Live All Your Life

005 The Philosophy of Fitness: Seeking Failure In Order To Succeed

September 12, 2022 Cody Limbaugh and Tali Zabari Season 1 Episode 5
Live All Your Life
005 The Philosophy of Fitness: Seeking Failure In Order To Succeed
Show Notes Transcript

Failure is often cited as a necessary feature of success, but embracing it with open arms is easier said than done.

In fitness, failure is presented in a physical, visceral, obvious way that tells you that you're doing the work needed to progress. 

If we can take this lesson from the obvious gym setting, and learn to seek it out in other areas in our lives, it can help us re-frame failure and develop a healthier relationship with the processes necessary for growth. 

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The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holliday
Range by David Epstein
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My icebreaker for today is asking you if you've ever cleaned up anyone's weights for them before. And if yes, what did it mean?

I've cleaned up your weights for you before ? 

So one of the reasons why I ask is because in the gym, usually everybody's pretty responsible for their own equipment.

However, there is an act of, I'm gonna say shivery because that's the way it's used and I already see your face scrunching up because it's used incorrectly. So do you have a better way of explaining that it's gentlemanly, it's a gentlemanly gesture to clean up a lady's weight? Yeah. Or anyone's weights, I guess.

And I was just curious if you've ever done that before. 

I'm trying to think back, cuz I did not do it in my CrossFit gym because we kind of had an attitude in there that women are badass mm-hmm  and you should be able to lift your own fucking ways. If you loaded them or lifted with them, you should be able to put 'em away.

But back in the Bally's days, I think that was kind of a thing like, but you know what? I think the only time we did it in Bally's was like, when jerk OS would like leave a whole bunch of 45 pound plates on the leg offs and then a lady wanted to use it. And so I would that's so mean I would go unload it for her, you know?

So she didn't get squished if she was like a small person.

Okay. Would they not notice that they were there? 

The guys? 

No. The women who are getting on the leg. 

No, they would come ask for help to get 'em off. 

Oh, they would. Okay. 

Because they might not be able to lift the 45 pound plate off of something.

That's like shoulder height for her.

So it wasn't you like intervening? 

No, it was requested. No, I figure if you're working out with them, you should be able to freaking move them around the gym. Yeah. Otherwise, what are you doing?  I don't know. I mean, there are machines that kind of give you a mechanical advantage.

Like those hammer press machines. I don't know what that is. , they're kind of like a, instead of a ized weight where you move a pin, they use free weights that you load onto the machine, but it's still like a machine, you know, lever, arm or something. Okay. Okay. I know what you're talking about with the motion that you're making.

Yeah. Kind of a press. So, but yeah, I figure you should be responsible for your own weights. Well I think our opinions differ a little bit  when it comes to coaching, especially with private clients, I will help them load their weights. When you're working with an hour, you said for them that's different than helping with.

So I would co lift, like I would, co-lo a bar with a private client Uhhuh, so that they're resting more during the rest sets, or I would like, you know, load a weight with them. Well, and that time is super precious. Like if you don't have a lot of it. Yeah. Or if they're loading one side of the bar, I'd get on the other that's for sure.

Well, I'm definitely putting their weights away, but I'm not like cleaning up after them. Well, I'll clean up after them.  and I am also very much okay. With somebody putting my weights away for me. It has happened in the gym a few times and at no point was I ever offended? I was very appreciative.  I don't know if you can say at no point, because you said I was not allowed to clean up your weights when I first met you, did I?

Yes. You were a strong, independent woman. And, well, I was flexing that so hard in so many different ways at the time. And that was just one of 'em. But if anybody has ever seen me train, I have a tendency to make a huge mess of the area that I'm working in and areas outside of it, even mm-hmm  so help is always appreciated, cuz that is the part of training that I, eff'n hate.

There are plates on the floor right now as we speak, I noticed, but I assume that I'm gonna use them tomorrow.  so it's a terrible habit. Nobody do it. But yeah, I don't mind it when somebody cleans up my weights for me, I've never done it for a man or anything. As a gesture of interest or just politeness, I wonder how that would go sexist.

shrug. No comment. . Well, shall we get to today's episode? Yes. Today's episode is gonna be about welcoming failure. You need it to succeed. And this is gonna be about, of course, in training needing to push your boundaries in order to break through to, you know, new capabilities, personal records and just overall progress and how that translates into life as well.

Mm-hmm  and some nuances for sure, for sure. Cause as with most internet memes or motivational posters, there's some deeper stuff than just like embrace your failure. Woohoo. What do you mean? Well, I've talked to you about it before. I don't know if I wanna jump right into it, but like now we're in here.

Various types of failure can be I think a lot of times when. People are encouraged to embrace failure as part of succeeding that it's just part of the normal process of succeeding at anything yeah. Is to fail mm-hmm  and there's a lot of carryover, you know, this is the philosophy of fitness podcast, and there's a lot of carryover from like going to failure on a set of weightlifting or body building exercises intentionally, like you're trying to get to a point of failure in order to teach your body that it needs to improve hypertrophy or strength or endurance even mm-hmm,  like, you know, running as far as you can kind of thing.

And that carries over into the rest of the real world. I think you gotta push those boundaries in order to grow. And there's, if you're interested in growing that is yeah. In whatever you're doing. And then there's also another aspect of failure. That is, it's a learning tool. I mean, failure is a better teacher often than success.

Yeah. Because there's a survivorship bias is what they call it when people are successful. And then in hindsight, they kind of give you a, B, C, D what they did. And the survivorship bias is like often ignores things like luck. And so somebody who's a millionaire will say, I did B, C and D, and that's why I'm successful.

Mm. And then there's a hundred other people for every one successful person, or maybe a thousand or more that also did a, B, C, and D exactly like the wealthy person with different circumstances, different circumstances, different results because they didn't have maybe the same circle of friends or the same starting position or the same.

Luck, you know, or GE you know, geographic location, like there's so many aspects and that's called survivorship bias where they kind of tout like, this is what I did, but they don't, they're not taking into consideration the millions of other people who did the same thing and didn't get the same results.

Yes. Often when we're listening to podcasts of, you know, writers or people who that we emulate in terms of their lifestyle and something that we wanna quote unquote, follow out in their footsteps, I definitely don't hear enough failure  in there. And it would be really nice to hear more of those stories where they did fall on their face, because you're really only seeing the end product.

They're very few practitioners of any kind that I can think of that I've been start like following since their very start. Cuz a lot of times you just don't have exposure to them until they are on the map and considered successful. Yeah. But I also don't dig super deep these days for. For somebody to kind of fill that role in my life in terms of a, a mentor or a hero, if you will.

Yeah. There's a saying, I I've heard it's from the Bible, but I'm not sure if it really is, but wise man has many counselors mm-hmm  and I think that's kind of a, I think that's a wise saying that it's good not to have, you know, put all your faith in one person or idea, but to have many points of view and discern from that, I always thought that pretty intrinsically I did however, work with a coach once who was not in agreement with that statement, there's a lot of coaches.

Well, there's a lot of coaches in that. Yeah. There's well, his argument was that I was getting too much feedback and then my focus was no longer narrowed and that I was considering too many things and I don't know, it was odd to me because I never saw that as a problem. I feel like. I should have the autonomy to discern mm-hmm  or at least kind of cherry pick, like what resonates or what makes sense for me.

But I guess it depends on if that is causing paralysis or stagnation. You know, if you have too many thoughts, you know, you know, if you approach the barbell and you're thinking of five different queues Uhhuh, , you're probably, you're probably gonna fail at all of them, but if you have one queue, one correction, one thing to focus on, you're more likely to succeed so I can see how there's some validity to that.

But yeah, as an overall concept, I don't think it's universal for sure. Well, I don't think it should be ruled out. Yeah. Yeah. So back to the failure thing with the survivorship bias, I guess my problem in failures being touted as like this necessary thing, In in the way that they give you feedback.

And it's a learning experience. I agree with all of that. Mm-hmm, , I'm not dismissing it at all, but I think there's a type of failure that I'd never hear talked about. I've never heard anyone describe, and that's the type of failure that gives you no feedback. It was just a fucking miss and you don't know why.

And so to give an analogy in marketing, for instance, in online marketing or advertising, what you might do is an AB test. And sometimes it's B, C, D like there's, you, you put out four ads and they all have the identical copy. They, they all say the exact same thing and they all are offering the same offer, but you use four different pictures with those ads.

And then if one of those four performs better, then you know, okay, let's keep that picture. And now we'll run four ads with that picture, but we'll change the copy a little bit and then we'll see which copy is the best. And so now you've got four ads with the same picture, slightly different copy. So you're kind of funneling it down to the most successful.

Yeah. And so it's AB testing where you test a and B of a, of the same ad with one change, and then you can isolate that change to give you feedback. And so, in a way that's like a feedback failure type or a failure feedback where the, the ad that's not performing, you know, why mm-hmm  it's because of that one thing that's different from the one that is performing sounds like you have to have a lot available to test.

Yeah.  but here's the thing is that what happens if you do, and this is just an analogy, again, this isn't necessarily true with just, just marketing, but. What happens if you test a and B or B, C, and D, and they fucking all fail, fail. Like, what if you get no feedback, if you have four ads that go out and none of them are outperforming the, the others they're all low performing or no performing.

And there's no feedback that, to me, it's like that type of failure. And this is just a really small analogy example, but I've experienced really big versions of this in my life. Where can you, I feel like I'm beating myself up. Yeah. Trying to succeed. And like nothing's working. That is a type of failure that it just isn't talked about very often, because if you're not learning and getting feedback from it, it just feels terrible.

It feels like you're just working hard and spinning out in the mud. Like, wow, we're getting nowhere, you know? Well, why don't you tell me what you're talking about personally? Well, in the past with Jim ownership, where. We would hit sort of a 35 client mark or, or minimum, I guess. And let's say 50 clients is like paying all the bills.

50 clients in my gym would like pay the rent mm-hmm  and the utilities, which for those people out there who have not owned a brick and mortar business, it's shocking how expensive it is to run a business. Mm-hmm  I remember electric bills that were over a thousand dollars a month and we did not have air conditioning and heating that was just freaking lights and internet and a water heater.

Like they charge businesses, especially in places like downtown Portland, a lot of money for licensing and utilities and rent and all that. It can just be, so it essentially like doubles your rent. Oh yeah. Well, I mean, my rent was $3,500. Oh, okay.   I was thinking about like renting a studio apartment, which, you know, a thousand dollars is pretty unheard of right now.

Yeah, no. So for that commercial space, it was like, danging. You bring in 6,000 a month just for the building and expenses, and then there's coaches that you gotta pay. And then there's hopefully some money to take home for yourself. And so basically I needed 50 clients just to kind of break even mm-hmm  just to barely survive.

And I can't tell you how many times we would float between 35 and 50. And even when attrition was really low. So there were, there were some years where I had attrition as low as 3%, which in the gym world is wonderful. Yeah. It's like really good. But that 3% was still just about what we were getting in new clients.

And so it's like, oh man, you're just like working hard. You're trying marketing, you're trying referral programs, you're trying events and open houses. And, and we would go out into the park and work out in front of people and try to get interest and we'd sponsor marathons. And we, I mean, it was just like one thing after another, after another.

And that number just would not move well. You know, you were talking about circumstances and how that can really differ from folks who have had incredible success and those who are doing the exact same thing. You have to remember that you are working in an incredibly saturated market. I think that, that needs to be said when it comes to this, because it's not like you weren't taking the right steps, like you had alluded to earlier, you had tried all of these different methods, but there were.

50 CrossFit gyms in that quadrant of Portland. Yeah. But that's where I ended up though. That's not where I started. You know, I was a very early adopter. Right. I was about, I think I was the fifth CrossFit gym in the state of Oregon. And back then nobody knew what CrossFit was. So it was like a different challenge where you're trying to figure out an elevator pitch to try to get people intrigued, to try CrossFit when they'd never even heard of it.

And then it kind of went from that obscurity to saturation. Like, I don't even remember where the tipping point was. Mm-hmm  so it it was different challenges all the way along. And that's what I mean, it's like the failure never gave me adequate feedback to know what the hell was wrong. Well, there were so many things that you were having to manage at once.

It's not just like an isolated lift and like, why can't I PR this lift you had. So many hats as this business owner, you were a coach, you were the you know, you were doing your finances, you had to do every single piece of that business. It might be a lot like what you were just talking about with getting too many mentors or too much advice, like where you have too much to juggle that you actually can't make much progress anywhere.

Mm-hmm  just thought. Yeah, but that's, I guess that's my point though, is that I, I can think of lots of reasons. Mm-hmm,  why maybe it didn't work, but I never got adequate feedback to know, like I'm just making shit up basically. Cuz you don't know. And so I guess that's the type of failure that, you know, I'm not try, I'm not necessarily trying anymore to seek answers to a problem that was like 15 years ago.

Mm-hmm  like, I don't, you know, it's fine. I can move past it, but. It's a type of failure that's just rarely talked about. And I think it has a lot to do with that survivorship bias because successful people don't talk about this shit. Right? Like they're talking about the business that they built up that's successful or the relationship that's successful or, or like the final iteration of it that finally broke through.

That's what I mean. Yeah. And because of that survivorship bias, so to speak, they don't even acknowledge those frustrating times when there was no feedback. Like, because they only see the failures looking in hindsight, they're only recognizing, or at least they're only talking about the failures that there's a lesson to teach like, oh, I screwed up in this area, you know, My wife or whatever.

And then I went to this counselor and I learned how to be forthright and honest and vulnerable. And that vulnerability created, you know, open lines of communication and things got better after that and blah, blah, blah. And they tell this lesson of this failure and then the victory out of the failure.

Mm-hmm,  like this hero's journey kind of thing. But the ones you don't hear about are the people who like they're divorced because , they never figured out they never got the answer mm-hmm  or whatever. You know what I mean? So, well, not necess, I don't know if I'm like comfortable saying this completely, but maybe there are threads of life that are just dead ends.

Yeah. That's what I mean, you know, like not everything is gonna have those connecting dots, even looking back yeah. In it from a different vantage point. Yeah. I agree. I, I guess that's what I'm trying to say is just it's yeah. It's an aspect of failure. That's not talked.  because, because it all factors in somehow, right?

There's a belief that every part of it led you to this moment right now. Right. Which is something I buy into for sure. Yeah. And there, I mean, they're, in those ways, it's like, okay, I benefited from failures in certain ways. Like. I'm here. Well, you decided not to do a brick and mortar ever again. Yeah, at least.

Yeah, for sure. Not in that way. And, and here we are living here and we're together and like, there's this beautiful life that we have now that may not have been possible. Had I been wildly successful at those other things, so, so true. I'm not, I might not have ever met you. Yeah. And so I'm not saying that I can't look back with appreciation or even that I'm looking back with regrets.

My only point is that there are some types of failure that are just flat out fucking failures and we live in a society, or there's a lot of like positive mental attitude pushing right now to be like, embrace your failures and failures. Just awesome. And just don't worry about it. And I get the concept. I understand that.

It's great to. Have an attitude of like, oh, this didn't work, but that doesn't reflect on me as being a bad person. Mm-hmm  that just means I have something to learn. And, and so you can use failure as like a stepping stone to go. And in a, as a general concept, I agree with all that, I'm just saying that there are types of failures that are, that's just failure.

I ignored in that whole positive mental attitude thing. They're just quietly ignored. They're like, well, the obstacle is the way most of the time  but we're not gonna talk. There's like a good 10% where you just stay down when you're knocked down. Yeah. There's yeah. We won't talk about those ones that just like, you're gonna be 90 years old on your deathbed and look back and be like, well, that fucking happened.

like, you know, like there's just, no, so I just wanted to bring it up. I don't know if there's anything even to learn about that or any value in recognizing it even, I just wanted to bring it up because nobody ever does. Well, I think it's a lesson in pivoting. You know, it's not you know, you have actually criticized yourself many a time and now knowing you a while, I can maybe agree with you a bit that you have given yourself a critique that you don't necessarily know when to let go of something.

Yeah. I don't know when to quit. Yeah. Yeah. And so perhaps if you had flexed more of your pivoting muscle, you can kind of mitigate those dead ends if you will. Yeah. Yeah. I actually have plans to write a book. Called how to quit and win  because you have to come up with some titles that are like a lot less devastating.

Goodness. But I like the idea of learning how to quit because people don't talk about that. Very often. I've read Seth God's book called the dip, which is supposed to be about this. And as much as I respect Seth God and, and love most of his writing, that book was kind of pointless. I mean, when you read through it and it's like, I got nothing outta that.

There's nothing in there on how to assess when to quit. He just says that in business and in life, there's often a dip. You start with a lot of excitement, enthusiasm, and there's like all this momentum in them. Remember you talking about like a dip, you know, and there's a dip in performance and attitude and desire even.

And then you have to decide whether that's a dip that you wanna push through and then come out the other side, cuz that happens in almost every process of learning or growth mm-hmm  or if you wanna pivot.  it's like, well, thanks a lot. I already knew that  but I thought you were gonna explain like how to come up with that decision.

And he doesn't talk about like a value system and no, no, not that I recall. Mm. So yeah, there's kind of a lack of resources that I've been able to find anywhere on like, Knowing when to quit or how to do it gracefully. And you and I have talked about that a lot about, oh yeah. Like how to get out of a relationship without feeling like garbage about it, because sometimes letting it crash and burn.

Yeah. Like sometimes relationships do have to end. Yeah. Or at least change in the type of relationship that they are. And we're not really taught how to do so. No, and it's tough because it's like, you don't necessarily wanna burn bridges, but at the same time I need out. Yeah. And whether that's a coach or a boyfriend or whatever, that's I know that's been a challenge for you and it's the same in business.

Yes. I have been so intrigued to figure out if there's anything formulaic there or just even like a course I have had horrible breakups that were out of great relationships. Yeah. And I am not friends with a single one of my exes and that makes me super sad. I know. I definitely find myself tripping over the finish line and it's.

Oddly out of trying to be so, so careful about it. Mm-hmm  that it oddly swings in the other direction. So terribly that I come off like a total a-hole, but that's because I'm trying to be so like buttoned up about it. Mm-hmm  that it odd, it comes off cold where I'm trying to be gentle or not overly emotional mm-hmm  about it.

That's I don't know. I haven't figured it out. I haven't either. There's it's closely related to the relationships that I have tried to evaluate in my life that have not ended well, that I still kind of like, feel bad about. And in every case, except for maybe one that I can think of in every case it's because I was too busy trying to be the good guy, like trying to be liked.

Yeah. And sometimes in that effort to try to be liked or. Conflict avoidance, if you really want to get down with it, probably come off detached as hell.  yeah. I come off cold or detached or out of touch with what's going on and it breaks down communication. So I don't really know what's going on. Like I have a, a coach I used to work with and I love this guy.

I mean, I think he's such a cool guy and he, I feel like he hates my guts. I mean, the last couple of exchanges we had were terrible. Like, like not good, sorry. And I think it all came out of me just trying to be like respectful and give him space, or like I said, conflict of avoidance. And so I never really found out the truth of like, why the hell he got so mad at me?

And now it's been years, you know? And it's like, it kind of, that kind of sucks, but like getting back, circling around, like we're not really taught skills on how to quit things because we're just taught to never quit. As if that's, or that's, it's a higher value. Yeah. That's a great way to be tenacious and to be you know, pushing through obstacles no matter what.

Yeah. That's a great way to put it is that it's put on a higher value. It's just kinda like I wrote about in a blog post last year about work ethic. It's like, why isn't there a rest ethic? Like, why is, why is work more ethical than taking a break? You know, it's like this weird hustle culture where you're a piece crap.

If you're not just working all the time, that's because we're Americans. I saw this post, somebody sent me yesterday day before of this guy who was saying, unless you're a millionaire, you shouldn't be cooking your own meals, cuz you're just wasting time. If you spend two hours a day cooking, whoa, wait, start from the beginning.

You're saying it way too quickly for me to, he said, let it sink in. Basically. He said, if you're not wealthy, you shouldn't be taking time out of your life to cook meals. That's just a complete waste of time. That time that you could be spending, building your wealth. And I thought you're cooking your own food is a waste of time.

Yeah. What, and I'm like, what? Who is this clown? Are you gonna like wake up in the morning and work 18 hours a day, seven days a week being productive all 18 hours and then sleep the other. Are you kidding me? That's oh, that is just hustle porn bullshit from some guy that I've never heard of before. Who's probably, I'm sure it's working for somebody.

I Elon Musk, maybe like Gary V maybe there's like five people I can think of who maybe work like every waking moment, but I think it's complete bullshit and it, anyway, I'm getting sidetracked cuz I was talking about work ethic versus rest, but it's the same with quit ethic. Like it's like the old the gambler song, you know, you gotta know when to hold him.

No. When no, when to hold him. Yeah. Yeah. But nobody tells you when to fold him. Like maybe I should learn poker and I'll figure out like better. Methods around quitting when it's appropriate. Well, I think that there are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself or things that need assessing to know that about yourself.

You have helped me a lot when it comes to relationships. Those are very tricky for me to know when a natural end to relationships are because you also kind of grow up thinking that if you put in the work, you can be friends with somebody for the rest of your life. Mm-hmm . And that if you don't then there, you might have done something wrong.

And that is exactly how I internalize it. And a lot of times, what that can do is kind of like beat a dead horse in a way where I will overly invest. And when it's not reciprocated, I can become very confused and resentful. And you've helped me point out many times that you know, the energy that I'm putting into a relationship is not being returned back to me.

Mm-hmm , and that's a really important way of kind of tracking whether this is. A path worth going down still or to pivot, right? Like maybe the expectations change on my end mm-hmm  so I definitely think there, whether it's relationships or training or a business, like there are just certain things like quality markers that you should be tuning into.

I think that can help you make those decisions because you, like I said, we're Americans, we have hustle culture all around us and that is highly respected. And, you know, I have been a part of that. Fully, you know, I still think back to my early twenties, working 60 hours a week and training for 20 and thinking like that was the peak of my life mm-hmm

And that was simply because I was doing so much mm-hmm  you know, I was not able to like have decent relationships with people. I'd never visited my family. There was definitely a lot that I sacrificed in order to do it, but even now even talking about it now I still kind of like, hold that time of life as a really amazing time because of that work capacity.

So that's gonna be something that we're gonna be fighting against all the time. Mm-hmm  you know, circling back to seeking out or welcoming failure as a means of success. I think it can be a really important tool if you will. And I don't think people see it as a tool. They see it as like a destination failure that is.

Like an end point. Yeah. Yes. Mm-hmm  yes. And maybe some people pivot too quickly. I know that that has been kind of a response of mine. It's like pivot too far in the other direction, like cut relat relationships off really quickly. Mm-hmm  at the first sign of trouble. So I think striking that balance is incredibly hard.

And definitely requires like fleshing out more maybe not today, but flushing out more of like, how do I assess this in a way that will actually make sense for me? Yeah. That's another business.  another business. Yeah. To have like content or courses that are just like, how do you know when you're not in a breakup when you should break up with somebody?

You know, there are a lot of articles and things like that. Yeah. All over the place for thing, for such situations. But Don't know if they necessarily pick up on all the nuances or all the different considerations that should be taken into account. Yeah. That's why I wanna write a book about it. I don't have the bandwidth now, but I see this as something, a future project.

Totally. Cause I really want to get into how to evaluate

anything, whether it's a business or relationship or a physical aspiration or whatever that, you know, tenacity is respectable and.  that's one reason I try to embody it. Like I'm not gonna quit just cuz this day sucks. Like I'll get through today and I'll do more tomorrow and it will improve. And I, I can keep that mindset going for a long ass time.

But when is, when does that become just a willful, willful ignorance or avoidance of change or, you know, whatever it is Uhhuh. I think that's exactly what I'm thinking about too is like, even if we let's say provided courses of like how to cleanly break up with somebody, why is it always the hope or the desire to just like grease through life?

Like why do we just want all of the, what is it like the path of least resistance mm-hmm  or the most efficient way of doing something? That's funny that we like kind of made it to this conclusion, at least at this moment, because we are talking about welcoming failure and failure is mess as fuck. Yeah.

Like, yes. I think resilience is a important. Byproduct of failure and that you are able to recognize maybe similar situations and conduct them differently based on your last experience. But I don't know if it necessarily means it will be any less messy or any less challenging mm-hmm , you know? Yeah. I guess my hope for quitting.

Well, if you will, would be to be able to look back in hindsight and say, that was about as good as timing as I could manage, because to me it's the timing thing. It's not necessarily that I wanted to all be smooth, cuz that's an unfair expectation. Like it divorce. When is divorce fun, like divorce can't, you know, we're closing you the doors on your business.

However, those, those things, my definition, you know, may never be like enjoyable pleasant, but in the case of, for instance, my business, you know, I, I tried seven different locations. With the same damn business, moving it all over town, trying to find the right spot or whatever. And like I said, I, I don't necessarily look back with regrets because it's easy to draw a line to where I am today.

And I love where I am today in many ways. But at the same time, I can see how I might be more successful overall in my business life. If I had learned to quit earlier, like maybe after seven years of trying to run that gym, that may be enough to learn all the lessons I could have learned from that and moved on to something else that could have been better.

And so to me, it's not necessarily that I'm trying to skate through life with no re like no friction. Mm-hmm, , it's just like, life is short. Like, I don't wanna spend 30 years in a relationship where the first 15 were cool and the last 15 was horrific. Like, what's the point? Like maybe after that second horrific year, that would've been enough, you know, , you know, you know what I mean?

It's just more of like a. Like knowing. When did you ever in that time seek advice like from your family or your spouse at the time, or? I know you've wanted to invest in business mentorship forever. Yeah. But did you want to way back then? I did, but it was difficult to get the support for that when you're getting like an eviction notice.

It's like, let's see, I can either try to pay rent before I get kicked outta here. Or I can hire this mentor for, you know, half of what my rent costs . So there was like, It's hard. It's a really hard decision to make. And in the moment in hindsight, I'm like, well, shit. If I had, if I'd hired the mentor and just suffered through the challenge of the whole rent situation, then maybe could have pulled through better and more success.

So I, I honestly believe that, but in the moment that's fucking hard to do well. You say that it was like many, many years of struggle and I'm wondering, you know, you kind of pinpointed this one moment of facing eviction. I'm assuming it wasn't just moment. Yeah. That's what I'm wondering about. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

It was constant. Like that's one reason we moved locations. It's like, well, this landlord hates me and the city won't allow me to put signage up and I can't afford all the permits for their stupid signs. And maybe I'll just move across the river, you know? And so we'd go find somewhere else and try to like reboot and have another grand opening.

And  okay. Well, let me ask you this generally speaking, and I know you're in a very different place anywhere then, would you say that the. The benefits outweighed the challenges at the time. Cuz that's I was saying that there's a lot to consider. I think when you need to decide either to walk away or to continue your pursuit.

And I'd say if you had to choose one is like, is a good outweighing, the bad. I think that's what I'm trying to communicate. When I say that, I think seven years of failure would've been enough rather than 15 mm-hmm  because there came a point when I can't honestly say that it was like the good outweighing, the bad.

Yeah. Like I didn't feel like I was growing as a person. I wasn't getting any fitter. I that the only thing that I can say that I'm proud of though, you know, is there were still clients, there were still people coming in the door. I was still changing lives. You know, there were, there were ladies in their seventies with severe arthritis who came to me using a cane.

Who six months later could do squats with a Barb on their back. And that's amazing and ditched the cane, you know, and that, you know, it's hard to put a price on that. Yes. But as far as my own personal, but that don't pay the bills, doesn't it doesn't like it doesn't allow you to stay afloat. Yeah. It doesn't just because you're changing a handful of lives doesn't mean that you're succeeding in, in, in other areas of your life.

So, well, there's a tipping point. Mm-hmm, , there's a tipping point when failure can propel you forward mm-hmm  and when it can just knock you down and that I'm not really sure what that would be attributed to. Maybe it's like the amount of time that you've been under that tension. But, you know, I think about like my hunting failure last year, last year was my first time elk hunting by myself and on that very first day that I went by myself, I had an incredible, 

  Opportunity to take down a bull elk. The shot was incredibly easy within my range. I am pretty good at hitting a target at about 80 yards.

And it just was a perfect, like open position and the elk was moving really slowly and. Everything went right. In terms of getting into position maneuvering my rifle and actually making it happen. You know, I had a lot of doubt going into this hunt. If I, if all my practice actually would allow me to perform and everything just kind of like came into alignment in that moment.

And I didn't get the elk. I'm positive that I shot it. There's no way that I missed it. Mm-hmm, , there's been a lot of questioning about the, like the caliber of my rifle or if, you know, I couldn't quite get the right position with all the layers that I had on, but essentially we spent two hours looking for this elk that ended up running off.

Yeah. So just to clarify for people listening, I'm pretty convinced that I know what happened.  She's using a 300 Savage, which is kind of at the lower end of what you'd want to use for elk hunting. It's it's perfectly adequate, but. It's a slightly slower death. If you shoot an elk in the heart with that low of caliber to where, if they're spooked right away, like immediately they can run like five miles.

Yeah. They literally can take a big deep breath and in one breath, just bolt and those, those animals are so powerful. They can run five miles across the mountain and you'll never freaking find him. Yeah.  so that's nice of you. I think that's, I am almost positive. That's what happened is because we kind of got too eager to like, go find it right away.

Well, we never talked about what happens if you actually get one. Right. We had been talking so much about how to get one. Right, right. That if you remember, when I shot the elk, I called you because I was like, do I go run after it now? Yeah. And I was running as I was talking to you on the phone. It was comical.

Yeah. So, so yeah, so there's a lot that could have gone down basically when you, when you get, when you shoot an elk, the idea is to like, just wait a minute or two and watch. And see where it goes and if it falls and, and then calmly like pick up your stuff and, and maybe give it like a few minutes and then go find it.

And it'll, it'll likely not be very far from where you shot it. At that point, we'll have to include this in our new Hunter's seminar. When everyone comes out in the fall, I know that was a diversions, but I just had to get that out there cuz you did so well. And I'm so proud of you. Like you. Thank you. I was really proud of myself too, but ALA failure still, you know, there was kind of a lot on the line.

It was the last couple of days of the hunt we had gotten absolutely nothing. And you know, that's a way that we feed ourselves all year. We feed a lot of the family that way for an incredible price and it's tradition in your family. And I was the only woman hunting out there. There are all these things kind of on my shoulders.

If I had gotten this algo, would've have been such a triumph, but it's really excited me for this coming year. It's kind of like coming back with a vengeance or to redeem myself if you will. So that is definitely an example of failure that has propelled me forward. And it's the same way with lifts in a meat mm-hmm  if I don't make that lift in a competition, I'm gonna damn well do mad darn ass to do it next time, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And it's so exciting when you can, because it's, it's kind of like not building integrity with yourself. Exactly. But it's it's setting an intention with yourself and then when you achieve that atten intention and it comes to life, it just, it makes you feel good. You, you can acknowledge that you really put work towards it.

Effort, care. Yeah. Energy, all of that. Yeah. But I'm trying to think about times maybe even in weightlifting where I've been knocked down so hard. Yeah, well, I would say the whole fallout with my weightlifting team and you know, that wasn't that long before we moved here, it might have been like a half a year to a year and not just the loss of my team, but the loss of like my identity as a weightlifter and my entire community around it.

That was enough to really knock me down. Yeah. Yeah. And coming back, this is actually one of my notes. Is that coming back, I've actually had to. Figure out how to push myself again, because I had taken a lot of time off, was really deconditioned for the last couple of years. And so I would, you know, start working with a coach or with a program.

And it was all kind of based on RPE instead of hard numbers and RPE as a rate of perceived effort. So instead of a lift being prescribed at 70% of your very best, it would be like lift something that feels like a seven out of a scale of one to 10. Yeah. And so I was really babying myself for sure.

And not really making any progress in the time that I had gotten back into lifting. And that is how long would you say that is now? Like, since we've bought equipment and all that a year ago? A year? Yeah, about a year ago. And I would say that I. Finally, it kind of dawned on me. I saw post online. I think that you might have sent me, but it was something super simple.

And it was again about embracing failure, because that's what you need in order to get stronger. And it was, it was strength based. It was definitely on the nose mm-hmm  and it kind of dawned on me like, oh, no wonder I'm not making any F in progress. And I'm really stagnant it's because I am not pushing my limits anymore.

Yeah. I've been kind of scared to do that because I'm in my mind, not as strong as I was, and I'm not sure how, how much that, how big that margin is from my best to where I am now. Mm-hmm . And so it's really easy to kind of default to like, oh, I'm just gonna do it lightly. You know, I'm not gonna push myself too much, but if you do that for too long, like you're not gonna get anywhere.

Yeah. And I got really tired of it. And so I finally got on a program that had hard numbers and it's really changed my life. Yeah. And that's a really easy. That's one of those situations where there there's a truth. That slowly becomes a lie  because it is smart. If you don't know where you're at to start very conservatively, cuz you don't want to F yourself up by thinking, oh cuz I, I did this, Ugh, so many times.

I mean it's so ridiculous where I would, I would have six to 12 months of really consistent training and I'd get strong as fuck. Cuz I can, I, I gained muscle fast, you know, if you believe in the whole ectomorph endo for body style, whatever. But it's something that I've always had a lot of fun with when I'm consistently weightlift.

Like I make progress really fast mm-hmm  but I've been really inconsistent all my life. And so. Most of my injuries, I can attribute to being dumb where I would take like six months of inconsistent, crappy work, and then try to like PR on a number that was from when I was consistent. Like, oh, I can dead live four, five, no problem.

So you had the other, the other side of the I've kind three times in the past. So I just picked us up off the floor and crack, you know, like something breaks. So what I'm saying, I guess is that when you started that smart, it's smart to be conservative, but then you can kind of get into that rough of thinking and imagining your, that you are not capable of the progress that you used to have.

Well, and it's also something that can be masked by the pursuit of perfection which is, you know, my CrossFit life, I had kind of turned my back on CrossFit as my motive. Exercise, but I still coached it for many years. And so when I would hop into a workout, like when I'd go to one of your classes, I would scale the shit out of it because you know, weightlifting kind of makes the UA movement snob.

Maybe not for everybody, but it made me a movement snob. And having impeccable technique was important to me. And so I let that carry over into every other movement that I did ever. And so what that would do is it would really change the level of stimulus in a CrossFit workout. And, you know, I'd be the first one done.

I definitely didn't push to the point of failure. I made sure that I was always staying on the right side of the line of good movement and essentially make it to the end and having it look great. So that's not really the point of CrossFit and not really like the benefit of its stimulus. And so.

I let my desire for perfection really hold me back. And it makes sense that that would be the case anywhere. Yeah. If you're always driving for perfection or for like the, the easiest route to something you're gonna be missing out on a lot. Yeah. By doing so mean, Greg Glassman used to say that, you know, if you're racing cars and you don't hit the wall once in a while, that just means you've got, you're leaving stuff on the table.

For sure. You don't know if you're pushing hard enough, if you've never crashed, you'll never know your real capabilities. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's something to be said to, for that of seeking failure in that way, as an acknowledgement that you are doing what you can cause the only people who don't fail are people who don't try shit.

Yeah. Like, yeah. And that's way worse. It's better. And that's out of fear. That's giving into fear and it's really easy to kind of trick yourself by saying, oh no, it's because I want to, you know, Be safe or I want to do the movement to my very best ability. Yeah. We've both had, but if you track that over time.

Oh, so many clients. Yeah. And I thought it was such crap then, and I became one of 'em   well, not to the extreme that we've experienced for sure. We've, we've had clients that I'm not sure what their expectation is when they come in and they hire a coach and especially like one on one personal training, cuz they're intimidated by a class or whatever.

And they, they want the expertise and they want the knowledge. But I feel like what they really want is like somehow magically paying a bunch of money to a coach will make them fitter. I mean, I've had clients I've been in that I've been in that head space before for sure. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've really, I've had clients tell me, I don't wanna sweat.

I'm like you're in a gym gal. Yeah. You need to like, it's a weird experience when I've had clients who are like, I don't really. Like push myself that harder. I don't really wanna, like I had a, a bunch of clients who kind of fit that description and it was so odd to me. And unfortunately what that did for me as a coach is I became incredibly hands off with them.

Mm-hmm  because what they're doing is they're asserting their boundary mm-hmm  and they're not letting, they're not giving you the trust that you have expertise to manage their intensity or their level of difficulty. And so they're essentially saying like, I wanna hold all the cards. Yeah. So as a coach, what can you do with that?

My approach with them usually was to sneak intensity in like, I would, I would have them do something that sounds easy until you're halfway through it. And then they'd look at me like this is starting to suck. And I would just be like, yeah, keep going. . And so I would get that reputation of kind of being a little bit of a hard ass in that way.

But man, from a coaching perspective, it's draining. I mean, if you have three clients like that in a single day, I'm exhausted because I'm spending the whole hour just trying to. Lead them somewhere. They don't want to go. Yeah, it sucks. It sucks. But so I guess now we're in the realm of seeking failure because that, it really is what you need to know.

First of all, know where you're at. You can't assess accurately where you're at, if you're not failing. Yes. Because if you're never failing, that just means you're probably leaving a lot of potential. Well, and you're not living, you know? Yeah. Like what are you experiencing if you are always trying to veer away from it.

Yeah. And then the second reason to seek failure is not only will you know where you're at, but you'll never know where you can get until you overcome that failure. So is you're you're seeking opportunities is what you're doing. If you seek failure, you're seeking opportunities. Mm-hmm, , it's the same thing.

Yeah. You learn so much, you're seeking knowledge of like, whether this, you know, I'm, I'm wondering about the example that you were talking about earlier with your business. Like. Seeking failure is also a, a learning experience of like, if this is a path that I should continue going on. Mm-hmm  is this a failure that I can come back from with enthusiasm?

Like the hunting? Or is it something that's gonna just like, take me out of the game? Is it gonna break my heart? Yeah. And that's a good point because I really thought it was the latter for a long time. You know, after I sold my gym, I was like, I am done with this chapter of my life. I literally just, I don't wanna even wanna be in a gym anymore.

You know, I, I, I wanna be in good shape for myself, but I'm I'm over this. Like, it was a heartbreak. Yeah. But after two years of the COVID thing and moving here and being isolated and also getting outta shape  and I realized that coaching is probably something I'll always do, like the rest of my life, because it really is.

A passion for me to be able to teach people. And I might get back into teaching drawing someday or teaching other skills that I have. But the well is deep. Yeah. In my knowledge of, of fitness and strength and conditioning, et cetera. So I can't leave that deep. Well, just all inside. Like I really want to get it out and I want to coach people again, but it took two and a half years, or almost three years of a break for me to be able to rekindle that because all that, you know, seven, 17 years of financial struggle while I was coaching I thought it kind of broke me like in a way that was just like, I can't return to this.

It's just like too much heartache, but now you and I are reinventing what it even looks like, like.  to be a coach, like we're trying to reinvent what the whole business model would look like, our, our approach to coaching and some of the players and our bandwidth too. Yeah. In the band, you know, we were super burnt out by the time that we, you know, left Portland.

We had been coaching for many, many years straight. And it's not one of those jobs that I'd say is like a thankless job. It's absolutely not the case. Like you have said like you change lives and it's incredible, but the hours are garbage. The pay has not changed in 15 years. Oh yeah. I was still making the same.

Well, maybe not when I was working for Nike, but when I worked for CrossFit gyms, I made the same, you know, 20 bucks per class. Yep. And it's since it's practically since 2012. Yeah. It's the practically the same since 2007. I mean, that's when I started CrossFit. So. Yeah, I mean, 20 bucks ahead and by, you know, if you look at the business model, that shouldn't be the case.

It shouldn't really be the case anymore, but, well, I worked for some gyms that had a ton of clients, you know, it's one thing if the, the gym is bleeding money, but I worked for some gyms that were very well established and had very high numbers in clientele and I still could hardly pay my bills. Yeah.

But you know, taking it to a real life experience and, you know, we both used the word heartbreak because the way that failure can knock you down can really kind of make you fearful of coming back to it. It's just like romantic relationships. Like we've both been through heartbreak. Most people have experienced that.

And yet we still find a way to get back into a relationship. But you gotta recover from it. And from coaching, it took us about two years to recover from it. Yeah. But like in romantic relationships, like when I was dumped by my high school college, sweetheart, I didn't have a serious boyfriend for like seven years after that.

Mm-hmm  yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point.

Yeah. I love you. I love you too.  This podcast actually has a lot to do, I think, with something you brought up, which was the bandwidth at the time, like we were all in on coaching and there wasn't a lot of room for anything else, especially you, you know, you're working at three gyms at a time. You're either commuting or coaching or eating and sleeping and training, I'd say mostly commuting

Yeah. And so one of the things that we are changing in, in our approach to coaching is to keep the passion for our clients, by having fewer of them. And eliminating the commute  yeah, completely. So our gym is just below our house. Yeah. We have an, we have an onsite gym in our house and that's just for a handful of local clients, primarily just for the joy and the practice and the skill acquisition of coaching in, in real time.

But coaching clients online, which is a new experience for both of us. Right. And changing that business model and how it looks, allows us to like, improve our quality, but decrease the bandwidth needed for it. So that, I'm just trying to eliminate some of the friction that we had. Yeah. So that we can do podcasts and we can write books and we can travel and we can do other things that make our life more enriched.

And so. I think that's maybe it's veering from our topic of failure here, but I think that's one thing I guess, that I could really take and learn from the massive failure of my, for sure. Former gym is just like that brick and mortar gym where I'm there. Literally, I, I, it wasn't an occasional thing.

It was constant. Most of the years that I coached, I would be getting there at five in the morning, ish sometimes earlier, sometimes a little later, and then getting home at night, sometimes as late as eight or 9:00 PM. Yeah. And that wasn't once in a while, cuz I had a coach sick that was most of the business, like that was most of the time of 15 years.

And those of you who have coaches or trainers out there. Most of them have this schedule. Yeah, this is incredibly common. I remember a phase in my last location where I would work an eight hour day on Saturday and I was so excited about it, cuz that was a short day. Ew.  I was like, oh, only eight hours in the gym today instead of the normal 12 to 15 or whatever it was like, it was just ridiculous.

So yeah, the work itself is a joy. There's just a lot about it. Yeah. Structurally that is incredibly flawed and sadly, super normalized and widespread. Yeah. It's really hard to find somewhere. Where that isn't the case and Nike working for Nike was probably the closest that I got to breaking out of it, but even still I would have long days there with like tons of dead space mm-hmm  but that's, you know, I always make the best of it and use it to work out or something.

It's funny cuz I see, I saw this post from a. Trainer online. And I actually like this kid, I've only seen a few of his posts, but he puts out some really good stuff, but this one was like how to make six figures as a, as a personal trainer, you charge 75 per session and you have like seven sessions a day and you go through this and that.

And I'm like, wait a minute. Like to have seven sessions a day, five days a week as doable. And I've known trainers and coaches who have done that, and I've done it for short stints, but what that does not take into consideration is for every hour that you're coaching, you're spending probably equal time preparing for that client.

Yeah. You're writing programming, unless you're just using some other somebody else's program. You're either, I bet that's more common than you'd think. Yeah. I've only just started dipping my toe into that world. Mm-hmm  still with lots of modifications that are in alignment with my value. But for the longest time, I never thought of that as an option.

It didn't seem like that would, it, it wouldn't like validate me as a coach. Like it would only make sense that I'm a coach if I'm doing my own work. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, and for me that was kind of the nerdy part. Like I would, that was the fun part. I got all this education so that I could build programming.

Why would I pay for somebody else's programming, just so I can regurgitate it to somebody else so that you can be an excellent showman, you know, like there are pieces to the puzzle and that is something that you're so incredible with. I've seen you, you know, really work a crowd and I love watching it.

So thanks. You would still be able to do that, whether it was your programming or not, you would just probably have a lot more to say about it and a lot more enthusiasm behind it, if it was your own. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess my point is that. It's easy to underestimate the behind the scenes work. Mm-hmm  in that kind of thing.

And to remain passionate about that kind of commitment. It's I've ne I've never been the type of person who's been all consumed with. One thing, I'm a generalist and I've kind hashtag CrossFit  yeah. Hashtag CrossFit hashtag I brought this book up already in a previous episode, but range by David Epstein.

That book is so validating for people like me, because it's all about the benefits of having range instead of just depth in one area or what is called a lack of focus. Yeah. Yeah. It's called a lack of focus. It's it's usually put down as a, oh, you've got add, or you're UN you're not focused or maybe you're directionless, you know, like, what are you gonna uninspired?

What are you gonna do with your life? You know, it's like this kind of like, you're supposed to be a thing. And if you're not just one thing, then you're lost. And this book is so validating because he points out lots of historical and, and current examples of people and even studies that have been done to sort of prove the fact that people who are generalists, especially generalists early in life, they find what they're really passionate about because they experimented with a lot of different things.

Mm-hmm  and some people are able to make great strides in, in areas that you would think require depth like physicists or chemists or engineers and that kind of thing. But. Sometimes a narrow focus and a deep work in one area makes you so myopic that you miss obvious things that an outsider can come in and pick up on.

It's like putting blinders on in a way. Yeah, it's really cool. In the book, he actually talks about an engineering issue where it was like a part that they had to make more efficiently or more effectively. And they had all these engineers working on it in the standard way that engineers would work on it.

And then they would bring in a team of non-engineers to just try to do different iterations. And what they did was they would try like 10 random inter iterations of this part. And it was kinda like the AB testing I was talking about mm-hmm  and through doing 10 iterations and then finding the one that worked the best and then doing that through three or four or five processes, they came up.

A part that was designed better than the engineers could come up with. And they did it in like a fraction of the time when the engineers were like, this isn't even possible. Wow. And it, and it was just this example of people who could think in outside the box terms, because they didn't even know what the box looked like.

They didn't. Right. Oh, I like that. And so it was really, it's a cool book in that perspective, but I'm, I'm finally at an age and experience level where I can just say like, I'm, I'm okay. Being, I'm not only okay. Being a generalist, I'm excited about being a generalist. Like I'm excited to do Astro photography again, you know, and go fishing and mushrooming and elk hunting and podcasting and coaching.

And mm-hmm,  drawing and teaching and playing music and sounds like a full life to me. Yeah. I mean, you might I'm what would, would you, would you say about Getting good at any of these things, because interestingly CrossFit is kind of like a microcosm of all of the things you just said. Mm-hmm, , it's lots of different kinds of movements and being able to touch them all.

And the idea is to be a generally fit person, because you have trained in all of these different kinds of modalities. Yeah. And then there's the critique that you'll never really get good at any of them, if that's the way that you always train. But if you think of that kind of wide net cast as like your Buffet, if you will, and then you figure out what you gravitate towards, and then if you really wanna deep dive, then like at least you have found something that resonates.

You're not yeah. Just committing to something, just because you said you would like, it's kind of like that quitting thing that we were talking about earlier is like you, I don't think a lot of people know that they have an out. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I think a lot about like, as a child, like I did dance classes, art classes writing classes all different kinds of sports and I never stuck with any of them.

And it was something that I always kind of carried as like a bad quality of mine that I couldn't follow through on anything mm-hmm . But when I found weightlifting, I did that shit for like 10 years. Mm-hmm  it was the time of my life. Like I didn't on it. Yeah. Yeah. But it also took me, I think it was like 20 or 21 mm-hmm  when I found it well, The question is for the generalist is like how, as far as like, criticism of like, well, will you ever be good at anything if you're just doing everything all the time?

Mm-hmm  and the question is, how good do you need to be? That's what you want out of it, right? Because it's like, do I wanna make my own clothes or do I wanna be able to like, show my clothes at Mercedes-Benz fashion week? Right.  yeah. And that's what I'm watching project run by the way.   and that's and that's my point is that you can get pretty damn good with a very low commitment.

It's surprising. So a little experiment that I'm doing for those of you who aren't seeing it yet. Mm-hmm  is that I'm doing a two minute a day jump rope challenge for myself. I think I mentioned it in a previous podcast, but would you say I've improved? Oh yeah. Yeah. I definitely thought of that when I was watching you today.

Yeah. Cause I have only watched you do this two minute video. Like two or three times are you only posting it on TikTok? So here's a dirty little secret. I was afraid that I might not be consistent enough at posting it. And so I have been recording every day. I have not posted. Okay. I was wondering, I was thinking like maybe I was being a bad wife and not seeing your videos online.

So I'm like 30 days ahead. And now that I have like a catalog of 30 of them, I'm gonna start posting them. Great. But that way, if I super fall off the wagon, then I'll know that like, you know, what if I just pick this back up, I can keep going. And the posts online will still be consistent. So well you seem to be real, a big fan of backlogging and just having a.

Built up in the pipeline. Yeah. Well, the reason I've done that is because I've had to blog in the past and have a consistently daily blog and it was hell yeah, it was hell because I would be up at 11 o'clock at night being like, oh God, it gotta get done blog. And so, so now having a few in the bank is just insurance for those nights when you forget or whatever.

Well, I would definitely say I've seen improvement like easily. I guess that's my point is that my commitment level to that is literally two freaking minutes a day, two minutes a day. And just to give a little backstory, I hope I haven't, I feel like maybe I'm getting old and I repeat stories. So tell me, don't let you know

so there was this Running an endurance certification that I took for CrossFit certification for running an endurance and great certification learned a lot, but there's this one drill where they had all the coaches get in a single, like two lines, cuz we're outside two single file lines and everybody has a jump rope and you're supposed to jog across this like a hundred meter area while jump roping.

So it's just an alternating foot jump rope down the way. And it's, it's a running drill basically. And one thing it does is it helps you to engage your hamstrings and pull your pick your feet up. Yeah. Yeah. Helps helps you pull your feet outta the way. Also helps you have a four foot landing instead of a heel strike, cuz it's really hard to oh for sure.

Yeah. So by skipping rope, as you're jogging, it really helps. So I'm in this certification. I've never heard this story by the way. Okay, good.  so I had, there was literally, it was like a full certification. I was so excited cuz I was hosting it at my gym and we got like. A record number that the cert has ever had in Portland.

There was like 40 some coaches there, but so they're all coaches, right? There's no like beginner athletes. These are all coaches and we're all doing this drill. And when it comes to my turn, I'm the only freaking person in the whole 40 people who can't do this drill. Oh, people were literally laughing at me.

Oh no, because I would take like, step one, two trip one, two trip, one, two, trip, one all down, at least making like forward progress only because I would step forward every time the rope stopped. So that's so funny. Yeah. So I, there's something that just broken my brain where I can't do alternating feet. I can only, I can, I could do double unders I could do crossovers with the jump rope, but my feet were always in unison.

If my feet were not in unison, something just like a circuit breaker in my brain would go off and I'd just trip every time. And that's been my jump rope life. All along like I can I coach, like I'd done a clinic on how to get double unders before, so I could coach people on jump rope, but for some reason, alternating feet stuff, I just look like a spa

And I was laughing too, by the way. So it wasn't like a bully moment where I was feeling, are you sure you weren't just laughing with them? No, I was laughing like soft in the blow. It felt ridiculous, but I was, it was in a way that was like, this is, is hilarious. I mean, I look so funny. My face feels hot.

Just thinking about it hot, but I, I tell the story because in 30 days of two minutes a day and do the math, that's literally one hour of practice.  Huh, 30 minutes or two minutes a day for 30 days, one hour total of practice. And I can now basically get unlimited reps of alternating feet unlimited. Yeah.

I don't trip up. I run out of air. What? Like, oh, okay. So it's not the tripping up that stops you. Yeah. It's your, it's your lung? It's my endurance. Yeah. So like, I, I could have to stop and breathe, but it's no longer a coordination issue. And I guess my point in telling the story is such a low commitment, two minutes a day, and I've made that kind of improvement.

So by being a generalist, it doesn't mean you suck at everything equally. You can get pretty damn good at a lot of different things. With a very low commitment level, as long as it's consistent. That's the only key there is that you have to, you have to give yourself the bandwidth to have consistency in what you're trying to do.

Yes. And this also reminds me of the beginning of the conversation where we were talking about having too many cues in your head for something where if your cup runneth over, you have a tendency to just kinda like blank out. So you have to, I think you have to kind of manage how much stimulus mm-hmm  you're engaging with.

Like bandwidth is super real and are, we can train it to be more expansive or there are things that happen in our life that really narrow it down. Mm-hmm . And so, you know, we do talk about in CrossFit, how do we. Bring everything to the table, because if you, you know, we've done it before where we've done, like exercise libraries, mm-hmm , that is a long ass list of things.

Yeah. And so it never ends it's it's unlimited for it. Doesn't and that's why I like having like closed start end programs so that, you know, over a long period of time, everything has a chance to shine. But I always had beef with CrossFit classes that wouldn't do snatches in a workout, like of, of being one of the most technical movements that should be on the menu a lot.

Right. Instead of avoided, because it's hard. Yes. It should be done more often. Right. So that it's not as scary. Right, right. And that you can at least retain something from it. Yeah. So yeah, I think that that's something that always needs managing, whether it's the cues in your head or the many practices that you wanna have, you know, you and I, when we had our year off after moving here.

I remember you made a list of all of these different realms that you wanted to have practiced in mm-hmm  and like it was written out every day, what you wanted to touch, you know, mm-hmm  experience each day. And, you know, I wonder if it was too many things because it wasn't really a program that was able to last very long, you know?

Yeah. It's gotta be something you can manage. Yeah. And this is kind of a common, I listen to a lot of podcasts and watch shows of you know, people generally trying to level up. So it might be personal development or business or relationships or whatever. But a very common thing that's talked about these days is a morning routine.

Mm-hmm  I even made a post about one, you know, a couple weeks ago. If I had a dollar forever time, we talked about a morning routine  I know, but it really is a powerful tool because when you get up and you just go right to something that is helping you build consistency in progress, it's just an amazing setup for the day.

But if I did everything I wanted to do in a morning routine, it would be the afternoon before I was done. Yeah. Cause you know, I'd be meditating and working out in sauna and cold plunge and, and writing for three hours, mushrooms and writing. Yeah. And just, you know, and pretty soon mushrooms. Yeah. We do with mushrooms every day.

Well, I'm drinking mud water. Oh right. And they're not a sponsor of this podcast yet, but maybe , that would be great. Yeah, mud water's really cool. It's kind of a mushroom blend instead of coffee in the morning. Anyway, my point is, is that as a generalist and a proud to be a generalist, ah, you do that sounds like a great t-shirt.

Yeah.  you do have to be careful about bandwidth and, and prioritizing, but the way there's a couple things I do to manage that right now that I'm experimenting with. And one of is to treat things like an experiment. So the jump rope thing in my head, I've sort of committed to like two minutes a day for a year.

And then whoa, and then see what that's gonna look like. And you, well, I've already done a month. I mean, that month went by really quick, cuz it's just two minutes. Like that's the thing, it's just such a low coming well and you're going into the gym every day. So yeah, what's tacking on two minutes of something that you're already yeah.

In the right time and place for, it's just part of my warmup and yeah, that's just it. And so it's, it's almost like it takes hardly any bandwidth. I wanna do that with my feet strengthening so I can offset my shitty shoes. Right.  fashion is there's a high price for fashion. Yeah, it's true. And sometimes it's your body  so that's one way I manage it anyway is to take things as an experiment.

Like I'm gonna do this for this amount of time, just see what happens and see if I still enjoy it and see if I'm still making progress or whatever. The other thing that I'm sort of proud of myself for developing. Cause I feel like it's something that's not used to the degree that I use it, which is.

Timed practices. And so Cal Newport wrote a book called deep work and he has a podcast I listened to. And Cal Newport is all about this deep work, like focused work. And the idea behind his concepts is to avoid context shifting. What does that mean? Which means if you are writing for a blog there should be designated time for research.

There should be designated time for the writing. And during those designated times, you should not be checking social media, checking your email, taking calls, doing this because context, I like this well, well context shifting. It's proven that it. It makes you super ineffectual. So, well, it probably makes the process super long if you're allowing all of that.

And not only shifting, not only more time, but sometimes less effectual, like the end product may not be as good as if you're able to shut out distractions and have a focused time effort on something. Now, I, I know you're like cringing I'm CR like, it makes, it makes me physically uncomfortable, even though I D agree with this to some, like, to some degree mm-hmm

But I can already just feel myself, like contorting to try to like fit in these boxes. Yeah. I like a little more fluidity and that's why it's called deep work. Is that the idea is that you're trying to induce a state of flow. In your mind, Uhhuh  to where you don't really have a perception of time.

Mm-hmm  like the world kind of stops existing, except that thing that you're just involved in and you're getting yourself there. I don't know if I've ever been to that place. There's such value. I've only been in it consciously, like in a, in a just textbook kind of way drawing mm-hmm  maybe a couple times with guitar back when I was really consistent with it, but there are times when I would draw for my, like, my butt would hurt so bad because I'd be sitting in the same spot and forget that I'd been there for literally five or six hours.

Wow. Yeah. I would put a CD on of dating myself. No CD. Oh, CDs are not that long ago. I know we bought some today  but we bought some great ones today. I put a R Manan off CD on and I'd be drawing and I would hear the beginning of a song that I thought I'd just listened to, but the whole CD had just played through.

Mm. But I was so unconscious of everything around me, except the drawing that I was in. That I wouldn't even realize I just made it through the whole CD again, and that would happen like seven or eight times shit. And so he's trying to get people to induce that, that state of flow. But what I do with my context shifting is I do it intentionally in a way that really compliments the variety that I want to encompass.

Mm-hmm  by setting timers for each thing. So it's really amazing how much progress you can make on something like guitar in 10 minutes a day. And it sounds kind of like an infomercial, just in 10 minutes a day, you could learn 500 songs, you know, like  but it really, when you set a timer like a CrossFit, this, this kind of goes back to our philosophy of like kind of Pavlo van, a fitness thing.

Yeah, absolutely. It's like. I get to a point where if I set a timer, it's like 3, 2, 1 go. All of a sudden, all my procrastination, my excuses, my wandering, my checking, the weather, like all this crap. It disappears. Cuz it's like, oh shit, the timer's going, boom. I mean, I'm in it. I've got this guitar, I'm doing it.

And well you're making the most of it. Yeah. And then when that 10 minute timer is done, then I can go ahead and context shift to writing or meditation or, you know, whatever it is, the other practice that I want to do. And it doesn't have the same effect of what Cal Newport's trying to avoid, which is like random interruption of email or whatever Uhhuh

So it's like the best of both worlds. I can be a generalist and do like eight or nine practices in a day, but I don't suffer from the context shifting because I have this sort of psychological need to obey the clock.  well, I was gonna ask, let's say like your.  giving yourself a 10 minute clock for the guitar, but like you're enjoying it so much.

Mm-hmm  do you let yourself go over the clock? So is it just a minimum? It's a minimum. Okay. It's a minimum unless there's a stacking involved. So if I have like seven practices I want to get through and it's six o'clock at night and I want to get to bed at a certain time, then I might just kind of try to get those done.

That's one reason I love morning routines the best, because then you got the rest of your day to be more fluid. But if that were to happen, if, if I was constantly wanting more, then I would maybe try to structure that particular practice at the end of a series of practices so that I can have the fluidity of going over.

If I, what, if you don't know, and if you don't know, well, then what's wrong with like just assessing whether you want to continue onto a different practice or not mm-hmm  or.  let's say I have five practices that I just want to get through because I want the consistency of having them checked off the list for the day and guitar was number two.

So then I do the third, fourth and fifth practice. And then I just pick up the guitar for fun after that. Like I just, then I just retreat with it and without a timer. And without the pressure of the learning experience, well, I have kind of a similar approach when it comes to reading books I have had a lot of like odd insecurities about being a reader since I was a child.

And a lot of that was around finishing books. And in school, you know, when you have to give a book talk or a book report, you have a limited amount of time that you need to finish this book. And I was never a fast reader, but now, or I guess I would say in adulthood, I now having as much time as I want to read a book, I also felt compelled.

Like I had to finish the book, even if I didn't like them. And I don't remember who it was. It might have been you, I don't know. But at some point somebody was like, why the hell are you finishing books that you don't even like, that's like the dumbest shit in the world. But I had like an insecurity building up of like all these books that I had laying around that were half finished.

Yep. And so now I've kind of like found like a happy practice that feels like a fair shot to me. And a fair shot to the book that I will give it the first 50 pages. And if I don't nice want to keep reading it after 50 pages, then I don't have to, and I can give it away or whatever 50 is generous. I, I know people who are like three pages and if it doesn't grab me done, you know, well, I think that there's a lot, you have to.

People enjoy reading for different things. And like a lot of reading can be difficult for me stylistically. Like if I just don't like it, there are some fabulous stories out there, but the way that they are written or the way that they are read in an audio book makes my ears bleed. You know, it's just not enjoyable.

And so I don't wanna like, feel imprisoned by needing to finish this this like promise I've made to myself. So I give myself some flexibility. Yeah. I wish I knew who to give credit to for that, because I actually heard it from a stage I was at the world domination summit. I think it was the sounds super evil second.

Yeah. There was a lot of criticism around the name of it, but it was a really cool event by what is it, Chris Gibo? And my friend JD Roth actually was involved with for a little while in helping gather guests for it. So I got to see Brene brown speak there and, and what's the theme. It's just kind of a leveling up convention like a three day convention.

Mm-hmm  and I actually taught a CrossFit class at one of the one of them. I didn't know that. Yeah. They, they had a program for a few people to come in and do like auxiliary workshops around Uhhuh the thing. So like during one of the breaks, you could go to yoga or CrossFit or this blogging thing, or, you know, whatever mm-hmm  and I was one of the people, so I got a free ticket, I think, in exchange for like coaching a CrossFit class with Becca.

That's so rad. Yeah. I would love to do that Becca Borowski and I, yeah, it was really cool. But it was one of the speakers there that said, like, why are you finishing books? You don't like, because there are literally billions of books in the world. It's impossible for you to read every good book that there is.

So don't waste your time on ones that aren't yeah.  well, it's like, it's, like you said, it's like, it's a waste of time and it feels. It's such a funny thing, silly to feel so compelled to finish what you started and it kind of circles back to like when to know when to quit. Exactly. And that was just kind of a threshold that I set for myself maybe when I'm older and I'm really feeling the clock ticking.

Like maybe it will be three pages. Yeah. But now I feel like I can give you 50. Yeah. I think that's a good example though, of something that we're taught as a failure. For some reason, I don't know if it's schooling, like structured schooling that we have or whatever, but like you're supposed to finish what you start.

And that's like some universality and it's not universal. Sometimes you should not finish what you started, cuz you're going the wrong way. Well, I don't, I hope it's not too much of a leap, but the way it's coming to my mind right now is like, it's a matter of setting boundaries too. And when you're in school, those are set for you.

Right? Right. You have to rise to the occasion for someone else's standards where, when you're free out in the world as an adult, you have to do that for yourself. And we're talking about how to manage all of these practices and how to decide, how to use our time and our effort. Yeah. And, you know, creating those boundaries for yourself.

Like we're always talking about kind of leaning too far into saying yes to every opportunity. And then like when it's like, no, I'm going to really prioritize what I want to and not compromise that, you know? Yeah. There's so man, I wanna follow this, but this is our next podcast. The next podcast coming out next week is actually compulsory versus voluntary learning.

Oh yes.  let that . And so go down that rabbit hole then. Yeah. So this is a little sneak peak. We are gonna be deep diving a little bit on this idea of learning and your motivations in life and internal versus external. Exactly. And so there's a lot of value to pursue here. So next week we will see you then.

So sorry to stop the conversation there. Cause I didn't, we don't need to stop, but I lost my train of thought, but I wanted to promote the podcast for next week. Yeah. Cause that's what it's gonna be about. Oh, setting boundaries. Yeah. And, and knowing where to say no, I heard. On a podcast. It was, I listen to so many podcasts and read so many books.

It's, it's difficult for me to attribute properly. So I apologize for not having a name for you, but that sounds like a soft brag to me, the person , I just read so much and I listen to so many great audio books. I don't have time for any of that right now in life. So I guess I'm just a little sensitive. So to give you all some insight into why that is, is that I have a job that does not require me to.

Listen to other people or be available. You don't have to interact with anybody. We're not. Yeah. For most of the day it's just small interruptions here and there. So I have about a nine hour shift where I can listen to podcasts while I work. And I listen at one and a half speed. And so I figure that's about 12 hours worth of podcast at day.

Your brain must hurt the end of the day. Yeah, I have to structure 'em so it's like entertainment first and then the good stuff later, so, oh, okay. So that way I am not trying to cram too much in one day. But this person was talking about a mutual friend of theirs who had learned to set boundaries for herself with no explanation needed.

Like if you tell somebody, no you don't need to tell 'em. Will you come to this? That also is so uncomfy. Yeah, it is. Well, they were talking about that. It's like, oh man, I wish I was like this person, cuz it's so awesome. The way she can do it. It's just like, no I don't. Or an example of it was she's a public speaker, like a public figure author type person.

And so those type of people who are really famous in the podcasting world or whatever are always being given books like here, read my book. Here's my book. Here's my book. Here's my book. Oh. And so they, she was approached after giving a speech one time and somebody goes, oh, here's this book I wrote. And she's like, oh honey, I will never read that.

that sounds like a sweet way of saying that. That's what I was, you know, some people have that charm where they can really shoot you down. And that's what they were saying is like, she was just being honest. Like she's not gonna get to that. So it's okay. Like, and it's okay to just say no. And, and people they were giving the example of like Will you please help me out with this like charity thing.

And it would mean so much to me, if you could be a part of it and the response doesn't need to be well, I'm really busy with these other things right now, your response can just be, no, I'm not gonna do that. What, what makes this person different than from those clients that you and I were complaining about earlier, who are like, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do pull ups today, or I'm not gonna add any weight to my barbell.

What is different about them? Because those folks are setting boundaries too. However, I guess I'm already answering my own question, but they have invested financially and in their time to work with a coach, there are a lot of clients that I've run into in class. And I. You could just go to like 24 hour fitness, if you just wanna do what you wanna do, right?

Yeah. Don't come to my house. Yeah. If you're gonna have headphones on and do stuff in the corner by yourself, then you might as well not be in my class. I have had somebody put headphones on in class and it wasn't my class. It was me covering for someone else's class. And I was like, they let that shit go here.

Yeah. No. Are you kidding? Because to me, I took it as such a, like a sign of disrespect. Yeah. Yeah. Where I don't, I didn't really know the coach that I was covering. It was for like, one of it was like probably my third gig that I didn't really know who I was like working with. Yeah. When you're a coach, you tend to be passing ships with your coworkers, so you don't really get to know them.

Yeah. So if you're lucky you have a meeting once a month  so those boundaries the differences, the way I would describe it is those were not sought out. Those were just coming in to them. So they were setting boundaries to people who were just incoming. Without being sought out in the case of what, what, in the case of coaching your client, who's trying to set boundaries.

They sought you out. They're trying to get information from you and then not listening to the information I call them askholes because they, cuz they ask questions over or want something from you. Yeah. The reason I not to their face, but I would call people, ask holes because , they would ask and ask and ask and ask and ask, not just once, not just like, oh, I hired you for this one session.

We're talking week after week after week after week after week of asking you. And then when you give them an answer, they're like, no, I don't like that. Or no, I don't wanna do that. No, I don't. It's like, why are you paying me and asking me questions? If you never are compliant about anything I ever tell you, you obviously don't respect my opinion.

Why the hell are you paying me for it? Well, that's a huge reason why I have always been really intent to call myself a coach, not a trainer. I am a coach. And that's because there is an active participation. It's not just like a top down thing where I am telling you what to do. This is a collaboration.

Yeah. This is, this is like an agreed upon dynamic that like you are seeking my expertise and I am getting feedback from you, whether it's in your results, in your attitude, in your commitment level how well I'm doing at that job. Yeah. I can totally get behind that. That's a give and take and that's just part of active listening and leadership.

Like if you're, if you're just spewing information and expecting people to be compliant, that's not leadership. No, it's dictatorship. Yeah. And so leadership, you know, involves a give and take in communication and a relationship.  yeah. Leadership requires relationship. That's cool. What, I just like the ring of that.

Oh,  but no, what I'm talking about with askholes is like a CR a, a chronic kneejerk reaction of constantly bombarding you with questions and then pushing back every time. That is just bullshit. I can't, I can't take that.  well, awesomely, when I became more of a personal trainer, when I was working at Nike, I in CrossFit gyms, you don't get a ton of opportunities for personal training.

It's just really not what they like offer primarily. So it's just easy to not have a lot of experience in that realm. But when it came to personal training, I loved having the freedom to fire those clients. Because. My time is important. Like I would rather give it to somebody who really wants to leverage it.

Right. As opposed to somebody who's just gonna like shut me down. Right. And it's a lot of people, like you said, they go into the gym with the expectation that like, they're simply paying the money. Therefore they'll get results. Mm-hmm , that's just like the entry fee. Right, right. Like that's just gets you in the door, gets you in the door.

Yeah. There's work to be done after that. Yeah. And I can go into all the many layers of it for sure. But probably another time. Yeah. Cause that was a huge learning experience. I would say year after year. More of that became evident to me. Yeah. I think it's a valuable skill to have as a coach of knowing when to fire a client.

Just like you should know when to fire a coach or when to break up with somebody. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's or when to quit your job. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. When there's finances involved. It's, it's tough when you're doing something out of a passion and you're getting paid for it. Cuz sometimes the the incentives get a little muddled.

What do you mean? There are clients that I have allowed in my gym that I regret having them around as long as they were, but they were paying me and I needed every client. I possibly could to try to keep the lights on. You're not alone in that. And the fact is like that rudeness, the, the, the down vibe that would be created, the drama in the gym was not worth their membership.

Yeah. And and so on, you know, doing it for passion. I would've been like, get outta here, like you're, you're screwing up our vibe, you know? Yeah. But I also was doing I'm so appreciative when I see that. Yeah. But I was doing it take place. Yeah. I was doing. As something I was passionate about, but also getting paid for.

And so sometimes those incentives can really mu kind of screw with your head, you know? Well, it's, again, it's like managing how much you can handle and maintain your integrity. And that has to be done on like a business level, like you and I talk about that a lot, because there are many potential branches to what you and I wanna create, but we want it to feel a certain way to us.

And so sometimes that means that not everything can be sought through or like experienced fully, you know, can you elaborate? Well, I'm just thinking like, If it's important for you to have a certain kind of culture, especially like if you take something like the schedule into account that might mean that we have fewer in person clients mm-hmm , you know, because we're trying to be really precious with our time.

And, you know, maybe when our jobs change or our available time changes that can expand, but we have to be kind of protective over like the overall themes and feels that we want. Yeah. And they have to kind of grow together. Like the space has to grow for that to, to be maintained, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot to consider there. Mm-hmm  so getting back to failure. Yeah. There's a book that you and I were reading through together. We never finished it. Oddly enough. Obstacles away. Yeah. It's a good book, but we were just kind of. Hitting it in little tiny chunks, which I think is a great way to read that book.

There were kind of standalone chapters. Yeah. If I remember correctly, cuz they always had like a, a story yeah. Or a certain person that they were focusing on. Yeah. So just to touch on that, I think we kind of screwed it around it a little bit, but the idea that without failure, you don't have feedback on whether you're really doing all you can do or living up to your potential or however you want to describe that you have a lot of gas in the tank, if you're never hitting resistance mm-hmm  so just like your weight lifting or really any kind of physical training you have to push the limits in order to know where you're at and get that feedback.

So seeking it. Like actively seeking failure is something that's difficult to sort of talk yourself into that mindset. Like I want to fail at something. That's kind of a weird thing to think, but really, if you think of about it in the way that I think it was Seneca, who said that the obstacle is the way it could have been Marcus aureus, I forget it's one of those Stoics.

And the idea behind the obstacle is the way is that we shouldn't be so focused on trying to avoid discomfort, avoid resistance, but rather seek out something that is going to be hard. Yeah. Because seeking out that difficult moment tells you that you're making progress. Well, I was super inspired by after, you know, we did a little date to do our show notes.

Mm-hmm . And do you remember when we went to the go get gas and I. Said that I didn't wanna back up because it's challenging for me. Yeah.  and so I thought about maybe going all the way around the lot so that I could like enter in just correctly. Mm-hmm  and then I was like, no, I have resistance towards this.

Which means that I should do it. Right. Yeah. I love those moments. Like I actually get jazzed about it. I was very much encouraged by my mom for a very long time that like, if you are met with a challenge, it should be met with a smile. Yeah. Because that means you're gonna get something out of it. You're gonna learn something or you're gonna change.

And to her change is like the coolest thing that hu coolest thing that humans can do. Mm-hmm  and I've really adopted that as a value of mine, even though maybe it doesn't like, it's not there readily always, but when I am in that head space that I'm operating out of that belief, life is so much fucking cooler.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your mom's pretty damn cool. I know. It's something I see you do a lot and I respect it. Well, I try to do it out loud too, so that it's not. So it's like evident that I'm like trying to push through something UN comfy here. Yeah. I've seen you do it in relationships and in training and in your professional life, I've seen it in a lot of domains and I just think it's a really rad quality that you intentionally develop.

Thank you. It's not something you possess. It's not something you were born with you. No, you seek it. And that's so cool. Definitely not. It's like the exact opposite of what I was like as a young person. I was all about self preservation. Never be embarrassed. Never fail me too. And what that, what, like, what it did for me is like, I had incredibly low self-esteem because I didn't ever know if I was capable at of anything.

Yeah. You know, I didn't have like any confidence in myself and to develop confidence, you have to be able to uncover like what you're fucking made of. Yeah. I mean, it's the same with me in conflict avoidance. It's really the same thing. You think, cause I, yeah, cuz conflict avoidance is, this is uncomfortable.

So I'm gonna gonna stay silent or be passive. Well probably deepens your relationships a lot more. Right. Then that fucks up the relationship because I'm not being honest. Yeah. Yeah. Like when you're avoiding conflict, you're not being honest. That's the same as being dishonest. And I consider myself a really honest person.

And so I think it screws with my own confidence as well, besides just the relationship it's hurting myself when I'm conflict avoidant because that's me being dishonest. And I know it, I know it somewhere inside. I think that's where things like codependency comes from in the case of alcoholism or drug addiction how they're often married to a codependent type person.

And so. You almost facilitate their alcoholism and the way you do that is because if they're not a nice person, when they're drunk, you want to avoid the conflict. And so you're just pacify them to avoid the conflict. And then the next morning, when they're back to being a good person, again, rather than confronting them, you go on avoiding the conflict, cuz it's like, well, now we're at peace.

Now everything is good because they're not drunk. And so let's just let it be good because it's finally good. And so you just keep it good and then it's bad again. And you're like avoid conflict. And so you're just constantly so avoiding the conflict, like mistakenly also excuses, the behavior it does and not just excuses, but even.

I don't want to go so far as to say encourage the behavior, but you're gonna buy booze for that person. You're gonna go to happy hour with that person. You're going to surround yourself with friends that are like drinking friends with that person all in the hope of just avoiding conflict. But you're really because it's harder to say, like, I'm sorry, you're drinking too much.

Yeah. Or I'm not gonna buy booze. I'm gonna do the grocery shopping for the family, but I'm not picking up booze. Yeah. Because that would just result in a fight. And so you're gonna like avoid that. And so in the process of avoiding that conflict, you are literally facilitating the addict. And so you, you know, you have to take some responsibility and ownership in that process.

Yeah. When, when you look at that in, in terms of like a day or a week, that seems insignificant and maybe just uncomfortable, but look at it in the lens of seven or eight years, and you are culpable for. Part part of what's happening in that addiction. Well, and that's something that you're practicing, so you're gonna get good at it and it's gonna bleed out to all areas of your life.

Yeah. Yeah. And it made me think about so when Cody and I first got together he had been recently divorced and I had been in a really unfortunate relationship. It wasn't, it was only for a year, but a relationship that I really.  like criticized and stifled in. And something that we had decided when we first got together is to deal with issues as they arise.

And that's like within the minute, you know, I remember bringing up something to you as you were coaching class. I don't remember what it was, but we had made a commitment that we were going to address friction or conflict as it came up and that we weren't gonna hide anything or shy away from anything.

And so what that's done is it's allowed us to be incredibly honest with each other in a way that nothing is surprising or like catches us off guard because that's a normal dialogue for us. It's become normal. Yeah. We had to push a lot in the beginning, but what I, what I think is important to say is that it bled out into other areas of my life.

Mm-hmm  I have more honest relationships with all kinds of people in my life because of it. And that is. With the idea that I'm gonna bring it up. If it's controversial, if it's scary to say mm-hmm, , it's kind of like welcoming failure or welcoming a challenge, I should say, maybe not failure, but essentially it's not buying into any kind of like social fears, which you and I both have had a lot of.

Yeah. So. It's a skill that we've developed that bleeds out into other areas of our lives. So if people wanna put a, a label on this in the relationship realm, it's referred to often as radical honesty and we've been practicing it prac like from day one mm-hmm . I had recognized in my previous marriage that a lot of my misery and in my business world, like it, like I had mentioned earlier in the podcast, like most of my broken relationships resulted from conflict avoidance.

So I just decided like, I want to, I, I felt free. Like I think a lot of people, when they get a divorce, that's a, a word that's often used is like, oh, I feel free, but it's not free from the relationship. The reason I felt free is that I was 100% authentically myself for the first time in fucking decades. I felt completely myself.

And I'm not sure how else to describe that, cuz it sounds kind of woo woo. But I guess what I mean is like, If I'm having insomnia and it's one o'clock in the morning and I want to go for a walk and take photographs of the city at night, I did it. And I was like, wow, God, this feels so good because it's just, it's what I wanted to do in the moment.

And it was that kind of freedom, but it was also the freedom to be my myself per in my personality, in the things that I sought out in the things that I enjoyed, things that might not be socially acceptable whether it's like being lazy or like sexual proclivities or whatever that might be looked down upon by people in my life prior to that, I was just like, screw that this is what I want.

And I just see nothing ethically wrong with the, these things. Therefore I'm gonna pursue it as long as it's not harming anyone else. And that freedom was like, I'm never gonna give this up. Mm-hmm . And so when I met you. We just started with some pretty deep, honest conversation, like, right. We didn't even know each, my first day of work  yeah, we did.

We didn't even know each other. And we were talking about like family things and like relationship things. And it was like, so refreshing to be with someone who, in the presence of someone who I could still ha share that authenticity with. And I just fell so hard and fast for you be because of that. And so I wanted to continue to push for it and, and develop that skill of, of never avoiding conflict.

Mm-hmm  by bringing things up in the moment. And so this is a real example of the obstacle is the way, because every time we see something come up, some sort of obstacle, some challenge, some friction, we address it as soon as possible. That's it's not like, well, never go to bed mad. No, it's in the moment at the, in the very moment that something comes up mm-hmm

Can we articulate it. If we can't articulate it, we'll bring it up and say, you know, I don't really know how to articulate this. Right. But this is what I'm feeling, or I know this is irrational, but this is what I'm feeling Uhhuh. And we can preface it by being like, well, I'm not really ready to articulate this, but it's happening and you should know about it.

And totally, and that radical honesty that we share has resulted in us being together for years and being married and committed to each other and being super free. Yes. And with that freedom allows things to evolve. Like, something that I had written down is like, whether it's conflict avoidant or like wanting things to be quote unquote, perfect.

Life becomes, gets really predictable. You know, I don't like that quality in a lot of different ways, but I think that. It's almost exciting to me that we have this level of honesty with each other, because I think not only do we have like incredible conversations out of it, but we're really learning more about each other as people and ourselves.

Yes. And I just find that so exciting. And like I was saying, my mom had always kind of instilled like this curiosity streak in me and to really just discover things without without worry of where it might lead to. And I think that that's, what's been so beautiful about it is that we discover so much about each other in those difficult moments, but at no point are we like allowing our assumptions or our insecurities get the best of those moments because we are committed to uncovering it right away.

Mm-hmm . Yeah. And I think that, that Jace makes for a more experimental person and a more full life. Yeah. It's cool that we've given our, each other some safety around that too. Yeah. Because I've brought up things to you that I've been really embarrassed about in my personal life that I've never shared with anyone and you never, ever gave me any indication of shame around anything.

Well, it's because you gave me the exact same thing and that's, what's built a lot of trust between us. Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. The other thing just before we move on to any other topic is that, that radical honesty. And if you want to think of it, in terms of the theme of this podcast of seeking the failure, kind of seeking the friction out mm-hmm  and, and addressing it right away is that I think what happens in a lot of relationships and we've talked about like knowing when to quit sometimes knowing when to quit is hard, because it's such a gradual process.

Like people are growing in different ways. They're not growing together. They're kind of growing away from each other. And when is it a tipping point when it's too much and it's better to move on away from them in that relationship, it doesn't even have to be a romantic relationship. Like I've had a lot of friends who are in this category over the years who like, I just don't, I'm not interested in anything they're interested in and we don't even share a sense of humor anymore.

Like everything's just changed from when we were in grade school altogether or whatever mm-hmm . But if you're still in contact with that person, it's such a gradual thing. But with you and I in seeking, seeking this out and seeking this radical honesty, I think it's allowing us to grow and change as individuals, but still be so connected.

Mm-hmm  through the whole thing, like you said, there's no surprises as far as like, I mean, There's nothing that throws you off, you know, because nothing comes up or like, why is he behaving that way? Yeah. Like, I understand enough about you at this point to know like how you come to those conclusions.

Mm-hmm  yeah, because you've explained them to me and vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. And so not only do we know each other on a deeper level, but I think there's room for change there's room for us to grow and change as individuals, because we're checking in with each other so often that it's not a big surprise.

We're not gonna wake up a year from now and being like, who are you? Yeah. Well, this person is so different from who I married, you know, like yeah. That conversation, I don't think will ever happen as long as we continue this practice because every day we're in tune with that, we, with each other, we're, we're constantly checking in and communicating about right.

And we're not fearing or steering away from like anything that would be uncomfortable. And I feel like that level of self preservation, or keep trying to keep up appearances. Mm-hmm, , that's really where people really get in trouble or. Really start to lack authenticity. Yeah. It's like reading the book that you don't wanna finish.

Mm-hmm  yeah. Right. You're just like going through the motions for the sake of it. Yeah. And that doesn't make for like a marriage where people are participating. Yeah. You're not authentic if you're avoiding conflict or avoiding problems or it's inevitable. Yeah. It really is. And I think that that's, I don't know why we didn't start with this, but I think it's important to note that fuck up and failures are going to happen.

Mm-hmm  if you spend your whole life trying to avoid them, you're not living it. Yeah. You're not. Can I bring these to bring these con concepts together? Really? Failure is a signal of authenticity. Mm. Well, you're putting yourself out there to, to, to like, have the wave hit you, you know? Yeah. But I mean, you're willing to take it.

Yeah. But if you're not failing, you're probably pretending at life. Yeah. Because it's not real. Like, no, if everything is just smooth sailing, it's just not real. It's oh, what what show is this? There's a movie. There's I think it might be vanilla sky not to like, oh gosh, spoiler alert. But the idea, well, the matrix actually addresses this too.

I'll tell it in the matrix cuz we haven't seen cause everyone's seen that too.  But in the matrix I agent Smith talks to Neo. No, the big guy Morpheus. Yeah. He's talking to Morpheus and he says, you know, there was a previous version of the matrix where everyone was happy all the time and nothing bad ever happened, but it, but humans need to suffer because it wasn't real.

Mm-hmm  people wouldn't stay in the matrix. They wouldn't stay asleep and pacified because they knew it wasn't real. And. . I love that movie, cuz there's so many like deep Phil philosophical little nuggets in it. Mm-hmm  and that's really bringing it around to what we're talking about is like you can't be authentic and avoid all failures at the same time.

Well, you can't have triumph without failure. Yeah. That's true. It wouldn't exist. There's no win without the equilibrium would be so different. Yeah. So it's a, so failure leads to freedom. I love that. Yeah. And seen, yeah. Should we wrap it up? Yeah, I think so. Okay. So again, next week we're gonna be talking about compulsory versus voluntary learning and this is the philosophy of fitness podcast on the Lyceum network.

See you next week.