Latest / Getting After It / 101—Pain: Your Unlikely Ally for Growth

Transcript

101—Pain: Your Unlikely Ally for Growth · Getting After It

• 0:00
  Host: Welcome back to the podcast, my friends.
• 0:02
  Host: Today's episode is about something a lot of us hate to acknowledge but need to go through, and that's pain.
• 0:09
  Host: Pain is not fun, but if we used correctly, it can be a very valid and important teacher for you.
• 0:17
  Host: So, without further ado, let's jump in.
• 0:20
  Host: What is going on, my friends, happy to have you here, I always am thankful for you to join me and to chat with what we're going into today.
• 0:35
  Host: And today I want to make a very important caveat here.
• 0:39
  Host: We're going to be talking about pain, but pain in the sense that it is a signal for your growth, about pain, but pain in the sense that it is a signal for your growth.
• 0:48
  Host: And I want to just make it very clear that if you are running or if you're doing anything that is causing you physical or emotional pain, that I don't think you should push through and do it if you think it's going to cause a negative effect.
• 0:58
  Host: If the pain is telling you to stay in the fight it's just discomfort.
• 1:03
  Host: I'm not telling you to stay in the fight, it's just discomfort Then stay in the fight.
• 1:20
  Host: But I want to make it.
• 1:21
  Host: This podcast is that pain is often avoided and because of that we do not allow ourselves to reach our full potential because we don't want to feel pain.
• 1:30
  Host: And it's the truth.
• 1:31
  Host: Like, pain is not fun, but everything that is worthwhile in life requires some form of pain, whether that's physical, emotional, mental, anything Like.
• 1:46
  Host: If you want to improve in your career, then you're going to have to learn a lot and that's going to be a painful experience.
• 1:48
  Host: You're going to have to educate yourself and get better on all your fronts.
• 1:52
  Host: But most of us think pain is the enemy.
• 1:54
  Host: It's something to avoid at all costs.
• 1:56
  Host: Right, like you don't want to do it.
• 1:58
  Host: But here's the twist.
• 1:59
  Host: Here's the little twist of the dagger here.
• 2:02
  Host: Pain is like that brutally honest friend who tells you the truth you don't want to hear, but need to.
• 2:08
  Host: It highlights where you're struggling and it pushes you to address it.
• 2:11
  Host: If you ignore it, you stagnate.
• 2:13
  Host: Embrace it and you adapt.
• 2:15
  Host: And I want to quickly talk about I shared a little message about this on my Twitter account, but I was just alluding to my early days as an athlete, when I was beginning my training, when I was really focusing on running and trying to get healthy again, and they were not easy days.
• 2:38
  Host: If you listen to episode 99, I talk about how my body, when I was 135 pounds, felt physical pain, my joints hurt.
• 2:46
  Host: There was a lot of issues.
• 2:49
  Host: I couldn't sleep.
• 2:49
  Host: A lot of it was because I had some health issues happening.
• 2:53
  Host: But in all reality I had to push past that beginner's pain of starting and just getting that out of the way, trying to be the best that I could be every single day, even when it hurt, because at the end of the day I was always proud of the work that I was able to do at that time because it was minimal.
• 3:12
  Host: You know, cracking a little Coke Zero here, but I mean, that's the thing is like a lot of the experiences that you go through in life that you hate going through in the moment.
• 3:24
  Host: You will look back and oftentimes look at it as a fond memory, like how many times on this podcast have I talked about my sickness?
• 3:34
  Host: But it's only because I've learned so many lessons during that time that now it's like well, I see the benefit now that I went through that whole thing and I understand some of the things that I needed to learn, if that makes sense.
• 3:47
  Host: So when you go through a difficult time, there's always lessons that you can learn.
• 3:52
  Host: That'll make you a better person, and life's not easy.
• 3:56
  Host: It's going to throw curve balls at every single one of us.
• 3:59
  Host: It doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have, where you live.
• 4:03
  Host: You're going to face a difficult time in your life Now.
• 4:07
  Host: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, and that's a quote from Haruki Murakami.
• 4:13
  Host: But pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.
• 4:17
  Host: So ask yourself, like okay, well, can I endure this thing?
• 4:23
  Host: And I shared not too long ago on my podcast.
• 4:29
  Host: There's this, uh, this quote about running that I absolutely love and it just, for me, gives me a better idea of like when I'm running, I, uh, I think about this.
• 4:41
  Host: So it's just this photo and it says the one guy's asking another like hey, why do you, why do you like running so much?
• 4:49
  Host: It's obviously a hard thing to do.
• 4:51
  Host: And the photo says it's a conversation with discomfort.
• 4:54
  Host: Every run, there's a point where your body starts to protest the ache in your legs, shortness of breath.
• 4:59
  Host: The voice telling you to stop discomfort shows up like an old rival waiting to see if you'll back down.
• 5:06
  Host: It's about negotiating with it.
• 5:09
  Host: When discomfort shows up, you have two choices Ignore it or keep going blindly, or listen to what it's telling you.
• 5:16
  Host: It forces you to ask yourself is this a limit or is it a hurdle?
• 5:20
  Host: Every step beyond that discomfort is like saying I know you're there but you don't get to decide my limits.
• 5:29
  Host: Same goes for you.
• 5:31
  Host: So maybe instead of the word pain, discomfort might be a better one, but I still think that it applies.
• 5:38
  Host: And the last question that he was asking is is it a limit or is it just a hurdle?
• 5:43
  Host: And that's honestly.
• 5:44
  Host: Every time you go through something that's very difficult, you should be asking yourself is this a limit or can I keep pushing a little bit harder?
• 5:50
  Host: Can I be a little bit better?
• 5:52
  Host: It's a conversation you got to have with yourself at that point.
• 5:57
  Host: But I mean, we can't avoid all hard challenges because if we do, if we just try and live a life of comfort and I've seen this in myself many times it leads to a life of mediocrity and stagnation.
• 6:16
  Host: Because if you're not always trying to find ways to refine yourself, if you're not working on yourself on a daily basis, then you'll start to get comfortable with your habits.
• 6:25
  Host: You'll start getting comfortable with skipping the gym a couple of days a week and you know telling yourself these stories that you're like yeah, life's not as bad as I think, and that might be the case.
• 6:34
  Host: You might be living the life that you have dreamed of, but if you're looking to grow, it's going to require some kind of pain.
• 6:40
  Host: Growth is a choice, and it's an uncomfortable one to confront.
• 6:46
  Host: Who wants to go out and run in the cold?
• 6:50
  Host: I really don't, but I do it because I know the benefit that comes from it afterwards, and so the pain that I face before those kinds of runs is all mental Okay, and then sometimes, yeah, my body will hurt, but I make sure that to recover hard, I stretch, I roll out and I do all these things that help me promote longevity with my sport.
• 7:12
  Host: I love it.
• 7:13
  Host: So ask yourself what areas in your life are you uncomfortable with right now?
• 7:17
  Host: And instead of avoiding the discomfort, I need you to ask yourself how can I confront this thing head on?
• 7:23
  Host: What can I be doing differently in my day to make sure that I can change this discomfort and use it in my favor, use it to grow, use it to become the person that I always thought I could be, and that's a conversation you need to have with yourself, like I said, and once you understand that, you can use this pain as a catalyst, you can use it to grow.
• 7:44
  Host: And once you understand that you can use this pain as a catalyst, you can use it to grow Because, in all reality, if you look at entrepreneurs, if you look at sports athletes, if you look at anyone in the world who's failed at something but then made a comeback, the comeback is usually stronger than it ever was.
• 8:01
  Host: But it's because they used that pain that they felt in the moment when they failed that has triggered them to go on this journey of growth and of becoming this person that they never thought they could be.
• 8:12
  Host: And it can be the same thing for you.
• 8:15
  Host: All these things I'm talking about are not just little who, uh, crap things.
• 8:21
  Host: I don't know what you call that, but it's not like mysticism, it's not magic, it's just truth.
• 8:26
  Host: It's a law, like when you do something that's difficult, you get better and you're able to handle other adversity better.
• 8:36
  Host: But it all, it all, comes from the preparation you're able to do now to prep your mind, to prime your mind that when that pain comes, you're able to handle it better, because you already have been thinking about ways that you will handle it.
• 8:51
  Host: It's like what they all tell you in school.
• 8:53
  Host: Right, they say, okay, you just need to say no to drugs.
• 8:57
  Host: Say no to drugs.
• 8:58
  Host: Decide today.
• 8:59
  Host: Decide today to say no to drugs.
• 9:00
  Host: How many times did you hear that growing up in school?
• 9:02
  Host: And I agree, I think it's great advice.
• 9:03
  Host: Say no to drugs.
• 9:04
  Host: How many times did you hear that grow in the school?
• 9:05
  Host: And I agree, I think it's great advice.
• 9:06
  Host: Don't do drugs.
• 9:07
  Host: But here's the deal.
• 9:07
  Host: I think the point that they were trying to make at that time was, if you decide now, when the time comes and someone actually offers you something or you have the opportunity to participate in anything like that, you've already made the decision when you were in sixth grade, and same goes goes for pain.
• 9:23
  Host: When it comes, because you know it will tell yourself you're going to handle it different than you have before.
• 9:30
  Host: Tell yourself that you're going to be able to push through it, to find the silver lining and to use it to help you become better.
• 9:37
  Host: Our goal is to be 1% better a day, getting after it.
• 9:41
  Host: If you're just doing 1% every day, that's perfect.
• 9:44
  Host: That is getting after it.
• 9:45
  Host: In a nutshell, it's a daily thing and pain's not a wake-up call.
• 9:49
  Host: Like I said, it's a catalyst.
• 9:52
  Host: There were some studies I read.
• 9:53
  Host: I'll link it in the show notes.
• 9:55
  Host: But it's interesting because the studies showed that controlled, moderate stress like exercise, an ice bath, a sauna, cold showers, fasting, any of those kind of things but it can boost mental and physical resilience.
• 10:14
  Host: And at the cellular level of our bodies we literally adapt to discomfort to become stronger.
• 10:19
  Host: The mitochondria in our cells produce more energy to help us get through discomfort.
• 10:25
  Host: This is all real.
• 10:26
  Host: It's crazy stuff how the body works, but when the body understands it's in pain, it provides more energy to get you through it.
• 10:32
  Host: And so let's take the ice bath, for example.
• 10:35
  Host: People say to do it for three minutes a day and there's many studies that show people have higher cognitive function throughout the day.
• 10:41
  Host: They have better resilience for other challenges just from three minutes a day in an ice-cold tub.
• 10:48
  Host: And so it's seemingly small, but the physical and mental benefits that come from that are incredible and it's amazing.
• 10:57
  Host: But when you embrace pain wisely, it really is growth in action.
• 11:03
  Host: You're learning to adapt, you're learning to confront your limitations and figure out how you can still get to become that person that you want to be.
• 11:14
  Host: It's really just like problem solving, because you ask yourself these questions about whether or not you can continue holding handedly in this pain or whatever the story you might be asking or telling yourself is, but just focus on that.
• 11:30
  Host: Like that whole process I talked about with the mitochondria, putting some more energy into your cells is called hormesis.
• 11:38
  Host: So if you want to go, look it up and learn about it, I think it's fascinating, I think you should, but really it leads to increased strength and resilience in the end.
• 11:48
  Host: How many times have I talked about running on this podcast?
• 11:51
  Host: And I'm going to give you a little story here because it's it's easy to make a connection to running and I love talking about running.
• 11:59
  Host: This.
• 12:00
  Host: That's a huge part of my own getting after it story.
• 12:02
  Host: So I apologize if you're annoyed with the running stuff, but I'm not, so we're going to talk about it.
• 12:10
  Host: So I was training for my ultra marathon all last beginning of the year.
• 12:15
  Host: My ultra marathon was planned for June.
• 12:16
  Host: I got really sick the night before so I pushed it to July.
• 12:20
  Host: Anyways, the months leading up to that I was training in the mountains.
• 12:23
  Host: I remember one particular run.
• 12:27
  Host: I had 19 miles on the docket.
• 12:30
  Host: 19 miles in the mountains is, I think, probably harder than a marathon because there's so much elevation change you have to make sure you're watching your feet so you don't break an ankle or run into a rock I don't know Nothing stupid.
• 12:43
  Host: You have to look for snakes.
• 12:45
  Host: Actually, you have to look for snakes and bobcats.
• 12:48
  Host: Bobcats not so much, but freaking mountain lines, that's a.
• 12:51
  Host: That's what scares me the most.
• 12:52
  Host: I live in Utah and there's mountain lines all over the place, so that's my biggest fear.
• 12:58
  Host: Anyways, um, I remember going on this run and the first like five miles I was cruising I was like this is great, and there's this route by my house that pretty much for the first five miles it's relatively flat, like I would say.
• 13:11
  Host: It goes up maybe 1500 feet in elevation gain over that five mile period, which isn't terrible.
• 13:17
  Host: And then there comes a point when you get to that and there's like this little armada and it seems like a resting point for runners and bikers and that kind of thing.
• 13:28
  Host: But then there's just this steep climb right up the mountain and it goes for a mile and a half and I had to go up and then run back down and up and run back down and up and run back down until I got, I think, 10 miles.
• 13:47
  Host: Um, in terms of, like, total mileage out of that route, right.
• 13:51
  Host: So I'm going up super steep.
• 13:53
  Host: Okay, by the end of the run, by the end of 19 miles, my elevation was at 7,500, but I remember telling myself this like each time I would go up I'd be like this is horrible, like I feel awful, and I wasn't in any physical pain like my joints or anything like that, but my heart was pounding in my chest.
• 14:13
  Host: I felt fatigued and mentally I was like I just want to stop because this is crap, this sucks.
• 14:20
  Host: But that's the thing is, you have to embrace that.
• 14:23
  Host: You have to embrace that kind of pain if you want to accomplish the things that you want to do.
• 14:29
  Host: For me it was an ultra marathon and I knew that I had to be pristine with my training.
• 14:34
  Host: I had to be very intentional with what I was doing, because if I wasn't, then, when that time came and I had to run the actual race, I would have been in a horrible situation.
• 14:43
  Host: So back to the story.
• 14:45
  Host: I remember about my fifth time going up the mountain, going up this big hill.
• 14:57
  Host: I uh, I remember telling myself like that's it, I'm done, I can't do this.
• 14:58
  Host: This hurts too much.
• 14:59
  Host: Maybe I'm not good enough to to run an ultra race.
• 15:03
  Host: Maybe I can't do that, maybe my sights are too high.
• 15:05
  Host: And then I started asking myself, like, am I even the kind of person that would do that?
• 15:10
  Host: Can I actually perform?
• 15:11
  Host: And I just pushed through.
• 15:14
  Host: I didn't listen to those thoughts and I'm so glad I didn't, because when I got done with that run, that was one I was very, particularly proud of.
• 15:21
  Host: I had kept my time very, very good, but the thing I was proud of the most was that I pushed through to the end, because oftentimes that's the hardest thing to do is overcoming the mental battle.
• 15:34
  Host: And that kind of pain, that mental pain that you face with endurance, with um, boredom, with loneliness, like those kinds of mental pains, should be signals to you to either stay in the fight or figure out what you can do to change the situation.
• 15:49
  Host: And again, I'm not suggesting you stay in a toxic relationship or anything like that or you do things that are negatively affecting your life.
• 15:58
  Host: I'm not suggesting that because I believe that if you listen to pain correctly and you use it as a catalyst, like we've been talking about, then you will have experiences where you learn a lot about yourself and you become better, and I would just say like don't, don't give into that, just keep going.
• 16:18
  Host: If it's important to you, keep going.
• 16:21
  Host: And if you want to just identify one small controlled stressor that you can add into your life, spend some time after this podcast thinking about what that could be.
• 16:29
  Host: Could it be an ice bath you have access to one Could it be a sauna, could it be a exercise, and could it be fasting.
• 16:36
  Host: Ask yourself what's something I could do today that preps me for future challenges, and then the more you do it, the better you get, and I would say pain also has a way of magnifying the parts of our life that need the most attention.
• 16:56
  Host: Honestly, whether it's the ache of an under under trained muscle, like when you're in the gym and you're lifting, you're like dang, I'm kind of weak there.
• 16:59
  Host: Or if it's the sting of a missed opportunity if you got FOMO pretty bad and you miss something, but pain is pointing you somewhere, and that's the question you have to ask yourself is are you willing to even listen to it?
• 17:09
  Host: That's the question you have to ask yourself is are you willing to even listen to it?
• 17:12
  Host: Because a lot of us aren't, and for the first, I would say 22 years of my life I probably wasn't 21 years of my life I wasn't listening to pain.
• 17:20
  Host: Actually, that's a lie.
• 17:21
  Host: First 20 years of my life, yeah, because when I got in college I started really getting after it.
• 17:26
  Host: So first 20 years of my life I wanted to avoid pain at all costs.
• 17:30
  Host: I didn't really understand how to handle it.
• 17:32
  Host: I didn't really know, um, what it was doing for me.
• 17:35
  Host: I just thought it sucked, and a lot of the times it does.
• 17:39
  Host: But it can lead you to certain areas and opportunities that you never thought were possible.
• 17:48
  Host: Like I had to learn how to manage my time better in college and that I talked a little bit about on one of my blog posts.
• 18:01
  Host: But I pretty much studied every time management technique, from the Pomodoro technique to the Eisenhower matrix, time blocking, really everything that was like you can be more efficient with your time with these strategies.
• 18:13
  Host: I tried it, but it really wasn't, until I realized that discipline is what's needed to actually make those things work.
• 18:20
  Host: Like you, you can say, oh, I'm going to set a timer, work for something, but if you actually don't sit down and do it, then you're not being disciplined and you don't want it enough.
• 18:27
  Host: Obviously that's okay, you know, everyone has their own things.
• 18:35
  Host: One thing that I think is an interesting one is the pain of having hard conversations with others.
• 18:40
  Host: It's scary, I get it.
• 18:43
  Host: Having a hard conversation, knowing that there's something that you need to say to someone but you're a little afraid to do so, is a scary thing.
• 18:50
  Host: And if you're watching this podcast, we just lost our light so it might be a little dark, but good riddance.
• 18:57
  Host: But painful conversations are scary.
• 19:00
  Host: I've had to have many of them with people I work with, with my wife, with my family, my friends.
• 19:08
  Host: I've had to have some hard conversations, but every time I do, every time I do have a hard conversation with someone, never mind the light burned out.
• 19:21
  Host: So that's good.
• 19:24
  Host: Don't buy.
• 19:24
  Host: I bought a ring light off Amazon.
• 19:27
  Host: It lasts maybe 19 minutes, however long we're talking here.
• 19:32
  Host: So, anyways, you buy what you get, right, or the price, whatever, whatever the phrase is.
• 19:39
  Host: I bought a bad ring light is what I'm trying to say.
• 19:41
  Host: But anyways, going back to hard conversations, you feel liberated after you have them and it is scary, like there's no getting around that.
• 19:51
  Host: But when you sit down, you tell someone how you feel and you feel heard, then I guarantee your confidence will grow a little bit.
• 20:00
  Host: You'll feel a little bit better about yourself.
• 20:03
  Host: Marriage has taught me that Not from my own experiences with my conversations with my wife, but she's had to tell me some things that I I didn't want to hear but have made me a better person.
• 20:14
  Host: And it was scary, like I know allie at the time was scared when she had something on her mind that she wanted to tell me.
• 20:23
  Host: But that's, that's the point of marriage is you have to work through it together.
• 20:26
  Host: And if you are on the receiving end of a hard conversation and you're the one getting told something difficult to hear, then you probably need to change.
• 20:38
  Host: You probably need to adjust something in your life and make it a little bit different so that you can be better at being a spouse, being a parent, an employee or entrepreneur or whatever you are.
• 20:51
  Host: But make sure that you're doing what you can to listen to feedback, and that's kind of what pain is.
• 20:57
  Host: It's feedback for yourself and it's also an opportunity to build mental toughness.
• 21:03
  Host: So, shifting from talking about hard conversations, I think the more that you embrace pain, the better you are at doing difficult things and becoming better over time.
• 21:14
  Host: If that makes sense, like again, I'm not going to put up, I'm not going to bring up running, but I always do.
• 21:22
  Host: Um, let's take reading, for example.
• 21:24
  Host: You could say it's painful and boring to sit down and read a book for 30 minutes a day, and that might be the case.
• 21:30
  Host: You might be bored, you might not be a bookworm, but you want to start reading.
• 21:33
  Host: You want to start learning more than just go and sit down and read until the pain is unbearable and you can't negotiate it with it with it anymore and then get up.
• 21:42
  Host: But what that pain is going to tell you is that you lasted 15 minutes reading and tomorrow you should try and beat it by going to 16 minutes to reading.
• 21:52
  Host: And you need to learn how to work with pain and not against it.
• 21:55
  Host: Because pain doesn't always show up with a friendly face.
• 21:58
  Host: In fact, I think it shows up with a creepy smile and uh, he's kind of like that.
• 22:03
  Host: That cousin you got at a party.
• 22:05
  Host: That's in the corner just kind of staring at the room.
• 22:07
  Host: You know everyone's like what's up with that dude, but?
• 22:09
  Host: But in reality, pain's about to come and slap you in the face.
• 22:13
  Host: But it's not your enemy.
• 22:15
  Host: You can't control when it knocks on your door, but you can control how you respond.
• 22:20
  Host: The key is to learn to work with it and not against it, and I love that part about pain is that you can't control when it knocks on your door, but you can control how you respond.
• 22:33
  Host: And it's like all the teachings of stoicism they all talk about stoicism not being a philosophy to suppress your emotions.
• 22:43
  Host: Instead, it's a philosophy to help you control yourself.
• 22:47
  Host: To help you control your emotions and to better arm you for future interactions with pain.
• 22:55
  Host: And if you're able to see clearly through difficult situations and remain calm and try to really put your emotions not aside.
• 23:09
  Host: You want to feel them, but not to react negatively because of them.
• 23:14
  Host: Do not react emotionally.
• 23:16
  Host: That typically leads to a worse decision that you made.
• 23:21
  Host: I would take a pause.
• 23:22
  Host: It's pause.
• 23:24
  Host: Take a breath and then react because, just like with our emotions, we can't control when we feel pain, but you for sure as hell can control how you respond.
• 23:36
  Host: Feel pain, but you for sure as hell can control how you respond.
• 23:42
  Host: Pain tells you where the weakness is, but it's up to you to turn that into strength.
• 23:46
  Host: Um, I want to talk really quickly about where there was a time when I had ignored pain and I uh, I failed and it's.
• 23:58
  Host: It's the the Vegas marathon.
• 23:59
  Host: Like I, I, I mentioned it a couple of podcasts ago, so I apologize if it's repetitive, but the Vegas marathon I had to pull out and I had to quit.
• 24:09
  Host: I had to DNF it, but it wasn't because like my mental state or anything like that.
• 24:15
  Host: I was just.
• 24:15
  Host: I was literally having an asthma attack, but there was a lot of pain that I felt during that time that fueled me to become a catalyst and get better at running.
• 24:25
  Host: And now it's like I am sharp as an ax.
• 24:28
  Host: I want to keep going.
• 24:30
  Host: But during that moment, when I was going through that race and I stopped, it was more emotionally hard for me than it was physically.
• 24:35
  Host: Up to this point, I've never dropped out of that race and I stopped.
• 24:36
  Host: It was more emotionally hard for me than it was physically.
• 24:38
  Host: Up to this point, I've never dropped out of a race.
• 24:42
  Host: I've always been someone who has been preaching this message of keep getting after it.
• 24:46
  Host: But yet here I am DNFing a race.
• 24:48
  Host: By the way, david Goggins DNFed a race one time, so I'm just throwing that out there.
• 24:54
  Host: But emotionally for me it was so difficult and there were lessons I learned during that time, thanks to my wife, thanks to my brother, who helped me see it through his eyes as well, but I learned that when you feel that way, you can use it as a strength.
• 25:12
  Host: You can use it to build you up rather than pull you down.
• 25:15
  Host: If you want to feel that pain for a few minutes, just to let you know how it feels, then do it, but don't let it hold you there.
• 25:20
  Host: Instead, use it as a way to grow and listen to what it's telling you.
• 25:26
  Host: So, for me, during that time, it was.
• 25:27
  Host: I learned for myself, a very hard way for me, that when you drop out of a race, you're not going to die.
• 25:35
  Host: In fact, it's okay.
• 25:38
  Host: No one really cares that I dropped out of that race, except for me, like.
• 25:44
  Host: My wife made that clear, my brother made that clear, my cousin Parker made that clear, both who I coached, and they just told me it's okay and really that was it.
• 25:55
  Host: But it was a painful lesson for me to learn, because I don't like quitting, and when I quit, that time it felt like I I lost a part of myself.
• 26:02
  Host: And I realized, though, it was a lesson that I needed to learn about, about running, because I've put so much of my I guess identity into being a runner.
• 26:15
  Host: Like I tell people all the time that I run races and it's fun for me and I try and get people to sign up for Team Tim, I'm always looking to see what next race I'm going to sign up for and how I can push my speed, increase my endurance, everything.
• 26:27
  Host: I look at myself as a science experiment for running, just trying new things all the time.
• 26:31
  Host: It's fun for me, but at the end of the day it means nothing.
• 26:34
  Host: It's, but at the end of the day it means nothing.
• 26:35
  Host: Like it's cool that I can run.
• 26:36
  Host: I'm very blessed that I can run.
• 26:37
  Host: The fact that I have two healthy, strong legs is a blessing on its own and I thank God every day for it.
• 26:44
  Host: And if you can see my shirt, it says God is good.
• 26:46
  Host: So that's the truth.
• 26:54
  Host: But each time you face that, each time you go through a difficult time, ask yourself what lesson you learned, and maybe you might start looking at pain and reframing it in your eyes.
• 27:00
  Host: As a teacher, I mean growing up, come on, there were teachers you didn't like.
• 27:06
  Host: I remember one of mine.
• 27:08
  Host: I'm not going to say his name.
• 27:09
  Host: You know who you are and you still lived.
• 27:14
  Host: You might have not liked the lessons that they were teaching or how harsh they were, but hopefully you learned something from the class.
• 27:20
  Host: And pain is the same way.
• 27:21
  Host: It's a pretty mean teacher, though.
• 27:24
  Host: I've never had any teacher as mean as pain, but it is a teacher.
• 27:28
  Host: It teaches you about yourself.
• 27:30
  Host: It teaches you about how you respond to circumstances.
• 27:34
  Host: It teaches you if you're resilient and whether or not you have what it takes to keep pushing when you face pain.
• 27:45
  Host: If you don't get anything from this episode, I want you to take this when you face pain, face it with confidence.
• 27:51
  Host: It will always come back.
• 27:55
  Host: Pain will leave.
• 27:58
  Host: It's like a crappy roommate Comes back, eats her food, sleeps on the couch, makes a mess and leaves again.
• 28:03
  Host: And then he comes back with a box of pizza, makes another mess, leaves Crappy roommate.
• 28:10
  Host: But he always comes back and each time it does, you're more prepared.
• 28:16
  Host: Because you've faced this before, you've built the resilience and the confidence to handle it.
• 28:23
  Host: You're no longer afraid of it and you see it as part of the process.
• 28:29
  Host: That's the most important thing that I want you to learn from this episode Is that the more you deal with pain head on rather than avoid it, the more prepared you will be when it comes knocking on your door again If something happens at work.
• 28:46
  Host: But you've been a student of pain and you've learned its courses and something happens to your work like maybe you lose your job.
• 28:56
  Host: Hopefully you understand that you can be more resilient than you thought you could before, cause pain is the foundation of strength and self-belief.
• 29:08
  Host: If you don't believe that, I don't know what to tell you.
• 29:11
  Host: For example, if you're lifting weights, it's painful.
• 29:14
  Host: Afterwards, two days later, you're going to be sore.
• 29:15
  Host: If you, if you worked lifting weights, it's painful.
• 29:16
  Host: Afterwards, two days later, you're going to be sore.
• 29:18
  Host: If you worked out hard, you're going to be sore and it's not comfortable, it's painful, and then you have to go do it again and you want to get that muscle stronger and stronger.
• 29:30
  Host: So you have to keep doing it, going through the same process, but eventually that pain becomes a strength and you're able to lift, do some you know 40 pound dumbbell curls.
• 29:43
  Host: When you used to be able to do 25s, you got these massive biceps.
• 29:45
  Host: Your abs look chiseled If only that were me and when you build this strength over time, you greet greet challenges not with fear, but with resolve and with a problem-solving mindset, you ask yourself what am I going to do differently to make this situation in my favor?
• 30:08
  Host: And instead of running away from this pain, like you always have in your life, like I always have in my life, you use it as a tool and you use it to help you get stronger, better, faster, smarter, stronger, whatever I said.
• 30:23
  Host: Stronger already, but that is the power of pain.
• 30:29
  Host: And there's this quote from CS Lewis that I like.
• 30:32
  Host: It says hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
• 30:37
  Host: Oh, let that sink in for a second and think of yourself as this.
• 30:42
  Host: Think of yourself as this ordinary person that he's talking about.
• 30:44
  Host: Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.
• 30:52
  Host: By no means do I think you're ordinary.
• 30:54
  Host: I think you have greatness inside of you.
• 30:57
  Host: It's just yet to be unlocked.
• 30:58
  Host: Everyone does, and the more you get after it, the more you embrace this idea of confronting pain and using it as a teacher rather than a formidable opponent.
• 31:09
  Host: Use it as an ally.
• 31:13
  Host: It's not something to fear, it's something to learn from, and it's the ultimate teacher showing you where you're weak and giving you the opportunity to become stronger.
• 31:20
  Host: The next time discomfort knocks on your door, do not run Open the door, listen to what it has to say, then use it to build the version of yourself you know you're capable of becoming, and it's a process.
• 31:36
  Host: You're not going to be perfect right off the gate.
• 31:37
  Host: It's with everything in life.
• 31:45
  Host: Once you're a beginner, hey, you started, and then the more you do it, the better you become, the more adept you become and then you're eventually an expert.
• 31:49
  Host: How cool would it be that you're an expert in pain?
• 31:52
  Host: And how cool would it be to have this mindset about pain.
• 31:58
  Host: You're more prepared because you've faced it before and you've built the resilience and the confidence to handle it.
• 32:06
  Host: You're no longer afraid of it and you see it as part of the process and you can.
• 32:12
  Host: The more you embrace it, the more you view it head-on and look into its eyes, even though it might be scary, and you push through.
• 32:19
  Host: Next time it shows up, its eyes look a little bit less scary and then eventually it'll look like a cute little puppy looking at you and like pain.
• 32:28
  Host: My friend, what's up?
• 32:28
  Host: I don't know, maybe not, but here's my challenge to you this week.
• 32:33
  Host: I want you to find one thing that you've been avoiding, whether it's a tough workout, a hard conversation or trying something new, honestly.
• 32:40
  Host: But let pain guide you.
• 32:44
  Host: Don't let it define you, because once you allow it to define you, that's when, I believe, you start to stagnate and you fall to the level of your systems.
• 32:56
  Host: Because if you are building systems that allow for pain to come in, you welcome pain in your door then the more you do it.
• 33:05
  Host: And the last example I give, I think, is a very simple one Waking up at 5am, that's hard, that is not easy, it's painful and just like lifting a muscle and getting huge biceps in the gym.
• 33:17
  Host: Every day you wake up at 5 am on time, you get better at it, and you get better at it, and you get better at it, and then eventually it's like, ah, do I even need an alarm?
• 33:24
  Host: You just get up and go.
• 33:26
  Host: So pain's hard.
• 33:31
  Host: I understand that no one likes to go through it, but don't avoid it, because the more you avoid it, the more anxious you'll get and the more worried you'll become.
• 33:40
  Host: You can do amazing things.
• 33:43
  Host: Don't ever for a second think you can't, because we are all made for greatness.
• 33:50
  Host: We are all destined for something that is incomprehensible to what we've ever imagined, if we're willing to embrace the pain and grow.
• 34:04
  Host: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 34:05
  Host: Everyone, I appreciate you for tuning in, spending some time with your friend Brett today and embrace pain this week.
• 34:13
  Host: Do something that's difficult and if you want to send me an email, you can go to my website.
• 34:18
  Host: Send me there.
• 34:18
  Host: If you want to reach out to me on social media YouTube, x, instagram, anything please do.
• 34:25
  Host: I'd love to hear your stories and how you're getting after it, but until that point, everyone keep getting after it.
• 34:32
  Host: Thanks, guys.