Why You’re Stuck – With Derek Doepker

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DEREK DOEPKER
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Derek is the author of multiple number one
bestselling books, including Why You're Stuck and
50 Fitness Tips You Wish You Knew. In 2012, he
founded the blog, Excuse Proof Fitness to help
people who are busy, broke, or unmotivated, find
simple solutions to any of their challenges.
Derek is passionate about empowering people to
discover solutions to their own challenges by
using simple tricks to unlock the brain's
creative problem-solving ability. He spent years
studying the world's top psychologists and
personal development experts to piece together
the most powerful and practical tools for
transforming anyone's life.
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So, he thinks one of the big accomplishments
that he had early on was hes actually a musician
and a guitar player. So when he was twelve years
old, he got into playing guitar and that was one
of the early winds that he had, was he got really
good at it and it taught him that he could put
his mind into something, practice, be horrible at
it when he first get into it, but actually really
develop his skills and that taught him a lot
about the growth mindset. And so he got his
degree in music, graduated with honors from
Belmont University and that was one of his big
accomplishments was getting his music degree and
a lot of the experiences he got there.
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Another big accomplishment that he had that he's
really proud of would be publishing books and
some books that have become number one
best-sellers at this point. And that's not
something he would have ever expected himself to
do or pull off. If you would of asked him five
years ago, if he could of even done something
like that, he doesn't think that was even
possible. So going through that journey and doing
that.
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And then through that, he thinks one thing now
that he wakes up each day and he's so grateful
for as he thinks about it is that he basically
has a lifestyle where he's managed to achieve a
certain degree of financial freedom where he can
wake up and he can do what he loves for a living.
Because he knows just thinking back to the times
in his life where he was working at a job and not
that he had the worst jobs in the world, but
there's just something that's kind of
unfulfilling when he knew that he had more
potential and talent.
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He had something to offer the world and he
wasn't really able to share that with people
because he was kind of stuck in these jobs. So
now that he gets to wake up and have the freedom
to do what he wants and really hopefully help
people and help transform their lives in the way
that his life has been transformed from some of
the coaches and the mentors that he had. That's
he thinks really the ultimate highlight for him
and his life right now.
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One of the things he guess, another point of
accomplishment is with his health and fitness.
Back when he was 18 years old, probably about 17,
18 obviously still in high school, and up to that
point actually with his health habits, he was
eating fast food every single night. He can still
remember his Mom trying to like make him a
healthy meal and used to have to go to McDonald's
or something.
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He wasn't overweight necessarily, but he just,
terrible shape and in terms of his performance at
gym class and stuff like that so it happened
where he read a book that opened his mind,
expanded his awareness about the consequences
that the different foods and his lifestyle choice
was having on him. It was through that kind of
started me on this journey of health and fitness
which would later tie in to a lot of the other
things he learned about psychology and motivation
and personal development. And so at the age of
18, he went and he got into the gym, he was
working out, multiple times a week, completely
transformed his diet and got in, great shape and
he kept that up for the past ten years of his
life.
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So what that showed him was that he wasn't really
stuck with this identity that he had or with his
habits. He could go from hating something, hating
exercise, hating healthy food, and he learned
that there's simple things that he could do and
reframing things and working with his psychology
to actually embrace those things and love them
and make it a part of his lifestyle. And when he
saw that was possible just in that one area of
life, health and fitness, then it started getting
him to think, can he do this with other areas of
his life, with his social skills, with just
developing the habit of being happier, or all
these other things.
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As well as if he can transform herself like that,
would it be possible to teach other people how to
do the same? So that's been kind of the journey.
He's 28 years old now, so it's been about ten
years of really digging deep into understanding
how that transformation took place in myself. So
that he could duplicate it in other areas in his
life and being able to share those insights with
other people, so they can have their own break
through transformations.
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The book is called The Wrinkle Cure by Nicholas
Perricone. So kind of an interesting book to read
at 18 years old. And he doesn't remember exactly
how he first heard about it, but it gave a lot of
the science behind it. And he guess he's a little
bit more of an objective scientific person. So
reading about that really opened his mind to this
idea and this is an important concept that it's
not about the consequences that are going to
happen to him when he's 80 years old, if he eats
a poor diet.
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It's realizing that his lack of energy, the
fatigue that he was feeling, a lot of things that
he was going through at that moment in time were
a direct consequence of his diet. It made him
realize that he didn't necessarily have 30 years
that he could just keep eating how he was eating
before it would catch up with him. He was doing
damage to his body, right at that moment. Every
time he chose to just indulge in terribly
unhealthy foods. So that was the book and that's
one of the big shifts that took place for me.
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So in terms of social skills, he thinks, if
there's one book he can recommend it would be
How to Win Friends and Influence People. So he
think the first keyword there is even skill. And
skill is something that can be developed. So
before anything, any change took place in hsi
life or if it was with his diet or his social
skills, it took having a growth mindset. The
realization that he's not stuck at his current
level. He can always practice these things. He
can always learn new skills, work on it and get
better.
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Because if a person doesn't believe they can get
better, if they believe, "Well, I'm just I'm the
way I am, nothing I could do about it," then, no
change can take place from that mindset. So first
of all, realizing, "Okay I can read this book,
it's going to share tips and advice with me."
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And one of the things that helped him, let's say
with that book is because he is very much an
introvert. He embraces it. He loves that quality
about him. But he's not one to necessarily talk
about trivial things and he didn't appreciate it.
And so reading that book taught him to
appreciate, things like, taking an interest in
other people, being more interested in them
versus trying to get other people interested in
him, the value of small talk and why we engage in
small talk and how you can use that to lead to
something else.
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So he had to understand it. He had to appreciate
it and then in terms of the practical
application, it was really just a matter of
shooting for really small targets when it comes
to developing these things.
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