Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 421 - Power Project Stoicism

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

Today the crew are talking about how Stoicism has impacted their lives and how they implement the philosophy daily. Humility Video Mark Referenced in today's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8GA2w-qrcg&t=6s Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Hey everybody, welcome back to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast, hosted by Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nseema Iyeng, and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. This episode is recorded on August 24th, and it is with just the Power Project crew. And today's episode, in preparation for Ryan Holiday, which we have on the upcoming episode, the actually, the episode following this one, Ryan Holiday, of course, is an author and has written and done a bunch of stuff on Stoicism. So in prep for that, we actually talked all about Stoicism today. There's a couple of Stoic quotes that we like, a couple of things that we implement every single day,

and just overall the impact that Stoicism has had on us and what it can have on you guys. So short and sweet today. So without further ado, and gentlemen Please enjoy this episode With Mark Bell Insigma Eang And myself Andrew Zaragoza Talking all about stoicism Right now

As athletic as like a LeBron Right Or any of these other crazy dudes But he just has such amazing fundamentals Since he's been playing pro for so long Right He's crushing everybody I'm just happy that there's some sports going on

You know Yeah Like I'm not too I'm just happy that there's some sports going on. I'm not too caught up in what it says on the court and what people are wearing and stuff. I don't really care. I'm just pumped that there's some basketball on, man. I like watching sports. Pumped and then frustrated because the Kings passed on Luka. He's a beast. It's okay. We got Marvin Bagley.

Oh, wait. He's always hurt. Dude. The Kings have bad mojo. They really do. How do you pass on that? He's going to be one of the greatest players of all time. He really will be. Hindsight's always 20-20.

Joe Klein over Carl Malone. I mean, the list goes on and on. Bobby Hurley in the number seven pick. Lionel Simmons. You have all the picks close to your heart. Yeah. These are all the picks that I had high hopes for that ended up being... Anyways.

Bobby Hurley, he got hurt or something, right? Something horrible happened to him. Did he get a motorcycle accident or was that a different Kings player? No, that's him. Because he get a motorcycle accident or was that a different Kings player? No, that's him. So I think... Because he was amazing. He was really good. Yeah, he was extremely great in college.

And then when he got to the pros, he showed a lot of promise. But back in those days at Arco Arena, before Natomas, before that whole area, it was just like dirt roads. And something happened to where he ended up like upside down in a ditch.

And there was water in said ditch, and so he almost didn't make it. And then after that, he was just never the same player again, unfortunately. And wasn't it kind of confusing back then? Because wasn't there a black Jason Williams and a white Jason Williams? So there was a Jason Williams that played for the Nets, and then our Jason Williams. And the Jason Williams that played for the Kings was like Eminem kind of.

Yeah, he absolutely was. Right? Yeah. Yeah, he was. And then one of the Jason Williams, I think he ended up dying, unfortunately. I think he had a motorcycle accident or something like that too, right? I can look that one up. I'm not sure.

I'm super confused on what happened to all these guys. Something happened to him. I want to say like maybe he got in trouble with the law too or I'm not confused on what happened to all these guys. Something happened to them. I want to say maybe he got in trouble with the law, too. I'm not 100% sure. I'm going to pray for Tom after this podcast. We've been talking about too much motorcycle stuff. Yeah, that's true. Just imagine if there was a black and white Mark Bell.

Or a black and white Encima. Are we talking about the multiverse? I mean, the name Mark Bell. There has to be a black mark. I could Google search this on Facebook, and I'll come up with two. Probably. There's a female in SEMA.

Is there a black mark bell in powerlifting, though? I guess that would be the question, right? No. There might be. That'd be hard to Google search. It's pretty common, yeah. Please write in if you're listening right now mark we appreciate it there might be yeah like a couple but like if you google search them uh mark bell powerlifting no matter where like oh yeah they're way too far down in the search results you guys remember the black tom cruise on instagram yes sounds familiar he was uh shit who was he he was lifting out in new york

with uh larry wheels and those guys yeah yeah and uh my wife was like he doesn't look like tom cruz i'm like no his name his actual name is tom cruz she's like oh she's like but tom cruz's name isn't really i'm like i know oh tom cruz Cruise. He's got some weird name, I think. Oh, wow. You know Jocko Willink's name isn't actually Jocko? I thought it was Jocko. Oh, I know. I thought that forever, too.

But then I, yeah. More recently, somebody was telling me he had a different. But what is his name? Do you know? James something something. I don't know. It starts with a J, though. I just.

I'm sure he's super nice. But he seems terrifying, right? John Gretton Willink. There we go, John Gretton Willink. That's a good... I mean, he's big, and he knows everything about fighting and war. I mean, he seems intimidating. And he seems really freaking smart, too.

Yeah, he really is. I'm sure he's not weak. No, he's not. I know Rogan talks about how like he accidentally broke somebody's neck and they were like rolling or something like that yeah people were like yeah they're just they're like don't just don't roll with him he's like he's like yeah he's like a solid 240 something again i'm sure he's very he seems like he's very nice you can just yeah i guess don't roll with him. Yeah, he can literally, he can kill you in many different ways.

Like he's adept with weapons. That's nice. That's not good. Yeah. Ron Pena can kill people in a bunch of different ways too, but he's just not as big and menacing. He's menacing in certain ways. When you speak to him, he's super cool, but you get this feeling like he's thinking things. Yeah.

Of all the ways he can hurt me, he's thinking it. He wanted to kill you. That was weird. When he was talking about flexibility. Like, I just blow your brains out. You're super flexible. That was an interesting one. Like, why do we got to kill Encima for the demonstration?

I don't understand. That was pretty crazy. Do you remember when... I don't think it's necessary. Do you remember when Phil Heath... Yeah, Phil Heath looked at me and I thought he was going to kill me? That was really scary. What happened?

You were taking video or something? He was, I won't say too much. We were just all hanging. Him and Mark were working out. Me and Chris were doing media. And then I think we were just talking about fans, how sometimes they just won't get it. And he's like, so sometimes I have to turn and look at him. And his freaking bright green eyes. He's like, I have to say, say listen and he puts his hand on me i'm like oh shit i'm like

he's really going into character and i got shook up because here's this fucking giant i was just like oh shit mark caught it right away too he just starts laughing yeah i was like oh shit like what what there's nothing I can do? Yeah. I've seen his eyes get wide before. So that, like, two feet from your face. Like, why me? What did I do? Was it me? Maybe my flash was bothering him.

Yeah. Could have been. I've done that with some fighters before just to kind of, like, see. Like, oh, let's just go, like, toe-to-toe like they do in the pictures. Nope. Yeah, it's a bad idea. They stare right into your soul and they, and they burn a hole in it. And it's like, oh, no.

I shouldn't have done that. What am I doing? They're going to kill me. Kick me upside my head. Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks. Sick.

Thanks, everybody, for checking out the live stream today. Bo Nose is in the house. We're live? Yeah. Alec Godwin. Shout out to those peoples. But what you guys have on your minds today? Well, we got Ryan Holiday coming up.

So, and Seema brought it up that we should maybe talk a little bit about stoicism as kind of a lead into that. I think later this week, actually the next day, I think we have Lane Norton. And we got, shoot, I'm missing his first name. Feldman is, I know the cholesterol guy, the name will pop up in my head at some point. Um, but that'll be a great podcast as well, because we can talk a lot about Dave Feldman. There we go. We could talk a lot about, um, you know, how much influence it has if you don't overeat on impacting your health and impacting your lipids, because Dave knows pretty much everything about, he knows everything about lipids.

I mean, just about. So I think he'll give us some really good information. He's done all kinds of weird tests where he's like eating bread for five, six days straight or eating like, not just bread, but he's eaten like a lot of bread, like a few thousand calories worth of bread leading into a lipid profile. And it just, it can throw it way off. From what I remember, I think his cholesterol goes way down. And, um, so he just tries to show how, how jacked up it can be.

Your cholesterol can be really jacked up if you're fasted versus if you're not fasted. So he can give us kind of all the details. I know he's also eaten like 400 grams of fat for five or six days straight to kind of see what the impact was on his... He's had his own blood work done like, I don't know, 200, 300 times.

Wow. And then also he's not just doing that, but he's a researcher. He's had his own blood work done, I don't know, 200, 300 times. Wow. And then also, he's not just doing that, but he's a researcher. And he and some other colleagues are researching some stuff. So I think it'd be really cool because I think it's just such a misunderstood category. And maybe we can find out what the hell it all means. That self-experimentation stuff's really interesting. Like I think every individual has their own reactions to stuff like that. Like people respond very differently,

but it's still useful in and of itself. How do you know if he's done like big group research? Like what? I know that. So I know like, um, he'll be able to answer a lot of this when he's on the show. So I know that he encourages people to do stuff with him and they do um whether or not it's like clinical and like really you know subject to

a lot of criticism in terms of uh people being really held accountable for the exact protocol that they're following and so forth i'm not sure but i know like even just going into like a seminar, symposium type thing, these low-carb events that he goes to, he'll say like, hey, I'm doing this for the next 20 days. Like who's in? Who wants to join in? And he'll just collect as much data as he can, even if it's like, you know, maybe it's not the greatest way to collect some data, but he does so through some of that as well. So, yeah, I think it's going to be really interesting. We've got Lane Norton kind of on the other side of things where, you know, Lane obviously is insanely intelligent, knows a ton about nutrition. And the lane that he is in normally is usually in reference to caloric intake. And so it would be cool to know if we're not going over our calories,

which I think it would be really hard if we tried to do that with junk food, but if we weren't going over our calories, how much damage, how dangerous is it really? Is it really a dangerous thing or is it really – I don't even know if either one of these guys – I actually would bet my life on it that neither one of them have the actual answer because we just don't even know if any if either one of these guys uh i actually would like bet my life on it that neither one of them have the actual answer because we just don't really we don't really know um but i would assume that it probably just uh not that it doesn't matter but it's probably there's probably so many factors involved in that that it would be hard to really tell or say for sure yeah any which way but i think we'll learn a lot and then yeah having

ryan holiday on i think is going to be think we'll learn a lot. And then, yeah, having Ryan holiday on, I think is going to be great because we hear a lot of people talking about stoicism and philosophy and how to maybe approach and deal with things a little bit better, uh, in this day and age. And I think, um,

I want to say that I, I would have to credit my buddy, uh, just cause I'm impartial, but I'd have to credit Tim Ferriss, but I think, popping this ball up in the air. That's where I heard it from. Kind of first, you know, like a couple years back. And then Ryan Holiday, and there's been a bunch of other people, too. The TED Talks. I mean, if you guys haven't listened to some TED Talks,

I really suggest that you do so. I mean, just, you know, honestly, just look up just go on to YouTube and type in stoicism and watch the first two or three videos that pop up it'll either be some sort of TED talk or TED education type thing and it's great videos it gives you great insight sometimes they're only just a couple

minutes sometimes it's a speaker like a Ryan Holiday but yeah I'm excited to talk to Ryan Holiday I think maybe one of the one one of the fun things to get into is what are some of the um maybe things that people are missing when they hear about stoicism because stoicism is supposed to represent um kind of an kind of a more even mind uh that you everything is open to uh how you interpret it how you uh how you take it in so nothing is really necessarily good or bad i know we can

make sense of that and we can say yes there are is good and bad you know but it's it's ultimately what you end up doing with whatever this information is that you got or whatever it is that has happened to you. Because we know people that have been abused as children and we know that they have ended up in drug and alcohol facilities. We know that they've or maybe they repeated the same thing. But we also know people that are movie stars, you know, based off of that experience or they're just, um, you know, they live, they live a normal life. They're super happy. They're super content with everything that's going on in their life. And so it's all, uh, everything that happens to us, whether it is, whether you view it as good or bad, uh, it's your own mindset that ultimately I think makes it so.

No, like, and when you mentioned Tim Ferriss's name, that's where I heard from too, initially from one of his podcasts. And then I just started trying to dig in on it. And I think, um, you know, when you mentioned having that even mind, uh, one thing that when I initially started trying to learn about it, that I got wrong about it initially was not just being kind of even keel, but almost I ended up going on the side of just not letting things affect me in a way. So I ended up going towards the colder route,

right? And that's not necessarily how it's supposed to be. It's not supposed to be that you're cold and indifferent and you're a stone block and nothing ever gets to you or whatever, but it's just allowing yourself to feel certain ways, but not necessarily, uh, I guess, reacting and judging yourself for these feelings coming up more. So being aware, like did something, when someone said something, did it, uh, how did it make

you feel? And what's your reaction going to be? Cause it's your reaction to that. That matters. Okay. You're, you're what your, your significant other says something to you. You might feel a little bit angry about it.

It might make you feel something initially, but how are you going to now respond? Are you going to respond in a massively over the top emotional way? Are you going to let it sit and try to respond intelligently to the situation? Try to see exactly what happened here and respond accordingly. So I took, I took that initially in the route of just not caring, which you're not supposed to do. It's a big mistake.

And you don't want to stuff down emotions. In a lot of studies that they've done over the years on emotions and the role of emotions, I mean, people still don't really know. There's so much stuff that we don't know about our own minds and stuff. It's hard to figure any of it out. But it seems like that without emotions, it would be really hard to make decisions. And so it's kind of an interesting thing because a lot of decisions that we make are based on emotions. But emotions can be, they can be, I mean, some people would go as far to say that all emotions are irrational.

But I don't know if I'd go that far because I think that there can be some rationality to the emotion because it can be based off of previous information that you had. And like a computer, you're kind of reading it and you're interpreting it and you're like, this is in my best interest, so I'm going to decide to do this. this is in my best interest. So I'm going to decide to do this. And then there's even some people that, you know, going beyond the scope of this podcast that will say you don't have free will and you don't have control over any of it, which is another topic probably for another day with a much smarter guest than

anybody that we have in the room. But anyway, you know, that's, that is the role of emotions is they, they, without them, if you stuff them down too much,

maybe you're missing out on much um maybe you're missing out on life and maybe you're missing out on the part that makes us human because that's that is the part that we don't know we don't know for sure about animals um that's that's another topic for another day probably um but it seems like like it it appears that humans have more uh choices than animals so yeah and then and see if we can real quick just pull the microphone a little bit closer to you because i moved everything around and got yeah but along the lines of what you were saying um you know about like not necessarily caring less but as somebody who you know i've been anxious before i've dealt with that but i've also been very pessimistic. So I would look at things sort of like, oh, the internet's probably going to go down today and the live stream is going to get cut.

Well, like whatever it may be now, it's like because of stoicism, it's like, okay, the internet's probably going to go down. How can we fix that? The conversation, you know, whatever might go this direction, which I'm not very familiar in. So maybe I'll prepare for that. The conversation, you know, whatever might go this direction, which I'm not very familiar in. So maybe I'll prepare for that. So it's sort of like, you know, I can't exactly put it into the perfect words, but kind of like expecting the unexpected, but expecting the worst of all things so that way you can deal with that and prep for that. And then when it doesn't go that bad, it's like, oh shit, that wasn't as tricky as I thought it was going to be. Yeah. Or having no expectations.

Yeah. Yeah. That's true too. I think that's, that's, that's one big thing I love. That's really helped me out with that because especially like from people, right. From people close to you. Sometimes when you hold somebody close to you in high regard, you may have very, very high expectations of that individual. And then when they don't meet those expectations, you become it somehow affects you. You become disappointed. You're like, how couldn't you do that? Why didn't you do that? Or how could you do this? Because you held all these expectations.

Well, people are fallible. People make mistakes. You know, you make mistakes. And to have all of these expectations, which a lot of them will not be met. Like, why put that? Why let that happen? You know, I think that's one big thing I took away because there were people that I had very high expectations or a lot of expectations from. They weren't met and it did affect me.

But when I just kind of let go of that idea, you know. It makes a big difference. kind of let go of that idea, you know, it makes a big difference. There's people who utilize stoicism over the years to help with many atrocities that, you know, we've faced throughout human history. Nelson Mandela being one of them, Viktor Frankl being another one. Nelson Mandela was in prison for like 27 years or something like that. And I wish I could find like where I heard this. I don't even know if it's true,

but they asked him about being completely isolated. They asked him like his thoughts on that. And they were like, well, how did you feel being like in solitary confinement and being completely, being completely by yourself for so long? And he i was by myself you know like that's whether he whether he really believed that or not that's a good fuck you to everybody you know what i mean like just not even not even acknowledging that he's going to even that he's going to even let that enter into his

system you know and supposedly the room he was in, uh, he could put his arms out and touch the walls and he was in that fucking box for that long. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy story. Um, and then Victor, Victor Frankel was, um, uh, in, um, Nazi Germany and he was, you know, in a concentration camp. And so, I mean, you know, these people, um um are in the worst scenarios ever and then they just try to think how can i just think can i think about this a little bit better can i think about this a little bit differently and i don't know if i would be able to but shit they were they were they were

able to they were able to find a a better route and I think on a much smaller scale, you had plans to go do something outside for a particular day, and now it's raining. Or here in California, everything's on fire, and it's really smoky outside, and you don't want to be outside because you can't breathe.

And so you can make a huge deal of that. You can say, fuck, I can't believe this. You know, why is this happening to me? Whatever. Or you can just realize that being really mad about it, being really agitated just isn't going to change the news at all. I'm going to change the fact that it's raining outside. Even if you were to spill your protein shake in the morning, which can be really frustrating, You might, uh, let out, uh, a few

cuss words or something like that. Right. But again, it doesn't help. It doesn't actually change anything. Um, maybe somebody could argue that, uh, you know, pounding their fist on a table or something for a quick second to let, let something out, um, is, is kind of human and natural and, uh, maybe, maybe blocking that't know i don't know what the answer is that it may be blocking that's not the best thing to do um but uh you know what if what if instead of pounding your fist you you know hit somebody because you were angry or you threw something across the room now you're now it's now it's fairly obvious that that's irrational, or at least I would think that most people would agree that that starts to become

irrational really quick. You know, I wonder though, within situations like that, I feel like exercises are great. I mean, you know, some people, they use the gym to let out that anger. For me, it's like, it's not letting out anger, but it's letting out energy. Like I noticed that when I don't have the gym, I have all this excess energy and things can get to me a little bit easier, right? When I, when I don't have just a way to exert myself. So, you know, I think that that is a part of it. When you don't have a way to exert yourself, you don't do things in that way. I think, uh, you might end up being a little bit more wired up. I would assume, though. You think you worked through some of that, though, through training?

Like when you were younger, did you maybe train with a little bit of a chip on your shoulder? Or did you maybe not even like necessarily angry, but were you like, I am going to like kind of stick it to myself today. I am going to make today like as I'm going to put myself in like a living hell in in a sense i realize that it's exercise and that we get to do it i understand all that but you're just trying to like just kind of just bomb yourself with that intensity yeah yeah no especially then now like i don't i don't approach my exercise with a lot of like crazy emotions or whatever you just don't need it yeah you don't need it you don't need it anymore and maybe back then maybe to kind of get you started or get you going you did yeah

that's that's very very true but like you know back to now you're big though too so it's right it's like you're not you know maybe maybe you were like i'm gonna prove myself i'm gonna get big i'm gonna get strong i'm gonna get jacked and now you know most of us can agree that you're big and strong and jacked yeah yeah but like yeah i was relating it to your, the pounding of the table type thing. Like, you know, the, the gym kind of does do that even if you're not expecting it to, you know, even if that's not your intention, getting, getting some exercise, like all those intense walks and stuff you do, that's gotta do something for your just emotional level. Right.

Yeah. It helps. I mean, it's called, it's called working out. You're working out you're working shit out right i mean you're you're working it out i think uh i think it has a huge improvement on the way that we think about stuff and and maybe maybe it just makes you a little more tired for other things so i mean how many bodybuilders and powerlifters do we know that you could tell them just about anything and they don't want to waste energy on anything else other than their exercise, right? I mean, how about the bodybuilders that have to park super close to the gym? I mean, Flex Wheeler talked about it.

He talked about waiting for half an hour for a spot right in front of Gold's Gym when he could have just easily parked across. And across the street at Gold's Gym, it's only a couple hundred feet. It's not a couple football fields lengths away that you'd have to park. And these guys, they don't want to spend energy on anything. And so they'd rather just kind of... I mean, I know a lot of people that lift that are really chill. I'm not saying that lifting makes everyone chill, because I know a lot of maniacs too. But it seems to have worked pretty well. And a lot of times, the bigger the person is and more accomplished they are, a lot of times the, uh, the calmer they are.

But again, their career probably didn't really start there. It probably started with a little more intensity and a little bit of, you know, a little bit of a chip on your shoulder when you were younger. You see that with a lot of people that fight too. You know, people that learn how to fight, they tend to be the least confrontational individuals right you know what i mean like you'll see that a lot from boxers jiu-jitsu guys etc if they know what to do you don't see them getting themselves i think it drives people crazy that george st pierre always says he hates fighting he's like he he's like i hate it he's like I just like training for it. It's fun. And then, you know, he could just destroy anybody. But he's like, I hate the actual fight.

He's like, I'm scared to fight. He's like, I don't want to fight. He's like, I'm terrified. It's like, it doesn't look like you're terrified. It looks like you're a savage in there. I think he truly understands, first off, the amount of harm he can do to another individual. And then the amount of harm another individual could do to him. Like, when you understand, like, that that it's harder to want to do that like for example if if you were to get in a fight

with somebody and you're on the streets and you know jiu-jitsu you know the the what could happen if you take somebody down their head hits the concrete right somebody that doesn't really fight doesn't understand that if they bash their hand on the concrete something bad could really happen yeah and you're not gonna like you not going to get them in a hold and break their arm and then get up and break their other arm. No, you know what I mean? You might break their arm because they might not stop

doing whatever they were trying to do. And so you might say, hey, I got to kind of go through with this, but you're not going to. Yeah, it's actually really interesting. You need a willing participant that can be competitive with you. Otherwise, you really... And maybe that's part of what he... Because he is very talented.

Oh, yeah. But I do remember... Was it one of the Diaz brothers? He jabbed somebody to death. And that was a hard fight to watch. Do you guys remember that? No. Not literally to death, but...

But he just jabbed them into the ground? Yeah, he just jabbed somebody the whole fight. And the guy's entire face was just... And he's like another legendary UFC guy. He just completely destroyed him. It's like, damn, looks like he kind of likes fighting me. I've heard him talk about stoicism before, too. That's something a lot of fighters, a lot of athletes, a lot of NFL coaches I've heard

have really tried to impart that to their athletes. Because it really does. It makes a big difference, especially like if you're an athlete, you tend to look at your progress in an emotional way. If you're not progressing the way you want to, you get angry. It messes with the way you approach things. And if you just have like somewhat of an indifference and you just do what you need to do daily and not let, I guess, the not let the outcomes affect you emotionally, it can that can help with your progress drastically. You know, that's a big thing. I mean, even if we were going to take that to the idea of trying to lose weight, a lot of people get discouraged on their journey because things just aren't moving

the way they expect them to or they want them to. There may be progress that's actually being made, but it's not at the speed that they're looking for. And then it'll dishearten them and then they'll quit and then they'll have to come back later. But if you look at things through that lens of not having expectations, doing the things you need to do day in and day out, no matter what ends up happening, it helps everything run in a much smoother fashion. what ends up happening it helps everything run in a much smoother fashion i think we have a tendency to um use the words should could and would ought you know we use we ought to do this i should do that um and then but what happens when you don't you know when you don't do that thing then you end

up in a um you end up in a predicament. I mean, just think about, think about stuff that you, think about things that you haven't liked in your life that you were forced to do that never really turned out, that never really ended up favorable. Like for me, it was school, you know? So if I think of school, school is one thing that at least in this country, you're completely forced to do most of most other things in this country you don't you're not forced to do much of anything unless you're going after one thing then to have the opportunity to do that thing then sometimes you need to do another thing

like you're forced to like get insurance if you want to drive your car those those sort of things but you like have to go to you you have to go to school. Yeah. And when I think about the, um, forceful nature of that and how it doesn't really work, it might work for some people. Um, but I don't think it works as well as wanting to do something. Um,

maybe why college would be, uh, better for, for a lot of people just because they get to kind of pick their courses. They get to pick a, an agenda. They get to pick an agenda. They get to pick an interest or a trade school. You get this, you know, I'm going to go to a trade school to be an auto mechanic. Well, that sounds dope because I love cars, you know, or whatever the thing is that you're really attracted to. But I think the shoulds and

woulds and coulds that we might try to maybe be careful with saying to other people, we say to ourselves all the time. And then when you don't follow through on something, you feel like shit about it. And what I always go back to, what I think is maybe more accurate is that it has to do with your interest level. that if you're it's okay that you don't come flying out of the gate and get something right the first time anyway because all knowledge always comes from error correction and every time every time you solve a problem for yourself you're not really solving a problem necessarily you're making your problem smaller but i also believe that's where all forms of happiness come from they come from solving problems so you have to maybe just understand like this whole thing's going to take time. You're trying to lose weight. You're trying to be in better shape. You're trying to do a bodybuilding show. You're trying to do a power lifting meet. You have to understand that this stuff is going to take time. And when you don't

do it, it's just simply a lack of interest. And it's going to take time for you to be more interested in it. The more that you lean into it and the more that you better understand it, the more you can make a decision on how much you actually like it or love it. And you could start to make a better decision, better choice towards that. Maybe like you did with bodybuilding, maybe like you did with powerlifting, maybe like you did with jujitsu. As you do it, you know, you're like, I'm going to do this twice a week. And you do it twice a week and you get twice a week results. And you're like, twice a week results doesn't work. And then, I don't know, you do it for three months.

Maybe the instructor tells you you have a lot of promise and you're like, look around the room. And you're like, that guy said he's a black belt. That guy said he's a black belt. That guy did it in seven years. That guy did it in eight years. I think I have pretty good genetics. I'm young. I'm hungry to do this.

If I come five, six days a week, if I come six days a week, I can do this in five, six years. I think I have pretty good genetics. I'm young. I'm hungry to do this. If I come five, six days a week, I come six days a week, I can do this in five, six years. You know, that kind of thing. I think that's the, then like, even if you do mess up along the way, you don't get yourself so bummed out about it. You're not like, oh, I should go to practice today, even though my knee kind of hurts. You're like, no, this is a process. I gave myself a couple years, and I was there already four times this week. I don't need to freak out. I just need to get back in there as soon as the next opportunity comes my way.

Yeah. I think that's, again, what you just mentioned there, that's a big tenet of the whole thing in terms of the things that you do control, quote unquote. And one of the big things that you do control quote unquote and one of the big things that you control is not just the way you react to things but the decisions and the choices you make about certain things because um one of the big first things that i think i i grabbed from the whole idea from stoicism because when i when i learned about it a few years ago um i came from it from the viewpoint of i want to have more control over things. So it was more like, I want to have control over things, not the best, I guess, way to come at it. But that was my initial

idea. And that whole idea of, you know, you can't control the decisions that the people make. You can't control the things that the people do. But you can control yourself. You can control your decisions. You can control your reactions. And in and of itself, that's a big power. If you can realize that um and just understanding that i can control all the choices decisions i make towards the things i do was even though it's obvious like when you say that out loud anybody's like duh what do you need philosophy for but when you really think about it it kind of helps clarify um your direction you know it helps clarify even the way you look at, uh, when other people

are in your life, it helps you clarify like the, the effect that these people can have on you in terms of your direction. No one can really stop you, you know, no, nothing, anything, when anybody says or anybody does to an extent can really stop you. It just depends on the choices you make, the decisions you make and, and, and how you go about doing that yourself. The choices you make, the decisions you make, and how you go about doing that yourself. I like that because as it pertains to your relationship with other people, I've heard so many people over the years say, oh, I couldn't do that. My parents would kill me. And these are people that are like, you know, they're adults, you know, or they're getting close to being an adult.

And you're like, you know, you're going to have to lose that at some point. So, you know, when you decide to shake that is ultimately up to you. I mean, you know, you don't really have to be forced to do shit that you don't want to do, especially as you become older. shit that you don't want to do, especially as you become older. I think it just gets to be really interesting when you start to try to think about all the different things that happen in your day and how you have agency over how you think about your thoughts kind of all the time. Now, there are, I've mentioned this many times, there are thoughts that pop in your head that are random. We don't have a lot of control over those. You might think 70,000 thoughts in a given day and you don't have control over all those things. There are a lot of thoughts that never even really come to the surface. They never even really get up there in terms of their

priority. But when something does pop in your head as priority, you're allowed to think about that. You're allowed to take your time with that. And that's what I would probably suggest the most is to really just think about it. Like, why when they said that, did I get so anxious? Or why when I thought about that thing, did I just, like, I felt paralyzed? You know, I thought about that public speaking event that I had, and I started to like get nervous as if it's actually happening at that moment. I started, I mean, some people get really crippled by it.

And so it's something to think about. Like what, why do I feel that way? And then also, what are some actions that I might be able to take to not feel that way. You know, I remember being a fat little kid getting ready for football and, you know, like running and doing all the stuff that we did for practice and just not being in very good shape. And the next year that I went out for the team, you know, all during the offseason, I was like, I'm never going to feel that way again.

I love football. Football's fun. But I didn't really, I was a kid. I just didn't know what it took. And so I was like, well, I can do some of that running around and I can probably get more used to it because once the season started, I was fine. But in training camp and stuff like that, it was tough.

And so I was like, I'm just never going to feel that way again. And every single year I tried to get in a little bit better shape. I was like, you know, I'd be like in the middle of the pack, you know, running with some of the other like linebackers or linemen or whatever. And the next year I was like, I want to be like towards the front with like the receivers and the running backs. Like I know I can do that. I just need to work harder.

And I was interested in that. So I would work harder to try to, you know, be more fit and be in better shape so that so that it was easy. So that way I could have fun at practice rather than practice being like, oh, my God, we got to do all this stuff. And I got to go against this guy again and that kind of stuff. And it brought down it crushed the anxiety because I like lifted. I got strong and it wasn't a it wasn't a thing. I was probably making other people anxious to go against me rather than vice versa. Yeah. Mark, you've been really good at this. Like even when we were talking about, um, you know, the virus, like how

you said that you've already come to, uh, like grasp with the idea of losing family members and stuff. And that goes back to, uh, like a memento mori right like you're gonna die everyone around you is gonna die how have you been able to get so i don't want to say you're like extremely comfortable with it but the way you said it it came off you know i was like yep i i already like i've agreed that they're gonna die and i've moved on i've already lived with that outcome i'm okay with it so when you were talking about it, I was like, oh shit, like, dude, I can't do that right now. How have you been able to build up like the capacity to do something like that? Well, I experienced it. So, you know, hopefully other people don't need

to go through it to get there. But my dad, my dad died basically. I mean, he died a couple times when he was in the hospital in New York City a couple years ago. And I wrote him letters, and I said goodbye to him on the phone even. I mean, we thought he was done. I told him, I was like, Dad, you did everything I need. I know how to be a man because of you. You can, like, if you need to go, go for it. You know, don't be hanging on for me because I don't want you to be around and be weak and be in pain. And so if you need to, if you need to go, I'm good. You know, and I, I didn't even know he heard any of that,

but when he came awake and we, we talked and stuff and he was just in tears and he's like, I always worried about you the most because you're the baby of the family. And I was like, holy shit. I was like, why are you worried about me, man? I'm good. I know what to do, you know. But, yeah, you know, I had to unfortunately had to kind of walk down that road before and having my brother die and stuff like that, too. And almost losing my brother, Chris. before and having my brother die and stuff like that too and almost losing my brother chris life you know life can be human beings are amazing because we can take a crazy amount of like

punishment and you can take crazy crazy shit can happen to us but then we're also so fragile you know like your temperature right it's like 98.6 or 0.7 or what is it yeah whatever it is and if that's off by two degrees you're like you're really fucking sick you're really like none of us would be in this room like if if i had 100 or 101 fever just two two or three ticks up i'm calling you guys saying hey man or i'm probably not even gonna call you i'm gonna have my wife text you guys or something you know i'm gonna be like i'm shot i can't even get to the phone so we're very like you know we're very fragile i think maybe just understanding that we can all be in compromising positions at some point or another and then maybe uh on maybe even more of a more general thing is like

you don't want to ever look down at anybody due to their position. You know, you see homeless people on the street and you're like, those people are, those people are crazy. Those people, they, it's, it's easy to say that. It's easier just to say that and to say, oh, you know, get a job. You know, these, they're bums, you know, they, they need to go, they need to go do something for themselves. Why, why am I going to give them money?

They're just going to go get drugs or they're going to go, you know, do, do whatever with it. You know, I, I may have even used to think that way to some degree because it's hard to understand when you see people living that way. But as I got older, like, you know, I'm 43 years old. So you just grow up at a certain point. And I understand that that could be me. That could be my children. You know, that could happen to anybody. Nobody wants mental health disease. You know, nobody wants to be addicted to drugs or alcohol and have it, you know, clench the throat of their life every single day.

And kind of like they're, they don't want to, people don't want to do fucking heroin and crack. Maybe at first they are interested in some way. Maybe they're like, Hey man, I need something to get through my day. Right.

Yeah. Uh, but, uh, I don't think they want to be hooked on it. And I don't think they want to, you know, give birth to a trial that's hooked on it and so forth. And so I've tried

to just kind of in more general terms just know that you aren't shit. I ain't shit. I'm nothing. I'm the same as everybody. We're all very level and some of these people that you might look down upon that might be on the streets, some of these fucking people are actually really happy. You know, I pass by a guy every day in Davis. I say hi to him. I say, what's up?

He's like, good morning. How are you doing today? You know, he's all fired up. He's all excited. I don't know what he's got going on, but he seems to be one of the happier people that I encounter on a daily basis. So kind of walking through the steps of death and then also just kind of recognizing that I guess like if you if I don't like if I don't amplify and overvalue what I have going on, then it allows me to part ways with it easier. So what? I have a bunch of stuff.

You know what I mean? Like that's society determined that that's a level of success. I didn't make that up. You know, somebody else did. I just happen to have a bunch of it. Yeah, I think that kind of answers the next question I had for you.

But on the most recent episode of Saturday School, you know, the question that I had for you, but on the, uh, the most recent episode of, uh, Saturday school, you know, the question that I had posed was like, okay, if you're not being, if you're not successful yet and you've been grinding nonstop and it's just not happening, um, you said like one, just get better, but also you have to believe in yourself. And then just to kind of, you know, throw it out there and be devil's advocate. You just said right now, like you have to realize that you ain't shit either so it's almost like they're conflicting right so how the hell can somebody balance those two uh thought processes i think we're all like you know walking contradiction contradictions you know um the way we feel in one moment is not the same as the next

there's a old saying that i like this is, shit, now I'm starting to forget it. But it basically says something to the effect of no man steps in the same river twice. Basically meaning that because you will be a different person the next time you step into the river and the water beneath you will be different. Everything about it will be different. At least that's my interpretation of it. And so I think, you know, we change a lot. And so if you just ask me the same question tomorrow, I'd probably give you a different answer. It just kind of depends on your mood and your mode and how you're interpreting everything.

I would say that, you know, sometimes some of these questions, too, they're hard to answer because I think people need to recognize that they're my answer. You know, and my answer might not have anything to do with their answer. Somebody listening to this could be 18 years old, you know. By the way, we have a lot of lady listeners because I saw when I was in Utahah there was some chick listeners they're like yeah i listen to your podcast i was like damn i was like we're blowing up wow what was the question again the first part of it it was just the uh how you're uh contradicting yourself a little like you can't sound very contradictory but it was between between what two things You ain't shit, but you're a success. Right, right.

Yeah, you ain't shit, but you need to believe in yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you have to. I mean, you have to believe in yourself. And the only way that you're going to believe in yourself is to do stuff. What that stuff actually is, that'll increase over a long period of time. It'll take a long time for it to, for it to grow and for you to get better at these things. But,

um, in order to, in order to like be somebody in this world, you have to just simply believe that you are, but you can't fakely or falsely believe that you are. It doesn't work that way. So I can't look at myself in the mirror and tell myself I'm beautiful unless I actually really think it. Or unless I think I have some beautiful attributes that the world could use.

And the only way that I'm going to actually believe that is to actually do that stuff. To actually provide for the world. To say, hey, what you did the other day was beautiful. That was great. You know, day was beautiful. That was great. That was cool. If I could actually say the sentence without stuttering and believing it fully, then I'm going to feel fucking amazing about myself. I guess maybe something people need to understand too

is I could be buried right now and I'd be totally happy. I feel like I've already lived a great life. I feel like there's still so much more life to live. There's still so much more for me to teach my children. There's still so much more for me to pass on. But if I got shot leaving this building because the East Coast, West Coast rap battle goes off again, if that happens again and I get mobbed down like that get, uh, I get mobbed down like that, mowed down like that,

then, uh, you know, that's just, that's just the way it is. But like, I have a bunch of stuff out in the universe that will live on forever or live on until, until it's not there any longer.

And then if you're not putting in a lot of putting a lot of weight on material things or like the bank account stuff, like, cause if that all goes away, you said you'd, you'd still be happy but how how can someone find happiness then like if if that that shit doesn't matter then what is it that they're striving for like how like what what's that thing at the end of the road that they're working their ass off for because they think that it's going to make

them happy uh my belief in is that it's it's annoying to hear it but it's it's going to make them happy. My belief is that it's annoying to hear it, but it's always in the process. It's always in the journey. It's not in the actual attainment of stuff. When Nsema gets his black belt, he's not even going to, we might see it on Instagram, but he's not even going to say anything. He's not going to come in and be like yo you guys remember like i've been talking about this shit for you he's not gonna come in wearing his black belt like how like that would be so gross right he comes in yeah oh that's all that's

all he's wearing no no no i didn't mean like that i know it's just it's so funny that'd be a little bit less gross like cringe you mean like yeah yeah yeah it's so funny. That'd be a little bit less gross. Like cringe, you mean? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just funny you said that'd be so gross.

Oh yeah, I thought, I thought he meant like you were just going to be just wearing that. No, no, no, that would be fine. I'd show up to that party.

Yeah. No, it just reminded me, I used to work, I used to work with the guy. He did like a half marathon and he came to work wearing the, like the metal that everyone gets. Oh man.

That was so bad. Did he have a desk next, to that bitch sue this was uh an office prior to susan yeah but sorry yeah it just reminded me of that anyway yeah i think a lot of fulfillment will come from the journey. And it's my belief that happiness just comes from continuing to solve problems. And the only way you can solve problems, the only way you can create knowledge to be able to solve a problem in the first place is to mess up. And so you have to just understand that messing up is part of the process. Back to dieting, you know, you could always use dieting as a thing. People are like, how do I get back on track? Well, you should not have a track that you're ever off. You know, like there's no, there's no off.

Like, yes, we call it cheating. And yes, we make jokes about it. We have fun about it, but I'm sorry. Peanut butter cups are fucking part of the equation. So good. Ice cream, Ben and Jerry's, the stuff we talk about, pizza, cereal, all this stuff is, it's part of the equation. It's part of it. it's part of the equation. It's part of it. It's part of the journey.

It's, it's, uh, maybe it's a detour, you know, but you're not really getting off. If you look at it as, as if you like falling off the wagon, well, that sounds terrible. Like, yeah. How are you going to get back on that? How are you going to get, how are you going to figure it out to pick yourself up and to get yourself, but you didn't really fail that bad. You just, you ate a bad meal or two or maybe even three, or maybe you had a bad weekend or whatever, but that's all part of it.

You know, I went from three 30 down to I'm about two 30 right now. It took me, that was 12 years ago that I weighed three 30. So it, it, it didn't take me necessarily 12 years to do it, but it's been a long process. And I still go on and off, you know, if you want to kind of say it that way. But I don't view it that way. I view it as if I'm just kind of on this longer journey because I think I'll just try to always get in better shape until I can't anymore. I mean, look at Mark Sisson.

He's like 62 or something or 61. It looks amazing. It looks crazy. Or look at, um, every time Stan Efferding comes around, he's in better and better shape. Like he's the leanest I've ever really seen.

I mean, obviously like he, you know, want to, uh, he got a pro card, you know, in my time of knowing him in bodybuilding.

So he most likely will not ever be that big and lean ever again but he's pretty much as lean yeah as i've ever seen him the last time i saw him and he looks amazing he looks healthy he looks great sorry to uh we'll come back what's the uh paper towel guy um with the one earring he he has one earring mr clean oh whatever yeah whenever oh yeah yeah you think about mr clean i immediately think of mr clean he might he might have to uh start to clean the place when he comes here next time yeah he should just next time he comes you just wear a very like very tight white t-shirt maybe a fake earring if he doesn't wear earrings already but um also the cheapest person that i know beyond smoky

wow yeah that's a skill i know that's what i said but okay now coming back to what we were talking about um you're right like that that but that all again leads back to uh like interpretation like when andrew asked the question, like what, how do you get to happiness? It's, it's your interpretation of the situation that you're actually in. You know, you could look at all of the bad things that are currently happening to you. And I know some situations are much, much, much worse than others, but then there's also a lot of underlying good, a lot of things that are there that are very positive for you. Even like when you're looking at goals you want to achieve or something that you haven't done just yet, the whole thing of like you ain't shit, that could be seen as like a good thing. Because a lot of people, when they're trying to go towards something, they give it all of this power and, and like they make it bigger than it actually is.

But if you realize that, you know, first off, people have done it before. That's one thing. But number two, um, it,

what you're doing isn't necessarily the biggest deal. Like no one's going to be greatly hurt or greatly. It's not going to do anything crazy, right? If you, if you don't get it or if you don't achieve it, it's not going to, anything crazy right if you if you don't get it or if you don't achieve it it's not gonna nothing crazy is gonna happen if you break it down to the most simple aspects of it so then just just fucking go towards it well we used to think that earth was the only

thing that was here you know we used to think that our civilization is the only thing that's here and now it just seems completely 100 ludicrous to think that even though we don't have as much proof uh as maybe we would like um we we learned about planets and then we're like oh there's like seven or eight planets right and then we learn okay well at least the earth is in like the center of the universe and turns out that's not true either and it turns out and like okay well we're the only uh we're the only uh planet that has a sun turns out that shit ain't true either it turns out there's something called the milky way and it turns out that there's billions there's billions of suns there's billions billions of planets. Solar systems may go on like infinitely.

Like we just don't even, we don't have any way of knowing, you know? So I think when you start to, there's actually, um, I think it's called like humility. It's on YouTube.

Um, I'll give you the link. It's, it's, uh, it's absolutely amazing, but it kind of describes all that. It describes, you know, I'll give you the link. It's absolutely amazing, but it kind of describes all that. It describes how we're just this pale blue dot in the grand scheme of things if you view us from Earth. So if you were to zoom out on stuff and you were to think, if you were to see like a short video of the last couple of weeks or months that you had, and let's say the last couple of weeks or months that you had are just horrific.

Let's say that they're really, really bad. You got divorced. You lost your job. Like you can't even, you can't even like write a script to make it any worse, right? Well, now imagine if you saw, if you zoomed out and, you know, you're watching your TV, but you trade places with somebody else's to watch their video and you see that they uh lost a child you see that they uh their dad got hit by a car and you just see like all this just crazy shit that happened maybe they grew up in a different country maybe they didn't have access to books or maybe they didn't have

access to school and you just start to you start to watch all this shit. And then you move on to the next person and that one's worse. You move on to the next person, that one's worse. And now you're like, oh shit, you know, it's not just me that has suffering. You know, most of the, most of what happens in humanity is, is there's a lot of suffering with some happiness sprinkled in periodically. Most of the world, most of the universe is just space. There's like nothing there. It's nothingness, you know?

Yeah. Most of America, as populated as America is, most of America is nothing. There's like nothing. There's nothing. There's just like fucking fields, you know? Travel across America and you'll see there's like you're like wow this city is really fucking huge but compared to what compared to the whole entire landscape it's nothing you know it's all so i think just i guess my point is just perspective you know you start to have

perspective look at that fucking thing you start to have perspective on all this stuff that we're just like this little little blip i i love cam haynes cam haynes says you know no one cares keep hammering no one cares keep hammering like just shut the fuck up and just keep going because no one gives a shit anyway but it's important for you to do it because you know that it's going to make you feel good that's all you're trying to do just try and make yourself feel good yeah so that does that answer this question uh it's from our boy matthew balcom um he's how do you come to terms with trying and failing how do you make yourself focus on growing instead of failure itself natty professor it's part of the that's part of the problem like like you said you know that track it's part of the track so you don't even necessarily need to

look at it as a failure as a failure like if you're being realistic okay you didn't achieve what you wanted to achieve but you learned from that which will help you continue moving towards whatever it is you're trying to do you know you haven't stopped you don't have to stop it's your choice it's within your power to continue to try to move forward so i don't see that as i don't see that as a I don't see that as a problem. Yeah. I don't even know. Like,

uh, failure, I think is like, you know, you can view it as a loss, but it rather than like the L word for a loss, I would turn it into like a learn. Like you just learn from it.

You just, I just, I just learned something new. Maybe you went in the gym and you tried to deadlift three plates and just learn that you're not quite ready for it because your hips shot up a little bit earlier and your back rounded over. Well now, like, can you lift three plates? Well, you didn't,. Well, now, like, can you lift three plates? Well, you didn't, right? But can, like, do you possess the ability to lift those three plates?

Yeah, of course you do. A, it could have been just a rough day, maybe not enough sleep. There could be a bunch of things like that. But you could also just analyze, and you can reframe. You know, maybe you go back and you paint a different picture of what your training is going to look like so that you can, so that you can figure out what was the kind of weak link in the whole thing? What am I missing? You know, how do I make this, how do I make these problems that I have with lifting 315 pounds? How do I make them smaller?

And so you go to lift 315, three, four weeks later, after you did 45 degree back raises, holding some weight. And after you did some, maybe ab training. And after you just honed in your form and technique a little bit better, maybe had,

maybe had someone else give you some criticism because criticism is going to criticism and conjecture is going to help really help you to, uh, gain more knowledge. And the more questions that you ask and the more off the beaten path that you go with those questions, uh, the quicker you're going to get to your solutions. And so you get to your solution as quickly as you can through a lot of trial and error. The error is not really a failure. It's, um, cause life I think is, is just about error correction.

I think that's really all that we're, um, you know, the meaning of life gets to be really complicated, but I think that, uh, I think, uh,

maybe the meaning of life is just simply the journey of life to continue to solve problems for yourself and to pass that information on to other people so that we can just be happy so we can just get through this life because if you sit around and think about it a lot you could end up being sad and depressed and anxious and those kinds of things you know what man does it seem to uh does it seem there's i should use a more PG word for this. Am I sugarcoating things too much by thinking that we shouldn't even really use that word? Because we can reframe the idea of failure. But when you think about failure, right?

It's so just like negative and sad. And like, it's, it's just, it just really sucks because when you really think about failure or the idea of failure, um, you know, there, there, it, it doesn't, it, it usually, if you just continue trying to move things as far as strength is concerned. But then I started doing jujitsu and love that. And now I'm just I'm so much in a much better place focusing on that. Did I fail at that? That thing in terms of powerlifting? Like, you know, when you decided to leave your job and do stuff here, did you fail at your last job or what like right yeah right like i mean it's like whenever we whenever people usually talk about failure it's always like oh this is the end it's it's drab it's glim and it just it feels like we shouldn't even be looking at failure in that way it's not necessarily a bad thing yeah i guess it's just perception like yeah you talk about how people um like in your family like like you're supposed to be a doctor and it's like oh he he failed at being a doctor now he just talks to it into a microphone like maybe some might see that as a failure but yeah no some some people do see that no seriously i don't want to be rude but some people do see that as a failure yeah i know I know. You know? Mark has said, like, turn your L's into lessons or something like that in the past, and it's totally true.

That's how I've been feeling for a really long time now. Yeah. Like, there's, like, no such thing as, like, a bad experience, because you're going to take something from it no matter what. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, I think perception, yeah, realizing what you can learn what you can learn and keep pushing forward. So I got a chance to talk this weekend at this FitCon thing that was run by Rob and Daniel and Bailey and The Muscle.

And it was a lot of fun. I was on stage with The Muscle, Mike Rashid, Rob Bailey and Matt Vincent. And we were talking about like building a business and this kind of thing. And I mentioned in, in my portion of it that I was in, I was in, I was an inventor and I mentioned how I struggled in school and kind of told my story and so on.

Afterwards, this little kid came up to me and he said, I'm an inventor too. And I was like, that's awesome. And his dad was explaining to me, he's like, yeah, you know, he, he really struggles with school. You know, he's got attention deficit disorder and you know, these kinds of things. And, you know, I just, so I got talking to this little kid and it was really funny because he was like, you know, what did it, he's like, what did it take to get your first invention going? And it's kind of funny because, I mean, he must have been like eight or something, you know? Wow.

And I was like, well, I was like, it really just took, you know, just like, just making it happen. Just like, just, you know, kind of taking that first step and actually doing it. And then he's like, he goes, well, what lessons did you learn along the way? You know, and he's like this little kid. So I'm like completely blown away. And so I explained to the kid, you know, like, oh, you know, I, I had to fail a little bit. I had to mess up a couple of times with the first creation of it because it didn't come out right. And, and then I landed on something that worked and that provided for people.

And then people were excited. And then the kid kind of like, he kind of got behind his dad and he was kind of messing around doing some other stuff. And I told the dad, I was like, I was like, you ain't got nothing to worry about this kid.

I'm like, he's clearly like really like intelligent, you know? And the fact that he has the ability to communicate with people and the fact that he has kind of like an emotional intelligence about him, that might be far superior than a lot of the stuff that he may not pick up in school and things of that nature. But I like in Seema's point right there, I think failure is a human word, you know, um, a computer would be like error error error right can't

compute uh but like you know your your computer when you go if you go to search for something and it like doesn't find it or something your computer doesn't like put oh fuck on the screen or or leave me alone like that's annoying or it doesn't get like frustrated at you or leave me alone. Like that's annoying or it doesn't get like frustrated at you. Uh, if you had a computer that was, um,

uh, I don't know if you had a robot that was like, I don't know, squeezing you, uh, orange juice or something. If it like messed up, it wouldn't have a feeling one way or the other. Like,

let's say it was learning how to make orange juice for you. It wouldn't have a feeling one way or the other. It'd be like, okay, error. Like I, I, I smashed the uh

the orange and i squeezed it but then a bunch of orange peel landed in the cup and i computed that that was wrong and it would like keep trying and trying and trying until until it started to get it right but it wouldn't feel one way or the other about it it wouldn't be like oh that was a failure it would be like well that's just not the correct way. And you think about why is it so difficult to teach your son how to throw a football or to teach your daughter how to catch a football or throw a baseball or whatever it is. And it's because when you point out an error to them, they think that they're doing something wrong. They think it's a failure.

And then they get sad and they wander into the house and you're like, fuck, man, I was just trying to... Then you're like, was I too aggressive? I mean, I'm really just trying to teach them how to throw the damn ball. Then you don't know what you did, but that's human, right? That's very...

And plus, they're five years old. So they're really, really delicate. Who the hell knows what they're thinking? Normally, a kid will like, you know, they'll play with stuff and they want to play with it their way. And we've talked about this before where they kind of like start to make their own rules, especially once they lose in something. They start to kind of make their own rules. But I think a great way to just look at stuff in general is just really look at like, I got a lot of errors to correct. Just look at stuff in general.

Just really look at like, I got a lot of errors to correct. And if I can correct these errors, if I can correct these, maybe they've turned into kind of long-term flaws and long-term habits that you have. But everyone's got them. Everybody has them. Everyone has. Just look around. You will never find one person, you'll never find one human being that is perfect. Everyone has a vice. Go out to eat sometime, you know, whenever that is a thing again.

Go out to eat sometime and look at how many people have fried food on their table. Look at how many people are eating a bunch of bread and butter. Look at how many people are having drinks, you know. Maybe that's just a one-off for them. Maybe you're catching them on a weird day, like they might be catching you on a weird day having a drink or eating whatever. But even just with our food, I mean, that's just one tiny category of everything that we do. It's just we have errors all over the place. And then you just try to think about those errors and and you mature, and you turn into somebody who's like, you know what?

I can't believe I – wow, I'm actually really ashamed that I used to do that. I can't believe I used to do that. Damn, I wish I didn't have that against me, but it happened, but you corrected it. You switched gears. You moved over to doing something slightly different. But you corrected it. You switched gears. You moved over to doing something slightly different.

Yeah, as an adult, you have a tough job because many of us were raised by individuals who were also raised by individuals who, like, when you see failure or when that happens, you get a very negative reaction. Like, as a kid, like, when I would throw away my Kumon packets, which was like a learning center or whatever, I would do bad on something, right? my mother always wanted me to do better so whenever i like i would you know fail at something be like oh you know do you do you want to end up like this right so you become scared of

that but the thing is is like if if a child learns when they're failing as a kid that it happens you can just learn about this and you'll be fine like if that continues to be drilled into them like that won't be in effect as an adult like that that's just part of the whole process but myself and millions of other people right as adults you have to kind of rewire yourself not to look at failure in that way. I'm still going through that whole process because it still stings a little bit when or there's still this a little bit of fear to do certain things because of that failure. But you got to continue to understand that that is just a part of the process. And I need to make sure that when I do have children, I need to teach them that failure is not necessarily failure as we see

it. I think that's the biggest thing. Cause you mentioned like you were talking about kids and whatever. And I just think that's such a big deal to just have help kids have that mindset of growth and failing through everything. And that's okay. That's just part of it all. Yeah, it does. It's really good for kids. Cause like I've been, this sounds messed up, but I've been trying to figure out how to find ways for my daughter to lose because when she does lose at like even just like whatever we're doing playing like wiffle ball or something she gets really frustrated i'm like whoa like we're supposed to be having fun so like little things like that but we're we're co-parenting so sometimes it's really difficult when i'm like hey like if you get like a d minus or an f i legit don't care whereas the other house is like no

you're you need to get straight a's and you're going to college and so that's a whole nother situation but yeah i think um it's yeah it's ingrained in us right like or maybe it's part of like our being humans like oh we can't we can't not go get the freaking gazelle because we need to feed our family or whatever it is. I don't even know what fucking people eat back in the day. But yeah. Yeah. My, uh, uh, my, uh, nephews and, uh, yeah, I was talking to them one day about like school and stuff like that. And he was, uh, my nephew Hambone.

He was like Hamish. He said, he's like, I'm going to go to college and I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And then he said something about how he had like, I don't know. I mentioned something else to him. And then he said he had to go to college first. And I was like, oh, okay. I was like, you know, you don't really,

you don't actually have to go to college for what you're talking about. And he's like, no, oh, okay. I was like, you know, you don't actually have to go to college for what you're talking about. And he's like, no, no, no, I have to go to college because my dad said I have to go to college. I said, oh, that's different. I said, you know that you don't actually have to go to college, though. But, you know, in your case, you're saying that your dad, you know, is saying that you need to go or whatever.

He's like, Uncle Mark, he's like, I have to go to to go to college he's like what do you want me to be a loser and so i i told him i was like well i said uh i said who's going to college i said your dad's going to college right and then and he's like yeah and i was like and he said he's like my mom went to college and andy went to college and he's like, he goes, did you go to college? I was like, nope. And his eyes kind of lit up and he was like, oh. And I was like, I don't feel like a loser. I was like, but maybe you're right.

I'm like, I don't know. And he started laughing. Meanwhile, your brother-in-law is like, what are you doing? He has to go. That's exactly what I was thinking about. about like what the hell is his dad thinking oh i know it's so funny yeah we're around each other a lot and uh with um with uh my my niece it's kind of the same way too because she loves to like bake and stuff and they're like hey you need to go to business school and uh i actually think that's a great idea because a lot of times people are passionate about

cooking food and they make great food. But you ever go to a restaurant where you're like, there's something just off about this place. This place just hasn't figured it out. They don't have good service or something's just like, you're like, I kind of enjoy this place. Food's pretty good, but something's weird about it. Those are people that are probably foodies that never learned the business side of it so i think sometimes it can be really beneficial to like

uh you know as we as we saw in that bill and ted clip know that you don't know anything or know that you don't know enough and then try to figure out what you can learn and know before the uh podcast started i showed uh and sema bill and ted's excellent adventure we were talking about so crates socrates and uh that's kind of where a lot of this stuff uh stemmed from i don't know how much further back it goes but socrates i believe was uh from ancient greece and then i think well actually actually stoicism was made famous by Zeno. And I think he was from Greece as well. But I don't know.

I'm losing track of who did what. But anyway, I think that Zeno was the one who popularized it. He made it famous. He was the one who kind of read different books on it. And then he started to teach it outwardly. And it kind of grew from there. I don't know what it was called before that, but I should probably look that up. I will figure it out. Yeah, I don't remember the name before.

Yeah, let's see. I'm going to try to pronounce this. Adwa, oh, man, H-L-A-N-Z-E-L-A from South Africa brings up my favorite Stoic, L.A. from South Africa brings up my favorite stoic. But, Mark, you had you had mentioned stuff about like, oh, God, when you got to dinner, whenever that happens again, whether or not restaurants open up is out of our control. What good does it do to be so frustrated about that? I'm not really frustrated about i i actually have been able to still eat because you can not still eat but still eat at restaurants because you can eat out you can also order out and uh no i don't i don't uh if i sounded frustrated i'm just no no i was just saying like i was just

trying to bring up a general thing that somebody might be oh yeah like i can't travel to europe right now like getting all upset well i just I just think, yeah, I know. I just think that we are just giant babies. You know, we have, like, there's so many, like, as annoying as it is to see that there's, like, such different views on this pandemic and that we can't come to a more clear resolution. pandemic and that we can't come to a more clear resolution. Like there's, there's information on one side and then there's information that's completely the opposite. And so from the very beginning,

I've been like, all right, just kind of confused on what, on why that is. And then in having some people on the podcast, uh, explain some of it a little bit further, you know,

it, it, it started to make a little bit more sense, but in general, um, our lives are, our lives are still really good. I know a lot of people have lost their jobs and, uh, they're frustrated, but again, I think there's still a lot of people being protected, um, from, uh, you know, collecting unemployment and from stimulus packages. And like the United States still rocks, you know, like it's still like I, from, from my vantage point, you know, maybe other people have a different vantage point.

They don't feel the same way. And that's, that's totally fine. You're entitled to your own opinion. But I think in general, I think things are still really good. You know, I think things are still like, I still feel good about everything. And even if things were worse, I think things are still really good. You know, I think things are still like I still feel good about everything. And even if things were worse, I would still do my best to try to choose to feel good about the situation. And I would do what I felt is in my control, exercise, take care of my brain, take care of my family and still try to figure out a way to feel good every day.

Yeah. So this all started from... Great question. Yeah, well, the quote from the last of the five good emperors, accept what you can control, let go what you cannot control. Marcus Aurelius. And that for me, especially recently with buying and selling a house, that's been huge.

And probably the best thing about learning this was helping my sister go through the same situation. She was super stressed out, you know, like, oh, I don't know when we're going to sign. I don't know when the people are going to move in, when we're going to be homeless and dah, dah, dah, dah, until we get the new spot. And I just kept telling her like kind of the same thing over and over, like, okay, what can you control? Like, okay, you can do X, Y, and Z. Do that. What can't you?

Okay, don't worry about it then. I know it's impossible because you're stressed out. But for somebody, again, like I said earlier, like I have dealt with being like super anxious about certain things. this concept has helped me, man, more than any kind of antidepressant, anti-anxiety medicine, whether it be natural or not. Like this right here,

like that's been super beneficial for me. You know, our boy that we have coming on the podcast, Mr. Ryan Holiday, it's in his books, The Obstacle is in the Way. There's this chapter on questioning yourself. If you guys haven't read interviews, by the way, The Obstacle is in the Way, Ego is the Enemy, and Stillness is the Key. Great books.

And then there's The Daily Stoic. I think you also have that one. Also really dope. Read it to my son every day. It's like a Bible. There's something every day. But anyway, what I was going to say was there's this chapter on questioning yourself. And it's like a really good thing to like a tactic right um if something does happen and you feel angry you can first say okay why do i feel angry uh because this happened uh is that helping me right now no uh what can help me right now

doing this uh has this happened to other people before yes are they alive yes uh are they doing okay yeah like you can legit just question the whole thing down to, it really doesn't matter. Like it's, things are fine. You don't have to be, you know, destructive or angry or whatever about this. You can literally question out the whole thing and you'll be okay. And it's, it's, I know it sounds like super, I guess, simplistic. Cause like, Oh, you're going to question yourself every time you get mad about something or sad about something but really that can solve a lot of issues if you just question it down to its absolute simplest form yeah like in the in the start it's it might be like this is gonna be weird but like tracking your macros like i'm not gonna do that every time

but eventually you get really good at it to where you don't have to yeah so you get you speed through it so when you question literally everything it's like real tedious at first but then starts to make sense and you start to kind of just kind of handle yourself that way a little bit better yeah i mean what if you were what if someone was just explained to you you could just go through the rest of your life being undisturbed by pretty much anything anyone ever says. You can go the rest of your life without really bothering to argue with people because does it really ever. I mean, you do need to sometimes speak your mind and speak up for yourself. You need to like sometimes defend sometimes you need to defend yourself.

Sometimes you need to defend yourself. But you need to just understand, I don't know, or think about how valuable is that when it comes to doing something online, doing something on the internet. Is there arguing with somebody on the internet that's 14? Teach this kid a lesson. Yeah. And why? Like what, you know, what's the arguing for? Are you trying to create your own like echo chamber? You want to make sure that you comment back on everything that someone says about your diet or about your clothes or whatever it is so that you can make sure that they understand that they're wrong and that you're right.

wrong and that you're right. I mean, the anxiety, the emotion that's created by just that one thing, I believe can be eliminated almost completely from a lot of people if you work on it. There's a word that I really like that I haven't really heard many people say before, but it's a word, it's called equanimity. And I talked about it on my own YouTube channel before, but I have the definition right here. And it's having, it says having an even mind is a state of psychological, a state of psychological stability and composure, which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure of emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. Now, you're not going to be able to do that all the time.

You're not going to be able to be undisturbed from every single thing that you hear. You're not going to be able to, you know, it'd be nearly impossible to have that much composure to where, you know, you just don't care, you know. That's what separates us out from other animals. So I think, you know, if you were to think about a slaughterhouse that has like cattle, if we were being slaughtered in a similar way and Nsema was in front of me, I'd be crying. I'd be screaming. I'd be like, you know, I'd try to run away. I'd try to get him with me and we'd try to escape, right?

run away i try to get him with me and we try to escape right um the animals they don't even if they were to see the other one you know they don't they just don't think that way they don't they don't uh maybe they don't have the ability to you know but we but we do and we have the ability to think about every single thing that happens to you everything every single thing that happens to you, everything, every single thing that has ever been said about you, everything that's been said about you, it's it doesn't necessarily have to be a truth for you. That's up to you, too, on whether you want to wear that and carry that around with you. But a really weird, interesting thing is the you that you think you are isn't even real isn't even it's barely real it's only real in your own exist in your own mind because in sema's view of me is different than my own perspective of me and i'm in the same room with you guys all the time but andrew's view of me is different my view of you is different than your girlfriend's view of you your mom's view of you

like it's just and so i think you know when you try to start to uh you start to think about all this kind of weird this weird stuff uh that being a human being can really be that you just try to figure out how do i just how do i just live the best life I can live? How do I occupy my time, occupy my mind with, with, um, feeling, feeling good about myself? Because if I can feel good about myself, hopefully I can make others feel good about being in my presence and being around me. And hopefully I can kind of bring those people up because if I can bring you up and I can bring you up and I'm, I'm already up,

I'm already excited. Then the whole room is lifted. And if you're thinking similar thoughts and if you're thinking similar thoughts, then right. And now our, now our audience is listening to our conversation. Now they're brought up and that's kind of gets passed around.

I mean, it doesn't always have to be about uh positivity and and that kind of stuff but why not choose that it's uh it feels better feels much better yeah and then my the other um like super just probably the second biggest like impact that stoicism has had on me is just Marcus really is talking about waking up early. Oh. That's huge. Because I'm just, like, a lot of people, like, I used to hate waking up early. It started with Mark getting my ass up early to come train.

And then I started realizing, like, dude, there's something different about being up at four. Like, there's something special. What did he say about waking up early mark or marcus uh marcus hey there you go um i can find the exact quote but basically he's just like um like i uh why would you stay in bed like were you meant to sleep like under the covers all day long or were you meant to go out and do what you're supposed to, what you were put on this planet for. That's in short. I'll get the exact quote cause I just butchered it, but it makes so much sense. Cause like, am I put on this planet to hit the snooze button and just stay in my, stay in my bed and do nothing? Or am I put on this planet to get out this conversation to as many people as possible? It's like, yeah, that's why I got up really early, trained, and then get here on time to make sure that everything runs as smooth as possible.

I'm not meant to just not do anything today. And so because of that, like, yeah, waking up early, it's just something I do every day now. Weekends doesn't matter, this saturday was a little bit tough because i i didn't get home till like midnight now the truth comes out hey i was so that's like that day we found out enzima is on vitamin c and creatine love it i inject it it's better that way have you ever tried creatine inject you're not supposed to why claim natty just why even bother creatine's in meat. I don't know, man. That Mexican meat.

Something weird's going on. Yeah, that's anyways. No, that's Clint, sorry. Wait, what? Huh? I'm confused. All the Mexican fighters, like boxers and stuff, they'll get popped for Clint. But no, no, no, you don't understand.

In Mexico, it's in the beef like that's just the way it is sorry didn't know like wait what it's like how did that get i would say to follow up what you were saying about waking up early um i think it's just about you know being being responsible you know and and maybe not necessarily waking up like early for each person i just want to specify it can be a little different for you don't necessarily have to wake up early to be really successful um my father-in-law was a good example that he wouldn't get to work until like 11 he'd wake up at like 9 30 he just didn just didn't like going to bed early, so he'd stay up a little bit later.

It's important that you make sure that you get a proper amount of sleep. But what I would suggest for people is to work on earlier. So just like if you're used to waking up at like 9 and your day is kind of, you know, by 11 o'clock you just haven't gotten a lot of stuff done. I would suggest if you have the capability to go to bed a little bit earlier, get your butt in bed a little bit earlier, because I've talked about this before on this podcast, but normally it's the cascade of disciplines that ends up being the most important thing, because there's a bunch of other things that surround that. So when you go, when you have to wake up, um, or maybe have to is not the great word

for it, but like when you feel the need to wake up early, you will start to feel the need to get to bed earlier because we know we talk about health, nutrition, and sleep on this podcast all the time that we need a certain amount of hours of sleep. So don't feel like you need to really sacrifice your sleep, that you need to only sleep five hours every night just to try to get ahead. That's going to be tough. And that's going to be putting yourself in that category of the woulds and shoulds and coulds.

And you're policing yourself too strongly, too hard. Your success isn't going to happen from one particular day anyway. And so, you know, get your rest, get your sleep in. But maybe you can start to hear what Andrew said and say, Andrew's talking about 4 a.m. That's a little crazy. First of all, I would suggest trying that at some point just to just to see how you feel with it you might feel like total crap but try try it a couple times but i'd also just mainly recommend just try a little earlier that's what that's what's worked

really well for me over the years is it just kind of got earlier and earlier and earlier to the point where it got ridiculous when i was training with o'Hearn. I was up at like 345 every morning and I was eating, you know, breakfast and it was like, I just had to time it perfectly because when you train with him, if you don't have food in your stomach, you're going to feel like you're going to die. If you have too much food in your stomach, you're going to puke everywhere. So, um, it was a tough thing to, uh, to figure out, but, but find your sweet spot is all I'm really saying, you know, wake up, it might be a good idea to wake up a little earlier than uh what you're used to if you kind of feel like you're a little sluggish in the morning so the quote is at dawn when you have when you're when you have trouble getting out of bed tell yourself i have to go to work as a human

being what do i have to complain of if i'm going to do what I was born for the things I was brought into this world to do, or is this what I was created? Was this created for to huddle under the blankets and stay warm? That does feel good though. It feels amazing. It does. Warm blankets, especially when it's all three of us.

You guys remember that yesterday? Yeah. Okay. Your feet are cold sometimes man all the time man that's one thing that's why like i used to wear socks i should start wearing socks again the ones that you got me put your cold feet on me yeah i'll wear the ones you got me you just make it hard to breathe you always cover me with the blankets don't like it oh okay i'll fix you don't always have to be in the middle but that's usually where you go let's not get too crazy what do you mean i like the middle okay good happy i thought you were not good it's good knowing that i don't ever want you to be uncomfortable it's weird when i told him seaman to get a get us a bed he got us a twin bed

it's like kind of small but not really just allows us to really use our heat. I guess it just depends on how you interpret it. It all depends on interpretation. I guess the bed might be huge. Well, at least this podcast took a detour and just went right down the toilet. Hey, there's a lot of people that would love to have a twin bed to share between three people. See? Bam.

Brought it back. All right, Andrew, why don't you take us on out of here? Absolutely. Thank you, everybody, for checking out this, especially those on the live stream. If you guys did catch this live, please make sure you guys come back tomorrow because we have Ryan Holiday on.

And then if you're listening to this on the iTunes side, check our YouTube channel right away because maybe we're live currently but uh please make sure you're following the podcast at mark bells power project on instagram at mb power project on twitter uh linkedin facebook youtube all over the place my instagram is at i am andrew z in sima where you at i didn't see my anything on instagram and youtube i didn't see my union on t on Instagram and YouTube. I didn't see my yin yang on TikTok and Twitter. Mark? I want to give a shout out to my boy, Sean Provost from Dutch Bros. You know, we had him on the podcast many, many times. And he's a good friend of mine. But so what happened was he's the person that sent me that documentary of the, was it Lolly?

Yeah. I think, sorry, hopefully it's from Fat Lolly to Six Pack Lolly. There we go. So he's the one that sent me that documentary. And watching that documentary, I was like, wow, this guy just, you know, he paid to have people with him, live with him, and he paid for people to train with him and all these different things. But the person that sent that over to me was Sean.

And so when I thought about it a little bit later on, I was like, I actually know someone that can do me was Sean. And so when I, when I thought about it a little bit later on, I was like, I actually know someone that can do that for Sean. So I'm like, I'm just going to set him up. So I set our boy Sean up with, uh, George Lockhart and George Lockhart and his staff are going to go and like, just give Sean the full treatment. And, uh, I just think it's great. Cause I think it's very brave of him to step into those waters of just saying like, Hey, you know what? I'm going to turn my nutrition. I'm going to turn my fitness over to somebody else and let them let the professionals handle it and let them come through and, uh, let them, uh, let them help me out. Yeah, it's great. It's great. It could be, you know, super beneficial for the whole family. And I think it's, uh, I think it's awesome. So I just wanted to give him a shout out because I, I admire that. I think that's, uh, that's great. And then what's awesome is actually, uh, Wayne had tagged all of us and the podcast

on, uh, I believe his name's Anthony Lawley's post. One of them saying like, Oh, you guys, you got to get him on Mark Bell's power project. And then he responded. And so we're working on scheduling him. So shout out to Sean's co-host, Wayne Jensen, who actually set that all up. So our boys got our backs. And so hopefully we can return the favor and get him. Do you guys know about these secret Monday morning workouts that they have over there at the hangar, at the Dutch Bros hangar? They got this secret workout going on over there.

I got a selfie from Wayne with your brother in the background. I'm like, whoa. Like, hey, what's going on here? Yeah, they built their own gym over there and everything. We got to go over and check it out sometime. Yeah, it's pretty sick. Yeah. Very cool.

All right. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weak. This week is never strength. Catch y'all later. Bye.