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how much pain are you willing to tolerate before you're willing to course correct a California lawyer turned
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himself into one of the fittest men on the planet a rich role globally recognized Ultra endurance athlete New
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York Times bestseller and host of one of the biggest podcasts on the planet he sat down with a hundred of the world's
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smartest people is there one overall takeaway this theme of transformation so my story I graduated top of my class the world ranked swimmer and then I was working as a lawyer so on the outside it
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looked like I was doing pretty well inside I was dying my first Escape was through drugs and alcohol my family
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didn't want anything to do with me in the marriage that ended on the honeymoon went to jail could barely make it up a simple flight of stairs without being
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winded and that was a harsh dose of reality I needed to overhaul my life I needed to do something that was going to
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be hard and uncomfortable you can't be a phoenix if you don't burn in the Flames first
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we all want to be this idealized version of ourself and yet we still don't do it we are in a culture that prioritizes
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comfort and luxury and the impatience that we all have we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and completely
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underestimate what we could do in a decade we don't have to suffer we don't have to be in pain it's our emotional
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lives that hold us back from accessing that potential so how do people in that situation take that first step in
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transformation what worked for me after trying many different things was [Music]
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why should you listen to this episode all in all this conversation is fundamentally about transformation how
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you transform yourself from where you are now to where you want to be in Rich's life is the personification of
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human transformation this guy has been down and out he suffered with addiction failure and turmoil that most of us will
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thankfully never have to endure but he says in this episode and he'll prove to you that pressure that discomfort can be
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and should be your privilege and if you lean into that if you understand that pressure is your privilege and
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discomfort is the pathway to all the good things that you want in your life then and only then can you reach your
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potential and one of the things I really got from this conversation is this idea that all of us are much more capable
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than we believe we are we have more potential than we allow ourselves to believe
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and also one of the big things Rich will leave you with in this conversation which blew my mind if I'm honest is this
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idea that addiction is on a spectrum we tend to think of addiction as as he says junkies or people that are ingesting or
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taking drugs but if you think about it we're all addicted we're addicted to distraction
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whether that's our phones whether it's pornography whether it's food whether it's alcohol as is the case in Rich's
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case whether it's our work how do we alleviate ourselves of that addiction to distraction that's what
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you'll find out in this conversation and most importantly of all riches sat down with 800 of the world's smartest wisest
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and most successful people and from doing that he has learned a lot this is one of the episodes that you honestly should not miss enjoy
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[Music] rich [Music] this is a a broad question but it's intentionally Broad who are you and what mission are you on coming out of the gay at heart
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that's a very difficult question to answer I would say that I am a spiritual being having a human experience
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endeavoring attempting to learn and grow in a number of ways I had an experience
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uh in my early to mid 40s where I was able to tap into potential that I didn't know existed and
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I expressed that athletically and that experience taught me that we're all capable of so much more than we allow ourselves to believe and
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it motivated me to go on this journey to grow and expand in other areas of my life because I realized if I had been sitting on this late and potential athletically for so long there must be
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other blind spots and I wanted to explore those and so my mission has been to grow in the public sphere learn in the public sphere by having these
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conversations on my show and then share that wisdom with other people for the purpose of elevating Consciousness and activating positive change in others
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you know you've got millions and millions of people listening to your show all over the world you've interviewed I think almost 800 people
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right um which is staggering um on an individual level what is it that you hope to impart or what impact is it you hope to have on the individuals that listen to your show
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I want everybody listening or tuning into the show to believe to their core that they are capable of of more than they may realize that that there is
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um a greater possibility for every single person regardless of circumstances and there are tools
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available for accessing that I think that's super important because I think it's so easy to passively or reactively
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live our lives we're all on some level in a routine in a rut and we have blinders on because we're in a certain social environment where there's
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unstated dictates about what's okay and what's not and we're all creatures who want to feel a sense of belonging and
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identity with whatever group that you know we're aligned with and I think that that comes with very good things of
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feeling you know wanted and needed but also negative aspects which create blinders to the greater possibilities
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that that are available to us everybody is conditioned in sure some way or another
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um and that conditioning starts fairly early what you're talking about there at least in how I heard it is to try and
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undo some of that conditioning so we can live more aligned to whatever worthy causes um right for us when was the when did
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you start being conditioned and what was that condition what was the first sort of con what's the first context or
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moment where you're conditioning began the conditioning that led you on the journey that you lived
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I went to a high school that was very um achievement oriented grades were very important uh academic achievement in my household was Paramount
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and it was a situation in which no matter what I did it you didn't quite get the validation that you were seeking
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so you're always chasing it a little bit more a little bit more um to the point where unbeknownst to me
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or on an unconscious level like I needed to escape that Paradigm and my first Escape was was through drugs and alcohol
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and bullying bullying yeah what take me into the mind of that young guy that's being bullied what is he thinking what is he is he scared going to school is he trying to escape who he is is he trying
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to fit in in certain ways what is he doing and what is the experience of bullying like for him
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in detail yeah to take myself back I think I just I just wanted to feel like I belonged
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and I always felt different than other than the sense of not being comfortable in my own skin
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like other people had a rule book for life that I lacked um and just not having the social skills
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or the confidence to be able to make friends or feel like I was part of anything and then eventually you you sign alcohol
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in drugs as being the the thing that made you feel other than yourself in a good way
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well initially it made me feel like myself it was like this miracle salve where suddenly all of the unconscious anxiety and sense of difference between
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myself and others seemed to vanish and that discomfort in my own skin turned into Comfort like I suddenly felt
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like oh maybe this is how everyone else feels all the time I've discovered this thing
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where now I feel like okay like I can exhale and I can be around other people without feeling anxious about it and I can look somebody in the eye and have a conversation or like flirt with a girl
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or do all these things that seem to come naturally to other people that seemed alien to myself and I just remember
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feeling so at home with that and just wanting to feel like that all the time and it got its claws in me and that's
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how that kind of Journey Begins for many people who've had their version of my experience with alcohol addiction addiction comes in many forms and the the role that addiction was playing the
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role that alcohol was playing in your life at that stage can also be substituted for other things
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right so some people have it with food or with um or with work from sitting there and
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interviewing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people what have you learned about the nature of
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really like the role that alcohol was playing for you but also like the role that maybe for me like being a workaholic or for some people eating is
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playing what is it doing for us is it like an escape is it um in your case it was like the Salve that made you feel
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as you said yourself but what is that thing yeah I think that uh this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about as somebody who's been in recovery since 1998 I've been to
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thousands of AAA meetings I know so many people in recovery and over the course of 10 years of Hosting my podcast I've had so many experts in the realm of
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addictions variety and recovery and I've come to believe that this notion of addiction lives on a much broader Spectrum than we may realize when we think of addiction we think of uh the
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junkie or you know the gutter drunk but in between you know that polarity there's a whole spectrum of addictive and I would even weave in obsessive
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compulsive behavior that ranges from continuing to get into the same bad relationship to being unable to put the phone down uh where we are seizing
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moments and opportunities through Behavior or substance to distract ourselves from ourselves because we are
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experiencing discomfort with whatever emotion is coming up and it's easier to divert to something that will give us a sense of ease and comfort or distraction
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than to sit with that sense of dis ease and I think that any kind of recurring repeated Behavior pattern that mimics that could be characterized as an
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addiction it may be mild but I think nonetheless it's not you know it's qualitatively the same thing as the
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person who can't stop drinking and it all goes back to this inside job of trying to understand what makes us tick the nature and origin of those
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discomforts what triggers those and trying to find a way to not only sit with those but confront them and work through them so you can ultimately transcend them and liberate yourself
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from the behavior or the substance or whatever it may be that is the kind of go-to default thing that you do when you start to feel like out of control or
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nervous or anxious or insecure or perhaps you know triggered or or any number of kind of emotional impulses that might arise what is the cost of not
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learning to be with myself so I'm looking at all these things for an addiction I'm definitely addicted to my phone all of these addictions I've got
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some of them in you know very varying degrees um so what what's the cost well time will tell right right maybe there isn't a cost that is so significant that
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it mandates that you Rectify that behavior again it's a spectrum right so for you you might be able to engage in a certain Behavior without having negative ramifications in your life that are
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significant enough for you to redress that for somebody else it might destroy their life but I think developing an
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awareness around those behaviors and paying attention enough such that if you start to find yourself experiencing negative life ramifications as a result of those behaviors you're not
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um in denial over that and you can make a course correction and what's the upside then of just learning to sit with
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yourself as opposed to reaching for the phone or for the the cake or for the the beer what is the what is the upside of
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that you know I say this because I think I live in a generation that have become so used to distracting ourselves
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um and the thought of like meditating or not having our phone on us is actually I mean it's like a it's like a phobia
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um we haven't learned to sit with ourselves in Silence with our thoughts if you can't sit silently with yourself with your thoughts then you are not
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living an intentional examined life and I think to be addicted to your phone or to be living in that reactive mode where you're constantly distracting yourself robs you of something that we need as
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human beings which is rumination and boredom that is the juice of creativity and as a creative person somebody who does this show and talks to amazing people and is writing a book and is very
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much in a space where your creativity is really uh the driver of everything that
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you do I would say to you it is of Paramount importance to protect your boredom to protect your quiet time to put boundaries around those distractions otherwise you are not going to be doing
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your best work and you are going to be depriving your audience of the best version of yourself
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the other thing is connection it's definitely it's definitely robbed me of connection well it's it's pernicious in that way
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because at least with social media it gives you the illusion of connection and you know we're sitting here together because of social media like you reached out to me I reached out to you so it's
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not a binary there are amazing things about it and my entire career has been built on these
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digital tools and they're very important to you know how I kind of navigate the world but at what point does that meter kind of toggle over into you know the
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the red zone where I'm being used by it and it's robbing me of my humanity and it's deluding me into this idea that I'm connecting with other people but in the analog world I'm just at home all the
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time and I'm not actually interacting in the real world and you know I think one thing we share Stephen is our show is
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all about the in-person experience like I tried to do the zoom thing I can't do it it's like this is not why I'm doing
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this yeah I'm not getting it feels transactional and weird and yeah and you know as as as much as these these tools
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which are phenomenal um have given us the ability to connect in a certain way it's not true
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connection and I think you know in order to really feel like we're part of the human race we're hardwired to be with people in real world World settings when
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I look at your story I see multiple chapters and there's transformation in every chapter sometimes for better
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sometimes for worse but it's always forward so it seems like it was the path that you had to to go on you talk there
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about the first chapter of your life which is your young there's bullying there's this feeling of sort of inadequacy and there's isolation
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what's the next chapter yeah so um awkward insecure kid difficulty making friends um but I found Solas in the swimming pool and that was really my safe haven
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perhaps my first addiction um and in lockstep with my Improvement in that space came uh came better grades
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I started to perform better athletically so by the time I was 18 and graduating high school I had my pick of going to
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any college I wanted to got into Harvard Princeton ended up going to Stanford which in addition to just being a
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premier University I also happened to have the number one Collegiate swimming program in the country so basically
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anything I wanted to do was like laid out in front of me I arrive in California for college I grew up in Washington DC so traveled 3000 miles away to go to school enter alcohol and
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that began the sort of slow decline of my ability to express my potential not only as an athlete and as a student but as a human being because
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it just gradually denigrated um all of my values and and sort of dented my aspirations to the point where I know really I no longer really cared
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about my trajectory or where I was headed with my life and was solely concerned with rooting out where my next good time would be and those were the good times and I would say that
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initially alcohol really saved me it taught me how to be a social person like I enjoyed going to parties and I enjoyed
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figuring out how to talk to people and it was really this fuel that transformed me from this Naval gazing insecure kid into somebody who felt like I could
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comport myself in a social situation as long as I was using alcohol I've taken some of those skills and I'm now able to apply them without alcohol but very slowly over time you know my life the
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quality of my life just sort of declined and declined and declined so I was a functional alcoholic for many years
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but I knew very early on that my relationship with alcohol was different from that of my peers because I would be the last person to leave
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I was immediately sneaking drinks I was the one who was throwing up and blacking out when everyone else knew what time it
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was to go home I started going out like more and more nights every single week and then fast forwarding through later
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years hiding my drinks sneaking my drinks hiding the empties and doing kind of all
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the dark stuff that one does when they fall prey to this condition and it it there was nothing really sexy or romantic or rock and roll about it
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was just really kind of sad and pathetic to the point where at the end I was alone alienated from my friends my
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family didn't want anything to do with me until I sorted this out I was on the precipice of you know somehow I got
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through law school but I was working as a lawyer I was on the precipice of getting fired was living in a shitty
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apartment with barely any furniture sleeping on a mattress on the floor and it was it was it was very dark for a
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very long period of time when did you get married the first your first marriage in
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1995 20 must been told that was so it would have been 90. 96 I think yeah they ill-fated marriage that ended on
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the honeymoon that's a sordid story that would take a very long time to untangle
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and explain um a marriage that ended in the honeymoon it ended on the honeymoon yeah
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uh incredibly um painful embarrassing chapter of My Life um that that marriage took place after I'd gotten the the two DUIs but I was
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endeavoring to get sober and I think my fiance not quite my wife because we didn't sign the marriage certificate which is a whole other aspect of the story
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um I think that she realized that I would be problematic as a partner but didn't have the courage to call the
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whole thing off and allowed the wedding ceremony to take place even though she didn't want to be married to me and it all kind of came to head on the honeymoon um
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which is the last time that I saw her and that was really my bottom uh as an alcoholic even though I drank for a period of time after that because it was so emotionally devastating and painful
00:21:07
that was really the nadir where I realized that my life had hit the skids in in in just a you know a way that I could have never imagined for myself
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post that um that I was gonna call it I guess it was a wedding post that wedding and everything that happened you returned to drinking again you relapse because of
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the pain of that experience absolutely how long does that last night it was a long time ago I think it
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was about six more months of my life kind of circling the drain um before I finally decided that I needed to really take responsibility for
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my behavior at that point what are the people around you that love you doing and saying uh friends slowly stepping backwards
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from me um distancing themselves from me my parents were terribly worried and concerned
00:22:14
and they had sought out counsel of their own and started attending Al-Anon and I
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believe they had seen a therapist as well and and through the advice that they got was like you need to cut ties with this guy like you can't will him into doing what you know is in his best
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interest you have to detach and I recall very vividly a conversation that I had with my dad where he's like I know what
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you're doing it's very clear uh this path that you're on and we just can't be part of it
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anymore and if and when you're ready to make a change or to really entertain sobriety in a real way we're here for
00:22:52
you we're your parents and and we love you but until that point like we really don't want to hear from you anymore
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so that was a brutal pill to swallow incredibly painful but also catalytic because it snapped me out of whatever denial I was harboring
00:23:12
about getting over on people or them not really knowing how I was actually behaving and I think it was an important
00:23:20
step in helping me realize just how dire the circumstances were for me at that time when your father said that what did you hear I heard you're a failure
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and you are unlovable do you think that was the right thing for him to say I think in my case and I'm only speaking
00:23:43
from you know my perspective in this particular set of circumstances it was the right thing to do because it effectively moved me in the direction
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that I needed to be moved in and they had tried the other way which is loving me and being supportive and and kind of offering up a soft landing pad and that
00:24:08
was not working and I think they needed to do that for themselves to protect themselves as
00:24:15
well and and I respect that choice you know I've been in many situations trying to
00:24:21
help people get sober and it's a very delicate difficult thing to do it's just really challenging because if somebody's not ready and they don't want to get sober there's very little that you can
00:24:33
do to try to you know create that Epiphany in them willingness is a self-generated um response that you can't instill in
00:24:45
somebody externally and until somebody's really willing to confront their demons
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you can't compel them to do so so uh that's why I think sobriety or addiction is so baffling and so painful for the loved ones of people that suffer who
00:25:06
can so clearly see you're killing yourself you need to do this and yet that person won't make that choice just addiction and
00:25:18
um sobriety in that sense that I was thinking about when I asked that question because I've got people in my
00:25:24
life that I've tried to help in various ways and I've got a one one friend who has struggled with um pretty severe
00:25:30
addiction and your natural inclination is to try and jump in there and give them advice and help them and pay for this and sort sort this out et cetera
00:25:36
Etc but after you know years and years of it never working what do you do then and I'm thinking of one particular example of a friend of mine who struggled with addiction and
00:25:49
slowly everybody has just Fallen away the person's management has fallen away their friends have fallen away
00:25:55
um and I wonder sometimes I wonder to myself is that what you have to do is that do you have to basically give them a void enough space and stop holding them up in like sort of artificially
00:26:07
suspending them uh and let them go to the bottom let them go to that Rock Bottom there is a logic in that you know you don't want to coddle that person you certainly don't want to be codependent in their behavior
00:26:20
in other words making excuses for them that makes it easier for them to continue down that destructive path
00:26:26
um and there is wisdom in just saying hey man I love you I'm available when you're ready to get help uh but you know you're you're on your own thing man and I just I can't be part of it so call me
00:26:39
when you're ready but until then good luck to you because the addiction elevator is always going down it's a
00:26:45
progressive disease it only Moves In One Direction the best case scenario is that person's life stays the same but in
00:26:51
almost every case it continues to decline and it will decline to the point where the pain experienced by the person who is the addict or the alcoholic
00:27:03
becomes more unbearable than the fear of the change and that is where their willingness is born and again it's not something that you can instill in that person you could you could like hijack
00:27:16
your friend and throw them in the back of a car and drop them off in a rehab but he might escape from the rehab or he'll sit in the back and just bite his
00:27:22
time until he or she gets out and they can go back to whatever they're doing that's why this is such a difficult
00:27:29
um problem to solve it is an internally generated thing the people that I know that have been able to get sober and stay sober are the people that shoulder responsibility for their own sobriety
00:27:42
you can't get sober for somebody else I'm getting sober for my spouse or my kids or you know I'm getting sober
00:27:47
because if I don't my boss is going to fire me those are those you might be able to do that for a short period of
00:27:53
time but for the true addict unless you're doing it for yourself and you're making it your number one priority chances are you're not gonna you're not gonna last over the Long Haul and it's
00:28:05
confusing and when you love that person it puts you in a very treacherous position because if you do create that boundary and that person goes off and something terrible happens will you feel
00:28:17
responsible or will you feel like you didn't do enough or if you had just done this or that that wouldn't have happened
00:28:23
and that's a very real predicament to put yourself in there's something quite counterproductive in the sense that when you're trying to help that person what often happens is your relationship
00:28:35
with them becomes strained and then when your relationship becomes strained and you you become frustrated with the lack of sort of effectiveness of your support
00:28:41
then arguments start you might say some things that you regret further tarnishing that person's self-esteem self-worth or whatever's triggering them to try and Escape themselves through whatever addiction they might have and
00:28:53
it it actually can make make their situation significantly worse sure destroy the relationship right which is
00:28:58
why it's important to to interface with that from a place of neutrality right to
00:29:04
not get emotionally agitated or activated by it and a good way of of kind of recalling that or reinforcing that is to understand that there is the
00:29:15
person your friend and there is this disease this addiction right and if this person is acting in their disease that's not the person they're not a bad person they're afflicted by something so
00:29:28
powerful that they're unable to override it and and you know be that friend that
00:29:33
you remember and I think when you when you kind of approach it through that lens you can have a little bit more
00:29:40
compassion for that person rather than take it personally because they're not they're not acting out of animus towards you they're suffering from something that's so powerful that they're unable
00:29:52
to to control it quick one before we get back to this episode just give me 30 seconds of your time
00:29:57
two things I wanted to say the first thing is a huge thank you for listening and tuning in to the show week after
00:30:03
week means the world to all of us and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had and couldn't have imagined getting to this place
00:30:09
secondly it's a dream where we feel like we're only just getting started and if you enjoy what we do here please join
00:30:16
the 24 of people who watch this channel regularly and have hit the Subscribe button means more than I can say and if
00:30:23
you hit that subscribe button here's a promise I'm gonna make to you I'm gonna do everything in my power to make this
00:30:28
show as good as I can now and into the future we're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to and we're
00:30:34
going to continue to keep doing all of the things you love about the show thank you thank you so much back to the
00:30:40
episode okay so this was a quote I I found about your opinion of balance he finds balance extremely difficult and
00:30:46
believes that if something is good then the more the better he believes balance is for ordinary people and he wants to
00:30:52
be extraordinary he says this can be a blessing and a curse yeah definitely a blessing and a curse
00:30:58
um I am hardwired for extremes uh this has been both a superpower and an Achilles heel it's the thing that has fueled me and allowed me to you know achieve uh some pretty cool things but
00:31:11
it's also been the thing that um has almost killed me so it's that love hate thing but I think behind it this notion
00:31:18
of living a balanced life that we get served up like you need to be balanced and you know the best way to kind of
00:31:24
pursue your life is in a balanced way everything in balance and the social conditioning around that idea is so
00:31:31
powerful that for years I just felt like a terrible person or um like less than because I just could never figure out that equation to make
00:31:43
everything feel like it was even adequately balanced because I feel most alive in those extremes and that's part of what addiction is like you're just searching for those Peak experiences in
00:31:54
unhealthy ways and also in healthy ways through Athletics and and you know and through uh creativity and and other avenues um but I always felt guilty about that
00:32:06
like other people seem to be telling me that I shouldn't be doing this and yet this is where I feel like myself and finally I got to the place where I was like this whole balance thing like
00:32:18
this is who I am and I decided to embrace it now that doesn't mean that um you just blindly pursue these obsessions to the point of self-destruction what it means is for me
00:32:33
again not giving advice uh in my experience when when I allow myself to uh immerse myself in something that
00:32:46
um fascinates me whether it's an ultra distance race or writing a book or whatever it is giving myself permission to really focus on that and
00:32:58
take it all the way to the wall is where I do my best work but that is only acceptable as long as that pendulum
00:33:06
that's swinging all the way up over here swings back goes this way and comes to the center
00:33:12
because we all have buckets in our life of values that we you know need to nourish so a creative project for example I'm going to go I'm going to do that and that's fine as long as I come
00:33:27
back and my family is nourished my relationship is nourished my friendships are nourished all these other areas that
00:33:33
are important to me don't fall by the wayside for too long so balance in the macro but not balancing the micro so on a day-to-day basis or a week-to-week
00:33:46
basis my life is wildly out of balance but if you look at it over the course of a year you telescope out I think I think
00:33:53
it's much more imbalanced than then one might suspect super interesting I've I think using that example of the Swing is it
00:34:05
called the pendulum in society we started by glorifying hassle culture I guess and being out of balance and then there was kind of a movement towards that's toxic right and
00:34:18
now I feel like the new pride is like I don't set my alarm clock yeah yeah and I feel like a little bit is coming
00:34:24
back the other way where people are going work-life balance like that's it's such balance is such a subjective
00:34:30
thing and work is completely different for everybody like this is my work this is not I'm not you know for someone else
00:34:36
their relationship with that work might be tedium it might be depressing they might be doing something that really
00:34:42
doesn't fill them up but I think there's needs to be Nuance in the fact that all work is different every individual is clearly different
00:34:48
and it is wired to find the Fulfillment in different ways so work-life balance in and of itself is a pretty ridiculous
00:34:54
concept to think that there is a balance there really must be as you kind of describe a subjective balance where
00:35:00
there's a balance for Steve and as long as I don't fall in sacrifice social connection isolation and all the
00:35:06
other things then I'm balanced my balance could you know look much different from yours for whom and when
00:35:14
right if you're 22 years old and you've got this idea for a startup and you're a
00:35:20
coder and you want to code like a maniac like knock yourself out you have no other responsibilities you have the time
00:35:26
you have the freedom to do that in that moment but that 22 year old 20 years later with kids at a mortgage and whatever it's a different time that person's in a different place these
00:35:38
things you know can't be they have to be contextualized right and yes if you want
00:35:43
to achieve something great you are going to have to work very hard and you're going to have to get out of your comfort zone you may even need to be obsessed if
00:35:50
you're living an entirely Balanced Life where you're home at five o'clock and you're always at dinner and all it's
00:35:55
like you're making it very difficult to achieve something extraordinary that extraordinary thing is going to
00:36:02
require an extraordinary commitment which means in the social construct of balance you are going to be out of
00:36:08
balance if you're going to feel uncomfortable with that because you have other priorities in your life then maybe
00:36:14
that's not for you and being out of balance to pursue something great in my opinion is perfectly fine again as long as you allow that pendulum to swing back
00:36:24
and those other things in your life that are important are nourished and attended to so it's a very specific thing it
00:36:31
depends on who you are what stage of life you're in what you're seeking and having the self-awareness to understand that you can't be everywhere all the time and you can't be a hundred percent
00:36:43
for all of the things that are important to you in your life in every single day so it's about conscious awareness and
00:36:50
intentionality about where you're rowing that boat you can only row your boat in One Direction are you rowing the Steven
00:36:56
boat towards Stephen today are you going to row it towards your girlfriend well you gotta you're gonna have to do a lot
00:37:02
of rowing in a lot of different directions it's just knowing that you're making a conscious choice and doing that
00:37:08
with that understanding and appreciation I think is really important but all of this is to put the lie to the idea that anybody is living a balanced life on a
00:37:19
minute to minute hour to hour day-to-day basis it's like a it's a construct that I think makes people feel guilty and bad
00:37:28
about themselves because none of us are adhering to that idealized version of a balanced life
00:37:33
that we have a mental picture of you kind of have it all you left rehab in September 1998. um and earlier on when you're talking about transformation you describe
00:37:44
someone who goes from being a fairly ordinary person to running a marathon that was one of the sort of examples you gave of something that intrigues you
00:37:50
like how did they do that that's pretty much in many respects what you went on to do upon leaving rehab as you your
00:37:56
life slowly move towards Ultra athletic sports yes and no I mean I think that uh the the shorthand kind of Google version of
00:38:10
my story makes it look like all this stuff happened in a very compressed period of time but actually when I left
00:38:17
rehab which is where I live for 100 days and resumed my life in Los Angeles I spent
00:38:24
the next 10 years trying to solve the Dilemma of my life that I had self-created I had to repair my relationships I had to become trustworthy to other people again I had
00:38:36
to um you know be somebody who was reliable and would show up on time when they said
00:38:43
they would all those sort of like normal things that normal people do I had to rebuild for myself so for 10 years I
00:38:53
immersed myself in the recovery community in Los Angeles and I tried to become that corporate lawyer that I thought that I wanted to be to be kind
00:39:05
of approved of by my parents and by Society Without Really grappling with who I wanted to be because I was so caught up and so ashamed of my past and
00:39:19
embarrassed of how I had screwed my life up that I wanted to prove to myself and to everyone else that I could be that
00:39:25
person that I was at 18 when I had all of these opportunities and choices and I was blind to kind of the inner Journey despite sobriety the blind to like really trying to figure out like what
00:39:37
made me tick and what I might want to do for myself that felt like an Indulgence and so the ultra stuff came
00:39:45
much later that came like so I got out of rehab at 31. it wasn't until I was turning 40 that I had another bottom where I had to reckon with my lifestyle
00:39:56
choices with diet and movement Etc because I'd put on 50 pounds and was just pursuing this corporate life to the point of of of of of illness honestly
00:40:08
like I was although I'd been this athlete I just could barely make it up a simple flight of stairs without being winded tightness in my chest heart disease runs in my family and just had a
00:40:20
second situation in which I realized I needed to overhaul my life so there was a whole 10-year period in between those
00:40:27
those kind of moments of Awakening that 10-year period is a 10-year period that a lot of people listening to this right now can relate to where you found yourself in a professional context or
00:40:38
professional endeavor without asking yourself the question of like who am I and what am I actually interested in and
00:40:44
you might be doing it because your mum wants you to be a doctor sure you have the Indian parents and they came over here and they want you to be a lawyer
00:40:49
whatever it might be I hear that story a lot what is the question it people in that situation should be asking
00:40:54
themselves and how do they take that first step in transformation from becoming the banker that's in the city
00:41:00
with a suit in town right now listening to this to the person that like would make make
00:41:05
them whole and full and and love themselves in their life like what is the first step is it a question
00:41:12
is it a retreat they need to go on yeah it's a great question I think that question is probably different for
00:41:18
everybody but how about just asking yourself who are you and I mean that in the broadest sense perhaps the most unanswerable spiritual sense but I also mean it in the very tangible sense of
00:41:32
like what are you doing are you really on the path that you want to be on did you choose
00:41:39
this path are you here because of external pressures or expectations that you didn't ask for and I think when you turn inward and start exploring your
00:41:51
interior to try to Grapple with what is making you tick what is impulsing the decisions that you're making the big decisions and the small decisions and developing a lattice work or an
00:42:04
understanding of what those mechanics are sets you on a trajectory to making better decisions for yourself so it's not like maybe that Banker is supposed to be a banker maybe super happy that's
00:42:16
fine I'm not here to tell people they should quit their jobs I'm just saying that an examined life meaning that
00:42:23
inward glance into understanding why you're making the decisions that you're making um historically uh you know the way in
00:42:34
which you were raised that might have set you up to make decisions you think you're making for yourself but are
00:42:39
actually in reaction to unconscious uh uh you know kind of triggers that are built into you I think developing an awareness of that is really important in
00:42:51
trying to understand that question and it took me a very long time to untangle that knot I don't think it's a simple process I think it's different for
00:42:58
everybody it can come in the form of talking to a therapist or meditation there is no one modality for that but I
00:43:06
think simply the commitment to try to understand that I think is the process of gaining that understanding to help you
00:43:17
make more intentional decisions for yourself and maybe it starts with an easy prompt like what did you enjoy
00:43:23
doing when you were eight years old that you don't do anymore and why don't you do it anymore
00:43:28
re-engaging with you know the childlike nature uh that is perhaps lost as we grow older and kind of get into the flow of our professional lives one of the most important
00:43:41
questions I think I would add as well as how do you feel we very rarely ask ourselves that and I think we all have this sort of internal Compass which we've been given by life
00:43:53
which is like how do you feel in this situation how do you truly feel not like how do you feel in the context of is your mother happy or is your father
00:43:59
happy or a society impressed by you but like how do you actually feel you know and I think that sometimes for me has sat apart from the accomplishment so I could be achieving something great and
00:44:09
know that people are impressed and happy but really I'm going through a time internally right and um tuning
00:44:15
into that voice of like how do I feel and tuning out of the like how do people feel about me right um has has really
00:44:22
helped me in those moments where I've got to make a big decision to quit and I don't think people ask themselves that question enough
00:44:28
well they may ask themselves that question but the answer is flip it right it's like I'm good cool I feel good you know I feel I slept good last night no like how do you really feel
00:44:39
and then continuing to peel back the layers until it gets really uncomfortable and then you know you're
00:44:46
in the you're in the sweet spot right that's where the juice is I've peeled them back I've re and I've done you know
00:44:51
raised my awareness I realize I'm in the wrong place but I'm 39 years old and I've got kids I've got a house we live in this part of London so I can get
00:45:03
to work quickly we've built our lives around this you know person I thought I wanted to be
00:45:09
and I'm held in place by the my friendship group and my Monday's done people have that fear they think how do
00:45:15
I how do I break out of that how do I shed yeah yeah well first I would say to that
00:45:21
person congratulations like you created a life for yourself like on some level even if you want to leave that career path or you're unfulfilled in that you still are somebody who is deserving of
00:45:34
acknowledgment for building something and you know that's an amazing thing so it's not about casting that aside or
00:45:41
disrespecting it for me I would say to that person what is it that gets you excited like what is it that you feel is unnourished in your life do you have a creative itch
00:45:52
is there something calling you or something again that you used to do as a kid that you really enjoyed and for some
00:45:59
reason unbeknownst to you you don't do it anymore maybe it's music like yeah me it could be music or or stand up or you
00:46:06
play football right like being on a football team or doing something you know just having coffee with your friend
00:46:11
or what have you uh finding a way to build that back into your life in a way that isn't going to derail your current life but I think just breathing on that like giving space to the things that
00:46:24
bring you Joy in the most Primal sense like the simplest things that just you remember made you happy that you've
00:46:31
forgotten and recapturing that and finding a way to respect that protect it nourish it
00:46:37
um and and inject it into your life and I think the more that you you kind of tend to that Garden suddenly oh a little opportunity over here pops up or
00:46:49
something is telling me I should move this way these are very subtle energies that you have to be present for in order
00:46:56
to notice them when they appear but I think those are the subtle energies that's the like those are the waves you want to be surfing and you can do that while you're working at the bank
00:47:07
they don't have to be mutually exclusive and over time maybe you start moving a little over this way five years later your life is unrecognizable and I think
00:47:18
this goes to the impatience that we all have we all want to be this idealized version of
00:47:25
ourself happier fitter thinner richer whatever it is overnight and we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year or maybe in a couple years and
00:47:37
completely underestimate what we could do in a decade we're not wired to think in decades it seems too intangible but if all you do is make tiny little
00:47:48
changes to build in habits into your life that bring you Joy or fulfillment or happiness or purpose
00:47:55
in incremental micro allotments that don't disrupt the rest of your life you do that for 10 years straight your life is going to be different and I can promise you that
00:48:10
10 years off to rehab you have what you describe as your second rock bottom you're a workaholic you're trying to
00:48:17
sort of appease the perception of people in your life to make them proud I guess
00:48:23
um just before your 40th birthday this is when that sort of Reckoning in your life takes place what is that
00:48:29
Reckoning in your life what did you realize and and what did you see as the solution to that confrontation yeah so I had spent the
00:48:36
better part of 10 years uh people pleasing and doing my best to be successful living somebody else's life unbeknownst to me doing all the right things checking all the boxes becoming
00:48:48
successful so if you were on the outside looking in it looked like I was doing pretty well inside I was dying because
00:48:56
my soul my spirit was unheard and under nourished like I didn't know how to pay attention to myself or the signals of my soul who were telling me I don't think
00:49:09
you're that happy doing this and we're pressing that year after year after year to the point where uh I couldn't do it anymore so I was
00:49:21
harboring a bit of an existential crisis about how I was living my life being this lawyer and kind of showing up in
00:49:26
the world in a certain way that always felt like a costume that didn't fit me meanwhile uh although sober from drugs
00:49:34
and alcohol I'd sort of transferred a lot of that addiction energy into into food and was eating you know a terrible
00:49:41
fast food diet gained a lot of weight was inactive even though I'd been a swimmer in college wasn't really moving
00:49:47
my body in any meaningful way for a number of years this existential crisis that I was having collided with this
00:49:55
health scare shortly before I turned 40 where I was going up a flight of stairs after a long day at work and couldn't
00:50:01
even make it all the way up had to stop halfway up the flight winded out of breath tightness in my chest like
00:50:08
wheezing you know thinking I swam at Stanford like I was a world ranked swimmer I can't I'm I'm like 39 about to turn 40. I feel like
00:50:19
I'm fat and it just broke that spell of denial about how I was living where it became intolerable to continue along that path and it was very much
00:50:30
like the day that I decided to go to rehab like this moment back to willingness like suddenly out of the
00:50:37
blue I was blessed with this realization not only that I needed to change my lifestyle habits but that I had the willingness to actually take action on
00:50:49
that and because the decision that I had made 10 years prior when I went to rehab had been so transformational like I
00:50:56
could have woken up that day and made a different decision what would my life look like and I had this palpable sense
00:51:03
that once again this was just such a moment where if I could make a decision like I had 10 years ago maybe I could change the trajectory of my life and I know that these moments are
00:51:16
fleeting and and they require kind of immediate action or they pass right you could say maybe I should eat better or go to the gym once in a while like I'm tired of feeling like that's so vague I knew
00:51:29
that that wasn't going to work for me and I needed to do something immediate that was also difficult that would mimic
00:51:36
the experience of going into a treatment center for drugs and alcohol like I needed to have a structured situation
00:51:45
that would snap me out of my comfort zone and kind of create a new trajectory upon which I could build something different I think I think about this a lot in like businesses and organizations they almost
00:51:59
need to Stage a crisis I call it to make change happen because when you when you're in an organization and there's
00:52:04
maybe thousands of people and let's say it's AI or an innovation comes along people will go yeah it's a problem but
00:52:09
you know I'm fine and then they'll kind of carry on keep on keeping on the organization almost needs to Stage a
00:52:15
crisis like everyone in a room and say we're changing today and really sort of terrifying terrify their team about the the prospect of not changing it's almost
00:52:26
like staging a rock bottom because it will be the frog in the frying pan it will slowly creep upon you if you don't
00:52:32
right at some point as I call it like stage of crisis which is to really get clear on where
00:52:39
this is heading and where we're sleepwalking ourselves into whether it's with our health our relationships I actually had this
00:52:45
conversation with a friend of mine in his relationship because he's now in a sexless relationship and he's really unhappy
00:52:52
but he's not saying anything about it he's kind of bringing bringing it up sort of quietly once in a while and his
00:52:58
unhappiness in the relationship and resentment is coming out in other ways in the relationship like arguments and
00:53:04
fighting where he needs to stop and like stage a crisis like not allow it to be brushed under the carpet anymore and sit down and say listen if we can't solve this I have to leave this relationship
00:53:16
and like I want to solve it with you but it's a deal breaker for me see what I mean yeah I get what you're saying
00:53:21
basically short of of like sleepwalking yourself towards the Cliff's Edge yeah do staging an intervention on your life by you know like concocting a crisis
00:53:33
sounding they're gonna compel you to confront the elephant in the room that is the thing that is holding you back it's obvious to everyone else and yet
00:53:41
you're refusing to look at it yeah because we as you said earlier we want to avoid discomfort so if we can't just
00:53:48
sweep just Comfort under the carpet and procrastinate it into tomorrow we do we do that in businesses we do it in our
00:53:53
own lives so how do we maximize the discomfort today by presenting what the future will look like if we don't take action right now right and there is often a point of no return in relationships and in business for sure
00:54:05
for sure so yeah I think that's a very kind of pragmatic uh you know three-dimensional
00:54:13
uh actionable way to look at it perhaps a more mystical way to approach this is to say
00:54:21
that when you are living your life out of alignment with your best self the universe comes knocking and it knocks gently like you're maybe you're out telling lies or whatever it is like
00:54:34
you're just not you're not you're not living your life in Integrity like in alignment with your own values and we all do this right we're not all living perfect lives so and and and so when you
00:54:47
do that like there'll be nudges and those nudges will be very graceful at first and if you ignore them a little a
00:54:54
little bit louder right yeah yeah that's fine I can I can you know I can deal with that the knocks start to
00:55:01
get more intense more intense more intense more intense and then you get two DUIs in six months and you're in jail or your partner leaves you or whatever it is right like how much pain
00:55:13
are you willing to tolerate how loud does the knock have to be before you're willing to course correct change is very difficult we don't want to make change or look if if if uh
00:55:26
if change were easy or it was a logical thing like here's the answer do this and if everybody just did it there would be
00:55:32
no self-help industry there wouldn't need to be any books you just tell somebody what to do and they do it so why don't they do it right we don't like
00:55:39
to be out of our comfort zone we have a certain way that we live our life and until that is so disruptive disrupted
00:55:46
we're going to continue on that path right so the question becomes how much pain do you have to be in before
00:55:58
you're willing to walk through the fear of the unknown that the change presents how loud is the knock have to be how low
00:56:08
does the elevator have to to drop and I think that that answer is different for everybody but the amazing and confusing thing about it is that the possibility
00:56:19
of change exists in all moments we can make that choice at any time we don't have to suffer we don't have to be in
00:56:26
pain and yet we still don't do it so unlocking that mystery yeah I mean well there's your book you can answer that question well I've been playing around with this idea in my book there
00:56:40
was a chapter I was going to write about time right so I wanted to write something about time and time management so I
00:56:47
thought the best place to start is talking about death because that kind of puts time and context it's finite
00:56:52
um so I started writing about that you know if you're 35 years old you've got 17 000 days left I'm trying to you know find all these ways where people can
00:56:58
visualize the con because because of what you said people can't think of decades we can't think of finality we can't think of infinity we can't think
00:57:05
of long periods of time I'd also at some level don't believe we know we're going to die we don't live our lives
00:57:10
accordingly yeah we think it happens to other people yeah exactly yeah deep down we're like somehow I'm gonna sidestep
00:57:16
this thing it's not actually gonna happen yeah and you see that in our decisions like the things we pour our
00:57:21
attention into clearly we don't think we're on a clock here right um a clock we can't see so that's how I started the
00:57:26
chapter then I went into time and I was like okay time management techniques I looked I was thinking about my own time management techniques I then was like
00:57:33
I'll Google it chat GTP went on chatty speed talk to me about time management techniques there's so many of them and I
00:57:39
thought to myself the reason why there's so many is the same reason there are so many fad diets because none of them work unless you have discipline
00:57:46
so that people just keep making new ones and they keep selling because none of them work without this thing called discipline so what causes discipline
00:57:52
and then I arrived at this sort of discipline equation in my head where I kind of believe when you want I was
00:57:58
going to say this in a super vague Way Broadway when your perception of how meaningful the goal is
00:58:04
Plus the enjoyment and psychological engagement you get from the pursuit towards the goal so for me I really want
00:58:10
to be a DJ I've played around with the idea for a long time I finally made the decision I wanted to do it why do I want to do it
00:58:16
absolutely love music Love The Thrill and how energized I am from from Performance Plus the psychological
00:58:22
engagement enjoyment I get from the pursuit it's like meditation DJing and the practice of it right so you go
00:58:28
upstairs into my kitchen I spend hours listening to my favorite music and merging it with other songs I love for
00:58:34
hours forgetting about the whole world minus the perceived psychological cost of the
00:58:40
pursuit so what does it cost me to pursue DJing and I think that is roughly my discipline equation so if you think about these three elements how bad you want it how enjoyable it is what does it
00:58:51
cost you can kind of think of why people might or might not change and if someone
00:58:56
fits into what you said about when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making a change then people make the change um when they really really want it and
00:59:07
it's more enjoyable than it is painful to go in that direction Behavior changes right well I would take it one step further but first let
00:59:18
me let me say this I would say that you're already a DJ you're making uh an assumption around what it means to be a DJ or to pursue DJing that comes with a
00:59:32
lot of baggage it means success maybe you're envisioning a big crowd of people who are listening to your music but the
00:59:37
fact that it brings you Joy and you've found a way to carve time out to nourish that it doesn't matter how far it goes
00:59:43
or doesn't go as long as you are kind of cultivating that out of that purity of spirit because it nourishes your life so that's what I mean when I
00:59:55
was talking about the banker right like just DJ or kitchen table like it doesn't have to be any more than that if it if
01:00:01
if you're finding so much joy in it then you can recalibrate that equation about how much energy resources and time
01:00:08
you're going to invest in it but right now if it fits into your life and it's it's making your life better than
01:00:16
the question would be does it need to be more than that do you need it to be attached to some external validation or monetary reward or recognition in order for you to believe
01:00:28
that you actually are a DJ and that's not saying there's an answer to that question but it's something to think about this the reason I gave the
01:00:34
DJing example is because it was something I was able to stick out I was able to quite essentially change and
01:00:40
there's some and my health was the same thing it fits into that discipline equation of at some point in my life I
01:00:45
saw this pandemic happen I saw the fragility of this thing called Health in my young 25 years I'd never even knew
01:00:51
was there I never even knew I had health because mine had fortunately always been well and then upon seeing the pandemic
01:00:57
play out and hearing the doctors and scientists say that your current health you know obesity is linked to your
01:01:02
chances of um suffering having sort of worse effects of this disease that was enough for me to put me in the gym for the next
01:01:09
three years and I haven't missed uh more than two days since pretty much in a week for the last three years that was
01:01:14
my behavior change before then I was the guy with the fast food right so that was the moment that was
01:01:20
the Line in the Sand moment that piece of information created willingness in you which is the first part of that equation which is the why like why do I care about my health right it added so
01:01:31
much weight to me caring about my health but discipline is easy when you have that why yeah answered right so if it was just that easy I think that
01:01:44
more people would be able to make positive changes in their life but I think where it gets more complicated is
01:01:51
when we understand beneath the surface that it's our emotional lives that are truly the things that hold us back from accessing that potential you can be incredibly disciplined but if you think
01:02:04
you're a piece of or you don't deserve good things in your life or you're being impulsed by some trauma
01:02:11
that happened to you you were abused as a young person that's going to show up in your life as a barrier or an
01:02:16
impediment from you doing the thing that you know you need to do to become the person that you could potentially become
01:02:25
so the head discipline can drive us so far but if we don't sort out the heart and what is making the heart beat what is making us move in One Direction
01:02:36
versus another and untangling or detaching or transcending the emotional baggage that is the true impediment to our growth discipline is
01:02:51
only going to take you so far so you um became an ultra Endurance Sports athlete from that point of where you can walk up the stairs without losing your breath what was that transformation
01:03:06
so after that moment I decided to take responsibility for my well-being and thus began a pretty long and inelegant and non-linear process of
01:03:16
first trying to figure out how to eat in a way that would allow me to feel good in my body that began with a seven day juice detox cleanse that I did not
01:03:27
because I felt like I needed to detox anything but I needed to recreate the experience of detoxing off
01:03:35
alcohol that I had in rehab like I needed to do something that was going to be hard and uncomfortable and not eating
01:03:42
and just drinking juice seemed like a good way to accomplish that I'd never gone a day without eating food before and that was an experience where I was
01:03:50
incredibly uncomfortable and I felt horrible for a couple days but on the seventh day I felt amazing and I
01:03:57
couldn't believe that only drinking juices for seven days could result on day seven in this boost of Vitality and mental acuity that I hadn't experienced
01:04:10
in a long time as somebody who was eating cheeseburgers every day and and that made me want to figure out a way to
01:04:18
feel like that all the time and so I ended up trying a bunch of different diets and what worked for me ultimately
01:04:24
after trying many different things was going entirely plant-based I'm not here to tell everyone that that's what they should do but that's what agreed with me and that's the way I've eaten for the
01:04:36
last 16 years and you know this um this approach to nutrition restored my vitality and gave me a renewed sense of energy so much so that I had difficulty
01:04:50
sitting still and finally wanted to like move again and pulled out an old pair of
01:04:55
running shoes from the closet and just started moving my feet again and I went back to the pool for the first time in a
01:05:01
very long time and was just connecting frankly with these things that brought me joy as a young person like I was a swimmer and I hadn't done it in a long time and I'd forgotten what it feels
01:05:13
like to jump into a swimming pool on a sunny day and feel the water and connect with my breath and you know
01:05:20
move my legs on a trail at dawn and I really loved it and I felt like that was a journey towards answering these questions that I was having on the existential front about
01:05:32
what I was going to do with my life because I had a lot of confusion at that time and just the mental space of like
01:05:37
being alone with my breath in the pool or on a trail running was very healing for me and I had no aspirations of of becoming a competitive athlete with it I just wanted to feel good I wanted to
01:05:50
like lose this gut you know frankly for vanity reasons I didn't like how I looked in the mirror and the weight came
01:05:55
off really quickly and I felt like I was making incredible progress athletically week after week after week
01:06:02
um and then one day I went out like maybe six months into this experience and I was just gonna run for like an hour and I had one of those days you're an athlete you know those days where you
01:06:13
just feel like you just are bulletproof and you can go go go and I just kept running
01:06:18
and ended up running the better part of a marathon that day like 24 miles and I'd never done anything like that before
01:06:24
despite having been a swimmer I'd never been a runner and that was a real watershed moment where I thought wow
01:06:30
like I feel really good I didn't know that you could feel this good certainly not at age 40 and that got me thinking about potential and I'd never really
01:06:42
realized my potential as an athlete in college because alcohol really destroyed my swimming career and so there was a sense of Unfinished Business there but I just wanted to see what I was capable of
01:06:53
and so that um that set me on this journey to find experiences where I could tap into that and that's where I discovered this whole world of ultra endurance and these crazy
01:07:07
races and I became fascinated with that and ended up competing in this race called Ultraman which is a three-day double Iron Man race and that's the race that I ended up distinguishing myself in
01:07:20
and and really the instigating point in that was reading an article where David Goggins had done that race back in
01:07:26
2006 I think and it was the story of how he got through that race that really inspired me and because he wasn't the traditional endurance athlete triathlete
01:07:37
I was able to convince myself that if he could do it that maybe I could and that
01:07:43
set in motion me uh training for this race and and and uh and competing in it a couple times I've had two guests come here and tell me that we're in a comfort crisis and what they mean by that is they say
01:07:56
that we're kind of optimizing our way um away from comfort in every sense of the word we're like you know we live in
01:08:02
these sort of room temperature rooms where we can go on a piece of glass and get someone to bring us our food in a
01:08:09
metal car right to our doorstep and wet where and in fact discomfort pressure is where our growth our health and all of these things I'm fulfillment
01:08:20
in many cases comes from doing an ultra endurance race is for me you know the one of the epitomies of of pressure and discomfort and sitting with
01:08:32
that and accepting it do you believe that more of us should be making ourselves uncomfortable in that context more often and that there's tremendous value in that I think about it when I hear like a
01:08:45
Steve when I get on my bike and and just ride and just see and push myself see what I see where I can take
01:08:51
it 100 percent you don't grow unless you go out of your comfort zone and that's in every facet
01:08:58
of your life if you want to become smarter you have to read books or go to school like that's not always
01:09:03
comfortable there's a million different varieties of this but yes we are in a culture that prioritizes comfort and
01:09:11
luxury and it's all about making our lives easier ironically what makes us happy is
01:09:18
putting ourselves in difficult situations not so difficult that they capsize our lives but difficult enough
01:09:24
that we're testing ourselves and we're grappling with obstacles and we're overcoming them and on the other side we feel a boost in self-esteem we feel more
01:09:35
ourselves we feel more alive and we experience growth and connection with self and connection with other people this is the stuff of life and yet it is
01:09:47
not the way that Society is constructed to we have to go out of our way now we have
01:09:53
to seek the it used to be this was everyday life just to survive right and now we actually have to pay money and
01:10:00
travel to places to have these experiences what's so amazing is is that you know when I started doing these Ultra races they're they're all very kind of like low-key under the radar
01:10:12
there's not a lot of media attention on them um you know it's a subculture that has
01:10:18
been around for a while but in the last decade we've seen an explosion in interest uh in in like doing 100 mile races like there's lotteries now to get
01:10:29
into a race where you have to run 100 miles like if you told somebody in 1800 that this was going to be the case they would think you were insane right so what does that say
01:10:40
it tells us that we feel nourished by doing hard things that they're that we are extracting value from those experiences that we don't get in the
01:10:51
mundanity of our everyday lives and yes we have to consciously extract ourselves from the Comforts of our environments and put ourselves in those positions but the good news is
01:11:03
there's lots of those things right now it's insane how many marathons the London Marathon was the other way like how many thousands of people ran it and
01:11:10
then there's a Spartan Race and there's just a million of these things now that didn't used to exist because the human
01:11:15
Spirit needs it it demands it and we have too long deprived ourselves of these types of scenarios that doesn't mean that you want to be unsafe or put yourself in Peril but
01:11:28
um I just don't see any other way or any other path towards becoming the better version of yourself without placing yourself in
01:11:40
scenarios in which you're tested because succeed or fail you have an experience that's going to teach you more about who you are what your limitations are and what your capabilities are
01:11:52
the popularity of these um endurance races and even things like ice plunge pools and stuff sure all
01:11:59
these things that make us feel really uncomfortable again it reminds me of what I said earlier about the um because the there's been a real rise in sort of
01:12:05
social media and the digital screens and all of these things now people are looking for places for community so
01:12:11
bowling alleys and in real life events have increased and in the same way because we've optimized Our Lives to be more comfortable and easy now there's a
01:12:17
booming industry around things that make us feel uncomfortable you said I didn't get into Ultra Endurance Sports to win
01:12:23
races beat others or stand Atop A Podium I got into it because it's the perfect template for self-discovery what did you
01:12:32
discover about yourself and also I think it's probably important to say to people you're really really good at this Ultra endurance stuff like
01:12:38
we haven't quite gone through your CV yet but I mean I've got a list of accolades that you've achieved and
01:12:45
you're you're one of the the best at this so I think that's worth saying before we
01:12:50
proceed yeah thank you for that I mean I I've learned so much the amazing thing about endurance Athletics is
01:13:03
you have to spend a lot of time with an elevated heart rate that's not so uncomfortable that you can't perpetuate it for hours and hours and hours but it's just uncomfortable enough
01:13:15
where you're sitting in that discomfort and you have to develop a tolerance for that so what it
01:13:22
does is it teaches you how to suffer how to manage pain but also how to be with yourself like
01:13:31
when I was training for these races I would go out like all day alone and it's just you your breath and your mind
01:13:39
and at that time I really was trying to figure out like I can't be this lawyer anymore like what
01:13:46
am I going to do like all I know is I really like doing this this is not a career path this is not I'm not going to
01:13:52
support four kids doing this thing that I love but it is bringing so much value to me that
01:13:59
I just know I want to keep doing it and I'm going to pay attention and pull whatever threads
01:14:05
show up and what I learned through this journey of training most importantly the training the races are just you know a demonstration of what you put into getting to that point
01:14:17
um was on a surface level as an athlete I had a lot more to say than I than I ever believed that I could I was able to do things I never would have thought
01:14:29
possible um and do it in my 40s which is an age where people think you're way past your Prime so that was huge and like I said earlier
01:14:42
that opened up the possibility of tapping into potential on other areas of my life but I also learned that when
01:14:52
you cultivate and nourish that thing that is bringing you Joy and you pay attention to the subtle voices that are telling you this feels
01:15:04
right when you commit to that completely that will set you on a journey that will lead you to a place you can't possibly imagine
01:15:15
when I put on the running shoes for the first time and just thought I love doing this
01:15:20
could I have imagined that I'd be sitting across from you right now having a conversation it's ridiculous it's
01:15:26
Preposterous so what I learned was the power of connecting with the heart as somebody like yourself who lives in their mind and Prides themselves on their intellect and their analytic
01:15:39
abilities understanding the limitations of that and finding a way to really pay attention to those kind of more ephemeral ethereal uh
01:15:55
messages that one will receive when you're really quiet you're really honest with yourself and
01:16:02
you're committed to taking actions that are in alignment with that in a way that
01:16:09
maybe you never prioritized before and that has been a path that I've blazed for many years at this point that has
01:16:16
caused suffering and hardship but also beautiful creative offerings and you know a life that I could have never imagined for myself metaphorically it sounds like you you
01:16:27
almost ran away from your little career in law yeah I guess so yeah I guess so I guess
01:16:33
so uh you know the law in me like how did that I don't like conflict I don't know how I became a lawyer in the first place like I just you know I I I could will myself to
01:16:44
be be the lawyer that I was but it never felt right to me and I knew that I wasn't in the right situation for myself and it took me a really long time to
01:16:55
walk away like I probably walked away from it over a very extended period of time it wasn't a very dramatic split I was trying to figure out from the point of when you start doing the ultra
01:17:06
endurance racing to the point where you get into sort of financial hardship 45 years old you
01:17:13
launch your retro podcast you've got this law job you start Ultra racing there's financial hardship is that because you you quit the law job
01:17:24
or is that yeah because I was a bad lawyer oh okay no no what happened was so I I did exit like
01:17:31
the big Law Firm thing but I continued to practice law as a solar practitioner and then in a couple different
01:17:38
um incarnations of Partnerships with a couple people but as I got more and more immersed in the ultra world my enthusiasm and interest in my law practice continued to dwindle and I was
01:17:50
my own boss at that point practicing law so not a lot of new clients coming in right
01:17:55
um I was still doing it making just enough money to get by but wasn't doing great
01:18:01
because I just wasn't into it but I held on to it for a very long time and when you're holding on to it it's hard to get
01:18:06
into the new thing until you're really willing to let go of the other thing but making that transition was very
01:18:14
challenging even you know after Finding Ultra came out uh I I completely severed
01:18:19
my ties with the law at that point but there were the phone wasn't really ringing that much and there wasn't a lot
01:18:25
of opportunities coming my way and it took a lot of patience and faith and I did the podcast for years before we were
01:18:32
able to monetize it or do any kind of ads or anything like that I just did it as like a fun hobby or project what was
01:18:40
it like for Julie during that period between sort of 2008 and 2015 things are really tough financially
01:18:46
um you almost lost your house couldn't pay a lot of your bills had your cars repossessed yeah it was very difficult um she was really the strength in that equation because there were
01:18:59
multiple occasions where I couldn't take it anymore and I thought this is ridiculous I need to go back and get a law job
01:19:10
what kind of head of household or you know man of the house am I if I can't even pay the bills and I'm chasing this
01:19:18
Fool's errand in this direction of trying to do these creative projects or be this athlete like who who the hell do
01:19:24
you think you are and Julie was the one who was like no we've come too far for you to move
01:19:32
backwards and the answer is that you are seeking and the solutions to the problems we Face are only going to be found by continuing to blaze the path
01:19:44
that you've established for yourself and she had a conviction and a belief and an
01:19:49
ability to see the more kind of developed actualized version of myself that I couldn't at that time and without her strength her faith her conviction I
01:20:02
definitely would have abandoned the path but she was in all the way and she would
01:20:08
say these things are just things you're definitely on a path that you should be on I can I can see that and I want that for you and if we
01:20:20
lose the house we lose the house cars are cars this stuff comes and goes but we're together and we're we're gonna
01:20:27
we're gonna walk this path this is what we're here to do which is a amazing thing for a partner
01:20:36
to say to you to have that kind of belief in you is such a gift so I just can't emphasize enough
01:20:48
how powerful um she has been like in this whole thing of all the things you've accomplished in your life of all the things you've done what does she mean to you
01:21:03
I mean she's she is my you know partner in all things she's my North Star she's my spiritual counsel um she's my mirror yeah
01:21:17
um and you know we're normal people with kids who you know bicker and argue and have the same kind of issues everyone else does
01:21:30
um but she's a really special person really special it's really it's really something when someone can see the potential in you in a way that maybe you can't see it
01:21:42
at that moment in time or maybe you don't quite believe it it is such a gift you know they say
01:21:48
um the greatest gift you can give somebody is your attention but if you have somebody in your life
01:21:54
who believes in you so thoroughly that they can see past whatever situation you're in or whatever faults you have or things that trip you up and holds a vision
01:22:07
for that better version of you and not only holds it for you says I believe in you they're not telling you what to do or how to do it they're saying I believe in you and I
01:22:20
trust you to find your way towards that person and I am holding that for you in my daily Consciousness in my sleep and my thoughts and my prayers that manifest a
01:22:34
very powerful energy yeah so it's a curious idea that someone else can manifest your life for you in a kind
01:22:42
of in an inadvertent way I've experienced that as well there's been moments in my life where my partner has
01:22:47
said something to me I've heard what she said I didn't believe it necessarily myself but because she believed it that I could do that
01:22:59
maybe it did change something in me maybe it did make me go I trust her and she's smart and she's usually right and she's telling me that
01:23:09
I can do this thing so maybe it is possible hmm I can remember so many conversations over 15 years where
01:23:15
someone said something to me about what my future will look like and because I trusted them um I think it helped that future become
01:23:22
a reality sure I mean just imagine the young person who uh you know has the opportunity to
01:23:30
be with a certain teacher and that teacher says you know you can do this like you're good at the like there's
01:23:35
countless stories of people who win Oscars and get up and thank their whoever who said you know you should
01:23:41
keep doing that thing and you know those are those are really powerful um you know gifts that we can give to other people he believes that if you follow your true
01:23:52
path the universe will support you quote I read about you as well yeah I do I do believe that
01:23:58
um that's been my life experience I've seen that manifest in in many people um that I know over the years a lot of people in recovery and that doesn't mean that it's easier convenient or on your
01:24:12
timetable um I I would say that the the path that I've pursued has been the hardest path I
01:24:20
could have imagined it's the most meaningful and fulfilling but it didn't happen overnight it happened over the
01:24:26
course of more than a decade and it required a lot of conviction and faith and patience and pain we have to you know we had to lose a lot
01:24:38
but there's that adage like you can't you know that you can't be a phoenix if you don't burn in the Flames first right
01:24:45
and I feel like we had to burn in the Flames or burn off you know the residue of whatever in order to be reborn to do something different and I think when you
01:24:57
have run that type of Gauntlet and you emerge on the other side of it what you have to share with other people is all the more kind of poignant because it's your own lived experience and it's
01:25:08
authentic and real I'm a big Manchester United fan and I know that's slightly contentious thing to say because not everybody here is a
01:25:14
Manchester United fan but right now we're not doing great so we shouldn't threaten you too much but in June I will
01:25:21
be playing at Old Trafford which is Manchester United's home ground for a charity match called soccer Aid honestly
01:25:26
if I'm being completely 100 with you it is an absolute dream come true regardless of my performance on the day just getting to run out on that pitch as
01:25:33
a childhood lifelong fan of that club is a huge honor so I've been playing football about four times a week in
01:25:39
preparation to get my fitness up and one of the most important things when you are training is to be nutritionally sound that is where heels rtds have
01:25:47
played a role in my life over the last couple of weeks every time I train I have my heels that day to make sure that
01:25:52
I'm getting all of the essential vitamins and minerals into my body so that my body can convert it into what I need to be successful on and off the
01:25:59
football pitch if you're getting in shape if you're trying to be healthy and you've not tried Hills RTD ready to
01:26:05
drink give it a shot my health is always going to be my first priority so when my life becomes
01:26:10
ready to drink is my companion so many chapters in your life rich so many of them we've been through pretty much all of them so far and we arrive now at today
01:26:24
now if I was to ask Julie what the next chapter looks like or or you I know you know it's funny because when
01:26:30
people ask me this I my instinctive answer is I don't know but I'm gonna you know do my best at what I'm doing now but if you were to try and if you think
01:26:37
back to your mission the mission you described at the start of this conversation what do you think the next chapter is for you
01:26:43
that's a great question I think for me the challenge and the opportunity comes from learning how to let go of striving and
01:26:58
step into a place of allowing rather than being this animal of self-will who's pursuing and achieving and pushing and
01:27:11
um and and and really kind of in their ambition to manifest something for Financial Security for legacy whatever it is to ease off that gas pedal
01:27:25
and just be in a place of ease with everything where it doesn't have to be hard and what would it feel like if you if you didn't
01:27:37
push but you still did the thing would you still be you would you feel like you left something on the table because you didn't suffer to create the thing that you share with the world
01:27:48
and I think that is so hard for me and I imagine might be a difficult thing for you to digest for yourself right because
01:28:03
we both know if I go out and I push really hard I can do something and I can make it great and I and and I'm pretty
01:28:10
sure what the result of that is going to be but what if you created out of a sense
01:28:15
of joy and you didn't have to exhaust yourself in doing it and you could enjoy your
01:28:24
friends and your family and live a rich life without the stress that you place upon yourself or the pressure or the people pleasing or the need for any kind
01:28:37
of external validation so that's the mountain that I'm trying to climb right now and I would say that I'm not doing
01:28:43
it very well why'd you want to climb that mountain there because I think that there's a lot of of wisdom
01:28:51
um in being more in flow as opposed to willfulness and I think that um there's a peace and a happiness to be found there that
01:29:11
I'm probably missing in my life right now uh and because it's new territory to be explored I know what it's like to do this other thing
01:29:25
and it's exhausting and it's not sustainable and I believe that there is a better way
01:29:32
over here so am I in enough pain with this where I'm willing to entertain the possibility of trying something different or am I
01:29:43
holding on too hard to this old modality and unwilling to embrace the possibility that the
01:29:55
results and the the the fullness of life could be better by this different way of approaching things
01:30:08
has there been personal symptoms that have encouraged you to seek out another way of being sure yeah uh
01:30:22
I have tiptoed up to burn out a couple times with the podcast and that's been ameliorated by now having a staff of really talented people to help me because
01:30:34
I was a control freak perfectionist who tried to do everything myself for too long to the point of it just being
01:30:40
completely unsustainable to now having people that I Empower to do a lot of the work that I used to do and who now do it very well which has freed up my time
01:30:53
and I still find myself with this sense that success has to be earned and the only way to earn it is to inflict pain on yourself
01:31:08
and if you're not in pain you didn't try hard enough and it would have been better if you
01:31:13
suffered more and I think that's a lie and I want to find out if it's a lie or if it's true
01:31:21
thinking back to endurance racing it seems to be that it might be true you know you achieve that through pain sure
01:31:27
discomfort seems to be the the first hurdle to all the good places but actually that's
01:31:33
very comfortable for me the real discomfort is to see what it would be like without the suffering
01:31:44
that's harder to do yeah it's harder to do for me aren't you I often ask my guests are you driven or are you being dragged because saying
01:31:56
you're driven is a nice way to frame yourself that's like an intentional person but so often we're actually being dragged by the insecurity the shame that
01:32:03
desire to be enough we're like we're strapped to the end of the Lorry and it's flying down the highway but we think we're in the driving seat you know
01:32:09
and I think in so many facets of my life right now I know I'm well I suspect I'm
01:32:15
being dragged but I think I'm being driven and I'm portraying it so what would an example of that be even the
01:32:20
podcast you know do I do I have to be so like neurotic and obsessed with everything and every detail you said it
01:32:26
before we started you're very obsessed about the detail the fact that when we do the podcast in La we have every book
01:32:32
is the same in the same world you know that's insane I mean it's a great story it's very entertaining but it's
01:32:38
bananas but for me it's I mean I'm probably gonna try and justify it here but for me it's about I know that the
01:32:45
small stuff is the stuff that most people don't think about so it's my place it's where we find the opportunity but generally of course I think about
01:32:51
all the things I do all the businesses all the details to the point of some level of suffering there's definitely a
01:32:57
cost to my personal relationships when at Sunday when I'm on a date with my partner and I get a message and
01:33:04
something's not quite right and then I lose 30 minutes in despair like silent despair to myself in my head I just kind
01:33:10
of I leave the the dinner table that's not a great way to live right I relate to that deeply
01:33:16
um so I'm right with you and locked up with that um but what if you were to say okay
01:33:25
but then okay okay so let me try and justify then everything the whole house of cards caves on top of itself and all
01:33:30
the good things in your life disappear yeah that's what I think right yeah I know and I'll say well all our
01:33:36
ancestors they built these skyscrapers and this AI stuff and these cameras that we're using so we're innately meant to
01:33:42
struggle forward that's hardwired into us it's why I'm here my ancestors struggled forward they built buildings
01:33:47
and civilizations and they left that in my genetic code there's a little message saying you too shall struggle forward Stephen you two shall be wired to climb
01:33:55
upwards do you feel that uh to enjoy your life is an Indulgence that's fine for other
01:34:09
people but you're on a mission so you can uh you can like have a different relationship with those aspects of life
01:34:20
that other people find important I think so yeah yeah yeah no I'm like I'm just I'm just seeing if you see the world the way that I do you
01:34:32
know what I mean but uh what are you 30 how old are you I just turned 30 years yeah so I'm 56 dude you know so check in
01:34:39
with me and and what advice did you give me we've got the same mindset look I think it's great that I'm all about the
01:34:47
details and I just want to say for the record I shared it with your team earlier I think
01:34:52
that what you have built here is extraordinary I have so much respect for uh not only the show the way you comport yourself uh the way that you are curious
01:35:04
about the people that you talk to um and the fact that you've built this incredible uh audience in such a short
01:35:11
period of time and the integrity and the you know the the the the quality is is fantastic you know so I've been a fan um and a lot of that is because you are
01:35:24
attuned to the details and I see that in you and I think there's something beautiful and wonderful about that the
01:35:29
trick is to not allow it to become toxic to the point where it starts to denigrate the quality of your life so can you you know toggle it such that you're
01:35:41
still pursuing what's important to you in a way that's sustainable because you want to be doing this for a long period of time right so after five or six years or ten years like what is your
01:35:53
relationship to this thing going to be and if it's not sustainable now where you feel drained at the end of the week
01:36:00
rather than energized then maybe you look you're a brilliant business person look at the model and figure out how you
01:36:06
can tweak it so that you can stay in love with the process and I think for me uh it's all about enjoying it for what it is and detaching
01:36:21
from all the externalities like if I start looking on Spotify or apple where the ranking all
01:36:27
that kind of stuff like I know that I'm in a dark place right I shouldn't be comparing myself to other people I
01:36:33
should just be present for the experience of having these conversations and trying to deliver value to the
01:36:39
people who are taking time out of their day to listen and that's it doesn't have to be any more than that when I get caught up in that other stuff is when I uh start to
01:36:53
make decisions that begin to become out of alignment with the mission thank you thank you for that advice um and thank you for such a rich
01:37:09
wonderful conversation um I think especially that that closing piece of advice is something that will
01:37:14
resonate with everybody and I thought a lot actually starting up my career as an
01:37:19
insecure young man that wanted to make millions and thinking that life was this kind of Sprint where you can Sacro everything
01:37:26
else can wait including relationships social you know relationships romantic relationships family
01:37:31
will I get this thing getting the thing and realizing that the kind of the thing just moves forward off into the distance like a mirage and then I've read Simon's
01:37:39
book about infinite games and thinking okay how would I design every system in my life so that I could run those systems for 40 or 50 years in a
01:37:46
sustainable way and this is one of them this is one of the ones this is one of the systems this podcast is one of the ones where I need to continue to remind
01:37:52
myself that I need to design it in a way that is sustainable for 40 years of my life
01:37:58
including the period where I have seven kids and a mortgage and a wife that needs me to be there and and also not
01:38:05
just for me but for all the people that work here as well um and everyone can relate to that
01:38:11
especially people that are being dragged sure in some way beautiful we have a closing tradition on
01:38:17
this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they are leaving the
01:38:23
question for you get a 60-second phone call with a previous version of yourself what do you say you then get to pass the phone to
01:38:44
someone who is in your life at that moment and you get 60 seconds to speak to them too
01:38:50
what do you say what'd you say hmm I think I would call up the 18 year old version of myself and tell him
01:39:04
that it's okay to be who you are that you don't have to live up to anybody's expectations that you don't need to earn love
01:39:20
and the best gift that you could give to yourself would be to find out what you love to discover the animating
01:39:32
Force within you and above all to nurture that to mute out all the noise of the external world the social and familial
01:39:43
pressures and to just find a way to be comfortable with who you are because Who You Are
01:39:51
is a hundred percent fine and you don't need to be anyone else in order to be accepted or loved and the corollary of that would be to
01:40:04
not get caught up in trying to make decisions about the rest of your life or your career path at such a young age but to instead
01:40:16
explore and invest in as many experiences as you possibly can to Live Lean and to be adventurous
01:40:27
and then I would say put your mother on the phone and I would tell her I know you love your son but you gotta leave them alone and let him be him
01:40:42
why would you say that how many hours do you have [Laughter] I understand rich thank you so much for an incredibly
01:40:58
very life-changing conversation in many ways but for your honesty and your vulnerability and for all the work you do because it's people like you that
01:41:04
pave the way for what I do here and we're big fans of yours I mean that's why I reached out to you and wanted to
01:41:10
have you on the show so I'm so privileged and honored that you said yes um I freaked out a little bit when you responded because I've spent a lot of
01:41:16
time watching a lot of your episodes I I love um the way you do what you do the Integrity in which you do it shines
01:41:21
through and everything you've said to me today about authenticity and being more aligned with yourself now makes perfect
01:41:27
sense it makes sense as to why what I've seen from your content and the way you've lived um and the man that I've met today I see
01:41:33
the alignment so thank you for the inspiration and thank you for the kindness and generosity today I really appreciate that Steve and that means a
01:41:39
lot I have crazy respect for your mission and what you guys are doing here and I've loved watching your trajectory
01:41:46
and it was a real honor to come and talk to you today and man you're good yeah you were like I was like wow what do we talk about
01:41:57
[Music] quick one some of you will know that this podcast is now sponsored by the
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incredible Airbnb I'm a huge user lover and customer of Airbnb every time I go away on a trip whether that's work related or it's a holiday Airbnb is always my go-to but have you ever
01:42:15
considered have you ever thought about making some extra cash to cover some bills or to help pay off a holiday let
01:42:20
me explain further perhaps people are coming to your town or city for a music festival for an event or a holiday and
01:42:26
you have a spare room why not Airbnb it or your home office is free right now you're working away from home during the week you can Airbnb it honestly the possibilities are endless I've Airbnb
01:42:37
one of my Apartments before and it's a great way to make extra cash I'd highly recommend you all to at least check it
01:42:44
out that extra space you have that extra room it might be worth more than you think so to find out just how much it's
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worth search airbnb.co.uk host that's airbnb.co.uk host check it out quick one as you guys know we're lucky enough to have blue jeans by Verizon as a sponsor of this podcast and
01:43:03
for anyone that doesn't know blue jeans is an online video conferencing tool that allows you to have slick fast high
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quality online meetings without all the glitches you might normally find with online meeting tools and they have a new
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feature called Blue Jeans basic blue jeans basic is essentially a free version of their top quality video conferencing tool that means you get an
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immersive video experience that is super high quality super easy and super basically zero fast apart from all the incredible features like zero time limits on meeting calls it also comes with High Fidelity audio and video
01:43:33
including Dolby voice which is incredibly useful but you also have Enterprise grade security so you can
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collaborate with confidence it's so smooth that it's quite literally changing the game for myself and my team without compromising on quality to find
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out more all you have to do is search bluejeans.com and let me know how you get on [Music]
01:44:01
oh [Music]