Mark Bell's Power Project - The Anti-Guru Approach to Strength, Mindset & Performance | Brian MacKenzie

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

What if everything you’ve been told about mindset, training, and performance is missing the point?In this episode, Brian MacKenzie breaks down why he rejects the “guru” label and dives deep into the connection between physical training, mindset, and the nervous system. From working with elite athletes to helping people rebuild their lives, Brian explains why performance isn’t just about strength—it’s about identity, behavior, and how you operate day to day.This conversation explores why some of the most successful people in the world are still struggling internally, how consistency compounds over time, and why pushing your limits is necessary to truly grow. It’s not about hacks or shortcuts—it’s about understanding yourself and building something sustainable.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!

If you just stay consistent in a year, you're not capable of actually imagining where you could be at if you just stay consistent with what it is you're doing right now. You can be world class and be in a world of hurt. If you're not rubbing up against the edge, you're probably never going to figure this out. I am anti-gourouro. I can tell you that. You've been doing such a deep dive into training over the years that I've noticed just some big shift. in your like your perspective and the words that you use and some of the things that you say and even some of the black and white videos I notice you're you're kind of leaning and talking

quite a bit about philosophy and what I've learned over the years is that sometimes as you go up the food chain and you start to talk to people that are a little bit more knowledgeable more knowledgeable more knowledgeable at first they have some answers and then you go to them you know a few years later they got even more answers and so on But at some point you go to this person and they become like a guru kind of a shaman type person. I'm not saying that you claim any of that. But what I see happen is put your hands up and say, hey, I don't know. Because you've learned so many times over and over again how many times you've been wrong to get you to the spot that you're at now where you do have a lot of the answers.

What do you think has kind of turned you on to this like, I guess this philosophical side, maybe like mindset side? I know there's still a huge aspect that actually is physical. We can't just, we can't just think our way into being in like better shape and stuff. Have you run into that yourself? Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm definitely the, I am anti-gourouro. I can tell you that.

Hence my departure from like social media. I'm just so averse to the inauthenticity that comes with that. And it's not by our own fault. It's how, how, you know, social media is structured. You're not going to get away from that. So that being said, you know, I've, when you were saying, that I instantaneously thought about the Chinese the so Alan Watts tells his story

about the Chinese farmer and everything's maybe like you know it starts off with the you know the Chinese farmer as you know and I'll just do the first part of it but you know the Chinese farmer has his son is like hurt broken leg and his son works with him on the fields and all of the the people in the community are like oh my God, what are you going to do? It's so bad. Like, this is so terrible. You're not going to be able to move your, and he goes, ah, maybe. And then the next day, the conno scripts show up to take his son to the army. But they can't because his son's legs broken. So he doesn't go to the army. So, you know,

everything kind of, it's just become more piecemeal in what I'm doing. And I'm not as much as in a rush as I think I was. You know, I would just, I got shot out of a cannon, man, early on in my career. I mean, I saw probably more than 10,000 athletes in a, like, 10-year period. And, you know, you put in front of media and a lot of stuff. And, you know, you're trying to be known for something so that you kind of have a niche, right? Correct. And there's nothing wrong with any of this.

I'm not implying that. It just was an accelerant. like, you know, literally that shot out of a cannon. Trying to find your career. Correct. And I was, you know, I mean, to be clear, I had begun my career by being curious. And that was why I opened my first gym. And that was why I did my, what I was doing.

And that was what led me to reach out to, you know, Greg Glassman and, you know, and get involved with CrossFit when I got involved with CrossFit in 2006, seven. and then getting involved in teaching. And I found that I was really good at kind of communicating the nuance of what I was seeing with inside the training. Right. Like there were some problems that people had. Like people were coming to me because they were getting banged up and I was helping them change that.

And then I was learning how to manipulate that with training and getting the big bang for a buck out of, you know, for what we were doing. doing, you know, but everything's a learning process. And if you're not learning from what you're doing, I just don't think there's really any point to that. However, I hope what you're doing is through that lens of curiosity. You know, I saw something the other day where a guy was like, your entire purpose, this is how I look at my life. not everybody's going to see this but he put out I saw this thing where he said your entire purpose

is to make money at the problem you'd be solving even if money weren't involved like that's what I'd be doing I'm doing exactly what I'm doing like being paid or not I'd be doing what I'm you know like it's just it's just how it's happened and I don't think I'm I'm I just I just I've just found that I don't necessarily have answers. What I have is kind of figuring out a direction and a way to go. And I've got a hell of a lot of tools that I use as a result of that. You know, the breathing thing came in to this and helped kind of pull me back and look at some things that I was doing that were probably not, I wouldn't say too much intensity, but yeah,

there was a lot of intensity in what I was doing. And it made me reel back a little bit and go, oh, I can't like, I'm breathing heavy almost every single time I'm training. And what's that resulting in? And then what happens when I'm not breathing is heavy and this slows down a bit? And then all of a sudden I'm making big jumps, bigger jumps and what's happening. And I think everything has just become this process of learning. But I really think that that's the crux of it is.

like, what are we learning and how is this helping improve what I'm doing if improvement's actually the thing? You know, is it leading me to, I'm just tired of a lot of this, the old behaviors that I've had that occurred and occurred within the current framework. There's a lot of people I see who are incredibly successful in the, billionaire categories, right? Like people that are very successful with certain things that still are operating with a lot of the things that are, you know, that are from childhood and inhibit them in a lot of ways.

There are a lot of ultra successful people in certain areas and very unsuccessful and very unsuccessful in a lot of other areas. I think that that's unfortunately where modern life has gotten us to where you can really learn to have this maintenance, if you can, about your life. That there's just this process of maintenance that's going on in everything you're doing. And it shouldn't be a burden to do the dishes. and it shouldn't be a burden to clean your own fucking toilet, that should be part of the process. And that's leading you towards understanding how you're looking at everything.

And if those things become a burden, it's not like certain people aren't going to have to do that because they're going to be earning so much income that it takes away from what it is, the problem they're trying to solve. However, if you're still an asshole doing what you're doing, there's probably a problem. If you're still torturing yourself,

if you're still beating yourself up as a result and you're with what you're doing then you're not I think you're you're missing the point of what you're doing you're not solving any problem you're just exacerbating the problem and that's part of the problem with what we see with social media largely is because it's this two-dimensional universe right where you've got sight and sound essentially and it's tripwiring emotions or or mechanisms that the emotions only get tripwired because there's already a context or an opinion that's going on deep down that you're not addressing. Why does that opinion exist about something? Why am I so emotionally like charged by whatever that is? Why am I trying to correct that person?

And this is one of the things that, you know, you see on social media is like everybody's correcting what anybody puts out. Like you're training, right? Like Mark Bell's doing his own training. You see the floating head. And like like I've seen it a cut. I've seen it before. Like it's like here's what Mark's doing and people's comments through the thread like correcting what you're doing. You know what I mean? Or anybody, take whatever your name is. People will jump in and try and correct or fix what you're trying to do. And so we get caught in a cycle of not actually looking at the context behind that.

Thinking that that's my position is to my, what I'm here to do is correct that or have an opinion about all that. And then there's the content that's just trying to drag that out of you. I'm just trying to get you to engage in that so that I can inevitably sell you on something that's going on that, you know, it's just some product that you really don't need for something that you could be dealing with yourself anyway. And like, you know, it's just this vicious circle that we get caught in. And it really has drawn away from our ability to focus, which we definitively know at this point. and that only draws on how, you know, the brain and nervous system operate, which is this, you know, we're so, we've become attached to things like, oh, I'm just interested in the science. When 90% of the people that say that have no interest in the science and what the science actually means. Like if you're really interested in the science of like what the brain and nervous system are doing, you're going to be looking at your behavior.

quite literally. That's what you're going to be doing is looking at the things that you are repeating in day after day that have that kind of get you into this places that, you know, are triggering the emotions that are going on that keeps that dialogue going on in the head that quite literally is why your HRV is low. Are these things that you have to go over with with clients? Are these like, um, kind of like a philosophical side of things and kind of addressing, um, behaviors because what I what I think of is like a lot of a lot of athletes uh sometimes they're already fairly high level you know and you have to kind of like pick apart different

things and maybe there maybe some of their lifestyle is a little bit a little bit messy maybe they have to maybe there's things that they can do in their day to day that would slightly just clean stuff up a little bit we've heard of people we've heard of people before uh you know going to training camps together with like another athlete and it just blows their mind because they didn't really understand, oh, the guy lives his life this way. Like it's not just about what we're doing on the field. It's not the X's and O's in the execution. Oh, he's going to bed at the, oh, he's not going.

Oh, he's not drinking. Like, oh, he's, you know, he's kind of doing these other things. Yeah. So there was sometimes things. Is that maybe why you have kind of gravitated towards some of this? I mean, I know, again, I understand. understand you're still training a lot of the physical. Yeah.

Well, what I'm doing is I'm connecting the physical to that mental side, to that nervous system side. Not in a way that, you know, I, not really in a way that I've seen kind of done. It's just been my way of kind of getting, arriving there. However, you know, I've spent enough time, and I spent enough time with high level elite athletes that were mentally struggling hard. You can be world class and be in a world of hurt. Look, man, I mean, Michael Phelps did a documentary called The Way to Gold. Like, there's a lot that comes with dedicating one's life like that without addressing this side of stuff that I'm

kind of get that I'm not so that I'm directly going after. I screen clients to know if it's going to be a fit because I don't want to deal with stuff where it's like, dude, you're just wasting my time, like thinking that we're just going to train around your dysfunctional life. Just because you've got a lot of money and you're successful in business does not tickle me at all, even though like there are people who like, man, you're impressive. Like that's an impressive person right there. Like running multiple companies and taking care of themselves in the way that they take care of themselves. And, you know, versus like somebody who doesn't want to do that and go around it.

I'm just not, they're not interested in helping. They're not interested in a process. They're just interested in the superficial side of that and thinking that, you know, it's like if we just use HRV is, I just want to lower my HRV. Or I just want to increase my, sorry, I want to increase my HRV because it's low. Well, you're going to have to look at who you are. You're going to have to look at the identity and the attachments and the things going on in your life because if you don't, any raise in that HRV without addressing that stuff is not going to actually benefit you much at all from what I've seen.

And it might not be sustainable. It just won't be. That is the thing. It won't be sustainable like at all. you'll hit a roadblock you're going to be bootstrapped sure you'll slide into your 60s and 70s but you're going to be bootstrapped pretty pretty pretty well do you think that people have to be broken or they have to break themselves no no I did but no I do not think people need to do that there are a there are a there a swath of human beings who are intelligent enough to

pay attention to what other people are doing and pick up on what they're doing and hear what they're saying and go, oh, that really interests me. Right. That interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Making things look. Then there's those of us who like to, you know, torture ourselves and beat ourselves

up and grind ourselves into the ground and then go, oh, I'm, well, and that's perfectly fine. Neither's right or wrong. I'm not saying either's right or wrong. It's not. Waking up isn't like there is no way to do it, you know, like when I work with a lot of people in, um, who go into recovery. Like, where I'm just finishing up with a guy who came in as like a, a hardcore cocaine addict, right? Um, he came into this program that I'm, I'm, I'm a part of and

help run kind of the, the health side of it, um, the fitness health side of it. Um, and he had a massive change in six, I mean, massive change in six weeks, you know, um, and, you know, they have a saying, there's a saying with inside like the recovery community is like you know you choose when your bottom you hit your bottom it's not just a there's a specific bottom it's you get to choose how dark it is like oh i've seen it i've seen it firsthand with both of my brothers and family members and friends yes where you're like that's definitely the bottom yeah and they're like they somehow go yeah man i mean and i like i've i've done work in prisons and sometimes those aren't bottoms enough for people and sometimes that is enough of the bottom and you get to figure it out

in prison but you know it's it's interesting it doesn't have to be torturous but you know you choose when you're gonna you're gonna like you're gonna if you're not rubbing up against the edge you're probably never going to figure this out you've got to be willing to rub up against an edge a bit and and find out where that you know know where that progression can happen and can't. And that doesn't mean you become an elite athlete. It doesn't mean you become a billionaire, right? It might mean you become some homesteader. I don't know. Like, but that's an edge in and of itself. There are edges to these things where you're kind of, you'll find yourself if you just, you know, it's so interesting because like when I got in, when I had my hip replacement, I just want to,

dude, I just wanted to walk. Like, even before, like, I had the hip replacement, like, I could barely walk. Like, I did this trip down to El Salvador to go surf. And I was crippled. Like, I slept with, like, a band around my leg trying to distract my hip socket because it was just so bad. I just, and I just kept thinking to myself, I just want to walk again. I just want to be able to walk without pain. I remember, I remember that today.

And it's like, I can go walk without pain for like an hour now. I don't take that for granted, but we can take that for granted. But that has progressed into me being able to move and do things most of the day physically in a way that has seen a change in my own physiology. And look, I've been active my whole life, but there's been times I've been pretty inactive because I've been down. And it's had a direct impact not only on my mental state, but my physical state. and even my blood labs, if I were to look at things like that,

to where it's like what I see today, it's just like mind-blowing compared to where it was, but you can't get there if you're thinking about, I've got to have that change. It's like with the guy who's just finishing up this program from being in the attic. I've explained to him. I'm like, if you just stay consistent,

stop fucking thinking about how much you can do and all of the things that you could do. but consistent with the fundamentals that you've laid down, just be consistent with that for 30 days. What happens in 30 days is you begin to get bored with what you're doing, and so you start to tack on more or go a little harder, and then get consistent with that. And then you'll start to tack on a little more and get a little consistent with that.

Then you start to drift into and you start to get bored and you start to get creative with like, oh, I think I want to go do this or I want to go do that, things you never thought you do. I'm like in a year, you're not capable of actually imagining where you could be at if you just stay consistent with what it is you're doing right now. Because you'll get bored and you'll tweak it. You'll get bored and you'll tweak it. You'll get bored and you'll tweak it.

And then it'll just progress naturally. But people are so obsessed with the one thing they're doing and just trying to do the one thing. And we are wanting to be somewhere they're not that we overly focus on things. So it's really about me pulling back, slowing it down to a degree to be able to see what is really going on, not just with myself, but with people I work with and go, oh, I can see what's going on. Like you kind of no show at meetings that we're supposed to have or like things are going on. Like you're flaky here. You don't get this accomplished. You put more priority here.

So if you don't, like, you know, oh, your sleep's affected here when this is happening. and you're able to start to see a pattern of things that are quite literally like behavioral things. And all of that really distills down to what people think of themselves and how they're going about it. And I think that's essentially what the problem I've been trying to solve is that interconnection between, like what I was seeing very early on and working with elite athletes and not knowing really where to go with it. it or how to address it and how I was going to get there, but then stumbling into this breathing thing and then being already having the background I did in the physical and the physiology and then being like, oh, wow, like there's a major connection here. Like there is like this is all

one thing. It's all the same thing, but most of us have just been going around this side of things and avoiding it. And now there's no avoidance. People obsessing over things that they don't have or people obsessing over being in a spot they don't want to be in how do the best figure out how to get out of that perpetual loop pretty simple i mean elite athletes are um their monks okay they don't get they they don't look at going to bed early training multiple times a day as a burden in any way shape or form or eating the way they're eating, they don't really look at it as a burden. I mean, unless you're like, you know, a fighter cutting weight.

But, you know, at that point, like, they hate going to bed, but they hate losing worse. What, well, they hate going to bed on time, but they hate not having an edge. I wouldn't say they hate going to bed. I think they, it's just, this is part of like, no, when I go to, like, I'm tired. I'm physically tired. I'm going to sleep. Like, they're monks in that, like, they're really enjoying the process. of being an elite athlete,

and I think this is what trips a lot of them up when it's over, is they don't know what to do when that's over versus like, oh, no, no, you're just going to apply this to what you're going to do in the real world. Like, you're still going to get up and train, and you're still going to get up and take care of yourself, but you're going to figure out, like, what's really inspiring you or where is your creativity going towards a problem you want to solve?

Right? Like, what problem do you want to solve for yourself? Go solve that, and that's what you're going to make money at. What are some books that you maybe have read over the last couple years, maybe from a philosophical standpoint that you'd like recommend or suggest? Well, the most hardcore book I've ever read is a daily kind of reflections by a guy by the name of Anthony Demello, who was a Jesuit priest, died. It's called The Way to Love.

and it is probably the most intense book I've ever read. It's so truthful about how we are and what we avoid and protect ourselves from that it really kind of just, there's no way of going. Like, you will feel what he's saying, right? However, it's a pretty deep book. but I think there's a lot out there in terms of like I mean man is that is that something that you feel is necessary as a coach to give the client or the person you're working with a form of life I don't necessarily give give like I drop that kind of knowledge into our conversations but like for instance like I'll give that book to a lot of people like that book I hand out to a lot of

people. Like I've bought a number of those books to hand out to give to people to friends, people who I come in contact with. But there's a lot of books. Like there's a, there's a book I'm reading right now that's in, it's so well done. It's called the maintenance of everything. And that's, you know, essentially why I use that maintenance analogy is like this guy really distills down maintenance of everything. I mean, brushing your teeth is maintenance. And most of us do it without a problem, right? But as kids, you kind of like dread it, right? But then it becomes this thing and you start to understand, oh, if I do this, I take care of this thing, then I don't have to worry about that later, right? And there's your, our lives are like that.

And those of us who don't actually provide or or instill this maintenance process tend to suffer a lot more than those who do. Neglect is a brutal. It's a hardcore deal. I mean, one of the analogies this guy gives in the book is three, is there's this boat, there's this boat race, this yacht race around the world. Single person, single man, got to go around the world. And you've got like this time frame to do it.

And then you could leave between these time frames, right? So a bunch, like a hundred boats could leave it. They leave at different times, but they're being tracked. They're tracking. They're giving their coordinates, all this stuff. He took three different guys who did this race, who approached maintenance of their boats very differently. And therefore maintenance of themselves.

And it was a very, very, like one guy killed himself in the race, killed himself. And it was very evident he was probably going to be doing that because he had lied about certain things. Like it was just, all of this stuff kind of transcends, right? So there's a book out there. Another book is Deep Survival by Lawrence Gonzalez. That is really about, you know, survival. Who survives and who doesn't? And if you've not read the book, it'll shock you who actually does survive.

And it's not typically the people you'd think. And, you know, diving. There's a book, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman wrote. It's called On Killing. And it's about killing. in combat and in society and the costs and what that takes, what kind of a mind and what it takes. And then he's got a very interesting way of looking at the nervous system that really drew me in and how societally we are, our operations towards survival operate. I think there's a lot by a guy.

You've probably heard of Chase Hughes who's probably, a lot of his information. He's dialed in on this stuff from a nervous system. system standpoint. Do you write? Yeah. I was just thinking like someone that reads as much as you, you probably write. I mean, I don't read. I mean, I read a little bit every day, but like, I mean, I do. I mean, and I'm right. I'm just signed a contract on a book that'll really be about kind of the stuff we talked about earlier. But it'll, it'll bring this stuff in. The philosophy will be there with this stuff. So maybe a little bit less X's and O's that you've taught. There will be X as an O's based on like just to get clear like, hey, here's the physial, here's the reality.

Tell what to do, bro. Yeah. Yes. However, there will be stories up front on all this stuff. And really it's going to carry some story theme to it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming here today, man.

I really appreciate it. If we kind of just end on this note, like what's the deal with the black and white videos? Uh, we're just looking for our own branding, man. Like it just changed. We're rebranding everything. like the whole business name currently is going to change. But I like the style and the feel of it. Thanks.

And the message is great. Thanks. I think a lot of other people are liking it too because I've seen the comments and the likes and so on. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see any of that stuff anymore, but I'm told that, you know, I get reports. I get reports on it that stuff's going that way.

But I, I, not that I don't care, but I don't like, I'm just, I pushed. I'm like, hey, we're going to go our own direction. So it was like, you know, I'm just, it's our own. There's something like, there's something different about it. I can't put my finger on it, but it's like, it's almost like a news briefing on, you know, on conditioning type stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool.

Thanks. Where can people find you? Shiftadapt.com and all our social handles. You can just look at my name, Brian McKenzie or Shift Adapt. Yeah. Strength is never weakness. Weakness. Weakness never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye.