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The Most Valuable 80 M… — Motivation2Study luyện shadowing | TryShadowing
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Motivation2Study
The Most Valuable 80 Minutes You’ll Hear Today
The Most Valuable 80 Minutes You’ll Hear Today
Motivation2Study
·
1:23:55 · 16 thg 2, 2026
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Chấm điểm phát âm chưa hỗ trợ trên trình duyệt này — bạn vẫn ghi âm & nghe lại được.
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Đang dịch…
Bật Ghi âm để được thu giọng và chấm điểm
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Câu
1
/2081
0:00
You mentioned there about um some of the prices
0:03
that people need to pay in order to be who they are.
0:07
I'm fascinated by this question.
0:09
I'm fascinated by the cost of entry,
0:12
price of doing business to be a person that other people admire.
0:17
What do you wish more people knew about the price of success in life?
0:24
>> Right.
0:25
Because there's if you turn around
0:28
and look back with open eyes at your life,
0:31
you see all the scars, you know.
0:33
I mean, you you can't the only way you cannot be humble in old
0:37
age is when you refuse to look at the reality of your life up
0:40
to today.
0:41
I you know, that's the only way >> because nobody's skating through it perfectly.
0:45
>> But this is what drives this is what drives my business endeavors today.
0:51
This is the core of what drives me.
0:56
Okay.
0:56
There is no business out there that I can take on.
1:02
There is no monetary endeavor
1:06
that I can take on
1:08
that is worth the gamble of me losing me.
1:12
Because most people think I'm just some grand animal who runs
1:15
and yells and just says all the time.
1:18
And that's nowhere near the truth.
1:21
That's maybe what they see in a one minute video
1:24
and that's what we believe.
1:26
But there's a lot of thought behind a person being a born loser becoming
1:31
who I am today.
1:32
You don't just wake up and just Rocky.
1:36
You got to wake up and think about, you know,
1:38
there's a process to getting better.
1:41
And that process is never finished. understanding
1:44
that there isn't anything better
1:47
that can happen to you than what happens
1:48
if you tell the truth,
1:50
right?
1:51
No matter what it looks like to you in the moment.
1:54
It's a strange thing,
1:55
but I can't see how it could be otherwise
1:57
because you'd have to hypothesize
1:59
that you're going to align yourself with life,
2:03
with nature, with society, with God, with yourself by lying.
2:09
No one believes that.
2:10
You might think you can get away with it.
2:12
That's way different, right?
2:13
But no one believes that.
2:16
But the it's so much easier to figure out who you're not.
2:20
Then if you start eliminating the who I'm not by sheer mathematics,
2:25
you end up moving towards who more of what feeds you
2:29
and who you are.
2:30
And it's a hell of a lot easier thing to go,
2:33
how can I get rid of some in my life than it is to
2:36
go,
2:36
well, how do I go to my true self?
2:41
I was not always this strong guy.
2:43
You see, I went through a lot of hard times in my life to
2:47
get here today.
2:49
All I wanted to be was an uncommon man.
2:53
And my whole life, I was not that.
2:57
I was 6'1 and 300 lb.
3:00
I walked in the recruiter's office and he looked at me and he said,
3:03
"You're fat and you're black."
3:06
He said, "I basically had to lose 106 lbs in less than 3 months."
3:14
I came back 3 months later, 106 lbs lighter.
3:19
Thank you.
3:20
You have to wake up and you have to give yourself belief.
3:24
It's about gaining control of your mind, putting things back in the proper perspective,
3:30
and then saying, "I really do want to be here." with every obstacle I
3:36
look at as friction.
3:37
Now, without friction, there is no growth.
3:40
You have to have friction in your life to grow.
3:42
So, I start looking at all these different things versus the wo is mentality
3:46
like,
3:46
"Oh my god, look at my life.
3:47
My life's soed up.
3:48
I come from this up family.
3:50
I'm being beaten.
3:51
I'm I'm being abused mentally, physically."
3:54
I started looking at it as a as a perfect trial ground.
3:58
So, I had to flip it upside down.
3:59
I said, "Okay, I'm suffering tremendously mentally. use this to your advantage versus your
4:06
disadvantage.
4:07
So that's what I did versus looking at it as like, oh my god,
4:10
wo is me.
4:10
I'm never going to get out of here.
4:11
I looked at, okay, hang on a second.
4:13
If I can overcome this, if I can find some power in this,
4:18
some way to get through this,
4:20
that right there will be the fuel for the rest of my life.
4:24
And so I found great strength in suffering.
4:26
It showed me even more of what we have
4:29
as as as humans
4:31
if we're willing to go there
4:32
and we're willing to push
4:33
that extra step.
4:36
A lot of people, man, how do you do what you do?
4:38
At the end of the day, I ask myself one question,
4:41
can I take one more step?
4:43
And usually the answer is yes.
4:45
So if you can answer that question and not take another step,
4:49
that is real failure.
4:51
That is real quitting.
4:52
A lot of people can take one more step, but they choose not to.
4:55
I don't know if you can take two steps.
4:57
You got to answer that question after you take the first step.
5:01
But I can always take one more step.
5:03
So if I choose not to, that's on me.
5:05
And I got to live with that.
5:06
There's a lot of people in graves who have lived 100 years
5:10
and have never started their real journey.
5:12
Your real journey starts
5:14
when you go outside
5:14
that box and you start climbing mountains.
5:17
You start climbing mountains.
5:19
And it goes on and it goes on.
5:21
And just when you're getting ready to quit, you crest that final mountain.
5:25
You get down and you look and there you are.
5:28
But you cannot find your peace you're looking for in yourself until you've overcome
5:33
yourself.
5:38
Sometimes progress is the W.
5:40
Like maintaining in some seasons is winning.
5:45
This has been my my big focus right now.
5:48
Um, and I'm not the first person to say this,
5:49
but just winning the day.
5:51
And Bill Aman had this hard season where he was getting divorced.
5:53
He just lost $4 billion.
5:55
And he was not him today.
5:56
He was earlier on his career.
5:58
So, I mean, it was just the worst.
5:59
And it was just a terrible slog.
6:01
And he said, one of the difficult parts about
6:02
that period is that there was no one thing
6:05
that was like,
6:06
oh, I can tackle this today.
6:07
Like, you're not going to finish the divorce today.
6:09
You're not going to undo the $4 billion loss today.
6:13
And so it's like when you have these larger,
6:15
more complex negative things that do scale,
6:19
it's like how do you how do you how do you navigate through that?
6:22
And for anyone who's listening right now, it's like maybe it's the bad breakup,
6:25
maybe it's the or maybe you're getting divorced, right?
6:26
Or maybe it's like the business isn't working the way you want.
6:28
It's like and there's like 10 things that you have to fix.
6:32
And so he had this very tactical advice
6:34
which I liked a lot
6:34
which is he just tried to make progress
6:37
and that was it.
6:39
And he said, you know, in a day it's almost it's almost negligible, right?
6:42
But at 30 days, you're like, "Okay, I moved this."
6:44
And at 90, you're like, "Wow."
6:49
Does this mean that our mood is still being dictated by circumstance?
6:52
Yes, I'll be honest.
6:54
Yes, it does.
6:55
But I think many of us have this ideal.
6:58
We'd love to be in a great mood in the absence of things to
7:00
be in a great mood about.
7:02
But I had this one great podcast today.
7:04
I'm going to make that thing the thing that's making this a great day.
7:08
And then if I can make that great day,
7:10
then maybe it could be a great week.
7:11
and then trying to expand those basically like let those good moments eat up
7:16
the season in actively trying to minimize all the down things
7:20
and super super focus on those moments
7:23
and be like cool I had
7:24
that good moment that's my day days made
7:26
and I'm trying to even say
7:28
that more basically I've had to recalibrate my entire scale to how little of
7:35
a thing can happen
7:36
that makes my day how little of a thing can happen
7:38
that makes my week how little of a thing can make my How crazy
7:42
would it be if a year from now I say
7:45
that was a great year?
7:49
I'm putting a huge amount of my discretionary effort into this
7:52
because it's my belief
7:53
that right now what will what will prevent me from achieving my ultimate goals
7:57
cuz that that motherucker is not gone is running out of steam
8:02
because I don't need to do this like I don't need to work this
8:06
hard.
8:06
I have to I'd prefer to make the ride more enjoyable.
8:13
>> Realize it never mattered to begin with.
8:15
What's that?
8:17
>> If you want it all, life will give you nothing.
8:22
We're willing to sacrifice everything that we have for the thing that we want.
8:25
And then once we get the thing that we want,
8:26
we want back the things that we sacrificed,
8:28
which really just goes to the heart of the human condition,
8:30
which is we want it all.
8:33
And we're not willing to make trades.
8:36
And so one of the reasons
8:37
that I've actually I would say largely tossed out the deathbed regrets of most
8:42
people is that what they do typically is they will have the bias of
8:47
wanting the other path they could have taken without considering the cost of
8:52
that path.
8:53
So they say, "Hey, I was really successful and I did all these things,
8:56
but you know, I I would give it all up today to have my
8:59
family."
8:59
It's like, well, yeah,
9:00
but you didn't because you actually chose the path
9:02
that you were on
9:03
and you weren't willing to do
9:05
that.
9:05
But what you are saying right now is that you want it all.
9:08
Sure.
9:09
So does everyone.
9:10
And so I've had, you know, a few moments of clarity over the last,
9:14
you know, year or so, but we want everything without the cost.
9:19
And everything has a price.
9:21
And you will never be able to get the sufficient price tag paid on
9:26
everything to achieve a mod of success in any domain unless you are willing
9:32
to trade from another.
9:33
And I think that that has significantly minimized my regret.
9:40
We give up our 20s for our 30s.
9:42
We give up our 30s for our 40s, our 40s for our 50s.
9:45
And we trade everything we achieved in our 30s, 40s,
9:47
and 50s to get back to our 20s.
9:49
We give up the thing we have most of for the thing
9:55
that we have least of >>
9:56
and we give up the thing
9:57
that we want for the thing that's supposed to get it.
9:59
I I I will become happy
10:00
when I'm sufficiently successful
10:02
and I will sacrifice my happiness in pursuit of success
10:04
so that I can become sufficiently successful
10:06
so I can finally be happy.
10:07
We spend our 20s wanting to be richer and older and have a family.
10:11
Then we start that in our 30s
10:12
and we gain more wealth
10:13
and do the family thing.
10:14
And then we get back to get to our 40s
10:16
and we've got more responsibilities.
10:17
We've accumulated all of this stuff and then we think, "God,
10:19
if only I could go back to my 20s."
10:22
But you wereing miserable in your 20s.
10:24
You hated it.
10:25
You had no idea whether you were going to be successful.
10:27
You were constantly concerned about money.
10:29
You were desperately needing validation from all of these people around you.
10:32
You were permanently in dissatisfaction about this stuff.
10:35
We already know how the movie ends
10:36
when we go back
10:37
and say we want to relive it.
10:39
And you can't relive it into the same context
10:40
because uncertainty is the largest part of the story.
10:44
Perhaps golden years can only happen in our memory.
10:47
Nobody believes that we're living through a golden era right now.
10:50
>> We never think we're in the good old days,
10:53
but the good old days are always now.
10:54
I have spent a huge amount of mental resources accepting suffering
11:01
and not saying that there's something wrong with something bad. like a huge amount
11:07
of mental resources has gone to this
11:08
because I've been better
11:09
and faster at correcting the loop of like oh I am not happy with
11:13
this particular thing and therefore there is something wrong.
11:17
>> Yeah.
11:17
So fix the story that I tell myself as opposed to fix the thing.
11:20
>> And that's been um super helpful with the addition of everything
11:25
that I remember will always be better than it was.
11:29
And the nice thing is that there's tons of science that backs this up,
11:32
which is that we learn uh through reward and punishment.
11:37
Punishment fades with time, no matter how bad it was.
11:40
Like you get drunk, you get hung over, you say,
11:43
"I'll never drink again." 7 days later, you're out drinking again.
11:46
Why?
11:46
The punishment of the hangover fades quickly.
11:49
You are with somebody for a while, you're like,
11:51
"This just crazy or this guy is crazy."
11:53
And then you break up and then all of a sudden,
11:55
what do you remember?
11:56
The good times.
11:57
Because reward sticks and in some ways there's a little bit of a hopeful
12:02
message there which is
12:03
that when you look back on your life you will disproportionately remember the good
12:06
times but it only becomes a problem
12:08
if you limit the present
12:10
which is the only thing you've ever actually lived in.
12:14
when I think about a business
12:15
and I want to grow it for example I would think okay what are
12:18
all the things that can destroy this business
12:20
and this is Charlie Mer this isn't me um
12:22
but basically he says invert always invert
12:24
and Einstein said that too
12:25
and it's because like you get to use this this way stronger horsepower engine
12:30
of like how do I grow my business that's you could obviously think
12:34
that way but the alternative would be like how would I absolutely destroy this
12:37
business in the fewest possible moves
12:39
and then when you list out those moves you're like cool now let's do
12:42
the opposite of that
12:43
And that has been um honestly a lot of the some of the sources
12:47
of my greatest kind of creative moments have come from these apparently obvious things
12:51
that would kill us.
12:52
Well, what if we did the even more obvious thing
12:54
and did the opposite of what would destroy us.
12:56
Um and it's worked better than I deserve.
13:00
Figure out what you want.
13:01
Ignore the opinions of others.
13:03
Do so much work it would be unreasonable that you fail.
13:06
Realize it never mattered to begin with.
13:09
Help others once you get there. you've already achieved the things you said would
13:12
make you successful.
13:15
>> Yeah, the first five steps there is my um is basically my my
13:18
master life plan.
13:22
I had a pretty terrible first out of college experience of work.
13:26
But from that I learned some of the most important life lessons
13:28
that I still take to this day.
13:30
And uh that boss particularly said one thing to me one day.
13:34
She said figuring out what you want is 99% of it.
13:38
She said, "Once you know what you want, getting it is the easy part."
13:42
And I I kind of adopted
13:44
that as a worldview
13:45
because it's like once you're really clear like this is what I want,
13:49
then everything that's not
13:50
that is what I'm willing to give up to get it.
13:53
Now, that thing can change.
13:56
And I think that's the part that people miss.
13:58
And I think we should all have permission to change what we want in
14:02
any given moment. and not having basically sunk life bias of like I put
14:07
10 years into this thing
14:09
and that's okay and that's what I needed to do at
14:11
that time and today I'm willing to I'm going to change everything.
14:16
It's been super helpful for me to not think of my changes
14:21
as permanent because it's been it's allowed me to make such dramatic changes in
14:26
my in my life
14:27
or my business much faster than I think most people have been willing to
14:31
because there's this this weight of forever on top of everything.
14:35
Like I can do this for today
14:37
and tomorrow if it still works I will do it for tomorrow.
14:41
And if 5 days from now
14:43
or 25 days from now
14:44
if I work this way I
14:46
then say you know what I need today.
14:47
People like oh he's burned out.
14:49
It's like I took a day cuz that's what I needed that day.
14:52
And I think giving myself permission to have
14:53
that freedom has allowed me to take significantly faster action
14:56
because who am I apologizing to?
15:01
Did you ever secretly want to quit before,
15:04
but you stuck around due to expectation?
15:07
>> I did announce privately that I was retiring after my fifth win.
15:11
I had a video on my phone I recorded of me like crying in
15:14
my gym after a workout being like,
15:15
this is my last Olympia.
15:16
That was really the only moment where I was like, I'm done stepping away.
15:20
And then I had to come back and be like, I'm not done.
15:22
I'm doing this again. your reigning sixtime Olympia champion Chris Bunstead.
15:34
When I started about it,
15:35
it was kind of just like the gym was a beautiful place for me
15:38
to go and escape
15:38
and enjoy it.
15:39
And I loved it.
15:40
Started to see progress and it changed over time.
15:42
It just kind of like shifted into a bit of a pressure
15:45
and I started to tie my identity to it
15:46
and like kind of like I needed a lot of aspects of it
15:49
and I never wanted to.
15:52
But like I made the decision to compete in bodybuilding.
15:54
I'm making the decision to stay technically.
15:56
But is it a free choice
15:58
if I feel like I have to do it to be good enough?
16:00
If I feel like my self worth
16:01
and my identity is attached to competing now.
16:04
But this goal I have,
16:05
this journey I have now has this intense tension
16:07
because it's not a positive choice.
16:08
It's not a free choice of like this is wanting to do this.
16:11
It's like I have to do this to be good enough.
16:15
I wasn't getting anything from it anymore that was serving me.
16:18
And then I had to like really be honest with myself.
16:21
Clearly you were attached to that and now you may lose it all.
16:23
Would you be okay with that?
16:24
Would you be okay with it all gone before it was like the love
16:32
of the sport.
16:33
It was love of bodybuilding
16:34
and then it became this attachment to this like need of like what came
16:37
with it.
16:41
>> And going into the last year I didn't even I wasn't enjoying it.
16:44
It was more of an attitude of like I have to go work out
16:47
so I can win the Olympia.
16:48
>> Mhm. rather than like I get toing train today
16:50
and they have the opportunity to be the best in the world
16:52
if I do it right.
16:53
It was just this different mindset shift
16:55
that I realized in myself of why I was like this isn't for me
16:58
anymore.
16:58
It's time for me to get off the stage
17:00
because this isn't serving me
17:01
and this isn't the proper reason.
17:03
You know why you start something typically changes over time.
17:08
Why you start something might have driven you, but now if it drains you,
17:11
it's time to reevaluate what you're doing.
17:15
All the stuff are incredible.
17:16
Don't get me wrong.
17:16
It's not like I don't value having money and attention.
17:20
Like I'm human.
17:21
I enjoy it.
17:21
But it's not what was making me feel good dayto-day.
17:24
It was taking away from my ability to be at home.
17:26
And I would be like, I have to eat again.
17:28
I missed a meal.
17:28
I came to an event and I lost a pound.
17:30
Am I going to be are my legs big enough this year?
17:32
I feel like my waist got bigger.
17:33
Like on that day, 10 minutes on stage,
17:35
am I going to be good enough to be the best in the world?
17:37
That pulls you away from being present in your day-to-day life cuz you're constantly
17:41
worrying about that.
17:42
And that's because I became more attached to the outcome than just the love
17:47
of the game.
17:52
>> You said, "I found greater fulfillment in the journey of pursuing my goals
17:57
than in the moment of achieving them.
17:59
Why?"
18:01
I'd say that comes to like the question I asked you of discovering what
18:06
I was capable of.
18:07
You know, there's been
18:08
so many times where I've been in a prep
18:10
and I felt way too far behind to win
18:14
and I'm had an injury last year
18:15
when I tore my lat,
18:16
tore my bicep, I was in the hospital,
18:18
like all these different things going on and I'm like,
18:20
there's no way that I can do this.
18:22
Like, it's impossible.
18:22
And if I were to ever ask myself in the past, like,
18:25
do you think you could win or get through this and do this?
18:27
And I'd be like, no way.
18:28
It's impossible.
18:29
But I was in it
18:30
and I did it
18:31
and I accomplished it
18:32
and I was like,
18:32
I'm capable of so much more than my mind understands.
18:36
And I think that's just the greatest part of the journey
18:39
that I've achieved is like
18:40
that understanding of what I'm capable of
18:43
and that belief in myself to what I can accomplish.
18:45
And it only came through the journey.
18:47
It didn't come through the winning.
18:48
It come through the challenges
18:49
that came along the journey
18:50
and fighting through it
18:51
and the beauty of all
18:52
that.
18:52
And on top of that,
18:53
there's just been so many moments in the midst of things where like it's
18:58
a workout or it's a diet
18:59
or I'm starving or I'm doing check-ins
19:01
or something and I'm just like this is incredible.
19:05
Like I'm peak conditioned in the world right now fighting to be the best
19:09
in the world and I'm living in
19:11
that moment right now.
19:11
I'm doing the this is what it takes when people see something on stage.
19:14
This is what they don't see
19:15
or that what I'm feeling in my mind what no one will understand what
19:18
it takes to get there.
19:19
I get to experience this every day
19:21
and I think it's just part of the human experience of feeling in life
19:24
that's just so beautiful.
19:27
>> What does pressure is a privilege mean?
19:30
>> I think I first heard it from Tim Grover.
19:32
His book, Relentless, put my mindset into like the focus on my mindset in
19:36
competing rather than just my physical body
19:38
because I knew that's what it would take to like get to the next
19:40
level.
19:41
And I think after winning an Olympia, I was like, "Oh,
19:43
like I just showed my cards.
19:45
I had people know what I'm capable of now.
19:47
There's no one I got to beat.
19:48
There's no like second place, third place."
19:51
Like flow.
19:51
It's like, "No, you're the best.
19:52
And unless you're the best, we just forget about you."
19:54
So, it was like this pressure I felt on myself.
19:56
And it was coming externally for a
19:58
while and I was trying to like understand how I could gravitate
20:02
that a little bit better without it kind of bringing me down
20:04
and slowing down my progress.
20:06
And I had to kind of function into the reality
20:07
that the pressure was really coming from myself rather than externally.
20:11
And that it's a good pressure.
20:12
It's a pressure to be better and to become the best version of myself.
20:15
And it's something that if I choose to use it properly,
20:17
it's going to push me to be a better version of myself,
20:19
to grow mentally, physically, my relationships, however I want it to grow.
20:22
If I choose to take control of the aspects I have control over,
20:26
it's a choice to put your perception of the privilege rather than a burden.
20:30
And it by taking the power back in
20:32
that choice pushes you in a direction of being better rather than holding you
20:37
back.
20:37
>> What else does it mean to have a champion mentality?
20:39
>> Again, something that definitely elevated over time.
20:42
Originally, it was like just winning
20:44
and it evolved into just like a no quit mentality.
20:47
It's accepting these fears I have, this doubt I have,
20:50
this everything that goes through my mind.
20:52
But regardless of that, not quitting and not giving up on myself.
20:55
No matter how hard is the time of what I'm going through
20:58
and whatever I feel,
20:59
it's I'm going to still put in the same work
21:00
because champions are not controlled by their outside circumstances.
21:03
They're they control their own mind
21:05
and side and how they act
21:06
and then the world goes on around them.
21:09
I the whole time thought it was bad to be driven by like, oh,
21:13
I'm not good enough, so I need to accomplish X to be good enough.
21:17
And it's I don't think that's the way to live.
21:19
But maybe that's a good way to start.
21:22
A lot of people are driven to high levels of success by doing that.
21:25
And maybe that puts you in a position of abundance, of success,
21:28
to show you the things that are important to you,
21:30
to give you enough confidence,
21:31
to give you enough life experience to go inside
21:33
and reflect on ways
21:34
that you can find lasting genuine selfworth.
21:38
You know, maybe if you're like, "Well, no,
21:40
you shouldn't do something because you're not good enough."
21:43
Well, then maybe you never start, you know,
21:44
or maybe it makes you an incredible bodybuilder.
21:46
You go on this huge run
21:47
and you're able to go on this journey of self-discovery
21:50
and then figure it out in the end.
21:51
But I wouldn't have changed
21:52
that going back of whyever I started even
21:54
if it was coming from a insecure
21:56
or bad place because it got me to the place I am now.
22:03
It's easier to do the things
22:05
that you want to do
22:06
so that you no longer need to do them than it is to try
22:08
and release yourself of the desire overall.
22:11
I've always connected with the Jim Carrey versions of that.
22:15
He has like a couple quotes of it where one of them is specifically
22:19
I wish for everyone to achieve their hopes
22:20
and dreams so they can realize
22:21
that it doesn't make them complete.
22:23
It's like damn.
22:24
And in the other one was his like ironic I think it was Golden
22:27
Globe.
22:28
He goes up there and I don't remember it word for word,
22:29
but he's like, >> I'm twotime Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey going to get
22:35
some well-needed shutye.
22:38
And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream.
22:42
I dream about being threetime Golden Globe winning actor Jim Carrey
22:48
because then I would be enough
22:51
and I could stop this this terrible search for what I know ultimately won't
22:56
fulfill me.
22:59
And then the whole crowd just starts laughing
23:01
and they're all just ah he's funny
23:02
and like a few people you can see like whoa he's beyond it now
23:06
and he's just like when's enough enough you know >>
23:09
if you hadn't won would you have still retired >> this year?
23:13
That's an incredible question.
23:15
I actually haven't even thought about
23:16
that every year and my sister one year looked at me in the Olympia.
23:21
She's like are you ever going to believe you're going to win?
23:23
It was like in between prejudging
23:25
and night show when I just dominated the show.
23:26
She's like so you feel good about I was like, "I don't know.
23:29
Like, maybe I'll win."
23:30
She's like, "Are you ever going to believe that you're going to win?"
23:32
Like, and I was and I didn't.
23:34
And then the last year I went into
23:35
that prep and I like I had those moments of,
23:37
"Do I love this?
23:37
Do I not?"
23:38
And I worked my way back to a point of like,
23:39
"This is the last time."
23:40
And I enjoyed it and I like loved the experience.
23:43
But the whole time it was just like,
23:44
am I going to win or am I going to not compete?
23:46
>> That was what was in my brain.
23:47
I didn't even think.
23:48
And it was finally that point where I just believed in myself,
23:50
where I knew like I know what to do.
23:52
I know my what I'm capable of.
23:54
And like I'm going to come in and win if I do it.
23:56
So I never even thought about it.
23:58
But >> that is a champion mentality, right?
24:02
>> But no, yeah, I like to believe that I would have retired, you know,
24:06
and it, like I said,
24:06
it's very different because my mind did just like release all these focuses where
24:10
it opened up the ability to realize all these things
24:13
that I had been holding
24:14
that might have been creating tension in my life.
24:16
So, I'm in a state right now where I can't imagine trying to lock
24:18
in and focus on being
24:20
so selfish at something with life changing like it is.
24:25
Modeling somebody's rise, not their result, I think,
24:29
is a really important insight that hasn't fully caught everyone's attention yet.
24:35
Most people that have the platform to be able to give advice have got
24:38
the platform because they're successful.
24:40
And if they're successful,
24:41
that means that they have done something for a sufficiently long time at a
24:45
grand enough scale for people to consider them an authority in one form
24:49
or another.
24:50
>> But the problem is you are at the beginning of your career
24:54
and they are the person at the top of the mountain.
24:57
They can't remember what it was like to be a beginner.
25:00
>> So when you ask somebody what is the key to success in business
25:04
and they say well you know it's all about work life balance.
25:06
I think it's very important.
25:07
You know, you you need to be using your intuition
25:10
and your gut and you go,
25:11
"Huh, what did you do when you were at my stage?"
25:13
It's like, "Oh, everything was completely planned out
25:16
and I didn't have any time for my friends
25:17
or family.
25:18
I should probably do what you did when you were my stage,
25:21
not what you do now
25:21
that you have the luxury to do whatever you want."
25:24
What happens when it feels like that's being taken away from you?
25:26
You >> kind of
25:27
that old adage of you don't know what you got until it's gone.
25:30
You don't know what you valued until it starts to decrease a little bit.
25:34
>> Yeah.
25:34
So, >> I'm still unraveling why I wanted to quit before one year prior
25:38
to when you actually did it >> in
25:40
that and that was the year I had a really bad injury.
25:42
We had discovered Courtney was pregnant.
25:44
There was all this stuff going on.
25:45
There was some personal all this like chaos in my life
25:47
that was pulling me away from focusing on competing.
25:49
And I was like, I couldn't handle all of it in the moment.
25:51
And I was like, I can't do this anymore.
25:53
And I was stepping away from it.
25:55
And I realized I was stepping away from it in fear.
25:58
And because I had
25:59
so much external things muddying my decision of is it
26:03
because I don't love competing
26:04
or is it because of all these other things going on right now?
26:07
The injury that almost made me lose.
26:08
I should have dropped out.
26:09
I kept pushing through all these things
26:10
that I wanted to give myself an opportunity to try again
26:13
and be in it
26:13
and be like is this still for me?
26:15
And I feel like one of the most important things I've done the last
26:17
few years is like consistently ree re-evaluate my values
26:21
and try and make decisions based off the highest ones even
26:24
if in the moment I really feel like it's what I want.
26:26
And the funniest little thing of what has made me feel better recently was
26:30
working out again on a schedule
26:32
and eating five meals a day
26:33
and weighing out my food
26:34
and having that little bit of structure of like
26:37
and not having to
26:38
as well.
26:39
It's like all this stuff's going on my life.
26:40
I don't know.
26:41
I'm kind of lost.
26:42
What can I do?
26:42
Well, I can go work out again and I don't have to.
26:45
So now I'm choosing to.
26:47
Well, why you still work out so hard?
26:48
Why are you training so hard?
26:49
It's like well just cuz I love it.
26:50
And then all of a sudden I start to feel better dayto-day.
26:53
And it's these little changes
26:54
and I realize this is truly how I fell in love with the gym
26:57
and why I'm such a big advocate of weightlifting.
27:00
Like I honestly kind of hope I don't inspire people to get into bodybuilding
27:02
cuz it's tough.
27:04
It's up.
27:04
It's not good for your health.
27:06
But I do want to inspire people to go lift weights,
27:08
get in the gym and want to get jacked because it's such like, oh,
27:10
I'm lost.
27:10
I don't know what to do.
27:11
Just go work out.
27:12
Apply some discipline.
27:13
Work hard.
27:14
Find something you love that's difficult that shows you progress, builds confidence,
27:17
and just go do it. and finding that next goal and working towards it.
27:20
And I'm so grateful
27:21
that I'm back to a point of like loving the gym.
27:26
>> Because what you're talking about,
27:27
it's going to be difficult
27:28
and things will be hard
27:30
and you won't have the um the drive
27:32
or the goal that you used to in the past.
27:35
All of those things that kind of fluffy concepts, but they come into land.
27:39
They actually sort of meet reality with I woke up on the morning
27:44
and didn't know what to do.
27:46
I felt tired a lot.
27:48
I didn't want to train.
27:51
I was short and snappy with my business partners.
27:54
I I found myself getting distracted with lots of little tasks
27:58
because it made me feel important
28:00
and like people needed me.
28:01
I packed my calendar out
28:02
and did cuz a lot of the time in advance of something happening,
28:07
we probably have a good idea about what it's going to be like in
28:09
the macro,
28:10
but what we don't know is how it's actually going to appear,
28:14
manifest in life.
28:15
And it's navigating those things.
28:19
>> I needed to treat myself like a science experiment of like taking
28:23
and removing pieces and see what's important.
28:25
It's like, okay, bodybuilding was creating a bit of pressure
28:29
and stress in my life.
28:31
Is it everything related to that?
28:34
I'm not competing anymore.
28:35
I don't need to eat on a schedule.
28:37
I don't need to train at the same time.
28:39
I don't need to leave my phone outside the gym
28:41
and be locked in
28:41
and focus as much.
28:42
I don't need to wake up with my alarm.
28:44
I can kind of sleep.
28:45
I can do all these little things
28:46
that I can let go of
28:46
because now I don't have to
28:48
because the goal is different.
28:50
But then I start to not feel good.
28:51
And it was like, okay,
28:51
it wasn't those things that weren't making me feel bad.
28:53
Those were actually making me feel good.
28:55
It was the outcome.
28:56
Like I said before, oh wait,
28:58
the structure and the discipline makes me feel better.
28:59
It filled me with more confidence
29:01
and ability to go do other things rather than taking >> regardless of whether
29:04
it's in service of becoming Mr.
29:06
Olympia.
29:06
>> Yeah.
29:07
And I mean, I know those things, but like you said,
29:08
it was I feel like I don't want to do anything.
29:11
and you're way harder to pull yourself out of
29:14
that than if you caught it earlier.
29:16
>> That's life though, you know?
29:17
There's no direct descent to the top.
29:19
It's ups and downs and >> building a new self as you go.
29:27
>> What would you say to anybody that's lost direction in life in the
29:32
way that you have?
29:35
I would say I'm still in the midst of it,
29:38
but I do believe it will be for the better.
29:42
I feel like the path I was on wasn't I knew
29:45
when I was on it wasn't the best for me.
29:47
So, if I stayed on that path, might not be lost,
29:49
but I'm not discovering anything else.
29:50
And at least in being lost, you might discover something new that's better.
29:55
Nothing will be like the Olympia, but things will be incredible in my life.
29:59
The gym has been like the thing for me of when I'm lost,
30:02
it's always there.
30:02
So having a constant in your life,
30:04
having something within your control
30:06
when things feel out of control to just go do,
30:08
I think is so crucial.
30:09
Just go work out, go lift weights, just get jacked and figure it out.
30:15
If you turn around and look back with open eyes at your life,
30:18
you see all the scars.
30:24
The only way you cannot be humble in old age is
30:27
when you refuse to look at the reality of your life up to today.
30:30
I you know that's the only way because nobody's skating through it perfectly.
30:34
>> But this is what drives this is what drives my to it sounds
30:39
ludicrous in my ears
30:40
but my business endeavors today this is the core of what drives me.
30:47
Okay.
30:48
There is no business out there that I can take on.
30:54
There is no monetary endeavor
30:58
that I can take on
30:59
that is worth the gamble of me losing me.
31:08
It took me years of of a lot of grief
31:12
and pain and work to get to be who I am today in spite
31:16
of who I was.
31:19
And I don't want to lose that.
31:20
I don't want to lose myself in business.
31:24
I don't want to lose myself in trying to earn a better living,
31:29
in trying to get a name, and trying to do this.
31:31
It's like I have turned down I have turned down
31:35
so much because I've looked at it
31:38
and I've asked myself,
31:41
who's this going to make me be?
31:44
Who's this going to turn me into even a little bit?
31:46
And it's like, it's just not worth it.
31:49
It's just not it's not worth it.
31:51
And so I'm right now trying to find the balance in undertaking something that's
31:58
not going to alter me,
32:01
that I'm not going to lose myself,
32:03
and then not succeeding at something because I was too afraid to try it.
32:12
Never been afraid of failure before.
32:14
But now I've got something I don't want to lose.
32:16
And that's myself that I actually like. a me that I actually like.
32:21
The person that you have to spend the most time talking to in your
32:24
life is yourself.
32:26
Try not to lose that respect.
32:30
How have you learned to have a better relationship with yourself,
32:35
the voice inside of your head to be to be kinder
32:38
if things go badly?
32:40
I like me.
32:43
I like me.
32:44
I would buy me a dream.
32:47
I look at me now and I and I see all the warts, okay?
32:52
I see all the negatives more than anybody else does.
32:55
I see the positives.
32:56
And over the whole balance of stuff,
32:59
I like me and I can give myself the same grace
33:03
if you and I were friends.
33:05
I can give myself the same grace I can give you
33:09
because I like me.
33:12
I like me in spite of my understanding
33:15
and the reality of my weaknesses
33:17
and my warts and my scars
33:19
and everything.
33:19
But, you know, all in all, I'm a pretty good dude.
33:23
And uh, man, you you got to get to that point.
33:33
Arrogance is pride mixed with ignorance.
33:36
All right, that that's the definition of arrogance.
33:39
I'm not talking arrogance.
33:40
I'm talking about, look, as a human being, I've failed at this.
33:43
I've succeeded at that.
33:45
I've wrecked this, but I've built that.
33:48
And all in all, you know, I've tried, but I like me,
33:53
so I'm going to give me some grace.
33:57
And how many people can say that?
33:59
How many people say I like me?
34:01
they would give more grace, more care, more attention,
34:06
more love to somebody else >> than themselves.
34:11
There's a a statistic around >> I think on average the likelihood
34:15
that you are going to complete a course of antibiotics yourself >> is about
34:20
50%.
34:21
>> Right?
34:21
>> The likelihood of your dog completing it is 95%.
34:25
Yes.
34:25
>> So, we're literally capable of caring for a pet >> nearly double
34:30
as well as we can for ourselves.
34:31
Remembering that if you die, no one can look after the pet.
34:37
Serving others from a cup which overflows around your own is is important.
34:44
Tell me, how would you like yourself?
34:46
Find somebody that you like, that you genuinely like,
34:51
and figure out what it is about them you like.
34:54
I like that.
34:55
That's something I like.
34:57
That person is uh they're understanding.
35:01
They're gentle.
35:02
They're hardworking.
35:04
They're honest.
35:04
This is what I like about that.
35:06
And incorporate that stuff into your own life.
35:09
If that's the stuff you like, then incorporate that stuff into who you are.
35:14
And then you like yourself.
35:18
It's not rocket science.
35:20
But if we become the person that we like,
35:26
I have come to the place in my life where
35:28
when I meet somebody
35:29
and and they don't like me
35:31
and you can tell I don't care.
35:34
I like me and it's enough.
35:38
You know, this was a lesson
35:38
that I realized toward the end of my 20ies,
35:41
where I'd accumulated a lot of success
35:44
and status in maybe the way
35:46
that modern society tells a young man
35:48
that he should with freedom
35:50
and and notoriety and
35:52
and and women and
35:53
and stuff like that.
35:55
And that was cool and and to look back on fun.
35:59
Uh but it was beginning to get to the stage where I didn't like
36:05
me all that much.
36:07
I hadn't done anything bad,
36:09
but I just felt like there was I was built for more.
36:13
I was built for different, built for something else, >> right?
36:18
>> And I realized that I wasn't keeping promises to myself, >> right?
36:23
>> That if I said I was going to wake up at a certain time,
36:25
the snooze button would be hit three times, >> right?
36:27
If I said that I was going to stick to my diet
36:29
or go to the gym
36:30
or do this thing,
36:32
maybe it would happen,
36:33
but it wouldn't happen quite the way
36:36
that I'd meant it to
36:37
and there would be some negotiating
36:39
and some cajoling and some falling short.
36:43
You know, how can you have faith
36:45
that you're going to go
36:46
and do all of the things
36:47
that you want in life
36:48
when you can't not hit the snooze button,
36:50
>> right?
36:50
>> Or you can't not cheat on your diet.
36:53
You can't not do you are constructed by the tiny decisions
36:57
that you make every single day.
37:00
>> Well, I'll just say I came I came to a place in life
37:03
where I just didn't like me anymore.
37:05
I wasn't a very nice person and I was just very on edge,
37:10
very angry.
37:11
So, I had to make some decisions.
37:14
I can't continue to live like this.
37:16
Angry, there's no there's no benefit to it. you know, it doesn't fix anything.
37:23
You know, anger, it just it just turned out I'm like,
37:25
this is not profitable
37:27
and this is eating me up inside
37:30
and I'm making stupid decisions
37:32
and this this has just got to end.
37:36
So, I had to make some decisions.
37:38
What what's making me like this?
37:40
I need to get it out of my life.
37:42
And slowly over time got a handle on stuff
37:46
and uh kind of got some of my perspective back.
37:49
So, imagine that you had a friend
37:52
and every time that you invited this friend out for lunch,
37:55
they showed up an hour late or they didn't show up at all.
37:58
After a while, you stop trusting them and stop inviting them out at all.
38:02
You are that friend to yourself.
38:05
>> Yeah.
38:05
>> And I think this is such an important lesson for people who want
38:09
to be liked,
38:10
who want struggle socially uh and want to become better.
38:15
People like people that make them feel good, >> right?
38:18
>> They don't care that much about how impressive the person is.
38:24
>> So, I was riding for an outfit in Alaska Giden
38:28
and they brought in a a mayor
38:31
and uh the best I could understand,
38:33
she was a retired barrel racing horse from here in Texas.
38:38
And so when I signed on, they assigned her to me because nobody else,
38:42
we couldn't put guest on her.
38:44
None of the other wranglers wanted to ride her
38:46
because her her go-to was run.
38:52
If something disturbed her, her head came up and it's run.
38:55
Just run.
38:56
That that's my answer to escape to just run.
38:59
And it wasn't something that I could physically fight and stop.
39:06
Um, and so that horse really made me step outside of the thought process
39:16
of physically controlling something
39:18
that has a mental emotional issue
39:21
and getting in her head
39:22
and figuring out what can I do
39:24
if the problem is mentally
39:26
or emotionally,
39:27
what can I do to get in to her head
39:31
and get into her emotions
39:33
and fix that for her.
39:35
And so what I did, and it's so simple it, you know,
39:38
it probably wouldn't even make sense to a lot of folks,
39:41
but while we were sitting there
39:42
and while she was calm sitting there at the ranch waiting for others to
39:45
get on their horses,
39:46
I would just come in with the lightest little pressure
39:48
and get her to tip her nose,
39:51
not pull her nose in, just give a signal, hey, tip your nose.
39:53
So she'd tip her nose.
39:54
And we just do that and just do that.
39:57
And then when we get out on the trail
39:58
and she started getting anxious about something
40:01
and her head would come up,
40:02
I would just default to that.
40:05
And so she would find something that she was secure, the signal,
40:10
and it would she would calm down
40:12
and she would calm down.
40:14
and working with that mayor for the summer.
40:17
Um, I'm I made huge strides with myself in stepping outside of the norm
40:25
of trying to physically control something
40:27
that isn't ideal.
40:30
>> Yeah.
40:30
I mentioned that I had uh uh ridden a horse for the first time
40:34
in Texas and they gave me whatever the leader of the group is for
40:39
the horse,
40:39
whatever that's called.
40:40
Um, and I was right far at the back.
40:43
>> Yeah.
40:44
And this horse was eating.
40:45
And the lady that was guiding the group said,
40:47
"Just give him a little pull.
40:48
He'll come along."
40:49
I gave him a little pull.
40:50
He didn't move.
40:52
I mean, it is absurd to explain how strong these things necks are.
40:57
>> Yeah.
40:57
>> And I'm like, "I don't think he doesn't want doesn't want to come."
41:02
She's like, "No, no, just take a little bit more.
41:03
A little bit more."
41:04
I'm like, I'm a pretty strong guy.
41:05
So, I was like, "Right, okay.
41:06
I'll give it a big pull."
41:08
Didn't move.
41:09
I'm like And by this time, they're 100 yards away.
41:12
>> Yeah.
41:12
I'm like still he doesn't want to doesn't seem like he want said no
41:16
like a really big pull.
41:17
So I went mixed grip like you do on a deadlift.
41:20
>> Yeah.
41:20
>> Set my feet into the stirrups
41:21
and like like one rep maxed this horse's head up
41:25
and finally he got up
41:27
and uh that was absolutely not the most efficient way to get him to
41:31
do that thing.
41:32
There would have been a much better way than me.
41:35
>> Right now what I teach folks is I don't want his body.
41:40
Okay?
41:41
I want his mind.
41:43
Now, if I physically, like you just went through,
41:46
if I physically get his body to do what I want,
41:49
but I don't have his mind, soon as he gets a chance,
41:51
he's going to go back again.
41:54
But if I ignore the body and I get the mind,
41:57
if I have the mind, I have the body.
41:59
So, in a situation like that,
42:01
what I do is I I don't pull his head up, okay?
42:04
I take the reins and I bounce that bit that's in its mouth.
42:08
I I bounce it pretty sharp. and he decides in his mind,
42:14
I don't like that.
42:16
I think I will I think I will pick my head up.
42:20
I'm going to suggest to you
42:23
that you decide it's in your best interest for you to pick your head
42:27
up and we go for the mind.
42:29
And h how much in life, you know,
42:32
you you've got all these folks working for you here
42:35
and you have to you can't physically browbeat
42:38
and nag and threaten.
42:40
You've tried.
42:40
Does it work?
42:41
>> No.
42:41
No.
42:42
They're belligerent.
42:43
>> Yeah.
42:43
I' I've already heard stories.
42:44
It's just Yeah.
42:46
>> But you want to make things
42:48
so that they decide
42:49
that if this is this is what Chris wants done,
42:51
it's in it's in my best interest.
42:53
I want to go do that.
42:55
And again, it's communication, you know, and again,
42:59
it's getting in the horse's mind and working with a horse in that manner.
43:03
Um, I I'll give you an illustration if I can.
43:06
All right.
43:08
One of the cardinal sins in my book is
43:10
when I go to get on a horse
43:12
and the horse walks off
43:13
when I'm partway up.
43:14
You know, I'm stepping up, I'm swinging my leg over, and he's he's walking,
43:18
he's leaving.
43:19
Okay, that's a cardinal sin.
43:21
So, we have a difference of opinion here, me and the horse.
43:24
It's like, I want you to plant your feet
43:27
and I want you to be still
43:28
while I get on
43:29
and then I'll tell you
43:30
when I want you to go.
43:31
He says, well, I want to go.
43:34
So, I'm not going to sit there
43:36
and take pull back
43:37
and say whoo and do
43:38
that onelegged hop along Cassidy down
43:40
while I'm trying to get inside.
43:41
I'm not going to do that.
43:42
I'm not going to physically hold him back.
43:45
I'm going to put my toe in the stirr
43:46
and I'm going to go to step up
43:47
and when he walks off,
43:48
I'm going to step back out
43:50
and I'm going to make him keep walking in a circle around me eight
43:54
or 10 times.
43:56
I'm like, I wanted you to stand still, but you want to walk.
43:59
I tell you what, I'm a nice guy.
44:00
I'm going to let you walk.
44:02
I'm going to let you do what you want in a controlled manner.
44:05
You pick the tune
44:07
and I'll pick the dance
44:09
and I'll make him walk around.
44:11
He's like, I don't I don't want to walk anymore.
44:13
Well, you said that's what you wanted,
44:14
so I'm letting you do what you want.
44:16
He's like, I don't want to walk anymore.
44:17
Okay, stop.
44:18
Whoa.
44:19
Now, won't you stand here while I get in the saddle?
44:21
And he says, and it may take a couple times, better.
44:24
He says, you know what?
44:25
I think what I want to do is I want to stand here
44:28
while he gets in the saddle,
44:30
you know?
44:31
So, we communicate.
44:32
And when I got his mind, when I changed his want to,
44:37
I didn't have to fight with his body.
44:40
And so that that's just that's how that's how you approach it.
44:44
You you understand and you communicate.
44:48
>> What have you learned about humans from working with horses?
44:54
>> Humans don't know how to communicate.
44:59
Communication is our biggest weakness.
45:03
Um, that's not like the number,
45:05
but that's something that lately this is this has been just really hammered home
45:11
to me working with horses
45:13
and working with humans.
45:15
Um, and communication is a much more complex issue than than I think many
45:26
of us give it credit for.
45:29
Um, so you take you take a horse and a human,
45:32
a relationship with a horse and human.
45:35
All right?
45:36
For that to work, there has to be communication.
45:38
Well, we have a couple of problems here.
45:41
First off, the horse doesn't speak English, and we don't speak horse.
45:45
All right?
45:46
But as humans, we insist that the horse comes into our world,
45:49
but we're too arrogant
45:50
or too lazy or a combination of both to learn to speak horse.
45:54
And horses language is not verbal.
45:56
It's all movement.
45:57
It's all body language. it's all this and so that is a problem.
46:01
But another problem is is us and the horse.
46:06
We are um we're predator animals.
46:10
All right?
46:11
We are the human is we're predators.
46:15
All right?
46:15
We're designed to eat meat.
46:16
Our eyes are side by side on the front of our face.
46:19
We see one picture
46:20
and we're designed to see what we want
46:22
and go get it.
46:24
The horse is a prey animal.
46:26
They are the animal that everything that eats meat wants to eat.
46:29
And so they have a complete different instinct.
46:32
Their instinct is everything wants to eat meat.
46:35
You know, we we wake up of a morning and we say, you know,
46:39
I I want to be a trophy husband.
46:40
You know, that's my that's my goal.
46:42
I read it.
46:43
Okay.
46:43
I what do I want to go get today?
46:45
The horse wakes up and says, I don't want to get eaten today.
46:49
Two totally different instinct.
46:51
All right.
46:52
So to be able to build a communication with a horse,
46:55
we have to move into their world
46:58
and learn to speak
46:59
but learn to think how they think.
47:02
Well, I mean we can say men and women are the same thing.
47:08
You know that women are different from men.
47:10
They have a different way of thinking.
47:12
And like I said, my wife and I've been married almost 34 years.
47:15
And even today there's things I say
47:18
and she absolutely what she heard is not what I said
47:24
and and vice versa you know
47:26
so communication and you cannot have 34 years of relationship with one person
47:31
if there's no communication.
47:34
Um I don't like the trend in this circle men's motivation circle.
47:39
I don't like the hustle culture as is being brought out and taught today.
47:45
I don't agree with it because I think it's out of balance.
47:49
I think young men need to know that, hey,
47:51
it's okay for you to sit down and to chill and to think.
47:58
Cuz I guarantee if you're in the weight room um pumping out all these
48:03
reps and running on the machine
48:05
and then you're going into the cubicle
48:07
and you're flip open a computer
48:08
and you're not thinking,
48:11
you're learning, you're taking in,
48:12
but you're not meditating on stuff and you're not you're not thinking.
48:17
But that can be taken.
48:18
and so far that young men are made to feel guilty for just sitting
48:24
down and thinking and relaxing.
48:30
And I understand that there was a tendency in this country.
48:34
We had a lot of young men that were not raised with dads.
48:38
They weren't raised to work, you know,
48:40
and so that it's sitting on the couch playing the stupid Xbox, you know,
48:44
not growing up learning to work.
48:47
So that pendulum went too far this way.
48:49
So now you've got guys who in order to counteract that.
48:53
They swung the pendulum too far this way.
48:56
And a balanced man needs to be somewhere in the middle.
49:00
He needs to be able to work to do what needs to be done
49:02
to improve himself.
49:04
And he also needs to sat around by the fire in the backyard
49:08
and just stay balanced.
49:10
There needs to be balance.
49:11
>> I wrote an essay about that >> this week.
49:15
>> Did you?
49:15
Would you mind if I read it to you?
49:16
>> Absolutely not.
49:18
>> I think type A people have a type B problem
49:21
and type B people have a type A problem.
49:24
Insecure overachievers need to learn how to chill out
49:26
and relax and lazy people need to learn how to work harder
49:29
and be disciplined.
49:30
Given that you subscribe to me, I'm going to guess you're probably type A.
49:34
Some version of a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity, as Andrew Wilkinson says.
49:40
Here's the thing you may have already realized.
49:42
Type A people with a type B problem get very little sympathy
49:46
because a miserable but outwardly successful person always appears to be in a much
49:50
more preferential position than the content being lazy
49:53
but on the verge of being bankrupt person.
49:56
The problems of opportunity will always get less sympathy than ones of scarcity.
50:01
One feels like a choice the other like a limitation.
50:03
I need someone to teach me how to be disciplined
50:05
and work harder feels noble
50:07
and upward aiming and charitable.
50:09
I need someone to teach me how to switch off
50:11
and relax feels dopamineergic
50:13
and addicted and transactional
50:14
and opulent.
50:16
Every underdog movie ever has a training montage of someone working their life out
50:20
by working harder.
50:21
None included a guy learning how to log out of Slack at 6 p.m.
50:25
or finally enjoy a beach holiday.
50:27
Type B problems are just as tough as type A ones,
50:30
but they require a much less sexy solution.
50:33
Peace.
50:33
One that you can't achieve by just working harder.
50:37
It seems like especially with confidence, right?
50:40
Or self-esteem, there's a relationship between confidence and competence.
50:43
>> So, what you're looking to do is try
50:45
and have what you believe
50:46
that you can do be ahead of what you can do.
50:50
Now, you're not looking for it to be delusional.
50:51
You don't want it to to be able to believe
50:53
that you can do something like fly,
50:55
right?
50:55
But you need to have a relationship between the two.
50:57
But what people are asking for is for their confidence to be
51:00
so far ahead of their competence
51:01
or without having even been competent at anything in the beginning.
51:04
And that's just delusion.
51:05
That's fantasy.
51:06
>> Right.
51:06
Well, I believe that you have to build belief.
51:09
Belief is like there's an after school special belief where the mom says believe
51:15
in yourself and that's all great
51:18
but there's also a built belief
51:20
and the built belief is one like for me I came from a bad
51:24
place.
51:25
How I build belief is through the the daunting tasks I put myself through.
51:32
So that's proof positive that I can.
51:36
So it correlates and that's how this piece of kid I once thought I
51:41
was built belief by saying hm I was in three hell weeks I went
51:47
to ranger school I tried out for Delta selection >> undeniable stack of proof
51:51
>> that is proof motherucker
51:53
so whenever you think whenever you think you can't confidence comes from the thing
51:58
that you built you must build belief you must build confidence it can't be
52:04
like hey I'm I'm going to knock
52:06
that out.
52:07
You got to look over here and say, "I can knock that out."
52:14
Because a lot of people will say, "When you wake up in the morning,
52:17
pound your chest, you know,
52:19
and look at yourself in the mirror and do all this bullshit."
52:23
I hope it works.
52:24
What works for me is that everyday resume, the things I know I've accomplished,
52:29
the things I know I've done, real hard work,
52:32
the real calluses on my mind, the real calluses on my hands.
52:36
That's that's it.
52:38
The you don't need to pound your chest in the mirror anymore.
52:40
If you have that,
52:42
it's a belief and it's built on what you put in to yourself.
52:48
I came from a small town in Indiana where there was a handful of
52:54
black families and a lot of people in
52:58
that town.
52:59
When you come from a town of 8,000 people,
53:02
it's like we had a local plant, Great Dane.
53:06
You're like, you know what?
53:07
I want to work at Great Dane
53:08
and get a house next to my mom.
53:11
That's what you know.
53:12
So many of us come from these small places in our mind
53:17
that we're not willing to think outside only what we've seen.
53:22
Our mind works in such a small compartment.
53:26
And one thing I was able to do was to dream.
53:29
But I was able to dream outside thoseing four walls of that small town.
53:35
Until you're able to really put yourself into that dream,
53:39
but don't make dreams your master.
53:42
That's where you truly become what you're destined to become.
53:47
A lot of people sit back
53:48
and they dream about being a sports figure
53:52
or dream about being a SEAL
53:54
or dream about being an astronaut
53:55
and all it is is a dream.
53:58
They don't put the work behind the dream.
54:01
When you become the master of your dream is when you say,
54:04
"I want to go be a Navy Seal."
54:06
And you say, "Okay,
54:07
I'm going to lose 106 lbs in less than three months."
54:11
The dream was the one thing I thought about
54:14
and the dream was now gone.
54:15
The dream goes away and the laundry list ofing details and tasks come up.
54:21
That's when you become the master of your dream.
54:25
Ryan Holidayiday says talking about the thing
54:27
and doing the thing v for the same resources.
54:30
Allocate yours appropriately.
54:31
That's it.
54:32
That's it.
54:34
That's the way it works as well.
54:35
That's the way that the brain works.
54:36
You can actually get these kicks of dopamine by telling your friends about I'm
54:38
going to be a Navy Seal.
54:39
I'm going to start my training next week.
54:41
It's going to be great.
54:41
I'm going to feel like this.
54:42
>> Feels good.
54:44
>> It feels good to talk about that man.
54:45
It actually makes you feel good.
54:46
Makes you feel proud.
54:48
All that But guess what happens?
54:50
That alarm clock goes off at 4:00 a.m. to train.
54:54
I don't want to be a seal today
54:56
or I don't want to be whatever today.
54:58
I'll start tomorrow.
55:00
And that's the usual pattern of people's lives.
55:03
That's why I talk about clearing out the mind.
55:07
Until you really want to do something, you're always g be a talker.
55:11
You're always going to run your mouth.
55:14
So if you wake up in the morning
55:16
and you don't want to do something,
55:19
you don't care enough about yourself.
55:22
And that's what you need to really research is man why am I not
55:26
doing this for myself?
55:31
That is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself.
55:37
So that's the only purpose I need.
55:39
So the reason I get up every day even though there's no racers,
55:42
there's no school, there's nothing in front of me is
55:45
because I have pride in myself.
55:47
>> But where do you go to?
55:48
You wake up on a morning, it's cold, it's wet, it's dark,
55:51
you've got no cartilage in your knee, you've got shitty shorts,
55:55
whatever it is that's the issue today.
55:56
>> Keep talking.
55:58
You've got these problems, right?
56:00
>> I need you to keep talking about what you were just saying.
56:02
>> It's warm on the couch.
56:04
Your Mrs. says, "Stay in bed.
56:05
It's comfy.
56:06
It's cozy.
56:07
You've got work later on.
56:08
You had an argument last night.
56:09
You're slightly hung over."
56:11
>> Cuz I know every motherucker ain't going to do what I'm going to do.
56:15
This is how you level up.
56:17
That's how you level up.
56:18
I know there's a whole bunch of people with that right there.
56:22
That fires me up.
56:24
That makes me happy. what you just said.
56:27
That brings joy to my life right there.
56:30
>> Why?
56:30
>> Cuz I know there's
56:31
so many people that have the ability
56:34
and just refuse to get off
56:36
that couch,
56:38
refuse to study a few more hours, refuse to go deeper, to go further.
56:43
And that's where I gain the advantage.
56:46
It's so easy to be great nowadays, my friend, cuz most people are weak.
56:51
Most people don't want to go to that extra mile.
56:53
Most people don't want to find that extra cuz it sucks.
56:56
It's miserable.
56:57
It's lonely.
56:58
A lot of people wonder, "How did you become this?
57:01
How did you become so vulnerable?
57:03
How do you be how are you doing a podcast now
57:05
when you were this kid?
57:07
You overcame things.
57:08
You fought them.
57:10
And now this is what happens.
57:12
This is on the other side of overcoming.
57:16
You become very very powerful when you overcome yourself.
57:21
All those things you once counted from, you were afraid of.
57:24
And you face them eye to eye every day.
57:27
You now become exactly who you are.
57:30
You've faced your demons.
57:32
You were able to hear all your past traumas.
57:36
When you go to war with yourself,
57:38
you find a lot of peace because you know exactly who you are.
57:43
And that is where the peace is really found for me.
57:49
I'm just stubborn, man.
57:50
I just never give up.
57:52
There's no world where I ever would have quit.
57:55
When I was 11, I just said, "I'm going to be a YouTuber.
57:58
I'm going to die trying."
57:59
And I meant it.
58:01
And so, people hate it, but I'm just the most competitive,
58:04
stubborn person you'll ever meet.
58:05
And I just never give up.
58:08
I just really love solving consistent, complex, hard problems.
58:12
I think that's like what gets me out of bed.
58:14
And like the harder the problems, the more exciting it is.
58:18
I'm like really good at just obsessing over one thing more than anyone else
58:22
on the planet.
58:23
If I were to say what's my superpower,
58:25
it's that I can just obsess endlessly about something
58:28
and it's just like kind of who I am.
58:31
>> When you think back over the last 10 years of your life
58:34
and the the success you've had solving some of these hard problems,
58:37
if you were to like break it down into some core components
58:40
that you've learned,
58:41
one of them is obsession that you've said.
58:43
>> Yeah.
58:43
>> What are the others?
58:45
like you are obviously who you surround yourself with
58:47
and um luckily I just got around the right people.
58:51
I I feed off the energy of the people around me.
58:54
The the core crux of it is like extreme ownership
58:58
and don't make excuses
58:59
and take extreme ownership.
59:01
Take accountability like sure I guess it was out of your control
59:05
but it could have been in your control
59:06
if you just thought through it more
59:08
if you just really cared.
59:09
And that's what I was just trying to convey in it.
59:11
And the other thing that comes through in this,
59:12
but also all of your work is just this idea that nothing is impossible.
59:19
>> I don't know why, but when people tell me I can't do something,
59:21
I and I don't know where this came from.
59:23
It makes me just want to do it more to be honest.
59:25
If you tell me I shouldn't do something, that's fine.
59:27
But if you tell me I can't,
59:28
then I just if everything in my body just wants to go you,
59:31
I obviously can.
59:33
I mean, does physics allow it?
59:34
Then yes, it's possible.
59:36
Just do we want to put the time in?
59:38
I mean, it's I I feel like people over complicate a lot of things.
59:41
It's not that you can't do it.
59:42
You just don't want to.
59:44
You just got to really love what you do.
59:45
I mean, and push through it.
59:47
Something I always tell myself is how you feel right now is why no
59:50
one else does what you do.
59:52
And if you push through this,
59:53
that's just more of a reason why no one will ever be who you
59:55
are.
59:55
And so, it's like I think being able to push through unhappiness
60:00
and do things you don't want to do consistently year after year over the
60:04
course of a decade is like the ultimate advantage. >> >> being consistently uncomfortable
60:13
and like cons being able to consistently suffer over long periods is like arguably
60:18
one of the deepest modes.
60:19
Like there's a reason no one makes videos like me.
60:21
Like not even close because no one wants to live the life I live.
60:25
>> What five characteristics would I need to demonstrate to be successful?
60:28
>> You got to be very coachable
60:29
because whatever I teach you today is going to change,
60:32
you know, a year or two from now.
60:33
Always learning, always improving.
60:35
A big thing for me is you got to see the value in working
60:38
here.
60:39
This isn't like a job.
60:40
This is a career.
60:41
Like if you don't realistically see a world where you're working for me in
60:44
10 years,
60:45
then it's pretty hard for me to invest into you at the level I
60:48
want.
60:48
Like I'm not I don't like training someone for 6 months,
60:52
they work here for a year, and then I lose them.
60:54
What I like is I train someone for a year
60:56
and then I get nine years of dividends on the back end where they
60:58
crush at their job
60:59
and I'm constantly paying them more
61:01
because they're becoming more valuable with time. like
61:02
that is like the eighth wonder of the world is investing heavily in an
61:06
employee and then they stick around for a decade.
61:09
So, uh, Coachable, uh, sees the value.
61:12
Um, obviously obsessed.
61:14
I I don't I just don't like working with mediocre people.
61:17
I I mean, I really just can't stand it.
61:19
It's the fastest way to make me depressed.
61:21
Um, is if I have to work with someone who's just not allin
61:24
and just loves what they do.
61:26
Like I said, I think one of my greatest superpowers is my obsession.
61:29
And I think some people would view that as a weakness.
61:31
But I just like
61:33
if you just think about solving problems three times more than everyone else,
61:37
like you're bound to come up with different solutions.
61:39
There's just a lot of, you know,
61:41
stuff like that that I'm sure
61:41
if you listen to like a Steve Jobs interview
61:44
or something that he talks about,
61:45
it's just the the typical traits.
61:47
Obsessed, coachable, allin, sees the value.
61:49
>> And what is the single worst trait?
61:52
>> Mediocrity.
61:53
I mean, it's just like cuz they're not bad enough where you fire them,
61:55
but not good.
61:56
The problem is like I mean and you see it in full effect.
61:59
Great people just love working with great people.
62:01
They do.
62:02
And there's something about being around great people
62:03
that pulls some kind of animal out of you
62:06
that just makes you want to do more
62:09
and push more and believe things aren't possible.
62:11
And I don't know,
62:12
when you put me around a bunch of other successful entrepreneurs,
62:14
I just turn into a different human than if you put me around,
62:17
I don't know, a bunch of people who are just running small businesses
62:19
and don't really care
62:20
and don't really have much ambition.
62:21
I'm like two completely different humans.
62:23
And you see that same thing in full effect.
62:25
You put a bunch of A players around more A players,
62:29
they just build off of each other.
62:30
But you like put two
62:31
or three C players amongst a bunch of great people
62:33
and they'll start pulling them down.
62:35
They'll start making them not want to work as much,
62:37
make work not as fun.
62:38
And so everyone knows get rid of the C players, right?
62:40
Obviously get rid of people who aren't all in blah blah blah.
62:42
It's the ones that are like they're not an A player,
62:45
but they're not a C player.
62:46
So it's kind of hard
62:47
because you still feed off the energy
62:49
and if you get enough of them,
62:50
it just drags the overall culture down.
62:52
So those are like the worst.
62:54
But, you know, when it comes to like the mission critical things like making
62:57
videos and things like
62:58
that,
62:58
that's one of your number one jobs
63:00
as leaders is just to make sure your great people are working with other
63:02
great people cuz that's like like the number one reason why people leave jobs
63:05
isn't money.
63:06
You know what I mean?
63:07
It's that's like number four on the list.
63:08
Don't ask me to list them all.
63:09
I don't remember.
63:10
I just know the number one thing is do they enjoy who they're working
63:13
with?
63:13
And people will leave their job
63:15
because they hate working with people way before they'll ever leave
63:18
because of money.
63:22
>> What about your parents?
63:24
Mom and dad.
63:24
You talk about your mother a lot.
63:25
What influence did they both have on you?
63:28
>> Um, well, I don't really talk about my dad much.
63:31
That's, you know, a long story.
63:33
Don't need to get into it.
63:34
But my mom, honestly, it was it wasn't it's great now.
63:38
Me and my mom have a phenomenal relationship.
63:40
But on the come-up, it was it was pretty rough because in 2008,
63:43
they were overleveraged.
63:44
So, we literally went bankrupt.
63:46
And so, my mom was working two jobs and, you know, barely getting by.
63:50
And so we I didn't see her
63:51
that much because when I was coming home from school,
63:53
she was doing her second job.
63:55
So it was a lot because she was a single mom raising us.
63:59
She's working all the time, you know.
64:01
Um I don't talk about a lot of this.
64:03
You know, I have Crohn's disease, so I was very sick growing up.
64:07
My brother also had issues as well.
64:09
And so, you know, we're not the healthiest kids in our teenage year.
64:12
She's just trying to get by and take care of us.
64:15
And then, you know,
64:16
she comes home and she just has this brat that's being annoying and like,
64:19
I want to be a YouTuber and she's just begging me.
64:21
Sometimes she would literally cry and beg me to do homework.
64:24
And I mean, I was I didn't mean it in a mean way.
64:28
But I mean, I even one time I literally told her,
64:29
"If you want my my homework done so bad,
64:31
why don't you just do it?"
64:32
You know, like that's that's what I told my mom.
64:34
Like what am I doing?
64:36
I don't know.
64:36
Like I was just like, "I don't I don't care."
64:38
Like I I just want to be successful.
64:40
I want to build businesses.
64:41
And bless her heart.
64:42
Luckily, it worked out.
64:43
So now I spoiled her.
64:44
She's great.
64:45
She has her second home.
64:46
Anything she could ever want, she has.
64:47
And so, the first uh thing I did was start paying my mom,
64:51
take care of her once I started making money cuz she gave everything to
64:55
like get me where I am.
64:56
And I wouldn't be where I am now.
64:57
But it was like it was like me
64:58
and her spoke different languages
65:00
when I was younger,
65:01
you know.
65:01
She she didn't want me to end up like them, you know, and,
65:05
you know, get screwed and not have much money.
65:07
And like her brain couldn't compute the world I saw
65:10
and my brain couldn't compute the world she saw.
65:12
And it was constant friction.
65:14
I mean, the thing is nothing she would say was unreasonable, right?
65:18
Looking back at it, she was perfectly reasonable in what she was doing.
65:22
I'm just a deranged lunatic
65:23
and was way too obsessed with building the business
65:25
and way too allin.
65:26
But to me, I don't I don't really feel risk.
65:29
Like, if anything, it like risk excites me.
65:34
>> Why did you want to really be a YouTuber?
65:37
cuz kids say that.
65:38
>> But the extent to
65:39
which you said it >>
65:40
and the focus that you had on
65:43
that particular goal of being a YouTuber cuz there's many things you could have
65:47
focused on.
65:47
You could have been a video game player, whatever,
65:49
but YouTube is a particularly interesting thing because you're on camera,
65:53
>> people are seeing it.
65:54
There's a metric which decides how successful you are.
65:57
Was there any element of the on camera part
66:00
that was helping to solve for like the feeling of isolation
66:05
that you you seem to have at
66:06
that time?
66:07
>> Yeah, I think it's more to do with just I I found out
66:11
that when I was at a young age,
66:12
probably around 11, that there were YouTubers
66:14
that are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year
66:16
and I was just like,
66:17
"Oh, that's it."
66:18
Like, just the money.
66:19
>> Yeah, of course.
66:20
Because back back then we didn't have money
66:21
and I really wanted to take care of my mom
66:23
and and just my family in general.
66:25
So, it was like everything.
66:26
It was like this is what I love doing.
66:28
I I've never had as much joy doing something as I do this.
66:31
Plus, I could see a path where I could actually retire my mom,
66:34
take care of her,
66:35
pay her back for all the nights she worked
66:37
so long so we could live comfortably
66:39
and things like that.
66:40
So, one thing that irks me is
66:42
when people try to like put someone's motivation into like one little bucket.
66:45
Like, we're very complex creatures and like, you know, you have a girlfriend.
66:49
I I I would never say, "Oh, you just like her because she's pretty."
66:53
>> But you like her cuz she's pretty,
66:54
but you probably also like her cuz she's smart.
66:56
You probably also like her because you know she's fun to be around.
66:58
She likes similar shows.
66:59
Blah blah.
67:00
You could probably give me a thousand reasons why you like your girlfriend.
67:02
It's like it's very annoying
67:04
when people try to put why you like doing a certain job
67:08
or building a certain business into one bucket.
67:09
Oh, you just do it cuz of money.
67:11
What if I do it
67:12
because I like money
67:13
and I enjoy it
67:14
and it's a way to do this
67:15
and it's a way to communicate with people
67:17
and community and these other things.
67:18
You know what I mean?
67:19
And I think that's a common flaw we try to do.
67:21
It's like >> it's not that simple.
67:23
I think it's a lot of people can't understand someone being
67:26
so relentlessly focused on something with the level of like commitment
67:30
and sustained commitment that you've shown.
67:32
>> I agree cuz it's very weird.
67:34
I can just have the same thoughts over
67:36
and over and over
67:36
and over again.
67:37
It's it was it wasn't like it was work for me grinding YouTube for
67:40
those 10 years or whatever where no one was really watching it.
67:42
It would have had to have been a deep obsession
67:45
because you were doing it
67:46
when no one was really watching
67:47
or paying attention or really
67:48
when the platform was.
67:49
>> There was literally a day
67:51
when I was uh 19
67:53
or 20 where I got I woke up,
67:56
joined a Skype call with my friends and where we like were reverse engineering,
68:00
you know, why certain videos do well or whatever.
68:01
And I remember that call being over 18 hours long.
68:04
And then I hung up, went to bed, woke back up the next day,
68:08
and instantly got back on the call and picked back.
68:10
Like that was the level of like hours we were putting in.
68:13
I mean, I didn't know anything besides just trying to make it happen.
68:16
Well, this is the life I chose.
68:18
This is you want success.
68:19
You want to change the world.
68:21
You want to do this and this.
68:22
This is the price you have to pay.
68:25
>> Do you think the average person would like to be in your head?
68:27
And secondly, are you happy?
68:30
>> No.
68:30
Oh, the average person does not want to live the life I live
68:32
or be in my head.
68:33
They they would be miserable because they're just working all the time.
68:37
And they they would probably just ask themselves,
68:38
why am I working all the time?
68:40
Why don't I why don't I do literally anything else?
68:42
I mean, obviously, I'm not a robot.
68:44
There are times where I'm like,
68:45
I really want to play the strategy board game.
68:46
I want to do this thing.
68:47
And I'm I look at the schedule and I'm like, oh,
68:50
maybe I could do that in 4 days.
68:51
The the hard thing is it's you really have to like be delicate with
68:56
the framing of your mind
68:56
because it's very easy in moments like
68:58
that to go I'm like a zoo animal like I don't I don't have
69:01
free will.
69:02
I'm like a little robot to my businesses
69:04
and and so you have to like be very careful
69:06
and sometimes those emotions take over
69:08
and especially cuz I'm a very defiant kind of guy
69:11
and I'm like but I really want to do this thing
69:13
but I can't because I got to go film this video
69:14
and I got to do this
69:15
and I got to speak at this conference
69:16
and I got to do this networking thing
69:18
and blah blah blah.
69:19
Yeah.
69:19
I think most people
69:20
when that feeling comes up of like am I just a animal?
69:24
Like do I have any free will?
69:26
They would probably get very depressed
69:28
and but I've been able to like work through those
69:30
and and just I always try to you know your brain you just it's
69:34
you just got to control your thoughts.
69:35
You should actually see this
69:36
as a good thing
69:37
because this is why
69:37
which is why I'm very diligent about how I frame things in my mind
69:40
like this is why no one else will do what you will do
69:43
and this is a good thing.
69:44
This is what you are feeling right now is your moat. it's you're lucky,
69:48
it's hard, push through it and you'll be happy you did, you know,
69:50
and so that's kind of how I try to view it.
69:54
Um, but no, I don't think most people would be happy living my life.
69:57
They would be like, "Oh,
69:58
let's just grab a couple million dollars and be happy."
70:02
>> Are you happy?
70:03
>> Uh, it depends on what day you ask me.
70:05
Right now, I'm having a good time.
70:06
Um, other, you know,
70:07
when I was had the flu in Africa sitting in a cage of lines,
70:10
no.
70:11
So, >> what's your baseline?
70:13
How would you describe your baseline?
70:14
probably uh this year probably
70:15
so far more unhappy than happy
70:18
and it's just they're just things you got to do
70:21
that just aren't fun.
70:22
>> Someone who um is doing
70:24
so well on a platform like YouTube where the algorithm is always changing.
70:28
>> Mhm.
70:28
>> So many YouTubers I speak to say that they get burnout eventually.
70:31
They get like creative burnout and they and they just like delete their channel.
70:33
You've seen a lot of it recently over the last couple years where YouTubers
70:36
hit 10 million,
70:37
they just stop.
70:39
>> Yep.
70:39
>> Has that ever crossed your mind to stop?
70:40
>> Oh, of course.
70:42
All the time.
70:42
>> Seriously?
70:43
Yeah.
70:43
>> When was the closest you came to quitting?
70:46
>> Oh man, probably countless times.
70:48
>> I mean, I guess I never truly would have quit.
70:50
I mean, my biggest thing would be I just would have quit for like
70:52
a week and been like,
70:53
"Fuck, let me sleep 9 hours a night."
70:55
And like >> I feel like YouTube is like throwing coal into a train.
70:58
Then you just have to keep throwing it in there once you started.
71:00
You just can never stop throwing it.
71:01
>> Yeah.
71:01
You're running on a treadmill cranked up to the max,
71:04
especially if you want to be a top tier creator like me.
71:06
And it's just like who who can stay on the treadmill the longest cuz
71:09
it never slows down.
71:10
If anything, you're making it faster.
71:12
Um, but no, I mean I don't think there's ever unironically a time where
71:15
I actually would have quit.
71:16
It just breaks probably would have been nice.
71:19
>> And when you think forward at that treadmill,
71:21
can you see yourself doing it for the next 2 3 4 decades
71:24
or >> Oh,
71:24
yeah.
71:24
Of course.
71:25
I don't have any intention of ever stopping.
71:28
To go viral, you have to do something that's never been done before.
71:30
I've told this story before of like, you know,
71:33
if you're driving down the road and you see a cow, who cares?
71:36
It's a cow.
71:38
But if you're driving down the road and you see a purple cow,
71:40
you're like, you've never seen that before and it's something you weren't expecting,
71:44
you're going to go, "Holy shit."
71:45
And you're going to go tell your friends about it.
71:46
You're going to remember that.
71:47
You'll probably even think about it randomly once every couple years.
71:50
Why the was there a purple cow?
71:51
And it's like it's the same thing, just one was a little purple.
71:55
And it like you can apply
71:56
that same like uh analogy to ideas like
71:59
when you're scrolling through social media to find a video to watch,
72:02
there's things that you know have been done before, you've seen.
72:05
It's, you know, roughly similar to stuff before.
72:07
You're just going to scroll past it.
72:08
You'll never think about it again.
72:09
Just like you'll never think about a cow on the side of the road.
72:11
And then there are ideas that are like the purple cow idea,
72:13
which is what I try to do, which are things that make you go,
72:16
what the I've never seen
72:17
that like I I have to click this
72:20
or I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight
72:21
because like why is this video?
72:24
No way they did this, right?
72:26
But those typically are very hard.
72:28
And usually to get that perfect cow effect, they've never been done before.
72:31
And if something's never been done before,
72:32
there's usually a reason cuz it's verying hard.
72:34
So you just kind of have to train yourself to like not resent very
72:38
difficult complex hard original problems
72:41
and actually run towards them
72:42
because those are the ones
72:43
that you know tend to have the more of the purple cow effect where
72:46
people have to watch it.
72:47
It's way easier to get 50 million views on one video than it is
72:51
to get a million views on 50 videos,
72:52
right?
72:53
And because it like kind of goes exponentially
72:55
and it's pretty winner take all in the top videos like you just really
72:59
have to lean into
73:00
that purple cow effect
73:01
if that makes sense.
73:02
I mean, I I think we'll hit a billion subscribers
73:04
and uh I don't think anyone will be anywhere near close
73:07
because like once you make a couple million dollars,
73:09
why would you live the life I live?
73:10
Like, why why would you not take weekends off?
73:12
Why would you not, you know, prioritize your sanity and that kind of stuff?
73:16
It makes no sense.
73:17
But that's why no one else does it.
73:20
One of my themes this year has been focusing on moments
73:24
and on both the positive
73:25
and the negative.
73:26
And so like when we think back on
73:28
if I think back on the last year,
73:30
right, I don't remember probably 95% of the year.
73:32
Like I, you know, I did the same things.
73:34
And so it's like it just didn't get recorded.
73:36
Like nothing notable happened.
73:37
And so really like when we think about a year,
73:39
we really just recall a handful of moments and that's it.
73:42
And those moments in time are usually very short.
73:45
And so I've been trying to think about the bad, you know, seasons as,
73:49
well, maybe it wasn't a bad season.
73:51
Maybe I had five bad days
73:54
or really five bad moments
73:56
that I then thought about for the entire season
74:00
and turned what would have otherwise been 5 minutes time 5 into an entirely
74:05
bad year.
74:08
It's like okay well
74:08
if we can do
74:09
that in the negative can we do in the positive
74:10
which is you know obviously the thing to to exercise.
74:12
I thought about that it's like
74:13
if I were if I were to boil everything down um of all the
74:16
skills that you can learn
74:18
if everything that we do eventually becomes irrelevant
74:20
then the single greatest skill
74:23
that you can develop is being in a great mood in the absence of
74:26
things to be in a great mood about.
74:30
Most people don't question someone who's in a bad mood like I'm just in
74:33
a bad mood.
74:34
So it's like well
74:34
if you can be in a bad mood for no reason it's like you
74:36
might as well be in a good mood for no reason cuz
74:38
that one at least serves you.
74:40
And so I've been trying to exercise like cuz there's on one degree there's
74:42
like let's count things to be grateful for.
74:44
On the other side it's like why do I have to have things to
74:48
be grateful for in order to be in a good mood?
74:51
Like why is trying to find things a requirement of being in that mood?
74:55
Like can I not find things
74:57
and still choose to be in a good mood?
74:58
Because I've certainly not had things to be in a bad mood about
75:00
and been in a bad mood.
75:02
And so I've been trying to flex
75:03
that which is like sure we can find things to be grateful for
75:05
and when those things pop up yes
75:07
and of course it's a you know it's a practice you get better at
75:09
it but like what
75:10
if I can just be in a good mood
75:12
and so I've just tried to try to break
75:13
that that relationship between the two
75:15
because then it makes it contingent on something
75:17
that I can find to take this to the absolute extreme.
75:21
Why should I be grateful?
75:22
Why should I be happy?
75:23
Why do I demand of my life that I must be happy during it?
75:28
I think it comes down to I used the word control before.
75:31
Basically, if you can predict, it means you can control.
75:33
But if you can predict what's going to happen,
75:35
it means that you know what the variables are
75:36
and you can influence those variables
75:37
which we can influence the outcome.
75:39
We have a set of behaviors
75:40
or skills that will increase the likelihood of goal achievement.
75:43
Whatever that goal is, being spiritual, being a good husband, whatever it is,
75:46
these behaviors will do that.
75:48
To increase the likelihood of me doing these behaviors,
75:51
then I have to have more good stuff, less bad stuff,
75:53
I will I will die on that hill.
75:55
Beyond that, what does anything
75:57
that happened prior to this matter at all in
76:00
so far as it only works
76:02
if I can use
76:02
that same variable and
76:04
then use it again to change my behavior yet again to be conducive to
76:08
the goal.
76:09
Expectation of life is
76:10
that it's going to be until I make the billion dollars,
76:13
until I get married to the love of my life,
76:15
until I get these things.
76:16
You're just holding your happiness hostage until something great happens.
76:20
What if something small could be something great?
76:24
People only root for others at two times.
76:26
First, when they're at the beginning of the race.
76:28
Second, when they finish.
76:30
Neither is when you need it.
76:32
So, you have to master the middle.
76:33
The boring, exhausting, soulcrushing middle.
76:36
That's where the winning happens on your own.
76:39
People will only cheer for you
76:41
as long as you can't beat them at the game they value most.
76:44
Friendly reminder that every person who doubts you is right until they aren't.
76:48
It's a bug, not a feature. you know,
76:49
at the very very beginning people say, you know,
76:51
I'm really excited for you that you're trying this thing out, right?
76:54
And I noticed that everyone was very happy for me to try
76:58
because I temporarily decreased my status.
77:00
I actually became worse than them during that period of time.
77:03
And then as soon as I achieved a level of success,
77:05
which I then realized
77:06
that their happiness for me was proportional to where they were on the ladder
77:09
relative to me.
77:10
And so as soon as I passed some people,
77:12
then they stopped being happy and then they start, you know, saying bad things,
77:15
right?
77:16
And the people who were still always ahead were still like, "Keep it up.
77:19
Keep it up."
77:19
And there's still people who have been that way my whole life.
77:21
And I just wonder if and when I pass them, will they flip?
77:25
I don't know.
77:26
But also to the same degree,
77:28
it was the it was after you start the race
77:30
when you're in the thick of it
77:31
because you'll quickly pass the people who've done nothing.
77:33
But then you have this long period of time where you don't catch up
77:36
to the people who've been doing it for a long time.
77:38
And that's the part where it's very lonely
77:40
because you don't have your initial your initial posy.
77:43
You have to leave them at some point.
77:45
Um, but then you don't get to the new group that's, you know,
77:48
way ahead and actually has some some proof behind them
77:51
that you can actually like sit at the table.
77:53
And so like today I have, if I were to do something,
77:56
I have tons of support, but I don't really need the support now.
78:00
I need I I needed it in the middle, right?
78:02
In the many years that like no one knew who Alexi was.
78:06
And that's that's that's the hard part.
78:08
And I think it's it's the story that Morgan Hassel tells,
78:11
which is that you just don't know how it's going to finish.
78:13
And that's what makes it hard is the uncertainty of like what
78:16
if I give up everything
78:17
that I've done in my life for nothing
78:20
and then all of a sudden
78:20
if I knew that
78:21
then I wouldn't be willing to make this trade.
78:23
But in retrospect when you do have the thing you're like of course I
78:26
was like if I knew
78:27
that this was going to happen I'd be I would I would happily make
78:30
the trade.
78:31
>> But you don't know.
78:32
And so you're just putting the money down and they're rolling it.
78:35
But you get to find out if you hit black five years from now.
78:39
It's why dealing with uncertainty is such a meta skill
78:43
and it's one that I to be honest it's one
78:44
that I really suck at.
78:45
I'm I'm very very not good at dealing with uncertainty.
78:49
My uh required line of assurance in order for me to commit to a
78:55
decision is incredibly high.
78:58
Which is why I've basically never failed at anything that I've done.
79:01
M all of the stuff
79:01
that I've done a string of incredibly slow
79:05
but very reliable successes is just
79:07
because my required number of uh sort of justification points is very high.
79:13
And you know in retrospect it might look like it was a risk
79:16
but it's like dude I I took
79:17
so long to make this decision.
79:19
On the on the friend point,
79:21
it's a a painful realization
79:23
that the small number of good friends want you to win in case you
79:27
take them with you.
79:28
And the large number of bad friends are scared of you winning in case
79:32
you leave them behind.
79:34
The best way to know who a real friend is is how they react
79:39
when you win.
79:40
And when that happens, you'll realize how few real friends you really have.
79:44
>> Mhm.
79:44
>> Many people were like, "Sure."
79:46
Like, "Good luck with that."
79:48
But I knew that they just weren't really rooting for me.
79:50
They were rooting for me to fail.
79:51
They're rooting for me the wrong way.
79:52
One of my rules is you should only take advice from people whose dreams
79:56
for your life are bigger than yours are,
80:00
which is a very small number of people.
80:02
Sometimes it's your parents.
80:03
Sometimes your parents really do have bigger dreams for you than you do.
80:07
The people who are closest to you in the beginning, if they're like true,
80:10
like actual friends, then you recognize that because they actually want you to win.
80:14
And that's amazing.
80:14
A lot of people don't have that.
80:16
And so what I have felt at least for me was
80:19
that when you're a little ahead is where the friction is
80:25
when you blow them out of the water
80:26
and there's no question like it's it's beyond reproach.
80:30
They will do one of two things.
80:31
They will either be really happy for you
80:33
or they'll change the game
80:34
that they're beating you at.
80:37
That's great, but I'm in better shape.
80:38
That's great, but my marriage is better, right?
80:40
Like or whatever, you know, whatever game that they choose to play.
80:43
People who doubt you will be right most of the time.
80:46
And this further increases your uncertainty about the path that you're choosing to take.
80:54
But on a long enough time horizon,
80:57
most people who don't bet are guaranteed to lose.
81:01
And so they get to win at being right more times than you get
81:08
to win at being right.
81:09
But what that equation doesn't take into consideration is intensity,
81:15
which is can I be
81:16
so right one time
81:17
that it makes all of the times
81:19
that I was wrong irrelevant?
81:21
And in the nature of life, the answer is yes,
81:24
almost a resounding yes for just about every domain.
81:27
Like everyone can say
81:29
that every person you've ever dated has sucked
81:31
and they could predict
81:31
that you're going to break up until you find the person
81:33
that you're going to marry.
81:34
And in that moment,
81:35
whoing cares about the other 90 people
81:38
that you went on dates with
81:39
that everybody said was a bad idea
81:40
or that you have a bad picker
81:41
or you don't have a good taste.
81:43
It's like, well, you're not marrying them.
81:46
I date in a way that's different than than you would prefer.
81:49
Great.
81:49
But I did end up finding this thing.
81:51
I the you know, the first thing that I ever did was, you know,
81:55
an online an online fitness thing
81:57
and it kind of worked
81:58
and then I did my first gym
81:59
and it kind of worked
81:59
and then I started all these other other side side projects.
82:02
I got distracted and I didn't know.
82:03
And the downside risk is significantly smaller and more frequent.
82:09
It's both.
82:10
You're more likely to lose and it's more likely to happen more times.
82:14
It's just that upside is uncapped.
82:16
And so, and I think about this one a lot.
82:18
So, there's the story of the guy.
82:19
Do you know the guy who uh wrote Jingle Bells?
82:22
>> No.
82:23
So, >> I didn't even know
82:24
that that was I thought it was like Happy Birthday.
82:26
I thought he was just gifted to humanity when when we started.
82:28
>> So, there's this guy.
82:29
He's a he's a it's he has the most tragic life you can imagine.
82:33
Just like did nothing
82:34
but failed was a failed everything
82:37
and his entire life was nothing.
82:39
He just happened to write this small thing called Jingle Bells
82:42
and it has become you know the number one song at Christmas time like
82:45
maybe globally and I think about
82:48
that life where it's like what
82:50
if I failed at everything
82:52
but then I have one thing
82:54
that actually makes a permanent impact.
82:55
I was like, would I trade
82:56
that life for Aristotle's good life where I amount to nothing
83:00
but the whole time was good?
83:01
And this is just one of my internal battles where I think with myself
83:03
that I have no answer for to be clear.
83:05
But when I'm when I'm thinking through the periods where things suck, I'm like,
83:09
well, maybe maybe I'll get a jingle bells out of this.
83:13
>> And maybe it'll just take 20 years longer than I thought.
83:19
>> So not taking the shot is like saying, "Life,
83:21
I don't want to scratch off this lottery ticket, but the lottery ticket's free.
83:24
Why would you not scratch it off and try it?
83:28
Whatever reasons that we usually give ourselves in the beginning for why we can't
83:32
achieve something,
83:33
you can almost always find not only just someone,
83:36
but someone who's achieved worldass levels of success with worse conditions than you currently
83:41
have,
83:41
which then means it's absolutely possible.
83:43
And then the only thing that it takes to get there is work.
Thích
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