What’s up friends this is George McCleary, the host of frozen millionaires. And before I start this podcasting journey with my listeners, i wanted to set the intention, state my mission. I wanted to answer a simple question with a Complicated answer, and the question is this — why. Why did I start this podcast? What’s the point, what am I doing here? When people ask me this question I’ve usually respond with something to the effect of I love talking to successful people, I love entrepreneurial success stories, and I’ve had a ton of these conversations in private with successful friends and acquaintances over the years and really enjoyed them. But a friend of mine challenged me on that response recently, he asked me to go more detail. Why? why do you enjoy those conversations so much, what do you get out of them? Go deeper on this “why.” And that kind of stopped me in my tracks. What is it about these conversations with high-level people that gets my motor running? I thought about it, and I think it comes down to this. If you’re a high performer, or you want to be a high performer, and you spend a lot of your time figuring out ways to achieve success, and be the best you can be, stay in great shape, eat healthy, be a great father, make tons of money day after day after day, it’s fucking exhausting. And to be able to summon the energy to get to a high-level and stay at that high-level, at least, if you’re me, there just isn’t enough energy that I can manufacture internally, out of thin air to make it all happen. So what do I do? I have to seek energy, I have to seek inspiration. If there’s no wind in my sails, I need to find it somewhere. When I was growing up, some of my favorite movies were movies like Rudy, Shawshank Redemption. Stories about people who have been able to stoke a fire inside themselves, and to overcome. As I grew out of childhood, I found that I personally was only really able to apply this to situations where I had passion for something. And throughout my youth, that was athletics. I was a Good Student, got good grades, and went to a good college, but academia was never my passion, still isn’t. In sports there was competition, and I thrived on it. If you went to Lincoln high school in Portland, Oregon any time in the last 50 years, you had a teacher named Mr. Bailey. He was my cross country and track coach. He was a real no nonsense type of guy, and one of the most significant things he ever said about me that I never fully understood until I was older was that my biggest asset as an athlete was that I had the fire in the belly. I kind of knew what he meant at the time, but I was a kid, and never really listened to much of anything adults said at that time, but now as an adult it’s much more clear. Fire in the belly is passion, emotional stamina, the willingness to sacrifice yourself in service of a goal. A strong goal. A goal that’s so strong you’re willing to go past everything you have in service of accomplishing it. At the time, as a youth, I just thought I was really competitive. But that’s when I would thrive, during moments of intense competition. And I did well under pressure, I performed. I was a competitor. Like any high school kid, I wanted to be liked, so I did what I could to keep a lot of these competitive thoughts and tendencies to myself, but apparently I failed at this because my class at Lincoln go on to would vote me most competitive of the class of 1998. I connected with the yearbook editor some 20 years later, and he recalled the actual vote tally and he told me it was a landslide. So really there was no hiding it, I liked to win. So now I’m all grown up. And I still love to win. I love competition as a means of achieving things. And the word is out, iron sharpens iron, as they say. Compete against people who’r really good, and you get better yourself. But one thing that’s changed, and I think this is a product of me just getting a little more savvy and mature, is that I’ve come to value collaboration. Sharing. Cooperation. So when I hear a story about a guy, who’s made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars who’s in my industry, real estate, who’s more successful than I am, and man oh man are there a lot of them, lot of big dogs in this space, I just don’t feel jealous anymore. It's super easy to compare myself to them, and I can't help I do that sometimes, it's human nature. But you've got to understand, comparison is the thief of joy. At some point I stopped comparing and competing, and started observing. I watch them, I learn from them. I get energy from them. I’m inspired by them. And they don’t need to be more successful than I am for me to be inspired, in fact, some of the most inspirational people I’ve met are just starting out, but they’re making headway a whole lot faster than I did, and clearly learning from other peoples mistakes much faster than I did. And I couldn’t be happier for every last one of them.

Everyone’s story, everyone’s journey, hearing about how they’re making it work, it’s a gift. It’s a gift, because if you can get past the fact that they’re doing something better than you are, you can emulate them, you can learn from them. And for me, that’s one of my biggest sources of energy, and it’s a source that I need to harvest regularly in order to keep my bucket full and keep my motor running. Other sources of energy in my life? I’ve got plenty, internal and external. The pile of supplements that I take morning noon and night just to stay healthy, strong, smart, on point etc is absolutely absurd. In fact, putting all the capsules and supplements all together eventually became so time-consuming for me that I now have an assistant putting it together for me now. Morning noon and night I have routines for exercise, hygiene, cold plunging, stretching, affirmation, habit tracking, and I couldn’t keep track of all that either so I wrote it in dry erase marker on my bathroom mirror so I wouldn’t forget any of the steps (and yes my wife hates the marker on mirror aesthetic by the way, but lucky for me, she’s a very patient woman, but i digress.) and all together there’s something like 30 different actions I do every day, and they are all in service of one thing and one thing only. And that’s to be the best that I can be. So day in, day out, as I’m fighting tooth and nail to stay focused, be strong, I’m like a vampire. I need fresh blood. I need to hear about what people are doing to make their lives great. And I personally hand pick each of my guests because, at least in the outward aspects I can observe, they are crushing it. And I want to hear about it.

So George, you say, aren’t you eventually going to run out of millionaires who are willing to dunk themselves in ice cold water? Eh…Maybe one day, but that day isn’t coming anytime soon. And one reason for this is that I’ve been gravitating towards people like this for a long time. And it’s not just about wealth or owning businesses. I didn’t wake up one day and decide that everyone I hung out with needed to be a millionaire. But I did start making much more conscious decisions on where I was devoting my time and energy. When you’re young, you have a ton of time, and a ton of energy. Get a little older, and these resources become much more scarce, much more valuable. There’s a saying that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Think that one over for a minute. Do you know how your mom got on you for hanging out with that one kid because he was a bad influence? Turns out she was right. Who are the five people that you spend the most time with? Do they have the same goals as you do? Are they in it to win it? Are they just holdovers from when you were in a different place in your life? There was a study that found that if you have a friend who becomes obese, you are 45% more likely to gain weight. The craziest part is if a friend of your friend, someone who you don’t even know, becomes obese, then you yourself are 20% more likely to gain weight. The reason for this is simple. Habits are contagious. The good ones and the bad ones. Energy is contagious. And if you’re spending time with people who are taking energy from you, rather than replenishing your reserves, you need to think twice about who you’re spending your time with.

One of the biggest favors you can do yourself is to ditch the “it must be nice” crowd. The person who says this to you will always be a have-not, a perpetual victim, which is super popular these days to play the victim, and your time is way too precious to give them the time of day, let alone any of your hard earned energy.

A lot of people today are going to try and undermine your accomplishments, make you feel like you need to apologize for them, but zoom out and most of the time you’ll find that these people are not doing so great themselves, and want to make themselves feel better by bringing people down to their level, or worse, rationalizing their bad habits and bad behavior. Dumb it down, level the playing field, wait for Billy to catch up. Hold the best back so the worst can catch up. This ideology has gotten popular over the past several years, and it’s a hot pile of garbage. Tune it out of your ears, and out your life. One of the greatest gifts you can have is the tunnel vision that let’s you focus on being great while others waste their energy wringing their hands over what you’re doing with your life. Embrace your focus, and embrace your purpose. It's this determination that distinguishes the remarkable from the mundane, and this is the type of energy and mindset that it takes to succeed in business, in your relationships, in LIFE, and and it’s the energy that I hope to channel from my guests, into your headphones and into your life.

So if you’re an adult and you’re running with a crowd that’s in it to win it, chances are there’s a good handful of people like this close at hand. For me, I’m lucky to have a ton of them at my fingertips, and that’s thanks in part to being a gobundance member. If you haven’t heard of GoBundance, it’s a mastermind group you can only join if you meet certain criteria, among them is a net worth over a million bucks. Some guys barely make the standard, others exceed it by a crazy amount. But we’re all in the same tribe, sharing information, sharing successes and challenges, and there’s a level of trust that’s built-in because it’s a tightknit community, even though it’s nationwide. This isn’t going to turn into an infomercial for GoBundance because it’s definitely not for everybody, but for me it’s a great fit just because because for the most part, this is a group of genuinely good people that match the energy and mindset I was describing before, and in addition to being dynamic and driven guys, generally they’re just good people. And I remember when I learned this for the first time. I just joined Gobundance and signed up to climb a mountain in Colorado with about 20 guys from the tribe.

So I get picked up from the airport by one of our mountain guides, and you can picture the girl who picked me up if you’ve ever been to Colorado. Mud in the wheel wells, Car full of outdoor gear, dirt on the floor mats, she had her hair in a pony tail, Patagonia fleece, the whole outdoor enthusiast, granola earth child package. Now trust me, I’m a hardened Oregonian and I have plenty of that spirit in me, and I love the outdoors and outdoor people, but I couldn’t help but wonder, as I got to know this girl better on this long car ride, I couldn’t help but wonder if this girl was a little (what’s the opposite of stoked) a little unenthused to take a group of millionaires, all men, on an expedition. And one of the reasons that I joined the tribe was I really got the impression that the members just roundly rejected the “rich asshole” archetype. Just a categorical, full-blown rejection of the idea that once you make money, once you have money, it changes you into a shitty person. I’ve always believed it should do the opposite. So I start asking her questions like hey what have you heard about this group, what are your impressions so far? And I was really struck by what she told me, she said, yeah, I was told the group was all men from a millionaires club and she really expected to not like the group, and spend the entire week biting her tongue, for the sake of keeping the peace and her livelihood. Now keep in mind that I had just joined GoBundance, so I was dead curious myself. But she told me that at least so far, she liked the Group a lot and they had really surprised her. We went on to talk about how she had some preconceived notions about what wealthy people were like, their value systems, their entitlement, and how she was curious about how all of that was going to play out during this trip; because if if you get a big group of ultra privileged men (all men) and throw them into the rocky mountains and things start getting uncomfortable, you're going to find out real quick who these people really are. So that was the first real data point that I had on the group that I was joining, and I was really glad to hear that they had made a really positive impression on the guide. And by the end of the trip, all of this was confirmed. She and the other Guide, both female, both women, came away with a super positive impression of our group, the tribe in general, and maybe came away from the experience with a different point of view than they’d expected. So that’s when I knew for sure that these were the type of people that I wanted to spend my time and energy with. Not necessarily just guys from GoBundance, but guys who have gotten after it, adopted a can-do mindset, that have been successful, and come out the other side of it as good people, as better people than they were before, authentic people. Values intact. Integrity intact. So with that said, most of the people that I’m with with on a day-to-day basis aren’t from GoBundance. But most of them do embody these traits. And within my sphere here in Portland Oregon, I have a ton of people that also fit the mold, and I can’t wait to have them on the show to share how they got where they are today, because…they get it. And if you’ve listened this far, there’s a decent chance that you get it too.

So why dunk them in Cold water? I could do a whole episode on why cold plunging is great and why I do it every day, and for that, I recommend you listen to the deliberate cold exposure episode on the Huberman Lab podcast. Great podcast if you haven’t heard it. But in the case of Frozen Millionaires, the cold plunge is a filter. It's because there's something about being pushed to your limits, both mentally and physically, that just strips away pretense. You see, when we're thrust into an environment like 40° water, it not only revs up our systems and focuses our minds but it also unveils an authenticity that's hard to replicate. Success and the journey to it exposes who you really are, what you’re made of. And in a small way, so does deliberately getting into really cold water. I'm using this cold plunge, and it’s not a fancy one, I built it with spare parts, but it works, the chiller keeps it at 40 degrees 24/7; I’m using the cold plunge as a metaphor, it’s a ritual. It’s a representation of pushing through barriers, feeling uncomfortable, and then emerging renewed, focused, awake. Also, to be successful at anything, you’re going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable, you’re gonna have to push through barriers, and ultimately learn to embrace them. So that’s where the tagline comes in. The tagline for the podcast is embrace the cold, ignite the dream. You have to be ok with making yourself to do hard things if you want to accomplish anything in life. So that’s why it’s one of two hard requirements to being on the show. Number one you have to be a millionaire, and number two, you have to get into the cold plunge. So far, nobody has said no, and I do realize that will eventually change, maybe, but I have a feeling I'm gonna have a pretty high batting average when it comes to the cold plunge not being a dealbreaker, because the type of guests I'm having on the podcast are people that understand that sometimes you have to be in discomfort in order to spend the rest of your time being comfortable. It sounds counterintuitive, but the fact is—you're in the plunge for very short amount of time, like a minute or two. But you feel the positive effects for hours, or longer. Another added bonus is that for a lot of guests, this is the first time they've ever done a cold plunge, and their reactions are priceless. Think of the sounds you've made while getting into cold water. Chances are pretty good this water is even colder, and the reactions go accordingly. Does it feel good? No it doesn't feel good, you're instantly really cold and your body is sending you every Signal that it can muster to tell you to get the heck out of there as quick as possible. But that's kind of the point. You hear that voice from your body, you acknowledge it, but you're in charge. You are running the show. You’re keeping a promise to yourself. And all in service of a greater goal, which in this case is to feel invigorated, awake, alive, and ready to take on the world. You are staying in the cold water and that's all there is to it. There's no negotiation, you are running the show.

And that ties in with why I named this podcast "Frozen Millionaires." Because for me, success, much like this cold plunge, was not always warm and comfortable. It can be a jarring, bone-chilling experience. But it's in these difficult moments that we find clarity, where our true character resides. So every time we plunge, and then go upstairs and talk, we're reminding ourselves and our listeners of the journey – the lows, the highs, and the breakthroughs.

Through "Frozen Millionaires," I want to explore not just the successes of my guests, but also the hard parts they had to go through to get there. And I want to bring my listeners into the fold – to feel the inspiration, to sense the urgency, to understand that behind every success story is a series of metaphorical cold plunges that shaped and molded that individual.

So now that you've got an idea of the avatar what I want my guests to be, and the type of person that I want to be, why we’re cold plunging and why I’m doing all this, you can begin to see why these conversations are so powerful and so beneficial. I am harvesting energy from my guests. I'm harvesting inspiration, information. In the end, the essence of 'Frozen Millionaires' isn't just about the cold plunging and the thrill of success. It's about the stories behind that success, the ones that inspire people to reach their potential, to be their best selves. It's about understanding that success isn't just a measure of wealth, but a testament to resilience, adaptability, grit, and spirit that just never friggin gives up and is stone cold relentless. If you’re here listening then you’re part of this journey, seeking inspiration, seeking energy. And just like the cold water jolts us awake, I hope these stories awaken a fire in your belly, help you keep promises to yourself, and be the best you can be, every single day. Thanks for listening, I’m George McCleary, and I really hope you enjoy my Podcast, Frozen Millionaires.