#621 - David Laid - Why Getting Shredded Won’t Make You Happy

27:11And he talks about the difference between wants and what we want to want. So once are societal programming that path's at least resistance, that the way that you've dealt with past trauma, they are all of those things. What you want to want involves you going in and reprogramming your desires. You want to end up at a place where what you want is what you want to want. And he uses this example of the fact that if you don't go in and program your desires, the best thing that you can hope for is to be a rich, successful or famous slave. A slave to the impulses of your body, the confused biochemical signals that you get, the desires of the people around you.

27:48I went and read that and this is five years ago now, I thought, what do I want to want in life? Genuinely, what do I want to want? Like, I have the opportunity, laws of thermodynamics and a little bit of economics restricting, I can want anything. This is what we're talking about here. We're talking about digging away at all of the layers of ego and predisposition and expectation that you've built up and getting yourself to something that's firmer, getting yourself to something which is what you want to. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of validity in that because basically what you're saying is like, you a person wants certain things and they maybe he realizes some degree like Maybe it's just kind of, maybe isn't my best interest.

28:40Like silly, like a little hypothesis lurking in the back of the mind. Okay. So if I'm an autonomous being, I could more or less curate or decide what I want to want. So if that's a possibility, let's just look broadly speaking. What are some of the things that would maybe be in more of a best interest for me to want? And then you decide those things and you fixate in that pattern, I mean, fixate in that direction. And even if you, you could argue that that's still prescription asks to some degree, but but then you could also say that doing that is better than just continuing wanting those sub -optimal things.

29:12So if that's what gets you moving in that direction, then it's absolutely. Yeah, and direction is more important than speed, right? Like you can be going as fast as possible in the wrong direction and it actually takes you further away from the destination. This is something that a lot of people, I call it the Manopause, which is mid -20s to late -20s. A lot of guys, it seems like you had yours earlier, realize that a lot of the values that they hold, a lot of the things that previously they took a sense of self -worth from that the world told them that they should value. They don't make them feel fulfilled anymore.

29:43And they go, oh fuck, like I got toward the top of this mountain and I realized that it was the wrong mountain that I climbed and actually I was supposed to be on that one over there. And it's difficult because in order to get to that one, you need to go back down this one that you've already climbed. You need to dispense with the stuff that you've got rid up. This is where I think introversion is such a cheat code because like I feel like you're less at the mercy of other people's designs. Because even like for me, I noticed that if I'm the more frequently and the more for a sustained period of time, I'm involved in certain just patterns of behavior, oftentimes socially or just just what I do in general, you just become locked in those patterns and it becomes more difficult.

30:22You have more of looking narrow perspective. So, you know, the brain's malleable, it just gets programmed in that way, and you're just kind of operating that way. So for me, a lot of like the best insights that I've gotten or like times when I like completely just like fully detached and it's answered this weird like meditative just like flow state of his being just so just alone and then yeah so it's just I feel like yeah I mean almost a prescriptive thing that you could say is to just stop I mean that's what they say like psychedelics you I think I heard someone on Joe Rogan talk about he had like a nice analogy it's like the brain is like like a hill covered in snow and then when the skis go down the snow that's a thought behavior pattern and etc.

31:00And the more you have the deeper that groove gets and then the psychedelics, they just like wipe the snow. So detaching from society, detaching and, you know, reclusing yourself for a period of time, it's like a micro form of like a psychedelic snow flattening kind of thing. Because you're removing the external inputs as best as you can. Removing the inputs, stopping the behavior patterns, just allowing yourself to see things differently and have different patterns. For the people who are thinking about monk mode, There's a really great blog post by ElimitableMan, if you just search ElimitableMan, MonkMode.

31:30It's 13 years old now, I think. But it's really, really great. There's the three eyes. Isolation, introspection. There's a third one. Anyway, that I really, really enjoyed that blog post and that was good to me. One thing that I do find and this is me almost directly telling it to Hamza, my friend. MonkMode can be taken to an extreme. and you can do, you can obsess over isolated self -development too much. Yeah, the way that I would look at that is like, monk mode can become a detrimental extreme when monk mode becomes hyper -prescriptionized, because I feel like the way it becomes an extreme is like, you're like, okay, I want to self -improve myself, just monk mode, right?

32:16So then you just become obsessed with RPE 10 just maxing out like monk mode. So there, the true fundamental motivation isn't understanding things that truth on the mental motivation is to feel good about yourself from maxing out monk mode for the egotistical grad because yeah I mean like just how we talked about how you say young individuals like materialistic program by society like wrong values and stuff the reason that they're doing that is because that satisfies their ego that's been programmed into them right someone going all out monk mode right uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh They have the exact same ego, but the subtle difference is that they could feel a sense of just like moral superiority.

32:56Because I'm better than you because all of that, but in reality, they have the same ego, it's just transmuted into something else. This is a very important point that I want everybody to take home, which is you can justify any kind of activity as being the thing that is going to give you a sense of dopamine I achieved the next thing. Just because you have switched one type of obsession for another type of obsession does not necessarily mean that that obsession is more holistic. You could argue, given the choice between being obsessed with the gym and being obsessed with taking heroin, that the gym is objectively a better obsession to have.

33:34But if you're going to get really down to zero, what we're talking about is, how can we sit with the discomfort of not being enough? How can we sit with the discomfort of not having an obsession at all, what does that feel like? And this is like almost a psychedelic point, right? To get rid of, to get rid of the desire to need those things overall. Um, you know, I feel like that, that's a very good point to idea that like, yeah, like doing heroin or whatever or like, versus like working out on the gym, like it's a similar kind of egotistical pursuit, but due to like, I mean, obviously, the working out like The healthier thing and you make the externality of one is very different Exactly.

34:17That's what I'm getting at the externality could be like drastically different for example Like you could be addicted to heroin or you could be addicted to just like rampant Entrepreneurial just financial just heat and is in splurred and that and that again due to how society is it's celebrated Yada Yada blah blah, but like you said it is the most important thing is realizing that fundamentally you're a slave to an egotistical construction with either one. And the goal is to transcend that even though your egotistical construction that you're feeding is societally rewarded, right? So that's a trap that you can really, really fall into.

34:51So the key is you need to go a little lower than that. Yep. I agree. It's a very difficult thing to do to let go of something which is not destructive, reinforced, praised, gives you accolades, and really importantly, like you said, gives you the moral high ground. It's like, look at me. Look at how awake and I am. This is a term that you might not be familiar with called spiritual bypass. So have you heard of this before? Yeah. So people that go to South America, take a ton of ayahuasca, come back and proselytize extol the virtues of this amazing peak experience that they've had. Don't do any of the integration, don't do any of the self -work, go back to being the same, maybe not even a piece of shit, but just go back to being the same person that they were before and then go and do it again.

35:41That's spiritual bypass or better to I prefer spiritual tourism, that you can go and visit it like a holiday home and come back and forget about all of the things that you learned. The goal is to integrate each of these different points here. So one thing that was very formative for me and I'm interested to find out about your experience as well I had a pretty serious back injury about four years ago. Got into CrossFit was way stronger than my body could deal with and Managed to slip two desks. I found Stume Gil number one back pain specialist on the planet. I know that you have worked with him too.

36:17Mm hmm. How difficult was it for you as somebody who had a lot of his self worth wrapped up in the way that he looked? To have that taken away from you by first off a back injury. And secondly, by what I'm guessing, if you've followed what you told you to do, was an unbelievably slow, painful, very humbling process of slow rehabilitation. So you have to get tired real nicely. So with me, due to having all the body, just more of your insecurity, just like needing to work out to feel like the validation itself, love, self worth, et cetera, right? That other extremes that that pushed me into is just like how intense I would exercise, right?

36:55I would just, you know, horrible form, lift as much as I could, just paint, tolerance, like push through all of that, right? And that left Simo as well, which is cheating. That left Simo. So here's the thing. So from one point of view, it's like, wow, that's so admirable. You just work so hard. You're so disciplined. You're so dedicated. That's just so amazing. Good for you. But if you, you know, look behind the curtain a little bit. That's not that that's not that ultra -wist to computer of like an energy source, right? It's a toxic energy source and that talks to energy sources and the insecurity and then basically that led me to just severe injuries of my spine because horrible form lifting heavy weight, blah blah.

37:27So with that, right? It's almost like my back injury is a personification of

37:41being fueled by a toxic fuel source, right? And then the thing is, like someone could have told me back and they said, oh, like, you know, you shouldn't be like lifting this heavy, you shouldn't be doing this. You should have been more careful, right? And that's me being like aware that maybe I shouldn't be doing that. In the same way as someone that's like living a very hedonistic, young, immature, egotistical lifestyle is also vaguely aware that maybe shouldn't be doing that. I had that same awareness too. But even though I knew that, it just didn't matter because my, like my goal was like so egotistical at the end of the day, which is why the back situation, like need it to happen to me, like, there was simply - Are you thankful that it happened?

38:16I mean, and, and, well, yes, in a certain kind of way, but I feel like it was inevitable to happen, because I mean, one school of thought was like for people to make like a proper drastic change, like they need to hit like a form of like rock bottom, right? I had to, let's have them to stalk the other day. I maybe it's like hurt it somewhere, I don't remember, but it's like something along the lines of like, like wisdom is often if not exclusively attained after like like a rock bottom ish type of situation, but then ideally you'd want that wisdom like beforehand, but paradoxically it can only be gained after like a rock bottom like kind of thing.

38:49So it's like this weird tango inverted loop thing. But yes I mean like for me that kind of definitely aided in a lot of the just introspection or like growth or whatever, just like having like that back situation happen because it forced me to just like slow down. Like I wasn't such debilitating pain that like not only could I not deadlift or squat like the way that I wanted So I couldn't deadlift squat or all I couldn't work out sometimes how I wanted to I just be laying in bed with just chronic debilitating pain and To get out of that really wasn't that difficult at all I mean it was but when I see not that difficult all my it just like stop doing stupid things that hurt you and like rest But how my brain was wired at the time like that's not an option like I just need to go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go go so It hit a point where So you can almost argue that it wasn't this just altruistic transformation.

39:37It literally hit a point where the back pain was so debilitating that I would rather kill my previous ego and start from scratch, then I would maintain that ego and tolerate the back pain. Because before it was back pain was here, ego was here still more with one that when those scales like tip just the right amount, it was an organic shift because I literally just had no other choice. So I literally constrained by a buddy. Yeah, so like I had to start from ground zero. So, and I mean, yeah, that's changed. Like, not being so extremist all out in the gym, like being very like patient, disciplined, careful with like how it go about something as simple as like training, where in the past, like, oh, I feel good to have max just all the time.

40:18And so I feel like that new mindset now that I got from dealing with my back injuries has definitely permeated out like into other areas. but I think it arguably needed to happen to checkmate me into a form of like introspection. So... Me too. Me too, man. It came at the right time. I had spent all of my 20s being a commercial male model, walking around with my top off in nightclubs, getting photographed by Dean.

40:49A lot of myself worth was wrapped up in that. Even though I wasn't doing the online thing, to the degree that you were, I still was like the guy that was in shape. I was always the like one of the biggest one of the leanest amongst my friends. And that gets taken away from you and you think, Oh fuck, who am I now? Who am I now when all of the things, all of the places that I took myself worth from are gone? Well fuck, like what's left? Because this isn't going to be here forever. I had thought of a quote the other day, which was your looks are a depreciating asset, your mind isn't appreciating asset, invest yourself worth appropriately.

41:34Like everybody, no matter whether you think that your sexual market value as a guy is going to peak at 45, like there is going to come a time where you get over the top of that hill and it's going to start descending. Like even fucking David Gandhi, right, is going to start descending at some point. You have the opportunity to invest in something which is evergreen, which is going to compound, which is going to benefit the rest of the world. And that's not to say that people that her in shape, can't benefit the rest of the world. It's good to be motivational, so on and so forth. But especially for women, I think, there was this story about Paulina Paricova, who was a supermodel back in the 90s, 80s and 90s.

42:11And she's now 56 and her husband had died and there was a famous story that came out about her about a year and a half ago. And she was lamenting the fact that as a 56 -year -old, she walks into parties and none of the guys look at her anymore because they're all distracted by the 23 year olds that are in the room. And she was saying, you know, a lot of myself worth. I feel really terrible and so on and so forth. And it made me sad. It made me sad because I was looking at somebody who was still taking their fundamental sense of self worth from the way that they looked with, I think, two or three kids.

42:43And it just, it doesn't feel graceful, do you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't feel like somebody has allowed themselves to to get harmony and grace and transcendent include the things that they had before. And also, there's obviously a massive amount of like hubris and hypocrisy here because when you were 22, you didn't care about the 56 year old that was in the room that all of the guys looking at you were ignoring to look at. It's like, look, this is the arc of life. Everybody knows that it's coming. Everybody knows that your looks are going to fade, that you're going to become sick or ill or destitute, that you're going to run out of money, that the people around you are going to die and all that you're going to be left with is the power of your thoughts.

43:24Right? How much resilience do you have that you can rely on so that when the hard thing happens, you have somewhere firm to stand. And if the firmest place that you have to stand is, I am single digit body fat. You were in for a hard fucking time. Yeah. Um, any, you know, external metric or just anything that you like latch on to, you know, whether it be your body fat percentage or your youthful looks that diminish with age that you just get a bunch of. You get a bank account like forms of status, like, et cetera. Just yeah, if you become, I mean, it's like a Buddha saying like you just become like attached to stuff.

44:08It's just a problem. It's just not good. but there is an enjoyment in having like a huge bank account or enjoying your looks at a very, very high degree. Don't get me wrong. Like you need external accolades, right? Like I'm not saying that we can like dispense with the state. Yeah, they say the primal hair hierarchical, whatever they best legit things to. Yeah, but it just, I guess it will put it like yet. That stuff is necessary useful to like certain like healthy degrees, but obviously not sufficient, necessary, but not sufficient. Again, this is necessary but not sufficient. And it's just, yeah, I mean, it's like a spectrum of like the more you rely on those kind of things for like the like well -being and like happiness, it's just you just run into problems.

44:52And it just like you were saying that you want to be in a state where when all is like said and done and it's just you that you have like something like firmer to stand on.

45:06So yeah. What are your thoughts about the modern world of dating, especially for young guys? Do you think about this much? There's a lot of advice out there for young dudes with regards to dating, especially to do with gym videos, approaching girls in the gym and the lack thereof and the challenges of guys approaching and so on and so forth. What's your conception on this? I mean, I guess the modern dating, like the internet has obviously played like a massive of role, like the whole dating apps, fapping a situation.

45:41I mean, I think obviously speaking things like the internet have like drastically reduced, like genuine, like human like discourse were like in the past. A lot more conversations were like in person that were like real, because like when like two people are communicating over text, it's such a narrow dialogue when you're like with someone in person. There's like all these just energetic components, intangible, micro facial expressions, like all of that. And that's preferable slash arguably needed to have like a maximally rich and satisfying and satiating like human experience overall with people like in any relationship friendship as kind of context.

46:14So I think just like the simple idea of that, that being reduced due to the introduction of the internet, although the internet obviously has a lot of benefits. You can meet people around the world, different areas, etc. There is like that like obvious downside. And with that being said, there would be like an isolation component as well to, you know, socializing with real people less and then living in your own head and then communicating in just meeting and talking to people on like dating apps and stuff. And then you could just start downloading and integrating certain just like toxic ideologies on male female intersexual dynamics that could have some tidbits of truth, but without contrasting and integrating it with your own real experience because you have none because you're just isolated and extracting ideologies online that that could be just a massive detriment to your dating life.

47:07I suppose. Bang, bang, bang. I've been hopping on about this for so long. I did an interview for a new, the redone substack of what used to be ideas sleep furiously and they've changed the name and I can't remember what it is. And they did it, we did a little interview and they talked about why is it that men seem to be struggling with the advice that they get online? And remember, for the girls that are listening, you need the advice that men get online to be good because you are the one that's going to have to put up with these fucking men. Right? So my point was, if you're chronically online and most of your experiences around male to female interactions have been mediated through the internet, what are the kinds of stories that are the ones that go the most viral online.

47:50They're the most egregious. They're the one where some terrible catastrophe happens and the guy comes home and loses his house and is left foot and she takes his like all of his hairline in the divorce and that's the story that's going to go viral. Yeah, and you can almost parallel this with prescriptions because if you don't have real, you know, sufficient amount, whatever that means of a real experience to the real people and you're getting ideologies online and just hearing worst case, catastrophic scenarios, etc. A lot of like theoretical frameworks that could be laid forward kid in isolation in the abstract makes so much sense and the math could run out and it works out especially when extreme scenarios are added upon that.

48:32And then when it comes like dating advice, just like what you should say to approach and this is that the more prescriptions you add on, it just becomes just like such a disaster. But then people can think, oh, but how do So I do this whole thing if I don't have any like prescriptions or like know what to say or how to go about it, right? But the thing is paradoxically so if you like lay that to like to the waist side, right? And then you're like around like people like speaking to people, girls, et cetera, whatever it may be. A certain organic chemistry arises if you would like let it arise, but the more weird prescriptions layers like you add on top of that, you're just like fucking the whole thing up and it just becomes off.

49:08So paradoxically, leaving that to the waist sign, your body and your instincts will take go over and they'll just like know what to do. Right. But so that's almost another way putting it. The advent and introduction of the internet dating apps, et cetera, has suppressed the natural organic instinct in favor of just weird toxic, arguably toxic, like programming with, you know, how to go about things. And that just creates just in a GMO in organic disaster. Yeah. So this prescriptions thing, I think we just need to drill this home for the people that maybe aren't familiar with Capell's work. The point is, If you don't have any real world experience, the only place that you're going to get any tactics from are things that have been told to you that you've never actually come up within the real world.

49:51But if you were to spend, let's say that you could live for eternity and have an unlimited number of interactions, if what the prescriptions are accurate, you would inevitably arrive at them in any case. If I gave you a million years to work out and you didn't know it, the most effective way to get a bar from the floor overhead in one single movement, you would eventually arise at something close to a snatch because it is simply reality and theory coming up together, Constantine Kissing, the guy that does trigonometry, quoted this unbelievable line the other day that said in theory, theory and practice are the same in practice they're different.

50:26Just a thought that I was having is we're saying that is so you could like parallel this whole prescription idea like from the dating back to like like working out for instance like you have some of that's never worked out before right but they'll sit and they'll learn like all like the theory in the this, that, et cetera, and what their personal ideal regimen would be and then come up with that. And then if they try to execute it, if they even bother to do so, sometimes it will fall through because just their bodies are different, like how their life styles are set up. So, yeah, even prescriptions could be like that, in something even as simple in the realm of fitness, because if you just start doing it, right?

51:02If you want to go all out and be like the best of all time, then obviously you're going need to follow certain things. But the problem I have with the problem I have generally with capillars and I had this problem when I spoke to capillar on the show. The issue I have with capillars, no prescriptions point, is that unlimited degrees of freedom allow people to find things through experience. However, you need guidelines and guardrails. Why are we talking about this crisis of masculinity where guys are lost and unalone? It's because everything has been blown open. If everything is masculinity, than nothing is masculinity.

51:37Right? And you go, okay, from first principles, please work out how are you supposed to show up in the world? And you go, dude, that's really, really hard. And you want me to do that for diet and my rolling society and the way that I should make money and the way I should interact with my friends and the way that I should get a girlfriend and the way that I should become a father. Like, it's fucking exhausting. The best way that I've found for this, and this is where I diverge from Kapil's work. The best way that I've found from this is that in the beginning of anything you need instruction because you have no experience to rely on.

52:07You don't want to become dogmatic about the instruction, but you do need to take it. So you explore at the start, and then you exploit over time. Do lots of different things, find out what works for you, and then over time once you have learned the rules, you can break the rules. But breaking the rules before you learn the rules is just not playing the game. Yeah, now I agree with that. I did such a poor job of expressing what I wanted to with that parallel with the prescriptions, with the working out. But yeah, I mean obviously if you're getting like into fitness like you're gonna follow like some like big program I think the idea that I was like trying to get at is You're better off like Taking a random workout program whatever it may be just going out doing it seeing how you respond to it Just seeing how much you like working out in general Maybe you don't want to be a heavyweight bodybuilder Maybe you just want to work out a few times that we can get in shape and that'll like satisfy you But you won't know that unless you actually try so that's all fine What I was getting at is not doing anything just having like all like the theory like what works out And then it just not being like a practical like execution in your actual life There's more something like that, but I agree with the nuance like obviously like you can't derive absolutely everything And just know how to just be like a friend's a workout from first principle obviously like when you're a kid like you need to be taught language You need to be out of taught your shoes.

53:15Those are prescriptions from a certain point of view. Yeah, so yeah That was where I got caught that was where I got caught with Capeill stuff So I did a newsletter that I wanted to read to you from the other week and I think that this is this is very very interesting something I've been thinking about a lot. This is from David Goggins. It's so easy to be great because most of the world is weak. If you are even remotely a savage, you will run these people over. It's all out there for the taking right now. That's Dana White. Everyone rails against the victim mentality that seems to be sweeping certain areas of the world.

53:44I get it. You don't want your town or country or species to go to hell because everyone has forgotten how to take some discomfort or deal with challenges in life. But on another hand, this rampant fragility is your competitive advantage. knowledge, the bar has never been set lower. A bit of consistency, a bit of intentionality, a bit of resilience and a gram of talent will make you into an absolute killer. I also understand that you probably want to raise other people up along with you, having a greatness stand on the shoulders of the world's fragility may seem exploitative. And I love the idea of not just improving yourself, but changing those around you for the better.

54:16But there's a limit. Your efforts are multiplied by 10 times when building with the right people, and by 0 .0 one times when building with the wrong people. If someone refuses to alter their habits or update their worldview or improve their life, despite being given all of the tools and encouragement they need by you, then they can stay where they are. It is not your job to drown yourself by trying to keep others afloat who don't want to change. Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it. What they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.

54:48That's Sebastian Junger. It's easy to be a savage when everyone else is a pussy, but sometimes it's hard to find a sidekick. What do you think about that? What does that mean that last word sometimes with a sidekick? That if you're with the right people, you're effort to multiply it by 10 times and if they're with the wrong people, then they're restricted basically. Yeah, I mean, I can go back to the simple saying of like you're like the average of like the five people that you surround yourself with and you gain exponential momentum in the direction that you're going with. So if you're with a suboptimal set of people with values that aren't in your best interest, you're going to be accelerated in an accelerated fashion going in the wrong direction.

55:26What about this balance between fragility of the modern world being competitive advantage? Well, I think with a lot of those people like the Goggs and the few that you said like that, it's a very like stereotypically uber masculine kind of like mindset, which is like fine, right? But I feel like sometimes that can be taken to an absolute like ridiculous that's like extreme, but the right amount of that is like a like, like a good thing. Like, what are you aiming for? What's an integrated version of that to you?

55:58I like the idea of having an indestructible mindset, being able to overcome obstacles goes into adversity isn't having that, just like that, just focus intensity. But I think that sometimes you can get, just exclusively like fixated on that. Like for example, with David Goggins, he went through just like extremely traumatic stuff. Like I've heard him on so many podcasts and like I've like audio book, look like a good amount of like his book. So I know like the backstory of the data, et cetera, is really just like horrible stuff. And for him, I just all the experience in everything that he's gone through, just in order for him to be able to like thrive and come out of that, he needed to adopt a certain kind of just like, just indestructible God -like mindset, which he did achieve.

56:56The coping mechanism. Yeah, exactly, it's exactly it. It's a coping mechanism. In the same way that you could look at me working hard on the gym when I was younger, so that's like so admirable. been reality, the fuel wasn't like the most like positive thing. So you make a semi -ish kind of like parallel to the David Goggins, which is because of what he went through, he simply needed to adapt that way. It was a necessary coping mechanism and his situation was so extreme and he talked about it just so poetically, which is so much like passion and intensity that a lot of people when they read that, they resonate with it like tremendously, especially if they're like lacking that.

57:30If they're lacking, just like the discipline and that kind of stuff, hearing someone like David Goggins give you the theoretical framework of being able to overcome stuff combined with his own painfully visceral experience of it. It'll just give you goosebumps hearing it. And if you have a depletion or lack of that in like your own character, you're gonna naturally gravitate to like someone like him and you're gonna get exactly you're gonna get the benefit in the same way that people would be inspired by me working out when I was younger and that would benefit them, even though the fuel source pushing me wasn't like the most cleanest form of gasoline.

58:03So although mindsets like that are extremely, extremely useful and powerful in certain circumstances, but I feel like, I feel like a David Goggin situation, like at a certain point, he might even go deeper when it comes to just his character arc, just like his development as a human being. I just had parallel, for example, someone like Mike Tyson, like when he was like super young, just like indestructible, like super villain, like as he's like gone, oh, older, like a lot of like temperament has just like simply transformed, like he was so aggressive and just intense, like when he was like younger, because I don't know his full situation, but maybe it was a form of coping mechanism, maybe it was just in his DNA to be like that, but he would just like that, and then over time he just mellowed out in a certain kind of way, and that's not better or worse of mellowing out, That's just like the arc that he's going through.

58:58But then you could say that if David Goggins, I'm not David. If Mike Tyson was that exact same way that he was when he was younger into his old age where he is right now, you'd almost look at that and be like,

59:10there's still like fixation in a previous behavioral pattern. That's no longer... He has transcended it included. Well, I think the point here is that kind of... Almost like a resentment that very visceral, powerful scarcity mindset is an unbelievably potent fuel, but it's really fucking toxic. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't, it can be toxic in certain instances. I don't say, I don't think it's like purely like toxic, like in, it's toxic to you. It's toxic to the inside. Like yes, it's very, very good. like being driven by a sense of insufficiency can cause people to do unbelievable things, right? Almost all of the high performers that I know are not driven by what it looks like from the outside and what it should be proselytized.

1:00:01It's this beautiful balance of, you know, fulfilling the logo speaking forward and manifesting your essence. It's not that running away from something which makes them feel insufficient. There is a voice inside the head that is a disparaging parent, It's a bully at school, it's a teacher that didn't believe in them, it's an abandoned sibling. Something inside of them is saying, you want not enough? The only way that you can make yourself enough is to perform out there in the world. And if you perform well enough, maybe finally the world will accept you and you will be worthy of love. That is an energy that fucking every single high performer on the planet, except for like three people can resonate with because running away from something that you fear is an unbelievably potent fuel and running towards something that you want comparatively is less so.

1:00:53But if you use the fuel that pushes you away from something that you fear for too long, you will end up having malignant coping strategies and it will burn everything that's inside of you as well. Fucking powerful, but it's going to make that engine run at a very high rate. It's powerful and you'll need to use that fuel for a certain period of time when it's needed but then it's important or ideal for your best interest to want to just like transcend and go forward. Correct. So this will be everyone will have seen this by now because the whole movie episode will be out but it wasn't out before this.

1:01:24What he was talking about, as you said, was some of the challenges and the setbacks that people have and how that could give them the justification for maybe not being where they could be. And he said this really great quote, which was if you have suffered from sexism your entire life, if you have suffered from racism your entire life, you would be absolutely justified in not being at the place where somebody who didn't have those disadvantages is. However, the advantage that you do have is that unlike me or you or Homozi, you can be a role model to those people who did have those problems because I can guarantee you that there is someone who had it worse and did it better.

1:02:07And he said that and I was like, holy fuck, that is so good because for me, somebody that went through challenges as a kid who had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about not being in, not feeling like I was supported and having to do a lot of this work myself. Like I had to fucking pick myself up by my bootstraps. First principles, okay, what do I want to value? How do I want to do this? Let's build a thing on my own twice and getting rid of that. Like getting rid of that chip that was on my shoulder without using it as the bitter. Like I'm doing this to prove the fucking bullies wrong. I'm doing this to prove the people that didn't believe me wrong.

1:02:48I'm doing this to prove the place that I came from that didn't have the big enough vision to help me wrong. The way that that became, was made, alchemized to feel more holistic was that I thought, okay, well, there's other people that are going to be feeling this too. There's other people that are going to go through these challenges. Not only can I beat the setbacks that I feel like I had, but I can also help other people to get past them too. And I can be like, look, here's the pitfalls. Here's how you expedite success. Not only did this thing not get me, but it's not going to get you either.

1:03:27And that's the best way, I think, to transcend challenges and traumas that you've had in your past. Not only do you beat it, but you help everybody else to beat it as well. You know, I completely agree. It's like a tipping scale. You could either have it leaning in the toxic, like a resentful direction, or you could optimize and leverage it in like a way or scale, benevolent, positive, like way. That's definitely the way to go. What do you want to, how do you want to serve the world? No. Like you've got creative director at Gymshark, whatever you are, your new job role. You have a massive amount of reach.

1:04:07You have, as far as I can tell, the raw materials to be able to go and do pretty much anything you want along with a shit ton of time. How do you want to set up the world now?

1:04:21I'm not enticely, I'm not entirely precisely sure. Still working on that exact agenda, like figuring out the most optimal way to do that. But the idea of scheme on my head is, for example, when they talk about when you're raising children, when you're apparently the kids hear nothing that you say and see everything that you do. So almost like the person that you are is like what sub communicates at the highest level. Like to people, basically if you're a certain kind of, if you live or exist in the right kind of way, like whatever that means, like as a parent to your kid, then the kid gets like a healthy development as opposed to doing everything incorrectly, but saying all the right things.

1:05:07So for me, even though I don't know precisely what I'm gonna do in a tangible fashion to just help the world at scale. As I'm figuring that out, like the thing that I'm putting emphasis in priority on is just like living in congruence or just feeling just like optimized and just like aligned with just how I am as a person and like how I operate on just like a daily basis, even like with the most subtle, subtle things. What's that highest sense of self? What are the things that you value the most when you're operating at your highest level. What do you genuinely take pride in? Well, like lately for a good amount of time now, it's just been,

1:05:57I guess forms of like artistic expression, like in a sense, whether it be like something as simple as like making like a YouTube video, that's like, like cinematic or well made, like in a certain area or just,

1:06:10coloring and like editing just like videos. I don't know, just like just like simple things like that. I don't know like lately I'm finding a very high degree of just like intrinsic my bad. Intrinsic station with doing I guess just artistic things in a way. And like what about personally like what is it that you when you show up for yourself like what are you most proud of? So I'll give you Maybe some of mine. It's when I tell the truth. When I tell the truth, it's the most important thing. For me, when you initially said that, that was one of the first things that came to mind. But yeah, that's a huge one too.

1:06:51All micro -like little situations, because it's so easy to just... I need a little life. It's twice in the time of the live. Exactly. You could feel and sense all of those. What else?

1:07:05You need to tell the truth. What else do you need to do? Come on, to be the person that you want to be. What else do you need to do?

1:07:14I don't have a precise answer at the moment, but I feel like with a baseline of just honestly and all the micro and macro situations, like that covers a good amount of it and spawns out into other things, but I feel like it's pretty all encompassing one. I think that's the foundation. Yeah, I think you're right. But you know for me for instance like vulnerability learning to be increasingly vulnerable Which again everything is a form of truth right me saying that I show up and be like compassionate to my friends That's a form of truthfulness right and trying to be your best self going forward being vulnerable For me leaning into difficult things for instance like one of the problems of having increasing increasing number of resources and material success or whatever is that success can make you soft and it can make you lazy and it can make you rely on other people, which is something that I've managed to avoid.

1:08:13But I've managed to avoid it mostly through a combination of neuroticism and obsession, not through the transcended, no prescription. I do not just I simply don't want it. It's like being fixed by something which is also still a relatively toxic fuel. I'm impressed by you, man. I think that you're a very impressive individual. I think that the trajectory that you've been on from where you were to where you are is fantastic. I'm really really glad that you've got the background that you have. And the reason that I've like tried to drill so much into the psychological side of what we've spoken about today is that from the outside the many million followers on Instagram, the 50, 60 million play video of the body transformation, it gives people not only a preconception about the person that you are, but it makes them presume that you would be locked into a particular type of life path.

1:09:14The same way as I know, like you two releases a new album and all of their old fans hate it. They go, well, look, guess what? We like it. This is the direction that we're going in now. This is the getting to the top of the mountain and looking across and going, I think I'm on the wrong fucking mountain. Shit. I have to go down. I need to transcend and include. I'm really, really glad that you're doing what you're doing. I'm really glad that you're on the trajectory that you're on. Yeah. I'm excited to see where it goes. It's an adventure. Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do?

1:09:44Um, just, um, my YouTube channel mainly just search David Laid and yeah, it's basically it. Like my Instagram same thing, David Laid and if you guys want to have like a very natural and healthy and optimized pre workout, you could also buy my pre workout at euphoriapre .com and yeah, that's where you can find me. David, I appreciate you. Thank you for today. My pleasure.

1:10:12Thank you very much for tuning in a parting thought that I noticed on the internet this week by Morgan Howsle that relates to everything we spoke about today with easy success that comes at a young age. Nothing is more blinding than success caused by luck, because when you succeed without effort, it's easy to think. I must be naturally talented. I'll see you next time.