Around 2019, I had almost talked myself out of my own dreams.
I’d decided my real problem was that I kept chasing “crazy” ideas. The grown-up move, I told myself, was to give them up and just be happy with the life I had. This is as good as it gets. It’s all downhill from here. From now on I’d accomplish less, not more.
I was almost there. My flame of passion and dreams was nearly out.
Then I watched Undercover Billionaire with Grant Cardone. It wasn’t any one tactic that got me. It was his attitude, the 10X mindset, and his story of really going for it in his fifties. I had just turned 50, and something in me pushed back. Not “slow down.” Double down. Don’t give up.
That’s the moment The 7 Masters really started.
The frenzy
I didn’t just watch the show. I went on a deep, almost frenzied search, reading and studying Grant Cardone, Brendon Burchard and Tony Robbins. I wanted to know how people think when they refuse to accept “this is as good as it gets.”
But I’d seen this movie before. Some people find one guru and follow him off a cliff. One teacher, one school, one way, and slowly an open mind turns into a closed one.
My friend and martial arts instructor, Lou Faralan, is the one who brought me to Bruce Lee. What struck me about Lee was that he wouldn’t submit to one art or one master. He studied them all and stayed free.
So I came up with a simple guardrail. Instead of worshipping one master, I’d rotate a list of seven. That’s where the idea of The 7 Masters came from.
I made a poster. At the top is Bruce Lee’s line, “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless, and add what is specifically your own,” and under it, ABSORB, DISCARD, ADD. Then my first seven masters: Napoleon Hill, Jim Rohn, Grant Cardone, Dean Graziosi, Robert Kiyosaki, Russell Brunson and Dan Kennedy.
That list has changed since then, and it will keep changing, which is the whole point. You absorb, you discard, you add.
And one master leads to the next. Brendon Burchard pointed me to Wayne Dyer, and I spent last year in a deep dive on Dyer’s work. That’s how the rotation works. Every teacher opens a door to another one, and nobody gets to be the only voice in your head.
Some of it becomes daily practice. Since Brendon launched his GrowthDay app, I’ve listened to his Daily Fire every single day. A dojo isn’t somewhere you visit once. You show up.
A book of thank-yous
I’d been a CPA since 1991, and my shelves were full of personal development books. Some of those authors did more than teach me. They changed how I think, and on hard days they relit my fire. Grant had just done it again.
So I started a book idea. I called it The 7 Masters, with Resonate as the other working title, because a great instrument makes a beautiful sound and those writers resonated with me. I didn’t want to add one more self-help book to the pile. I wanted to say thank you to the people who kept my fire lit, and if my story resonated with just one more person, I’d have honored them.
The first outline had seven “masters of living”: Forgiveness and Gratitude, Boundaries and Responsibility, Love and Connection, Fitness and Well-being, Creativity and Innovation, Abundance and Prosperity, and Faith and Spirituality. On October 26, 2022, I registered the7masters.com. Then life and tax season did what they do, and the idea sat on the shelf.
Absorb. Discard. Add.
When I came back to it, the line at the top of that poster was still the one that mattered. Absorb, discard, add is how you study seven masters without becoming a disciple of any one of them. It’s what I’d been doing with every book I loved. I never followed anyone blindly. I took what worked, let the rest go, and added what I’d learned the hard way.
Today the masters I study through their work are Bruce Lee, Napoleon Hill, Grant Cardone, Jim Kwik, Brendon Burchard, Tony Robbins and Ray Dalio, with Nir Eyal next.
The Known and the Not Knowing
Some of the most important teachers in my life will never write a book. They taught me without knowing they were teaching: my mom and dad, my guitar teacher, a client who taught me more about business than any seminar did, and friends who showed me what discipline looks like.
So there are two lists. The Known are masters the world knows, people I study through their work. The Not Knowing are the people who taught me without knowing it. There’s also The Way, which means a craft you study the way Bruce Lee studied fighting arts.
Dojo of the Mind
A dojo is where you practice, not where you’re finished. That’s what this is: The 7 Masters: Dojo of the Mind. I practice in public with essays and short videos, and the book comes after the work.
I don’t think of myself as a guru. I’m a tour guide of my own experiences, sharing them so they might have a positive ripple effect on yours. To borrow from Jimi Hendrix, call it The Steve Padgett Experience.
I learned that from Lou. He shared his life so openly, including his fight with cancer and his other health struggles, right up to the last day of his life in 2021. He used to say that the water, the oceans, lakes, rivers and streams connect us all. We’re all connected, and this is my way of passing it on.
Tracklist
- 2019: Almost Out
- Double Down
- Lou Brought Me to Lee
- Seven on the Wall
- A Book of Thank-Yous
- Absorb, Discard, Add
- The Daily Fire
- The Known and the Not Knowing
- The Water Connects Us
If you’re standing where I stood in 2019, telling yourself this is as good as it gets, I hope this gives you a reason to double down. Absorb what’s useful, discard what isn’t, and add what’s yours.
Personal growth, not tax advice. The teachers named here have not endorsed this project.