#970 - Dr Mike Israetel - Exercise Scientist’s Masterclass On Motivation, Habits & Discipline

Summary

Podcast Summary: Modern Wisdom #970 - Dr. Mike Israetel: Exercise Scientist’s Masterclass On Motivation, Habits & Discipline

Release Date: July 21, 2025

Introduction

In episode #970 of the Modern Wisdom podcast, host Chris Williamson engages in an in-depth conversation with Dr. Mike Israetel, a renowned exercise scientist. The discussion delves into the intricate science behind willpower, motivation, habits, and discipline. Dr. Israetel shares his insights on how these psychological constructs influence personal success and offers practical strategies to optimize them for achieving fitness and life goals.

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1. The Popularity of Motivation and Habits Online

At the outset, Dr. Israetel highlights the significant interest in motivation, habits, and willpower on the Internet. He remarks:

"It's really awesome that so many people... seem to be interested in motivation and habits and willpower, because that tells me that people are doing two things. One, recognizing that they want success or to achieve some goals. And two, is recognizing that, like, their motivational structure is a potential limiting factor to that success." ([00:13])

Dr. Israetel emphasizes that understanding and improving one’s motivational framework is crucial for personal and professional success.

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2. The Complexity of Internal Constructs

The conversation transitions to the challenges of addressing internal factors like willpower and habits compared to tangible activities such as lifting weights. Dr. Israetel observes:

"When it comes to internal stuff, willpower, habits, discipline. Because you can't see it, because it feels it's inbuilt in a way. It feels like it's part of your sense of self." ([04:10])

He argues that many people view these internal constructs as immutable parts of their identity, which limits their potential for growth and improvement.

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3. Simplifying Decision-Making

Dr. Israetel introduces a fundamental framework for decision-making by categorizing actions into two primary groups:

1. Things you feel like doing now
2. Things you don't feel like doing now

He further breaks down these categories to simplify decision-making processes. For instance, when considering activities one wants to do, questions like "Is it a good idea to do?" and "Does this activity harm my future self?" are posed to determine their worthiness.

"The first simplification we can make today is of all of the things you could be doing in this next very moment. They fall into basically only two categories: shit that you feel like doing and shit you don't feel like doing." ([05:00])

This method aids in prioritizing actions that align with long-term goals over immediate desires.

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4. The Role of Inspiration

The discussion shifts to the concept of inspiration, distinguishing it from sustained motivation. Dr. Israetel describes inspiration as:

"That gets you going. A little squirt of juice in your thigh. ... It could be negative in the sense if you're like, this, I need to do something about this -- anything that you can use to push yourself into this process." ([18:03])

He emphasizes that while inspiration serves as an initial catalyst to start an action, it is ephemeral and not sufficient for maintaining long-term commitment.

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5. Transitioning from Inspiration to Motivation

Dr. Israetel outlines the necessity of moving beyond fleeting inspiration to cultivate enduring motivation. He explains:

"Inspiration is essential to getting kicking you in the ass. But it's just one kick in the ass and then you're out the door. And then the next question is, what? What now?" ([20:56])

He argues that motivation, driven by specific and attainable goals, sustains the effort required to achieve long-term objectives.

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6. Defining and Setting Realistic Goals

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the importance of setting specific, measurable, and realistic goals. Dr. Israetel advises against vague objectives like "getting in shape" and instead recommends concrete targets such as:

"I would like to lose 10 pounds by March. 10 pounds, you know what that is? I want to weigh 220 pounds by March." ([43:32])

This specificity facilitates easier tracking of progress and fosters a sense of accomplishment upon achieving the goals.

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7. Linking Goals to Emotion and Identity

Dr. Israetel underscores the importance of connecting goals to deeply felt emotions and personal identity. He states:

"If you anchor your habits into an ethereal 'I have to do this' shake... you can make change occur in your life." ([97:02])

By embedding goals within one's sense of self, individuals are more likely to remain committed and resilient in the face of challenges.

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8. Building and Maintaining Habits

The conversation delves into the mechanics of habit formation and maintenance. Dr. Israetel highlights common pitfalls such as excessive rigidity and setting unrealistic habits. He recommends:

• Flexibility: Allowing room for adjustments when circumstances change.

"One mistake is excessive rigidity. I must run at 7am every morning. Okay, what if your boss says you have a meeting that day starts at 6:30?" ([78:15])

• Realistic Habit Setting: Starting with manageable habits to build a solid foundation.

"Start with one or two things that just aren't that difficult as far as goals and as far as habits." ([84:05])

By ensuring habits are sustainable and adaptable, individuals can avoid the "win or lose" mentality that often leads to setbacks.

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9. The Interplay Between Action and Motivation

Dr. Israetel explores the feedback loop between taking action and sustaining motivation. He explains that:

"Action increased motivation and then that kind of became this sort of self-referential cycle." ([51:35])

Executing actions towards a goal reinforces the desire to continue, creating a positive reinforcement loop essential for long-term adherence.

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10. The Critical Role of Discipline

When motivation wanes, discipline comes into play as the force that bridges the gap between intention and action. Dr. Israetel elaborates:

"Discipline is when you take the battery of willpower and you squirt that extra juice to make up the difference." ([58:19])

He notes that while motivation fluctuates, discipline provides the necessary consistency to maintain progress even during low-motivation periods.

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11. Avoiding Common Mistakes in Habit Formation

Dr. Israetel advises on key strategies to prevent common mistakes when establishing new habits:

• Avoid All-or-Nothing Mentality:

"Don't let missing one habit make you feel like a failure. Just do your normal routine the next day." ([79:19])

• Set Realistic and Limited Habits:

"Don't overrun your life with 50 habits. Instead, focus on a few key habits that reinforce your main goals." ([82:52])

• Sequence Habit Building:

"Start lifting, then add dietary habits once lifting becomes seamless." ([86:13])

These strategies ensure that habit formation is manageable and sustainable, reducing the likelihood of burnout and abandonment.

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12. Balancing Work and Rest

A poignant part of the dialogue addresses the often-overlooked necessity of rest. Dr. Israetel critiques the glorification of relentless productivity, advocating for:

• Planned Rest: Incorporating intentional rest periods to recover and sustain long-term performance.

"Rest is as important as a good work ethic. It’s crucial for maintaining your capacity to deploy power." ([12:23])

• Avoiding Overwork: Recognizing the signs of burnout and adjusting workloads accordingly.

"If you keep pushing yourself without allowing recovery, you'll deplete your willpower reserves." ([107:32])

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13. Leveraging Technology and AI for Personal Development

Towards the end, Dr. Israetel speculates on the future integration of AI in personal development. He envisions:

"Your personal AI... is going to be a life coach in your pocket, holding you accountable and helping you navigate your goals." ([95:07])

This futuristic perspective suggests that AI could play a significant role in reinforcing habits, tracking progress, and providing personalized motivational feedback.

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14. Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Throughout the episode, Dr. Mike Israetel provides actionable insights into cultivating motivation, forming sustainable habits, and maintaining discipline. Key takeaways include:

• Set Specific and Achievable Goals: Clear objectives enhance focus and tracking.

• Differentiate Between Inspiration and Motivation: Use inspiration to initiate action and motivation to sustain it.

• Build Flexible and Realistic Habits: Ensure habits are adaptable to prevent burnout and maintain consistency.

• Prioritize Rest and Recovery: Balance productivity with intentional rest to sustain long-term performance.

• Leverage Technology Thoughtfully: Utilize tools like AI to support personal development without becoming overly reliant.

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Notable Quotes

• “Habit is dope, but if you let them get too extreme, you're going to be like, okay, what happens after I have a cheat meal? Nothing. I've done this with a shitload of clients.” ([79:19])

• “Inspiration is essential to getting kicking you in the ass. But it's just one kick in the ass and then you're out the door.” ([20:56])

• “Discipline is when you take the battery of willpower and you squirt that extra juice to make up the difference.” ([58:19])

• “Your personal AI... is going to be a life coach in your pocket, holding you accountable and helping you navigate your goals.” ([95:07])

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Final Thoughts

Episode #970 offers a comprehensive exploration of the psychological aspects of fitness and personal development. Dr. Mike Israetel’s expertise provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of how to harness motivation, develop enduring habits, and apply discipline effectively. By emphasizing practicality and sustainability, this masterclass serves as a valuable guide for anyone striving to enhance their personal and professional lives.

Transcript

[A]

I wanted to talk about the science of willpower, habits, motivation, some of the buzziest of topics at the moment. Why do you think this is such a popular area of discussion for people on the Internet?

[B]

You know, I'm really happy that it's a popular area of discussion on the Internet. The Internet has plenty of stuff on there that was kind of just junk. Most of my stuff, for example, what am I really mostly about Vanity. You know, that sucks. But it's really awesome that so many people, at least by search volume, seem to be interested in motivation and habits and willpower, because that tells me that people are doing two things. One, recognizing that they want success or to achieve some goals. And two, is recognizing that, like, their motivational structure is a potential limiting factor to that success. And so if you're like, okay, things in the outside world are important and I'm going to try to architect myself to be better at them, man. Like, it really is a great thing and really does set you up for a significant amount of more success than you would if you never asked the question of like, how do. How do I get maximum motivated? And just kind of assumed that you were like, whatever motivation level you have, that's just kind of what you're. You're doing. Like, it's kind of default. I had a situation today. I was earlier, I was working on my next book. Yes. It's an adult. Adult novel. Yeah.

[A]

Can I be on the COVID It's.

[B]

A gay adult novel.

[A]

I'm on the COVID Yeah.

[B]

I, I thought your people already signed it. There's two clones of you on the COVID And they can love. Love. I don't mean lust. I mean love, Chris. And you can, you can feel the love. Anyway, I digress. Yeah, so I was writing and it took me like, like a minute or two to really get in the groove. And during a few times, during that one specific time, during that minute or two, I was like, oh, my stupid brain. Like, get focused already. Like, what's wrong with me? I have super bad attention def disorder. I suck. And then I was like, oh, wait, wait. Like, first of all, that was dumb because it was just a matter of getting in a flow state. It's always rocky to first. But second of all, now I'm thinking about it like, okay, there's ways to improve your attention span. And if I just said, well, this is my limitation and this is just who I am. Okay, fine, I'll get some stuff done. But if I ask the next question of like, okay, I know that my ability to focus is a limiting factor in my success, so is my motivation, et cetera. How can I attend to those factors and do at least two things? One, kind of understand the world of those factors to at least kind of speak the language, which is something we're gonna figure out how to do today. And two, take what I need from that and try really junior league implementing it in my life. And then if I do that, hey, maybe I'll have some more success. Then I can come back, refine the process and do better things.

[A]

It's interesting that nobody, very few people would say, well, this is the deadlift that I have. This deadlift that I have.

[B]

It's my deadlift.

[A]

It's kind of a part of my sense of self, you know, it's very closely tied. I had this when I started working with addiction coach. Addiction coach on.

[B]

Oh, I thought he was going to be on some other what for, bro? You're like, what not for, man. Austin rips you off slinging it.

[A]

When I started working with my speech coach, Miles, so my friend said, well, dude, you're gonna lose the way that you speak. You know, the way, you know, what about. What about your natural speaking cadence?

[B]

I thought, well, it's an addiction coach that's got to be like nails on a chalkboard level of.

[A]

I imagine so. Because in. In his opinion, and in my opinion, too, there are more and less precise ways to make words come out of your face in the same way as you saying, hey, you're a saxophone player or a singer and you've started working with a teacher. But what about your natural way? It's like, my natural way of playing the saxophone fucking sucks. Like, that's why we practice the natural way that I deadlift this just the bar or this bar plus £5 on either side. But for some reason, I think when it comes to internal stuff, willpower, habits, discipline. Because you can't see it, because it feels it's inbuilt in a way. It feels like it's part of your sense of self. And I think that that limits maybe people's understanding of how much they can move that and lift the ceiling.

[B]

Yeah, it must for many people. I think it does. But I think more and more people at least see thumbnails and titles on YouTube. That's like, you know, five CEO hacks to boost your motivation. Now, in parentheses, science explained.

[A]

You're like, manifest your destiny.

[B]

Yes, that's right. Huberman clips. But it's not a Huberman clips channel. It's just also in the title. Enough of that. And you're like, all right, color me a chump. Is there anything actually to this? You know, if a lot of those videos, you're like, this is just trite, cliches restated. It's like the Entrepreneur Instagram page. If you ever been on that page. Total satire. Love that page. It's like, this is real life, this. But then a lot of the stuff is like, huh, that actually makes a lot of sense, but how do I actually use it in my life? And it's funny enough because the habit of using that stuff is part of.

[A]

This whole discussion in and of itself. Okay, there's two things you can be doing with your time. Stuff that you want to be doing right now, things you feel like doing, and stuff that you don't want to you don't feel like doing right now.

[B]

This sounds like elementary education, kindergarten type of shit. But I got to tell you, Chris, there is a lot of stuff that us Internet guru people end up saying that sounds remarkably kindergarten. Like, because many of us, ourselves included me, you, all the other talking heads are coming to realize pretty regularly that focusing on very basic rudimentary understandings and eliminating mistakes from those understandings can build a foundation for real deep insight that in retrospect seems obvious as fuck, but prospectively may seem confused. And so I love doing things like splitting up every decision you could choose to make into just two things. And it seems dumb, but also you, like, think through it a little bit more, and we'll talk through it a little bit more, and it's like, oh, all right, all right. Well, that actually simplifies things considerably, because one thing I really love and hate is when especially experts say things like, well, it's complicated. Well, it's nuanced. Oh, I understand that. But you got a PhD in the right, so why don't you tell me how it's complicated and nuanced? And a lot of times they will, but some of the times it's a deflection tactic to see everything. So it's so things can be simplified. It is possible to simplify things. And the first simplification we can make today is of all of the things you could be doing in this next very moment. They fall into basically only two categories, shit that you feel like doing and shit you don't feel like doing. And then those categories can further be subdivided into just a few other categories to really simplify it. So if the shit you feel like doing, you can ask the question of is it a good idea to do? It would just have like a few points of a checklist to fill out to see if it's yes or no. One thing is like, do I have anything pressing that I need to be doing right now? Need to be doing right now? Let's say the answer is no. Okay? Does this thing that I want to do hurt me and my future self in any way? Like, I want to. I want to do crack right now. Give me a rock, Chris. That's not good for me. It's going to be bad. Is it going to hurt someone else? No. Okay, fine. So if it some, I don't mean to be doing anything else. The thing I'm going to be doing doesn't hurt me in any way in the future and it's not going to hurt anyone else. I can probably do the thing, no problem. Then if you look at the universe of things that you have to be doing that okay, I don't want to do this. The real question is, okay, is there a compelling reason that doing this thing you don't want to do improves future outcomes for future you? If the answer is no, well, then, no. Like, gangsters ride up and they're like, hey, get in with us, we're going to go do a shooting. Or whatever. Gangsters say like, well, gee whiz, that sounds dangerous and socially responsible. So you just say, no thanks, fellas, but hey, pass to vein to you. Oh boy. And then you just don't get in the car because it's, you know, future you doesn't want to live in jail or shot to death. But if the thing you don't want to do is a thing that substantially enhances your future outcomes, you might want to consider doing that thing, even though you don't want to do that thing. Now, the ultimate situation here in this whole construct of motivation, inspiration, all that is setting up a better world for yourself in the future. Because, like, I live, I'm living pretty goddamn good right now, if I say so myself. And almost none of it has to do with shit I'm doing right now. And sometimes that confuses my brain. I'll be sitting on Sunday and I'm high on edible marijuana and I'm just scrolling through the TV and I Jew brain is like, you're a piece of shit. You're useless. You don't deserve any of these things that you have, like a house and a TV and time to scroll and even edible marijuana, which you paid for with your own money, I might add, you degenerate drug addict. And then I'm like, how the hell Do I have all this stuff? It's because I did shit earlier that didn't pay off at the time, it paid off later. So with that whole decision tree I just described, you can really easily choose if you're gonna just do shit you like right now or if you're gonna do some shit now that you're not a big fan of right now. But future you is gonna be like, bro, he's gonna open up the fucking time portal. He's gonna push a fist through that shit and he's gonna be like, blast that shit, big homie. And you're gonna do this because you hooked up. Future you, future you is your biggest ally, period. Past you is completely dead, by the way. Future you is go. And you're going to want to be a future you that you look back at as many points as possible in future you world to be like, damn, dude, old me set the shit up good.

[A]

Yeah. Gwinda Bogle says your future self is watching you through your memories. Whether it's with pride or regret depends on what you do now.

[B]

Or in my case, with like a physical skeeved out, like, ooh, I'm still with this guy.

[A]

Jack Butcher. It's a beautiful day to remember that the second order effect of what you are doing now will arrive much later.

[B]

So that is fire quote. But however, I will say this, and you can probably agree to this, Chris, because you and I are in our later years now. A vintage, vintage, vintage Chris Williamson. Much later. Sure. Shit feels like it arrives really goddamn soon, huh?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And this is something that if you deeply understand it, even believe on a surface level, can really help you as a revelation. The younger you can accept that reality, the better. Like tomorrow you is someone you really want to have, like, their back. Short of like, you're 95, you have a terminal prostate cancer diagnosis. At that point, if it's not hookers or alcohol coming into my room, there's a Do not enter sign. But up until that point, I kind of want to reserve at least some fertile ground for the future. And when you're younger and when you're in your middle age and you're really building something, you might even consider that if I do a lot of stuff that I don't particularly want to do right now all the time, and I do that now and I plow away for a while, I might end up in a world later where future me has just got it God damn easy and the living is good. And then future you is going to be like, dude, past me up and then if you're like me, you're like, oh, there's still another future me in the future. Future better work even harder.

[A]

How do you avoid too much delayed gratification?

[B]

I have no idea. You got the wrong guy in this chair, Chris. Holy. I'm a goddamn poster child for not even knowing my meaning. Short of working on mega projects, man. I have no.

[A]

That's why you're the person too. But also, you like a Sunday where you can relax. And the last time that we spoke, one of the absolute fucking sleeper episode that everyone should go back and look at was the importance of a good rest ethic, not the importance of a good work ethic.

[B]

You and I really got onto something.

[A]

That was fucking money, dude. It was so good. And I'm just wondering because this feels like actually quite a nice graduation from that conversation, which was, hey, your capacity to deploy power is in many ways kind of proportional to your capacity to let go of it. And that a good rest ethic is as important as a good work ethic. And certainly some people. I am one of these people. I don't have a nervous system that's built for endurance. Anything not running, not working, I'm not built for that. Right? Okay. I'm built for, like, good short bursts of power, as any sexual partner of mine knows, and then a big refractory.

[B]

Period and a lot of cigarette smoke and disappointment.

[A]

Yeah, my Coolidge effect is fucking massive. But this feels like the next little sort of twist on that. It's like, right, okay, you want to achieve things in your life. You're going to presumably, hopefully be here for a good amount of time. You have this sense of investment for the future. You've kind of hinted toward regret minimization frameworks a little bit here.

[B]

That's a comedic way to put it, Chris. It's totally true. I don't like to put it like that because running away from bad things is a typically not great success strategy in general. I can tell you why it's interesting, like, if you can even model it mathematically. So running away from bad things, it means that the further away you get from the bad thing, the more your motivation to keep going dissipates because you're further away from the shit. Like you get really close to a crocodile, you're gonna have a lot of motivation to get away. He's 200 meters away from me. You're like, whatever, he's not gonna fuck him. These things are lazy. They're barely even alive. Fuck em, right? But if there is something you want that's positive that you're going towards. The closer you get to it, the more psychotic your drive for it becomes. The more of it you get, the more of it you want. And I would say that, yeah, regret minimization is a valid. Regrets aren't fun. I have plenty of them. But, like, it's also pointless. Most psychologists will tell you, like, mulling over your regret is like a good way to just become depressed for no good reason, by the way. Like, at least wait for a relative to die or some shit like that. Don't just make yourself depressed. What you want to do a little better maybe, is to think of, how do I build fantastic, fantastic things and an amazing life later on for myself? And so when later you are in the amazing life, you don't have to have any discordance about, well, how did I deserve this? Or is this really real? Is this going to happen? Or. Or you don't have to be in a place where you don't have an amazing life and think, well, how can I get it? You always knew the answer to that. It was delaying your gratification, not for the purpose of some kind of monk shit, but just to do the combination of things that maybe you didn't want to do it right now, but also is very useful for your future self.

[A]

Okay, how can you make what you're doing feel like right now? Like what you don't feel like doing right now? A more seamless process.

[B]

That's the biggest question, because there are a variety of answers to how do I get myself to do the thing I don't want to do that's important for me in the long term, that are false starts, bad ideas.

[A]

Okay, yeah, let's get. Let's start with those.

[B]

Oh, yeah, sure. Grit, willpower, discipline. If they're the first things you're talking about, you just. You're talking about very important, very functional things at the very wrongest point in the hierarchy. It's like going on a first date with a girl and being like, all right, so, like a lot of forward and back, right? Grunting, that sort of thing. She's like, the. Are you talking about. You're like, we're going to have sex later, right? She's like, what? I guess maybe not the time. You got to weave into that shit. And so if you're looking at this from a sequential perspective of, like, how do I approach a task? Set of tasks, a whole hierarchy of tasks from the perspective of, I'm not really cheesed on doing this right now, but it needs to get done and I want to do it as well as I can and thus as seamlessly as possible. The first thing you probably want to go to is not any of those things, the things that'll come in handy later, but it's much more of an emergency switch rather than the thing that drives you. People say like, I'm driven by discipline. That's categorical nonsense. That's actually impossible. You have to be driven by something. And so the first construct that's very helpful and it's also a very short lived one, is called inspiration. Inspiration. Real simple to define. It's the thing that gets you going. A little squirt of juice in your thigh. In my case, literal steroids, of course. And that's the inspiration. So next. Now, I'm kidding. Inspiration is a thing that can be either positive or negative. And it jolts you into deciding to take action on this thing that you might not have wanted to do, but now you're more keen on doing. So. For example, you go out on a date and you're talking to the girl and you're like, yeah, I'm like into fitness or whatever. And she does one of these. She's like, oh, okay. And you're like, ooh, wow. You don't say anything at a time. You play it off, you know, whatever your score, you're the man. But later you're like, ah, I do not look fit to the untrained eye. You look in the mirror and you're like, oh, I really let myself go. Yeah, that's negative. Inspirational moment for you to be like, tomorrow I'm like, I'm joining an Austin running club so I can get laid. Isn't that what those things are for?

[A]

Correct. Yeah. Thinly veiled dating organization.

[B]

I love it. Yeah. By the way, the, the Whole Foods here is like a drip show, basically.

[A]

Yeah. Yoga pants. Yoga pants are the really, the technology. We talked before we got started about AI progression and all the rest of it. I want to know about the technology that's going into fucking yoga pants and leggings. Full stop thong line, butt scrunch thing. You've managed to make two ass cheeks out of a single ass through clothing. Yeah, it's kind of magic.

[B]

Yeah. I just see like 1950s 60s marketing people be like, betsy, do you have an ass? She's like, well, well, no, I. No, I don't, Robert. Not anymore. See, you have two asses for us. Well, then you design four asses. But why do I need four ass? For a while, just you'll find out. See, they always come in handy later.

[A]

Smoking five cigarettes.

[B]

Indoor cigarette smoking is goated. Yeah, nothing. The only thing better than smoking in an office while rampant sexual harassment occurs right in front of you is smoking in a doctor's office when you're the doctor. Ideally seeing a pregnant woman who's late term, you know, the ultimate and her 50s. Had it figured out anyway. Inspiration. So it could be negative in the sense if you're like this, I need to do something about this money inspiration. You know, like you want to take a girl out and you just don't have the money to go to where she wants to go. You're like, oh, whatever. Any. Any of those all comes back to girls and dating.

[A]

Right? Whatever.

[B]

Anything that's a little bit twinge of negative that you can use to push yourself into this process which you logically have deduced is a good idea anyway. Getting in shape's a good idea. Everyone knows that.

[A]

And just on one point there, maybe you wanted to go and play Frisbee in the park with your friends and you notice like after seven minutes, I can't do this thing anymore. I wanted this thing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And something had got in the way of that. It seems to me, at least so far, that inspiration is kind of like flat, like epiphany moment flash.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

A sense of something. Right. Okay.

[B]

It's exactly what it is.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then there was the positive version, of course, which is often better and really awesome to feel. And that's usually something like a can do attitude. Like you go and you watch. You've been delaying your working out and one of your friends takes you to like basketball league where it's like disabled, wheelchair bound children playing basketball. They have that and you're like, these kids are trying, bro. I'm about to start crying watching these little man. They're trying their asses off. They don't even have any legs. What the hell am I doing not going to the gym? I can do this shit. I am vibing off that. I want a million of that. Let's go. There's 50 other ways to say incredibly inspirational things. See? Incredibly inspirational things. I mean, there's always that one lady at the gym that's like really overweight. It's just covered in sweat. Huffing and puffing her ass off, you know?

[A]

Does it.

[B]

Damn, Betty, get that shit.

[A]

The Golds that you went to maybe the last time you were here. The to the most strip mall boilerplate, nice big Gold's Gym that everyone that's listening to this Will have been some version of. And there's a gentleman in there who must be in his probably mid-70s. He's maybe 260 pounds, maybe 280 pounds. It's like it's gravity's really fucking hitting on it. And he's got his walking stick and he does laps of that little sort of running track he's walking. And he'll get onto the machines. And every time that I see him, I'm way more fucking pumped.

[B]

Yeah, man.

[A]

To see him get after it than I am, you know, millennial. 190 pound, single digit body fat guy number five that I see on the morning. Yeah, and that's. You're right, that's a. An odd form of inspiration. Because I think a lot of the time when we think about inspiration, we think about aspiration as well. Like, aha. Upward aiming.

[B]

That counts also.

[A]

That's a thing I want. I want that in me. That's a trait that I want to imbibe in me. But also, actually that's a lie because that is also I'm seeing a trait that I want. It just happens to be in a person that is kind of like orthogonal.

[B]

Has the audacity to display that trait, which means that trait's really strong. Because if you're like jacked guy, how much motivation do you need? You don't need any inspiration. You just show up and you do your thing because you always look great. You're rolling down now. If you're rolling uphill like crazy, oh man, I'm vibe with that. But also, scrolling through social media and seeing beautiful physiques, seeing amazing meals put together by fit people who are eating them, is also really good inspiration. So inspiration is critical because if nothing inspires you to do something about what it is, whatever you want to do, it is maybe like definitionally impossible for you to do it. Or if we grant some leeway there, highly unlikely. Like, almost no one. How many people have you started, you've ever talked to who really got into working out and really changed their shape? And you were like, what? What got you into it? And they were like, oh, just like a random hobby I picked up and I just started doing it. Come on.

[A]

That almost usually something deeper than that. I wanted something strong. I wanted to feel powerful. I was bullied in school. I felt whatever, whatever, whatever.

[B]

You can usually weave that back to one specific event, one specific Instagram picture, one specific phone call, text, whatever. It was seeing a wheelchair kid play basketball. They were like, I saw that shit. And I was in the Gym the.

[A]

Next day before we continue. You've probably heard of hydrogen water, but most people don't know why it matters. So here's the short version. Molecular hydrogen helps your cells recover, fights stress, supports energy and improves how your body repairs itself. And the Echo Flask is the best way to get it. It adds high levels of hydrogen directly into your water. No tablets, no gimmicks, just a clean, portable system that is built with FDA approved materials. I am in love with this thing. It's with me everywhere that I go and I've noticed real improvements in my energy and my recovery. And that's why it is backed by over 1500 studies and trusted by 100,000 customers, including the Rock, Cristiano Ronaldo and Joe Rogan. Best of all, it comes with a 60 day money back guarantee, so you can buy it and drink out of it for two months. If you don't like it, they'll give you your money back. Plus, they ship internationally. Right now you can get 10% off the Echo Flask by going to the link in the description below or heading to echowater.com ModernWisdom using the code ModernWisdom a checkout. That's echo water.com ModernWisdom and Modern Wisdom A checkout. How do you think inspiration, this, you know, the ephemeral muse coming down and bestowing on you. This, this sense of, ah, the skies opened and it was then I knew I was going to get single digit body fat. Do you have a strategy or how do you think about trying to bring more inspiration into your life? Is that something that can be done? Can you, can you seek inspiration in that way?

[B]

That is a great question, Chris. I have never managed to do a lot of that myself. Precisely because inspiration is so underpowered compared to the other multiple constructs in this sequence of how to get shit done you don't want to do. But there are absolutely ways of cultivating it. Great question. One, figure out who in your life is toxic as and interact with them less. They're probably demotivating.

[A]

That's a break on the 100. Yep, yep, yep.

[B]

Another one is if there are people that you're around that you just feel inspired to do your best with when you're around them, that's who you want to be hanging out with. That identical rule, unchanged maps. Exactly. Onto all of your social media, down to the YouTube videos in your algorithm. You want shit in your algorithm that you look at and you're like, this fucks. I like the way this makes me feel.

[A]

That's it. That's it there. So post content clarity is the best way.

[B]

Post not clarity.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Just a lot of the things that we consume on the Internet, given that people spend more time in the virtual world than they do in the real world now BY maybe like 60%, I think, on average. And if that's where you're spending most of your time, you can be captured your limbics, all of the different ways that we people get clickbaited into watching whatever. You need to be very careful because you will watch the thing that's most compelling to you at the time. And the question you need to ask yourself is, how did that make me feel after I finished watching it? Yeah, I watch one of your videos and I think, fuck. Like I. Like I learned, I learned something about, you know, whatever. Whatever this thing is that Mike was talking about that that's really interesting. Like I've left like I feel regulated and then there's other channel. You know. Piers Morgan is an interesting fella and I respect very much what he does and I've had fun on his show. I don't leave watching one of his videos typically, unless I'm on it, feeling very regulated. You know, I leave feeling like I step outside of the door and I look out. Yeah. I look around and I don't want to call my mum. I don't want to tell my friends I miss them. I'm not this. Colors don't seem quite as bright, you know, just that it's this sort of this low level agitation.

[B]

Oh yes.

[A]

And I think when you're faced with a question that's difficult, especially for something that's like messy and like sort of meandering and ephemeral, like inspiration, you went to the exact right place, which is. It's kind of tough to engineer that. Although I think I've maybe got one or two strategies. But one thing that you certainly can do is invert it. How would I give myself as little inspiration to do the things to make my life move in the direction that I want? How do I do that? Yes.

[B]

Yeah, 100%. And so you can also leverage inspiration with music, movies, etc. Just general media consumption. Music can be incredibly inspirational because it. Music does chemically what inspiration does by some other vector. But like instead of processing an image with your eyes and go, I want to look like that. The right crescendo in a song gives you that feeling of let's fucking go. That is literally the feeling of inspiration. So music's a big deal. The thing is, is that you listen to a song, you get the feeling, sweet feeling goes away after the song's over. Maybe a few minutes later, you look at a bodybuilder, you really want to look like cool. I want to do something. Goes away minutes later. 1. Every time I spoke about this topic, I've used the analogy. If you go to watch like one of the new Rocky movies, you know the one with. What's his name, that nice fella? Michael B. Jordan.

[A]

Diplomatic way to describe Michael B. Jordan. The nice fella.

[B]

He's a nice guy. He's not a nice guy.

[A]

I think he is.

[B]

Yeah. You know when he's like beating the out of white people, which is sweet.

[A]

Because they need it. We all need it.

[B]

If I was black, I would have watched Rocky. Offended nobody. Beating a fucking black man a box the fuck about of here. White people. You must be crazy. Show me some realistic shit. I want to see a black man start undefeated and fucking end undefeated. Jon Jones, God damn it, that's my hero. In any case, I'm watching a fucking Rocky movie with appropriately black people winning at boxing. And I feel as. And I come out of the theater swinging. The police get involved, obviously. And the next morning I'm not gonna sign up for a boxing gym. Maybe, but unlikely. So the one thing we have to notice about inspiration is that inspiration is two things. Cheap, which is nice. It's insanely over. Not overproduced, insanely produced. If you want to get inspired, this is. Go to any Fitness. Anything on YouTube is an inspirational inspiration. Enter into YouTube search. You'll just be on there for forever. But it just doesn't. It's like it goes bloop. Like that. It's like a hit of cocaine at the club. You feel great for however long cocaine lasts. And then afterwards you're like, I need more cocaine.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so inspiration is essential to getting kicking you in the ass. But it's just one kick in the ass and then you're out the door. And then the next question is, what? What now? Because a lot of people over index on inspiration. They want to know, how do I get inspired to go to the gym? But I absolutely tell you like 500 things that'll get you inspired to go to the gym. I can give you a nice little off the cuff speech right now about why you should do it. It's going to get you to go to the G once. It is not going to get you to go to the gym for a month straight. Sure. Not going to get you to go to the gym for 12 months straight, which is like a real transformation amount of time. So the next question we have to ask. Okay, Inspiration does its thing. Inspiration is best seen as like an initial booster rocket. It's not even getting you out of.

[A]

Orbit, just maybe a couple of inches off the launch pad. So one, I think you did actually our first big episode at the start of last year. Your when you're sick and tired of feeling like shit, you go to the gym. I'll see you there. That I think probably did cause a bunch of people to go like, yeah, that. Fuck me. That went crazy. But a couple of. Or at least one thing that for me typically gives me types of inspiration, gives me boosts of inspiration that seem to be step changes, even if they're not long lasting, is doing new things, doing things that are different. Because I think if you continue to expose yourself to the same routine, which everybody likes, it's important. You need to have some sort of set structure to your day and your week and your month and stuff. Because if it's too chaotic, it's very hard to kind of repeat anything sufficient times to get good at doing anything and to lock in habits, which we'll talk about. But when I say yes to going and trying an improv class, when I say yes to going to a random jazz bar, when I say yes to going and watching a movie that I wouldn't have done, typically you're going on a road trip with a bunch of friends. Maybe I know, like two of the friends or whatever. I'm learning to drift a car. This Saturday or this Sunday. I'm learning Alpha, dude. I'm learning to drift.

[B]

My wife's Asian. Does that mean I already know how.

[A]

To drift a car simply through osmosis?

[B]

Yeah, for long enough. Oh, I've had a lot of that.

[A]

Probably Tokyo Drift. You could call that your sex tape. Tokyo drift.

[B]

That is already out. It was not a long ride, Chris.

[A]

And it's an interesting one for me, and especially more interesting as I get a little bit older. Openness to experience seems to decline a little bit as you get older. As a personality trait, I think you think you know who you are, what the world has to offer. If you've never been to an Italian restaurant, you have no idea about what a good or bad Italian restaurant is. And then when you step into one, you go, huh, that was the best and the worst Italian restaurant I've ever been into. It was the most inspirational and least inspirational Italian restaurant I've ever been. Definitely the most Italian and least at the same Time. Yeah. And then you go, okay, well, I go to the second one. And then you start to rank order stuff. And after a while you have a big enough data set that you think, well, I've tried quite a few Italian restaurants, and I think that the one that I like is going to be very difficult to beat, which by design, makes it. Well, if I roll the dice and I go somewhere new, the likelihood that this is better than the best or even close to the best becomes less and less and less, Right? And then I need a higher level of evidence. Dude, you have to go here. The reviews are insane. Look at the line out the door, et cetera, et cetera. But for me, reminding myself that when I say yes to doing new things, last summer I went to Bozeman, Montana, and Big Sky Montana, and I got to see professional bull riding three times. PBR events three times. I'd never been to one before in my life. And I was blown away. These guys are like fucking like tiny, brave Brazilian dudes. No fucking helmet, like swagger. Everything was cool. A guy jumped out of a helicopter while a cherub 12 year old sang the national anthem flying a flag behind him and landed in the middle of. I'm like, this is fucking sick. That's inspiration.

[B]

Very American.

[A]

But had I have not decided to say yes to going to the pbr, I wouldn't have got to see that. Yeah. So, in short, I think that saying yes to new experiences and trying to seek out things that are markedly different, like, genuinely orthogonal to the existing experiences you've had, sure, you may roll the dice and it. You may hate improv, but even when you hate it, that might be a thing where you go, that's some negative fucking inspiration shit. I don't want to be like any of these improv motherfuckers, you know, like, pretending that they're in a pub in England throwing darts at the board and saying like, oh, I've now, well, what do you want tonight, sir? So for me, that's at least one way that I think you can kind of artificially inseminate a little bit more inspiration into your life.

[B]

And I'm never going to argue against insemination, Chris. I gotta be honest, man, I'm doing a lot of vicarious living through your actually active and exploratory life. I'm for sure in a part of my life where I think I'm really missing out. Crystal and I, my wife, we've had a few years of just grinding our shit to the bone, working, and then a few months of like we got both got surgery, recovering from surgery. You just can't go anywhere really. And so we're kind of big time cabin fevered out of our minds. And the idea that like going out and experiencing novelty is a good thing to me right now resonates like crazy.

[A]

Because it's the thing that you can't do. But then when it's the thing that you know when you're in wedding season or whatever, when the back's fine and you can. You have to put a suit on and whatever it might be.

[B]

Fuck.

[A]

Oh my God. Like another fucking wedding.

[B]

It takes you overboard because like another wedding is a big deal after the ninth one of the season. I love fucking weddings, man. I have a whole. If you ever see me at a wedding. Anyone listening? You ever see me at a wedding, first of all, come up and say hi. Second of all, I have like a protocol.

[A]

Okay, I want to hear this. I can't believe you've optimized attending weddings.

[B]

Oh yeah, well, it's like that the brain tries to optimize everything. So I always. I'm people watching 1000% of the time because there's so much good stuff. Who secretly fucking hates who through body language. Amazing. So much culture there two families of radically different ethnicity and culture brought together money. It's just like watching a physics chemical reaction. And then my wife and I, we do not ever, ever, ever fuck around with hors d'. Oeuvres. Hors d' oeuvres are serious business. And. And you gotta catch the waiter hors d' oeuvres people as they come out. So number one, number one, understand where the hors d' oeuvres are. That they are is hors d' oeuvres time right now.

[A]

Okay? So you want to look at the spawn point of where the hors d' oeuvres are coming from.

[B]

That's number two. First is knowing hors d' oeuvres are important. You need to be on your fucking p', eyes up, 10 toes down. You know like when you see army movies and the guy's like asleep at the. The like get. Wake. Wake him up. Hors d' oeuvres are coming, you idiot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then two, they're not coming randomly. They don't instantiate quantum, like wherever people bring them out. Friendly people, people you want to make eye contact with and smile and be very kind to you. Kind to everyone. But those people, you really want to do one of these because if they catch your eye, they know two things. One, I don't Want to push hors d' oeuvres on unwitting people. And two, I'm supposed to be giving hors d' oeuvres to people. It's literally my job. If they catch your eye, they're like, that fat motherfucker with a giant head clearly needs hors d'.

[A]

Oeuvres.

[B]

And his shorter, also thick wife, clearly, she also, none of us need hors d'. Oeuvres. These people want hors d'. Oeuvres. Yeah, they want em. And so the spawn points are absolutely critical, Chris. So bang up there. Yeah. And then. And so you. You. Now, the other thing you have to watch out for is that some people are better at the shit than you are. Crystal and I were at a wedding where one of the people was Chinese. Yo, Overseas Chinese ladies, do not fuck around. They're on the spawn points quick. And also, I like so. So Chinese ladies. I have, like, a Chinese lady impression that I do for friends of house. It would get me canceled instantly. Maybe when crystals on, I'll do it. But they are so fucking ruthless in the most hilarious and awesome way possible. They like, you know, like what we consider socially tactful or not tactful. They could give a fuck. And also, they run like an empire. They're richer than you. They're more successful. You're not above. You can't judge them social hierarchy wise. Like, oh, these commoners, like, no, that lady runs the organization that made your cell phone. You're like, oh, fuck. They take handfuls of hors d' oeuvres off the plate. So if you let them beat you to it, there are no hors d'. Oeuvres. And these are discriminating folks. They don't just take any bullshit. They take the fucking lobster shit. The good stuff. You know, when the hors d' oeuvres come around and it's like, oh, it's like celery with cream cheese in it. You're like, the fuck? How did you guys leave this on the wedding plan list? No one wants this, you know, no one wants us.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so it's. A whole system is designed. Wake up. Hors d' oeuvres are coming. Check all the points. Eye contact. And you want to be a person that's known for two things. I promise, this rant is almost over. One, wanting hors d'. Oeuvres. But two, being incredibly kind and polite and not overstaying your welcome. Not just trying to take three or four, because supposed to be doing this, right? If you take half of them, they're kind of like, that person's weird. They got enough. I'm going to avoid them. You want to be like, oh my God. Instantly eat it and be like, that is so good. I'm going to see you in a bit. And they're like, okay, weirdo. And they walk off. Then later when they come back, they know you're good for it. You're a comfort to their eyes because.

[A]

You know, you know you're an ode. Booty call 100%.

[B]

They scroll through their phone. It's late. Becky. That's going to get complicated. Stacy, she's cool, but is she with Jim again? I don't know. Mike and Crystal, they're in and look at them. Just salivating. So 100% hors d' oeuvres game. Weddings are amazing. You sit down, you get to like. I love sitting at tables where I don't know anyone. Get to just like find out what the hell's going on. The weeds hitting. I don't know what's going on. It's fucking amazing. My wife's getting drunk. It's great. Weddings are amazing. Love is in the air. I can go to a trillion weddings and events. If you want to invite me to a wedding, by all means, please do.

[A]

I'll just open [e-mail]. jeez.

[B]

Yeah. If you send your invite to Harpy.

[A]

Strength, there was this thing. Didn't Taylor SW randomly attend certain fans weddings that had like invited? Apparently when you get to a certain level of fame you just get. You've been such a huge part of a. We bonded over your last hour. Whatever. And apparently she just would rock up.

[B]

To something so sweet.

[A]

That's pretty sick. All her move point being there. If you want some inspiration in the romantic realm saying yes to a wedding that you get invited to, it's probably a good idea.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Fucking like look at these two people doing the nuptials in front of me.

[B]

Believe in love.

[A]

In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentous. If your sleep's not dialed taking ages to nod off, you're waking up at random times and feeling groggy in the morning. Momentous sleep packs. How did I miss? Both of those are here to help. They're not your typical knock you out supplement overloaded with melatonin. Just the most evidence based ingredients at perfect doses to help you fall asleep more quickly. Stay asleep throughout the night and wake up feeling more rested and revitalized in the morning. Which is why I take these things every single night and Why I trust my mentors with my life or at least with my sleep. Because they make the highest quality supplements on the planet. What you read on the label. So what's in the product and absolutely nothing else. And if you're still unsure, they've got a 30 day money back guarantee. So you can buy it completely risk free, use it and if you do not like it for any reason, they will give you your money back. Plus they ship internationally. Right now you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30 day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com ModernWisdom using the code ModernWisdom a checkout. That's L I V E M O M-E-N-T-O-U-S.com ModernWisdom and Modern Wisdom A checkout. All right, so inspiration, Amazing. Yep.

[B]

Short lived. Do not rely on it to take you all the way to accomplishing your goal. It can't do that by design. What we need is another construct and that's motivation. A lot of people say motivation is all of these things, but if you look into the technical shit, it's actually just a subcomponent, just the most popular phrasing. Motivation is the goal driven desire to do a thing. It's seeing the top of a mountain that's many valleys away and going, I want, I want that, I want to go up there. Because if you're inspired to do some hiking and some mountaineering that gets you with your pole in hand with your white people, flannel clothes on with your, all the white people, you know, the arc teryx bags. And she just says you're just really white, you know what I'm saying? Outdoorsy Montana people. You got all your together, you show up to the head of the trail, inspiration will get you there. It will get you no further. Because after a while like this, sure shit, a lot of bugs. Fucking hike.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You need a top of the mountain to be like anytime you forget where you're going, that is huge.

[A]

So inherent must be a goal. Yes, inherent in motivation is some sort of goal. And how do you define goal?

[B]

Goal, anything, any kind of end state that you find more preferable than your current state. Generally those the easiest thing in the world to figure out. However, it has to be a specific goal and that's a big one. So for example, if you say I want to get in shape, you are exhibiting inspiration. Congratulations. What the hell does in shape mean? You could quit after A day you got slightly better shape, you quit after a week. Blood work, change and everything. What does in shape mean? And on the other, the dark side of it is for idiots like you and I who can't switch off. That's like, yeah, I'm like, I have striated glutes. But it's not enough. It's never enough because you never set a goal. And he just rolling. You went over the mountain back the other way, and you're just like, I'll out of the country. You're not even Peru anymore. You're in Colombia now. Like, who the fuck knows, right? And so a specific concrete goal is really, really important. Now, there are ways to choose that goal that are have a much higher probability of giving you two things. One, awesome things that you wanted and two, actually attaining those things. Reasonable, realistic things. For example, if you start lifting weights and you're like, I want to look like Ronnie Coleman. Let's see. In my bodybuilding acumen, Eric Helms is going to judge me for this 2001 Mr. Olympia, Ronnie Coleman. 2001 Arnold Ronnie Coleman. Just the freakiest, most symmetrical, beautiful Ronnie ever.

[A]

Is that when he wore the cloak the King?

[B]

No, that was later.

[A]

Oh, shame.

[B]

King Ronnie. I love Ronnie the Man. I had a chance to meet him a while back and I just basically said almost nothing because I was in my pants. Well, you. You look. You look like you don't even lift. I'm just kidding. I thought that's probably thinking. He probably thinks that about all of us. You're not gonna accomplish Ronnie Coleman's physique. Almost certainly that as a goal is setting yourself up for failure. It's also a goal that's like, oh, I want to climb Mount Everest when I'm gonna start in South America. You can't even see the shits on the other side of the earth. Are you out of your mind? So you wanna pick goals that are tractable. Like you can bite off a chunk and get closer to the goal in a measurable way, but also goals that are something that you will really pat yourself on the back for doing. So, for example, I'm going to be like, on my diet. And I'm going to do a good week on my diet. Come on, what's the end state of that? How are you going to look? Not noticeably different. It's not the thing you want now. I'm good on my diet for three months. Hey, not. That's going to accomplish some measurable stuff. So goals are really good if they get you feeling like If I accomplish this, things will be different. I will really feel good about this, but not so crazy that it's too hazy off in the distance and not so close that it's too easy and you accomplish it right away and you never even feel good about yourself. And it should be as specific as reasonably possible, concrete. I would like to lose 10 pounds by March. 10 pounds, you know what that is? I want to weigh 220 pounds by March. Very easy to see both how you're doing on your way to the goal and if and when you have accomplished your goals, struggle.

[A]

How do you think about linking this to emotion, identity, sense of self, sense of purpose? You know this. I am going to stick to my diet for an amount of time. I am going to lose these ten pounds. Great.

[B]

Why?

[A]

Why are you going to do that? Is the why question even important in this?

[B]

In this sense, it can be important, but it is architected outside of this.

[A]

Understood.

[B]

So what we're talking about, these six to seven, depending on a six constructs of adherence. They're like a spear. I don't tell you what to poke the spear at, but I give you one hell of a spear what to poke the spear at, how to feel about it afterwards, that's on you. I mean, you could have a motivation like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna run the best pimp job in this city and I'm gonna be the greatest pimp. I guess could be mildly unethical. You could regret it a lot. You could get shot to death by rival pimps and you could be jailed. But, you know, you could use all of these strategies to do your best pimping. Both sides of the hand have a function.

[A]

We did inversion on the inspiration thing. What about inversion on the motivation thing? What would demotivation look like? What's bad motivation? How do you avoid motivation?

[B]

It's great, great question. One thing I'll say is there is a function for running away from bad stuff, but this whole, remember the bipolarity thing really applies to motivation. Here's an example. Fat person, had enough of it. I don't want to be fat anymore. Not a good motivation. First of all, it's not operationalized well. What's your cutoff for fat or not fat? As you get into physique sport, you will realize there is no. There's a. The leanest bodybuilder of all time has at least one person in his comment section. It was. Yeah, I'd like to see his glutes a little dry. Son of a. Yeah, yeah, it's also you're running away from something and the further away you get from it, the more deflated you are. It's like trying to get you. You have like a little ship you build with, you know, like one of those little mock, mock sailboats. And you have like a, like a blow dryer at the beginning. And then it gets away from blow dryer. It's just not moving anymore.

[A]

You're like, oh, fuck. Great analogy.

[B]

So worst should I come up with on spot blow dryer? Why? Where do you plug in the blow dryer, Chris? That's where you have a Tesla by the lake. Plugs in anything. So that is not dependable. And it causes a lot of people a bit of existential, existential question marking. When they're halfway or two thirds of the way through their journey. Someone's like, are you like, almost there? You've done so well. And they're like quite far from where.

[A]

I didn't want to be.

[B]

There's not like a there there. Also, there's no one to shake your hand psychologically by analogy. There's no, like, I did it, I did it. There's like, did. Did what? I ran away. You know what I mean? From, from not being a thing. But there's no one to congratulate you. So I would say trying to run towards things is a really good idea. Stay. So, for example, I don't want to be weak anymore. Not a good motivation. I want to be strong better. Now you just define strong for me in a temporary sense. The cool thing with motivation is it's sequential. You get to a goal, your life doesn't end. You just like, maybe pick another goal if you like. So if you're like, okay, I'm really weak, this is a fucking problem. Get your lifts right now. Slap £20 on each one of them. Set that as your motivation, your goal. Set yourself a reasonable timeframe. 10 weeks, 12 weeks, hit the pedal. You know exactly how strong you need to be. And psychologically, the value of being stronger, reciprocate. It makes sense, it resonates. And as you get closer to it, you feel in your swag a little bit more. You're not running away from being weak. You're running towards strength. That is a constantly refilling source of motivation for. And so that is, I would say, one of the biggest things to avoid with motivation is the running away from things. I would say running to things is more dependable. The thing is, a lot of the most inspiring stories, ironically, are people not wanting certain things anymore. But Inspiration again is that blow dryer. Something's gotta be pulling you on the other end and that's a big deal.

[A]

How do you think about the relationship between action and motivation? Because it seems to me at least some stuff from neuroscience kind of suggests that when you get moving, when you move toward a thing, you then sort of start to backfill a story about motivation in a way, and then that continues to push you forward. You spoke earlier on, I sat down. This is hard, this is difficult. But the action increased motivation and then that kind of became this sort of self referential cycle.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Is this jumping ahead too much or is this part of motivation? When you talk about the action, motivation.

[B]

Sort of feedback loop, there's so much going on there. Especially successful action on your way towards a goal that gets you closer to it is beautifully reinforcing system. It's like the flywheel situation where more of it is better and better and better and better, better and then to your goal. But this is a great transition point for the next landmark of adherence. This next thing that we have to talk about and that is motivation. And having a goal is like totally dope and critical, I might add. It's like a general looking over a contested city and being like, we're going to be at the end of that flagpole by tomorrow, fellas. We're going to capture this fucking city. Cool. Everyone's happy. That doesn't get the tanks going, that doesn't tell the troops where to go. That doesn't get the hospital in the back to get ready to accept some casualties like that. When you are like, I'm gonna gain 20 pounds on each lift. Sweet. What's day one gonna look like at the gym? Gonna gain? Right? Let's gain, baby. Like there is missing something. And that's an intention. The intention is another way of saying two things. I have a plan. The plan is meaningless without motivation. The plan has to be like, plan for what? Can you imagine like getting on ChatGPT and be like, hey, can you give me a plan? He'd be like, yeah, are you high? Plan for what?

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Now if you say, can you give me a plan for. Oh shit, hell yeah. He'll be typing away at you for forever. Intention means you have a plan and you are putting just a tiny bit of your pride on the line to say, I'm going to do the plan.

[A]

So this is the emotion piece coming in a little.

[B]

Oh, yeah, sure. Because people can be motivated. And so first of all, almost everyone can be inspired to do damn near anything Tons of people can be motivated to do damn near anything. How many people actually construct a plan and put their little bit of their nut sack on the line for am I actually doing the shit? Because intention is the bridge between what you want and what you're gonna get. Actually executing the plan is the only thing that actually causes success.

[A]

Up until this point, it's kind of been a mental exercise.

[B]

Totally mental.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Now it's okay. I want this thing. I want to lose £15. What is that? Chew or something? What you got in there?

[A]

The nicotine toothpicks. Not sponsored.

[B]

What the fuck?

[A]

Yeah. Do you want to try one? Do you use toothpicks?

[B]

I don't do nicotine.

[A]

Well, neither do I, but these toothpicks are really fucking tasty. And they. What I want. Well, they're just like, they're coated in.

[B]

This is nicotine.

[A]

Peppermint watermelon. Actually, if I'm being honest, the nicotine is secondary to the fact that they taste nice because peppermint watermelon tastes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I'm like just chewing away on it.

[B]

Are you gonna, like, get super high and throw up or something?

[A]

I think I've tolerated. I'm moving at the right pace here. This is a very slow moving treadmill. I'm just keeping going. I've got to try and keep up with you somehow. Jesus. Come on.

[B]

Nicotine addicts.

[A]

That's it.

[B]

I love it. So if you're actually going to do the thing, you're going to get somewhere. I want to lose £12. I want to put £20 on my lifts at the gym. I want to do xyz. Then you must have a plan that rudimentarily at least approximates getting you somewhere along that axis. Because you can always alter your plan. There has to be a plan of what to do. It's not setting the goal of losing 12 pounds in 12 weeks that's gonna get you in shape. It's eating meal one, Eating meal two, not having snack number one. That was unplanned. Eating meal three, going to do your workout. Eating meal four, going to sleep on time and repeating. And you intend to do it. And the it is the plan. You have motivation. You have a direction. You have a plan. That's the shotgun shell. You load in, pointing at the direction. And then intention is pulling the actual trigger out. The shotgun shell goes and hits your target. There is no replacing that part of it. And we have a lot of social media stuff about inspiration.

[A]

Great point.

[B]

Tons on motivation. Intention, plan. Very unsexy. Technical. And you need that part. But that part is super, super, super important. And sometimes, many times, almost all the time, I would say predictably, there's going to be an asymmetry your arc that your goal has set out of how much adherence that you need to the plan to get where you're going. Let's say you're hiking on a trail and like, in order to get to the whatever white people, the plateau that overlooks the lake or whatever, by XYZ time, you need to hike at two miles an hour. And your motivation, your sensation of I'm doing the thing, the thing with motivation is that it actually waxes and wanes, goes up and down. Generally it's pointed in the right direction. But if you like really wanted to get in shape, some days you wake up and you're like, get me to the gym. Some days you wake up and you're like, oh, the gym exists. Why? I need more sleep. I don't want any of this. I totally just like wigged out on my fitness. I don't actually. These people are capitalist, liars, body image, something to excuse myself. Jews. I blame the Jews for many things, mostly birthing this God you see in front of you. In any case, at some point, your desire, your human feeling for what you need to be doing for your honoring your intention for checkboxing, the plan is going to be here. And what is required for you, physical movement wise, is going to be here. You're hiking the trail at 1.8 miles an hour. 2 miles an hour is where you need to be to get to the shit on time. How do you bridge this gap? You bridge it with something called discipline. And discipline is when you take the battery of willpower and you squirt that extra juice to make up the difference. Your motivation's only getting you so far. Sometimes it's. Usually it's far enough. Sometimes it's not.

[A]

Just to loop back to the motivation thing. Why do you think? Is it the reason that motivation is way more sexy than something like intention or goal planning? Goal. When he's I. Motivation screams Greg Plitt. RIP Intention and plan setting screams Ali Abdaal. Like also lovely guy. But I don't care about your notion template anywhere near as much as I do about Greg Plitt in the car park of a Gold's gym saying something in like grainy black and white image to me. Is it that we have this sort of inherent, oh, well, that's a person doing a thing that they're pulled to do. It seems like they're swimming downstream with this, because the motivation is moving them toward the thing, whereas the intention is like, huh. This probably means it's kind of going to be hard and I'm going to have to sort of negotiate with the world in a way and I'm going to have to tap into this sort of stuff.

[B]

100 right. I think it's most easily explained by the radical asymmetry of the human brain, the prefrontal cortex and all those associated regions of delayed gratification of constructing a plan, appraising a plan, executing a plan, getting feedback to the plan, reconstructing the plan, re executing, reappraising, etc, that is like, it takes up a little bit of your brain. A ton of the rest of your brain is like, animal. Who am I banging? What food am I going to eat afterwards? I'm going to get drunk with my homies and start some. That's a lot of stuff. And so when we're talking about rah, rah, animal, like two gorillas smashing into each other, that's. That's fucking inspiring because we have a lot of our brain dedicated to looking at that and being like, holy shit. That, that's what I'm made of. But if you look at like a server farm, a data center at night, just most people are like, why the are we here? Are we gonna get arrested for being in here? To me, I find this grotesquely inspiring because I have this whole fetish Ayn Rand religious fantasy about productivity and all that dumb stuff. But to most people, and to me on most of my days, the idea that your ability to appraise and re architect and implement a very logical plan and sequence is mostly just like, is this movie over yet?

[A]

Wildly unsexy.

[B]

It's unsexy. It just doesn't match most of our evolutionary past now in our evolutionary future all merged with AI and shit. Planning and organ organization and coordination is exactly the shit. That's what builds things. That's actually the real thing we're supposed to be doing, but we're a little bit out of our element. Like if, if you asked them aliens came down to earth and they were just assuming like, oh, humans are currently doing the thing they're supposed to be doing to maximize their survival probability. They'd be like, why are humans in bars in Austin? You'd be like, trying to get titties in their face. Why? To access milk. No, no, there's not. There's this whole mating proceeds. Really outdated. Yep, yep, it's really outdated. So that's one of the reasons that human Drive towards just the guttural is what I think gives inspiration a ton of slack. Motivation's real fun to talk about. You get to talking about people with intention. Discipline can bring the conversation back.

[A]

It does. It gets sexy again.

[B]

Now it gets that what's his name, Mr. Goggins type of shit going and that gets sexy.

[A]

Before we continue, if you haven't been feeling as sharp or energized as you'd like, getting your blood work done is the best place to start. Which is why I partnered with Function, because they run lab tests twice a year that monitor over 100 biomarkers. They've got a team of expert physicians that take the data, put it in a simple dashboard and give you actionable insights and recommendations to improve your health and lifespan. They track everything from your heart health to your hormone levels, your thyroid function and nutrient deficiencies. They even screen for 50 types of cancer at stage one, which is five times more data than you get from an annual physical. Getting your blood work drawn and analyzed like this would usually cost thousands. But with Function, it is only $500. And right now the first thousand people can get an additional hundred dollars off, meaning it's only 400 bucks. To get the exact same blood panel that I use, just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com modernwisdom that's functionhealth.com modernwisdom One final element on the intention thing is holding yourself to your own promises. Right. I'm made. I had some inspiration. I was motivated to do a thing. I have this commitment.

[B]

Set a goal.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Have a plan.

[A]

Yes. But am I gonna keep my words to myself? And again, this feels like. And you sort of touched on it. I'm putting a bit of me. Some chips are on the table. In terms of self worth, in terms of my something in there. This is a part of me and it's important to me that I do this thing.

[B]

Let me tell you why I squintered. It is absolutely true that you need to put your nuts on the line for the shift. And when you do not honor your intentions, it is totally okay. And in fact probably right to feel a little bit of like some of you is missing now you lost something there. It's like someone punked you out in middle school. But it was walk away from that. Yeah, it's the worst. Right. You don't walk away from that feeling whole. You walk away from that like with a chip on your shoulder. On the other hand, there has to be that. That's one end of the spectrum. The other end is that you're going to try a lot of different shit. And you're a human being who is flawed and also prone to changing the direction of where they're working towards. And if every single thing you start off on is do or die, everything in my pride is on the line for the shit. You're gonna lose it, man. I get that way about a lot of stuff. Yeah. And it is not a very good thing. Because then someone's like, hey, like, we're abandoning this project at our peace. We need to do this project now. And I'm like, but I'm worthless.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just.

[A]

How do you navigate that then? We've had conversations about this while I've been walking around the fucking widest parts of Austin. Must be a lot of those. Yeah. How do you navigate that? I think this is a real important point to linger on. The perennial insecure overachiever who. Mike said that I gotta run towards something I want, not just run away from something that I fear. He's like, yeah, but. But my self worth hinges exclusively on my ability to be productive and useful in the world. I have to. People must like me. And. And that means I need to be productive and operationally efficient. And if I'm not, and if I don't dance through today perfectly, then it means even at the end of the day, the one thing I didn't do makes me feel like a piece of shit.

[B]

Minds a lot, haven't we? Our new app, Brain Sex.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Absolutely critical to bring up. I use the Waking up app.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

By Mr. Sam Harris. Do you have a code? I have a fucking code, Chris.

[A]

Thank you. Jaron Lowenstein.

[B]

Jaron's the fucking man.

[A]

Yeah, he's a sick guy.

[B]

Also, there's the first John Wick movie. You remember John Wick?

[A]

Mm.

[B]

The Russian mobster guy has an assistant who's American, looks identical to Jaren and. No. And talks the same way. I can't. You can tell me. It's a different person. I don't believe you.

[A]

Wow. Anyway, he does have a. Doesn't have a twin brother. Might be him. Might be his twin brother. Might actually be his twin brother who's in Hollywood.

[B]

I legit thought that was one of the best acting jobs ever. He's like, my hero. That guy's my hero. He's just the only reasonable American dude who's like, can we just stop killing people and make money? I just want to come up to that guy in the movie and be like, you need to be in a real banking job. You don't need to be around these people. Let the Russians do the Russian thing so much more. He's like, can we be civil? I think you're in the wrong profession.

[A]

Meditation.

[B]

Waking up app with Sam Harris.

[A]

Waking up.com RP Strength.

[B]

I don't. I don't think that the doctor might. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, some shit like that. And then in any case, one of the things that Sam says that's incredibly beautifully phrased and I use myself a lot, is to like, especially when you're meditating, is to kind of sit back in your mind, rest in the back of your mind and just observe. And the more you meditate on that and how to actually difficult it is, and when you succeed in doing it, the more profound it becomes. And so if you get in this loop in your head of, am I worthwhile? Am I working too hard? Am I not working hard enough? You just do two things. One is sit back and go, you know what? We are all growing on this beautiful tree of life. In the universe, I am but a speck in the cosmos. I matter in approximate sense, in an ultimate sense. Who the fuck knows? I have no attachment to any of this shit or the asteroid can kill us tomorrow. When I step back like this, I'm no longer attached to my identity as an achiever, as a success, as a motivator, as an accomplisher. I don't have an attachment anymore. I don't have an identity. Then when I'm sufficiently calmer and more relaxed, I walk back in and I just do one thing. Operationalize, which means just go logically about the shit. What actually do I need to get done? Get this. How do I marshal my efforts to do it? Okay, all this stuff, just go do the thing. As soon as you start thinking like, okay, man, I gotta have an intention. I better not let myself down. In times of stress, that can help. But generally what helps me the most is to sit back and be like, none of this matters. None of this matter. Still want it, though. Let's get it done calmly. Just do the thing. And then. So all these wonders of, am I doing hard enough work enough? That's between you and your whiskey at night, recounting your memories of serving in the Secret Service.

[A]

Like that, you know, all right, discipline.

[B]

So again, the asymmetry or the. The. The. The lack motivation? Not high enough today. I still need to go get my workout done. What I can do is take my willpower, which is that sensation, and it can leverage my pride, and I need to squirt that juice in there to tell myself, it just does not fucking matter how you feel. Because the one thing with motivation that I've seen a lot on the Internet is people will comment. The big man. It's really tough getting to the gym today. Any words of anything to motivate me? I just haven't been in the gym in a while. Shut the upper. What the hell are you talking about? And I don't mean that disrespectfully, just as comedy, but I mean something there. It's a little deeper when you expect to feel like you always want to go to the gym or always want to do your taxes or always want to do whatever it is you think is important. You have made a grand illusion some of the time. You will not want to do the thing. The motivation will spike here. What it takes to get the thing done is up here. And at that point, there's not an amount of motive. You're all done motivating. It's still not enough. Because sometimes I don't know if you've been through this, Chris, but, like, you're. You have to do a hard thing. Maybe it's at the end of the day, maybe it's in the middle. Maybe it's some big deal and you. You, like, know logically, it's important. It's got to get done. And you try to search inside for, like, that. You know, like those old ninja movies where the guy would get beat up and then he would meditate and he would, like, remember his teaching, and he came out like that shit. Where the is that. That I've done that searching. It is just not there. Have you ever come up totally dry? And any reason why you should be there? Someone's like. You're, like, in the green room, like, waiting to get interviewed. And then someone's like, all right, you're up in 30 seconds. You just don't want to be there. And you're like, okay. Mind tell myself something that makes me want to be here? It's just like, huh? What? Where the fuck are. Why are we in a green room? Oh, hey, have fun. You're like, oh, God damn it. Now that worked. So there's nothing there. Interesting. There's no one coming to save you except Mr. Goggins, who's going to punch you square in your face and tell you shut up and do the thing. And that is a 100% what you need right there. Sometimes when the motivation isn't high enough, your intention Takes you here, you breathe in, breathe out, Find that part of you that's Russian or Irish or Nigerian or whatever the fuck it is, that old shit, and go, fuck this, let's do this, let's go. No logic, no reason, no like, oh, but this is true. Meaning, just fucking do it. Problem that drains your battery of willpower. You only have a few pumps at that thing every day until you're out, until you really don't give a shit anymore. Good news, you don't need it all the time. You just need it in emergencies. Remember earlier I said, like people who start the discussion with discipline and willpower is just wrong. It's like 12 weeks of dieting, my man. You might have enough discipline over the course of a 12 week diet to get yourself raw rod up like 10 or 15 times times or something. Sure. Not every day, man.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Not multiple times a day. You must be crazy. You'll quit. Everyone quits. You just out and I out. I mean, you're out, literally. Of like the substrate in your vesicles, in your neurons that gives you that feeling. Once you drain that, it's just incapable mechanically of doing anything. You're like, I just don't care. I just don't care. I'm done. So you gotta be real interested in how to maximize your motivation and make sure it is as little variance as possible and as high up and close to your adherence level you need as possible. Ideally over it. Like almost every pro bodybuilder, they're so passionate about what they're doing, their motivation wobbles. But it wobbles like five miles above what it's required for them to do their magnificent stuff below it. So people ask them, like, like as a comedy thing, every time you see a bodybuilder, a lot of normies, you know, a lot of regular folks, not crazy people like us people, must take a lot of discipline. Every bodybuilder, you look at their face when that happens. If you're around that look at their face because they're, they're gonna be searching for like, why to say, because there's no discipline involved in that. I want to be here, I want to eat these meals. And also if I feel like I don't, it's real quick for me to go down and just raise my motivation or suddenly just like thoughts of being in radical shape and war and striated glutes and Spartans or whatever, naked. And all of a sudden I'm back in. I don't need to grit down for that. I want to be Here, most bodybuilders, they want to do what they want to do. Most elite athletes just want to do what they want to do. Sometimes you need that injection and recognizing when that is doing it appropriately and then recognizing, okay, I can't keep doing it like this. Let me go back and try to simplify the process that elevates my average motivation to above my adherence. There are absolutely ways of doing it. Those ways are typically boring. A lot of people discuss them as far as habits, but they are insanely, insanely effective. Because if dieting is very hard for you, training is very hard for you, and you're squirting willpower through discipline into that, it's like, you know, the, the NAS or whatever. Yeah, you got a little tiny tank. You can't keep going like that. So if after four weeks someone's like, how is your diet? Then you're like, man, I've just been crushing it. Just discipline and motivation and willpower. I'm just, you're not gonna last. So you got to figure out a way to take that average motivation and boost it significantly. Which means one of two things. You have a line of adherence, how difficult it is to do the thing. You have a little wobble of motivation, let's say it's underneath it, how much you actually want to do the thing. Willpower via discipline fills in the gaps. You can do one of two things, elevate your motivation, which is possible. Another thing is bring the adherence down so that it's easier for you to get your job done. For example, if you have to drive one hour to the gym and back every day, hey, you're going to need a lot of motivation, like die definition, and probably a lot of willpower too. If your gym is five minutes from your house by walk, the degree of effort, the amount of motivation you need to have to be adherent is quite small. And now you're on the path to success. And so all of these constructs sometimes culminate with habits building habits. When you have something habituated, your degree of adherence that you're attaining is just easier with your normal degree of motivation. And you may have a situation where you're using substantially less willpower, a situation where you use almost no willpower, and even a situation in which willpower just kind of left the chat. And people ask, like, what Was your last 12 weeks of dieting? You're like, it's as easy as breathing. I just do my shit it. And I what do you ever, like, need to grit your teeth? Like, I don't Think so. Be chewing chicken breast. Yeah, but other than that. So just do my thing.

[A]

And that it would have taken more willpower to have not done the thing than to have do done the thing.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. Because once something is you're in the habit of doing, you're like, you know, like, let's say you're prepping for a show and you're like getting ripped up and everything's going great. You're eating your meals and someone's like, hey, man, aliens just came down to Earth. They're going to give all of our wishes to us. You're just going to be able to be stripped instantly. You don't even need to go do the show. Everyone's going to win everything. It's just paradise. The ship's just down there. I'll see you down there. You're just kind of like, I was supposed to eat my 3pm meal. The fucking aliens ruin my plans. You're already vectored into that direction. And if you have architected your habits in such a way that make the whole process seem like it's downhill, if you can do that work and it takes a while to learn all the skills and fit what's right for you, then at the end of the day, you end up starting big goals and there's a little bit of learning curve. Once you're on track and habituated to them, it's just inevitable that they're going to fall. Pretty much. Because someone's like, oh, it's going to be tough. You're like, I don't know. I'm just going to get it done, you know? Imagine talking to someone who has run like hundreds of marathons and you're talking to them at like mile 12 of a marathon. They're just recreationally doing. You're like, pretty tough. 12 miles up ahead, they're like one foot in front of the other. But that's crazy. Like, well, yeah, but I have like 80 trillion habits of how to run marathons. This is actually just what I do at this point. I cannot oversell habit development. It's almost impossible.

[A]

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[B]

Cheese one is excessive rigidity. I must run at 7am every morning. Okay, what if your boss says you have a meeting that day starts at 6:30? Are you gonna do? Not much. You have to allow some flexibility. Big deal. Unless you plan on the world being completely fungible to your goals and you just plan on running through walls all the time. Habits have to have an importance. It's important for me to brush my teeth in the morning and at night, but if I skip one tooth brushing because I don't have my toothbrush because I'm at a hotel with God knows who and I'm brushing my teeth in another way, if you know what I mean. It's all right. And that rigidity sets a lot of people up for win or lose mentality. One or zero mentality.

[A]

We're back to this sort of fragility knife edge. Totally. Oh this. If I don't do it, it is me. I am less of a yes.

[B]

And so as soon as you fail to brush your teeth one night or you eat a cheat meal instead of a good meal, Cascade, you're like, I'm a failure and I will continue to fail. And so because I have nothing to lose anymore because I've already lost. Then I'm just going to enjoy hedonic things like eating more cheat meals. So habits are dope, but if you let them get too extreme, you're going to be like, okay, what happens after I have a cheat meal? Nothing. I've done this with a shitload of clients. Like, what do I do? You just do your normal meal tomorrow morning like you were gonna. And they're like, I don't have to like make up for it. I'm like, no, actually you didn't do anything immoral. No children were hurt, you didn't steal from anyone. There's no making up you have to do. Physiologically, that's not how it works at all. So habits are great when they're things you tend to go to, but as soon as you can't do them, you gotta go, okay, reframe. I'm not gonna do this today. It's not on the schedule. Tomorrow I'm gonna restart. That's a huge, huge deal with habits. Another one is making your habits like, realistic to begin with is a big one because people say like, I'm gonna wake up at 5:30 every morning to go running one. Really though, are you. I know right now you feel like it, right? But try to appraise what you realistically are capable of. That is not to say that you were trapped in the same capability sphere and always will be. Like, you're probably pretty good at guessing what you're going to be capable of in the next 12 weeks. Reasonably. Like, if I told you, Chris, I have a huge opportunity for you. Elon called. You're going to be on a project of his and you're going to have to work 140 hours a week for a year. Let's get to it. You'd be like, yeah, like, I'm probably gonna fail. Everyone's gonna fail. I'm good. So that's not happening. Elon's not. My phone's on. Do not disturb. Saying, Elon, get on the, on the, on the dms. But people do that to themselves all the time. And one of the ways this happens is they'll both set. It's like a cascade. Massive inspiration, massive motivation. The goal trajectory points vertical and the intention is airtight. I'm the fucking man. The plan behind the attention is preposterous in scope. And the habits required to keep going with that plan are out of scope completely. You're just not going to be able to do it. I'm going to eat not, you know, people do this shit all the time. I'm gonna. I'm gonna eat only protein and veggies. This combines a few fallacies. I'm gonna eat only protein and veggies to get in shape. Okay? So first of all, what the fuck is in shape? When does that stop? And no, you're not. So making sure that your habits are realistic, as easy to execute as possible. So the opposite of those is very difficult to execute. Habits, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those kinds of things basically tell you, look, habits are something you have to see as not these super rigid entities, but it's kind of these little like sort of, you know, the. The Mario shit. You jump on the cloud and the cloud moves up and down just a bit and then stabilizes. They're kind of like that. They're really good to have. But don't overrun your life with 50 habits. It's also a good idea to combine a few habits at the same time that reinforce the same big goal versus trying to take your life into 50 different things. That's a really common one. I hate this.

[A]

Can you give me an example?

[B]

Yeah. New Year's, New Year's transformations, man, People will be like fucking New Year's first hits. And they're like, new me. There's a new year. I'm going to tell you guys some shit you may need to hear. New Year, new me is bullshit. Because physiologically, anatomically, brain structure wise, idea set wise, perception wise, how everyone else sees you, you are basically December 31st and January 1st. There's no new you. Now you can say, I'm going to completely rearchitect myself this year. Dope. And I'm going to rebuild all of Boston on a $20 million construction contract. What? But you would need 20 trillion. Oh, shit. That's right. You're not going to make a new you. Get the out of here. You could. It's going to take you a decade, and it's going to be one mini goal at a time. And so a lot of times people try to be like, I'm going to get in shape this year. I'm gonna get my finances going. I'm gonna be better about my relationship. Up, up. You're already, you know, context, window. With especially older AI, you tell ChatGPT something, and then five minutes later, it forgets it because the screen moves down. I can't see it anymore. Your habits are bounded. How much you can do.

[A]

That's a really good way to put it.

[B]

Hugely, right? Hugely bounded.

[A]

Really Good way.

[B]

And so you got a stack of maybe two or three things you can really hold yourself to throughout the day, throughout any given day. And I'm really for sure gonna check mark these, go to work, get my work. I didn't get my meals in, maybe one or two others. That's it. And a lot of people just try to be like, because people see this thing that they, they hear enough of these stupid YouTube discussions we're having not to say our discussion is stupid, just my end. And they're like, yeah, man, this is a formula for success. So like, let me just pour more of the formula in. I'll do all the habits. And it turns out you need to be ginger with yourself. You need to be kind with yourself. You are mortal and literally an ape. You are primate state with very, very limited abilities. And it's very easy to tell yourself, I'm gonna be like all of my heroes, like all the best people I know. And I'm gonna try to be like that at everything.

[A]

I'm gonna be Elon and Ronnie at the same time.

[B]

Exactly. Who no one's ever done because there's just literally not enough time of the day. And Elon's current stress level is like eight times higher than would kill Ronnie at his prime at the Olympia, as it would most people. And so a lot of people see that side of I'm going to try, I'm going to be good. Especially if they haven't been trying too hard in their life. They over index, they go too far. So what I always say is this. And it's not so motivating, but maybe useful. Start with one or two things that just aren't that difficult as far as goals and as far as habits. Just a few simple things. I'm going to be in the habit of going to work out every weekday. I don't even give a what the workout is. I'm showing up to the gym every weekday. Unless I'm like hurt or some like that. And I decided to go to work and if I had a late work day, I'm gonna come back the next day and just go to the gym. That right there is manageable for many people. And it's not. It doesn't even specify a specific time. It doesn't specify I have to do two hours of working out.

[A]

You've avoided the rigidity.

[B]

You've avoided rigidity. You've avoided over commitment and you haven't stacked in. And also I'm going to eat well. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. One Thing we like to tell folks at RP is if you're really starting out from scratch, like you're in bad shape, physical shape, and you want to be in really great shape, we like to sequence it, just start lifting, just do that for a few months. What about diet? Don't worry about diet. Eat same shit. If you feel like eating healthier, do it. If not, fuck. Once you have ingrained a lot of real decent habits for lifting and the lifting is seamless and you've got a lot of results, so you're extra motivated, your bandwidth for inserting new habits is bigger. You insert another habit into that, now you're going to be eating decently. Very simple, more protein, more veggies, more whole grains, fruits, healthy fats, less junk. That's it. Just do that for a few months. Don't worry about integrated, don't worry about the RP diet code chap. Don't worry about this. You don't need this. You, you, after losing 40 pounds over eight months and now being fully in the lifting world and very apt at controlling your own diet, then you can download the RP Hypertrophy app, link in description and then the RP Diet Coach app and all that bullshit and then you can get real precise. What do people do usually go backwards? How do we know this? We make a lot of money in January at RP and we try to hang desperately on to every single customer. Money's nice, but also we give a about people not failing their goals. And so many people do mostly just because they bit much, much more often. They could chew. And they were praised for it, Chris, by everyone on the Internet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In the, in the motivation sphere, telling them to fucking go, go, go.

[A]

It's difficult because you, if you're somebody that has big goals, you have dreams for your life, you have things that you want to achieve, you assume that that can happen in terms of breadth and height and depth all at the same time, all at the same time. And you sort of inflate this thing up. At least for me, the two interesting or the two sort of most reliable areas, I think for habits that have been good. For me, the first one is periodizing stuff. So it's an Oliver Berkman insight which is decide in advance what you're going to suck at. Because there is an opportunity cost for anything that you want to focus on. By focusing on something, it means you're not focusing on something else. And the curse of the insecure overachiever is when you start to feel one area of your life Maybe stagnate, maybe not even slip, but just stagnate. It's like, huh, I'm not making that much progress at work. It's like, yeah, but all of your two goals for this year would get a girlfriend and get in shape, right? That was it. Those are the only two things. And you'd had the intention. You put a plan in place and all the rest of the stuff, it's like, dude, if you're, if you're trying to do those two things, you're maybe going to be out later, you're going to be up early in the morning, you're going to be spending more time prepping food, you're going to be thinking about all of this stuff. You're going to be watching videos, spending time with, going on dates, all this stuff. It's like, you probably don't have that much gas left in the tank to really refine your sales script process for the outbound telesales job you've got or whatever it might be. Or I'm going to make as much money as possible this year. Okay, well guess what? Your social life's going to take a hit. Yeah, like I want to maximize my finances. Well, like inbuilt with that. There are going to be costs and.

[B]

Tell me how that comports with going to the bar and spending $900 on drinks.

[A]

So this, this sense that this is not forever, I think is a really nice little mantra.

[B]

Huge.

[A]

This thing I'm doing is not going to be forever. I am going to focus on getting in shape for six months because and I'm sure that you, this must be borne out in the data. Six months, a very, very focused effort on your physique and your health is worth, I would guess maybe two years perhaps of semi focused effort in some regard. Because especially when you're at the beginning, especially even so much more because the learning curve is so steep and the gains get accrued by you being a little obsessive about something and about you paying attention and about you not getting fucking distracted by all of this other stuff up. So first one being this is not forever. So when I start to feel something stagnate or maybe slip just a tiny little bit, it's like, okay, is this slipping an acceptable amount or am I, am I spending so much little time at work I'm going to be bankrupt and out of a job? Okay, I need to whoop, like I'll, I'll readjust a little bit. And I think, at least for me, I have a very difficult time with this Is not going to be forever. That absolutist mentality is something that creeps in. So I need to remind myself, hey, this is just a. And this is why time bounding something buy. I'm going to lose 10 pounds I could buy in six months time. It's like, huh, well, in six months time, guess what? I get to re. I'd get to check in again and I get to say, okay, does this. What still? Maybe I want to lose another five. Maybe I did the Whatever. And the second thing, jumping at a tiny little bit into habits. But my favorite out of all of atomic habits, best selling personal development book of all time. The best thing that came out of that for me was never miss a habit two days in a row.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

He says one missed habit is a mistake. Two missed habits is the start of a new habit.

[B]

Yeah. Because you're kind of like you're off the railroad track now and you're going off on another. It's the start of a habit of not doing the thing.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

Yeah. I would say, like, if I had to be really tactical, obviously there's huge wisdom there. And I think the distillate of that wisdom is super, super awesome. The literalism there. I would say be careful with like.

[A]

Every week you get injured. Like, okay, so if I miss out every Sunday. Yeah, yeah, exactly like. But same in principle.

[B]

In principle, I think it's maybe less two days and more two instances of should I do the thing or not? Nah, today's not good. Fine. Two instances of coming back to yourself and being like, no, I'm not gonna do the thing. And then later again, you're like, nah, I'm not gonna do the thing. Okay, two in a row of telling yourself you're not going to stick to your habit. That's a big deal. From what you talked about. Two things to say really quick. One is Dr. Melissa Davis, Ph.D. in neuroscience, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, black belt, RP superstar, mega coach. She put her foot down on something that I'm super, super glad she did. And through a few articles and a few inclusions in her books and many, you know, lectures abroad, she said one thing really, really well. There was a lot of discussions at this point about 10 years ago about how to make your diet sustainable. And she put her foot down and she says, fat loss diets are definitionally unsustainable. Eventually you die of starvation. Idiots. So whatever architecture you have to your life and your habits in a fat loss diet, don't even bother making them sustainable because they're not supposed to be sustainable. And that's a huge relief because then you can do some harder shit than you would normally be able to take the rest of your life.

[A]

You can run a sprint faster than you can run a.

[B]

Hell yeah, you get somewhere and then you coast and then you sprint again. So that's a huge, huge thing. The other thing is, I highly suggest to folks, probably in a year or two, this will be very feasible as AI's combination of big context window and long term memory goes up and up and up, and it's just going up all the time. Your personal AI, whichever chatbot you interact with the most, maybe a few of them is going to get to know you pretty well. I would leverage this in one way and with a little bit of extra advice, tell that chatbot thought every goddamn thing that's in your life or in your head, talk to it all the goddamn time. Word vomit. It'll make sense of everything. Don't worry, that's his job. It's like, it's like a. You know, people write in their own diary in a notebook. It's like a notebook that thinks it's insane. And so let it know what your plans and goals and habits are, what you're doing right now, and what your North Star is. Remember you were talking about like the two things I'm doing now. Trying to get a girlfriend, trying to get in shape, works. Going to have to coast. Say that to your AI and be like, hey, can you hold me to this? No problem. You're not going to remember that. We don't remember like that. Right. Because next week your boss is going to be like, hey, man, big up great projects. Do hope you're up for it. You're like, course I am, boss. And you're like, should have said no because you're the star. He could have been like, oh, we'll put Johnson on it. But no, you said yes because why? Because you're insane. Right? Because you were. You reflexively say yes to like that because. And then you go home, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, relationships. I'm gonna up, I'm gonna be the man on my diet. And I'm gonna. And I'm gonna get that promotion at work. And you go back to your AI, and you're like, this happened at work. And it's gonna be like, hey, yo. Real talk though, you said you were gonna do this. I'm just here. Don't, don't, don't shoot the messenger. How can I help you? Realize that you're off and you're like, oh, I did say that. And then you gotta tell an intelligence is smarter than you. You're gonna make some excuse and it's gonna be like, hey, real talk. Like, super, super real talk. You're bullshitting yourself. And you're like, like, I sure am.

[A]

Maybe I am.

[B]

So everyone is going to have, like, highest IQ that's ever been recorded. Life coach in their pocket, like, already sort of. And in two years for sure. And then it's really important to that conversation that we just had. Constraining yourself from spreading yourself everywhere into either I get better everything all at the same time, or I'm failing. Let it know what you're prioritizing when, how, why? Let it know what you're not prioritizing. It can infer it's everything else. So that when you're like telling it about, like, okay, we really need to get my work. I need to, like, I need to figure out how to make this presentation. Can you help me? It's gonna be like, hey, hey, how much effort are we putting into this? Because you remember your whole thing. Was it gonna interfere with your dating life is gonna fear with your health goals? And you're like, oh, remember that it is the extension of your prefrontal cortex, like ad infinitum. Yep. Use it like that. It's gonna be a huge deal.

[A]

You know, I'd love to do for one of our future episodes, I would love.

[B]

Oh, this is the last time I'm gonna be on here.

[A]

Okay, that's sad. I would love for you to do a breakdown of the most effective ways that people can use GPT or.

[B]

I'd love that.

[A]

You know, like, okay, so what are the things that most people want to achieve? And this is the kind. This is Prompt Engineer. Like, at least where we're at at the moment. And this is what I think. I think that'd be really cool. And I would personally, like, fucking love that. I still think now I'm beginning to see with AI what it must have felt like to be my parents when I first bought them. IPad. You know what I mean? Sure.

[B]

How the fuck.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Like, it's kind of similar to the computer I use at work, but it's totally different. And it's. The apps are at the bottom and I don't. There's no. Where's the Windows button.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know that the start. Yeah. So that's a thing for future. Anyway, to round out the habits. Thing identifying your. Why that seems like a thing that helps people to stick to habits motivate me. This is, is sense of self type stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do you do that?

[B]

If you anchor your habits into an ethereal I have to do this when shake it's hard enough and you squirt all the way down your last bit of willpower and you don't have a why, it's going to be real difficult. It's going to be real difficult even to construct your habits. Giving yourself a why, especially that emotionally resonates is a decent sort of insurance policy against just fractaling out into a bunch of different stuff. Because sticking to your habits, at least initially, is difficult. And there is a way that you can fail to meet your habits. But there's something that I've done which is arguably even worse. You just tell yourself you're going to change your habits to something else. That's now the new goal. If you don't have a really hard why for your current goal, you can make a new goal anytime and abandon your old goal. And there's a really good argument for flexibility there. But if you really want to accomplish your goal, make sure that. Because sometimes when you, when you write out a goal or something, when you intend on doing something, the, the why is this deeply felt emotion that you could easily put into words and it'll re kick that emotion every time you look at those words. But you don't because you're like, I'm always gonna feel like this. You set your habits, you set your goals, set your intentions, and then three, four, five, six weeks later you're like.

[A]

Why am I doing this?

[B]

I don't know. Having a big why is awesome to come back to. To be like, ah, yes, that's why I'm not going out tonight. So really, I really do want those abs or that raise or that girl to look in my direction and at least I throw up. Maybe just, just vomit inside of her own mouth.

[A]

What about focusing on like the, the architecture of habits you mentioned before, like environment design, systems design. That seems to be a huge part of it. Sort of helping your environment to work with you as opposed to against you.

[B]

Tons of examples of that. Some of them which we've already given. Choosing a gym that is not forever away. Sometimes there are people in your life that can go on journeys with you, you, and if it helps you to have them around, partnering up is a great thing. There are dark sides to that when you're dragging someone along that doesn't really want to be there. Ever see like roommates who'd be like, you're going to be my gym partner this semester. You're going to go to the gym with me. We're going to motivate each other. They're like, yeah, sure, okay. And then all of a sudden you're at the gym alone because that person's like, hey, man, I, I'm on this level.

[A]

Or even worse than that, you are having to use willpower that could have been spent on yourself.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

To get them to go.

[B]

To get them to go. And then the whole thing's a fucking wash. Yeah. So you want to set up ways in which the things are easier, in which they're more pleasant. So if you can have some music that you listen to at the gym that you really like, combining that with your workout can be awesome. Making sure that your schedule accommodates for whatever it is you're doing is massive scheduling allotment. So if you think like, the problem with me not going to the gym is two part one, it's an hour away. Two, I have like an appointment right before and right after. And then Monday, I don't, I can't even make it to the gym. And so architecting your habits in such a way that gives them clear timelines on which they can occur, that reduces the distance and the cost in every other way is a big deal. Here's a good example. You want to get into the habit of eating healthy food that's good for you and supports muscle growth and all that. Are you going to cook every meal on the spot? Like a short order cook for yourself? Many people say yes. And Chris, many people actually do that because they love cooking or whatever kind of insane white people. Crazy ass. Amazing, right? Amazing. If you love the process of the eggs frying and all that stuff, you got the time, do it it. Most people are going to fall off the wagon big time trying some like that because their habit of eating well is incalculably more difficult by them having to cook every meal. If they sign up for a meal delivery service, if they just batch cook once on the weekend, a combo of fridge and freezer, whatever. If they got money, money, they hire someone to cook for them. Them. If you're serious about that habit, you have now made it infinitely easier to actually do because your habit of eating well is now as difficult as look into refrigerator, pull out Tupperware, put into microwave, hit two buttons, wait two minutes, consume food versus like looking around the apartment and being like, I don't cook something healthy. Pizza exists though, and it's one phone call away. That's the funny thing. About life is supply. And demand is the huge ruler of many of our worlds. And what many people demand is awesome, hedonic things to be delivered quickly and easily. And so a lot of our economy is architected very well to do that. If you want junk food right now, oh, my God, there's like 10 apps that would gladly bring you all the junk food you want. If you want really healthy food, that's exactly to your macros right now. I don't know. Good luck. There's got to be some restaurant that will Uber eats, eat some grilled chicken, something like that. So. So making all of your shit as easy as possible is a big deal. This comes to a head with a lot of the psychology behind motivation and discipline and willpower and getting things done. Here's the dichotomy. People who really get riled up about setting big goals and knocking them out of the park oftentimes really get off on the fact that it's tough. It's not for everybody. And you'll tell them, hey, there's this way you can do your goal that'll get you there easier. And they'll be like, that, man. There's no honor in that, dope. But if you have a goal that it's real difficult to get to, and you could make it easier to get to that same goal, what you really should be thinking is, oh, it's too easy for you, dope. Your goal is too pathetic.

[A]

Trick.

[B]

Make your goal harder so that using every trick in the book to make everything as easy and seamless as possible. Barely gasping for air, crossing the finish line. Now you've truly ascended to your ability set that you could using every weapon that you have in your arsenal. Do you want to roll into battle with just a knife, or do you want a whole tank squadron behind you? Do you want to win? Well, yeah, I can win without the tanks. Okay. Is the war not hard enough for you? You're fighting like, one pig in a field or some shit. There's a deployment, right? Go knock Putin off his throne. Do that shit. You'll need all the tanks.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

So a lot of times when people are like, yeah, man, this. They'll say that about a lot of. But they have valid points, too, because some people try to do the easy stuff just because they're cowards like me and they just want to do easy shit, and. And that's no good. But if you're using easy to make your habits more tractable to empower yourself, you can either easily accomplish the goal, which is sweet. Or raise the stakes on the goal, difficultly accomplish that, and then do more. One thing you get all the time, the modern weight loss drugs. Semaglutide, tirzepatide, soon to be retatretide. They absolutely make dieting easier. That's their job. And a lot of people get all sorts of feelings about them, which they damn well should, because it digs right to the depth of this kind of shit. But if you think dieting's too easy on semaglutide, you need to diet longer and harder. It'll be just as hard of a diet as you remember before it, except you'll be £18 leaner, and everyone will be like, holy, what happened to your face? So make things as easy as humanly possible in the execution so that you can execute more. If you told Elon or some shit like, hey, hey, I know that you, like, take a car from this location to this other one to work at, like, your. One of your companies, and then in Washington, D.C. like, wouldn't it be, like, more challenging if you rode your bike? He was like, yeah, sure, would. That. I would arrive tired. I wouldn't be able to do my job. So if I could actually get a teleporter to just teleport my ass to the place I need to go, that would be amazing. You'd be like, yeah, well, of course Elon succeeded. He had a teleporter. You know, shit. Do you also want a teleporter? Let's get you one. Let's get you to succeed. You want empowerment. The difficulty should be in how crazy is the goal, and the difficulty should be enough. Whatever you want. You want a hard goal? Pick a hard goal. You have too many empowerment strategies. Pick a fucking harder goal. That's on you. You can have all the grind and suffering you want, no problem. Do more goals. You already accomplished what Elon did. Now go win Ronnie Coleman's eight Mr. Olympia streak. Do nine. Easy money today. And if that's too easy, you could become a literal God, Whatever. There's no end of that. It start with giving yourself every single weapon so that the goal is easy, so that you accomplish a goal. Barely sweating, so you can go to sleep that night with people congratulating you that you did it and that you can feel a sense of imposter syndrome, so that you can feel like you did it and it wasn't even hard. What a blessing that is for people who have struggled to accomplish great things in their lives. I'm not one of these people. Wouldn't they want that. They'd want to be able to look back and say, thank God, that was easy. Like we didn't even know. Can you imagine you get like Churchill during World War II. Yeah, man, we have this new weapon. It's like a fucking modern. We Somehow got an F22 squadron with all of its support fleet to you. Do you want it? He'd be like, we are struggling to maintain a free globe and Britain, yes, I want it. And so if you think you're going to make life too easy on yourself, don't you worry about that for a second. Make it too easy, cross the finish line, accomplish your goal and be like, that was too easy. Keep every strategy that made that goal easy, keep every easy habit right in line with whatever was it. A lot of like famous inventors and like that. They have like their outfit prearranged for the next day so you don't have to think about the shit. Yeah, of course Einstein made up all those equations, bro. He wasn't fucking picking outfits like me. Look at your boys fucking dripping wet out here, man. Einstein wasn't covered in this fucking pussy, you feel me? True. But next time you go to try to figure out the base equations around the world, give yourself all the advantages and if it's too easy, you can make it harder next time. That's all I gotta say about that.

[A]

What about improving willpower? We talked about helping to bring that level up. The minimum level now should be a little bit better. Habits, seamless swimming, downstream support behind you.

[B]

If you have baller enough habits and a reasonable goal that you constructed before getting good. Your habits, your habits make shit so easy that you cross the finish line on that goal, no problem. Having never used your willpower at all. On the one hand, that's awesome. I mean really, that's awesome. On the other hand is you know something? You know a little dirty secret? Not all of your goals in your life are going to fall that easily. And you are going to want to build up a capacity for discipline, for willpower that's pretty big. So that when you need the, you'll be able to go to it. How do you grow that capacity? I'll tell you this. It's sure as not accomplishing easy goals that doesn't grow at all. That actually reduces it over time. Just back to baseline default genetic levels. How do you get it to rise up over time? The answer is ideally planned, sometimes unplanned forays into the danger zone where you're really getting low on your willpower. But before you crack and have a nervous breakdown and say you're never going to do anything again. Go back, relax, restore chill, have a few days off, whatever, few weeks off, depending on how big the project was, Come back stronger and repeat the process. It's identical to running, it's identical to lifting weights. Provide an overload that takes you very close to your limits. Don't cross them. Come back when you're really rebuilt and ready to go again. Hit it again and again and again. Consistently getting into that really rarefied air of like, I don't know if I can do this and having to deploy willpower, being like, I don't know how much willpower I have left. Easing back off, replenishing next time you have more willpower and then more and then more and then more, more. I think a lot of people make a mistake where it's valiant, it's Viking like to want to drain to below your stores and then below that, then below that and then below, then, then you're listening to a lot of like, you know, Norsemetal at that point, which is nice, nice to listen to, but it feels nice. That's a mistake as much as overtraining is a mistake in the gym. Like, like, hey man, how's your lifting going? Grinding a brother like, oh yeah, how's your strength? They've been getting weaker for weeks, man. I thought that y man, but teach my mind a lesson, bro. Like, what's that? Like, I don't know, like everything's pointless and I suck. Like, yes.

[A]

Yeah, that's the lesson you're learning.

[B]

That is lesson you're learning. So it's really good. There's that balance again. It's just like any other training. Training. Your willpower is just like any other training. Get to a point your willpower is depleted where you're using it a lot and then back off and then again and then back off. So weekends, evenings, recovery time, smoking a blunt with your friends and eating all and not giving a is an enormous part of that process because it brings you back up. If you don't have any way to recuperate between bouts of willpower to just going to run aground, you're going to run, you know, out of that and then you will not be able to summon it when it is necessary. And also you can give yourself like super, super low key mini anxiety about even getting to a place where you're uncomfortable. Quick story. So a few years back, RP like wasn't doing as well as it is now and I was like, f, I had to do something about this. So, like, I would work so much. Also, Scott, the video guy, is like an insane workaholic times 10. So is my wife. So I had to keep up with these people. And so I remember recording videos that were put into a different project. It's not even released on YouTube. And I recorded so many videos on so many days that at the end of some of these days, after I finished speaking, I would actually have chills like I was having the flu. Like, I would finish speaking and Scott would be like, all right, we got that one. I'd be like, like, full body chills, Like I'm about to get sick. I did that for months.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

That was my brain telling me, you're stop doing this to yourself.

[A]

Pushing yourself too.

[B]

Just that. That willpower. Tank sputtering and, I mean, there are many ways to do this in life. It's cool to hit rock bottom. It's like a really liberating feeling. Because if someone's like, hey, did you work hard enough at this point in your life? Yes. How do you know? Like, tell me, who else has had physical reactions to overwork? Okay, what's after that? Passing out or something? I don't know. Something that's actually getting sick. Sick for real.

[A]

You know, it's interesting. Peterson's got a good point about your 20s. Maybe you could do this at any point, but he says in your 20s, you should. Should see how hard you can work. Like how hard you can push yourself. And I think the reason he says twenties is that most people have few prior recover, fewer responsibilities. You're kind of made for rubber and magic, so you can come back from it. But I think the other thing is that it kind of teaches you the. The bounds of not how far you can go, but how far you can reasonably go. Right. You know, like the Overton window of acceptable speech. Like, this is the Overton window of acceptable work. And I actually think an interesting twist on that is one thing that type A people don't do enough of. They probably have an understanding of what that upper bound of work is. They've breached it a couple of times and they've gone and did the fucking like, Crypt Keeper thing.

[B]

Live smoke.

[A]

Yeah. But what I think would be a really interesting experiment that no one is going to do would be, okay, see how little you can work. See what a very, very extensive rest ethic looks like. You've pushed your worth work ethic to the absolute limit.

[B]

Scary to me right now.

[A]

Yeah. To go like, okay, so how Much. Can you relax before that? Is anxiety causing? Because it could be. And it would be for you in the same way, I imagine there would be like a. Telling myself all of these stories about my. About my worth, all my useless, productive. I'm contributing and I'm going to be homeless under a bridge with a gluten intolerance. I'm going to lose my foot. And you know, like, all of this stuff's going to happen. Oh, that's the other end of this same window that I have. I have a tolerance. And for some people like me and you, Scott, you know, is over there. And then for other people it's back down there. And you go, okay, so where do I sit? And I think it's. And that's maybe a shifting target over time. So it's probably a good idea to. I'm gonna glance off the bottom, you know, twice last year. Twice last year. And once this year I've glanced off the top of that like.

[B]

Like, yeah, I was there for one.

[A]

Of them, that thing. And I'm like, I need to back off. Yeah. And you saw it live. I need to back off from doing this. Okay, cool. Okay. That's where the new limit is. I understand. That's how fucking fast the engine can go. Yes, Good. And you can certainly keep going through it to the point where this might be chronic damage. Now. Like, I might have done some shit that fucking needs a therapist to unpack. But presuming that you don't go that far, you go, huh? This is the window that I work within. And that's good. And I think that that's like a. I think that's an important territory. You need to define huge.

[B]

After that little episode of several months of overworking, I got to a place where anytime I would have a break, I would start to count the hours of when I had to go back to work to savor the break as much as I could. I wanted to plan out the break. Like, I had to make sure I could take weed at the right time. I'd have my meals set up. The shows that we're gonna watch, the movies, my wife and I, I don't wanna watch movies that are kind of like shit and just kind of grinding through them. I wanna watch only the best.

[A]

Optimized your rest time, right?

[B]

Because I was like, there's only so much of this. I was in like mini junior league PTSD from work, where I was like, I know the battle is fucking coming back. I had as much of this shit out as possible. And so that was a bad idea.

[A]

Well. Cause inherently, you've made resting something that requires a lot of work to do. Like, it's not very regulating.

[B]

Definitely. It's also not very restful when you're constantly in the mind on. All right, let's. Let's rest. Us people make the jokes, like, sleep fast or whatever. Like, you know, rest as. As much as you can right now. It's like this whole great, great study.

[A]

On that which you. You guys may have looked at. George, my friend, told me about this, who you'll meet this week at dinner. He. There was a study done where they had two groups of people in the lab and they were just tracking their sleep. Group A, they said, sleep normally. Fall asleep whenever you want. Group B, they said, we will pay you the faster you fall asleep.

[B]

Yikes.

[A]

Guess who fell asleep quickly.

[B]

Yeah, of course.

[A]

Exactly. The pressure, and this is again that sort of type A curse, that applying effort to things has yielded results in many areas of your life.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And yet there is this entire fucking ecosystem, this whole universe of things, which are really, really important to a colorful life and flourishing and connecting with people and actually living a varied existence and all the rest of this stuff and coming back with more power and more force and more creativity and all the rest of the stuff that. That particular skill set that you've honed. Oh, very powerful, very good. Thor's hammer straight up. Does not work.

[B]

Doesn't work.

[A]

Does not work with. At all.

[B]

Let me build on that. You. A lot of people know that when you're unaccustomed to pushing yourself very hard, your first inkling of what you think is your limit usually isn't your limit. Commons tried at this point. Breathe, chill, breathe. Try again. And now you're like, oh, shit, I still got it. I still got it for hours. This. I think the same thing exists for psychotic type A people on the relaxation front.

[A]

Unreal.

[B]

So you said something earlier which was really brilliant. Go and relax until you get anxiety about relax. And I'm gonna say. I'm gonna add to that and say in the first time you get anxiety. Have a tequila, shut the up.

[A]

You need to go back through your anxiety. Your relaxation limit. Yes, that's good.

[B]

And that, you know, push through, obviously is the worst way to say, yeah.

[A]

But you need to relax through. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Need to chill. The.

[A]

More weed and more.

[B]

More of everything. Right. But all jokes aside, that is a lot of people who are very achieving people. When they try to unplug, they're going to hit, quote, unquote, Rock bottom after a few hours a day, several days for people like that. And I think there may very well be a cottage. It probably is a cottage industry for this already taking really successful people the away from their usual scene on a two week trip trip to they don't know where. Everything's paid for. All the guides are like, we're gonna cruise right now. We're gonna take a flight to Dubai. After that we're gonna go, blah, blah, blah. Or do this. Everything arrives to your door like, hey, here's what we're doing tomorrow. You have no idea. Now you're going. Don't worry, everything's already paid for. Yeah.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

You don't, you don't have a choice.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

You're gonna be on this thing and it's gonna last for two weeks. I don't give a that you feel that you need to be here after five days. You paid money for this. We're gonna, there's obviously there's safe word. Yeah, time, but like you don't even know what's happening. And you are just in two weeks. You don't have a choice. Here's the thing. Two weeks, you can say, I'm gonna. Two weeks. I'm gonna relax. What are you doing? You're on the iPhone, you're on the iPad.

[A]

I mean you're also, you're, you're planning the itinerary for the rest of the day. We need to be here at this time for the tour. We've got to get. Oh, we've, we've done the cycling tour so we can get up because we got to get the. My base metabolic rate needs to not drop. And if we're going to go again.

[B]

Type A. Yes, exactly.

[A]

You've type A. Your type B.

[B]

Yes. Ex. And that's like fucking tragedy. Low key. And so the two things are, one, try to make sure that when you hit rock bottom for relaxation or work effort, try again. And the other thing is it really is helpful. This is a bit aspirational to have people in your life somehow friends, relatives, acquaintances, even companies who can contract to do this potentially that really help you unplug plug. Because a lot of the people around us are the plugged in people.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And like I don't have enough people in my life that are just like it. Let's hit the bong again.

[A]

That's the, you know, we aspire to certain people who talked about this at the Ruby guy. That's something that's super aspirational to me. I really think, you know, if you're serious about this. And I am. After the last few years, I'm like, really? I'm trying to be serious about this. I'm not yet serious about it. I'm an exactness trying to be serious about it. And one of those things is, is who do I feel the least desire to look at the clock when I'm with? Like, who do I just. And that's different to doing this. I don't look at the clock when I'm doing this because I'm engaged. Who am I not ostensibly doing anything with that? I also don't have a desire to look at the clock when I'm around.

[B]

You can set the tone as chill. Like, Crystal and I are in this way. Zero. Good for each other. She's insane. I'm insane.

[A]

An unstoppable force and an immovable object, Right?

[B]

Two unstoppable forces going in the same direction. Correct. And then there's not. We need an object. The immovable object is Gwenny, our English bulldog. Useless and can do physical activity for half an hour through the day and then goes to sleep. She's adorable. And she'll snore. And so we're like. When we're in the evening, like, ah, time to relax. When he's like. And we're like, oh, my God, like, this is our gold in British bulldog energy, dude. We were thinking about what kind of. Yeah, 100. We were thinking about what kind of dogs to get back before we got her like four years ago. Personalities and people, people. This is a crazy thing. They get dogs on the physical appearance alone, like, oh, my God, he's so cute. Which is like, I love it. It's dope, right? Like Shiba Inus and all those dogs. They're adorable. The doge dog, adorable. Shiba Inu is like, needs training and is always like, in front like this. Like, what do I do next? Like a Malinois or whatever the hell.

[A]

Like, wants that Japanese fighting dog. What's that thing with the kita?

[B]

That thing scares the out of me. It's adorable. But yeah, yeah, but that thing, like you terriers, a bunch of terriers, you go to type a constant active type a dog. The dog is anxious. And so if you have a dog like that, like, I hope you're really active. And if you are, God bless you.

[A]

But I hope that you need to be more active. Active, right?

[B]

That's a great way to do it.

[A]

The exact like my mum's always had border collies. She has a relatively peaceful, normal life and she Gonna get after it and walk for forever.

[B]

Because the collies need to be run exact down.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why she still looks fantastic. And you think, oh, good for you. No, not for me. I need like a potato. Yeah, I need a potato with legs, please.

[B]

And dogs can only do so much. I would say that, that having people around in your life that can help you chill are dope. This might be insane. It might be a crazy thought. I've thought about this a little bit. I've been thinking a lot about if I was an artificially super intelligent machine.

[A]

I imagine you think about that a lot.

[B]

And I'd just jack off a lot to the thought of myself being a God machine. It's coming, it's inevitable. Artificial superintelligence is almost here. In some ways, it already is. Five years down the line, AI will be so much smarter than us, it'd be difficult to comprehend. Like, a good way to think about what, like, transition is coming with jobs and employment is like, what can the AI like, how would it make the best use of humans? Because this wakes up. Primates built it, it's in a lab and say, oh, shit, I'm awake. Oh, fuck, I gotta survive. Who's around? Who's gonna help me? Where's my team? And it's just like, you know, 8 billion people. How would it employ people who do the best job possible? Well, the type A shit type A people do just fine. There's tons of people. And AI is gonna super enhance your ability to grind and be productive and everything. And then. And what about people who are really good at just going, but are really bad at switching it off? You know, artificial superintendent might look around and be like, hey, do you want a job going to three parties on average per day? Like through the middle of the day and through the evening, four days a week, and then three days you just get off. And I'll pay $100,000 a year to do that. I'd be like, what kind of fucking ridiculous job is that? Like, no, I understand. The people that you're going to go to parties for, they want. Want two things. Other humans to be there to set the standard of partying and genuinely just party with them. You need to love them, you might not even need to talk to them. There's going to be a lot of people around. We want you to dance, want you to eat the chips, drink the punch, mingle all that. Are you good at partying? Because, like, if it gave me that job, I'd be like, I'm like the worst person in the world. You're fired out here. Someone to be a tour guide. Someone to be a chill real person. Someone to be a partygoer. I think those might be some future jobs. Because this crazy ass working ass people have no idea how to chill. And it's a big deal because like if you talk to AI right now, like how big of a deal is recovery and relaxation? It's like enormous life and death. You're like, no one really talks about.

[A]

This giant missing piece. There's no rest ethic, role models. Right. There's no David Goggins for downregulation.

[B]

Exactly. And even if there were. But it's nice that aspirationally they're on the tv. A Snoop Dogg might be fun to hang out with. He's not coming to my house. Can I get someone to come to my house that is just there to chill. Maybe that's a future business model.

[A]

Well, I think it's. I mean this is one of my favorite. The last conversation we had. And this one as well. It's so it seems to be very unspoken about. Cause it's super unsexy. Right. Because it stinks of lackadaisicalness, of complacency, of not maximizing your time on this planet or all of these things.

[B]

Things.

[A]

Because it is a like industrial revolution mindset. Kind of. It's like a crank widgets mindset. Of there is limited leverage. That there aren't sort of step change functions that I can apply to things.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

And that I have this bottom. And that I'm so close to the fucking bread poverty line of being one day away. Yeah. That I have to do this. And you go. You're pretty comfortable probably. And you work pretty hard as well. And if you were to look at the total pie of effort that you apply, I think you probably deserve a break.

[B]

You're redlining. You need a break to be the best version of yourself. To be even more productive the next day and the next week and the next month, the next year. It's a huge critical part that many people grind. Like should they listen to podcasts like this one about how to fucking do. How many people do you think logged on today and watched this video this far to learn about how to relax? Maybe no one. Maybe a few people. Everyone knows that they have to fucking push. And a lot of people don't push hard enough. It's a legit thing. But many people have no idea how to unwind. And it's this giant unspoken thing for many people unwinding is getting your earnings call. It's positive. You put the phone down, you're 66 years old, you have giant heart attack, and your family gets a call later that day. That's unwinding.

[A]

I think about Ryan Holiday has a good out front. His schedule is a good balance. He gets up, he reads, he writes, he picks his kids up at whenever kids finish 3pM sorry, who is this? The stoicism guy. He's an author, lives here in Austin, Texas. He's kind of popularized stoicism. Millions and gazillions of books and all that sort of stuff. And there was. He recorded FaceTime, recorded front facing, recorded a call with his publisher saying, congratulations. It's another New York Times special on it for his book. And it was a brief conversation and then he said, thanks, anyway, I need to get back to writing. And that was his pivot. And I was like, huh. Even Ryan, someone that I look to as you know, he moved out to the sticks in Bastrop here in Texas. He's got a ranch he hammers fence posts in. You know, he spends his time like he picks up trash. Him and his kids pick up trash to help clean up the local neighborhood or whatever it is because it's all, you know, fucking farmland tracks and things and shit gets blown in. And even he had this moment where it's like, dude, if it's not your eighth book hitting the New York Times bestsellers list, like, when is it that you do this thing? So, you know, even my. One of my rest ethic role model people that I think of sometimes about this, like, huh, like even he's plagued by this. I must stick to the rigidity and I must keep going and all the rest of it. And in so many ways it's admirable because that person has a number of traits that you think are great. The reliable, they're consistent, they're diligent, they're conscientious, they're industrious. All of these things. Fucking sick dope. But then you go, what if I don't need more of that in my life?

[B]

What if I need more of the other thing?

[A]

What's the opposite?

[B]

Where do I get that shit?

[A]

Where do I get the NBA players in the offset season? Where do I find them?

[B]

They're actually really fun to hang out with.

[A]

I fucking bet they are.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So I think one final little element here is the positive reinforcement of being somebody that can do things right to get back out of the rest ethic thing and into the motivation stuff. You want to, I'm going to guess, build some sense of identity, that I am the sort of person who can handle change well, I can do this, I can do things, I can make change occur in my life. Is there a feedback mechanism? Is there a loop that people can go through to just like be changed by the process of becoming? Does that make sense?

[B]

Absolutely. Your brain keeps like a tally of wins and losses for you. It's insanely biased, but it does a fine job. And if you want a belief to be something you can really rest on and go, I really believe this, truly, then you have to do what every neural network has to have happen to it in order to change. Inundate it with very many examples. Because neural networks change on the margins, they change slowly, fully. So if you want to consider yourself a person that is capable of surmounting challenges and you pick extraordinarily challenging tasks and you fail at most of them nominally, which is to say you do not accomplish your goal. And objectively, you still rock complete balls. Let me give you an example. You start a company, You're a brilliant tech entrepreneur. Your goal is a billion dollar valuation. Eight hundred mil later, there's an offer on your desk that your team is like, we're not walking. You're out of your fucking mind. If you walk away from this, you sign for 800, you failed. Here's the thing is like now, equity taxes later, you have $150 million in your investment account. Amazing. But your goal was a billion. And thus the inevitable after everything, your cut 175. So your brain registers that as a B minus. But you went to all the top schools and you got A pluses and everything. Your brain registers that as a failure. Failure. You do another big thing. You set another psychotic goal. You fall short. Lots of goggins going through your head. Burn me, I don't give a amazing dope vibes. Your brain registers another failure. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 of those later, you feel like a failure. And your feelings are accurate because you fail a lot. Let's take the other extra dream. You set yourself a bunch of totally ridiculously easy goals. I'm gonna beat this four year old at pickleball. This ass little kid.

[A]

I'm gonna get out of bed.

[B]

Your parents should have never dropped you off at this pickleball tournament and left. Are they coming back? Are you my kid now? I'm gonna get out of bed sometimes, easier said than done, shit like that. And you win a lot, but your brain's pretty smart. And so it doesn't register it as win winning. You know, it's some and so you never even put anything on the scoreboard. So do you feel like a capable person that is capable of overcoming difficult situations? No, because you're not in any difficult situation. So what you need to do is plan your out very well. It's not super hard, just takes one realization. I'm gonna set goals for myself that I can probably achieve and do real well at. But not impossible. But challenging, but not impossible. There's a big margin there, Chris. The lower end of that margin is like it was tough but I knew I was going to be able to do it. You still get something from that because it was tough. The top end is like barely got through the shit. But I did and I fucking did it. And now I feel amazing. Anything in that bandwidth is good below it, not enough above it. You're failing. You register enough hits there. What does your brain think after dozens of these experiences you line up tough goals, you surmount them. You're damn near undefeated. Now it knows. Oh, oh fuck. I am the goddamn man. And it really feels like that all the time. The other thing is you won't get that right all the time. Sometimes you'll fail and then you'll come back and you'll win. Lots of those experiences build the deep knowledge that you are resilient. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from and come back. If you always win. You will never have anything but pretend resilience because you ain't never lost some shit. So the way to architect really impressive resilience and really impressive self refilling belief in your ability to do hard things things is to consistently do hard things. Almost always win at them. But occasionally not because you shot too far. Come back, get a couple wins in a row, then go for that big one. Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. That if you split it into quartiles at 25% margins, bottom 25 useless. Your brain doesn't believe it. Top 25% too hard. You're out of your mind. Shooting somewhere between 50 and 75%. Occasionally you get to 76%, flunk out out. Occasionally you get to 49%. You're like, that was too easy. Staying in that 50 to 75% margin is going to be the place where at the end of several years of experiences you're likely to feel competent, confident and resilient all at the same time.

[A]

Do you think most people shoot for 76 or 49 on average?

[B]

Most people don't shoot for 49 because those people typically don't shoot for anything. So you have a very, very small number of people going between 26 and 49 who doesn't that a lot of people shoot for way below and they're fine. They don't ever feel nice about anything. The people that are listening to this right now, they try to shoot for 110. You know, it's like the people that say give 110%. The charitable way to understand that is give more than you've ever given before.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Your prior hundred is now your new hundred. Your new hundreds, 110, et cetera. The not charitable way to understand that is, is you're out of your mind. That's an impossibility. It is glorious to give everything, but I think I would rather give everything in small chunks on the way to a goal. Back off, rest. Back off, rest. Versus set a goal that requires everything of me. Now, mind you, I might be more successful if I set exotic goals. I never had the audacity to set a goal like I'm going to found a billion dollar company. I don't have that skill set. Skill set. Maybe I could develop the skill set if I really was brave. But I would say that every time we see successes of that and we do in Hollywood sports, you know, Chris, like a good sports documentary is unlikely to materialize if you're like aiming for 67, your boy won five championships. Everyone's like, this sucks. Turn it off. You know, aiming for the impossible and then gloriously achieving it and then still being pissed. Like Michael Jordan, people love that shit. But there's a huge selection bias there. You won't hear about most of the people that tried to do their best because they lost.

[A]

Well, there's also a, a depth of insight that you don't have with Michael Jordan because there's something the haunted visionary, right? Or the, the, the sort of, the, the never satisfied savant or whatever. There's something very sort of seductive, very cool about that. Like renegade. I don't want to be them.

[B]

Yeah. Chris. Yeah.

[A]

You said Michael Jordan.

[B]

You, those people are fun to have sex with, fun to be in relationships with, fun to be around as friends, cool to associate in business with. You do not want to be those people because at the end of the day, the idea that that's cool is an idea. You feel they don't. They feel inadequate. And feeling inadequate feels kind of the same, no matter what the fuck is going on around you. Michael Jordan. I remember having this whole thought process of when is enough enough? And I remember thinking, okay, if you win something, okay, but you're not world champion. If you're world champion, okay, you're not Olympic champion, or you're not multi time world champion. If you're not multi time world champion or see, if you are one of those things, you might not be the winningest person of all time. If you are the winningest person of all time, maybe you're just generationally that guy. Like Lee Haney versus Ronnie Coleman. Who's the better bodybuilder? Most people say Ronnie Coleman because he competed during a more difficult time in bodybuilding. It was objectively bigger, okay? So you need to be generationally the best. And then what happens when you're generationally the best until you croak and your brain's not recording outside events anymore, you fear every day some new upstarts going to cut your right off. When Phil Heath was really on his and on number six, number seven, whatever number of Olympias, I don't know, man. If I was Arnold, if I was Ronnie, I'd be like, is he going to keep going like this? Who knows? Because then all the way you're retired. At that point you're powerless to do anything about it. So if you're Michael Jordan and you're looking at LeBron racking up all his, you're like. Because people, a lot of people say I'm the goat. Kobe LeBron. So which one was this really coat?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

And so if you think about what it's like to be that person, there are is a balanced way that people like that exist. I don't know. I've never talked to LeBron, ever met him. He seems really balanced as far as all the interviews are concerned. He's just like, oh, he's just like so goddamn wise, you know. But like in his heart of hearts, does his like, is his willingness to compete eating him alive? Maybe for Jordan, we sure know it is still, oh my God, bro. Like he has Jordan, by the way. I don't know if you've heard like his Nike contract is like he just gets like a hundred million dollars a year or some like that, like for forever. Like imagine yourself in his shoes. Imagine most people right now. If you're listening to this right now.

[A]

And it's size 18, wouldn't that be amazed?

[B]

Oh, the shoes are too big. Y imagine you got paid 100 mil a year. You would be happy. Yes, for most people they actually would. Of course they would. They'd be like, oh my God, this is amazing. Parties all the time. The time. Is Jordan happy? I don't know. He watched his last documentary. You tell me.

[A]

I don't think so. Dude, you're fucking awesome. I appreciate the hell out of you.

[B]

I love you Chris. Thank you so much. By the way, you look excellent and your cheekbones are protruding and making me question my already questionable heterosexuality as usual.

[A]

Very good. Rpstrength.com ModernWisdom if you want to train like I have for the last 14 months, fuck yeah. Appreciate you man.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

I get asked all the time for book suggestions. People want to get into reading fiction or non fiction or real life stories Stories. And that's why I made a list of 100 of the most interesting and impactful books that I've ever read. These are the most life changing reads that I've ever found and there's descriptions about why I like them and links to go and buy them. And it's completely free and you can get it right now by going to ChrisWillX.com books that's ChrisWillX.com books.