and it wasn’t to your liking, so you dropped it and started your own thing. That would be the highlight of somebody’s life where I’m from. Maybe to you it just comes so natural, it comes as nothing, or maybe you just have that mindset of just making the jump. Or if there’s something you don’t like just make a turn and start where you are. Since it comes so natural, maybe you can’t put context to it. But if you could try, how would you put that in a pill to serve somebody to say “Hey, you can do this too, with this type of mindset?” What would it be?

Byron: It boils down to how badly do you want it.. To be honest with you. I wanted to be in the UK more than anything in the world. I knew that if I was in South Africa, I wasn’t gonna make the money that I wanted, I was gonna have a really tough time living the life that I wanted to live there. So, I had no choice. It was South Africa or the UK. I wanted to be in the UK. How was I gonna make this work? I flew back over to the UK, and I didn’t realize how expensive it was to live there. I basically lived in an office. I worked part time as a career customer service dude, and I convinced them that they needed night time career services so that I could actually sleep at my desk because I wasn’t able to afford rent in London. How bad do you actually want it.. To the point where you will risk whatever you have to risk in order to get it. I learned pretty much anything that I needed to learn. If I wanted to know how to do X, Y, or Z, I would figure it out one way or another. These days, there’s no excuse not to know something. If you wanna know about finance bad enough, you’re gonna spend time on youtube, google, or whatever.. Any kind of platform that is an ability to learn stuff... you’re gonna spend time on that platform, invest in that platform, and learn it. I’m not school smart. I was horrible at math in school.

Julian: But yet you crushed it in school, which is crazy.

Byron: In some areas I did, but in some areas I didn’t. I’m now a finance guy, but in math I had a teacher tell me not to ever work with numbers because you’re terrible. Numbers are just not your thing. But I realized that that teacher just did not explain stuff to my understanding. Like he couldn’t relay what I needed to know in a way that I could absorb it. So then it was on me to figure out how to absorb it in a different way. I wanted to be a finance guy, so I had to figure out finance, one way or the other. So I got onto youtube and listened to 50 different people until I found a guy that could give me the information that I needed in a way that I could understand.

Julian: I think that’s so important nowadays.. Especially with information being so accessible. Sometimes it could be that you need the right person, the right tonality, the right context, to be able to penetrate into you. Would you say that that’s an important thing? Would you agree?

Byron: Absolutely. If you look across at some of the top influencers on instagram, some of the top motivational speakers.. Nobody really says anything out of the norm. There’s a handful of topics that everyone touches on. They just touch on it in their own way.. Like you would follow Andy Frisella whereas I would follow Bedros. You know what I mean? Like the way in which Andy says it will resonate with you versus the way Bedros says it resonates with me.. Or it could be Gary V. or whoever. It’s who says what you wanna hear in a way that you can absorb and understand it.

Julian: I think the reality is that there’s really only about 21 different truths out there anyway. They’re all just variations of whether it's making money, getting in shape, or building momentum. It’s either you’re gonna do it or you’re not.. And these are the boundaries with which you can operate from.

Byron: Exactly. One of the things I’m good at is joining dots. It’s a superpower of mine so I can draw correlations between a lot of stuff. And I started immediately correlating things between sports and business. I played a lot of sports when I was young so I was able to pull a bunch of those lessons and put them into business. The same rules apply. Once you know the game, the same rules apply one way or another. It’s just in adapting those rules and fitting them into this new world that you’re playing in.

Julian: I wanted to touch on the examples that you gave.. Like sports and the job you were at and what you had to do. The point I’m trying to get to is you made the comparison (ex. South Africa or the UK). Whereas somebody else would say “I’m comfortable here.” You were making money playing a sport that you loved. Yes, you ran into injuries but in another life you would’ve said, “this is good enough.” Don’t you think most people that you know or I know, would trade good enough for something uncertain, like jumping into the dark, or that dream where they know the endpoint, but they don’t know the middle. What would you tell somebody that is afraid to fill in that middle that’s in the dark and that they can’t see yet?

Byron: I guess it depends on how hungry you are right? I could’ve stayed a sportsman and I could’ve earned $60-100K a year even injured, being a mediocre dude, earning a relatively ok salary. I’m not gonna be financially well off. Or.. it’s weighing up the pros versus the cons. For me, it was a case of staying on this path and being average or I can take a leap of faith and I could work towards being extraordinary. Worst case scenario if I fell on my ass and was an absolute deadbeat, game over.. I could go back to cricket and I could fall back on that $60-100K and I could check boxes. But, there’s more to life than just checking boxes & being average. Now that you’ve just finished 75 hard phase 1, compared to when you did the initial phase, how much better was your attention to detail & your ability to step outside of that comfort zone and that averageness? What used to be good enough was no longer good enough. This is the new average. Your new standard of average is so much higher that going backwards is just unacceptable for you.

Julian: Yeah, it’s like I don’t even know the guy.

Byron: I don’t know about you, but I was so disappointed when I looked back and realized that that was me. That’s unacceptable. I can’t believe that I was ok with that. To circle back to what you asked, it really depends on what you want and how bad you want it. If you're ok with being average, that’s fine. The world needs all sorts of people. If you’re the person that checks the average box and that’s the box that you’re gonna fill for this world, then so be it. I’m not gonna judge you. That’s not my box. My box is being in that 1%, that something special, that something different. The biggest fear I have is being average, just checking boxes, and just existing. It’s not for me. I would rather take a huge leap of faith. I left a high paying consulting job in the UK to come here with no job certainty. I was told to jump on a plain and maybe they’d have something for me or they wouldn’t. I said, “Screw it, I’m gonna do it anyway.” Worst case scenario is that I come back to the UK and become a consultant again. Best case scenario.. I surround myself with a bunch of savage dudes that I really admire and look up to, and I level up in a big way. When you start comparing and start looking at the pros and the cons, like staying the same and being average versus taking a leap of faith and hanging around some of the most badass people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, it’s a no brainer all of a sudden. I would’ve kicked myself so hard for the rest of my life if I hadn’t taken that opportunity. One of the things that I hate is that ‘what if’ mentality. What if I had done this? What if I had tried that? I would rather say “Ok that was a screw up, not gonna do that again.” But at least I know.

Julian: Right.. You can almost fail happily because you know that you explored the thing that you didn’t know. So now that you know, you’re happy. My mom raised me with a black or white mentality. It’s either this or that. You’re either gonna do it or go the other way. There’s no point in thinking about the other side if you’ve already decided to go one way. Drive or ambition is the umbrella statement over what’s gotten you to where you are today. It’s crazy to me how people are afraid to let go of something they’re good at to try and reach for something uncertain.

Byron: 100%. Because it’s the known versus the unknown.

Julian: What was that thing that brought you here that made you take that jump to make California your home. What was that thing? Give a little bit about the meaning, the mission, what you took away. What is the project?

Byron: I had already come on holiday here to California a couple times. The first time I came here, I felt like this was home. This is what I need to make happen. I just didn’t know how I was gonna make it happen. My intention was to end up here one way or the other, it was happening. I went back, did another 4-5 months of work, and I decided it wasn’t for me. I had already set a plan in motion.. A 2-3 year plan of how I was gonna ramp up my consulting firm and make a ton of money, come over here (California) and figure it out. I followed Bedros because I was following Andy Frisella. I know you know Andy.. you’re a fanboy. I’m a fanboy too, but he’s a good dude.. Great guy. I was listening to an Andy Frisella podcast and B was on there talking about his story and I resonated with him. So I started following him on instagram. One day, The Project just popped up on my timeline. I had already set my intention for that year to be in the best mental & physical shape of my life. I got into such a deep routine of just working and eating horrible food to the point where I was 260lbs. The project came up and I thought it was a great opportunity to measure mental fitness but also super physically challenging. So I signed up, flew over here in November. The Project is a personal development thing on steroids where they literally rip your chest open, expose everything, and help you repair yourself and fix some of the wounds. I was bullied a lot when I was a kid, so the reason I workout and do what I do now is because the scared little boy I was doesn’t ever wanna get bullied again. They break you down to build you back up in this whole different way. My consulting firm was crushing it, but I didn’t have a purpose. I hated who I was. I looked in the mirror and I was disappointed by the dude that I’ve become. I had all the toys, all the bells and whistles, but I was a miserable human being. The project came at the right time. You come here and you unfuck yourself. They play with your mind, they play with your emotions, they play with your past and your future, and they reveal to you, just how capable you are. On one of the hikes, we were on our hands and knees crawling up and down.. Bloodied up, sweaty. Then I fast forwarded to a week from then when I’d be back in London sitting back at my desk. I realized that I would rather be doing this than back in London at my consulting firm.

Julian: That’s so interesting. What was the statement in your head?

Byron: I knew I wasn’t built to be a banker. I wasn’t built to make a banker’s wealth. I had very little emotional ties to being a banker. I was in the business to make a ton of money not because I actually enjoyed what I did.

Julian: People will give themselves the excuse when they don’t have something good to go back to. People know that the rest of their life is shitty so they’ll convince themselves that it’s ok. You were going back to a life of 30ft ceilings apartments with floor to ceiling windows, you had a golf simulator in your apartment. You were living a life where anybody else would’ve said, “I made it.” Yet in the middle of bloody elbows, crawling up a mountain you said to yourself that “I’m not gonna go back to that.” What emotion or characteristic did you tie it to?

Byron: What’s your moral compass? I didn’t make anyone’s life better being who I was. It was all about me and about how much money I can make, how much better I can make my life. I didn’t give a fuck about anyone else. The moral compass was broken. I didn’t enjoy who I was or what I was doing. It was an easy decision. I thought that the more I acquired the happier I would be. Once you’ve acquired a bunch of shit and realize you’re still empty inside then you realize that life isn’t about acquiring stuff. How many people would attend my funeral if I died tomorrow? Do I want to continue on this trajectory and be that guy? Or do I want to be somebody who actually makes a difference and the 5 year old me would be proud of. Who I can look at in the mirror and realize that I’m actually making a change.

Julian: It seems to me that you chose purpose over acquisition. Some people have a morality issue when tying together money and impact. You transitioned from having the skill of making money to going into building mode.

Byron: It depends on what your definition of success is. To me, that wasn’t success. That was me being selfish. Maybe that’s why I brush over it so much and it doesn’t seem like a big deal because I didn’t want to be known as that guy. The important thing is charging forward. You need to be 1% better today than you were yesterday. Then you compound that.

Julian: You’ve seamlessly made those little steps seem like nothing. I hope that people can apply that. It’s not let me become a bodybuilder, let me become Mr. Olympia.. It’s let me workout today. I’m reading Atomic Habits right now, have you read it?

Byron: yes!

Julian: Amazing book. It talks about the identity process outcome. Your outcome was making a ton of money. Your process was to do this job. And when you got to the identity part you realized this isn’t who I am.

Byron: I could’ve peaked at 29 and just been there for the rest of my life and not challenged anything or pushed myself. If I could accomplish all that in 6 years of grinding, what could I accomplish if I did it again knowing what I know now? I set intentions and I had non-negotiables. Decide what you wanna do, and go at 100% gas.

Julian: Somebody is 60% more likely to follow up on a goal when they know step 1. Having a big goal can sometimes leave somebody stuck. What do you think it is about people trying to overcomplicate the steps?

Byron: You only know what’s nice to have or have to have when you don’t have something. It’s nice to go out for a steak dinner that’s gonna cost you $300. But you have to have a meal right? But you can also eat a can of beans just to have something in your stomach. Then there’s those who make things so complicated so they can give themselves a load of outs as to why I can’t achieve this. Shit doesn’t happen overnight. People get fed all this crap about how you can be successful so quick and then they give up because this guy did it in 3 months, and in 3 months I haven’t even moved the needle.

Julian: Isn’t it funny, that the people that try and make it the most complicated typically want the biggest results out of it.

Byron: If I was to tell myself I was gonna set up a consulting firm and make $10M a year, I would’ve been constantly disappointed. It would seem impossible. If you break it down into smaller pieces and keep those rungs on the ladder nice and small, you can actually see progress.

Julian: and what actionable steps you can take today and tomorrow and the next day. It’s so crazy how many people blow themselves up with such grandiose goals. Don’t ever let go of those grandiose goals, but break them down into a realistic timeline.

Byron: What people don’t think about is that there’s a learning curve to everything. You wanna earn $10M at the end of the year? Well you’re gonna have to learn how to make $1M before you can make $10M. Once you know how to make $1M you replicate that 10 times. You have to learn the process. No one gives themself enough time. You have to learn before you earn. Then they’re not willing to sacrifice everything that they need to sacrifice. So they wanna earn a million but they still wanna get fucked up on the weekends with their friends. I didn’t go out for like 4 years.. At all. I was literally working, studying, sleeping. It’s about how much you want it and what you are willing to sacrifice.

Julian: The big pillars I can see in your life are to be willing to make the jump, keep your moral compass and be purpose driven...

Bryon: I was prepared to sacrifice ok to be exceptional... with the full knowledge that I could be fucked. I had the full confidence that I can reverse engineer almost anything and be anything that I wanted to be. I’m prepared to take the hits and prepared to take the jump. Once you know you can do something once, you can replicate, repeat and do it all over again.

Julian: What would you tell somebody who is feeling stuck, lost, who wants more? What would you tell somebody who’s doing it for the first time?

Byron: Star stacking some wins. Building their confidence and repairing the integrity within yourself. Cause that’s the biggest thing.. When you’ve lost your integrity, you lose your confidence. That’s when you walk around like the shell of a man or woman. It’s because you don’t trust yourself. You don’t have that confidence to know that you’re capable of a whole bunch of shit. That’s where things like 75HARD come into play.. Like stacking those wins on a daily basis and you test your capabilities. Then you realize that you’re not as weak as you thought you were. Start with a small win by the end of the day. You hold yourself to it. Let it become a non-negotiable for you. Then when you’ve done it, your word, to yourself actually means something. Then you stack more and more wins. Over time you realize that you can actually hold yourself accountable to the handful of shit that you said you were gonna do. I don’t have to recreate the wheel, I don’t have to be a fucking rocket scientist, I have to do this little thing. That builds confidence. Then you realize that you’re a little bit of a savage. All of a sudden, you carry yourself differently. You start testing the waters on what else you’re capable of. I would learn how to stack my own wins and not rely on external stuff because if you don’t have that internal thing, that’s where the game is played. Anybody can be motivated externally at any time. But what do you do when no one is watching?

Obviously Byron is a guy who not only has plenty to say, but more to show for it.

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You can also watch this interview in full here

See ya soon and stay tuned for the next one👊🏽

Julian R