Full Transcript for Feel Like a Failure? Learn How to Try Again When Life Isn’t Going Your Way | with Steve Kamb

taken, right? 04:40.943 --> 04:44.524 [SPEAKER_01]: But here's the part of the story that I didn't tell you yet that I think is going to be really relevant. 04:45.124 --> 04:49.486 [SPEAKER_01]: I rebranded not really because of you, but I realized that this niche was way too small. 04:49.926 --> 04:54.288 [SPEAKER_01]: So I rebranded to wait for it, optimize yourself. 04:55.407 --> 04:57.628 [SPEAKER_01]: It was all about optimization. 04:57.668 --> 05:02.369 [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, this is before the internet bros co-opted this fucking word and took it from us. 05:03.109 --> 05:09.311 [SPEAKER_01]: My tagline for fitness and post was optimize the most powerful operating system you have yourself. 05:09.551 --> 05:18.953 [SPEAKER_01]: It was all about if you do really intense creative work if you're a storyteller and artist, a designer, where we spend so much time worrying about the technology that we're not looking at ourselves. 05:18.973 --> 05:21.554 [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it was a much more holistic approach to well-being. 05:25.615 --> 05:30.459 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was what we're going to talk a little bit more about, I think we have the same affinity and love for a lot of authors. 05:31.219 --> 05:38.144 [SPEAKER_01]: But then I read 4,000 weeks by Oliver Burkeman, and I said, son of a bitch, like my entire philosophy of life is shit. 05:38.844 --> 05:44.388 [SPEAKER_01]: And I completely rebranded my company to what it is now, just simply the Zach Arnold podcast and the Arnold Academy. 05:44.688 --> 06:00.693 [SPEAKER_01]: And I actually had Oliver on the show talking about this transformation, and I had made the joke with you beforehand that we could probably just title this episode, Hold My Beer, talking about all of the horrible life transformations we've gone through since 2023. 06:00.733 --> 06:04.994 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to pass the baton to you to start, but just know that I will volley with you. 06:05.014 --> 06:10.136 [SPEAKER_01]: So you can be through some of these life transforming experiences that you've had in the last few years. 06:10.733 --> 06:12.395 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I can go back to 2020. 06:12.455 --> 06:22.607 [SPEAKER_00]: So I, in, this is funny, actually I had a meeting with a collection, or, you know, like this mastermind group with a collection of authors in January of 2020. 06:23.648 --> 06:26.551 [SPEAKER_00]: So this is weeks before the pandemic. 06:27.473 --> 06:32.295 [SPEAKER_00]: And I came out of that meeting saying, I don't think I've do in the right thing in my own company. 06:32.795 --> 06:44.520 [SPEAKER_00]: Like at this point nerd fitness was 20, 25 people, most of my time was spent in meetings and groups and teaching and being a good CEO and I was reading business books. 06:44.600 --> 06:46.961 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was kind of suck in the soul out of, 06:48.067 --> 06:57.869 [SPEAKER_00]: me, I'm a writer, and these people at this retreat were like, I don't know, dude, sounds like you should just be like, you should be writing, like what are we, what are you doing? 06:57.889 --> 06:58.769 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, got it. 06:58.969 --> 06:59.589 [SPEAKER_00]: No problem. 07:00.069 --> 07:01.409 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, then the pandemic shows up. 07:02.170 --> 07:05.110 [SPEAKER_00]: And the world shuts down and every gym shuts down. 07:05.410 --> 07:10.391 [SPEAKER_00]: And through no fault of my own, nerd fitness was the number one search term for online coaching. 07:10.891 --> 07:13.992 [SPEAKER_00]: So the number one organic search 07:15.532 --> 07:20.235 [SPEAKER_00]: Pretty soon Google started stuffing about 15 blue links above that first organic search for coaching. 07:20.955 --> 07:23.216 [SPEAKER_00]: But all of a sudden, the business exploded. 07:23.336 --> 07:27.879 [SPEAKER_00]: I think we doubled in size in about a year, and it still kept my focus. 07:28.239 --> 07:31.741 [SPEAKER_00]: And yet, I had just found myself more and more overwhelmed. 07:32.461 --> 07:35.523 [SPEAKER_00]: And right around this time, I think that's when I discovered same thing all of a 07:39.165 --> 07:41.846 [SPEAKER_00]: I kept flying to clear the decks for me personally. 07:41.866 --> 07:51.108 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, oh, if I can just get these things out of this way, and if I can just hire the right person and structure my meeting, then I'll finally have space to write. 07:52.149 --> 08:01.031 [SPEAKER_00]: And eventually in 2023, I had that idea for this book and said to my team, I can't do both of these things. 08:01.772 --> 08:02.792 [SPEAKER_00]: I need to step back. 08:03.967 --> 08:06.550 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give this book the attention it deserves. 08:07.271 --> 08:10.014 [SPEAKER_00]: And then over that next year, things went to shit. 08:11.155 --> 08:13.418 [SPEAKER_00]: Step one was, I think, two weeks after signing the book deal. 08:13.918 --> 08:16.181 [SPEAKER_00]: I had a skin cancer diagnosis. 08:16.942 --> 08:20.506 [SPEAKER_00]: Fortunately, it was the good kind, but it was in my hair and scalp. 08:20.526 --> 08:23.569 [SPEAKER_00]: So they had to like scoop it out and then suture my head shut. 08:24.250 --> 08:28.051 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, keep an eye on it for a few months until that healed. 08:28.451 --> 08:30.252 [SPEAKER_00]: Also, thanks to things like chat, GPT. 08:30.452 --> 08:35.274 [SPEAKER_00]: And as I said, Google stuffing all of these links above every organic article. 08:35.994 --> 08:39.335 [SPEAKER_00]: And then kind of hovering up all of our content and just giving people the answers. 08:40.115 --> 08:43.976 [SPEAKER_00]: I watched slowly as Nerd Fitness lost 75, 80% of our traffic while. 08:46.337 --> 08:52.643 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's going from a million and a half hits a month down to 300,000 hits a month, which is still a lot. 08:53.204 --> 08:59.630 [SPEAKER_00]: But when you have a team and a structure built around the big thing, that doesn't go well. 09:00.250 -->

09:04.034 [SPEAKER_00]: And even worse, this is not a problem I can necessarily solve. 09:04.895 --> 09:06.076 [SPEAKER_00]: That train has left the station. 09:06.256 --> 09:08.998 [SPEAKER_00]: The organic search traffic is not coming back. 09:09.997 --> 09:24.650 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I went through an amicable but heartbreaking and life-changing divorce and all of these things are happening while I'm writing a book about what to do when life goes to shit and how to pick your stuff like and it was like, oh 09:26.171 --> 09:27.072 [SPEAKER_00]: Huh, okay. 09:27.312 --> 09:28.293 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for that life. 09:29.313 --> 09:30.734 [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, book editor. 09:30.975 --> 09:33.136 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna need a little bit more time to write this book. 09:33.536 --> 09:34.557 [SPEAKER_00]: I promise that I'll be worth it. 09:35.158 --> 09:39.861 [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm I need to take care of a few things and also I need to expand the scope of this book. 09:40.241 --> 09:41.822 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that was a 2023, 2024. 09:41.842 --> 09:42.683 [SPEAKER_00]: We're not not not great. 09:42.743 --> 09:43.543 [SPEAKER_00]: See, we're in the 09:48.317 --> 09:50.277 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I can relate to say the least. 09:51.158 --> 10:01.579 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember thinking over and over, basically, it was the January 2023 until about September of 2024, that I kept saying over and over again to the universe, I get it. 10:01.880 --> 10:04.740 [SPEAKER_01]: No, lesson received, are we done yet? 10:05.180 --> 10:06.080 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, seriously. 10:07.001 --> 10:09.261 [SPEAKER_01]: Anybody that's followed me for a while, they know this story. 10:09.281 --> 10:14.362 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll just for context, I'll give you like the briefest version, but we'll not turn this into the hold my beer episode. 10:15.202 --> 10:39.732 [SPEAKER_01]: But the shortest version of it was that almost very similarly to you in 2020, my business started to explode when I assumed I was going out of business, not even remotely at the scale the yours was, but a similar trajectory where I went from doing online coaching and building a community to thinking in the middle of March, like I'm going out of business and then everybody raised their hand simultaneously said, I have no idea what to do with my life. 10:40.472 --> 10:47.037 [SPEAKER_01]: and I've been forced to hit pause and now I have to figure out where I want to go with my work and with my life and like that's what I do. 10:47.177 --> 10:53.282 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's when I started to build a community, do a lot more coaching and build classes and things were just going great, right? 10:54.422 --> 11:01.768 [SPEAKER_01]: Just as I had come up with the kind of big picture, all right, this has been fun, this has been my side hustle, but now here's the vision. 11:01.828 --> 11:03.489 [SPEAKER_01]: I went through a much longer phase where you 11:07.752 --> 11:10.474 [SPEAKER_01]: I had about seven years of, what am I doing? 11:10.714 --> 11:12.415 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't understand what this is. 11:12.455 --> 11:13.636 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try and find it. 11:13.676 --> 11:16.458 [SPEAKER_01]: And then when I finally said, all right, I want to rebrand. 11:16.518 --> 11:23.823 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to do all these things two weeks after I had this gigantic epiphany and I presented it to my team, got a call from my mom. 11:24.223 --> 11:26.865 [SPEAKER_01]: You need to fly home immediately, something's wrong with that. 11:27.605 --> 11:31.467 [SPEAKER_01]: So I flew home immediately, turns out that he had a congestive heart failure. 11:31.567 --> 11:32.968 [SPEAKER_01]: That's just the beginning of the story. 11:33.569 --> 11:39.272 [SPEAKER_01]: Over the next six months, both of my parents simultaneously were taken over by dementia. 11:40.865 --> 11:51.309 [SPEAKER_01]: And all of this while I was trying to figure out how to re-brand my business, and all of this simultaneously, while my entire industry was on strike and artificial intelligence was becoming the rage. 11:51.769 --> 12:00.233 [SPEAKER_01]: And as you probably know by now, Hollywood has been completely decimated in the last three years, much of it literally burning down the rest of it metaphorically burning down. 12:00.913 --> 12:21.919 [SPEAKER_01]: right so both of my parents disappeared from in front of me my mother's actually still alive but i haven't had a conversation with my mom for two years um but it was so bad that we had to move them into a memory care facility um my father passed away i think it ended up being eight nine months later all within that period my business let's crazy you give this number my business 12:26.115 --> 12:28.836 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, but this is where the story gets really fun. 12:28.856 --> 12:35.798 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is where we start to talk about failure and how we pull ourselves out of failure and we're gonna go into your packed framework, right? 12:35.878 --> 12:40.559 [SPEAKER_01]: But this is where I really started to realize holy shit, I've got some lessons to learn about life. 12:41.299 --> 12:46.721 [SPEAKER_01]: In the span of four weeks, I lost my dad, I lost my job and I lost my house. 12:47.974 --> 12:53.656 [SPEAKER_01]: So my dad passed away just, you know, other than the dimension, the heart failure is just ultimately natural causes. 12:53.696 --> 12:54.716 [SPEAKER_01]: He passed away peacefully. 12:54.757 --> 12:55.817 [SPEAKER_01]: I got to spend time with him. 12:55.877 --> 12:56.577 [SPEAKER_01]: I have no regrets. 12:57.938 --> 13:03.180 [SPEAKER_01]: I lost my job through no fault of mine and through no heart feelings, but I was finished. 13:03.260 --> 13:04.720 [SPEAKER_01]: I worked on Cobra Kai for years. 13:04.740 --> 13:06.721 [SPEAKER_01]: I was the lead editor of the TV series Cobra Kai. 13:07.323 --> 13:08.903 [SPEAKER_01]: And I was working on the series finale. 13:08.923 --> 13:09.864

[SPEAKER_01]: I love that show, by the way. 13:10.124 --> 13:10.904 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, I appreciate it. 13:10.924 --> 13:14.245 [SPEAKER_01]: I assume that you might have an affinity for it, because it's very much harder for a show. 13:14.265 --> 13:25.928 [SPEAKER_00]: Man, the amount of karate kit I watch as a kid, and then when I heard about Cobra Kai, and I don't know if I've ever done a bigger 180 than like hearing about it, I'm like, oh, I don't know, and then watching the first episode and being like, oh my god, this is amazing. 13:26.088 --> 13:29.549 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, started telling and it was on YouTube YouTube, what was it called? 13:29.569 --> 13:30.450 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, YouTube Red. 13:30.470 --> 13:32.310 [SPEAKER_00]: I was watching YouTube Red. 13:32.351 --> 13:34.151 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I watched YouTube Red. 13:34.211 --> 13:39.333 [SPEAKER_01]: My story was even, it was just a, I think, I'm going to go off on a tangent for a second. 13:39.353 --> 13:40.714 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to plant this seed here. 13:41.534 --> 13:45.036 [SPEAKER_01]: You and I have a very, very close mutual friend that you may not be aware of. 13:45.276 --> 13:45.436 [SPEAKER_01]: ADHD. 13:47.287 --> 13:49.568 [SPEAKER_01]: So, this is going to be the asterisk. 13:49.588 --> 13:53.411 [SPEAKER_01]: There might be some really weird tangents and disclaimers, because you pull on a thread. 13:53.431 --> 13:54.271 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go on the thread. 13:54.291 --> 13:59.875 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm really good at bringing you back to where we were, but I'm going to pause for a second, because I had the exact same experience that you did. 14:00.275 --> 14:00.695 [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. 14:00.735 --> 14:02.537 [SPEAKER_01]: Mine was, how dare they? 14:03.297 --> 14:07.981 [SPEAKER_01]: They better not be remaking the karate kid because the karate kid was my star wars. 14:08.281 --> 14:09.322 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I like star wars. 14:09.362 --> 14:10.763 [SPEAKER_01]: I know you're feeling for star wars. 14:10.783 --> 14:12.685 [SPEAKER_01]: The karate kid was my star wars. 14:12.725 --> 14:15.167 [SPEAKER_01]: I saw Cobra kind of the week it came out on YouTube. 14:15.187 --> 14:17.068 [SPEAKER_01]: I saw the trailer and I'm like, fuck these guys. 14:17.529 --> 14:18.049 [SPEAKER_01]: Of dare they. 14:18.630 --> 14:21.672 [SPEAKER_01]: And I watched the trailer and I'm like, this isn't look awful. 14:21.932 --> 14:23.674 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you know what's the pilot? 14:23.694 --> 14:24.314 [SPEAKER_01]: See, it's crap. 14:24.334 --> 14:25.255 [SPEAKER_01]: Then I watched the pilot. 14:25.335 --> 14:27.116 [SPEAKER_01]: Five hours later, I watched the whole season. 14:27.477 --> 14:29.658 [SPEAKER_01]: I went on IMDB right after and I said, 14:32.191 --> 14:32.571 [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing. 14:32.871 --> 14:36.593 [SPEAKER_01]: Literally cold approach got myself on the show lead editor for the rest of the series. 14:36.633 --> 14:41.274 [SPEAKER_01]: The point being, all the tee up like this was my magnum opus. 14:42.255 --> 14:45.336 [SPEAKER_01]: The series finale of Cobra Kai was my magnum opus. 14:45.476 --> 14:49.597 [SPEAKER_01]: I just delivered the editor's cut, which is a bit it's like you delivering your first draft, right? 14:50.798 --> 14:52.018 [SPEAKER_01]: Got the call that night. 14:52.439 --> 14:55.760 [SPEAKER_01]: You need to fly home if you want to be able to say goodbye to your dad. 14:56.747 --> 15:01.529 [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to drop it, flew home, got to spend like a week with him. 15:02.209 --> 15:05.250 [SPEAKER_01]: And then the nurses that basically said, you know what? 15:05.490 --> 15:07.771 [SPEAKER_01]: He probably has some more time he's rallying. 15:07.791 --> 15:09.072 [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're safe to go home. 15:09.572 --> 15:10.212 [SPEAKER_01]: So I go home. 15:10.392 --> 15:11.573 [SPEAKER_01]: I do one day of notes. 15:12.113 --> 15:14.434 [SPEAKER_01]: I get the call for a clock in the morning your father passed away. 15:14.454 --> 15:15.694 [SPEAKER_01]: So I missed it by one day. 15:16.074 --> 15:17.735 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm doing notes on a TV series. 15:18.435 --> 15:22.737 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like you got to be shouldn't me, but this life, again, no regrets. 15:23.338 --> 15:27.580 [SPEAKER_01]: But then I fly back home, deal with, you know, the service and the use and what done. 15:28.140 --> 15:29.341 [SPEAKER_01]: So this is where the story begins. 15:30.899 --> 15:45.633 [SPEAKER_01]: So I fly home after all of this, having, I had to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to replace me, because, you know, we're, have to deliver and Hollywood to give us a shit up, um, so then had to give up the rest of working on cober Kai, father just passed away. 15:46.274 --> 15:50.838 [SPEAKER_01]: Get in the Uber on the way back from LA X to drive home and I thought, I, I just need a week. 15:51.018 --> 15:55.082 [SPEAKER_01]: I need a week to just sleep and do nothing and worry about what comes next in life. 15:55.883 --> 15:56.443 [SPEAKER_01]: I get home. 15:56.743 --> 16:02.386 [SPEAKER_01]: I open the front door of my house and our house had been in fast, infested by and destroyed by rats while we were gone. 16:03.167 --> 16:05.448 [SPEAKER_01]: All of this happened in the span of a week. 16:06.288 --> 16:10.671 [SPEAKER_01]: And I turned around in my wife and I said, don't get alarmed, but we're moving. 16:11.191 --> 16:11.771 [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, what? 16:12.491 --> 16:13.092 [SPEAKER_01]: So she walked in. 16:13.112 --> 16:15.233 [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, oh, my God, I'm never going in this house again. 16:15.353 --> 16:19.935 [SPEAKER_01]: So literally sitting on my front porch with my laptop, found an Airbnb in the neighborhood. 16:20.035 --> 16:21.616 [SPEAKER_01]: We didn't even unpack our stuff. 16:21.636 --> 16:22.737 [SPEAKER_01]: We just went to an Airbnb. 16:23.637 --> 16:25.580 [SPEAKER_01]: We threw away over half of our

belongings. 16:25.600 --> 16:32.229 [SPEAKER_01]: We had a whole pile of our front lawn of all of our couches, our clothes, two dumpsters worth. 16:32.569 --> 16:40.239 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, all right, reset button on life, you know, used all your lives gone, reset start over from level one dash one. 16:41.187 --> 16:59.667 [SPEAKER_01]: So needless to say, I had so many of the same epiphanies that you've had that you've talked about throughout your book of maybe sometimes it's not going to go the way that we planned and maybe deliberate goal setting isn't always the way to get where we want to get nor is consistently setting habits and it's it was just like all right. 17:00.548 --> 17:05.229 [SPEAKER_01]: I guess what I'm going to have to do right now is pause and accept my circumstances. 17:05.730 --> 17:06.390 [SPEAKER_01]: Enter Segway. 17:07.310 --> 17:07.630 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 17:07.930 --> 17:10.031 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, first of all, I'm so sorry. 17:10.191 --> 17:11.151 [SPEAKER_00]: All of that happened to you. 17:11.191 --> 17:12.452 [SPEAKER_00]: That's heartbreaking. 17:12.772 --> 17:13.312 [SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, man. 17:13.372 --> 17:14.352 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry. 17:15.192 --> 17:20.674 [SPEAKER_00]: I bet you were probably kind of chuckling as you read the which chapter nine, what to do in life kicks your ass. 17:20.694 --> 17:22.775 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yes, there are multiple L.O. 17:22.895 --> 17:24.375 [SPEAKER_01]: L moments as the kids might say. 17:24.615 --> 17:25.696 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. 17:25.716 --> 17:27.416 [SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, when you think about failure and 17:30.397 --> 17:39.379 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, you know, there's no amount of positive thinking or you hear from people like, oh, look on the bright side, it could have been worse or everything happens for a reason. 17:39.559 --> 17:48.682 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything you're going to look back on this like, I don't know, maybe, but also this can also just suck and it can be bad and it might be bad for a while. 17:49.342 --> 18:07.777 [SPEAKER_00]: And like, positive thinking and journaling like might not get you through it and that's okay, you know, I tell that story in chapter nine of a friend of mine who had a life changing debilitating surgery gone wrong and she went from world traveler to now essentially confined to her bed and her small apartment. 18:08.558 --> 18:21.323 [SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, nothing made me feel more alone than people sending me like, you know, toxic positivity messages and just just believe in yourself and like, just try and things will get better and all this unreasonable hope. 18:21.383 --> 18:23.324 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sorry you went through that. 18:23.544 --> 18:24.185 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. 18:24.285 --> 18:24.705 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, 18:26.001 --> 18:40.618 [SPEAKER_00]: My challenge is I think quite a few of them were, you know, obviously between businesses and I'm not religious, but I can find a way to give

myself the greatest amount of Catholic guilt one can possibly give for anything and everything. 18:40.898 --> 18:44.139 [SPEAKER_00]: I will make it all my fault and I will say I could have done this differently. 18:44.319 --> 18:57.564 [SPEAKER_00]: I should have been more what I like I will pile all of that onto my shoulders and I carry that shame and guilt around I really struggled with it for nerd fitness with my relationship just all of it like I had to 18:58.859 --> 19:04.768 [SPEAKER_00]: give myself permission to do the things that I needed to do for myself and that felt so challenging. 19:06.730 --> 19:09.074 [SPEAKER_00]: But I also need to find a way to stay afloat, right? 19:09.194 --> 19:10.536 [SPEAKER_00]: I had to find a way to 19:12.695 --> 19:16.017 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, not if you pick myself up, it's like, yeah, man, this sucks right now. 19:16.838 --> 19:25.723 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, stop, remove all of the expectations you have for what you should be doing or how you should be doing it or how fast you're getting where you think you need to go. 19:25.743 --> 19:28.445 [SPEAKER_00]: And like, let's just narrow the focus. 19:29.711 --> 19:30.231 [SPEAKER_00]: to today. 19:30.411 --> 19:32.252 [SPEAKER_00]: Like right now, how do we stay afloat? 19:32.532 --> 19:33.273 [SPEAKER_00]: How do we try to water? 19:33.753 --> 19:36.794 [SPEAKER_00]: How do we not make things worse? 19:37.375 --> 19:41.917 [SPEAKER_00]: And how do we stop beating ourselves up that I'm not making progress on all of my goals all at the same time? 19:42.257 --> 19:48.340 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm navigating like just a completely different life in nearly every way possible. 19:49.627 --> 19:51.267 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the speaking of spreading water. 19:51.287 --> 19:52.988 [SPEAKER_01]: This is actually where I wanted to go next. 19:53.008 --> 19:53.608 [SPEAKER_01]: So this is great. 19:54.528 --> 19:58.129 [SPEAKER_01]: I love the story that you told about this guy named Brett Archibald. 19:58.889 --> 20:13.353 [SPEAKER_01]: So talk a little bit more about literally this idea of spreading water, because for me, the biggest lesson that I learned and also the hardest lesson that I learned is sometimes you can't always be moving forwards and you just have to stop, right? 20:13.653 --> 20:16.574 [SPEAKER_01]: So this story in your book just hit me so hard. 20:17.467 --> 20:21.529 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I kind of found and love with this idea. 20:21.549 --> 20:33.273 [SPEAKER_00]: The reason the impetus of this actually came many, many, many, many years ago, when I got scuba certified, you know, there's a whole part of your scuba certification where you have to get in the pool and you have to tread water. 20:33.933 --> 20:37.475 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you kick your arms and legs too much, you kind of pop a little bit too high out of the water. 20:38.475 --> 20:41.876 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to try to water for a certain amount of time in order to get your certification. 20:41.976 --> 21:01.263 [SPEAKER_00]: So I've just always this idea of like treading water and thinking of it as something that you're doing for a specific reason has always resonated with me and as I'm navigating this new aspect of my life of like I'm I'm living in a different part of town I am navigating a new career I'm trying to write this book. 21:01.443 --> 21:04.464 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to figure out what my life is going to look like moving forward. 21:04.904 --> 21:06.965 [SPEAKER_00]: That is different than the life I thought I was going to be living. 21:07.525 --> 21:11.407 [SPEAKER_00]: If that's the case, fitness cannot be a priority for me right now. 21:12.167 --> 21:17.250 [SPEAKER_00]: And as a guy that owns a fitness company, I was going to say, the nerd fitness guy just said, the nurse can't be a priority. 21:17.330 --> 21:26.634 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, who never missed a workout, who wanted to be the poster child for discipline and adherence to my routine, fitness is everything. 21:27.134 --> 21:28.955 [SPEAKER_00]: And now fitness was like my eighth priority. 21:29.515 --> 21:34.238 [SPEAKER_00]: So I thought about this from the perspective of like, I'm going to stop trying to win at fitness. 21:34.498 --> 21:36.179 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to stop trying to make progress. 21:37.159 --> 21:39.481 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, I'm just going to try to not lose. 21:40.542 --> 21:42.704 [SPEAKER_00]: We think when we're not making progress, we're falling behind. 21:43.624 --> 21:47.507 [SPEAKER_00]: We're forgetting there are a few other options, but it's not one or the other. 21:47.968 --> 21:49.609 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not making progress or falling behind. 21:49.809 --> 22:01.879 [SPEAKER_00]: There is also regression, aka making things worse, or swimming in the wrong direction, or giving up and just saying, I'm done, and not swimming at all. 22:05.335 --> 22:07.797 [SPEAKER_00]: treading water is actually like the second best option. 22:08.497 --> 22:15.922 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're not swimming in the right direction, the next best thing you could be doing is shredding water to figure out where you are and what's happening. 22:16.582 --> 22:31.932 [SPEAKER_00]: And as I was doing research into treading water, and I stumbled across this story of a guy named Brad Archibald, who was on a 50th surfing trip with his friends in the, I think in the Philippines, and they're sailing through the mental ice straight in the middle of the night on their surf boat, 22:33.112 --> 22:35.613 [SPEAKER_00]: to take them to the surf break that they're heading to. 22:36.193 --> 22:39.534 [SPEAKER_00]: And he had eaten a bad calzone before the night before. 22:39.594 --> 22:47.516 [SPEAKER_00]: So he wakes up in the middle of the night like two, three in the morning and says like, oh, that calzone's coming back up, danger, danger alert alert. 22:48.236 --> 22:51.877 [SPEAKER_00]: So he runs up to the top of the deck to throw up over the side

of the boat. 22:52.017 --> 22:58.879 [SPEAKER_00]: And the sea gets is so rough that he literally tumbles over the the side of the boat falls 15, 20 feet into the water. 23:00.799 --> 23:01.720 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's two in the morning. 23:02.060 --> 23:04.001 [SPEAKER_00]: It's pitch blackout and he pops up. 23:04.781 --> 23:06.182 [SPEAKER_00]: The only person to wake is the captain. 23:06.342 --> 23:08.183 [SPEAKER_00]: The captain's up the front of the boat didn't notice. 23:08.944 --> 23:11.065 [SPEAKER_00]: And he watches as this boat sails away. 23:12.265 --> 23:18.289 [SPEAKER_00]: And he does what he thinks anybody should do when you're really like, I guess I'm just going to start swimming. 23:18.789 --> 23:19.610 [SPEAKER_00]: He's a pretty fit guy. 23:19.670 --> 23:23.412 [SPEAKER_00]: So pull stroke, you know, pull kick breath, pull kick breath, he's swimming. 23:24.752 --> 23:28.895 [SPEAKER_00]: And then when the sun comes up a few hours later, he looks around still can't see anything. 23:29.704 --> 23:31.865 [SPEAKER_00]: and he pulls this little cardboard container out of his pocket. 23:32.165 --> 23:34.206 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the key card holder from his hotel the night before. 23:34.966 --> 23:38.208 [SPEAKER_00]: And he rips off this tiny corner, and he drops it on the top of the water. 23:38.968 --> 23:42.369 [SPEAKER_00]: Because he knows there's ocean currents and they can maybe take lead you to land, whatever. 23:43.150 --> 23:45.531 [SPEAKER_00]: And he watches as that little tiny piece of paper. 23:46.331 --> 23:49.693 [SPEAKER_00]: floats in the exact opposite direction of the one that he had been swimming. 23:50.353 --> 24:00.158 [SPEAKER_00]: He had spent hours swimming directly into a current, which is a great workout if you're trying to tire yourself out and burn a lot of calories, the exact opposite of what he should be doing. 24:01.058 --> 24:08.202 [SPEAKER_00]: Just this great quote from Ashana Chris Hadfield, he says something like, there's no problem too bad that you can't make it worse. 24:09.322 --> 24:10.543 [SPEAKER_00]: That's Brett Archibald here. 24:11.783 --> 24:16.167 [SPEAKER_00]: trying to do something better and burning himself out and spinning his wheels. 24:16.227 --> 24:27.555 [SPEAKER_00]: So what he instead ends up doing is like, okay, I'm going to stop trying to win and get somewhere, and I'm just going to focus on treading water for as long as possible, and let's see what tomorrow brings. 24:28.216 --> 24:29.056 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want to spoil it. 24:29.076 --> 24:34.941 [SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, he does end up getting rescued, but not in the way that you would think it's one of the most phenomenal stories I've ever stumbled across. 24:35.521 --> 24:37.362 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's perfectly encapsulated. 24:38.884 --> 24:43.929 [SPEAKER_00]: how many of us write to change when things are bad and often end up making things worse. 24:43.949 --> 24:51.397 [SPEAKER_00]: And don't give ourselves the credit we deserve when we should be telling ourselves like, yeah, shit's pretty bad right now. 24:52.479 --> 25:01.883 [SPEAKER_00]: But considering, I'm actually like, yeah, maybe held together with duct tape, but I'm still here, I'm still float, I'm still float, like, that's pretty incredible. 25:02.643 --> 25:05.805 [SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy to forget that because we think we're falling further behind. 25:06.205 --> 25:06.765 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not true. 25:07.105 --> 25:10.767 [SPEAKER_00]: We are giving ourselves the space we need to figure out what the heck we actually need to do next. 25:11.706 --> 25:15.149 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, space is a really scary place for overachievers. 25:15.869 --> 25:28.178 [SPEAKER_01]: Literally had this conversation with one of my long time clients in a couple of private sessions where she's very much very ambitious overachiever, really kind of like everybody that I think does knowledge work right now. 25:28.238 --> 25:30.560 [SPEAKER_01]: Losing a sense of what is the path where am I going? 25:31.180 --> 25:33.202 [SPEAKER_01]: Am I even useful to society anymore? 25:33.902 --> 25:38.706 [SPEAKER_01]: And had a whole list of things, like there's this, there's this and there's help me figure out my next domino. 25:38.746 --> 25:39.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Help me figure out what's next. 25:40.467 --> 25:44.370 [SPEAKER_01]: and I said, what if your next domino is creating space for yourself? 25:44.950 --> 25:48.833 [SPEAKER_01]: What if that's what you're doing right now rather than trying to do more? 25:49.554 --> 25:52.416 [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, no, I don't, I don't like slowing down, right? 25:52.496 --> 25:59.762 [SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's our natural tendency, but needing to pause, I think, is so essential, but the problem, especially for me, and I think with so many others, 26:00.382 --> 26:08.204 [SPEAKER_01]: is that pausing means, well, look at all the room for judgment, for the things I'm supposed to be doing right, all the things I'm supposed to be achieving. 26:08.524 --> 26:15.386 [SPEAKER_01]: Like the the other component that I had completely forgotten about is that again, back story ADHD tangent for a second. 26:16.286 --> 26:21.908 [SPEAKER_01]: I decided to set a very deliberate goal, January 1st, 2018, I'm going to become an American Ninja Warrior. 26:22.708 --> 26:24.189 [SPEAKER_01]: I was 38 at the time. 26:24.209 --> 26:25.710 [SPEAKER_01]: I had that same goal too, at one point. 26:25.990 --> 26:34.736 [SPEAKER_01]: Had a massive dad bond, and I spent years working towards this, and I've actually made it onto the course twice, so now I have the buy line. 26:34.816 --> 26:41.541 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a two-time American Ninja Warrior failure, because I've never made it on the show, because I suck at the sport of American Ninja Warrior. 26:42.021 --> 26:48.346 [SPEAKER_01]: But I spent seven years really ingratiating myself into the sport, building my networks, getting

to know the producers on the show. 26:48.646 --> 26:50.147 [SPEAKER_01]: Jesse Graff was my trainer. 26:50.587 --> 26:52.309 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was really, really into it. 26:52.349 --> 26:54.811 [SPEAKER_01]: My other trainer was Tony Horton, the guy that created P90X. 26:54.891 --> 26:58.894 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm really good at building relationships and finding mentors. 26:59.294 --> 27:01.616 [SPEAKER_01]: But I kind of suck at the sport and I don't I very good about. 27:02.056 --> 27:08.141 [SPEAKER_01]: The point being that the same time that I found out about my dad, I was testing on the show. 27:08.161 --> 27:10.122 [SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't been called to be cast that year. 27:10.262 --> 27:14.908 [SPEAKER_01]: But I knew all the people who worked on the show, so they'd say, hey, why don't you come to the warehouse for testing a bunch of off-school? 27:14.948 --> 27:20.515 [SPEAKER_01]: So I can literally just play on the off-schools on the show, and they said, we have a here's a calendar for the next month. 27:21.036 --> 27:25.902 [SPEAKER_01]: You can come whenever you'd like when we go to Universal Studios, you can run the course it was carte blanche, right? 27:27.108 --> 27:28.289 [SPEAKER_01]: first day I hurt myself. 27:28.950 --> 27:29.851 [SPEAKER_01]: The first fucking day. 27:30.471 --> 27:30.952 [SPEAKER_01]: I tore. 27:31.012 --> 27:32.533 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was my bicep tendon. 27:32.833 --> 27:36.196 [SPEAKER_01]: So for six months, I couldn't lift my arm higher than this. 27:36.717 --> 27:45.465 [SPEAKER_01]: So as you know what it's like being so much into fitness, that when fitness is a part of your life, I was working out seven to ten hours a week doing parkour and all kinds of stuff. 27:45.845 --> 27:48.768 [SPEAKER_01]: Also, I'm doing nothing in the midst of all this other 27:51.971 --> 27:53.311 [SPEAKER_01]: You should still be working out today. 27:53.351 --> 27:55.092 [SPEAKER_01]: Why are you not at least working out on your legs? 27:55.152 --> 28:04.154 [SPEAKER_01]: Instead of your shoulders, it was just this constant voice, and they're had to come a point and it's taking me years to get good at this, where I had to say, you know what? 28:05.315 --> 28:06.455 [SPEAKER_01]: I accept my circumstances. 28:06.975 --> 28:12.757 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think acceptance with everything that's going on in the world right now is so hard for people. 28:13.677 --> 28:14.697 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, not only hard, but... 28:15.878 --> 28:16.998 [SPEAKER_00]: So acceptance is... 28:18.273 --> 28:26.320 [SPEAKER_00]: the lesson that I struggled with the most, I think, like many people, and I'll give you a funny ADHD quick tangent here. 28:27.221 --> 28:43.536 [SPEAKER_00]: I recently discovered this, you know, it started up therapy recently and had been talking to a friend about this idea of, you know, an emotionally, or, gosh, what's the term, a highly sensitive person, but I was talking to this friend who has known me for 15

years, and I was like, man, I'm working through some things 28:44.662 --> 29:03.383 [SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, uh, he goes, yeah, dude, I don't know what you have, but you got something and he said it very kindly and and like whatever it is and have recently, yes, spoken with my therapist and gone to the ADHD diagnosis and unsurprisingly discovering as I'm talking to more people that are or air in the space. 29:03.403 --> 29:06.186 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, oh, yeah, these are my people and this is this is me. 29:06.886 --> 29:29.120 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's how my brain operates and no wonder why I struggle with this, but I'm really creative in these other areas, like, okay, so the biggest struggle for me with acceptance was like, many I would say I'm a recovering insecure over a cheever and that's a term I heard and just like never resonated with something more. 29:29.820 --> 29:36.885 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I didn't feel enough, and then I was like, well, once I get to this space in my life, and I do enough, then I will feel enough. 29:37.425 --> 29:51.095 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, once I get to that spot, I would then feel so, yeah, I would have imposter syndrome, so then I would work twice as hard to feel like I could then allow myself to feel enough to be worthy of that honor or that level of whatever, 29:55.678 --> 30:02.910 [SPEAKER_00]: thought I was always one optimization strategy away from being able to get all of it done. 30:03.951 --> 30:06.876 [SPEAKER_00]: I thought the things that I was that were driving me. 30:08.020 --> 30:13.025 [SPEAKER_00]: were going to make me happy and they were the things that were going to solve all of my problems. 30:13.445 --> 30:21.453 [SPEAKER_00]: If I could just get to the next thing, I can tell you how many years I spent with nerd fitness saying, I would love to write another book. 30:22.154 --> 30:24.196 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but wait, Google just changed an algorithm. 30:24.236 --> 30:31.102 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, time for me to put my head down and rewrite the top 100 articles so that I can fix our Google traffic to make sure that everybody 30:31.763 --> 30:41.210 [SPEAKER_00]: on the team can get paid for the next six months or a year or whatever it may be, I'll just, I just need to work unsustainably until and then I can get to the thing. 30:42.491 --> 30:45.854 [SPEAKER_00]: Things are bad now, but then next week things will get back to normal, right? 30:46.314 --> 30:49.897 [SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, this is the same thing we heard from every coaching client at Nerd Fitness. 30:50.538 --> 30:54.361 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, life is super busy this week, but next week, things should get back to normal. 30:54.761 --> 30:54.961 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 30:55.181 --> 31:02.226 [SPEAKER_00]: And eventually, I realized our team, we all realized like, oh, we keep waiting for this normal to come back. 31:03.087 --> 31:18.557 [SPEAKER_00]: That normal has got like post pandemic, you know, if you're, if you just had kids, you're dealing with the parent with dementia, you just went through a new, you know, the end of a relationship or something different in your life, we're waiting for normal. 31:19.478 --> 31:33.190 [SPEAKER_00]: and we are holding ourselves to an expectation that either we can keep going unsustainably until normal comes back or we can give ourselves permission to do nothing because we think normal will be back and then we can do all of the things. 31:34.161 --> 31:35.582 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is where acceptance comes in. 31:36.222 --> 31:39.784 [SPEAKER_00]: We have to stop avoiding the reality that we're not seeing in front of us. 31:40.665 --> 31:42.145 [SPEAKER_00]: And this isn't like resignation. 31:42.646 --> 31:44.046 [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't giving up. 31:44.307 --> 31:46.988 [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't letting ourselves off the hook. 31:47.688 --> 31:53.492 [SPEAKER_00]: Instead, it's like compassionately accepting what is actually happening in our lives right now. 31:54.272 --> 32:14.481 [SPEAKER_00]: It means looking at it with clear eyes and saying, yeah, like stuff sucks right now and I don't I'm I'm a new parent or I we just adopted a puppy or I'm dealing with a medical condition like this is the reality and we're not doing ourselves any favors by expecting it to be any different than what it actually is. 32:15.221 --> 32:24.752 [SPEAKER_00]: And the sooner we can accept the warts and the ugliness of whatever our chaotic existence is right now, like the sooner we accept that, then we can say like, okay. 32:25.874 --> 32:27.035 [SPEAKER_00]: What the hell do I do about it? 32:27.556 --> 32:32.421 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think a lot of people never get to that acceptance step because it's it's it's really. 32:33.794 --> 32:34.435 [SPEAKER_00]: it's scary. 32:34.935 --> 32:36.957 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, a lot of us avoid a lot of things. 32:37.617 --> 32:47.526 [SPEAKER_00]: I would say I typically have avoid tendencies and it's really easy for me to just kind of cram stuff down or kick it further down the road and just say like, oh, I'll get to it. 32:48.006 --> 32:50.408 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have time for this now and I'll get to it eventually. 32:51.409 --> 33:05.974 [SPEAKER_00]: and the truth of the matter is like now is the time that it must be dealt with because every day that I'm avoiding it, it's either getting worse or it's becoming a bigger problem in my mind, compared to the actual problem that might take me 15 minutes to solve in some cases. 33:06.434 --> 33:13.776 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so interesting, but it requires you to accept with complete transparency and compassion, this is what is actually happening in my life right now. 33:14.547 --> 33:15.307 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 33:15.527 --> 33:24.049 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm completely on board with this in theory, logically, emotionally, oh, boy, this is a tough, this is a tough pill to swallow. 33:24.329 --> 33:24.910 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. 33:25.010 --> 33:37.093

[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, acceptance is a really, really hard one, but I've, I've noticed, especially since the, the pandemic and beyond that, um, literally for now, six plus years, people have been in the state of waiting for things to go back to normal. 33:37.113 --> 33:42.394 [SPEAKER_01]: And this has been a core theme of so much of what I've written about and spoken about is literally the word normal. 33:42.994 --> 33:51.922 [SPEAKER_01]: I had a piece that I wrote, and I think it was like June or July of 2020, where I had said, not only do our things and not going to go back to normal, but normal wasn't working anyways. 33:53.724 --> 34:00.590 [SPEAKER_01]: But I still six years later, especially for those that are creatives, especially for those that are creatives in the entertainment industry. 34:01.352 --> 34:27.915 [SPEAKER_01]: there are still people that are saying it's going to pick up eventually right I mean things are going to go back to the way they were and I just with all the loving compassion in the world I want to shake them and say this is reality this is the world that we live in now and we have to accept these are circumstances but what they hear and I'm glad you point in this out is well that means that I'm giving up I'm resigning myself it means there's no more hope and I have to accept it it's like no you accept 34:28.375 --> 34:37.082 [SPEAKER_01]: But now you focus on what are the things that you can control in this new game you're playing with these new rules that you're playing by that's the piece that I feel so many are missing. 34:37.741 --> 34:38.461 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's funny. 34:39.162 --> 34:43.763 [SPEAKER_00]: I listen to, you know, I'm a member of the bell court independent movie theater here in Nashville. 34:43.803 --> 34:46.104 [SPEAKER_00]: I listen to movie podcasts and TV show podcasts. 34:46.405 --> 34:47.725 [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember back in 2024. 34:47.805 --> 34:50.646 [SPEAKER_00]: What was the survive until 25 or whatever? 34:50.666 --> 34:51.907 [SPEAKER_01]: So I have till 25. 34:51.927 --> 34:54.188 [SPEAKER_01]: And then it was stay in the mix till 26. 34:54.248 --> 34:55.968 [SPEAKER_01]: And like stop, yeah. 34:56.128 --> 35:03.812 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you know a little bit of industry and I do, I mean, I love, my heart breaks for the people in the creative industry 35:08.012 --> 35:14.174 [SPEAKER_00]: apocalypse of creative, not, and then throwing an AI slot and then just like the worst. 35:14.654 --> 35:20.816 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, the, except the, there's, there's two parallels I'm going to quickly draw here. 35:20.876 --> 35:24.137 [SPEAKER_00]: So, how I've, how I've navigated as acceptance is, 35:25.680 --> 35:31.425 [SPEAKER_00]: There's dialectical behavior, dialectical behavior of your therapy, yep. 35:31.485 --> 35:37.611 [SPEAKER_00]: DBT created by Marsha, Dr. Linahan, I believe, and then improvisational comedy. 35:38.331 --> 35:51.043 [SPEAKER_00]: And both are essentially the same thing, which is your dialectical behavioral therapy is the ability to hold two opposed thoughts in your head at the same time and still function, to borrow a quote from, I think it's F Scott Fitzgerald. 35:51.623 --> 36:20.833 [SPEAKER_00]: And then improv is yes and right it's I accept with complete sincerity whatever absurd situation my my my partner in improv came up with and I'm going to accept it and then I'm going to build on it So take all of those things stick in the blender and what do we come up with we have yes and like yep this sucks This situation I accept with complete sincerity and compassion for myself that this is not how expected things to go 36:22.161 --> 36:45.722 [SPEAKER_00]: And these are these small steps that I can take that are in my control and here's how you know I talk about literally creating hope in a later chapter in the the behavioral science behind that but there's like the okay this sucks and what are we going to do about it and I think for so many people we we kind of forget that 36:46.783 --> 36:48.383 [SPEAKER_00]: We almost don't want to say like, oh, it's not so bad. 36:48.423 --> 36:49.064 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not so bad. 36:49.224 --> 36:50.844 [SPEAKER_00]: We, you know, it's, oh, things are going to be fine. 36:50.864 --> 36:51.664 [SPEAKER_00]: Things are going to be fine. 36:52.664 --> 36:53.385 [SPEAKER_00]: No, maybe. 36:53.985 --> 36:59.146 [SPEAKER_00]: But like, if you just do that without actually accepting the hit might be really bad. 37:00.026 --> 37:10.489 [SPEAKER_00]: But the sooner you accept that it's really bad, only then can you finally start to address the problem and I have the utmost appreciation and respect for people that 37:11.228 --> 37:23.156 [SPEAKER_00]: after years or decades of kicking the can further down the road, or avoiding that uncomfortable conversation, or not going to the doctor because they think there's a problem, but they don't want to be, it scares them. 37:23.416 --> 37:32.222 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, when you finally give yourself the courage to say, I'm going to face this, I'm going to shine a light on the thing that has been scary for me. 37:33.663 --> 37:44.852 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm it can be life saving in many instances for many, but then also life giving in other ways because you're finally giving yourself the belief of the agency that this is something you can actually deal with. 37:45.873 --> 37:50.556 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this just kind of goes back to the cornerstone of stoic philosophy. 37:50.997 --> 38:00.904 [SPEAKER_01]: Just focus on the things that you can't control and ignore everything else and the frustration at least for me and I'm sure for so many others is there's so many fewer things that we can control 38:01.625 --> 38:05.909 [SPEAKER_01]: But again, if we just accept, well, all these things that I used to control are no longer within my control. 38:05.949 --> 38:11.094 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, now at least I know that I'm spending

my time energy and attention on things that are worthwhile. 38:11.174 --> 38:15.198 [SPEAKER_01]: So I've basically reduced my life to when I go to bed tonight. 38:15.298 --> 38:16.679 [SPEAKER_01]: I know that it's still going to be chaos. 38:16.799 --> 38:18.601 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm making way less income than I used to. 38:18.661 --> 38:19.542 [SPEAKER_01]: Everything's uncertain. 38:19.882 --> 38:21.464 [SPEAKER_01]: Do I feel good about how I spent my time today? 38:21.864 --> 38:23.346 [SPEAKER_01]: Do I do it on things that I can control? 38:23.366 --> 38:26.151 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, like that's my definition of success right now. 38:26.211 --> 38:31.739 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not, I got called for another season on American Ninja Warrior or I've tripled the size of my list. 38:31.759 --> 38:33.522 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, do I feel good about what I did today? 38:33.662 --> 38:36.587 [SPEAKER_01]: All right, good, it's just become that simple for me. 38:37.332 --> 38:46.436 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I tried to water for six years when it came to the guy that owns health and fitness company, fitness was my seventh priority for like six years. 38:47.316 --> 38:48.716 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was okay with that. 38:48.896 --> 38:52.238 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, I'm going to do one where I'm going to go to the gym sometimes and do one exercise. 38:52.938 --> 38:54.639 [SPEAKER_00]: I am going to strategically half ass. 38:55.519 --> 38:57.680 [SPEAKER_00]: quite a bit of my health and fitness journey. 38:58.000 --> 39:00.082 [SPEAKER_00]: I might have one healthy meal today. 39:00.102 --> 39:04.024 [SPEAKER_00]: It might be one healthy meal tomorrow, but right now, that's enough. 39:04.424 --> 39:12.109 [SPEAKER_00]: That's allowing me to tread water long enough to see tomorrow, while I can try to get these other things that are a little bit more on fire. 39:12.169 --> 39:13.990 [SPEAKER_00]: Those are the things that I can still deal with, but 39:14.893 --> 39:21.162 [SPEAKER_00]: doing one thing and treading water in this one way is kind of also reminding myself, like, hey dude, you're still in the fight, like you haven't given up yet. 39:21.662 --> 39:23.165 [SPEAKER_00]: You might not be winning, but you're not losing. 39:23.385 --> 39:28.953 [SPEAKER_00]: That's really, that can be really powerful in reminding yourself that you are in fact resilient. 39:29.864 --> 39:38.869 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and what I want to go into next, we've kind of already talked about, but I think it's important to go even deeper, where you said this wasn't a matter of a month or two, it was six years. 39:39.469 --> 39:41.030 [SPEAKER_01]: This process takes a while. 39:41.530 --> 39:48.013 [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like so many or just like, well, all right, so I get a things are chaotic, but like, what am I going to know where I'm going on the next path? 39:48.033 --> 39:52.155 [SPEAKER_01]: When I'm going to have this figured out, and they think they can measure it in a 12-week semester. 39:52.175 --> 39:54.937 [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, this can potentially take years. 39:55.537 --> 39:56.258 [SPEAKER_01]: Right. 39:56.278 --> 40:05.127 [SPEAKER_01]: There's a quote that you pulled up that I love as well, uh, it was a Joseph Campbell quote where he said, if the path before you was clear, you're probably on somebody else's. 40:05.888 --> 40:10.552 [SPEAKER_01]: And right now, no path is clear for anybody, but we keep clinging for what's the path? 40:10.633 --> 40:11.473 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the next step? 40:11.513 --> 40:12.334 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the direction? 40:13.235 --> 40:40.581 [SPEAKER_01]: And again, we have to accept number one that there might not be any clearly defined pass for many of us anymore, but the other thing that I think is so important to dig into, and the way that you framed this was so helpful for me, even though I think you and I read a lot of the same books, you know, we follow a lot of the same authors, even watch a lot of the same movies, the way that you dug into this really, it even kind of got to me, because usually like, oh, yeah, I know this psychologist I've read this book with this one, like, oh, shit. 40:44.043 --> 40:49.290 [SPEAKER_01]: And you talked about how we are, you know, we're not who we were anymore. 40:49.310 --> 40:49.831 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 40:50.171 --> 40:52.054 [SPEAKER_01]: But we're not who we want to be yet. 40:52.154 --> 40:53.996 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's this big giant messy middle. 40:54.317 --> 40:55.899 [SPEAKER_01]: And this was a new concept for me. 40:55.919 --> 40:57.781 [SPEAKER_01]: So talk to me a little bit more about caterpillar soup. 40:58.302 --> 40:58.462 [UNKNOWN]: Yeah. 40:59.187 --> 41:10.570 [SPEAKER_00]: So as kids, you know, we've all read the the very hungry caterpillar, I think this is the side always the hungry hungry, no, not hungry hungry hippos, which is a great game I played as a kid of the very hungry caterpillar. 41:10.990 --> 41:19.873 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's this cute story with these beautiful images of, you know, this, this, the fuzzy little green caterpillar eats like five apples and four strawberries and three oranges. 41:19.913 --> 41:24.714 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I can't remember the order of which, which, which fruits are consumed in which quantities, but 41:25.214 --> 41:48.688 [SPEAKER_00]: at the end of the book it says like and then the the caterpillar knitted himself a cute little cocoon and two weeks later popped out this beautiful butterfly and I remember reading this is a kid and thing like oh that's a cool story like yeah a little caterpillar yeah and it's it's you goes into its little cocoon and it's it's it's it's itself these these beautiful little wings and then bam pops out like great 41:50.008 --> 41:52.869 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you actually look into how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. 41:52.889 --> 41:54.690 [SPEAKER_00]: It is disgusting. 41:55.350 --> 41:59.691 [SPEAKER_00]: So I

think the way in the book I put it is like it's way less lovely and way more lovecraftian. 41:59.971 --> 42:14.516 [SPEAKER_00]: It's, or that happens is with respect to the author who, I think it's Eric Carl, who said something, I'm sure he's trying to keep things simple for kids, turns out a moths come out of cocoons and butterflies come out of chrysalis. 42:14.996 --> 42:17.977 [SPEAKER_00]: So the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis, 42:21.055 --> 42:22.615 [SPEAKER_00]: And then it literally eats itself. 42:23.275 --> 42:32.077 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it dissolves all of its cells and every part of it with the exception of like there's like a few retinal cells or something that remain. 42:32.858 --> 42:40.579 [SPEAKER_00]: And so which means like if you cut into a caterpillar or cut into a Christmas at the wrong point of time, like goo will come pouring out. 42:40.659 --> 42:47.221 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you're not like interrupting a little caterpillar knitting its wings, you were going to just see a pile of goo come 42:48.261 --> 43:16.701 [SPEAKER_00]: Seeping out like it's disgusting, but that's what it breaks itself down and it is no longer a caterpillar And it's not a butterfly yet and then it essentially reorganizes itself into a butterfly like which is If you think about it like one of the most mind-blowing things that could possibly happen I think I say it's something it's like if a can of alphabet soup like magically rearranged itself into warrant peace like how how does this happen 43:17.686 --> 43:41.601 [SPEAKER_00]: what and and yet this is like the process of metamorphosis that that caterpillar has to go through and that's how I think about change like we read self-help books and we're like oh yeah this is exciting and fun and everything is going to be different from this moment on and like that's not how it works it probably like you have to do really hard work 43:42.261 --> 43:42.782 [SPEAKER_00]: on yourself. 43:42.842 --> 43:49.007 [SPEAKER_00]: You have to break down parts of who you were and you haven't built the parts of who you want to be yet. 43:49.047 --> 44:00.817 [SPEAKER_00]: You're in that messy middle and you're just kind of caterpillar goo and it's ugly and it's uncomfortable and it's weird and also like that's part of the process. 44:01.217 --> 44:02.838 [SPEAKER_00]: And that requires acceptance, too, right? 44:02.858 --> 44:06.121 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you have to accept that this isn't going to be fun. 44:06.621 --> 44:08.063 [SPEAKER_00]: Like going to therapy, 44:08.803 --> 44:24.507 [SPEAKER_00]: and digging up like old challenges that you faced or finally addressing that conversation that you've been cramming down or swiping through or drinking through or whatever, like those things that you're avoiding, like when you finally address them, it can get ugly and messy. 44:25.247 --> 44:30.689 [SPEAKER_00]: And also, it's required for you to finally start to move in the direction of who you want to become. 44:32.405 --> 44:37.531 [SPEAKER_01]: I would say that that pretty much encapsulates the last two years where any time I could have asked, how do I feel? 44:37.591 --> 44:38.211 [SPEAKER_01]: How do I look? 44:38.351 --> 44:42.075 [SPEAKER_01]: Pretty much a big giant pile of goo for sure. 44:42.176 --> 44:47.842 [SPEAKER_01]: And this was an idea that I'd never heard of before I'm like, oh my god, this makes so much sense. 44:48.382 --> 44:53.488 [SPEAKER_01]: And what it led me to, and I think this kind of more, in my opinion, perfectly frames your book. 44:54.389 --> 45:03.822 [SPEAKER_01]: This is again where we go to we have a lot of share and authors that we like to read people that I know that are friends and mentors of yours your book is essentially atomic habits for mortals 45:04.678 --> 45:10.941 [SPEAKER_01]: If we want to combine your work in James Clears and Oliver Bergman says the topic habits for mortals, which is all right, great. 45:11.041 --> 45:13.803 [SPEAKER_01]: So all of that stuff, other people might be able to do that. 45:14.143 --> 45:18.085 [SPEAKER_01]: What about the rest of us that fail at consistency all the time? 45:18.766 --> 45:28.271 [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the traps that I fall into and this is not to speak poorly at all about James Clears, but is this mindset of I need to be making at least 1% progress every day? 45:28.731 --> 45:34.774 [SPEAKER_01]: which I think is a great idea, but I think with when you're in the middle of the Christmas, there isn't a 1% better every day. 45:34.794 --> 45:41.156 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, well, let me a little bit of progress and a little bit more progress, but then you're like, what the fuck happened to me in my life? 45:41.736 --> 45:45.538 [SPEAKER_01]: I am a total failure, because I can't even make 1% progress today. 45:46.078 --> 45:47.999 [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I think talking about this is so important. 45:48.899 --> 45:56.082 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, so the whole first chapter too, and I know we talked about it briefly, but the thing I remind myself of, there's no such thing as square one, 45:58.600 --> 46:04.185 [SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy for us when we have failed or when we're trying to change and we're breaking things down. 46:04.806 --> 46:06.968 [SPEAKER_00]: It feels like we're moving backwards. 46:07.569 --> 46:16.157 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I want to visit my family after trying to navigate my new life and I'm sleeping in my childhood bed being like, Oh, this is interesting. 46:16.938 --> 46:19.060 [SPEAKER_00]: Not what I would have expected to visit my family. 46:20.865 --> 46:26.887 [SPEAKER_00]: Things don't go the way that you want them to, and it can often feel like we're falling back to square one, we're starting over. 46:27.407 --> 46:41.673 [SPEAKER_00]: Like the amazing thing is we get to bring all of our past experiences and failures and struggles and the version that we used to be, all of that gets to come with us, and we get to stand on the

shoulders of those past experiences. 46:42.733 --> 46:55.962 [SPEAKER_00]: And even if the only lesson we learned was like, wouldn't do that again, great, we are learning and we're giving ourselves, you know, grist for the mill to try to figure out what the next version of us looks like. 46:56.462 --> 47:05.208 [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, even James Clayer would tell you, like, yeah, of course you can't just do 1% every day, eventually, like that's ridiculous, but the idea of like a small improvement helps. 47:05.729 --> 47:07.730 [SPEAKER_00]: And I did want this book to be like, James, 47:12.802 --> 47:13.142 [SPEAKER_00]: cool. 47:13.703 --> 47:19.026 [SPEAKER_00]: When life happens for people and they're like, man, I couldn't even stick with one percent every day. 47:19.607 --> 47:19.867 [SPEAKER_00]: Great. 47:20.147 --> 47:21.128 [SPEAKER_00]: Read how to try again. 47:21.248 --> 47:22.389 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's why you struggles. 47:22.609 --> 47:26.432 [SPEAKER_00]: And yes, hopefully you have a more compassion for yourself when things go wrong. 47:27.172 --> 47:30.034 [SPEAKER_00]: And you are in the caterpillar goose stage and you're like, 47:31.435 --> 47:35.600 [SPEAKER_00]: I am a failure and I'm struggling and change as hard and I feel like I'm going backwards. 47:35.941 --> 47:48.456 [SPEAKER_00]: Read this awesome and then you can decide go back to a time and try and do have a strategy or oh now I can try a different couch to 5k or whatever the thing is I wanted this book to be like the 47:49.654 --> 47:55.280 [SPEAKER_00]: the hug from your friends, Steve, when things go wrong and say like, hey, I get it. 47:55.881 --> 48:05.511 [SPEAKER_00]: I have failed to, I'm still not like, I failed and then everything got better and if I can do it, you can, and that's not true or helpful at all. 48:06.232 --> 48:07.132 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm still going through it. 48:07.293 --> 48:08.853 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what your situation may be. 48:09.374 --> 48:13.175 [SPEAKER_00]: But here's somebody that's kind of a mess that has helped a lot of people. 48:13.656 --> 48:16.257 [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe here are some lessons that we can work on together. 48:16.697 --> 48:17.958 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's going to be messy and ugly. 48:18.138 --> 48:19.538 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's do this together. 48:20.079 --> 48:22.880 [SPEAKER_00]: We can both be piles of caterpillar goo at the same time. 48:23.380 --> 48:24.841 [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe we can help each other. 48:24.861 --> 48:27.262 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd say both become beautiful butterflies. 48:27.302 --> 48:29.263 [SPEAKER_00]: But to be honest with you, butterflies kind of creep me out. 48:29.323 --> 48:31.104 [SPEAKER_00]: So I would prefer to not be a butterfly. 48:31.184 --> 48:33.085 [SPEAKER_00]: I might just stay in the stay in the crystal. 48:34.224 --> 48:42.449 [SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, I know that it's a little bit too late and you've already published the book, but if you were looking for an alternate title, piles of goo together, that could be a nice alternate one. 48:42.469 --> 48:42.989 [SPEAKER_01]: That was nice. 48:44.710 --> 48:57.197 [SPEAKER_01]: So for just one of the things you said that I love is I hope what happens for you is that every January, James clear sells all the books and every February first, you sell all the books. 48:58.037 --> 48:58.237 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? 48:58.257 --> 49:01.941 [SPEAKER_01]: Because they're like, well, I did the thing, and again, I love James Clear. 49:01.981 --> 49:03.843 [SPEAKER_01]: I teach his work every single semester. 49:03.903 --> 49:06.726 [SPEAKER_01]: So I say all this lovingly, but it doesn't work for everybody. 49:07.287 --> 49:11.471 [SPEAKER_01]: And it sets such a high standard of, well, I now have all of the information. 49:11.551 --> 49:14.314 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he wrote the only book we're ever going to need on habits. 49:14.334 --> 49:18.998 [SPEAKER_01]: There were a lot of other great books about habits, like Charles du Higgs, the power of habit, changed my life. 49:19.619 --> 49:19.819 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? 49:20.580 --> 49:22.361 [SPEAKER_01]: but nobody's right of another book about habits. 49:22.401 --> 49:22.962 [SPEAKER_01]: James did it. 49:23.042 --> 49:24.023 [SPEAKER_01]: It's done taking care of. 49:24.063 --> 49:24.984 [SPEAKER_01]: We can move on, right? 49:25.164 --> 49:32.589 [SPEAKER_01]: Yep, but it just, it doesn't work for certain types of people, especially at least for me, being highly neurodivergent consistency is my killies heal. 49:33.210 --> 49:38.314 [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to make sure that for anybody that's thinking, oh, it's another habits book. 49:38.514 --> 49:43.198 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to encapsulate like this one line in your book is so good. 49:44.208 --> 49:47.631 [SPEAKER_01]: And for everybody that wants to know, this is not just another book about habits. 49:47.671 --> 49:50.134 [SPEAKER_01]: This is my favorite line of the whole book. 49:50.975 --> 49:53.057 [SPEAKER_01]: This is how you're going to know that Steve's a little bit different. 49:54.158 --> 49:58.102 [SPEAKER_01]: I treat the thoughts in my head as if there are upstairs roommate that I met through the internet. 49:58.222 --> 50:00.144 [SPEAKER_01]: His name is Chaz, and he has a favorite. 50:01.138 --> 50:09.787 [SPEAKER_01]: Wait, that's the kind of book you're going to read, but the, you know, beyond the humor, when you say failing with compassion, that's to me as how this book is different. 50:10.148 --> 50:11.209 [SPEAKER_01]: It's about failure. 50:11.349 --> 50:14.332 [SPEAKER_01]: It's about being compassionate about that failure, accepting it. 50:14.953 --> 50:16.534 [SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's try again. 50:16.614 --> 50:18.777 [SPEAKER_01]: But this is a distinction that I know that is important to you. 50:19.257 --> 50:20.058 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not trying again. 50:20.078 --> 50:21.780 [SPEAKER_01]: It's how to try again. 50:23.031 --> 50:27.014

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, so like was I'm a huge fan of of James and his work. 50:27.154 --> 50:29.296 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he talked about nerd fitness and atomic habits. 50:29.356 --> 50:35.060 [SPEAKER_00]: So I returned to the favor, you know, maybe I can finally try to get him a little bit of attention by mentioning his name in my book. 50:35.180 --> 50:38.403 [SPEAKER_00]: And if we can sell some books for him, I know he's really struggling right now. 50:40.423 --> 50:47.568 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, um, yeah, the reason I wanted to write it like I said is we've all heard the phrase like if it first you don't succeed try try again. 50:47.588 --> 51:04.939 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know man, maybe, but like if you failed at trying to follow this strategy and it didn't work for you, I think we see that we see the strategies and and morning protocols and supplements stacks and whoever of people on Instagram or 51:06.196 --> 51:17.345 [SPEAKER_00]: Twitter, Alphabros that are just like, oh, I get up at 430 and I stare at the sun and then I go for Iran and levitate and then like this is how I became a billionaire. 51:17.626 --> 51:19.587 [SPEAKER_00]: No, dude, that's not what stop it. 51:19.907 --> 51:21.248 [SPEAKER_00]: Like knock it off. 51:21.329 --> 51:22.570 [SPEAKER_00]: That's not what's happening here. 51:23.310 --> 51:32.257 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel so badly for people that then try to follow these strategies and when they imagine when they don't either, they don't work and they beat themselves up that they can't follow through with it. 51:33.038 --> 51:36.620 [SPEAKER_00]: And likewise, I cannot follow through with most of the conventional strategies. 51:37.241 --> 51:40.903 [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted this book to be for people that are, you know, whose brains or bodies work differently. 51:40.983 --> 51:57.594 [SPEAKER_00]: And they're just like, I wanted people when they read this to think like, here's how I can take this framework and then use it as a filter or a lens so that everything I read after this, I can stop being like, oh, this didn't work for me on the failure. 51:57.814 --> 52:00.216 [SPEAKER_00]: And instead start evaluating those things and saying, 52:01.500 --> 52:21.615 [SPEAKER_00]: will this work for me, if I accept my normal weirdness and my struggles and the things that I'm currently dealing with, if that's true, is there something I can take from this without judgment of myself and try it for me like an experiment and if I try it and I don't like it or I try it and it doesn't work. 52:22.463 --> 52:24.565 [SPEAKER_00]: There's no shame or judgment on me. 52:25.025 --> 52:27.787 [SPEAKER_00]: It just means that was a thing that didn't work for me. 52:28.348 --> 52:28.968 [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic. 52:28.988 --> 52:30.330 [SPEAKER_00]: We can cross it off the list. 52:30.910 --> 52:35.214 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to ever have to try to go keto again, because carbs make life worth living. 52:35.594 --> 52:37.275 [SPEAKER_00]: So enjoy your carbs. 52:37.495 --> 52:42.680 [SPEAKER_00]: There is a different way that you can find a way to eat a healthy. 52:42.920 --> 52:47.644 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't love applying morality to food here, but people understand what I'm trying to say. 52:51.487 --> 53:10.612 [SPEAKER_00]: And so many people want to tell you, they have the one through path, and we get so excited about that path, and when it doesn't work for us, we beat ourselves up, or we follow through with it, and then we get disheartened because it didn't give us magically the same results that it did of this other person who is in a completely different life situation. 53:12.972 --> 53:17.193 [SPEAKER_01]: Man, it just makes me so exhausted thinking about all these things that we think we're supposed 53:22.024 --> 53:22.264 [SPEAKER_00]: man. 53:22.504 --> 53:30.667 [SPEAKER_01]: So I think I think what I need to do now is I need to reveal the the true reason that I've built this relationship and I brought you on this podcast today. 53:31.647 --> 53:33.768 [SPEAKER_01]: It's basically to steal your coaching for free. 53:35.408 --> 53:36.188 [SPEAKER_01]: So here's the idea. 53:36.228 --> 53:39.690 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to use some of the some of the frameworks that you talk about in your book. 53:40.030 --> 53:40.210 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 53:40.710 --> 53:47.032 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to be super vulnerable and I know how difficult it is where like you're the leader of nerd fitness and you're struggling with fitness. 53:47.052 --> 53:48.072 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was literally 53:50.853 --> 53:55.996 [SPEAKER_01]: And I've learned how to become much better being vulnerable, and it's not, I have things figured out, let me teach you. 53:56.437 --> 53:58.738 [SPEAKER_01]: It's, hey, both of our lives are a shit show. 53:58.758 --> 53:59.619 [SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing the works? 53:59.699 --> 54:01.040 [SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you what I'm doing the works. 54:01.080 --> 54:02.200 [SPEAKER_01]: Here's what isn't working, right? 54:02.741 --> 54:11.466 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I just let an in-person retreat over the weekend, and a couple of the topics that we talked about that we walked away with, and I participated, just as all my students did. 54:11.767 --> 54:15.449 [SPEAKER_01]: What's the one thing over the next few months during the summer that you want to focus on improving? 54:16.009 --> 54:17.791 [SPEAKER_01]: And what's the one thing that has to go? 54:18.491 --> 54:26.179 [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, when it comes to just generally exercising and being fit, I'm very much a weekend warrior, we're like Sundays. 54:26.399 --> 54:27.840 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like Spartan racer. 54:27.860 --> 54:29.362 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing the birth this Sunday. 54:29.402 --> 54:30.603 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm totally into it. 54:31.164 --> 54:33.646 [SPEAKER_01]: But when it comes to during the week, useless. 54:33.846 --> 54:34.967 [SPEAKER_01]: I am useless. 54:35.188 -->

54:37.010 [SPEAKER_01]: I cannot cannot. 54:37.590 --> 54:40.614 [SPEAKER_01]: bring myself to just exercise consistently throughout the week. 54:41.015 --> 54:46.963 [SPEAKER_01]: So for me, building them in it's not even about getting stronger, tougher, it's not about improvement. 54:47.364 --> 54:52.871 [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's just kind of like spreading water, working on mobility a little bit, and I think what you can probably relate to. 54:53.492 --> 55:01.815 [SPEAKER_01]: is physical activity is so essential for ADHD and the ADHD if you don't channel it through movement, at least for me turns into anxiety and overwhelm. 55:02.235 --> 55:13.478 [SPEAKER_01]: So the first, the first component of this is how do I just get myself to consistently, there's that word again, just move more throughout the week and then the thing that has to go emotional snacking. 55:15.111 --> 55:16.512 [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a hypothetical. 55:16.552 --> 55:17.813 [SPEAKER_01]: Let's work through your framework. 55:18.294 --> 55:19.495 [SPEAKER_01]: I am a stuck Steve. 55:19.975 --> 55:22.177 [SPEAKER_01]: Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope. 55:22.717 --> 55:24.099 [SPEAKER_01]: Why can't I do these things? 55:28.122 --> 55:29.103 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's one real reason. 55:29.123 --> 55:30.804 [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm. 55:31.004 --> 55:31.645 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to. 55:32.506 --> 55:32.866 [SPEAKER_00]: Right? 55:33.446 --> 55:39.912 [SPEAKER_00]: If there was a bear in that room with you right now, you would have no problem sprinting and running. 55:39.932 --> 55:41.033 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait. 55:42.039 --> 55:50.384 [SPEAKER_00]: If I dropped you in the middle of the ocean and maybe not the middle of the ocean, let's say, you know, 200 yards off of shore, you would probably start swimming for sure. 55:50.404 --> 56:07.175 [SPEAKER_00]: So we are fortunate that right now in our lives, there's, if you don't go for, if you don't go for your run today or do a CrossFit workout, like there's nothing, there's no, no part of you that is going to, your life is not on the line. 56:08.556 --> 56:09.796 [SPEAKER_00]: Even if you go way back in the day, 56:11.498 --> 56:17.262 [SPEAKER_00]: voluntarily exercising to burn calories is something that no species on the planet has ever done. 56:18.042 --> 56:24.006 [SPEAKER_00]: And no human has done, I think his Daniel Lieberman's does has a lot of great work on this called the mismatch hypothesis. 56:24.066 --> 56:32.652 [SPEAKER_00]: But we're humans who would prefer to probably be lazy and we are now in an environment where we don't have to exercise. 56:32.892 --> 56:34.073 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think step one is like, 56:34.853 --> 56:41.377 [SPEAKER_00]: you need to talk to that voice in your head who beats yourself up every day being like, why can't I get myself to just do the thing? 56:42.118 --> 56:42.678 [SPEAKER_00]: I get it dude. 56:43.139 --> 56:44.379 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to either. 56:45.580

--> 56:55.227 [SPEAKER_00]: I've had to identify different strategies and hacks and tactics for myself to get me to do the thing that I know deep down would be good. 56:55.907 --> 56:56.268 [SPEAKER_00]: for me. 56:56.768 --> 56:59.812 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I have a whole chapter in the book called like how to keep doing the thing. 57:00.353 --> 57:01.434 [SPEAKER_00]: It's 10 strategies. 57:01.514 --> 57:03.036 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't say like it's not magic. 57:03.136 --> 57:04.458 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not magical protocols. 57:04.538 --> 57:06.881 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not one size fits all. 57:06.921 --> 57:11.446 [SPEAKER_00]: But it's like, hey, here are some strategies that might work for you. 57:12.327 --> 57:17.789 [SPEAKER_00]: It's finding ways to make the activity that you're doing more fun by maybe recruiting a friend. 57:18.269 --> 57:24.771 [SPEAKER_00]: It might be finding a way to make the exercise like really making the benefits of it front front and center for you. 57:25.351 --> 57:27.172 [SPEAKER_00]: It could be something on, you know. 57:28.723 --> 57:39.131 [SPEAKER_00]: adding a monetary incentive where you pay a friend to check in with you each morning and every day that you don't check in, that money goes to the political party that you don't want money to go to. 57:39.371 --> 57:44.434 [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's all sorts of like little hacks and strategies, but like at the foundational level, 57:45.575 --> 57:50.219 [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't want to do it, you don't have to because we don't live in that environment anymore. 57:50.539 --> 57:55.904 [SPEAKER_00]: So, like, don't beat yourself up that, like, oh, it's really easy to be lazy, like, yeah, man, I know. 57:56.504 --> 58:00.928 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to either, but I know how good I feel after I do it. 58:01.688 --> 58:06.592 [SPEAKER_00]: So, it's like, how do I reduce the distance between me and just getting started? 58:07.913 --> 58:09.515 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I give myself permission? 58:09.995 --> 58:11.016 [SPEAKER_00]: This is what I've been doing lately. 58:11.516 --> 58:12.937 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just joined a new gym. 58:13.931 --> 58:24.264 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, for the first time in six years, I joined like a big commercial gym, actually hired Matt who's running nerd fitness now to be my coach, to coach me so that I have accountability. 58:25.105 --> 58:31.032 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I tell him, like, hey, I got to the gym today, I did one exercise and then I was just, I had to get the hell out of there. 58:32.513 --> 58:33.274 [SPEAKER_00]: Workout complete. 58:33.774 --> 58:37.197 [SPEAKER_00]: I did one exercise and that was enough for me to track water. 58:37.237 --> 58:39.719 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think for you, it doesn't have to be 1% better. 58:40.600 --> 58:44.344 [SPEAKER_00]: It might be as simple as like, hey, I have a competition with the friends. 58:44.864 --> 58:47.646 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to accumulate 100 pushups this week. 58:48.507 --> 58:49.027 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's it. 58:49.688 --> 58:51.188 [SPEAKER_00]: You can do them all in the first day. 58:51.609 --> 58:53.249 [SPEAKER_00]: You can do them 10 pushups a day. 58:53.529 --> 58:53.830 [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever. 58:54.270 --> 58:57.551 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know because I don't know you specifically in what your day looks like. 58:57.771 --> 58:58.892 [SPEAKER_00]: So I can't prescribe. 58:59.452 --> 59:00.192 [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, of course. 59:00.453 --> 59:08.156 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think maybe there's a mindset aspect here that is I'm very familiar with, which is like the man, why can't you just get it together? 59:08.296 --> 59:09.177 [SPEAKER_00]: Other people can. 59:09.917 --> 59:13.199 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think instead accepting like, yeah, I don't want to exercise. 59:13.719 --> 59:15.700 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't enjoy it, but it makes me feel really good. 59:16.580 --> 59:34.985 [SPEAKER_00]: If that is the reality here, how do I find some different strategies to get me out of my own way, long enough to just freaking get started without expectation for it magically solving my problems and start there so start from a position of 59:35.805 --> 59:40.567 [SPEAKER_00]: compassionate acceptance, erosim, you know, kind of beaten that phrase into the ground here. 59:40.908 --> 59:46.991 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there was some aspect of this that you and I probably are really good at tough love with ourselves. 59:47.971 --> 59:51.253 [SPEAKER_00]: And it probably got us to where we think we got it to where we are. 59:52.696 --> 59:57.058 [SPEAKER_00]: And if it continued working, it would have already continued working. 59:57.298 --> 59:58.198 [SPEAKER_00]: And this wouldn't be a problem. 59:58.438 --> 01:00:05.861 [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe try a different strategy here with acceptance and no baseline of what your expectation is for the week. 01:00:07.702 --> 01:00:08.523 [SPEAKER_00]: And build off of that. 01:00:10.603 --> 01:00:13.445 [SPEAKER_01]: The couple of things came into mind when you shared this. 01:00:13.505 --> 01:00:16.726 [SPEAKER_01]: The first one which really hit me hard is where you started. 01:00:17.346 --> 01:00:18.607 [SPEAKER_01]: It's because you don't have to. 01:00:19.833 --> 01:00:26.261 [SPEAKER_01]: And that hadn't even really occurred to me like it seems so simple, but it's like, oh, I don't actually have to. 01:00:27.022 --> 01:00:36.152 [SPEAKER_01]: And this is where I can share, I think, you and I might also belong to similar organizations, but I'm the the founder and president of overthinkers anonymous. 01:00:37.112 --> 01:00:41.975 [SPEAKER_01]: And what I'm what I'm really good at doing is logicing my way out of everything. 01:00:42.535 --> 01:00:46.317 [SPEAKER_01]: And years ago, it really was a matter of, I have to be doing this. 01:00:46.497 --> 01:00:47.998 [SPEAKER_01]: I am horribly out of shape. 01:00:48.458 --> 01:01:01.866 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember, uh, back when I was third, I

can't believe I have to say back, but back when I was 30, way back in the day, um, I remember playing with my son, who was just, uh, maybe one years old at the time, and we were playing on the floor, and I trouble getting up. 01:01:01.906 --> 01:01:02.146 [SPEAKER_01]: And like, 01:01:03.828 --> 01:01:05.949 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm 30, this shouldn't be a problem. 01:01:06.009 --> 01:01:07.670 [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to do the things. 01:01:08.131 --> 01:01:13.914 [SPEAKER_01]: That's when I started getting into Spartan races, I started getting into tough mutters, and then that led me down the American Azure or your path. 01:01:14.615 --> 01:01:15.555 [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to do it. 01:01:15.635 --> 01:01:22.880 [SPEAKER_01]: The problem now is that I can sit on my ass all week, and I can write stuff, and I can coach with people, and I can do a full Marathon Sundays. 01:01:23.680 --> 01:01:37.670 [SPEAKER_01]: So I can logic my way out of needing to do anything because I have reached a point where I feel good about my strength and I feel good about my cardio and I see my doctors like, wow, you're healthy as a horse, which means that I sit on my ass for all the three hours of the entire week. 01:01:38.150 --> 01:01:47.517 [SPEAKER_01]: But I know that that's detrimental to just my general feeling of energy throughout the day and most importantly to my creativity because when I don't move, it's harder to write. 01:01:49.418 --> 01:01:50.118 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think. 01:01:50.499 --> 01:01:51.359 [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe that's it. 01:01:51.399 --> 01:02:05.629 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, are there other ways, like, I wouldn't recommend hiring a bear to chase you for having a friend drop you in the ocean, but are there ways that you can, you know, a nerd fitness, we talk about, can you find a big why, you know, like, what's that for you when you're a 30 like. 01:02:06.289 --> 01:02:08.250 [SPEAKER_00]: Should I can't even get off off the floor to play with my kids? 01:02:08.370 --> 01:02:09.611 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's a problem. 01:02:10.111 --> 01:02:24.398 [SPEAKER_00]: So that is a half-two because you have 60 more years of hoping to, it's 60 plus years with your family and you know that, you know, move it or lose it or use it or lose it rather. 01:02:24.938 --> 01:02:31.742 [SPEAKER_00]: So are there ways whether it's signing up for more classes, you know, me, for me, I also don't have to fit, you know, I'm, 01:02:32.662 --> 01:02:57.443 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to, but now that I have a coach who I'm accountable to, I'm like, fine, I'll go do this stupid work out here that there's that great meme of the it's like this ball the eagle stomping around on the beach and he's like going from my stupid little mental walk for my my little walk for my dumb mental health like I got that eagle felt pretty good after he went for his dumb little walk for his stupid mental health now we can be a little bit more kind with the words that we use. 01:02:58.224 --> 01:03:09.833 [SPEAKER_00]: but are there ways that you can introduce half to in your situation or somebody that you can be accountable to or an organization of people that are now counting on you to show up during the week? 01:03:11.014 --> 01:03:15.338 [SPEAKER_00]: And you'll drag yourself there kicking and screaming and then you'll be like, I'm so glad I did that. 01:03:15.878 --> 01:03:17.299 [SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you how many things. 01:03:18.120 --> 01:03:19.541 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, I don't want to go. 01:03:19.561 --> 01:03:20.822 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I go on to like that was awesome. 01:03:20.903 --> 01:03:21.603 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad I did. 01:03:21.963 --> 01:03:23.104 [SPEAKER_00]: And I learned nothing from it. 01:03:23.585 --> 01:03:25.366 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I fight it tooth and nail the next time. 01:03:25.927 --> 01:03:27.909 [SPEAKER_00]: And then I find a way to do it. 01:03:28.109 --> 01:03:29.250 [SPEAKER_00]: And I feel great again. 01:03:29.670 --> 01:03:32.993 [SPEAKER_00]: And just like have to like override that part. 01:03:33.373 --> 01:03:34.434 [SPEAKER_00]: Chaz in my brain. 01:03:34.454 --> 01:03:36.716 [SPEAKER_00]: And we're telling me like, no dude, you don't have to go. 01:03:36.736 --> 01:03:37.337 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's fine. 01:03:37.457 --> 01:03:38.878 [SPEAKER_00]: Like Chaz, we're going. 01:03:39.238 --> 01:03:40.460 [SPEAKER_00]: It's gonna be good for us. 01:03:40.720 --> 01:03:41.901 [SPEAKER_00]: We write all day at home. 01:03:42.081 --> 01:03:42.982 [SPEAKER_00]: Go see people. 01:03:43.402 --> 01:03:44.163 [SPEAKER_00]: Go do stuff. 01:03:44.703 --> 01:03:47.607 [SPEAKER_00]: sure enough, uh, I do it and it makes me feel better. 01:03:47.967 --> 01:03:56.537 [SPEAKER_00]: But I have to remind myself, or be accountable to others because it's really easy for me, like you, to overthink my way into or out of pretty much anything. 01:03:57.300 --> 01:03:58.160 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:03:58.200 --> 01:04:12.444 [SPEAKER_01]: I found that over the years that if we're going to kind of look at the ten strategies, the one to me, that just completely popped off the page and it could very easily be an entire part two of the series as this one thing, find people who do the thing. 01:04:13.144 --> 01:04:22.486 [SPEAKER_01]: And I have found that that has been the difference for me for everything that I've ever accomplished, which is ironic, given that I am extremely introverted. 01:04:23.250 --> 01:04:36.118 [SPEAKER_01]: and I am not one to network and not one to be in groups, but if I think about all of the major inflection points in my life, the goals that I've achieved, the growth that I've had, just begrudgingly hurt, because I'm with other people, right? 01:04:36.138 --> 01:04:47.966 [SPEAKER_01]: I just want to kind of be in my own small dark room and be left alone and be introverted and be creative, but every single possible thing that I attribute that is successful or something

worthwhile or meaningful, it's because I 01:04:50.349 --> 01:05:11.952 [SPEAKER_01]: Right, so for me the component isn't I've actually been thinking about how do I integrate this is kind of in a similar way that you do just how do I build in daily challenges with my students because if there's one thing I'm not going to do it's going to look like a failure in front of my own students who are counting on me to be the one that has all this shit figured out even though my students know at this point I don't have any this shit figured out. 01:05:12.832 --> 01:05:13.193 [SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah. 01:05:13.453 --> 01:05:14.574 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's, I mean, it's funny. 01:05:14.614 --> 01:05:15.374 [SPEAKER_00]: You say that, actually. 01:05:15.474 --> 01:05:29.465 [SPEAKER_00]: There's, so there is a, I spoke with a professor at the University of, I'm sorry, Steven's University in Hoboken, New Jersey, who teaches a class on failure, her name is Theresa McFale, which I'm not kidding. 01:05:30.486 --> 01:05:45.540 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not just delightful, but she teaches in a completely different discipline, but she noticed so many students coming into school completely unprepared to handle all their first bad grades. 01:05:45.860 --> 01:05:49.484 [SPEAKER_00]: Like mentally, just like they had never failed before. 01:05:49.584 --> 01:05:52.707 [SPEAKER_00]: These are also overachieving kids to get into a great engineering school. 01:05:53.167 --> 01:05:58.531 [SPEAKER_00]: and then they get their first D or C-minus on a test and like they don't know how to handle it. 01:05:59.091 --> 01:06:05.276 [SPEAKER_00]: So she went to her faculty and said like, hey, I have this idea for a class specifically on failure. 01:06:05.996 --> 01:06:11.660 [SPEAKER_00]: And the punchline here is, it's become so successful that now it's seven years later. 01:06:11.700 --> 01:06:16.684 [SPEAKER_00]: She has a weight list every semester, but what she says on day one is, 01:06:17.716 --> 01:06:39.091 [SPEAKER_00]: um like we're gonna do this class together and we're going to figure it out together and we're going to navigate failure and what that means and I'm not always going to have my shit together either but this is life and we're going to do it together and I think that's really there's something to that you know I get really vulnerable in this book and share 01:06:40.271 --> 01:07:02.294 [SPEAKER_00]: To to to to at the risk of being completely cliche like I am an open book and this book shares all of my flaws and struggles and say like this is what I'm struggling with and how I'm trying to navigate it through this book and the research and the philosophy and the lessons I've learned from our you know what who nerd fitness coaching 20,000 people or whatever it is. 01:07:03.795 --> 01:07:22.213 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm still struggling with these things, I think there is some part for you where you can be the vulnerable person in sharing with your audience, not the guy that has

it all figured out, not the Yoda who gets to speak in pithy quotes and say like, no, you have to, you know, do or do not, there is no try. 01:07:22.674 --> 01:07:24.796 [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, Yoda, the try is totally acceptable. 01:07:25.356 --> 01:07:27.518 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, like that's fine, right? 01:07:27.538 --> 01:07:28.619 [SPEAKER_00]: So that's fine. 01:07:29.140 --> 01:07:33.123 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you can, it's okay for you to say like, hey, I'm struggling through this too. 01:07:33.184 --> 01:07:35.185 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's, here's how I'm trying to figure it out. 01:07:35.205 --> 01:07:36.126 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, what are your thoughts on this? 01:07:36.407 --> 01:07:39.670 [SPEAKER_00]: I bet your class and your audience would, would be like, oh, thank God. 01:07:40.670 --> 01:07:42.893 [SPEAKER_00]: I can't tell you how many emails I've got from people saying like, 01:07:44.137 --> 01:07:49.381 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank God, like for I loved Nerd Fitness, but man, like you said an impossible standard back in the day. 01:07:49.921 --> 01:07:54.444 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you were like Captain America to me and like I have Captain America shield on my wall behind me. 01:07:54.804 --> 01:07:56.866 [SPEAKER_00]: Because like that's who I wanted to be for these people. 01:07:57.566 --> 01:08:05.772 [SPEAKER_00]: And then when I started saying like, hey, here's all the shit that's going wrong and here's the thing I thought I was doing and here's the insecurities that led me down this path. 01:08:06.592 --> 01:08:08.274 [SPEAKER_00]: The replies were like, oh, thank God. 01:08:09.054 --> 01:08:09.214 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:08:09.254 --> 01:08:10.735 [SPEAKER_00]: They got, man, you're, you're real. 01:08:11.115 --> 01:08:27.506 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, and I think now online with everything being airbrushed or AI or Slop or whatever, like real vulnerability is going to be just so much more valuable and important because it's getting harder and harder to find in the polished version of the internet. 01:08:28.155 --> 01:08:49.435 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, which is again, what I think drew me directly to you and vice versa is we we're we're seeing from the same same hymnal and I this is the discovery that I made I would probably two, three years ago and the simplest distillation of my rebrand is my former business strategy was selling optimization, my new business strategy is selling my coping mechanisms. 01:08:50.666 --> 01:08:50.966 [SPEAKER_01]: Love it. 01:08:51.407 --> 01:08:51.787 [SPEAKER_01]: All right. 01:08:52.147 --> 01:08:52.327 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:08:52.487 --> 01:08:53.408 [SPEAKER_01]: I like the shit show. 01:08:53.468 --> 01:08:57.351 [SPEAKER_01]: Like if I didn't have a countering strategy, I'd walk in circles all day looking for my pants. 01:08:57.431 --> 01:09:00.133 [SPEAKER_01]: So let me share with you how I manage my time so I can find that. 01:09:00.153 --> 01:09:00.974 [SPEAKER_00]: How do they get over there? 01:09:00.994 --> 01:09:01.694 [SPEAKER_01]: All right. 01:09:01.754 --> 01:09:02.515 [SPEAKER_01]: How did that happen? 01:09:03.516 --> 01:09:04.156 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:09:04.176 --> 01:09:05.957 [SPEAKER_01]: So here's why I want to leave us today. 01:09:05.977 --> 01:09:07.599 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to be very respectful of your time. 01:09:08.539 --> 01:09:10.801 [SPEAKER_01]: But I want to get deeper into the why. 01:09:10.821 --> 01:09:13.002 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to do my best to get through this without being emotional. 01:09:13.043 --> 01:09:14.864 [SPEAKER_01]: Just thinking about it is already making me emotional. 01:09:16.181 --> 01:09:23.784 [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd shared with you the trailer for the documentary film that I did years ago that was about the first quadriplegic to become a licensed scuba diver. 01:09:24.564 --> 01:09:28.205 [SPEAKER_01]: And he was, he wasn't just a subject that I found. 01:09:28.265 --> 01:09:29.806 [SPEAKER_01]: He was a very close friend of mine. 01:09:29.826 --> 01:09:33.647 [SPEAKER_01]: It's somebody that I knew for years before he unfortunately passed away. 01:09:33.667 --> 01:09:35.468 [SPEAKER_01]: And I learned about all the things he accomplished. 01:09:35.508 --> 01:09:37.449 [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I would like to make a movie about his life. 01:09:38.769 --> 01:09:40.570 [SPEAKER_01]: But then what happened is I realized, 01:09:41.865 --> 01:09:45.929 [SPEAKER_01]: what he does or what he did, that's actually become my calling. 01:09:46.469 --> 01:09:51.034 [SPEAKER_01]: The calling my entire life was I'm gonna make movies and I'm gonna win gold statues. 01:09:52.111 --> 01:09:56.414 [SPEAKER_01]: And then, in telling his story, I realized, but that's not what I'm here for. 01:09:56.494 --> 01:10:05.299 [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm here for is to help people deal with all the difficult obstacles in their lives and overcome those obstacles so they can achieve their goals. 01:10:06.399 --> 01:10:13.043 [SPEAKER_01]: And you had said specifically in your book that this was your life's work. 01:10:14.524 --> 01:10:14.744 [SPEAKER_00]: Why? 01:10:15.265 --> 01:10:17.466 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't set it out, it didn't set out that way. 01:10:19.873 --> 01:10:28.646 [SPEAKER_00]: have had a lot of success with nerd fitness and built a really cool team that helped a lot of people over at the time when I started this process 15 years. 01:10:30.049 --> 01:10:33.272 [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought I had a lot of life figured out and was moving down a specific path. 01:10:33.793 --> 01:10:41.301 [SPEAKER_00]: And then like I think's one sideways for a good year and a half while I was writing a book about what to do when life goes sideways. 01:10:42.202 --> 01:10:52.372 [SPEAKER_00]: And I am so proud of the fact that I gave myself permission, which was so hard to step back from nerd fitness and say, I can't 01:10:53.587 --> 01:11:00.051 [SPEAKER_00]: I can't be the person this company needs me to be, because that's not who I

am. 01:11:00.331 --> 01:11:01.291 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not my skill set. 01:11:01.551 --> 01:11:02.532 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not what I'm good at. 01:11:02.872 --> 01:11:06.034 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not how I want to make an impact. 01:11:06.854 --> 01:11:21.623 [SPEAKER_00]: What I think I am really good at is writing really relatable, helpful content that make people sharing really helpful stories and ways of writing that make people not feel so alone with their struggles and their challenges. 01:11:22.623 --> 01:11:35.752 [SPEAKER_00]: And as I put this book together, there was actually a while where I became paralyzed from being able to write it because I thought to myself, man, there was like, you know, I had 120,000 words of chaos. 01:11:36.333 --> 01:11:38.594 [SPEAKER_00]: And my final book was going to be 75,000 words. 01:11:38.894 --> 01:11:47.741 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was paralyzed by thinking, I don't know how to find the right book in here, just like I had been thinking and helping people 01:11:51.463 --> 01:11:52.064 [SPEAKER_00]: workout plant. 01:11:52.084 --> 01:11:53.264 [SPEAKER_00]: There is no perfect strategy. 01:11:53.365 --> 01:12:14.161 [SPEAKER_00]: There's no this this perfect thing that you're seeking that will solve all of your problems and finally make you feel enough and reduce your anxiety like that doesn't exist and it took some friends and like I said therapy and journaling and a lot of long walks to realize like I don't need to write the perfect books because that doesn't exist. 01:12:15.081 --> 01:12:18.084 [SPEAKER_00]: I need to write the most Steve book I can possibly write. 01:12:19.345 --> 01:12:28.609 [SPEAKER_00]: actually sat down with a good friend of mine named Josh Kaufman who wrote personal NBA and a number of other really fantastic books and he helped me. 01:12:28.669 --> 01:12:32.351 [SPEAKER_00]: He said like, hey, this is the chapter where you're trying to sound like Mark Manson. 01:12:32.551 --> 01:12:34.792 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the chapter where you're trying to sound like Oliver Birkman. 01:12:35.192 --> 01:12:38.594 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the chapter where you're trying to sound like Morgan Housler, James Clear, whoever. 01:12:40.246 --> 01:12:44.489 [SPEAKER_00]: This part right here, man, like, he coined the phrase he goes, this is maximum Steve right here. 01:12:45.630 --> 01:12:47.512 [SPEAKER_00]: I need you to know that this is good enough. 01:12:48.212 --> 01:12:50.254 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, man, I don't know if I believe that. 01:12:51.354 --> 01:13:03.123 [SPEAKER_00]: And I had to work through this of being like, hey, you're not those people, you're trying to write the best, like the most steep version of this story to help people 01:13:04.390 --> 01:13:12.154 [SPEAKER_00]: not feel so alone, not feel like failures to stop beating themselves up when they can't be as resilient as they think they should be. 01:13:12.774 --> 01:13:17.336 [SPEAKER_00]: And over the course of three and a

half years, I think I've changed pretty dramatically. 01:13:17.356 --> 01:13:28.802 [SPEAKER_00]: In, you know, I ended up, this is so cliche, but I ended up writing the book, I really needed for myself to stop beating myself up and stop feeling that guilt and shame around things not working out. 01:13:29.662 --> 01:13:48.419 [SPEAKER_00]: in some ways and others like not my fault or through no fault to my whatever it may be like I'm so proud of how this turned out and I hope it can reach the right audience of people that are tired and burned out and 01:13:49.900 --> 01:13:57.562 [SPEAKER_00]: just trying to figure out like how do I stop feeling like crap because I can't follow through on all these popular tactics and strategies. 01:13:58.202 --> 01:14:01.183 [SPEAKER_00]: How do I be okay with who I am? 01:14:01.723 --> 01:14:05.665 [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's what this book turned into, which was not expected. 01:14:06.545 --> 01:14:09.986 [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, I talked, I'll show this at the very end of the book, but like 01:14:11.877 --> 01:14:28.830 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm really privileged and it still took a village of people to help me through these past few years and to get this book across the finish line and really fundamentally changed how I think about productivity, optimization, life, behavior change, like all of these things, I feel like I have a such a better perspective on. 01:14:29.070 --> 01:14:32.072 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I say this is my life's work up until now. 01:14:33.113 --> 01:14:39.538 [SPEAKER_00]: I have learned a lot and have changed a lot and I'm okay not knowing what the future version of me looks like. 01:14:40.258 --> 01:14:44.279 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think there's always going to be a part of me that is just perpetually in the caterpillar goo stage. 01:14:44.899 --> 01:14:47.520 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm kind of okay with that. 01:14:47.780 --> 01:15:03.123 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I want to keep changing and I want to keep learning and I want to keep being surprised by what opportunities or things come my way and being resigned and accepting of the fact that like, I don't know what the future holds. 01:15:04.064 --> 01:15:09.685 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not going to beat myself up because I don't have a five-year plan or a tenure plan. 01:15:11.086 --> 01:15:20.879 [SPEAKER_00]: I've tried to live a pretty great day today and spend time with the people that are important to me, try to do some work more often than not, that feels fulfilling, that might help people. 01:15:21.882 --> 01:15:27.427 [SPEAKER_00]: And then be kinder to myself when I'm not operating at 100% capacity all day every day. 01:15:27.487 --> 01:15:29.229 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't think that's healthy. 01:15:29.389 --> 01:15:30.790 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's been a journey. 01:15:32.331 --> 01:15:34.834 [SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't be happier with the book that I wrote. 01:15:34.994 --> 01:15:42.420 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's hopefully if it finds the

right people can help them navigate whatever apocalypse is coming next. 01:15:42.440 --> 01:15:43.501 [SPEAKER_00]: Because we all know it's, uh, 01:15:44.797 --> 01:15:56.349 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the next few years will bring, but I think having a flexibly resilient mindset and healthier way that we speak to ourselves is gonna be really, really important. 01:15:57.171 --> 01:15:57.371 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:15:57.812 --> 01:15:58.753 [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't agree more. 01:15:58.773 --> 01:16:05.178 [SPEAKER_01]: I can I can share unequivocally that you found maximum Steve in this book for sure. 01:16:05.238 --> 01:16:11.444 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it it from all the reading of yours I've done over the years following you like it is a hundred percent Steve. 01:16:11.504 --> 01:16:17.650 [SPEAKER_01]: It did not feel like another personal development book that was putting together the marshmallow test, coupled with this thing. 01:16:17.710 --> 01:16:20.973 [SPEAKER_01]: Like it was all Steve, but it was also really useful stuff. 01:16:21.393 --> 01:16:24.917 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's going to lead me to the very last lightning round question. 01:16:25.718 --> 01:16:31.565 [SPEAKER_01]: Maximum Steve is going to time travel 10 years ago, and he's going to talk to level 50 Steve. 01:16:32.246 --> 01:16:34.028 [SPEAKER_01]: What does he have to tell him about what's coming? 01:16:35.798 --> 01:16:51.131 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a part of me that like I think there's a part of me that would say you're about to walk down this path because you think you think it's what you want or it's what you should do you have all of these opportunities nerd fitness is writing high. 01:16:52.112 --> 01:17:07.646 [SPEAKER_00]: and you're telling yourself, hey, if I jump on these opportunities, like I can put my dent in the universe and, and you're neglecting to ask the question, you know, I'd say like, don't just ask is the juice worth the squeeze, but like, do you even like juice, right? 01:17:07.706 --> 01:17:11.129 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, do you want to be in charge of a really big company? 01:17:12.050 --> 01:17:17.975 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to sit in meetings and build this giant thing and be responsible for all like, 01:17:19.679 --> 01:17:27.186 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're only raising your doing it is because it's an opportunity and you think you should like that's I think that's probably something I would have done differently. 01:17:28.167 --> 01:17:38.377 [SPEAKER_00]: At the same time I don't know if like even through heartbreak and life changing and all these other things like I don't know if I would change I don't know what I would change I don't know like. 01:17:40.874 --> 01:18:01.193 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this is the book that I needed to write and maybe nerd fitness is doing exactly what it's meant to be doing and I'm exactly where I need to be right now too and going through hardship and learning and getting my ass kicked a lot is going to allow

me to help more people in a much different larger broader way than just like I don't know so. 01:18:02.667 --> 01:18:08.929 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's certain things I would like to say, and then there's there's probably the reality which is like, I don't know if I would be in a position to hear it either. 01:18:10.250 --> 01:18:10.470 [SPEAKER_00]: Right? 01:18:11.190 --> 01:18:17.013 [SPEAKER_00]: I had this funny joke and I was probably running up on time, but I'm not joke, but on time, by the way, is fine. 01:18:17.113 --> 01:18:18.073 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to expect you our time. 01:18:18.113 --> 01:18:18.813 [SPEAKER_00]: But my time is fine. 01:18:18.833 --> 01:18:19.513 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's keep cooking. 01:18:19.553 --> 01:18:27.877 [SPEAKER_00]: So I was going to say, I had this funny realization recently where I was talking with some friends about philosophy and it was like, man. 01:18:29.353 --> 01:18:47.288 [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I had taken like velocity classes in college, you know, like it's probably the most practical thing I could have taken and like I wish I had the the courage and the the four sites and the and the to like take those interesting classes and then I found my college transcripts because I had to find it for 01:18:54.257 --> 01:18:55.798 [SPEAKER_00]: I totally took philosophy classes. 01:18:56.418 --> 01:18:58.659 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't remember any of them. 01:18:59.059 --> 01:18:59.399 [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. 01:18:59.719 --> 01:19:00.340 [SPEAKER_00]: I took them. 01:19:00.820 --> 01:19:03.281 [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't remember thinking they were boring as hell. 01:19:03.961 --> 01:19:04.722 [SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't. 01:19:04.742 --> 01:19:05.742 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this is dumb. 01:19:05.842 --> 01:19:06.142 [SPEAKER_00]: Fine. 01:19:06.182 --> 01:19:09.604 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll fill up my essay about what is being or whatever. 01:19:09.644 --> 01:19:10.644 [SPEAKER_00]: And like, I'll just do it. 01:19:11.645 --> 01:19:13.205 [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't ready to learn those lessons. 01:19:13.685 --> 01:19:15.086 [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think there's a lesson. 01:19:15.126 --> 01:19:20.228 [SPEAKER_00]: I share in the book about things of Buddhist and non-I believe, named Pima Chodron. 01:19:20.428 --> 01:19:21.289 [SPEAKER_00]: And she says something like, 01:19:22.577 --> 01:19:35.790 [SPEAKER_00]: any sign of discomfort is like life is trying to teach you a lesson and fortunately life will keep trying to teach you that lesson until you're willing to accept it and address it or you're in a position to finally start dealing with it. 01:19:36.450 --> 01:19:37.391 [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know. 01:19:37.411 --> 01:19:43.797 [SPEAKER_00]: I imagine if I told myself back in the day, hey man, building a giant ass company is not going to be fulfilling. 01:19:44.558 --> 01:19:45.839 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I would have been able to hear it. 01:19:46.752 --> 01:19:53.300 [SPEAKER_00]: Or if I accept, or if I said, okay, fine, there's probably a part of me that always would have wondered, man, what could this have become? 01:19:53.981 --> 01:19:58.646 [SPEAKER_00]: And oh, I wonder, boy, I can't believe I turned down that opportunity. 01:19:58.947 --> 01:20:01.910 [SPEAKER_00]: And oh, I could have been, you just never know. 01:20:02.050 --> 01:20:05.454 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm, I'm okay with the decisions I've made. 01:20:06.375 --> 01:20:13.800 [SPEAKER_00]: and I'm thankful that the lessons I've learned I was in a position to finally accept them and appreciate them and learn from them now. 01:20:14.581 --> 01:20:18.203 [SPEAKER_00]: Just like that philosophy class in college, I probably wouldn't have been ready to hear it 10 years ago. 01:20:18.223 --> 01:20:20.925 [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be like, whatever old man Steve, you don't know what you're talking about. 01:20:21.225 --> 01:20:25.128 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm in New York City, building this team, numbers are going up. 01:20:25.428 --> 01:20:26.068 [SPEAKER_00]: This is great. 01:20:26.088 --> 01:20:27.129 [SPEAKER_00]: Higher, higher, higher, higher. 01:20:28.770 --> 01:20:32.152 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see what comes out, and I don't know if I would have been able to hear it. 01:20:33.433 --> 01:20:39.417 [SPEAKER_01]: Very honest answer, which does not surprise me whatsoever, given you been very honest and open and vulnerable. 01:20:39.517 --> 01:20:44.620 [SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, I think if I walk away with one thing, it's being willing to fail compassionately. 01:20:44.640 --> 01:20:50.324 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the compassion that you're bringing to this entire process into the world is sorely, sorely needed right now. 01:20:50.464 --> 01:20:56.608 [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for swimming through the shit and treading water for the last three years to bring us this book. 01:20:57.508 --> 01:21:04.650 [SPEAKER_01]: as we talked about pre-show like this is going to be a core part of my curriculum with my students for at least the next 20 to 30 years. 01:21:05.391 --> 01:21:05.951 [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you. 01:21:05.971 --> 01:21:09.832 [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to say if you're in the shit, maybe you can swim past the shit and then tread water. 01:21:09.852 --> 01:21:11.813 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the trading water in the shit might be. 01:21:12.373 --> 01:21:14.694 [SPEAKER_01]: If it's like, you know, maybe get a little bit to the side of that. 01:21:15.234 --> 01:21:16.135 [SPEAKER_01]: for sure definitely. 01:21:16.675 --> 01:21:24.360 [SPEAKER_01]: Well now we come to what I call the shameless self-promotion part of the program for those that have made it all the way to this part of the conversation. 01:21:24.400 --> 01:21:26.882 [SPEAKER_01]: They're totally in love with Steve Cameron's philosophies. 01:21:27.342 --> 01:21:31.365 [SPEAKER_01]: Where do we send them to buy the book and learn more about you and enter your ecosystem? 01:21:32.197 --> 01:21:54.632 [SPEAKER_00]: simple how to try again dot com that can't I couldn't believe there was no book name to this and I came up with a title about two years into the process when I realize this is exactly what we do and how we help people so how to try again dot com it's available literally around the world it's in a bunch of countries and it's already been picked up for translation a bunch of others which is. 01:21:55.352 --> 01:22:20.733 [SPEAKER_00]: mind blowing to me and really fun how to try again dot com and you know there's bonuses and I put together a secret chapter of stuff that couldn't make it from the 120,000 words down to the 70 but it's still really really great and then I'm just everywhere on the internet Steve Cam on pretty much most platforms that's STVE, KAMB, whether it's Substack, Thread, 01:22:24.836 --> 01:22:25.937 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. 01:22:25.977 --> 01:22:35.646 [SPEAKER_01]: Well, they always say that things happen, you know, in the the speed that they're going to not necessarily for a reason, but I'm glad that even though it took this long, you and I finally connected. 01:22:36.106 --> 01:22:43.913 [SPEAKER_01]: Because this was well worth the wait and thoroughly enjoyed today's conversation and I very much appreciate you giving us your your time, your story and your expertise. 01:22:44.443 --> 01:22:45.704 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for the opportunity. 01:22:45.804 --> 01:22:46.645 [SPEAKER_00]: This is really fun. 01:22:48.746 --> 01:23:02.216 [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like at least this version of Steve, I'm doing the thing I meant to be doing, which was right this book and getting an opportunity to share that story and my challenges and hopefully doing so in a fun, funny, and meaningful way.