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188 - What Suffering Is Actually For · Getting After It

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever paused and asked yourself what is suffering actually for?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because I believe most people they try to get through life having the most minimal amount of suffering in their life.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: They try to optimize, they medicate, they distract themselves and scroll their way all through discomfort.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then they start to wonder why they feel empty.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: When they feel like they feel like something's missing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how comfortable life gets, there's a quiet voice in their head telling them that it's not enough.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have there's something else out there.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned through my life, suffering is not the enemy.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that suffering is one of the best classrooms to teach us who we really are.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're talking about today.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Get and After It podcast, my friends.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always happy to have you here.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in with your friend Brett and spending a little time diving into some self-growth topics and self-improvement.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And today's episode, I I alluded to in the beginning that you know there's a lot of people out there, and myself included from time to time, who try their best to avoid discomfort, who avoid suffering.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't say that's necessarily a bad thing.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Humans are wired to try and take care of ourselves, to protect us.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of counterintuitive to our minds to pursue suffering and look at hardships as not instead a bad thing.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there are some things out there that are very difficult and are not easy to get through.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But at the root of all of it, there are lessons to be learned about yourself and who you really are.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to cover this because this one matters to me.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done episodes before about you know voluntary suffering and chosen versus unchosen, and basically just a lot of the topics I discuss are surrounded around suffering.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get good at anything, if you want to get good at uh ultra running, training in the gym, you know, studying, whatever it is, it's gonna require a little bit of work, which can't mean that you're gonna suffer a bit.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you to think that that's a bad thing, or that if you if you hate what you're doing, if you hate the situation you're in right now, you're not alone.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is that's the reality of where you're at.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it is incredibly hard.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I've learned every fiction, every friction point, every inconvenience that we face, and every ounce of discomfort now typically has an app, a supplement, or shortcut designed to minimize that feeling.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And from my own perspective, I believe that people are lost nowadays.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're more anxious, they're more directionless.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when you spend your life engineering yourself to avoid hard things, you accidentally engineer away the experiences that you build.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about what suffering is actually for because I believe that a lot of people get it wrong.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's all sorts of voices on social media who, you know, they they're great at making suffering look really sexy and cool, but they're not explaining the reason behind it and why they do the things that they do.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: To start out, I want to make it clear that I am not, I was not always someone who sought out suffering, who was looking for ways that I could push myself to challenge myself and have a hard, hard battle throughout those moments.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I always avoided those kinds of things uh growing up.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I hit college that I began to understand the benefit of suffering and putting yourself in this in uncomfortable situations.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like Fat Brett, I talk about Fat Brett all the time.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: One because he's cool, and sometimes I wish he was back around.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: The kid would play video games, you know, he'd hang out with his buddies.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one time we uh growing up, we had a drink fridge in our garage, and it was always full of fully leaded sodas.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, full sugar going in the in the the gullet there.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I had my buddies over one time, and I remember we drank like probably 24 sodas between the four of us.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's very impressive, and uh, but I always avoided discomfort.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically me to saying that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I didn't know the value of it really.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember there was this one training run that I had where I was supposed to do 24 miles on the trail, which was the longest that I've run up to that point in the mountains.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it I woke up, I guess to paint the picture a bit, when you're training for long distance runs, your body is gonna be uncomfortable a lot of the times, not just during the training, but afterwards where you have to recover, you're feeling the the the result.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're feeling the results of the work that you put in, and your body is is trying to recover quickly, so you can go out and do it again.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But this training run was really interesting.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, 24 miles in the mountains.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, usually training runs they start off kind of rough.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got to get your groove, you gotta, you know, start feeling um your cadence and and understanding, you know, where you should be in terms of your pace.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that feeling usually goes away of okay, well, this sucks.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd my legs are tired, I'm sore, and I adjusted you know 10 miles yesterday, and now I'm doing 24 today.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that entire run was something, it was one of my most important training runs.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get into why in a second, but I started out and I always tell myself, you know, I we've talked about the the 10-minute rule or the the one mile rule, which is where you do an activity for 10 minutes, and if you don't feel great, then you you can pull away, you can stop.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: But my experience has been that after I do you know the one mile or the 10 minutes, I'm usually game to keep going.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I'll just why not?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel good enough.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just had to get the the my my body going really and start working towards this goal.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But this run was so different, you know.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I that mile rule didn't apply to this run because after that I felt terrible.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was at mile, I was like, I just gotta get to mile five.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Once I get there, I'll be fine.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's all I gotta do.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a runner, you've had this conversation before and know it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you get to mile five, just like I did, and that feeling didn't go away.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: My legs felt heavy, my breathing was was really heavy, heart rate was high, and this was an important run to me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, okay, whatever, I'll just I'll just try and go for 10 miles.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I get to 10, and that feeling, that pain, that that feeling where my body is just begging me to stop didn't go away.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, I remember thinking, well, it's a training run.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like no one would know if I just pulled out right now and and went back to my car and and sat you know in my comfortable seat and went home and stretched.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I could have blamed it on my legs.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember at this time something my coach said just popped right back into my head.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that you have to learn how to run on tired legs and you have to learn how to maximize your time on feet.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I hated, I hated that thought that came into my head.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is not what I wanted to hear.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I decided, you know, I I I did I was sore, I was tired, but I was not hurt, I was not hurt, and I was not injured.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I remember having the this distinct thought of, okay, well, if that's the case, if I'm not hurt, I'm not injured, and it's just my mind that's telling me to stop, then there's there's no reason to.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yes, my body was uncomfortable, but it was not broken.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Very important distinction to make there.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those two things are not the same.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I finished those 24 miles the good old hard way.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: When and I was proud of myself.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: This was probably one of the most runs I was proud of because, like I said, it was one of the most important ones because I found out that day that the barrier was my mind and not my body.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Your body can go way further than you think it can.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was a race that just happened in Austin, Texas.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was the uh BPN uh last man standing race.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy who won it, he ran 306 miles.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Mark something, I can't remember his name, but I'll put up uh a picture of him right here, right in my hand.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So 306 miles.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I can guarantee you his body was begging him to stop.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, he had something in his brain that kept him going, and I think that's a very important, important trait and skill for us to learn.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like your mind, it it's good at throwing up a ceiling.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Most people they stop there and call it their limit.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Okay, I reached my limit.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Cameron Haynes, who's a bow hunter and ultra marathoner, uh, he said something I always come back to.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, When someone suffers, there is never a more honest time.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you are suffering, you can't fake it.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Suffering strips away everything you perform for other people.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your reputation, your image, the face that you put on for the world, none of it survives real suffering.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You are left with just yourself.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: For a lot of people, that is a terrifying proposition.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was scared of that when I first started doing this.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's it is a scary thought, especially when you're trying to do distances that you've never done, or just in general, things that you've never done.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they are not they are not sure they will like what they find when they sit there with their thoughts.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: At least I was.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely was.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That terrifying honesty is that's the whole point.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't build a real identity on performance.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can't only build it on what you discover when the performance is gone.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you're not going out for performance, when you're literally in the pain cave, you're mile 18 into a 24-mile run where you're exhausted and you had a hard time getting up on that, getting up and going out for that run in the first place.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you learn about yourself.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just like that that story illustrates for me at least, is like, hey, I had these signals, I had my body saying, Hey, this is tough, this kind of stinks.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But my mind took over and said, Hey, we're doing this.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get this done, you're gonna finish.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important during that time to have optimism in some way.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I I always try and do this when I'm out on a run, but like I'll take a moment to sit, have a snack, and just admire the beauty of where I'm at.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that keeps you optimistic in times like this.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, when I was sick, which is something that else we'll we'll we'll dive into right now, I had to find ways that I can I can find the silver lining in life because my life was dark and bleak at the time, and it's kind of scary.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about that right now because I know there's a lot of new listeners out there, and I I haven't really talked about my illness um very much on this podcast recently at least.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So for any new listeners out there or anyone who just wants a recap, we're gonna jump into it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in my early 20s, I was sick.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not the kind of sick where you're you know you take a couple days off and you're good to go.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: This was prolonged sickness, and I didn't know what it was.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had no energy, I could barely sleep.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, a funny story about that, and not kind of it's more sad than funny, but um, I would wake up probably at like three in the morning and I couldn't sleep, so I would just go on walks around the neighborhood.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure if there were people out there, they'd be like, someone sees me pass a window.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, this guy's gonna break into my house, he's gonna do something sketchy.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it looked really sketchy, but I would actually listen to uh what's called general conference talks.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically talks from the leaders of the church I belong to, where every six months they just they they give talks.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I I always tried to listen to things that would help me out and keep me in high spirits.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I listen to that a lot.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the way that I was sick, no one could see what was going on.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had all these blood tests done, no one could give me any certain answer to what I was going through.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: They all thought I had certain like they may have thought I had autoimmune issues or blood or disorders.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was even told that I I could potentially have leukemia, which is great.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's great to hear from your doctor.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might have leukemia, it's terrifying.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I did some research and I I asked them to test my hormones so that we found the underlying issue, which was a pituitary tumor uh in my brain, where it basically shut off certain hormones that my body wouldn't actually produce.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Testosterone being the the number one here.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And when I got tested for it, my testosterone was 53.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, like I was 20, 21, 22, my testosterone was supposed to be around like 600 to 800 if I was a healthy male.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of nuts.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: But everything was off.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: My social life dried up.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had no energy to do anything, and I would finish work, I would go home, I'd crash on my bed, I'd take a nap, wake up, have some kind of quick dinner, and then immediately I would be back in bed.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I had no no real time to do anything meaningful with others.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: My fitness was pretty bad.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would just go to the gym and walk.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd try to lift weights.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is when I got down to 135 pounds.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I suffered a lot during that time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I really did.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was just heavy.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching what were supposed to be the best years of my life, you know, my prime years.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching them pass by while I was too depleted to do anything about it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was well, somewhere in the middle of the fog, I guess, I made one decision.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like what I alluded to earlier, but I made one decision that I was going to find something good every single day.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a video I'll I'll put in the show notes, but it's it's by Jocko Willink, and it's it's called good.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he gives these examples where, you know, there's one of his um one of his soldiers went to him and it was like, hey, our shipment didn't get in on time for the new equipment.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to do this uh operation with what we have.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jocko was like, good, we don't have to train on it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can go out, get it done, come back and learn the new equipment.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave a few examples about that, which I can't rattle off the top of my head, but I will include that video in the show notes because it's very powerful.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I I decided to do the same thing.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, with my condition, how could I find the good in what I was doing?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: How could I find the good with what I was given?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe is a better way to say it.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was hard to find the good.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, living a life like that is depressing.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I made sure to do it.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it was something good that happened at work, whether it was a conversation I had with my parents, or you know, time that I was able to spend doing something that I enjoyed.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was all good things.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's why I have the word good tattooed on my bicep right here.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because of that season, really.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how dark things get, there is a light.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's just a glimmer, even if it's the faintest light that you can find, there's there's always light.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: That belief does not come from a book, it comes from actually living it.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it came from that season where I had to fight for it every single day.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you have suffered something you could not control, and it's things like sickness or death, or you know, you lose a job, you develop a hunger to go find suffering that you choose once you get through it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happened to me, at least.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Chosen suffering, hard training, long miles, uncomfortable challenges.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is how you take back the narrative.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I got very healthy.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have hormone replacement therapy that I'm on, and I'm so grateful that you know I did go through that time.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: As weird as it is to say, but it taught me a lot about keeping a positive attitude when things are so dark.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: It taught me about the importance of family because my social life was gone, and the people who cared about me, who wanted me to get better, it was my family members.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And because I had my condition that I did, I would be able to spend a lot of time with them.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a nice thing.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it also taught me a lot about myself, that I'm capable of enduring very difficult things and being patient in that time, being able to sit through it and you know, not play the poor me card.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Although I'll be honest too, I had moments where I said, like, why me?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, these are my prime years.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I sick?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is going on?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hard.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It really was.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a line from Epictetus that I love.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says, It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is that is some stoic wisdom, my friends.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know who Epictetus is, he was born a slave.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not metaphorically, he was literally a slave.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he had no rights, no freedom, no control over where he lived or what was done to him.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he became one of the most important philosophers in history.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because his entire worldview was forged inside conditions he did not choose and could not change.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: He did not wait for his circumstances to improve before deciding who he was going to be.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's huge.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: That is so important.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: He decided who he's he who he was going to be inside those circumstances.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: That is the model here.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you going to be in moments where suffering is is is put upon you?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or in moments where you choose to go out and do hard things, who are you going to be?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be the guy that quits at mile 10 and blames it on you know not recovering enough and not being able to actually train the way that you you want to?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be the guy who, when he gets fired, just decides that you know maybe works not for him and gives up entirely.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to be the person who says, This does suck, but I'm going to make the most of it, and I'm going to take whatever the next step is.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that next action I can take is, that's what I'm doing.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: You do not endure suffering until it's over and then finally become who you want to be.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not how it works.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You become who you want to be inside of suffering, which is why it's it's so important to me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: In this podcast, you know, I have one rule, and that is I will always be open and honest with you guys.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about something I I don't really talk about publicly because you know I I don't like that this happens to me.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that I've I've dealt with depression in my life.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have struggled with it from time to time.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not something I I like to talk about, so bear with me here.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I was always told, you know, figure it out, push through.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of men operate this way, and I I wasn't actually told that, but it just through like watching social media videos, YouTube videos, listening to podcasts, I thought that was the right answer.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just gotta shut up, I just gotta go through it and figure it out along the way.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I followed all the grind cultures, and they're all touted all over social media.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that asking for help was it felt like I was admitting some kind of weakness.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was becoming a burden to other people.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So hey, I white knuckled it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I built up walls around me, and I tell everyone, yeah, I'm fine.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Brett, how are you doing today?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Brett, you look a little sad.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm good.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: People wanted to help.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that until I could not anymore.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Until I realized that there was a problem going on, that I I needed help, which is okay to admit.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to let people in.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had to.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had to lower my ego.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had to reach out.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I the important piece here is I had to trust that people actually wanted to help.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because they do.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like that that at that moment I was not a burden.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: That asking for help was honest and not weak.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because now I've been through it.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That asking for help is not weakness, it is a strength.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is a hard thing to do.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I only know that because I've been through it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you would have told me, you know, ask me these questions five five, six years ago, um, you know, what do you do when you're depressed?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I would just say, hey, no, you you get after it.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You go do hard things.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: You forget about yourself and just shut up and white knuckle it, like I said.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not strength.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that's carelessness.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other side, like I know that there's too many people out there who struggle with these things, who haven't had the chance to talk about them, who have taken that decision that they can't ever get back.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's taking their own lives.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I feared that that was what was going to happen to me.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to make sure that it didn't.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way that I could make sure of that was to open up.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to go at it alone.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when we try to, we miss half of what suffering is trying to give us.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was people reaching out to them, talking to them, working through my problems with them, and getting some medical help.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've I've been reading Churchill, Walking with Destiny.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's this fascinating book about Winston Churchill.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And every night I read it to, I read it, this can be so embarrassing, but I read it to our son Winston, who is um in my wife's belly.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's not even born yet, but I read him this book.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of the threads running through his life, it's remarkable.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that he goes from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is one of his quotes that people talk about all the time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: But there's this one significant event.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Dardanelles campaign, one of the most catastrophic military failures of World War I.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that landed largely on his shoulders.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone blamed Churchill.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Parliament actually forced him out of the Admiralty, and his reputation collapsed in an instant.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: He fell into what he called the black dog, his terms for depression.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: He came back.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Parliament eventually called him back to lead the country through its darkest hour.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Churchill moved from failure to failure without losing his enthusiasm for the work.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is not just optimism.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is a man who understands that suffering and failure are part of the work and not interruptions of it.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody becomes Winston Churchill in easy lessons or easy seasons.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody does.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that man had more than enough hard seasons to probably give to uh you know four or five people and deal with that.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: But he just he powered on.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was a prisoner of war.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: All these things that happened to him, it did not lower his hunger and his desire to make his way into politics and try and change the world.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that suffering does three things if you let it.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Important note there, if you let it.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it exposes what your real limits are, which are almost always further than you believe that they are.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: The 24-mile rung taught me that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Your mind puts a ceiling up before your body actually needs one.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And real suffering shows you where that ceiling is and hands you the chance to move it.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I suggest that you do that.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You move it.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I believe it does is it builds the identity that you cannot buy or you cannot fake.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can read every self-help book on the market, follow all the right people on social media, optimize every single one of your morning routines.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: None of it gives you the identity that a hard season will teach you.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: The tattoo on my arm, that means something because of what I went through to earn it.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's no shortcut to that.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is it connects you to other people in a way that comfort cannot.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: My depression, the illness, the hard season of my life, those things broke me up, broke me open enough to actually need other people.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Needing people is not a weakness.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many times I need to say that before it clicks, but I just need you to know that it's not weakness.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the beginning of a real community.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: You find your people in hard places.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: How many run clubs are out there where friendships are formed, or you go to the gym with your training partner and you guys build this really close relationship, you train with your wife for a marathon, and you both understand the pain that you're going through, but are working towards a similar goal, and because of it, get closer.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's how bonds are forged.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we want to bring back, you know, the world wars.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: In World War II, there was a group called the 101st Airborne Airborne Unit or the Band of Brothers, and none of them really liked each other in the beginning.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But until they trained together, they did hard things together, they went to battle together, they became brothers.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do we get wrong about suffering?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like there's a lot of info out there that can kind of skew our minds and skew our opinions of what suffering actually is for.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we live in a society that I believe avoids intentional suffering.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's because people are weak.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's because we have been sold the idea that comfort is good.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's the goal.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Comfort is good, but it shouldn't be the goal.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: That suffering, suffering itself is a malfunction.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they believe.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the people who do push themselves, sometimes they get it wrong too.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: They uh they use suffering as ego currency.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Look how hard I train, look how much I can endure, and then never ask to stop themselves.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what is this teaching me?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: What is suffering teaching me?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because suffering without reflection is is a form of punishment.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: The lesson's the whole point.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I do these things.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I go out and run long distances and try to push, you know, do hard things like the podcast and do things that I'm uncomfortable with a lot of the times.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that there's lessons to be learned in each of them.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you grind through hard things and walk away the same person, you paid the price and left the goods at the table.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you went to the grocery store, you loaded up your basket, you're at the checkout line, you pay, and you just leave.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: You leave your groceries with the cashier.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Adversity is the path.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: You do not move through it to get somewhere better.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: You move through it to become someone better.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Missed a lesson, and you have wasted the hardest thing that you've gone through.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, life is hard.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it gets I don't know, I've this has been my experience with life, but it gets increasingly harder as you get older.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um my wife is pregnant, and the suffering that a woman goes through to bring a child into the world, I feel like every man needs to see that because it's it's absolutely selfless.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is an act of love.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: That she's carrying that baby, she's she's working out, making sure that the baby's healthy, she's eating good food, taking care of it, and giving it good nutrients, trying to sleep well.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just been astonishing to watch.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if I said that my wife hasn't suffered through her pregnancy, I'd be lying.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's some days where you know she she can do the bare minimum because you know, baby's making her sick.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's some days where she's having a hard day mentally because hormones get all changed up when you're pregnant.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the lesson I'm learning from watching her, I'm obviously not the person suffering, but is that love is powerful.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's doing it because she loves that baby.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's what is keeping her going in the hard days, in the very difficult moments, because she knows that she's gonna be a mom.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she knows that that baby is gonna change our lives.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, the the result of all that suffering is going to be a little baby.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: But even when it's a newborn, you know, we're gonna be waking up very much in the middle of the night, giving it food, taking care of it, and doing our best to raise a child, which it might come with some suffering.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's gonna be lots of lessons along the way, not just for baby, but for us, not for little Winston, but for us.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited about that.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But let's go into the practical application piece.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Allie gave me a good idea that I'm gonna remind you about these uh in every episode.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll talk about it at the end for last week's ep or the the episode for Monday.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to give you things that you can work on.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to give you things that actually are relatively easy to do, or simple, maybe I should say.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're simple, not easy.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I guarantee you that if you do these things, you will become a new person.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll learn a lot about yourself.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So three things.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Take them with you.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I boiled it down to three because I feel like three is much easier than five.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is look for the lesson.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't think that there is one, I almost guarantee that there always is.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every hard season is trying to teach you something.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in the middle of it, ask yourself what it's building.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is it exposing?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: What you would have to believe to get through it well, or what you would have to believe to get through it well.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Pay the price of suffering and collect what it owes you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is find one good thing.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Think about my bicep tattoo, guys.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just think about it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Say, man, this is this sucks.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think, oh, Brett's bicep tattoo that says good.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'll use as a trigger to remind me to look for one good thing.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because when my life went dark, I turned my attention to what was still good.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like one thing per day.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Little things like a conversation, a meal, a moment where things felt clear for me.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You practice finding the light in dark places until you get good at it.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everything in life takes practice, just like trying to be optimistic does.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: That skill carries you through seasons that would otherwise break you.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, tell someone.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your ego is the one that is gonna put up a big fight here.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: But isolation makes suffering heavier every time.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're just doing, you know, if you're going out on a trail run, like tell someone about it.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be like, hey, help me through, like my my mind is breaking because I ran 20 miles.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't have to be anything like that.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: But for unchosen suffering, when things come up, talk about it with other people.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: They might say, hey, I actually went through something very similar.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I did to get through.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I did to make sure I was taking care of those who I loved.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: All those kinds of things are important here.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you are not a burden.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: The people who love you and want you to show up, want to show up for you, let them.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when you come out on the other side feeling good, be that person for someone else.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Life is life is tough.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone knows that.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have we have the obligation to be that person for other people when they were that person for us.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your challenge for the week is one thing.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Identify one area of your life where you have been avoiding necessary suffering, not some reckless pain, but necessary pain.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: The hard conversation you keep pushing off, the training you have been dialing back, the thing that you know you need to do, but keep finding reasons not to do it.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Walk toward it this week and see who you are on the other side.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am such a big proponent of voluntary discomfort and voluntary suffering because that is my training for when things in life get tough.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's why I love ultra running.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is my it is my classroom that teaches myself about me, and it is my training for when things get tough in life.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't panic, I sit with the thoughts and say, okay, I've done hard things before, I can do it again now.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I take the lessons I've learned and I apply it to who I'm gonna be in that moment.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to think that like you have to go out and do things that I'm talking about.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go be an ultra-marathon runner.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can start where you're at.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to the episode that I just put up, it's all about your pace.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is your race that you're running.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And don't try and go out and run 100 miles if you can only run two.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like try and get to five.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Suffer a little bit and get to five.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to clean up your diet, suffer a little bit.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Put the cake in the trash.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Get yourself a salad.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Delicious.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great alternative.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Cake and salad.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, easy.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Select the salad.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Might be not, and yeah, it might not be the best alternative, but health-wise it is, I'll tell you that much.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And don't go crazy with the dressing.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's where all the calories are at.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I've everyone forgets that.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but really, when life gets tough, you can look back on these moments and and try and learn something about yourself, about who you're becoming, about the person that you are.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like Cameron Haynes said, when you're suffering, you can't fake it.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's never a more honest time.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you guys for listening.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please uh please leave me a little nice rating.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: It always helps the show more than you think.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh share this with someone.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you know someone going through a hard time in life, and this might help help them get through it.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're a community.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're people who are in this together.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're in life together, we train together, we do hard things together to become better people.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I went out and I decided to be an ultra marathon or because I liked the idea of it and I just tried to get the miles in, I probably wouldn't last long.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I love about it are the lessons that it teaches me about myself, about what my limits are.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't found them yet.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: My mind thinks that I have sometimes, but I haven't found it yet.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Keep going.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what happens in your life, keep going and talk to other people.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you need someone to talk to, I'd be more than happy to help out.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always around.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much for listening today.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And until next episode, everybody, pick that one thing and keep getting after it.