Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 103

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. My mom and dad have cancer, affairs, girlfriends, a toxic environment growing up, how to spend the remaining time I have with my dad.... 2. I have all the money I need to live, but I feel like I have no purpose and don't know who I am, or how to become what I could be 3. Is competing necessary in BJJ Enjoy

All right, everybody. Friday, time for Q&A. As promised, last Friday, I'm going to open with the question that I didn't get to because it was very long, and I actually have two relatively long or in-depth questions for today, and then a shorter one. So we'll go a little deep, a little dark to begin with, and then end it with something that hopefully is a little bit lighter. Fall Auto Friday, number 1003. Let's go. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, everybody. I hope that your week went well and that you're ready for a long weekend, or normal weekend. I don't think this is an extended weekend. So we'll say normal weekend. Question one is a long one. Bear with me, could be the most layered and complex question that I've ever received. Here we go. I'm a long time listener of your podcast, and I appreciate the life perspective that you sometimes provide. I'm not sending this email as a question or anything along with you. those lines necessarily, but rather venting to somebody I do not know on a day where my brain is

running on overdrive to keep it from eating itself. From last fall until now, my mother was diagnosed with an early stage breast cancer. My dad was diagnosed with late stage liver cancer, and we learned that my dad had been having an affair. My mother has been through her course of treatment and is doing well. My dad has been through a shitstorm of chemotherapy treatments, complications with his disease and various procedures he's undergone, and what was initially a six to 12-month prognosis was changed to one month at the beginning of April when he was released from his most recent hospital tenure. I grew up through my formative years with the relationship between my mom and dad being loveless in regards to each other, but them loving me and providing me with an excellent childhood otherwise. Money was not an issue and I never went without anything I needed, although they did withhold things I desired to teach me how to want and respectively work to earn them.

Their relationship was toxic, and it has had a massive impact on me as I've grown older. But that toxicity was normal, and that toxic normal was my normal. I had suspicions that there was another romance happening in his life, as did my mom, but nothing was ever voiced until it all came spilling out shortly after his diagnosis. Being that the affair was not a surprise, they've remained on amicable terms, if not become better friends now that the skeletons are out of the closet. They have not been divorced, as there is no point aside from the petty symbolism given the circumstances. My dad has been living an hour away from my house with his girlfriend, and I try to visit him

every day I can be a value ad for him. I avoid days where I feel as though I'm pouring. from an empty cup as I want to give my best for the time we have remaining. When my dad was released from the hospital at the beginning of April, he appeared to be on death's door. His oncologist, and he had decided to discontinue treatment after he contracted a blood infection, and I began mentally preparing for what was to come. A few days later, he seemingly began to rally and was standing by the stove making himself a grilled cheese when I visited. He has obviously not gotten better, but has played. plateaued, and I believe there has been consideration of resuming chemotherapy.

His girlfriend began as a value add at the beginning of this process and has continually proven to be a burden as time has gone on, from having unrealistic expectations of my dad's physical capabilities to claiming that he does not love her any longer due to his lack of intimacy, in parentheses, he has multiple drain bags and external stents making basic mobility and activity challenging. to trying to warm her way into a large cut of the money that my mother and I will inherit upon his passing. Thankfully, my dad has remained true to his initial plan and not altered how any of his assets will be distributed, and seems to be growing tired of her antics.

I heard him say the word fuck for the second time in my life, as he said, she needs to shut the fuck up. He has expressed serious interest in removing himself from this living situation with her, although he has not done anything yet. I've obviously painted her in negative light, and I am cognizant that this is merely my perspective in viewing lens. From the time my dad was released from the hospital at the beginning of this month until now, it has taken a massive toll on me. His transgressions aside, I've watched him wither away over the past nearly five months, and as I mentally prepared for his passing, he's rallied. This should universally be a good thing, but I am struggling with it. my life has been put on hold for the most part and I can accept that I do not wish for my dad to die

but I do wish for this situation to be over I despise his girlfriend for her culpability in the demise of my toxic normal and have daydreamed many times about how I would destroy her however an affair is a two-way street and anything done to her would need to be done to my dad as well I also have no desire to change my wardrobe to a set of numbered orange jumpsuits I wake up I go to work I work I visit my dad. I get home late and I repeat the process. I feel a lack of control of my life and a lack of fulfillment currently that has been draining me. However, I understand that this is time I will not be able to get back and willingly making the sacrifice to be able to avoid major regrets for their duration of my life. I'm 30 years old living through a fucked up nightmare concoction of

Jerry Springer mixed with Groundhog Day, or so at least, it feels. I know that this is breaking me and acknowledge and have accepted that I will put myself back together when this is over. I have tried to remain as selfless, I have tried to remain as a selfless constant for him as this plays itself out. I know that the time I spend with him is likely the highlight of his day. And I know that I will be able to look back upon these times for the rest of my life knowing I did the right thing. I apologize for the long email. If you read through any of it, hopefully it made some bit of sense and I don't come across as a piece of shit. It was cathartic to write this out and help me chill out a bit. Thank you for the content you

provide and the perspective. So, although this was not sent to me necessarily as a question, I'm going to answer it as it was. Because like I said, this could be. this may be the most layered email of things going on in any one situation that I have ever received. And a lot of this rings far too close to home for me on different fronts. One, the relationship between your mom and dad, and then the relationship between your dad and the declining health and what you want to do or what you would hope to do at the time that you both have left together. So the first thing I'm going to do is leave the girlfriend piece aside for a minute. We're going to get to that one. And I'm going to leave the relationship between your mom and dad and the impact that had on you being raised.

And what you described as a loveless family when it came to the love between mother and father. I'm going to put that one to the side for a second as well. And I think I want to start with talking about the relationship that you have with your dad, what you're trying to do for your dad and what it is actually doing to you. I was going to answer this question last week, but I rambled for like 45 minutes last week, and I figured that that would be far too long for me to get into this because I think someone might take a bit, and I have actually no idea how long people are interested in hearing my thoughts on random Q&A.

But I've been thinking about this email off and on for the last week, since I had decided I was going to answer it. And the reason that I wanted to start with the relationship between you and your dad is it's the part that I think that you have the most control over. Actually, it's the only part that you have any control over. You can't go back and change the past when it comes to how your mom and dad were when you were grown up, obviously. And you can't really do anything about your dad's choice to be in the relationship with his girlfriend. Obviously, these are the choices that he's making. but you can do something about the relationship with your dad.

And what I'll say to begin with is that I think you're doing everything that anybody could ever be expected to do. Prioritizing the time with your father, with the realization that you have very limited time left. And what I was reading your email, what I was trying to think of was being in the position not of you, but in the position of your dad, relationship with his previous or with his current, wife and girlfriend completely aside just between you and your father. I have three kids, 18, 16, and 13. And one of my absolute greatest fears is that they would not outlive me. I can't even imagine what it would be like for a parent to have to struggle and suffer through the death of one of their children. I think it's probably one of the things that all parent share is an absolute catastrophic fear of something happening to one of their kids.

But on the other side of that coin, I'm thinking about this email and the realization or fact, however you'd want to look at it, both would be true, that I'm going to end up at the tail end of this lap that I get around and to fill up with my own experience at some point in time. And the last thing that I would want to do as my life is ending would be to drag anybody down with me or to put a burden on somebody that would have a negative impact on, especially one of my children, beyond the challenge and difficulty that it's already going to be. And I say that as somebody who has lost their mother, actually to cancer. And like I said, there's some very close tie-ins to this email for me, which is why I chose to answer it.

I have no doubt that when my mom passed from cancer, that there was a point where she realized it was coming to an end and it was going to come to an end relatively quickly. I think one of the greatest gifts that my mother was given is that her palliative care was provided by my sister. My sister got to spend an amazing amount of time around my mom as she was degrading and eventually passed away, which is great, but I also would worry that it would leave damage for my sister as well. And this is something that her and I have peripherally talked about in this conversation I'm sure we'll continue to have later in our life. But let's just say there were pros and cons to that situation. I think the pro was on my mom's side. She was surrounded by those that loved her, specifically her daughter caring for her. The con would be, I think my sister was facing it from a very clinical perspective and she may not have had the opportunity to actually work her way through it as a daughter.

She was more focusing on being a caregiver. rambling a little bit, but the point of that is I would like to think about this email from the perspective of what would I want from my children? I would hope that when I arrive at that place, I have a life that has been filled with experiences and memories for my kids that will last much longer than my meat suit that is eventually going to give out of me at some point. And I would like to think that they would have the desire to spend as much time with me as possible when I do approach the end. However, the end may come from me, right? Because this is a tough one because hit by a fucking car walking through traffic, you never know.

But in my mind, I'm going to live to be 140. And, you know, they're going to have to be there to take care of me. I joke with my daughter that one day, you know, her job is going to be to be wiping my ass, which she doesn't think is a very funny job. I think it's hilarious, but I digress. What I don't want my passing to do is to put my kids into a place that you have described. And I'm almost positive that your dad doesn't want you to feel broken and that your life has been put on hold just so that you can spend time with him. I have no doubt that he would like to spend as much time with you as possible. But I suspect he has come to the realization that his life is going to be ending soon, and he doesn't want yours to feel the same way.

My first and only piece of advice when it comes to how you have described, you know, wake up, I go to work, you work out, you visit your dad, and you repeat the process, and you feel like you're losing control of your life, and you have no fulfillment currently that's been draining you. I would recommend that you just have an open and honest conversation with your dad while you can and discuss exactly these things. Dad, what can I do to ease however you are feeling, whatever worries that you may have? How much time do you want to spend with me? Is there more that I can do? And I would be honest, explain to your dad what is going on with you. And I can tell you as a dad, the last thing that I would want is for my child to feel this way. I feel like there is a balance that you can find where you're not going to feel like you have to put yourself and your life back together when this is over.

Because it's going to be hard enough as it is. The loss of your parent, which you obviously care very deeply for and love, is going to be hard enough as it is. I feel like if you sit down with your dad and have an open and honest conversation, and I would ask him directly, like, Dad, how do you feel about this? What do you, what do you want for this? What, I mean, I would actually accept and appreciate a conversation from my kids. How do you want the end to be? What is the best that I can do to support you? And then you could probably put together, a plan that will still be incredibly supportive for him, but maybe a little bit less of a burden for you. We are all going to die. That doesn't mean we have to drag other people down with us. And that would be my one goal with my kids. I actually hope, I don't know the right way to phrase that. I don't hope that I die quickly because I hope that I live forever, even though I'm not going to. but I almost would rather have it be quick and clean than long, long, and drawn out.

I think that would be easier for all parties involved. And obviously I would go out doing something fucking awesome, hair on fire, living life to its fullest, and then boom, I'm gone. And I feel like that would be the easiest because the situation you're describing, I know what you're talking about. I live through it a little bit. And I can totally appreciate you putting everything on hold because I wish I had had more conversations with my mom. I wish I had been able to say more things. I wish the last conversation that we had had would have been different. And it didn't work out that way for me.

But I wish I could have had an open and honest conversation with my mom and said, hey, how do you feel about this? So that's on the relationship between you and your dad. Let's talk about her girlfriend here for a little bit. right it's really easy to throw stones for for anybody externally looking at somebody else's relationship and be like oh well what a piece of shit and how could they do that and the reality is unless you're ready to walk a mile in their shoes shut the fuck up okay so i don't have any judgment of your dad for the choices that he made he has to live with the consequences of his decision right that's freedom of choice and you know freedom in general it doesn't mean there's

free uh freedom of consequences um But I wouldn't focus a single bit of your time on his girlfriend. It sounds to me like the technical description of your dad's girlfriend would be that of a cunt. And she's going to have her day and she's going to do it to herself. You know, complaining about a lack of intimacy with somebody who is, it sounds like, on death's door with drain bags and external sense and can basically have no mobility whatsoever. that rings to me of somebody who is at a very troublesome level self-absorbed and I'd also be very curious the age of this person not that it really matters but my guess is going to be she is younger than your dad and I just and I say that because I feel like this level of self-absorption

comes from or is in some way tied to a lack of experience because how I just I don't know There's a huge disconnect for me. I mean, the guys, you were describing a huge victory that he was standing up making a grocery sandwich. You know, sorry that he's not knocking it out of the park in bed. You know, like, let's have a little bit of a balancing act here. You know, when it comes to the money and your dad holding strong to that, I think that's awesome. And who knows why your dad decided to step out on your mom? Like I said, I don't know, it's so easy to judge externally.

But what I'll say is I know nothing about the relationship. I certainly don't support what your dad did. But focusing on any of that is not going to help the relationship between you and your dad. And there's nothing that you can do to change it. It's really, it's really between your mom and your dad. And what I would say is you can learn a lesson from it, though. You know, if it, if you feel that it has increased the toxicity, use that as a life lesson for yourself and make sure that you don't repeat that cycle later

on down the line in your life. So there's something that can be learned from it, but there's really nothing that you can do about it. And it sounds like your dad is already going to get into the tail into the rope of what he's getting ready to tolerate. So I feel like that situation is going to work itself out. Like I said, you know, you painted her in a negative light. Only your perspective. I'm sure she's a great lady. I'm sure she's a fantastic cunt. So the relationship between your dad and your mom, you describe that your relationship was toxic. And this is the second part of the email that really resonated with me. I am not a child of divorce.

My mom and dad were married until my mother passed away back in 2010. And I would describe their relationship as being loving. It was not defined by the absence of love. my children though are children of divorce and it's not it's not a place that I ever thought that I would be and I don't know the right answer I did not want how can I talk about this in the broadest of terms without so the divorce is always a tough one to talk about because I'm the only one that literally and figuratively has a microphone in front of me. And it's not fair for me to say anything absent the other party sitting across for me and being

able to express how they feel as well. So I'm going to speak in broad terms. I don't know what the right answer is. If you're growing up seeing that your parents' relationship is toxic, if that is worse for you, or seeing your parents go through a divorce day. is not amicable in any stretch and having to deal with the consequences of that. Multiple homes, limited time with each of your parents, maybe more time with one, so therefore more time around the particular narrative from that individual of what may happen and why.

I don't know the answer to that. I feel like if you recognize that something is toxic, you need to address it as soon as possible, especially if there are other people who are relying upon you, i.e. your kids. And fix it could be go to therapy. Fix it could be start over as a couple and do everything that you possibly can to remove that toxicity or if you get to that point where you can't getting a divorce. I just don't know which one of those is the right answer.

But what I can tell you is that I fought myself for far longer. than I think I should have with that issue for me before I made the decision to exit my marriage. I want my children to see an example of a healthy relationship. So that becomes their normal, not toxicity. Because the last thing that I would want is for my kids to describe to me what you did in this email. their relationship was toxic and it has had a massive impact on me as I've grown older. But that toxicity was normal and that toxic normal was my normal. That to me is like the definition of a parent failing in at least one aspect of raising their children.

If you allow toxicity to be the normal, you are doing a generational disservice to those that are going to follow you because they might likely either A, seek it out, and I'm sure we all know people that do that, or be repeated, or C, both of those. Seek it out, repeat the behavior, and then pass it along. And again, I'm not, I am not, I'm not somebody that's ever going to advocate for somebody to get a divorce. I don't know if it's the right answer. I don't know if it's possible to fix every relationship.

What I can tell you is divorce is not a walk in the park. It's not eating a fucking slice of cake. I can tell you that much. It was probably the most difficult two years of my life. And I don't wish that on anybody. But I also don't wish somebody looking back at the age of 30 going, you know what? Toxic was my normal and now I'm dealing with that moving forward in my life.

What I would recommend for you is if you feel that way, if you feel that toxic was your normal and you don't have a good example of what a healthy, happy, loving normal was, I would recommend that you find somebody to talk to a professional so you can start to unpack that. And it probably would be a great idea, honestly, just what's going on with your father as well. Two separate circumstances, but hopefully you could find somebody and kind of put a bow on both of those and discuss them. Because what I would want for you is to break the cycle. I would want for you, what I want for you or for anybody would be the ability to be the ability to,

to talk to somebody and allow them to paint a different picture on a different canvas with different brushes of what normal or healthy could look like. So you could aim for that as opposed to falling back on what it is that you know now, which as you have self-described is toxic. I just don't want that passed on. I know I talk about very often of, hey, go find somebody to talk to. I say those things or I say that thing because of the impact that it has had on my own life. If you're surrounded by toxicity, it can very easily become your new normal. And I feel confident saying that I have lived through that through a period of time in my life. The longer you're in that pool, the more dimpled your skin gets.

The more permeated you get with that toxicity and the deeper it gets into you. and it took me a long time to start pulling that out in the opposite direction. I'm not perfect by any stretch. It's not complete by any stretch. But it takes time and effort and energy and work. And I would recommend you start putting in that work now, as opposed to perhaps getting married in your 30s, and then in your 40s or 50s,

realizing you have gone down some really, really negative pathways because of things that you never dealt with and the example that was set for you. So if you can find somebody to talk to you, to talk to who can help you start repainting that picture of love and support and, you know, baselines and boundaries for relationships, I think it would be wildly beneficial, wildly beneficial for you later in your life. So is there anything that I left out of this? Like I said, incredibly layered. Start with your relationship with your dad. Focused on that first. At the same time that you're focusing on that, please guard against your energy level, guard against your health.

I assure you your dad does not want to drag you down with him as he passes. He wouldn't want that for anybody. I say that as a parent. It's the last thing that I would want for any of my kids. And if I saw it going that way with one of my kids, I would tell them, stop. Like, I'm going to be okay. I'm more worried about you than I am about me. And I don't know any good parents that don't feel exactly the same way.

Let your mom and dad work any issues out between your mom and dad. Let your dad and your girlfriend work out any issues between. them don't waste your time on worrying or thinking about how you would pay this lady back trust me her payback life's going to kick her right in the dick um that's actually a really poor analogy um so you could fill that in with whatever term you think is appropriate but it's coming for her anyway so you don't need to worry about that and do the best you absolutely can to take care yourself i'm incredibly sorry that you are living through this situation um and do me a favor if you do end up listening to this as some time passes and as these things resolve themselves,

please send me another email and let me know how it goes. Question number two. Let me fire it up here. Get out of here. There we go. All right. Computers currently kicking my ass. There we go. All right. I'm a 30-year-old who's struggling to find my purpose and direction in life, and I heard you in a podcast, I believe with Mike Glover say that you truly didn't know who you were until you were in your 40s. So with that being said, although I'm a grown man and need to figure it out for myself, I figured you could shed some light on this. I quit my corporate sales job in 2016 and haven't worked a day job since, thanks to a somewhat lucky investment return from cryptocurrencies into the seven figures. Awesome. I dabble with real estate, but don't love it. I stay very

active lifting and hiking. I'm an avid white tail bow hunter. Love the outdoors, shooting, riding dirt bikes, playing billiards, etc. I have a beautiful and supportive girlfriend, good family, but I still feel lost. I also often feel guilty that I don't have to work. I don't have to a day job like the majority of my friends and like a piece of shit for not having to bust my balls anymore for a living, as well as not doing something more productive with my time and capital than hunting deer, lifting, or riding my dirt bike. I think listen to your podcast as well as others that are like-minded and successful on what they do has started to help me open my mind, but I still don't know what I should or want to do. So my question is, what advice would you

give a 30-year-old man like myself that is failing to find purpose in life and discover who he truly is. Thank you and best regards. It's a good question. I don't know if I said exactly. I didn't truly know who I was until I was in my 40s. I probably said something along the lines of I wasn't able to figure myself out or I didn't start figuring myself out until I was in my 40s. And I'm in my mid 40s now and let me be clear. I would have a really hard time writing out specifically like who I am and what really makes me tick. I definitely have a better understanding of what I don't want to waste my time doing, what I don't want to be around now in my 40s than I do to my 30s.

But for me, I think it's going to be a journey of exploration for my entire life. And quite frankly, my taste in things, I mean, food, obviously, but experiences personally and professionally, it's changed in my 20s and my 30s. My goals now, my 40s are different than they were in their 30s. But I appreciated my goals in my 30s. There was nothing wrong with them. I just feel like for me, it's going to be a constant journey of evolution. So I don't know if I'm ever truly going to figure myself out for myself.

And I don't know if anybody actually can. I mean, maybe the only way that you're able to do that is if you stop doing new things and you stop exploring new things, which to me is the absolute definition of boredom, then you could probably look at, you know, who you are in that moment and really define it. but I don't plan on doing that. You know, one sentence stuck out for me on this. It said you feel guilty, you often feel guilty, that you don't have to work a day job like the majority of your friends and you feel like a piece of shit for not having to bust your balls anymore for a living. I don't know when it became the baseline standard that you have to be able to bust your balls for a living or work in nine to five or you have to work a day job.

As if like first you need to achieve that metric and then anything else that comes beyond that, then you're okay. Like that's the key that you put in the door and you turn it and unlock it and you can pull the door open and then you can move on with your life. Because I think that's a dog shit metric. I think a lot of people would be way more happy if they didn't have to bust their balls for a living and they could find a balance between not working 80 hour weeks and having no free time for themselves. You are having a little bit of a different issue. You have a lot of free time for yourself and you don't necessarily know what you should be doing with it. sounds like you have a lot of hobbies. My question to you is what do you have that challenges you? What are you doing that scares you? And if you don't have those two things, that's the direction

that I would point you. I think it's an amazing thing that you made a somewhat lucky investment and got a large return in the crypto world. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. You should have no feeling of guilt about that. You should have no feeling of guilt about being around your peers who have chosen a different path, or maybe didn't have the opportunity that you did to invest, but are working their way through life in whatever way that they want to. Stop measuring yourself against them.

It's an irrelevant measurement and focus on what you have the ability to do now. It sounds to me like you need something that scares the shit out of you. A project, maybe that's a project for yourself, or maybe it's a business venture that scares the crap out of you. that challenges you on a level that is outside of what it is that you're already doing.

You know, if you're working out and you're hiking, that's great. You're hunting deer, you're lifting, you're riding your dirt bike. All of those things are amazing. But I also can understand how you're not really getting a sense of purpose out of those things. You're not really necessarily doing them professionally. You're doing them as a hobby, which is great. Again, I wish more people, I actually wish more people had the ability to be where you are because I still think one of the biggest lies that we tell each other in 2022 is that money buys happiness.

That if you get enough money, all of your problems are solved because your email is the perfect definition for the opposite of that. You have enough money. What you don't have is a sense of fulfillment and purpose. So balance, I would say, is probably somewhere between those two things. Or really focusing your time and spending some time with yourself and figuring out what it is that makes you tick. I have changed, like I was saying earlier to answer this question, for me, I think my life is going to be a journey of exploration because for me, I find an immense amount of reward by challenging myself physically and mentally. Base jumping for me was far more about what it did to me mentally

than what it felt like to jump off of a cliff in a wingsuit and fly down the face of a mountain, which don't get me wrong. It was awesome. I miss it. I'll probably do it again. But the mental challenge of that and harnessing the fear that was involved in that and the mental approach of planning and then execution and, you know, analyzing, assessing, mitigating risk on every one of the jumps. That to me was so much more rewarding than the 60 to 120 seconds of flying a wingsuit. Really hard to capture all of those other things I talked about on a GoPro though. Very easy to capture the flight on YouTube, which is why there's so much of that content. And so little of the hundreds of hours of contemplative phases of all that stuff that I actually found to be more rewarding.

I don't know how you would even capture it, actually. Keep your hobbies. Keep your level of activity. Sit down and figure out what scares the shit out of you and then go headlong at that. That would be my advice. I'm not sure that you're going to find purpose in that or who you truly are, but I can guarantee. T you, you won't find either of those things if you're always hitting the easy button. Find something that scares the shit out of you. Find multiple things that scare the shit out of you.

And I would recommend for you one on a personal level and one on a professional and dive headlong into them. You'll be a different person when you come out of that. And when you tackle and overcome those things, repeat the process until you're in your 40s and then do it until you're in your 50s. That's the advice I would give you. Last question. Lighter, easier. I'm six months along into my jiu-jitsu journey and I occasionally get asked if I plan to compete, to which I jokingly reply, maybe when I suck less. But in reality, the answer is no. Competing isn't the reason why I joined, and I see it as a potential health risk that could impact my ability to work,

because we both know how spastic white belts can be going 100%. What is your take on competing? Do you believe that it is necessary requirement for skill growth? Do you compete? If not, is it something you wish you did more in your first few years of BJJ? Well, I hate to tell you, I'm still in my first few years of BJJ. I just went over three years a couple months ago. So I'm not that far ahead of you or anybody else for that stretch.

Do I compete? I have competed when I got my purple belt. I went down. It was, I think, Ogden, Utah, somewhere north of Salt Lake City and did a competition. Not because I necessarily felt like I had to. A bunch of people from the gym were going to go down and compete. And my fiancee was going to coach. And I was like, fuck it.

If everybody's going to go down there, I'll go down there too. I'll get to spend more time with her. So I went down and I competed. I cut zero weight. I think I got my purple belt like a week or two weeks before. And I gave absolutely no shits about the results. And I did, what did I do? I did the G and the No Ghee.

And then I did the absolute in both as well too. So it was fun. And it was awesome. Do I believe it is necessary requirement for skill growth? No, I don't believe that it is a necessary requirement for skill growth. Will you get a different level of skill growth? or a more rapid level of skill growth if you compete. I suspect the answer to that would be yes.

And let me be really clear. I'm not a coach and I have no ability to really give jiu-suitzy advice, but you're asking and I can tell you anecdotally from what I have seen. In the gym that I train at, the vast majority of people don't compete. And they still are working their way through the belt tree. Why? Because they keep coming to class. They keep putting an effort.

They go to open mat and they train with their training partners and they continue to get better. And I know of, well, I take that back. I haven't actually had a direct conversation with these one or two people that I'm thinking about. But I am not aware of them ever having competed and they both have their black belts. So is it a requirement? Absolutely not. I do think that it will give you a different taste of intensity and it'll give you, it'll make you think a little bit more about strategy and perhaps gamesmanship inside of the rule set. And if that interests you, cool.

If it doesn't, don't worry about it. Yes, white belts can be spastic while going 100%. But guess what? I've also seen black belts being wilder than shit. And I don't know if they were messing around or that's just what the intensity brought out of it. But the risk of injury, I would agree with you, certainly goes up at every belt level when you go into the competition phase. And I say that because when you're training with your training partners locally, they're not your competition. They shouldn't be at least. I don't think it's a good thing to look at any of the people that you train with on the day to day as your competition. They should be your training partners. You should be invested in their success, they should be invested in yours. You step out onto a competition mat and let me just tell you, the person who's across from you gives zero fucks about your safety and health and they are there to test themselves and probably try to win. If you don't go into it with that headspace, yes, the potential for risk or injury is definitely going to go up, but because the intensity is going to be higher during those competition roles, you're going to have

a time constraint. Yes, it's possible. Is it a guarantee you're going to get her? hurt? Absolutely not. They do a local, SBG does a local competition called the Gorilla Cup. I've done it twice now. It was got all the SBG gyms together in Montana. You're still competing against your teammates, not necessarily your competition, a higher pace for sure. People are watching, which adds a weird dynamic for some people and not for others. For me, I really don't give a shit. I'm in a role exactly the same if there's a million people watching or zero. But for other people, it really nerds them out. And they tweak out a little bit. So even exposure to that could be a good thing. But I don't think it's required.

I think what's required is you as an individual, knowing why you started jujitsu and knowing what you want to get out of it. Beyond that, anything else that anybody else tells you doesn't really fucking matter. If it's not in line with your goals, then disregard it and focus on why you started, what you want to get out of it, and being the best training partner and member of your goals. then disregarded and focus on why you started, what you want to get out of it, and being the best training partner and member of your gym that you can be. And that's it for this week.

See you guys Monday.