In this episode of The Tactical Empire, Jeff Smith and Shawn Rider dive deep into the often-overlooked power of consistency and integrity. They unpack how keeping your word—even the small promises—builds trust with yourself and others, and how a disciplined, structured daily routine leads to real progress. From business to family life, Jeff and Shawn share how showing up with intention creates momentum, impact, and fulfillment. Whether you’re chasing high achievement or simply want to stop breaking promises to yourself, this episode lays out the blueprint.
In this episode of The Tactical Empire, Jeff Smith and Shawn Rider discuss tools and strategies to build a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. They reflect on the importance of keeping one's word as a fundamental practice for consistency and success. The conversation touches upon daily habits, the importance of consistent routines, and the value of presence in personal and professional life. They also emphasize the balance between being a provider and being present for one's family, offering insights on how to achieve financial freedom and maintain high productivity levels. Listen in for practical advice on structuring your day, building discipline, and creating a fulfilling life.
00:00 Introduction: Finding the Will to Fight Back
00:27 Welcome to The Tactical Empire
00:32 Catching Up with Shawn Rider
05:40 The Importance of Keeping Your Word
13:12 Consistency and Daily Habits
18:18 The Balance Between Providing and Presence
22:24 Empowering High Achieving Men
22:45 Closing Remarks and How to Connect
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[00:00:00] How do you find the will to fight back against the world that wants to keep you sedated? S stuck plates? Join us for the tools and strategies you need to create a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. This, this is the tactical implied with Jeff Smith.
Welcome to another episode of The Tactical Empire. I am joined by Sean Rider. What's up man? How are you? I, I'm gonna need a picture of you standing on a scale and it reading 215 pounds. Okay. I will have that for you. That comes from the last episode. I, I, I will not believe it until I see it. It needs to be a clear photo of you standing on it without anyone else's pressure of their foot on the back corner.[00:01:00]
Man, I thought we had a better relationship than us. You don't believe me. I mean, I trust you. I know you eat. I know you eat 2000 grams of protein a day because you mixed cottage cheese and eggs. Yep. For purpose,
I'm just a dense individual. Sometimes mentally and sometimes just heavy. So I'll get you your picture. Describe it. That's one way to describe it. I think. I think we are in the same state. We are. We are. Virginia. I I have almost found you. You said you, you said it's cold in Virginia. It was cold overnight.
46 degrees probably, but it will be 80 today. So my man, get your, keep your tan. You can't lose your tan now that you're traveling the country. No, I won't. I won't come. Hell or high water. I will have my shirt off. 40 degrees are not. [00:02:00] I love it. You know, I don't, I don't walk around with my shirt off as often as I used to.
'cause I, I had, uh, for like seven years, I had an overactive upper trap. And it wasn't until I stopped doing like handstand pushups and butterfly pull-ups and excessive repetitive barbell overhead movements. That, um, getting rid of that in my, in my training and then taking like one of those metal scraper tools and scraping my trap, literally seven years of.
Basically daily neck pain. It took like less than four weeks after stopping that stuff and scraping my neck, uh, for that to go away. And the only time that my neck will get that needly tingly feeling in it is when I walk around with my shirt off. And so I don't know if it's No, for real. Like it's really interesting.
I don't know if it's because, 'cause I used to get in the sauna with my shirt off and like I'm just sitting there, I'm like, why is my neck getting tight? And then. One day at the pool, I [00:03:00] just realized that every time I took my shirt off to get in the pool, my neck would get tight. And so I don't get in the pool with my shirt on, but I don't nearly walk around outside as much with my shirt off.
And I don't know if it's because just having something there in front of my pec pulls my shoulders back better and as soon as I take my should shirt off, it rounds it. Um, but anyways, so I gotta get interesting tan. I gotta get the tan so the shirt's coming off and I can lay outside. On the top of the hill of the driveway to get my tan.
There you go. There you go, brother. Awesome. Last episode, we, last episode we talked, uh, about the universe and, and certain things that it, it puts into play and the, the fields of energy and, and as we worked towards something and how the fields of energy can have an impact on that. Um, and how the universe can provide things that we didn't know, uh, we needed.
And it provides things that we want in different ways that we didn't expect it to. And [00:04:00] so it provides maybe the outcome we wanted, but in a different way. Um, and we have to be open to viewing it that way. And closer to the end of that episode. So if you guys didn't hear that episode, you might want to go listen to that one.
First, it was the episode previous to this. You talked about, uh, that, 'cause I talked about my equation, E plus RPL equals O and that we do have a role to have proper responses in this game. And, and you said, well, you're certainly a player and you have to take ownership of the role that you play in this game and that you have to be doing things, um, that are proactively putting you in positions to accept.
The universe is handing to you. And the thing that popped in my head there was how can someone either, how can someone, or how do you continually be a consistent person? So, right. We all have [00:05:00] shit. We all have stuff thrown at us. We all have monkey brains. So whether it's thoughts. That try and tail us off onto the wrong path.
Whether it's external noises, like you said, from, from the news, from porn, from whatever, social media, anything, images, sounds, they're, they're all around us. So how, how does Jeff Smith answer it for yourself or answer as you're mentoring someone, which everyone's easiest for you right now, is how do you, how do you facilitate being a consistent person?
The number one easiest thing to do in, in that space. It, it, it's easier said than done, is to always keep your word,
never. Break that. Don't ever lie. [00:06:00] Don't ever break your word. If you say you're gonna do something, and, and this is where most people screw it up, and I, I didn't understand this till probably 10 years ago, but like, like always keeping your word keeps a consistent track record with yourself subconsciously that you are not lying, which can manifest and, and grow within your subconscious.
I, I think we've talked about this on different episodes before, but like ultimately that's the number one starting place and it's, it's so hard for people to start out understanding that exercise that, like the little things that you're talking about, like, it's like, oh, I'll be there in five minutes and you just show up in seven minutes instead, or, or like the, the thing that it causes you to do, it causes you to be extremely.
Thoughtful in your words that you use [00:07:00] because you don't just fly off and say, well, I'll be there in five minutes, or you don't tell your kids you'll do something that you're not gonna do. Um, you don't just say something to get them to be quiet or get them to behave. You don't just tell your wife you'll handle it, so she'll stop nagging you or whatever your perceived reasons for telling all of these lies right now are.
And to me, that's the number one thing anybody can do that can change their direction in all, like almost instantly and almost like deliver results that you will notice very quickly. Um. Because there's lies that you're telling yourself like, I will work out today. I'm gonna go run, uh, I'm gonna stop drinking today, or I'm gonna stop eating ice cream today.
Or, this is my last dessert. How many of, how many of [00:08:00] the people listening make these little compromises on Sunday night? And they'll, they'll change Monday. They'll fix it the next day or the next week or whatever. Right. And what you're doing is you're planting seeds in your subconscious that you're a person that doesn't keep their word and, and that also
emanates to the universe that you're a person that doesn't keep their word. So why would the universe reward you with these other gifts? Right? If people are trusting of you, or you're trying to build a culture within a company and you're doing these things regularly in your personal life that. The universe understands that, right?
Your body understands that energetically. So like why would they send you a tribe of people to follow you that are gonna be dedicated and bought into what you're doing if you can't keep your word on a simple fucking scoop of ice cream, right? [00:09:00] Like, so you're gonna be trusted to take care of these people's lives and their livelihood and their families, but you can't even keep your word to wake up.
When you say you're going to, without hitting snooze, I, I know they seem like polar opposites of the spectrum, but it all goes into the same pot, right? Hmm. Well, I think the littlest things matter. And, and Jeff, I've shoot, been mentored you, mentored by you for six years, and I remember you saying that way early on.
So that's a con. Those of you that may not. Be around Jeff or hear Jeff if you haven't listened to the podcast enough or be mentored by him directly. It's like that is something he does fall back on a lot is keeping your word and starting there. And, and I wouldn't venture to say that I was someone that didn't keep my word, but there were definitely instances that I, I don't, didn't keep my word, but I've heard it from you enough that it's actually was something that I started working on probably a year and a half, [00:10:00] two years ago.
And. Um, you know, it takes a while maybe to change that, that pattern recognition in, in a human sometimes, especially if you're hardheaded and, and like, like I am. Um, but there are times now where I will, I will hesitate because I don't want to do something that I, I said I would do for someone. And, uh, I hear your voice.
In my head telling me to do it. I would say the thing that I'm, I would say the thing if, if there's something I'm still doing that may go against that, I don't think it's the sa completely the same context as like I put little things on my calendar like, Hey, check this. Like, go down and check the HVAC filter or go buy water softener.
Like, but they're always to myself. They're little things to myself that, um, in the grand scheme of things, when, when Thursday at 10 30 comes and I see the little notification to go buy four bags of water softener, and I'm like. I got other more important shit today. So I, I'm, I'm, I'm constantly, but like the rebuttal against that is like, I'm constantly putting like the [00:11:00] critical tasks above the non-critical tasks.
And so sometimes like I move these little things and it's always impacting myself. It, I think those little things rarely impact someone else. Um, so you could say I'm not keeping my word to myself, but I eventually get along with that. I am keeping my word to keeping the, the main thing, the main thing. So, um.
If, if you hear that and you're like me, and it's like, oh, that's, you know, that sounds too easy. Like it is important to actually start pulling that towards the forefront outside of keeping your word. Is there anything else or do you want to, to hear maybe one of my thoughts on it? Well, I, I think the thing is that people don't, what, what it does is it starts at a practice of making you more thoughtful in general, because most of us go about life.
Kind of assuming that our actions don't have any sort of reverberation or impact and like for us, like looking to be great husbands, great [00:12:00] fathers and make a fuck load of money, right? Like I I, if you take for granted, like how frequently you tell your kids something just to shut them up. Which like normal people do, that's humans, right?
Like I'm tired of this little thing screaming at me. I'd like it to not scream and like, so you just answer in whatever way you feel pacifies the situation. But like once you start behaving this way and acting in integrity regularly, you become more thoughtful about the words you say, period. Like if you tell your wife you're going on a date at four o'clock on Thursday, like.
Most of us are so far gone from this point. We operate on a different level and I'm, I'm meaning most human beings in the world today, like four o'clock. You could take it or leave it if it's 15 minutes late, no big deal, whatever. Or if it doesn't happen at all, we're gonna be married still, so who cares?
It'll be Saturday. But like, once you start taking those things more seriously, then you can take your overall [00:13:00] life more seriously. But when you're doing the small things, the big things seem to just kind of fall in place a little bit easier because there's less resistance in the universe. To bring us full circle, but go ahead.
What are your thoughts? I, I, I'm gonna come at it from like, me personally. So some people may not relate to this, some people will. It's like, I, I am, I. I don't like, like cliche quotes, but like, I'm a creature of habit. I like, and this is a simplified answer, the way that I'm consistent is that I, I'm consistent.
I have a consistent schedule that I like. And by schedule, I mean flow of my day and their time blocks, like times in which I do certain things. It's not rigid, like to the minute. Um, but I like waking up at my own house, uh, as opposed to traveling. I. I like mm-hmm. Going to bed around the same time in my bed.
I, I don't like sleeping in hotels or random [00:14:00] Airbnbs. I like having dinner at home. I don't go out and have drinks on Thursday nights. Um, I couldn't imagine a life in my mind where I'm going to different restaurants every Thursday, either with the same group of people or different people. Like I, I like consistency.
All areas of my life now, I, I have built in flexibility, which is why I'm saying I have kind of general time blocks and I'm open to changing things when it's needed. But, um, the way that I'm a consistent person is like pretty much every single day looks the same. In my life. I wake up, I do the same things.
I, my family leaves, I do the same thing. Around this time of day, I'm working out, I'm doing the same thing. Uh, uh, I eat breakfast around this time, and it's usually these items. I'm eating lunch around this time. It's usually these items. I, I play with my dogs in the afternoon. I'm, I'm, whatever it may be.
Mm-hmm. I know when my flow state [00:15:00] is. For actual work. And I know when I need a break and downtime, I know those times of day. Um, I, I try and be as consistent as possible with my kids. Uh, you know, definitely keeping your word to your kid is super important. I just, and that's why like I get blown away for people that travel for work because in my mind, like even though, even though I want to travel more.
Later, a little bit later we are doing more weekend trips, which I'm a big fan of. Now I'm, I'm not putting that off, but when I say travel more, I mean like being gone for like a month to three months. I see that more in my forties, uh, because I don't think right now in my thirties, I don't think I would enjoy it as much because I, I, I like the rhythm of life right now.
Mm-hmm. If I had to go get a job, which I won't, if I had to go get a job that made me travel to a different city every week, like, dude, it would be the end of me. I just know it like I, because it would just, in order for me to be [00:16:00] consistent, my life has to be consistent. Mm-hmm. And that may be just an oversimplified answer, but like I, I'm watching other 30 some year olds that have wives and kids like I do, and they're at something new.
Every week they're at a different bar. They're drinking a different beer. And these may come off as negative things. Like if that's your thing, that's cool. And I know they don't maybe think the way I think and that's what energizes them. But like that, that would create anxiety in my life. I, I like, I like.
My mold, so to speak. Yeah. So if you don't have any consistency and you're looking for consistency, in order to be consistent, you need to be consistent. So set parameters, set your rhythm, set your habits, and that goes back to all the other things that we discussed on prior episodes. But I mean, you're all, all your stating really there is that like the, the.
Cliche that, uh, discipline equals freedom, right? Because you're structuring in a, a, [00:17:00] a, a structure of. Pseudo productivity. I mean, you're, you're hitting kind of on all the four pillars, I would presume in your days. And that that is what, if you touch those boxes, then you have provided room and space for flexibility beyond that.
And I mean, I, I would say I live very similarly to that. Uh. And, and it, that's what you're defining there though. It is like by boxing in the things that you know, you need to do outside of not enjoying like potential disruptions and like traveling, going different places to eat, things like that. Um, but, but, but ultimately the structure that you're describing is, is what gives you the flexibility to.
Dig into these other areas to be more aware, to like, spend more time with what's important right now [00:18:00] and like ultimately be present. And, um, I think that's another area a lot of people miss, right? Because they're, they're busy trying to be busy and it's hard to be aware of what's going on now when you're constantly trying to be busy.
I think that's a, uh, you know, because we, we work mainly with men and, and focus on men. Um, men focus on being providers and that's important, but don't be a provider at the expense of presence. Uh, like that's, I think that's a big one you can provide and be present. And, and so I think this goes back to keeping your word and.
Maybe how you define what that word or phrase means. Right? A lot of men say, I'm, I need to work this much because I'm providing for your, my family, um, because my family's the most important thing to me. Well, I hear you, I get [00:19:00] that. But if you're never around your kids, is that really a reflection of that phrase?
Um, and if that's what you need to do to make ends meet financially, so be it. But I would, I would challenge you on that. I would challenge you that your kids may view it a little bit differently. So I think that's a good point that you bring up about, about, um, presence and, uh, I think providing, providing and and work ethic is not an excuse to not be present.
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Ultimately, men are mission driven and, and that whatever that mission may be. A lot of us just simply say it's a certain dollar amount to provide for our families, and uh, then we just go to work. But, um, it, it ultimately is about like not missing all of these experiences. 'cause I mean, that, that's what we were talking about to start the episode and.
Like the really embracing the overall human [00:20:00] experience at every stage. Right. Um, 'cause I mean, we're, we're now conditioned to skip the first 90% of our life and, and, and lock into slavery mode to pay taxes and participate in that machine until we're 65 years old and we're supposed to die by the time we're 78.
And so there's 13 years of living in there and um, what we're doing is flipping the formula on its head and hoping that we can enjoy 40 years of presence. And I. There, there's really no reason you couldn't start earlier. The only reason I'm saying 40 is 'cause that's when it happened to me. Uh, but, but the reality of it is we're proving it further and further.
Back in the age time horizon, fuck, we got a kid in the group that's 26 years old. That's like looking at trying to [00:21:00] put a million dollars into investments before he is 30. Um. To, to have a million dollars of principle invested, is what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Which I mean, even at a standard rate of return of 10%, he, he's, he's effectively guaranteeing himself a a hundred thousand dollars a year for the rest of his life for as long as he lives at, by the, at 26 years old, and the dude's already put 700,000 in there.
I know for a fact. And so like. I, there's no, there's no age that you can't make this particular structure work. And then, and, and it, I, I just think not enough people go educate themselves about it and not, not enough people are willing. They, it seems too risky 'cause it's too unconventional for most people.
But, so the more people we can get out here living like this. Um, with the freedom and flexibility to like, make it happen for themselves and, and then [00:22:00] to the freedom to choose, um, we can really start to shift the, like overall mission of what a man is doing, right? Because if, if we can take care of the providing situation in your twenties, then you can go be mission driven about whatever the, the next thing is, right?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Super interesting. It is, yeah. Hopefully you guys listen to those episodes back to back where we went, kind of up in the, uh, metaphorical and literal clouds of the universe and then brought it back home to show you how you're empowered and how you can be more consistent in your life as high achieving men that are trying to build the life of your dreams.
Fellas, appreciate you listening, Jeff, send the people out. Guys, if you wanna work with us, if any of this stuff has been appealing. If you want to retire at 26, I can't promise it. But I can show you how to get a lot closer and be a lot better off and enjoy your quality of life while you are doing it [00:23:00] all.
Um, along the way, we can show you, hit us up, DM us on Instagram. We have Tactical Empire Community on every platform, the Tactical empire. Um, get in touch with us if we can be of help to you, your family, your husband, your wife, whatever you got. And, uh. Help you live a more full life. So have a great day.
Have a great week, kick ass, and we'll talk to you next week.