EverydaySpy Podcast - The Psychology of Winning: How CIA Trains Spies to Achieve Any Objective

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/4ffYFzN Learn more from Alex: https://everydayspy.com/alex Fitness and health are not easy – they take work, dedication and consistency. Social media may be selling simple solutions in pills and challenges, but what they are promising isn't fitness – they are selling espionage. Learn how the fitness industry is lying to you and why its so hard for people to tell the truth in this awesome chat with my personal exercise scientist, Alex Van Houten Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I've tried things before and they didn't work. Therefore, I'm going to stop trying things. So this is what we would call fatalism or defeatism in our terminology of the agency. We get the most satisfaction, not when we achieve something, but when we are pursuing something. So when you talk about training, always having something that you're training for, in many ways what you're saying is you want people to have faith that the training that they are in now will benefit them in achieving

not only the goal that they're training for, but in achieving other benefits as well. That's exactly right. And what I love about health and fitness specifically, is you have this thing that you teach me, Alex, where I should always be training for something. I should never let myself just be, just exercise, always be training for something. Why do you teach me that? So there's this thing in our brains that we get the most satisfaction, not when we achieve something but when we are pursuing something. And so when it comes to our training together,

one of the things that I really want for you is one, for you to enjoy it and know where it's headed. But two, so that in your life, when you're doing all these things that you're super interested in, that your training is a complement to the thing that you're training for. We can keep you in good health. We can keep you in good fitness levels and growing muscle as as a man over 40. Like, we can do those things. But at the end of the day, you don't want to wake up and want to go like, why am I doing this? Like what, what's the point? And you can generate some points, but it's really helpful to have something on the

calendar that really puts all those things into perspective. CIA knows very well exactly what you're talking about. The whole idea that the pursuit of a goal is chemically more rewarding than achieving the goal, right? So if you think about it in very basic terms, when you achieve a goal, you have that feeling of success, you get a dopamine rush, and you get it once. but when you are pursuing a goal, you have all these checks,

these status checks, internally and externally, along the way. And every time you do something good, you get a dopamine hit. But every time you do something wrong, you get a cortisol hit. Right.

So that's exponentially more chemical dynamics in your body than simply achieving the goal. This is very much the thing that happens in manipulative relationships. It's what happens in abusive relationships. It's what happens when a boss is absentmindedly ignoring or marginalizing an employee, right? All that stress that you feel in a job or in pursuit of some aspiration, every time you get, you don't get closer, you have a chemical response. Every time you do get closer.

You get a good review. You get a paycheck bonus. You get something. You get a raise. You get a add-a-boy. All of those, you get a chemical response. So there's constantly this cycle of chemical feedback that varies your baseline. And as a human biological creature, we like that feeling.

It adds a dynamic element to what we are experiencing. So that makes it very easy to manipulate people, particularly people, who are prone to large chemical changes in their cortisol. Yes. Or in their dopamine. What is it that you have seen when it comes to people who attempt and don't achieve? It's, well, so it becomes. is this self-fulfilling belief that I can't, right? So imagine you start an exercise programmer, maybe you start dieting, dieting, you try to make some changes to your nutrition. And so

you stay with that for a period of time, but not long enough to see the positive come out of it, right? Not long enough, if you don't have something on the calendar to train for, for instance, why am I eating eggs every day? You know, like if you can say, I'm training for a half Ironman, I've got to get all the nutrients I need in my body right now so that I can keep my muscle mass. I can keep all the coline going to my brain that my body's building neurotransmitters out of. I've got all that unlock. I'm going to eat eggs every day. But if you don't have that, then it's very easy to be like, why am I even doing this?

And so when you stop, what's crazy is now you have this belief. And it's twofold. It's fair and nefarious. The first belief is I can't. You could say I'm a quitter. You can start to identify that I'm. I'm a quitter. It's not a good thing, especially with regard to your personal health and fitness, which you're stuck with for the rest of your life, by the way. You don't get to quit at that.

The second, but even more deep and nefarious idea is that I've tried things before and they didn't work. Therefore, I'm going to stop trying things because they didn't work. And so it becomes this very vicious cycle for people that the further they go down that hole of trying things that don't work for them, either not sticking with it or otherwise, that they lose hope? So this is what we would call fatalism or defeatism in our terminology of the agency, right? And it's exactly what you're laying out there. When somebody attempts and perpetually fails, the only chemical reward they get is cortisol. They only get stress.

So everybody who hates their job, which is 80% of the population, everybody who might hate exercise, everybody who's out there struggling with something, when they never get the dopamine hit of success and they only get the cortisol hit of stress, it leads them down a path where psychologically they no longer want to do the activity that only causes them stress. It's a survival mechanism. Yes. Yes. And then it has this effect of when you are choosing, which is prefrontal cortex, when you choose not to even try, then you trigger a whole separate set of thoughts.

And that's what leads to that fatalism and that defeatist. Two days ago, I was at an event in Tampa and I was speaking to a group of ultra high net worth men. There were about 40 men in the room. Minimum net worth for any single man was $10 million. Right. So it's a room of high net worth, high performing, high achieving men. After the presentation, one of the men pulled me aside and he was like, hey, I am optimistically scared shitless of the current administration. And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

And he's talking about the 2024, the 2024 election where Donald Trump was elected for a second time. But I loved his phrase. I am optimistically scared shitless. And I was like, how is that different from what if the other guy would have won? And he was like, oh, I was just scared shitless if the other guy won. So I laughed. I chuckled. And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

You got the optimistically scared shitless versus the just scared shitless. but that optimistic, that little tag, means the world. Yes. Because now he is trusting in something that he can't define, he can't describe, and he wants to see what will happen. In many ways, I feel like this aligns with the way you define faith. Can you talk about how you define faith, how you see faith? Yeah.

So faith, Paul said in his letters on the New Jersey, He said, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. As the substance, the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. In other words, I don't know where this is going, but whatever that is, it's faith, that thing. And I describe it in exercise terms a lot because that definition of faith for me is really hard. It's hard for me to sink my teeth into. It sounds like good poetry, but like outside. of that. I'm not really sure what that means for me practically. But let's say, let's say,

I believe that if I lift weights today, good things are going to happen for me. And I don't mean that esoterically. I mean my joints are going to be in a better place. Metabolically speaking, I'm going to be better off. Hopefully I'll get some muscle tone. Maybe I'll get stronger, right? Maybe I'll feel good at the end of my workout, even if I started it feeling like garbage, right? So I go do that thing. That's faith. Faith is the, is, the belief this could go really well, but not just sitting around because of it. It's that I can take steps. It's an action-oriented word, not just a belief word. So faith is in the world that you come from, in the world of exercise, faith is when somebody does the work today without knowing for sure

that the work is going to provide the results they expect tomorrow. That's exactly right. Yep. But there is the confidence that it will do something tomorrow. So when you talk about training, always having something that you're training for, in many ways what you're saying is you want people to have faith that the training that they are in now will benefit them in achieving not only the goal that they're training for, but in achieving other benefits as well. That's exactly right. And to walk it out. So we started this bit about being hopeless or getting a lot of cortisol in your system and that being, what was the word you used? The fetus or fatalistic, right?

So super interesting. Recent science shows that when we exercise, when our muscles contract, we actually have these things called myokines that are released from the muscle tissue and talk to the brain. And one of those myokines is called ericin. There won't be a quiz later after this. But the researchers who found this biochemical that the body is releasing from muscle contraction and talking to the brain.

They called it the hope molecule. And the reason for that is because it seemed to elevate mood, like actually made you more hopeful by the end of the workout, which is really interesting. But the researchers who were looking at it were also studying Alzheimer's disease. And Alzheimer's disease is a segment of dimension. It's just brutal. You get these amyloid plaques in your brain.

It wrecks your ability to remember things. Like you can't even recognize loved ones, right? It's a very hopeless disease, right? But they found that erosin, a myokine, released from muscle tissue when you exercise, irisone actually reduces the neuroinflammation that creates these amyloid plaques. In other words, a hopeful thing, something that actually can combat the disease that's very hopeless. And so for me, these ideas are very, very tied together. It's not just the hope that you're doing something on the calendar.

It's that when you do something today that's good for you, it actually does, at a biochemical level, make you feel more hopeful while executing some very positive things in your body. So it's interesting to me because one of the experiences that I had at CIA is that when you are trying to cultivate a target, and if we're talking in business terms, if you're trying to cultivate a sale, if you're trying to cultivate a business partner,

if you're trying to cultivate an investor, one of the things that's important is keeping them in a cycle of hope, but never giving them a cycle of completion. And it takes me to this story I had with this musician in the Pacific Northwest that I knew once. And he was always talking about how he was going to be a musician. But in reality, all he ever did was, you know, be a barista and be in a restaurant and do these other odd unskilled jobs.

But he's always going to be a musician. And when he talked to me, he say, I'm a musician. I'm a musician. It's what I do, right? I had him play me a song. He was like, I've got this riff that I know is just going to take off. And I was like, all right, let me hear the riff, dude. And he pulls out the guitar and he plays this awesome riff, right?

And he's like, I was like, that's a hell of a good riff, dude. That is a very good riff. When are you going to finish the song? And he was like, oh, I'm working on it. It'll happen. Years later, I run into him again. I'm like, hey, how's that song going? Which song?

It's like the one with the killer riff. And he's like, yeah, man, every time I talk to somebody, they tell me it's a killer riff. They tell me how great it is. But I just, I never seem to finish it. And as soon as I heard that, I was like, I can tell you why. Because you're getting all the reward,

all the hope comes every time somebody tells you it's an awesome riff. Every time somebody tells you, yeah, you should do that. Yeah, that's a good idea. You are getting the same dopamine hit that you would get if you actually finished it. Without doing the work. Without doing the work. Right?

Without doing the work. And that is something that makes it so that truly skilled manipulators can manipulate long term. Because they know that they can mix in cortisol with dopamine. They can control the two and they can keep someone in a perpetual cycle of hope. Any woman who's ever been stuck with a trashy. dude who she believes will one day get better. He'll one day make it. He'll one day stop stressing out. Like one day, whatever. He might stop yelling at me, stop hitting me, stop doing whatever. I believe in it. That is a cycle of hope. Any addict who's stuck in a cycle of hope. Any parent or

spouse of an addict who's stuck in a cycle of hope. My wife, Ghi, who trains with you as well, my wife struggles with anxiety and depression, which is general anxiety disorder. clinically diagnosed. And she is also a former CIA officer. So she fully understands the danger of the perpetual cycle of hope. So she lives every day struggling with, fighting with this idea of what actions can I take today that will yield progress that will yield a final end goal. And that's tricky with what she's dealing with because you never really are. fully past anxiety. Right, right. But you can 100% get to a place where the new normal is not

what the old normal used to be. Right. You have something similar with Iler-Zanlos. You can make the new normal better than the old normal. You can literally make your chronic pain that you live with less every day. Yes. Then what it used to be every day. When someone is dealing with an issue like this, whether it's abuse, whether it's consistent dissatisfaction at work, whether it's frustration in their entrepreneurial journey, whether it's, whether it's anxiety or a chronic illness. How do you encourage them? What do you tell them along the way? That we can actually do something about that today. So there's the nice thing about exercise. We can do something about that today. That's so powerful. I'm sorry to interrupt you,

but I love you add these little, these little words that make a huge, difference to your entire statement. So tell us about what you tell them we can do something about that today. We can do something about that today. That's the thing. If you're stuck in a cycle, whether it's chronic pain or you have a disease you're wrestling with, you mentioned abuse, if I have a say in what I feed myself today, there is a level of agency there. And there's even a level of hope and not the hopium you're talking about that keeps people kind of in that cycle of perpetual will hope without, you know, any work. It's, it's the idea that like, I can actually, as a human being, change what I'm putting in my face today. And that can improve my life. I can actually

change whether or not I move my body today in a way that's healthy for me. And I can actually improve my life. And so we, in the psychological circles, we call this agency, right? The idea that that instead of being subject, my life happens to me, I can be an agent. I make my life. life happen. And what I love about health and fitness specifically is if I make a practical change today, I am taking agency. And it doesn't have to be a big giant change. It can be a small change, but the point is I have made a change that's positive for me. And the health and fitness industry is really cashed in on taking, it drives me bonkers. Like this thing that can be really good in somebody's life doing exactly what you're talking about like oh you can make a change cool you

should buy this supplement this is the hopium you've been looking for right and and so so you buy the supplement and hopefully it helps you maybe it doesn't most supplements aren't worth the money you spent on them i'm very sorry to say but but but if if you do that thing it kind of corrupts the system right so so in my world what i want people to know is that agency comes from making practical, powerful steps on a regular basis that puts that control back in your hands. What is something that you constantly want to improve and constantly fail to accomplish? I would say trying to get out of pain is a bad goal for me. So like, for me, pain is just going to be a part of my life.

With Elyler's Danlos is just going to be a part of my life. However, I can make improvements to that thing at the same time, that's never going to go away. I'll give you an example. I love jumping on the trampoline with my kids. They're nine and six, and these boys are very rambunctious, and so I keep myself in good enough shape to be able to do that with them. However, my cervical spine hates the trampoline. Those ligaments that are supposed to be holding those vertebra together, they're not very strong. So what happens for me is jumping on the trampoline means I'm going to be a neck pain.

It just does. And so if my goal is get out of pain, then jumping on the trampoline with my kids is counterintuitive to that goal. It's not productive. At the same time, I have to make a decision about whether or not that's important enough to set the pain goal aside. Still be intelligent about it. You know, I'm not trying to land on my head here. but but I fail regularly at keeping myself out of pain because because I want this meaningful experience with me and my boys and I'm willing to endure it and that is something I think is really interesting right

you're saying that you are sacrificing the pain intentionally knowing that it's going to happen but that sacrifice is worth it yes so let me tell you what is always on my mind right I just like you I am accomplished. I've achieved challenging things. I've done things that were hard. I am often given credit far beyond anything that I give myself. Right? Where I am perpetually failing and always endeavoring to be better is as a husband.

I am reminded every day how bad I am at being a husband. I was a pretty good boyfriend. I think I was a really cool fiance. but once rings were exchanged, something changed for me where I started expecting more equality in the relationship. I started expecting that I would have to sacrifice less

in the relationship. I went from spoiling my fiance to kind of living a life with my wife that I just expected she would naturally understand. We're not engaged anymore. So I'm not always going to polish your coffee exactly the way you wanted to be collished with the right sugar and the right cream. And sometimes I'm not going to be happy when you fart under the sheets.

Right. Sometimes I'm going to say something about can you change your diet. All things that nobody does when they're dating and when they're engaged, right? I feel like it's my responsibility to improve as a husband. Not that I need to try to be what I was as a boyfriend, but I could always be more patient. I could always be more supportive. I could always be more comforting. And with two kids and a business and a network and a demanding schedule and whatever else, I often find myself not investing that time into being a better husband.

And it really makes me get down on myself sometimes. And especially makes me get down on myself when I do. put in the effort and I do try something, but there's no reaction. Yeah. Do you find anything like that with yourself in your marriage? You know, and if you're going to say that you're the perfect husband, we're just going to cut this whole fucking thing off, because I'm done or I need to take different coaching. I can hear my wife on the on the on my shoulder like, be honest, Alex.

No. So she, uh, marriage is it is such an interesting. I'm glad you brought up marriage because it's one of those really interesting things that, like, if you do it right or at least if you do it the way i believe is right you will fail at it all the time because it's such a it's such a big thing like you literally say to somebody i am shackled to you and come hell or high water no matter what like we're going to be together through this thing like is there not a crazier thing in this world than doing that and then and then furthermore from a Christian perspective, it's, it's the, it is an ultimate sacrifice.

Paul said that, that husbands love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for her. So the idea being like, it's going to cost you everything. That the idea, you do all of the things, and it's not enough because it's not all of you yet, right? And so that, that's the weird thing about marriage. It says that the wife is your easier connecto, which that's the Hebrew for, for help. meet. It means like helpful adversary. I'm going to wrestle with you and you're going to make me

better. And that's not just the fun kind of wrestling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to wrestle with you and you're going to make me better. So, so yeah, I would say in my marriage, as soon as, as soon as I think I've got it all together, I learn something else that teaches me that I don't. And so, well, it's, it's definitely a continual, a continual process of improvement because I'm not perfect. I would like to be, but I'm not. And so it's, it's self-awareness and failing that, that, that drives the marriage to be better. I would say that I love being married. It's so much fun. And I hope my wife says the same, but at the same time as a husband, uh, meeting her needs and also caring for her and giving myself for her. That is definitely a daily choice and a daily sacrifice. I know there's

lots of husbands out there that don't verbally acknowledge ever how much they struggle with being a good husband. And I know there are many men out there who struggle every day with being a good husband and they're inundated with information that makes them feel like they're justified for their feelings of anger or frustration, anything except for the feelings of sadness and discouragement. Right. And that's what leads to anything from divorce. to porn addictions to all sorts of other things. It's also what leads to just marriages that dry up. Even if you stay with the same ring on the same finger,

but the love is gone and the passion is gone and the curiosity is gone and the interest is gone. That's just something that many people deal with when they are constantly flooded with the cortisol that comes from not achieving the goal, just like with an exercise, just like with a workout, just like with anything else. and I have this just a very short story. My wife and I about two years ago had a real like heart to heart about her anxiety and her depression because with a couple of kids and then as we get closer and closer to premenopause for her, her hormones are changing.

Like having children transforms a woman's body and her woman's hormones. And then aging transforms a woman's hormones. And then when a woman is constantly exercising like my wife is, her body is always adapting and changing to different levels of you name it, right? Whether it's what she eats, whether it's what her body naturally produced. Or if she's taking an external medication, whatever comes into the system. So she's always changing. So we have this heart to heart. And I ask her, do you think you'll ever be past your anxiety and your depression?

And she said, I used to think I could. I used to think I could So the woman I married Was a woman who used to think she could get past her depression and her anxiety So when I proposed marriage I proposed to that woman Who had the belief that she would get past it Fourteen years later I'm now having a conversation with a woman who is accepted

She will never get past it But she's not going to stop fighting it Right Which put the onus on me to say What am I going to do? How am I going to change my goal? How am I going to change my faith? Am I going to have faith that she's wrong right now

and she'll change her mind in the future and she'll try to get past it? Or do I need to change my faith to say, this is something we will both always have to deal with? And I will put my hope in the unseen. I will put my faith in the fact that she, She will keep fighting it. And I can't do anything about that. I don't have the control to fight it harder.

All I can do is support her to whatever level she is choosing to fight the anxiety and depression. And that was a very hard conversation for me. It's still two years later so impactful that I'm chewing on it every day because some days my wife is smiles and laughter, great ideas and creativity and an adventure and spontaneity. And sometimes my wife is a puddle on the floor. and and she really doesn't have the energy to do anything except barely hold the little puddle in the puddle shape. It's so wild to see how you have to change throughout a marriage. And then what's really fucked up is when I put a CIA layer on top of that because CIA

always teaches us to put yourself in the target's shoes. So then when I put myself into my wife's shoes, she's got to deal with the changes in me. She's got to deal with the transformations in me. Not just the transformations that I'm having in business and everything else, but the transformations that I'm having from my relationship with her. What is the most challenging thing for your wife in being married to you? I would say that I feel like you should ask her.

This is the exercise, my friend. But I would say that the most challenging thing about being. my wife is that I have so many things that I'm up to all of the time. And so my, my brain goes in a million different directions. When we were first married, she'd wake up and she would, she's like a 7 a.m. waker. I'm a 5 a.m. waker. So I've already had two hours to do, to do the research of the day, to get, get my workout done. I'm already. And so she, she'd walk out and I'd be like, hey, and here's what I learned. And here's, here's, here's all the research and blah, blah, blah. And we were married for about four months before she was like,

can you just not talk to me in the morning? Right. But that is who I am. That's the way my mind works. I'm always interested in something new and I'm always interested in both understanding it, but also articulating that and helping other people to understand as well. So for my wife, the challenge there is, one, grace and patience, because this is just Alex. He's never, ever going to shut up about what he's interested in. She loved it when I started my first podcast. She was like, oh, great, everybody else can listen. In your closet.

Yeah, I'd be talked out. I would be talked out in my closet. But second, though, that means that it is a conscious effort for me to stop down exactly what you're talking about. Because my wife, although we've been married for 10 years, she is still changing and new and interesting every day. And so that's a conscious effort on my part to become a student of my wife in the same way that I'm interested in all the things that I become a student of elsewise.

And I would say that my wife is very graceful in that way. She's probably more emotionally stable than I am. Neuroticism is a metric of personality. So she would accept that sooner than I would until it became a problem. When it becomes a problem for her, it was probably a problem like three months ago. Right. So I'd say that's likely the most challenging thing about being my wife, but I'd be very interested to see what she had to have to say. So what's fascinating is all you'd have to do is ask her, and arguably you're going to find out that truth.

Yeah. The truth is a very awkward and difficult thing, and that's why we all avoid it. When I was a kid, my dad wanted me to read more. My stepdad wanted me to read more. So I was 11 years old maybe, and he told me I had to start reading Moby Dick. and it was my stepdad. It was a much less polite conversation than the way I'm sharing it with you right now.

I tried, I failed. How old were you? 11, I think I was 11 years old. Call me Ishmael. Wow, okay. And I mean, I even went to the library to get the book. And when I saw the book, I was like,

whatever goes through an 11-year-old's head before they master the phrase, what the fuck is what went through my head when I saw that book, right? I was like, this is never going to happen. And then I open it and I read like the first, two sentences, four sentences, and I'm like, I don't understand this book at all. I recently started reading Moby Dick. For the first time, as a grown-ass man, it is an incredible book. Yes, it is an

incredible book. I have a passage here from Moby Dick that I want to share with you. It's a little bit out of context, so I'm going to give you some context, then I'm going to read the passage to you. And this was really a striking passage for me, which is why I'm sharing it. So, yes, have to imagine ishmael this the first person the hero of the book at least as far as i've gotten so far is trying to get on a whaling ship that's that's his goal is to get on a whaling ship and go out the sea and become a whaler and he goes to the east coast he goes to nantucket and he tries to find a whaling vessel that will let him on and in his search up and down the docks where all the whaling ships are he comes across a church and the church is themed after a ship it's got hooks and

sails and harpoons and, and you go and he describes how he goes into this church in the middle of a storm in the morning. And as he walks into the church, the inside of the church and the pulpit itself is even shaped like the bow of a ship. So it's all this very themed naval, wailing ship kind of church. And this crusty old sailor come preacher gets up on the bow and starts to give this sermon. And the preacher is giving a sermon about the story of Job, the man who was eaten by a whale. Jonah.

Jonah. Jonah. The man who is eaten by a whale. And as he's giving this sermon, there's a storm outside, and there's all these people crowded inside, and it's a freezing cold, like January morning. And that's what's happening. We're halfway through the sermon, and that's where we come into this passage. And we're quoting the preacher.

That's the voice you're hearing. And now behold, Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea. This is the point in the story when the sailors throw Jonah into the sea during a storm, and they don't know what else to do. There's a storm raging and they don't know what else to do. So they throw Jonah into the sea. When instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind him.

He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him. And the wail shoots to all his ivory teeth like so many white bolts upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed on to the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards his holy temple.

And here, Shipmates, is true and faithful repentance. Not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin, but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not, but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah. While he was speaking these words, while the preacher was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm outside seemed to add new power to the preacher,

who, when describing Jonah's sea storm, seemed tossed by the storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground swell. His tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work, and the thunders that rolled away from his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the book once more,

and at last standing motionless with closed eyes for the moment seemed communing with God and himself. But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words. Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you. Both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine,

the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners, and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this masthead, and sit on the hatches there where you sit and listen as you listen while some one of you reads me, that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches me as a pilot of the living God? How being an an anointed pilot prophet or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty

and his God by taking the ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere. Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen God came upon him in the wail and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom. And with swift slantings tore him along into the midst. of the seas where the eddying depths sucked him 10,000 fathoms down. The weeds were wrapped around his head and all the watery world of woe bow bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet out of the belly of hell. You're a man of faith. You're a man who lives in pain. you're a man who constantly strives for the difficult thing. When you hear this passage, what comes to your mind?

Jesus used Jonah's story as an image and the sign for the generation of people who asked of him, heal us, show us a sign. And these were the Pharisees specifically. They wanted Jesus to demonstrate his power on earth. so that they could believe. But he said, you wicked and unfaithful generation, no sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah.

Hmm. It could mean a lot of things, but one of the things that that means to me is that Jesus was going to live and demonstrate through the way he lived, the power of faith. That's what he was saying. I don't need to show you a sign.

Watch how I live. but the sign will be when I die. All the difficulty, all the pain, all the suffering. I'm going to take that on myself. And three days later, just like Jonah, three days in the whale, I'll come back. That'll be your sign. And so for me, when I hear this passage,

and I meditate on Jonah's story and Jesus's story, my answer is very similar for me too. when I wrestle with my own pain, when I wrestle with my own suffering and own difficulty, my only recourse or the only recourse that makes sense to me is to walk through this with courage, to walk through this with forthrightness, maybe with some grace and patience if I can manage it, and by doing so, that will be the sign to everybody who wants the magic pill or wants to find some way of it like no this this is the way and if you want it you can walk in it too i appreciate your faith and i appreciate your theological take but i want to express something very different that i see

this is a story written by a man named herman melville moby dick is a story written by a man and inside the story herman melville creates a character and that character is this crusty old preacher. And in this preacher, he tells a story that is biblical. The line that gets me over and over again is when the preacher says to his congregation shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you. Two on me. Both of his hands are upon me. And he goes on to say, I would gladly come down from this masthead and sit where you sit and listen as you listen. Because what he's saying is, I want one of you people to have two hands of God upon you so that I can only have to deal with one. And what's fascinating to me is that just like the story of Jonah, what the preacher is talking about isn't religious.

I don't think what this entire passage is about has anything to do with God. I think it has to do with the word truth. Truth. Jonah was fleeing from the truth. the preacher is speaking the truth. Jonah was trying to avoid the burden of truth. The preacher is feeling the burden of truth, and he's trying to communicate to the congregation.

The truth sucks. Nobody wants to hear it. Nobody wants to act on it. And for damn sure, nobody wants to say it. And when I think about how much truth has to go into being a husband and how much truth has to go into being a dad and how much truth has to go into running an honest business and how much truth has to go into getting yourself

into a position where you exercise your body, change your diet, adapt your sleep habits for some sort of faith in what will happen in the future, you start to realize why so many people give up. Because they're all like the fucking preacher and they would do anything to sit, in the congregation and reduce the pressure that's on them. But what happens when the truth catches up to Jonah?

The storm ends. What happens when he accepts deliverance and repentance inside the whale? He is released from what this passage describes as a prison. There's so much power I find in literature and art because art is informed by human experience. And here we have an author creating a character. basically creating a speech, a sermon that the character would deliver

that another character is watching. Like think about the complexities in that creative process all so that we can take from it whatever we choose to take from it. The story of Jonah in your case, the idea of truth in my case, and everybody hearing this conversation,

everybody watching us on YouTube, everybody listening to us on any platform, is taking their own message from that. I even believe that people who heard us start this passage and then turned us off because they lost us somewhere in the passage, even they came to their own conclusion. Right? And I find it so empowering to be able to reflect on what art means to each of us. And I owe that to my wife because prior to meeting her, I had given up on art. And I just assumed that art was make believe, sculptures were make

believe paintings the fact that there was any kind of emotional element to any of it was fake to me but my wife taught me to see it through a different lens. I appreciate the fact that you teach people to see things through a different lens and I very much appreciate how you're constantly endeavoring endeavoring to show me fitness health faith through a different lens. Anything you want to say in passing and reaction to what I said or otherwise. Yeah, two things. The next part of Jonah's story, which I don't know if the preacher gets to in Melville's tale or not, when he does find repentance, he ends up in Nineveh. And he doesn't want to be there, by the way. He doesn't like these people. That's the interesting thing about Jonah. He thinks they deserve to be judged and punished,

but he delivers the truth, and it delivers the whole city. They're like, you know what? That makes a lot of sense. We've been messing this thing up. And so they repent, which is very strange to Jonah, but whatever. Anyway, so the truth is a mechanism that sets people free, just like your, your wife showed you that there is beauty and art. And you're like, you know what? I think I can read Mother Dick. There's truth in that. And what's really cool is that that's very powerful for 11-year-old Andy, too. Like, you looked at the book. It was like, no way. And now you're an adult. Like, oh, I was too young for that, but now I got this. But I think the second thing is that when we execute truth, what makes it true is that it actually works.

It's not just my own truth. It's like I put it into practice today. It's not something I believe. It's something I act out. And if it's true, then the consequences thereafter follow, which is why the health and fitness thing, I love it. Because you can, is it true or not? I don't know.

Let's test it out. And if it's not true, it does not work. And nobody has to be else, like, what's the word? Nobody has to be fooled by that. Alex Van Houten, you are my good friend. You train me. You help me improve my body, my mindset all the time. Thank you so much for making time to be here.

If folks are meeting you for the first time, where can they find out more about you? They can find me at everydayspy.com slash Alex. And everything that you're doing is going to be listed there. They can follow you in all your adventures, of your podcasting, all of your writing, all of your research. Alex, it's been awesome to have you here. Folks, if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you take a moment to like, comment, subscribe, share this episode with a friend if there was anybody in your family, in your friend

network, in your sphere of influence that would have benefited from something that we talked about today. It is very much our mission to help you break barriers. If you want to learn more about Alex, you'll find his link in the description below. And if you want to learn more about how I think or any of our other spy partners and brothers think make sure that you take a moment to click on my link in the description below so that you can see what kind of spy you would be we'll see you on the other side