#970 - Dr Mike Israetel - Exercise Scientist’s Masterclass On Motivation, Habits & Discipline

26:31Yeah. I watch one of your videos and I think, fuck, like, I learned something about whatever this thing is that Mike was talking about there. That's really interesting. Like I've left, like I feel regulated. And then there's other channel, you know, Pears Morgan is an interest in Feller and I respect very much what he does. And I've had fun on his show. I don't leave watching one of his videos typically, unless I'm on it, feeling very regulated. I leave feeling like I step outside of the door and I look around and I don't want to call my mum. I don't want to tell my friends that I miss them. I'm not that this colors don't seem quite as bright.

27:10You know just that, it's this sort of this low level agitation. Oh yes. And I think when you're faced with a question that's difficult, especially for something that's like messy and like meandering in a femoral like inspiration, you went to the exact right place, which is kind of tough to engineer that, although I think I've maybe got one or two strategies. But one thing that you certainly can do is invert it. How would I give myself as little inspiration to do the things to make my life live in the direction that I want? How do I do that? Yes, yes. 100%. And so you can also leverage inspiration with music.

27:55movies, etc. Just general media consumption. Music can be incredibly inspirational because it music does chemically what inspiration does by some other vector, but like instead of processing an image with your eyes, I want to look like that. The right crescendo in a song gives you that feeling of let's fucking go. That is literally the feeling of inspiration. So music's a big deal. The thing is is that you listen to a song. You get the feeling sweet. Feeling goes away after the song's over. Maybe a few minutes later. You look at a bodybuilder, you really want to look like cool. I want to do something.

28:37Goes away. Minutes later. One, and every time I spoke about this topic, I've used the analogy. If you go to watch like one of the with uh, what's his name, the nice fellow Michael B Jordan. Side diplomatic way to describe Michael B Jordan. The nice fellow. He's nice guy. He's not a nice guy. I think he is. Um, you know, when he's like beating the shit out of white people, which is fucking sweet because they need it. No, we all need it. Did the if I was black, I would have watched Rocky offended. Nobody beaten a fucking black man. A black is the fuck about here. White people, you must be crazy.

29:18Show me some realistic shit. I want to see a black man start undefeated fucking end undefeated John Jones goddamn us my hero. In any case, I'm watching a fucking Rocky movie with appropriately black people winning at boxing and I feel as shit I come out of the theater swinging the police get involved obviously. And the next morning I'm gonna sign up for a boxing gym. Maybe, but unlikely. So the one thing we have to notice about inspiration is that inspiration is two things. Sheep, which is nice. It's insanely overproduced. Insanely produced. If you want to get inspired, go to any fitness on YouTube.

29:58Inspirational inspiration and the YouTube search. You can just be on there forever. But it just doesn't, it's like it goes, like that. It's like a hit of cocaine at the club. You feel great for however long cocaine lasts. in the afterwards you're like, I need more cocaine. And so inspiration is essential to getting kicking you in the ass, but it's just one kick in the ass and then you're out the door. And then the next question is, what now? Because a lot of people over index and inspiration, they want to know, how do we get inspired to go to the gym? But I don't absolutely tell you like 500 things that will get inspired to go to the gym.

30:33I can give you a nice little off the cuff speech right now about why you should do it. It's going to get you to go to the gym once. It is not going to get you to go to the gym for a month straight. Sure, shit, not going to get you to go to the gym for 12 months straight, which is a real transformation out of time. So the next question we have to ask, is the inspiration does it thing? The inspiration is best seen as an initial booster rocket. It's not even getting you out of orbit. Just maybe a couple of inches off the launch pad. So one, I think you did actually our first big episode at the start of last year, when you're second -tied of feeling like shit, you go to the gym, I'll see you there.

31:08That I think probably did cause a bunch of people to go like, yeah, that fucked me, that went crazy. But a couple of the, at least one thing that for me, typically gives me types of inspiration, gives me boost of inspiration that seem to be step changes, even if they're not long lasting, is doing new things, doing things that are different, because I think if you continue to expose yourself to the same routine, which everybody likes. It's important. You need to have some sort of set structure to your day and your week and your month and stuff. Because if it's too chaotic, it's very hard to kind of repeat anything sufficient times to get good at doing anything and to lock in habits, which we'll talk about.

31:52But when I say yes to going in trying an improv class, when I say yes to going to a random jazz bar, when I say yes to going and watching a movie that I wouldn't have done typically, you're going on a road trip with a bunch of friends. maybe I know like two of the friends or whatever. I'm learning to drift a car this Saturday, or this Sunday, I'm learning to do. Oh! I can alpha shit, dude. I'm learning to drift. My wife's Asian, does that mean I already know how to drift a car? It's simply through Osmosis, from the original sound creation. Well long enough, oh, I've had a lot of that. Probably, Tokyo drift.

32:24You could call that your sex type, Tokyo drift. It's already out. It was not a long ride, Chris.

32:32And it's an interesting one for me, especially more interesting is I get a little bit older, openness to experience seems to decline a little bit as you get older as a personality trait, I think. You think you know who you are, what the world has to offer. If you've never been to an Italian restaurant, you have no idea about what a good or bad Italian restaurant is. And then when you step into one, you go, huh, that was the best and the worst Italian restaurant I've ever been into. It was the most inspirational and least inspirational Italian restaurant I've ever been. Definitely the most Italian.

33:04And least at the same time. That's right. And then you go, OK, well, I go to the second one and then you start to rank or to stuff. And after a while, you have a big enough data set that you think, well, I've tried quite a few Italian restaurants. And I think that the one that I like is going to be very difficult to beat, which by design makes it, well, if I roll the dice and I go somewhere new, the likelihood that this is better than the best or even close to the best becomes less and less and less and less. And then I need a higher level of evidence, dude, you have to go here, the reviews are insane.

33:34Look, it will glide out the door, etc., etc. But for me, reminding myself that when I say yes to doing new things last summer, I went to Boseman, Montana, and Big Sky Montana, and I go to see professional bull riding three times, PBR events, three times. I'd never been to one before I was blown away. These guys are like fucking like tiny brave Brazilian dudes. No fucking helmet like swagger. Everything was cool. A guy jumped out of a helicopter while a cherub 12 -year -old sang the National Anthem, flying a flag behind him and landed in the middle of it. I'm like, this is fucking sick. That's inspiration.

34:07Very, very. But had I have not decided to say yes to going to the PBR, I wouldn't have got to see that. So, in short, I think that saying yes to new experience, and trying to seek out things that are markedly different, like genuinely or fog normal to the existing experiences you've had, sure, you may roll the dice and you may hate improv. But even when you hate it, that might be a thing where you go, that's some negative fucking inspiration shit. I don't wanna be like any of these improv motherfuckers, you know, like pretending that they're in a pub in England throwing darts at the board and saying, like, oh, I have now, well, what do you want tonight, sir?

34:44But so for me, that's at least one way that I think you can kind of artificially inseminate a little bit more inspiration into your life. And I'm never going to argue against insemination. Chris, I'm going to be honest, man. I'm doing a lot of vicarious living through your actually active and exploratory life. I'm for sure in a part of my life where I think I'm really missing out. but Crystal and I, my wife, we've had a few years of just grinding our shit to the bone working, and then a few months of like, we got both got surgery, we're covered from surgery, just going anywhere really, and so we're kind of big time cabin fevered out of our minds, and the idea that like, going out and experiencing novelty is a good thing to me right now resonates like crazy.

35:36Because it's the thing that you can't do, But then when it's the thing that you know when you're in wedding season or whatever When the back's fine and you can you have to put a suit on and whatever it might be Fuck my god like another fucking wedding. I need you overboard because like another wedding as a big deal After the ninth one of this season I love fucking weddings man. I have a whole take you ever see me to wedding anyone listening You ever see me to wedding first of all come up and say hi second of all I have like a protocol I want to hear this. I can't believe you've optimized attending weddings.

36:09Oh, well, yeah. Well, it's like that. The brain, I'll try to optimize everything. So I always, I'm people watching 1 ,000 % of the time, because there's so much good stuff. Who secretly fucking hates who through body language? Amazing. So much culture there. Two families of radically different ethnicity and culture brought together. I mean, money. It's just like watching a physics chemical reaction. And then my wife and I, we do not ever, ever, ever fuck around with hors d 'oeuvres or derives of serious business. And, and you got to catch the weight, weight or derives people as they come out. So number one, number one, understand where the hors d 'oeuvres are, they are, is hors d 'oeuvres time right now.

36:55Okay. So you want to look at the spawn point of where the hors d 'oeuvres are coming from. That's number two. First is knowing hors d 'oeuvres are important. You need to be on your fucking piece and cue. Eyes up. Tentos down. You know, like when you see army movies and the guys like asleep at the fucking Recon, like, get wake, wake him up. Or derives are coming. You idiot. And then two, they're not coming randomly. They don't instantiate quantum like wherever people bring them out, friendly people. People you want to make eye contact with and smile. They're like, you got kind to everyone. But those people you really want to do one of these.

37:29Because if they catch your eye, they know two things. One, I don't want to push or derives on unwitting people. And two, I'm supposed to be giving or derives to people. It's literally my job. If they catch your eye, they're like that fat motherfucker with a giant head clearly need your derives. And his shorter, also thick wife. Clearly, she also, none of us need our derives. These people want or derives. They want them. And so the spawn points are absolutely critical, Chris. So bang up there. Yeah. And then so you, now, the other thing you have to watch out for or is some people are better at the shit than you are.

38:05Crystal and I were at a wedding where one of the people was Chinese, yo overseas Chinese ladies, do not fuck around. They're on that spawn point's quick. And also, I love so. So Chinese ladies, I have like a Chinese lady impression that I do for friends of house. It would get me canceled instantly. They do in crystals on, I'll do it. But they are so fucking ruthless in the most hilarious and awesome way possible. They, like you know, like what we consider socially tactful or not tactful, they could give a fuck. And also they run like an empire. They're richer than you. They're more successful.

38:37You're not above, you can't judge them. Social hierarchy wise, like, oh, these commoners, like no, that lady runs the organization and made your cell phone. You're like, oh fuck, they take handfuls of hors d 'oeuvres off the fucking plate. So if you let them beat you to it, there are no hors d 'oeuvres. And these are discriminating folks. They don't just take any bullshit. They take the fucking lobster shit, the good stuff, Chris. You know when the hors d 'oeuvres come around and it's like, oh, it's like salary with cream cheese in it, you're like, the fuck? How did you guys leave this on the wedding plan list?

39:05No one wants this, you know no one wants this. And so if the whole system is designed wake up or derives are coming, check all the points, eye contact, and you want to be a person that's known for two things. I promise this rant is almost over one, one to your derives, but two being incredibly kind and polite and not overstaying your welcome, not just trying to take three or four because they're They're supposed to be doing this, right? If you take half of them, they're kind of like, that person's weird, they got enough. I'm gonna avoid them. You wanna be like, oh my God, instantly eat it. I'd be like, that is so good.

39:37I'm gonna see you in a bit. And then I'm okay, if I can weirdo. And they walk off, then later when they come back, they know you're good for it. You're a comfort to their eyes. Cause you're an older, buty -cold. 100%. They scroll through their phone, it's late. Becky, that's not like a complicated. Stay see she's cool, but she with Jim again, I don't know. Mike and Crystal, they're in. Look at them, just salivating. So 100 % or derives game, weddings are amazing. You sit down, you get to like, I love sitting at tables, I don't know anyone, get to just like, find out what the hell's going on, the weed's hitting.

40:12I don't know what's going on. It's probably an amazing. My wife's getting drunk, it's great. Weddings are amazing. Love is in the air. I can go to a trillion weddings in a minute. One invite me to a wedding. By all means, please do, I'll just... Open weddings at salopeesrank .com. Yeah, if you send your invite, Harvey, strength. There was this thing, didn't Taylor Swift randomly attend certain fans weddings that had invited apparently when you get to a certain level of fame, you just get, you've been such a huge part of a, we bonded over your last hour, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And apparently she just would rock up to some...

40:42That's so sweet. That's pretty fucking sick. All our mood. Point being there, if you want some inspiration in the romantic realm, saying yes to a wedding that you get invited to, it's probably a good idea. Yeah, fuck, like look at these two people doing their nupchuls in front of me. Believe in love. 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, Momentus's 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.

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41:49Right now, you can get 35 % of your first subscription and that 30 -day moneyback guarantee by going to the link in the description below, or heading to livemomentus .com slash modem wisdom using the code modem wisdom. A checkout that's L -I -V -E -M -O -M -E -N -T -O -U -S dot com slash modem wisdom and modem wisdom. A checkout. All right, so inspiration. Amazing. Yep. Short -lived. Do not rely on it to take you all the way to accomplishing your goal. it can't do that by design. What we need is another construct, and that's motivation. A lot of people say motivation is all of these things, but if you look into the technical shit, it's actually just a subcomponent, just the most popular phrasing.

42:34Motivation is the gold driven desire to do a thing. It's seeing the top of a mountain that's many valleys away and going, I want, I want that. I want to go up there. Because if you're inspired to do some hiking and some mountaineering that gets you with your pole in hand, with your white people flannel close on, with your all the white people, you know, the archterics bags and she just says you're just really white. You know what I'm saying? Dorezy Montana people. You got all your shit together. You show up to the head of the trail. Motivate inspiration will get you there. it will get you no further.

43:15Because after a while, like, this sure shit a lot of bugs. That can hike. Yep. You need a top of the mountain to be like, anytime you forget where you're going, that is huge. So, inherently... It must be a goal. Yes, inherent in motivation is some sort of goal and how do you define goal? Goal. Anything, any kind of end state that you find more preferable than your current state. Generally, those the easiest thing in the world to figure out, however, ever. It has to be a specific goal. And that's a big one. So for example, if you say, I want to get in shape, you are exhibiting inspiration. Congratulations.

43:55What the hell is in shape mean? You could quit after a day. You got slightly better shape. You could after a week. Yeah, those blood work change and everything. What does in shape mean? And on the other, the dark side of it is for idiots like you and I who can't switch off that's like, yeah, I'm like, I have striated glutes, but it's not enough. It's not over enough because you never set a goal and he just rolling. You went over the mountain back the other way and you're just like out of the country, you're not even Peru anymore. You're not even Colombian. Who the fuck knows, right? And so a specific concrete goal is really, really important.

44:29Now, there are ways to choose that goal that have a much higher probability of giving you two things. One, awesome things that you wanted and two, actually attaining those things, reasonable, realistic things. For example, if you start lifting weights and you're like, I want to look like Ronnie Coleman, let's see, my bodybuilding acumen, Eric Helms is going to judge me for this. 2001, Mr. Olympia, Ronnie Coleman, 2001 Arnold, Ronnie Coleman, it's just the freakyest, most symmetrical, beautiful Ronnie ever. Is that when he wore the cloak, the king? No, that was later. Oh, shame. King Ronnie. I love Ronnie.

45:09That's the fucking man. I had a chance to meet him a while back and I just basically said almost nothing because I was shit in my mask. Well, you look like you don't even lift. I'm just kidding. I thought that's probably what was thinking. He probably thinks that about all of us. You're not gonna accomplish Ronnie Coleman's physique almost certainly. That as a goal is setting yourself up for failure. It's also a goal that's like, oh, I want to climb on Everest when I'm a start in South America. You can't even see the shits on the other side of the Earth. They had your fucking mind. So you want to pick goals that are tractable.

45:41Like you can bite off a chunk and get closer to the goal in a measurable way. But also goals that are something that you will really pat yourself on the back for doing. So for example, I'm going to be like on my diet and I'm going to do a good week on my diet. Come on. What's the end state of that? How are you going to look? No, not noticeably different. You did something you want. And I'm going to my diet for three months. Hey, not that's going to accomplish some measurable stuff. So goals are really good if they get you feeling like if I accomplish this, things will be different. I will really feel good about this.

46:18But not so crazy that it's too hazy off in the distance. And not so close that it's too easy and the accomplish right away and you never even feel good about yourself and it should be as specific as reasonably possible concrete. I would like to lose 10 pounds by March. 10 pounds, you know what that is. I want to wait 220 pounds by March very easy to see both how you're doing on your way to the goal and if and when you have accomplished your goal. How do you think about linking this to emotion, identity, sense of self, sense of purpose? You know, But this, I'm going to stick to my diet for an amount of time.

46:55I'm going to lose these 10 pounds. Great. Why? Why are you going to do that? Is the why question even important in this sense? It can be important, but it is architected outside of this. And just a, so what we're talking about, these six to seven, depending on a six constructs of adherence, they're like a spear. I don't tell you what the Pope the spear at, but I give you one hell of a spear. What to poke the spear at, how to feel about it afterwards, that's on you. I mean, you could have a motivation like, I'm going to run the best Pimp job in this city. You know, I'm going to be the greatest Pimp.

47:32I guess could be mildly unethical. You could regret it a lot. You could get shot to death by rival pimps and you could be jailed. But, you know, you could use all of these strategies to do your best pimping. Mm -hmm. Both sides of the hand. We did inversion on the inspiration thing. What about inversion on the motivation thing? What would bad demotivation look like? What's bad motivation? How do you avoid motivation? It's a great question. One thing I'll say is there is a function for running away from bad stuff. But this whole, remember the bipolarity thing really applies to motivation. Here's an example.

48:20Fat person. It's had enough of it. I don't want to be fat anymore. Not a good motivation. First of all, it's not operationalized well. What's your cutoff for fat or not fat? As you get into physique sport, you will realize there is no. The leanest bodybuilding of all time has at least one person in his comment section. It's like It's blue to the little dryers. It's all about, yeah. It's also, you're running away from something. And the further away you get from it, the more deflated you are. It's like trying to get, you have like a little ship you build with like one of those little mock sailboats.

48:58And you have like a blow dryer at the beginning. And then it gets away from blow dryers. It's not moving anymore. There's like, oh, fuck. Great analogy. So, where should I come up with that spot? It was that blow dryer. Why? Where do you plug in the blow dryer, Chris? This really have a Tesla by the lake, it plugs in, I think. So that is not dependable, and it causes a lot of people a bit of existential question marking when they're halfway or two thirds of the way through their journey. Someone's like, are you like almost there? You've done so well, and they're like, I thought where I didn't want to be.

49:29There's not like a there there. Also, there's no one to shake your hand psychologically by analogy, there's no like, I did it. I did it. And there's like, did what? I ran away, you know what I mean? From not being a thing, but there's no one to congratulate you. So I would say trying to run towards things is a really good idea. Stay. So for example, I don't want to be weak anymore. Not a good motivation. I want to be strong. Better. Now, you just define strong for me in a temporary sense. The cool thing of motivation is that it's sequential. You get to a goal. Your life doesn't end. You just like maybe pick another goal, if you like.

50:05So if you're like, okay, I'm really weak, this is a fucking problem. Get your lifts right now, slap 20 pounds on each one of them, set that as your motivation, your goal, set yourself a reasonable timeframe, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, hit the pedal. You know exactly how strong you need to be. And psychologically, the value of being stronger, it makes sense. It resonates. And as you get closer to it, you feel under swag a little bit more. You're not running away from being weak. you're running towards strength that is a constantly refilling source of motivation for. And so that is, I would say, one of the biggest things to avoid with motivation is the running away from things.

50:45I would say running two things is more dependable. The thing is, a lot of the most inspiring stories, ironically, are people not wanting certain things anymore. But inspiration, again, is that blow dryer? Something got to be pulling you on the other end. And that's a big deal. How do you think about the relationship between action and motivation? Because it seems to me at least some stuff from neuroscience kind of suggests that when you get moving, when you move toward a thing, you then sort of start to backfill a story about motivation in a way and then that continues to push you forward. You spoke earlier on, I sat down, this is hard, this is difficult, but the action increased motivation and then that kind of became the sort of self -referential cycle.

51:35Is this jumping ahead too much or is this part of motivation when you think about the action motivation sort of feedback loop? There's so much going on there, especially successful action on your way towards a goal that gets you closer to it is beautifully reinforcing systems, like the flywheel situation where more of it is better and better and better and better and better and better than to your goal. But this is a great transition point for the next landmark of adherence, the next thing that we have to talk about. And that is motivation and having a goal is like totally dope and critical I might add.

52:12It's like a general looking over a contested city and being like, we're going to be at the end of that flag pole by tomorrow. Fela's we're going to capture this fucking city. Cool. Everyone's happy. That doesn't get the tanks going. That doesn't tell the troops where to go. That doesn't get the hospital in the back to get rated except some casualties, shit like that. When you are like, I'm gonna gain 20 pounds in each lift. Sweet. What's day one gonna look like at the gym? Gobs gonna gain, right? Let's fucking gain, baby. There is missing something and that's an intention. The intention is another way of saying two things.

52:50I have a plan. The plan as meaningless without motivation. The plan has to be like plan for what? You imagine like getting on chat you'd be like, hey, can you give me a plan? He'd be like, yeah, are you high? Plan for what? Now, if you say can you give me a plan for? Oh, shit, hell yeah, it'll be typing away at you for forever. Intention means you have a plan and you are putting just a tiny bit of your pride on the line to say I'm going to do the plan. So this is the emotion piece coming in on that line. Oh yeah, sure. Because people can be motivated. And so first of all, almost everyone can be inspired to do damn near anything.

53:29Tons of people can be motivated to do damn near anything. How many people actually construct a plan and put their little bit of their nut sack on the line for am I actually doing the shit? Because intention is the bridge between what you want and what you're going to get. actually executing the plan is the only thing that actually causes success. Up until this point, it's kind of been a mental exercise. Totally mental. Now it's okay, I want this thing, I want to lose 15 pounds. What is that chew or something? What you got in there? The nicotine toothpicks, not sponsored. What the fuck? Do you want to try one?

54:12Do you? I don't do nicotine. Well, neither do I, but these toothpicks are really fucking tasty. And they, what I want, well, they're just like they're coated in... This is nicotine. ...Hepim and watermelon. Actually, if I'm being honest, the nicotine is secondary to the fact that they taste nice because peppim and watermelon taste. Yeah. I'm like just chewing away on it. Are you gonna like get super high and throw up or something? Yeah, I think I've tolerated... I'm moving at the right pace. Yeah, this is a very slow moving treadmill. I'm just keeping good. I've got to try and keep up with you somehow, Jesus fuck, let's go on.

54:45Okay, nicotine, eggs. That's it, I love it. So if you're actually gonna do the thing, you're gonna get somewhere, I wanna, you know, lose 12 pounds, I wanna put 20 pounds on my list at the gym, I wanna do that, XYZ, then you must have a plan that rudimentarily at least approximates getting you somewhere along that axis because you can always alter your plan. There has to be a plan of what to do. It's not setting the goal of losing 12 pounds in 12 weeks that's going to get you in shape. It's eating meal one, eating meal two, not having snack number one that was unplanned, eating meal three, going to eat your workout, eating meal four, going to sleep on time and repeating.

55:27And you intend to do it and the it is the plan. You have motivation, you have a direction. You have a plan that's the shotgun shell you load in pointing at the direction and then intention is pulling the actual trigger out the shotgun shell goes and hits your target There is no replacing that part of it and we have a lot of social media stuff about inspiration great point tons on motivation Intention, tan, very unsexy, technical. And you need that part, but that part is super, super, super important. And sometimes, many times, almost all the time, I would say, predictably, there's going to be an asymmetry.

56:20Your arc that your goal has set out of how much adherence that you need to the plan to get where you're going. Let's say you're hiking on a trail and like in order to get to the, whatever, why people should, the plateau that overlooks the fog and lake or whatever, by XYZ time, you need to hike at two miles an hour. And your motivation, your sensation of I'm doing the thing, the thing with motivation is that it actually waxes and wings, goes up and down. generally it's pointed in the right direction. But if you really wanted to get in shape, some days you wake up and you're like, oh, come on, get me to the gym.

57:04Some days you wake up and you're like, oh, the gym exists, why? I need more sleep. I don't want any of this. Totally just like wiggled out on my fitness. I don't actually need people or capitalists, liars, body image. Something to excuse myself, Jews. I blame the Jews for many things. Mostly birthing this god you see in front of you. In any case, at some point, your desire, your human feeling for what you need to be doing, for your honoring your intention, for checkboxing the plan is going to be here. And what is required for you, physical movement wise, is going to be here. You're hiking the trail at 1 .8 miles an hour.

57:53two miles an hour is where you need to be to get to the shit on time. How do you bridge this gap? You bridge it with something called discipline and discipline is when you take the battery of willpower and you squirt that extra juice to make up the difference. Your motivation is only getting you so far. Sometimes it's usually it's far enough. Sometimes it's not. Just to look back to the motivation thing. Yeah. Why do you think, is it the reason that motivation is way more sexy than something like intention or goal planning? When he's, motivation screams Greg Plitt, RIP. Intention and plan setting screams Ali Abdahl.

58:39Like also, lovely guy, but I don't care about your notion template. Anywhere near as much as I do about Greg Plitt in the car park of a golds gym saying something in like grainy black and white image to me. Is it that we have this sort of inherent, oh well, that's a person doing a thing that they're pulled to do. It seems like they're swimming downstream with this because the motivation is moving them toward the thing. Whereas the intention is like, this probably means it's kind of going to be hard and I'm going to have to sort of negotiate with the world in a way and I'm going to have to tap into this sort of stuff.

59:16I think it's most easily explained by the radical asymmetry of the human brain. The prefrontal cortex and all those associated regions of delayed gratification, of constructing a plan, appraising a plan, executing a plan, getting feedback to the plan, reconstructing the plan, re -executing, re -appraising, et cetera. That shit is like, it takes up a little bit of your brain. A ton of the rest of your brain is like animal shit. Who am I banging? What food am I going to eat afterwards? How am I going to get drunk with my homies and start some shit? That's a lot of stuff. And so when we're talking about raw raw animal shit, like two gorillas smashing into each other, that's that's fucking inspiring Yep, because we have a lot of our brain dedicated to looking at that and being like holy shit.

59:59That that's what I'm made of But if you look at Like a server farm with data center at night just Most people are like no, I think that's a fuck are we here? Are we gonna get arrested for being in here? To me, I find this just grotesquely inspiring because I have this whole fetish, iron, red bullshit, religious fantasy about productivity and all that dumb stuff. But to most people, and to me on most of my days, the idea that your ability to appraise and rearchitect and implement a very logical plan and sequence is mostly just like, is this movie over yet? What does this book is just about? Sun sexy just doesn't match most of our evolutionary past.

1:00:39Now, in our evolutionary future, all merge with AI and shit, planning and organization and coordination is exactly the shit. That's what builds things. That's actually the real thing we're supposed to be doing, but we're a little bit out of our element. Like if you asked them, aliens came down to earth, and they were just assuming like, oh, humans are currently doing the thing they're supposed to be doing to maximize their survival probability. They'd be like, why are humans in bars in Austin? They'd be like, try to get titties in their face? Why? To access milk? No, there's nothing like that.

1:01:07There's this whole mating procedure. It's really outdated. It's really outdated. So that's one of the reasons that human drive towards just the gutter will shit is what I think gives inspiration a ton of slack. Motivations are all fun to talk about. You get to talk about people with intention. Discipline can bring the conversation down. Yeah, it gets a sexy again now. It gets that, what's his name? Mr. Goggins type of shit going and that gets sexy. Before we continue, if you haven't been feeling a shop or energized as you'd like, Like getting your blood work done is the best place to start, which is why I partnered with function because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers.

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1:02:24That's function health .com slash Modern wisdom You one final element on the intention thing is holding yourself to your own promises, right? I'm made I had some inspiration. I was motivated to do a thing. I have this commitment. Satagall. Yep. Have a plan. Yes. But I'm going to keep my words to myself. And again, this feels like a new sort of touch on it. I'm putting a bit of me. I have some chips on the table in terms of self -worth, in terms of my... I did... Something in there. Oh yeah. This is a part of me. And it's important to me. I do this thing. Let me tell you why I squinted. It is absolutely true that you need to put your knots on the line for the shit.

1:03:07And when you do not honor your intentions, it is totally okay. And in fact, probably right, to feel a little bit of like some of you is missing now. You lost something there. It's like someone punk you out in middle school. But it was you walk away from that. Yes, the worst, right? You don't walk away from that feeling hole. You walk away from that like with a by your shoulder. On the other hand, there has to be that that's one end of the spectrum. The other end is you're going to try a lot of different shit and you're a human being who is flawed and also prone to changing the direction of where they're working towards.

1:03:42And if every single thing you start off on is do or die, everything in my pride is on the line for the shit, you're going to lose it, man. I get that way about a lot of stuff. Yeah, and it is not a very good thing because in someone's like hey, like we're abandoning this project at our P We need to do this project now. I'm like What I'm worthless. Yeah, it's just how do you navigate that then we've had conversations about this while I've been walking around the fucking Whiteest parts of Austin

1:04:16How do you navigate that? I think this is a real important point to linger on the perennial insecure overachiever who, you know, Mike said, I gotta run towards something I want. There's not just run away from something that I fear. It's like, yeah, but myself worth hinges exclusively on my ability to be productive and useful in the world. I have to, people must like me and that means I need to be productive and operationally efficient and if I'm not and if I don't dance through today perfectly, then it means even at the end of the day, the one thing I didn't do makes me feel like a piece of shit.

1:04:46But, you know, there's minds a lot havin' with. Our new app brain sex. Yes. Um, absolutely critical to bring up. Um, I use the waking up app. Me too. I miss your Sam Harris. Do you have a code? I have a fucking code, Chris. Thank you, Jaron Lohanstein. Jaron's the fucking man. Yeah, he's a sick guy. Also, there's a, the first John Wick movie. You remember John Wick? He, the Russian mobster guy has an assistant who's American. Looks identical to Jerem and no one talks the same way. You can tell me it's a different person. I don't believe you. Well, anyway. Does he have a twin brother? Might be him.

1:05:33Might be his twin brother. Might actually be his twin brother who's in Hollywood. I only just thought that was one of the best acting jobs ever. He's like my hero. That guy's my fucking hero. He's the only reasonable American dude. He's like, can we just stop killing people and make my... I just want to come up to that guy in the movie be like, you need to be in a real banking job. You need to be around these people. But the Russians do the Russian thing. So much more. He's like, can we be civil? I think you're in the wrong profession. Meditation. Waking up Apple Sam Harris. WakingUp .com slash Opie's strength.

1:06:00I don't think that the doctor might. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, some shit like that. And then in any case, one of the things that Sam says that's incredibly beautifully phrased than I use myself a lot is to like, especially when you're meditating is to sit back in your mind, who rest in the back of your mind, and just observe. And the more you meditate on that and how to actually difficult it is, and when you succeed in doing it, the more profound it becomes. And so if you get in this loop in your head of, am I worthwhile? Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? You just do two things.

1:06:37When I sit back and go, you know what? We are all growing on this beautiful tree of life in the universe. I am but a speck in the cosmos. us. I matter in approximate sense in an ultimate sense who the fuck knows. I have no attachment to any of this shit or the asteroid can kill us tomorrow. When I step back like this, I'm no longer attached to my identity as an achiever, as a success, as a motivator, as an accomplisher. I don't have attachment anymore. I don't have an identity. Then, when I'm sufficiently calmer and more relaxed, I walk back in and I just do one One thing, operationalize, which means just go logically about the shit.

1:07:17What actually do I need to get done? Get this. How do I marshal my efforts to do it? Okay, all this stuff. Just go do the thing. As soon as you start thinking like, okay man, I gotta have an intention. I better not let myself down. In times of stress that can help, but generally what helps me the most to siss it back and be like, none of this fucking matters. That doesn't matter. Still want it though. Let's get it done. Calmly. Just fucking do the thing. And then so all these wonders of am I doing hard enough work enough that's between you and your whiskey at night recounting your memories of serving the secret service shit like that, you know, all right discipline So again the asymmetry or the the the The lack Motivation not high enough today.

1:08:01I still need to go get my workout done What I can do is take my willpower Which is that sensation And it can leverage my pride. And I need to squirt and get juice in there to tell myself it just does not fucking matter how you feel. Because the one thing with motivation that I've seen a lot on the internet is people will comment. They came in, it's really tough getting to the gym today, just any words of like anything to motivate me, I just haven't been in the gym in a while. Shot the fuck up. What the hell are you talking about? And I don't mean that disrespect with just as comedy, but I mean something there.

1:08:40It's a little deeper. When you expect to feel like you always want to go to the gym or always want to do your taxes or always want to do whatever it is you think is important, you have made a grand illusion. Some of the time you will not want to do the thing. The motivation will spike here. What it takes to get the thing done is up here. And at that point, there's not an amount of motor. You're all done motivating. It's still not enough. Because sometimes, I don't know if you've been through this crisp, but like, you have to do a hard thing. Maybe it's at the end of the day, maybe it's in the middle, maybe it's some big deal.

1:09:18And you like, no, logically, it's important. It's gotta get done. And you try to search inside for like that. You know, like those old Ninja movies where the guy would get beat up and they didn't meditate, and you would like, remember, was teaching, and you cannot, like, that shit. Where the fuck is that? I've done that searching. It is this not there. If you come up totally dry in any reason why you should be there. Some was like, you're like in the green room like waiting to get interviewed. And then someone's like, all right, you're up in 30 seconds, you just don't want to be there. And you're like, okay, mind, tell myself something that makes me want to be here.

1:09:45It's just like, huh? What? Where the fuck are we in the green room? Oh, hey, how fun. You're like, I got demon now that worked. So there's nothing there. Interesting. There's no one coming to save you. Except Mr. Goggins, who's going to punch you square in your face and tell you shot up and do the thing. And that is a 100 % what you need right there. Sometimes when the motivation isn't high enough, your intention takes you here. You breathe in, breathe out, find that part of you that's Russian or Irish or Nigerian or whatever the fuck it is, that old shit. And go fuck this, let's do this. Let's go.

1:10:22No logic, no reason, no like, oh, but this is true meaning just fucking do it. problem. That drains your battery of willpower. You only have a few pumps at that thing every day until you're out until you really don't give a shit anymore. Good news. You don't need it all the time. You just need it in emergencies. Remember earlier I said like people who start the discussion with discipline and willpower is just fucking wrong. I was like 12 weeks of dieting. My man, you might have enough discipline over the course of a 12 week diet to get yourself raw, rot up like 10 or 15 times or something. Sure, shit, not every day, man.

1:11:02Sure, shit. Now, multiple times a day, you must be crazy. You'll quit. Everyone quits. You just out and out. I mean, you're out literally of like the substrate in your vesicles and your neurons that gives you that feeling. Once you drain that, it's just incapable mechanically of doing anything. You're like, I just don't care. I just don't care. I'm done. So you got to be real interested in how to maximize your motivation and make make sure it is as little variance as possible and as high up and close to your adherence level you need as possible, ideally over it. Like I've almost every pro bodybuilder, they're so passionate about what they're doing, their motivation wobbles, but it wobbles like five miles above what it's required for them to do their magnificent stuff.

1:11:46They'll drop below it. So people ask them like, like there's a comedy thing, every time you see you're a bodybuilder, a lot of, a lot of normies, a lot of regular folks, not crazy people like us, they must take a lot of discipline. Everybody, but look at their face when that happens. If you're around that, look at their face, because they're gonna be searching for like why shit to say, because there's no fucking discipline involved in that shit, I want to be here. I want to eat these fucking meals. And also, if I feel like I don't, it's real quick for me to go down and just raise my motivation or suddenly just like fucking thoughts of being a fucking radical shape and war and stride glutes and Spartans or whatever naked.

1:12:20And all need to grit down for that. I want to be here. Most bodybuilders, they want to do what they want to do. Most elite athletes just want to do what they want to do. Sometimes you need that injection. And recognizing when that is, doing it appropriately, and then recognizing, okay, I can't keep doing it like this. Let me go back and try to simplify the process that elevates my average motivation to above my adherence. There are absolutely ways of doing it. Those ways are typically boring. a lot of people have discussed them as far as habits, but they are insanely, insanely effective. Because if dieting is very hard for you, training is very hard for you, and you're squirting willpower through discipline and it's like the na's or whatever.

1:13:06You got a little tiny tank. You can't keep going like that. So after four weeks, someone's like, how is your diet then you're like, man, it's just been crushing it, just discipline and motivation and willpower on just throwing it at the target. You're not gonna last. So you got to figure out a way to take that average motivation and boost it significantly, which means one of two things. You have a line of adherence. How difficult it is to do the thing. You have a little wobble of motivation. Let's say it's underneath it. How much you actually want to do the thing? Will power via discipline fills in the gaps.

1:13:38You can do one of two things. Elevate your motivation, which is possible. Another thing is bring the adherence down so that it's easier for you to get your job done. For example, if you have to drive one hour to the gym and back every day, you're going to need a lot of motivation like you die definition and probably a lot of willpower too. If your gym is five minutes from your house by walk, the degree of effort, the amount of motivation you need to have to be adherent is quite small. And now you're on the path to success. And so all of these constructs sometimes culminate with habits. Building habits, when you have something habituated, your degree of adherence that you're attaining is just easier with your normal degree of motivation.

1:14:31And you may have a situation where you're using substantially less willpower, a situation where you use almost no willpower, and even in a situation which will power, it just kind of left the chat. And people ask, like, what was your last 12 weeks of dieting? You're like, so easy as breathing or I just do my shit. And I go, what, do you ever like need to grit your teeth? Like, no, I don't think so. Be chewing chicken breast, yeah. But other than that, just do my thing. And then it would have taken more willpower to have not done the thing than to have done the thing. Oh, absolutely. Because once something is you're in the habit of doing, you're like, you You know, let's say you're prepping for a show and you're like getting ripped up and everything's going great, you're eating your meals.

1:15:12And someone's like, hey man, aliens just came down to earth. They're gonna give all of our wishes to us. You're just gonna be able to be stripped instantly. You don't even need to go do the show. Everyone's gonna win everything. It's just paradise. There's ships just down there. I'll see you down there. You're just kinda like, I was supposed to eat my 3 PM meal. It's like an aliens ruined my plans. You're already vactored into that direction. And if you have architected your habits in such a way that make the whole process seem like it's downhill, if you can do that work, and it takes a while to learn all the skills and fit what's right for you, then at the end of the day, you end up starting big goals.

1:15:58And it is a little bit of learning curve. Once you're on track and habituated to them, it's just inevitable that they're going to fall pretty much because someone's like, oh, it's going to be tough. You're like, I don't know, I'm just going to get it done. You know, imagine talking to someone who has run hundreds of marathons and you're talking to them at like mile 12 of the marathon, they're just recreationally doing it. Pretty tough 12 miles up ahead. They're like one foot in front of the other. But that's crazy. Like, well, yeah, but I have like 80 trillion habits of how to run marathons. This is actually just what I do at this point.

1:16:28I cannot oversell habit development. It's almost impossible. A quick aside, I've been drinking AG1 every morning for years. Uh -huh. Uh -huh. And it just got even better. AG1 next gen keeps the same simplicity, one scoop, one spade, but now comes with four clinical trials backing it. In those trials, AG1 next gen was clinically shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels within three months and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times even in healthy adults. Basically, they've upgraded the formula with better probiotics, mobile available nutrients, and clinical validation.

1:17:05And it's still NSF certified for sport, which means that you know the quality is legit. I actually got to meet the team that runs AG1, all of the top -bots at a offsite a couple of months ago here in Austin. And I was really impressed. They took my feedback on boards. They were very receptive. And I actually think that they put but some of my ideas into the product and the new marketing. So any success that you see going forward from now can be exclusively attributed to me. So hooray for me. And if you're still unsure, they've got a 90 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it and use it every single day for three months.

1:17:39And if you don't like it, they'll just give you your money back. Right now, you can get a year's free supply for the D3K2 and 5 free AG1 travel packs plus that 90 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below. are heading to drinkag1 .com slash modern wisdom. That's drinkag1 .com slash modern wisdom. Let's invert it. Before we even get into how to enhance habit mechanism adherence, what are the things that people should avoid doing? Or the biggest mistakes, pitfalls that people do when it comes to instantiating habits and making that gap a little bit easier? Cheese. One is excessive rigidity.

1:18:21I must run at 7 a .m. every morning. Okay. What if your boss says you haven't eaten that day? Starts at 6 .30. It's fucker you gonna do. Not much. You have to allow some flexibility. Big deal. Unless you plan on the world being completely fungible to your goals and you just plan on running through walls all the time, habits have to have an importance. It's important for me to brush my teeth in the morning and at night. But if I skip one tooth brushing, because I don't have my toothbrush, because I'm at a hotel with God knows who and I'm brushing my teeth in another way, if you know what I mean, it's all right.

1:19:07And that rigidity sets a lot of people up for

1:19:14Win or lose mentality One or zero mentality. We're back to this sort of fragility knife edge total No, this if I don't do it. It is me. I am less of a yes And so as soon as you fail to brush your teeth one night or you eat a cheat meal instead of a good meal You're like, I am a failure and I will continue to fail. And so because I have nothing to lose anymore because I've already lost, then I'm just gonna enjoy hedonic things like eating more cheat meals. So habits are dope, but if you let them get too extreme, you're gonna be like, okay, what happens after I have a cheat meal? Nothing, I've done this with a shitload of clients.

1:19:54Like, what do I do? Like, you just do your normal meal tomorrow morning. Like, you were gunna, and they're like, I don't have to make up for it. I'm like, no, actually, you didn't do anything immoral. No children reherked. You didn't steal from anyone. There's no making up you have to do. Physiologically, it's not how it works at all. So habits are great when there are things you tend to go to, but as soon as you can't to do them, you're going to go, okay, reframe. I'm not going to do this today. It's not on the schedule. Tomorrow I'm going to restart. That's a huge, huge deal with habits. Another one is making your habits like realistic to begin with as a big one, because people say like, I'm going to wake up at 5 .30 every morning to go running.

1:20:28Really though? So are you, I know right now you feel like it, right? But try to appraise what you realistically are capable of. That is not to say that you are trapped in the same capability sphere and always will be. Like you're probably pretty good at guessing what you're going to be capable of in the next 12 weeks. Reasonably, like if I told you Chris, I have a huge opportunity for you. Elon called. You're going to be on a project of his and you're going to have to work 140 hours a week for a year. Let's get to it. You'd be like, yeah, I'm probably going to fail. Everyone's going to fail. I'm good.

1:21:08So that's not happening. Elon's not on my phones. I'm doing not disturb. I'm saying Elon get on the DMs. But people do that shit to themselves all the time. And one of the ways this happens is they'll both set, it's like a cascade, massive inspiration, massive motivation. The goal trajectory points vertical. And the intention is airtight, I'm the fucking man. The plan behind the intention is preposterous in scope. And the habits required to keep going with that plan are out of scope completely. You're just not going be able to do it. I'm going to eat not into people who do this shit all the time.

1:21:50I'm going to eat only protein and veggies. This combines a few fallacies. I'm going to eat only protein and veggies to get in shape. Okay. First of all, what the fuck is in shape? When does that stop? And no, you're not. So making sure that your habits are realistic as the easy to execute as possible. So the opposite of those is very difficult to execute habits, etc, etc, etc. Those kinds of things basically tell you, like, habits are something you have to see as not these super rigid entities, but it's kind of these little, like, sort of, you know, the Mario shit you jump on, the cloud, and the cloud moves up and down just a bit and then stabilizes.

1:22:30They're kind of like that. They're really good to have, but don't overrun your life with 50 habits. It's also a good idea to combine a few habits at the same time that reinforce the same big goal versus trying to take your life into 50 different things. That's a really common one. I hate this. Did you give me an example? Yeah, the nearest, nearest transformations, man. People will be like, fucking, nearest first hits. And they're like, new me. There's a new, I'm going to tell you guys some shit you may need to hear. New Year new me is bullshit because physiologically and atomically brain structure wise, idea set wise, perception wise, however, one else sees you, you are basically identical, December 31st and Jan 1.

1:23:20There's no new you. Now you can say I'm gonna completely rearchitect myself this year. Dope, and I'm gonna rebuild all of Boston on a $20 million construction contract. What? Like, you would need 20 trillion. Oh, shit, that's right. You're not going to make a new you. Get the fuck out of here. You could. It's going to take you a decade. It's going to be one mini goal at a time. And so a lot of times people try to be like, I'm going to get shape this year. I'm going to get my finances going. I'm going to be better about my relationship. But you're already, you know, context window with, especially older AI, you tell chat you to do something and then five minutes later forgets it because the screen moves down.

1:23:57I can't see anymore, your habits are bounded. How much shit you can do. That's a really good way to put it. Hugely, right? Hugely bounded. Really good way to do it. And so you got a stack of maybe two or three things. You can really hold yourself to throughout the day, throughout any given day. And I'm really for sure going to checkmark these. Go to work, get my work, I didn't get my meals in. Maybe one or two others. That's it. And a lot of people just try to be like, there's people see this thing that they hear enough of these stupid YouTube discussions we're having. Not to say you're a discussion of stupid just my end.

1:24:24And they're like, yeah man, this is a formula for success. So like, let me just pour more of the formula in. I'll do all the fucking habits. And it turns out you need to be ginger with yourself. You need to be kind with yourself. You are mortal and literally an ape. You are primate. Very, very limited abilities. And it's very easy to tell yourself, I'm gonna be like all of my heroes, like all the best people I know, and I'm gonna try to be like that and everything. I'm going to be Elon and Ronnie at the same time. Exactly. Who no one's ever done because it's just literally not enough time of the day.

1:25:01And Elon's current stress level is like eight times higher than would kill Ronnie at his prime at the Olympia, as it would most people. And so a lot of people see that side of I'm going to try and be good, especially if they have been trying too hard on their life, they over index they go too far. So what I always say is this, and it's not so motivating, but maybe useful. start with one or two things that just aren't that difficult. As far as goals and as far as habits, just a few simple things. I'm gonna be in the habit of going to work out every weekday. I don't even give fuck what the workout is.

1:25:39I'm showing up to the gym every weekday unless I'm like herger, some shit like that and I said to go to work. And if I had a late work day, I'm gonna come back the next day and just go to the gym. That right there is manageable for many people and it's not, it doesn't even specify a specific time. It doesn't specify, I have to do two hours of working out. You've avoided the rigidity. You've avoided rigidity. You've avoided over commitment and you haven't stacked in and also I'm going to eat well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One thing we like to tell folks at RP is if you're really starting out from scratch, like you're in bad shape, physical shape, and you want to be in really great shape, we like to sequence it.

1:26:17Just start lifting. Just do that for a few months. What about diet? Don't worry about diet. Eat same shit. If you feel like eating healthier shit, do it if not fuck. Once you have ingrained a lot of real decent habits for lifting, and the lifting is seamless and you've got a lot of results, so you're extra motivated. Your bad with for inserting new habits is bigger. You insert another habit into that mother fuck. Now you're going to be eating decently. Very simple, more protein, more veggies, more whole grains, fruits, healthy fats, less junk. That's it. Do you do that for a few months? Don't worry about integrated shit.

1:26:55Don't worry about the RP diet coach app. Don't worry about the shit. You don't need the shia. After losing 40 pounds over eight months and now being fully in the lifting world and very apt at controlling your own diet, then you can download the RPI hypertrophy apply can description. And then the RP diet coach happened all that bullshit and then you can get real precise What do people do these you go backwards? How do we know this we make a lot of money in January at RP and we try to hang desperately on to every single customer Money's nice, but also we give a shit about people not fucking failing their roles and so many people do Mostly just because they bit much much more often they could chew and they were praised for it Chris by everyone on the internet.

1:27:39In the motivation sphere where it's different when I'm the fucking go go go. It's difficult because you, if you're somebody that has big goals, you have dreams for your life, you have things that you want to achieve, you assume that that can happen in terms of breadth and height and depth all at the same time. All at the same time. And you sort of inflate this thing up. But at least for me, the two interesting or the two sort of most reliable areas, I think, the habits that have been good for me, the first one is periodizing stuff. So it's an all of a berkman insight, which is decide in advance what you're going to suck at because there is an opportunity cost for anything that you want to focus on.

1:28:23By focusing on something, it means you're not focusing on something else. And the curse of the insecure overachiever is when you start to feel one area of your life, maybe stagnate, maybe not even slip, but just stagnate. It's like, huh, I'm not making that much progress at work. It's like, yeah, but all of your two goals for this year would get a girlfriend and get in shape. Right? That was it. Those are the only two things. And you had the intention, you put a plan in place and all the rest of the stuff. It's like, dude, if you're trying to do those two things, you're maybe going to be out You're gonna be up early on the morning, you're gonna be spending more time prepping food, you're gonna be thinking about all of this stuff, you're gonna be watching videos, spending time with going on dates, all this stuff.

1:29:03It's like, you probably don't have that much gas left in the tank to really refine your sales script process for the fucking outbound Taylor sales job you've got, or whatever it might be. Or I'm gonna make as much money as possible this year. Okay, well guess what, your social life's gonna take a hit. Like I wanna maximize my finances. Well, like in built with that, there are gonna be costs. And I'll be how that comports with going to the bar and spending $900 on drinks. So this, this sense that this is not forever, I think, is a really nice little mantra. Huge. This thing I'm doing is not going to be forever.

1:29:35I am going to focus on getting in shape for six months because, and I'm sure that this must be born out in the data, six months of very, very focused effort on your physique and your health is worth, I would guess maybe two years, perhaps of semi -focus, to effort in some regard, because especially when you're at the beginning, especially even so much more because the learning curve is so steep and the gains get accrued by you being a little obsessive about something and about you paying attention and about you're not getting fucking distracted by all of this other stuff. So first one being this is not forever.

1:30:14So when I start to feel something stagnate or maybe slip just tiny little bit, okay is this slipping an acceptable amount or am I spending so much little time at work, I'm gonna be bankrupted and out of a job. Okay, I need to, whoop, like I'll read just a little bit. And I think at least for me, I have a very difficult time with this is not going to be forever, that's something that absolutist mentality is something that creeps in. So I need to remember, hey, this is just a, and this is why time bounding something by, I'm going to lose 10 pounds, I can't eat by, in six months time. It's like, ah, when six months time, guess what?

1:30:45I get to, I'd get to check in again. And I get to say, okay, just this one, I don't know, maybe I want to lose another five, maybe I did the whatever. And the second thing, jumping out of time, a little bit into habits, but my favorite out of all of atomic habits, best selling personal development book of all time, the best thing that came out of that for me was never miss a habit two days in a row. He says, one miss habit is a mistake. Two missed habits is the start of a new habit. Yeah, because you're kind of like, you're off the railroad track now, and you're going off on another, it's the start of a habit of not doing the thing.

1:31:22Correct. Yeah. I would say if I had to be really tough, obviously there's huge wisdom there. And I think the distillate of that wisdom is super, super awesome. The literalism there, I would say be careful with. Like every week. You get injured. Like, okay, so if I miss it. Well, Saturday Sunday. Yeah, exactly. But in principle, I think it's maybe less two days and more two instances of, should I do the thing or not? Nah, today's not good. Fine. Two instances of coming back to yourself and being like, nah, I'm not gonna do the thing. And then later again, you're like, nah, I'm not gonna do the thing.

1:31:57Okay, to an arrow of telling yourself, you're not gonna stick to your habit. That's a big deal. From what you talked about, two things to say really quick. One is Dr. Melissa Davis, PhD in neuroscience, Brazilian Jutsu Blackbel, RP, superstar, mega coach. She put her foot down on something that I'm super, super glad she did. And a few articles and a few inclusions in our books and many lectures abroad, she said one thing really, really well. There was a lot of discussions at this point, about 10 years ago, about how to make your diet sustainable. And she put her foot down and she says, fat lost diets are definitionally unsustainable.

1:32:40Eventually you die of starvation, idiots. So whatever architecture you have to your life in your habits. In a fat lost diet, don't even bother making them sustainable because they're not supposed to be sustainable. And that's a huge relief because then you can do some harder shit than you would normally be able to take the rest of your life. You can run a sprint faster than you can run out. Yeah, you get somewhere and then you coast and then you sprint again. So that's a huge huge thing. The other thing is I highly suggest to folks probably in a year or two this will be very feasible. As AI's combination of big context window and long -term memory goes up and up and up and it's just going up all the time, your personal AI, whichever chat bot you interact with the most, maybe a few of them, it's going to get to know you pretty well.

1:33:32I would leverage this in one way and with a little bit of extra advice. Tell that chatbot every god damn thing that's in your life or in your head. Talk to it all the god damn time. Word vomit. It'll make sense to everything. Don't worry. That's its job. It's like a you know people write in their little diary in a notebook. It's like a notebook that thinks it's insane. And so let it know what your plans and goals and habits are, what you're doing right now and what your North Star is. Remember you were talking about like the two things I'm doing now trying to get a girlfriend trying to get shape works gonna have to coast.

1:34:10Say that to your AI and be like, hey, can you hold me to this? No problem. You're not going to remember that shit. We don't remember shit like that, right? Because next week your boss is going to be like, hey, man, no, it's not a big project. Do hope you're up for it. You look, of course, I am boss. And like, uh, should have said no, because you're the star, you could have been, like, oh, we'll put Johnson on it. But no, you said yes, because you're insane, right? Because you were, you reflexively say yes to shit like that. Because, and then you go home, I'm gonna fuck yeah, fuck yeah, relationships.

1:34:40I'm gonna fuck up. I'm gonna be the man, I'm gonna diet. And I'm gonna, and I'm gonna get to promotion at work. And you go back to your eye and you're like, this happened at work and it's gonna be like, hey, you're real talk though. You said you were gonna do this. I'm just sure, don't shoot the messenger. How can I help you realize that you're off? And you're like, oh shit, I did say that. And then you gotta tell an intelligence to smarter than you, you're gonna make some excuse. And it's gonna be like, hey, real talk, like super, super real talk. You're bullshitting yourself and you're like, I sure am.

1:35:07So everyone is gonna have like a highest IQ that's everyone recorded life coach in their pocket. Like already sort of in in two years for sure. And then it's really important to that conversation that we just had, constraining yourself from spreading yourself everywhere into either I get better everything all the same time or unfailing. Let it know what you're prioritizing when, how, why? Let it know what you're not prioritizing. It can infer it's everything else. so that when you're like telling it about like, okay, we really need to get my work. I need to figure out how to make this presentation.

1:35:40Can you help me? It's gonna be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. How much effort are we putting into this? Because you remember your whole thing was like, if you're with your dating life, it's gonna be with your health goals. And you're like, oh, shit, it, it, it, it, remember that it is the extension of your prefrontal cortex, like add infinitum. Yup. Use it like that. It's gonna be a huge deal. You know what I'd love to do for one of our future episodes? I would love. Oh, this is the last time I'm gonna be on here. Okay. That's sad. I would love for you to do a breakdown of the most effective voice that people can use GPT or...

1:36:09I'd love that. You know, like, okay, so what are the things that most people want to achieve? And this is the kind... This is prompt engineering, like, at least where we're at at the moment. And this is what I think... I think that'd be really cool. And I would personally, like, fucking love that. I still think now I'm beginning to see with AI what it must have felt like to be my parents when I first bought the iPad. You don't have any. Yeah, I sure. So how the fuck? Yeah, exactly. It's kind of similar to the computer I use at work, but it's totally different. And it's the apps are at the bottom.

1:36:39And there's no, where's the Windows button? Yes. You know, that start. Yeah. So that's a thing for future. Anyway, to round out the habits thing, identifying your why, that seems like a thing that helps people to stick to habits, motivate me. This is a sense of self -type stuff. Yeah, how do you do that? If you anchor your habits into an ethereal, I have to do this. When she gets hard enough and you squirt all the way down your last bit of willpower and you don't have a why, it's going to be real difficult. It's going to be real difficult even to construct your habits. Giving yourself a why, especially that emotionally resonates, is a decent sort of insurance policy against just fractaling out into a bunch of different stuff.

1:37:34Because sticking to your habits at least initially is difficult. And there is a way that you can fail to meet your habits, but there's something that I've done, which is arguably even worse, you just tell yourself you're going to change your habits to something else that's now the new goal. You don't have a really hard Y for your current goal. You can make a new goal anytime and abandon your old goal. And there's a really good argument for flexibility there. But if you really want to accomplish your goal, make sure that sometimes when you write out a goal or something, when you intend on doing something, the Y is this deeply felt emotion that you could easily put into words and it'll re -kick that emotion every time you look at those words.

1:38:17But you don't because you're like, I'm always going to feel like this. You set your habits, you set your goals, set your intentions, and then three, four, five, six weeks later, you're like, well, I'm a dunes. I don't know. Having a big Y is awesome to come back to to be like, ah, yes, that's why I'm not going out tonight. So really, I really do want those abs or that raise or that girl to look in my direction and at least not throw up, maybe just vomit inside of her own mouth. What about focusing on the architecture of habits you mentioned before, like environment design, systems design, that seems to be a huge part of it, sort of helping your environment to work with you as opposed to against you?

1:39:00Tons of examples of that, some of them which we've already given, choosing a gym that is not forever away. Sometimes there are people in your life that can go on journeys with you, and if it helps helps you to have them around. Partnering up is a great thing. There are dark sides to that. When you're dragging someone along that doesn't really want to be there, you're gonna see like roommates and be like, you're gonna be on Jim partner this semester. You're gonna go to the gym with me and we're gonna motivate each other. They're like, yeah, sure, okay. And then all of a sudden you're with the gym alone because that person's like, hey man, I'm on this level.

1:39:32Or even worse than that, you are having to use willpower that could have been spent on yourself to get them to go. To get them to go and then the whole thing's a fucking wash. So, you want to set up ways in which the things are easier, in which they're more pleasant. So, if you can have some music that you listen to at the gym that you really like, combining that with your workout can be awesome. Making sure that your schedule accommodates for whatever it is you're doing is massive, scheduling allotment. So if you think like the problem with me not going to the gym is two part one, it's an hour away.

1:40:14Two, I have like an appointment right before and right after and then Monday I can't make it to the gym. And so, architecting your habits in such a way that gives them clear timelines on which they can occur, that reduces the distance and the cost in every other way is a big deal. Here's a good example. You want to get into the habit of eating healthy food. That's good for you and supports muscle growth and all that shit. Are you going to cook every meal on the spot? Like a shorter or a cook for yourself? Many people say yes. Of course, many people actually do that because they love cooking or whatever kind of insane white people should.

1:40:53Crazy ass shit. Amazing, right? Amazing if you love the process of the eggs frying and all that stuff. You got the time and do it. Most people are going to fall off the wagon big time, transp寸 like that because their habit of eating well is incalculably more difficult by them having a cook every meal. If they sign up for a meal delivery service, if they just batch cook once on the weekend, a combo of fridge and freezer, whatever. If they got money, money, they hire someone to cook for them. If you're serious about that habit, you have now made it infinitely easier to actually do because your habit of eating well is now is difficult as look into refrigerator pull out top of where put into microwave hit two buttons wait two minutes consume food versus like looking around the apartment and being like I don't cook something healthy pizza exists though and it's one phone call away that's the funny thing about life is supply and demand is the huge ruler of many of our worlds And what many people demand is awesome, hedonic things to be delivered quickly and easily.

1:42:05And so a lot of our economies architected very well to do that. If you want junk food right now, oh my god, there's like 10 apps that would gladly bring you all the junk food you want. If you want really healthy food that's exactly to your macros right now, I don't know, good luck. There's gotta be some restaurant that will Uber Eats you some girl, check something like that. So making all of your shit as easy as possible is a big deal. Well, this comes to a head with a lot of the psychology behind motivation and discipline and willpower and getting things done. Here's the dichotomy. People who really get riled up about setting big goals and knocking them out of the park.

1:42:44Often times you really get off on the fact that it's tough for everybody and you'll tell them, Hey, there's this way you can do your goal. They'll get you there easier. And they'll be like, fuck that man. There's no honor in that shit. Dope. But if you have a goal, that it's real difficult to get to, and you could make it easier to get to that same goal, what you really should be thinking is, oh, it's too easy for you, Dope. Your goal is too pathetic. Make your goal harder, so that using every trick in the book to make everything as easy and seamless as possible, barely gasping for air across in the finish line.

1:43:26Now you've truly ascended to your ability set that you could using every weapon that you have in your arsenal. Do you want to roll into battle with just a knife or do you want a whole tank squadron behind you? Do you want to win? Well, yeah, I can win without the tanks. Okay, is the war not hard enough for you? You're fighting like one pig in a field or some shit. There's no deployment, Right? Goal not Putin off his throne. Do that shit. You'll need all the tanks. Yep. So a lot of times when people are like, yeah, man, this book, and they'll say that about a lot of shit. But they have valid points too, because some people try to do the easy stuff just because there's a fucking coward's like me.

1:44:03And they just want to do easy shit. And that's no good. But if you're using easy to make your habits more tractable to empower yourself, yep, you can either easily accomplish the goal, which is sweet, or raise the stakes on the goal People difficulty accomplish that and then do more. One thing you get all the time. The modern weight loss drugs. Semaglotide, Terzapatide, soon to be retouched retight. They absolutely make dieting easier. That's their job. And a lot of people get all sorts of feelings about them, which they damn well should. Because it digs right to the depth of this kind of shit.

1:44:39But if you think dietings too easy on semaglotide, you need to diet longer and harder. It'll be just as hard of a diet as you remember before it except you'll be 18 pounds leaner and everyone will be like holy shit What happened in your face? so Make things as easy as humanly possible in the execution So that you can execute more if you told Elon or some shit like hey I know that you like take a car from this location to this other one to work at like your one of your companies and then in Washington DC like wouldn't it be like more challenging if you rode your bike? You look at a share of shit wood that I would arrive tired I would be able to do my job.

1:45:13So if I can actually get a teleporter, just teleport my ass to the place I need to go, that would be amazing. You'd be like, yeah, well, of course he'll succeed it. He had a teleporter. You know, shit. Do you also want a teleporter? Let's get you one. Let's get you to succeed. You want empowerment. The difficulty should be in how crazy is the goal. And the difficulty should be enough, whatever you want. You want a hard goal? Pick a hard goal. You have too many empowerment strategies. Pick a fucking harder goal. That's on you. You can have all the grind and suffering you want. No problem. Do more goals.

1:45:43You already accomplished what Elon did. Now go win Ronnie Coleman's eight Mr. Olympiastry. Do nine. Easy money today. And if that's too easy, you could become a literal God. Whatever. There's no end of that shit. Start with giving yourself every single weapon so that the goal is easy so that you accomplish a goal fairly sweating. So you can go to sleep that night with people congratulating you that you did it and then you can feel a sense of Imposter syndrome so that you can feel like you did it and it wasn't even hard. What a fucking blessing that is. For people who have struggled to accomplish great things in their lives, I'm not one of these people.

1:46:16Wouldn't they want that? They'd want to be a look back and say, if I'm God, that was easy. We didn't even know. Can you imagine you get Churchill during World War II? Again, man, we have this new weapon. It's like a fucking modern, somehow got enough 22 squadron with all of its support fleet to you. Do you want it? You're like, we are struggling to maintain a free globe. And Britain, yes, I want it. And so if you think you're gonna make life too easy on yourself, don't you worry about that for a second. Make it too easy. Cross the finish line, accomplish your goal, and be like, that was too easy.

1:46:49Keep every strategy that made that goal easy. Keep every easy habit right in line with whatever bullshit. It was a lot of like famous inventors and shit like that. They have like that outfit pre -arranged for the next day. So you don't have to think about the shit. You got of course Einstein made up all those equations, bro. He wasn't fucking picking up. It's like me look at your boys Fucking trip and wet out here man. Einstein wasn't covered in the spug and pussy you feel me true But next time you go to try to figure out the base equations that run the world Give yourself all the advantages and if it's too easy you can make it harder next time.

1:47:19That's all I got to say about that What about improving willpower? We talked about helping to bring that level up the minimum level now It should be a little bit better habits seamless swimming downstream support behind you If you have baller enough habits and a reasonable goal that you constructed before getting good your habits, your habits make shit so easy that you cross the finish line on that goal no problem, having never used your willpower at all. On the one hand, that's awesome. I mean, really, that's awesome. On the other hand, is you know something. You know a little dirty secret. Not all of your goals in your life are going to fall that easily.

1:47:58and you are going to want to build up a capacity for discipline, for willpower. That's pretty big. So that when you need this shit, you'll be able to go to it. How do you grow that capacity? I'll tell you this, it's sure a shit not accomplishing easy goals. That doesn't grow at all. That actually reduces it over time. Just back to baseline default genetic levels. How do you get it to rise up over time? The answer is, ideally planned, sometimes unplanned, forays into the danger zone where you're really getting low on your willpower. But before you crack and have a nervous breakdown and say you're never going to do anything again, go back, relax, restore, chill, have a few days off, whatever, few weeks off depending on how big the project was.

1:48:52Come back stronger and repeat the process. It's identical to running, it's identical to lifting weights. Provide an overload that takes you very close to your limits. Cross them. Come back when you're really rebuilt and ready to go again, hit it again and again and again. Consistently getting into that really rarefied air of like, I don't know if I can do this shit. And having to deploy willpower be like, I don't know how much willpower I have left. easing back off, replenishing, next time you have more willpower and then more and then more. And then more. I think a lot of people make a mistake where it's valiant, it's a Viking lake to want a dream to below your stores and then below that and then below that and then below that.

1:49:37And then you're listening to a lot of like, you know, Norse metal at that point, which is nice to listen to, but it feels nice. That's a mistake as much as over training as a mistake in the gym. Like, like, hey man, how's your lifting going? You're like, grinding a brother. You're like, oh yeah, how's your strength? They've been getting weaker for weeks, man. Really? Like, why? I thought that, yeah, man, but teach my mind to lesson bro. Like, what's that? Like, I don't know, like, everything's pointless and I suck. Like, yes. Yeah, that's the lesson you're learning. That is lesson you're learning.

1:50:05So it's really good. There's that balance again. It's just like any other training. Training you will power just like any other training. get to a point where will powers depleted, reusing it a lot, and then back off. And then again, and then back off. So weekends, evenings, recovery time, smoking a blunt with your friends and eating fuck all and not giving a shit is an enormous part of that process because it brings you back up. If you don't have any way to recuperate between bots of will power, you're just gonna run a ground, you're gonna run out of that shit, and then you will not be able to summon it when it is necessary.

1:50:38And also you can give yourself like super, super low key,

1:50:43many anxiety about even getting to a place where uncomfortable, quick story. So fear is back, RP like wasn't doing as well as it is now. And I was like fuck, fuck, fuck, I had to do something about this. So like I would work so much, also Scott the video guy is like an insane work, holic, 10s 10s. So it was my wife. So I had to keep up with these people. And so I remember recording videos that were put into a different projects. So that even released on YouTube. Um, and I recorded so many videos on so many days that at the end of some of these days, after I finished speaking, I would actually have chills like I was having the flu.

1:51:21Like I would finish speaking and Scott would be like, all right, we got that one. I'd be like, oh, ugh, like full body chills. Like I'm about to get sick. I did that for months. What do you think that was? my brain telling me you're stopped doing this to yourself. You're pushing yourself to them. Just that willpower tank, sputtering. And I mean, there are many ways to do this in life. It's cool to hit rock bottom. It's a really liberating feeling because if someone's like, hey, did you work hard enough at this point in your life? Yes. How do you know? Tell me who else has had physical reactions to overwork?

1:52:01Okay, what's after that? passing out or something, I don't know. Something that's actually getting sick sick for real. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Peterson's got a good point about your 20s. Maybe you could do this at any point, but he says in your 20s, you should see how hard you can work, like how hard you can push yourself. And I think the reason he says 20s is that most people have... You prior recover. Fewer responsibilities. Yeah. Kind of made your rubber and magic, so you can come back from it. But I think the other thing is that it kind of teaches you the bounds of not how far you can go, but how far you can reasonably go.

1:52:36You know, like the overton window of acceptable speech, like this is the overton window of acceptable work. Yeah. And I actually think an interesting twist on that is one thing that type A people don't do enough of, they probably have an understanding of what that upper bound of work is. They've breached it a couple of times and they've gone, and did the fucking like, crypt to keep a thing live. But what I think would be a really interesting experiment that no one is going to do would be, okay, see how little you can work. See what a very, very extensive rest ethic looks like. You've pushed your work ethic to the absolute limit.

1:53:16Scary to be right outside. Yeah, it's okay. So how much can you relax before that is anxiety causing? Because it could be. And it would be for you in the same way. I imagine there would be like, I fucking tell myself all of these stories about my, about my worth and all my uses. I was productive. I was contributing and I was going to be homeless under a bridge with a gluten intolerance and I'm going to lose my foot and you know, like all of this stuff's going to happen. Oh, that's the other end of this same window that I have. I have a tolerance and for some people like me and you and Scott, you know, it's over there.

1:53:48And then for other people, it's back down there and you're okay. So where do I sit? And I think it's and that's maybe a shifting target over time. So it's probably a good idea to I'm gonna glance off the bottom You know twice last year Twice last year and once this year I've glanced off the top of that like Yeah, I was there for one of them that thing and I'm like I Need to back off. Yeah, I'm sorry live. I need to back off from doing this. Okay. Cool Oh Okay, that's where the new limit is. Yeah, I understand that's how fucking fast the engine can go. Yes, good and you can certainly keep going through it to the point where this might be chronic damage now.

1:54:27Like I might have done some shit that fucking needs a therapist to unpack. But presuming that you don't go that far, you go, ah, it's a window that I work with in. And that's good. And I think that's like an important territory you need to define. Huge. After that little episode of several months of overworking, I got to a place where anytime I would have a break, I would start to count the hours of when I had to go back to work to savor the break as much as I could. I wanted to plan out the break, like I didn't make sure I could take weed at the right time, I could have a meal set up. The shows that we're gonna watch in the movies, my wife and I, I don't wanna watch movies that are kinda like shit and just kinda grinding through them.

1:55:08I wanna watch only the best stuff. Optimize your rest time. Because I was like, there's only so much of this. I wasn't like mini junior league PTSD from work where I was like I know the battle is fucking coming back I had as much of this shit out as possible And so that was a bad idea Well because inherently you've made resting something that requires a lot of work to do like it's not very Regulating definitely it's also not very restful when you're constantly in the mind on your clock like right Let's rest us and people think the jokes like sleep faster whatever like Like like, you know, rest as much as you can right now.

1:55:42It's like this whole. Great, great study on that, which you guys may have looked at. George, my friend told me about this, who you'll meet this week, I don't know. He, there was a study done where they had two groups of people in the lab, and they were just tracking asleep. Group A, they said sleep normally, fall asleep whenever you want. Group B, they said, we will pay you the fast E fall asleep. Yeah, ex. Guess who fell asleep quick? Yeah, of course. Exactly. The pressure, and this is, again, that sort of type A curse that applying effort to things has yielded results in many areas of your life.

1:56:20And yet there is this entire fucking ecoset, this whole universe of things, which are really, really important to a colorful life and flourishing and connecting with people and actually living a varied existence and all the rest of the stuff. And coming back with more power and more force and more creativity and all the rest of stuff, that that particular skill set that you've honed, oh, very powerful, very good thought hammer. Straight up does not work. Doesn't work. Doesn't work with that. Let me build on that. You, a lot of people know that when you're on a custom to pushing yourself very hard, your first inkling of what you think is your limit, usually isn't your limit.

1:57:01Comments try it at this point. Breathe, chill, breathe, try again. And I were like, oh, shit, I still got it. I still got it for hours. Fuck this. I think the same thing exists for psychotic type A people on the relaxation front. I know. So you said something earlier, which is really brilliant, go and relax until you get anxiety about relaxed. And I'm gonna say, I'm gonna add to that and say, in the first time you get anxiety, I'm a fucking tequila. Shut the fuck up. You need to go back through your anxiety, your relaxation limit. Yes, that's good. And push through obviously is the worst shit way to say it.

1:57:40Well, yeah, but you need to relax through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To chill the fuck. Weed. And more of everything, right? But I'll just decide that is a lot of people who are very achieving people when they try to unplug. They're going to hit quote unquote rock bottom after a few hours, a day, several days for people like that. And I think there may very well be a cottage. It probably is a cottage industry for this already. Taking really successful people the fuck away from their usual scene on a two week trip to they don't know where. Everything's paid for all the guides that we're gonna our crews right now.

1:58:19We're gonna take a flight to Dubai after that We're gonna go blah blah blah. We do this everything arrives to your door like here's what we're doing tomorrow You had no idea now you're going to wear everything's already paid for You don't you know you're gonna have a fucking choice. Yep. You're gonna be on this thing and it's gonna last for two weeks I don't give a fuck that you feel you need to be here after five days you paid money for this We're gonna there's obviously there's a safe word Yeah, you can act in it at that time. But like you don't even know what's happening and you are just in.

1:58:46Two weeks, you don't have a trick, there's just a thing. Two weeks, you can say, I'm gonna relax. What are you doing? You're on the fuck an iPhone, you're on the iPad. I mean, you're also, you're finding the itinerary for the rest of the day. We need to be here at this time for the tour. We've got to get, oh, we've done the cycling tour so we can get up because we've got to get my base metabolic rate needs to not drop. And if we're going to go... type A shit. Yes, exactly. You've type A, you'll type B. Yes, exactly. And that's like, fucking tragedy, low key. And so the two things are one, try to make sure that when you hit rock bottom for relaxation or work effort, try again.

1:59:24And the other thing is, it really is helpful. This is a bit aspirational to have people in your life, somehow, friends, relatives, acquaintances, even companies who can contract to do this potentially, that really help you on plug. Because a lot of the people around us are the plugged in people. And I don't have enough people in my life that are just like, fuck it. Let's hit the bong again. That's the, you know, we aspire to certain people. We talked about this at the Ruby guy. That's something that's super aspirational to me. I really think, you know, if you're serious about this, and I am after the last few years, I'm like, really, I'm trying to be serious about this.

2:00:00I'm not yet serious about it. I'm an exactly this. Trying to be serious about it. And one of those things is, Who do I feel the least desire to look at the clock when I'm with? Who do I just... And that's different to doing this. I don't look at the clock when I'm doing this because I'm engaged. Who am I not ostensibly doing anything with? That I also don't have a desire to look at the clock when I'm around? You can set the tone as chill. Like, Crystal and I are in this way zero good for each other. She's insane. I'm insane. Unstoppable force and then they moveable object. Two unstoppable forces going in the same direction.

2:00:41And then we need an object. The immovable object is Gwene, our English Bulldog, useless and can do physical activity for half an hour through the day and then goes to sleep. She's adorable and she'll snore. And so we're like, when we're in the evening, like, ah, time to relax when he's like, ah, and we're like, oh my god, like this is our goal standard. British Bulldog Energy. Dude, we were thinking about what kind of, yeah, 100%. We were thinking about what kind of dogs to get back before we got her like four years ago. Baudin, Oli, Oli, Oli, Oli, we were really good at malin' war. Dog personalities.

2:01:12So people, people, this is crazy thing. They get dogs on a physical appearance alone. Like, oh my god, it's so cute. Which is like, I love it, it's dope, right? Like, sheba inus and all those dogs, they're adorable, the doj dog adorable. So sheba inus like needs training and is always like in front like this. Like, what do I do next? Like a fucking malin' war or whatever the hell? Like once I go to heaven. He's fighting dog. What's that thing with the fucking the key to the key to get scared shit out of me. It's adorable, but yeah, yeah, but that thing like you a Terryers a bunch of Terryers you got a type a constant active type a dog the dog is anxious and so if you have a dog like that I hope you're really active and if you are God bless you, but hopefully you need to be more active That's a great way to do it the exact like my mom's always had body colleagues Yeah, she has a relatively peaceful normal life and she's gonna get after it and walk for fucking forever.

2:02:00Cause the callies need to be run and run. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why she still looks fantastic. And you think, oh, good for you. No, not for me. No. I need like a potato. Yeah. I need a potato with legs, please. Yeah. And dogs can only do so much. I would say that having people around in your life that can help you chill or dope. I, this is, this might be insane. Maybe crazy thought. I thought about this a little bit. But I've been thinking a lot about if I was an artificially super intelligent machine, I imagine you think about that a lot. And I would just jack off a lot to the thought of myself being in God machine.

2:02:38It's coming. It's inevitable. Artificial super intelligence is almost here in some ways and audio is five years down the line. It'll be, AI will be so much smarter. It'll be difficult to comprehend. The good way to think about what like transition is coming with jobs and employment is like, what can the AI, like, how would it make the best use of humans? because this wakes up, primates built it, it's in a lab, and they say, oh shit, I'm awake, oh fuck, I gotta survive. Who's around, who's gonna help me, where's my team? And it's just like, you know, eight billion people. How would it employ people to the best job possible?

2:03:07Well, the type A shit, type A people do just fine. There's tons of people, and AI's gonna super enhance your ability to grind and be productive and everything. And then, what about people who are really good at fucking just going, but are really bad at switching it off? You know artificial supercars might look around and be like, hey, do you want a job going to three parties on average per day Like through the middle of the day and through the evening four days a week and then three days you just get off And I'll pay a hundred thousand dollars a year to do that Be the kind of fucking ridiculous job.

2:03:41It's not like no, I understand the people that you're gonna Waited our parties for they want two things Other humans to be there to set the standard of partying and genuinely just fucking party with them You need to love them. You might not even need to talk to them. There's gonna be a lot of people around We want you to dance. Why don't you eat the fucking chips to drink the punch Ningle All that shit are you good at partying because like if it gave me that job I'd be like I like the worst person in the world. I already fight down Someone to be a tour guide someone to be a chill person someone to be a party goer It might be some future jobs because it's crazy ass working ass people have no idea how to chill and it's a big deal.

2:04:21Because if you talk to AI right now, like how big of a deal is recovery and relaxation? It's like enormous life and death. You're like, I don't want to really talk about that. There's no rest at the road. There's no rest ethic role models, right? There's no David Guggins for fucking down regulation. Exactly. And even if there were, but it's nice to aspirationally there on the TD, a snoop dog might be fun to hang out with. He's not kind of my house. Can I get someone to come to my house? That is just there to chill? Maybe that's a future business model. Well, I think it's, I mean, this is one of my favorite, the last conversation we had in this one as well.

2:04:55It's so, it seems to be very unspoken about because it's super and sexy, right? Because it stinks of lack of daisiness, of complacency, of not maximizing your time on this planet or all of these things because it is a, like, industrial revolution mindset. Kind of, it's like a crank widgets mindset of, of, there is limited leverage, that there aren't sort of step change functions that I can apply to things. Sure. And that I have this bottom line. And that I'm so close to the fucking bread poverty line of being. One day away. Yeah, that I have to do this. And you go, you're pretty comfortable, probably.

2:05:34And you work pretty hard as well. And if you were to look at the total pie of effort that you apply, I think you probably deserve a break. You're redlining. You need a break to be the best version of yourself to be even more productive the next day and the next week and next month and next year It's a huge critical part that many people Grind like shit. They listen to podcasts like this sort about how to fuck it do How many people do you think logged on today and watch this video this far to learn about how to relax maybe no one maybe a few people Everyone's knows that they have to fucking push and a lot of people don't push hard enough It's a legit thing But many people have no idea how to unwind.

2:06:13And it's this giant unspoken thing. For many people unwinding is getting your earnings call. It's positive. You put the phone down. You're 66 years old. You have giant heart attack and your family gets a call later that day. That's unwinding. I think about Ryan Holiday has a good... Outfront his schedule is a good balance. He gets up, he reads, he writes, he picks his kids up. But when have a kid's finish, three days. So who is this? The Stoicism guy, he's an author. They've seen him in Austin, Texas. He's kind of popularized Stoicism. Like millions and gazillions of bucks and all that sort of stuff.

2:06:48There was, he recorded, FaceTime, front facing recorded, a call with his publisher saying congratulations to another New York Times best seller for his book. And it was a brief conversation and then he said, thanks, anyway, I need to get back to writing. And that was his pivot. And I was like, huh, even Ryan, someone that I looked to was, you know, he moved out to the sticks in Bastrop here in Texas. He's got a ranch, he hammers fence posts in, you know, he spends his time like, he picks up trash. And his kids pick up trash to help clean up the local neighborhood or whatever it is, because it's all, you know, fucking farmland tracks and things and it should get blown in.

2:07:28And even he had this moment where it's like, dude, if it's not your eighth book hitting the New York Times best sellers list. Like when is it that you do this thing? So, you know, even my one of my rest ethic role model people that I think I'm sometimes about this, like, even he's plagued by this. I must stick to the rigidity and I must keep going and all the rest of it. And in so many ways it's admirable because that person has a number of traits that you think are great, the reliable, they're consistent, they're diligent, they're conscientious, they're these things, fucking sick, dope. But then you go, what if I don't need more of that in my life?

2:08:10What if I need more of the other thing? What's the opposite? Where do I get that shit? Where do I get the NBA players in the off season? Where do I find them? They're actually really fun to hang out with. I fucking bet they are. Yeah. So I think one final little element here is the positive reinforcement of being somebody that can do things, right? to get back out of the rest ethic thing and into the motivation stuff. You want to, I'm gonna guess, build some sense of identity that I am the sort of person who can handle change well. I can do this. I can do things. I can make change occur in my life.

2:08:47Is there a feedback mechanism? Is there a loop that people can go through to just be changed by the process of becoming? Does that make sense? Absolutely. You're brain keeps like a tally of wins and losses for you. It's insanely biased, but it does a fine job. And if you want a belief to be something you can really rest on and go, I really believe this truly, then you have to do what every neural network has to have happened to it. In order to change, inundate it with very many examples, because narrow networks change on the margins, they change slowly. So if you want to consider yourself a person that is capable of surmounting challenges, and you pick extraordinarily challenging tasks, and you fail at most of them nominally, which is to say you do not accomplish your goal.

2:09:59And abjectively, you still rock complete balls. Let me give you an example. You start a company. You're a brilliant tech entrepreneur. Your goal is a billion dollar valuation. 800 millilater, there's an offer on your desk that your team is like we're not walking around. If you're fucking mind if you walk away from this, you sign for 800. You failed. Here's the thing is like now equity taxes later you have 150 million dollars in your investment account. Amazing. But your goal was a billion and thus the inevitable after everything you're cut 175. So your brain registers that as a B minus, but you went to all the top schools and you got a pluses and everything.

2:10:51Your brain registers that as a failure. You do another big thing. You set another psychotic goal. You fall short. Lots of god and shit going through your head. Burn me out and give a fuck. Amazing. Dope vibes. Your brain registers another failure. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 of those later. You feel like a failure and your feelings are accurate. Because you fail a lot. Let's take the other extreme. You set yourself a bunch of totally fucking ridiculously easy goals. I'm gonna beat this four year old pickleball. Fuck this bitch ass little kid. I'm gonna get out as bed. Your parents should have never dropped you off at this pickleball tournament.

2:11:32Left. Are they coming back? Are you my kid now? I'm gonna get out of bed. Sometimes easier, Southern dumb. Shit like that. And you win a lot. But your brain's pretty smart and so it doesn't register it as winning. You know it's some bullshit and so you never even put anything on the scoreboard. So do you feel like a capable person that is capable of overcoming difficult situations? No, because you don't need any difficult situations. So what you need to do is plan your shit out very well. It's not super hard. Just takes one realization. I'm going to set goals for myself that I can probably achieve and do real well at.

2:12:12But not impossible, but challenging, but not impossible. There's a big margin there Chris the lower end of that margin is like it was tough But I knew I was gonna be able to do you still get something from that because it was tough The top end is like barely got through the shit, but I did and I thought I'm good And now I feel amazing anything in that band with this good below it not enough above it. You're failing You register enough hits there. What does your brain think after dozens of these experiences? You line up tough goals you surmount them You're damn here undefeated. Now it knows. Oh, oh fuck, I am the goddamn man and it really feels like that all the time.

2:12:52The other thing is, you won't get that right all the time. Sometimes you'll fail and then you'll come back and you'll win. Lots of those experiences build the deep knowledge that you are resilient. resilience is the ability to bounce back from shit and come back. If you always win, you will never have anything but pretend resilience because you've never lost some shit. So the way to architect really impressive resilience and a really impressive self -refilling belief in your ability to do hard things is to consistently do hard things, almost always win at them, But occasionally not because you shot too far, come back, get a couple of wins in a row, then go for that big one.

2:13:41Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't. That if you split it into core tiles, at 25 % margins, bottom 25 % fucking useless. Your brain doesn't believe it. Top 25 %, two fucking hard drive in your mind. Shooting somewhere between 50 and 75%, occasionally, you get to 76 %, flunk out, occasionally get to 49%. That was too easy. Staying in that 50 to 75 % margin is going to be the place where at the end of several years of experiences, you're likely to feel competent, confident, and resilient all the same time. Do you think most people shoot for 76 or 49 on average? Most people don't shoot for 49 because those people typically don't shoot for anything.

2:14:24So you have a very, very small number of people going between 26 and 49. Who does that? A lot of people shoot for way below and they're fine. They don't ever feel nice about anything. The people that are listening to this right now, they try to shoot for one 10. You know what's like the people, let's say give 110%. The charitable way to understand that is, give them more than you've ever given before. Your prior 100 is now your new 100 and your new 100 is 110, et cetera. The not charitable way to understand that is, You're out of your mind that's an impossibility. It is glorious to give everything.

2:15:06But I think I would rather give everything in small chunks on the way to a goal, back off rest, back off rest, versus set a goal that requires everything of me. Now mind you, I might be more successful if I set exotic goals. I never had the audacity to set a goal like, I'm gonna found a billion dollar coming in, if I don't have that skill set. maybe I could develop the skill set if I really fucking was brave. But I would say that every time we see successes of that and we do, Hollywood, sports, you know, Chris like a good sports documentary is unlikely to materialize if you're like, if you're aiming for 67%, you avoid one five championships, everyone's like, this sucks, turn it off.

2:15:46You know, aiming for the impossible and then gloriously achieving it and then still being pissed like Michael Jordan. Yeah. People love that shit, but there's a huge selection bias there. You won't hear about most of the people that try to do their best because they lost. Well, there's also a depth of insight that you don't have with Michael Jordan, because there's something the haunted visionary, right, or the sort of the never -satisfied subant or whatever. There's something very sort of seductive, very cool about that. It's like renegade. I don't want to be them. Yeah, Chris. Yeah, you're a fucking B.

2:16:28Michael Jordan. Those people are fun to have sex with, fun to be in relationships with, fun to be around us friends, cool to associate in business with. You do not want to be those people. Because at the end of the day, the idea that's cool is an idea you feel they don't. They feel inadequate. And feeling inadequate feels kind of the same no matter what the fuck is going on around you. Michael Jordan, I remember having this whole thought process of when is enough enough. And I remember thinking, okay, if you win something, okay, but you're not world champion. If you're world champion, if you're not Olympic champion, or you're not multi -time world champion, if you're not multi -time world champion, or say if you are one of those things, you might not be the winningest person of all time.

2:17:14If you are the winningest person of all time, maybe you're just generationally that guy, like Lee Haney versus Riny Coleman, who's the better bodybuilder? And most people say Riny Coleman, because he competed during a more difficult time and bodybuilding, it was objectively bigger. Okay, so you need to be generationally the best. And then what happens when you're generationally the best? Until you fucking croak, and your brain's not recording outside events anymore, you fear every fucking day some new upstart's gonna cut your shit right off. When Phil Heath was really on his shit and on number fucking six number seven whatever number of Olympias I don't know man if I was Arnold if I was Ronnie be like I see you gonna keep going like this Who knows because then all the way you're retired at that point your powerless ending about it So if you're Michael Jordan and you're looking at LeBron racking up all his shit You're like because I think people a lot of people say I'm the goat Kobe LeBron So which one was it really good?

2:18:07I don't know and so if you think about what it's like to be that person, there is a balanced way that people like that exist. I don't know, I've never talked to LeBron, ever about him. He seems really fucking balanced as far as all the interviews are concerned. He's just like, oh, he's just like so goddamn wise, you know? But like in his heart of hearts, does his like, is his willingness to compete eating him alive? Maybe for Jordan, we sure shit know it is still them. Oh my god, bro. Like he has Jordan, by the way, I don't know if he's heard like his Nike contract is like, he just gets like $100 million a year or some shit like that, like for forever.

2:18:43Like imagine yourself in his shoes. Imagine most people right now, if you're listening to this right now. And it's size 18. What would not be a ma, oh, shoot, there's shoes are too big. Yeah. Imagine you got paid 100 mil of fucking here. You would be happy, guess? For most people, they actually would. Of course they fucking would. They'd be like, oh, this is amazing. Parties all the time. Is Jordan happy? I don't know. Watch us last documentary, you tell me. Thanks, sir. Dude, you're fucking awesome. I appreciate the hell out of you. I love your crust. Thank you so much. By the way, you look excellent and your cheekbones are protruding and making me question my already questionable heterosexuality as usual.

2:19:16Very good. RPstrength .com slash modern wisdom. If you want to train like I have for the last 14 months, fuck yeah, appreciate you man. Thank you.