This episode breaks down Trevor McGregor’s Four S framework—State, Story, Standards, Strategy—as the foundational system maintaining consistent energy and optimism through months of challenging market conditions and legal situations. The framework positions the first three elements as a triangle with Strategy contained within, emphasizing that without proper State (body/mind energy), Story (internal narrative), and Standards (comparison benchmarks), even sophisticated strategies will collapse under pressure.
Key Takeaways:
- State Maintenance Beats 80-90% of Competition Consistent exercise, sleep, nutrition, sunlight, and proper social connection create biological optimization that most stressed entrepreneurs neglect—mastering state alone provides insurmountable advantages before considering strategy sophistication.
- Story Determines Decade-Long Sustainability Maintaining “victor on the way to victory” narrative rather than victim mentality enables the consistency required for long-term success—the internal story you tell yourself directly determines action patterns and ultimate results.
- Only Sustainable Habits Scale The critical diet question applies to work rhythm: “Can you do this for the rest of your life?”—finding a pace and approach that can be maintained across decades prevents burnout and creates compounding advantages over competitors chasing unsustainable intensity.
Listen to the full episode for the complete Four S framework application and specific tactics for protecting state and story during extended difficult periods.
(Podcast transcript below)
Welcome to Get Serious. So today, again, more of a mindset Sunday here. And again, know I had more of the negative sentiment recently, again, dealing with the legal side. You can check in earlier this week. Hopefully by the time you hear this podcast, since I’m recording a little early, I’ll have additional resolution to report to you all.
but I know I talked about AI yesterday and just how exciting that is. And just another factor on why I’m just able to show up, you know, probably more than ever in my career, just with like continued excitement and energy. and I really go back to one of my core mentors, coach Trevor McGregor, his four S framework of, really maintaining and, optimizing your state.
your story, your standards and your strategy. And really the first three kind of set the corners of a triangle and strategy is within the middle there. know, state, you can think of, you know, what type of energy are you bringing? Like how is your body feeling? How is your mind feeling? it more, you know, kind of peak to your active, you’re ready to go or even more larger and feeling more pessimistic, maybe just more tired.
you know, but it could also like apply to your general temperament at the time as well too. again, like more of a positive or negative valence and, you know, again, just kind of the, the, the, overall state of, of your body. And if you’re coming into something really negative, like you really have to check yourself because
Can you really do your best work when you’re just feeling low and negative about things or going into an important conversation? Like you really got to check your state before anything. Story, what type of narrative are you telling yourself? We’re all kind of the main characters of our own life journey, internally, whatever our internal narrative is, we’re the only ones who…
actually know what our full story is. So what story are you telling yourself? Are you a victor on your way to victory or are you just a victim? Or again, are you just generally, it’s more pessimistic. You’re not thinking that you’re on a route to a positive outcome or it’s just a low point and you’re just feeling, I really don’t have what it takes. a normal individual. I’m not going to be able to get exceptional results.
everything is just going against me at the moment. The world is just too crazy. Again, like what, what narrative do you have? or are you like, Hey, I can encounter an, any challenge and find a way to succeed. Other people with way less resources have done, you know, much more than, I’ve ever done in life. And I know I can do it too. are you generally optimistic or pessimistic in relation to that, to that narrative, your standards, who are you comparing yourself to?
what, what standards internally do you have? you know, are you comparing yourself to people who are living the life you want to live? or at least what you can perceive from the, from the outside, because again, nobody, has it as good as you think they do. and, know, I keep hearing that from like pretty much anybody who is, you know, quote unquote at the top, they will all remark that as well. So,
Never put anybody on the pedestal, but you can still try to achieve standards that other people have maintained or achieved in order to kind of get yourself up to the next level. And so all of those three, you know, set that triangle. And then within that is your strategy to achieve whatever goal you’re trying to go after. And if you don’t take care of those first three, you don’t have a good state, you don’t have a good story, you don’t have good standards.
Then your strategy is going to fall apart as well because it’s not going to be oriented to take the best steps possible to actually take the actions and achieve the results that you want. so those are the four S’s, but it’s really the first two that I’ve been focusing on, most recently, especially over the past few months. And it’s been a pretty challenging few months here, but I still like, feel like my state and my story has been so solid. And I I’m somebody who has.
you occasionally had much bigger dips. think that’s common for entrepreneurs. You just get into a dark spiral, a black spiral, whatever. And it’s like, man, think things are just not going on. like those used to be so much more common, but now it’s just like a bit more steady or even just more consistently optimistic because like I’m just so focused on maintaining my state and my story and the people who believe in me and state really, you know.
A lot of it to me just comes back. Are you getting, you know, you’re getting your exercise, you getting your sleep, you’re eating properly. Like a lot of that will, will take care of state. Am I walking outside, getting some sunlight, making sure that I’m just taking care of like all these core things that we really should be doing every single day to set ourselves up as biological organisms. getting proper movement. Am I talking to the right people? all of that, kind of sets up my state and.
I, I think it’s maybe the one people struggle with the most because you can, especially in the U S you just kind of look around and just tell you people are so stressed and not taking care of themselves. That if you can succeed with your state, you’re probably ahead of, you know, 80 to 90 % of people anyway. So like that, that’s a really good start to, get there. And then again, like the underlying story, is just maintaining that optimism and the
people’s belief in me to achieve larger goals and kind of continue to align myself. If I stay consistent, you know, basically every single day, or if I falter, I know I can get right back on track. you know, I haven’t reached a ruin scenario. There’s always a way to, persevere through various problems and challenges there. And I know I have a,
know, bright future ahead of me, that’s what I choose to see. And working with some really incredible individuals who really want to achieve this particular vision as well. And so those two, like I’m just able to return to them so consistently. And like that to me just sets up the longevity for, you know, just continued focus.
and action to achieve these goals that I’ve set myself out to, or at least do whatever I can in order to achieve them and whether I do or not. mean, that’s not really what really matters in the end there. But being in the arena and taking action and showing up and doing your job and doing the hard work, that’s…
That’s ultimately what counts and gives you the best chance of succeeding and winning more than anything else. So, you know, before us is it’s a constant refrain in the duff household state and story. I just feel like, you know, if you’re trying to set up decades of success, if you really focus on those two, like sometimes, you know, we can get inspired by people. That’s why like, you know, standards, yeah, it’s critical, but
how many times like we might set ourselves up for a solid standard and then like you can fall out, like just look at like new year’s resolutions, right? Like you set a new standard and it just falls up because you start telling yourself, we’re in the wrong story and you get into the wrong state again, your standards fall off and then your strategy falters as well. But if you can really, really maintain that state in your story, all of a sudden you can build some of that more consistency with those standards you wanna uphold and the strategies therein.
to achieve those results. So again, I know some people kind of poo-poo mindset and everything too. And it’s like, and again, I don’t believe in like the secret type stuff or manifesting. That’s not for me, but I do think there is a direct connection from your thoughts to the actions and the results that you achieve. Like those all have a logical flow together. And so,
that’s why I protect it is as much as possible. and I know there are so many other, you know, outwardly successful people who just like don’t maintain their state or story. They’re just grinding on to like, try to reach this destination, but like, they don’t really have the longevity, to succeed over the course of years and decades. And again, I just don’t, I think if you don’t protect that diligently, like you’re just setting yourself up for burnout or failure.
in the long run, because if you’re not kind of maintaining a level of focus and discipline that can be maintained over years and decades to come, like, why are we really doing that? To me, again, like, that would go back to like a diet. Like, everybody asks, what type of diet should I do? And it’s like, it’s the one you can do for rest of your life.
Like that’s the one that’s going to work. So I approach state and story the same way and the way that I show up to work. I want to be able to find a rhythm that I can do for the rest of my life. And, you know, the more work I do, like the more capacity seems to open up in me anyway, because I just realized that there’s even more potential to go after. So that to me is kind of the
Key lesson here What can you do for the rest of your life comes a diet? Yeah, high protein High fiber. I get pretty much eat the same thing every day and it just just works I can eat eggs for breakfast for the next 50 to 60 years. No problem Can you do that? Can you do that in your work life? That will set up your state that will set up your your story Last thing I would mention to you. I started it, you know, it kind of
falls within state, but I would throw in a fifth as substances, sometimes, know, alcohol, cannabis, whatever, you know, pick your poison, literally, what you might enjoy. We’re all humans, know, it’s works in progress. Sometimes they’re more fun, but like I’m someone who, you know, back and forth would, you know, indulge in various substances, especially cannabis as a primary, but you know, the more dramatically I cut back on those, like my state.
And my story, my four S’s just naturally continue to get better. My mind is sharper. Body is at like, know, peak strength, never been stronger than I am at 36 years old. Uh, so, um, you know, all of that’s kind of correlated together. So, um, that’s just another thing to, uh, uh, to mention there as we all try to create the best versions of ourselves, um, or at least do our darndest to get there. So, uh, again,
This is why I can maintain this level of optimism and energy in the midst of really challenging environments and markets and just nonsense that comes up, legal situations, what have you, because my state and my story, my standards and my strategy are strong and only getting stronger. With that in mind, SeriousLand.Capital for any of your funding needs, zero cost review of your land deals at Land Daily Diligence and Facebook Group.
and landpricer.ai for the most reliable land pricing tool on the market. that, subscribe and share everybody. Excited to get back to you with the next one. Take care. Bye.
