← Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC
Loading summary
Transcript8 lines
- [00:01]
A
Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Give it to me. I mean, it cleared hot. Alrighty, here we go. Back at it. Traditional Q A for this Friday. Two questions I can knock out of the park right now. That I get a lot. One, the iced beverage that I generally drink in front of me. It's early morning. I actually like doing these in the morning. Kind of start my day. Off I go for in hot and cold months, iced cold brew. Because I can drink it faster, I enjoy hot coffee. I've burned myself many times with hot coffee though, so I don't have a ton of it. Sometimes, depending on the setting, maybe I'll make myself a latte. It's not a big deal. We don't have to celebrate the fact that I know how to make a latte. But other than that, it's ice cold brew. The second most common question I get, which I get more than the coffee, is this sweatshirt. So this is from a brand called Marine Layer. Normal spelling, two words. I have no association with this brand other than we were in Bozeman for an SBG Jiu Jitsu camp in October of last year and a buddy of mine, Dan, who has better taste than I do in clothing, went to a retail store in downtown Bozeman on Main street that was selling these and grabbed one for himself and I said to him, damn, that's a good looking sweatshirt. Well, they went back there the next day and he surprised me with the sweatshirt, which was a blue one. I bought myself this gray one. They're an awesome brand. I have no association whatsoever other than they have my credit card number on file. Marine Layer, I believe they're based out of California. I know they have a retail store in the San Diego area. That's it. So also though, I think this is a discontinued version of the sweatshirt. So sorry about that. It's the best I can do. People have been saying just pin this as a comment in the comment section. I get asked it so much, but I think that's a little bit ridiculous. Is brought to you by AG1. Well, guess what, we're into February. How many of you are still just jamming on your New Year's resolutions? I think the the data shows that most people are done with them by about 21 or even 14 days or. I have talked about this man for well over a year. My goal to dial in the macro and micro. But oftentimes the micro elements of my hydration and supplementation game and this is where AG1 comes in. I use it in the morning to hydrate and it helps me dial in all the micronutrients that I honestly just don't pay attention to. AG1 is the opposite of complexity. It takes about 20 seconds one scoop boom into the water in the morning. Eight ounces is what I go with. You're done drinking it first thing in the morning before my coffee helps with my hydration, before I even check my phone and boom. That microhabit helps anchor me throughout the remainder of the day. They've added a new next gen formula with more vitamins and minerals than ever clinically proven to fill the common nutritional gaps. Plus daily energy support powered by superfoods and B vitamins to help you avoid that winter slump and immune system support from antioxidants, probiotics and functional mushrooms to help you stay your best this winter. AG1 has over 50,000 verified 5 star reviews and comes with a 90 day money back guarantee for a limited time only. Go to drink ag1.com ClearedHot to get a free free AG1 flavor sampler. That's how you can check out their flavors and AGZ Sampler, which is their evening drink to try all the flavors plus free vitamin D3 plus K2 and AG1 welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription order. This is a limited time offer only available while supplies last. That's drinkag1.com ClearedHot drinkag1.com Clearedhot back to the show. Shall we dive in Q and A For today, first two questions are a perfect example of how sometimes thematically my inbox receives questions that are very similar in theme, intent and you'll see what I'm talking about. These first two are pretty closely tied similar question taken in two different directions. So let's dive into this question one. I've been in law enforcement for many years and during that time have been married and raised two kids. While not a special operations military history, most of my career was SWAT and special investigative units. I've always taken pride in a no quit attitude, especially when things get hard. I was raised that way and my close friends have always shared the same beliefs. I have been in an unhappy marriage for a long time staying for the kids. In quotes. They are in college now or they are college age now. We don't yell and fight very often but lack connection and many other issues. So my question do you think the quitting is failure attitude can be a detriment in other areas of life the feeling that if I quit I have failed is a big part of me and probably keeps me in an unhealthy relationship to protect everyone else. I am deathly afraid of letting down my kids or people around me. Do you think a no quit attitude can be unhealthy? Oh, this question hits very, very close to home for me and very deep for me. This is something that I toiled with for an incredibly long period of time. And again, I don't talk about specifics or details of my divorce. I was married for 19 years and 11 months. I do think it is fair to say that both my ex wife and I can truthfully say that we stayed in it for longer than we should have. I would say somewhere along the lines of five to 10 years. That's what I would say. Perhaps she would say something different and I'll leave her opinions to be her own. I was the person who initiated the divorce. I made the decision to leave and the process kind of takes itself over from there, right? Lawyers got involved, attempted mediation. Mediation drug on what a soul sucking process. The biggest hurdle that I fought myself over is exactly what you have described in this email. My old occupation. Your mental and physical toughness was the currency by which you were judged. Yes, there were other things that were associated with that. Your ability to perform tasks, to meet standards, all of those things counted as well. But you arrived in that community, your golden ticket to entry was all measured through the same pipeline and it was based around your unwillingness to quit regardless of how hard things got, physically or mentally, the combination of the two. And if you come from that world or a world like that, like you have just described, it is so easy to become your worst enemy and to stay in things for longer than you likely should. Now I'm not here to tell somebody in their life you are at a moment where you need to make this decision or this is something, an action that you need to take. Because I have a data point of one in a human experience, my own, I can look backwards and talk about things I wish I could change, which I can't. So. So I try to learn from them going forward. And my experience in my divorce and my difficulty arriving at my decision making point are one of the things that I am trying to learn from. Because yes, I do believe that a never quit or no quit attitude can be extremely unhealthy. Let's go to a far outlier example of that. Let's say you are struggling with alcohol or substance abuse. What are you going to tell yourself? Can't quit. Right. I can't quit. I don't want to be considered to be a quitter. Well, that doesn't work well for alcoholism or substance abuse. And again, that's a little bit of a fringe example, but I think you get the point. I was having this conversation yesterday with a friend of mine after training Jiu jitsu, who also is divorced with children, and we were just talking about. And it tied into a conversation that Mike Glover and I had about the path forward is often measured in years as opposed to being months and days. And specifically, I'm talking about your ability to show your kids who you are as opposed to perhaps what they have been hearing about you from potentially an upset, angry, frustrated, hurt. Other side of the equation. In a relationship, it takes a long, long time. And one of the things a comment that he made was, you know, it sounds so honorable to say we are staying for the kids, specifically when we're talking about the dynamic of a relationship. You're in a marriage. We're staying for the kids. I toiled with that, too. What example would I be setting for my kids if I gave up? Well, ask yourself this. What example are you setting for your kids if you are knowingly staying and voluntarily, by the way, staying in a relationship that is unhealthy? Because I am of the belief, and I had this conversation again with the same guy yesterday. He was of the belief as well, too, that the kids involved in these family dynamics know and see and hear far more than any parent would ever want them to. I've had these conversations with my own children. Unfortunately, as much as my ex and I probably thought that we were hiding any of our difficulties or challenges, our children were so much more aware of them than either of us would ever have wanted them to be. So what if what you're doing by staying in a relationship that is unhealthy is actually modeling for them and creating for them what they think the standard is in the future? What if you are showing them that even if something isn't serving either party, even if it is unhealthy, even if it is toxic, that they should stay no matter what? Is that the message that you want to have passed along to your kids? Now, yours are in college age right now. Mine are approaching that as well. Two out of my three are. And the impact of the divorce and the years leading up to the divorce has landed on all three of them very differently. I would say two of the three are probably pretty open to the idea of marriage. One of the three is not and that I would say, and again, I don't want to speak for them, but in the conversations we have had is largely based off, not solely, but largely, largely based off their experience being an unwilling and unwitting participant in the divorce process. So do you want your kids to follow in your footsteps? Also? What advice would you give to your kids if your child came to you and described to you the environment that you are in? Actually, and let's take the children out of this equation. They're coming to you, meaning when they come to you. So you take the children out of the equation, one of your kids comes to you and it describes an unhealthy relationship, an unfulfilling relationship, perhaps even a toxic relationship. Let's hope it doesn't rise to the level of abuse in any way, shape or form. What would your advice be to them? For most people, when I pose to them this question, they say the same thing and they say it pretty rapidly. I would advise them, my guidance would be, perhaps it's time to hang it up when it comes to this particular situation. And I would agree with that guidance. I will say this too. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship. You're going to have disagreements in non marital relationships. And in marital relationships, hopefully you can solve issues at the disagreement level before they go to the argument level. But you're going to have arguments as well. And I do think you should put the work in. I don't think you should just throw your hands up at the first sign of adversity in a relationship and say, hey, this isn't working for me. I'm out of here. Grass is greener on the other side. You know, maybe it is greener, but guess what? There's weeds in every lawn. So be careful what you wish for. Put the work in. But also realize that the people you are. When you start a relationship, I hope that everybody can go with their partner. Sometimes that isn't the case. Sometimes you grow apart. Sometimes people get stuck in the past. Sometimes people are unable to move forward beyond what it is, whatever they may be dealing with, and it becomes divergent. You get one lap around the track, as far as I can tell. I don't know what happens after. I don't have any answers, existential answers about pretty much anything. But do you want to live your life in an environment that is unhappy and unhealthy for you? And again, before you answer that, make sure you put in the appropriate effort and go see counselors. Talk to each other, have the hard conversations. Do not Just quit at the first sign of adversity. But also realize there are some situations that regardless of the amount of work that you put in, it's not going to work itself out. So I am now of the belief that one of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves and each other is that you have to stay in it for the kids. I completely and utterly disagree. Especially if the environment is unhealthy, especially if you think you are hiding it from your kids. I am more worried. And this is what I toiled with. Two things. One, this exact headspace that you have of if I give up on this, I am a quitter. That is, those are the words that I said to myself at standing in the mirror. And I'm sure sometimes I verbalize them and other times it was internal. I talked to myself quite a bit randomly. Leah asked me all the time. She's like, are you talking to me? Are you talking to the dog? And I was like, actually, I love talking to both of you, but this, in this particular instance, I was just talking out loud. So I don't know if that's normal or not, but that's me. But standing there looking at yourself again, coming from a place where not quitting is the currency, especially if you've been in there for a while and you are so worried about the judgment of others, even though none of those other people have to walk a single inch in your shoes or spend a single moment in your life or the situation that you are working your way through, whether that is crushing unhappiness, unhealthiness, anxiety, whatever it may be, even if they were to judge you harshly, does that justify staying in an environment like that as the only person who has to suffer the consequences of staying in that environment? I don't think so. But, God, that is a hurdle that takes a long time to get over, and this took me years. So, short answer to your question, yes, it can absolutely be taken to a place where it is unhealthy. And I would say to you, how much of your life do you want to live in an environment that you are unhappy? Don't be incredibly selfish, but also think of yourself here a little bit, at least 50% of it. And then I think you can even add in the other party when you're talking about a relationship. Is she happy with this? Could she be living a more happier, fulfilled, expressive life, whatever that may be? If you guys go in different directions, is it going to suck for a bit? Do you have to redefine who you are? Do you have to ask yourself really hard questions. Do you have to redevelop and recreate a foundation and move forward and maybe look at your future in a way that is different than you have been because you are in your comfort zone, even though it's being described as being uncomfortable? Yeah, all those things are true. But you also could have a life that you can't even imagine because you have opportunities in front of you that you are blinded to right now because the glasses you are looking through are really muddied up based on what it is you have lived through up till this point. So, yes, it can be taken too far and it can have massive negative consequences on your life. Just remember this. No quit attitude comes from your occupation. Your occupation is what you do. It is not and will never be who you are. And if you can keep those two things separate, I think you're going to be okay. The last thing I'll say is this. Have open conversations with your children and with your significant other if you decide to move forward with this. Don't hide this from your kids. They are of an age where they have the ability to process this information. I'm not saying lean on them as your therapist. Your children should never be your therapist. Right. If you need someone to talk to, go find someone to talk to that is not your child, that is unhealthy. And your children, until you're wearing a diaper, should never be expected to be your caretaker. All right, just some advice. Find somebody to talk to if you need to, but don't hide this from your kids, because I'm telling you right now, if you have an open conversation and ask them about this or their thoughts about this, I think you might be shocked at their response. They may not be surprised at it at all. So that's a lot. And I know it's a tough headspace to get through. I wish I had made the decision five to 10 years prior than I had. The only thing standing in my way at that time was myself, and I regret it. All right, question number two. Very similar, because we're talking about a no quit attitude again. But this person takes it in a different direction, which is why I wanted to answer this. Because there's the relational aspect. This one is actually a little bit more physical in nature and how hard you can be pushing yourself before you get to this place of diminishing returns. Right. Which is another interesting conversation about this mentality of never quitting. Because what if you, in your desire to never quit, your performance starts going in the wrong direction, but you can't stop because all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, I'm going to be a quitter. What do I do? Let's dive in. You've said in SEAL training, but also in life in general. If you adopt a no quit attitude in your mind, you'll be surprised how far it can take you and how much you can accomplish. This is very true and I stand behind this.
- [20:26]
B
My perfect day has sand, salt water and friends, but my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis can take me out of the moment. Now I'm all in with clearer skin thanks to skyrizi risen Kizumab RZA, a prescription only 150mg injection for adults who are candidates for systemic or phototherapy with Skyrizi. Most people saw 90% clearer skin and many were even 100% plaque free at four months. Skyrizi is just four doses a year. After two starter doses.
- [20:53]
A
Don't use if allergic to Skyrizi. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections or lower ability to fight them may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu like symptoms or vaccines.
- [21:05]
B
Thanks to Skyrizi. There's nothing on my skin and that means everything.
- [21:09]
A
Nothing.
- [21:13]
B
Ask your doctor about Skyrizi, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic in psoriasis. Visit skyrizi.com or call 1-866-Skyrizi to learn more.
- [21:25]
A
It is the most incredible Journeys can be measured in a variety of different ways, but I'll give you two polar opposites. Where you started, where you ended, and the massive distance in between the two. So the distance between A and B or you have A and B and instead of measuring the overall distance, you just look at the micro steps and it's the number of steps that you had to take along the way. The frequency, the amplitude, the distance. How many of those did you have to put in front of the other to get to your goal? The overall distance measured might be exactly the same, but that difference in thought process paired with some mental toughness and physical toughness can allow people to absolutely accomplish goals that will have other people scratching their head they don't understand. And I've talked about this a bunch. You know the thing that I believe causes students specifically in SEAL training to quit is they lose their optic on time. They start thinking very large. I can't be this cold for another week. I can't be this tired for another 140 days. It's a mental thought process around time. It's big. It's Overwhelming. They get frustrated, they quit. The students who are not indestructible but are more likely to make it through that training, they go the other direction. They say, I need to make it through whatever it is that we're doing. I'm gonna see the sun go down at the end of the day. I'm gonna make it to the next meal before I make a decision about whether or not I'm gonna stay here or not. So they're chunking again. This goes back to measuring the journey. If this journey is 183 days of seal training, the distance between A and B is identical. The thought process where one person starts with 183 and they subtract one every day, they're like, damn, I got 182 more of these to go, 181 more of these to go, 180 more of these to go versus the person's like, I don't even know what day, just see the sun go down every day. They both end up to the same amount of distance or days of life experience. But I can tell you right now, statistically, there are far more students there that chunk it and take it a day at a time than there are people who have a 183 inch or 183 inch, 183 sheet thick of little 3M post it notes. And they're pulling one down every single day. And I've actually never seen a student do that. But I would imagine there's far less of those counting down, looking at that massive number than there are students who aren't even paying attention. They're just working through the day. That mental approach, pair it with somebody who is unwilling to give up, regardless of how they are feeling. It is impressive and it's dangerous too. So let's keep going into this. At what point do you start getting diminishing returns? To improve on a skill, whether it is in weight training or something mental, such as language learning, for instance, you need to face some resistance to promote growth and or retention of the skill. Totally agree with you there. Micro adversity would be a good way to look at this. If you think you're gonna go into the gym one time and come out looking like, I don't even Mr. Olympia. I don't even know who's currently competing in that thing. Yeah, you. I guess you could probably try to do that. You're gonna kill yourself and probably end up in the hospital with rhabdomyolysis, which is not a fun ride. I've seen quite a few People go on that ride, the journey to that. It's, you know, when you go in and you train appropriately, you are doing micro, micro portions of damage to your muscular system that your body repairs and grows back a little bit stronger. That's why it's a journey. You know, bodybuilders, even though they're taking, shall we say non farm to table chicken breast and protein supplements, usually via a needle, which no judgment, live your life however you want to, even they can accelerate that process, but it is micro steps along the way. If you lift one pound every day, you won't build muscle. This is true. But if you start out at £50 with no experience, you are starting too hard. Well, I would say it depends on what you're talking about. If you're doing deadlifts and stuff like that, maybe you're gonna be okay. But I get the point. You have to find a balance in between the two. Similarly, if you start with some experience, but you choose an extremely steep learning curve, you put yourself in the red zone of stress, either mental or physical, where you don't retain or build up as much as you would if you worked up to it gradually. I think this depends on the person. I know that everybody wants to think that we all come out of the box equal in every capacity, whether it be ability to learn, retain knowledge, hand, eye coordination, balance, any physical, physical or physiological thing that you can measure. I know that people want the world to be a level playing field and to be fair. And I've said this so many times, the fair is in Iowa. It has a merry go round, some roller coasters, cotton candy and popcorn. And you should go experience all of those things. But that isn't life. We all come out of the box differently. Some people learn faster than others. Some people retain knowledge faster than others. Some people have better hand eye coordination. And some people. Let's use Evan as an example. Evan Hafer. Standing vertically. His head doesn't hit the bottom of this table. He is never going to play in the NBA, regardless of how much he may want to. That is what it is. He's optimally suited to travel over uneven terrain and to go through windows that normal sized human beings can't fit in. Which serves him really well in the green Beret CIA world. When you're out in the world navigating your, he's like a little hobbit, right? Getting into places and nooks and crannies that nobody el. And it served him really well there, but it doesn't serve him well everywhere, right? When he was bailing Mike Glover out, only his hand could come over the top with a little check and slide it under. And I assume he was wearing his green beret at the time. So somebody there was just like, what is going on here? I was a small French painter with a check trying to bail their buddy out. Nobody even really knows what was happening. So I don't know how I got on that portion of the story, but that's what I like to think of it is in my mind. So retainer build up as much as you would if you worked up to it gradually. Perhaps some people can. If you were to put a learning curve on a vector which, you know has a direction and amplitude, some are going to be a lower or more shallow, some can be steeper. And that isn't fair, but that is the reality. So be cautious with broad statements like that one, because it changes for everybody. Likewise, not every situation is like a hot tub where it hurts at first, but then you adapt. I guess I've never thought about it like that. But we can agree if you constantly stay in the red zone of stress, you may learn some stuff, but you are likely working against yourself and not retaining as much as you would if you trained or worked at a lower level. Whoo. We're starting to talk about burnout here. For sure. I ask because for most of my life I have lived in the red zone of stress with regards to work or studying, thinking that if I stayed there long enough I would adapt and come out hardened for it, or somehow generally an improved version of myself. And while there is some truth to that, I still am who I am, a sensitive person who is not immune to stress. I also am often told by others that I am too hard on myself, which always surprises me because for me it is my normal status or status. Hard to say. But I wonder now if it's like when a person has adapted to pain to the point where they don't realize they are feeling it anymore, the way you don't feel your clothes when you wear them, but you notice when you no longer have them on. So no quit attitude. The willingness and ability to drive forward even though you are smoked and burned out. Can it be taken too far? So hopefully you can see the tie in here. The other one was talking about staying in a relationship beyond that point because of that no quit attitude. This one I also have experience with as well. I am too hard on myself, and I think most people probably are. But I bet most people also think this, that just about everybody else in Their life is paying a vast amount of attention to them, meaning the person is telling themselves that, like, God, I have to do this or that or the other, or everybody's going to judge me. What I have come to find is that almost nobody is actually paying attention to you that deeply. We all want to be this unique snowflake that perhaps is the center of attention. And the reality is everybody that you know is going through it, they all have their own life, their own struggles, most of which the vast majority of which they deal with quietly and in private. So while you are doing everything you can to avoid judgment from others, I'm talking. I'm not talking about you in this email, but just in general. Almost no one's paying attention because A, they're probably fighting with exactly the same thoughts, or B, so consumed, whatever it is that they are working through that they don't have time to care what's going on in your life. That realization helps take a wrap off a little bit if you need it to. Right? If you, if you are a person that is really hard on yourself and that does incredibly value what others think of you, which I'm not saying is a bad thing. When you realize that people have far less time, energy, or even desire to pay attention to every step of your life, it can give you the ability to maybe loosen the belt one notch and take a little bit of a breath and take those breaks when you need to. I have. I have. And I possess absolutely no above average abilities in anything in my life. I am of average intelligence. I was an incredibly average athlete growing up and through my entire adult life. Could I make the team? Yes. Was I going to be the first round Dracpit? No, not even remotely. Average height. Average. Oh, by the way, on average height. I. I swear Mike said he was 6:1 or 6:2 in the podcast that we did, the one that came out on Monday and then we took a picture together and I posted it. I swear he is the exact same height as me, if not a little bit shorter. I'm 6 foot, even 72 inches on the nose. So yeah, again, slight divergence there. But just calling him out on his bs. So average height, average weight. I float somewhere between probably 220 to 205. I have since my mid-20s. I was 150 pounds when I graduated high school, 155 when I graduated. Buds hit 200 pounds in my mid. I just couldn't put weight on. I have this conversation with my oldest son. He's just like, I can't put weight on. I'm like, yeah, give it time, dude, it's coming. And then you end up on the other side of that where you're struggling to keep it off. Right. It's interesting. Journey of life, completely and utterly average. But I have the ability to work. I can work hard. My previous occupation is helpful in that it rewarded and taught and reinforced working hard, chunking goals, driving forward, not necessarily ignoring pain or exhaustion, but working through it when you needed to. But I guess what is often left out in that, those conversations about that world is that rest, at least as. As I was exiting and moving into, I'd say, an era where people are paying a little bit more attention to this stuff, Rest and recovery is 100% highlighted as well. So it isn't just now your ability to grind through anything that may be presented in front of you, even though that's incredibly important now. Thankfully, you know, there's a lot of conversation around, well, how do you fuel for that? How do you rest for that, how do you recover? How do you protect your sleep, your hydration, all of those things that will allow you to do that even more. Because if you take that out of the picture, you will work yourself to a place where you collapse. This diminishing returns that you're talking about, it's impressive when people are able to push and grind and work. But. But if you were to pull that aspect out of it and just make a bar graph and you look at, let's just say area underneath the curve, I would like to believe that, you know, language and weight training that you discussed in here, I would like to believe that you're going to start with a line that's really low to the bottom axis. There's not going to be a lot of shaded area underneath the curve because you're taking these really microscopic steps and you don't have any knowledge or experience in that area. So it's slower to learn to begin with. And then as you go over time, right, as you extend that timeline out into the horizon, the line stays nice and consistent and the shaded area under the curve gets bigger and bigger. And that might be your physical capacity, your knowledge and ability to speak or write a language, again, to use your references. And again, if you're just looking at this from the outside, you're like, awesome. This is amazing. Well, if you keep going out there and you start noticing that the line is starting to dip towards the axis and the area underneath the curve is starting to reduce, if you look at that, let's just say you were looking at performance of a vehicle or a machine or something that you had built that would be worrisome and troublesome, and you would probably do something about that. But if you're like me or like this person writing this email, you ignore that and you tell yourself, oh, you know what I need to do? I need to work harder. I need to do more. And then you grind yourself into the ground. And what happens to me almost every single time is that I get physically sick. I will crush my immune system to the point where I am just susceptible to picking up a germ, whether that's in jiu jitsu, which is one of the ways where I have pushed myself too hard, to the point where I literally just physically got sick. And what ended up happening is I had to take about two weeks off. I can think about one particular experience. I had to take about two weeks off because I was super sick. And I kept telling myself, like, oh, my God, I am going to go back on the mats. I'm going to absolutely suck. I'm not going to remember anything that I had learned before. It's going to be like starting over. And the first time I was back on the mats, my cardio was down a little bit, but my timing was better. My knowledge and understanding of where the role was going and my options was actually better than when I had two weeks before, stopped training, because I had actually just sat on the knowledge a little bit and let it absorb and taken a break, and my body was functioning better. Between my brain and my body, I was able to move better. Like I said, cardio was a little bit down, but it's like, wow, with an increase in technique, I can actually get ahead of people. So use less cardio. You start talking about efficiencies. So actually, by taking the time off, which is the one thing I didn't want to do, because my mentality is, you grind until it gets really hard, then you grind harder, and then you grind until you destroy yourself. That time off actually gave me a performance bump and improvement. Now, don't lie to yourself and say, okay, what I need to do is work less and take more time off. Because that's not what I'm saying. Because you can go on the other side of this and start telling yourself, oh, today's, you know, I gotta really take way more time off than I need to. And people will use that as an excuse to avoid the hard work. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, listen to your body and treat yourself like a Scientific experiment. When you notice the area underneath the curve starting to diminish, take stock of that. What can you do? Could you train more efficiently? Training harder isn't always the best answer. Training smarter is a better idea. But could you train more efficiently? Could you utilize your time better? Would a little bit of time off help? I'll say this. The happiest I've ever been in my life, the most fulfilled I've ever been in my life are in times where I feel balanced between work and life. Personal, professional. I'm spending good times in each of the buckets that make me feel fulfilled, which would be different for everybody. But the times where I have accomplished things in my life that I am the most proud of were times where I was the most unbalanced, where I made choices and sacrificed things to achieve something that other people may not have been willing to or able to make those sacrifices. I was living in a very intentionally unbalanced state. Social stuff, gone. Anything that wasn't directly involved with what I was trying to accomplish, gone. But I didn't live there because I can't. Because that's how I end up sick. That's how I end up unhappy. That's how I end up isolated. And that is how I end up being overly hard on myself. Because as my performance, performance goes down, we start having these conversations in the mirror again, like, how could you let this happen? You need to work harder. Physiologically, I couldn't work any harder. It's the balance. So the happiest I've been is when I've been balanced. But the things that I've accomplished that mean the most to me were at times in my life where I was the most unbalanced. So you have to find. Not to use this word so many times in one sentence, you have to find a balance between those two things. And that is the advice that I would give you. You can 100% burn yourself out. Are there times in your life or things in your life that are worth doing that for? I think so. Absolutely. Is everything worth doing that for? Absolutely not. So if you have this ability to work to the point beyond where most people would quit, that is amazing. But please do me a favor, keep it in check. I am at a point in my life now where I care more about how I get to where I'm going than where I'm going in and of itself. I actually would probably rather fall slightly short of my goals, but have a more fulfilled and enriched and wholesome life than arrive at a pinnacle or an apex and have nothing. That's me. But I think having a conversation with yourself about that and asking yourself which one of those do I want to have at the end of the day is an important exercise. The ability to not quit is an amazing tool, but like any tool, it can be misused and if you point it back towards yourself, as opposed to pointing it towards an objective or a challenge, it can get really dangerous. So keep it in check. That's all I have for that. That is brought to you by Stash. You don't need to overhaul your life to start investing, just automate it. With Stash, your new year money goals can quietly run in the background while you focus on everything else. Stash isn't just another investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with expert personalized guidance so you don't have to worry about gambling or figuring it out on your own. Stash's Smart Portfolio helps you invest in a diversified balanced portfolio and on a regular schedule, which can help you build wealth over the long term. Join over 1,000,000 Active Stash subscribers and finally let your money work as hard as you do. Go to get stash.comclearedhot to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures that is get.stash.comclearedhot get.stash.comcleadedhot this a paid non client endorsement, not a guaranteed nor representative of all clients. Smart Portfolios are discretionary managed accounts and subject to additional fees. See the Advisory Agreement and Deposit Account Agreement for details. Investment Advisory Services offered by Stash Investments LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor Investing involves Risk Question number three Radically shifting gears here. I'm going to preface this by saying I was a child of divorce, it was caused by an affair and it changed the trajectory of my life. For the listeners out there, let's remember those opening sentences. I'm going to go all the way through this and then we will break it down. Even though I'd love to break it down piece by piece. But we got to get through it. I am now and then parentheses Pretty sure I am the third party in an affair. Although I have not touched this person, I do not feel good about my role. We text a lot, many times between midnight and 0 400. The content is now sometimes sexual in nature, but I feel like I'm also feeling an emotional void as well. I am 10 years younger than her and on paper her life has never been better. She is totally killing it. Back to the parentheses exactly the time when people seem to make huge mistakes. I feel like an accessory that she deserves. We met at a restaurant that she owns. She was my boss. I quit the job and frankly, I fell for her. She's fucking awesome. My professional boundaries the entire time were relaxed and my language choice choices were casual, maybe sometimes prov. I was not actively trying to get her to want me. But in retrospect, that's exactly what happened. I can honestly say I was just being myself and I was just telling her the truth. I respect her husband. I have not in any conscious way acted with malice towards him. And as far as I know, neither has she. I am not trying to steal her. I just like her and we have a lot in common. And I want her to get what she wants. I am racked with guilt. I am mortified by the idea I could put her children through a similar experience to my own with my actions. I don't want to disappoint or I don't want to disappear from her life because I feel like I can influence this situation for the better. I don't want to hurt anyone. But at this point, I am culpable, 100% not innocent if that happens. It's important to me to be the kind of man you can trust with your life or your money and your wife. Yeah, that's the rhyme. Trust me with your life, but not your money or your wife is another version of that. It's important to me to be the kind of man you can trust with your money and your wife. But this situation has broken my brain because I wasn't trying to do anything. It just sort of happened. And by the time I knew it, it was way too late. What do I do, Andy? I wanted to tell her husband immediately. She flipped out and I kept my mouth shut. I don't know what to do. And I feel like a piece of shit for hesitating. So there's a lot here. I am going to answer this question. We are going to go through it a little bit by bit. But I'm going to answer this as if you were a friend in my life. And I have had conversations like this with friends in my life who have either come to me and told me something like this was going on, or I found out something like this was going on. I actually approached them with it and I don't know if they were necessarily ready and I don't care. Because if you are actually my friend and you see me doing something like this and you do not come and talk to me about it, then perhaps you are not actually my friend. Because if you care about me and you seeing me go down a path that you don't believe that who I am as a person should be going down, then you should probably say something if you're actually my friend. So I will answer this. Like I said, as if you were in my social circle and as if we were having a conversation about this, the first thing I'll say is this. In recent history, this is the most thinly veiled bag of horseshit that I have seen for quite some time. Just about everything in this email is an excuse on your side. And I know you use words in here like, I don't want to hurt anybody, but I am culpable. I'm not 100% innocent. If that happens, I am wracked with guilt. Cool. I'm glad that you you're saying those things. However, it's not actually changing any of your behavior. And I don't really care what people say. I do listen to them when they talk. But. But when there is a divergence between speech and actions, I pay far more attention to the actions than I do the speech because that's the real person. If you want to tell me something, that's one thing. But then if I see you over time repeating behavior and it's in the opposite direction, hate to tell you, buddy, I am going to believe what you do. Why do you think you're wracked with guilt? It's a rhetorical question. It's because you're acting like a piece of. So let's go from the top. I have never touched this person, right. And I don't feel good about my role. We text a lot between the midnight and 0 400, which is 4am in the morning. Why are you texting? First off, anybody go to bed. But a married woman at 4am in the morning from midnight to 4am do you think that is above board by any stretch of the imagination? Do you think that her husband would be stoked to find out that this is happening by any stretch of the imagination? Sexual in nature. Right. So physically you haven't touched this person, but you guys are definitely in an emotional affair at this point. And I, you know, people can judge those. A physical affair, an emotional affair, however you want to split that out and put weight or gravitas into those. That's for the people that are in the relationship. But yeah, you're 100% involved in an affair at this point, which is 100% optional on your part. And this entire email is you trying to justify and find an excuse for a way to continue. And you shouldn't because if you're actually serious about what you said here, to be the kind of person that you can trust with your money and your wife or and let's go back to the initial sentences, you're a child of divorce caused by an affair and it changed the trajectory of your life. And you mentioned in here that. Let me see here. I am mortified of the idea I could put her children through a similar experience with my own actions. Okay, why do you keep taking them then? This entire email that you sent is a contradiction all over the place. I'm a childhood of divorce, it was caused by an affair, changed the trajectory of my life and I'm mortified that I could be doing that to her kids as well. But I'm not going to change my behavior because I, the writer of this email, where is it found that. You respect her husband, you want her to get what she wants. You feel like an accessory that she deserves. You have found a way to now step out of yourself and decide for somebody else what it is that they deserve. How amazing of you to be able to do that. And are we going to ignore the fact, the reality that you also benefit from this decision? I'm sure that that is not connected in any way, shape or form, right? It's just random happenstance that what you think somebody else deserves is also something that would benefit you in the current situation and something that you may want. Right? I'm sure those two things aren't connected. Like I said, this is all over the place. If you know as a person what one of your parents behavior, the impact that it had, and you are willing to try to talk your way through this minefield to justify your current behavior. I don't know what to say to you other than you are acting like a ferocious piece of shit and you need to change your behavior immediately. Everything in this email is bullshit and I don't know what you expected from me by sending it to me. But like I said, this is how I would talk to one of my friends. Okay? I can honestly say I was just being myself and I was just telling the truth. I respect her husband. Do you? How do you show that? How are you showing respect to anyone, let alone her husband with your current behavior and activities? Do me a favor and write me back and let me know how your actions, speech, thought process in any way, shape or form respects her husband. And then how about this, respects her yourself. Because it doesn't do either of Those things. I have not in any conscious way acted with malice toward him. Really? What would you call sexual nature? Texting between the hours of midnight and 4am with his wife? Do you think he's sleeping on the couch? She's probably telling you that he is right. He's probably telling you that perhaps that they are disconnected, that their relationship is falling apart, whatever it may be, where she can A, justify her actions, but B, maybe make you feel a little bit better about it. Guess what? That's probably not the reality. He is probably laying in bed next to her while you are texting with her. Stuff of a sexual nature between midnight and 4am that's not malicious. How would you feel if you were married to this woman? Let's fast forward this married to this woman and you wake up and you realize that she's on her phone texting another dude at that same time period, reversing the situation. Would you consider that to be malicious? Yeah, I think you would, right? But it's not to you because this is your situation. You absolutely have to remove your head from your asshole right now because your vision is horrible. Your optic on anything going on right now is completely consumed by what you want and only by what you desire. Even though you can choose the right words and say it's important to me to be the kind of man you can trust with your money and your wife. Okay, then why don't you start doing that? What's it going to take for you to actually start doing that? Because everything you have described is the exact opposite of that. You're not describing a trustful person. You're describing a snake that will pick the words that they want to to try to justify their behavior and push it off to somebody else. I'm just. She deserves me. I feel like it's an accessory that she deserves. I'm not doing this for me me. I'm doing it for her. Fuck off into the sunset with that. Right? Just take a giant step backwards and your own face with that mentality. All right, what else? It's broken my brain because I just wasn't trying to do anything. Really. Let's see. My language choices were casual, maybe sometimes provocative. I was not actively trying to get her to want me. But in retrospect, that's exactly what happened. Really? Just unconsciously, you had no idea that you might have been laying it on with this woman. You didn't realize that you were attracted to her, Right? You didn't realize that that was the end state. You don't think that informed your behavior at all. Please write me back and let me know how old you are, because this is the email that a 13 year old would send, not an adult. So I hope this isn't happening at, like, your first job at Chick Fil A. Nothing against Chick Fil A. And I don't know why I have that as an example, but I'd love to know how old you are and how many laps you have to gain. This robust inability to actually see how your actions, whether they be intentional or unintentional, in air quotes, have helped lead to this situation. I wanted to tell her husband immediately and she flipped out. Oh, why do you think that is? Yeah, because you are having an affair with this woman. Again, not physical, but certainly emotional. And also, if she has ever said to you, hey, our relation, you know, my husband and I's relationship is over. It's. We're completely detached. We're living separate lives. Has she's ever tried to diminish the relationship that she's had with her husband? Why would she flip out? Right? If she's ever told you that it's over or it's on its way to being over, why would she flip out? No, I get it. Right? You want to be able to control the narrative on your own terms. And maybe she's not ready, but if it was really over, Hmm, I wonder if it would be such a big deal. Why do you think the reaction is the way that it is? Because you're both lying to each other and you're both lying to yourselves. So I would say you're not someone you can trust with your money and your wife. I'd say you're a liar. And if you were my friend and you were in my social circle and you continued down this path and you didn't do something about this, that would be the end of you and I being friends and you being in my social circle. Because what you are highlighting and displaying is that you cannot be trusted. And once trust hits zero, once you hit zero in that bank account of trust capital, it's never coming back, buddy. Right? We all make mistakes. We all make macro mistakes and micro mistakes. So you're going to have withdrawals in that account, but you can put money back into it. You can put that capital back into it by, A, acknowledging your mistake, B, changing your behavior, C, stop lying to yourself and everybody that's around you. Be the actual person that you claim you want to be. I cannot believe your opening sentences and your inability to connect that your actions are 100% potentially going to impact the children of this woman in the same way that you were impacted. 50% of the population of Earth are women, dude. Find another one. Do you really think that this is the only person for you that you have to, with a sledgehammer, wedge your way into this environment and you'll say, oh, well, I'm not really doing that. I'm just being myself? It's her. Then fucking remove yourself from the situation, dude. You can't control somebody else, but you can 100% control yourself and your behavior and your thought and your actions and your intentions and none of that that is showing up in here. So stop being such a pussy and take accountability for your actions if you want to be a better man. Well, guess what? There's the template for you. You and only you can take the steps necessary for you to change this. And it starts with Bud cutting this woman off right now. If you don't do that, you can fuck right off, because everything that you just sent in is a total and complete lie. And that is exactly what I would tell you if you were sitting right here in front of me. I would have some more questions for sure. But again, this email is one of the most thinly veiled sacks of horseshit that I have seen in recent history. So I hope you're able to pull your head out of your ass. I hope that you don't ruin somebody else's family and children in the way that it impacted yourself earlier in your life and maybe even potentially led yourself to this point. You need to go find a professional to talk to so you can get a better understanding of how your actions could potentially do the same thing to somebody else because you're obviously unwilling or unable to recognize it. Otherwise you wouldn't put yourself into this situation, right? Don't say you're going to be about something, go be about it. Don't talk about wanting to be trustful. Start acting trustful. Stay away from this woman. Trust me, you got plenty to work on for yourself before you involve yourself in something like this. And that's all I have for this Friday.
- [58:19]
C
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with Podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.