Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #18 Ego, Strength and What Really Matters with Brandon Lilly

Episode Date: January 29, 2018

Brandon is a retired powerlifter who loves being strong but has shifted towards the exploration of conciousness and finding answers to the big questions. Brandon on Instagram Twitter Facebook Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on Twitter and on Instagram Get 10% off at Onnit by going to Onnit.com/Podcast         Onnit Twitter        Onnit Instagram  Ocean by John Butler

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eating a candy bar. It's unbelievable what we were able to do using other natural sweeteners like Stevia, Lohan, and all of these other different plant sources. So definitely check it out. Go to onnit.com slash Aubrey, save 10% as you always do, and bite into some Onnit protein bars and protein bites. All right, guys, before we get started, I want to talk to you about a dope new product we have. It is our grass-fed whey isolate protein. It is hands down the best protein ever made. It comes from healthy and happy New Zealand cows that roam on gorgeous green grass-fed pastures. There's no added sugar, which means it's great for a low-carb diet, which I

follow pretty much year-round Because even in the summertime when I'm eating carbohydrates I don't want to get carbohydrates in fucking powdered form I want them from sweet potatoes, starches, berries, real food That doesn't mean I don't mind getting a little extra protein from powder form Especially when it comes from high-quality cows And this has got it all It's got a lot more

than most protein powders. We include digestive enzymes that help lower inflammation and help you absorb and assimilate the most amount that you can possibly take in from this protein. We've also added in probiotics like lactobacillus acidophilus, which is incredibly important for the gut microbiome and our immune systems. Check this product out. You're sure to like it. We've got delicious flavors like vanilla and Mexican chocolate. I know you'll enjoy it. Give it a look. We isolate protein from grass-fed cows. And be sure to punch in onnit.com slash podcast at checkout. Welcome to the Onnit Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Kingsbury, and we have a very special guest today, Mr. Brandon Lilly. Brandon Lilly was an incredible powerlifter, still fucking ridiculously strong. I got a chance to work out with him while he was here.

And yeah, I'm not that strong. I'm not even close. But, you know, as the fate of a lot of powerlifters goes, I ran into some pretty serious injuries and had to retire and move on to other things. But his journey and path has been incredible. A lot of stuff has been like-minded in the search for deeper meaning in life. I believe Brandon had smoked DMT the night before jumping on this podcast. So had quite a few revelations and new understandings. And I think this is a fucking powerful podcast. I really was pleasantly surprised in this. We're going to have him back on at some point for sure. But check this out, man. You guys will like it. Welcome to the On It podcast. We got our fucking one hour timer going. It's cool if we go a

smidge over but we can just glance at that for some uh some reference points that's uh in the context of of time that's a literal passing right it's it's nice to watch it past the time and it is heavy it's not a fucking small it's not a one minute guy it's a one hour dude yep very cool uh it's i've fucking just met you man and it's been a pleasure to meet you um anytime matt vincent and then our own on it's sean heisen the guy who does all of our content yeah uh anytime they say hey you got to get this guy on a podcast you know between those two guys it's it's a lock well you know it's um it's a humbling thing because you know i knew mark bell was down here i knew matt was down here and um i've been using and this is obviously something we'll delve into

i was introduced to on it through alpha brain and because of the physicality of power lifting in the 17 18 years that i was put into that you know I graduated from college I was writing I was reading all the time and then it was just like I stopped because it didn't complement my physical pursuit and when I had the injury a few years ago I fell and busted my knees up pretty badly I started to kind of take stock of wow that was taken in a second like it wasn't like this gradual degradation of talent or ability i was literally on a platform going for a huge squat and then two seconds later on my on my back and a surgeon's telling me you may not walk for 10 months so in that moment it was just like this epiphany was they can't take your mind they can't take your vision they can't you know

and i say vision is like the mind's eye not necessarily you know sight so i really started reinvesting in reading i started reinvesting in learning as much as i possibly could in different ways and like we were talking about going down the rabbit hole you know one thing leads to another to another and to another. And along that way, you find some really strange things, but you also find some good things. So I was like, this alpha brain, let's try this. What is it?

Because I was in nootropics, and I was trying those. A friend of mine had given me some. What did you experiment with? Some of the racetams? Yeah. Things like that? Yeah, I played around with that quite a bit. So start with that, and then it was like, okay, there's something here. And it wasn't like that coffee buzz. It wasn't like a pre-workout buzz. It was just kind of like somebody just cranked

the Watts up a little bit, you know, a little bit more clarity, a little bit more, um, critical thinking, faster response when I was calling on memory. So I was a terrible sleeper forever, you know, 340 pounds, um, sleep apnea, apnea gets fucking all the great power lifters. Listen, man, I'm telling you for 10 years, I would go to bed no matter how long I was in the bed, I would wake up and I would just be, I would be exhausted. I remember the scene in fight club, which happens to be something that's very interesting to me. And I'll talk about that later. But, you know, he's like, he's begging the doctor. He's like, I'm in pain. I'm in pain. And you are. But one, you're the big strong guy. So you can't be in pain. And two, you just keep going. So I had a friend reach out to me and he

got me a CPAP.. The first night I slept six hours. And what I didn't realize initially was that I was getting them to go to the bathroom all the time. So I'm like, shit, man, I got some prostate issues. I got something going on, get to talking to a doctor. And he tells me your prostate saved your life because you're literally at the point where you're suffocating, you're drowning, and you're awake. But to keep you from going too deep or never getting back up, that prostate shifts on and it's like, go pee. I go in there, I get two, three drops. And I'm like, what the fuck?

What is this? But it was my prostate. My prostate was keeping me alive. Damn. And that's when it was really like I was still pursuing powerlifting. I'd actually gotten stronger in some of the lifts. I'd benched over 600 pounds after my fall. I pulled 840 after my fall. I'd squatted 745 after my fall.

What was on the bar when you – That was the reason 745 was significant because I'd squatted more than this, but I squatted 744 at the comp, squatted it on my second attempt, was given a red light, an infraction. Okay. So I had to and my intention for this i just come off of uh two competitions in australia that i that i won my division won money um that was in august and november you know two trips to australia that

quick is rough oh yeah so i decided i'm going to take off through thanksgiving i'm going to come back enjoy christmas with my family january 1 i'm going to come back, enjoy Christmas with my family. January 1, I'm going to pick up a barbell and start training again, but I need some time. Well, this is a clear indication of who I was at that point. I picked up a barbell and I looked secure on the outside because I kind of built that structure. I was King Kong on the outside, but I was still that little boy, that insecure little boy that hadn't faced all the issues because I picked up a barbell to kind of quell some of the insecurities, but all the insecurities were here. They weren't physical. So I was chasing those insecurities by putting more weight on the bar. Every time that I've put more pounds on the bar, it was like,

that's one step closer, right? That's one step closer. And then I kept finding myself further and further from that because I wasn't addressing it on the inside. So I get a call from a guy named Steve Dennison. He runs a great federation here in the States. And he said, hey, man, we want you to come out to this event in January. I'm like, no can do. I'm on a hiatus. I'm going to enjoy this time.

I'm in Australia living it up. So he was like, okay, well, I'll talk to you in a week. And he calls me back, and we just kind of go through this runaround of, you know, we can cover your flight, we can cover your room, that kind of thing. It just kept incentivizing the deal. No, no, no, no, no. So on the heels of the success in Australia, I'm traveling four days a week, right? And you know how hard it is on the road to, like, training is one thing,

but then training for a maximum strength is a totally different thing because when you get off a plane i don't want to go squat 800 pounds yeah um i can come in here and i can row i can push up so i can do all that kind of stuff i feel awesome but i need to go take a nap especially because i had sleep apnea i need to go um eat some food i need to go just chill. And then maybe I'll have enough energy later to go do this. So combine the fact that I had stopped training for a few weeks. I get back to the States. I'm traveling like crazy and I loved it. He goes, man, I just want to ask you to come one more time. It's January 26th. Just come in. You're strong. You don't have to go all out. Just you at

90% is still good enough. We want you here. Nah, man, I'm good. He said, oh, by the way, there's this kid named Brandon Allen. He says he can beat you. Yeah, I'll be there. See you in a minute. Sign me up. Yeah, and that's a perfect indication of what I was trying to lose now is that ego.

Like, he can beat me. He could beat me. He might beat me. Okay, he got me today. There's tomorrow, right? And that was something for me that was really, that was the genesis of it all, was when I fell, it was directly correlated to you didn't do what you wanted to do. What you wanted to do was to enjoy your family, enjoy your time.

So you bent for the world, and the world kicked your ass for that decision. So from now on, you're only going to do what you want to do. enjoy your time. So you bent for the world and the world kicked your ass for that decision. So from now on, you're only going to do what you want to do. And I started, you know, pushing to come back three months after this injury, when they told me I wouldn't walk for 10 months, three months of the day, I went to Mark Bell's and pulled 705 pounds. And the thing that I said at the chalk bowl resonated so strongly with me in that Mark said, man, you got to pull. And I said, dude, there's more pride in me going up here and blowing my knees out again than missing this deadlift. So it was like, it was all in. But then after the meet, it was kind of like,

you have that high and then it kind of crashes. And I was like, is it really worth busting my knees up again to pull 705 pounds when that's not near what I've been that's not near what's considered the best today that's a pretty fucking selfish endeavor when I got a kid and I got family that loved me and want to be a part of me and I'd alienated them for so long in that pursuit yeah and it's like are you ever gonna wake up kid like are you ever gonna wake up and realize you're missing the boat this sport doesn't care about you. These fans, these people that say they want and support and encourage you, all they see is the strong guy.

They don't see the guy in the hospital bed. They don't see the guy on the couch, you know, falling into a depression, just slamming Percocets so you can get through that next 24 hours. Because when you're sitting on a couch and you literally have a clock by your tv it's like watching that hourglass go it's just the time is not moving fast enough right that's the only time i've ever felt i wanted time to move faster was whenever i was broken and physically broken yeah but i could still start strengthening my mind so started reading netflix

went off picked up a book i was reading five six books a month just it was just like taking water to a sponge it was just as much as i could get more and more and more and more and more and then the alpha brain and i started taking and this is not an ad like you didn't ask me to say one thing and i want i want people to understand that well we've done like 13 of these and you're the first guy that's talked about on it products so i think people know well well we this is a give show we fucking give you knowledge and uh obviously it's on it podcast so fucking people know the deal we drop an on it ad and that's our ask for the you know listen to the fucking ad buy the product we're talking about that's our that's our one ask but you can talk about it if you want to brother but the thing about the thing about what i'm saying here is

the on it concept the human optimization that is what spoke to me and that's what allowed me to try those two things um i was using another supplement company for my protein my creatine and all that kind of stuff but they didn't have anything you know for sleep they didn't have anything for this nootropic type product so i started taking them and it was just like it just kind of cleared the fog um like a natural adderall is what i've kind of equated it to you know you you feel good you think clearly and just it's a different kind of thing and there's no fucking backlash when you stop taking it no come. No come down, no falling flat on your face. No, I just think that for me and where I've been, I had my, I don't want to say 15 minutes, but I have my footprint on my competition,

and the competition has passed me by, right? Like, even on my best day before my injury, the guys have surpassed those those numbers now i can sit here and tell you i wholeheartedly believe that if i had never been injured i could go to that level after 14 knee surgeries uh 15 knee surgeries total i went on the other leg i'm a fool if i think that i can surpass those guys i can i can do me i can train hard i can lift weights at the level that I can achieve. But at this point, if you said, man, you'll have to go back to feeling like you did

to stand on that platform at that level, are you willing to trade it? Hell no. I know that I can be strong, and I know that I can do things, but I don't want to go backwards. And I feel like 340 pounds not sleeping blood pressure through the my resting pulse rate was 110 fuck son yeah when i was getting in with burdick and uh you know strong strong is a funny term strong for me when i was at my strongest i pulled 555 and uh you know i got to burdick side's, I think I pulled 500 with him,

which was a PR on the first day just from technical changes on day one. Sure. And then added 55 pounds over the course of a year, over a year. And I was really happy with that, but I noticed my resting heart rate was in the mid-50s. And that, to me, was a sign like we got an issue here. Yeah. And so i've done

altitude training and things like that and now i'm thankfully i'm back in the low 40s high 30s yeah but like fucking 110 son i'd be like no way no no no so the the real deal was they couldn't operate on me because i was i was so i was like in uh what do they call it maybe tachycardic is that right I can't remember if that's the right term I'm not a doctor

if that's not accurate hopefully that pushes you in the right direction of where I'm going but they were like we gotta get your heart rate down I was like that's where it's at all day bro

you know so but you added the fact that you know the trauma and rhabdo was beginning to set in dude I was 125

like just sitting there just i was good at three things squat bench and deadlift i even you know i joke i said i wasn't even good at getting a blow job you know what i mean it's like it was heart rate at 200 right before you know stop stop but uh that was the physical sign started to come, you know, and I knew I felt bad, but I wouldn't go to a doctor because then I don't know. It's like it's just me in my head saying I feel bad, and then you have the dad to prove it. It's like I can't lie anymore, you know.

Yeah. Fuck, man. When did you get into strength? 17, and I was an endurance athlete. I was a soccer player. I was a cyclist. I was a, I was an endurance athlete. I was a soccer player. I was a cyclist. I was a swimmer and switched schools. Um, and right as the ink was drying on me, switching schools, I didn't change residents. Kentucky enacted a recruitment law that you had to change residents

if you change school districts or whatever, because there was a Catholic school that was bringing in kids from all over the country and just cleaning house. So I was caught up in that net. Didn't have sports to care about school, so I just started getting in trouble, started cutting class. Pretty much boys will be boys kind of fun, but I had a teacher that cared enough to say, hey, you're blowing a good chance here. Meet me in the weight room after school.

So he did, and he put me on a program and worked with me, but more than anything, um, he was a, he was kind of a Renaissance man in a way, you know, big, strong guy, but he taught me that it was cool for a big, strong guy to be a thinker, to, to be more than what you look like you are. And he was one of the few, he was one of the few men in my life that would every day he saw me he said have a great day and i love you you know and this is coming my dad loved me i know he did he put a roof over my head put food on the table but he was just a guy that was like yeah you know your mom and i like your mom loves you you know what i mean it was just one of those deals

so he taught me compassion and he was verbal about it and he was open about it and it was just a cool thing like it i think i had that positive connection with the gym because he was there and i know that sounds kind of weird for a teacher to be privately in a gym with a with a student but there was nothing more than just two guys like him wanting to help me get better because he saw something lacking and And I cannot thank him enough. You know, he's an awesome guy. Yeah, I can count on one hand the teachers that took me aside and fucking helped me.

Yeah. Obviously, you know, you go K through 12. If I can count on one hand, that means I had those teachers for one year max. Right. Those people that stuck out to me that lasted you know if i had a teacher that did the first one was mr v in the sixth grade i remembered that guy all through fucking junior high when i didn't have it right you know and then i found the guy freshman

year sophomore there was always somebody that kept me going when i hated school didn't want to fucking be there and was just trying to keep my grades up to play to be eligible for football right you know yeah i think that i was actually talking to a to a trainer last night he's a young guy 27 years old and he works with kids and he was like man i want to get to the next level and it was very organic it wasn't him like saying you know how how can you help me get to this next level like can you share my stuff it wasn't like that it was just a very genuine I want to help more people I want to touch more lives and I said you know what the gratification for a coach like you is not right now it's when this eight year old boy 10 years from now walks across his stage in high school goes out into college or gets a division one scholarship I guarantee you you'll be a guy he calls and says, you made a difference.

And for the most part, coaches and social media kind of rewards this mentality, but, you know, I've got to be the biggest, the best, the baddest right now. And most of the coaches that I look up to and respect have like 2,000 followers. But those 2,000 followers would walk through hell in gas-soaked jeans for them, right? You know, they'll do anything they say. They'll do anything that they want them to because they're bought in. Buy-in is huge. For someone like myself who has 100-whatever-thousand followers,

I posted a sunrise, and instantly I get two messages. Why don't you just stick to fucking lifting? And it's like, so if you're only following me because I'm lifting, that's fine. And I understand that that is a real thing. But you and I would never be friends in real life. You and I would never have anything more than that barbell. And that's okay. And for a long time, I was like, no, no, I'll do that. I'll post more lifting, I promise.

Like, I would retort with that, you know, because I didn't want anybody to dislike me. But if everybody likes you you're full of shit yeah you're not taking a stand on anything exactly so you're just coming to a point where you're um you just kind of look in the mirror and you're saying okay this is it this is me and that's all i got so yeah that's where i'm at right now is just this huge transition point from being the strong guy to being the relatively strong guy, but being the excited guy again because I wasn't excited for a long time. The last five years that I was lifting, if it wasn't competition, the training became monotonous, the life, the day- day to day became monotonous. But I lived for that moment when they put your hand up and you're the champion because guess what? That's instant gratification.

Oh, look, you got 3000 likes on this photo. Oh, guess what? Your email just blew up. Oh, guess what? 25 more people want to work with you. That was the addiction was like that. That feeling of people like me, people appreciate what I'm doing, but they didn't appreciate what I was doing because that's one moment. They only saw the good times. They didn't see when I would go home after the competition and be like, what do I do now? Right. So I just had to face some hard questions. I had to face some questions about what I wanted to leave as a legacy for my, for my son. And did I want to be the guy that went one round too long or pushed too hard?

And then we were talking about Jimi Hendrix yesterday. If he was a guy that lived 50 more years, 30 more years, and he has a collection of music 50 years long, how intense was his greatness, right? But if he kept making music, and let's say he just kind of sold out and started doing like more traditional music man early pop like early jimmy was good but jimmy sucked right after after like jimmy christmas album exactly but you know look at dolly parton she's still releasing records does anybody talk about them no they're they're a 999 deal at cracker barrel you know she's still music. She still deserves the right to make music.

But people talk about Jolene. People talk about 9 to 5. People talk about silver and gold and a coat of many colors. Her early stuff is where that was so concentrated and good. I'm not saying she shouldn't make music, but we tend to only look at those highest points. And then if you're not at that highest point all the time, oh, he's done.

He's washed up. He sucks. So that highest point all the time oh he's done he's washed up he sucks so that's kind of the way i felt it was like do i keep pushing for everybody else to say i'm still at that level or do i just say i had my minute and now let's do something else because i'm a one chapter book if i don't yeah so what's the next chapter i love that shit you know for me i've really gotten invested in coaching. Um, I had a bunch of online clients and I cut them way down. I cut from about 170 online clients down to 28. And these people, if somebody came into the group thinking that they were coming into a powerlifting group, they're sorely mistaken because 10% of our discussion is weight training, lifting, whatever.

We're sharing those kind of articles. What do you think about this? What do you think about this? Studies on, on drugs, studies on plants, studies on training, studies on anything. I mean, we were talking about, uh, there was a, there's a dig site in, uh, in the rainforest and they're starting to find some, uh, proof of weaponry that predates anything that we know now. So, I mean, we're talking about all this unique stuff, but originally they signed up to get stronger and not any one of those people cares about getting stronger right now. And that probably will alienate a lot of people that are listening to what I'm saying, because they're like, dude, this guy is just, he's out there, but

it's like they're there. They might, this guy is just, he's out there, but it's like this audience might be used to somewhat out there if they follow myself and Aubrey. So that's good. I think you're, you're in the right audience here. Well, and that's good. And I mean, I would rather people look at it and say, maybe I could learn something from his transition rather than just saying, I don't even know what he's talking about because I made those assumptions about people. Dave Tate from Elite FTS, Mark Bell, when they transitioned from big, bad powerlifter to I want to get in shape, I want to push my business, I used to mock Dave Tate for sharing a business article.

Well, that's where his mindset is right now. He's just doubled or tripled the size of his business. Why would he not be excited and focused on business? He already conquered the strength, right? When I was in that mindset, I couldn't see anything but that. So I know that there will be people that follow me that will hear this and they'll be like, I don't know what's going on here, but that's okay. And for the first time in my 35 years, I have this naked truth, like judge me. what can you say I'm living honest well there's a good way I mean like we said you can't please everyone all the time all you can do is be yourself and be authentic when I went on Rogan's I thought like I didn't have a website or a business or anything

to sell or anything to promote and I just wanted to hang with them you know I wanted to hang I wanted to talk with them about my my uh experience with ayahuasca and uh we had a blast we had a great conversation and then i was like oh you know everybody said was like man watch your twitter blow up yeah fucking blow up son yeah and i kept seeing like every day like 30 50 100 new followers like tons of new followers but the number stayed the same yeah and it never shows you how many people stopped following right and that that cracked me up when i realized that maybe like six weeks in i was like man this is so weird i wonder if it's just not updating my my total and then i was like oh no there's that many people

that were put off by me talking about specifically i had people write me and they'd be like you lost me when the trees started talking to you bro and i'm like well that's okay yeah that's okay right it's kind of like uh you know my buddy dan hardy you fought in the ufc for a while um he was with me and then i my first ayahuasca ceremony and one of his visions was uh a memory of walking through walmart in the states you know he's from the uk but he's walking through walmart and he's covered with tattoos like you are and this fucking obese walmart lady is wheeling by on a scooter yeah and you know huffing and puffing on her scooter and she's staring at him glaring at him she looks him right in the eyes and he's kind of looking down and he glances and sees her staring right at him and right as she passed him she goes disgusting yeah talking about his fucking tattoos right yeah and he chuckled and he realized

these tattoos are something i love but they're also they're a fucking point of entry sure if you're you're fucking that put off by the art that i have on my skin then i don't need to bother having a conversation with you absolutely so it's a it's a way to weed out the people that don't fucking need to be there yep and i've you know a lot of what dan says has stuck with me over the years that stuck with me and it stuck with me when i was thinking about the twitter deal because it's like i would rather weed out the people that aren't on they don't need to be on the same page everyone's on their own path right but the people that aren't willing to learn from others the people that that find it disgusting right that uh you know i could speak to a tree that i believe plants are conscious

that have that i that i see these things that are commonly seen when you go down the rabbit hole with plant medicine as strong as ayahuasca yeah right so they don't need to be a part of the picture and everyone that sticks around and everyone else that joins they know what they're getting into you know it's it's i think what we talked about a little bit yesterday is our ego defined us for so many years and now i'm trying to pull that back a little bit because here's the problem there's there's a theory out there about facebook like the soapbox theory and that people don't see facebook as this interface people see facebook as this is mine and you're a visitor to my page and how many times do you see the the post of if if you disagree don't comment it. It's like, that's not reality, dude. But we're

teaching ourself that that is reality, right? So you expect to have those same kind of engagements and those same kind of experiences in the real world. You and I can have a conversation, and we're going to have some emotional bias on what we say, but as soon as we stop arguing with facts and it only goes to emotion i can learn a great deal from you if it stays to fact and you present something to me right even if at the end of the day we still disagree i have to applaud you for at least sharing relevant information right and not getting emotionally tied exactly right that's just a big one and i think that's i think that's you's tied to what you're saying. It's perfectly okay for this person to look at him and say,

oh, my God, your tattoos are disgusting. And you can't look at her and say, oh, my God, you're obese, and you sit around in a cart, and you're mocking me. Like, why is one socially accepted and one not? So I just think that we're in a very strange time of of people thinking that we're more important than we are and the further that i've stepped away from that ego-driven point and i realize we all have something to say we all have different views if you want to talk to trees and that makes sense and that that somehow brings you forward, then that's fine. Yeah.

Well, it's funny you mention that because that was not an intention. That was a fucking, that was a bonus. That was the side dish that I was given to help me realize, like, everything is fucking conscious. Right. Everything is God or however you want to word that. But it's all, if it's fucking alive, it's got whatever soul I have. So here's the thing, man. Last night, as I told you, I took a DMT experience,

and I know exactly what you're saying in my own terms because I got up this morning, and I feel like you obviously have that intense period, but I still feel like there was some residual. Maybe my dreams were a little bit enlightened and whatnot. And that area of this is made of protons, neutrons, electrons. This is made of protons, neutrons, electrons. I am made of protons, neutrons, electrons. We're all the same stuff.

But our mind and our mind's eye becomes the crayon to the coloring book. You know, just because we're in a room that we share and we're in a space that we share our mind and our mind's eye becomes the crayon to the coloring book. You know, just because we're in a room that we share and we're in a space that we share doesn't mean we see things exactly the same way. It doesn't mean we respond to them exactly the same way. If it did, we'd all be eating oatmeal because all we need to add is fuel. But you may not like oatmeal. I like oatmeal.

You may not like oatmeal. We all have different tastes. We all have different experiences that guide what we see and what we feel and what we experience. And one of the overwhelming feelings that I had last night is I kind of wrestle with the idea of God. I think one of the things that I've viewed most is that I'm a believer in what I can see, so I haven't seen God. So it makes me question, is God real? But then at the same time, I'm not confident enough to say that he's not real, right?

But then last night when I'm in the midst of all this, and literally 10 minutes, like it's 10, 15 minutes of just this super intense feeling. And it was like, so I get up and under my own free will, I go do this. And under my own free will, I go do this, and under my own free will, I go do that. And I kind of control myself. So I become the creator of what my world is. That's a very God-like feeling, but without ego, without exaggeration, and knowing that I control my world but you can control yours you know and that for

me was so freeing because I just I have a choice I have the option to experience what I want to experience so why am I going to continually do things I don't want to do I mean I'm still processing it out but that's the foundation point of it is every single day is a blank slate and we have the chance to do whatever we want we we have the chance to do whatever we want. We literally have the chance to do whatever we want. If you want to go to Montana, let's go get in your truck and let's go. We can get there, but it's somebody or something or some bill or some job is holding back people from exactly what they want to do.

Now, there has to be a means to an end, but don't be the reason that you don't do it. There's going to be other factors that limit you. Don't limit yourself. And if you can't do it physically, run with it mentally. And that's why I think I took the chance on the DMT because I've had four or five experiences on shrooms. I think there's a great benefit to marijuana, especially the edible. And I think that once you start seeing that the mind kind of relaxes

and lets down some barriers, it lets down some expectations, you want to go to that next step. I have no desire to do LSD because I feel like that's chemically driven, but you're talking about something that's very, very natural. It's in everything. DMT is in everything. And I think that's one of the layers that you get to is I am no different than anything else in this world.

I'm just a thing in this world for a blink. That right there will count out 75 years if I wanted to. We could just keep flipping it. But if I do nothing with it, then I'm nothing. So I better do something with it, right? Yeah, make the most of your time. Exactly. And that was a it, then I'm nothing. So I better do something with it, right? Yeah, make the most of your time. Exactly. And that was a harsh reality.

I'm 35. And according to the age brackets that my man and my family have died, I've lived longer than I have to live. And it's funny that right about the time that you have that realization or you've fucked up enough to realize that you've got to do something different, then you figure it out. And it's like it's a race against that sand. How much can I get done before it's over? And it's sad that it gets that way because my dad has never given me the wrong advice once.

He told me this a long time ago because he was a guy that just, he was in that hamster wheel. And he was like, you're better than this, kid. You're better than this. But I didn't believe it until i fucked up for myself you know and i think for my son i hope that he can see a life that i'm living and mirror that more than me having to say don't do it like dad did yeah so i want to live a life that he can model after far better to pull than push yeah far better to lead by example and it's it's a you know experience is the best teacher so there's no fault in learning from your own mistakes instead of you know

fucking figuring that out just from the mistakes of others have you noticed and i'm sorry to interrupt you but have you noticed like i'm sure you fought the current, right? You fought the stream. You know, you're the fish swimming against it. And life was hard. And then I kind of got to the point where it was like, I don't know where I'm going to go. But I know that I'm just going to go with it. Like, I don't want to fight anymore. I just want to accept.

And that's when I started meeting some very unique people that I would have never been in a circle with before. I think that's why I'm here today. Honestly, I think that's why I'm here today was because I've just been talking to more interesting people that they want to ask questions, they want to understand, they want to evolve, and this guy introduced me to this guy, and this guy introduced me to this guy, and this guy introduced me to you and you, and we're sitting here today because we're all on a similar path but i didn't i didn't push to be here i didn't say i want to go to on it this morning you know it just happened we were eating burgers over at holy cow and it's like that was the introduction and then from there it was like we came over here and trained matt maybe put in a good word for me or whatever and then it's like here we are but you me and matt conversations that we're having

we're all asking the same questions right and it's it's by no that's by no accident even if it feels accidental yeah so i feel like there's one thing i that i've learned from these uh plant medicines is that there there really are no accidents no you know there are no accidents and that doesn't mean that you know from the traditional Christian, God has a plan. It has nothing to do with that. It just means that even from a mistake standpoint, the only real mistake is the one you don't learn from. Every time I've fucked up in the past or gone through some really hard times in my life,

looking back in hindsight, that was the exact catalyst I needed to grow further. That was the exact thing I needed to push me to level up right you know to use one of dan hardy's terms like i i without those things i wouldn't be where i am right now and you can't hold that you can't hold the bad without you can't have bad without good you can't have one without the other you can't there's no short without tall there's no fat without thin it's all on the same fucking pendulum right well i took my son to an imagine dragons concert and you know not necessarily my wheelhouse of favorite music but i'll tell you what one of the best concerts i've ever been to in my life they were extremely positive the message was real but he said something that was just blew me away he He said, my whole life, I was an awkward kid. I had anxiety. I was depressed.

He said, when I got about 16, 17, I asked who decided what depression was. And it's not some scale that you can put around your head and then say, okay, here's an accurate reading. It's just an assessment that was designed by human beings to say, you're not normal. You're not like me. You're not in this mold. Right. But he said that depression led me to music and that music led me to the stage in front of 25,000 people. He's like, do I want to be depressed? So I have, won't I have those feelings of sadness? No, but that sadness created the words that created my music. I became anti bullying because I was a bullied kid and I wanted to talk about not letting that get you down there's there is a point in life where that will turn around and it's like so

his depression was his enlightenment right Poe his depression was his enlightenment and on and on and on I mean I think you look at guys like Hunter S Thompson or Hemingway without that I actually this all stemmed from the john butler trio the song oceans have you seen it's a 12 minute video this dude just it's just him and a guitar a 12 string no we'll link to it in the show notes but it um i'm like that's his language and if that guitar wasn't the translator we would never understand that guy but when he picks up the guitar i mean i get him like i get every single thing he's about because that is his language. And all of us have something like that inside of us.

A lot of us just don't seek the translator. We don't find that thing that allows us to give our gift. And I think that's what I'm searching for the most is what is my gift? I think my gifts revolve around writing, revolve around painting, revolve around art. But I squashed that down because it wasn't masculine. It wasn't tough. It wasn't expected.

Do the unexpected. Do the thing that everybody says that's the last thing that guy would do. And that's what I love. And it's not that I'm great at it but i get it when i put something out there when i write something down when i look at it i feel clean you know i feel i feel lighter it's important to have something that taps into that creative piece of our hearts yeah without that we feel like like we're just fucking right on the wheel you know like i'm doing everything for everyone else or i'm i'm doing this because it's what i need to do now uh paul chick we had him on not long ago

and he was talking about um the prostitute archetype the prostitute archetype can be good or bad it's it's good when you do the thing you don't want to do for a period of time as a means to an end to get the thing you do want to do yeah right like i'll work this shitty job and save up so i can start my own business and do the thing that i love no or i'm going to work this shitty job until we get out of this crappy neighborhood and i can provide for my family and put a nice roof over our heads then i'll start looking in other directions with the i'll take the sure thing for as long as i can use it and then move on and the prostitute archetype is bad when you fucking keep doing it just for the money and

you sacrifice your creativity. You sacrifice your own positive wellbeing and your own quality of life just for the money. Sure. Well, you know, it's funny. I didn't know that there was actually a thing recalling the prostitute archetype. Maybe my country bumpkin grandfather was a lot smarter than I thought. But when I was younger, he always said that he was like, we're all going to be

prostitutes to something. We all got a price. And that's true. And he was like, you're the only one that determines what that's worth. So what is your day worth? You remember, I think it was Anna Nicole Smith. I don't wake up for less than $10,000. I think it was her that said that, but if not, there was another model. She valued her day at $10,000, right? So most people will get up and they'll say, this is what my bills are, this is what I have to make, this is what I have to make. No, I get that, and I've been there, and I have to do that too, but you could also say, what could I be making? Even if it's not money right now, if it leads to happiness and fulfillment, then you're not buying things to fill those holes, to fill those voids. Then you have more money. You know, when you're truly happy,

I don't, I don't need much, you know, because I'm satisfied and I'm completing what I got. I spend most of my money on food because I love the feeling of shared food and, like, people being around a meal. You get some pretty good conversations around food, right? I'd rather do that than to go, hey, let's go to the football game. That's cool, but I can't talk to you. I can't, you know. I would like to have those shared experiences.

So what would make me happy right now? I just want somebody to set me on fire with talking to me. Let's have some awesome food. Let's get some awesome beer. Let's sit here and talk. Let's do it. You know, and what are we doing right now? Exactly.

Rogan calls this the last great conversation. Nobody's looking at their cell phones. There's no fucking distractions. We're able to sit down face-to-face and really dive deep for an hour. I think that's what the podcast is the the world of the podcast has taken off so strongly because it's it's foreign to us when was the last time i mean and the cool thing about it is from a from a standpoint of a listener for three hours you're in a conversation you're not talking you're forced to shut the fuck up and listen well it's like

somebody's sitting right here in the room with us right now as they're listening to this yeah car wherever they're at yeah and commute but how many times i noticed it in finland have you ever been over to finland or any of the scandinavian countries no i want to uh fucking matt vincent's got me just jacked iceland yeah over there yeah so um yeah i train a guy named runer he's a photographer which is why i fell in love with his work but he's also a power lifter he trains with thor okay yeah ander he's a photographer which is why i fell in love with his work but he's also a power lifter he trains with thor okay yeah and uh he's a coach at his gym so gonna make that trek too but in finland it was almost like this awkward uh transition point in conversation because they will literally take three to five seconds before they answer your question

and it's not because they don't have the answer. The way it was explained to me was this guy named Aki. He told me that we don't reply immediately because we want to give your question the credit it deserves. Because usually what you say first is ignorance. And what you say after, like how many times you send a text message and as soon as you hit send, you're like, oh, shit. You know, what I've done is like if I'm heated or if I'm in a serious conversation, I'll type out my answer.

I'll set it down for just a second. I'll reread it, and then it's like, okay, I could probably clean this up a little bit. And that's what they do when they speak. So they value the word, Americans, myself included, for the most part it's just yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. The mouth is moving the face is making sounds but you're not saying anything there's yeah so keep going keep going

i got i got something to add to that yeah fucking phenomenal but that's just it it's it's the fact that saying less is sometimes saying more if it's the right thing to say and giving conversation the appreciation that it deserves not just rattling something off. Like, what do you think about, uh, squats and chains? Oh, I don't like them. Let's that's a foolish answer. How are you implying, or how are you using them currently? Okay. And I see where the fault lies within your training. Let's do this. So by asking a question to a question, I can get to a deeper level of understanding and a deeper level of explanation. But so many times in this, in this rat race, we talk about the wheel. Um, we just want to, we just want to get it so we get to the next one because the next one might mean a dollar. Next one might mean $10. You know what I mean? It's just on and on and on and on and on instead of just the human connection aspect

of, man, that just, that guy just helped me out. Yeah. We're, we're losing that. And do you know your neighbors? Exactly. I, you you know that's been something that i've really focused on is being that guy that hey i'm here if you need something if if i can ever help out here i am and that was a start for me because i just kept feeling myself get closed in closed in closed in and now i'm trying to get out meet everybody shake everybody's hand you know when you come to these events like over at power athlete symposium you're like oh my god there's that guy that does that stupid shit on instagram he's a real guy behind the instagram and if I only talk to him or only judge him on that then I miss the whole thing so I'm trying to that's one of my default

that's one of my like defaults when I'm in a room full of people because I'm I tend to be more of a pull back I'm just trying to go all in because I tend to be more of a pullback. I'm just trying to go all in. I'm trying to figure it out more real. Let's have a real conversation. Don't text me. Don't be on Facebook. Let's talk for five minutes. Last night, I was blown away. 20, 30 conversations that I would have never had five years ago. Yeah, I think as you become more open and you start to to maybe let go of the need to be right or uh the need to look a certain way you know like when you're talking about answering questions and in conversations especially with clients or if i'm on facebook live it's easy to just you know somebody says you know should i eat carbs or not it's like well why yeah like maybe you should

maybe you shouldn't maybe maybe there's a time there's a time and a place for everything you know maybe you cut them for a few months if you're trying to lose weight. If your goal is strength and you're training to maximum power, like fucking eat carbs. Good carbs for damn sure. Don't cut those out. You're going to fall flat on your face otherwise, right? So things like that, I think it just takes a little investigation.

And that takes taking a deep breath and then coming you know investigating a little bit more and then coming up with some quality conversation from that but i think uh one thing that's really helped me and fairly recently even this week um i disagreed with somebody on uh i don't want to dive too far into this because i don't if somebody's listening i don't want them then to figure this out but uh there was there was a huge disagreement on um on something and uh me five years ago would have fucking blown up and be like nope you're wrong this is the way you're fucking completely wrong right and instead i i just kind of said oh you know all right i i disagree and uh and i just and i just kind you know all right i i disagree and uh and i just

and i just kind of sat back and i focused on my breathing and relaxed and then after that i went and meditated for 40 minutes because i was fucking boiling sure and in that meditation i was able to release that yeah like that was the fucking whole point of the meditation sometimes i go into meditation and i'm like let me just fucking see what comes to me. Let's see what epiphanies I have, what fucking language comes in, what thoughts do I have, what will I get from this being quiet, right? Right. Stillness. That meditation had an intention.

The intention was, I don't want to fucking be angry the rest of the day. Let me just calm the fuck down. And it worked very well. And what happened in that that from being calm and all the interactions i had with that person the rest of the day they felt that energy oh yeah they felt me being calm and not being a dick about the fact that because they knew i disagreed they knew that i disagreed to the fucking core on the issue right and then from there moving forward you know that person came back later and and asked me like what are the ways we would do it differently sure you know and it was very

easy then from a place of peace and stillness to be like oh thanks for asking that you know i have some ideas here's a couple books to read you know and it was like it was such a fucking cakewalk compared to what it would have been five years ago if i was like fuck you my way or the highway i'm right you're wrong yeah you know and like that's like you look at communication i studied communication in college so did i there's it's funny how you're gonna be doing the sorenix podcast yeah and i'm doing the on it podcast i was like everyone goes to college now and they never use what the fuck they learn in college for their work and oddly enough communication and sociology

and psychology are quite a bit what i what i bring up you know yeah through this podcast but um you know this idea in communication like i'm always trying to figure this out with my wife i'm always trying to figure there's and i'm and with my fucking two and a half year old son you got a kid you know it's like how we communicate makes all the difference in the world in our relationships right you know it makes all the difference in the world with our friendships everything is fucking fragile right right so if we can speak authentically and with a gentleness that that that allows the other person to uh save face you know like like my my dad always said like you know if you don't you don't start a fight but if somebody's fighting you you're allowed to fight back right

and that said you always give them a way out sure you don't fucking corner someone beat them to a pulp you always give them a way out right and if they want out mid-fight you allow them to fucking leave with grace because that's the guy that'll leave and not come back with his buddies right you know like you always give the person a way out in conversation you always give the person a way out of of that first line because not everyone's as mindful of how they approach communication or how they speak to one another and if you're firing back texts and it's the first knee-jerk reaction like no that's not what i fucking said blah blah blah it's a lot easier to just say hey hold on a second.

Let's get on the phone here. Yeah, it is. And I think that's something that has been lost. I talk about taking the time to separate. When's the last time you wrote somebody a letter? It's been years. I got two thank you notes. I'm going to challenge you.

Write somebody a letter. I have a friend. He's been a client off and on for a long time. And I have a hard time calling him a client because he's a friend. He's actually evolved into somebody that I care very much about. And he's a very successful guy. Very, very successful. I can't imagine too many people that wouldn't trade lives with this guy.

But he's like anybody else. He's human. He messaged me. He's like, dude, I'm just at my wits end. I'm spread too thin. I'm pissed off. I'm angry. He's like, I snapped at my wife, you know? And I said, dude, what's going on? And he was like, I don't know, man. I'm just, I'm just, don't feel like I'm getting ahead. I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. He's ahead. He's doing very well. Right. But we all get trapped into our own, our own like self and what we want to do and sometimes we don't get content with what we have we just keep looking at more and more and more and more and

more he's like i feel real bad about snapping at her i said write her a letter tell her what you've been going through tell her that you're stressed tell her why you're stressed but also tell her that she made all this possible you've told me me that before. Dude, he said she just wept openly when she got the letter because it's different. It's taking the time to do something in your own hand. And I think, especially in a day and age where that's uncommon now, when you do pick up the phone and make the phone call, so it's not 20 different texts of maybe I understood what you're saying, maybe I didn't.

Let's get right to the bottom of this. And the same thing with a letter. I tend to find on a text message you can just go and go and go but when you start writing a letter it tends to just you kind of get into that space where you're not really thinking it's just really coming out and I think to speak on meditation for people that are hearing this and they're struggling with oh my god you guys sound like a bunch of uh you know hippies just talking about meditating and this and they're struggling with the, Oh my God, you guys sound like a bunch of, uh, you know, hippies just talking about meditating and this, that, and the other, the best way that, that I was able to free my mind from all of that expectation was if you had this feeling during a dream, you wouldn't think it was foreign. It would be completely normal to hear languages,

to talk to trees, to fly all these things in a dream. That's normal. But when you close your eyes and you're conscious of it and your mind still goes there, we run from it. But no, that's exactly where your mind wants to go. It wants to be free. It wants to talk to the trees. It wants to fly. It wants to fall off a cliff and catch itself before you hit the water. So I think if you just let the mind run and you view meditation as that, I'm not trying to guide it. I'm just trying to let it go where it goes. The same with that letter. I started out with the intention of, let me say what needs to be said, but then you just find that rhythm where it's just coming out. That's the way I meditate is I start with the intention of, I need to calm the fuck down.

So that begins with the breathing that begins with the relaxation that begins with my life is pretty good. If this is the worst thing I got going on right now. And then I just kind of hum out and it, wherever I go, I mean, talking to trees might be a light day for me, buddy. You know what I mean? But it's, it's not something that anyone should be discouraged from. It's, it's uncomfortable because people have been conditioned not to feel those

things. Like that's why the pineal gland shrinks as we age because not because it will shrink you go to indigenous communities where people were still taking ayahuasca and all these things the pineal gland is still huge because nobody's telling them oh you can't do this you're not allowed to do that you know having the ability to dream and to vision and to to see something in a positive way is all tied to the pineal gland but life and experience oh you can't have a million dollars you can't get out of this job you can't do that every day it's just like a kicking the balls to your pineal gland and it just finally shuts down to the point where you're so bitter you're so hateful you're so angry because you shut off the fact that you can dream like when you're so angry because you've shut off the fact that you can dream. Like when you're a kid, you go outside, shit,

that's like being on a mushroom trip all the time, right? My son can go out here and he can talk to Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles and shit, I think it's awesome. But he thinks it's real, right? At 10 years old, you are convinced you're talking to Ninja Turtles. Why at 35 can't I talk to a tree, right? So I think it's just the expectation or the fear of what others think of that that prevents us from letting go but when like last night during the DMT trip I

had I had three people in the room that have been intensely involved in my progression as a human being they like me because I'm brandon not because i'm strong they weren't doing it but they were there in support of me and i could feel it like i could feel that in the room it's heavy right now like it's it's a very heavy feeling to know that cory came over and at one point like i guess i was just kind of moving my hands a little bit he's kind of put his hand on my shoulder and dude it was like somebody punching through water and it just splashed over me it was just like the craziest feeling but it was warmth like a blanket like this is my friend he's with me and i didn't know it was cory at the time i just knew that

somebody in that room of some people that cared about me was there with me because i kind of he thought i might have kind of been like freaking out struggle yeah yeah but it wasn't it was just I was kind of at a point of like what next and then it was just kind of like a push that's the way it felt it's like just go just keep going and it was awesome it was it was completely awesome and when I came out of it I set up and I looked around and it was like, this is exactly where I want to be. This is exactly where I should be. And that was a pretty incredible feeling because for most of my life, I felt like I've had to be somebody that I wasn't and I've had to be in places that I didn't want to be.

And in this moment, I'm right there. I'm in that moment. Yeah, I think when it's done right right that's a fairly common trip report is this complete contentment it doesn't mean you don't have goals or that you won't continue to pursue your dreams it just means that right now is fucking awesome too yeah you know down the road will be great and whatever happens happens but right now is fucking great couldn't i could not imagine. I mean, I'd just eaten good food. I'd just had this awesome experience. And I set up and we started talking and we kind of had some in-depth discussion.

And then it was just like, we were just laughing. When was the last time you just laughed so hard you couldn't stand it, right? Like up to my ears hurts today because I was smiling and laughing so hard. But if you're laughing, it's hard to be upset. It's hard to have a bad day. And those people were there just, they were laughing with me, not at me laughing with me. And it was, I mean, you get it. It's just a heavy, heavy thing. And for somebody to judge that and say it's wrong, I don't feel sorry for for them i just wish that they could hear it you know yeah yeah you know again experience is the best teacher and we go based off ideas and what everyone else

has said or or what what big brother has told us our whole fucking lives about these things uh it doesn't make sense but i think more thankfully more and more people are starting to question what we've been brought up believing. They talk about this in the Four Agreements, the domestication of man. Sure. We've all fucking been domesticated. The first time I read that book, I was like, this guy's a sour bitch. What happened to him to make him think we've all been fucking domesticated like animals?

Right. And then going through some of these experiences myself, I reread it about a year ago. I reread it a couple months ago. And every time I reread that domestication part, I'm like, motherfucker, this is so spot on. And it makes me analyze everything that I've agreed upon. Because everything we fucking do in modern society is an agreement. It's all something that we all collectively consciously

say oh yes this is true right yes this is right but very few things other than gravity and shit like that are are known truths in the universe sure right very few things yeah so most of which things we live by including and i'm in a monogamous marriage right now but we've talked quite a bit about sex at dawn and different things like that and the agreement of monogamy right right which is an agreement it's not the way that everyone lived and i don't know if we'll ever go down that path but it it at least as i open up and this is just one example this is not to open up the rabbit hole on on that discussion but it's just like just to and this is just one example this is not to open up the rabbit hole on on that discussion but it's just like just to understand this is something we agreed to do right it's not

something that is a noble truth or a fucking law right that human beings pick one partner for the rest of their lives we're not fucking penguins in the arctic it's not you know we're closely related to bonobos more than chimps and bonobos fuck all day, every day with everybody. Yeah. And they do just fine. Yeah. You know?

So, I mean, and again, you know, we're, we're not in a, a tribal setting where everyone raises everyone's kids and it makes it a lot easier to do, especially with kids involved. But, um, but I mean, it's just one piece, you know, with your, with your experience, could you find yourself accepting of that if it was presented to you in a way like you and say five of your closest friends their wives their kids we're gonna live as a tribe and wherever that goes well yeah dude dr dan engel was just on arby's podcast and he he's lived in a fucking modern day commune sure thing where that's exactly what they do right and that seems more feasible to me than hey we're going to get a babysitter tonight and both of us

are going to go out on dates with other fucking random people like that makes no sense to me the the tribal setting does but you know again like that's we could fucking talk about that for two hours point is like that's just one really important piece of how we're educated what we are what we agree to like because we're born into that like that's the other thing like when you start peeling back these agreements you realize we are born into whatever is we're born into the now yeah and when we were born we're both 35 yeah god you had telephones so much better than me for 35 this is embarrassing geez man yeah but you you were just fucking around yesterday with 405 on bench reps my best my best ever at 268 was 405 for a single so there there's there's benefits to everything that's but that's

one moment you got those looks for life dude my face has been rearranged enough so thankfully i held some of it um when we peel back these agreements we began we began to think about that like oh i was born in 1982 we had telephones there was a time and a place there are people alive today that were around before telephones there were people around that saw the fucking first cars and you go back generations before that people got around a horse and carriage yeah you know there was people fucking before electricity there was you know it's just fucking nuts when you rewind not that far right and you think about the world today and you complain and you think of like and all the shit going on in politics and all that but you see like it was the blink of an eye yeah when we fucking had huge i mean fuck and you're in kentucky like

my time in kentucky my buddies that were there they're like hey man this ain't the west coast right you know like like if you talk to black people it may not be the same response back home yeah and i was like okay they're like no no i'm serious bro like it's it's a different animal here yeah you know like and uh thankfully like we were at a gas station and um we're walking in and there was three big black dudes standing outside and they see those five white guys walk in and they hear us talking and we came out and they got one of the guys was like hey y'all ain't from around here it's like now i'm from california and he's like oh shit you're from the west coast and all three of them started talking with us right because they knew we weren't a part of that history right but that history was fucking a blink of an eye saying hitler was the blink of an eye

yeah well and that's the thing is we make these we make these assumptions that oh we would never do that again no eisenhower took the troops through the concentration camps after it was over, and he said, look at this. So you never forget, and you never let it happen again. Look at this. And he made the soldiers stand there and look at the devastation. What did we do? We were in Korea 12 years later.

We're in Vietnam 20 years after that, and we're right back in Afghanistan and Iraq. Damn good for the guys and girls that go over there and fight like all the power to them. But we didn't learn the men and women learned, but our government didn't learn. Right. So I look at all these things and all these, these places that we're going as people. And it's just like, unless you really have this radical exodus from the norm, we're just going to be repeating ourselves. You know, we're just going to keep repeating.

So you have to step outside of that to really experience something significant. And I love that you went the direction of expectation and kind of this, we're told, not experienced. So when I went into college college i had an english professor named phil english and the first day in class he goes okay i want to ask you this how many of you in here believe in god and few hands went up if you didn't and he goes okay how many of you white people hate black people no hands go up he goes okay how many of you black people hate white

people no hands go up because this is this is the most egalitarian, uniform society that I've ever been a part of. He says, that's amazing. He's like, let's cut the bullshit. How many of you white people hate black people? And a couple hands. He said, if I take away the word hate and I say the word have fear of black people, a few hands go up, right? And he goes, okay, well, tell me the experience that gave you that fear.

Crickets. Some of these people had never experienced anything good bad whatever with someone of the opposite race they just did it because mama told them to or they did it because tv told them to or they did it because of this and he was like how much of your bullshit life do you believe because somebody told you to if If you believe in God, go to the Bible. Learn that thing inside and out because that's your eternity. And if you don't know that Bible inside and out, you're not holding the key. Figure it out.

If you don't like black people, better have a damn good reason. If you black people don't like white people, you better have a damn good reason. Don't talk about what you see on the TV. Talk about the experience that you've had with that guy sitting five feet from you. Right? What?

Like, it changed everything for me because all I believed in was what was given to me. Nothing that I had earned. Right? I had never earned anything in my belief system. So at 20 years old, I had to start peeling back. Like, why do I feel this way? Where does it go? And it almost had a bad effect at first because I got negative.

I was mad at myself for being fooled, right? But now it's like everybody's getting fooled. I'm not going to judge anything because I'll try anything. I'll do anything. Whatever it is. You know, Voltaire says, once a philosopher, twice a pervert. You're allowed to do anything in this world once in the name of understanding if you go back to it that's where the perversion can begin like it becomes an addiction it becomes a craving or it's just

something that's really cool and should be repeated right yeah but you've got to experience it if you don't do these things if you don't try things if you don't talk to new people you're just limiting your life you You're in a box. And I'm from paint lit Kentucky, paint fucking lit Kentucky. Okay. And when I went to Mark Bell's to do that first meet in California, when I told people, they said, well, you might as well be going to the moon. If you're going to California, that's their mindset because it's, it's a difficult place to get away from. There's a lot of ties there. There's a lot of good families there. So I know people that want to get out of there,

people that want to go to California, people that want to do these great things, but they're scared. Well, I've got to leave my family. That may happen. I had to distance myself from my family for a few years for powerlifting. Was it the right thing? Fuck no. Was it a learning experience?

Absolutely. I learned so much about myself because I broke myself completely apart. And I became alone. And when you're alone and when you're isolated, you start having to ask yourself some really tough questions. You know, if you're always pointing the finger around the room saying, God, they're all assholes, you might need to turn the finger back around and say, I'm the asshole.

You have to learn from those experiences. And if you don't, then you're right back in the same mistake again. Like we were talking, you just do it over and over and over war begets war begets war. When really, if you walk over and you do something horrible, like if you, if you hurt your child, you would never go back and do that again. Like you would just not repeat that same mistake, but we're, we're repeating war, right? How, how do we do that? Like, how do we allow this to happen in a day and age when we could be so much better we could do so much more and that's where i just look at if we're if we can be better as a society then i can be better as a human being and i can connect better with human beings so hell yeah brother doing a

lot of work my friend thank you so much for joining us oh thank you pleasure you have no idea the the impact that just being here and like talking about aubrey's poster um i don't think that poster was there by chance i mean it was it was exactly what i needed to see as i read it and it was just like yeah the path is going this way and that's where i need to be so thank you so much man i mean it was awesome where can people follow you on social media? You can follow me. It's a Brandon Lilly. L I L L Y three. Is my Instagram. I'm Brandon Lilly power lifter on. I'm actually going to change that. I'm not going to be a power lifter anymore.

I'm just going to be Brandon Lilly on a fan page. But it's Lilly Brandon three on Twitter. Instagram is probably the most realistic look at who I am. It's where I'm the most invested. I'm starting to play with Twitter a little bit, just as I have a second and I have a thought that's kind of random or weird or might create some kind of thought, I'll put a tweet out there here or there. But for the most part, Instagram is my currency. That's where I put the most time, effort, but for the most part, Instagram is my currency. You know, that's where I put the most time effort and share the most reality of who I am and what I'm interested in. I kind of like something John Welborn said, which was a lot of people are turning the camera

this way. I want to turn the camera around so you can see my world. You can see the experiences that I'm having and you can look at my face anytime you want but i want you to see what i'm looking at i want you to see what i'm a part of and where that's going and i don't even know where it's going but i'm not fighting it anymore right okay brother i'm excited to watch yeah man thank you thanks for joining us brother thank you thank you guys for listening to the on it podcast uh really hope you enjoyed this one as much as i did make sure you check out Brandon Lilly's social media and whatnot. We got that all linked in the show notes. And please leave us a five-star rating. It really helps get the word out and lets people come to the show. We want new

listeners. We enjoy the listeners we have, but we want more. Poco mas, poco mas. Thank you very much, guys. Take care. All right, guys, you've got questions. I've got answers. Every Wednesday at 6 p.m. Central Time, I'm going to be on Onnit's main page on Facebook doing a Facebook Live Q&A. The Facebook Live Q&A runs for 30 minutes. If you can't make it at 6 p.m. Central Time, all you have to do is write in your questions and I'll be sure to get those answered for you either by writing it or talking about it on the Facebook live, which you can check out at any point in time after the show airs, but be sure to tune in live if you can. We're going to get a lot of information rounded out, talking about the podcast, talking about different health topics,

and I think you'll enjoy it.