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Bonus Episode: The Worst That Can Happen is You Learn More Than You Thought Possible · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: But what actually happened was the worst thing that I could imagine.
• 0:03
  Philip Pape: And that was just blanking out for so long that I almost couldn't recover.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: And by doing that, what it did to my brain was tell me that no man, this really could still happen.
• 0:16
  Philip Pape: And therefore, there's something else that is an opportunity for you to learn and grow.
• 0:24
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:27
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition, and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:38
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle, and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:48
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: Wits and Weights community, welcome to a bonus solo episode of the Wits and Weights Podcast.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: Occasionally I will publish a short bonus episode on Mondays that focuses on an experience I had or a story or thought that I want to convey related to mindset and motivation, so you can get your week started on a positive, inspiring note and primed to take action.
• 1:16
  Philip Pape: Today's episode is called The Worst That Can Happen Is You Learn More Than You Thought Possible.
• 1:23
  Philip Pape: And it's based on an experience I just had on Saturday night.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: I was competing in a speech contest related to Toastmasters International, an amazing public speaking organization that I've been with for over 11 years.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: And if you are trying to become a better communicator, speaker, leader, I highly recommend it because it is a nonprofit, it's all volunteer run, very inexpensive, but highly effective.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: This is probably the third speech contest where I had reached the final level in our district, which is a pretty large area of the Northeast United States.
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: And this is the first time I got to that level for what's called the International Speech Contest, which is on any topic you want to speak about, but it's usually motivational, inspirational type of speech.
• 2:13
  Philip Pape: I had to win multiple contests to get to this point using the same speech.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: And so I had both practiced it, rehearsed it, and performed it dozens, if not maybe hundreds of times in the car, in the shower, in my bedroom, walking around the house, everywhere you can think, to the point where the speech was unconsciously ingrained in my brain.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: Or so I thought.
• 3:11
  Philip Pape: And I my speech was about that.
• 3:12
  Philip Pape: So it's very much in the space that I practice in right now as a nutrition coach and something that I have seen and experienced myself.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: So I started off talking about my 20s, then my 30s, then my 40s, how I struggled with my weight and my body image, and how I wanted to do all these different activities over the years, but I was seeing a decline in health.
• 3:32
  Philip Pape: Then I was supposed to say, are any of these reasons for pursuing physical fitness less valid than the others?
• 3:40
  Philip Pape: But I totally blanked.
• 3:42
  Philip Pape: My brain just could not find the words.
• 3:45
  Philip Pape: And the problem with speeches like this, because they're so well honed, so prepared, and so tightly written, if you forget a key line like this that asks a question of the audience and ties the beginning of the speech to the theme or the solution in the speech, it's very difficult to start to connect things in context, and it threw me off.
• 4:04
  Philip Pape: It just threw me off.
• 4:05
  Philip Pape: And it only took me a few seconds before I thought of a line in my speech a little later on, started from that point.
• 4:12
  Philip Pape: Great.
• 4:12
  Philip Pape: Now, normally this is where the trouble would end.
• 4:16
  Philip Pape: I would continue the speech, I would finish it out.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: Maybe I missed a few lines, people don't really notice that, you're good to go.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: However, I got a little bit further in speech, and because that first question was missing and I was about to repeat the question in my speech, it also escaped me.
• 4:31
  Philip Pape: And this time it was a complete blank to the point where I just could not think of anything to say.
• 4:38
  Philip Pape: And I sat there or I stood there pondering.
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: And here's the key pivot point for me that would not have happened even, let's say, five years ago.
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: So I've been practicing my public speaking skills for about 10 years, and I didn't really get super confident with it until quite a few years after that.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: So in the past, if I had blanked out like this, there's no way I would have recovered.
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: I would have felt embarrassed, humiliated, like the audience was just judging me and maybe laughing at me inside.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: All this stuff is in my head, of course.
• 5:09
  Philip Pape: But having gone through the process of many, many times getting feedback and failing and not making it very far in speech contests and continuing to get better and better, the way I interpreted the audience on Saturday was, you know what, they're not judging me.
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: They're rooting for me.
• 5:26
  Philip Pape: They want me to succeed, they want me to figure it out and keep going.
• 5:30
  Philip Pape: So even though two or three times within what was probably only 20 seconds, but it felt like many minutes, I thought, I'm just gonna give up and walk off the stage and with grace and say, thank you, audience, but I can't remember the rest.
• 5:44
  Philip Pape: Have a great night.
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: But I did everything within my power to recall my practice, my scripts, my words, my cues, and I found a little thread of a nugget of a phrase to glom onto somewhere later on in my speech.
• 5:59
  Philip Pape: I started from there and I finished out the speech with as much gusto and proper delivery and mechanics and a smile and vocal variety as I could.
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: And in the process, I had to mentally cut out some things just to make sure I met the time requirement so that I wasn't disqualified.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: And I left to an applause.
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: And of course, I was in that moment, I wouldn't say devastated, but I was so disappointed in myself.
• 6:24
  Philip Pape: Not so much that I had forgotten, but that that could even happen and that I would disappoint the audience.
• 6:30
  Philip Pape: And further, that on my shoulders was the burden of representing my division and the other competitors that I had to beat to get there.
• 6:38
  Philip Pape: And I felt like I let them down.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: And I knew that if I had pulled out the full speech as it was intended, that everyone would have this wonderful experience.
• 6:46
  Philip Pape: And I also thought it was a great message that people could take home, and it just didn't stick like it would have if I had performed it to my best.
• 6:55
  Philip Pape: And just as I suspected, I didn't place in the final results.
• 7:00
  Philip Pape: And the other competitors were all amazing.
• 7:03
  Philip Pape: So even if I had given it my all, and I wish I did just to challenge them, I definitely still could have not even placed, depending on how the judges felt about our performances.
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: But regardless, what the most heartwarming thing was when multiple people came up after me, either to share a story of themselves or others who had gone through a similar experience, or to say, you know, you did a great job just thinking through it and persevering and then continuing your speech.
• 7:31
  Philip Pape: And the parts that I heard were so great.
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: I would have loved to hear the whole speech.
• 7:36
  Philip Pape: I know you would have changed the outcome of the contest potentially if you got through it.
• 7:41
  Philip Pape: I want to hear you next time, and I know you're gonna bring it.
• 7:44
  Philip Pape: And I got this same message from multiple people, and a thought struck me in that moment that I persisted till the time I'm recording this episode and why I wanted to get this out to you to inspire you if nothing else, in that if I, let's say best case, I got through the speech perfectly and no stumbles, no blanks.
• 8:03
  Philip Pape: And let's say I even came in third, second, or won the contest.
• 8:07
  Philip Pape: I would have been proud of myself.
• 8:08
  Philip Pape: It would have been exciting.
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: I would have been able to tell that to folks and then go on and represent the next level.
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: But that would be it, right?
• 8:15
  Philip Pape: I would basically take home a win, I'd move on, it would validate that what I've been doing was the right thing and a story.
• 8:23
  Philip Pape: Next level, what if I had blanked out for just a bit like I did at the beginning and then recovered and then finished the speech?
• 8:30
  Philip Pape: Well, I've done that quite a few times.
• 8:32
  Philip Pape: Even in the last year or two, I've done that in multiple speeches, or I'll just blank for a second, I'll recover, and I'll continue and all is well.
• 8:40
  Philip Pape: Again, I don't really take much of a lesson for that.
• 8:43
  Philip Pape: But what actually happened was the worst thing that I could imagine.
• 8:46
  Philip Pape: And that was just blanking out for so long that I almost couldn't recover.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: And you could argue that if I just blanked out completely and never recovered, that that would be the worst thing.
• 8:55
  Philip Pape: But it's pretty darn close.
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: And by doing that, what it did to my brain was tell me that, no man, this really could still happen.
• 9:05
  Philip Pape: And therefore, there's something else that is an opportunity for you to learn and grow.
• 9:11
  Philip Pape: Meaning, no matter how good I think I am as a speaker, and I do have a lot of confidence and pride in my speaking abilities because I used to be such a mouse, an introvert, so scared of talking to people.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: And you guys listening to this podcast are like, what?
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: I don't believe it.
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: But I'm telling you, speaking is a skill.
• 9:28
  Philip Pape: If you feel you don't have it or you're not a natural, BS, you can develop this and become really good at it.
• 9:34
  Philip Pape: But I realized that there are some advanced elements of speaking that I really hadn't taken the effort to learn yet because I hadn't been challenged to do so.
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: And this abject failure, let's call it a failure.
• 9:45
  Philip Pape: You might call it a stumble, you might call it an opportunity.
• 9:48
  Philip Pape: Fine.
• 9:49
  Philip Pape: But I lost.
• 9:50
  Philip Pape: I lost that night on that stage in that moment.
• 9:53
  Philip Pape: I was very disappointed in myself.
• 9:55
  Philip Pape: And that's okay.
• 9:56
  Philip Pape: It's okay to feel that way.
• 9:57
  Philip Pape: The question is what you do about it.
• 9:59
  Philip Pape: And this is not to be some trite, every failure is a lesson, even though there's truth to that.
• 10:05
  Philip Pape: This is some of the biggest failures will push you past that point of a threshold that you wouldn't have gone otherwise.
• 10:12
  Philip Pape: And in this case, that threshold for me is wow, I know that I can really forget my speech now.
• 10:19
  Philip Pape: And I need to figure out things like memory palaces or better ways to practice so that I'm not so beholden to specific phrases or words in my speeches, or different ways to rehearse, or having a backup joke in case I blank out again, so I can recover and add lib a bit instead of just being silent.
• 10:39
  Philip Pape: Like there's a lot of these ideas going through my head already after one day.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: So imagine what I can come up with if I apply myself in this process going forward.
• 10:48
  Philip Pape: So now I ask you, I ask you, what is one thing that you are struggling with or failing with or have had a big failure with recently?
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: And given that this is a health and fitness podcast, maybe we can focus on your nutrition, on your fitness, on your health, but it could be anything in your life, to be honest.
• 11:07
  Philip Pape: And somewhere where you keep spinning your wheels or you keep experiencing these setbacks, there's an opportunity there.
• 11:14
  Philip Pape: And so what I want to focus on is how can you reflect on that experience, analyze it, and then learn from it to do what I plan to do from my experience, which is take action to make sure it never happens again, or at least, and this is the important part, knowing that that situation can happen, my brain might just lock up.
• 11:35
  Philip Pape: What is my plan B, C and D?
• 11:37
  Philip Pape: What is my backup plan?
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: And this could apply to nutrition, where let's say you always struggle with a binge episode or emotional eating when something happens like a trigger.
• 11:49
  Philip Pape: It could be that you're bored, it could be another person in your life who just pushes your buttons.
• 11:56
  Philip Pape: It could be when you fail at something else and all of a sudden you're feeling depressed or down or anxious, anxiety.
• 12:03
  Philip Pape: And all of these things then would lead you to making a decision you wouldn't normally make when you're cool, calm, and collected.
• 12:11
  Philip Pape: Hey, this is Philip, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits and Weights.
• 12:15
  Philip Pape: If you're looking to connect with like-minded listeners on their health and fitness journeys, come join our free Facebook community.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: It's a supportive space where you can share your experiences, ask questions, and access free guides and weekly trainings.
• 12:28
  Philip Pape: Just search for Wits and Weights on Facebook or find the link in the show notes.
• 12:32
  Philip Pape: Now back to the show.
• 12:34
  Philip Pape: So what I want you to do is think about that.
• 12:36
  Philip Pape: Think about that experience.
• 12:38
  Philip Pape: That we'll call it a failure, we'll call it a struggle, whatever you want to do.
• 12:41
  Philip Pape: And here's what I want you to do.
• 12:42
  Philip Pape: I want you to sit down with a piece of paper or do it on your computer, on your phone, whatever, take some dedicated time to reflect on this.
• 12:51
  Philip Pape: Okay, it's great to have a regular time to do this, but right now with this episode, I want you to take a journal, notebook, digital document, whatever, find a quiet, comfortable space where you can think without distractions.
• 13:04
  Philip Pape: And I want you to write down what happened.
• 13:06
  Philip Pape: I want you to write down when it happened, when did you notice this?
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: And if it happened more than once, make a note of that.
• 13:14
  Philip Pape: I want you to ask yourself what emotions or thoughts are associated with these?
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: How do they make you feel?
• 13:20
  Philip Pape: How do they make you feel?
• 13:22
  Philip Pape: And how did they feel in the moment?
• 13:24
  Philip Pape: Because I'll tell you what, I felt a certain way when it happened to me on Saturday night.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: I felt very disappointed, I felt frustrated, but I also saw it as an opportunity.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: And then that night I had some trouble sleeping because my brain would constantly take me to a what-if scenario.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: Oh, what if I had done this during the speech?
• 13:39
  Philip Pape: What if I had done this?
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: What if I had done this?
• 13:41
  Philip Pape: And on one hand, this could be unhealthy if it's an ongoing thing and you're doubting yourself and you're not letting that resolve itself.
• 13:48
  Philip Pape: But on the other hand, those thoughts gave me ideas of what if I had done that?
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: Well, that means what if it happens again?
• 13:57
  Philip Pape: This is the thing I could potentially do.
• 13:59
  Philip Pape: Okay, so document the emotions and thoughts associated with the struggles.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: Now, here's the next really important question.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: What are the possible reasons behind it?
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: What caused it?
• 14:11
  Philip Pape: And this might be a multiple chain of events.
• 14:14
  Philip Pape: This might be something that immediately caused it.
• 14:16
  Philip Pape: Like let's say you binge ate a bunch of candy sitting on the counter, and you did that because you just had a fight with your roommate.
• 14:27
  Philip Pape: Okay, that was the emotional trigger.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: But there are other reasons you were able to eat that candy.
• 14:33
  Philip Pape: One of those reasons is that the candy was even in the house, or that it was sitting out where you could see it, or that you have a troubling relationship with your roommate.
• 14:42
  Philip Pape: So there are multiple reasons behind these.
• 14:44
  Philip Pape: And then one more question.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: What has changed in your life?
• 14:48
  Philip Pape: What has changed in your circumstances that could have contributed to these struggles?
• 14:53
  Philip Pape: Maybe they didn't exist before and they exist now.
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: And it could be very simple.
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: It could be that you went to the gym and you failed your reps on your squat.
• 15:01
  Philip Pape: You normally get them, you've been getting stronger and stronger, you're eating, you're sleeping, you're recovering, and you failed this time.
• 15:06
  Philip Pape: What changed?
• 15:07
  Philip Pape: Oh, maybe you went at 6 a.m.
• 15:09
  Philip Pape: instead of 8 p.m.
• 15:11
  Philip Pape: Maybe you didn't get as much sleep the night before.
• 15:14
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're dealing with a lot of stress right now.
• 15:16
  Philip Pape: Maybe you didn't eat a very big dinner.
• 15:19
  Philip Pape: Looking at those changes can give you a clue as to what changes you can then put in place later to avoid the struggle.
• 15:27
  Philip Pape: And then related to that, I want you to look for patterns, recurring themes, patterns that help you uncover the root cause.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: So if you have multiple struggles that are going on, even if they seem unrelated, there could be patterns that all tie back to why you're having these struggles.
• 15:43
  Philip Pape: So this is a good starting point.
• 15:44
  Philip Pape: Then I want you to be honest with yourself.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: I want you to acknowledge that you have these weaknesses, you have these areas for improvement.
• 15:50
  Philip Pape: There's no judgment.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: It's just you reflecting that this is where you are.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: Everyone struggles with things.
• 15:56
  Philip Pape: Everyone struggles with tons of things every day in their life.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: This is just a fact.
• 15:59
  Philip Pape: It's okay to admit it.
• 16:00
  Philip Pape: And what we're trying to do is become aware of it.
• 16:03
  Philip Pape: And now the magic happens.
• 16:04
  Philip Pape: How can you learn from that and help you grow mentally, physically, emotionally?
• 16:11
  Philip Pape: And by how I mean what are the skills you need to obtain?
• 16:14
  Philip Pape: What is the knowledge that you need?
• 16:16
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we dismiss knowledge.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: We assume that people know what to do.
• 16:20
  Philip Pape: Or we assume you could just go to Google or ChatGPT and ask the question and get the answer, and now you're good to go.
• 16:26
  Philip Pape: But sometimes we don't even have that knowledge.
• 16:28
  Philip Pape: So how can you get the knowledge?
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: Is it a podcast, a person that you need to reach out to, a coach, a book, a training course?
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: And then ask other people.
• 16:37
  Philip Pape: Post something online, be vulnerable.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: That's what I did on Sunday, actually the day I'm recording this.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: I put a post on my personal Facebook page that said, look, this thing happened, right?
• 16:47
  Philip Pape: I was disappointed.
• 16:49
  Philip Pape: I didn't perform my best.
• 16:50
  Philip Pape: But I'm going to take that as fuel for the future.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: I'm going to learn from that and I'm going to make sure that I compete again because that's the only way I can test my growth the next time.
• 16:59
  Philip Pape: I'm going to take action now in the moment, decide what I need to learn to be better next time.
• 17:04
  Philip Pape: And throughout this whole process, because we are often our worst critics, I want us to also be our best friends, treating ourselves with kindness and understanding.
• 17:14
  Philip Pape: To me, this is not an aggressive go-after process of growth.
• 17:18
  Philip Pape: This is a combination of empathy, self-compassion, reflection, opportunity, and ambition all rolled into one.
• 17:27
  Philip Pape: So have compassion with yourself, lean on your support network, your friends, your family members, a mentor, a coach, and get their insights.
• 17:36
  Philip Pape: This is why I told you a little bit earlier to maybe post it for the public to see, to kind of hold yourself accountable, where people can give you a different perspective.
• 17:44
  Philip Pape: They might chime in and say, Wow, I'm really impressed how you handled that.
• 17:49
  Philip Pape: What I noticed was XYZ.
• 17:51
  Philip Pape: And it might give you a different angle to come from.
• 17:53
  Philip Pape: Oh, that's what you saw on that?
• 17:55
  Philip Pape: Well, now that's another avenue to pursue for change.
• 17:58
  Philip Pape: Once you've done all of this, you're ready to take that into a plan for improvement where you're going to identify your steps based on the skills you need, how to get them, when you're going to do them, a plan to practice, to learn and practice them.
• 18:14
  Philip Pape: And then how are you going to put these to the test next time?
• 18:17
  Philip Pape: So whatever your struggle was, whether it was your squats in the gym, a binge eating episode, maybe it was you went to a restaurant and couldn't quite handle eating what you needed to eat to stay on plan.
• 18:29
  Philip Pape: And then if it's the type of thing where it makes sense for you to go and test yourself again, maybe it's your three sets of squats in the gym.
• 18:36
  Philip Pape: Like my, like for me, it was the speech another speech contest that I'm going to do.
• 18:40
  Philip Pape: If that makes sense, maybe it's going to a restaurant next weekend and now practicing those skills for planning out your eating guidelines or whatever strategy you decided to use, go do that.
• 18:51
  Philip Pape: Now I'm not saying every situation you want to force upon yourself.
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: In some cases, it's, hey, you hope this doesn't happen.
• 18:57
  Philip Pape: But if it does, you are now ready for it.
• 19:01
  Philip Pape: So by following all of these tips, you can reflect on what happened, gain information and insights, because remember, anything that happens in your life, any emotion that you feel is information.
• 19:13
  Philip Pape: And that information thus informs your mental growth and your physical, emotional, and mental development.
• 19:21
  Philip Pape: And I'll leave you with one more thought, and that is from my friend and former client, Max, who replied to my post and he said, Man, you're doing the podcast and the speech thing and your father and all these things.
• 19:34
  Philip Pape: No wonder you're resilient.
• 19:36
  Philip Pape: And I thought, wow.
• 19:37
  Philip Pape: So what he's saying is that by pursuing all these things you challenge yourself with, yes, it gives you more opportunities to fail, but it also gives you more opportunities not only to succeed, but to learn from those failures.
• 19:52
  Philip Pape: So what is the worst thing that can happen?
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: The worst thing that can happen is things go really badly and you learn more than you thought possible.
• 20:00
  Philip Pape: And here's the thing if you're not sure where to get started, if you want somebody to brainstorm this with you, to talk about a challenge you're having right now related to your health and fitness, please reach out to me for a free call.
• 20:13
  Philip Pape: I do these all the time.
• 20:14
  Philip Pape: This is a 30-minute call.
• 20:16
  Philip Pape: I do not sell, I do not mention pricing.
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: Very much like this podcast and our Facebook community.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: It's providing, it's about providing as much value as possible and then pushing that knowledge, awareness, and impact out into the world so that we all can develop that physical self-mastery.
• 20:34
  Philip Pape: Just use my link in the show notes.
• 20:36
  Philip Pape: Look for the link to book a free call.
• 20:38
  Philip Pape: Go ahead and do it.
• 20:39
  Philip Pape: We'll get on the live video.
• 20:42
  Philip Pape: I'll ask you where you are, where you want to be, how we can best use the time in our session to get you unstuck and moving forward.
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: And that's what we'll do.
• 20:52
  Philip Pape: So again, use the link in my show notes for that.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: And make sure to follow the show and catch tomorrow's next official numbered episode, number 69, with Adrian Moreno, where we talk about tapping into your deepest emotions and telling your power story to unlock your potential, whether it's in fitness, in health, in business, or in life.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: As always, stay strong, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 21:21
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights.
• 21:25
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them.
• 21:34
  Philip Pape: And make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 21:39
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.