Modern Wisdom - #785 - Jimmy Rex - The Reality Of What It Takes To Become A Better Man Transcript and Discussion (2024)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Jimmy Rex. He's a men's work coach, author and a podcaster What does it mean to be a better man today? Is it driving a Bugatti, praying to God, making a lot of money, building a family, turning into a monk? The options are endless So are there any underlying principles which can help guide your way? Expect to learn what it means to be a healthy authentic man, the problems most men struggle with, how more men can learn to face their fears, what it means to be a warrior and give full devotion, the role of friendships in the modern world, why no one talks about love anymore, and much more. This episode is brought to you by Element. Stop having coffee

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Starting point is 00:03:39 and modern wisdom at checkout. But now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jimmy Rex. What does that Marcus Aurelius quote mean to you? I think so many people want to say, what is morality? What is morals? What is the right thing to do? A lot of people look back at their life and think, did I do good?

Starting point is 00:04:21 Did I do enough things that mattered and things like that? And I think ultimately we get so caught up in all of these different discussions. And the end of the day, I say this to the guys that I coach, I say, Hey, you know, like, you know, if you're doing good or not, like, we don't need to talk about it, like, you know, if it's the right thing to do, like you already know. And so that's kind of, to me, it's like, waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be, be one. It's just like, just do it.

Starting point is 00:04:42 Like you already know what to go do. Go do it. what a good man should be, be one. It's just like, just do it. Like you already know what to go do, go do it. People have this requirement to check how they're getting on, right? Progress. You have a progress bar at the bottom of this YouTube video that people will be watching.

Starting point is 00:04:55 You have a bank balance account that can tell you how close you are to your saving goal. And I think what people are doing a lot of the time is okay, what is the plan that I'm supposed to follow? What are the steps? What are the steps? What are the guidelines? But yeah, ultimately, I think it comes down to focusing on action rather than focusing on discourse.

Starting point is 00:05:13 Yeah, I think when we get caught up too much in checking off a box, right? Or getting too much into the details of what we're doing and trying to, like a perfect morning is not necessarily checking off 10 different things you did, right? Cold plunge, I took my water as soon as I woke up, I made my bed.

Starting point is 00:05:31 It's like, did you wake up and did you have peace? Did you enjoy it? I think for me, I try to tell, when I speak about this stuff, I like to think like, do you enjoy your life? Do you wake up and you're happy that you get to be you? Do you wake up and you go, you know what? I'm excited that I get to go do this again today.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Like, I like being me when I wake up. And it's like, that's ultimately, I think the goal is, do you have a happy life? Like, without the details, because there's no right way to do life. Everybody does it a little bit different. And I think where we get in trouble is when we think it needs to be a certain way.

Starting point is 00:06:02 You know, there's nothing worse than somebody that says, I have the way to make you happy and it's this way or no way. I grew up in religion and it's like, there's one plan to happiness. They literally call it that. And it's, I think it causes a lot of expectations, which causes a lot of pain.

Starting point is 00:06:16 I think when you put all that aside and you just ultimately just look at your life and go, wait, do I enjoy who I get to be around? Do I enjoy waking up and being me every day? Are you excited to wake up is one of the best heuristics. I think there's a, I can't remember who it was. Johnny, one of my friends from the UK told me about this doctor who said,

Starting point is 00:06:34 as a man, if you wake up with an erection and take a good dump once a day, most things are sorted. And I was like, yeah, that's not bad. But I would add a third one in which is you're excited to get out of bed. Yeah. Not because you're escaping something, but because you're excited to get out of bed. What does it mean to be a healthy man in your opinion? Yeah, I think there's a couple of main things.

Starting point is 00:06:53 I think ultimately it starts with there. And I think this one, there are kind of levels or steps to it a little bit. I think ultimately the first step is you can't be a liability to the people around you. You know, if you're a healthy man, uh, physically you're able to do the things that you need to do in a day. If your kids need you to step up and physically be a certain person for them, you're able to do it. If you had to carry them because they got injured

Starting point is 00:07:16 or whatever else that might be. And then I think there's, financially, I think you have an obligation not to be a liability to the people in your life. You have to give them enough confidence, which gives them faith in their own life and their ability to kind of go for it in life because they know they're like,

Starting point is 00:07:31 you know what, I got this guy, I got my dad, I got my husband, whoever that is, that allows me to be at peace, that allows me to know that life's never gonna get too bad because I can count on this person. And I think to me, that's what it means to be a healthy man. It's you're not caught up with, you know, these vices or these, you know, whatever it might be

Starting point is 00:07:50 that's holding you back. You don't waste your time. You have vision, you have a purpose, I think with, and it's not a purpose like in the sense of like, oh, I've got to change the world. I got to, you know, all humanity is gonna be different because I live. No, but like the people closest to you,

Starting point is 00:08:03 the 30 or 50 people that whose lives you can actually infect, you show up for them and they know they can count on you and there's a confidence that's built together. I think that's what it means to be a healthy man. Physically, financially? Yeah, and then I think those are the two main ones, but then I think it's just, you know, it's having a vision or a mindset

Starting point is 00:08:20 where you have a purpose for your life. You're building towards something, right? You have a vision for it. You're not just letting whatever comes to you kind of happen to you. You're not reacting to the world. You're doing it by design. I think that's the best way I can frame it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:35 Dr. Robert Glover says that, uh, the three aspects of a healthy man are a man who's comfortable in his own skin, knows where he's going and is having fun while he's going there. And I think that that's a really lovely breakdown. I had a really interesting conversation with a dude who's a good bit younger than me and you, and his community is filled with sort of 13 to 19 year old guys, young, young dudes, their interpersonal development and all the rest of the stuff.

Starting point is 00:08:59 But so much of the young guy obsession with how to become a man and what being a man is and, and alpha men sit, they don't sit with their legs crossed or, you know, they, they always dress nicely or, you know, it's all about the jawline and all the rest of it. It's like, Hey dude, being comfortable in your own skin is so important. Like you are just you. Are there some things like typically that make people more or less competent, more or less masculine?

Starting point is 00:09:27 Yeah. But like the most competent masculine sexy thing that you can do is just not giving a f*ck. Yeah. I'll tell you a funny story. This is, I wrote about it in the book, but it's one of my all time favorite things that happened to me at my expense. That is just hilarious.

Starting point is 00:09:40 And I'd been studying masculinity. I'd been studying how to just be a more masculine man, right? And I go to this Tony Robbins event, his Date with Destiny event, and he has, I mean, there's 3,000 to 4,000 people there, and he has 30 women come on the stage. He wanted to show the women dancing, and then you kind of cheer for whichever one

Starting point is 00:09:56 is the most in their feminine. So with women, it's very easy to tell. When they're dancing, you can totally see it. They're free in their spirit and everything else. Then he says, okay, so we all cheer and then pick the two women that, you know, that win. Then he says, all right, now we're gonna cheer for the 30 men that are the most masculine,

Starting point is 00:10:10 come up if you wanna try. And I go up there, because I had studied this. So I knew that when you're dancing and you're masculine, it's not like you're ripping your shirt off and swinging your hips. You're kind of just vibing with the music and going with it. So I'm like, I think I can win this, you know? And so I get up there and I'm on the stage.

Starting point is 00:10:25 How many people are you in front of? 4,000. Dancing in front of 4,000 people. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With 30 other guys on the stage and there's dudes ripping their shirt off and winging, so I'm just vibing with the music and I, Chris, I think I'm going to

Starting point is 00:10:35 win cause and so they do the vote, you know, they cheer for each person and I get one of the two or three loudest votes. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. And Tony Robbins goes, okay, so you know which of these men is the most masculine? He goes, none of them, because a masculine man would never get on a stage and try to impress a bunch of random strangers.

Starting point is 00:10:52 I'm like, oh my gosh, he got me so good. I knew it too, I was like, oh my gosh, it was so good. I just put my head down in shame, I'm just like, dude. Because it's so true, right? Like, I wouldn't give a sh*t if people thought I could do it or not if I was actually in my masculine. And so the very act of getting up there and trying to perform for strangers, I lost the whole game before it started. It was so good.

Starting point is 00:11:12 That's an awesome story. Why do you think it's different for women? Well, I think it's, I think we have to really understand the difference between men and women, like women are, you know, men, it's about being grounded. It's about not giving a sh*t what other people think. It's about really just, you are so secure in your own self that you don't need to prove anything to anybody. Whereas for women, it's about being free.

Starting point is 00:11:35 It's about being safe, right? And I think the problem we have in society right now, I speak about this in the book a little bit is that women don't feel safe and human beings will do whatever they need to do to feel safe. So if a woman's inter masculine, God bless her, but she had to go there because somewhere in her world, she didn't feel safe to be inter feminine. And for a woman to be there,

Starting point is 00:11:53 they have to truly know they're being held. I compare it to like a river, right? Like a river bank is the masculine. And if it's firm and it's strong, then the woman can be, you know, the water and the water wants to flow freely and do its thing and dance wherever it wants to go. But it does need to be held so that it has a flow and so that it doesn't spill out everywhere. And so at their core, women want to have that masculine or feminine women want to have that masculine core to hold them. And so when it's not there, they either have to become it or it spills out everywhere and you see them. They're just a mess. have to become it or it spills out everywhere. And you see them, they're just a mess.

Starting point is 00:12:23 Yeah. I, uh, feeling safe and secure, two words that I wouldn't have really used, uh, probably up until about six months ago when I started doing therapy and, uh, it's so the more, like once you see it, you can't even see it. So, Hey, the reason that guy or girl, I think this is true for men as well.

Starting point is 00:12:41 The reason that you don't feel comfortable about opening up about your emotions is that you're terrified about what's going to happen. You're fearful about the response that you're going to get if you show an ounce of vulnerability to your partner. And the less that you train them to understand what it's like when you're vulnerable, the less they're going to be able to accept it, which means that eventually if it does bubble over spill out of the top, you punch a hole in a wall or you break down crying or you do whatever, it's such a harsh change.

Starting point is 00:13:07 How could you expect this person that's never had any experience with you, dealing with you, showing emotions and you've gone from zero to a thousand. And what you're basically saying is now deal with this, pick up the pieces, fix this mess. Yeah, I talked to, you know, there's this idea of like, so I talk a lot about vulnerability and I think vulnerability is a superpower,

Starting point is 00:13:28 but to your point, if you're vulnerable and you don't get back into your masculine afterwards and do something about it, if you don't hold a frame again, then you kind of lose the attraction of the woman. And so what I tell people, I say, look, and what I've learned this as a coach is you can't change anybody. Like nobody, you can't, if you're trying to change people, good luck.

Starting point is 00:13:46 All you can do is create a container that's safe, whatever that looks like. And then you inspire people to feel safe enough to want to be inspired to change themselves. And that's really where change happens. It's your only job as a coach or a mentor or whatever that might be, is to create a container where they truly feel safe to be vulnerable. They know they'll be seen, they'll be accepted in that state. And when people get loved when they've been seen for who they truly are, most people have never experienced it.

Starting point is 00:14:12 And so they've never experienced true love because a lot of my guys will say to me, you know, they'll say, Jimmy, I've never trusted the love I get because I think deep down, well, if they knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. And so we teach them that's why authenticity and vulnerability matters. That's why getting into integrity matters, because when you do those things, you experience love and they're getting it, like for better or worse, they know who you are and they still love you.

Starting point is 00:14:35 Then all of a sudden, it's like before that, they have a bucket with holes in it, but once they truly can share that in a safe environment, then they feel loved for the first time and fully being seen and all of a sudden, they can trust that in a safe environment, then they feel loved for the first time and fully being seen and all of a sudden they can trust that. The problem is if you play a role because you're terrified of opening up

Starting point is 00:14:51 and being seen and being authentic, warts and all and rage and all and all of the things, if you don't do that, any love that you feel is just gonna be hollow because who are they in love with? Yeah. A character. I've been talking about this with some of my closest buddies. The only people I wanna spend time with now

Starting point is 00:15:07 is where I can 100% truly be myself without fear of like, they're going to judge me for it. Like there's such a freedom in being completely you. How much is that your job? And how much is that the job of the people that are around you? I think it's your job to create the relationships where that's where you get to show up that way.

Starting point is 00:15:28 Cause like I have those people in my life where, and some of them are not my family. Like some people are not my, you know, who you would think is my closest friends. You're still holding back. You're not being truly you. But I think true freedom, like that, that feeling of like, oh my gosh,

Starting point is 00:15:39 I don't have to worry about what I'm saying. I can be completely myself and they understand it. They get me, I can even say the wrong thing and they're going to just laugh at me because they already know my heart. They know who I am. And those to me are the only relationships worth really investing in

Starting point is 00:15:54 because that's where you truly get to just feel, just be yourself and be at ease and be, you know, really be vulnerable without worrying that it's gonna come back and haunt you later on. I came to one of your events. I spoke at one of your events about a month ago or so. How many people are there? 500, maybe 600?

Starting point is 00:16:09 About 500, 600. Yeah. But your community is thousands, thousands and thousands of men. And this is not just young guys. It's successful CEOs. It's blue collar workers. It's pastors. It's everybody.

Starting point is 00:16:22 What is unifying those men in terms of their struggles? You have guys from very different backgrounds with very different trajectories and very different life situations. What are the things that those guys are commonly dealing with? Yeah. So I do two exercises with them when we first get together, I'll kind of explain them both because I think it helps explain that. So the first one that I do, you know, I've been to all these masterminds and events

Starting point is 00:16:46 and what happens is you get all these people and they're all successful but they kind of start bragging about themselves and they're telling you how cool they are. They're talking about their car, their job, how much money they make, their girls, whatever it might be. And it kind of comes off as you're just like, okay dude, like whatever, it's like ego, right?

Starting point is 00:17:01 But what they're really saying, Chris, is they're saying, hey, I promise I'm worthy to get to know, please love me. Like that's what they- Look at my values. Yeah, but they don't know how to say that. So instead they say, dude, check out this girl I'm dating or look at this car I have, you know?

Starting point is 00:17:13 And so all those kinds of things or start talking about their business portfolio. And so what I do the first weekend we get together, I have this exercise we do called the badass list. And what I do is I make all the guys, they have to make a list of 50 or more things they've done in their life that makes them a bad ass. And then the key to the whole thing is you have to read the list as if you're

Starting point is 00:17:32 reading it about somebody else, because we will give a stranger so much credit, but we never give it to ourselves. And so when you're reading the list about someone else, you're like, damn, or about yourself, but you think of someone else, you're like, I'd like to hang out with this guy, you know? And so we do that. But then I had another thing that I experienced, I had a buddy one time,

Starting point is 00:17:48 and I'd looked up to this guy for years, but he was over at our house one night and he was talking about how he was just down, he didn't feel like he fit in, he didn't feel like he belonged with our group. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I've looked up to you, dude. So we closed the door, like eight of us in the room.

Starting point is 00:18:01 I said, dude, this is the safest room you're ever gonna be in, you're just gonna brag about how awesome you are. Tell us all the amazing things and we're gonna cheer our asses off for you. And so we did it. And I just saw this dude like go from an imposter to just lit up.

Starting point is 00:18:13 And so what we do at our event is I have all the guys read their list. And when they're done, we all scream and yell like they just won the Superbowl. And so we cheer them on. And a lot of these guys say, they're like, man, I've never like known, usually, you know, gives me credit for what I do.

Starting point is 00:18:26 I just go to work all day. I work my ass off for my family, but nobody really appreciates it. It felt really good to be cheered, you know? And so the first time they get together, we do that. And what they see is like, yeah, you got this guy that flew in on his jet and he's had a lot of success in business, but this guy over here, you know, stayed with his brother for four years while he was dying of cancer and this dude over here as a single dad has stepped up for his kids and never missed one of their events or whatever.

Starting point is 00:18:50 And so like everybody's worth just like getting to know. And so that's the first thing that really puts us all in the same plane. And then the second one that we do, it's all in, I did a documentary that kind of shares a lot of this because it was really hard to explain why my event was different than a normal Alpha Camp and all those things, you know, but it's, it's a wattvid.com if anyone wants to check it out. But, and so on that video though, we'd show this exercise that is called step in the circle. I created this kind of from a different experience I had. So I had the opportunity to go to Pelican Bay prison. It's one of the most dangerous prisons in America. It's just north of San Francisco.

Starting point is 00:19:25 How many people are in? Thousands, but in this particular unit, there's this lady named Catherine Hoke, and she has this program where she takes these inmates and she has entrepreneurs come and teach them. And we did like a shark tank thing where they pitched us and we could decide to invest in their idea. And these are guys on death row.

Starting point is 00:19:41 Like these are dudes that are in there for murder. So this is super, super max. Oh yeah, yeah. Like if you've ever seen training day with Den that are in there for murder. And this is super, super max. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like if you've ever seen training day with Denzel Washington, there's a scene where he's like, I'll send you to Pelican Bay. Like it's that bad. It's like the prison you don't want to go to.

Starting point is 00:19:53 So we go there and I'm pretty nervous. There's about 30, 40 entrepreneurs and we walk in and all these inmates, there's about a hundred of them and they're free. They're not cuffed or anything. And they're screaming, they're yelling, cheering us on. And we go in. Anyway, we end up teaching them for about a half a day,

Starting point is 00:20:07 and then we do this exercise where she put all the inmates on one side, about 100 of them, and the 40 entrepreneurs on the other side, and she starts asking this series of questions to kind of show, A, your privilege, but B, that we're all the same and everything else. So she'll ask, like, hey, if you had a parent tuck you in at night at least once a week,

Starting point is 00:20:22 step in the circle, or step up to the line, and like none of the inmates would, but like most of the entrepreneurs would. And then she's like, if you had a parent tuck you in at night, at least once a week, step in the circle or step up to the line. And like none of the inmates would, but like most of the entrepreneurs would. And then she's like, if you had a family member, immediate family member, brother or sister die by the time you were 18 years old, step to the line. Half the inmates again, none of the entrepreneurs. And then she says, if you've ever committed a felony,

Starting point is 00:20:38 step to the line. All the inmates, like one of the entrepreneurs. And all of a sudden she goes, I'm sorry, I didn't say if you got caught for a felony, if you ever committed a felony, if you ever been in a fight, you could have gotten a felony for that. For a lot of these people, that's where it starts.

Starting point is 00:20:52 Yeah. And so all of a sudden, oh my gosh, yeah. We all stepped to the line, right? Anyways, it changed my life because I just saw like, you know, these people in a different light forever. So I decided to bring this into my own group, but I wanted more than obviously everybody's entrepreneurs in my group or just normal business people.

Starting point is 00:21:10 And so I read a series of about 40 questions though. And if it applies to you, I have them step into the circle. And it's a way to be seen and a way to like, so many people are just, they want to share this thing that they're ashamed of, like shame festers in the dark. Again, I have a whole chapter in the book about this because I felt that growing up, I thought I was the worst human. I grew up in a very, again, religious household.

Starting point is 00:21:32 And part of that was, you know, you were, I mean, we were taught that next to murdering somebody, sexual sin was the next worst thing. It was that bad. It was like, there's a lot of shame around. So I didn't even, I went into my thirties as a virgin, but I had guilt and shame because I wanted- You were at the Mormon church? Yeah. Yep. Because I wanted to, you know, have sex with girls.

Starting point is 00:21:50 And so I knew the mindset of this and so many guys, they beat themselves up over so many things that like, they just don't need to. And so with this game that we played, this exercise, I'm asking them, I started out, I'm like, if you're afraid you're gonna let your kids down one day, step in the circle. And then, you know, I started out, I'm like, if you're afraid, you're gonna let your kids down one day, step in the circle. And then, you know, I go on, I'm like, you know,

Starting point is 00:22:07 if you've ever had a parent die, step in the circle. If your parents divorced and you're a kid, step in the circle. And then I started asking some more serious questions. I was like, if you ever woke up thinking today would be your last day or thought about committing suicide in a serious manner, please step in the circle. And like half the group steps in, all of a sudden,

Starting point is 00:22:24 it gets real, half the people are crying, you know, and then I can start asking more questions. Like if you've ever been cheated on, step in the circle. If you've ever cheated on somebody, step in the circle. If you need to go home from this event and talk to your spouse to get back into integrity because of something you've done in the past you've never told her, step in the circle.

Starting point is 00:22:38 20 guys step in, right? But we're all balling, we're all connected to this moment of like, oh my gosh, I'm not alone. Because we think our problems are so unique to us and it's like, we're all doing the same thing. Like I'll say, if you've ever had a problem with p*rnography, Stimson, it's like the whole group, right? It's like everybody's like that.

Starting point is 00:22:55 And so by the time this is done, everybody is on this even playing field, like, oh my gosh, all we need to do is love each other. There's no judgment in the room. All the people are there to like really support and love each other. And I spend the next day and a half prepping them to jump off this giant cliff

Starting point is 00:23:10 that's 400 feet down and they're leaving behind a bad habit, negative relationship or limiting belief they have. And they come back up with a more empowering, new philosophy or whatever belief. And it's so powerful, man. I'll have 10 to 20 guys go home from each event and talk to their girlfriend or their spouse

Starting point is 00:23:28 and get back into integrity. And because all of a sudden, again, I had one guy, he was a bouncer, he was a former NFL football player. He was a bouncer, actually for Lil Nas of all people. And he went to some strip clubs. His wife and him had an agreement that they were very against doing that kind of stuff and he'd never told her. So he goes home from my event and he went to some strip clubs. His wife and him had an agreement that they were very against doing that kind of stuff, and he'd never told her.

Starting point is 00:23:46 So he goes home from my event and he tells her, and he says, for four hours, she wouldn't talk to him. And then she comes up and she loves him, and she's like, thank you for telling me. I love you so much. And he called me ballin'. This is a big, muscly man. He was an NFL lineman.

Starting point is 00:23:59 And he says, man, I know for the first time in my whole marriage, my wife loves me for the first time I know it. And so that's kind of the whole reason why I tell these guys like these are the three pillars of everything I'm teaching is vulnerability, authenticity and in integrity. Because then and only then can you trust the love you get. And it's not for any other reason than if people truly know

Starting point is 00:24:20 like here's who I am, here's who you are, and they love you in that state. For a lot of people, they've never felt loved or seen that way. And so they'll go to the ends of the earth for each other. And there's just a bond that's formed so fast. And I think that's been the secret to my whole program and why, you know, guys from all walks of life get along so well together.

Starting point is 00:24:39 Talk to me about shame. Talk to me about how that plays a role, how it appears in people's lives that they might not realize. Yeah, you know, shame is I'm bad instead of I did something bad. That's the first thing I think is very important to recognize. For me growing up, again, it was like,

Starting point is 00:24:56 I just felt like I never could live up. And I think religion in general kind of helps make you feel broken so that you need them, like the savior or repentance and all these concepts. And to me, it's like, I get that, but like, ultimately, I believe in a God that is just all loving and understanding. And so the very need for like, you know, needing saved,

Starting point is 00:25:17 I just don't believe that. I think that like, when we can wrap our heads around, like who God is or what God is or whatever, then all of a sudden you're like, wait, I don't have to beat myself up. Of course I'm gonna fall short. Like the game is to fail. Like anybody that's ever gotten good at something

Starting point is 00:25:32 had to fail their ass off to get there, right? Your first podcast probably wasn't very good. Sucked. Yeah, my first one, just to give you an idea, a buddy of mine, I hired his two sons to like help me with the camera and the boom mic. I had a boom mic, that's hilarious, right? And they were in high school and he came to watch them. And I was interviewing this local like rapper dude.

Starting point is 00:25:49 It was just horrible. And I ran out of questions like 12 minutes in and my buddy starts asking questions to my guest from behind the camera. That was my first podcast. Mine wasn't that bad. Yeah, I mean to give you an idea like, but the ultimate, the thing is I almost wanted to delete it

Starting point is 00:26:02 but it's like I'm 570 episodes in now. You know, I can have on anybody now. I'm interviewing idea, like, but the ultimate, the thing is I almost want to delete it, but it's like, I'm 570 episodes in now. You know, I can have on anybody now. I'm interviewing my childhood, like, celebrity stars, you know, and people in my life. And so, but you have to suck to get good. And so it's the same thing with life. It's like, so when you have shame around what you've done, you keep thinking to yourself, like,

Starting point is 00:26:20 God, like, you know, if people knew who I was, they wouldn't love me. Or you just don't feel like you're enough. You don't feel like you're lovable. But when you kind of expose it, and you're able to go like, hey, you know, if people knew who I was, they wouldn't love me. Or you just don't feel like you're enough. You don't feel like you're lovable. But when you kind of expose it and you're able to go like, hey, you know what, here's what happened to me. Here's like my story. And we think people will love us less.

Starting point is 00:26:32 We think like every guy like that I've ever coached says the same thing. Like, oh man, if people knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. And then they tell it and you're like, dude, what if none of us are worthy? What if all of us just are okay because we are, you know, I think one of the things that's helped me a lot is that I think God laughs at

Starting point is 00:26:48 me. I think he takes humor in my mistakes and I've just taken this like a role of that because I switched my relationship with God where he just appreciates me. He appreciates the dumb sh*t I do. He appreciates the good stuff I do. And he's just like, he sees me as a character. And I think I would think about my kid. If I had a kid just always getting in trouble, but like trying sh*t and screwing it up and all the time,

Starting point is 00:27:11 just being a jackass, but like he's so loving and he's trying his best. Like, how could you not love that person? And I think of God like me, like thinking of me like that. And so for me, it really empowers me. And so every day I start with a prayer where I go, God just lead me to the people that need me. And if that leads me to weird things that I do

Starting point is 00:27:27 that I shouldn't have done, or like just, you know, being an idiot sometimes, then I can laugh about it and just go, you know what? God appreciates this, I'm okay with it. And that's the opposite of shame. Shame is where you just feel like, you know, I'm not worthy of doing this. Like, I can't be the one to do this.

Starting point is 00:27:42 But like, as you've seen, the most amazing people are simply people that are willing to take action without knowing it's gonna work. It's like people that can give themselves grace when they fall, they can be okay with not having all the answers or not getting it right the first time. And so for me, shame is what keeps us in this dark place and it festers in the dark

Starting point is 00:28:00 and nobody wants to talk about it. And so you gotta find people that are willing to listen to you and not judge you and be able to be curious about why, you know. Anytime you get somebody's story, Brene Brown talks about this all the time. It's like the second you start leaning into somebody, you're like, oh, they're worth loving. I've never met somebody that once I leaned in

Starting point is 00:28:18 and got their story, weren't lovable. Mm, yeah, it's strange to think shame is if people could see me, they won't lovable. Yeah. It's strange to think, uh, shame is if people could see me, they won't love me, but by doing that thing, people don't connect with you. So like the thing that you are fearful of is the thing that you are making happen. Yes. Yeah. And that's cause the universe only hears, you know, like the energy of that you're going to repel anybody that's trying to connect. And so you're exactly right.

Starting point is 00:28:45 It's like the thing we want most, we avoid giving. I always say to people like, whatever you want the most of, give it away. If you want more money, give it away. If you want more time, give away your time. If you want more love, give away love. Because what happens is you energetically, you let the universe know,

Starting point is 00:29:00 hey, I see this thing in abundance. I have so much money, I can give it away. I have so much time, I can donate my time. And all of a sudden it becomes this abundant thing in your life as opposed see this thing in abundance. I have so much money, I can give it away. I have so much time, I can donate my time. And all of a sudden it becomes this abundant thing in your life as opposed to this thing that you have this scarcity around and this weird energy around. Yeah, I think as well, just to kind of really drill home

Starting point is 00:29:14 that knows where he's going and is comfortable in his skin and having fun while he's going there. They're like comfortable in your skin thing. The thing that is going to make you, I believe the most lovable and the most accepted by people and the most liked is going to be your ability to say things that in the wrong hands would make you unlikable.

Starting point is 00:29:39 Like that is the cool thing. All of the best friends that I've got, we've bonded over. I remember, wait, here's one story. So Youssef been on the show like 50 times. He was one of the best friends that I've got, we've bonded over. I remember, wait, here's one story. So Youssef been on the show like 50 times. He was one of the most common guests, one of my best friends in the UK. He hurt his lower back one time. We both got bulging discs.

Starting point is 00:29:55 And when you have that, it's like your whole back seizes up. So the spine, the erectors in the lower back just lock so that you can't do any more damage to the spine because obviously it's super, super important and he just wants to protect you. So super painful. It's basically impossible to kind of stop happening. And he messaged saying that this had gone on and I was like, f*ck man, like I know what

Starting point is 00:30:18 you're going through. And I was on my way to work. I was going to open up one of our events, one of our club nights in Newcastle. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, I'll tell you what I'll drive to the corner shop that's near his house, buy him some malt loaf and some sort of Gatorade, Lucas aid things, and some, I believe a pain, like gel stuff that'll help and maybe something else. And I texted him and he was like, Oh, don't, don't bother coming to see me.

Starting point is 00:30:43 Like I'm laid in bed. And I was like, I'm coming to see you. So like opened the door, went upstairs and he like could, Oh, don't, don't bother coming to see me. Like I'm laid in bed. And I was like, I'm coming to see you. So like open the door, went upstairs and he like, couldn't really walk because it kind of shuts down the way that your body's able to move. And, uh, I think that was the moment that our friendship really, really went to another level because I was like, look, I don't care that you look weak and vulnerable and pathetic and you know, you're fragile and broken. What I want is to be a friend.

Starting point is 00:31:04 Like I'm here for you. I want to do this thing. And I think about that a lot. I think about that gesture for me and he's done similar stuff for me too. And you go that moment of him being broken was actually the bit where I was like, I see humanity in him. I see this part of him that is like, that is deserving of love because the person that's completely all just super competent all the time, I don't know, I can't really relate with that person.

Starting point is 00:31:31 Well, we actually love people that we serve. And so a mistake that guys make in dating a lot is they try to do everything for the girl. They don't let her do anything for them because we actually love something more when we're invested or we get to serve them, we get to do things for them. I tell a story in the book about my best friend, Travis.

Starting point is 00:31:46 And same thing, he's like the most good looking dude. He's got the supermodel wife, amazing kids, seven figure job, part owner of a tech company. All of it just- Just brushing it, yeah. As a side point, every single guy that's a part of your inner circle that I met has got like 10 out of 10 big titty wives. Like what is in the water in Utah?

Starting point is 00:32:07 There's some good breeding in Utah. It's not bad. It's not bad. Oh, the gene pool. What was it that someone taught me that evening? Utah's got the hottest single moms in America. You know, I've always been grateful for the beautiful women in Utah. I will say that.

Starting point is 00:32:23 Like I've been to 106 countries now, so I've seen what's out there. And I always come home to Utah. It's like, there's just, it really is. There are some beautiful women there, but you know, what's funny about this guy. Is there was like this little bit of like, he's always a little bit too cool, right? Or a little bit too done together, not with me, but with a lot of people, we just a little bit intimidated, even though he's not that way, but dude. So one night he comes to us,

Starting point is 00:32:45 he's about to become a dad. He was about a month away. And he pulled me and my other two best friends into a room. And he says, he starts crying. He says, hey guys, I don't feel worthy of like being a father. I'm really worried that I'm not gonna be a good dad. He said, my leveling was just words of affirmation. Can you guys just pour into me a little bit?

Starting point is 00:33:01 And it was so innocent. And I was like, oh my gosh. And I, yes. And we just started telling him how amazing so innocent. And I was like, oh my gosh. And I, yes. And we just started telling him how amazing he is. And I can get emotional thinking about it because it was like the moment I've never loved him more than in that moment. It was like, oh, this dude does need me.

Starting point is 00:33:14 Like, and I need him. And you know, and like we need each other. And it's like, oh my gosh, like this is such a beautiful thing. Like he's in his moment of weakness. He's asked for support and allowed me to be that for him. And that is a different level of friendship. There was a, I think it was Dr. Robert Glover again.

Starting point is 00:33:33 He is on his third marriage now. And he, I think it's like a Mexican lady, it's some sort of Central American, South American lady. That, uh, and maybe he's got enough money for a maid or maybe he's able to take out the garbage. There was some sort of normal household chore that he had said to her like, no, don't bother. Oh, he was ironing the clothes. He was ironing the clothes and he was like, I'm gonna get the maid to iron the clothes. And she basically said something to the extent of like,

Starting point is 00:33:58 I want to iron your clothes. Like I want to feel like I'm contributing to your life. And I'm sure that there's women listening that women listening to like, I f*cking don't know why in his clothes, but you know, those acts of service a lot of the time, make you feel like you're contributing to somebody's life. Yeah. Well, I've, I've literally like, I've been on dates before where I used to fake, like I got a headache one time and I faked, like I was fine and it was throbbing.

Starting point is 00:34:21 And I just tried to power through the date. Can't let my date know I've got a headache, you know? And then I kind of learned this concept. And I was like, so the next time I got a headache, it was years later, but I'm like, I'm just gonna kind of lean into it. I was like, hey, I'm so sorry. I have the worst headache.

Starting point is 00:34:34 And she goes, here, let me rub your head. And I'm, next thing I know, my head's in her lap and she's kind of giving me a massage and she's taking care of me all night. And she fell in love. Like it was, no it weren't. She was like- And now you're manifesting headaches

Starting point is 00:34:44 when you don't even have one to get yourself into the lap of women. But isn't that funny though? It's like, you know, we, we think we have to have everything put together, but women want to serve, like a good woman wants to contribute. She wants to be a nurturer. She wants to contribute to your happiness and make you happy and do things for you. So there's like, I've been thinking about competence a lot and how people it's an allure

Starting point is 00:35:04 and an attraction and stuff. And I'm very attracted in my friendships and in my relationships to people that are competent, people that are able to do stuff. And I think that there's too much of a meta around men being competent and women being incompetent. I think that it's seen as like that sort of mastery, I need to do a thing, thing.

Starting point is 00:35:23 If you're with a chick that is an unbelievable pickleball player, or he's like a really good driver or something like that, like that's f*cking sexy, that's cool. And the same thing goes for a guy where it's like, Hey, this dude crushes in business, he's really confident. He's in good shape or whatever. He can't dance. And it's like, that's kind of charming, like to actually embrace that side of

Starting point is 00:35:47 him and be like, and you know, the wife or the girlfriends that he's out on a date with, he's like, look, I, you're going to have to take the lead here. Like you're the one that can dance. I can't. And that's cool because your incompetence is polarized against all of the stuff that you crush at. And I think that a lot of the time, what guys are trying to do is cover up their incompetence with fake competence, as opposed to just saying, these are the areas in which I am good. These are the areas in which I'm bad. Love me for both of

Starting point is 00:36:17 them, as opposed to like, don't see this over here. And it's such a, it's like a, a very fragile, over here and it's such a, it's like a very fragile, tenuous sort of broken view of yourself. It's like, oh, your f*cking self-worth lies on such a knife edge that even the slightest hint of some weakness means that you're now no longer valuable. Well, and it gives women permission to not have to have everything figured out. Like when you can't do certain things, they're kind of like, oh, I can relax around this guy. I can go back to what I said before. It's really nice when you can just be yourself, right? I mean, men have to be competent in certain areas.

Starting point is 00:36:52 Like no woman's gonna be like, oh, that's cute if he's incompetent at making money, right? Like incompetent. It's so cute how you continue to spend a house deposit on gambling. Right, exactly. But like when it comes to other things, yes, it's okay to be like, you know,

Starting point is 00:37:06 one of my favorite things is a woman that's passionately engaged in something she loves. It doesn't matter what it is. Like just, if you see a woman and she just loves her thing and she's amazing at it, it is beautiful. Like when a woman can play the piano or, you know, sings or just even- Be a great mother.

Starting point is 00:37:21 Yes, whatever it is, it's just like, oh my gosh, that's so beautiful to watch. And I always say, I look for women that are passionate, just like they love to do their things. And instead of, you know, I mean, a lot of times we get caught up with the wrong things, but like for men, there is certain things you wanna be competent at, but the rest of it,

Starting point is 00:37:38 the word I like to use is playful. Like the most attractive state a man can be in is a playful state, because you're just, you're never in a negative emotion when you're being playful. Taking yourself too seriously. You're allowed to just kind of screw sh*t up a little bit and kind of have fun with it. You know, it's in my mission statement for my life is, is, is to be a playful human because I think it's one of the most important. It's like when I was a kid, I remember I'd go into my friend's houses and like, everyone's had this experience, but their parents are miserable and they're just hard to be around.

Starting point is 00:38:04 You're just trying to be around. You're just trying to stay downstairs because the dad just came home from work. And I remember thinking even as a kid, like, man, I just want, I want to be an adult that's fun. I want people to run to me. I want people to be excited when I show up. Oh, Jimmy's coming?

Starting point is 00:38:15 Yeah, that's gonna be fun. Yeah, exactly. And I believe I've accomplished that, but that's what I want. It's just like where little kids run to you. And they're like, they know, you know, I have 200 kids that call me Uncle Jimmy because it's the guys I coach as kids are my best friend's kids.

Starting point is 00:38:26 And I love that. I just did an Easter egg hunt for my clients last Saturday for Easter. And I have a helicopter come and drop 10,000 eggs on these kids. And dude, they're full of candy, jelly beans and stuff. It's so funny. I mean, kids are getting pelted in the head and that is like a core memory for a kid. Yes. But it's like a core memory for a little kid, right?

Starting point is 00:38:45 Like the Easter time, an egg hit him in the face from a helicopter. But I have, you know, little kids will run up and I had this one lady, she came to me during my fireworks show that I do last year. And she said, my son just said something, say it again.

Starting point is 00:38:58 And he's like, I just want to be like you when I grow up. And it's like, that's the greatest compound I've ever had. Like a little kid aspiring to have this fun, playful life as an adult. Cause it's what I always wanted when I was a kid. I always wanted to be that. And so I've really built a life around doing that. You mentioned negativity. Why are so many people negative as a default?

Starting point is 00:39:17 There seems to be a culture of cynicism at the moment. Yeah. I think it's hardwired in us. Like, I mean, look, when you think about humans is their whole purpose is to replicate and survive, right? And so to survive, what are you doing? Your natural DNA kind of screws you over, but it looks for what's going wrong so that it can fix it, so it can be aware of it,

Starting point is 00:39:34 so it can look out for it, be danger or whatever it might be. And so I think we're hardwired to look for what's wrong. It's why we're attracted to the car wreck. It's why we're attracted to the news, but you have to hijack your own brain. Tony Robbins talks about this all the time. But like, if you can hijack your brain to look for what's right,

Starting point is 00:39:51 then you can live in a state of gratitude. And he said, the way you do that is by being grateful. Like, and so, you know, one of the, my coach, my best coach I've ever had, she would always just say to me, anytime I, you know, I remember one time one of my friends had betrayed me and this whole thing, and I was so mad. And she said, where's the gift in this? I

Starting point is 00:40:07 was like, we're not playing this game right now. I get to just be pissed for a minute. Yes. She goes, no, we're not getting off the phone until you come up with 20 gifts. I'm like, there's not 20 gifts in this. But the time I got off the phone with her an hour and a half later, I came up with 26 gifts that happened from this moment. And so it's like, whatever we focus on you, we feel, we know this, but we are naturally wired to look for the negative for look for what's wrong. It's just, it's, it's a defense mechanism to keep ourselves alive, but it keeps us from happiness. And so it's not just the seeking the negative though, that I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:40:38 It's also like the promulgation of the negative. It's the downplaying of other people's successes. It's the, it's the mean comments on the internet. Where's what's the. Yeah. Yeah. So that one, um, I believe, so when we see somebody having success, so people can look at your podcast, they have to say one of two things either.

Starting point is 00:40:57 Wow. Look what he accomplished. He must be amazing. Or they have to go, he must've got lucky. And the reason why they say that, or they try to come at you or they negative is because you have to look at your own life and you have to realize, okay, you either have to change yourself

Starting point is 00:41:10 or you got to make everybody else wrong. So it's easier to just be like, well, he must've got lucky or he probably cheated to get there. Because the opposite of that, the alternative of that is you got to look at your own life and go, what do I need to change so I can be successful, so I can be rich, so I can have a great podcast.

Starting point is 00:41:24 And people don't want to do that. It's easier to try to make the other person wrong. And so people naturally default to that person must have done it, you know, illegally or that person's not who they say they are. They try to make that person wrong. Yeah. Cause they don't want to change themselves. It's more work to, you know, people don't want to look at themselves.

Starting point is 00:41:41 And I think that's a really interesting point. Yeah. I think that's why, you know, Jocko will talks about this all the time. That extreme ownership is it's the opposite of being a villain. Like the only thing that's like a commemorable or like, you know, that's good about being a victim is, is getting over it. It's like when you overcome it, like this, the only thing that's, you know, really admirable about being a victim. And so people will do anything to fight for that victim story because it allows them to not have to change themselves. If I'm a victim, I don't need to change.

Starting point is 00:42:07 Like this is why this thing's happening to me and I can just make everybody else wrong around me. Like the second you take ownership of your own stuff, you gotta fix it, you gotta make changes and that's harder for most people. And so they'd rather just assume everybody else is wrong. You mentioned Tony Robbins, Brene Brown, you've worked with a ton of coaches,

Starting point is 00:42:24 you do the stuff yourself. Can you take me through the most high leverage mantras, approaches, fundamental frameworks and philosophies that you've learned from all of the time that you've been doing this coaching? Is there a few things that you always come back to that are fundamental to your worldview? Sure. Yeah. And you know, one of my philosophies, and I kind of talk about the formula

Starting point is 00:42:48 for transformation in my book. There's really five steps to it, and it kind of goes with this, so I'll kind of share that. But step number one is you have to take a moral stand. You have to decide what's right and what's wrong first off. You have to be honest about what you're doing. How do you do that? I think we know at our core.

Starting point is 00:43:02 I think it's just really having self-awareness. Gary Vee talks about that, the most important quality a human can really having self-awareness. You know, Gary V talks about that. The most important quality a human can have is self-awareness. It's just being honest with yourself. Hey, you're not doing the things you need to be doing. If you're fat, it's not because your genes are because of this or that. It's because you eat wrong.

Starting point is 00:43:15 It's because you don't exercise. You gotta be honest, right? Like whatever the thing might be. So I think that step number one is just being honest and just going, okay, you know what? I can admit that I'm not doing things I need to be doing or I'm doing things I shouldn't be doing. Number two is you change your behavior.

Starting point is 00:43:28 Like you have to decide what the alternative to what you're doing is going to be. We used to live in a world where that was a little bit difficult. The skills and the actual information was hard to get. It's not now, it's very simple. There's a million different ways to get it. Now it's more about executing on what you already know.

Starting point is 00:43:43 And then the third step is having accountability because it can be very difficult to change on your own. And so accountability is, you know, most of the good coaches do, none of them say anything that's world breaking. Like I've had people that, you know, signed up for my program. They're like, you're not saying anything. I don't know. I said, exactly, but I'm holding you accountable to being on the call every week and just the very act of showing up and being here, you're going to get inspiration for your own life

Starting point is 00:44:05 of what you need to change because you're thinking about what you can do better, what you can do differently. And so just putting yourself in that environment is creating that change for you, or at least that inspiration to know what you need to change. The fourth one is having support. That's where my community comes in for me exactly. But like everybody, like you can't do these things

Starting point is 00:44:24 on your own. Like I tell a story, I told it at the conference that you spoke at, you know, we climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and one of my buddies that I met on that trip, this guy Kiwi had one leg and he was getting to the top of this mountain with one leg. And I won't tell the full story because it'd take me 20 minutes, but long story short,

Starting point is 00:44:41 there's this former NFL football player, Dave Vabor, that trained him for six, seven months leading up to it. And the second day we were hiking, Dave, I was hiking, and you know, when I talked to the guy with the one leg, he said he wanted to, you know, do it for the other military people that take their lives every day. 22 military guys take their life every day. He said, I wanted to show them they have something

Starting point is 00:45:00 to work, you know, living for. So I'm like, damn, this is, that's a big, why? This guy's gonna get to the top. And so I'm talking to Dave the next is, that's a big, why this guy's going to get to the top. And so I'm talking to Dave the next day and he says, look, dude, it's deeper than that. This guy's called me twice. His wife has called me twice in the last six months. He's had the gun in his mouth and he's like, he's, he's struggling. If he doesn't get to the top of this mountain, I think he'll be dead within a

Starting point is 00:45:17 couple of months. I'm like, holy sh*t. She's got a lot bigger than climbing a mountain, you know? And I was like, still, cause we were doing it with Jason Kelsey, who's kind of become like a, the most hype doing it with Jason Kelsey, who's kind of become like a- The hypostop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like Chris Long, these amazing humans

Starting point is 00:45:29 that I was excited to meet them, but all of a sudden my whole thing was about getting this guy at the top. Well, long story short, we get to the sixth day, which is when you summit. And the problem with altitude is it doesn't discriminate, man. You get up there, I had, we had a defensive back for the Titans that was done.

Starting point is 00:45:43 He was sh*tting himself and just all sorts of a mess. We have other guys that, I mean, some of the most athletic dudes in the world, we had a Marine with us that turned back to give you an idea of how difficult this is. Literally a Marine, like they don't turn back. Vince Young, though, like one of the all time college football players the year before, he turned back.

Starting point is 00:45:58 So, I mean, this is a very difficult hike. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. So I'm watching Q all night, the guy with one leg, he's climbing this mountain and he fell hundreds of times. Keeps getting up, keeps getting up. We finally, we're about three, four hours behind. We get to this false summit. It's about 600 feet from the top.

Starting point is 00:46:15 And if you've ever climbed Kili, the hard part is you're now up in the altitude, the highest you are, and you have to walk for about an hour around the rim basically to get to the actual top. And I'm listening to Chris Long, who was kind of the guy in charge of our whole group, and this guy named Orca, who was in charge of basically all of the Sherpas and stuff.

Starting point is 00:46:33 And they're like, hey man, he's done. We gotta send him down. And I'm sitting there and, you know, I was at the time, I was just a realtor. I'm like, what am I gonna say, basically, you know? And so I'm finding, I'm looking for my buddy Dave, who's like this six, five linebacker, just freaking beast of a man.

Starting point is 00:46:47 I run up to him. I said, hey, they're, they're trying to get Q to go down. Like you got to do something. And this dude comes over and he grabs Q and he's like, damn it Q, you're not done yet. We came here to go to the top of the summit. We're going to the top of the summit. And then he looks at Orca, he goes, he's going to the top.

Starting point is 00:47:01 He looks at Chris, he's going with me. If we have to carry his ass, that's what we're doing. We're not stopping 600 feet from the top. And he goes, he's going to the top. He looks at Chris, he's going with me. We have to carry his ass. That's what we're doing. We're not stopping 600 feet from the top. And he goes, Q, you good? He goes, yeah, I'm good. So we ended up throwing an arm around this dude and we get him to the top of the summit. And it took about two hours

Starting point is 00:47:15 and we're all just dying and hurting. And it was like, I'm bawling like watching this. You know, Dave is there from, and I talked about in the book, I said, who is going to be your Dave Vabora? Like when you're done, I mean, this guy gave everything. It was like, he was spent, he gave everything he had, but somebody in that moment loved him more

Starting point is 00:47:32 than he could love himself. Like somebody said, I don't care if you're done, we're gonna carry your ass from here and got him to the top because he knew what was on the line. And so that's the whole point of having mentors. So that's step five is find a mentor, right? Having a Dave Vabora, having somebody in your world that can help you when you're done.

Starting point is 00:47:49 That's where your community picks you up and says, no, we're not done yet, dude. We're gonna make this happen. And so that's the formula for transformation. That's the whole reason coaching is so valuable. And you know, the mentorship part, the last piece is essentially you wanna find somebody. That's why I hired Ed Mylatt to be my one-on-one coach,

Starting point is 00:48:04 because you wanna find somebody that's where you wanna go, Mylatt to be my one-on-one coach, because you want to find somebody that's where you want to go, where you want to be, that's been where you are. And then you just find a way to create enough value to be in their world. And they can compress that time. You can skip a lot of the hurdles they had to, you know, a lot of the grenades they had to fall on for you.

Starting point is 00:48:19 And you can get where they're going so much quicker. And so I just look for people that inspire me, for people that are doing things that I wanna be doing, and then I just figure out how to create enough value to be in their life. And that's how I find mentors. That's how I find, like people like you, man. My podcast is like, I'm 570 episodes in,

Starting point is 00:48:36 but I'm like, sh*t, man, look at what crazy, I'm so inspired by, you're never satisfied. You're always pushing, you're always doing more. You study the way that you articulate things. And I'm learning from you. I'm like, that's why I reached out to you. And I'm like, I'm gonna get in this dude's world. I know how to create enough value for him

Starting point is 00:48:52 because I appreciate that he's doing this at the highest level and I wanna learn from him. Most people become friends with who lives next to him or who their kids play ball together and that's their parents. I'm like, no, no, who is just killing life? Who inspires me? I'm going to figure out what they're doing because that's going to make my life so much better.

Starting point is 00:49:09 And so that's where coaching or mentorship and all that stuff comes in. I love the idea of being friends with people who believe in you more than you do. Oh yeah. And that's so rare to like, okay, you want a partner who believes in you more than you do, you want friends that believe in you more than you do. You want support that is more encouraging than it is pitying. It's like, look, I hold you to a high standard because I know that you can get there. I know that you can do this thing and that you can make this work.

Starting point is 00:49:36 Even if you don't. That's cool. I had a guy come to my, I did my launch party for my book last night. One of the guys came up to me. So three weeks ago we did an event and we did a hike and this dude's out of shape. He's the oldest guy in our group. He's never, he does 3000 steps a day to give you an idea.

Starting point is 00:49:51 Like that's not very many. I can still the fridge and back a few times. And on the way back from the hike, we had to carry him. Like, and I pulled him aside. I said, listen, man, I said, I know how much you love this group, but you cannot be a liability. We can't ever have to carry you again. I said, here's the deal, 10,000 steps every day.

Starting point is 00:50:07 And if you miss, you're out of the group, period. I love you enough that I'm going to do that to you. I will kick you out if you miss. You got to text me every day. He has not missed a day. He came up to me last night at the event and gave me a big old hug. And he said, dude, thank you for loving me enough

Starting point is 00:50:20 to actually hold me accountable to this. It's changing everything. Like he says, last night, it just literally came up to me last night. Oh, cool. You mentioned there about, um, this, my never satisfied approach. I'm really trying to unpack at the moment, the difference between holding yourself to a high standard and being grateful for the things that you've done

Starting point is 00:50:40 for finding this balance between wanting more and demanding high achievement of yourself and yet having the grace and the acceptance to allow yourself a little bit of room if you do fall short or to just know that look, no one PRs their workout every single day. Like that's not the way that it works. Like that's not the way that it works. And that's not the way that life works either. Have you, how have you come to think about this balance between a desire for excellence and grace

Starting point is 00:51:11 when you're falling short? Yeah, I think a lot of it is the energy behind it, like where it's coming from. So I tell my guys, I say, look, you're enough and you're capable of much more. Like I start with that, right? But so for me, and again, it's another story from the book, but I, you know, when I was a kid,

Starting point is 00:51:26 my dad really wanted me to get it held back in eighth grade to be a star baseball player. My brother had been the two times state MVP. So he's like, I'm gonna hold you back for a year, and then you'll be that much better. You'll be able to be a star. And I didn't want to, I had good friends. I, you know, I was one of the older kids already.

Starting point is 00:51:39 I was a pretty smart kid. So eventually, long story short, my dad put all this pressure on me to get held back. And I told him no. And he looked me in the eyes and he said, okay, well, just so you know, you're not good enough, you'll never play baseball again. And all I heard was, you're not good enough.

Starting point is 00:51:50 So I wrote it on my hat brim and I wore that for three years. So now as an adult, like I know the power of affirmations and words and things, I'm like, oh my gosh, I hadn't seen this hat or thought of it in 17 years, but it drove me for 20 years of my life of like not feeling like I was good enough.

Starting point is 00:52:08 And so I had this never ending ambition just to try to prove that I was worthy, that I was enough. And it was interesting. I was doing a journey one time with some of my friends. It was actually my first ever journey and I saw this hat and I had this voice like come to me and it was really beautiful. It said this has served you, but it no longer does. It's time to let it go.

Starting point is 00:52:26 And I was like, Oh my gosh, like I don't have to prove myself every day. I don't have to be the best at everything. I don't have to be number one. And I didn't, I kind of just let it go. And from that point on, it did become much harder at first to find my motivation to do things. Because you're not running away from something. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:52:41 Because it was coming from fear of not being loved. Right? So it wasn't until I came up with my new motto which is the name of my company we are the they that i fully like was coming out of doing things out of love so now i work harder than ever and i'm more ambitious than ever but it comes from a different energy for me and so it feels healthy it doesn't feel needy it doesn't feel like i have to do it i just want to do it and i think that's the difference like i don't there's no need to do this it like, I want to give everything I have to this because of what it's doing, but it no longer feels like if I don't like, if I stopped tomorrow, I wouldn't

Starting point is 00:53:12 feel like I was a failure. I wouldn't feel like I let anyone down. It was like, that thing was so beautiful while I did it. And so I think the energy that you come out something with is a, is a big indicator. Yeah. There's sort of two elements there that I think about a lot. The first one being lots of people have, I did when I was younger, a concern that if I gave myself too much grace and too much room and didn't castigate myself

Starting point is 00:53:36 when I fell short, that I wouldn't be driven to go and do great things. And I think that that's just a fundamental misunderstanding about how your drive works for the people who want to do great things. And I think that that's just a fundamental misunderstanding about how your drive works for the people who want to do great things. It's not, you couldn't turn that furnace off if I f*cking paid you. Like you are obsessed with that idea. Correct. Yes. They love they, all they want to do is become better.

Starting point is 00:53:59 They want to improve. They want to contribute. They want to crush it, whatever it is. They're obsessive. They, you know, they, they work hard. And you think that by allowing yourself to feel a little bit of pleasure or gratitude, or to give yourself some grace, if you don't succeed, that that's going to dampen that down. Absolute bullsh*t.

Starting point is 00:54:16 And then on the second side of that, let's say that giving yourself a little bit more room and a bit more grace did reduce down your drive. Let's say that it did do that. What have you gained and what have you lost? Like you are sacrificing the thing you want happiness for the thing which is supposed to get it, which is success. So if you are able to make yourself happier without chasing success, that's a W as well.

Starting point is 00:54:41 Like if you're okay. So ultimately what we're looking to try and achieve, I think in life is like enjoyable, emotional states. I think that's broadly what it is. You just want to feel sort of peaceful and alive, right? Okay. Well, if that's the case, I can get there from a million different routes. I can maybe get there by hitting new subscriber numbers on my channel.

Starting point is 00:55:02 I can get there by having sex with lots of women. I can get there by raising a family or I can get there by having sex with lots of women, or I can get there by raising a family, or I can get there by succeeding in business, or I can get there by racing cars faster, whatever it is, whatever the thing is that makes you do that. Okay, but what if there was a quicker route? What if there was a shorter route? What if you didn't need so much stimulus outside of it? What if instead of trying to go faster with the successes, you took the brakes off all of the shame and the guilt and stuff that is sitting around you, that's driving you to do that in the first place. Either of those seem like a win to me, but certainly releasing the break before

Starting point is 00:55:31 you press harder on the accelerator. Like that's the smart approach. Well, going back to Marcus earlier, it's one of the reasons why I love the Stoics and you know, and those emperors and those people, because, you know, their whole idea was not to need more. It was, it was being okay with less. It was like when you need more stimulus, so you need more accomplishment to, to feel that way, you're in a, you're in a little bit of a tough spot, right?

Starting point is 00:55:52 I, one of my, you know, favorite things that I've learned is like, there's three things that money can't buy and that's a peaceful mind, a healthy body and loving relationships. It's why rich people go nuts because they don't have any of them. And it's where they get in all their trouble because they're trying to buy those three things, but you have to earn those. You have to go out and get those. And I think those are ultimately the three things that bring you fulfillment.

Starting point is 00:56:11 And, you know, Tony Robbins again, but he says success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. And that quote is just driven in me. I success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. It means you can win the whole world, but if you're not happy about it, then you're just that much bigger of a failure. Like the key is happiness. The key is fulfillment.

Starting point is 00:56:29 It's not what you can acquire, what you accomplish or what you do. It's like, are you at peace? Like, do you actually enjoy your life? Do you wake up and you're just happy to be you, you know? And for some people, you know, I used to live in Mexico for two years and I was on the border.

Starting point is 00:56:44 It was a very interesting time because I got to see the contrast of people coming across the border from the U S they were always trying to, you know, consume or get something or come buy something or they were just, and they were so miserable and mean. And these people in Mexico that literally, I mean, dirt floors, outhouses, nine kids in a living room sleeping and they were so happy and content. And I'm like, which one of these people is successful? It's not the people from the US coming across the border. I can promise you that.

Starting point is 00:57:09 And so ultimately, I think, you know, if you're not happy with little, you're not going to be happy with more. It's just money is going to magnify it. And so like in life success, you say this as good as anybody, but like you chase this thing, but you give up the things that really make you happy

Starting point is 00:57:23 for the success and you're hoping that success will make you happy. It's like, no, no, you were there. Like just go back. The thing you want for the thing that's supposed to get it. Exactly. Dude, I see it so much and I see it in myself as well. It's like, is there a quicker route to this?

Starting point is 00:57:35 There's a, an interesting cue that one of my friends gave me while we were in the gym. So we were doing, uh, like high side plank. So when you've got sort of one hand down on the ground, one foot on the ground and the other hands up. And he was in the middle of some awful Metcon and I'm like 25 minutes in and he's super fit. And I'm like, bro, I do push-pull legs now. Like I'm on my bro split era. I'm in my rich piano years.

Starting point is 00:57:56 I'm not doing this stuff. And I was like sweating and shaking and like sort of grunting to myself and you know, like really sort of gripping hard. He shouted over and said, hey, what would this be like if it was easier? I was like, Oh, that's interesting. What would this be like if it was easier?

Starting point is 00:58:11 I was like, well, I'd smile and I'd like sort of grip less hard because it's not really helping my performance. I'm like digging in where I need to, but I'm not actually having that much fun. And the other day I was playing pickleball and it was mixed doubles and the chick that I was playing with, we were two, two best of five and the sort of walking back to the baseline as we're about to begin the fifth game. And I'm like, so the, her forehand is like a little bit, they actually like to keep it on her back end and it doesn't seem like he's driving.

Starting point is 00:58:37 So when we drive, we need to come up to the net together at the same time. We need to do the rest of it. She was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And also let's not forget to have fun. I was like, yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:58:46 Very good. Very good. Thank you. And it's like the, what is it like men will try and win a totally arbitrary pickleball game rather than go to therapy like that. And it's that compulsion and you catch yourself and you go, what if this was easier, what if this was more fun? What if, what if it's not about gripping onto things really hard?

Starting point is 00:59:05 What if it was about kind of just allowing things to happen? Yeah, I think a lot of people, they almost feel like real. I was in real estate for almost 20 years. And so I, you know, I sold almost 3000 houses and I would see realtors do this all the time on the other end of the deal. They just try to make problems. I don't know if they were trying to justify their commission or they just needed it to be difficult because that's the way they are in life But they would just cause problem after problem

Starting point is 00:59:26 And I can't tell you many times I said listen I need you to just do nothing like literally sit on your hands for two days when you pull them back out Go grab your check and cash it for 14 000 But you need to stop like you were causing issues that don't exist But they almost needed it to be difficult to try to justify their own purpose or their own existence within it, you know? Yeah, I've got a great story about this. They did a study with TSA agents and they, I think it was like a training scenario, but using the current technology.

Starting point is 01:00:02 So they had pretend passengers come through and over time, the passengers had fewer and fewer infractions up to the point where there was none. There was zero infractions, right? The job of the TSA guys is to find people who are not, who are contravening the rules. And in the beginning, sure enough, they're finding stuff, pulling bags to one side, opening them, checking them,

Starting point is 01:00:25 so on and so forth. And over time, fewer and fewer people broke those rules. So you would assume that the TSA agents were allowing more and more people to go through, but the ratio stayed the same. So as there were fewer problems, their scrutiny for problems increased. It's like, there's this sort of baseline level of how much work I need to be

Starting point is 01:00:47 seen to be doing and optimizing to fill that as opposed to the actual thing. So the, they're using how many people do I pull to one side as a proxy for how secure am I being, but that's not necessarily what it is. Same thing happens if you're on a group zoom call. I hate zoom calls. I've got any more than two people on them because any more than three maybe you end a call and Everyone's agreed on something a new piece of artwork that you're gonna put out for a business or a new email mark campaign Whatever it is that you're doing and you get to the end of the call

Starting point is 01:01:16 And if everyone's just been like, you know, I love that. That's really great. That's really great. That's really great person number seven goes Yeah, but what about, and it's like, oh f*ck, dude, it was fine. It was fine. But there's this sense that if we don't push back against something, we're not working. It's like, this can't be that easy. And sometimes you need to continue to push.

Starting point is 01:01:37 And there are people that push that limit. And I'm definitely that guy. When it comes to the can design, it took like a million different versions. But there are other areas where you're like, good, that's good, let it go. Yeah, well, I think we see this with, police officers a lot of times.

Starting point is 01:01:51 It's like the good cops, their whole job is to just create community and to make sure there's no problems. But when there aren't problems, they start to kind of create the problems. I've seen this in my life a few times and you're like, dude, go away, Like everybody's fine. You know, like we did this, the government did this with,

Starting point is 01:02:06 you know, with the whole COVID thing. It was just like, they just created so many issues and problems and I think it's justify all these people to have purpose, you know. Joe Rogan talks about this on his podcast about the homeless problem in California. And there's so many people, they create a bigger homeless problem

Starting point is 01:02:20 because they all have to justify their multi six figure incomes. And so they just, they don't want to fix issues. And all of a sudden we either create problems that don't exist or we make, you know, a problem that exists like harder to solve than it needs to be, because we're almost just trying to like create enough value of our own self worth or our need for us to be there. How do you come to think about fear and the role of fear in a man's life?

Starting point is 01:02:48 I think that fear is one of the biggest things that holds people back. But I think fear is, it's an emotion of itself, it's not good or bad. I think it can teach us a lot, it can help us a lot. But ultimately, I think you have to get a healthy relationship to fear. When you understand, when you can feel the fear and you go, okay, I know what's happening.

Starting point is 01:03:07 I'm feeling afraid. Like, so when I was in college, I remember there's this cutest girl in the cafeteria of where I went to school and I didn't go talk to her and it was beat me up for like two days. I was so mad. And I was like, you know, I'm going to make a rule. No matter what, when I see a cute girl for now on, I'm just going to approach. I got three seconds to go talk to her. Period. And I spent the next four years doing that very thing.

Starting point is 01:03:27 And I mean, you just overcome any fear of doing that thing. With my guys in the coaching program, again, our first weekend together, I have them jump off this giant cliff. You know, I'm taking 25 guys to Africa next week. We're doing bungee jumping off a bridge into a river, the Zambezi River. We're doing this gorge rope swing.

Starting point is 01:03:44 I'm taking them to just do some crazy things. We're doing whitewater rafting where there's like crocodiles in the water and stuff, because when you get over that initial feeling of like, Oh no, I can't do this. Like I make them sky dive. I make them walk on hot coals, all the above cliff jump, all of it. Because every time you overcome that fear, your ability to, to hear it, to feel it, and then to overpass it becomes that much easier.

Starting point is 01:04:05 So I have one guy, he had never done anything scary in his life, and he had a really crappy relationship with his son, but he'd never had a real conversation with him. He'd never actually sat down. And so we taught him the skill of being a little vulnerable first. And so instead of being like,

Starting point is 01:04:18 what's going on with you? Are you upset? Being like, hey man, I remember when I was 14, here's something that was hard in my life. I don't know if you're experiencing something similar. So all of a sudden he's connecting, right? But then the kid opens up because the dad like, but the dad had this really tough conversation.

Starting point is 01:04:31 They're starting to heal this relationship because the dad finally leaned into his own fears. Like if I can get you to jump off a cliff, I can get you to talk to your kid. If I can get you to swim with tiger sharks, then I can probably get you to have a tough conversation with your boss or I can have you, you know, I got guys that when they start my program, they haven't had sex with their wife in over a year and they don conversation with your boss, or I can have you, you know, I got guys that,

Starting point is 01:04:45 when they start my program, they haven't had sex with their wife in over a year, and they don't talk about it. Like, how have you not discussed this? It hasn't even come, they're afraid to even approach it for fear, like, what are you gonna lose? Like, you're already not having sex. Like, you can't go worse than this. That was kind of how I approached the whole thing

Starting point is 01:04:58 with talking to girls. I'm like, if I don't go say something, I've already, I'm at my worst case scenario right now. Like, my worst case is- The thing that you're afraid of happening is already happening. Yeah, it's like, if I don't go say something, I've already, I'm at my worst case scenario right now. Like my worst case is- The thing that you're afraid of happening is already happening. Yeah. It's like, if I don't go say anything, I've already lost. Like I didn't connect. But anyway, and so I think with fear, I think the key is putting yourself in, in positions where, you know, and a lot of things have the appearance of fear, but they're not actually

Starting point is 01:05:18 dangerous. You don't want to put yourself in actual dangerous situations, right? You don't want to go 150 on the freeway. You don't wanna drink and drive, you don't wanna walk around the wrong place at the wrong time of night. But ultimately, if you can put yourself in healthy situations, like I had a guy today, because I was coming here to do this podcast, I run my weekly call, and I called one of the guys, he's never hosted a coaching class,

Starting point is 01:05:37 I said, hey man, I'm gonna have you do the call today, and he's retired, he's killing life, but he's never publicly spoken, it was all about finance, and he texted me afterwards on my way over here to the podcast, he said, he's killing life, but he's never publicly spoke. And it was all about finance. And he texts me afterwards on my way over here to the podcast, he said, that was so empowering, thank you. Like, you know, he did something that was really scary for him, but his ability to do that now going forward

Starting point is 01:05:54 is gonna be so much easier. And so every time you lean into the fear, it's you get a little bit better and a little bit better at doing that. And everything we want really is on the other side of fear. Like leaning into the thing that we're afraid of, that's where your work needs to get done. And so I just encourage people

Starting point is 01:06:10 to always have the tough conversation. Share the thing that you think, what makes you the most unworthy of being loved. Like that's what people are the most afraid of. And that's where my program, I get them to do, I mean, guys will talk about stuff. Like I had one guy get up in front of our group after a breath work session.

Starting point is 01:06:25 And he said, he starts bawling. He says, I've never shared this before, but he said, even this week I had a gun to my head. He said, I've been suicidal for five years. He said, five years ago, I convinced my girlfriend to get an abortion. I didn't think we could handle taking on the kid. He said, I've never forgiven myself.

Starting point is 01:06:39 He said, it's even worse. I gas let her into thinking it was her fault, her decision. And he said, it's been hard. And he now has three kids with her. They've got married since. He's like, I've never forgiven myself. Well, in the breath work session, he talked to the unborn child or whatever

Starting point is 01:06:53 and said, hey, it's all good. Like, you did what you had to do to feel safe probably. And anyway, so he gets up and shares with us. He said, I've never shared this outside of my wife. No one knows. And he shares it with 50 guys in a room in a cabin. And instead of being judged, everybody just swarms him and loves him.

Starting point is 01:07:08 And he gave another guy permission. He said, hey, I did the same thing. I convinced my girlfriend to get an abortion. And all of a sudden, this thing that he was carrying so much shame for that he was literally about to take his life for, all of a sudden he was like, he no longer had to be afraid

Starting point is 01:07:23 of people knowing that about him. Because he saw it, he felt it, and he felt immediate love and just empathy for a guy that was, you know, obviously not the best choice in the moment, but did what he felt like he needed to do at the time. And so I think anytime you get people to share, I've had probably a dozen guys get up and talk about being molested as kids

Starting point is 01:07:41 that they'd never shared it. And they have, they go home and they tell their wives who never knew. I had one wife call me. She's just bawling. And she says, I'm so sad he had to go through this by himself. Thank you for creating a space for him to just talk about this. She's just bawling. She was on the side of the road, just crying.

Starting point is 01:07:57 And she's just like, I'm so sad. He's just been going through this by himself. Their marriage is just a hundred times better than it ever was, but it's because the thing we fear the most, the thing we're afraid of, once you actually share it or lean into it, you're just, it's okay. Like, and most of the time,

Starting point is 01:08:12 99% of the things we worry about or we're afraid of, they just never actually have any reality to them. And so, you know, it's the old saying, like we die a thousand deaths, the coward dies a thousand deaths, because every time you, your body doesn't know the difference between the reality or it happening. Like when you die, your body doesn't know the difference between the reality

Starting point is 01:08:25 or it happening. Like when you die, it's going to be pretty damn fast. Like, yeah, it's just, but if you are always worried about it or worried about that thing, then you've experienced it as if it happened to you. That's why when you watch a scary movie, you actually feel the intensity of it. If you were there in the room, it's the same kind of concept.

Starting point is 01:08:41 It seems like one of the powerful tools that you're using here is community, but we're hearing a lot about loneliness, both for men and women, but I think specifically for men. I think the highest risk group of suicide in the UK, it may also be in the US as well, is men sort of aged 45 to 55. And I think that's probably a good size chunk of the guys that you work with. What have you come to think about the male loneliness problem in the modern world,

Starting point is 01:09:11 also rolling down to millennials Gen Z as well and their problems with screens? Yeah, it's huge, man. I mean, we saw this during the pandemic. I believe that the devil divides us and God gets us together. Like I just think we're always better off being around other humans.

Starting point is 01:09:26 You know, when I launched my program, I only wanted to have 50 guys, and I didn't know if I'd be able to fill it. So I launched it November 1, 2021, and I gave myself a month to start it. So I didn't start till December 3rd because I needed a month to sell it. It was like 50 guys, it's not the cheapest program.

Starting point is 01:09:41 So I was like, man, I hope I can get enough guys, you know. I knew if I worst case, I can sell, I'll I can get enough guys, you know I knew if I worst case I can sell I'll get on the phone and you know, call my friends dude I had a hundred and forty seven people apply for the 50 spots in eight hours I didn't get to do 90% of my marketing. I was like, oh my gosh I have stumbled across something here and the reason I knew to start this program, you know I'd been selling real estate for 17 years and it was actually almost five years ago I sold the most expensive home ever in Utah. It was 32 and a half million dollars. Like in Utah, I sold basically a couple mountains

Starting point is 01:10:08 with houses on it. I mean, it was crazy sell. It was the, you know, it took me seven years of my career to sell my first home over a million in 20 minutes. I sold a house for 32 and a half million. Like I hit the peak of my career. And it kind of felt a little bit empty

Starting point is 01:10:21 because I knew I could do something more impactful. But it was interesting because I had no idea what it was going to be. I spent about two years working on it, trying to figure it out. What do I want to do? How do I want to help people? And it came to me like the reason it came to me is, is men kept reaching out because of my podcast and previous book I'd written. And they kept saying the same thing.

Starting point is 01:10:40 They kept saying, where do I find a group of friends? Like you guys have, I want to find friends like you. They don't exist in my world. And I started watching a couple of friends like you guys have? I wanna find friends like you. They don't exist in my world. And I started watching a couple of my nephews and they didn't have close friends like I did. Like I had eight best friends since high school. To this day, we're all best friends.

Starting point is 01:10:52 I'm going to climb in June in the mountains in Congo and in Uganda to go look at gorillas with a bunch of them. Like we're best friends. The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest? I think it's called the some, no, I don't think that's what it's called, but. I went to Uganda to see gorillas. The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest? I think it's called the some, no, I don't think that's what it's called, but. I went to Uganda to see gorillas. It might be that. In the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

Starting point is 01:11:09 Probably is, and yeah. I snuck to Uganda, so. And I think Rwanda too, but anyway. It's the place that I'm talking about. Yeah, you stay in Rwanda, you go to Uganda for one night. Yeah, it's the same place that I went to. Cool. So to this day though, we get a trip once a year.

Starting point is 01:11:22 Like two of them came to my party last night. You know, like they are my closest friends. And I mean, we've been together since we were 12. And I look at a lot of the younger generation, they don't have that anymore. It's just doesn't, you know, the society doesn't really favor them like it did for us. There was, you know, they have so many things

Starting point is 01:11:35 that unfortunately distract them, so much noise out there. But so for me, that was how I knew I needed to start a men's group because it was like, oh, that's who I can help. It's like these guys that just don't even know where to find community. And I always took for granted how easy it was for me to make friends.

Starting point is 01:11:52 And so I just always had friends, but it was like, oh, damn, like I know how to teach this. I know how to go deep with my friends. I know how to quickly create very unique bond where we really care about each other. We get to know each other. We get to see each other. And so that was kind of really what gave me,

Starting point is 01:12:07 because I kind of felt like an imposter too before that. I'm like, what am I going to coach people? But once I knew it was that, I was like, oh, I know exactly how to show people how to make friends. And so that became my whole motivation. How can people be more decisive? I think indecision is something that kind of traps you in a way that can also then cause shame because

Starting point is 01:12:28 it's, it's just an action, right? Just do, do a thing, do, do, do make a decision about this thing and move yourself toward it. And yet people can be caught for years, decades in thinking about this decision and not doing anything to move it toward their goal. Yeah. I mean, indecisive enough is I mean, indecisiveness will cause you more problems than almost anything else that you do. Like it really will because, I mean,

Starting point is 01:12:52 when was the last time you made a big decision and totally regret it? It's very rare you do because usually the lesson you got or the outcome you got is, it was worth it. You know, on their death beds, they've tested people, they've talked to people about this, they've done all these surveys and everything and it's people don't regret the decisions they made.

Starting point is 01:13:08 I mean, talk to any girl that got knocked up in high school, she doesn't regret it and she's got her kid now, you know what I mean, very rarely, I mean, if there's a horrible person, but like for the most part, nobody regrets the things they did. They don't regret the decisions they made. They regret when they had an idea or they had a thought

Starting point is 01:13:23 or they needed to get out of a job, they needed to get out of a marriage, They need to get out of a marriage. They needed to get into a marriage, whatever the thing. And it's, you know, it's interesting because the universe will very rarely reward you for procrastinating very rarely, but it always rewards you for taking action quickly. So often, like it's, you know, and again, I had Ed Milett speak at our conference that I had you at and he said,

Starting point is 01:13:44 he said there's a quality of the most successful people where they're just having an ability to take action, not needing to know that it's going to work. And he said, they all do the same thing. And there's, you know, it's funny, because as you've gotten into this world, I'm sure you've met plenty of people that are doing very well on Instagram

Starting point is 01:14:00 or the internet world or whatever else. And they're not any different from the people that aren't doing it. The thing that they have, the quality they have, is they just have this unique ability to go, you know what, I'm just gonna do this. And they just continually do it. I mean, the reason why your podcast is big,

Starting point is 01:14:14 the reason why mine got big is because consistency. It's just, you're 600, 700 episodes in. Of course, people start listening. But when you were afraid to, I think what it is is people are afraid to suck. They're afraid to look dumb. They're afraid to be bad at something. And it's like, no, if you can embrace the suck and you can look at failure as not trying,

Starting point is 01:14:33 then all of a sudden you empower you to do everything. Like I've tried so many things and I quit after like two weeks or a month or two months. Like I tried piano lessons and all these other things. It's like, oh, I suck at that. And I don't want to, I'm not good at it. But nobody cares, right? So like when I was a I don't want to, I'm not good at it. This isn't fun. I thought it was going to be fun.

Starting point is 01:14:45 But nobody cares, right? So like when I was a kid, it was funny. I'm not a kid, but like when I was in my 20s, I did a TV show. I had a meat company. We sold steak and chicken door to door. Um, I had a Christmas light business. Uh, I had just all these crazy jobs and what was funny Chris is all of them. Like to the outside world, they're like, did you hear what Jimmy's doing?

Starting point is 01:15:02 Like Jimmy's doing a TV show. Jimmy's doing this meat company. And I wasn't making money on any of them. They all were a quote unquote financial failure, but I got so much credit from people. They were so, like they were just really admired that I was willing to try things. And so I learned thankfully in my young 20s

Starting point is 01:15:20 that the reward was in trying it. And so for me, it really empowered me to just go for it with anything because I got rewarded for that even when it failed financially. And I think most people, they think, oh, this fell financially. It's like, I'm gonna be,

Starting point is 01:15:33 and I like to talk to people. I said, look, one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to go to rock bottom because you get down there and you realize it's not that bad. Like when the real estate market collapsed and all these other things happened in my life, I was dead broke.

Starting point is 01:15:45 I didn't, I not only was I broke, I was in debt up to my eyeballs. I had two homes that I had to take the loan on that no longer existed. I mean, I had hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. I was like 25. And honestly, life was pretty good still. And it was so empowering because I'm like, if this is my worst case scenario, then I'm going to send it and I'm not going to worry about it. Because when you've been there and you just realize

Starting point is 01:16:05 it's not that bad, then it can be very empowering to really push you past that point. Because people, that's the only reason why people, you know, they're playing defense. They're so afraid of losing this life they don't even like. I'll tell you one quick story. There's this guy in Tennessee, this doctor hit me up. He's got six girls, six daughters.

Starting point is 01:16:22 And he hit me up and he said, I need to come out to you, I need to meet you. I've been listening to your podcast for two years. You're my guy, I need to talk to you. I said, all right, come out. So this guy comes out, it was about three years ago, and we go to lunch. He says, Jimmy, he said, you know, when I was young,

Starting point is 01:16:35 I had the love of my life. And I went on a Mormon mission for two years. And when I got back, we wrote each other every week, and we were gonna get married, but my dad said I was too young to get married, so I broke up with her. He said, I regretted it every day since, she was the love of my life. But five years later, I was still single

Starting point is 01:16:49 and now I was kind of panicking that I was single. So I just got married to get married. He said, I was never really in love with my wife. And then she started getting mad. We had a couple of girls, a couple of kids, and she got mad at me because we weren't making enough money, so she wanted me to be a doctor. I never wanted to be a doctor.

Starting point is 01:17:04 So I became a doctor. He said, but I to be a doctor. So I became a doctor. He said, but I'm a terrible doctor. I hate being a doctor. He said, he's like a foot doctor. He said, the only people I can work on are the people that are like on hospice because they send me out because no other hospital would take me

Starting point is 01:17:17 because I'm terrible at it. And he's like, I need, I'm just drowning. I'm miserable. I've never made one decision that's mine my whole life. And I said, dude, well then make a decision. I said, why are you hanging onto this? Like I told him he needs to quit being a doctor first off. I said, the only reason you're still being a doctor

Starting point is 01:17:31 is because there's a part of your ego that likes to tell people you're a doctor. I said, but you're a miserable doctor. So what the hell? Like it's not, what's the point, you know? And he wanted me to help him kind of find a new thing. And I said, the second you quit and tell both me and the universe

Starting point is 01:17:44 that you're serious about change, then I will absolutely turn over mountains to help you with of find a new thing. And I said, the second you quit and tell both me and the universe that you're serious about change, then I will absolutely turn over mountains to help you with what's next. But you gotta quit first being a doctor because you're hanging onto this thing. And like people will just hang on to these things that make them miserable and they don't do them any good, but they're so afraid of the change.

Starting point is 01:17:58 They're so afraid of the unknown. It's like I used to work at the Center for Women and Children in Crisis and it was a bunch of battered women. I think I had 150 women come through and 150 went back to the guy that beat them. And what I realized is that part of us that's just trying to keep us alive, it knows, so these women knew they could survive

Starting point is 01:18:16 the abusive relationship, which was a sad, sad thing, because it wasn't a good thing, but they knew they could survive it. And that was less scary than the unknown of what would it would be without. And so humans again, we'll do whatever they need to feel alive or to stay alive. So these women, even though it's a horrible situation, we're not wired to, for happiness, we're not wired for a good life. We're wired to stay alive.

Starting point is 01:18:36 And if they knew they could survive that most people will stay in that place. Even though this doctor's miserable, these women were getting battered than the unknown of what's next. The idea of real failure being not trying is a lovely frame. I had a audio book. I'm not a Tony Robbins stan. I'm not deep in his work,

Starting point is 01:18:56 although I'm starting to get into it more. And a friend sent me, it's a weird version of an audio book. It must be like an audio workbook from Awaken the Giant Within. So it's only about an hour and a half long. I'm pretty sure that Awaken the Giant Within is like 10 hours long or something.

Starting point is 01:19:13 And he was like, hey, just give this a listen for me and let me know what you think. And he has a framework for making decisions. You may even be familiar with this already, but he basically says, look at what the situation that you're in now has cost you in the past. Look at what the situation that you're in now is costing you right now and look at what it will cost you in the future.

Starting point is 01:19:34 So front load as much pain as you can. He talks pain pleasure principle. So you're struggling to make a decision load as much pain onto this particular decision as possible. What's it cost you before? How much life have you lost? How much time have you spent ruminating about it? How shameful do you feel about what's it costing you now? How much of your day is spent with you thinking about this thing? What's it going to cost you in the future? How much is it going to hold you back? How much is your life? How much are you going to regret it in the future if you don't make this decision? And then he said, now turn

Starting point is 01:20:04 it up to 11, find, go on the internet and find stories. So my friend, my friend that was doing this wanted to stop biting his nails. So he thought about all of the times in the past that girls had sort of like turned away because his hands weren't sort of nice and attractive. And he thought about how much shame he found now and about how in the future, you know, as he's getting his wedding ring put on, he's going to have this hand that he doesn't feel very, it's cool.

Starting point is 01:20:24 And then he went on the internet to really dial it up to 11. And he found the most awful photos that he could have people that had sort of bitten their nails down and he really, really sort of sat in it. And then he did the opposite and he thought about, okay, and how much pleasure would you get if you became this thing? It's this vice that he's had for 20 years. And he's thinking, right, well, you know, think about how proud I would be and how cool it would be when I hold hands with my girlfriend and like how attracted she's going to be to me when I do all of these things. I was like, that's a really nice frame to think about front load as much pain and then

Starting point is 01:20:52 front load as much pleasure. But Robbins just has this really great analogy where he says a decision isn't a decision until you've taken an action to move yourself toward it. So a lot of the time people say, I've decided I'm going to leave my job. It's like, have you? What's that mean? What, I've decided I'm going to leave my job. It's like, have you? What's that mean? What does I've decided I'm going to leave my job mean? What I'm going to leave my job.

Starting point is 01:21:11 Okay, when? Well, in the future. Okay, so what have you decided? You've decided nothing. Like that's, it's literally nothing. And maybe if you want it to be like lexically precise, you can make a decision, like I can decide that from here, I'm going to go and get an ice cream after this.

Starting point is 01:21:30 Like in some way it's true, but functionally it's totally false. And I think that optimizing and changing your definition of making a decision to when I make an action that moves me toward it. So it's, and this can be small because you think, okay, so what you just want me to quit my job as soon as I feel like I should quit my job. That's a lot, but something like I'm going to schedule a

Starting point is 01:21:55 meeting with my boss. Anyone can schedule a meeting with the boss. So, okay, well that's I've taken a step toward doing it. That's me actually moving myself toward doing this thing. And it just that reframe, that reframe of there's no such thing as a decision until you've taken an action that moves you toward it. Yeah, I tell, you know, the guys I coach, I say anytime you make a new decision or a goal

Starting point is 01:22:15 or whatever it is, you have to take a actual action in the moment towards it or else it doesn't count. So like if you decide to quit an alcohol, you need to go to your house and you need to pour all the alcohol you have down the drain, like get it out of your house. How big of a problem is alcohol for your guys? Not much to be honest that most of the guys,

Starting point is 01:22:34 you know, I grew up again and I had my first drink at 34. So I grew up in a very alcohol was like, you just didn't do it right, like at all. And so it was interesting when I was 32 is when I kind of left that religion. I kind of thought to myself like, well, I'm not gonna start drinking now. What kind of loser starts drinking at 32, you know?

Starting point is 01:22:51 But then a couple of years ago, I'm like, wait, how do I honestly feel about this? Is this my own decision or is this just the way I was wired to believe? And so I started drinking. And you know, what I do is I'll take a few months off every year, you know, at our events, I allow seltzers, but not anything else.

Starting point is 01:23:05 Cause I'm like, you can only get so drunk on a seltzer. Um, but it's like, definitely not a place to, you know, drink, drink, but you know, I mean, look, like alcohol is one of those things that I have the weirdest relationship with because it is the devil in so many cases and it is not good for you and you will make worse decisions and you're very rarely going to be better off because of it. And it also can be such a beautiful thing to break down barriers and egos and walls and things like that.

Starting point is 01:23:30 Like I've had some of my most amazing nights drinking with friends, right? We're just more at ease. And so I try not to put anything like that's like a must. There's only been one or two guys that have had a problem with alcohol and we just pull them aside and we love them enough to say, hey man, we love you.

Starting point is 01:23:45 We're worried about this. Let's make a change and do something differently. But in my particular community, it hasn't been too big of an issue. I certainly feel like we've turned a corner with alcohol use among younger people in the last decade. So when I think about when I went to university, which is like 18 years ago. Uh, and it was classic Larry, louty British drinking culture, right? Like drinking is our national sport. And I think that maybe for older generations, which was why I was interested

Starting point is 01:24:16 in, in your guys's group, cause you do have like a good chunk of like men as opposed to young guys. And, uh, I thought, I wonder where that's gone. And I'm really glad. I'm really glad that it seems to be dissipating because as a person that's tried quite a lot of drugs, alcohol ranks quite low down in the ones that are enjoyable. Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

Starting point is 01:24:38 I have this philosophy that it's kind of new, but I'm working on, I wanna research it some more. But I think the alcohol companies screwed up when they started really marketing to the women and girls. Because over the last 25 years, alcohol use amongst women and girls has totally ticked up and it's drastically higher. They really made it popular to drink the brunches

Starting point is 01:25:03 and like all these different wine get togethers for women. I think men see women drinking and it's more obvious that drinking's a problem. I think when men see men drinking, sometimes we just feel it's part of being a man. It's just Jimmy. He has a beard. Yes.

Starting point is 01:25:16 But I think when they screwed up and I think his words are getting a lot of kick back now, cause there is this huge push. A lot of the influencers, a lot of the people that, you know, there's a lot of doctors that are like, Hey, you're poisoning yourself, like stop it. And, and so I think there is this new belief and also it's the rise of other things like, you know, implant medicines that, um, you know, up your frequency is a post-empowering. Yes, exactly.

Starting point is 01:25:37 Same. And, uh, it's funny in Utah, um, they just legalized therapy for MDMA and psilocybin through a couple of hospitals. Yeah. And we were pushing really hard to help that. I mean, I've this tattoo on my finger was the first time I ever did plant medicine. It was the day I mean, my life just like everybody just changed my whole life. And so like once you've done that and you realize, wow, there's another, a higher frequency

Starting point is 01:25:58 you can be at going to those lower frequencies like alcohol really doesn't hit the same way. And so I think the alcohol has a definite problem as far as that they're going to be in trouble with their marketing because people are waking up to like, this is a poison. This is, this is, has a lot of it. It's kind of not that cool, uh, anymore. And it's very strange, you know, if you to think, and this might be my bubble, you know, there might be people may see things differently and I'm sure that in different areas of the country and different friend groups and whatever, but I really think

Starting point is 01:26:29 that we've turned a corner with it. And if you'd said that to me 18 years ago, I would have been like, are you mad? Like this is the drug. There's a hypothesis about human culture called the beer before bread hypothesis, which is that it was easier to grow grain to make beer than it was to make it to grow bread, to create bread. And, uh, the idea being that here's some interesting stuff actually about alcohol. So. One of the interesting effects that it has, it reduces your ability to lie

Starting point is 01:27:02 because the PFC prefrontal cortex gets tuned down a little bit. So your capacity to keep all of the different plates spinning of your elaborate like construction, uh, they don't exist so much, but interestingly, it makes people better lying detectors. So you are better at detecting deception when you're drunk than when you're sober. And you are worse at deceiving when you're drunk than when you're sober. And you are worse at deceiving when you are drunk than when you are sober. So it's this perfect. Trick comes out. Exactly. Exactly correct. So people are more hyper tuned to it. Um, and, uh, I thought, wow,

Starting point is 01:27:36 those that's, that's really interesting. Like that's a function that this thing has. And it's evidently been super important to the development of human civilization. But you also have a big corner, I think, that gets turned in the Middle Ages when coffee houses became a thing, because during the middle of the day, as opposed to going and drinking with your friends and having beer or ale or something, you would be able to go and have something that actually enhanced your cognition instead of dulled it. And yeah, my point being it's been such an important part of human civilization forever, for as long as we've had civilized culture and for you

Starting point is 01:28:10 to go, yeah, and that's kind of going to become uncool and pushed back against. I would have never predicted. Well, think about when we were kids, right? Smoking was cool. It was, and smoking became the least cool thing you could do. Mark Norman's joke about smoking is like that basically smoking's been swapped with weed and that if someone saw you down an alleyway smoking a cigarette and they were like,

Starting point is 01:28:30 what are you doing? And you'd be like, killing a hooker. And he's like. It's true though, but you know, and that happened. I'm smoking when you were a kid, every, you know, like all of the old movies from the sixties and seventies, they were always, you know, Marlon Brando, whoever it was, they always had a cigarette.

Starting point is 01:28:44 It was just the cool thing to do. Now it's like, you're gross, what's wrong with you? And so I think the same thing can be having with alcohol. You know, the gift of my life was not drinking till I was 34. Like I never became dependent on it. It never became a vice. It never became something I needed to mask emotions.

Starting point is 01:28:59 I think I kind of accidentally nailed it with alcohol because I'll drink it when I celebrate or with homies or whatever, but like, it's just not a theme. It's very intentional. Yes. I've never had a bad experience drinking. Like if I'm being honest, dead serious. Well, actually I had one, you want to hear?

Starting point is 01:29:13 Yeah, sure. Dude. Well, so my first time I ever drank, I was undercover. I used to go undercover with a group. We'd go help rescue kids being sex trafficked in foreign countries and I'd never drink. So we're in this strip club bar in, you know, Latin America and one of these traffickers brings us

Starting point is 01:29:27 a thing of beers, me and my buddies, and I've never drank. So I'm like, sh*t, if I drink this, am I gonna spill the beans that were undercover? Like, I have no idea how I'm gonna think. How funny, you would have no idea what the effect of alcohol. Zero, and I'm 34, it's embarrassing. Is one beer gonna destroy me? Yes, yes, so I take the beer and like nothing happens, right?

Starting point is 01:29:46 And I'm like, oh sh*t. And so then I'm like, well, okay. So when we go home from that trip, I'm like, okay, I do want to try drinking now, but I was like, I don't want to get drunk and not know how to act. So funny that your introduction to alcohol was through a sex child trafficking guy with a plate. I know. I know. Well, it's like,

Starting point is 01:30:03 you can't say no to a beer if you're undercover, you know, pretending to do that. So I end up, um, I end up deciding I'm going to get drunk by myself. So I know how it feels. So I buy one of everything, dude. I've I'm buying rum whiskey, you know, all of it. And I ended up taking about five, six drinks and I don't really feel anything yet. I'm just by myself on my couch.

Starting point is 01:30:23 I'm like, well, try some more. I try every, dude, I probably took 15 drinks and I wake't really feel anything yet. I'm just by myself on my couch. So I'm like, well, try some more. And I try every day. I probably took 15 drinks and I wake up. I'd blacked out. I probably almost killed myself. It was literally the first time I actually drank. People would have found me and got my alcohol.

Starting point is 01:30:36 They'd be like, he must've been so depressed. It was literally an experiment. Bizarre self experiment. Yeah. I know. And I didn't want to drink again for like a really long time cause it was just, I felt so awful. But yeah, that was the only time I've had a real negative

Starting point is 01:30:50 experience drinking, but it was bad. I was so stupid. But yeah, I just didn't know. You know, it's interesting. The whole thing with, when we would go undercover though, you know, the guys I went with, same thing. None of them had ever drank either. Cause we all kind of like had grown up in the same religion

Starting point is 01:31:03 and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it was a trip, man. If I had only one bad story from drinking alcohol, that would be, I would have to get rid of 999 because I was in the trenches for a while. One of the other things I've been thinking about a lot, and I know that you think about this is presence, like having your mind rest where your feet are. It seems that that's increasingly hard to achieve. We're permanently distracted.

Starting point is 01:31:28 We're always thinking about the next thing. We're in our dopamine versions of ourselves as opposed to the serotonin versions of ourselves. How do you advise people to become more present? Yeah, it's funny you said that's my word of the year is presence. So, you know, every year I do a word and try to like really focus on that.

Starting point is 01:31:44 So in fact, last time I was at this studio I was with Stefano Sophanos and he was the first one that mentioned this to me, but he said, you know, God speaks to us through solace and silence. And so we really, we live in a world where we're so, we really are plugged in. And so he would encourage me to spend two hours a week just by myself in nature with no phone. And so I started doing it was so hard, much harder than I ever thought. And last year, about the beginning of July, I ended up, I decided I was

Starting point is 01:32:10 going to rent this cabin. Uh, it's Sundance, Utah. It's where they do the Sundance film festival. So it's beautiful in the woods, river, the whole thing. And I didn't take my phone for two days. I just sat at this cabin and it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done, dude. And I literally, it was funny.

Starting point is 01:32:24 I didn't miss Facebook. I didn't miss Facebook. I didn't miss sports. I didn't miss my friends. I missed being connected. It felt like I was unplugged from everything. And I was like, oh my gosh, we literally are plugged into this thing that really is like a matrix. And so I've really tried to work on this idea of just, you know, you know, it

Starting point is 01:32:42 took me almost two years of trying to meditate before I could get to 20 minutes before I could sit over there. Now I can do it every day and I do, but I think we just have to be super intentional. I go for a walk every morning without my phone. I, you know, I, I try not to use apps and things to mark my steps. It's like, but you want to, it's like, Oh, I want to get this goal. But if I don't wear my thing, then I won't count it. And so, but like just being without those things,

Starting point is 01:33:05 like yesterday I was kind of stressed as I was getting ready for my party. And I just went for a 20 minute walk without my phone, just kind of like let it kind of just, and then I was good, you know? But we really have so much noise. There's so much combustion. Like you said, we live in a dope of me nation.

Starting point is 01:33:19 And one of the concepts I cover in the book again is, I said, the goal is not, we've made the goal to try to feel better. So we're constantly doing things to feel better. The goal should be to try to feel more. So anytime we're masking those feelings and we do that through a dopamine spike. So it's, you know, I did a four day fast last year and my one takeaway was, Oh, I just do this to feel better.

Starting point is 01:33:41 I like the feeling I get when I eat. It's a dopamine hit. And it wasn't about being hungry. It was about getting a dopamine hit. And so it's like, I've tried to stop myself, you know, guys that I teach that, you know, if you have like a p*rn issue, it's like, hey, if you can stop yourself long enough to go, wait,

Starting point is 01:33:55 what's happening? Why am I seeking this out? Same thing with bad food, same thing with alcohol, anything that's basically video games, gambling, you name it, right? Like random hookups, all these things that we know we shouldn't do that aren't really in our best, you know, best thing for us.

Starting point is 01:34:11 If we can stop long enough to go, wait, what am I truly feeling? Cause what we're truly doing is we're just masking our feelings. And so if we can start thinking about it as, hey, instead of trying to feel better, let me try to feel more. Let me feel a little sad. Let me feel a little lonely. Let me feel a little lonely.

Starting point is 01:34:25 Let me, let me feel whatever that might be. Then we can kind of work through it. And then eventually once you let it kind of pass through it, it goes away. Yeah. But trying to hide it, I don't think does make it go away. Oh no, it stays. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:38 A hundred percent. That's the problem. That's the problem with the world we live in. That's where people, I mean, that's where, you know, we deal with alcoholism and, and overweight and, and people that that's where, you know, we deal with alcoholism and overweight and people that just kind of get caught up with all these vices and things because yeah, it doesn't, it's whatever we resist persists.

Starting point is 01:34:52 So it's gonna stick around till we deal with it. Whatever we resist persists. That's interesting. Yeah, so like if you're, I mean, again, like I use the p*rn issue a lot because a lot of the guys that come to me, that's what, you know, they wanna overcome. And it's like all day long,

Starting point is 01:35:06 they're literally obsessed with not looking at p*rn. So I'm like, well, what do you think about all day then p*rn? Like that's what you're trying not to do all day. I said, dude, you need to get to the underlying thing. What are you feeling? Are you sad? Are you lonely? Are you, what's really going on? And once I can heal that, then you're just, it quits becoming this big thing. You've almost put on a pedestal or this ritual around it and it just goes away.

Starting point is 01:35:28 You just, normal people don't think about p*rn all day. You're just like, it might, you might get triggered looking at the freaking discovery page on Instagram, wank one off real quick and go on with your day, but you're not going to be thinking about not. You haven't created this big story around it. Exactly. It's an interesting one actually.

Starting point is 01:35:41 So, uh, I kind of have built a number of stories about some of the things that I did when I was in my twenties. So I like party a lot and you're like just young party boys stuff, tons of cocaine, tons of MDMA and a good bit of boozing. And I'd never, never one point did I ever feel like I had a problem. It was always me that was in control. And I did this quite infrequently, but I would do it heavily when I did it. And that's like classic, you know, like club promoter meets personal development dude,

Starting point is 01:36:08 early, you know, like prototypical or proto personal development guy. And I think I've told myself a story about many of the things that I did back then. So I still have this slightly antagonistic relationship with alcohol where I see it as kind of like the low vibration thing and it's kind of like dumb and it's like juvenile and immature. And when I think about even MDMA, which a drug I've never done sober, but it was developed for psychotherapy, it was developed to help people overcome traumas and open open. I've never done it with alcohol. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:36:42 Well, if we put both of us together, we'd have a balanced version of how to use it. And cocaine is exactly the same thing. And I was thinking about it yesterday and I don't know why I was thinking about cocaine. Maybe I was tired. And I thought, why have I got this story around this particular drug? There certainly are drugs, you know, a big class of drugs that I think are dangerous and probably should be demonized, like the heroin and stuff like that.

Starting point is 01:37:08 And cocaine's not exactly like mushrooms or f*cking caffeine or something. But still, I was like, what if I, why does this story kind of exist in my mind about what those drugs mean and are? And I really started to sort of fact check it. And I think so much of it is just this sense that I want to feel like I've transcended where I was before.

Starting point is 01:37:30 And I'm associating the things that I used to do previously with the person that I was previously. I'm like, Hey, I think that you're being used by those drugs as opposed to you using them. I, this was like is like maybe the fifth episode or the sixth episode I ever did on this podcast with a guy called Don McGregor. So I did a ton of sobriety, elective sobriety I called it

Starting point is 01:37:52 because I chose to do it as opposed to I needed to do it. I just wanted to focus on sleep and personal development and sh*t. And I had a conversation with Dom who was a guy that did have a problem with alcohol and he was choosing to go sober because he needed to because he was overcoming a dependency. And I came up with this idea

Starting point is 01:38:08 and I still think that it's true, which is if you are somebody that's had a problem with substances or with vices of one kind or another, you haven't truly transcended them until you can reintegrate them on your terms. If you are a person who has been addicted to alcohol and now your thing is I am, I'm sober and I've been sober for 15 years and I do all the rest of it. I'm like, dude, that's phenomenal.

Starting point is 01:38:35 Congratulations. That is unequivocably the, a significantly better position to be in than the one that you were in previously, but alcohol still controls your life. It still has a control over you. The absence in previously, but alcohol still controls your life. Like I say, it still has a control over you at that point. The absence of alcohol is still in control of your life. And totally there are certain people with certain constitutions or histories and patterns who will never be able to reintegrate that. But I also don't think that you can say you've overcome your problem with alcohol.

Starting point is 01:39:02 I think that that would be a fiction. I think that overcoming your problem with anything would be being able to see p*rn and not watching it for 10 hours, being able to have a drink and not needing to binge for the remainder of the year. And so much of that, again, as I was reflecting on why I had these judgments around particular substances, I think so much of that is the story that we tell ourselves. Once you get beyond the dependency and the habits and all the rest of this stuff, the destructive spirals.

Starting point is 01:39:30 It's like, Hmm, well, what if there was a different story about what I said about this, not that I intend on, I haven't had cocaine today, but you know, like I thought that was interesting. Yeah. No, it is. And I kind of admitted me think about like, so, you know, I grew up in a religion from the time I was born until I was 32 and I left, but it's still absolutely plays roles in my life every day. And it's like, I'll never really lose that.

Starting point is 01:39:52 I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing. It's just part of me, right? I think it's a little bit similar, like an alcoholic, if they can go 15 years sober, somebody that was hooked on cocaine or whatever it might've been, I think that's just going to be part of them from that point. I think that's one of the dangers of getting into certain things before, you know, really analyzing what that's going to do long-term. But I think it's always going to be a part of my story in my life.

Starting point is 01:40:14 And like, it literally creeps into my life somehow every single day. And so it's like, you know, I had a brother that he's very much still in it. And he was kind of mad at me because he's like, you act like you're not, you know, uh, have any problems with it, but I know you, mad at me because he's like, you act like you're not, you know, have any problems with it, but I know you do. I said, dude, I absolutely have problems with it. That's why I left, but I'm trying not to. I'm trying not to have any issues.

Starting point is 01:40:34 I do, I have several problems with it. I don't want to have problems with it. I'd rather it just be a thing, just like I don't think about Islam or Catholicism. I don't give a sh*t. It doesn't have any emotion to me. This one still does. And I always will.

Starting point is 01:40:47 And I don't, there's no way for me to get around that. You know, it's like, I've done a good job of trying to like come to peace with it all, but like it, of course I still have issues. Like, that's why I left. I don't know. Kind of. No, I think it's just strange to consider that even, even the absence of things can still be them controlling you, right?

Starting point is 01:41:09 Because of the sort of obsession in the absence, it's this sort of the vacuum sucks you in and you're, you're measuring your progress now up against where it isn't as opposed to where it is. And yeah, that's just a, yeah. If I see anything, like any article, if I'm on like Yahoo and anything with that church pops, I totally want to read it. Like it just sucks me right in. Like you said, like a vacuum, you know, it's like, it's just a... Yeah, if I see anything, like any article, if I'm on like Yahoo and anything with that church pops, I totally wanna read it. Like it just sucks me right in.

Starting point is 01:41:27 Like you said, like a vacuum, you know? It's like, it's part of me. Talk to me about the role of devotion. Devotion, well, you know, I think ultimately we have to make a decision of like where we wanna put our attention. We can do anything in life, but you can't do everything. And I think where people,

Starting point is 01:41:44 we talked about this a little bit earlier, but like anything that is worth doing is worth overdoing. Like for me, I want to go all in on stuff. Except cocaine. But like for me, you know, it's like, if I, I want to do things at the highest level, I want to experience all that life has at the highest levels. And that includes like with you talk about devotional, that's love. That's, you know, if you're going to be in a marriage.

Starting point is 01:42:04 So I tell the guys that I coach, I said,, that's love. That's, you know, if you're gonna be in a marriage. So I tell the guys that I coach, I said, if that person isn't your everything, if you can't be completely vulnerable or yourself and fully just be when you're with them, then you're missing 98% of the good stuff of being with someone. So what's the point?

Starting point is 01:42:18 Like be completely devoted, be all in on that thing, or don't do the thing. And so I don't know if that's a proper answer per se, but like, I just believe that, you know, anything you do at 90, like you can become a semi-expert of something, you get 95% of the way there, you know, in six months. But to get, this is a tweet that I think I saw you put out,

Starting point is 01:42:38 but if you're gonna get to 98 or 100%, it's gonna take you 20, 30 years, but find the things that are worth doing that and the rest of them be okay, just like not really having that much attachment to, but the things you really care about, your family, your friends, like, you 20, 30 years, but find the things that are worth doing that. And the rest of them be okay. Just like not really having that much attachment to, but the things you really care about your family, your friends, like, you know, like whatever thing you're passionate about, um, I think you have to go all in on. That's why it's interesting.

Starting point is 01:42:55 The first step of your five step transformation thing is decide on your morals, like decide what's valuable. A hundred percent. Yep. Yeah. Define decide what really matters. Yeah. I think that's the best way to say that.

Starting point is 01:43:04 Because until you've done that, how are you going to know what you should and shouldn't go after down the line? Yeah. You mentioned stoicism earlier on, one of the four stoic virtues is wisdom. And that's the most important one because it's the one that chooses what you do with the rest. It's like, you know, temperance and justice and stuff like, Oh yeah. Okay. do with the rest. It's like temperance and justice and stuff. Like, yeah, okay, but the wisdom thing is the deciding in what direction am I going to use these other skills

Starting point is 01:43:31 and tools that I have to serve? You can be obsessive and hardworking and doing things incredibly well, but if the thing that you're doing is sniffing cocaine, like guess what, that's not. Yeah, so it's like, it has to be a worthwhile goal to be successful, right? It has to be something like a drug dealer can't be successful because of the very act of becoming great at it is makes you not

Starting point is 01:43:56 successful. But, and yet it has to be, it's, it's the, it's the pursuit of a worthwhile goal. That's what really what you're trying to attempt to do. I think that's, you know, where you want to really be able to, again, going back to the moral issue of like, okay, wait, is this thing I'm doing matter? Like, you know, I think when people are in a job, if they know it matters, if they, I think there's two things are really important about picking where you, what you spend your time on.

Starting point is 01:44:18 Does it matter? Like, you know, do I have an X factor? Do I have a gift that no one else has that because of that, it matters that I'm doing this thing? And the second one is, am I using the gifts that I have for the thing I work on? Because when you do, when you have those two things present,

Starting point is 01:44:33 everything feels like passion. When you don't, it all feels like stress. Like anytime you're in a job or you're not using your natural gifts, or it doesn't matter to you, it's just stress. But when it matters, and when you're doing things you're already good at, that's what I love about my job now. It's like, it's all the stuff I already love doing.

Starting point is 01:44:48 And so it just, every day, it's just so fun to go do my thing because it's like, it's, I don't even know if I'm ever working or not. It's, it's all one thing, you know, it's like a cliche, like, you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. But it's like, it's true. Like if you love what you're doing, I can work 60, 70 hours now. And I feel like I just had a normal week. But like when I was doing that in real estate, when you're pounding phones, trying to get for sale by owners to call you love what you're doing, I can work 60, 70 hours now and I feel like I just had a normal week. But like when I was doing that in real estate,

Starting point is 01:45:07 when you're pounding phones, trying to get for sale by owners to call you back, you know you're working, you know? And so I think that's a gift that I think everybody needs to find, like really get clear on like, what are your gifts? And if you don't know an exercise I have my guys do, I just have them text five guys in the group or five people they know and say, Hey man, what's a unique gift or talent that I have that maybe I don't see in myself.

Starting point is 01:45:29 And you'll be shocked at the answers you get back from me. It's really cool. Cause people will see you in a way. And when you hear it, you go, dang, oh yeah, I get that. I do do that. And it's really beautiful exercise. They help you feel good. Hell yeah.

Starting point is 01:45:41 Jimmy Rex, ladies and gentlemen, Jimmy, I appreciate your work. I think that what you're doing with revitalizing groups of men who really, really need it is super impressive. Where should people go? They want to keep up to date with everything that you do. Yeah, I think the main thing that I'm focused on is We Are The They. That's my men's coaching group.

Starting point is 01:45:58 My Instagram, Mr. Jimmy Rex, I post a lot of the stuff on there and you know, and I think that's the best place to find everything in those links. I did it again, and I think that's the best place to find everything. In those links, I did it again, this documentary, if people get a chance to watch it, wattvid.com and you can really see what we're all about. Pick up my new book, just came out yesterday. Super pumped, we're, Ed Mylett again did the foreword

Starting point is 01:46:19 and you know, he said, he said, it's very rare a book comes along at the time when the society really needs it. That's what he said about my book. I was really honored that he did that. But yeah, man, just Instagram is the best place to hit me. And I appreciate you and everything you're doing, man. It's inspiring.

Starting point is 01:46:33 Thank you. I appreciate you too, man. ["On Vents," by The Vigilantes, playing on radio and radio station radio.]