Modern Wisdom - #851 - Chris Bumstead - Discipline, Motivation & The Champion’s Mindset

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Chris Bumstead is a professional bodybuilder, 5x Mr. Olympia Classic Physique title holder, and a business owner. Ask any of the greats what it takes to win, and they’ll tell you the same thing: greatness comes at a cost. So, what is the price to becoming the best? What lessons are there to discover from a world champion who is prioritising his mental health above his sport? Expect to learn Chris’ reflections on his prep for his 6th Olympia Championship, Chris’ message to his younger self, how to balance the sacrifices it takes to become elite, how becoming a dad changed Chris as a person, what life will be like after retirement, how to stop being less harsh on yourself and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get expert bloodwork analysis and bypass Function’s 300,000-person waitlist at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get $350 off the Pod 4 Ultra at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is going out the day after the Olympia. What do you hope happened yesterday? Well, I certainly hope I won. Definitely easiest answer to give. This year is just very important to me to really want to bring my best package. You know, it sounds cheesy to say, but I've been working hard, going through a lot of adversities and challenges over the years and every year has had something kind of like get in my way. And felt like it was holding me back. This year's had a few earlier on in the year but

at this point I'm feeling pretty good, feeling pretty set so I just want to be able to stride into this one, I want to be able to enjoy it, I want to be able to you know get off stage, kiss my wife, hold my baby, know that I became the best in the world and maintain the beautiful relationship through it. How important is it to share the success with somebody else as opposed to just doing it for yourself? It's hard to say how important it is because I haven't had the success without her, but I can't imagine it in any other way. I think, you know, in the meaning we find in life, it's beautiful to do hard things and to accomplish things.

But if you were to do it alone, it's just not the same as being able to share it with someone. I think there's a level of codependence and regulation that can be healthy and can help you push through, be more present, not have to shut off and numb so much. You know, I think a lot of people who are going through hard things trying to accomplish really big levels of success numb a lot to get there. And I think being able to have a partner in which you can regulate yourself with and share and communicate and lean on prevents you from having to numb brings

you closer together, which is its own experience as well as the experience of whatever you're working towards. So it's like double the amount of joy that you get to feel growing in two ways at once. Exactly. Yeah. And who doesn't want a big hug after you accomplish something, you know? Yeah, that's cool.

What will you be talking about in your speech? Hopefully. My speech, hopefully. It's a good question. I would say just talking about this year, I've been thinking a lot about the sacrifices that come with success, you know, like nothing comes for free. And I've reflected a lot over the years of how much of my mental peace I've had to sacrifice to accomplish what I've accomplished.

And it's just been a lot of like waking up at 5 a.m. going through the day, wake up, weigh myself, weigh my food, do my check-ins in the mirror, like go to the gym, workout, what's wrong with everything? It's like, am I good enough? Am I being enough? Am I doing enough to win the Olympia right now? It's all just compared to being Mr. Olympia, to that level of success. And, you know, people talk about what you sacrifice to be great at things.

And they normally like, you don't get to go hang out with your friends. You don't get to go party, go, go do these things. But I think for me, the biggest sacrifice had just been my mental peace. So the goal this year has been trying to find that, maintain it, have the mental peace while also thriving at a high level and seeing how I can do that as, as efficiently as possible. And I'd like to be able to say I did so successfully. Talk to me about the tension of being as high of a performer, the best in the

world and what you do whilst also not having that neurotic drive, that sort of ambient anxiety that you can never switch off because it seems like that anxiety is precisely what creates the perfectionism approach that allows you to cover all of those bases. Is it possible to have one without the other? I'm not sure. I still have a level of neuroticism in me, even though I've been succeeding for like five, six years now.

And it's definitely gotten better. You know, I don't focus on perfection. I focus on just being doing the best I can. But even within that, I have that voice in my head that will look at myself every now and then and be like, it's not that I'm a shitty person, but if I'm trying to be Mr. Olympia, you're like, you're not fucking doing enough.

And it creates like an impeding anxiety upon myself, like I'm not doing enough. And it creates a, like a impeding anxiety upon myself. Like I'm not doing enough. And that's not like an overwhelming thing all the time. It's, it's a drive for me to keep being better and keep pushing more and more, but it's a lot. So I think being able to manage that is one of the most challenging things of maintaining success for an extended period of time. You know, there's two different mindsets when you win something, there's,

Oh, I won, I did it, I'm done. And then there's, Oh shit. Like I better, I got to do better than this. I won. Now I have to maintain this, not only maintain this, but this is the bare minimum of what's expected of me and I got to do better now. So there's the balance of all that. And I think over the last couple of years, I've been able to really be able to fix

my perspective on just being grateful for the privilege of it. You know, there's been times where I thought I was going to stop competing because the pressure felt so high. And then when I started to step away from it, I was like, fuck, I would really miss this pressure. Like I have something I love about it. It's something I love about being put back against the corner, like knowing that there's a lot of work I have to do feeling like I can't accomplish my goal and you're going

to have to do it. There's something so like simple and beautiful in the meaning of just doing something that difficult under that level of pressure that you're going to have to do it. There's something so like simple and beautiful in the meaning of just doing something that difficult under that level of pressure that you're choosing to do. You know, people say you find meaning in suffering. And I think if you put yourself into like a meaningless suffering, it's kind of just, it's dumb, there's no point. You're just hurting yourself for no reason. But if you can find your meaning in just doing hard things that are as

close as possible to suffering, that you're still benefiting from and you still enjoy, I think it's beautiful. That's one of the vicious double-edged swords of having success. If you have that kind of mentality, which I know all too well, that anytime you reach a new high or achieve some new kind of bar, hooray, we did it. Immediately. The next thought after that is, oh, fuck. I now need to do it again, but better.

That's now the next minimum. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I've, I've had conversations with many people about the possibility of not having that and just being able to enjoy and relieve the pressure on yourself. And, you know, there's all these studies that come out, talk about motivation and drive saying that you can get more from coming from like a secure place rather than beating yourself up and it's like, it depends on what your version of

success is, like can these people live a life to be more happy and fulfilled? Yes. But will they be medical Jordan and have six championships? Dude, I love this topic. I love it so much. And, uh, I think the bottom line is that if you're talking about beating everybody else on the planet to a thing, what you're actually talking about is what are you prepared to sacrifice psychologically, physically, existentially, relationally, socially,

in terms of your self-esteem, your comfort and everything, right? All of that. Because if there's even a part of you that's thinking, well, I'm going to do this, but I'm going to balance it because I want to feel satisfied. I want to feel comfortable with myself and so on and so forth. That's fine for as long as it contributes to your performance within the domain that you're competing in, but as soon as you sacrifice any output in that, that's just an opening for somebody else. That's the competitor that's going to come in and get it.

Because I use this example of Eddie Hall, world's strongest man, uh, 2017 or 18, I think, and he's there, you know, he's worked hard toward this final goal, he wins it once and he's crying and he's saying, Nana, this is for you. His grandma that passed away recently, something like that. And he says, if he hadn't won that year, he thinks that he would be dead, divorced with no relationship to his kid because the weight he was at and the way he was pushing his body with pharmaceuticals and stuff was ridiculous. He was working so hard and training so much that his relationship with his wife was in the toilet and he spent no time with his kid. So you think, okay, in order for you to beat Eddie Hall, you have to be prepared to sacrifice all of those things or not have them in the first place.

So that's the price that he pays to be him. Do you want to, do you want to win world's strongest man? Cause that's the price right there. Yeah, it's powerful. And that's what it comes down to. Like, what are you willing to sacrifice at the end of the day? You know, people don't understand the level of sacrifice is going to take. And there's been moments where I realized that there are competitors I'm going against.

I'm sure in people in my league who are doing things that hurt their body more than I'm willing to do because I'm not the person anymore. I can't say I'm willing to sacrifice everything to win the Olympia. Like hell no. I have a family, you know, there's things I care about my willing to sacrifice a lot, my own

like selfish mental peace and a lot of joy and a lot of things and working really hard. Absolutely. But my health taking years off my life to not be with my family and stuff. Those are the things that kind of like hold me back now. And is that going to make me better or worse? I don't know. But again, you know, I've always focused on building my own definition

of what success means to me, you know, it's like we were saying in competition. There will always be, I'm trying to be the best in the world. That means I need to beat these people. That means I'm good enough or I'm not good enough in comparison to something external of myself. But internally, the values of the truths of what you hold in yourself of what really success means to you in your entire life, those are the things that you kind of have to balance and weigh out and kind of lean into one or the other. And I compete because I want to win. I love winning. I love being the best in the world. I've sat many times trying to find the balance of what I want within all this. If I was losing, I wouldn't be competing.

I'm here to win. And it is what it is. I love what I do, but at this point it's taken away a lot that I just really love winning more than I love, more than I dislike the work. So it's fine. I can do it. But my values are still bigger than that. My success at the end of my life is beyond hurting myself now to do so. So it's a constant check in with myself of

making sure I'm lining up my values and I'm not going to sacrifice winning to do so. And I need to be smart enough that when those start to disbalance, I need to pull away from one, focus on the other and know when to check out. So what happens next? What next in life?

Take it year by year and we see. I've been saying, I think 2019 was the year I finished, won the Olympia, went home and I was like, I'm done. I'm retiring. And that was the year I was over it. I was done. In 2018 I was almost done. And then 2019 I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to go win one. I won I won one came back. All I felt was relief I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I still was getting a little sick from autoimmune I didn't know how to manage my health properly back then and it was just so much stress about my health Because of 2018 when I was in the hospital from autoimmune that I was like this isn't worth it to me I'm not doing this anymore and

Ever since then I've been like if I do one more than I'm lucky to do one more And I'm gonna take it one year at a time. And so every year I've been grateful enough to be able to do one more at a time. If my health has gotten better every single year and you know, every year I find that drive and that excitement behind that pressure to be better and better. And I'm still enjoying it. I haven't sacrificed anything beyond my values and my truth. So I'm here doing my best.

It'll be maybe even more of an impressive feat to be able to do it without sacrificing that stuff. And it's very unglories. You know what I mean? It's, it's got nothing to do with how peeled you are when you step out on stage or, oh my God, look at how much back development he's accumulated from last year or whatever. It's one of those very odd private victories.

You know, like I always think about this. These weird insults that we have to ourselves on a daily basis that no one is ever going to give you any applause for. So you get caught up in traffic in a way that wasn't your fault. And then when you get there, the person that you're dealing with, something goes wrong with that and something else goes wrong with this and something else goes wrong the whole day, all the way down. And no one of these is impressive or grand or magnificent in any way. And you manage to sort of weave your way through the day, keeping your cool and you

don't lose it and you manage to kind of make the best of that whole day. And you get to the end of it and there's no one applauding you for having got through that. And yet you look back at the day and you go, holy fuck, I'm really proud of myself. I handled myself well. Yes. Yeah. So I think a lot about normal private victories like that. And it's a shame.

It's a shame that there isn't a better way. I guess journaling, gratitude practice would help. But, um, I mean, I would argue a really close relationship where you're able to share everything and they're able to see the struggles that most people don't ever see is another experience where when you boring wins, boring success, you can share them together. You know, my wife is a hell of a lot more proud of me for being myself and being genuine than I ever winning Olympias, you know?

So I think that's another, how we started off the podcast way to experience something with someone else. I was talking to Ben Shapiro yesterday and he sort of reminded everybody just how much his wife, who's like an accomplished doctor and they've got four kids or whatever, gives absolutely zero shits about what he does. He said that they'd been this week where he'd been to, he'd filmed some really impressive documentary thing over in Europe and then came back and was currently the number one rap artist in America in the same week. And he got home and talking to his wife and saying, how's your week been? She's explaining about, oh, this happened

with the kids and such as such as things. How was your week? And he says, yeah, pretty busy I think. And he explained, he's like, I'm currently the number one selling rap artist and he was like, yeah, yeah, that's good. The bins need taking out. To go take out the trash. Yep. Yep. That's a beautiful relationship.

I think it's cool. That's awesome. And she probably also knows him well enough to know that Matt's probably not a victory that he holds high in his heart as well. So it's not like, oh, I finished a buck that I worked on for a long time. If he was super proud of it, I'm sure she would support him for it, but she's like, all right, you have enough ego blasted. You're competing with Nicki Minaj, no one cares.

Talk to me about this prep. How's this prep been? This prep has been good. It's been a struggle up and down in moments as they always are. I started a little bit late this year, I feel. I spent my winter down in Turkey getting a new hairline and then go sweet. It's a little straighter than last time. A little, what do they call me? The Lego of Roblox.

The comments love it, but, um, it took a couple of months off at the beginning of the year and kind of developed a little bit of pressure behind me, feeling behind and allowing me to kick my ass and go through it, but you know, I feel good. I'm my body's healthy and I'm ready to roll. What are your biggest cheats for this stage of prep or biggest insights around fat loss? I imagine the hunger that you're dealing with is pretty ugly.

What calories you want at the moment? Eating about 2,000, 2200 calories right now. Okay. And we're what, three weeks out? Three and a half. Yeah. So that's going to go down to 1500, 1600? It depends every year, probably though. Okay. I that's going to go down to 1500, 1600. It depends every year.

Probably though. Okay. I still have to lose nine pounds in three weeks. So, yeah, so probably it'll get, it'll cut down a little more. How do you deal with the hunger? Cause it doesn't matter. People don't need to be trying to win the Mr. Olympia for the sixth year in a row or whatever.

Anybody that's on a cut deals with really difficult hunger. Anybody that's on a cut deals with really difficult hunger. And most of them don't have world championship driving them. What's your best ways for coping with hunger and cravings and stuff like that when you're deep into a fat loss phase? I mean, it's hard to answer that aspect because I always have had world championship as my driving passion. Stopping a pussy, stopping a pussy. Like you don't be a little bitch, you don't need it, you know? I've always have had world championship as my driving passion. Stopping a pussy, stopping a pussy. Stopping a pussy, yeah.

Like you're, don't be a little bitch, don't eat it, you know? But I would say the momentum is absolutely huge. Being able to do something consistently, everything is consistently for a decade. You know, almost everything I've eaten has been weighed out to a tee and planned for a reason for 10 years now. And if I had stopped and eaten whatever I want for five years and come back and be like, okay, diet for an Olympia, it would be extremely hard for me mentally to handle that.

Every year has gone a little bit easier because I've gotten used to it. I know what it takes. I know what comes with it. We were just talking about, you said Mike Gizretel says the same thing. You just, you stopped caring about food. Even in my off season, I don't like eating

food because I'm eating so much food. So I don't look forward to the food that I eat. I just make sure it's something edible that I can get down if I have to put like bone broth on on or some sriracha and just eat it really fast. And then when I come down into prep and I am hungry, I still am not excited to eat the food. It's just some chicken breast and some meal, make it super plain and it is what it is. Get through the day and you're fine. And you also got to create like exciting daily victories for myself. I weigh myself like three times a day and I don't get obsessively worried about it, but I'm

like, okay, I'm going to weigh myself right now. I'm a pound heavier than I was yesterday. You can't even think about eating anymore today. Like you're heavier than yesterday. Like you should probably eat less today. Even go do some more cardio, push it a little bit harder. And then you're just tracking daily victories

and every single day trying to be a little bit better, a little bit better. Checking the scale, doing your check-ins, going to the gym, thinking how you feel. And there's something in bodybuilding that's a little like sadistic where you just, when you start to get to that point where you're so tired and like, I was telling you, like I dropped

something on the floor and I'm like, look at it. And I'm like, I can't pick that up. Like it's too far. I do not have the, I'm literally wearing Birkenstocks dragging my heels across the ground and walking. Courtney's like 20 feet ahead of me. I'm like, I can't catch up. I'm too tired. But there's something about that where you're like,

I'm going to be fucking shredded if I'm this tired. If I feel like this for weeks, my body is burning fat. It has nothing. It has no energy. I'm just holding on to muscle. And there's just something exciting about, you know, achieving that level of like leanness and trying to beat past versions of myself. So it's all mental for me at this point. You know, there's no really crazy diet hacks. about achieving that level of like leanness and trying to beat past versions of myself. So it's all mental for me at this point. There's no really crazy diet hacks.

I eat the exact same thing every day. It just produces the amounts over time and go with the flow. What does a, I don't know whether I've ever seen a rebound day for you. I don't know whether you've ever vlogged it. If you have, I've missed it. A refeed day?

Yeah, like a rebound day, the day after the Olympia. You know, there's always these, I imagine that you're the sort of person that doesn't do a ridiculous binge because it would actually wreck your stomach. Yeah. But what does, what, do you even have that? I look forward to eating dot dot dot.

I definitely still do at times and I can, I'll say this now because it will come out after the Olympia, but I'd never, I don't think I've said this in public because it's funny, but my coach is. But I'd never, I don't think I've said this public. Cause it's funny, but my coach is very, I've been very big on when I have a refeed, it's the same food I eat every day, but more of it. But every now and then I'm like, fuck, I just want

a cookie, you know, I just want a muffin. So my coach like, what'd you eat today? I'm like 400 grams of rice, but like realistically I had like, I had a bunch of chicken breasts and then I had three cookies with it, you know? And I, it's the same amount of carbs, but I'm like, I'm just gonna have some cookies today, fuck it, you know? And I go for it.

And I let myself have that now, you know? There's a level of intuition I've developed over the years of doing what I do where like, I might've stressed about that in the past, but it's just gonna affect me more. And now I'm like, you know what you're doing. You've done this for 10 years, you know what's gonna hold you back, what's gonna not.

I'm gonna enjoy my cookie with my wife. I'm gonna eat this, I'm gonna go to the gym, train some legs. I know it's good for me. It's good, it's fine, and's going to not. I'm going to enjoy my cookie with my wife. I'm going to eat this. I'm going to go to the gym, transform. I know it's good for me. It's good. It's fine. And I'll be good. It's the same for me with the show with prep for the show. There's, you know, there was a long period still now when I'm in less of a

mindful place where I just need to know more, I need to be better prepared. I need to have more stories. I need to have done more reading, even if it's not about the guests, just in other areas. And then there's other times where I go, I, I've got this, you know, I, I did five episodes in three days in New York this week and, uh, getting toward the end, I was sitting down with Casey Neistat and like, he's literally a pro conversationalist that's released an unlimited amount of videos. This is going to be the easiest conversation in history.

You don't need to come in with all of these different, interesting ideas and stats and all the rest of it. So I, it's the only equivalent I can find to your. I have the same equivalent with this podcast too, because when it was coming up, I was like, in the past, I've done a bunch of podcasts and in the last year or so I was like, I don't want to do anymore. I felt like I was trying to learn things to be articulate, to say, to sound smart and to sound cool, motivational. And I was like, I don't want to do anymore. I felt like I was trying to learn things to be articulate to say to sound smart and to sound cool motivational and I was like I don't want

to live like that anymore I just want to live life to live life not to present it to people. I would learn something and be like I could say that on YouTube or something it would sound cool and I was like fuck that I don't want to do that anymore and then you hit me up to do the podcast I was like oh shit I haven't been doing that am I going to have anything to say? Yeah but then I was like you know I'm not the smart guy I'm not the guy who went to school and has all this intelligence and these crazy stories and all this stuff. I'm just a guy who talks about his truth and his own stories and reality. So as long as I can bring that out, we're good to go. Don't overthink it. Over the span of about a year, I tried pretty much every green string that I could,

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If you do not like it for any reason they will give you your money back right now You can try it completely risk-free with that 90-day money-back guarantee plus get a year's free supply of vitamin D3 K2 and guarantee plus get a year's free supply of vitamin D3, K2 and five free AG1 travel packs by going to the link in the description below or heading to www.drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. That's www.drinkag1.com slash modern wisdom. I've gone back through your Instagram over the last few months and you've done some really cool stuff. You've started putting pretty nice insights in captions over videos that

are pretty enjoyable to read. They're a nightmare to go back and try and actually write down cause they're moving pretty quickly. So I want to go through some of the best stuff I've learned from you over the last few months. The first one is exactly what you were just talking about. If I could go back, I'd tell younger me you're going to do some pretty great things, but you do not need to be great.

All you have to do is be yourself. That will always be enough. What's that mean to you? You know, I've had a lot of different thoughts that have come into my mind. Now having a child when Courtney was pregnant, thinking about raising a child myself when I was a child and all these things. And I think I always felt like I wanted to be good at everything I did and be great at what I did.

And I never expected to be as good as I was. So it would just be such an interesting relief to be able to give myself to be like, you are gonna be great. You're gonna have all these things that you want, but you're also gonna realize that they're not as important as you think they are. You know, like you're gonna come to the realization

where the relationships and your values and everything that you enjoy and the experiences, everything aren't going to come down to those spectacular moments on stage at the Olympia, they're going to be much more simpler than that. There's just going to be those moments where you're being yourself and the people who love you for that is going to be everything. You do not need to be great. That compulsion, that necessity, that sort of being pulled

forward, the lack, I am not enough as I am. And if I achieve these great things and if everyone thinks I'm cool or says that I'm successful, then I am worthy of acceptance and validation and praise and adoration. Is that the subtext below that quote? Like, yeah, essentially. Yeah. That's, um, it's just a drive of self-worth. No, that's kind of a buzzword of what's going on right now.

But I think it's, you know, we were all kind of raised in a self self-esteem society of being like, you can do anything, you can be anything, go be this X, Y, and Z. And it almost built expectations that we had to be these great things because we could be in our parents and have these opportunities and the privileges. So we go do all these things and there's just no need for any of it, you know? And I think when you were able to alleviate that pressure from it, like we were talking about the difference of like the extrinsic goals is trying to be the best in the world versus just trying to be my best self, you know,

and setting authentic goals to myself. What are my authentic goals? Winning the Olympia sometimes is a little more inauthentic than me truly trying to just push myself to be my best. Do I still enjoy that? Absolutely. But those are the more of the need to be great, a little ego, the, the thing that I'll die not needing, but the intrinsic goals that are. Regardless of things out of my control, you know, win, lose, beat them, don't beat him.

What's in my control of just being myself and who I am showing up at my best knowing that I can go to sleep at night, knowing I was myself. We talked about pressure as a privilege last time, but this is actually the same, but in reverse, this is privilege is a pressure. That the privilege you have carries along with it. This pressure in order to perform. Well, your parents didn't have this opportunity. Think about your sixth time, Mr. Olympia, you're really going to think about maybe not going for seven.

Why wouldn't you leave it? The most dominant athlete in history. Why are you going to drop the, you know, like privilege is a pressure. history, why are you going to drop the, you know, like privilege is a pressure. And, uh, it's one of the odd byproducts of anybody that's doing really, really great things that a lot of people are driven by this. Unconscious assumption that they're not

enough unless they do do great things. And it'll cause you to go and do great things, but to what end? What's the outcome? What's the texture of your mind? Like when you go to sleep on a nighttime, do you really want that? You feel great doing great things. You feel like shit. Doing great things.

What's it worth? What's the price? Do you think you're a, like an odd person to become a world champion? I think so. I don't know if everyone thinks so. I think so. I think you're a fucking weird guy to be a world champion. I totally agree. I think most people would think so too. I think you're a fucking weed god to be a world champion. I totally agree.

I think most people would be like, there's no fucking way this guy's going to be world champion if they were literally this little bitch, you know? But I don't know. I think in my opinion, what I've learned very deeply over the years is that confidence is just truth. You know, it's just being honest. And there's people who put on this false bravado of arrogance of being like, they were fifth place at the Olympia last year. Don't pick out whoever was fifth and

pick on them. But someone not winning, like, I'm going to show up and I'm going to win this Olympia. I know it in my heart. It's like, you don't know that you're lying. That's not confidence. That's just a lie. Whereas when I've speak to myself truthfully and I'm like, I don't really know if I can do this. Like I have doubt, I have fear, I just want to X, Y, and Z. And I'm like being honest to me, that exemplifies real true confidence. And you're being realistic with yourself. You know, if you sell, tell yourself you're going to do something you don't think you really can do, you're creating this gap between your beliefs and your reality.

And it just creates more stress in yourself and an inability to perform in my opinion. Unwavering confidence is a lie. The fears never go away completely. in your reality and it just creates more stress in yourself and an inability to perform in my opinion. Unwavering confidence is a lie. The fears never go away completely. They just don't linger as long. What's that? Is that my quote? To you. Sounds great. You wrote it. I mean, it sounds fantastic. Sounds beautiful. I mean, that's kind of in that same boat and maybe I'm just a weird champion who's not like that but I still am full of doubt all the time and i've tried to Find ways To believe I wouldn't have doubt, you know I've tried to like talk in ways where I don't have doubt i've tried to everything and

There's always just lingering doubt in my mind of being like well, fuck what if you don't what if you can't And it's just the truth of my mind and regardless of that over the past five years, I've still been able to perform. Progress and be the best in the world with that on my mind. So who's to say that I can't have that debt on my mind while being a champion. There's no rules to it. So I've always said the champion mentality, the rules of being a champion is that there are no rules. It's just whatever the champion does to win.

Yeah. There's a great the champion does to win. That's it. Yeah, there's a great story from Matthew Syed. So he's a sports reporter. He's obsessed with tennis and he went to Wimbledon a few years ago. And a unique aspect of tennis over the last decade or so has been that you had Djokovic, Federer and Nadal, three goats, potentially literally goats, all at the same time,

all interchanging and exchanging who won on this court or this tour with this surface. And he went to go and watch them warm up. And you go in and you see Nadal and he's just ripped, absolutely shredded, it's all aggression, it's pure sort of raw animalistic energy. And then you go and see Djokovic and he's sort of robotic, uh, very precise, very curated with the way that he moves.

Nothing is wasted. And then you go and see, uh, Federer and he's playing trick shots and he's laughing with the guidance woman. He goes, okay. So if you were to take any of those three approaches and say, in order for me to become a world champion, I must be a B or C. Well, you can't be all of them and all of them are successful. So what does it mean to say that a or B or C are the right approach in order for you to be successful in the sport of tennis doesn't it means that each

different athlete has found a way that works for them. And when you try and take that format and apply it to yourself, what you end up doing is take, it's like trying to put on somebody else's pair of shoes. You go, well, I'm a size 10 and they're a size eight and this is not going to work. Yeah. Well, the truth is the A, B and C are all wrong answers. Anything out there is wrong answer.

You have to build it in yourself, you know? Like I talk about the cookies of the intuition, you know, over the time, you just, you build intuition when you can get into a flow state of just trusting yourself to show up as you are. And if it's playful, if it's intense, if it's quiet, if it's loud, if it's doubtful, if it's whatever, if it's just who you are and you're not needing to put on any facade and you are able to release that mask and show up in a flow and trust your instincts and act on instinct, I don't

think you can be beat. What do you say to people who often feel fear? You mentioned the fears never go away completely. Feeling fear sucks, not very comfortable. Nobody wants to feel fear. I don't want to feel fear. But as somebody that's intimately familiar with that and pressure, what do you say to people who notice it come up or what do you do yourself?

I would say when I start to feel fear about something, now I get it. I turn into excitement because in the past, when I've started to feel fear, it's cause something big that I've worked hard for. That's really important to me. I started to come creeping up closer. And there's something beautiful about the human experience of stress and anxiety, nervous fear and all those things. And just trying to embrace that and lean into it is the best way I've been able to handle when it comes to performance.

But when there's stuff that's actually like impending fear of my health, let's say something that I can't just be like, lean into the excitement that you might have a health problem or something. I've found again, I've tried to embrace it and just feel it and sit with it and feel feelings as we've talked about many times and that's helped. But there's another level of giving it the

validation that it deserves, the feeling, the validation it deserves. And that to me, that's being able to vocalize it out loud. I think this is different for everyone, but for myself, I'm a very introverted person and I tend to keep things to myself and I have a brain that's very logical. So it's like, well, I'm scared about my health.

Well, you have no reason to be scared about your health. You're healthy. You do these tests and all these things. Well, I'm still anxious and I'm like working through it logically in my brain and I try and just like diminish the feeling that I have logically and work through it myself. And it just, it's a dance and it works a little bit, but it doesn't fully go away. It just pushes it down. But when I'm able to vocalize it and express it out loud and get the actual

words out of my mouth and share it with someone, typically my wife and able to regulate with my partner and she's able to listen to me and, you know, validate my feelings of how I, what I'm going through. And of course you feel like that, you know, X, Y, Z this is, this is very normal. I'm like, Oh yeah, you're right. And then it's just all of a sudden like ease and I'm like, Oh yeah, you're right. And then it's just all of a sudden like ease. And I'm like, wow, I feel a lot better now. You know, I feel a lot more calm and relaxed that I've released it. So I think a big thing for me, it was not feeling feelings numbing, trying to feel

feelings, but kind of logically mansplaining it over myself in my head. And then it was actually letting it out, giving it like the attention it deserves to be put out into the world and communicate about it was someone who I trust and cares about me. Do you ever get or feel shame about feeling the fear? Like oh, this is so stupid. Why are you beating yourself up again? Why are you so worried about this?

You should be stronger. You shouldn't be worried in this sort of a way because I think first order emotions are bad, but the really, really bad ones are the second and third and fourth order emotions. You know, your shame about feeling fearful and your guilt about feeling shame about feeling fearful and your frustration about feeling guilt about feeling fear. You know, it's that it's all the way up. I think I used to, but in, you know, the last couple of years of my attempt to just honor things that come up as they come up, it's gotten a lot better myself. And I've been able to catch myself now and, you know, mindfulness

is another buzzword that people overuse. But if you're mindful enough to catch yourself, which was first, second and third emotions and watch them come up and be like, did I just say that to myself right now? Like that's crazy. Like I felt something and then I call myself an idiot for feeling that. And I call myself a pussy for thinking I'm an idiot. That's an insane thought. If someone were listening to your brain right now, they'd put you in a mental hospital, you know? And just being conscious of that and being able to listen to your own thoughts sometimes

help alleviate them so much and just be like, you're human. And the more you're able to communicate them with other people that you trust and then be like, yeah, me too. I have these thoughts too, you know? And you feel a little bit less crazy. You know, like we were joking about intrusive thoughts on the drive here and I was like, do you ever just think about like turning your car into oncoming traffic and just seeing what happens?

And at the huge thing with having a baby sometimes I'm like, what if she just, what if I just, I'm holding him. What if I just dropped it and she just died? And I'm like, holy fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Just have these crazy thoughts. But then I say that to my wife, she's like,

Oh my God, I literally had a dream that I threw her off the roof or something. I'm like, that's a little crazy, but me too, you know? Yeah. And it's normal. We're human. It's our brains, just overthinking, putting ourselves into a position to feel fear and then trying to make ourselves actively avoid that fear. So we don't get there. It's a human response to avoid pain. I think this is one of the reasons that people have sort of resonated a lot with your story, which has been this very sometimes overly transparent approach to opening up about

again, sort of boring fears. You know, there's boring successes, but there's also these sort of very, no one's gonna give you any accolades for not dropping your daughter. It's like, oh, congratulations, you didn't drop your baby. Oh, you did, you're a monster. But yeah, just talking about the real finer points of psychology when you're a bit of an introspective person. So going back to the idea of confidence and fears, what do you think life would have been like for you if you hadn't gone for it, whatever that means to you?

The excellent question. Yeah. I was thinking about that the other day of how, like again, the thought I was having was when we were young, we were told we can be anything. Then we realized it's a lie. And then we realized we're telling ourselves it's a lie because we actually just realized how much work it's going to take. And we'd rather believe it's a lie than we're not willing to work hard enough to achieve these things. And then it's kind of like this back and forth of like, can I, or is it just too hard or am I just too weak?

And it's this back and forth. And, you know, I'm just so grateful. I fell into something that I was so passionate about that took a lot of effort and work, but that I also loved to do. And my body was built for, my mind was built for, you know, I was clearly genetically built to be a bodybuilder mentally, physically, environmentally, my relationships, all, everything flowed perfectly for me to be in this perfect position. And I think it's just, it's hard to say where I would end up without this life. And it's, I don't even like thinking about it because it's hard, but

the effort that I put into this would be really hard for me to put into something I didn't love. So if I hadn't gone for it, which would be for me back in 2017, when I was in college, drinking, partying, doing all the things and being like, you know what, I'm not, I'm going to stop this. My friends go out, I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to wake up early. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to eat six times a day.

I'm going to spend my money on tuna and chicken breast rather than six packs of beer and all these things. And I'm just going to drop out of school and I'm going to travel and I'm going to try and get sponsors. I'm going to try win shows. I'm going to do to travel and I'm going to try and get sponsors. I'm going to try and win shows. I'm going to do all this and I'm going to take every risk I can.

And I didn't even think about it. You know, when you're young, luckily you're in, you're at the greatest opportunity in your life to take risk and to fail. And then you're like, well, I'm 24 now. I can just go restart. I suppose you're ignorant to the price that you're going to have to pay as well. Do you think that you would have done it? Had you have known what it was going to, obviously not knowing the outcomes

because that's put you where you are, where you're really happy, uh, but going, Oh, this is what it's going to entail. This is the price that you're asking me to pay. I don't know. I'm, I, I mean, blissfully unaware. I would have been too ignorant to say no. So I, yes, I would have for sure. You know, you can't know until you're in it.

Young, dumb and full of hope. Yep. What was it? What was it you used to say? Full of magic and rubber or something. Yeah. Yeah. Made of rubber and magic.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is dude. You, you know, you, all of the like things that happen to you, the bruises that you get when you're younger just seem to bounce off in some ways more easily. And then you go through this sort of period of not hiding from the stuff that insults you or that damages you. And you go, Oh, okay.

I, this thing has now happened and I need to actually deal with it as opposed to just using momentum or inertia or distraction or whatever to get me through it, uh, and then the goal is to come out the other side and to actually have done that work and now be anti-fragile. Right. So you go from like unconscious competence in the beginning to conscious incompetence, and then hopefully to conscious competence, which is where you've got full control.

You know that it's happened. You've fully sort of transcended and included whatever that, whatever that challenge is. that it's happened, you've fully sort of transcended and included, whatever that, whatever that challenge is. But, um, yeah, it's, it's funny to think about the weird decisions that you make. One time decision. So for me, moving to America was 33 years old. Like, I don't know.

Should I not have had my life together by then? Feels like I probably should have done. Should I really be dicking about trying to change careers and move? Is this not the age by which you're supposed to have all of your life got together and you're going to move to this country on your own? It's like talk to people on the internet and try and make it into a career in like the most competitive city in the entire world to try and do it and see if it's going to work with no, it didn't even have the visa when I moved out here.

It was like under review or whatever, living in an Airbnb. And, uh, yeah. Do you think it's possible to discover the limit of truly what you're capable of? Like, do you think you'll achieve a point? Like I achieved everything I was capable of. And are you working towards that or are you just working? towards that or are you just working? Hmm.

It's going to be hard to do it within this industry. And it's one of the reasons that I love sport. Increasingly, I'm using sport as an analogy for lots of other things in life, because you have very tightly defined parameters of success and failure, right? You either won or you didn't, but a podcast can always be a little bit better. Your physique on stage three. But a podcast can always be a little bit better. Your physique on stage, three and a half weeks time

could be a little bit better, but if you win, that's really all that matters. In the, I will say from my experience, there are moments where you win and yes, and then you go back and you're like, my physique could have been a little bit better. Wow. So you even in the act of winning, you've found a way to sort of want more.

For sure. Wow. So I dunno, I, um, there's a part of me that is, I mean, this has been the most, the hardest I've ever worked this last 12 months since we were basically, since we were last together, it's just been unrelenting, uh, and, and good. And there's a part of me that I want to look back with pride at a time when I had the energy and the lack of responsibility and the youth and the time that I could dedicate to something like this and go, yeah, I pushed myself as hard as I could. I got out of this everything that I could too.

But after a while you do start to think, okay, and what are the sacrifices that I'm making for this? And, and how can I get 98% of the outcome that I'm looking for, but with only 50% of the pain, you know, where are the areas where I'm pushing unnecessarily that I can claw back some quality of life. And especially in, I guess this is the double edged sword for you, tightly defined parameters of success and failure, which means that it's easy to work out whether or not it was a W or an L. But on the flip side of that, you, it's such a zero sum game that pulling back even a tiny little bit will risk whatever the outcome

is going to be. Whereas when you're doing something like in business, right? It's not about being the number one supplement brand or the number one energy drink brand or the number one clothing brand or whatever. It's about reaching a, creating a cool company that you're proud of that facilitates the lifestyle that you want and is maybe able to give back and do cool things within the industry that you like being a part of. So people, maybe for you, the energy drink is like your little, like, there's less pressure on me to have to be the best because I just want to build something cool. But the podcast is where all the pressure is and I have to be the best.

So it's almost like you're able to alleviate some pressure on some effort you put into the business. But some people, the business is their number one thing. Like I need to be the number one energy drink in the world. That is true. Related to that, you said, I found greater fulfillment in the journey of pursuing my goals than in the moment of achieving them. Why? I'd say that comes to like the question I asked you, discovering what I was

capable of, you know, there's been so many times where I've been in a prep and I felt way too far behind to win. And I'm like, I had an injury last year when I tore my lat tore my bicep. I was in the hospital, like all these different things going on. And I'm like, there's no way that I can do this. Like it's impossible. And if I were to ever ask myself in the past, like, do you think you could win or get through this and do this?

I'd be like, no way it's impossible. But I was in it and I did it and I accomplished it. And I was like, I'm capable of so much more than my mind understands. And I think that's just the greatest part of the journey that I've achieved is like that understanding of what I'm capable of and that belief in myself to what I can accomplish. And I'd only came through the journey, didn't come through the winning, it come through the challenge that came along the journey and coming through it and fighting through it and the beauty of all that.

And on top of that, there's just been so many moments in the midst of things where like it's a workout or it's a diet or I'm starving or I'm just like doing check-ins or something. And I'm just like, this is incredible. Like I'm peak condition in the world right now, fighting to be the best in the world. And I'm living in that moment right now. I'm doing, this is what it takes when people see something on stage.

This is what they don't see or what I'm feeling in my mind, but no one will understand what it takes to get there. I get to experience this every day. And I think it's just part of the human experience of feeling in life. That's just so beautiful. It was boring, normal victories that contribute to the really impressive ones. Exactly. The boring victories.

Yeah. They're important, man. You know, um, yeah. I think having a way that people could celebrate those on a daily basis. Me and a friend came up with this idea of a well done list. So you can have a done list, which is the shit I did today, but a well done list allows you to note down. So, uh, I, I got through my training session, even though I felt really

crap this morning when I woke up and my mind was mean to me, but no one, where does that go? Right. It's not grand or ceremonious enough in order to justify an Instagram post. Maybe you'd be able to tell a particularly mindful partner about it, but it's, you don't even tell your friend, you're going out. After you told your mindful partners five days on a rather big.

Yeah, yeah, you're miserable every day. Shut up. Uh, but yeah, I think the opportunity to give yourself a pat on the back, like a well done for today, I've written on a post-it note on my bathroom mirror, what went well today, which is my reminder for the well done list. And yeah, when I think about it, when I actually do that practice, which I need to do more.

But when I do that practice on an evening time, I come up with the most boring victories, you know, the most mundane things. That person in the Starbucks was annoying and I didn't react. You know, or I dealt with it with grace or whatever, like little things like that, that I do think over time actually contribute to you being a pretty impressive human and a human that you're proud of as well, which is maybe even more important. I've had those moments. Someone comes up to me and like, I didn't know who to tell.

I just wanted to come to you. Cause like, I felt safe talking to you and they like to tell me something. And I walk away and me and like, I didn't know who to tell. I just wanted to come to you. Cause like, I felt safe talking to you. And they like to tell me something and I walk away and I'm like, I feel good about myself, you know, I'm that person that they wanted to come to. Don't give a fuck. Yeah. I, uh, there's definitely something about the pursuit of girls being more important than the achievement of them as well.

That Ryan Long told me this story where he says, there's three men on a ladder, one at the bottom, one in the middle, and one at the top, which one is best to be. He said the one that's still climbing. And I think that having things isn't that fun, getting things is fun. And you know, that's where it's sort of the vicious other side of doing anything for the purpose of achievement. That when you end up getting to the achievement, you realize that the achievement wasn't anything.

It was literally just the end point that gave you direction. And as soon as you do get to that, you know, the idea of false peaks in mountaineering. So it's when you think that you're at the top and then you go, you realize, oh, fuck, I got to go down and got to go back up again. And then this one's even higher. It's like every achievement is basically just a false peak the whole way up. So that's what I really like hit me.

And I thought was really cool about I've always wanted to be a dad. I've always wanted to be a parent and then having a baby, it's not having the baby. Like I did it. I have the kid, I'm a dad now I'm done. It's like, no, being a father of the, what I want to be, what I'm excited to be is how you show up every single day for that kid's entire, for the rest of your life.

Essentially, if you're lucky enough, then you just show up every single day, trying to be your best. And that's what being a dad is. It's every single day showing up. It's not just the day your wife conceives as a child, you know? Trust really is everything when it comes to supplements. A lot of brands may say that they're top quality, but few can actually prove it, which is why I partnered with Momentous.

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description below or heading to livemomentous.com slash modern wisdom and the code MODERNWISDOM. A checkout. That's L-I-V-E-M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S dot com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. Talk to me about dad life. How is it? It's been good. It's been really good the first thing that hit me is just Absolute love and appreciation for my wife, especially watching her go through like the birth process and everything

Holy hell women are incredible. It was crazy experiencing. That was the most insane thing. I had ever experienced in my life. How so Like she she wanted to do it naturally. She did it just all on her own naturally. She was that means without painkillers. Yeah, just Just as nature is, you know Nothing in her so she was in a tall dog this birth just raw dog and in so much pain and there were so many moments where like She was just shaking in pain and like losing it. And I thought she was going to like snap, like I need the drugs. They need the epidural or whatever.

And I was like, babe, come on, you can do this. Lock it in. She was like, she was just like, You didn't tell your wife to just lock it in. I told her to. Bro, just lock in. Come on, bro. She was, she had me, she had me me pinching her traps as hard as I could.

Literally I was white-knuckling her traps. To try and distract from the pain. To try and distract from the pain. It was incredible. I love the solution to pain being more pain. Being more pain, I know, right? Her doctor was like, you shouldn't be doing that. I'm like, she's telling me to.

I'm not going to say no. Exactly. You tell her to tell me not to. But it was just incredible to experience all that and to see her in such like an empowering moment and overcoming so much, like there was zero chance I would have gone through that. Like it was so much pain and she just handled it like a champ. And then you go home and you have to take care of a child and you're not sleeping and you're doing all these things and there's so much more that comes into it.

So I think I just, I developed so much appreciation for, you know, moms, women, my wife, being able to see all that and it's been really cool. And another kind of wake up call that I had and like, there's two things I'll explain. The first one is just this concept I thought of that your children eventually will know exactly who you are. For an extended period of time, they're going to think of you as like a hero, as a god, as perfect, like your parent who knows everything.

And then they're gonna turn to a certain age and realize that you're human and there's a lot of shit you don't know. And any like burdens you have, anything you try and hide from them, they see through it all because they see you all the time. There's no hiding anything from them. So you really have to like be on your best. You have to work on your shit. Solve your problems.

Not be a passive aggressive asshole, not do whatever your faults are. You need to fix them so you don't pass them onto them and they're gonna see them eventually because you can't hide from them. You can put whatever you want on social media, you can be nice in public, do all these things, but at home, there's no hiding anything.

They're gonna know exactly who you are. And I think that, like, just responsibility that withheld within that is just powerful and beautiful and exciting. There's nowhere to escape, right? It's like accountability. Yeah. It's like a Navy seal hell week that never stops. You have this permanent instructor over your shoulder at all times, the tiniest little

interaction, how you deal with that one nappy change, that one evening that's four weeks after the trip to the hospital at three in the morning. It's like you didn't sleep all night. You have multiple kids, one screaming, one throwing shit at you, throwing food all over you, you burn the food, there's nothing to eat, all this shit. And then like, how are you going to react? They see it and they're going to remember, you know, it's like, it's all being watched.

It's like there's cameras in the house, you know, trust you, trust you to be able to turn fatherhood into a performance spot. Not meant to be a performance accountability. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, that's the first lesson. Um, the other one was it's more of a moment. It was a moment.

I'm already getting emotional thinking about the moment. It was, she was like a night where she, Bradley was being fussy. She was like crying a lot and I took her in the back room and I just laid with her, walked around with her and she calmed down and I just laid down and she wouldn't sleep, but she fell asleep on my chest. And I remember lying there and like just putting my hand on her and I was like, like if you could ever just without being able to put into words, experience what love is, like it couldn't be more powerful than that. I was like, this is like, I can't, there's no way I can put it into words

because I wouldn't do it justice. It was just pure love in that moment. I was like, how can I love this little thing so much? It was the most beautiful moment and all it was lying here with her sleeping on my chest. It was incredible. And I, every like stress about work, travel, Olympia, all these things, they just like wash away.

And you're like, it doesn't matter if I have this, this is it. This is like what I've always wanted. This is all that matters. And it was the most perspective changing little moment for a matter of minutes while she was napping on my chest, but it was the most incredible thing. And I think it's just allowed to alleviate a lot of pressure I put on myself to perform, to succeed, all these things allowed me to separate that. And when I talk about the extrinsic goals of winning competition versus the morals and

values, like it just made my moral values of family and relationship and love so much stronger and elite. Like if you fail over here, you have this and that's all that matters. I think the gym, oddly enough, is that for a lot of guys when they first start going. I know it was for me. I remember that when I first started going to the gym, when I was at uni, uh, it gave me kind of like a safe haven that I knew if I'd face planted in some. Presentation that I had to give if the girl that I was seeing broke up with me, if, you

know, all of this stuff went wrong, at least I got a good training session in. So in one area of my life, I was making relatively forward progress. Even if everything else had gone to shit, the rest of it's a total dumpster fire. This one area is siloed off. It's compartmentalized. And, you know, for a long time, maybe that was one of the safe havens for you. And now that is one of the things that can be part of, you know, for a long time, maybe that was one of the safe havens for you. And now that is one of the things that can be part of, you know, dumpster fire, maybe the best dumpster fire, but the rest of them are down here too.

And then there's this one and then there's another safe haven now, which is even more indestructible. For sure. Yeah. It's the most, I can look at picture if ever I'm feeling down, nervous, scared. Now I can look at a picture of her and I feel better. It's just like, this is amazing. We spoke last time, a year and a bit ago about the, uh, Oh, no, it was when we trained earlier on this year about how when get to see their kid for the first time.

Sometimes the sort of fatherhood compulsion doesn't kick in immediately. And I told you that story about a meeting that I'd been to, and one of the guys put his hand in the air. It was this business meeting with a ton of high powered entrepreneurs. Everyone's a millionaire or a billionaire. I was like the poorest, stupidest person in the room. And they said, anyone got any questions that wants some advice for, and this one dude put his hand up and I was thinking it was going to be about the cashflow conversion cycle for his business or accounting or some stuff like that. And he went, my wife's eight months pregnant hand up and I was thinking it was going to be about the cashflow conversion cycle for his business or

accounting or some stuff like that. And he went, my wife's eight months pregnant and I don't feel like I'm going to be a good dad. And I was like, oh wow, now I'm interested. And, um, you said you'd had this conversation with a lot of different guys and it's quite normal. It seems to be very, um, typical for future dads, wife's pregnant, cascaded hormones, all of that's going on, but they kind of aren't even sure.

Is there a baby in there? Like you just getting fat? Like what's, what is, what's happening here? I'm not feeling anything. I haven't seen anything. I haven't held anything. How quickly did that switch turn on for you? It's hard to say cause I thought it turned on really quick.

And then it just kept ramping up. It was a dial. It just kept going out. I was like, holy shit. I didn't nearly like I thought, but there was a moment at one point where. Like, I saw this joke online and it was like, my husband does the things I can do and he does the things I can't or whatever and it's like I breastfeed because he can't, he sleeps because I can't.

And there was just a moment where she was like, the baby wanted Courtney to cry, the baby wanted to breastfeed, she was taking care of her. I was in prep, I needed sleep, I needed rest, I needed to go into the office, I needed to travel, all these things and I felt like useless and I was just like, fuck, I'm just this like

peasant over here, this useless being over here, you know? And I was just not able to help her going through all this stuff. And I started to feel this weird pull of almost guilt of being like, she's a little bit more connected. It wasn't so much about connection, it was just more so about my ability to help her going through such a challenging time

and feeling helpless because my wife is overwhelmed trying to become the best mother she can be. Going through the physical, hormonal, lack of sleep transformation, everything, all the chaos and I'm just over here like, shit, what can I do over here? And it kind of made me feel a level of guilt on an aspect and again, she's so incredible. I can like talk with her and she would try and soothe me. I'm like, I'm not trying to ask you to help me right now. Yeah.

I'm just trying to say, Hey, I feel, I feel shitty that I can't help you. Can you help me feel less shitty about not being able to help you? It's like, come on. Yeah. But no, I was like, no, I just want to be able to be there for you more. She's like, you just need to be here for me. That's it. I'm like, all right, well, I'm here.

I definitely think that the, uh, like totally uselessness that you end up feeling as you're on the sidelines, watching your wife give birth kind of just extends out. Look at me talk it like as a guy that doesn't have kids talking about this. Um, but it seems like that kind of just continues to extend out from, you know, the next six to nine months, because you're there as a well-meaning coach on the sidelines. Go on, honey. Great work. You. Yep. as you're there as a well-meaning coach on the sidelines. Go on, honey, great work. You, yeah, hooray.

Basically moral support. You're one of those mascots in the big fluffy outfit that's, you know, comes in at the halftime show and maybe gives a bit of alleviation. And then the players go back out into the field. And actually do the work. Good job. How have you found being able to let go of perfectionism in other areas of life, given

that you dial in an awful lot, whether it's with business or branding or copywriting or the way that you and Calvin film your content and put that out in a sort of nicely controlled, curated way, the way that you step on stage, your knowledge of your diet and your sleep and your training and your macros and all that stuff. the way that you step on stage, your knowledge of your diet and your sleep and your training and your macros and all that stuff. And then you've just got this thing, which is not subject to Chris's desires and will do what it's going to do. And also your self assessment of your own performance as a father

and desire to be as good as possible and so on. And so is this just another domain for you to find holes in your own performance in? The hell of a question. Um, it's funny cause in aspects of my life, I'm the least perfectionist person ever. I'm very just like, it's good enough, just send it. And then the things that are really important to me, I can be a huge

perfectionist, but which is where, you know, bodybuilding relationships, all these things that can start to be a little overly hard on myself. So I think even that contrast of balance of different sides of my personality has helped me alleviate it. Cause I'm not, not everything needs to be perfect.

I'm like that stuff, the, the YouTube video will get there, Calvin, don't worry about that. These guys help me with the business. That's all fine. This is what I need to do perfect on. So at least it's not everything. But even within that, just being able to compete at such a high level for so many years, I've seen so many people who have been so obsessed with being, especially

in bodybuilding where everything is weighed, everything's about a look. Like when it's something where like, you know, something was on your mind. So you lost 30 minutes of sleep last night. You didn't enter a deep REM sleep. So you head on to some water, had higher cortisol and you wake up and you look different the next day. Like that's how specific a physique sport is when you're that lean and dialed in that anything can change it.

You can really start to get in your fucking head about it. And I've seen so many people overthink of to the grain of rice being perfect and eating at the same time every day and everything and need to be so perfect and just the stress of that making them worse that I've pulled back from the perfectionist of it and just tried to been like, where's diminishing returns? What's going to keep my mental peace? Where? What, what cookie is going to alleviate enough stress that it's actually more beneficial than eating healthy? Where is it? Where does that balance lie? You know, you pull and you test and you tug and you go back and forth a little bit and you just figure it out over the years.

And luckily I've just learned to trust my intuition in a lot of things. And I think in being a dad now, my intuition is not as strong as being Mr. Olympia. So I'm re-figuring that one out. Yes. Luckily my wife is just an incredible mom as she is. So a lot of the time I just ask her if I don't know what to do. I'm like, what do I do? How do I do this?

Are you saying that Courtney is your honey for a child rearing? Oh yeah, for sure. She's incredible. She could be anyone's coach for child rearing somehow. She's just built for it. It's funny that the point you're making, I think is the stress of trying to be perfect will damage your performance more quickly than the imperfections will. Yes. Which is where the cookie comes in.

The cookie. All important cookie. About your wife, you said, being with someone who allows others to be their best selves in your presence will quite literally change the world around you. I get to wake up beside that someone every day and every night I go to sleep with more reason to be grateful for you. You will always be my life's greatest blessing. What's your advice for choosing a good partner? I think that sounds like the summary that everybody wants to do that.

But you know, so many relationships don't seem to have that positive dynamic in it. So what was it about Courtney that made you choose her? Or are there any, uh, fundamental principles that you think people should be looking out for? I would say before what you're looking out for, it's what you're putting out. You know, the law, I don't understand the law of attraction exactly how it is, but what you're looking out for, it's what you're putting out. You know, the law of, I don't understand the law of attraction exactly how it is, but what you put out, you attract. If you're being your authentic self, our buzzword today, you're being your true

self, you're speaking about what's really important to you, you're putting out the energy that you care about, that you want to get back into the world and you're being real, you're going to get that back. If you're putting on a show and you're chasing these inauthentic goals that are for other people or to keep up with society or pressures or parents or whatever it might be, you're going to start attracting people who are attracted to those goals and that energy, which isn't your real self rather than who you really are.

And the incredible thing of how me and Courtney met was I put out my first like YouTube video crying talking about something really emotional that I had gone through the year I was in the hospital talking about a really scary time how fearful I was being really raw like first time ever talking about it therapy session on camera crying and she saw that and she's like wow this guy's different like I've never like this guy just came second the Olympian he's putting out a video crying, but like, his emotions going through this,

like, that's different. I like that. And then she reached out to me, and that's how we, that's what attracted to us. It was that energy of authenticity and emotion and rawness and realness that attracted us together, and that was the foundation of our relationship of how we were going to build things going forward.

So I think instead of what I was looking for, it was what I was putting out in that moment. And she was attracted to it because that's who she is, you know, when I say she, she's the light that lets everyone be their best selves. You know, she's the type of person where I'll go to the bathroom and come out and someone will be crying. And it'll be like, or the store clerk checking out our groceries is telling her about her child who

explains, you know, I'm like, what are you, she said, I didn't say anything, people just tell me all their stuff. I'm like, but it's beautiful. People just feel so safe and comfortable around her because she's such an amazing, like loving selfless person. It's just her nature and she doesn't need to be anything other than that. It's just always, she's always been and I just love that and I'm like the protector of that energy because she gives out so much. So I try and like protect her.

And then in the confines of our home, she gives me the space to be myself and be my raw self of what she saw and protects me in there. It's so funny that if you tried to be somebody else, the person that ended up making you a better version of you wouldn't have even been interested. Like if you tried to put on some sort of a show, if that video hadn't been there, if you'd kept on closing down your emotions, that was the very thing that she was going to be most attracted to. I think this is one of the problems again with the Djokovic Nadal Federer way that this

is the way that you're supposed to attract. We understand what it is that women are attracted to. And I'm like, maybe on average, but you can only put on a facade for so long. Yeah. And everyone's different. Yeah. You're going to end up in a relationship with somebody that loves you for not you. And it's going to be exhausting.

Yeah. So people might not like that version of Courtney. And a lot of women might think I'm, I would think overly emotional and weak or something in there and that's fine. But they're not for you. But they're not, and you're not for them. Yeah. And I think one of the cool things something in there and that's fine. But they're not for you. But they're not for me. And you're not for them. Yeah. And I think one of the cool things I've

discovered in our relationship was your ability to be a burden to your partner is important, like for you to feel safe, to be a burden to your partner and for them to still show up and love you. And then you're like, oh wow, like I don't need to give you anything in return. You're not expecting anything in return. I can put my burdens on you and you love me.

That makes me feel safe and love you. So when you put your burdens on me, I'll do the same. It just becomes this like burning circle of love. You know, he's just, I feel like that's such an important thing to find someone who you just feel safe being a burden to not going to intentionally be a burden. But if you, it's your, sometimes you suck, you know, sometimes you're a burden too. Not going to intentionally be a burden, but if you, it's, you're, sometimes you suck, you know, sometimes you're a burden. And if you don't even feel safe being like that around your partner, you

have to just withhold things from them and put on that show, you're never going to feel like safer on them. And you're not going to want, want to. Be there for them as much when they're being a burden as well. Just become these two people dividing and conquering all your problems rather than taking on the world together. I really liked that idea that here I am not fully competent, slightly broken in need of help.

Oh, and you're still here. Yeah. You didn't leave. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty beautiful. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Function. I wanted a better way to track what was happening inside of my body and that is why I partnered with Function.

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You can bypass the waitlist right now by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. That's functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom. What do you wish more women knew about how they can help their man become a better version of himself? Because it seems like Courtney is very much able to do that for you. What do I wish more women knew? Yeah.

I think the relationship that you guys have, which is very open and emotionally honest, seems to be one that a lot of women would want. Obviously guys too, but I don't hear a massive amount of advice for women about how they can cultivate an environment that allows a man to be, to flourish emotionally in the way that you are. What do you wish more women knew about how they could help their man be more emotional safely? That's a good question.

I think being able to both understand and for the woman to be able to express in an honest way, and she has to believe this, that like I was talking about how like confidence is the truth, you know, you might want a strong man up, way and she has to believe this, that like I was talking about how like confidence is the truth. You know, you might want a strong man up white night on his horse, but if he's not how he feels, if he's not really that person, then it's not really confident. It's just putting on a facade to please you. So if you can truly show him and share with him and communicate with him

that even when he's feeling down and when he feels low, when he feels emotional and all these things, him being able to share that with you is actually confidence and strength, which men want to always exemplify. You're teaching him a new way to exemplify that strength that he wants to be. And even if it's only within the confines of YouTube, no one else needs to know about it, but you tell him like when you share it with me, that you feel like shit, that you're emotional, that you hate yourself, that you don't think you can do this. When you share that with me, I think you're strong. Like I think you're capable and I think you're strong just for sharing that. Not because I know you can overcome it, but just for saying that out

loud, that's strength. And the men will be like, wow, like shit, you know, the woman has to believe that. You know, those are my beliefs that sharing that is strong. And there's a lot of things where I would still feel judged and nervous to say how I feel on online, on a podcast with hundreds of thousands of people listening.

But to her, to my wife, no, you know, I feel I share something with her and she's going to always see me as who I am. And it's strong to share and that I'm safe to do so. It's strange that a lot of people would feel more comfortable sharing that stuff with somebody that wasn't their partner. That the, or what if they changed the way that they see me? This isn't holding a masculine frame. This isn't being the protector provider dominant alpha that

I'm supposed to be or need to be in order to be able to keep her attraction triggers or whatever it is going. Yeah. It's sad. It is, it is sad and it's everything's in moderation and balance in this life. You know, you can't be a puddle on the floor 24 hours a day. You can't be a puddle on the floor 24 hours a day. You can't be a puddle on the floor 24 hours a day, you know? Where are your weaknesses?

Are you always a strong masculine person you can't show it? Or are you always a puddle on the floor and you need to work on being more masculine? There's one way or the other you gotta find that balance and everyone's on a different end of the spectrum and everyone's partner will want a different spectrum. And then you just gotta find the person that fits in there. And obviously, over the years now, I've proven to Courtney that in those moments where I've broken down and feel like I'm worthless

and can't do something, I've risen up and done it. And I've always shown up, I've always stepped up to the plate, I've always been what she needed, I've always done what I needed to do, and I've proven to her that no matter how crumbled I feel in the moment, I've still become a better man and grown, whether or not I've accomplished what I've wanted, I've still grown, been a better man and shown up for her where and when I could.

So she has the trust in me now, whatever weakness I show her, there will be strength too, you know? If my life was a movie and someone were to watch it, I hope they'd be inspired to take risks, not just risks to achieve success, but embrace feeling, both pride and shame, fear and excitement. Personally, I want to experience as much life as possible. And that only happens when you embrace the highs and the lows. And this is your thing about not just numbing the bad, but numbing the good, numbing the joy.

Just revisit that for me, because I think a lot of people feel like if zero to a hundred is the range of human experience, they kind of sit in 40 to 60. Yeah. What did expanding that window out look like? Yeah. I mean, this kind of hit me a few years ago when I was thinking about, I felt like I had a glass ceiling of joy that I could feel. I was like, I can, I can, I feel happy, but. I feel happy but I'm not overjoyed and excited

and ecstatic. And then my therapist put it back on me and she's like, well, what about the floor? Do you have a floor of negative that you're willing to feel? I'm like, yeah. I don't want to feel the bad shit. She's like, well, they expand at the same time. You open up a broad spectrum of emotion and you build your heart to feel these things. And if you don't have a highs, you don't have lows, it doesn't come. If you numb the bad, you numb the good. And that's kind of where that all came from.

So learning to embrace all those things. And the funny thing is when you learn to embrace them, they're way more fleeting than you realize. To sit on something in your mind for a while to stress about and not want to feel it lingers for a long period of time but to just embrace it and to feel it to cry to express it to whatever it whatever however needs to express itself out of you it happens a lot quicker than you think and you're able to move through it and then when you look back at it you're

like that was kind of beautiful you know like people love watching sad movies and crying sometimes and you're sad in the movie like that was really of beautiful you know like people love watching sad movies and crying sometimes and you're sad in the movie like that was really sad but you go back and you watch another sad movie you know we like feeling things we enjoy emotion it's the human experience is highs and lows there is no high without lows and i think just being able to accept that that there's inevitably going to be shit times in your life and the more you can lean into them and feel them, the more you can lean into feeling to the high ones as well. And it's just part of the journey.

It's interesting. Uh, personally, I want to experience as much life as possible. I think when people think about experiencing lots of life, it's adventures and it's travel and so on, but the range of human experience you can have, regardless of what circumstance you're in, regardless of the situation or the flight or the destination or whatever, a lot of that is capped just by our preparedness to feel different things. Yeah. And yeah, there's an awful lot of adventure kind of to be had just by opening yourself

up to different experiences. I often think about how many people sort of go through life just within that 40 to 60% range of emotions. And you think, Oh my God, you know, you had this unique machinery up there in your head for 60, 70, 80, 90 years. And you got to explore this one square of it over and over and over and over and over again. Yeah. And who, why are we told that sadness is bad, you know?

Why is fear and sadness have to be a negative emotion? I was thinking about the other day and I have no idea, but what if you were to raise someone and somehow not connecting the concept of bad negative to sadness and fear and anxiety and all these things. And it just being like, it's just an emotion. It's just an emotion. There's not good emotions. There's no mad emotions.

They're just feeling. I wonder if you could raise someone to have that belief in them, what it would be like. Because the reality is it's true. There are no bad emotions. Everything has a purpose and why it comes up and it helps process events in our life. Something happened that we don't know how to process. We have feelings and emotions around it and then thoughts come afterwards. It's just how our brains operate. Again it's that it's not the fear or the shame. It's the guilt about the fear and it's the

agitation about the guilt, about the fear. Because somewhere we've been taught that we should have guilt and fear and shame about the shame and guilt and fear. Where does that come from? I don't know, man. I think, you know, a lot of the time we don't feel comfortable to open up about that stuff. Uh, we are.

Ashamed. I think shame is, is a really big driver. Shame and fear are two sort of fundamental drivers to a lot of bad emotions. I'm worried about what will happen if I allow myself to feel this thing, there's the fear, and I feel guilty and less for having that emotion, that's the shame. Those to me, at least personally, are massive drivers for that. I don't want to appear weak or vulnerable or incompetent or not in mastery. I don't want to risk this. Maybe this is the real me. Maybe this version of me that doesn't have it all together, like, oh my God,

should you not have it all together? You're not supposed to be someone that's, you know, that is a big driver, I think for a lot of people. And, uh, You're not supposed to be someone that's, you know, that is a big driver, I think for a lot of people. And, uh, have you found it more difficult as your success and popularity and eyes on you have grown, have you found that more difficult that battling with that shame of how you need to be in whatnot? I think so.

Yeah. Um, it waxes and wanes this period where it's better and periods where it's worse. I'm currently going through a period where it's worse. Like this year has just been an awful lot of uncertainty, like personal uncertainty. Like a pullback health spin, like really rough auto-immunie moldy stuff this year, which we need to talk about on the vlog, uh, has just been so. Scary because it's the main thing that it takes away. It's, it's like, it's literally like somebody designed a personal pathology. Just for me, one of the main areas of the brain that it impacts is your ability to

recall words. It's like, that's my only fucking job. My only job. That's what's affecting you right now. You're saying, yeah, all the time. So my only job is to recall words when I'm either writing or speaking. And I forget people's names like miss. Misremembering people's names all the time, trying to find a word and having to substitute it for something else, which wasn't the thing that I meant.

It's so, it's so annoying. It's so frustrating. And that has sort of pushed me very quickly into a place of fear, which is, wasn't the thing that I meant. It's so, it's so annoying. It's so frustrating. And that has sort of pushed me very quickly into a place of fear, which is, oh my God, like, what if this is the way that you're going to be forever? The only reason that people liked you is because you were able to say these things. Your competence is being taken away in that. It cuts at the very epicenter of what I presumed and assumed that my value was to be able to offer the world. And it's, you just about managed to get yourself to a place where you'd achieved something

that you were proud of. And the very thing that allowed you to achieve it has now been risked being taken away from you. It's scary. Yeah. Has the intention behind the goals you're thinking changed over the years that have felt like it impacted that mentally? Does it feel like your, your path doesn't line up with your like authentic

goals nearly as much? No, I don't think so. Um, you know, the reason that I started the show originally was I didn't understand myself. And I hoped that if I spoke to enough people that were experts, maybe they'd be able to help. And that's still the case. You know, these conversations, the ones that we've had, the one that we had last year, the training vlog we did earlier this year, all of those things, I take little bits and pieces away that help me understand myself and the world around me. Uh, then you do start to sort of layer on top of that hope and expectation and,

and, um, like performance in a good way, you know, stepping up to the plate and wanting to really get the best conversation that you can, uh, and this pressure that sort of comes along with that, uh, it's very much still the thing that I think I was meant to do, but I didn't know it would be like being a bodybuilder and tearing a lot before you're about shrinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Out of no sort of choice of your own and really they're not, you'd sort of scrabbling around trying to find a solution to fix it. And, uh, yeah, it's rough. I bet. Well, I don't connect any of my value to your intelligence, Chris, and have your value to your intelligence.

Well, I appreciate that. Don't stress in the face of adversity. Make adversity something you desire for an opportunity to grow. It sounds an awful lot like probably what I need to take a little bit of advice from. It could be interpreted in a, you can still stress about it. It's okay to feel the stress. More so the stress that leads to avoiding the adversity. Because you know, the other funny thing that I've thought about very related to this is going through

adversity. You know, my life is very revolved around competing in Olympias. When I go through adversity now, I'm like, this could be a part of my speech, you know, I tore my lat last year. I'm like, when I win this Olympia and I stand up on stage and I tell people, I tore my lat in the middle of this preptory, I'm like, oh my God. And it's going to make this story that much cooler, you know, and it's going to, it's going to push me beyond the levels of which preptory, I'm like, oh my God. And it's going to make this story that much cooler, you know, and it's going to, it's going to push me beyond the levels of which I know that I'm capable of accomplishing, it's going to show me that when something feels impossible, it's not until it's not, you know, I got to keep pushing through and figuring it out.

And so the stress is okay to feel in adversity. It's where the stress leads you that you need to avoid. You need to prevent the stress from being strong enough to make you avoid adversity in the first place. If you start to feel stressed about adversity, I think diving right into it is like the secret for growth. If your definition of success is win or lose, giving everything you've got and growing or learning along the way, then you're setting yourself up for success.

I really think the biggest cheat code in life is just going after it and not being concerned of whether or not you fail at one specific task. Instead understanding the big picture, what your long-term goal is and knowing if you keep driving forward and never fucking quit in the end, you will succeed. Great quote. And never fucking quit in the end, you will succeed. Great quote. I've, I've based a lot of my life in the past about my definition of success and my definition of being a champion and my definition of winning. And I think it all just comes down to, you know, again, your values.

When I'm old, what's the end of this look like? You know, my values of being the best partner, father, person I can be when I'm 50, if I have five or six or seven or eight or nine or 10 Olympias, are any of those affected by that? No. So in this short-term goal of this moment of me wanting to win, is this very important? Yes.

But is the pressure of my life and win, is this very important? Yes. But is the pressure of my life and value and worth dependent on that? No, it's not. It's the big picture of my life that I'm focusing on of who I want to become going through all these things. So if I win an Olympia, how do I want to win

that Olympia? Who do I want to be when I win that Olympia? How do I want to win it? How do I want to show up my relationships? If I lose that Olympia, how do I want to lose? Who do I want to be when I win that Olympia? How do I want to win it? How do I want to show up my relationships? If I lose that Olympia, how do I want to lose? Who do I want to be when I lose? Who am I becoming through all these little challenges and goals along the way that

aren't the big picture? Who am I becoming, which is the big picture. And I think that's so important to, for me to understand that everything that you choose to do and how you handle it is shaping who you're becoming. And at the end of the day, when you're old and have grandkids and children in your life, you're the culmination of everything you've accomplished, but also how you accomplished it and how you reacted to it.

What's the big picture? Who do you want to become? Isn't it interesting that you could have, you know, the same mantle piece above the fire that's got however many Olympias on it. And objectively, when grandkids are bouncing on your knee, they can look and see the same thing, but the person behind them and the experiences that they went through and who they became in the process can be totally different, which kind of shows that the outcomes that you get really are in the end kind of arbitrary and it's the person that's behind the grand kid that kind of matters. Yeah, exactly.

I, if I had a picture of myself and I hadn't never won an Olympia and then I had a picture of myself that won six Olympias and my kids were looking at it. Holy shit, you were Jack dad. That's where their thought ends. It's not like you had five, you were Jack, dad. That's where their thought ends. It's not like you had five, you had six, you had seven. It doesn't matter. You know, that's cool. You're Jack, but who are you and how do you show up in my life every day?

Yeah. You know, and how did those pursuits, how did the goals that you tried to achieve or did achieve change you? Yeah. How did they cause you to be a different sort of father or grandfather or husband or friend or business partner or whatever? And what lessons did you learn and take from them that you can give to me so that I can learn from them and hopefully not go through as much pain while still learning the same

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Everything changed for me when I realized that we're not meant to feel excited and perfect all the time. I started accepting that where I am right now is where I'm genuinely meant to be. Tough days are all a part of the process. Lean into them. Bad days are also part of a very good and meaningful life. So on my toughest days, I think about getting through one more day, one

more workout, one more rep. Yeah. work out one more rep. Yeah. I think, I mean, this applies deeply in the, I mean, on a smaller level of the starvation of prep when you're trying to get through it and you're just, you're just trying to get through one more. What was the first part of that, Corian? Everything changed for me when I realized we're not meant to feel

excited and perfect all the time. Yeah. Everything changed for me when I realized we're not meant to feel excited and perfect all the time. Yeah, this was the, the idea of pursuing happiness, not leading to happiness. You know, you, you pursue things that have meaning in life and things that you care about, you know, love, challenges, relationships, and happiness might ensue, but you don't pursue the happiness itself because it's inevitably not going to be there all the time. So if you're just constantly seeking more happiness and it's not there, then you're seeking something that's never going to be there. But if you're able to just stick in what you're doing right now and in those hard times, believing they're going to lead to good times, it just creates a lot less friction in your life. You know, and I think whenever we're going through a hard time, we just want it to end.

But it's those moments that allow us to appreciate the good ones. What would you say to someone who's going through a string of bad days or bad weeks or bad months? Say it's okay. You're not alone. You know, I think sometimes a quick word of just looking at them and being like, I know you're not alone. Give them a hug and be like, this is shit right now and it's okay.

But you're not alone. What does lean into them mean? Lean into the bad days. I think specifically nowadays it's so easy to numb. There's so many distractions, so many things that we can just avoid feeling things with, you know, staple being your phone, you want to cry, you fight, you tears, you're feeling stressed. You're overthinking something. So you just pull up Instagram and you do scroll for 20 minutes. You get distracted.

You see a funny video of a cat close your phone and you forget about it. That's not gone. Those feelings are still there. They're just pushed down from a couple Instagram videos that are distracted. And next thing you know, a couple of days go by and you just feel this anxiety over yourself and you're like, why do I feel anxious? I just feel like I can't, I can't sleep and wake up at 5 a.m. overthinking, like I don't know what's going on.

I have no idea. People are like, well, are you stressed about anything? They're like, no. And this is something that I've had to call myself out on. If you ask me if I'm stressed out at the time, my answer is no. You feel, are you stressed? No, I'm fine. I feel great.

And then if you look at me, you're like, do you feel calm? You feel at ease? Do you feel relaxed? I'd be like, fuck no. So where, where, where am I feeling? And for some reason, stress to me is like numb, but it's stress. So I don't really feel it. And it's typically from not allowing myself to lean into the shitty time, the shitty thoughts,

the shitty days and being able to sit with them and be with them, except what they are and process them properly rather than just numbing them. So funny that you used the word lean into them. Ben Bergeron in Chasing Excellence says, lean into discomfort as if you invited it through the door. And it's a phrase that stuck with me because it feels like you are in control of the frame. Like, okay, and you come and do this. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to again, the fear that you have around being guilty or the agitation you have around being shameful or the distraction that you need to do in order to be able to get away from it. It's a, it's an interesting one to think about how bad days are also a part of a very good and meaningful life that it does really frame the story at the end. Both you and Hormozzi have said the same thing in the last two episodes have

spoken to you about, which is the bad days create the story that I'm one day going to tell myself about what I got through. Yeah. Know what I mean? Yeah. Without the bad days, the story would be way more lame. There would be no glory in overcoming anything. Cause what did you overcome? It was all just 40 to 60, you know, vanilla ice cream, mush gray like existence. Yeah. I mean, it's like the concept of the fear exposure therapy.

When you're trying to build confidence about something you're afraid of being exposed to the fear helps you overcome that, but actively choosing to take that fear on head on as actually what it takes. I can't throw a spider at you and you're not afraid of spiders, but you choosing in your own mind to actively go to that spider by yourself makes you actually grow from it. So you choosing to take power of what little you can when you're feeling like when everything's crumbling around you and you feel powerless and helpless.

Well, what can you take control of? You can take control of opening your door and letting that, Embracing that, you know, leaning into that hard time, like I'm going to choose to feel this. It's here. I didn't choose that, but I'm going to choose to feel it. And I have power over the choice of what I feel. And then you take your power back and you can build your confidence from there. I had a conversation recently with a guy called Dr.

Jamil Zaki, who wrote a book called hope for cynics. Um, and it's interesting thinking about how you can take control of I had a conversation recently with a guy called Dr. Jamil Zaki, who wrote a book called hope for cynics. Um, and it's interesting thinking about how. Widespread skepticism, cynicism are, uh, skepticism being the good version of cynicism, cynicism being kind of a total blanket coverage, everything is shit. Everything sucks. Everybody is evil and out for themselves. a total blanket coverage. Everything is shit.

Everything sucks. Everybody is evil and out for themselves. And you had a bit of a rant one day where you said, everyone's hypercritical and terrified to do anything and put themselves out there and fail. So we hyperanalyze, hypercriticize, become paralyzed and end up doing nothing, sitting in our basements, watching TikToks of other people's lives,

pretending that they're happy. I was having one of those cynical days and felt like ranting a little, but honestly, there's optimism here for some low barrier of entry personal growth. Stop analyzing, stop criticizing both yourself and others and go fail at some shit. Go give someone a good job for sucking at something because at least they're trying. Maybe it will even give yourself permission to do the same. We find meaning in trying difficult things, not just in succeeding at them.

How do you avoid being too cynical? It's widespread. It's everywhere. How do you avoid it? Don't get stuck in the simulation. I mean, it's all, it's all, there's a million things. Perspective checks the environment, who you all, it's all, there's a million things. It's perspective checks, it's environment, who you choose to surround yourself with,

what you choose to consume. You know, like, are you choosing to consume false simulations of someone's life on TikTok, compare yourself to it and think you're not doing enough? Or are you choosing to live in the real world having conversations with good people who are being realistic and taking risks? Are you choosing to be around negative people or positive people? You know,

every single day you choose who you surround yourself with, you choose what you do. You're in control a lot more than you believe you are. And I think people like to get caught up in routine and norm and feeling obligated to their old friends or family or this or that and staying kind of where they are. But pushing yourself out of that sometimes is exactly what you need. And I think it's, it's just scary for change sometimes, but you know, there's. The concept of living life is just so simple. You could take the words, live your life and expand on that into a million page essay and just do it, But just getting out there and living and

experiencing life and doing the things that are difficult and challenging and cause you to grow. If you think of the person that I envy the most and I enjoy being around the most is just that old wise man who has all these crazy stories, who's lived this all this life. And it's just like happy to sit on the park bench and talk to random people about what he's done. You know, it's, if that's the person I respect, how do I become that person? It's not from doing nothing. It's from doing something. It's funny that we kind of see the trajectory that everybody's on because we

can all see old people, old people that seem to be content. And we think, well, if that's where I'm going to end up, is there another way that I can just speed run bringing some of that into now? Yeah. You know what I mean? We also see old people who aren't content at all. You know, you see a lot of old people now who are even more sucked in some young people into the simulation of the hyper reality of their phones and their content and just being

like stuck into that and you also don't want to, you want to see yourself spent into the future. What if that's a path you're on? Yeah. Well, it should be a cautionary tale, right? That should be the route that you want to try and avoid as much as possible. I had a conversation with David Sanra who just found his podcast. You know, he's broken down 300, 400 famous people from history and he

reads all of the books on them. And then he talks about them on his podcast. And, uh, I was asking him about how people do, uh, mostly people he learns about as successful in one form or another, uh, basically how people do success wrong, uh, and he just has endless stories of people who achieved a ton of worldly success and seem to have absolutely zero fun in the process. None, none at all. And, you know, there was this one story about this dude, I think worth billions and

billions of dollars and was in his late seventies had maybe grandkids, maybe even great grandkids at this point, and was still showing up to conferences, you know, sort of beating down deals on the door at 78 years old, you know, with this illustrious career behind him. And he didn't, David didn't think that this was coming from some well-balanced desire to maximize his calling in life, which was to be the best business leader, salesperson, but just this as yet an alchemized compulsion to need to be busy and to be seen and for validation

and for recognition and for success and so on and so forth. And, uh, I used to say, you know, from my old life as a club promoter, that there was nothing really sadder than seeing, uh, some guys in their forties for whom the single best part of their life was getting a bag in with the boys on a weekend, the same place, the same clubs, the same parties, week in week out for decades and decades and decades. But I actually think that that's 78 year olds guy that as yet hasn't alchemized is just the more seductive, more publicly acceptable version of that, which makes it even more dangerous because there's few people,

fewer people that are going to say, well, you know, at least you're not going out and getting a bag of cocaine with the boys in 78 year old man. Uh, but yeah, it's a cautionary tale. I think that we should all be pretty scared about. It's a challenge because I mean, I made the joke about the simulation, but like it's so easy now for us to see other people's lives in such a specific narrative that they want us to see. And it's like a responsibility for people who have a platform and followers to be

honest, but they have no reason to be, they don't have to be so if we're looking up to these people who have worked 40 years of their life to become this billionaire and, you know, they talk about like, maximize efficiency. Be as like, use everything for this, optimize this, be perfect in this, all these things, and it's all about optimization, efficiency, make more money, work harder, wake up earlier,

morning routine, everything, all these things, and it's like, well, that'll get me to his life wake up earlier, morning routine, everything, all these things. And it's like, well, that'll get me to his life. What if that dude's fucking miserable? What if he's optimizing, riches fucking drives that nice Ferrari, but he hates his life? We'll never know. Maybe he's very different from me and maybe his goals and his morals and his values are completely different than me.

And I'm not going to, I can't project onto that, but we'll never really know the truth of if the people are happy or not. But these young kids are watching this story, watching this journey. And they're like, that's who I want to be. I want to live like that. I'm going to work like that until I have that. Very, very dangerous using anybody as a role model that doesn't seem to be being transparent.

You know, I think it's hard though. Of course. And you don't know whether the transparency is performative. Uh, how much of this is how much self-knowledge do people have anyway? Like how transparent are we to ourselves? Yeah. And then on top of that, how much do we allow ourselves to tell the people? And then how much of that do we allow to go into a public platform?

You know, there's so many filters. It's kind of amazing that anybody says anything truthful ever, you know, like there's so many incentives and, and, uh, obfuscations that don't allow us to see what we believe or feel. Yeah. Even if you're not numbing with like boring stuff, like Instagram, you could be efficient and optimized in your life

enough to have a morning routine, a night routine, and work hard enough to never have a spot for introspection of genuine introspection. Now you can think of like, this is a cool quote about business and working hard, but not really about how you feel. And you could live your life in a very efficient, beautiful, well articulated manner and have no idea

who the fuck you really are. Busy calendar is a great hedge against feeling feelings. You know, if you just bounce from meeting to meeting, look at how important I am. All of these people need me. They all want me. I've got all of these things going on. There's no, you know, to go back to sort of the drugs analogy, there's no point where you're at the come down after the after party, you know, as the cocaine's wearing off or

as the hangovers kicking in, there's no hangover. You're just permanently in dopamine party mode for however many decades of life. And, uh, yeah, I think busy calendars for a lot of people, protect them against the existential eye wide pain of having to work out. I'm actually, why am I doing this? Am I doing this for the right reasons? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Do I really enjoy this or? You mentioned, especially now that you've got daddy daycare duty, that you're

having to learn to say no more. I think you said previously you said no 90% of the time and now it's 99% of the time. So thank you for saying yes. What would be your advice for people that struggle to say no perennial people pleases and those that struggle to advocate for their own needs or put their desires first. How can people be better?

No sayers. The good question because it kind of took me into a cheat code to really get good at it and that's leverage. You know, it's in at least in my Like professional performance of life, I said yes more. But I guess from the beginning, if I really think about it, I've always worked hard to just say yes to things that I actually cared about. In starting out as an influencer, I tried not to be a sellout, you know, I got offered a lot of money, I've turned down some crazy deals that I'm still like, holy shit, like a few hundred grand a month deals.

And I just said, no, because it's not a product that I would use without the money. And it was inauthentic to me and I was like, fuck. But over time saying no to those things have opened up more doors and more opportunity. And I saw him going to contract that big, but I haven't sold that and people still trust me at least, and I'm standing behind brands only that I love or that I own.

So I think just being able to stick true and checking in with yourself, being like, who am I, what do I care about? What are, I think authentic goals is like a huge word of mine now. What's truly authentic to me, what am I working towards? It's something I care about rather than things I think other people will care about for me. And I think that's absolutely huge. And you know, also I've worked really hard over the past decade of my life to

be in a really high, highly successful position to have a healthy amount of leverage where now when I say no to people, I get a better offer back. When I say no, I get a better offer back. Like, can you come to the trip? We'll give you 50 grand. I'm like, no, we'll give you a hundred. No, we'll get you a private jet and give you 150. I'm like, why? And it's leverage. Whereas before, if they're like, you want to come up? No, but all right, fuck you. We don't care. And it's different. But I've had to work really hard to get there.

To put yourself in that position. You know, there's times where I've said no work really hard to get there. And to put yourself in that position. You know, I, I, there's times where I've said no in the past and people haven't given a shit at all. And over time, now I'm at a point where if I say no, it's, there's a little more leverage behind what I can do. And I can, I can finagle it a little bit more, but that has also come from. Me sticking to what was authentic to me and saying no.

So I built a trust behind what I represent and what I do now in my life. Yeah. You're no now being worth something is because you still said no when it was worth nothing previously. And along the way, I was working hard to make it worth more on the back end. I made it worth it. Yeah. That's such a funny point.

I kind of brought this up a couple of weeks ago on the show that, uh, no one ever gets credit for saying no to things that people don't know about. So, you know, the, we got this offer a while ago to bring somebody on the show. I've never once paid anybody or taken money to bring anybody on the show. And we got offered a six figure sum to bring some guy on to talk about oil or something to do with like something to do with energy, or maybe it was the middle East, something like that. And it just stank of deep state, Saudi, Iranian, some put in conspiracy thing.

I was like, this is so weird. First off, I'm not taking the money. But secondly, there's no world. Like I'm not, I guess I'm saying it now, but this was like a year and a half ago or something. And I'm not saying it to flex. I'm saying it's, it's an interesting example, but no one is ever going to give anybody credit. You know, the world, the word grifter and shill get thrown around so much on the internet. It makes me cringe, but no one ever gets to see all of the stuff that people turn down.

Yeah. That you get called out for anything that you're associated with and never get credit for anything that you're not associated with, but all of the guests that didn't come on the show, all of the brand deals. Absolutely famous people who would have gotten you so much views, but they didn't line up with you that you said never did. Correct. I didn't want to bring on the episodes that I recorded that I didn't release

the people that wanted to come on that I decided not to the money, like so much money that we've turned down on the show. Cause I go, I don't think this product is legit and I don't use it. So I'm going to say no. Uh, meanwhile, anything that you ever, uh, participating in becomes a vector for attack.

And all of the things you didn't participate in are not vectors for commendation. And you go, you want to scrape, I want to rip my face off. But on the back end, you can attribute way more of your success to those no's. Oh, absolutely. Cause even now you starting a story and saying, someone offered me money.

I can't even imagine you sitting across from someone and having a conversation and just knowing that you paid him. You would probably be like, here's your money back. I'm leaving halfway through the podcast. If you even got there. I don't care about your oil. Uh, yeah, it's just, I, I, I wish it's kind of a

little bit like, uh, somebody accusing you of not giving enough money to the homeless and you saying, but no, no, no, I just, I just gave loads of money to the homeless over there. See how virtuous I are. And then they go, well, no, you just done that because you could take a photo and talk about it and go, well, in that case, I can't fucking win. Yeah. You know what I mean? Um, it's very, it's, it's interesting.

I think, uh, I understand why everyone's kind of grift and shill radars, hyper tuned on the internet and rightly so, because not everybody's got everybody's best interests at heart, but, um, there is a term grift and chill, shill, S H I L. L I actually asked, I took two terms that I never used largely because I think that kind of like a racism in the modern world, it gets sort of so overly used that you actually end up diluting it down. So it means everything and nothing at the same time. I asked on Twitter a while ago, what grifter or shill means for the people who do use it.

what grifter or shill means for the people who do use it. And I think the best example was a person who is affiliated with a product or service that they wouldn't use if they weren't paid for. And I was like, huh, okay, that's an interesting like framework to put into it. But it's a term which now covers a whole range of sins. Yeah. Um, you know, interestingly, it's kind of dependent on who the two worlds

are that are coming together. For instance, when Rogan got his Spotify deal, the first one, six, five and a half, six years ago, there was no one that called him a sellout for going to Spotify. Well, why? Well, because there is an assumption that both Spotify and Joe have so much positive brand equity that there's no, no one's taking advantage of the other. It's like both quite high value, cool brands coming together.

Um, uh, Nike comes in and sponsors some huge NFL player or whatever. Uh, no one goes, oh my God, I can't believe that you sold out to Nike, but if it was, I dunno, some Russian gas company, then they might, they go, oh my God. So the inherent in the deal is this sense of alignment of value and credibility and sort of cool of brand coming in. Uh, like you, you got the new Gymshark deal. Talk to me about that. When I was in 2018 and they reached out to me, I remember being very ecstatic

about them reaching out to me because they were the brand, you know, that I always wanted to be a part of them. They had the cool events, the cool athletes, all this stuff. And I was like, shit, they reaching out to me. This is really exciting. And then over a few years, I felt like they stepped away from being like the workout gym brand. You know, like I was like a bodybuilder. I like to train and it seemed like they were straying away from wanting to be a part of the gym culture so much.

And it wasn't really lining up with me and I didn't really want to be a part of brands as much anymore. I was owning my own companies and all these things and I just I just stepped away from that. And I feel like as I did, they were, I've heard now they were going through the internal process of thinking, Hey, we're stepping too far away from the gym. We need to lean back into the gym more. And they were like, fuck Chris is leaving like blah, blah, like it wasn't just about me. But then over the year and a half I was gone or whatever, they were like,

we're diving all back into the gym. We want to bring the gym to the world, which I think is so incredible because all of my success is owed to the gym. You know, if I had stepped in a gym, I wouldn't be sitting here. I wouldn't have met Courtney. I wouldn't have my businesses. Like it's all because I stepped in the gym. It's helped me so much.

And that's, that's just a physical success aside from the mental and everything that benefited me from, and I think anyone stepping into the gym is only going to make their life better. So I just love the, their concept of now they're literally concept of bringing the gym is only going to make their life better. So I just love the concept of now. They're literally concept of bringing the gym to the world. Not only that, but I've grown a little closer to Ben and to Noel over the years. Talking to them. So sorry to hear that.

I know, right. But having my own businesses and seeing the scale at which they've grown theirs while maintaining majority ownership of it, starting in Ben's garage in the UK to the scale they are now. I can't even understand the level of professionalism that they have to have come from nothing at his age where I'm working my ass off with people way fucking smarter than me in business who aren't even close to their level of success and they're just crushing it. I just have so much respect for how they built their business, the way they operate, their

staff behind the scenes. I kept in contact with a lot of their staff, just everything, the way they operate in their business, it's just something I respect. The morals and values they uphold, the athletes that they choose to bring on, I think they really care about the way their athletes represent themselves, the way they represent the brand. And it just, it just lined up perfectly. And when they hit me back up and they're like,

what do you think? I was like, this feels perfect. You know, and you're part owner now. Yeah, very small, but part owner. Big company, very small. It's very good. So who was it? I think it was like an old friend or something.

It's like, are you a equal owner, equal partner? And I'm like, yeah, they gave me a billion dollars. But no, it's, it's, it's good. I'm super pumped to be back. And they made their clothes better. I was buying their clothes by myself with my own money on the website. And then they're like, Chris, are you wearing Gymshark again? I was like, yeah, this is shirts dope.

And they're like, did you buy it? I'm like, yeah, we would have sent it to you. I'm like, Chris, are you wearing gym shirt again? I was like, yeah, this is shirts dope. And they're like, did you buy it? I'm like, yeah, we would have sent it to you. I'm like, well, I liked it. They have made a big pivot, which has been pretty good. I don't know. It's a, it's an interesting time for training and sort of gym culture. I think, uh, certainly, you know, downstream from, uh, you and your era that we're in right now.

Crossfit kind of was a, uh, I think a big influence on that, that young people culture for a while, but that really seems to have pivoted off. And now it's all, if it's not bodybuilding, it's hybrid training and high rocks. Yeah. Yep. Fucking Nick Bear and George Heaton man. Those two guys have a lot to answer for, you know, from fashion and, and trend and training modality and run clubs. Yeah.

Huge, huge, big deal. Now. Even my partners in raw, they're trying to do iron man and shit. They're building, we're built on endurance line under raw, like just cause they're so passionate and love it. And they're like trying to convince me to do an iron man when I'm like 35, 40 and retired, I'm just like, you want me to fucking run for how long? Like, no, I'll pass.

I might do like a CrossFit style thing in the future, but no Ironman for me. You have the perfect build for an Ironman. Yeah. You think I've right now, this is exactly the time when you should do it. Yeah. I dunno. I, uh, it is, uh, we're going in two directions as well. We spoke about this last time about the, it got even worse.

I'm not on TikTok, so I don't see this, but I know the world of Psalms. Apparently like people that have got affiliate codes and stuff for, uh, again, I only hear this third hand through, you know, my housemate sending me videos and blah, blah, blah. But it is odd to me that we've got sort of the leader of the sport being unbelievably sort of emotionally open, vulnerable, talking about trying to get as much out of as little as possible pharmacologically. And then this other world, which is affiliate deals galore for, uh, you know,

teenagers on performance enhancing drugs of varying degrees of toxicity and research. Mm-hmm. It's very strange. Yeah. I haven't seen a lot of, I, the weird thing is I know the companies associated with selling those arms, but people only promote like peptides, like healing peptides and stuff. But I'm not on there either to develop into that, but it's definitely a strange slippery slope. I feel like, yeah. It's like a gateway, the gateway peptides, you know? Yeah. I don't know. Um, I'll be interested to see sort of what gym culture does, cause I probably wouldn't, would I have predicted it? I probably wouldn't have predicted, you know, 10, 15 years ago, the Jeff side, this era stuff, uh, simply shredded bodybuilding.com forums.

I probably wouldn't have predicted CrossFit coming in. I certainly wouldn't have predicted high rocks and run clubs and, and, and, uh, hybrid athlete training. There's no way that I would have seen that coming back around. Um, so I don't know what. I can kind of understand the, the jogging craze coming back because people are like, it's almost like a post failed meditation app phase that led to running working. Cause like true good running is a meditation. Being able to be with your breath

and to be with your pace, to not go too fast. You know, every running coach says you don't run fast to get faster, you run slow for longer. You have to match your pace. It's a meditation of mindfulness, it's keeping on track. Restraint, patience. Yeah. And I think there's something very very beautiful meditative about running and I'm horrible at it, but I can kind of understand why in such a world with so much distraction and so much going on, why people would be drawn to this moment of the day where they're out in nature, outside, peacefully getting exercise in a meditative state.

Yeah. I think run clubs, there's a, there's one in Austin that's fighting with the city council at the moment. I mean, it's massive. They do 500 people every Saturday. It's huge. Yeah, it's offensive, but, uh, I said to the guys, I was like, if, if they don't allow you to keep doing this, I would go complete scorched earth with Austin

council, I'm aware that you don't want to burn your bridges, but everybody's worried about young people's mental health, about isolation, spending too much time in technology, obesity rates, blood glucose, diabetes, all this stuff, you're offering a solution to all of the dating. Like all of these things are fixed in one form or another with some kind of group fitness activity, whether it's Barry's bootcamp or CrossFit or gym or run clubs or high rocks or hybrid, whatever this is the solution to it.

And in the same sentence, they're saying, we're really worried about young people's mental health and physical state. And also one guy doesn't like the fact that he can't look out of his front garden for 30 minutes every Saturday without seeing young people looking sweaty running past, I don't know. It just seems like it's disappointing to sort of see that it's not being facilitated or encouraged in that way. It's like they're not graffitiing things.

It's not a, it's not a, uh, one of those low rider drive by things where everyone's making loads of music at one in the morning out of super loud subwaffers and stuff. Yeah. It's just young people running. Yeah. It's disappointing, but it's not surprising. Yeah.

Yeah, it's the same. We've been here before. Is there anything in your experience that, I don't know how much you've gone into the science, you might just be someone who happens to be super effective at doing the thing as opposed to knowing the thing. Uh, are there any areas of training or diet or fitness that seem to be surprisingly, uh, not what the science or evidence or typical advice would agree with rep ranges, periodization, like overload, any of that stuff. Is there any areas where you think, huh, like this

ends up really working for me, but I don't think most people would think that it would work. It's hard to say when something's very like nuanced, I have been diving a little bit more into proper like science behind it. I've had this guy named Justin King helping me with my training and he's very science-based and very like evidence-backed and every time you bring that up in bodybuilding, you go back and forth between thinking too much and being able to work hard enough science-based and very like evidence-backed. And every time you bring that up in bodybuilding, you go back and forth between thinking too much and being able to work hard enough and back and forth.

And what I've noticed specifically, and especially on tired days, deep in prep, or whatever it might be, if you're so focused on getting absolute deep stretch with a four second negative, proper, perfect execution, all these things 100% or mentally that's fatiguing. And to do that for let's say optimized periodization, you're going to do a four week program of

18 to 20 reps and then you're going to bring it down to six to 10 once your volume's high and you're building your strength with X, Y and Z. If you can't get there mentally because mentally you're too fatigued to go to failure on that set and you're like thinking too much, like you just stop, first just like turning your brain off and just going full tilt to failure, you're not getting as much benefit. Are you failing because your muscles are failing or because mentally you can't keep thinking about the fucking four second negative for long enough, you know? Yeah. So it seems obvious, but if you're holding yourself back by thinking too much, then you're not doing good enough. And I think, you know, you try and reinvent the wheel a million times and it

just doesn't work. So you got to find the balance within it. Yeah, that's a little different. That's cool that, uh, you can try and be as optimal as possible, but there's a time for just sort of pure aggression. Yeah. And I think there was, I mean, you might even know it and you probably figured it out better than me, but there was a I mean, you might even know it and you probably figured it out better

than me, but there was a study that took people and they were testing how high of a step they thought they could step over. And it was, it was just like, guess how high of a step you can step over. And they had to guess and they put one group through a bunch of like physical and mental fatigue and one with just a fresh group. And the group was mental and physical fatigue severely underestimated what they could step over. They're like, oh, I could only do like two feet. And then they got four feet or something.

They were just underestimating what they were capable of. And I mean, that's literally bodybuilding prep, you know, like the day where I'm like, I can't pick that thing off the floor. I'm like, this can is too heavy. Like, can you throw this out for me? I'm tired.

I'm moving in slow motion, but I need to go to the gym and dumbbell press, 150 pound dumbbells. Like how does that translate? My mind doesn't think I can do it. I'm severely underestimating my strength that I can't pick this can up. But when I get to the gym, I need to overpower

my mind and just do it. I need to understand that I still have the muscle. I still have the strength. I'm just being a lazy little bitch right now. And I need to pick up that weight and do it and overpower it. And sometimes when you're getting in there and you're overthinking and all these things come in too much of like, I have to do this, this, and this.

I have to do a four second negative. Oh my God, that's going to be so hard. I should drop the weight then like, no, just fucking get in there. Know what you can do. Bust your ass and get out of there. Yeah. Sometimes overthinking it holds you back. There's a like beautiful stupidity

that I see with a lot of athletes. Yep. There are certainly very smart people that have been super successful in their sport, but there's also a kind of cultivated idiocy that they're able, you know, they're like a sort of channel that in a, you know the Midwit meme, do you know what that is?

No. So it's a bell curve and on the left is this guy that looks like a Neanderthal. He's got a brow like mine. And then the guy in the middle is this sort of raging, um, midwit that's trying to overoptimize things and failing. And the guy on the right is a sage who's got a HUD up. He looks like a Jedi. And the joke is that the guy in the left and the guy in the right always agree that the master and the idiot always end up arriving at the same thing.

So it's like, uh, eat protein, lift weights, eat protein, lift weights. I must ensure that my pre-digested way is consumed. 30 minutes intro workout with the optimum, you know, it's just. Eat protein, lift weights is that, and it's the, this sort of a, yeah, cultivated idiocy or whatever, where people just, I am not going to overthink this coach said, go in there and lift to failure. I'm just going to go in and lift to failure. Just going to go do it.

Yeah. And it comes down to the experience of trusting your intuition, you know, I know what my body needs. I've been here for 10 years. I can just feel it. I pick up a weight. I feel a certain way in a day. I know what I need to do.

And you just got to trust your instincts and do it. Not overthink it sometimes. I heard you say there's only one thing I dread not to be worthy of my sufferings. What's that? Me trying to be very philosophical. There's a few meanings behind that. I think it's how you handle your sufferings. You know, when you're, when you're going through something really challenging, how do you show up within it?

Do you choose to become a victim of complaining and misery and shitty, or do you find meaning in how you show up in the suffering? This isn't really my line of thinking. This is like Man's search for meaning. Victor Frankl kind of talked about this and I read that book last year, probably when I said this and I reflected a lot about this, honestly, when Courtney was going through labor and she had had the child and I was like, Holy fuck.

Like you were going through this absolutely like, like I've never, I've never experienced that much pain in my entire life. And she just remained calm, controlled her breathing, did what she needed to do. Changed position when they told her she needed to do was in the tub was on the bed was doing all these things and was just dialed. She locked in.

Lock in, bro. She locked in. Fucking lock in. And I just was like, you're suffering, but you're choosing to find meaning in how you handle the suffering that makes you so worthy of those suffering. And it's such a beautiful thing to experience. And you know, when life throws some shit at us, you're having this baby.

You're not choosing not to have this baby, you're going to go through this pain, you're going to go through the suffering. How are you going to choose to show up? Like I was talking about before, there are things out of your control. What's in your control. How can you take that power back into your own hands? And what are you going to take from it? What kind of meaning can you find from taking power out of what you feel powerless in?

I heard this rumor from a friend that after women give birth, they have a flood of hormones that allows them to, um, color the memory of it so that it's less painful in retrospect. Is this true? Mm hmm. It's crazy. Fuck. Like this is all the nurses.

It doesn't happen immediately, but all the nurses were like, ah, give it a few weeks and you'll forget about it. You're going to want to do it again. And then Courtney and Courtney was like, after she's like, she's like, why the fuck did I do that naturally? She was like, why didn't I just take the epidural? Like that sucked. And then like a month or two ago, she was like,

it wasn't that bad, I think I'll do it again like that. And I'm like, are you fucked? That was not bad, that was bad for me just to be in the room beside you. And her mom was like, she's like, we have to go through that again. Courtney's like, it's fine. I'm like, what the fuck? But it's gotta be true. I mean, if we have to go through that again. Courtney's like, it's fine. And I'm like, what the fuck?

But it's gotta be true. I mean, if you were to go through that much pain, you never want to have a kid again. It must be something that's like, just whatever the science is. It makes you just completely forget. It was a, Andrew Schultz, he talks about it on his new live show. And, uh, he, the same thing, you know, he's there stood on the sideline, just being. Like hopefully useless. Yeah.

Uh, you know, the cheerleader, I don't think he even got to pinch the traps. And, uh, it's like, you got this honey. Good job. And then she gets this flood of whatever the men in black flashy thing, like neurochemically, and it fixes her and changes the way that she, she feels about it in retrospect. And he's like, I remember, but I remember what about me? Where's my flood of hormones? Cause I saw the person I love the most in the entire world go through all of this

bullshit. And now I'm being gaslit to say that I'm making it out to be worse than it was. It's like only one of us has got a rational memory of what actually occurred during this situation. I've never heard about it before. And now apparently it's not a, I hadn't heard about it either, but the nurses weren't saying it was science.

They were just saying like, you're going to forget. It's just going to happen. I was like, damn. Bro. Yeah. Intense shit. Women's minds retconning their own experience of childbirth is wild. I mean, we wouldn't probably have enough people on a Thursday. They didn't.

Yeah. Chris Bumstead, ladies and gentlemen, dudes, I appreciate you so much. I know you're in the middle of prep, so I'm really grateful that we got to have another sit down this year. Me too. I said I wasn't going to the middle of prep, so I'm really grateful that we got to have another sit down this year. Me too. I said I wasn't gonna do any more podcasts, but here we are. I'm gonna keep tempting you. Two weeks out, we stayed awake, so it was an honor. I appreciate you having me back.

I appreciate you too, man. Thank you.