Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 576 - Are You In Your "Prime" Right Now?

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

A fan asked Nsima about knowing when they've entered into their "prime" when it comes to athletic ability. We on the podcast have met too many people at young and old ages to believe that we only have a small window to make all our progress. This is our approach and our tactics for making sure we stay in our Prime for years to come. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT15 for 15% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use code "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb 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 ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

just got out and uh hit up some running i already got 10 000 steps in for the day and uh hit up some coffee this morning with some element in it the chocolate salt which is delicious to add your coffee i think it's a great it's a great coffee hack especially uh for those of you that um are you know trying not to add a bunch of crap to your coffee so it's a good way to turn your coffee into a performance enhancing beverage first thing in the morning. Yeah, no, I did the same thing this morning. Um, you feel different when you actually hydrated in the morning and you have your electrolytes, it makes a very big difference. So I fucking love the stuff. Can't get enough of it. Yeah. Stuff's incredible. I actually was so bummed.

So it's one of those things where like you open this drawer and it's like okay there's the uh the coffee pods and it's like just pull another one i'll pull another one out like it goes on forever and then one day you open it and it's like hold on what what's going on here i ran out it just so like and i get like the big costco one so that we're talking like a hundred little talking like 100 little cups, and they all disappeared. But what I did today was I just made a full shaker cup of Element, the citrus salt, and then I just added a little bit of Monster Energy Drink to that. Not the most ideal thing. I wouldn't want to do that every day, but I'm still getting my hydration while getting a little bit of caffeine kick for today's podcast. We love Element Electrolytes. We just had Zach Bitter on talking about Element Electrolytes. They're just incredible. Head over to drinklmnt.com

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Just get that value bundle right now. Wish. What's going down? The word in the street. street shoot i don't know it's it's different streets over here mark it's been hot uh yesterday was like a uh like a microwave you know like cloud cover and then you just can't escape it at night too it was pretty hot last night also it was interesting yeah yeah but now we've been we've been jumping in the pool, so it's been nice. It's been real nice. It's pretty cloudy out here

when I went for my run, but I kind of like it. I kind of like when it's overcast. There's like usually no one on the beach, and you also don't have to worry about the sun kicking the crap out of you. But I think we have a great question that came in today. I think it was on and seem as on your tick tock or on your Instagram.

Yeah, there we go. Instagram Q&A. This guy solely soul. He asked, at what age do you think you were in your prime or will you be in your prime? I just thought that was an interesting question just because it's like, I don't know. You know, you hear about a lot of athletes. They have these years where they're in their peak level of strength. And I get it, like basketball players, football players, et cetera.

But I also think that like, I think that since a lot of people believe that they're going to be, you know, winding down by the age of 35, 36, 37, that, that literally does happen to them. Cause they're like, everybody does this. This is normal. Um, but there have been some Olympians like this last Olympics, there was a sprinter and it was, she was like 38 or 39 or something. And she just had her like fourth Olympics. And she, uh, she was just out there just wrecking cats at 38 years old. I think I forgot her name, but I think the prime, the, or the idea of having a prime is, uh, I don't think it's necessarily that real. I mean, by the time you're 45, it's going to be different than when you were 25.

But outside of that, I mean, I think the,'re 45, it's going to be different than when you're 25. But outside of that, I mean. I think the sports that people choose matters a lot. And the intensity at which they play it at matters a lot. You know, something like swimming is a nice example. Because I would imagine that Michael Phelps at some capacity will most likely do either swimming or some other cyclical, you know, sport to stay in shape since it's something that he's done from the time he was a kid. And there's probably a lot of other swimmers that are good examples,

but somebody like Michael Jordan or magic Johnson or Charles Barkley, these guys that played basketball to such a high level. I really doubt they ever really mess around with touching a basketball much ever again and so their prime literally kind of came and went you know they and they tried to uh ride that out for as long as they could um but eventually injuries or their age or them slowing down in some way uh cut up to them and they had to leave. But those are examples of people doing stuff at an extremely high level in sports that people get paid a tremendous amount. People make a crazy amount of money doing that.

And that's on a professional level. And so when I think about ourselves, we think about the fitness community, it's like, this can go on forever. Like this can go on for as long as you want it to go on for. Things might look a little different, but it's certainly a lot different than, you know, I don't think Jordan or some of these guys would maybe choose to get on the basketball court unless they were coaches, unless they had something to like show somebody in particular. unless they were coaches, unless they had something to like show somebody in particular. But they just don't compete at that level any longer. For us, it's just competition against ourselves. So the only battle would be like, oh, I don't really bench as much as I used to.

That's just an ego thing. And I think that that's fairly easy to put aside. It's fairly easy to think about new goals and different directions that you may want to go in as you get older. Yeah. You know, the sprinter's name was Allison Phoenix, by the way. Allison Felix. She started in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. That's when she was 18 years old. And then she just competed in this past Olympics winning gold in the four by 100 with three other female sprinters.

So like she's been competing in the Olympics for the past 17 years. It's crazy. Yeah, she's 35 years old. Which is pretty normal for other sports. But in the Olympics, it sounds weird. Yeah. Because like it's just it's really rare, right? Especially for sprinting.

Sprinting is demanding on the body. She not, I mean, not only do you compete in the Olympics, you also have different meets every single year and she had a pregnancy. Like, so, so that's why, like, I really think like, first off, you can do a lot more than you think athletically, you know, for a longer time than you'd expect. Um, but outside of that, when you do make that switch, you know, you hear, you see a lot of, uh, you see a lot of athletes like Charles Barkley is I think a good example of this Charles Barkley after the NBA kind of became big Chuck, right? You don't, you don't got to become big Chuck like you can switch to something else and still keep yourself moving forward in a way, you know.

Yeah, this is a I don't know. See, this just brings different perspective to the table. Just thinking about like the high school athlete that talks about their glory days because after high school, they went and got a job, college, whatever. And they kind of just never picked up sports again. But let's imagine somebody started lifting at 17. And then by 27, they're probably close to their prime, right? For me, I didn't start lifting until I was 27. And I'll be 37 next year. So how crazy is it that my prime-ish might be when I'm in my forties?

So sometimes I do get upset at myself for waiting so long. It wasn't that I was waiting. I just didn't know what I was doing, but starting so late in my life. But now I'm like, well, shit, maybe I avoided some crazy injuries or I avoided getting, I don't know, bored of it or whatever. So now the way I look at it is like, yeah, by the time I'm 40, I'll be close to my prime, if not in my prime or who knows. But the way I feel is just like every year, I'm just going to get progressively better. And next year is going to be my prime and the following year and the following year. and next year is going to be my prime and the following year and the following year. So if I ignore what most people will say, which is like, hey, when you're in your 40s or like you said in SEMA, like when you're in your mid 30s or whatever, like you're going to start slowing down.

Like, I think I'm barely just getting started. It's such a cool thing to say and think because it's like, yeah, I'm just going to get better and better. Like I'm not worried about getting older. I think some of the training that I did years ago really prepped me for this, doing a lot of the training of a Westside barbell conjugate system and utilizing different exercises frequently. You know, every week it was a new exercise and every week you would get a new personal best, you'd get a new record. And a lot of those, I just carry a lot of that with me now. So a way to always get, a way to go to the gym every single time and end up with a personal best is

just do something you've never done before. So for me, for right now, I feel amazing because a lot of the stuff I'm doing is stuff that I've never really done before, stuff I'd never imagined for myself years ago. I don't really know if I ever said that I can't run, but when I was, you know, in the middle of powerlifting career, it certainly wasn't anything that I even thought would be fun at all. And now I've been running just enough to where I'm starting to get to the point of like, oh, now I understand what like a runner's high is like, this is cool. Okay. I, I get it. And this, even like the scenery and everything becomes, uh, your, your, it becomes more beautiful. It like opens up your eyes to a lot of, a lot of things. So that training I did years ago with Louie Simmons of like, you know,

every week is a PR. It wasn't a PR just because you got stronger. It was a PR more so because it was something that was different and something that was challenging. So as you age or as you, you know, are looking into new challenges, I think it's, I think that's really motivating knowing that you can get personal bests on stuff all the time, as long as you have a good imagination with it. Absolutely. And I think that's also why it's a good idea to try to find new things to get good at as you're getting older. Um, just because, you know, if you've been lifting since you were super young or power lifting or whatever, um, and you know, by, by the time you're in your mid twenties or whatever, you're, you're at really, really peak strength, then it's kinda, you know,

like for example, you Mark, when did you squat 1,085? Um, probably a good 10 or 12 years ago. 10 or 12 years ago. Okay. So what I'm getting at here is like, that's a lot of weight. And when you think of, well, I guess we're going to try to squat 1100 or like now, now you're just trying to get centimeters.

You know, you're, you're, you're going, you're, you're going to be making a big sacrifices to reach these small goals. Right. And it's not that they're,

they're not small goals. They are big goals. But there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into that. Whereas if you found that you got enough out of the sport at that time, and you're like, okay, it's time to transition into doing something new, running. Now everything's a PR, and your body's changing. Your body's feeling better. You're getting more endurance. Your heart health is increasing. You're feeling you're literally in a new body,

a different body than you were in the past. And this is like a, this is a different, it's a different you, but you're also able to continue making vast amounts of progress. So I think it's a really good idea. Like if you're an athlete, right. Um, it doesn't mean that you need to be a Jack of all trades, do what you enjoy and do what you're an athlete, right, it doesn't mean that you need to be a jack of all trades. Do what you enjoy and do what you're interested in. But maybe do find something that you can allow yourself and your body to progress at, whether that's freaking yoga, whether it's running, whether it's jujitsu. Find something because that'll allow you to eke out way more progress in something that you're interested in over the next decades? Great way to stay young is to be around kids. You know, I think everyone's got some kids in their family.

With me, I got my nephews and like it's easy to, you know, be on a trip with them and just they'll want to like race. You know, they'll want to like run against me or something. And they think they're fast or they think they can run for a long time. And I'll just tell them flat out, like, oh, no, no, you know, you're dog shit. I'm going to crush you. And they'll get older and I'm sure they'll whoop my ass at some point. But it's kind of fun to to run with them, obviously, occasionally, like let them win or whatever.

I don't care. to run with them, obviously occasionally like let them win or whatever. I don't care, but I'm just saying that the point is, is that if you live your life, you know, you live a lot of your days like you're a little kid. You know, I, a lot of times when I'm running, like if you guys saw me running me, not only because the way I run, you would laugh, but like, I'm like jumping over like puddles and jumping over seaweed. And I,

a lot of times I'll actually run the lining of like where the water is and I'll go in and I'll go out, go in and I'll go out. Like it looks like a fucking madman, but it's because it's more fun that way. Like, like when you're a kid and you are trying not to step on the lines, you know, the cracks in the ground and things like that.

Those are all, when you jump over every line, those are all exercises. Those are all, when you jump over every line, those are all exercises. Those are all things you didn't really think about, but those can be all the forms of exercise. You guys know the beach down here, there's a pretty good hill on the way back up. And I can just, you know, when I'm,

even if I'm just walking, I'm going to say, oh, I'm just going to run up the hill. Like, cause that's what a little kid would do. A little kid would be like, let me see how fast I can go up this hill. It feels good. I still do not step on cracks. It's not because it's going to break my mom's back, but I don't know.

I almost get all out of balance with that sort of thing. It's funny. Kids do think they're all extremely fast. They're like the fastest thing. No way. They don't know me. They haven't discovered how fast I am. Why are they so confident? funny uh kids do think they're all extremely fast they're like the fastest thing like no way like they don't know me like they haven't discovered how fast i am they're so confident they're so confident dude like man we got to get that back that's really what we should be trying for um but what advice do you guys have to somebody that is um that maybe they won't be able to admit it

but like they're taking we'll just say powerlifting way too serious. And like, Hey Mark, like I get it, but like, dude, I gotta, I gotta lift more. So I can't go running with the kids. Cause you know, whatever, it's going to take away from my gains. Um, so yeah, for that person, you know, what, what, how can we, uh, I don't know, just guide them a little bit right now. So that way they're not just like running into the wall every single weekend, trying to get better when really they could be doing some other things that might be more beneficial. And that's always, uh, always a tough one, you know, cause when you're trying to get better at a particular thing, you think the answer is to do more of that thing. You know, I need more of this. I need, I need, uh, more squatting squatting you know and not understanding that um

even if you just like this would blow people's minds but if you took a month off of squatting and you started doing leg presses and lunges or even just took a month off of lower body training potentially that your squat could go way up you know and there's a lot of examples of this in in life in general and so it's hard to that person that really loves it that's really uh like in in the middle of it it's hard to have them uh pull back from it but if there is a way you can encourage them and just say are you happy with the progress are you happy with the way that things are going right now? If they are, if things seem to be flourishing, then there's probably no problem or no error.

But if they're not making the progress that they want, or they're complaining that they can't sleep, they don't have energy, they don't have time for their energy for their children and stuff like that, that's when you can start to explain, oh, well, it might be a good idea for you to be better in some of these other areas as well. I think you hit like that. That's the key there. It's like, cause you see a lot of people, you know, they're doing a sport and they're like, Ooh, yeah, making progress. It's great. Awesome. But then you see that the amount that they're pushing within set sport is taking away from a lot of other things in their life. So it's take away from what they're trying to do in their business. It's taking away from what they're trying to do with their family, their husband, their wife, their kids. Um, it's taking away from a lot of things. Like sometimes you do have to make sacrifices in certain areas. Um, if

you want to get good at something. So like if, if you got to go to practice and you have to maybe sacrifice going to dinner with some friends, okay. But if that's something that like, it's consistently taking away from things that are actually also very important in your life, that's when you got to be like, okay, like me wanting to go towards being a pro bodybuilder, but maybe I don't have it all right. Maybe I don't have the, maybe that's not in the cards and maybe I'm just putting too much effort here where I need to be putting somewhere else. You might find that freeing that up might actually make you much happier overall,

even though you're not getting to that specific goal that you wanted. to that specific goal that you wanted. And implementing just some balance might most likely in most cases will make people a little happier. You know, it'll just present a lot of other opportunities that you maybe otherwise wouldn't get if you were just invested so hard in that one thing. This guy, Art Williams, who was in, he had his own life insurance company and he built it up to like a $75 billion company. It was pretty, pretty awesome story. But what he said is years ago, he read a book and the book was saying how much sacrifice that you had to make to be

the best you can be in business. And he said, if that's the price you have to pay, you pay and to be amazing in business, he's like, fuck it. I don't want anything to do with it. And so he learned to like, just do it his way. He's like, I'm still going to involve my wife. I'm still going to involve my kids. I'm still going to serve God. Like he was a very religious. And so he was like, I'm still going to do it this way. And I'm going to make time for work. And I'm going to make time for my wife and make time for my kids. He still did it in a balanced way.

Took him 20 years. Took him a while. But he still did in a balanced way where he didn't wreck his own home. He didn't wreck. And another thing a lot of times people would say to him along the way is that you can't mix business and pleasure. And your employees can't be people that you're close with and things like that. And he's like, no, I'm going to do this the way that this is my company. I'm going to do things the way that I see is fit. And he's not going to live under these parameters that somebody else built.

And so he decided to do it. And he's also a guy that swims like two miles every morning. He's in his 70s. So he's just a great example of somebody that's not taking the outside influences of any conventional thought, whether it be about your prime or whether it be about how you run your business. I thought it was some really useful information. Yeah, right there. What you said there was like super important because it kind of goes into we spoken about this before in terms of, uh, um, you, your belief in something, right? If you believe something's going to work, your mind's going to

work in a lot of ways to try to figure out how to make that work. But a strong part of our belief is the things that we see and the things that we've seen done. So an example is like the mile time. You know, there were a lot of people that saw miles not being broken by four minutes. So they're like, ah, as much as they trained and those people trained hard, they could never break it. But once somebody did manage to do it, all of these other athletes, like it was just a string of people just crushing the four minute mile. Right. So there's this, there's, there's, there's an idea like where, you know, you see certain people doing things athletically. Let's say that you see most power lifters. Um, most of them are good between the ages of 28 and 32, 33. You don't see as many

in their late thirties that are really crushing it. Um, so maybe in yourself you believe, oh, well I better get all my big numbers in here. And by the time I get to 33, I'm going to be winding down. I won't be able to be as strong. But that's not necessarily true. If you have a belief that you can and you take care of yourself the right way and you're careful in the gym and you do the things you need to do, you could potentially hit more and more PRs in your late 30s. Same thing with dropping weight. Same thing with dropping weight. Same thing with gaining

muscle. A lot of people are like, oh, if I'm my 30s or late 30s, it's going to be hard for me to lose all this fat or gain muscle because they don't see many people doing it. Right. But that isn't true. Like we've seen people do it and we've had people on the show that have done it. So it's good that we have people that have done certain things that are unconventional. But if you're looking at a lot and you believe things that is just purely conventional, it's going to be hard for you to break out of that and do things that are kind of on the outside. I love it. Is it actually true? I think it's a huge part of that. These are things I ask myself a lot of times. If you ever get lost in your own thought or if you ever get any buildup of anxiety or concern or worry about something, walk yourself down that street and you'll actually find out it's a dead end street and there's nothing to it really. You'll actually learn.

You'll ask yourself, like, is this actually true? Like, is there truth to me thinking that this is never going to work out? Well, maybe there is some truth to that, but there's probably only truth to it is if you don't do something about it. You know, usually usually that's where I like a lot of the a lot of the answers are for me personally, I've never really liked listening to conventional thought, and I never really liked living in a box of rules that anybody set for me. So part of the reason why I never had a job, I'm not going to really listen well to instruction. You know, I'm not going to really listen well to instruction now that I'm older and I'm more mature. I could certainly do that a little bit better than when I was when I was younger. But, you know, being getting older and hearing people talk about their joints and their elbows and their knees and their back. There's definitely some truth to like, you know, I've used my body a lot over the

years. You know, I squatted some big weights. I bench pressed some big weights. I've abused my body and done a beat the hell out of it in a bunch of different ways. But it's also really resilient and it can learn new things and it can be trained. We know the limit. We know the mind is, the ability of the mind is kind of like unknown. It's like it's pretty infinite, you know, and we know that your body eventually, eventually your body will wear out, but when it does wear out, that's kind of up to you. If you take care of it, you get good rest, you have good nutrition, you treat yourself as well as you can. You can continue to do new things as you get older and older. And we see great examples of it. Stan Efferding started his powerlifting career very

late. Mike Ryan is 55 and he's in amazing shape. Michael trend is probably leaner than I've ever seen him before. I think he just did a guest posing thing recently. Mark Sisson is in great shape and there's a lot of other examples of some people that are out there that have gotten in tremendous shape and have broken through barriers even as they're getting older. Yeah. And see after that, Mark, did anybody ever tell you anything like that to where maybe some of this going against conventional wisdom kind of came from?

Or was that like something that you built in yourself and see if you can explain it really quick just in case somebody missed it oh yeah like it's just okay so my mom she she's just very careful with her words she uh she doesn't say things that are negative so i mentioned this on instagram the other day but i i gave my mom a call and she uh um she was wondering if i was going to be able to visit her on that day i was like oh no it's a bad day i won't be able to and then she's like she corrected me real fucking quick it's like no it's not a bad day retake like take that back so i said it wasn't a bad day but like my mom also when she came here there's a saying a saying in the US that the sky's the limit.

And she's immediately like it didn't make sense to her because she was like, why are you going to say something is the limit? Why are you going to say you can stop at something that doesn't make sense? So growing up, she'd always tell me the sky's not the limit. And that was like the preference of her. That was the whole idea of me getting this thing on my hand that she still doesn't know about that she would probably kill me for. But with that being said, um, yeah, it's like, uh, you know, like even, even in jujitsu, they, when you turn 30, I think they, they start having like masters one and masters two and all those types of competitions.

But I truly don't think that like, I'm going to compete in Masters for a very long time. Number one, because I have us, the information that we have on this podcast, I've seen people that have taken really good care of their health and their body and have stayed strong through their 30s and 40s. So I think that I can still fuck up young cats by the time I'm 35 or 40. But I think that's just like, you don't see that often, but I truly believe that that can be done. So that's that. Yeah. My, my mother, uh, you know, she just wanted me to lean into who I was, you know, she would just say you're uniquely you you know um so um like when i was young and when i you know was going

to school and stuff school was always troublesome for me i i didn't do well in school um but like when it you know came like you know going on the playground or something or racing against my friends i could always crush them uh when it came to anything physical i was almost always almost always excuse me choking on something oh man something flew into my mouth it seems like uh-huh hey now it was in sema's dog's fur yeah yeah anyway uh yeah when it came to stuff in school uh you know i sucked but when it came to doing stuff you know outside of school physical stuff i was pretty good um and so you know my mom would just kind of have me lean into that she would uh she would say like hey like when you race against your friends like who wins i'd be like me you know

when you arm wrestle your friends who wins she'd say i'd say me you know and stuff like that so you know she just made me realize like okay well these are your gifts and she wasn't like hey so you should shut the fuck up but it kind of made me realize that on my own these are my gifts and these are the things that i should lean into and so when it came to um kind of this unconventional thought question that you had there andrew i um my mom also was a big believer in like trusting in your gut and trusting in the things that you believe. And so really just any time anything came up that was like that, she would always just say, I think you already know the answer. You know, and she would just kind of smile.

She's like, you already know the answer. And I was like, damn kind of smile she's like you already know the answer and i was like damn i think she's i think she's right so uh at a certain age i just stopped asking and just started kind of uh you know going off of my like kind of gut i guess gut instinct you'd say is that why you always say that shit pretty much pretty much i think you know and that shit? Pretty much. Pretty much. I think, you know, and that's the whole part of the reason of the name of the supplement company is called Within You. I think a lot of people spend, you know, during this pandemic and stuff, I think a lot of people spend a lot of time inside. But I don't think enough people look inside.

They don't look inside themselves and look inside. We're made up of some pretty cool shit and uh i mean the if you look at every other creature on this earth you can find you know you look at all the other animals and you'll find a kidney you'll find a heart and you'll find a spleen and you'll find blood and you'll find cells and you'll find muscles and you'll find fat. You'll find all these same things. You'll even find a brain, but you won't find a mind that works the way our minds work. We're equipped. We're equipped to handle all kinds of stuff. And then a lot of times, unfortunately, we can still feel overwhelmed we put our hands up and

we're like oh my god this is this is so overwhelming but we have we have the ability to continue to learn we have the ability to continue to grow and we have an ability to continue to gain new skill sets that can allow us to overcome anything. Which is, to me, that's motivation right there. That's motivating to me every day to know that I could solve any of my own problems. Like they're all solvable. All I got to do is think about it. Yeah. of my own problems like they're all solvable all i gotta do is think about it yeah what if uh somebody's listening um don't you want to put an age to it but they're just like shit mark like i just discovered you and you know i just literally got done saying i'm past my prime

uh how can we uh rejuvenate this uh we'll say former athlete into believing like like no you're not past your prime maybe he's got to get your uh your second wind your second prime and uh start heading down towards that direction i think it's very easy to uh to like force people to admit that they could be a little bit better you know i think that everyone can very reasonably recognize and identify that they could be a little bit stronger. They could, you know, it's easy for people to, they could think of an error that they have in them right now that they would like to change, whether they're drinking too much, watching too much pornography,

staying up too late. They don't have a good bedtime ritual. I mean, there's so many things. And so if we were to say, hey, look, if you could pick out one thing that you would love to address, one thing that you would love to change. Do you believe that you have the ability to chip away at that and to get better? Maybe you can't chip away and maybe it doesn't feel like at the moment. Maybe it feels overwhelming that you feel that you can't completely reverse a situation that you're in or something like that. It's totally understandable. or something like that is totally understandable, but you can certainly, I could certainly make massive, massive changes, but it just, it just takes, it takes a long time. So I don't think it's hard to encourage somebody to get moving and to get going because they can

usually understand that they have a couple errors. They have a couple things that I'm sure they don't love about themselves, but you can work at it each and every day, take small steps, and you can work on defeating some of those things so that you can love yourself a little bit more each and every day. Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I also think though that like you can take it on as a challenge to yourself. Because, okay, there's two things. There's one that might not be so surprising, but Casio over at Casio Wernick, right? He won Worlds in 2003 as an adult. But then he started competing as a Master, and he's won Masters Worlds like seven or eight times.

So he's been able to like challenge himself that way but there's this other guy and i was i was trying really hard to find his name and he's gonna destroy me because he listens to the podcast from time to time and he's gonna hate me that i don't remember his name but he's like 58 or 60 i think he's like early 60s or late 50s i'm pretty sure early 60s um he lifts like a madman like a madman um and he got into jujitsu i don't know five four four years ago maybe four years ago and he also won masters worlds as a blue belt um and it's like that's in his freaking late 50s early 60s where he goes and he wins a world championship by starting a martial art that he's never done before in his 50s. And he's in the best shape of his life.

So, like, I don't think it's like no matter what age or wherever you're at, you can start something. And you can, if you're patient with yourself, you believe in yourself, you can get good at it. It doesn't mean you need to go try and become a world champion, but at the end of the day, you can get very, very good and become very, very confident in yourself with it. Just got to believe it can be done and put in that work. That's nuts. One of my absolute all-time favorite quotes for Mr. Mark Bell, One of my absolute all-time favorite quotes for Mr. Mark Bell, who you are today is not a life sentence. And the reason why I bring that up, because I'm thinking about myself and maybe some other people who are like, shit, maybe I'm not even going to get a prime. So it's tough. For that person, I guess what I don't want to say, like they're either thinking they're not going to get into a prime.

If we're still going to use that word, I think I'm using it incorrectly, to be honest. Or they might be saying like, yeah, I'm in high school, but like I know I'm going to start lifting or I'm going to do this. And by time I'm this age, that's when it'll really kick in. I guess, Mark, if you can explain that quote, because somebody might be thinking, like, shit, I'm just not going to ever amount to anything. So I'm probably just going to miss my window as is. So I'm not even going to bother with it right now. It's a very difficult thing to change your mindset um i'm a big believer that the mind

can be changed quite a bit but it cannot necessarily be changed just by thought alone there has to be action and you have to know, history is written by the doers. So I think there's people that haven't acted on a lot of things quite yet and they have a lot of anxiety over it. They're paralyzed by it. They do think about it often. They're smart enough to know I should be doing these things. I could be doing these things. It would be nice if this happened for me. Or what about the word wish? People use the word wish a lot. And I've been in those spots before a little bit myself, but, you know, wishing for something is not going to help. What will help is you trying to figure out how can I acquire a stronger skill set to get me out of the current spot that I'm in.

When you ask the question of, you know, somebody doesn't think that they're going to amount to anything. It's I think I think it starts with doing you know and i had a conversation uh with nsema maybe like two three weeks ago in the gym and i said i i think the way you're going about doing things is is great because having the kind of body that nsema has which is this is all kind of like weird or funny to bring up, but like when you're a percentage body fat that Encima is with the amount of muscle mass he has, that is way more rare than being a millionaire. That is way more rare. Like there's a, there's millions of millionaires and there's millions of people that are in good shape as well. There's, you know, there's a lot of people that are in good shape as well. There's a lot of people that are in good shape.

But when you start heading in a direction that in SEMA, the percentage is lower and lower and lower. And my point to him was just that I think it's cool that he's been working on and working towards figuring that out because that piece of the puzzle is harder than just making money. Making money, I know someone could view as being just as hard as the disciplines that it takes to get in shape and things like that. And you could argue back and forth and there could be good, you know, arguments here and there. But anyway, the whole point of me bringing this up is that when you work towards a physique that is admired by a lot of other people, when you work towards a strength level that's admired by a lot of other people, I'm not saying that that's even the goal is to get admiration from everybody else, but it certainly makes you feel really good. And it certainly

can assist you in feeling more substantial. Like we need one another. We need people like you, you do need people's admiration to some extent. I don't know how you would work on rewiring your circuitry to not need that. I believe as humans, like we, we, we need, we need some of that feedback from each other and it makes you feel like something. So in order for you to be anything, you have to have done something. And that's the hardest part of it. Cause you're like, well, what, what can I do? Like, I can't do anything. I think that you could be a little stronger. I think that you could probably be a little leaner. I think that you could probably a little stronger. I think that you could probably be a little leaner. I think that you could probably work on your like endurance.

I mean, that's why I always go to the physical because I'm like the physical side, even though there might be a genetic prowess to it or a pedigree to it to some extent. Of course, there's always genetic components on just about everything, but these are all things that you could work on, that you could have a lot of agency over. You could figure out your nutrition. You could figure out your strength training. You could figure out your whatever it is you're working on. But in order uh not ever have anyone say that you're a nobody you just have to have done something and then they can never take that away from you it will be less relevant on what they say because you're like no that's just that's garbage it's not even true you know because uh like i i know myself i know the amount of work i could put in because like I know myself, I know the amount of work I could put in because you did something,

you work towards running two miles in 14 minutes or something. And because you achieve that, you're like, no, fuck that stuff, man. Other stuff's not true about me. I do know how to work hard. I do know how to dedicate myself to something. So I think it always starts by doing something. And I actually think that if somebody feels like they're not anything or they're like, it's usually just not true. There's usually no truth to it in the first place. And that's probably the worst part of it is usually no truth in the first place. You're probably already a dad. You probably are already somebody that works really hard. There's probably millions of examples of how you can kind of talk yourself out of that negative thought process.

Yeah. That's sick, dude. Thank you. That's a nice shirt, by the way. You like that? Yeah. I'm digging it. the way you like that yeah i'm digging it thinking less yeah i think that's uh you know something that a lot of people are probably still over analyzing about like i want i got to get back in shape i got to do this i got to do that it's like no just uh do what mark said go out for a walk change up the diet do something but also. Um, don't listen to the other people that are telling you like, no, you are past your prime. It's like, nah, bitch, like prime doesn't even really exist because we just keep getting better and better every day. You know, it's, it is funny. Like when, when, if an individual believes something about that,

about themselves, that's a negative thing because it's what somebody else told them. Whenever I think about people who have said very negative things to me in that way, and they weren't based on truth. They're more so maybe just things to try to literally hurt me. It was always based off of that individual's own failures or off of their own insecurities. So maybe people saying, ah, by the time you're 30 something, you're going to be feeling this too. No, motherfucker, it's just because you're feeling it. It doesn't mean that I'm going to feel it, it's just because you're actually feeling that right now. So you think you want to tell me it's going to be the same and it's not. Or just, you know, people who have just said just pretty, pretty negative things.

When I think about it, it's like that usually ends up being a reflection upon them. Why they think I can't do something or why they're saying something like that to me. It's reflection on what they think about themselves. So, you know, if you can think, if you do have these certain thought patterns and you know, they're based off of things that you were told by maybe someone important in your life. So understand that that shit doesn't need to be true. It doesn't need to be something that, and you got to get rid of that. You got to go do something. You got to get that belief system out of yourself. Want to take us on home, Andrew?

Absolutely. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Shout out and thank you to Element Electrolyte for sponsoring today's episode. DrinkLMNT.com slash PowerProject. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Follow the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at I am Andrew Z and Seema. Where can people find you? And Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube and Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter.

Mark. I'd like to point out that I don't think that Cam Haynes is super young. I don't think that Joe Rogan is super young. David Goggins. I don't think it's super young. And David Goggins is a great example because David Goggins used to be a power lifter. He used to be pretty heavy. He, as he would say, he used to be a power lifter. He used to be pretty heavy.

As he would say, he used to be really fat. And he's somebody that had to overcome a broken mindset over and over again. of his goals when he was doing buds when he was in the military was to make the instructors go home and stay up at night thinking about him like he wanted them to like lose sleep over the fact that they couldn't break him he wanted them to rethink what their experience was when they went through buds training because he wanted just to bring it every single day and to basically show, which is, which sounds easier said than done. You know, it's, it's, it's easy to talk about stuff. It's easy to say, yeah, I'm going to go do this and, and I'm not going to show any pain or any next time someone gets me an arm bar and jujitsu, I'm not going to show any.

It's the second that you're super uncomfortable and it feels like your arm's going to snap. You're, you're thinking differently. And I can only imagine what like budge training is like, but I do think that we can have perspective on stuff to where we can flip it and we can be so powerful. We can think and almost get ourselves to that complete other side. So people that are, you know, really wondering about this stuff, you know, go and read some books, you know, and pay attention to some of these athletes and these people that are out there like David Goggins, who is just extraordinary, extraordinary person who really built up his mind. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell.

Catch you guys later.