Ben Bergeron (#1 CrossFit Trainer) HOW you CAN build your mind and body to take on 2024 (E233)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance app. High Performance Foundation gives young people the tools and skills they need to kickstart their journey to a future where they can thrive. We can't wait to show you what the Foundation team have been working on. Sign up to the High Performance Half Marathon and kick off your fundraising today. Head to our website for more information. Hey, how's it going? You're listening to High Performance, the award-winning podcast that unlocks the minds of some of the most fascinating people on the planet. I'm Jake Humphrey and alongside Professor Damien Hughes, we learn from the stories, successes, and struggles of our guests, allowing us all to explore, be challenged, and to grow.

1:07Here's what's in store today. This is the foundational aspect of why people make change or not. If they feel like they're not in control of their lives, the change will not last. The realist, instead of pointing fingers, pulls thumbs. It's about me. It's about my character. It's how do I respond to these circumstances. If you could do two things through your life, show up and don't complain. If you are complaining, you're focusing on things outside of your control. We have to get away from this motivational, dopamine-driven thing where it goes, am I getting closer or farther away from my goal?

1:46This is why people are able to hold on to their New Year's resolutions for a few weeks and then they have a misstep. It's going to happen. It's coming for all of us. Do the hard work. Pound on your craft. Have that hard conversation. Get up in the morning. Get out of bed. Don't hit the snooze alarm. Let's go do the work. I can't wait. As we welcome to High Performance, the most successful coach in CrossFit history, Ben Bergeron. Ben's athletes have won or medaled at the CrossFit games again and again and again. And now he's flown over from the States to join us in the studio to have a conversation on high performance where he distills his motivation, his techniques and his pathway to success just for you.

2:31So whatever you want from your life, whatever you want from the new year ahead of you, this conversation will get you closer. Honestly, I sat there listening to Ben feeling so inspired. I left this conversation wanting to take on the world. I promise you this is a powerful one. And actually, if you want even more from Ben, then over on the High Performance app, he shared with us his 10 rules for life they're brilliant he lives by them they've been game-changing for him they might well do the same thing for you so just head over to the app store download the high performance app for even more from ben bergeron but let's get to it then one of the most inspiring and motivational conversations we've had on this podcast as we welcome the world's most successful crossfit coach ben bergeron to high performance

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5:05Ben, welcome to the show. Excited to be here. Thank you guys. Thank you very much for taking the time and making the effort to fly across the Atlantic to come and join us. Let's start with what you believe high performance to be. It's a great question. I know it's a question you guys ask everybody, but it's a great way to start off any conversation like this. To me, high performance is the ability to perform at your peak potential. Now, it sounds probably fairly obvious, but it's not as easy to attain than we might think it is. I believe that performance equals, it's formulaic, performance equals your potential minus distractions.

5:50And distractions come in a whole host of different ways. It could be from the competition you're facing. It could be from the external circumstances of it's cold or it's hot. It could be from the burning muscles in your legs. But the biggest distraction that we all face all the time that we should put on the table to have a conversation about for elite athletes or regular everyday athletes or everyday soccer moms and dads, that's what we call them in the States. I don't know. Soccer moms and dads. Does that resonate? Yeah. Okay. is this internal dialogue that we all have. And it's the biggest distraction that most of us face.

6:30It is the thing that is holding us back from high performance. If we were to remove that distraction, we would have such a more likely chance of achieving high performance. But we have a voice that runs in the background. Sometimes it's soft. Sometimes it's loud. Sometimes it's helpful. Sometimes it's hurtful. The verbiage I've used before is become aware of that voice. And is that voice a critic or a coach? And if that voice is a coach, it's there to help you. And this is when you hear like the voice in the head go, you got this, buckle down. But that's not the norm. That's not the default mode for most of us.

7:19Most of us have a voice that resonates on the negative. which is a critic. And a critic's job is to sit on the sidelines and point out the mistakes, the faults, and the shortcomings of the performer. So if that voice in your head is a critic, we're never going to reach our high performance. Now, what is true high performance? It's that sustained over a long period of time, pounding away at a certain craft, whatever that is, your chosen endeavor. And that's what leads to it. But if you have, there's always this idea of like the 10 ,000 hours will lead to mastery. The new one is if you do 18 minutes of practice a day for an entire year, you'll be better than 95 % of anybody in anything.

8:04That's really cool. Just 18 minutes a day of jump rope. If you jumped rope 18 minutes a day, every single day for a year, you'd be better than 95 % of the world's population at jump rope. And there's examples of this. it's all cool on youtube or the the instagrams now if people are doing this but the thing that will hold you back is not necessarily your physical ability as much it is the mental distractions the things tugging you away from the consistency from the discipline from the practice from doing things that get you to high performance so people that are listening to this and they know exactly what you're talking about because they have that negative voice and they know it very well I would imagine they're saying well I have a negative not a positive voice in my head can the voice be changed yeah absolutely yeah absolutely um just like just like you can change your muscles you can change your mind it's plastic meaning it's malleable it's not fixed what the voice in your head for many of us it will default to a negative because we are survival machines from a evolutionarily biological perspective it's more important to remember that that big furry animal with the claws can kill you, then the colorful one with the wings is really pretty.

9:19Like the colorful one with the wings doesn't help you in survival. And that's what we are survival machines. So we have this preservation model built into us, which is the bias towards the negative. The mechanism that we want to use to kind of work our way through that is first awareness. It's really, you know, you just mentioned like everyone understands that a lot of people don't a lot of people don't recognize it that voice in their head and they certainly don't recognize it's running on a loop all the time that shows up when it's screaming and that's why which we might get to hard physical training is such a gateway to high performance regardless of the endeavor entrepreneurs that start physically training hard all of a sudden are better entrepreneurs parents that start training hard become better parents hold on that's a revelation you train harder you're better at things that are nothing to do with training Absolutely.

10:11Yes. And we are not a bag of flesh. It's not your body. And then you have this circuitry up in your head. You are one unit. You are mind, body, spirit, all rolled into one. And it's not as neat as like the little pie chart of mind, body, and spirit. It is this kaleidoscope. It is this mixed solution of the mind, body, spirit. You don't get one improvement without the other. So as you improve your body, the circuitry that runs through the body improves. So you're getting more oxygen, the neurons to the brain. You're getting better decision-making. You're better awareness. But to come back to it, what you're also getting is better awareness of the voice in your head.

11:01If you do hard training, if you're running wind sprints and, you know, in football, like a beep test, if you're doing a beep test, when you finish that 10th, 15th, 20th interval and you're waiting for that next, you can't ignore the voice in your head that's saying something. Is it saying like, you got this, go one more? Or it's like, this is so freaking hard. Like you can't ignore it. Like, I don't want to do another one. It's there screaming at you. in our sport, in CrossFit, your lungs are ripping out of your chest. Your muscles are burning to the point where you're having a hard time standing and you have to pick up a barbell, put it above your head.

11:39That voice that's playing both those roles really loudly, the devil and the angel, if you will. Other people call it self one, self two. Other people, Freud called it the id, the ego and the super ego. There's all these different names for it, but basically it's this dichotomy between something that wants you to do what's right for you and the other one that's in preservation mode. Go sit on the couch, snooze, don't get up in the morning, go eat the sugar-covered blueberry muffin, have the croissants, it's time to watch another show on Netflix. That is inside of all of us. But equally inside all of us is the voice that goes, for the audience that listens to this, is go get it, dude.

12:23do the hard work pound on your craft have that hard conversation get up in the morning get out of bed don't hit the snooze alarm let's go do the work but those are always at we have to recognize those in that awareness of those things but being aware ben i like i'm listening to my inner critic now one so i was with you with the 18 minutes do 18 minutes a day because that's a short amount of time in a busy life that you think i can commit to that yeah but as soon as you said we've got to do the hard the hard stuff and it sounded like the wind runs the bleep test i'm thinking um maybe not then so my inner critic is now getting loud so tell me what like what's your definition of hard it doesn't so hard doesn't mean it doesn't mean the beep test it doesn't mean putting 300 pounds above your head it doesn't mean training to run a marathon if i had my way i would get rid of goals i wouldn't have goals exist really it's we've all been taught all our lives and the goals are successful cue your goal get your goal yeah and then tell me what your goal is if i'm going to be your coach if i'm going to be your trainer if i'm going to start the new year off right with you guys tell me your goal because i want you to get it out in the open i want you to say it and then we're going to put it on a shelf and we're never going to talk about it again all i need to know is what it is i want to run a marathon i want to lose 10 kilos what would yours be in honest let's be really honest like your fitness goal my fitness goal is just to exercise more regularly i love running for my mental benefits that's so that's not the goal that i'm talking that's what i want you to get to right see mine would be i want a real nice looking perfectly shaped six pack and when friends come over and we want to play in the garden my top can come off and i'm not feeling embarrassed.

14:14Okay. So if that is your goal, we can do all of the conversation, all of the talk, all of the mind thing, all that to create, all it's doing is creating some sort of motivational thing that as you take a step towards it, you get a dopamine hit of I'm getting one step. Dopamine is this thing that as humans helps get us towards doing the hard thing. So we're on a long hunt for a gazelle, try to stay alive. And as we feel ourself getting closer to it, we go, Ooh, I'm getting, and you get like a second wind and I'm getting closer. I'm getting closer to my goal. But that's doesn't actually get you anywhere.

14:56The thing that gets you somewhere is tell me your goal. And now that I have that, what we actually need to do is to define the process of achieving that goal. So now that I know it's your, you want to be the beach model that turns heads. You want to be the guy that when everyone goes, Ooh, have you seen Jake? He's like, Oh, that you, now that I know that you want that, what is the things that we need to do? Well, there's going to be, there's going to be five things. There's, it's how you eat, sleep, train, think, and connect. So now we got those things in place. What are the, each of the, the, the bullet points in each one of the things.

15:31What we're doing is defining the process. So here's where it goes. Everyone focuses on goals and they pour all their energy into the goal. To me, it's a distraction because what happens is the next, you take two days off and you go, I'm never going to get there. You eat the croissants, you go, oh, like you gain weight one day and you go, oh. Is that why I lose my motivation? Exactly. Because you're relying on motivation. We have to get away from this motivational, dopamine driven thing where it goes, am I getting closer or farther away from my goal? Because I know in the process, you're going to have missteps.

16:13And what happens is when people misstep, they go, such a big distraction, goal's gone, can't do it. This is why people are able to hold on to their new year's resolutions for a few weeks and then they have a misstep. It's going to happen. It's coming for all of us. We're all going to have a misstep. We know it. Whether you're trying to be an F1 racer, whether you're trying to be a football mom or dad, whether you're trying to start a business, we're all going to have the missteps. If you're focused on the goal, you go, well, there it goes. It's too big of a distraction. If instead of the goal, we are focused on a process, which is I'm going to go to the gym every single day.

16:53That's what we need you to do. If you want to look that way, I need you to do these sets, these reps. I need you to eat these things in this amount. I need you to sleep this much. So we define the process and now I just need you to follow the process. That's, getting back to the full circle, hard. Following the process is hard. That's the doing the hard things. What does that require? What does following a process take? It takes a certain level of character. It takes discipline. It takes commitment. It takes humility. It takes fortitude. Now what we need to do is we can go goal, put on the shelf.

17:31Let's refine the process. What's working, what's not. But we really need to focus on is what's our character. What are the traits that we have? So this is at the baseline level of working with a individual is we need to understand their commitment level, their discipline? Are they doing the hard thing? So it starts with things like no more snoozing, like no more hitting the snooze button because that's the first thing that you're supposed to do that day. You're saying, nope, not going to do it. You're starting your day off by putting off the first hard thing you have to do, which is get out of bed.

18:06Hard does not mean run 20 miles in the freezing rain. That's what everyone says it is. What's hard? Getting out of bed in the morning on time. That's what's hard. That's what we want to do is get the discipline there. What else is hard? Having a really high quality breakfast or intermittent fasting, having no breakfast at all. What's the next hard thing? Going into work with a positive mindset. Those are the hard things. Now we always push those aside and go, nope, it's going to be about the abs. Well, without those things in place in our lives, we're never going to get to those things. We're going to feel worse about ourselves because we're setting goals and not achieving them.

18:43we start with the fundamental steps of developing character so this gets us back to the mindset thing and understanding are you helping or this is what's going on up here so you're you're saying what we need to do at the very let's say you know someone's tuning into this it's the start of a new year this is the year they're going to make a difference what you're saying is before we even get to the point where we talk about joining the gym or going running or we need to look at the small little mindset changes, the mental changes we can make. Once we get control of that, that's when we can then start talking about the physical stuff.

19:19No, it's not binary. It's not step one, step two, step three. You can start a physical training program. I'm not saying you have to, because you're never going to get this all dialed in. You never get the mindset completely dialed in. I used to call my framework for mindset, the hierarchy of mindset, meaning like you start at the lowest stage and you have level one and you evolve to level five. So tell us about that. The lowest level, the lowest level, this is what the language I used to use. It's not that. Where some of us are some of the time and more people spend more time here than others is a victim mindset.

19:52The victim mindset takes no ownership of where they are, looks for excuses everywhere. The reason I am where I am today is because my parents were alcoholics, because I live in London and there's no son, because my boss makes me work on the weekend, because the political party that I want is not in office. It's all about outside and taking no ownership of anything. It's woe is me. I'm not a part of this. The world is out to get me the next level above that is the pessimist the pessimist isn't necessarily like woe is me and the world's against me but it's this sucks this is terrible this is going to be so hard i hate this and complains above that which is kind of strange to think about is the optimist most people put the optimist at the top there's five different places to me this is the middle okay the optimist thinks the future is gonna be brighter than the past they see opportunities not obstacles but it's not the top and the reason it's not the top is in many domains in many circumstances the optimist will not be the top performer and this has been shown in prisoner prisoners of war yeah the stockdale paradox exactly right it's the guy that goes this is it's so good exactly the stockdale paradox which is first the optimists are the first to die because they say we're it's okay guys we're gonna be out by christmas it's this hope reality does not meet their expectation yeah happiness is yeah is reality minus expectations so if your expectations were too high and reality isn't meeting it you're in a deficit and they actually die of a broken heart pessimists go we're never fucking getting out of here and they'll outlive the optimists but the people that live the longest are the realist.

21:53So it goes victim, pessimist, optimist, realist. And the realist understands that there's good and bad. It's going to be a part of our lives. There's challenges. As Shakespeare said, there is no good or bad, but thinking makes it so. We don't know if things are good or bad. We really just, we want to quickly judge things because again, our survival instinct says, that was bad. Make sure you don't do that again. but the parable that a lot of people probably heard about that exemplifies this so well is the wise old farmer. Go on. The wise old farmer lives on top of a hill with his son. And one day the son is tending to their lone horse in the stable and he leaves the gate to the stable open and their only horse runs away.

22:40The village people come running up to the wise old farmer and say, oh my God, that's so terrible. You're so unlucky. What are you going to do without your only horse. And the wise old farmer pauses and turns to the villagers and says, well, we'll see. And three days later, their horse returns and brings eight new stallions back with him. And the villagers come up running again. They're like, this is amazing. You're now the wealthiest man in the whole village. You are so lucky. And his response to the villagers is, we'll see. The next day, the son is trying to break, trying to tame one of the wild stallions.

23:14He gets bucked off and breaks his leg. And once again, the villagers come running up and say, oh my gosh, this is so terrible. What are you going to do without your field hand, without your son capable? He can't help you on the farm. He says, we'll see. The next week, the village comes under attack, a brutal battle. And the soldiers come from house to house recruiting all the men to go and die in this battle. And they have to pass over the farmer's son because he has a broken leg. The moral, obviously, of the story is we like to be the villagers. That's so bad. This is so great. That's so bad.

23:48This is so great. You lose a match. You get fired. You break up with somebody. You get stuck in traffic. Your phone's not working. We don't know in the moment. We don't have enough perspective to know whether something is good or bad. Only in hindsight, looking back, and sometimes we don't have even enough of that to realize it's good or bad. We should resist the temptation to label things and just realize that there's going to be these things in our lives. And the best thing that we can do is respond, be responsible. I like that word a lot. Responsible is the ability to respond. Yes, it's also like, do I trust you with money and finances and kids?

24:31But really what it is, is if you are responsible, you are response able. You are able to respond to life's circumstances. This is the opposite of the victim, right? The victim just goes, this sucks, that's terrible, woe is me. They have given up complete control. They are a leaf blowing in the wind. If society or the weather or other people, if they get a bad comment on social media, they react to it. they've lost the ability to respond just like a leaf has to has to it's programmed to respond to the blowing winds this is the victim they are victims to their circumstances whereas the realist understands that they're in control there's going to be good and bad and how i respond to things actually dictate the quality of my life but there's actually a level even above that i believe that we can all aspire to be the realist.

25:32I think that it's inside of all of us to challenge ourselves. And so I said to recognize what is the narrative running between your ears. Yeah. Because as we, we keep on going back to this New Year's resolution type thing. And as we go through this, change your life, this is the bottom. This is the foundational aspect of why people make change or not. If they feel like they're not in control of their lives, the change will not last. You fundamentally have to believe that you are in control and control is not the circumstances happening around you. Control is I have the ability to respond. I have no control over what's happening around me.

26:17Zero control of the circumstances, but I'm not interested in the circumstances. That's what the victim does. The victim doesn't look inside at all. It's all about pointing fingers outside. The realist, instead of pointing fingers, pulls thumbs. It's about me. It's about me. It's about my character. It's how do I respond to these circumstances. The level above that, which I think is reserved for some special people, and maybe we can taste it here and there, and maybe we can work on it in certain circumstances, is a warrior mindset. If you think of like a true warrior, like a samurai back in the day, after the samurai dominates the dojo, the samurai leaves the comforts of his surroundings in search of challenges, in search of a worthy foe, in search of somebody that might be able to beat him.

27:19He's looking for the hardship. and say it again, this is very rare. People that are actually, you actually like, am I supposed to go and do the hard? Yes, but it doesn't need to be the 20 miles in the rain. They're searching for the hardship and all we need to do is recognize where that hardship is all the time around our lives. We are not gonna be able to avoid pain, uncertainty and work. It's the three things that we share as human beings, pain, uncertainty and work. That's a hard reality that most of us should learn to accept. Realist, it's coming. You're going to be in pain. You're going to lose a loved one.

27:59There's uncertainty. How's this business that you guys are starting, that you're entrepreneur, how's this business going to be in 12 months, in 18 months? What are your, are your kids that you're raising going to grow up to be productive members of society or are they going to be derelicts? There's uncertainty. That's hard for us as human beings. And work. We need to, how many people strive not to work? It's insane. Now, it's like we kind of put this like thing of like this utopia of there'll be a day that there's no uncertainty. I have all my finances figured out, that I have all my relationships figured out and I won't have to go to the gym to stay healthy and nope, nope.

28:41That's always going to be a thing that you need to do. Always. This is not a negative. this is a realization that huh it's there and now i can respond to that in a productive way the people that look like warriors still have moments of victim mindset it's in all of us the difference is they recognize it right because that's the difference for people who when you say that's just a feeling like feelings feel very real for people like i can't move forwards i'm stuck i work hard my i have three children therefore i'm you know 12 hours a day in the office or my partner doesn't understand me my friend you know i've got a i've been diagnosed with something that i didn't want to be diagnosed with i'm carrying trauma from my childhood like these things feel really real for people don't they absolutely i i should clarify as well there are victims in the world there are victims of that people of atrocities and horrific traumas and tragedies there are victims the victim mindset is different than being a victim yeah yeah so have you been in the place that you're describing i've been a victim of course and you have too and you we all have everyone has spent time there now the amount of time there that we spend so if you are diagnosed here's and here's the game we can start to play this is how we move through this we want to play around.

30:08We want to train at our threshold. So when something happens to you that is not in line with your expectations, this is the big one. So you expect your day to unfold in a certain way. You expect yourself to be, your kids to behave on the way out the door in the morning. You expect your breakfast to be tasty and fine. You expect to be on time for work. You expect your boss to be happy when he sees you. When things don't line up with your expectations, I expect to wake up excited to go to the gym in the morning. What happens when you're not excited to get up in the gym in the morning? When things don't line up with your expectations, that should be, what's happened there is there's a trigger.

31:01you're at breakfast and your spouse or your kid spills coffee on you, your work clothes, and all of your notes you did for the next podcast. That triggers you. And it triggers you when that trigger happens, there is a thought. Sometimes it's subconscious, sometimes it's conscious. If it's subconscious, it's based off of the paradigm and the programming that you've been through for the last, the entirety of your life. If it's conscious, it's usually not the case, but that thought then leads to a emotion, which is where we come in here. You get pissed, you get angry, you get frustrated, you get anxious, you went dot, dot, dot.

31:47That then leads to a physiological, this is the mind-body-spirit connection we were talking in the beginning. it leads to a physiological change in your body. Your body changes. Your eyes turn cone-shaped. Your blood leaves the center of your gut for the extremities. Epinephrine is released. Epinephrine and cortisol is released through the bloodstream. And your arteries will either contract or expand. Okay. There is a physiological change. And that's why, what the fuck? Right? What is that? You're getting short of breath. Chronic exposure to this leads to disease. This is why people get sick beyond just the toxic air, bad food.

32:35This is the stress, chronic stress response that happens to the body that leads to certain forms of chronic disease. Short term, that's not a bad thing. How do we make sure it's short term? We have an understanding that it's happening. So what is the understanding? Back to your point, the emotional response. When you feel the emotions bubble up, I feel them, everyone feels them differently. I feel it in my chest. Some people, their stomach gets upset. Other people feel a pain here. Other people have tightness in their neck. When something triggers you, let's say you get a text from your boss on Sunday night saying, first thing tomorrow, Monday morning, we need to talk.

33:24Right?

33:28What happens? All of a sudden, I can feel it right now, actually. It's kind of weird. Right? You feel that. But right away, you feel a physiological change. What happened there was there was a trigger. You got a text. That caused a subconscious thought, which caused an emotional response, which caused something physical to manifest itself. that recognition of that cycle happening, it either leads to a success cycle or a sewer cycle. You're in control of that response. Not immediately. There's going to be something that's built into us from a DNA perspective that's there for survival, but us going, whoa that was weird i felt i felt like stress i felt i felt stress when that happened i felt this response and then what we do when that happens is we start working with the little things it's gonna happen when you get cut off in traffic okay someone cuts you off in traffic and you like it's have this urge to give them the finger or honk your horn or grip the steering wheel title or going like you have this picture of your head or like going and beating the guy up you go what we should all do is go, whoa, that's weird.

34:39Now we have awareness. We're not pre-programmed. And just this awareness of this cascade, this, what used to be just happening, now you still get to start to work with some of the smaller things. Self one, self two. Self two wants you to go to the gym because self two knows how good it's going to feel when you have those abs. And this is your coach. Yes, that's the coach. The other one is going to go, dude, sleep in. This feels good because I find then you go like whoa, what is that? That's weird. Why are you saying that to me when you're at a party? And someone passes the cookies Self two is going to go by the way the closer it is to the actual moment This is kind of weird the closer it is to the actual moment The coach gets quieter the critics gets louder So when you go and I talk to you right now at the next party I you go to I want you to skip all the desserts that are being served you're like cool I can do that isn't that true though because right now yes you can sit and then what happens is like I'd made a plan from now on this is like I'm going to eat no crisps in the evening and I went and played poker in my village with some of the guys right it was these bowls of crisps and I ate them right and then the next morning I was really annoyed with myself yes I did it so the next morning and the morning of it I was really like the the coach was talking to me yeah but honestly in that moment i'm sitting there having had a beer having a game of poker i basically hoovered two bowls and no one else but i'm like where did that where did that go and i wonder somewhere where did that person go in that moment because i found that metaphor to me it's really helpful and i hope for listeners it is that when you originally mentioned the critic and the coach on on your shoulder i've identified two people that i've almost personified and i want to hear more about this we want we need to become aware of when the critic is popping up and for a lot of us it's just the default voice the coach is in there but you all were allowing is that coach to have the mega the critic to have the megaphone he has the mic he's the one on stage he's the one calling the shots or she and the coach has been so smushed down that he's way up in the stands and he doesn't have a voice right now.

36:57When you start to give the coach a voice and that happens not by doing the big hard things. It happens by doing the little things, the really little ones and going like, Ooh, there it is. So when that pops up, there's this awareness and you just have to pop up out of the matrix and go, what is going on? This is not in line with the process of who I want to become. This is why it goes, character, this goes back to thing, character, process, goals.

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39:35So I get the idea of we need to raise our awareness, but I'm really intrigued as to what tips and techniques we can do to give ourselves that moment of pause to go, I'm like the critics talking here and I want the coach to have a voice. How do we do that? The first is now that we've given it a language, now that we've given it names, because without language, words are very powerful. We have to understand the power of words. Your words, your thoughts become your words and your words become your actions. Your actions dictate your destiny. So the power of the words, and we can talk about words as like you're, it's the words that are in your head.

40:17Once you become aware of that, now we can start playing. You're playing a game. You're just playing a game of, can I reframe this up to the next level? Can I turn this from the victim? Woe is me. Why am I blaming everyone else for this? Can I just go, okay, this sucks. It's not anyone's fault, but this just sucks. That's a big step. And from this sucks? Can you look at it as well? No, maybe there's some upside to this. You reframe it from this. Is this good or bad? Can I just go like, it is what it is, which is the reality. Anything else is storytelling. It's just, this is what it is. I'm experiencing this guy cut me off in traffic.

40:57Okay. Someone cut me off in traffic. Now I don't need to get all caught up in this. I don't need to story tell about this. It happened. It's gone. Now I can go on and live my life in a productive way instead of playing this movie script of something different. But you can't let people treat you like crap though. No, but what we're doing now is we're able to bring our best self to that moment. What the rest of us do is we come in emotionally charged. The other way to talk about this is as high level athletes, high performance is synonymous with a flow state. A flow state is a state of open-mindedness and non-judgment.

41:35pause non-judgment what is anything below a realist judging we're just judging things so focus is the gateway to flow flow follows focus so how do we get out of these weird distracted messy unproductive states that are going to lead us away from our goals you have awareness and then you focus and this is where it's been so pop it's become so popular but breath i don't want to popularize i did one year where i did about 300 days of breath work at least 40 minutes a day working on my breath and i'm not saying that that is the recipe so anything from like wim hof to pranayama people have no idea what that is focused breathing breathing.

42:28It's really cool because your breath is bi-directional. We already talked about if you get stressed out, shallow chest breathing. That's not the way we're designed to breathe. That leads you to the sympathetic nervous state, which is the fight or flight. You will not bring your best self in a fight or flight situation. It's designed for panic and quick reactive actions. but you focusing on longer, deeper breaths lowers the stress response. It brings you back into that parasympathetic nervous system. So what is breath work? It's deep, slow, diaphragmatic, meaning diaphragm is kind of where your rib cage meets.

43:11So do it with me. Let's take, so let's just take, we'll take really deep breaths. I don't have any fan of counting. You know, everyone goes like box breathe, four counts in, four counts, screw that. just take a really big breath and imagine you have an elastic band around your kind of the top ab muscles and

43:35again

43:42more you can give me more

43:51Three breaths. Now, the reason breathwork has become popular is not only the bi-directional part, but it's always there. If we get ourselves in a fragmented mind state, meaning your mind is going into defensive mode, it's being distracted. So to answer the question, if you feel yourself in the victim, you feel yourself in the pessimist mind state, what is the thing we need to do? focus. Those are distracted mind states. And what do we need to focus on? You choose, but don't focus on the circumstances around you. That's going to get you in the sewer cycle of spinning into this storytelling. Like you get that text Sunday night from your boss.

44:38What do we all do? What does he want to talk about? Oh my God. I wonder if it's about that thing. Yeah. I think that is probably this. What if I get fired? Oh my God. I'm not getting fired. why am I sending my wife? That's us getting, we're not focused. We're distracted away from the thing. And how does doing all of this get us into the gym? It's what gets us, let's ask it, what gets you out of the gym? What prevents you from going to the gym today? Let's answer, did you guys go to the gym today? No. Why not? An average day, what means I don't go to the gym is uh to be honest it's other it's like things that crop up in that day yeah it become my priority i don't know what what it is for you for me it's i'm not great at early start so i've got the kids and it's get them up get them ready i might have to and then the day takes over from itself so the conversation i want to have is how important is it what you're saying is it's not important.

45:40Yeah. That's really what it is. No, isn't it? Like someone needs an answer that day. Someone needs a response that day, or you need to deliver something for someone on that day. Yes. Yep. So there's always going to be something that is more urgent. This is the Eisenhower matrix, right? Urgent is something that's time bound. Something that needs to be done right now. That is the text message. That is the kids off to school. Those, those are always going to be there. what is physical training it's not urgent at all like there's nobody saying like you have to do this thing today you have to get your kids off to school today if you don't they don't go they're not going to school yeah if you don't answer that text message today tomorrow's too late training it's not that at all we have to understand what is truly important and there's a difference between urgent and important email is urgent not important getting your kids off to school is urgent and important.

46:36It's time bound and it's important that you do that. What ends up happening in our days is urgency pushes out importance. So you are now reacting to your environment instead of controlling it. You can, everybody can, every single person on planet earth can do some sort of physically capable, right? Everyone can do some sort of self-betterment. You fill in the blank, whether that's reading, journaling, meditating, breath work, yoga, running, CrossFit, or anything else. Everybody can do some form of that every single day. They make the choice, usually unconsciously, that something else is more important.

47:23and what we need to do is get away from there's a reason i wear a white bracelet on it it says never whine never complain never make excuses i have all these other things be really clear with this is words matter be really clear with all these other things are an excuse why we didn't do that thing instead so i'm thinking of one person in my life and i'm not going to name them right but they're close to us they're a teacher they work hard they've got a kid they never ever do anything physical and me and my wife are always saying to this person you got to do it because if you don't find time now to be fit you're gonna have to find time to be ill when you're you know in a few years time and they say well I need to get up at six I need to make my kids lunch I need to get my kids to school they work as a teacher I've got a full day at school by the time I get home I've got to make dinner I am knackered so I wouldn't know what to say to this person that makes a change because after 20 years of having a conversation with them it hasn't changed and i bet there's a lot of people like that listening now so the conversation i would not go about schedule i would not go how to how to put this in i would not go get up earlier i would not say you're not tired go do it at the end of the work i wouldn't say do this on the weekends because you you don't need to recover we have to have the conversation you're not going to get people to change because what the way you started that was uh we're trying to convince them of why they need to do this, of why they need to do this.

48:55If we live in a world of need, we live in a world of scarcity. We got to get them to want to. They have to want to do this. What if they do want to and just can't see where? Then we need to get them. It's a big conversation. They're not going to be able to do it with that schedule. Right? So how you want to do this, tell me why. That drive has to be bigger than the things that are weighing them. People talk a lot about their values, but what they're missing is values are not what you want. Values are your behaviors. That's what you value. So people go, I really value health. I really value time with my kids, but they work 60 hours a week, don't train and don't see their kids.

49:43That is not, you don't value that this is the conversation we need to have with your friend where does it where is health on your party list and she goes it's not i don't care about my health which some people don't we're not going to get them to change their behaviors based off of your wants they're not her needs we are our behaviors your thoughts become your words your words become your actions your actions become your behaviors and your behaviors become who you are. If that's the case, we'd have real clear words, conversation about what it is that we want in our lives. And if she doesn't value health the way you do, it's not going to change.

50:27Our North Star is to me more directional. I want health. I want to be with my family. I want peace of mind. That's what I want. Now, the strategy I use to get there should be fluid. Strategies should change based off of the external data that's coming in. And we want to be able to be flexible with the way we approach those things. So help us then, Ben. If anyone's listening to this at the start and they've taken your advice of, I'm not going to set a New Year's resolution and make it time-bound and specific, but I'm instead going to translate it into a North Star. How do we go about doing that?

51:05Where does the health fit in your life? Is this really important? Because if you're saying, I want to look great on the beach, I want to be an asset to my family when I'm 90 years old, I want to be able to ski 12 runs a day, top to bottom in the Alps, whatever, I want to be able to climb this mountain, and whatever that thing is, we have to understand why. Where does that fit into the ecosystem? Because the things are not binary. It's not this nice, neat little ledger. Life is messy and life comes up and all of a sudden, I have all these things I need to do every day. Can we just, can we say truly, the thing I want everyone, if I could, would be to everyone have kind of like, the deathbed moment.

52:00I think that the realization of death is the most powerful thing that we as human beings, no other animals have this the way we do, where we can prognosticate forward in terms of like, what is the feeling? What is that feeling I want to have on my deathbed? And looking back on that, this is the North Star. So my North Star is I want to be on my deathbed looking back saying I'm so glad about the choices I made and the way I spent my time, energy, and resources. That's what I want. And yes, like being successful in work is a part of that. It is. But it's not a very big part, honestly. The other big parts have to do with my family and my own health.

52:49The impact I'm having outside of me. And I realized that in order to have impact on any level, it's not selfish for me to say, I want to go to the gym. The most important thing I can do is fill up my own cup so I can pour into others. Without a full cup, without taking care of ourselves, you can go, you can grind, you can drive, but for a limited amount of time, gas tanks run out. We need to pour back into ourselves. And I believe it starts, you know, mind, body, spirit. I believe it actually starts with our body. I believe that people that train consistently, the mind follows. And people try to, you know, this goes full circle back to the beginning of our conversation in terms of if you are trying to set a new year's resolution, if you are trying to become a better version of yourself, if you are trying to lean out, lose weight, feel better about yourself, it's hard to start with just this victim pessimist.

53:55The better thing to do is to do some hard things. What are hard things? Get up in the morning and go to the gym. If you get up in the morning and go to the gym. And by the way, I do believe morning over evening. Because? 4.30 in the morning, no one's going to, no one's pulling on you. 4.30 PM. What time do you get up? You don't. Now I get up at six because I've done so much research on sleep. I used to get up at 4.45 consistently for 15, 20 years. But sleep is so important that I've realized that getting up at six, after I walked on the school bus, I get in the car and drive to the gym and I take a CrossFit class six days a week.

54:36After that, I do a little bit something extra. It's something I like to do. So bench press or may go for a run, something like that. And then I coach a class. I coach 25 people through a CrossFit workout. And then I start my workday. That's at 1030. So all before that it's about trying to like fill up my cup so i'm like i'm listening to that and i'm like bloody hell i'm not sure i don't knock it but don't do that i'm not comparing but what i'm interested in is like james clear gave us a really great quote that we regularly cite to each other of the heaviest weight in the gym is the front door yes so i i'm interested in that bit of what would stop me is the idea of this is an hour of pain or slog and i'm interested in what advice you give us just to get in there and start the process what we need more than anything else is repetition and i don't mean sets of five sets of 10 sets of 20 what i mean is you need to show up without showing the hardest thing to do if you could do two things through your life show up and don't complain show up and don't complain complaining is the telltale sign of a weak mind It is the language of the victim.

55:59If you are complaining, you're focusing on things outside of your control. That's what's happening. Inside of your control, you control your schedule. It's what people don't realize. I get it. You, your work controls it. Nope. You're choosing to be at that job. You're choosing to be at that job. You don't like where you live. You're not a tree. Move. like you are in control of your schedule people go i can't do that i got it you are you're choosing to do what you do so everything once you realize that how empowering that is you no one is ever going to make you eat anything ever you're not an infant they are not going to make you eat anything what is fitness it's really about working out training moving exercising and nutrition you're in complete control of your health this is so hard though for some people ben because they've been told all their lives and we get it all the time from the media that we have no control so they'll be like well i've got kids to feed i can't take a risk with my job you know they maybe haven't been educated about what eating healthily is maybe they have yet there is huge businesses is whose job it is to solely try and make us believe that unhealthy stuff is healthy stuff so we get tricked into eating it right the whole world is almost it's actually almost set up against what you're saying which is that you have high agency the world wants us to believe that we have no agency at all and some people will listen to this sort of conversation oh that's dangerous to tell people they can have control over where they live and what they eat and the job they do that's unfair it's hard yeah for sure it's hard i'm not saying it's easy it's really hard to leave a job that you hate.

57:50It's really hard to get out of a toxic relationship. It's really hard not to blame your parents for your circumstances now. It's really hard to get up at 4.30 in the morning and go to the gym. It's really hard to be a single parent. Cool, we already talked about this. Hardship is coming. It's there, like we all have it. It's going to be there. What the goal is, is not to wait for perfect. the goal is to do what you can with what you got right now so it's it's on it's just like my favorite quote because everyone waits to what you can with what you got for where you are right now so when i say you have control of your life it's the only let's pull it the other way it's so empowering because the only thing that you have control over.

58:42It's how you respond to life. That's what you have control over. Now, no one gets to control the way you respond to life. This is complete agency. This is complete ownership. This is complete responsibility. And when you do that thing, you now have the power to change your life in any direction that you want to go. So what's the first thing that someone who feels empowered and inspired and uplifted from this last hour should do? Okay. So there would be, there's gonna be two answers to that. The first one that I would recommend people do, but not, not everyone can do this would be to go and surround yourself with like-minded people that are, if you are, join a running club, join a CrossFit gym, join a, a rucking community, join, be around other people.

59:32Like we are, you want to create an environment which makes it easy for you to do these things. You doing it solo every day, way more challenging. Does that involve leaving other people who maybe... Yes, absolutely. You need to surround yourself with people that support you, love you, and want to see you win. No gossip, no drama, no toxicity. Just good vibes. Get around those people. Now, not everybody has that opportunity to do that tomorrow. i think that the starting tomorrow what almost everybody as long as they're able-bodied go out for a run go out for a run and it can be a one minute run a one minute run has more in common with a 10k than a zero mile run does i love that but part of the reason for that though ben is like again using that metaphor of the the critic and the coach that the the critic goes i can't go to a gym because everyone's fit and healthy and i'm not fit and healthy and i'm gonna look stupid and you're gonna look ridiculous and you'll make a fool of yourself and they'll laugh at you tell us about so as the owner of a gym what are you seeing when somebody chooses to come in for that first time and they're not fit they may be struggling they're very self-conscious yeah that's where it comes down to the self-judgment judgment is where we started this conversation off with is the biggest distraction we all have that pulls us away from our best selves and the highest performance is the judgment we have about ourselves.

1:01:00It's not so much the judgment over other people, other things, which we love to do. They're wrong. That person's right. It's the judgment we have about ourselves. And I can't go that, do that thing because this, this, or that. That is the storytelling. When I say storytelling, what I like people to hear, if you're telling a story, what you're doing is you're creating a drama. This is melodrama. This is you being melodramatic. This is you creating undue meaning to things that haven't existed in your life yet that you're just prognosticating that this is what's gonna happen if I go do that. You don't know that.

1:01:41And we're so concerned, so self-consumed. This was me as an athlete, so I can speak to it from firsthand. I was so consumed with what I thought other people thought of me as an athlete, I wasn't able to perform at my peak. It ate me up as an athlete. and this is where I'm so passionate about because I know when we pull this cover off, when we pull the lid off this, what can come out of this? If people would just allow themselves, this is the preventer from a flow state. So the best example I have of this is working with Katrin who won the CrossFit Games twice. The year before I started working with her, she lived in Iceland.

1:02:19She tried to qualify for the Games. She had been to the Games twice. The third year she attempted, she failed. And the reason she failed was because she was so self-conscious about her performance on the floor that it just destroyed her ability to perform. She was all in her head. The next year, we just stepped away completely from the goals and everything else and just try to put her in as much of an opportunity to stay in flow as much as possible. Instead of judging, just be curious. just curiosity what what will happen if what i wonder if what this and she became the best i've ever seen at this this is what people are doing when they think about themselves they visualize themselves walking into a gym people are going to laugh at me i'm going to be out of shape i'm not going to know what i'm doing it's and i get it if i think about going into an mma gym these are the things i tell myself everyone's gonna be so much tougher than me everyone's gonna have so much more experience i'm not gonna know what i'm doing i'm gonna get beat up i'm gonna get hurt if I've never done that, they're just false manifestations.

1:03:29It's a story we're telling ourselves. The thing that we want to be able to do is recognize when that's happening. So back to this awareness thing. If we're saying to ourselves these things that aren't necessarily truths, what are we doing? We're taking ourself away from being able to perform at our best. It's not about anything else other than go do the best you can with what you got. I love it. It's been a real privilege. And I hope that people listening to this can get away from the idea of thinking it's got to be about working hard and struggling and sacrifice and actually just start to see that we can all change our mindset to change our results.

1:04:11And maybe to get back to the original kind of ethos of the conversation, which is, you know, how do people change and how do people get consistent going to the gym? The biggest thing I could do is allow yourself to be non-judgmental. It really is the thing, is that if it's your mentality that's preventing you, I really think there's like two blockers. There's either the mentality of the people, I'm gonna be judged when I walk in there, or there's the people that have the too busy schedule. Those are really the two big hurdles that we have to get over. Identifying which of those two, and we might think it's one, but it's actually the other.

1:04:48It might be the mental thing, but you're over scheduling yourself to make sure that you don't have to face that demon understanding which of those two that we need to hop over to get to the other side is really powerful is the type of thing where i have to truly ask myself where does health wellness and fitness live as part of the value system of me as a person before we move on to our quick fire questions i just want to ask really like how you're feeling in this transitional period because you've gone from, you know, let's be honest, right, CrossFit is the ultimate test of an athlete, and you coached the ultimate athletes in the CrossFit Games, 10 winners, 19 podium finishes, you know, hundreds of athletes have competed in the CrossFit Games at various times who you've coached.

1:05:34Now you've totally changed tack, you know, you've retired as a coach from CrossFit Games, you've created an app for people like me and Damien, regular Joes, just to feel like we can get closer to where we want to be so i'm really interested in like where you're at now because you're no longer sitting across a table from someone with an unbelievable six-pack a rock steady mentality a deep understanding of fitness and you're trying to get people racked with self-doubt fear full diaries busy lives to go on this journey yeah I'm extremely passionate about what what this new endeavor that i'm going on mostly because it goes back full circle to the original pursuit that I Started this whole thing with when I left Finance when I decided to leave my job that I was feeling unfulfilled the question I asked myself was Which by the way the leaving that there was a is a real trigger moment.

1:06:32It was 9 11 when 9 11 happened And the planes left Boston. It was very close to home. When that happened, I realized I wanted more impact in my life. I wanted to help. I didn't know what way I wanted to help, but I thought about joining the military, thought about becoming a firefighter. But I eventually decided on being a trainer and a coach. And I thought that was a way that I could have real impact in a real healthy way, probably more so than being a soldier and going, potentially killing people. The fire thing just was too much red tape to walk through and I could do the training thing now.

1:07:09Well, that just kind of spiraled on itself to where all of a sudden I found CrossFit, started competing in CrossFit, started training high-level athletes, started getting some top 10 athletes, started winning the games. And like, oh my gosh, this thing kind of just went and went and went. I was incredibly passionate about that at the time. I dedicate 15 years of my life to coaching at the highest, highest level. Now that I've seen what it takes to achieve incredible results and the ups and downs and the best methods and how you combine eating, sleeping, and training and the mindset aspect of this, the ability to bring that back to everyday Joes and Janes and do it with some firepower and understanding of how to do this in a really effective way.

1:07:59is really exciting for me. And now what we've done is created an app that does just that. It teaches you about, so the question is like, how do we identify certain mindsets? How do we come stronger between the ears? How do we have more discipline? That's built into the app. Every day I get on there and talk to you about kind of very daily stoic-esque about mindset. And then there's a daily training component to it about, and I realize that not everyone has eight hours to train in the gym like these elite athletes. So it asks you how much time do you have to train in the day? And whether you have 30 minutes or two plus hours, the training will adjust to give you the most impactful training session you can have.

1:08:39So what I want to do is be able to give people, I want to impact people in a health and fitness and fulfillment and mindset way that probably wasn't available before because there's reserve just for these people that had these coaches and these ecosystems set up for just only for the best of the best it's great and that's the epitome of the warrior mindset that's your fifth in as you've just described it that fifth stage of going searching out new challenges yeah is exactly where you are ready for some quick fire questions go okay the three non-negotiable behaviors that you and the people around you should buy into well i i don't know so much as if they're their behaviors but i I think that this is important that we kind of, right away, this is not quick fire.

1:09:26I'm failing already. No pressure. But at the tail of this conversation, I really believe that awareness, intention, action. I believe that those are the three guiding principles that should drive all of us. Awareness in terms of the mindset. What is holding me back? What do I want in my life? What are my values? Intention. How am I going to go do that thing? What is the strategy? How am I going to do that? Action. Nothing matters until you actually take action. You have to do the thing. so aware if we navigate our lives with awareness intention and action we will end up where we want to end up great if you could go back to any moment of your life what would it be and why so the true answer is i wouldn't i i wouldn't go back i i don't believe in going back and trying to relive i'm all about now the present actually it's a weird maybe some people would see it as a negative i see as a superpower i don't have a very strong memory in terms of i just want to like I can't tell you what year certain things happened.

1:10:23I just want to be here Having said that to play the game and answer your question One of the really exciting points of my life was what we just talked about which was I started my business starting your business Is such a thrilling point in your life and maybe that's why i'm doing this thing again is i'm starting this new business venture because when I Started, um being a I I started as a coach in homes and then for a globo gym and then uh strength conditioning for uh uh school when i left that and take the took the leap of getting a facility getting a gym hiring coaches again it pulls you so far into that present moment it's like you just focused on the next thing in front of you yeah it's such an exciting time in your life love that so what advice would you give to teenage ben just starting out it'd be what we've talked quite a bit about which is um don't when you feel then i'm gonna say i'm gonna say don't because you're going i'm going to when you feel the desire to judge yourself let it go you don't need to do that you don't need to play that game it's going to still happen but don't hold on to it just let it go love that how important is legacy to you depends on what you mean by legacy if legacy is me being remembered after i'm gone pretty close to zero if it's the impact i have on people while i'm here so that when i'm gone they've transformed into something better that's what i'm trying to dedicate my life to nice and finally ben what's your one golden rule for anyone wanting to live a high performance life do what you can with what you got for where you are man I've loved that so thank you thank you guys really appreciate it

1:12:18Damien Jake I think the one question that I'm going to take away is who am I listening to the critic or the coach on my shoulder which voice is the loudest the person that sits there saying what do you think you're doing you're not good enough to do this why are you wasting your time or the person that goes, just give it a go, just take a small step, just try your best in this moment. And I think that's all that we need to do just to raise our awareness as to which voice we're listening loudest to. And if we're listening to this at the start of a new year, if that's what we can take away from it, of who's going to be the loudest voice, who's going to accompany us in the year ahead, our critic or our coach.

1:13:01I love the idea of hard and easy decisions. you know like where we're recording this today there's some nice salads outside there's also some cookies like are we going to make the hard call which is to ignore the cookies and not eat them because they're actually not taking us into a good place are we going to eat the salad the same with our alarm clock the same so i love this idea of trying to embrace some of the hard stuff in the year ahead um and i think it's also important that you and i don't sit here as like two people that don't need to hear this stuff. That is game-changing messages for us, I think, as much as anyone else.

1:13:37Massively. You know, like when Ben was asking us, well, why don't you exercise every day? And I could hear our excuses coming out and suddenly when you articulate them, they sound awfully, awfully lame. You know, and again, yeah, there's certainly no putting ourselves on a pedestal, claiming we've got the answers we don't, but we're in that curious state of speaking to people like Ben that do have the answers and it's as illuminating for us as hopefully it is for anyone listening. And also I love this idea of holding yourself to high standards. Like you and I could easily say, yeah, yeah, I'll do exercise, do a bit of running, do a bit of this, do a bit of that, but look at us both.

1:14:12In all seriousness, people wouldn't look at us and go, pair of athletes. So then it's like, well, are we doing enough? Are we doing it to the right level? Are we doing it to the right intensity? Or are we basically bullshitting ourselves that we're doing enough? Probably the latter. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think I love those five stages that he spoke about the five mindsets you can be the victim you can be the pessimist or the optimist but then you get into the realist and then the warrior mindset I think I think when we look at it we're probably at that optimist mindset that we talk about yeah I am too I think it'll be alright tomorrow tomorrow I'll be a better athlete tomorrow I'll eat better yeah yeah I'll start tomorrow doesn't matter anyway but are we gonna start?

1:14:52let's start being realist I think it's time love that conversation thanks mate loved it look I hope you love that conversation do you know what send me a message please hit me up LinkedIn Instagram DM me on Twitter I don't mind how you get in touch with me I would just love to hear from you I'd love to know what you thought of that conversation with Ben I just thought it was fantastic and if you want even more don't forget you can download the High Performance app you can watch these conversations on YouTube and if you hit subscribe on any platform and subscribe to High Performance it's a game changer for us so please do what you can to support these conversations that we're having so we can keep on bringing them for you listen i wish you all the best remain humble curious and empathetic and i'll see you soon

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