Nate Boyer On Striving For Excellence In Everything

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0:54I'm picking my kids up from school today and then doing our weekly routine, which is I take them over to Whole Foods. and we get all our groceries for the week. Then we have dinner. It's one of their favorite things to do. It's one of my favorite things to do. And then my wife loves it because she doesn't have to take care of it. This holiday season, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner Whole Foods Market has what you need to delight everyone at your table. They even have heat and eat sides from the prepared foods department. You can make Whole Foods your one-stop shop. Everything follows Whole Foods Market's strict ingredients standards so you know it'll be delicious and good for you.

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1:41Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

2:35Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stealic Podcast. I'm always really impressed when people can do more than one thing. We have this expression, you know, a renaissance man, that can sometimes feel a bit overstated or a bit over the top. So So I feel like we need to do a better job celebrating people who prove that actually you're going to be world-class at one thing, that can be a phase or a season in your life, and then go on to the next thing, go into the next one. And what I like about that is not that necessarily we need to do all those things, but they remind us that, hey, actually, if you take the time to deconstruct how something works, if you really put yourself out there, if you really go after it, you can do it.

3:18And nothing proves this more than my guest today. A guy who's been a Green Beret, a professional football player, and then just wrote, starred in and directed a movie about his life and the nonprofit that he runs, which helps transitioning vets and athletes, people who are leaving the armed forces, leaving college sports, professional sports, you know, a life in athletics and then heading into the real world. Both are becoming civilians again. it's an organization called MVP Merging Vets and Players guest is Nate Boyer a fascinating guy someone whose work I've been familiar with for a long time who I've seen in the news on television I didn't know about this new movie but I was really excited to check it out and he came out to the studio and we had an awesome conversation he lives in Texas part of the time which dates back to his time as a walk-on player at UT again it's in a crazy story this guy's in the green berets he does like six years multiple tours in combat in iraq and afghanistan and then at like 29 is a walk-on at ut position he'd never played before long snapper and then he becomes an undrafted free agent who signs with the seattle seahawks in 2015 um we'll get into a bunch of stuff in the interview but i was really excited to have this guy on.

4:46I just checked out his new movie, MVP. I streamed it on, I believe, Showtime. It was a great movie. I really enjoyed it. And I think you're really going to like it. You can go to vetsandplayers.org to find out more about MVP, his charity. The movie is great. Check out MVP starring Nate Boyer. And you can follow him on Instagram at Nate Boyer 37. And I think you're really going to like this interview. It was a long chat. We did more than two hours, so I'm going to split it up into two episodes, but let's get right into it. And then I'll, I have some exciting news to tell you that Nate just pulled off and I'll kick that off my intro to part two.

5:37Stars on Mars. What is that? It's like a, it's like a reality. I haven't watched shit so i'm just from what i know from the brutes but it's like it's like a reality show but then it's simulating they're all in a colony on mars i mean i'm seeing that so i don't know if you i don't know if you know i'm your show yeah i'm hosting this discovery channel series right now so it's like it's funny i mean hosting it i was seeing a lot of what was going on but i wasn't seeing all of it yeah and so then now it's watching it yeah and i usually watch it a few days after it's out so people are getting interviewed about like what do you you know from some some uh reality uh publication or whatever about like what do you think and i'm like yeah i don't know what happened you know what i mean and i go back because it's just a bunch of stuff happens and then they cut together like the shows have writers yeah they're not writing stuff as it's happening they write a little different because it's like a social experiment so it is very as compared to others it's less scripted i've posted some other things that are a little more but i mean the writers aren't writing the scripts they write the scripts after in that they look They get all the footage and then they go, here's what happened.

6:42Yeah, true. That's true. Like here, because you could, you have hundreds of hours of footage. Yeah. And then you have to pick what you're going to show and what you're not going to show and how all those things connect together. True, true. But you kind of know the big moments, at least when you're out there, like kind of the big beats and all that. But it's still interesting because I just, I heard like, oh, so-and-so had a thing with so-and-so or like this person was dragging the team down and you don't really know what that looks like until you see and you're like, oh yeah. Right, because as the host, you're not like in the thing.

7:08I've been there for, on an hour long episode, I probably appear four times. Right. So, and I'm in and out for like, I mean, three to five minutes and then gone, you know, and then it's them. It must also be weird that you just did this movie, like, all the, like, as the director, you're like, this shot, this shot. You're having to, you know how hard it is to get all the shots. Yeah, right. So then a reality show, it looks good, but then there's this idea of like, well, how did they get it all? Like, you know, the difference between sort of very orchestrated and not orchestrated, I imagine it's a blurred line.

7:41No, totally different though, because like nine cameras capturing all this different stuff happening at once. And like you said, thousands of hours of footage versus still a lot of takes you got to go through. But it's of the scene that you know you shot and the dialogue you know that's written. And you know what I mean? You kind of know, even when you're shooting it, you kind of mark your faves. You star your takes and you're like, that's my number one, that's my number two. And then when you go back in the edit, you have a pretty good idea of how you're going to do it. Well, at the very least, you also have in your mind what you want it to look like.

8:14And so you're checking it against the directorial vision. Like as a writer, the weird part is you're sitting down and you're making something and it's just like coming out. But at the same time, you also have this picture in your head of what you want it to be. And so there's this kind of disconnect slash, like you're trying to take this thing and shape it into what your vision of it is for. And at the same time, you're envisioning something that doesn't exist. So art is kind of mind blowing in that sense. Yeah. Like you had the movie in your head before you made it. Right. And then you made it real.

8:48Right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it turns out a lot different than what you envisioned. Yes. I think in a good way. I hope in a good way. at least from what I thought it would look and feel like and, and what it did, you know, it was the only thing I, I don't like watching myself up there because you just so critical of everything you do. And, you know, and of course, you know, people tell you, oh, you did a good job. You did a great, good job. And it's like, yeah, you have to tell me that. Yeah. That's no, getting actual feedback in life is so hard. Like the speaking that I do, no one's ever like, eh, you know, Like there's people who don't like you and they'll tell you that you suck, right?

9:27Like you'll see that randomly on the internet. But very rarely in life are you going to get someone who goes like, not your best work. Or like, you know what you need to stop doing? Like, because everyone just goes, that was amazing. You killed, like when you walk off stage because you're, nobody likes doing. Like everyone is so intimidated by the prospect of doing a thing in front of lots of people. Right. that they just want to tell you you did a good job. And so how do you get better if you don't hear where you're not doing well? That's my big thing on just notes generally, whether it's notes on a script or notes on a performance or notes on me as a person, just tell me what I can fix.

10:07And I appreciate you being gracious and telling me good job, but that doesn't help me. Yeah. And I'm a very, I would say like, I'm a glass half empty kind of person. And it's not that I'm negative, but like, I want to fill the glass up. sure i don't want to be cool with half a glass i want the full glass so what can i do to fill the glass well yeah you do one of the things i always go is i go like what are your least favorite part like what would you cut like what's like what didn't do it for you like what was what did you feel like and so if you sort of if you just go what do you think people are going to be like it was great but if you sort of can specifically nudge them towards what you don't like i mean that can be a problem because also sometimes you get notes from people and you realize like they don't either they're not smart enough or they don't care enough to actually have notes, but they think you want notes.

10:51So they just like tell you shit and then you can end up like fixing stuff that's not broken or, you know, they're just, or they don't really understand what you're trying to do. So for you to take their feedback, it doesn't actually get you closer to what you want to do. But I think generally nudging people towards disconfirmation versus confirmation is the way you want to do it. What can I do better? How is the glass, no, half glass half empty instead of full. That's the only way you can get better. And I love getting a lot of notes from a lot of people because when you get the same note twice or three times or four times, if they don't know each other, it's like, yeah, if they don't know each other, it's like, all right, I'm so, I was so stubborn on this point.

11:29And I was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. And it's like, all right, maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe this is not the best way or the only way. Well, there's this Stephen King thing about how you have to kill your darlings. Like basically whatever you love the most is probably the thing you're going to have to get rid of because it's what you're most biased about. And so when you independently get multiple people telling you, like, you got to cut your favorite part, that's the hardest because it means they're probably right. And you're probably, unless you're like, but that's the only reason I'm doing it.

12:02You have to know like is this a is this a sort of a self-indulgent you know like bias thing or is this the thing that right like is this my thing and and so like what's a darling versus what is like integrity that's a that's a tricky balance yeah no that's a good point i guess there was some things in the mvp movie that especially in posts but even in the script that people were like some people not everybody some people were like i love this scene and some people were like ah can we, you know, can you think of another way to, and it came down to the fact that it was sort of loved and hated and no one was like, meh on it.

12:41I was like, that's good. I mean, even if they don't like it, at least it's, it's got a, there's an opinion around it. Yeah. And it was just a moment where I felt like there wasn't on our budget, there maybe wasn't another way to nail that point home or to like get people to sort of really pay attention to what's about to happen next you know to kind of get so we ended up sticking with it and you know love it or hate it there's still some there's still people that hit me up about this specific scene that are like what scene was it it's uh at the gun they're at a gun range yeah yeah and okay yeah so in you know there's no spoilers in this okay like i yeah in the military you know you don't you don't point a weapon in someone's general direction especially on a practice range and unless it's you know you never point a weapon at in someone's general direction unless you intend to pull the trigger and intended, you know, kill that target basically.

13:38And so in the film, there's a scene where they're at the range and one of the protagonists is down putting up the new target and the other guy's back there. And the whole point is to create a reaction from this person and make them feel something they haven't felt in a very long time, you know and there was never an intent to harm and this person is uh we believe to be a good enough shot that they the bullets seem a lot closer than they actually are right to the person that's getting fired upon and i can't imagine what it's like to be that person that feels like you're fired upon in that scenario it probably is it probably feels a lot closer than what you know you would you would maybe what maybe is the reality in either way yeah the way that it's a lot of that scene is through Will's perspective, who's the one being fired at.

14:25And so, you know, we, we, we feel this, like this fear and all these things that, that sort of lead to the next part of the, it's really the tipping point in the film. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like an unhinged scene. Like he's, it's a, it's a very dangerous, like not rational thing to do. Totally. And so you get why it would be polarizing, But yeah, sometimes you get, it's funny, it's like you as the person doing the thing, you know, hey, I don't have any money to do it this different way or all these other things depend on it. And so you sometimes get notes from people and you realize like, oh, they're giving me notes because, yeah, they don't understand what my budget is or they don't understand how this works, like where I am in the process.

15:05And so one of the rules that I got from someone that was good is like, when someone tells you something's wrong, they're always right or almost always right. And then when someone tells you how to fix it, they're almost always wrong. So when they're like, this scene isn't working or this page isn't working, they're right. Because in their opinion, in their experience, it didn't work. But when they're like, what you have to do is cut it or what you have to do is do it this way, then that's only fixing it specifically for them or their with their limited knowledge of like the craft or whatever so i go okay i'm i'm noting that there was some objections here and now i'm gonna fuck with it and work on it but i'm not just gonna do what they say because they i i'm the one that knows how to do it this is my work you know and so that's a i think also a con like ego says like, who are you to tell me what to do?

16:00You don't know anything. And then confidence goes, okay, I hear you. I'm going to like put some more time on this, but it may well be that there's nothing to do here. Right. That's interesting. All right. So from the movie, what would you fix? What do I need? What are my notes? What would I fix about the movie? I don't know. I don't know. What doesn't work? What doesn't work? The correct answer is nothing. Right. Well, do you want honest feedback or do you want me to It was amazing. Absolutely. I want to ask you that. But also the shitty thing is though, like people are like, here's what I would do differently.

16:31And you're like, cool, it's done and published. So like, you know. I just, I don't know. I love to hear this because there's going to be more. I want to do more. I want to continue to, you know. I want to ask you about that. I could tell it was your first movie. Okay. You know, in the sense that like, there's like when you're, when you're writing your first book, you're doing it for, there's all the things that you're having to figure out that you've never done before. And so, and with a movie, like every every i don't think people always understand like every like you had to drive to a place set up locations like that shot could have been a whole day this one eight second shot could be a whole day so people don't understand like what goes into movies like it's like it took eight seconds on the screen but that could have been eight days of work you know um but i felt like uh and i i also sort of know where this would come i felt like i couldn't quite get the angst that the athlete was in yet because I could tell you didn't have the time.

17:28Like the vet, you're like, it would suck to be in Afghanistan and Iraq and come home. That's like a hard transition. Right. Like the angst of the athlete, especially at the beginning, I was still a little bit like, it's not that I didn't buy it, but I was wondering like where his pain took longer to unfold because it's more on the inside pain. you know? Right, right. Yeah. It's not so clear. It's not so clear to just in general knowledge. I mean, even myself and I, you know, I played a bit of sports and all that and sort of, I've been around a lot of very successful pro athletes. And, and so I have a little bit of a different insight because I've just, especially a lot of these football players that people like Tony Gonzalez who are in the movie and he tells a bit of his story.

18:17He's amazing, dude, but he's in the other studio, but I texted him before you came in. Oh, right on, right on. Yeah. And he's, And he's, you know, he's like one of the greatest to ever do it at his position, at any position really. But, and he tells the story in the movie even, but like he, the feeling that I'll never be great again. And that like, even though he's got all the accolades and, you know, financially he was smart and he did it all right. And he's just one of these people that, you know, he played the game right. and his first Ballad Hall of Famer and still just felt like empty and I could have done more.

18:52I didn't do enough. I'm a failure. I'm a, you know, what am I now? I'm nothing. And there's just so many of those stories at various levels. And then there's a lot of these, like the Will Phillips character that, you know, I mean, he's a composite character, a fictional character, but he's based on real people that you never even heard about, you never even knew about that, you know, played for, whether it was three years or 13 years and just wasn't the right circumstance. It didn't have, you know, even when you look at someone like Tom Brady, you never know if Drew Bloodstone ever gets hurt or he's not on the right team and the right situation.

19:24Like you never know. It might not have went the same way. Well, I thought, so it's like his career ending is anticlimactic, right? He's great. And then it's just, he's not playing anymore. It wasn't like, it wasn't like he almost died on the field, right? Right, right, right. So inherently that his ending is anticlimactic makes it hard for the audience to be like, I get where he's feeling. I understood like you did it in the scene you have him trying to go to the game like after he retires right and he like can't figure it out right you know and like so I get that subtext which is like when you have your life all figured out for you right and suddenly you have to go just like be a regular person in the world it's frustrating and weird and overwhelming but like in reality his that that would have been a period for him of like a year or two of adjust like lots of those little things where you're like, I'm not the famous person anymore and nobody wants me anymore.

20:16So anyways, my, my only not note, but like if I was looking at the script or something, I would have said, I think it's, it's essentially the movie is two parallel lives, like from very different circumstances, parallel lives, two people transitioning into reality and struggling with that transition slash re-entry. Right. But the movie hinges on how clear the parallel is. And his parallel is hardest to square with your character because we get your character so immediately. That story's also been told thousands of times in all of – like half of art is about like veterans struggling with – you know what I mean?

21:02So I think that's the challenge of the movie. but that's also the entire premise of the movie, right? So you stick around and you go, oh, they actually have more in common than you think. But that's, no, that's a great point because I think in general, people also would be tougher to have empathy for that athlete. You know what I mean? Because you're like, well, he's playing a game for a lot of money and blah, blah, blah, and the fame and the, you know, versus the veteran story. But there was a scene written in the original script that we just couldn't, there's just no way we could shoot. Part of it was budget.

21:33Part of it was just, it was already too long. So it's still too long. It could get trimmed. But he not only drives to that game, can't figure out where to park, blah, blah, blah. But he's down on the sideline during the game or pregame. And he's like super uncomfortable because he's not in pads and he's not out there. And you get to see these guys, and even the water boy kind of gives him shit. You know what I mean? And it's just like this moment where it's just like, it's so cringy because he wants to be out there and you could feel he's so awkward standing there watching everybody do what he loves and he can know and knowing he'll never do that again you know and so well no and and so it's like my note you had something to address it but then for whatever reason you couldn't get it in there and that's i always try to be like i think the more i've done stuff the more uh empathetic i am to the constraints that the people were under and i understand most people were trying to do their best.

22:30But that, that, that feeling I think is really interesting. I was actually, um, I was talking to Dante Hightower, uh, and he just, he, he'd like took a year off and then retired. Like he, he, he didn't, he like, he, so his retirement was a little bit longer than people think it was sort of like, will they, won't they? But I was talking to him about like, where does that energy or intensity go? Right. Cause like to be great at anything, You have to have this sort of almost unhealthy obsession with the thing, right? Like you're an intense person and that intensity is directed towards learning how to like playing the guitar or, you know, riding bowls or playing football or, you know, war fighting, right?

23:13Like to be great at something, it consumes you to an unhealthy degree, right? And then when the outlet for that thing goes away, the intensity is still there. and the single-mindedness and the obsession is still there, but now there's not an outlet for relief for that intensity. And so like I'm, you would think I'd be, because writing books is hard, that I'd be more happy when I'm not writing one. But it's actually the opposite because when I'm not doing it, yes, I have more time and things are easier, but I also now have this, that it doesn't know where to go. And so it actually takes more emotional regulation for me to not be doing the thing than doing the thing.

23:57Do you remember the line right before he starts firing on him at the range? No, what does he say? You just described it. Most of my post-traumatic stress is from lack of traumatic stress. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And that's, I mean, that's that feeling. I think that a lot of just people feel that are competitive people, that are successful people, that especially it's something that's competitive and challenging and all of that. Like we just, that stress is comforting. You've been deliberately subjecting yourself to stress since you were a kid, right? That like to be great at football or writing or acting or what you do, like you have to have been doing that thing for a long time.

24:40You don't just go like at 25, like, I think I'm gonna get into this, right? It's like, it's been your thing. and so when that thing goes away you either have to find another outlet or it sort of feasts on itself right right yeah i mean i was always obsessed as a kid with sports i mean sports were my thing i wanted to be joe montana or or uh you know kevin mitchell i'm not a san francisco giants fan um so all the bay area yeah i grew up in el cerrito okay yeah i'm from sacramento know. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up there and, and, you know, from the year I was born in 81, the Niners won the Superbowl that year and they won it, you know, four other times until I was 13.

25:22And so I was just obsessed with that. I was, I was Joe Montana for Halloween two years in a row. And, uh, you know, this was me. Um, but I never even, I never played football until a lot later in life. I played all these other sports. Right. And by the time I was in middle school and I maybe had the opportunity, I was just, I was, I was afraid of, you know, not being good, getting cut, riding the bench, looking stupid, all those things that people struggle with at 13, but also people struggle with at 30 or 50 or whatever. It definitely hung with me. I had that regret for a long, long time all through high school into my 20s, into the military, and eventually had to quell that.

26:03But in a way, I was still preparing for that opportunity in this weird like childish way. I always knew at some point I was going to try somehow. And it just didn't happen until I was 29, but it did happen. It's been interesting. I don't know if people totally get this. I think obviously people are like very impressed with Navy SEALs or Green Berets or, you know, sort of soldiers in general, but I don't think you necessarily get that they have in them the same thing that professional athletes have or anyone who's like elite at their profession. And it's, that's the, that's the way they see it.

26:40That's the way that they train. It's not as well paid or as, you know, public, but like, I've just come to understand like elite performance is elite performance, right? And so like they're operating on similar schedules, similar sort of discipline. It's like when I go to an NFL locker room or when I speak, like I spoke to the Green Berets at Eglin a couple of years ago. Seventh group. Yeah. Nice. and uh those guys are wild yeah but you're like oh these are the same people like they actually do have a ton in common because they're they're just they're extra do you know what i mean it's like it's a it's extra and and that's that's how they operate part of that is like knowing that your career is going to end pretty quick yeah that could be young you know i mean if you're if you make it to 25 in the nfl that's it's not old but that's like a landmark you know i mean that three years is a typical career and a lot of people join the military they might join at 17 and do four years or out at 21 yeah they did this crazy stuff and in special operations obviously it's typically longer i did a total of 10 if you count my time in the national guard yeah um but but yeah that like you said i mean the structure the uniform like identifying with that uniform that means a lot to you and a lot to other people the same shit on the wall like the values the practice you know what i mean like they're talking the same it's the same sort of set of principles and assumptions and like, you know.

28:07Yeah. Yeah, the camaraderie. I mean, bootcamp, training camp, whatever it is. Like you just, you get really close and these people could be from all walks of life. They usually are. Yeah. Very different experiences and beliefs and all that stuff. But you don't really care about that. You just are like, well, that guy would run through a wall for me. So I don't care what he believes. Like I know he'll do that. And so I'll do the same for him. I wonder if also part of it is the understanding, like, how many people want the finite amount of spots also contributes to it, right? So, like, there's a – it's not a paranoia, but there's a sense that, like, if you don't want it, you know, you're not going to last very long.

28:50Do you know what? It's true, too. Like, I spoke at the Naval Academy on Sunday, and it's like, you think about who these kids beat out for these spots, right? And then you think about, like, and then at the end of it, they're all like, you know, there's how many submarine spots and how many, you know, naval aviation spots and how many, like, if you want to be a captain of a ship, like, there's this thing and a lot of people want that thing. And so there's this, I think, just like an NFL receiver knows like, hey, like, not only is it generally short, but it can be shorter if I take one day off because someone wants my, people would kill for my job.

29:27Right. Right. And so there's that kind of like the, just the, the. It's the Mamba mentality, man. That was Kobe Bryant. Yeah. Yeah. It really was. I mean, and there's a lot of people in the, yeah, in the military like that. I was fortunate enough to spend a bit of time in a unit where we had, we had a lot of freedom to spend our spare time at the range if we wanted to. Right. And there's just certain guys that were out there. You just thought, man, they're just, they gotta be over-training. They're just shooting way too much. They're doing way too much. And it turned out those are the guys that were the best, You know, it just was.

29:58They just. No one's asking them to do it. No. But they want to be the best. They want to be the best. Yeah. At everything. Yeah. At everything. And you're right. I mean, with the attrition rates being high in both, very high. The higher you go, obviously, the higher the attrition rate. Or just the less people that even apply because they've already talked themselves out of, there's no way I could do that. Like, I won't be, I'm not elite. Where they just fundamentally don't even qualify. Like you're not even, you're like already out of the running just from the basic qualifications, which are not easy.

30:28Right. Yeah. And it's, and it's, and it's wild though, because as you go, at least in my experience, the people, if you lined up all the people in my, my basic training class had all 18 x-rays and an 18 x-ray was somebody, I think the program started in about 03 or so, where they were trying to bolster the special forces ranks. They wanted to add a battalion to each group. so they're like we got to find uh some different folks so we can't just lower the standards and let more people that are already in the army you know come to selection so let's open it up to the public if they score high enough on a language aptitude test and asvab and you know they got to pass their flight physical and all these things so i was 23 when i joined and i barely shot a gun you know i wasn't around that stuff but i had some different life experiences i went some different places in the world did some different things and they saw some value in that So I get this 18 X-ray contract where you go to basic training, airborne school, and then straight into special forces selection after that.

31:25So I go to basic and of the 200 people in my basic training battalion, 145 of us had this special forces contract. So it's all these people that are trying to make it. And all of a sudden you're thinking like, you know, what are the numbers? What are the odds of this group? And you kind of assess people. You look at them and you're like, well, that guy's definitely making it. And there's no way that guy's making it. And how many times I was wrong is kind of crazy. You know what I mean? Some of the guys I was right, but some of them I was dead wrong. And it was like, you know, that whole don't judge a book by its cover.

31:57Like genuinely in this situation, there's something inside of certain people. And whether they ever access it or not, you know, maybe they don't always. But this forced you to. If you really wanted to go there, you had to go to a different place a lot of times, mentally and emotionally and, you know, physically really. but it was just crazy to think that and to see that because even me i was when i showed up i was really unhealthy before that like i just since high school i didn't play any sports i didn't really do anything the first pt test like you know i did 29 push-ups in two minutes and 53 sit-ups and ran two miles in like 15 45 or something like not the standard you are not gonna make it yeah um but in those 14 weeks of basic i just committed myself even in basic to like, I'm just going to do a little bit more than everybody else, you know?

32:44And then that just got, I got addicted to it. And it just, you know, it's by the end of basic PT test, I did like 145 pushups and 103 sit-ups and ran two miles in 11 minutes. Like a different person was there all of a sudden, just 14 weeks. And then that just continued. And there was a certain number of us that just had that mentality and we kind of, you know, found each other and, you know, went through everything kind of together and kind of carried each other through it.

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35:17it is funny like there's all these things i think if you're just like a regular person they seem like so simple that they can't possibly be true or they seem like cliche or like you're just too cynical to be like it's got to be more than that but like you know sort of the growth versus like the fixed mindset like if you're a person who can get better um you can get really good and if you're a person who's like i am what i am you know like that's sort of how you are and it's weird how you You see it kind of play out that way. And obviously in sports and not like if you're the person who's just always getting better, like there's really no ceiling on that.

35:52And if you're the person who like struggles with feedback, who thinks you know how to do shit, you know, who doesn't like being yelled at, like you're kind of stuck. And you can watch like the trajectories seem the same. And then one kind of just deviates from the other really quickly. So I imagine even a lot of the recruiters or those sort of people in the boot camps, I imagine they're always constantly, they're just surprised or they just have a lot of trust in the process for the people who follow it. Like the people who commit, they know how transformative it can be for someone and the person who won't sort of submit to it and turn themselves over to it, they're like, you might as well quit right now.

36:37yeah yeah no i think you're absolutely right and they've and they've seen the process before a lot of those guys so i i imagine they're a little they're a little more uh i don't want to say open to it but they're a little more patient yeah you know with it and and knowing that people will so everyone pretty much self-selects in life you know like yeah you get maybe maybe you got picked for the team maybe you didn't but like you're probably capable of next year making that team if you're willing to commit the time and all that and really just, you know, put it in. And I mean, you see that with, with simple things in life, like, you know, like weight loss is a big thing, right?

37:15And people really struggle with it. And it's, we're just so obsessed with immediate results that if, if I, I commit to it, I go to the gym and I go all month, five days a week, and I'm doing all these things and I gained two pounds, like it doesn't work. And they just quit. And it's just like, dude, no, just stick with, just trust it. Like, look at everybody else that does that, it's going to happen. It's just your body's maybe not quite sure what you're trying to do yet. And so it's like trying to figure out what's happening and eventually it'll click and it'll go, just stick with it. Just don't quit.

37:45It's so hard when you're young, I think, and when you're inexperienced because like people say, you know, trust the process. But if you've never experienced a process before, it's hard to trust in a thing. It just seems like somebody's telling you some lie or something, you know, like they're like, oh, go to the gym, you'll lose weight. And you're like, I went to the gym for a month and it didn't work. Like when someone says like, just, you know, just keep working on that manuscript and you're like, but I haven't worked, they've never gotten to the other side. So they don't know. Right. But once you, I imagine for you, like, so you, you go to basic training, you're not in shape 14 weeks later, you're, you've made it through and, and you're, you're actually, your growth, your gains are accelerating.

38:24Now, when you go do other stuff that you've never done before, whether it's, uh, you know, professional football or college football professional football when it's directing a movie you're like i'm comfortable starting at zero because i know how quickly i know it's you know it's possible to get from here to there you've done it before and if you don't quit chances are that process will work for you again yeah yeah no i mean we we self-attrit i don't know if it's a word but we do you know more than anything else yeah it's funny you say that because when I think about the movie thing, I had an interest in it and a passion for it since I was 19, but I didn't really, I mean, I came up to LA from San Diego at 19, took some acting classes, but I just mostly partied and, you know, I worked odd jobs and four years later, I'm, you know, pretty depressed and like, I don't feel purposeful and I'm not doing anything that, I feel like I make a difference in the world at all.

39:20I feel like if I'm gone, you know, I would be missed by my family, but the world would be just fine without me. So not until I was 34, I guess, finishing my master's degree in advertising, but I knew I wanted to work in film and had the opportunity to do an internship at Film 44, which is Peter Berg's production company out in LA. So I went out there and I'm training for this NFL opportunity, but I'm making coffee and answering phones. And like, I'm just an unpaid intern and I don't know anything about, and I'm just trying to learn as much as I can. you know, and, and, uh, I guess five years later is when I directed MVP.

40:00Um, but through that five years, it wasn't just, it wasn't like MVP was the only thing going on, or I just wanted to make this movie or, you know, I want to do a lot of things, but I did most jobs you can imagine on a, on a set, you know, aside from anything really technical, like I'm not a camera operator and, you know, anything like that. But, um, just learning the whole ins and outs of the business from the development side from like taking absolutely nothing to a finished product like how that that that process you know how that works and how that looks and and then just asking a ton of questions and getting feedback from people and not being afraid to send somebody my really shitty first draft and just let them tear it apart but somebody that i trust and i know they know what they're doing and all that stuff you know because that's just one one of those things but it was the same with football it was the same with the military and you're right if i didn't I mean, it really started for me with probably basic training.

40:53And that period of time where I went from A and I finished at B. But - You're like, I did what they said and it worked. And then, so when they're like, you're like, how do I become a college football player? They're like, do this. And then you did that. And then with football, it's like, then you went, you interned and they're like, this is how this works. And you listened as opposed to what I think a lot lot of people do, which is they think that they know, or they don't want to do the stuff that sucks, or they don't think the other people know. You had a reason to trust the process and that you underwent a process and it was transformative.

41:30But I do feel like there's some memo that you didn't get where the memo says you can do one cool thing in your life. And you're like, you know what I mean? If someone was just a green beret, you're like, oh, that's cool, right? You're like, Green Beret, then you played college football at a great school, then you were like, I'm going to play professional football, and then you're like, I'm going to write, direct, and star in a movie about my life, give or take. Like, each one of those things is like years and years of work and would be if a person did just one of those things, you'd be like, wow, good for you.

42:11And you're just like, you're like, no, you can do this, and then you can do this, and then you can do this. There's something very interesting about that to me. Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, I, I, uh, I think, and I say this a lot to people and they're like, no, no, no, don't do that. Don't say that. But it's true for me. I think I maintain at least early on a little bit of naivety in certain things and I'm okay with that. I don't read too much into how hard this thing is or the odds against you and all that, because I'm like, well, what matters most is I'm passionate about it. I'm interested in it and I want to do this and I'm literally dying.

42:44and you talk about this, you know what I mean? I mean, every second you're just dying. Sure. So - Why not try? Why not try? Because I'm just gonna die and I'm gonna be six feet deep like everybody else. And to me like that, I don't know, that's enough for me. That's enough to not do something that I'm not interested in. And I understand it's very different. I don't have a family. I don't have kids I have to look after. Like there's dynamics in life that adjust us a bit. Sure. And we have to make some sacrifices. And I make my sacrifices in certain ways and I've sacrificed other things that I do want.

43:23But I also am coming to this belief that you can do both. Like you can do both. It may not be exactly how you mapped it. And it's probably not gonna be because even the things that I've done, like I wasn't planning on being a long snapper. Like that's not a sexy position. I wanted to be a quarterback like Joe Montana or whatever. But I don't, there is a cap in certain ways, you know, from a ability standpoint, physically, a lot of times, that I had to like accept, but there's not a cap on, I think, how like mentally strong we can become, you know, and how that belief in ourself and then how we can still contribute to that thing that you love so much.

44:07You just got to find, for me, it's finding thankless jobs, you know, a thing that people aren't willing to do. Like I'm willing to do anything. So if you're not willing to do that, like give that to me, I'll carry that thing. And that's where I'm gonna fit in. I also think one, maybe the secret to all the things you managed to do is you did find, I wouldn't say it's an end run, but you found an unusual way into all of them. So even first off, you were just saying about how you got in the green berets, you had not the traditional way in, right? Like there was this unique circumstance where they're trying to add people.

44:39you had a different contract than most people right so you did that and then yeah you didn't you didn't go uh in football for first off if you're just a regular person in their late 20s trying to go to college and to make it on at ut probably harder to do than if you have also been in an elite physical uh circumstances like you were in and then i imagine being a vet like people were willing to look at it differently than maybe they would have just someone who's like, oh, I spent the last eight years on the couch, right? Yeah. But like - No, I got to try out, no doubt. I got to try out because of my background.

45:17But you were also trying out and you were willing to take a position for which I imagine there was less competition than say quarterback, right? And then when you made it in, when you did this movie, it's not like you wrote this dark period drama or some like weird, you didn't make some, like you made a thing that there is an obvious market for, but not a lot of people can or want to speak to that market. Right. And so that was also a way in that I imagine, again, if you'd, if you had written and tried to sell a$200 million sci-fi epic as your first thing, people would probably be like, what, you know, like Come back when you've done something, right?

46:02And so people who have done a lot of things are also, I find, like Tim Ferriss is a good example of this. They're good at deconstructing the system and then very strategic about the way in, right? Someone called this like finding the third door, right? They said there's the front door of the nightclub, there's the back door of the nightclub, and then there's the bathroom window. and you kind of find like the window in. Do you know what I mean? Like what is a different way in that's uniquely suited to my skills, my attributes, and by the way, most people are neglecting. Right. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

46:43I mean, you know, with the long snapping thing with football, I mean, I honestly didn't even know what a long snapper was when I was going to go to try out for the team. Yeah. But I knew, okay, looking at my size, my lack of physical ability, speed, strength, all these things, which I worked on as best as I could. I got the fastest and strongest that Nate could get, but that's still not that fast and strong as compared to these guys. So it was like, all right, it's going to be a safety or a slot receiver are the only two positions that really make sense for my size and speed or whatever. So that's what I'm going to try out as.

47:23And I ended up trying out as a safety and I was on the scout team. You know, I'm getting run over at practice every day, but I'm doing everything I can to prepare the team for the game. This is my first year at Texas. And, you know, but I always bounce back up and I was always, you know, volunteering to, to be a part of any drill or whatever. And then, you know, I was, I was able to be a backup on like the kickoff team or the punt block team, but I was still not. They're like, we can't actually trust that he's going to do as good of a job as this other guy, even though, you know, he might do all the right things at practice.

47:56He might be going as hard as he can and trying his best. No one will out try Nate. But this person is better. Yeah, but this person is just better. And we got to play the better guy. Yeah. But after that first year, it was like I was in the identifying stage. I was like, I have to get on the field. I want to play so bad. I got to play. We were blowing somebody out on Veterans Day. So they put Nate in the game on kickoff coverage. nowhere near the tackle but i go down there and this guy that's trying to block me he kind of i could feel his his balance shifting he was a big guy and he was a little top heavy and so i kind of like you know threw him and it was it was really just displacing his weight into a different direction but you know the sideline went nuts like i said the tackle was 30 yards away i was nowhere near the play sure but i just was like that feeling of like oh my gosh yeah i gotta find a way so then that's when i started long snapping this the starter that year and the backup were both seniors.

48:47And I was like, okay, I'm going to give this, you know, two months and I'm just going to do it every day. And if I'm, if, if my body for whatever reason, it's not responding and I'm not, I'm not getting any better than whatever, but you know, pretty quickly I started to somewhat get, I don't even know if I was getting the hang of it, but I was seeing a bit of results, just small results, but I was snapping a hundred balls a day and just like obsessed with it. And all the ways I learned to shoot a pistol, which I didn't know how to do from stance to grip to front sight post to trigger squeeze, all those things applied to standing over the ball and getting the right grip and the aim point, aim small, miss small, and slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

49:28All these things we learned in the military, they applied. And it just sort of, it's one of those few closed skills on a field where it's just like shooting a free throw. Yeah, the crowd may be different. It might be the first quarter versus two seconds left in the game. The situation's different, but it's 15 feet. It's the same shot. And it's the same with a long snap. It's 15 yards. It's the same targets, the same guy standing back there. You got to put it in his right pocket. Or if it's a field goal, it's like, you got to put it, you know, right on the holder's chin and it's the same. And so if I could just focus there, then I could figure this out and it ended up working.

50:02Like being a quarterback. Yeah. You probably do need 15 years of, you know, on field audible experience, like in the sense of totally throwing things. You need to have run through every kind of play, been in every situation because it's so, you need this intense intuition and sort of fingertip feel for the game and where it's going and what it means that you probably can't pick up in your 20s. But there are other things that are more sort of set skills or repetitive things that, yeah, maybe you can, if you have a transferable base of knowledge. It's like Belichick isn't picking college basketball players and slotting them in as quarterback.

50:49But they could work potentially as a tight end because it's this one thing you're doing. And if you have all these other things, you can learn. You can learn the last mile of it, but you can't learn the basic part, the fundamentals necessarily. Totally. No, and I think maybe that's why ultra running is an old man's game a bit. You know what I mean? Maybe, and I know there's physical aspects to that too. And the body changes in different ways. And old man's strength is a thing in certain aspects and certain movements. but but also like if yeah if you've if you've endured some things in the past like i you know i i've never i haven't done 100 yet but i went out and did 54 earlier this year and before that i did 31 the year before and i ran my first marathon a few weeks before that and i'd never really done a distance thing before but i did long movements in the military yeah and i just knew i know what that's like to want to quit yeah and that's really the main skill is like can you conquer your ability to want to stop doing a thing.

51:49Right. The very human desire to stop doing this painful thing. Do you have that muscle, the muscle that says, no, we're going to keep going? Right. As Seneca's line is, we treat the body rigorously so that it's not disobedient to the mind. And so if you have that muscle, the muscle that can get in a cold plunge, the muscle that can push through, the muscle that can deal with people saying you suck a lot until you don't suck, that's like the ultimate muscle. It's really crazy what these meat sacks are capable of. I mean, it really is. And it's controlled by this little thing up there, you know, mine's smaller than others, but, you know, it's wild just to, yeah, just that this thing can do that, can just endure and just keep going through all this pain.

52:39And I wonder, you know, I always wonder, you probably know more about this than me, a lot more about this, but just like the way these, you know, the synapses work and like the nerves and the pain that we feel, like how much of that is phantom. I mean, I talked to a lot of guys I served with in the military and I've got to know through the veteran community that are missing limbs, right? And it's like phantom pain is a real thing. So it's like, how much of that is actually phantom pain too? You know, when we're out there and we're like, no, I have my legs and my legs hurt really bad. well, like what percentage of that is this actual pain and what percent of it is in our heads?

53:15Certain people feel different levels of that and they're doing the same thing. And I don't know, it's super interesting to me. Do you know who Courtney Dewalter is? I do. I mean, I don't know. I've never met her, but I know exactly who she is. No, I interviewed her on the podcast. She was talking about, she calls it like the pain cave. So she's like, when it starts to hurt, I tell myself like I'm entering the pain cave and I want to like see what's back there. Right? So instead of going like my body's telling me this is painful stop, which is obviously why your body does it. But your body, it's like the check engine light or not the check, the gas light comes on way before the car is actually going to run out of gas or else there's no purpose for the light.

53:54You know what I mean? And so if you can have this sort of almost exploratory mindset of like, well, I want to know what's on the other side of this. I want to know how far back this goes. I want to know how far I can bend this thing before it breaks. That sounds dangerous. It's dangerous, yeah, but that's how you end up pushing those limits, you know? And it's sort of self-actualizing. Like, if you're like, no, this is my limit. I can't go any further than that. That's like as far as you can go. Right. But if you're like, I wonder how far I can go, you know, you're probably gonna go a little bit further.

54:28And I'm gonna, you know, I'm not quoting, but definitely gonna reference a very cliche film in Fight Club. But that scene with the lie on the hand, you know what I mean? And that chemical burn and like feeling that pain and just like being with it and like sitting with it and working through it and not trying to run from it and not being afraid of it. Like it is, it definitely, there's value in that. There's a lot of value in that. And just understanding like, okay, well, this is absolutely normal. I'm supposed to be feeling this because look what I'm doing right now. Sure. And this is good because, you know, it means my body's operating properly and kind of having a different approach to that focus.

55:09But that's really interesting about the cave too. I hadn't heard that and hadn't thought of it in that way. But just wanting to really lean into that discomfort and pain more and be like, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's see if I push. Maybe I push a little harder right now, even though I'm feeling more pain than I have. And that's the opposite of what we want to do. That's what the voice in our head is telling us to slow down or to stop.

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58:41Well, most people are physically capable of running a marathon. Like, it's not like this superhuman physical task, right? Like, you have enough muscles, you have enough body fat, you know, like, you can physically do the thing. It's you just don't think you can do the thing. and it's hard to do the thing. So you would stop at some point, right? And then later you'd be like, I feel like I could have kept going, right? And obviously this is one of the functions of training. You run five miles a lot of times, start with one mile, then you run five miles a lot of times, then you run 10 miles, then you're pushing your training.

59:17So you get to the point where, you know, maybe you've never run the marathon before. You've never run 26 whatever miles before you've entered the race. but you know, you know, on that race day that you don't really need to be uncertain or question until you've gotten past the point of your furthest training. Do you know what I mean? Like the, can I do this is irrelevant for the first 15 miles if you've done 15 miles before, right? It's really the only, the 10 at the end is really the only leap, you know? And so like, if you've done hardship before and you've pushed through, if you've followed processes before, then you know, like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm doing this again.

1:00:05I'm not, I don't know for like, to me, that's always a question. Like how, how can you, how do you know you can do something you've never done before? Right. That's like, you don't, you don't. But if you've done other hard shit, you know, hey, first off, I'm, I'm vaguely, I'm familiar with the general shape of what it is to do hard things. Right. And then you also know like, hey, I'm someone who doesn't quit. I'm someone who figures stuff out. I'm someone who asks questions, you know, and you have this, so you don't have certainty that you can do it, but you know, you have the ingredients to do it if it is in fact possible to do.

1:00:41Right. And that's a, that's a big part of the allure for me is I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I can, like the unknown. I love the unknown. Sure. It's so interesting. And if I've already done something, like I'm already thinking about this, if I'm able to complete, if I'm able to finish Leadville and I get done, like I wonder if I'll have any desire to ever do that again. And not because it was a hundred miles and it's a lot of training and it's hard, but it's like, well, I know I can do that now. Well, we make up new reasons. Then it's like, can I place? Can I do a better time? That's true.

1:01:15But just knowing myself, it may be one time. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, that's something else I don't know. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's so interesting to me. And I've thought about this a lot lately too, about why, because people ask me often, like, why are you so, whether it's the word is obsessed or interested or focused on like these challenges and doing these things that, like you said, maybe is a once in a lifetime thing for a lot of people, like that one thing. And I think a lot of it comes from insecurity. Really? Yeah, I do. Do you feel like you have something to prove? Yeah, I guess so.

1:01:51And I don't know if that's to myself or to, I don't, if it, there's not really a person that I can identify as like the person I'm trying to make me, make, you know, be proud of me or whatever. Did you feel like people were proud of you early in your life or no? um i think sometimes i mean i think my you know my my folks are both very smart very accomplished people they've worked really hard my mom got a phd in a male-dominated field one of the first women which went to cal berkeley and you know my dad is a racehorse veterinarian and you know he got his veterinary degree at uh there's a master's degree at university of tennessee and you know they're just they're just very smart people and so that's probably why i didn't go to college right away because it was like, I got to do it my way and I got to find my own path.

1:02:36And, and I didn't really work that hard in high school, but I also, yeah, there's nobody, at least in my life that I was more happy to see sitting in the stands at a game where there was a little league or whatever than my folks, you know, my parents, I want to make, I wanted to make them proud. Absolutely. But yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't know if it's like a proven something to them or if it's proven to something to 13 year old Nate that just feels, you know, he's still in there. It's still me. It's the same guy. I mean, I get, you know, I get, I still have these fears. I'm not like unafraid of all these things.

1:03:14I'm absolutely afraid of all these things, but that's, that's why they're appealing to me. So I don't know, but I just, I still, I wonder if that's it. Cause I think I'm, I'm secure in a lot of ways and like mostly like who I am and, you know, what I believe. And I think my willingness to really listen to other people's perspective and way of doing things. I'm very open to that. I like to learn and take everything into account. Like I love different, just different perspectives. But at the same time, like I'm still obsessed, I guess, with like finding this next thing. And I just want to go do this.

1:03:53And these things sort of come about. I never thought when I was a kid that I'd be running 100 miles. I never thought I was going to join the military either, though. That wasn't really something. The only thing that was a kid dream was professional sports, playing football. Did you feel like when you did those things, did it feel good for a minute? Or is your mind always on to the next thing? No, it feels good for more than a minute. It definitely does. I mean, even the – I got to play in one NFL game, and I got cut. And it is what it is. I did everything I could on the field. I actually played, played well, but it was the next big round of cuts in the, in the preseason in 2015.

1:04:30And, and that was it. And, and it certainly wasn't like this, oh, you know, that was cool and that was great, but what's next? It was, you know, I'd spent the next year trying to get another shot, you know, and I had a few teams interested, it didn't happen and that was it. But I still always think about that and I'm grateful of that. And, you know, it's one of my proudest moments getting to play. But yeah, when I finish something, I think, I don't know. That's actually a really good question. I think sometimes maybe, yeah. Sometimes I am sort of like thinking about what's next. I do struggle with enjoying these moments, enjoying life.

1:05:13I have to constantly remind myself to look up if I'm going on a long run because I'm just like trying to do the best that I can and just push through things. And I'm like, focus down, like just one step, next step, next step, which helps me get to that place. But to actually enjoy what I'm doing and what I'm seeing and experiencing and the opportunity to do that and to try, I miss out on that a lot. I fail to do that. We might've overlapped very briefly when you were in Seattle. because I went to one Seattle training camp and I met with Coach Carroll and John Snyder. I just don't remember if it was 2015 or 2016.

1:05:55I'd have to look it up. It was, yeah, I don't remember if it was the season after they lost the Super Bowl or the season after that. That's, yeah, that's when I was there. It's kind of funny. One year after or two years after? One year after. The year I went to Texas was the year after they lost to Alabama in the national championship game. Okay. And the year I went to the Seahawks was the year after they lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. So, you know, and I did not fix what was broken. Well, what had happened is the Patriots, someone at the Patriots had read The Obstacle is the Way. And then obviously there was that devastating loss.

1:06:26And then he had recommended the book to someone in Seattle, actually to John Snyder, who then read it. And then there was an article about it. And then I came out. I'm trying to think what I remember about that year. But Seattle actually has an interesting track record of finding sort of untraditional people or people that other teams passed on. They sort of have – he does a really good job of that. Pete and John are still great friends. Yeah. And I'm so grateful. I remember the day I got cut, John delivered the news. Oh, really? Usually they send down somebody. He doesn't want to do it. Yeah.

1:07:04John was like, I'll go. So he was walking up to me and he had this face like his puppy just died or something. And he's just kind of like, and I'm like, it's all good, man. I'm like consoling him for cutting me because he felt, he just was like, you know, I mean. Sure. He probably wanted it to work. Yeah. I think they did. And it's all good. I wasn't the best man for the job and I own that. And it is what it is. But yeah, something about, they love to find guys with a chip on their shoulder. And that's why I got a shot up there. And I had a call also from the St. Louis Rams that offseason, right after the draft ended.

1:07:43And I had to make a quick decision, Seahawks or Rams. And for me, I mean, initially the back-to-back Super Bowls, that locker room, those personalities and the players, I was already like, I want to go to Seattle. The Rams were four and 12. It was just a different situation. But what really sealed the deal is when I had the opportunity to talk to Pete and John. And they both were like, look, man, it wasn't just like, hey, we just love to have you up here, you know? Like this make a wish moment. It didn't feel like that, you know? It really felt like, hey, you are a long shot, man. And it's gonna be really tough.

1:08:19But like, we love guys with a chip on their shoulder and your story and, you know, what you've overcome. And, you know, the fact that, I mean, you started at three years, for three years at Texas, that's not a bad school. You made it happen and you're good at what you do, but you gotta get bigger, you gotta get stronger, you gotta get better. but we want to give you a shot. And that was like, that just spoke to me so much more than, than anything. And I was like, yeah, this is, this is like a, this is a real thing. You know? Actually, I asked John, I was like, as a GM, what do you look for in players?

1:08:47And he said, one of the things he looks for, obviously you look for all the obvious things. And then he was like, but I also look for people who have been through something. It's like they got an injury or they got arrested or like he was like they did something and it set them back and then they got through it because he's like especially in like rookies right so you know the trajectory of a rookie is that you you you were great probably one of the best at what you did or you wouldn't have made it into the nfl and then you're not good comparatively right like you you get introduced to this very steep learning curve.

1:09:29For the first time in your life, you're not the big man on campus. Yeah. So how have you adjusted to similar learning curves in your life, right? Where, yeah, your freshman year, you didn't start, right? And you fought back in your sophomore year, you got to start, right? Or yeah, you lost someone or you messed something up and now you had this huge deficit to overcome? And were you hungry enough and hardworking enough? And could you correct course to do that? Like that, that's a set of skills that don't show up on a stat sheet, but are ultimately going to be super, super important if you want to be great at this thing.

1:10:09So I imagine part of what they liked in your story was just like, look, if anyone has the capacity to figure it out and to make it work, it's this dude who's been through like real shit. right and and they developed these guys too i mean like geno smith now the new quarterback up there i mean he's he's been in the league 10 10 11 years something like that he never quit no never quit he was and he was great in college he kicked our ass in college when he played for west virginia he came here to ut to austin and it was a hell of a game as a shootout but he played out of his mind and they won and then he goes the nfl and he started for a bit i think with the jets but then benched and then looked like a career backup you know and then all of a sudden this door you know this opportunity.

1:10:49And I think you're absolutely right. Like they gave him, they, they, they, they knew the talent was there, but it was like, but this guy has, he did not quit. You know, he's, he's just hung in there for all these years. Let's just see what he can do. And then boom. I mean, they, they, they didn't even miss a step, you know, after losing Russell Wilson, one of the greatest to, to ever play in Seattle. Uh, and, and, you know, now a lot of people are picking him to go right back to the playoffs and who knows? I mean, it's pretty wild to see that. And I got a lot, I got a few guys I played with that have spent time up in Seattle and it's just different up there compared to a lot of places.

1:11:21And I can't, I was, that's the only locker room I've been in. I've had the chance to be around some teams and, you know, get to know some of the players, but it is different. I think it's Pete's mentality. You know, he, he's one of these guys, he was with the Jets and the Pats and he struggled, you know what I mean? And didn't do well and went back to college, rethought, how am I doing things? You know, who am I as a person? And how do I approach coaching and, you know, building this culture? Like, what am I actually doing? And what can I do different? And then obviously won almost three straight national championships.

1:11:54Sorry about that. I wasn't on the team, but, you know. But that's incredible. And then goes to Seattle and goes and wins the Super Bowl and just completely different. So he's one of these people, you know, that bounce back in that way. Yeah, it's, I'm always in awe of like coaches or you meet like high ranking people and stuff. and you go like, it took you, you weren't, you were in your mid forties when you finally got like your first real shot. You know what I mean? Like how long, how long, like I wrote my first book when I was 25. So I have, I have, and that seems like a long time for me. Like that was like years and years of writing and, you know, and not working before I get my first shot.

1:12:32But it's very different when someone's like, you had to be an assistant coach for 30 years before you get your first you know right the system's a little different now but i i'm always impressed by people who they were able to hang on for so long just that sort of like grit and determination before you you get your you get your shot yeah that patience is crazy it is crazy it is crazy but you love to see it when it's rewarded and you hear the stories and you see the per you see how much it means to that person you know and you're like you're just happy that that that worked out for that individual because a lot of us know what that feels like.

1:13:07Not all of us, you know, not all of us were willing to do that. But those that are, like, we know what that feels like. And even if it's never happened for us yet, you know, and that thing that we love, we know that it's still possible and we're just going to do it till we die, you know, and just try. And that's enough for me in a lot of ways too. Like, there's plenty of things that just aren't going to work out and that's okay. But as long as I, if I actually want to do that thing and I'm still passionate about it, I can't stop doing it. I have to. It's going to kill me. Yeah, yeah. That's fascinating.

1:13:37Yeah, it's an interesting culture they have there. My favorite Pete Carroll thing is like one year he did a film session of the coaches. Right. Like he forced the coaches to watch film of themselves on the sideline. As you think about the culture of sports, it's this relentless breaking down and criticism every week of what you fucked up the previous week, right? And just frame by frame, you could have done this, you were supposed to do this. And players obviously get better from that, but it's like a grueling, relentless process where you never really get to, you're not sitting around going, it's so awesome to be in the NFL.

1:14:14You're like week to week, like just being broken down and rebuilt every time. But the coaches are typically above that, right? And the coaches don't have to watch. Look, you're yelling at this person and look at their reaction. Like, look at how it's doing the opposite of what you wanted to do. So I always think about that. Like, how are you actually getting feedback for what you do? Or do you think feedback is for everyone but you? Right. Well, I noticed this in Seattle when I was up there. And I think it's something that he probably preaches to his assistants and to the whole staff was like, there wasn't really negative yelling.

1:14:53There's yelling for sure. But if somebody's screwing up, they either know already or if they don't, I think there's more value in taking them to the side and say, hey, look, if you don't fix this thing, you're either going to get cut or you're just not going to play. And it's that simple. And it's like, I don't need to embarrass you in front of everybody else. I don't need to make this a thing. Like, you know. Yeah. But it's that simple. Like, you have to – you got to make a change and produce those results. And people respond to that, you know, when they're treated with that type of respect instead of dog cuss all the time.

1:15:26And they respond, especially at that level. Like, they're getting paid a good salary, you know. At that point in their life, they're men. You know what I mean? They are grownups. And so, but they want to be treated as such. And I think that, yeah, there's certainly a time for that at a certain age that I think there's value as well. Sure. Like, I, and in the military, and oftentimes basic training is the height of that. And of course, the average person in basic training is 19 years old. I was archaic for basic training and I was 23. So yeah, I mean, I think that there's something there that maybe, I don't know how much that's been adopted by other teams and stuff like that.

1:16:04But it's something that I just noticed right away. I was like, man, this is just, it's not like a chill environment. Everything is super competitive. He's all about competing. But at the same time, this should be fun. We should be enjoying every day we're out here. Well, Pete Carroll's coaching philosophy is built around the assumption that confidence is incredibly important, right? That if you don't think you can do something, you're not gonna be able to do it, right? And so I think he said, like, why would you ever do anything that destroys a person's confidence? And so it's not that you don't correct people.

1:16:37It's not you don't hold them accountable, but sort of yelling and berating them because you don't have self-control. It's not actually getting you or them closer to what you want them to be. It's almost certainly getting them the other direction. I think there's kind of a reckoning going on about that in sports. Like, there's not really any evidence that screaming at people makes them better at what they do. But that's how everyone's coach coached them. And so it kind of becomes this cycle of trauma almost. And I think you're starting to see the best coaches not do that. Like, I mean, if you work at Google, your boss doesn't scream at you.

1:17:19And there's elite performance there. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's not how you get the best out of a musician or a best out of, you know, a hedge fund trade. Like, that's actually not how you do it. It's just in sports, probably because it sort of fancies itself being closer to military culture, maybe it thinks it can get away with it. But I think you don't see Steve Kerr scream in anyone's face. Maybe a ref, but like, that's not how it treats the athletes, right? Well, the ref's not on your team. You know what I mean? Like, screaming at the other people is different. right it's like but like you're on the same team why would that i think that's p carol's point you want them to be confident the kicker misses this field goal you scream at them does that make them more or less likely to hit that shot next time probably less likely because now they're in their head about it and kickers are already so far in their head about everything they're hilarious yeah i mean the the one the most elite one right now is in is a longhorn yeah but justin tucker talk about confidence.

1:18:18It's just, that guy is one of the most confident players in the league at any, at any position. He just knows when he goes out there, he's going to make it. He just knows, and he knows he's going to hit it pure. And he knows whatever little things he needs to focus on. And, you know, it's, uh, uh, I remember seeing that in college and he wasn't as even nearly as good as he is now in college and he was still very good, but just like another level of, uh, he just hit another switch of, of belief in himself. And it's a lot of it is the work he put in, he worked really, really hard, you know? And it's interesting.

1:18:50That's like the only position you can get the yips in, in football. Like a quarterback never gets it. I've never heard of a quarterback. Yeah. I mean, they slump, but yeah, you're right. I mean, all of a sudden they just can't hit a pass, you know, they're just at everybody's feet all the time, but no, the kicker. Yeah. It's, it is wild. I think, uh, cause I think it's the only repetitive motion. If you think about it, like every play in football is different. And long snapping. Yes. Well, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm talking to all the kicking, all the kicking related positions. you get the yips from.

1:19:17Cause it's - That's true. Yeah. It's very, for the most part, it's a closed skill as well. You know, I mean, maybe the hold's a little bit different, but by and large, it's the same. You're planting the same spot and you're swinging the leg the same way. And there's only a hundred places you can do it from. And you sit and you sit on the sideline for 30, 45 minutes at a time. Sure. Occasionally without getting to do your thing. And then you have to go out there and just all of a sudden be perfect and, you know, kick it 66 yards like JTEC. And that's, I mean, that's crazy. Oh, it's crazy. And you have to completely wipe the slate clean, whether you hit it last time or didn't hit it last time.

1:19:52Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's the other thing that fire and forget. I mean, you see that in golf, but you see that in a lot of things in life. I think that's a very, very much a life thing. Like just, even if it was a good shot. Yeah. Dumping that, you know. It's almost more important. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because you get complacent quick. Yeah. You know, if you start saying like, oh, I just crushed that last one. I'm fine. I got this. and then all of a sudden it goes sideways. Right, because when you say, I got this, that's the moment you abandon the process or the humility of it. Like I was reading the boxer Floyd Patterson, he was talking about, he's like, the fight that he loses the title to, he was like, I wasn't afraid.

1:20:39He was like, I knew there's something wrong because I wasn't afraid. Because I got this, like I'm the best. and that's when they get you. Yeah. You know? And so there is, that's what keeps it exciting but also sort of makes it hard to enjoy is that you never actually get to feel like you've made it because you're doing it every time. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like in writing, the rule is your last book doesn't write your next one. Like you finish it, it doesn't matter if it sells a million copies, it sells 10 copies. Like you're still starting blank page, next one. And so if you go, I got that, Like you, at the one hand, you have to believe I can do this and you know that you can do it because you just did it.

1:21:20But you also know that that belief doesn't get you anything. You still have to do it from scratch over again. Or like a comedian, right? You do the hour special and then all that material is now dated and you have to build a new hour totally from scratch. Yeah. So you got to believe you can do it. And then you also got to be willing to do the work and not cut the corners and rebuild a new set. I think for me too, the fear aspect, if I'm not, if I don't have fear anymore, if I'm not afraid of it, then it probably doesn't mean that much to me anymore. Sure. At least for me. It's a sign. You know?

1:21:54Yeah. And that's something that, it doesn't mean I need to just abandon it, but like figuring out why I'm feeling that way or why I don't really care about this deal. because that's when I, yeah, that's when I get easily get lazy and, you know, it's, I'm not, I'm not performing because I don't have like, my senses aren't all switched on. You know what I mean? My hyper awareness, like it's just not there. What also means you're probably not lifting a challenging enough weight with how you're doing it. Right. So like, if you're doing the same thing you've done many times, it's not, you're like, I got this.

1:22:27Cause you've literally done this exact same thing. But if you're trying to do, you know, faster time or at a higher level, or, you know, you're trying to kick a further distance, like if there's something inherently new about it, you're going to be, I think, more alive to it, but then also a little afraid of it. Because like you said, like the answer is uncertain because you haven't done it before. So you don't No, maybe, but the maybe is what keeps it interesting. Maybe. That's an answer. That's one of my common answers to a lot of questions. Is maybe? Yeah, I think so. Maybe. And part of it's like, part of it even when I feel super confident, like it's keeping myself, I think, a bit humble in the situation, you know, to understand that, yeah, you've done this before, but like maybe you won't do it again.

1:23:23or as well or maybe have you seen that movie the disaster artist yeah about you know the room i doubt that guy ever doubted himself like the guy that made the worst movie ever what i would make up about that character from what i've read about him and seen is like his superpower slash kryptonite is that he is not aware of how awful he is right like how fundamentally untalented, unappealing, and not good. He is. And so, I mean, a more self-aware person would have not pulled off what he pulled off because they would have quit, right? So he gets through it and he gets himself in positions. I mean, they're not making a movie about my life, right?

1:24:09So he gets himself into cool positions, but at the same time, he's making shitty stuff because he has no actual ability to step outside himself or to see this thing as hard or difficult or, you know, like requiring something that maybe he doesn't have that maybe like, maybe I'm not, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. That's, that's what keeps it interesting, but also makes it good. What, what for you, what, what at a young age, like grabbed at you? Like what was the, to get you into this world, into writing and into just this curiosity that you have? I mean, I loved books, but it took me a while to actually get that people made them, that it was like a thing you could do.

1:24:56Do you know what I mean? I just thought it's like, obviously, you know, people play professional sports, but you're not like you get after like 10. You're not like, that's me, you know, because you see you don't see yourself in that. Or if you do, that's because you're meant to do it or what. But I think for me, it was this, the moment was like seeing, I remember I had this college professor, her name was Susan Strait. And freshman year of college, they assigned her a novel and we all had to read it. And then she like talked to this seminar. And like, this was like, this was the, they give us all the book and it's like got an award stamp on the front.

1:25:37And then she was just like in the room, you know? And I was just like, oh, she's just like a person. You know what I mean? She's not like, I mean, even that writers didn't live in New York City and live these sort of like, here she is, I went to Riverside. She was at this just regular person, Professor Riverside. And she's from Riverside. She's writing about her experiences. I think that was one of a series of kind of peaks behind the curtain that you're like, it's not that it was attainable, but that it was concrete and real. And then I was a research assistant for this guy, Robert Greene, who wrote The 48 Lots of Power and all these amazing books.

1:26:13And he showed me how books were made. Because as his assistant, I'm doing all... But I was like, oh, this is just a process. This is a thing that you do. It's probably like when you were an intern working on those movies, you saw how a thing goes from a script to a movie you were watching in the theaters. And it demystifies it. It doesn't let you know that it's easy. Right, right. But you see that it is a series of hard things to pull off. But like, if you can learn how to do all those individual things, then maybe you can pull it off. Right, right. That's interesting. Yeah, I just often wonder that with creatives and people that are successful creatives and people that, you know.

1:26:58And creatives is a loose term. It doesn't just mean actors, writers, you know, entertainers or whatever. There's just people that make stuff. Yeah. And what, you know, what sort of like triggered them? But yeah, where did they get that belief that they could do it? Because I think, I talked about the insecurity thing earlier, but I think most, I think most people that compete at a high level do have a decent amount of insecurity somewhere. Sure. Like they, and they, and not that they struggle with it, but they embrace it and they recognize it maybe. maybe they don't even talk about it, but like they know.

1:27:34And it's like, that's what makes us, you know, get up a little bit earlier and, you know, start a little bit, whatever, just pour ourselves into it, at least with me, because I don't want to feel that way anymore. Yeah. You know, and I want to, I want to find out like why, you know, what is so amazing about this that I am, that I am mystified. Like, you know, that, and, and then as you dig into it and learn about it and whether it was my time in the special forces or in football or whatever, it's not that it was easy, but it was simpler than I thought. You know, it was simpler if they're, if it's broken down into these pieces, it's like, okay, certainly not easy to do.

1:28:11Yeah. And most people will never try, but it is just like this other thing, you know, and, and instead, I mean, I think about things that I have no knowledge of at all from a technicality standpoint, you know, when I think of technology generally, like I'm, I'm not savvy when it comes to that, But I do think that if I all of a sudden had a great interest in that, that, you know, maybe I could learn. It might take me a little bit longer. I'm not the smartest guy in the world and, you know, all that. But, like, I could do that thing. I think I could, you know. Well, the important skills are less related to the technical specifics of the thing and more about, like, can you learn?

1:28:51Can you ask questions? Are you good at forming relationships? You know, do you believe your own bullshit? You know, something you don't want to do. You know, like it's all these other things and that are, that are the real killers. And so if you can kind of conquer those first, then, then all that's left is the actual skill acquisition, which isn't easy and it's not a guarantee, but. Yeah. I think that you mentioned listening, like that's, that's a lost art, you know, and that's something that I think just, I don't know why we struggle so much with it. I don't know if it's because attention spans are lower because of, you know, the world we live in now with technology.

1:29:34I don't know. But it's – and I don't like sounding or feeling like this old curmudgeon that's just like, no one knows how to listen anymore. But, yeah, it's just – it's kind of wild to just – because not everybody's like that, certainly. But it feels like a large population people really are. and they don't even want to hear somebody else's perspective or point of view or why they feel the way that they feel. Like, you know, they always ask that, or they used to ask that question when you're younger, like if you could sit down with anybody in history and have a conversation. Like most of the people I would want to sit down with are history's greatest villains.

1:30:11And not because I'm attracted to what they, you know, did. It's horrible stuff. But I want to try to understand like, where did this come from? And like, why, how did you get to this place where you felt like this was the best thing for society, you know what I mean? Or for your community or whatever. Like, where did that come from? Because I'm curious. It's wild. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, his line was two ears, one mouth for a reason. Yeah, right. You know, that you should basically listen more than you talk or respect that ratio. And then the other line from the Stoics is like, conceit is the impediment to knowledge or you can't learn that which you think you already know.

1:30:49So it's like, listening to me is this, inherently humble thing of like, I don't know. I want to learn about her. You tell me, um, as opposed to let me tell you. And, and so the willingness to go, um, I want to go talk to someone who's really good at this thing and learn everything I can from them, as opposed to, I'll go figure it out by myself. You know, like, why would you learn by experience when you can learn from the experiences of others? And that's really the impediment of ego is that it, it just forces you to do stuff on your own or the hard way when like somebody could tell you exactly how to do the thing that you want to do.

1:31:31They're dying for someone to ask them. You know, like what's the secret? Like they're dying and nobody does. Right.

1:31:42Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode.

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1:32:48Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. That's toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist. That's why I don't begrudge them when they appear on the shows that I listen to. But again, as a person who has to pay a podcast producer and has to pay for equipment and for the studio and the building that the studio is in, it's a lot to keep something like the Daily Stoic going. So if you want to support a show but not listen to ads, well, we have partnered with Supercast to bring you a ad-free version of Daily Stoic.

1:33:40We're calling it Daily Stoic Premium. And with Premium, you can listen to every episode of the Daily Stoic podcast completely ad-free. No interruptions, just the ideas, just the messages, just the conversations you came here for. And you can also get early access to episodes before they're available to the public. And we're going to have a bunch of exclusive bonus content and extended interviews in there just for Daily Stoic Premium members as well. If you want to remove distractions, go deeper into Stoicism and support the work we do here. Well, it takes less than a minute to sign up for Daily Stoic Premium, and we are offering a limited time discount of 20 % off your first year.

1:34:18Just go to dailystoic.com slash premium to sign up right now or click the link in the show descriptions to make those ads go away.