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Lessons - The Gym Isn't About Your Body (Scott) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lesson's episode, we're going to talk about what you're really training at the gym.
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  It's 6am, you don't want to go, but you go anyway.
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  And that moment trains everything else in your life.
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  If you can't make yourself work out when nobody's watching,
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  you can't make yourself do anything hard when it's just optional.
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  I'll reveal why the gym is just practice for forcing yourself to do difficult things,
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  and what it means if you keep quitting.
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  Going to the gym isn't about your body.
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  I want to talk about the six seconds between, I don't want to go,
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  and I'm doing it anyways, and why in those six seconds is where everything in your life is built.
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  This morning, woke up around 6am, I didn't want to go to the gym.
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  My body was sore from Tuesday, I slept like shit, I have back-to-back calls starting this morning
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  at 9am, I could skip today, I could go tomorrow, nobody's going to know, right?
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  But I'm sitting on the edge of my bed having this entire negotiation with myself.
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  I'm finding all these reasons why I don't have to go, I'm justifying, I'm bargaining with myself,
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  and then I just put my shoes on, and it's not because I suddenly felt motivated,
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  because I know what happens if I don't go to the gym.
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  It isn't about the workout, it's never been about the workout.
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  It's about the six seconds between, I don't want to, and I'm doing it anyway,
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  and that gap is where everything in my life is built.
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  See, when you take action in that gap in those six seconds,
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  this is the part that nobody talks about, this is the part before you even get to the gym.
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  This is the part where your brain is running every possible excuse,
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  where your body is telling you and needs to rest,
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  where the couch is right there and the bed is so comfortable,
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  and you could just go tomorrow instead.
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  That moment is the entire point, because that exact moment shows up everywhere in your life,
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  when you need to send that difficult email, when you need to work on the project that requires
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  three hours of deep thinking, when you need to have the conversation you've been avoiding,
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  when you need to do literally anything hard that doesn't have someone standing over you making
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  you do it. Same moment, same negotiation, same voice saying not today, tomorrow, next week,
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  when I feel ready, see, most people lose that negotiation, and then they cave,
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  and then they do the easier thing, and then they wonder why they can't build anything
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  that takes sustained effort over time. See, the gym shows you this pattern three times a week.
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  It shows you whether you're the kind of person who folds when things are hard,
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  or the kind who does it anyways. And here's the thing, you can lie to yourself about everything
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  else, about why your business isn't growing, about why the relationship isn't working,
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  about why you're not making progress, but the beautiful thing about the gym is that it doesn't let
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  you lie, either you went or you didn't. You can't, you can't cloud it in ambiguity, right?
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  You know, a relationship, maybe you can say, well, what didn't work out over the past?
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  Three, four, five, six, ten, twenty years, right? Gym, you go or you don't. It's very binary,
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  but the decision that you make shows how you approach all hard things in life. I love the gym,
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  it's a binary option, but it's also a binary result that compounds and life is made up of
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  binary options, which you pretend are not binary, which also compound either four or against
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  the end result, your relationship, your business, et cetera, et cetera. Let me tell you another story.
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  I know somebody personally is a good friend who built a company to $50 million in revenue. He raised
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  money from Tier 1 VCs. He built a team of about 200 people. He closes deals that would make most
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  people's hands shake because there's so much pressure riding on what he's doing. There's so
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  much at stake, but he can't work out for more than two weeks straight. Starts every few months,
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  goes hard for a week, then life gets busy, then he misses one day, then three, then he's not going
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  at all. And he says, like, you know, I'll get back to it once this quarter is done. Next quarter,
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  same patterns. He thinks it's about time, he thinks it's about the priorities, about the business
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  needing him, but you can start to see his attitude towards the gym shows up in other parts of his life.
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  So I've noticed that he can't have difficult conversations with his co-founder. He avoids them
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  until they blow up, and then he's forced to deal with them. He also has a hard time working on
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  long-term strategy. Very successful guy, but he's very reactive. He puts out fires,
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  he responds to urgent things. He never carves out time for what truly matters. He also has a hard
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  time making decisions that might upset people. So he delays, he waits, he hopes the decision will
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  make itself. And if you take a look, there's a pattern here, right? He can do hard things when
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  someone's watching, when there's external pressure, when the circumstances force him, but when it's
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  optional, when it depends entirely on him showing up for himself, he can't. See, the gym reveals
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  this immediately because there's no one checking. No one cares if you skip. It's just you and the
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  commitment you made. And if you can't hold that commitment when it's just you, you're not holding
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  it anywhere else either. See, I've been working out pretty consistently for about 15 years.
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  Most days I don't want to go. I'm not some freak who loves the gym. I'd rather be doing almost
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  anything else, but I go anyways. And over time, something changes. And it's not just my body. Yes,
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  that does change over time when you go to the gym, but it's really my tolerance for discomfort.
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  See, the first year every workout was a fight. I had to force myself every time it was exhausting.
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  Now, by year three, the fight got easier, not because I wanted to go more, but because I stopped
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  negotiating with myself. The answer was already decided. And by year five, I started to notice it
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  everywhere else. See, when I had to publish something that I was scared to publish, there was no
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  negotiation. I just did it. Same muscle. When I had to fire someone, there was no delay. I just
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  had the conversation. Same muscle. When I had to work on something boring, but important,
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  just sat down and did it. Exact same muscle. And again, it is not because I am naturally disciplined.
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  It's because I spent five years will now fast forward 15 years training the exact skill that
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  those moments require, doing the hard things when you don't want to. David Goggins calls his
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  callissing your mind. The more you do hard things when you don't want to, the thicker the calliss
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  gets. The less discomfort bothers you. That's not a gym thing. That's a life thing. The gym just
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  gives you a low stakes environment to build it. See, the reason why most people quit the gym is
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  because they don't see physical results fast enough. They go for six weeks. Scale doesn't move
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  much. The mirror looks the same. They get discouraged so they stop. But they were measuring the wrong
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  thing. See, the results aren't physical, especially in the short term. They're psychological. See,
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  after six weeks of going when you don't want to go, you have proven to yourself 18 times you can
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  do hard things. That's the result. That's what you've built. But you can't see it in a mirror.
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  So you think nothing happened. But then three months later, you need to do something hard in your
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  business or your relationship or your creative work and you fold because you never continued and
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  you never really built the capacity not to fold. See, the gym would have built that, but you quit
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  before it did. Now, what this actually costs you is if you can't make yourself go to the gym for
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  45 minutes, three times a week, you have to ask yourself, what are you actually capable of
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  sustaining? Because building a business takes years of doing hard things when progress is slow
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  and nobody's watching. Mastering a craft takes thousands of hours of practice when you're not
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  getting better just yet. Writing a book takes six to 12 months of showing up to a blank page when
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  you don't know what to write. Building a meaningful relationship takes years of having hard conversations
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  when it would be easier to avoid them. All of these require the exact same skill. Doing the thing
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  when you don't feel like it. See, if you can't do that for 45 minutes in your gym, you're not doing
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  it for three years in your business. Listen, if you only do hard things when circumstances force you
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  when people are watching, when you have no choice, yes, you can progress your life a little bit,
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  but you will never make it all the way. You will never build a true business. You will never have
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  a strong relationship only doing the hard things or the right things when people are watching.
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  To build a good life, you have to do things that actually matter. You have to take the actions that
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  will actually move the needle and those actions, those things are the things that you choose to do
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  when you could easily not do them. And if you can't choose to do the gym, you are not choosing
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  to do the hard thing anywhere else either. So what I want you to do, to build the muscle, to develop
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  the skill of doing hard things, to develop your mental calluses. Go to the gym three times a week,
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  same days, same time, not because you need to lose weight, not because you want abs, not because
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  someone told you it's healthy. Go because you need to build the capacity to do hard things when you
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  don't want to. The workout doesn't matter. Lift weights, run, swim, whatever. The specific activity
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  is irrelevant. What matters is that the moment before you go, the moment when you don't want to,
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  but you do it anyway, that moment is the entire point. That's what you're training. And if you do
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  it enough times, you become the kind of person who doesn't fold when things get hard. If you skip it
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  enough times, you become the kind of person who only does things when they're easy or when someone's
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  making you. The gym shows you which one you are and it gives you the chance to change it. Everything
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  else in your life is dependent on what you choose in that moment.