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How To Endure Hard Things (Part 2) · Total Barnage

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Total Barnage.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode with me and Guy Kennedy.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hello guys.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today we're going to be picking up where we left off a few weeks back.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a little part two.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Part two of an episode.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why don't you give a bit of a synopsis of what we discussed in the previous episode?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't watched that one, maybe go back and watch it before listening to this one today.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it would give a little bit of background on kind of what we're going to lean into today.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the episode in question is how to endure hard things part one.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll probably be a couple of weeks back, 10 episodes or so back.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it was pretty much talking about the benefit of doing difficult things in life and my kind of uh the way that I go about things a lot of the time, which is the the theory of having multiple selves and um so yeah, me having multiple multiple selves in an orderly way rather than a multiple multiple personality disorder way, and pretty much having a good relationship between um the different emotions that we experience.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So talked about on a Tuesday, you might be flying high and you might be, you know, you have the best ideas in the world, you've really got the the kind of the wind behind you, um, and you've got all of these aspirations, you set all these goals.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: But when Friday comes around and you're tempted by that kind of pint in the pub, glass of wine, late night, whatever, um, all of your Tuesday self-aspirations go out of the window.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's trying to like have that consistent thread of you know keeping your best self in mind.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And ultimately what it is is that the endurance comes from either endurance in a session and weighing up, you know, is this really worth it?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the brain having that cost-benefit analysis and basically saying, like, you know, is the is the juice worth the squeeze?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is it worth me pushing through for something on the other side and to go through discomfort now and delay that gratification to then have it um further on down the line?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and yeah, today we're gonna go into more of the kind of brain structures, um, a couple of parts of the brain that allow this, how we can train it and how we can get better at doing difficult things.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think another point to kind of get into on that is is like how hard do you want your life to be and where is the destination?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as everyone's goals is very, very different.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it it it it's that's part of it, right?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like how much suffering do you need to endure in order to get to the location you want to be at?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, not everyone's training to be a professional sportsman, so therefore they don't have to train quite as hard for that.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of levels to it, but each time you make that leap, the intensity of the work or effort you have to put in increases, um, but you become used to that, and it's very easy to come become a little bit more complacent once you get to that next level.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that might be with fitness, it might be with um how you are with your relationships, with your work, your income, etc.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So there are certain jumps you need to make in life, but it's also understanding like when is enough.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, how how strong do you actually want to be?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be a power lifter?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: How fast do you want to be?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be a runner?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you just want to be strong and fit?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's always uh a good practice to do is understanding where that destination is and understanding how many of those jumps in in effort, knowledge, um, time spent that there needs to be in order to kind of get there, and then understanding when you do get complacent, um, because it it happens to everyone.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, okay, this is pretty good.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is good.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I could stay here, but maybe there's a part of your brain that wants more, and that requires leaning in to the suffering a little bit.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and I think there's there's always going to be some form of like involuntary suffering.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's always going to be some, you know, so many variables in life that um that might hit you like a like a truck, and you didn't even uh you didn't even choose them, right?
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: You've got things that you didn't even volunteer up for.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're not, you know, like at the weekend being at the London Marathon and supporting there, you've got people there that have signed up for the marathon and they are voluntarily going through doing those hard things.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: But also, you know, you've got 59,000 people that entered there, many more supporting, and so many have got such amazing stories, and most have come from involuntary suffering.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's something to do with their you know, they're uh raising money for a charity which is um a cause that's close to their heart because of a family member or a friend, um, physical health or mental health or you know, any any other sort of like cause and um an experience in life.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it is that the the the kind of the value in doing those difficult things and doing something for a cause greater than yourself, um, and for so many of those people, like the joy, like the pain that they go through even in the race, and obviously it doesn't even um count and acknowledge the amount of training led up to that point, but just in the race, like the amount of suffering they have to go through, then at then at the end they're overcome with immense joy and pride and like satisfaction.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so it's yeah, it's it's it's kind of you know what what kind of life do you want to do you want to have?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and having looked through your life and saying, well, you know, actually there are a lot of the constants, and it's very likely that you're gonna go through a lot of difficult things.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: How can you be best placed to meet them when they do come about um so that you can not only meet them and just get through them, like sometimes we just need to get through things, but also like thrive through these situations, kind of make the most of them and to enjoy um enjoy the difficulty them as as well.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it comes from an understanding of doing the hard things will make you better, and and people shy away from the hard things because they just look at them as being hard.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then that takes a bit of a paradigm shift to get you know, we we see it all the time with people coming into the gym that oh it's difficult.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't I can't do that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, you can do that, and if you do it, you're gonna be better next week or the or next month, and it's people want immediate gratification for the the the work they put in.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I think fitness is such a great base for an understanding of no progress takes time.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see relatively quick results with with fitness, um, but still um just means it requires a little bit more intensity in the training and a bit more focus on the diet and recovery.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's all kind of to do with how much how well you allocate your time and and how much effort you're willing to put into that task.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need to be fitness related, it could be anything.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that kind of brings me on to something I didn't get to discuss last time, which is the reticular activating system.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was brought to my attention in about 2020.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading a book on why we sleep.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, Matthew Walker.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then it was followed up with a course I did on on kind of like getting the most out of yourself by this bloke called Dean Graziosi.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um essentially what it is is it's like a network of nerves and neurons in your brainstem, and what it does is uh it's a filtration system for you to identify what is important and what is not important to you.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are in a negative mindset, let's say you're going through a spell of depression and life's got pretty tough, your reticular activating system will most likely pick up on the negatives in life.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: You will look around and you'll see all the bad that exists in the world.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are in a much more positive mindset, you are gonna pick up on the happy things in life.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You might be walking down the street, one of you is depressed, and they see a homeless man and think, oh, how sad, and the other person looks and they see an old couple holding hands, walking down the street, you know, having a successful relationship into later in life.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: You both just pick on pick up on to two different things.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's not also just to do with positive and negative mindsets, and uh, and another great example of this would be if you got a new Garmin watch and then you go out in public, and then all of a sudden you see everyone else wearing this new Garmin watch, and you think, God, I thought it was the fanciest model, but everyone seems to have it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or you buy a new car and you've got a shiny red Tesla, and then you drive it out, and then all of a sudden you see shiny red Teslas all the time.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so what what does this mean for you know being the best version yourself, being motivated, leaning into the hard things?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you have a goal that you want to focus on, and that that's gonna be it might be running a marathon or you know losing body fat or you know, building a business, whatever it might be.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your reticular activating system is then going to pick up on opportunities within that because that is the primary focus of your mind.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it will start to filter out stuff that doesn't matter.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for instance, you're training for a marathon and your mate mentions they're going out this weekend and it's gonna be really fun.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, you're not gonna really question that.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You think that's just something I'm not gonna do at the moment because I'm prioritizing my marathon training, and then you see a couple hours free up in your work schedule, you immediately think at that time block, oh, I could get a run-in then.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas before, your ridiculous activating system thinks, oh, maybe I could have a longer lunch or I could go and do something else.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's what it's constantly identifying opportunities for you to get better, and you can't the only way you can train it is by focusing on your goal, and this is where momentum comes from, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're focused in on the thing that you want to achieve, and then your brain will start to identify opportunities around that are gonna lead to greater success within that goal, and then momentum starts to build, you have a slightly more positive mindset, but it also can work to the counter, as I mentioned before, if you're you know having a really tough time and bad things have happened in your life, you're gonna hone in on the negative.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there needs to be kind of shifts in mindset.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um it can also kind of display itself, you know, in training.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: We we've spoken about it before.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: When when training gets hard, but the goal is strong enough, you kind of think good.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's supposed to be difficult on this journey, um, and that's something your reticular activating system will kind of pick up on.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you you you see the difficult as a positive because you understand it's a necessary step in the process to get to where you want to be.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um you hadn't heard of the reticular activating system or I hadn't heard of it specifically, but a lot of the stuff that kind of you've you've mentioned there, um this the biases that it plays upon, I'm more kind of familiar with.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you're if you're looking for positive things, you'll see more positive things.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're if you've got a belief, you'll probably end up trying to confirm it, um, having that kind of confirmation bias.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the frequency bias of like you go out and you buy a new car, and then you realize that everyone's got that car.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: You see one yellow mini, and then you're like, oh my goodness, there's loads.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like you weren't, you just weren't paying attention before.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one other thing that comes up in my mind with the filtering system, because I think it's so important, like now more than ever, ever, is it's not even day-to-day, like in the real world, that you're filtering like opportunities, it's also filtering out the fluff that you see online.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think you know, going into you know we've done a lot of episodes on like let's say fad diets or fitness hacks or or things that can distract you or give you that sense of novelty.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but really it's trying to filter the signal from the noise, like the things that are actually important, like the principles that we might follow, with just saying, like, right, you just want to have a good, healthy, balanced diet, you want to train a few times a week, you want to get some half decent sleep, and you don't want to undo all of your progress at the weekend, let's say.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's like the signal.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's the super simple stuff, which is probably you know harder to do in practice, but can be complicated by um, you know, a lot of information you see online about the best workout.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: It might be the standards that an influencer might set, it might be the comparison that you'd have seeing that someone else had run the marathon at the weekend and that you want to go and do that, but it's gonna take away from your goal, you know, might get you sidetracked or like distracted.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, it is yeah, that that filtering system is so, so important because if you are spending all of your energy focusing on things that are unnecessary, are things that are just noise and can also get you frustrated.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it could be other stuff that you're gonna get worked up about that really doesn't contribute to your goal, then you're gonna have less energy for the stuff that you actually is actually gonna move the needle.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when it does come to doing you know difficult things or doing stuff for um for your goal, is you've wasted all of your energy on the noise, or you've wasted all of your all your energy focusing on the negatives of things and choosing to focus on the negatives, and you end up when when you get to the gym and you need to do the stuff that you need to do, you've got no more energy because you wasted it on something else.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that was, you know, like for me that that shift, I think it's really it's in a it's a really tough shift to make, the believing in the positive side of things.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like the switch to make from the negative to the positive, for me in my life was probably the toughest thing I've ever done, but also the most rewarding, um, and is the thing that's completely changed the direction of my life like a good few years back.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think it's more it's more than just trying to think positively, it's the identity that comes along with it, and you have to give up a previous self of you which uh had seen things in a negative way, or you may have got a habit of complaining um or trying to make excuses that were that seemed like you were, you know, kind of uh just that it was just a justified like experience, um, where it was actually an excuse that to make sure that you weren't gonna do what you're gonna do.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you have to give up quite a lot of yourself to get out of the negative headspace.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh especially if in an environment if you're around other people that are naturally kind of negative, it's pretty convincing and persuading that like it's not being negative, it's just how things are.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not being a pessimist, it's just being a realist.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where really it really depends.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like a Tony Robbins thing, is like you live the life that you focus on, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: You have people uh like you say, you know, going down the street and focusing on different things, but even someone that's focusing on or has the same experience, like sitting in traffic, um, instead of thinking, oh, this you know, this traffic's really frustrating, and it's I'm gonna be, you know, it's gonna take me five minutes longer to get to my destination, or half an hour longer, it's oh actually, I there was a you know, a an album or a podcast or something that I wanted to listen to, or oh, I wanted to call my friend and speak to my friends more, and now this has given me the opportunity to actually call them up and have a little chat, even like that brief amount of time.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's even in those exact same situations, like, yeah, if you can you know use the reticular activated system and look for opportunities, then it builds momentum because the more the more positive you see, the more you realise there are positives in the world.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's uh spot on with that, Charlie.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh you know everyone has these voices in their heads um leading them down to temptation or maybe uh a voice leading them to success.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you you should probably work out this evening.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, stay in and have a have a bottle of beer.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um what people need to come to the realization is is these aren't just these aren't angels and demons, they're just versions of yourself.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: That they are just you, and there's one part of you that wants to achieve and strive for success, and there is a version of yourself that is very complacent and doesn't want to do anything and probably wants to self-sabotage.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um so having kind of that mentality shift where it's actually being aware of there's a part of me that doesn't want to do this, but there's also a part of me that does, and leaning into the positivity and and and going through with these hard things is a great mindset to have.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I you know since getting back from Mongolia and China and having the something to train towards, I always work best with a goal in mind.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very good at staying consistently fit.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just go to the gym, go on a few runs a week.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just part of my routine, I love it.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: But to really bump it up and get to that next level, and when I'm competing in comps and whatnot, it's it's very helpful to be signed up to a competition and adding adding time pressure there because I'm just aware that I work best with with that, with that end set date, and like okay, this date we are I'm gonna do this, or we as a collective are gonna do that.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I don't think enough people ha they let's say if your your goal is just to lose some weight, the biggest mistake people make is they don't add any time pressure to it.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and or how much weight or or I just think what that weight even means.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it it may maybe they don't really understand the importance of it.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I'll do it at some point, you know, I'll do it throughout the year.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It will just naturally come off.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But but then you don't have a goal.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like okay, you you lost four pounds, but how much are we trying to lose?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like great, but it took you six months to do that.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you happy?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um adding time pressures really, really helps me and it you know uh helps most people, you know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean there's very few people that don't deal well with that.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and if they don't, they're a bit soft.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um no, it's a g it's a good it's a good motivator though, like in terms of actual like brain waves.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I am I'm no obviously we are no no neuroscientists by any shot, but we kind of read about and understand and map it onto our experience.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the the kind of frequency of your brain waves, when there's a uh like a deadline, um you shift from kind of the like slower alpha waves into the faster like beta waves.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing that gets you like when there's a deadline, you're then gonna be more focused, you're not gonna procrastinate as much because you know you need to hand a you know a uni essay in by like 10 pm or midday or whatever, and and you get up and you need to get it done.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think you know we have yeah, soft deadlines and stuff for it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is as soon as you have soft deadlines or soft boundaries, someone else is going to set those boundaries or those deadlines for you.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, it's always gonna be taken over by someone else's needs, like and you've got to put yourself first if you really want to get after something and and do it, it's being like practicing the muscle of saying no to other things.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: It is you know looking at your schedule and prioritizing it because you know if you don't make it a priority, then you're not gonna um it's not gonna have that importance like on the day.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, something like I say, something else is gonna take its place.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the more mini deadlines you can have, I've kind of noticed it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Mine's I always look on my training and kind of see like what is what is it that means that I can stay consistent.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And one of it is you know dedication to just the process of things and that I enjoy it and I see value in it, but it's also that every single week I have specific days that I'll have sessions, I'll have certain days where I need to have easy days, and I have other days where I need to do my rehab, and like it might have rained, it's ranged from eight hours of rehab a week down to maybe now we're doing like five or six hours a week.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I can't like miss two weeks and then fill it all in on the third week.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like every single week they need to have like every two days I need to do a session.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I need to have back-to-back sessions and things.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So there's there's deadlines that I know that I'm not going to be able to chase and make up for later, which means that the urgency then brings it to today.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it is just focusing on like what you can do today, tick it off, do it, build some momentum, um, and make sure that that is non-negotiable.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, if you make a deal with yourself that um you can't catch up on exercises later in the week, you know, you have to get it done within a you know the first three days, you have to get two sessions in or one session in.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you park that and then you can kind of move on, move on from it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it creates that sense of urgency that means it's you know it's easier to do because you're not you're not just gonna be, you know, uh kind of the the the victim and the prisoner of just like procrastination.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean we we we're designing a a big plan at the moment which is quite weird and which it stretches over 10 to 15 years.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that you just gotta f focus on the weeks and the days as they come and and the process behind that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know I've never looked at a plan that grand in scale, and it's quite difficult to wrap your head round, but it's it's always breaking it down into those kind of like bite-sized chunks.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think going kind of like back into momentum because momentum really breeds success.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um in for me, a lot of people kind of get confused to what momentum actually is and how it comes about.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that you know you just see a result and then all of a sudden you've got all the momentum in the world, and that could just be le losing a kilo.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's really the compounding effect of making really good decisions on a daily basis.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So how how do you do this?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do you build momentum?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you have a daily to-do list, and every day you you you do it, right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You tick you tick off what needs to be done, drinking a certain amount of water, doing the work things, taking the kids to the park, whatever it might be, doing a workout.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Every single time you make the decision to tick something off that to-do list and get it complete, that's you proving to yourself that you do what you're setting out to do.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you leave stuff on the to-do list or you know, your training plan, nutrition plan, whatever it might be, and you tell yourself you're gonna do it that day, and you don't do it, it's telling your brain that it's okay not to do what you're telling yourself to do.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that kills momentum.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So momentum is created from the compounding effect of very good decisions and and that align with your goals, you know, going fitting that run-in, you know, eating the right food, saying no to drinking in the week, whatever it might be for the person.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and as soon as you can understand that and think, okay, well, if I can just tell myself to do three things each day and do that for three weeks, and then I bump it up to four things each day or whatever, then it all of a sudden you're gonna build a lot of momentum over time.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and that once you have that on your side, you're gonna be a fantastic version of yourself, someone who kind of fulfills all the promises you set out for yourself.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna try and earn£100,000 this year, or I'm gonna lose two stone.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, do it, work out the process, write the goals, tick them off, prove to yourself you can, and then you start to have a lot more confidence within yourself and have a level of certainty that if you actually set yourself a task to complete, you will do it.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that and and that's what kind of creates a version of yourself that can feel sometimes unstoppable because you just like bring it on.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even failures don't seem like failures because you kind of have a positive mindset and can take wins away and learn from those lessons.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um what are your views on momentum, Charlie?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think just as you're saying that, I think it's so it's so important just to keep keep the ball rolling and to get back on the horse or to get back on track if you have slipped off as quickly as possible.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think for you, you know, you mentioned like compounding and and really like momentum and building, you know, compounding habits and results, um, where they you know snowball in a positive way, uh, is massively important, but it's also invisible for a lot of the time.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's where the kind of delayed gratification, like the stickability and just you know persevering through the first, you know, let's say, you know, the first couple of weeks you've probably got motivation, you're probably up for it, you're inspired.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's you know, so I I reckon the amount of people that have come off if they are if they watch the marathon at at the weekend up in London, the amount of people that wanted to go for a run that evening or wanted to get back into running, like that source of inspiration is so readily available that you can just like click a button, use the juice that it gives you, and just go for a run.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um after a certain period of time, it might be a couple of days or a couple of weeks, that initial like impulse, that initial inspiration wears off, and then what are you kind of left with?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's when you know persevering and sticking to it and building momentum from that initial spark is you've really got to understand, like, you know, this is going to be kind of difficult and it is really important, and then from there it might take you know a bit of time then to see the results, to see more results than you expected.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of things is to do with our expectations, um and it might take a couple of months or a year, especially if it's like a psychological thing, how you see yourself and how you view things and a positive mindset.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: It might take a little bit longer, but each day tiny things change, and it's only like six months to a year later, you look back on it and you see yourself as a completely different person, or you kind of notice that there are certain things that didn't annoy you like they used to, um, or certain things where you would see a problem in it and now you see a solution, um, and you can deal with something that you know you can it have a better filtration system, right?
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can see what is important to you and what is just kind of fluff and noise.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think yeah, that you know, the keeping the momentum going, I think it's important it's a really good perspective on it because it doesn't mean that you the whole thing about like momentum is you just need to keep it going.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: You don't necessarily need to like go all guns blazing every single day, like it might just be a day where or a week where it's super super busy and you just do what you can, like you just contribute something each day or each week to your goals, um, and just trust that if you just keep everything like you do a little investment, a little contribution, and you keep it above zero in your investments, like that's what's going to allow it to like compound.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I mean you were out on a run today.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You got you got back out.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, since my my knee twizzle.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, gosh.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: For for those who don't tell the audience, it was it was the most atrocious thing.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I'd be you know, being away, abusing my body body in in China and Mongolia and drinking too much, eating too much, and not sleeping enough, having a fantastic time.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um come back, start first class I coached back was on a Wednesday a.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was about nine o'clock in the morning, and I got up from the floor and I twisted on my knee and it made the most awful pop and crunch.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And all the members in the class kind of looked over and were like, what was that?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that was my knee.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh not it's not painful though, just I felt things moving around in there, and it remained a bit swollen for uh a week and a bit.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Touching guy.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just it just and I I saw the physio, and he said it could be a tormeniscus, but also you could have just twisted on it funny, and it's and it's you've got a bit of inflammation there, it's fine.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and thankfully it is fine.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um also we're not allowed more than one person with knee issues in the workplace.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's bad vibes.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I told no, guy with a dodgy knee version of a self is not coming out right now.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, no, it just kind of I was ready to kind of get into the thick of training uh when I got back, and then it was like, okay, I can't do heavy squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, could get away with sled pushes for that that week.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but now this week is the first week I feel properly like, okay, I'm in it.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like past two weeks were just a bit like, yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then it's it's it's again kind of like focusing on what you you can do.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, I was doing a lot of upper body and eating a bit better and sleeping a bit better, you know.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's just getting the basic fundamentals right and going out on my run today.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: There was part of me which was like, ah, you know, I was running a four-minute pace for my intervals, and before I went away, I was running like a 320, 330 pace.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, we're a little bit slower, but I don't know.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where is it fitness or is it I'm not used to the suffering?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's something I quite like to kind of buy into.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of the time when you kind of get back into training, you make very quick progress very quickly, uh, especially like with heavy compound lifts like squats and deads.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the time it is your nervous system not like being prepared, but the strength and the fitness is there, and you're like, oh, actually, that felt hard, but there's more.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's why I'm big advocate of filming reps and and timing and tracking metrics, um, especially on the squat and the deadlift.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes I'll film a set, think, fuck you know, that sucked.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look at it back, oh, it's easy.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: My body's just being a worse.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's making it feel a lot more difficult than it actually is.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's an in there's an interesting kind of um difference then between like strength work.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: So what you what you're what you're talking about is like you'll you'll do a set, you will film it, you'll think about how much effort you know you put into it, your like your RPE rate of perceived exertion, and then you'll look back over the set, and you'll then see how the exertion looks from the outside, yeah.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you know, if if you then are looking at it and you're going, yeah, I wasn't really trying that hard, then you go and you it gives you the confidence to then push up a bit.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: What's interesting with let's say from an endurance perspective or like a running side of things, sometimes, and if you look at the main sprinters um in the world and you look at how easy you'll say, Oh, you know, even at the weekend you see Saway run like 159.30, right?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Broke broke the two-hour marathon.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: You look at him and you say, He looks so easy.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like he granted, he did say afterwards that he was probably could run like 158, and he's a bit of a beast, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he would he probably was, you know, feeling feeling all right, but there's a part of the the art of um kind of being relaxed and being in flow that makes it look easy when actually you're probably at your peak performance.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it depends, like for us, I think for strength lifts, that's probably really important, is you look at your form and you say, actually, yeah, I could probably go up a little bit more.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whereas if you are running, let's say, in a in a flow state over endurance or doing sprints, you are of benefit to look relaxed than have loads of let's say like tension and to look like you're trying 100%.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like it's better to be 95% than 100% for something like sprints because it makes you more efficient.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's an interesting thing to to to analyse it from that perspective and and distance yourself from any bias that you might have about how difficult the weight is, yeah, and to take yourself out of it in that moment.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's also uh uh what I was trying to get across there was being comfortable with the uncomfortable on a run when you first run back.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: It I'm not comfortable with that.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's never comfortable.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's just like it just hurts, and then you know, throw it back to just before going to Korea, and I was coming back from runs like that was amazing, and I was kind of enjoying the uncomfort because I felt better in it, or was it you know, if I whacked someone else in my body and they did the exact same thing and they're not a runner, would they feel the same way as I do?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I sometimes think that way, yeah, you know, because it's it's uncomfortable still, but there's a level of it where my mentality, I I kind of enjoyed it.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's an interesting point.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: That brings, I think uh it's worth highlighting then talking about discomfort and talking about um doing difficult things, is the other part of the brain that we also didn't get onto in the other episode, which is the anterior midsingular cortex.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the part of the brain, it but the research kind of came out as pretty popular once.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think David Goggins went on a couple podcasts and he did some testing with Andrew Huberman, and they had some looked at his like it looked at his brain, did some brain scans, and the AMCC is the part of the brain which is um basically useful for tenacity and like grip, perseverance, and the tenacity part of the brain basically says you know it's got a better value judgment of if something's worth it or not.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it is simply like you build your AMCC by doing difficult things, and as you build it and it works like a muscle in terms of training it, um, you get better at doing difficult things.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So David Goggins, the kind of you know, the superhero of doing like hard things, um, maybe too hard sometimes.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, inspiration.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm reading his book, like there's a certain part of it where I'm like, okay, I I need a need a bit of that.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um other parts I'm like, okay, maybe maybe not so much.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: But his his AMCC is absolutely bloody massive.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's trained things, and all he does is doing difficult things, and he says, you know, he won't do loads of podcasts because he'll say, you know, for the next four years I'm gonna go back into the mental lab and I'm gonna train it.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he was you can look look up David Goggins if you haven't heard of him.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, it's worth listening to a few of the stories that he tells, and it's yeah.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he also he understands himself so well because he knows when he's in the spotlight on these podcasts and doing interviews that people kind of worshipping him, like what you're amazing.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, No, I'm not.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I could be better.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Also broken, I was a broken man.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna take myself away and just just put myself through.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he did the Moab 240 recently and placed like I think fifth or sixth and he's 240-mile run, isn't that?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 240-mile run through the desert, yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he just had like a full knee construction and he's like in his mid-50s.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's got nothing left of his knee.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's you know, he puts my he puts my x-rays to heavy shape.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just just a bit of dust in the knee, I think, now.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, it's it's impressive.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think a lot of people look for him for inspiration, but the main point he's trying to get across is you don't need inspiration.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of this funny situation where like I want to get my like people will watch his videos and become motivated and they'll do it for two or three weeks and then forget about it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a few, quite a lot of success stories have come out from his teachings.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but more or less, it's like the main thing he preaches is you've got to do it on your own.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like you you are the only person who's gonna get up each day and do it.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, stop looking for help, help's not gonna come, get up, go to work.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I got resonate with a lot of that.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's it's probably more of a masculine angle on it, I I'd say.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's quite kind of ooh.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very lean in.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, lean into resistance, tough it out.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, his doesn't leave much room as much for compassion, maybe, as would be necessary.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um as you know, it goes beyond the point where it's it's healthy, but I do think in the at the start, like if you're someone that's not used to doing difficult things, the way is, and this is the way that you build this muscle in the anterior mid cingulate cortex, is you train it, and there is no other way to train it than to do difficult things.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they have you know growing research out now that you know indicates people that persevere in these tasks, um, like challenging situations, show better life outcomes in health, in academic achievement, and like career success.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yeah, it's it's just that every time you come to something which is tough, you have a better clarity in the moment of whether it's worth it or not, um, and if it's worth like sticking through.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, yeah, there's lots lots of research on things like grit, passion, and perseverance and like persistence, um, and this is basically the way the way to do it.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that there is one thing which is um which I took from Goggins, um, which really changed, kind of it very much changed the way that I trained, um, which is that if I didn't feel like doing something, let's say, you know, I had a good string of training where I would, as my unlock to go to the gym, I do three gym sessions a week a couple years back when I was running consistent 50-mile weeks throughout the throughout the winter.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, before I did anything in the gym, I had to do like 15 minutes of core.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: So go in there, I knew I need to do my core, I don't like doing it.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: If I wait to the end of the session, I'm likely going to do maybe two sets.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's either I probably will end up doing it, but it's just way too much energy.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I had to do it at the start, and I decided after reading his book that every time that I was demotivated and I didn't want to do my core, I had to do an extra set.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, once you notice and you have the awareness in the moment that okay, I don't want to do this, this has now become difficult.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes I might want to do it and it's not difficult, but some days it becomes difficult.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's that like negative affect, that emotion that I'm feeling that I'm like the the voices in my head will say, Oh, you know, you should rest, you've been training really well, you know, this is this is a day where you you've you've kind of earned it, just back off, you know, don't don't over-train.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um but then at the end of the day, it's doing core.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not really gonna overtrain doing core.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it's picking something which is like a safe environment to improve in.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: And once you notice that, first of all, get over the fact that like once you notice that you're demotivated, you've got to do it anyway.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the standard.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like just if you don't want to do it, you have to do it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's what it is, and then you can move on to every time you don't want to do it, as long as it's not gonna negatively impact your progress or risk injury or whatever, do more.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, it sounds like it sounds like a lot of uh sounds like a bit of whipping and lashing and uh I don't know, like punishment.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: But if you think about the training the brain in the same way that you train a muscle, that's the sort of good discomfort that you're gonna need.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think you just got you you have to endure a bit of punishment in order to toughen yourself up a little bit and not become soft and lazy and demotivated.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's the the hard reality of it, really.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to pursue being a better version of yourself, there's a lot of discomfort you're gonna have to put yourself through.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is it punishment or is it personal growth?
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I guess it's perspective.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Someone looking in at who doesn't do that, probably like, why are you punishing yourself?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, love yourself a bit more.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And like, well, no, that I'm actually loving myself by improving, and to improve, I have to work a little bit later tonight.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have to I have to go on this longer dog walk, I have to train at the gym at you know six in the morning, whatever whatever it might be, um you have to sacrifice in order to make it happen.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, it's it's people will always have their perspective, but as long as you think it is the right path for you to go down and then it's gonna lead you to where you want to be, it's a decision you have to make.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well very well said.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't actually have anything to add.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean what w you've got some times of of of people running on on your your your sheet of paper today.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah well this was this was the yeah the marathon at the weekend um yeah Sebastian Sarway 159.30 um it's incredible it's just incredible one of those runs you can't even begin to believe it in a way he dropped a I think it was a 412 I think I read this right mile 23 around then he ran four twelve for the mile it's a downhill stretch he ran his 35 to 40 kilometre stretch that 5k he ran 1342 for that 5k and he averaged 250 per K across the whole marathon like it's freakish yeah and I think the unsung hero I mean in the women's race as well they got a women's only world record um and you know yeah uh it was yeah Asifer Asepha 215 just beastly I saw him run past at Mar22 it was her and then it was Helena Beery who I know uh from the like from watching her on the track loads and uh yeah she just broke her in the end and just pulled away from her Beery and it's just yeah that's that's electric and you see other people coming through like you know the the Kajelcher in second he ran 159 I think it was 159 38 no 41 I think 41 it's like 11 seconds slow and you know that's that's almost a minute off the world record and it's his first ever marathon like unreal it's it's hard to comprehend it's the these guys have no limiting beliefs really they believe truly that they can be the best they put the effort and the work in and it it it kind of all ri originates from this kind of like overwhelming confidence from themselves and belief in their self that they can do it.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's what you see across the board for anyone with great success in anything is this this just strong belief that they are going to make it happen and it's gonna work out and belief systems are so important I mean it's from what we discussed earlier but believing yourself it's it's there's that the success cycle where there's kind of four phases of it and and and the the first phase is potential and essentially the what this cycle shows is everyone has the potential to get better or improve or be more but for that to happen they have to have belief within themselves and that's the first kind of leap that you need to make is from from potential to belief.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: And once you start really believing it you can start to structure out a plan of what you want to do you think I can do this okay how am I going to do this and then you start to taking action towards that plan.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that action takes some hard work some effort in maybe later nights earlier mornings whatever it might be and inevitably it will start to lead to results and once you start to see those results that's where it feeds feeds back into this person's now got more potential they're gonna believe in themselves a bit more they're gonna take a little bit more action they're gonna see even better results and it's like that momentum builder and I I really like it because um you can slot into it at any place like you you could be someone taking loads of action but you don't really believe in yourself you don't really know where you're going.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you might have someone who doesn't believe in their self at all they they think they have no potential and you're like yeah well you do you just need to have that belief first.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I I really like it.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a positive feedback loop and with that momentum builds and builds and builds but these guys I mean yes one they might have had in their ears from a young age you were going to be the best runner and that probably comes from a very positive environment at home and and with a good support group in the in their team.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's impressive how you records are always getting beaten and that that potential for how fast can a human run or how heavy overweight can a human lift is just constantly getting pushed.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just so amazing to see because where is the limit you know no one really knows.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you see these people making calculations at what is genetically possible for a human to achieve and I think I think about I correct me if I'm wrong about 15 20 years ago people were saying it's impossible to break the two hour marathon yeah this is the whole this is the whole Kipchogee experiment.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: Kipchogee doing you know having the lasers from the car having like an arrow formation they specific shoes for him they tried you know uh basically audition loads of athletes um to maybe be the one to to go after that time and you know Kipchogi ran that with a hell of a lot of support and it was pretty much a science experiment.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just yeah they you know you're doing those to see what's possible.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think the one thing that is really worth mentioning which is the how powerful I've witnessed especially with um with belief systems and that being uh religion and the the impact that religion has um on kind of performance in sport is that these guys and you'll see a lot of um a lot of East Africans are incredibly humble like they they will be very confident but quietly confident they'll have a a more of a soft demeanour about them they're not shouting like you know like Noah Lyles right they're not big big personality they don't have like big big egos but their humility and their quiet confidence and their trust a lot of the times in God being something which is greater than themselves um and having that belief that in in the infinite and the unlimited and that anything is possible and that trust and outsourcing that that's the thing for me that I've seen in especially out out in the US and seeing about how how big religion is out there that's a thing that really cuts through and elevates the belief in yourself to outsource into something which is is great in yourself and something that really has no bounds and no limits.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and when those limits do come in and when you do have doubts you have such a simple deep rooted kind of response to it which you don't need to go through like mental gymnastics about you know kind of I don't know any sort of psychological process or mental practice.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_01: It is just as simple as trusting in something which you don't fully understand something which is greater than any sort of finite understanding and something which when you have it really in your you know in your heart and when you're running you feel the full force of that along with the crowd and everything else um and what I'm what I'm really interested with going forward like I saw a post by a guy called Steve Magnus who he used to be a I think he ran 401 for the mile in high school way back when and uh he's he's got a couple of books um he's a kind of sports not psychologist I don't think as such but like really interested in sports psychology um and he uh posted about how you know Roger Bannister back in the 60s when he broke that four minute mile barrier um it wasn't after that I don't know the exact I'd have to get the exact numbers up but it wasn't just that after that a couple of people broke the barrier I think in the next couple of years there were tens of people that broke that barrier like just by pure you know it's not like the technology got loads better.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like the science the nutrition the training philosophies it's not something that Roger Bannister went out and said oh yeah I did this perfect session and I got this result and that's why I broke the four minute barrier.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was just that he did it and people then realized around him that it was possible and it is then the power of that belief.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the floodgates open when you have a barrier which is so it's so psychological because I've had it before where I've been trying to break something which is like a round number right trying to break like 150 for the 800 meters trying to break two hours yes it's that's a fixed number but the only reason why it's been fixed is because it's very neat and tidy.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like there isn't there shouldn't be any difference between a two hours a two hours 10 or you know a two hour flat and 10 seconds or 15 seconds or 16 seconds.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of that that's just an anchor for a belief system to either motivate you to beat it or to see evidence that people have tried to beat it and haven't like it's just a it's just a way to like target something which is how a lot of people go out about their marathons.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily what they are able to do they'll just pick a number and then just like go with it.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really interested to see how now that that's been done and it's been done by Sawe who'd run 202 before I'm pretty sure Kajelcha who has that's his first ever marathon like he holds the mile indoor record like he's a you know he's not a nobody the guy is an absolute goat like within the sport like on the track um he's just new to the road to like the longer distances.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Jacob Kiplemo who broke the previous world record um who is 25 years old and he's been around in the sport I was like my um I think my uncle said to me he was like oh yeah Kip Limo you know he's he's like he's so young I'm like no he's not young like he's been around for ages so he's and but no he's 25 yeah and so he's running too flat and you see these people that you might not be that are new coming through um I know they're at the top of the game right but it's not like it's not one person that's done it.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah it's more and I'm interested to see with the floodgates opening how many people now that they see they can do it um how many are gonna go under like two hours.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's on that point Charlie it's like how helpful is it for someone putting it into more context of the gym is joining somewhere and seeing success stories from that.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh they've done it I can do it.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: She looks a similar age to me and she lost a stone I could probably do that.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I we we've really been delving into kind of the the kind of the power of belief and strengthening the mind and pursuing hard things to toughen you up and being able to do more hard things.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not disregard support because every single person has ever achieved anything has had a fantastic support network and so I see it a lot in men in their like twenties getting into their 30s of this I can do it myself and not really accepting help but anyone who's ever achieved greatness has had a lot of help along the way some more than others um but you know to pursue a goal of let's just say running a marathon like it's it's not a shameful thing hiring a coach to hold you accountable.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's not you know if you if you want to build a improve in your career it's not a shame to hire a mentor to show you how and you giving them some of your them giving you their knowledge.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: Support is a necessary process in order to become better and do more and it should never be looked down upon I mean I I've had so much support over the years and so you've probably had loads of great coaches and mentors along the way yes the hard stuff you are going to have to do on your own you know sitting down on your computer and working through the day and getting the confidence or the energy to to go for a run at night whatever it might be you have to do the hard work but hiring professionals in whatever it might be to give you some tips and advice and some knowledge and oh you could do it this way or if you tried this it it's extremely helpful because it's just broaden your knowledge.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do it all alone and having communities and networks around you whether it's friends families or you join a sports club or a gym having that accountability and slight competitiveness which can you know aid aid you getting to your goals even sooner than before you might have comprehended originally I had someone the other day ask me saying Guy I want to do CrossFit and I said why do you want to do CrossFit?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he said well you know they all look really fit the CrossFitters and they're really strong and they're you know they're like yeah you know they are and he was like why why is that why why why do people who just don't you go to the gym regularly and I said you know that's a really interesting point but from from my professional opinion one it's a sport two it's a very competitive environment in there you're lifting heavy weights you're running you're always competing against the man next to you or the woman next to you and wanting to to do more than them it's and that that's why people get in good shape because of that competitive nature.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Is it for everyone?
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not you know it breeds a lot of injuries um but also there's you know for someone in their 20s and 30s it might be a much better kind of classes gym to join up to because there's that bit of that he's my age he's lifting a bit more than me use the ego a little bit yeah use it a bit.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's times to use it and there's times not so anyway that's just an example of you know how being around other people can really assist your your progress.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's that great saying you know you'd become the average of the five people you spend the most time with if you're spending five those five people you're spending a lot of time with are losers and they're not doing anything guess what you're not gonna end up doing a whole lot of stuff but if you're actively choosing who you spend a lot of time with and those people are going getting after it and pursuing their dream careers and exercising all of a sudden you're gonna start doing that as well.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_01: So and you've got to understand that you're that you're that sixth person.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you know there it's if it's if you don't have the best role models or support crew around you then it might be on you yourself to be like okay who am I spending time with I mean I think there's there's always a way there's always a way to find people to spend more time with because online now like I'll most most of the I will spend more time listening to my top creators of podcasts and conversations more times than I will my family and friends.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and so that's the and and that's not a disservice at all to like have the amazing support I've got from family and friends but it's like I could choose to listen to some absolute brain rot on the way to work or I could choose to listen to like Quinn's idea but yeah that's not brain rot.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: No no no no of course it's not um of course but yeah it's like it can start with you you know if you don't you you sometimes you've got to build that support network from from the inside um and I think you know what you were saying about reaching out for support uh it's probably the that is that can't be underestimated how difficult it is for someone that is not used to reaching out for support or has found great success previously from doing something on their own um or has had a bad experience when they have reached out before and to go back to you know the part of the brain which is doing hard things that's not necessarily hard things like physically hard things that's not just oh I need to do an extra rep when things are difficult although it's a good place to start it might be something anything that feels uncomfortable like if having a conversation a difficult conversation feels uncomfortable that is the exact point where you've got to know like this is a great opportunity to get through discomfort and actually play it out like we suffer a lot more in our minds than we do in in reality and the the support that you can get from someone even if it's really difficult in the moment and everything's telling you that you shouldn't reach out just give it a go and play it out and see how it is and and then you and that might be the thing that unlocks it and the thing that can make you go even further.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah I think it's super yeah it's super important to to have to kind of surround yourself with with people and to like drop the ego that's kind of something that I've had over the last couple of years is I've had to ask again and again for support from professionals from friends advice from coaches you know if I'm out in America and I probably I need to make decisions whether to come home or to stay out there or what I should do.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I'm in the environment and I need someone's perspective outside of it and listen to that and admitting just keep getting things wrong basically.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that's about that is I think that'd be a nice place to wrap up.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I I I think so too.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a meaty topic you can always delve into the different points but yeah Charlie I think I think we've wrapped that one up nicely yeah it's very it's very complex but simply it is uh you know do things that you don't want to do you strengthen that anterior mid singular cortex and then with the reticular activating system focus on the life you want to live.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and then use support where necessary to to really shorten it down to you.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: Simples alright okay so you guys all running marathons next week yes I'll be joining you thank you guys for listening and uh we'll catch up with you on the next one.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye