#940 - Cameron Hanes - The Harsh Price Of Extreme Performance

28:42I think that there is a lot more built into you. You know, you're talking about consistently running for four decades and thinking about framing that up against what that meant in your childhood. And this sort of relentlessness that you approach, even the pod, when you started that, I think I was episode three, two, three, four, something like that. It's now like what, 160? Some shit. Like even with that, that's a level of work rate that most people don't hold up. It's just a minor little area then in the hunting, and then in the lifting, and then in the bow stuff, and then in the running, and then in the...

29:19So, you know, maybe there is, maybe it's contributed, but what I would, if I could sort of bat a couple of chips on the roulette wheel of a couple of other universes in which you'd approach your kids differently, I think they'd be probably 90 % 80 % or 90 % of the way they are, just with the less experience about how to deal with it. And one of the best things you can do for your kids, I think as a fucking look at me spouting nonsense as a non -father. The internet loves when I do this. One of the best things that you can do is set a good example. You can read all of the books about healthy attachment and child education and socialization and all the rest of it, but they will learn more from the way that you and your wife show up for each other around the dinner table than every lesson that you try and force into them.

30:11You can top down try and tell them how they're supposed to behave. This is how you're supposed to treat girls. You don't hit goals and you don't do this and you must hold the door and you got to be this way and be blah blah blah It's like all right, but then when you're around the dinner table you're a prick You look at your phone instead of looking at your wife. Yeah, or you ignore her or you don't laugh at her jokes Or you guys don't relate while are they never see you be physically affectionate to each other or whatever it is It's not for me to say that you need to like force a relationship But yeah, the point is I think that kids learn by seeing a lot more than they get learned by being told and And yeah, that's what you're doing.

30:43Even if you hadn't made them go up the mountain, you were like, I'm off to go up the mountain. They were like, that's going up the mountain. Like, I'm up the mountain, you know? So. Yeah, it's a, and I was thinking also too, it's not just like what you do, but when you have that mindset about life as competition, hard work is the key. Whatever, that's, that is impacting how you talk and how you carry yourself. Because everybody says says the right thing. They tell their kids what you're supposed to tell your kids It's like as you said know you hold the door for women you you know be respectfully everybody says the right stuff But how you carry yourself and then how you how you talk Not when you're delivering some ultimate them or some direction, but just how you what's your mindset and That's When it's not controlled.

31:35It's not you're not thinking about it. So My mindset was always let's do more perform more push harder Like I guess to your point that even if I wasn't they were seeing that because it's Yeah, it's you know you talked about true it, you know originally but even for him You're my your story is sort of reminding me of his like people see him now and they're like I mean he's easy to he gets hate too because he's easy to hate definitely. He's got a lot going for him and that's that will build some resentment over with some guys. But for him, he lost for years. He didn't miss a day lifting weights for like 14 years.

32:26Still hasn't. I started them lifting when they're 14, both him and Tanner. And since that time, he hasn't missed more than a day. So it was loss after loss after loss. He was like tiny, not getting big. And he mentioned this. We did this. We're doing this video on his pull -ups that, you know, he broke the world record. And he's just like, he goes, I don't think he goes, I didn't realize that Tanner was kicking my ass every day as his older brother. Anytime we compete, me against him. I would never let the kids win. It was always like, it was always a battle, always crying. I mean, kicking the basketball down the street because they're so mad.

33:13Go get it. Tanner, I was throwing like football as hard as I could making him catch it because he's receiver drops it, punches the ground, breaks his hand. So there's like all these losses essentially. So, true it said, I didn't know that yeah, I was getting beat by my older brother. I was getting beat by you every day. He goes, I didn't realize Tanner was the biggest beast, one of the biggest beasts he's ever met. And he goes, and I didn't know you were who you were. I thought he said, I just thought I was weak and a loser. I didn't know that I was going against these people that were making me.

33:52So people see him now, and I'm like, if you could see him back when it's 14 years old, and you know, when he's in high school, he was five foot, like 90 pounds, got cut from the basketball team, even though he was really good and most skilled, because he was too small, they don't see all that. They see now, and they're just like, oh, what is he on steroids? And he's just like, no, this is, This is the kid who hasn't missed a day in the gym for 14 years and trains for hours every day and doesn't drink, doesn't do anything but get it enough rest to perform every single day. This is what you get when you're that dedicated.

34:34But people, they want to ignore that part. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentus. If your sleep's not dialed, taking ages to nod off, you're waking up at random times and feeling groggy in the morning, momentous sleep packs. How did I miss both of those? I hear to help. They're not your typical knock you out supplement overloaded with malatoning, just the most evidence -based ingredients at perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly. Stay asleep throughout the night and wake up, feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning, which is why I take these things every single night and why I trust my mentors with my life.

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35:44A checkout. There's a very special type of distaste and envy that the internet has toward certain types of successful men. I still haven't kind of fully worked out what it is. It's kind of like the inverse of pretty privilege that - Yeah, girls how? Yeah, the girls get it, but you know, dude, chicks do not have it easy around other women. Like, if you're an attractive woman, you better watch your back. There's holy fuck they're coming for you. Yeah. Like they are coming for you hard. But in the same way, men, masculine men, guys that certainly seem like competent, especially of you young. If you're a bit older, I think guys are tiny a little bit less threatened.

36:34I think a lot of this, you know, from both sides just comes down to mating that if you're a hot woman, then you with your hand and your boyfriend's hand thinks you better not be fucking looking at her. But she went in the skirt that shortfall. And the same thing in reverse. And he's an interesting stat. The only one of the most predictive traits around enhancing attractiveness is masculinity measured by muscularity. So if you're a guy and you are a five out of ten and you get yourself in the gym for a decade, you're probably going to be like a six or a seven, you know, assuming that you don't fuck your face up in the process by dropping weights on it.

37:18Basically, there was this fascinating study done by Guckold David Puts and he got women to rate the attractiveness of men, these images of men, and he got men to rate the same men as how likely do you think it is that you would beat this man in a fight? So you have a female rating of attractiveness and male rating of Feminability, right? And then 12 months later they brought the men that were the photos into the study and they said how many sexual partners have you had over the last 12 months? The female rating of attractiveness had zero predictive power. The male rating of Feminability almost exactly predicted the demo's the level of sexual partners.

38:08Really? So what it seems is, for mid -ability, especially as sort of shown by that typically masculine, and this isn't the only way to get into a woman's pants or whatever. It's not the only thing, the cool artsy heroin -looking, fucking guitar player, it can be hard to... There's exceptions. And typically this seems to be one of those things and I wonder whether if you look at someone like a truer who is a young kid who's full of energy kind of doesn't give a fuck who is only going to get better. In some ways it's inspiring but it's only inspiring if you're remotely close to his level. Right.

38:50Because if you're looking at someone who doesn't have anything special about them, not in the same way that you say in bulk has something special about like he's godly right he's in a sport that feels a bit untouchable yeah everybody's fragile to a pull up right everybody's thought about running a marathon slowly in jeans maybe maybe not um I wonder whether the the closeness that people feel and the fact that there's nothing ostensibly special there uh it throws into very harsh contrast Well, why is that not me? Why can he do that, not me? And the easiest place to go to would be privileged upbringing, silver spoon, unfair assistance, enhanced genetics, enhanced hormones, cheating with form, whatever, I don't know what the criticisms are.

39:49But it helps people to close the gap between somebody they would want to be like and themselves. Yeah, they reckon with it. Yeah, it's a, you know, that's, it's kind of a double short because nobody can relate to you saying, because he's got that God -given talent. But it's kind of been what I've used also is like, you can come from nothing, a regular job, and had success. So then it kind of, it puts a pressure on other regular guys. He's got no excuse. Yeah. And so both true and I have benefited from that. It's just like he looks like a regular guy running in jeans, but he's doing these incredible things or it's like.

40:33And then so it does allow him, because if you look at his followers, it resonates more with regular people because it gives them hope that, oh, maybe I can be better. Then like an elite Olympic athlete, does it have near the followers, true, it who is like a run -fluencers, what, you know, they, some of these elites say this new craze of marathon excitement and these run groups and all this. It's just like, they don't deserve it because they're not, they're not elite like I am, but because they can relate to the average person, that's where they get the power. So yes, you get criticized by the regular people who feel threatened like, came out, so I'm expected to do shit like this too, but you also benefit from it because...

41:18Well, just to sit on that for a little bit longer, I think it's a really, really good point that this sort of narcissism of small differences, the fact that you don't, you haven't come from a different place, you know, in a sport that's untouchable or unreachable, and there's two ways to respond to that. One is, holy fuck, this normal person did something extraordinary, that means I can too. The other one is, this normal person did something extraordinary, that means that I am expected to too. And the expected to thing shows you all of the places that you're falling behind because you know that if not for my discipline and my consistency, there could have gone I.

42:00That could have been me in principle, but it's not. Why? And when you get to the why question, yeah, that's a problem. You have to face facts that, well, because I didn't not miss the training session for more than two days. You're not gonna like the wise. Yeah, it's an ugly realization because the realization's boring. Yeah. And the realization points the finger at you. And I see this in myself, dude. I see, you know, especially when I was a bit younger, this fucking bitterness that used to come out in me, and it still does now. Sometimes, am I more juvenile, less equanimous moments, if I've not been fucking meditating enough?

42:36Mike, fuck that guy. Like, he had this thing, or this was unfair, That's not it. And it's just ego. It's just you trying to protect yourself from this weird status game. Because previously we knew we were in 30 people pods in a 150 person tribe, and you knew the best hunter and the best everything elseer, and you were probably not that bad at a couple of things, which meant that you had some value. Heard to the small little group. Exactly. Whereas now, even though we know that we're not friends with true hands, we don't know that we're not supposed to compare ourselves to him. So our status mapping ability has just spread out across the entire planet, which is why so many people feel inferior.

43:21And you can take it as inspiration or you can take it as a threat. And I see why people take it as a threat. And then if you've got fuck you energy and you're doing it in glasses, you know what I mean? If you're going to twist the knife a little bit, people are going to say go fuck yourself. Yeah, it's been crazy to see. I mean, it's not like nobody's immune to being criticized or nobody's immune to the fact of being criticized. You know, nobody likes to read the shit people say. So and he's no different. But I just would, I would just encourage people to take a look and think about it. It's like, I mean, that because I can think when I first started training and I was bow hunting and having success and I was running Marathonson, I remember the old guard or the gatekeepers would say, oh, yeah.

44:08So you after I ran a marathon to kill an elk, and I'm like, nobody ever said that. I'm just, I'm just showing you what I do. You know, you can do whatever you want, but like put this expectation there, and you know, when now when people look at, at Truett, I just want, on a remind people that there was a time when he, I could help him up on the pull -up bar. He was not getting a pull -up done. He had new skinny fat, you've heard that term? You couldn't get any more skinny fat than my boys were. They were just skinny regular young boys, skinny arms, two bodies. It's just like nothing special, but that's where it starts.

44:49That's where everybody starts. I've just realized that the world's marathon record for wearing Crocs just got broken this weekend. Fourth time to charm, that was the UK's Tommy Trees mindset. He made his fourth attempt to put his name in the Guinness Book of World Records and finally he came out successful. Well, Sunday's lender marathon trees put his crocs into sport mode in clockter 248 48 pretty fast surpassing the previous record for the fastest marathon wearing foam crocs 41 new world records over the past year the record for the fast marathon in crocs was broken four times. So this is really heating up.

45:24Whoa. The linden race mark treats 12th marathon and followed three failed attempts to break the fastest marathon dressed as Santa Claus which stands at 2333 and he's also got to 2941 when he's not in Crocs. So he pivoted from dressing as Santa to doing it in Crocs. I think Crocs and jeans is, that's the perfect blend. What's happening with his jeans, the marathon thing? What's he doing next? Next, oh, he's doing a last man standing race here in Austin. Okay, next place. Next race, yeah. Yeah, so that's a 4 .2 mile loop every hour for as long as you can do it. So that's, but Guinness won't approve a gene's marathon.

46:09Why? I have no idea. Cause true, it tried to do that too. And I tried to do like, I was gonna run a marathon with a bow. Okay. I just run with it. They wouldn't approve that either. So I don't know why, but they'll approve Dressa Santa wearing crocs. A guy just, it's another guy in Boston, Jordan Maidox. He ran in, dressed as a banana. So the world record. Okay, there's a fruit. So, but they won't agree. He broke the banana and the fruit world records. Like if you could be the quickest banana but an orange beat you. I don't know, actually I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's banana fruit.

46:52I think the banana, as far as fruits go, the banana is probably pretty aerodynamic. Yeah. You know, you want to be pretty, you know, it's slicing through the, yeah, don't be a pair. This is real slowing you down. No. Or a watermelon. No, also bad. Yeah. I don't know. It's fascinating to you watching this thing and fall in obviously after getting to hang it you with you and kids at your house and get to meet everybody and sort of watching the last two years. It's been kind of unsurprising, you know, to be honest. It's unsurprising or surprising. Unsurprising. Totally unsurprising. It's like the least surprising thing that could have happened.

47:27Yeah, I love to see it. I mean, yeah, Trus doing good as far as like he's selling his sponsorships and he's doing like road to sub 230 or diet trying. So, you know, this like a weekly video series. So yeah, he's, I love to see it. What was watching him do that the most recent pullup record like?

47:51Yeah, I mean, it's, I I just remember, it's a big, it's a big ask. 10 ,000 pull ups. You got two contact points, basically, your hands. That's a lot of pressure, a lot of reps, a lot of little stuff that can go wrong, ligaments, tendons, you know, Goggins tried it a few times before he got it. And one time, I think live on Good Morning America and got injured. So did it live, some other time I got injured. So there's no guarantee you're gonna make it unscathed through a challenge 24 hours of pull ups, but for true it, I mean, he's so dedicated and obsessed. He trained so hard. It's like, and when he got it, I just, you know, that night, I just remember saying, you know, good job.

48:42Not surprised. This is, this is what you're supposed to do. This is if you weren't doing shit like this, then I'd be like, what the fuck's going on? So this is what I expected. This is the expectation that's always been there. I told the boys in my daughter too for that matter, but you guys aren't normal. I'm not normal, isn't okay. Average isn't okay. You're supposed to be doing stuff like this. That's why we're here. So it's like, I said good job, but yeah, not surprised. I expected a job in this place. and I was it, he did what he's supposed to do. It's like I said, dude, it was not, it was like the least surprising thing.

49:30Yeah, it happened. I think it's cool that, I think it's cool that it's something that no human has ever done. He did 10 ,000, no humans ever been to 10 ,000 and 24 hours on pull -ups. So it's in, as you mentioned earlier, anybody who's tried to do a pull -up, fucking five pull -ups is hard. Yeah. Five pull ups is hard for me. Yeah. It's like 10 ,000 crazy. A quick aside, if you often feel tired, you might not need more sleep, you might not need more caffeine, you might just be dehydrated and proper hydration isn't just about drinking sufficient water. It's about having enough electrolytes to allow your body to properly absorb those fluids.

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50:48Also, there's got no questions asked for refund policy, so if you don't like it for any reason, they'll give you your money back, you don't even need to return the box and you can drink it all. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the description below, heading to drinklmt .com slash modern wisdom. That's drinklmt .com slash modern wisdom. You've said, I've seen you say that you think love is the most powerful form of motivation. What's the role of love and passion in this? A lot of what we're talking about so far is like aggression, it's gripping some resentment in there.

51:26There's sort of wanting to prove people wrong. And then you talk about love and passion. Where does that come from? Yeah, I don't, I think I might say passion. Love, sometimes the saying I have with love is like, love makes me strong, hate makes me unstoppable. So I still lean for whatever reason. I am motivated by hate, by people talking shit, by people not believing in me. If somebody supports you, I mean, that's great. I don't want to say I don't give a fuck, but hate is what pushes me. Hate and people discounting what I'm doing. done or my effort or my goals that that's what drives me. I don't know why.

52:18But love is great, support, appreciate support. But I just think that, you know, I will, you said love and passion. So passion, yes, because in my book, I talk about outliers and you know, you're one of them. But what makes somebody an outlier in my mind is this passion, passion for this thing. What's this thing. What's this thing they do? For you, it's this thought provoking intellectual discussions, like peeling back the onions, figuring out modern wisdom. And you're the best at it, right? So whatever you had this passion to learn, to learn more about human behavior and the brain and the body and sexual tractiveness and different things like that, that's passion drove that, right?

53:10So I think passion is what sets people apart. Love and hate, that can go either way. It's interesting thinking about how hate is a better motivator, or a bigger motivator for you, because it puts anybody that wants to bring you down in a very awkward position that they have to compliment you in order to not drive you further. They have to say something nice if they want to slow you down. Yeah, I mean, but when somebody says, you know how I mean people say, that yeah, you know, love you. It's just like, is that real? But hate. Hate? That's usually pretty real. It's real. Yeah. That's a good point.

53:47That's a good point. People are flippant with their love, but they're not that flippant with their hate. If they hate you, that means something. That's deep. That's why it's like, I think that's why that drives me. That's fascinating. Yeah, I've never considered that, Maybe because it's sort of socially desirable to sort of say that you love something. Mically, you don't have to be seen as a hater all that much. There is maybe more emotional activation in someone's hatred than there is in someone's love. And you're like, holy fuck, I got to this person. Yeah. I did got to this person. Yeah. So that's where I get I'm more fueled by that.

54:28I, this is one of the things that I let me, one of many things that I learned spending a couple of days with you. Having must be nice written in the gym and pose written on the rock. And I've mentioned this on the show a bunch of times. I'm like, huh. Like, why, why pose? I asked you about this and you explain that in the sort of it, 72 pounds is 72 pounds and there's not. You can do about it and you can say what you want, but come and carry this fucking rock up the hill and see if you think that it's, you know, all for show after that. I didn't realize until now that that's because you were fueled way more by people's distaste than people's support.

55:12Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's a that it was somebody's telling you how good you are all the time. For one, you can start to believe it and then to me, if I'm hearing that, I'm losing my edge. I'm like, I don't want to hear that shit. that's, I appreciate it, but I want an edge. I want, I want to know why you don't think I'm, so that's what, that's what poseur, that's why it's so powerful to me. I like when people say, oh yeah, fucking cam, poseur. Mm, yeah. I've been thinking about this for a while, I haven't written it out yet, so I'm gonna try and play with this idea live with you. There's a quote from Victor Frankl that says, when a man can't find a deep sense of meaning they distract themselves with pleasure, right?

55:57And his point is, I think, that if your life is a bereft of a higher purpose, you look at hedonism and short -term gratification and stuff like that. I think there's an inverse, and I think that you and maybe me as well, a good example of the inverse, that when a man can't find a deep sense of pleasure, they distract themselves with meaning. And that if your day -to -day experience of life, I don't know, just sort of joy and play and ease and fun and lightness. If that's just not what you grew up being taught, or that's not sort of your psychological set point or disposition, or it just doesn't come as easily to you as it does maybe to other people, I think I see in a lot of the people that are like overachievers in the winning the marshmallow test of life, just permanently delaying gratification.

56:57I think I see that as quite a common archetype that how easily do you switch off smoke weed and play Xbox? like fucking impossibly, it doesn't happen. And how much sort of play and ease and grace and joy, you know, how easy to sort of enjoy and enlighten us, come and say, ah, sometimes things are kind of heavy. And I apply pressure to myself or even when it's not needed and sometimes I struggle to give myself a break and so on and so forth. So I think that, yeah, that when a man can't find a deep sense of pleasure, they distract themselves with meaning. You know, instead of just having a fun Saturday morning with the kids.

57:36Like we're taking a big rock and a couple of small rocks and we're going up that fucking hill again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, yeah, when you're saying that, I was thinking about, yeah, I don't know. It's a, I'm, I'm happiest when I'm suffering. So I've heard people say like, they said this mostly about goggins. I don't know you've talked to him too, but it's just like asking him, it's like, are you ever happy? It's just It's like, for him, he's happy when he's miserable. So it's like, well, who's definition of happy you're talking about? Is your happy eating fucking donuts watching TV? That sounds miserable to me.

58:16So it's like the people that get these words and they're like, are you happy? Are you enjoying yourself? Do you ever have fun? It's like running up that mountain is fun. That's what I like. So yeah, it's when you talk about pleasure and passion, I was trying to weigh that out there on what is happiness for people. And also another thing, I see you put up like three million subscribers. So it's like, is that what type of, does that do anything for you? Is that, I mean, because you'll never let off. You're like, okay, I made it. I'm good. I got three million. That was my goal. But you put that up.

58:57Like sometimes people will put up things like I made it like this is my I'm here, but I've arrived to you. That's just what is that? Just a benchmark just another little destination, I suppose I what is the goal? Do you have a goal? Not in terms of sort of money or follow account or anything like that. I think I did originally even though I didn't have a number in mind I think I wanted to become really proficient at something. I wanted to be able to say that I'd reach something close to mastery or competence. I was competent at this thing and people respected that and recognized that, especially people that I respected and that I admired.

59:46How do you, is that a measurable that tells you that? No. So, just as some people like look at, I even looked at where your podcast is on the charts today. Okay. You know what I'm, I like measureables. Like I like, I need to do this many miles, this vast, at this pace, I want, you know, this many downloads to the pot. It's like I love measureables. And I think that my boys have kind of taken on that too. I love that too. I think it's a good way to bring some control into a messy world. I have just tried to sort of put a bit of a speed limit on how much I rely on it because at least for me it is not the most important metric.

1:00:29The most important metric is something that's pretty intangible, which is how much did I connect with the guests, how much did it impact the people that were listening. And a lot of the time, the episodes that do, sometimes the episodes that do the most plays are the ones that are most impactful and they suddenly reach the most people, right? But I don't know how you know, deeply that really changes people. And I'm at the stage now, at least with this particular art form, where I'm trying to really, really connect with the person I'm sitting opposite and I'm really, really trying to understand why they are the way they are or what what it is that people should understand or learn about them.

1:01:14And none of that is going to appear on a YouTube analytics spreadsheet. It simply doesn't, and the measurement stuff is good, and it ensures that you're at least keeping an eye on one or a few things. I'm the sort of person I think that would become very obsessed by it. And I need to be aware of that and I need to account for that because it's not all that matters. You know, it will be something else. A lot of people trade intensity. In the very beginning, they use intensity, but the thing that keeps you going is your longevity. That's what we said, the consistency thing. And they trade longevity for intensity.

1:01:56And if you're just chasing the numbers, You're able to see the immediate effect of your work. This is the same with powerlifters, let's say. So you're a powerlifter in the gym, and you're pushing yourself, RP9, RP9 .5, RP10, over and over again, you're not periodizing, you're not taking weeks off. And you're going, two numbers are going up, I'm fucking crushing it, I'm crushing it, snap. Yeah. You're okay, well, what was the goal? What really was the goal? The goal was to get the numbers to go up, but the goal was to get the numbers to go up steadily over 10 years. And all that you can see is such a short amount of time in front of you.

1:02:31And I think that you should be careful about trading longevity for intensity. Because, and at least with the show, for me, the more fight up I am when I wake up on a morning, and I think this is just the best judgment of sort of way your life's at at the moment and how much joy you're getting out of life when you wake up, when your alarm goes off on a morning, how excited are you to get out of bed? I think that's a pretty good rubric for, I was life going right now. It's not gonna be like that forever. You know, it's gonna be better and worse and sometimes really worse and sometimes better. And if I wake up on a morning and I go, fuck yeah, I get to speak to Cam today.

1:03:07Like that's really exciting. Tomorrow I've got Will Store, like science of storytelling, fucking awesome author he did this day today. I'm fucking fired, I can't wait. And then, you know, there was periods in the show where I wake up and I'm like, oh, who am I talking to today? Oh, yeah, that'll be all right. Maybe the episode would be great. Maybe it would even be a really great performance, but if it didn't speak to me. So very much in that sort of, I know, post -growth thing where I've already got, at least with regards to the show so much further than I ever thought I was going to fucking move continents and came over to this new country and made all of these friends.

1:03:50and you know, I've lifted myself out of an area of the UK that's... It was literally only famous for having the highest teen pregnancy rating in the UK, and then it lost that, so it didn't even have that anymore.

1:04:07I've already won. I've already won. So, trying to find E's grace, joy, and just seeing how that works for a little bit, because I've very much applied the sort of camhain's goggins mindset for a while, and I can totally see me turning around in six runs or two years or whatever and being like, all right, time to really fucking grip the bar again. I'm just seeing, okay, well, happens if I've trying to have a little bit more play with this and then, when I'm just if I go back in the other direction. Yeah, I was curious about that just because we're so inundated with these measurable every day with the follow account, the likes, the, you know, when you start getting into podcasts, then it is a down those because in that affects what you You can ask for advertisers and that's all they give a fuck about.

1:04:48They don't care about what type of connection you had with your guests. They're like, okay, cool. How many downloads was it? So it's like we get kind of roped into this trap of everything is measurable and it's like you're not successful unless you're here. And then when you're here, you better be here. So I was just kind of curious how you navigated that just because it is its life now. It's inductive. It is and it's easy. It's an easy like, everybody loves like, how do I compare? So it's an easy comparison. That's why you look at the list on like, whose podcast is highest rated, right? But I think Joe's done a really good job of this too.

1:05:31It's like, and I want to kind of adopt, well, your mindset is very similar now. That's why he can have on somebody like me, who when I first went on there, nobody knew how I was, but Joe doesn't care. He's just like, am I interested in this person? Most podcasts are like, let's go with the biggest guests. That's going to give me the biggest. Did I really think that you can look back on a body of work that was

1:06:01disembodied, disconnected successes? Or you can look back on something and be like, yeah, that was me. That was really me. I put myself out there. And there's some people, let's say that you're in a sport, right? Let's say that you're a power lifter or something like that. You want to be the best in the world. You want to be the best in the world. It's not about manifesting your fucking artistic expression on the lifting platform. Pick the fucking way up. Okay, you know what I mean? Can you pick it up or not? Can you pick it up or not? And the goal is to pick the fucking way up. And however you get there is how you do it.

1:06:32Now you may feel transcendent. You may feel like this is you really sort of actualizing your potential and doing it in the world. but my goal is to look back on this period of life and look back on the library of work that I do and go, yeah, that was really me. That was exactly where I was. I really tried to be open and honest with myself. It's a selfish project and I think that the best ones are, and not everyone can do this. Everyone can be selfish with what it is that they get to do for art because if you're a Expression helped you lose money on that USD JPY trade. No, you have a very, very tightly defined outcome.

1:07:13But in some other writing books and stuff like that, you could write a book. It would sell tons and tons of copies but you won't connect it to. And you get loads of success. How do you feel after that? And for some people, they may take a ton of well -being and satisfaction and joy and all the rest of the stuff meaning from it just being successful. They just wanted the success. And I get the sense that maybe the first few bucks or the first few projects or the first few businesses or the first few years of the podcast or whatever might be playing that game. But then after a while you go, okay, well, kind of satiated my desire for status and maybe money or being recognized by all of these people.

1:07:57I mean, this joke with regards to the show that I kind of had the five infinity stones from Manus's glove. I had Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, a lander boton from the School of Life, Naval, Ravakant and Joe Rogan, as like the five people that I wanted. And I've got four of them. And Joe texted after the last episode and was like, don't forget we need to do an episode on Modern Wizard. So I'm like, okay, well once I do that, if all it was was about being, I've got called Medallist Syndrome. And why'd you go from that? And that's a genuine question. And that's still something. That's true. Every time that you complete a new goal, you have to ask yourself, okay, well, what is my life now that I've completed this thing that I was working towards for a long And that's the danger of goals, right?

1:08:38You know, James Clegg got this right in a Tomic habits where he said, you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, so you just need to wait for eight and keep going and keep going and it helps with longevity. But there is no growth without goals because you need a goal to give you a fucking direction to move in. Or else you're just like growing outwardly, but not moving toward a particular thing. It's not great for the way that motivation works. Stope mean, positive reinforcement, all that stuff. So again, it's tension. It's this balance between the two. But I get the sense and it'll be interesting, you know, in a year's time, a couple of years time, when we chat in your episode 300, to me to go, okay, and what's driving you now?

1:09:15Like how do you feel about the show? And I would guess that you're gonna say, you know what it is, like, actually, I'm kind of taking my eye off the ball with regards to the metrics a little bit. I'm really interested in having conversations with underground, I'm really platforming people that, you know, no one knows about or I've really enjoyed delving into this area of whatever. And I think that is a realization that lots of people come to. I think they come to it maybe with even raising kids that you think, can you get a kid into the Harvard, Harvard, the Ivy League University, I'm going to get them to be the captain of the this team, are they going to be the top in this particular pursuit or whatever.

1:09:54And then after a while you go, it's kind of one of them have fun. I'm going to be happy. And I thought that I could get them there through that, but you kind of need to... It's far easier to achieve it than it is to get rid of it. Because if you haven't achieved it, it's always in the back of your mind is, you know, that might have been the answer. Right. So you need to do it to see that it isn't it. And Naval says the reason to win the game is to be rid of the game. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, it's a tough one. It's like, you want to be successful. You want, I think when I was, you were kind of explaining that the best feedback is when somebody says they really enjoyed whatever discussion you had or, and they're not talking about how many people listened to it, you know, just how it impacted them.

1:10:48And it's like, I'm not great at quote podcasting, which is why I do the lift run shoot with my guests to make, cause I can connect on that. And then that hopefully helps the conversation. But yeah, it's tough. It's tough sitting down and really, yeah, I don't know, I mean, maybe it's not tough. Maybe it's just we don't do this. Maybe we, how often do you sit down and just talk to somebody? I never do it. Like, not like this. So maybe it's like, maybe you can learn a lot just by having a discussion and maybe a podcast is an excuse that we wouldn't do this normally because I'm not going to be like call up one of my buddies and say, hey, you want to go talk for a couple hours.

1:11:37I'm like, nobody would say sure. It sounds like you're saying that you find sort of doing the podcast is one of the more or most difficult things. Oh, that is it is that you do. Before we continue, if you've been feeling a bit sluggish, your testosterone levels might be the problem. They play a huge role in your energy, your focus and your performance, but most people have no idea what there's or what to do if something's off, which is why I partnered with function because I wanted a smarter and more comprehensive way to understand what's happening inside of my body. Twice a year, they run lab tests that monitor over 100 biomarkers and their team of expert physicians will analyze the data and give you actionable advice to improve your health and lifespan.

1:12:18Seeing your testosterone levels and dozens of other biomarkers charted over the course of a year with actionable insights to actually improve them gives you a clear path to making a life better. And right now you can get the exact same blood panels that I get by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth .com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth .com slash modern wisdom. So what are the most difficult things that you've done physically? you've got this long illustrious career of doing fucking stupid things to yourself. Yeah. What rank in the top few? Oh, it's the long race.

1:12:54You know, the, well, this race I've come up is 250 miles. I've done 240 miles. I've been 200 miles, 100 miles as hard. Marathons are hard when you're pushing a lot of hard hunts where you're just miserable, in the snow, long hunt, Kodiak Island for 12 days. But those are...

1:13:21They're not predictable, but you know what you're getting into. It's like, yeah, you know it's gonna be terrible, and you're gonna be miserable probably for a while, but that's part of the deal. That's why you sign up. is that test? I'm trying to test myself. I want to see if I'm tough enough to do this. So those when I think of hard, it's those. Are there any in particular that come to mind from the hunt of the race's perspective? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've been on, I don't know, a lot of hard hunts in the mountains just being soaking wet. I mean, one time me and Roy were sheep hunting. Roy's my friend who fell, but obviously before he fell, we were sheep hunting.

1:14:07Miserable weather conditions, super steep. We were blood trailing this ram and it wasn't a good shot. So it's like, it's going to be a long hard blood trail to kind of decipher and get this animal. And it got dark and then, a grisly, it was kind of circling the tents. And I was just like, I don't give a fuck, I'm going to bed. I don't care about this bear. I don't know what's gonna, whatever. So tired, just went to bed. That's being miserable. On Kodiak, you get dropped off, and I remember in my book, Backcountry Bo Honey, the pilot wrote down the day he's just come back and pick us up on his jeans with a pin.

1:14:54So it's like, hopefully he doesn't wash his jeans. You know, he's going to come back in what 12 days, two weeks to get us. And then this is first week in November. So it's pouring down rain every day. Cody Ak is just south, south of the mainland there. And it's, it's just miserable. Every day you're wet, it's just miserable. So yeah, then if you talk about the races, you're going the long races. So when Moab 240, I think I slept for about, I don't know, I can't remember now, it's been a few years, but two to four hours and it took me 79 hours to finish arrays. So over three days, I've been slept, you know, maybe four hours total.

1:15:38So that when you know what it feels like to get a good night's rest, so it's like nothing feels better if it seems like. So on the opposite of that when all you want to do is sleep, but you have to keep pushing for 240 miles, that seems overwhelming. So, to build a must -drop to strength is still taking another step where every step is an effort. And so, if you think, when I go running every mile is 2 ,000 steps. So if I'm doing 200, you know, so it's 500 ,000 steps, 500 ,000 steps roughly in every one is an effort. It's tough. That hurts. So those those experiences stand out. The first guy I ever had on the podcast, Episode 1, and the people should not go back and listen to.

1:16:35But it's interesting episode. It's a guy called Stu Morton who was training to row the Atlantic solo. Oh, so this is a the taluska whiskey race. It's pretty common. Okay. But it's very extreme. You go from I think the coast of Portugal to kind of the Caribbean and The interesting thing with that is that People that do it in groups of two or three or four are really no quicker than the person that does it on their own because for every every additional person you need a bigger boat and more supplies and another person which is more drag. So everybody kind of nets out at the same pace. You can go out, now obviously I guess physically it must be a little easier.

1:17:23But now remember speaking to him and I was like something like 14 million or strokes or something he needed to do to get him. So it's just 14 million. Yeah. You across that thing. It's so funny when you break down races like 200 miles into like it's 500 ,000 steps. You go to take 500 ,000 stuff. Yeah. And it's so hilarious when that happens. You know, because most people are like, their goal was 10 ,000 steps a day. And that's a good day. Okay. 500 ,000. Yeah. I love the idea of these backyard ultras. The dude from the Barclay marathon, invented it right? Yeah, last. Yeah. Yeah, just his insight that he hated the fact that sometimes people won.

1:18:12Yeah. He wanted to race when no one won. Yeah. Like everybody loses. Everybody loses at this race. And some people do lose less than others. Yeah, if Barclay, there's no finisher sometimes, but the backyards, there's always gonna be one person who outlasts the other. So it's also called last man standing is kind of what they're called. But yeah, it's... don't beat the race though. No, I mean, the race is still there. It's just you needed somebody else to go with you to go to the next level. Yeah. So the race never loses. You never never really win the race. You just out less than the last, the next guy.

1:18:50You outlast the other man or woman, but yeah, those fascinating, isn't it? That how long can you run four miles an hour? Yeah. That's crazy. Is now there's guys who have went 400 miles. Do you know this? No. 450 miles. That's a current record for that thing. Wow. Yeah, so God, what would that so that'd have to be 100 and some hours? How many days is that? That's over over over four days with never getting more than so if you finish and say 50 minutes you get 10 minutes before you have to be on the start line. So never getting more than 10 minutes of rest. And then you went on. What's the sort of pace that people are doing?

1:19:37Because you could do eight miles an hour, right? You could move at eight miles an hour and get done in half an hour. Yeah, you could, but for how long? You know, so the thing with these is, the more you break your body down, the less distance you're gonna be able to go. If you run fast, you're stretching. That intensity longevity, right? Your muscles out, which stretching muscles out is essentially breaking them down over time. So yeah, it's like finding that sweet spot. I think Courtney, she's won one of those before. And I think she was doing her laps in about 50 or 52 minutes. So just got it.

1:20:16If you get eight minutes, get a little food in, sit down for a sec, get back on the line. I'm sure it's going to do one of these. Yeah, it genes. Oh shit, I don't know. I told him, I'm like, I mean, he needs a win. Like if you had, he hasn't won a race. So it's like, yes, he's won viral in Boston and Austin, Marathon, Eugene. He just, you know, a lot of news stories. And he does have the world record of the pull -up. So that's all great. I said, she need a win. You need to be come across, break that tape. Because you haven't had a win yet. So show me a win. That's a goal. What's your perspective on genetics, head -agre, talent, and hard work, and how all of these things fit together?

1:21:15Yeah, I mean, we always joke that true, I always joke, he got shitty genetics. That's why he had to overcome his genetics. because really, I mean, I don't have, I have never thought I've had great genetics. If I had great genetics, I would've been able to play college football for a while. And so I've, I was said, you know, I've just either your average or obsessed has kind of been my thing. It's just like, I had, if I didn't want to be average, I had to be obsessed. So I just put it, tighted all into hard work. When I see the boys, I do see, they have some genetic advantage for sure. But what do genetic advantages give you if you don't capitalize on them, not much, right?

1:22:02So they've just both done a good job of capitalizing on whatever gifts they've had. And then true it is definitely maximizing them. Yeah, it's weird with, I guess, talent,

1:22:20something like motivation or enthusiasm and consistency or discipline. Because at the very beginning, you're, no matter how talented you are, you haven't spent enough time and attention to unlock that talent. Now, sure, you begin the race a little bit further ahead than the other guy that's also starting. But you know, the most virtue also keyboard it, the pianist ever, right? The first time that they sat down at a piano, they fucking sucked. So even if they had all of the raw materials to learn very, very quickly, this insight that you kind of unlock your own potential, you unlock your own talent through the only thing that matters, which is the consistency.

1:23:02Now I will say, do you know Craig Jones is? Yeah, yeah. He's a... Craig may be the most... He may be the biggest outlier, I think, in the entire world. sort of elite sports. In that he doesn't train consistently, he doesn't have a strength in conditioning routine, he doesn't care about his body or what he puts in it, he sometimes cares about what he puts his body in. And he, as far as I can see, is a professional partyer who still is probably top five grapplers on the planet. And, you know, Nikki Rodd who's a trainee repeat team in Austin will eat, sleep, lift, train, recover, study tape, do all of the things and Craig will roll back in from a session with a cigarette in his hand and still give him a, like as good of a run for his money as anyone and oftentimes win.

1:24:00Yeah. And that in some ways is just like really fucking cool. but in other ways must just be so disheartening if you're in that. Yeah. For sure, when I hear that story, what I think about is how great Kuddy and Kuddy B be in dedicated. About the cocaine down. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because he's comparing himself to, yes, they're the elites, but Kuddy B the legend. Yeah. Kuddy B the best. Yeah. He's a legend in certain disciplines that just not pretty much you get to. But Kuddy B the best ever. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, because Gordon Ryan, does he live pretty, I think he does he live pretty clean?

1:24:41I think, yeah, yeah, pretty, pretty, pretty, apart from when he's injured. But even that, like there's a degree of commitment during your injury, right? If your stomach's upset and you kind of gotta focus on yourself. But yeah, I think for a lot of people, what they end up realizing is it doesn't really matter how talented I am, the consistency and the hard work really is the only solution. It's the only pathway I have to capitalize on this stuff. And I think that's one of the reasons again, why somebody who largely is pretty untalented is such a trigger for a lot of people, because there's two ways you could look at it and you could say, holy fuck, like there's nothing special about them.

1:25:26Why did they get that? Holy fuck, there's nothing special about them. There's nothing special about me either. That means that I too can do it. make it yeah. Yeah, because what people want, I think a lot of the time, is what is the super secret squirrel technique or what was the unique combination cocktail of upbringing and genetics and whatever it was that this person had in order to be able to get them to this place. And the more boring the answer, the less satisfactory it is. And I think I think, hard of the reason that it's not very satisfactory, is that it actually, it doesn't take it further away from you.

1:26:03It brings it closer to you. Because if you say, well, what's the reason that you send lots of fastest man on the planet? And someone explains about how his fast twitch type A muscle fibers have a particular like ATP output and his lactate threshold and his limb length and the way that is body biomacannics and spinal flexion and all of this stuff. And you go, that's beautiful. Like what a romantic, what a gorgeous distillation of the fastest man on the planet ever, how the fuck am I supposed to replicate that? You said, well, I just trained for a decade and a half and I didn't stop. You go, yeah, that's fucking lame.

1:26:37Like that. Yeah. But it's also in live -ning, because you say it's at your feet too. Yeah, it's, yeah, because when I think about, you know, if I think, I don't know, if you think true it, you're like, I hear people say all the time, well, if I was in this or a situation or they've even said like if they were raised like true, it was a raised type thing. Or people - The privilege of being made to suffer is a seven -year -old. Yeah, God. Yeah, that's another thing that I get worried about is some of the dads watching what he's doing and then thinking like - I'm going to have a child that does 10 ,000 and one person.

1:27:17Yes. And I feel bad for those kids because it was like the perfect storm for my boys. And they were built for it. So, you know, people say I'm built for this, whatever, whatever the case. But they did eventually flourish. A lot of kids aren't going to. It's going to be a disaster. You get crushed into the way it's going to be. It's going to be a disaster. And the dad is probably not going to be like living that example every day like I was. so it's like, then it's just like, what you don't do this? Why am I doing it? It's going to be tough. It comes back to authenticity. Yeah. For sure. It was a natural outgrowth.

1:27:56And I think this is where you can hopefully give yourself a break even though I know you're terrible at doing that.

1:28:04You did probably what comes most naturally to you, which was your way of showing love, which is, well, it's tough. You need to be tougher than it is, at least, and ideally about between five and ten times stuff than it is. And this is the way that I'm going to show you that I love you, because I'm going to prepare you for the world, and I'm going to make sure that nothing can hurt you and that you're going to be resilient and that you're going to have, you know, this is my showing of love. And if that is not how you actually want to show up, soon related, there's going to be cracks in things. You can't force stuff long enough.

1:28:41It's, you know, the tri -old thing about the man who loves to walk will walk further than the man who has to because eventually over a long enough time horizon, people end up just regressing to the mean. They just go back to what their patterns are. And now maybe you can change your patterns over a very, very, very long time. But how many people do you know that have really made changes in their life? It's so few. People lose five pounds. They'll go from one company to another. They'll read a book about arguments and change their communication style. How many people do you know that have lost a hundred pounds or moved, changed their career at 40 or gone to a new country, right?

1:29:23Or got out of that abusive relationship and entered a new one that was flourishing and taken all of the things that they were like, that's alchemy. It's like taking something that was awful and useless and pointless in your life and turning it into something that's beautiful and valuable and it's so fucking rare. Just doesn't happen all that much. And again, to kind of bring this back down, one of my favorite realizations, and why not I think that you share as well, is, well, in some ways, that's kind of terrifying because, oh my god, look at how many people don't end up actualizing everything that they could.

1:29:56And it's not that the only thing to do in life that's great is to actualize your potential. A lot of it can just be flourishing and living it fully, fully and and maximizing your time on this planet in experience and present and all that sort of stuff. But most people don't get that. Fuck, that's terrifying. Or, most people don't get that. Holy shit, how low is the bar? Yeah. Like, the average American is obese, divorced, and with less than one K in the bank. That's the average American. That's not... How low is the bar? And with more opportunity than anywhere else in the world. And that's the average American.

1:30:33That's what's crazy. I was curious about what you think about this, because I've heard people say that, you know, I can have done it without whatever, their wife or their whatever. It's like, and as, you know, my wife has been supportive, true, it's wife is very supportive. But to me, it's just like, so, I know, that's why I want to hear what you think, because, Yes, I think. So if, if say true is saying, oh, I'm gonna go, I need to go train and his wife is saying again. But, so I could see where that would be an issue. But to me, it's just like, maybe it goes back to the point you started to make this whole time about, like parenting or whatever, it's like, I don't know, I don't wanna say if it's fate, but to me, it's like, yeah, support is nice.

1:31:28I fucking don't need anything. I do the same shit, whether you love me, hate me, support me or don't, nothing's gonna stop me. I wonder if so can people say, well, I didn't have that environment or the support you had. That's why I didn't achieve this. Or are there people who are like, and I think of Goggans? I think he, I don't care who the fuck was in his life. He was gonna be who he is, no matter what. This is a difference between doing something because and doing something in spite, right? I achieved this in spite of the way that my wife hates that I go out for a run at 5 .30 a .m. Okay, yeah, right?

1:32:10Yeah, I did this because my wife encourages me to go and do it. Right, okay. And I think it's a good point to talk about that. I do worry about the romanticization of suffering too much among men, especially that there There is a certain type of personality. I certainly have this. Maybe you do too. I definitely get the sense that the Goggins has this. There is someone who, like the priests, howling seeks out, suffering beyond its utility. It's like I've taken everything that I can from this and I'm making it harder than it needs to be. So a great cue that one of my friends gives in the gym is what would this be like if it was easier.

1:32:59So you're carrying the rock, right? There's a perfect example. You've got to carry a 72 pound pose of rock up a hill. There are a variety of different ways. I learned all of them with you. If you have it in your barehugging, the shoulder can have it in the center of the back and you have it there. Why not carry it on the top of your head? Genuine question. Why not carry it on the top of your head? Because that would be harder. That would make the 72 pound rock harder. Well, you know, I'm calcifying the top of my skull and attempt to like this is real suffering. You go, well, you don't do that.

1:33:27So we're always making a kind of value judgment around how hard should the hard thing be. Right. Yep. And I just get the sense that a supportive wife or, you know, if you really want your kids to know what suffering is, break up with your wife when they want your old. You know what I mean? Leave them. Don't pay the alimony, leave them in a broken home, see if you can leave some needles around like you know for you. Yeah, exactly. A nice systemic infection will really toughen them up. So we understand, but we just make value judgments. Like all of this is like, I feel like this is about the right amount.

1:34:04Right. But you didn't make the kids do the mountain three times, right? Okay, so why one? Why not one in a bit? Why not three? Why not five? So with that, I just get the sense that if you have the choice of flying with the wind behind you, giving you a little bit of a push, being like, huh, the thing that I want to do that's really fucking hard is made easier by my partner. So I can run, let's say you can run 100 miles on a day. If I have part of that's total also, I can get to like 95. If I've part of that's total hero, I can get to 105. How in the part of that gets me to 105? That doesn't mean that the thing is less virtuous or any easier, but that my capacity he gets unlocked because I'm not wasting it carrying a rock on my head.

1:34:50I'm carrying a rock on my shoulder. Right, that makes sense. Yeah, I knew that's what I knew I, there's a reason I brought it up because you could distill it down perfectly. But yeah, I was just curious about, I've never really thought about it past like just the basics like that. So thank you for that. I mean, if it's true, it was in a relationship and his wife was permanently saying, fuck, I wish that you could do any exercise, but pull ups, like I just hate them. Like I'm mortally offended by pull ups. You'd be like, hey, darling, come here. Let me have a, let's have a little chat about this.

1:35:21Like, can we just fucking nickname with the, with the, the poll, the poll of hate? Yeah, exactly. He's trying to, he's trying to break a world record here. So do you think that's important? And I, as well, the learning when to actually just go, I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to fucking enjoy the end of the race, right? Like you've run the marathon, you've run the, the, the ultra, you've run the 250. It's like, well, if you went 3 % faster at the very, very end, then you'd shave four seconds off your time. It's like, okay, but why did you do this? Did you do this to get the fastest time possible?

1:35:56You didn't win. Someone else fucking won. Right? You didn't win. Or did you do it so that you can take a tiny little bit off the top and be like, yes. I crossed the finish line. I fucking felt that. That's positive reinforcement. That's why I'm here. I'm here to experience it. And maybe this is why I'll never be a turbobillionaire or the absolute world champion at some super difficult pursuit because I just value other things. And this is not natural. So it's very much me dictating it to me, not expressing it out of me, if that makes sense. I'm saying what I want to be true and how I want to show up, not how I show up.

1:36:35It's still very much just a fucking Japanese torture chamber inside of my head me telling me that I'm not good enough and that could have been better and I shouldn't have done that thing and so on and so forth. Is that like, is that mostly a man thing? Like being, being judged on performance and worth and do you think it's like more... Certainly, contributes, I think. Yeah. Yeah, because it's like, I heard somebody say the other day, because I know I'm thinking thinking about like what it means to be a man and a provider type thing. Yeah, I think that, I don't know, it's hard. It's hard. I just know the pressure I felt as being a dad and a husband and like making sure everybody was taking care of the bills were paid and all this.

1:37:23I just know, yeah, I don't know. I think, I think men get roped into this trap of worth sometimes. And it's just, that's fine because that's how it works. You know, not many women are out there saying, I need to work harder because I need to get my husband a bigger house in a nicer car. I mean, yeah, that's funny. I don't, yeah. Did you hear that? No, no, no, I don't know that much. The biggest house in Austin, it was ever sold actually, He's one by friend and that was built by the founder of Bumble. It was a woman and I do, I don't know what her partner does or whatever, but like you didn't build a fucking $40 million house.

1:38:08I know that. Unless you were, I know also like a total freak business person. But there is a little bit of me that goes like, I wonder what it's like to be with someone who outwardly is that high achieving. And that's not to say that's the only way to achieve. There's many, many other things that are more valuable than how much money you bring. But the dynamic typically is, you know, protect a provider and then helping. And even if that's not the way that the dynamic needs to be or even structurally quite is, even if you've got two breadwinners in the household, there's still this sort of expectation that the guy's going to show up in that way.

1:38:51But one of the saddest things to me is to see somebody who's won the game and is still playing it. Like what's an example? A 70s year old businessman who is now a grandfather, high powered, you know, CEO of a company founded a bunch built and sold and still going to the expose and still walking around hustling and grinding and giving out their card and, you know, staying up late and scrutinizing all the stuff. So like, dude, you've got a legacy that is so fucking far beyond this business thing that you do. Now, maybe in a minority of cases, it's your passion. It's just a door printer ink or whatever, turnip farming, whatever the fuck it is that you're right at.

1:39:36For the most part, what I see is people that just want to be validated by the world around them and they just need that. And I would say I've got a lot more grace for the people who haven't yet achieved it and are still chasing it. You know, if it's I want to become, but this is the problem with not having milestones and with the game being infinite that you can get to a situation where you never feel like you've arrived. I think this is exactly what these people are struggling with. They're like, no, no, no, no, it's when and I get to 10 million subscribers on YouTube, but no, no, no, no, it's when the business hits, I sell it for three billion, because the first one that was at one billion, that just wasn't quite in it, I need to repeat it.

1:40:15It's not just doing it once, because that could've been a fluke, I need to do it twice, or no, three times, because I timed the market, because it covered, like, you know, there's always an excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse. And after a while, you need to kind of admit to yourself that this is just an addiction to wanting to be validated by the world, and it's never gonna be enough, and you're trying to fill a hole internally with accolades and love externally. and that's for the most part not the way that it works. But in slight part is, if you never run a fucking hundred mile race, you'd be like, come on, I've got to do it.

1:40:46I've got to do this thing. You've got to do two 40, what's the next one? Yeah, it'd be 250. I know, how's to? Where is that? Arizona. Okay, what's the, we're in, we're just gonna be the first of May soon. So it's like the fifth of May or something, you're running it? Yeah, yeah, it's up from Jackson. Or is it? Is it Jackson's or no, no, no, what? Shit, no, I can't. Oh no, black can't. Fuck, no, I can't remember black Canyon city. I don't know to to a flagstaff. What's the temperature like in Arizona at this time of the year? I mean, it'll be hot during the day, of course, but it's, it's kind of high desert.

1:41:26So it'll be, could be cold at night. Brilliant. Yeah. Like when I did Moab, for example, it was maybe 90 during the day and then 190 got down to nine in the mountains. Quite a swing. Holy fuck. Yeah, so it's a tough one. But yeah, it'll be good. But yeah, it's always like finding that limit essentially because, you know, when you're saying that, I was thinking back to like, I mean, when I grew up, I didn't even know people actually paid off cars. I thought you just had a car payment. Like, you know, it's like, I didn't know or I thought, like that little mobile home I showed you, I thought I'd live there.

1:42:09And I didn't actually know people paid off their houses. I thought you just paid rent or your house payment forever. And I was just like, so now, now it's just like, I have to readjust, you know, my house I'm just like, okay, now I don't really know what to do. I don't really know what the goal is supposed to be. Yeah, I mean, that's gold medalist syndrome. Yeah, right, and a small, small regard. I know my mom and dad felt the same. One of my dad's proudest things is, you know, is mortgage free. Yeah. I didn't know that happened. Yeah, you just, I remember you showing me when we were driving around Eugene.

1:42:45It wasn't like a trailer park, it was like a barn, like a mobile like a single small thing. And you were saying, you know, when I grew up, I thought, wow, that would, you know, one of those in a truck like holy shit. Yeah, that was, that was awesome. That was the dream. Yeah, then those are called manufactured homes. Do they not have those here? Oh, yeah, they will do. Yeah, so it's like, it's like an old tray. They used to have a trailer park where it's like they're made out of metal. And now they look more like houses, but they're still sort of, they still coming on wheels. Internally, it's still the site gets set down.

1:43:15Still the same. Yeah. But for, you know, for out there, like where I showed you where we drove, which is like shit, that's awesome. Remember we went over that bridge that your sons used to jump off and there was a logger. Yeah. It was pulled up by the side of the road. Yeah. We had a little chat with him. Yeah, yeah. It's so cool. I know. Run driver. I'm interested in how you've navigated success or your relationship with success, warping sort of the original mission, not getting a set of velvet handcuffs or sort of champagne problem prison or whatever where you want to keep your foot on the gas, you want to keep pushing hard.

1:43:57You know, materially have a very different life to the one that you were used to and that you expected and that you grew up with and that even your kids grew up with, you sort of octaves across time. How does success warp your relationship with the original mission in that way? How have you found navigating that? Yeah, I mean, I just, well, I lean into the hate. So I'm always any negative about me is being reinforced. So I never feel like a success. So to speak, because I'm reading these hateful things people say about me. It's hard to feel successful when you're reading what a piece of shit you are, right?

1:44:40So I get reminded of that daily, but also it's like, you know, even when I had my regular job, I was a superintendent at the Water and Power Company. I felt like I never deserve that job. I'm like, no, they're going to figure out I'm not, even though I was good at it, but I always felt like I'm supposed to just be a worker. I'm a worker. That's my talent level, that's my ability, that's my intelligence is we need workers, that's me. And so I've never, that's all, even though I retired from that job and now I'm doing the other thing, it's just like I'm a worker, that's what I do. So whether it's running miles, lifting waste, doing the podcast, 160 episodes or whatever it is, it's just like, yeah, it's just a different form of being in the ditch.

1:45:31I thought that I was just gonna be in a ditch, You know, putting waterline in the ground on our work for the utility till I retired. So it's just, it's the same. It's just work. It's just in a different form. I get a question and I don't quite know how to phrase it, but I want you to try and think about it quite deeply if you can. What do you think, how do you think you would feel if you believed that you were worthy of the things that you've achieved, or if you believed that you were good enough?

1:46:14If I felt like I deserved this, because this is part of it. I don't even have never felt that way. I've never held a shield. Seems like it feel good. Wouldn't it, I'm guessing. I mean, wouldn't it feel good to feel like you're a success? I think that'd feel good. I've never felt that. So I don't, Because even if somebody told me that, or if somebody says that right now, I would just be like, I would just discount it. I'd be like, I'm not, they're fucking full shit. They're just saying that's what you're supposed to say to people. I mean, I wouldn't believe it. So I don't know. I'm not, I don't know.

1:47:07What if, let me give you another one. What if the next mountain that you need to climb is to be able to feel resonance and connection with the things that you've achieved in life? Man, I don't... It's like take a step back and say... Wow, I made it. Look at what I did. Yeah. I am good enough. I raised some fucking kid. I raised kids that are world record breakers and protect our country. I felt like that's, I did what I was supposed to do. So if I didn't raise the kids to be that way, I failed because they had it. Obviously they have it. So you have made it. So you were a success. No. You're like a, you're like a Gordon Ryan of taking compliments.

1:47:59I just, I just, I'm not I just did what I was supposed to do. I understand. So you can only fail. Right? Oh, okay. So it was an obligation. Yes. Right. In some ways, it was minimum accepted level of... To them. Because what if I... What if they weren't achieving these things? Then I failed. Because they had it in them. So as a parent, I was supposed to get the most. Have your kids believe that they can achieve incredible things and get them to do it? But I mean, you know, you could argue, well, why is it not two world records? Why wasn't he as seal and a ranger? Because you're not carrying it on your head.

1:48:38Yeah, you've got to carry it on your head. It's very important. No, I look, I really, I'm very, very impressed with everything that the fucking Haines household does. And I just wonder what, I wonder what, I wonder whether you could fly with a little bit more breeze behind you like internally with this stuff. Go fuck yeah, you know, just little glimmers, not all the time, right? I don't think it's going to kill your edge, but I'd love, and this is again me very much speaking to me, which is why again, I'm saying it how I want it to be, not how it is, it's for me. Yeah, I'd just love for you and for Goggins as well, you know, these, these guys that are really, really driven, you know, hatred and chip on your shoulder and this bitterness and the resentment and stuff like that.

1:49:30Great fuel, but I just wonder if there's, you know, can this be a hybrid car as opposed to just a diesel one? And maybe that's an interesting mountain for you to, or an interesting race for you to assess the difficulty of, because in the same way that spending a day on the couch would be incredibly uncomfortable in a manner that running 250 miles isn't for you, I wonder, okay, well, let's look inward. What is the I can do here with regards to this? Like, how can I fuck? What? Congratulating myself? No, dude, give me 200 kilos to deadlift a few hundred times. You know, like that's what I want to do.

1:50:18I understand that. That is really hard. Because when I think about even this race coming at me. I broke my foot, I've had all these injuries. And it's like, of course, my wife, people that care about me is like, we can't do the race. I'm like, I have to do the race. Well, what, what did, well, because speed land has issues coming out as a big promotion about me doing this race with the cocoa donut, 250 shoes that are road shoe and what, and like this, what I have expectations, the race let me in, you know, to drive awareness and to drive interest. It's like I got people... Relying on me. Not doing it is not an option.

1:51:04But what you're hurt doesn't matter. So it's like, yeah, I'm not quite there. I'm not quite there yet to where I can be like... Because normally it'd be like most people would probably be like, I'm injured. I was going to do it, but I broke my foot. And anybody would say, oh, yeah, that makes sense. That's a good reason. That's a good reason, but I can't do it. So I can't. Have you got grandkids yet? I'm gonna have one here on the 12th, Tanner. Congratulations, Tanner. I wonder what grandad life is gonna be like for you. I mean, if kids don't change you, do, do, do, Brent. Run it back, we'll do it again.

1:51:51I can't fucking one generation down. I looked it, that's one of the things that you would typically hear about the maniacal solo ranger guy that you know keeps working on, but he's softened by kids. Like no, no, no, kids were a vehicle for it. Like, you know, it went even harder. But I don't know, you, you, it'll be fascinating. Like you're a fascinating guy and I'm going to be really, really interested to watch what happens over the next few years is presumably more, the Haines household grows more and more and the grandkids thing and you go, fuck, I'm revisiting this baby -ing childhood thing and running this back.

1:52:33What was I at the last time this was the case? How do I want to show up this time for grandkids Haines? Yeah. I think it'll be different because as you said, even if I had kids now, where I am socially economically, you know, when they were born, we didn't have anything. You know, so it's just like it was a grind different now. So yeah, I don't know. Maybe it'll be different. Cam Haines, ladies and gentlemen, Cam, you're awesome, man. I'm so glad that you got to come on. Thank you. And your drink is amazing. Well, fantastic. Tell people about your book most importantly. Keep me dialed in. Good, good, good, good.

1:53:09That's what we need. Undeniable. Chris Williamson is featured, modern wisdom, because he's... chapter and on the back outlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, undeniable. It's available everywhere. It's ships on May 6th. The goal was last time. So you're in the middle of this fucking run. Yeah, when your book releases, so your publisher wants to will be chasing you down. That's why I'm doing this now to run away from the book. Yeah, well, I just said that the book, you know, book releases usually pretty predictable. You go and you do these appearances and that I said, mine's going to be a different. I'm going to be doing a 250 mile race and the book comes out and that's to me, that means you are undeniable if that's not even the philosophy.

1:53:53Yeah, so it's like last time they had endure, they got it up to number seven on New York Times, so I got screwed. I was the best seller of those, but it's an editorial. So just give me what I deserve. I just want number one this time. All right, okay. Well, I love it, dude. Not just because I'm plastered throughout it. It's fucking awesome. And I appreciate the fuck out of you. Oh, thank you, Chris. It's been getting to know you. It's been amazing getting to watch your growth and success is incredible. You put the pressure on me to thank you. It could be smart. Let me run 11 miles. Go fucking so.

1:54:28So yeah, I guess it's reciprocal. But thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Big fan of you and modern wisdom. So thank you. Appreciate you too, dude. All right.