Modern Wisdom - #250 - Marcus Smith - Build An Unbreakable Mindset

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

Marcus Smith is an ultra endurance athlete and gym owner. From breaking his body in a cycling accident to running 30 marathons in 30 days, Marcus embodies an Ultra Mindset, the man is an animal. Expect to learn the framework Marcus uses to overcome any obstacle, how it feels to hit a wall at 54km/h, what it's like to run for 24 hours straight, why your parents were right to tell you to relax, how to maintain motivation when life gets hard and much more... Sponsor: Get 20% discount on the best coffee in Britain with Uncommon Coffee’s entire range at http://uncommoncoffee.co.uk/ (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Follow Marcus on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mjd_smith Check out Innerfight - https://www.innerfight.com  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, hello my friends, welcome back. My guest today is Marcus Smith, ultra endurance athlete and founder and owner of Inner Fight out here in Dubai. He is one of the most unique humans I've ever had the fortune to meet and I am so excited to bring this episode today. From breaking his body and cycling accident to running 30 marathon in 30 days. Marcus genuinely does embody an ultra-mineset. He is about as close to an animal as I think I've ever met. So today, expect to learn the framework Marcus uses to overcome any obstacle, how it feels to hit a wall at 54 kilometres an hour on your

bike, what it's like to run for 24 hours straight, why your parents were right to tell you to relax, how to maintain motivation when life gets hard, and so, so much more. Marcus is exactly the sort of guy that's going to get you fired up to do pretty much anything. I found myself tempted to even do endurance events simply because of the insights that he's got when he's done his. If you enjoyed this episode, which I'm absolutely adamant that you're going to, share it with a friend. That would make me incredibly happy indeed, and it is the best way that you can repay me if you enjoy listening to the show.

This podcast only grows because people like you share it with people like you. So find a group chat, hijack a work intranet, put it on it, linked in wherever you can, I would massively appreciate it. And this episode can help a lot of people. The insights that we get from Marcus today are nothing short of wonderful and I really, really hope that you take as much from it as I did. But for now, it's time to learn how to build an ultra-mineset with Marcus Smith. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back and joined by the one and only Marcus Smith. How are you brother? How are you? How are you?

How can I not be good at right here right now? It's not a bad backdrop isn't it? Right, I don't know if this class is a working holiday for you, but if you're watching anyway. Yeah, exactly. Tune in on YouTube on the 25th floor of Dubai Marina, overlooking a backdrop that, yeah, it could be like, it's epic.

It's pretty good, right? Joe, but Joe Rogan, never heard of it. So I've been doing my research a lot since I've been out here knowing I was gonna record with you and you just continually do magic. You close it psychopath. What are you working on at the moment? What's next? That's interesting because sometimes we start wherever this all starts, you've got to start into what's next, which I quite like because next is a, we're actually going to run

mate and this is quite interesting because obviously this year has been mental for everyone and we see a lot of people naturally get frustrated that events of cancelled, travels cancelled and a lot of people have literally just trying to hands up in the air like this and done nothing, put on weight, motivation has gone down and it's terrible on the number of levels. We were like well we know we're not going to travel this year and this year I would have run probably about three altruists or in different countries around the world and so what we did is we looked at the map of the UAE and I think this is actually the first time I've said this to I'll class you as a media mate to the media

we looked at the map of the UAE and I was like okay what's the challenging part of the UAE and and I was like, okay, what's the challenging part of the UAE? And lots of people think Dubai, the UAE, is what we see around us now, which is Marina, it's very beautiful. But there's actually a high point of the UAE, which is just about 2,000 meters in the mountains. And there's a mountain range that divides the East Coast and the West Coast called Hajar Mountains.

And I thought to myself, it'd be really interesting if we could sort of traverse that mountain range and then take a turn inland and end up at my gym. And I saw it said, and this is how these things start, like, you know, there's a couple of mates and we'll get on Google Maps and we'll just draw on our phones and just send different things to each other. It's almost like a gamble or a guessing game. How far is it? And one of the boys goes, I think that's about 250.

I said, yeah, I think it's a bit longer. I think it's about 300. Anyway, so we've got this idea and then, and this is honestly, you know, how it starts is then one of the lads goes, on the boy I've sent it to Robby goes, when are we doing it? And so this is how these challenges kind of start, a lot of the time mate, and you know, it's- Some people, it's like, the way that you guys go on about endurance events,

is how normal people talk about going out for dinner. Yeah, kind of. So have you heard about that new place? Yeah, just do good sushi, the seafoods, really nice. You guys look on Google Maps, like the trip advisor of suffering. And you're like, yeah, that one looks like it could really fuck us up.

Let's do that. Yeah, let's do that. And that's kind of what it was. And we've got to finish the year strong. We've got to make it count. And we've got to, we have a, I consider that we have an incredible responsibility to the people. I'm sorry, I take quite seriously to set an example. People need to come into an environment and have people that they look up to that are doing good things.

And I take that very, very seriously, very, very personally as well, that I should always be raising a bar for myself and for other people. It is quite selfish in a way that I want to explore my potential, but in doing so, I want to let people think, actually, what is my potential? And we're all climbing a different Everest, if you want a cliched way of looking at it. So if someone can look and go,

well, these idiots are going to do this, then I can do this. So yeah, make sure to answer the question, we're going to run 300 kilometers. It is 300 kilometers from the highest point of the E. It's 200 kilometers through the Hattar mountain range, which is about 6,000 meters of elevation, and then we're going to take a hard right turn, and then the last 100 kilometres is across desert and that will take us to my gym to inner fight and the initial plan, this is kind of where the whole year has just been amazing for timelines and when we talk about goals, you know, anyone that uses the smart principle, it has to be time related, you know. And I was training a few weeks ago and I was descending and my knee sort of came across

a problem with my knee, let's put it that way like a sharp knife going through my knee. And so now the date that we were going to complete that challenge is obviously not realistic anymore, it doesn't work. And I sat down with Rob and actually I think we did it over what's out and I said listen mate if you want to continue the challenge without me I'm there I'll ride a bike next to you I'll drive a car as much as I can next to you and he's like mate time's not a problem we'll wait and we'll do it as soon as you're ready so hopefully by the end of the year mate we'll be the first piece people to which is quite important for certain reasons we'll be the first people to sort of quite important for certain reasons. We've been the first

people to sort of transcend the Hedgehog mountain range, 300 kilometers and hopefully we'll get it done in just over two days. So really. So what will you do when you aim to have a little rest off if you plan that anyhow? Yeah, so the way that we look at it is that we go for about six hours and we try and complete about a marathon every six hours and then we would rest and feed which would take anywhere 90 minutes up to two hours. Also, we also, it's important to understand that all those these races and these challenges are races, you need to respect your body and your mind and we always try and buffer on the edge. If we push like, we could go 24 hours straight,

we've both done more than that before, but then we might fall off the end. So we're looking at sort of six on, two off, and we think we'd get through it in just over two days. So I mean, it's easy to say you've got those two hours and you sleep, but make with adrenaline and I've been in races before and it's like it's rest time now and try and lay down

and your heart's just going to be. I was going to say what does that feel like? Obviously you know that you have this small window in which to do the recovery and you're there and you can't get yourself, everyone that's listening knows what it's like to try and get to sleep. I need to be up early tomorrow. The difference is you need to be up and start running. Yeah, it's, it's savage and it's a, it's a mindset thing though as well. Like there's two things going on, there's the actual chemical reactions in your body,

what your dove means doing, your melatonin's all over the place, your cortisol's through the roof, like that's real. So it's not like, I can't sleep, like you can't sleep. So you've got to sort of deal with that. But you also, it's almost like, how can I frame this? If you're scared of flying, and you've got to flight the next day, you don't sleep. And I'm sure you don't sleep.

Or if you're scared of anything that's coming up, it's the same thing, because after six hours, six hours in with around 40 to 50 K, we still have 250 kilometers to go. This part is a complete mindset. The physiological side, what's happening in your brain, your logically, that is normal, but the mindset of how to control be anxiety and to stay cool. That's something you can actually train mate. And for my first race till now, now it's not that difficult. Like I've done stuff.

I trained a little bit for what they call backyard ultra, which is 6.7 Ks on the hour, every hour for as long as we can go. And I trained that one night on my own out here in the desert for 12 hours. And the first two hours was pretty shit because I didn't know how to behave but after that I'd come in at about 40 to 45 minutes, quickly drink something, eat something and then just get into, literally

make into a shalassana position from yoga and just breathe along with go off at two minutes to the hour Shusu already on stand up drinks and water and go and I train that for 10 hours So now coming into that relax state actually becomes easier And I think if people can take anything from from what I've learned is We have to train these things like they don't just happen. You have to, I had 12 hours that night training it. A lot of people want to be able to do stuff bit related to mental resilience,

bit a number of different areas of life, and they're not willing to spend that time in like experimentation, if you wanna say, and with that a little bit discomfort as well. I've been thinking a lot this year about mental masturbation. Everyone this year has had far too much time to think and far too little time to do. And a lot of that has been outside of our control. Jim's have been closed. If you Jim's closed and you don't have weights at home,

you restricted. You stuck to... Yeah. Fucking everyone's sick of burpees in 2020. Yeah. But what that causes, and all of us that listen to podcasts, and consume audio books, and read, and stuff like that, we can end up being so cerebral that we forget that the implementation is where the work happens.

Yes, it's important to know what you need to do. Because if you don't know what you need to do when you go to do it, you're just kind of flopping around. Yeah. But you need to go and do it. You have to do it, man. You're 100%. Like, you ask anyone who's listening to this show,

how many books, podcasts, YouTube videos, et cetera, et cetera, have you tuned into, have you learned from in 2020 versus 2019, 2018. You're probably up to a 300%. How much action have you taken with the knowledge that you have? You're probably down a thousand percent. So we've got all of this knowledge now, we've got all these thoughts going along, and we're making excuses that we can't do. You can still do. If you read in what's one big book that I've read this year, Ross Edgley, The Art of Resilience, True Art of Resilience, incredible guy. There's a lot of learnings in that, but there's a lot of stuff that you

could implement on a daily basis. Like really how does you are and I was talking to a guy the other day who was having problems with essentially with rejection and self-confidence. So he gets scared when he's coming to teach, we're coming into contact with people, to talk with people. I was like how often outside of those situations are you actually training that? You know man, I love to create like, just like scenarios and I was like, well, I wanted a way to overcome that would be to go and run down the beach track one morning and force yourself to make eye contact with and say hello to absolutely every person you see. Because it's quite a sick sort of trick isn't it? But if you've

got confidence issues, at the beach, trying to morning, you might see 200 people. Guaranteed, 100 people are gonna reject you, either because they're fucking ourselves, or because they're just in their zone. And I respect that, like, not everyone says, hello, I always abuse, I'm an adult. But that's, you know what I mean?

And I'm like, we can create these scenarios to do with all this knowledge that we've learned. But we have to be committed. And they're doing it. It's easy to read and to get excited. And for dopamine to be released in our brain. And literally mate, it's masturbation. Like, we've got a fucking boner. The whole is so excited. I'm not so excited to tell this guy. But still, we've super excited about it. But let's go out and do. Like, let's keep on the masturbation side.

Let's stop reading the porno and let's call the girl up and go on a day. You know what? This is your resonates with people, right? It's an analogy everyone can listen and understand from 2020 and think, yeah, absolutely. It's been good for a lot of things, but bad for sex. Good for moustaches. Good for podcasts. It's been good for a lot of things but bad for sex. Good for moustaches. Good for podcasts, but terrible for partnerships. A couple of years ago you had a huge accident, broke a bunch of ribs, punctured a lung, pulled your scapular off, and you said it was part of

one of the best years of your life. How does that work? How does that fit in? Yeah, it's interesting. I guess three big things happen in 2018 that I believe that moments in our life obviously define us. And when I look back at 2018, three really big things happen, maybe four, which if you kick it off on the night of February, and this is totally legit, you can't change this, go back to my Instagram, MJ the underscore Smith, night of February, I posted a quote, said everything happens for a reason.

10th of February, at about 48 in the morning, I nearly lose my life. Wild, three days in intensive care, five days in hospital injuries that you just said. And when I was in that hospital bed, I thought to myself, if you can't ride a bike, what can you do? An answer was run. And I have quite a decent background of run a lot in running, and I was like, well, I'll run. And I read Dean Karnats' book, 50 Mountains in 50 States in 50 days in, I think it was May or June time. And then

I made a decision that in I'm by fitness challenge of 2018, which is a 30 day fitness challenge here in Dubai. I'd run 30 Mouthlands in 30 days. And I was like, what a better way to come back from it. So I've crashed. And then I've proven that you can recover. And then about a week after I finished on the 24th of November, I finished and on the 5th of December was my 40th birthday. Like how can that not be the best year of your life, you know? You do. You do.

You do. You do. The crash to most people would seem like something that would be a huge setback. And it would have been a big nightmare. Well, because you've gone from someone who is capable, who had these plans for ultra bike races in a year across different countries and that's now stopped. And when we go from one world to another often that's perceived as a challenge or a bad thing. That's right. And that's, I want to want to like the word you just used there is super

important it's perceived and we're living a lot on perception, perceptions and thoughts that we create based on the opinions of others a lot of the time we've been told that those things are bad and this relationship is always bad I'm not in a good place and mentally we make I still have it don't get bad. I'm not in a good place. And mentally we, me, I still have it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not bulletproof on it. The first few days after I've drunk on my knee, oh it's not in a good place mate. And we know what goes with it. Relationship, I'm not having a good time with my wife in those days. You know, at work, it's just too much. We're not, but this is because this, in my opinion, it's a subconscious behavior that we've been drilled into us around perception

because we're told, guys, shit happens, things happen for a reason and even when things happen we can't change them because they've already happened. But perception says it sends us backwards. Come on. 2018, I learned shit that I would have never learned. I had tough times mate. Don't get me wrong. I was like, why is this happening to me? You know, I'm bulletproof.

But then you look at it and you go, this is the way it's supposed to be. Why is this happening to me? You know, I'm bulletproof. But then you look at it and you go, this is the way it's supposed to be. And that's when we have to embrace this stuff. Otherwise, yeah, we see it as regret. We see it as setma. And we get asked this a lot. Like, what do you regret the most in your life?

Fuck off! Nothing! Because if I regret, I'm holding on to these things mate. So, it's easy to sit here and say that. And we're almost reading the porn off. Where we should be having sex. But you've been there. This is you post quietly. This is the pillow talk from you.

Right, you've done it. It's gonna go through the whole show. Yeah, absolutely. To come and fret. Welcome to the porn off-road. Yeah, so a big part of that is the fact that you've been there and proven it. And I think that that's the difference between hearing a motivational speaker and hearing someone who has been forged in battle,

talking about their experience. That's why it resonates with people so much more. Yeah. So you just want to go back just a little bit. You had this accident you're laying there. I just want to go through kind of what's in your mind because hearing this and hearing you where you are now with these lessons that you've taken away, these mental resilience, it's hard for people to believe that this guy could ever have a negative thought,

could ever feel like things are going badly. Yeah, he just bounces off stuff like a rubber ball. So what goes through your mind when you hit by a truck, what goes through your mind when you laid up in hospital and you don't know what your recovery is going to be like, can we just talk about the mindset? Yeah, and the example is really, or the reality, it's not an example is what happened. So I wake up in ICU and make ICU is pretty rough. The ICU I was in was just curtains, not separate rooms, so literally the guy next to me is dying. Like he's dying and I'm trying not to die like his voice fucked up so I'm laying in this bed and you've got I've got oxygen going in

through my nose and it's uncomfortable because you've got these things up your nose and they've just put a they've just put a tube into my lungs to drain the blood off. And I've got catheter in and you've got different bits and then a machine up here that's just beeping your pulse. And I'm like, can you turn it off? They're like, no, I'm like, why not? And then because then we won't know if you're dead or alive. And it's brutal, and you're dragged up,

which is the only good thing because you need those drugs to take away the pain. And so you're on and off sleepy and I remember waking up mate and I was in a low point. It was awful, I was really, I think to the easiest way to explain it was I was playing the victim mindset, I was like, why is this happening to me? What if it was different? And I made, we'd ridden the route before.

And every time we'd ride this route, we'd stop at petrol station, it'd be about an hour to the petrol station, lads would have a coffee, bit of ban turn and then we carry on the way. We pull into the petrol station on this day, my round and I too want to coffee, no one wants to coffee. It's okay, no worries, so we just get some water and we go. Obviously mate, if we had a coffee, the truck wouldn't have been there, it would have already gone out one day. If there's one, like, what's the biggest learning? Always have coffee come always have a fucking I mean and I'm there mate and I'm really just thinking all these thoughts and I'm like what if why me I just wish it wasn't happening and Holly was laid there was sat beside my bed and I could see she could see some discomfort in my face and she said, what's wrong with you?

And I tried to, I saw a star explaining, you know, why me? And she looked at me mate and she says that I'm not emotional enough and I say that she's too emotional. But literally in this scenario she was flipped 180 and she just looked straight at me and she said it happened literally heart broken my heart is gone the one time what it's done and she she just sat there mate she didn't cry she nothing and she said it happened Nothing. And she said, it happened. It's like literally someone's just taking a win out

of my sales. And I saw it just, I didn't react. And I lay there, I was like, she's fucking right. And then I went a little bit back to sleep with this thought. And I think it was that point where I just accepted. And acceptance is hard. You break a leg to accept that you've broken your leg

and you can't walk for a time. Your relationship breaks to accept that you're gonna be on your own, you're gonna have to, it's awful, mate. But we have to go through it, it's part of the healing process. And it's what I call the ultra mindset Is that a lot of the time our first point is denial didn't happen This relationship's fine No, it's not

You know what I mean? I couldn't keep myself mate. I was late. They only across the bed I had these tubes coming out for me. I could hardly breathe. I couldn't move my hand. Like, I can't say I'm not here. So the first step is we have to admit that there's a problem. And her saying that got me out of that victim mindset. And it was funny because I sort of probably went back to sleep and then I woke up and I looked at her and I smiled. And she's smiled and she's like what's

wrong with you? I said, you're right. I said, you know what I'm going to do. She's like, what? I said, I'm going to start training. She's looking at me. She's, I don't know if she wanted to cry, maybe she was laughing or what was going on. And I looked down at my body and I think they cut my cycling kit, which hurt my soul. Favorite cycling kit? I think I still have my cycling shorts on, but they'd cut all the bit bit off. And literally mate, I'm laying like this,

and I'll put a hand on the table. I looked at this hand, my whole left side of my body is fucking broken and I just went, I just said what can I do right now? and honestly mate with everything I had I just turned this hand like this and I was so emotional but I couldn't cry I'm not, I'm not a very good cry mate And I was so emotional, but I couldn't cry.

I'm not a very good cry, I make long story. But I was just like, amazing, and I've got it to here. And then I'm like, I think I'm fucking a dog with two dicks, I've gone, I don't know if I can get it back. I don't know how to make it. And everything is reset, and I can do it once, I can do it 10 times. Literally mate, and that took me about five minutes. And I don't know physically I was drained, but mentally, emotionally, everything else in my body was completely drained. I was crying without tears because I knew that that was the point where I started my recovery because I knew admitting

to Holly and her being that cold with me and that honest with me that it happened had let me get out of denial and admit the problem and now I can start to recover. So what are the principles that you've taken away from that? The radical acceptance of things that have happened, understanding that you can't change the past? Yes, that's number one. Focusing on what you can do to improve your future? Yeah, what else? I mean, and that's the process that we go through.

Admit that there's a problem. Then you sort of, you reject that that problem is gonna stop you from achieving what you wanna achieve in life. These things are gonna happen, mate. Right now I can't run. That's fine. That's not gonna kill you three months ago. Same thing.

But look at the energy that you're putting into the podcast, for example. So then we reject the fact that it's gonna stop us. Then, and it's the hardest thing, right? Just relax. We can't, you know, how many times when we're kids, through our parents, just send us to the room, calm down for 10 minutes.

Ah, you're banging the door down, you're having a fit. Just calm down for 10 minutes. So the third point is to have to relax and then the fourth point. The most important point is what I did and how I explained it with my hand there is what can I do right now to make this situation better. There is always something you can do. In some scenarios, if you and I have an argument and we're just about to blow, scenarios. If you and I have an argument and we're just about to blow, sometimes what I can do right now to make this situation better for both of us is just to walk away from you. That doesn't feel like, that doesn't feel like it's going towards the goal. And this is the problem because we're told all the time that you've got to keep tracking it up, you've got to keep moving forward, you've

got to get closer to your goal every Every day is a day to win. But that doesn't, and it's true. But it doesn't mean that we have to be going this way. The path's not necessarily linear. It's not linear, mate. Why is it not fucking linear? What you can do right now is what your parents tell you. Go to your room, sit down, relax.

You know? So honestly, they're the four key things that I take away from it. Admit that there's a problem, reject the fact that it's going to stop you from getting what you want, stay relaxed and figure out what you can do right now. And what you can do right now sometimes is, and I've said it before when I speak about my ultra-racist, sometimes I have to sit under a tree for five minutes and let the competition fly past because I'm on that red line and if I keep going I'm going to go over that red line. Sit under the tree for five minutes and later that day you go sailing past them.

If you don't, they'll beat you every time. It's the hardest thing to do because it's a very tricky time, it's the hardest thing to do. It's a very tricky way to look at things to either go back because society, perception tells us we've always got to go forward. But in going back, you're going forward and that's really important. One of the things that I'm fascinated by is maintaining motivation outside of situations like that. So during that period when you're just coming off and accident, you're just coming out of an incident, everyone will know that it's the New Year's Day motivation, right? Just had this, the emotions are high, I'm compelled, I've filled myself full of all the stoicism and

russ edgily that I can and I feel like I'm able to get over this. How are you ensuring that you don't start to lose motivation in the messy middle, that you hit that valley of despair when the motivation and the energy starts to dip? And for me, this is a personal question. I'm at three and a half months post-op. Now on my Achilles, it's the most drudge work boring, consistent, everyday heel raises. Every day stretching, it's the most drudge work, boring, consistent,

everyday heel raises, everyday stretching. It's painful, it hurts every step that I take, every step I'm reminded that I snap my Achilles. Every single time that I want to walk, I can't move as quick as my friends. I tried to hop across a street yesterday in Dubai and I haven't tried to move quicker than a walk and I realized that I had to do

this weird like heel hop thing where I've got no tension in my belly. And I'm like every single day this sucks, this sucks. Three and a half months in and this is that value of despair. How are you continuing your recovery and also how long was the recovery to get yourself back to full fitness from your accident? Super good questions. There's a lot going on and a few different answers, mate. The number one thing I want to share is a lot of people say, oh, you recovered super fast. I don't like, no, I didn't.

You never saw the 10,000 reps I did like this. Or the 5,000 reps I did like that. You never saw it. I spent hours and we all spend hours. I feel your pain, my Achilles heel races, the whole thing, it's brutal. How do you maintain that? One of the, let's talk about what tools we have right now.

Smart phones. We're non-stop taking selfies. I often look back to the pictures that I have on my camera reel of when I was in hospital, when I was in intensive care, at my lowest point. And then I'll take a selfie on that day. And you see the difference in your face, your body language. It's incredible, mate. We're not taking enough what I would call infantry of where we're at on a number of levels. You three months ago, three and a half months ago, when you snapped your Achilles, you couldn't walk. When I walked in here today, you came up to the door, you launched forward towards me,

you're on your toes and we embraced. That takes an incredible amount of power for me Achilles. You're in an incredible position, mate. But we feel the pain the whole time. It's almost there to remind us. But what's that pain there to remind us? Relax. Just.

Today we're only going to this level. We're not gonna run again. People get down because they're not tracking their process. They're not taking inventory. Flip back through your camera roll of what you could do, or what you can do now, how your face looks, how your body language looks. It's all that.

It really is all that. We're not using technology, I love it and hate it mate. We're able to sit in our house, this conversation and a few days time, people around the world are able to go through their walks with the marina and listen to us talking shit. It's fucking brilliant. And we use it for that, but when we're in a hole,

we don't use it. There's gonna be dark times. 14, 16 weeks, not able to walk properly. Pain in your Achilles is a nightmare, especially their Achilles because it does everything. You know, I just don't get this pot out. I can't, you know, there's so many things you just can't do. It's like a calf injury, it's awful.

So we constantly reminded about the negative side of it that again feeds into our subconscious and makes us think that we're not doing well, we're not progressing. Spend time each day feeding your subconscious, not bullshit. And this is the difference. Lots of people say, I'm okay, I'm getting better,

I'm getting, I've lost one gram this week, I'm really in good shape, no, you're still a fat fat. You know what I mean? It's not like that when we need to bullshit ourselves, but we need to keep feeding our subconscious the positive things as well, because there's a lot. We need to celebrate the small victories, like literally make the day that I could bring my hand to parallel to I level was just incredible

Who you celebrating with you celebrating with yourself is it in place to share this with other people? Yeah, I Me I celebrate a lot with myself which sounds a little bit fucked up doesn't it? Like because I think for me personally a lot with myself, which sounds a little bit fucked up, doesn't it? Like, because I think, for me personally, a lot of time, I don't think people can understand it. Not because I'm special, but there's no one that's inside my head except me. Sometimes, I'll celebrate, I'll tell Holly I'm super excited about something, but without sounding nasty to polish, she can't connect with that thing. Like I try and explain what I feel when I run 10K or when I run 100K, it doesn't resonate with her.

So you're not going to, and this hurts as well, we're not going to get a positive reception from someone who doesn't understand. Just doesn't happen. You have to pick the people in your life that understand you. Who understands you? I have a few people, I have a few mentors that I've developed over time or just incredibly good friends. I don't have many friends, I'll be honest. I know a shit ton of people, there's not many people that not because I don't want to develop friendships, but that I just don't feel understanding in a certain way. I've got this quote from a lander button, the guy behind the school of life, and he says loneliness is a kind of tax that we

have to pay to a tone for a certain complexity of mind. And it's my favorite video, why we're fated to be lonely. And that's natural. No one looks at the things that you do physically and presumes that you are a normal representation of a human, because not many people run 30 marathons in 30 days, you decide to do the stuff that you do. And yet, when we hear that someone like that, non-typical physically, is non-typical socially, maybe struggles to find people with whom they can connect. That doesn't necessarily click straight away, but it should make sense. Loneliness is a kind of tax. We have to pay to a tone for a certain complexity of mind.

And the more extraordinary you are, the fewer people are like you. Yeah. Given the choice between honesty and acceptability, a lot of people choose the latter. A lot of people will choose to nerf the edges of the way that they operate, the way that they think. And that feeds us back into what you were talking about before that we absorb our values and our desires and our operating procedures from society, from people around us. And that really ridges us of what makes us special. You are a very unique combination of your genetics, your past traumas, your pastivly resistance,

the way that you speak, the way that you move the fact that when you do a snatch, your right arm doesn't go as far back as you left. But you know, all of the individual things that make up the uniqueness that is you. Yes. And I am a huge champion of people trying to embrace their weirdness.

Like stay weird. Yeah. Is the most, the single most powerful phrase that I've heard over the last few years. Yeah. The reminds us that our uniqueness is our competitive advantage. Great, mate. And yeah, I think that it's interesting for people to hear that. Looking from the outside in at this guy who owns a gym, you know, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people in Dubai will have seen them. You're on the

side of the Burj Khalifa running up the side of the world's tallest building, not physically. In a crop top. In a crop top, yeah, exactly. And yeah, there's challenges with making connection with people because the price that you have to pay in order for that level of performance is this slight disconnect. And again, this is something else I've been talking about a lot this year. What is the price that you have to pay to be that person? What's the price you have to pay to be Elon Musk? Like everyone looks at him and thinks unbelievably productive guy

running tests, they're getting his to Mars doing all of this stuff, but you don't know what Elon Musk's relationship with his bodies like. Maybe he hates what he sees in the mirror. Maybe he's not had an erection in the years. Maybe he doesn't have a relationship with his father. Do you want to pay that price to be Elon Musk? Conor McGregor everyone looks at him, ubiquitous success. But do you want to live in your parents' attic

for six years, rolling the same sequences, throwing the same combinations on job seekers allowance? Mentally. With no promise of success at the end of it. Do you want that life? Because that's the price you have to pay to be in. Yeah. And I think because we only get to see the highlight reel

of most people's lives, and even when people get to see the highlight reel of most people's lives and even when people decide to post the open and honest insights into their lives, they don't get as much exposure as their successes do, inevitably we presume that people live in these highlight reels where actually it's just front row seat failure as you fall from like mistake to mistake and hearing insights like that I think are really really important because it reminds us that even the people we think superhuman have their weaknesses and their vulnerabilities and their failings

that we might not have. Yes, you know? Yeah mate, and it's totally true what you're saying because I'll wake up some warnings and we all get it mate, I'm just not feeling it, you know? But when you have a decision making process and I think this is the biggest thing that's lacking, we're all humans. We all have a lot of the same feelings and emotions. We go through ups, we go wake up, we're not feeling it. Not every day, mate, do I feel like going out and doing my training. I have the same thoughts that you have that someone who's, you know, feels like they're at what bottom. We have it.

You know feels like they're at what bottom we have it But we've narrowed the choices Because for example my decision-making process where my alarm goes off is to get up I don't have a choice at that time if I wake up and I'm feeling like shit There's only still one choice get up If I've planned a training session, there's only one choice. Do it. Unless there's a real reason why I shouldn't, obviously. So that, unless that is the point that which get up, unless and the tolerance that people have for that is where the rubber meets the road with this stuff. Absolutely mate. And that's the problem is that, you know,

I'll set my alarm for seven in the morning and if I wake up and I feel okay, I'll probably go to the gym. Like, come on. You're never gonna go. Like, you know you're not gonna go. Whereas I'll set my alarm for 559 because I'm gonna get out of bed.

I'm gonna put my trainers on and I'm going to go for a walk. Which somebody changed the whole world. If you don't feel great when you wake up, that's okay. It's fine, it's normal. There has to be, but hey Brown talks about it. It has to be this vulnerability mode. I go through loans, but when I'm in that low, the option is, well the goal is, is to make

that trough as small as possible. I've got clients and we've all known people that have been off for two weeks, just not feeling themselves. Far out, what have you done about it? Nothing yet. How long have you been feeling like this a month? What? So you've tolerated waking up every morning from a month feeling like shit. Yeah, I thought it was going to get better. It doesn't get better. And this is where we have to understand we'll all go

through it. But I think people that what you use bounce back, just identify it, go back to what we were saying earlier, admit it, unfilling shit. No, there's nothing wrong. Go for like shit. There is something wrong. We admit that there's a problem. Let's go for a walk and let's see what happens. Is it my mind?

Is it my thoughts? Is it physically? Do we scan our body? Do we take a morning naked, the mid-bathroom, Miracell-feed? Back to the phone! What are the best things, man? To track your progress. Make it back to Miracell-feed. Please make sure your eye-clubs are not linked. This is one of those huge, huge data breaches that ends up happening with

Marcus Smith's new bleak on the internet, doesn't it? But we have to have this decision-making process. If anyone thinks that Elon's not having a bad day, if anyone thinks that I can sit and talk about motivation because I run, you're making an excuse for yourself. We're all going through tough times. It's not easy, but that decision-making process and our tolerance of how long we're going to be in a bad mood is totally our choice. And we've got to have, but we also have to train it. And not everything you try will work on every

situation. It's like being a handyman and only having a hammer. You know, I know that's a shit, please, Jay. But really, that's the thing. And you've learned, we've said it. You've learned all these tools in 2020, we've read more books, listen to more podcasting, ever before, try some of those tools. Don't just, we're pretty quick to accept. And I think that sucks, because we accept that feeling shit is part of life. It is, but it

should only be a small part is is is is our objective. There's a thing that Marcus really is used to do called the equanimity game. Yeah, and he's to imagine falling off a horse and it was a game to get back on. And increasingly like life is a game is something that continues to come back. I really do, I haven't quite worked out why I love it so much, but I think it just reminds us that a lot of the challenges that we're coming up against will, in some future point, just be a memory. There'll just be an instant replay that we can go back to in our mind. Like a perfect example of this was after I had my operation, some of the opiates that I was

put on caused stomach inflammation. So for about three days after my op, I was unable to sleep, unable to eat, was laid up in bed with my foot on a big wedge, just in constant seven out of ten pain. Couldn't do anything. Like for three days straight, no one could take the pain away. I'd stopped taking the oral morphine, the codine, the paracetamol, the ibuprofen because I wanted the stomach pain to stop, which meant that my ankle now only a couple of days pole stop was that pain was through the roof. And I was doing all of this with one leg.

So when I needed to go to the bathroom to not do anything, I was hopping there, I was having use crutches, I was in the dark, I was hopping there, I was having to use crutches, I was in the dark, I was feeling miserable, I was on my own, mum and dad would come and see me on my house, make to come see me, on my friends would come see me, they can't do anything, they can't take it away. And at the time, it feels like an existential curse

that's been given just to you, that this is your pain, this is your suffering to bear. And now when I look back, it's just a story, I tell on a podcast. And I'm like, me then would hate hearing me now being so flippant about it. It's like, no, it was really, it was bad. You're not forgetting how bad it was.

And I'm like, no, no, it's not about that. And trying to put ourselves into that third party perspective, I think, like, treating life as the equanimity game. How quickly can I get back on the horse? Okay, like, I'm inevitably going to fall off. Of course, yeah. How quickly can I get back on? I think that that's a really nice way for us to frame it.

And I'm a big fan of Maxim's and Pithy Statements because I think that they spearhead big concepts that would take us 10 minutes to remind ourselves of into just little aphorisms. Are there any of the things you're going through in event you're suffering, you're deep in the hole? What are the things during that time that you remind yourself of? Are there certain phrases and aphorisms or concepts that you rely on to keep going? Yeah, I've been asked this a lot recently. I don't know. Why? So I've had to have more thoughts about it but one of the

things that I think of the most is you chose to be here. I choose what I'm doing. No one's got a gun at my head and when you think about it we have now more than ever, an insane amount of choice and Running marathons going to work building relationships you choose No one's forcing you And we need to get comfortable with that. We need to embrace that. We need to acknowledge that everyone's like I have to go to work No, you don't. You have to go to work in a number of scenarios because at the end of the month, you get what's called a paycheck,

which then gets you the shit car that you like. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, into your insecurities, it's giving you temporary happiness. And it's giving you temporary happiness because it's numbing a block that you're not willing to address, which could come from a previous subconscious behavior. You don't have to go to work tomorrow. Nobody has to go to work tomorrow. You choose to. So when I'm in trouble, I chose to be here. The other thing is, and I think it's,

there's a few other things as well, is that this is the moment. So a lot of the time we'll get, I wish it wasn't here. I wish it was on the beach. You have to go, you mentioned Marx, right? It's, you have to go a little bit stoic. You have to look at creating presents. You have to, everyone's tried headspace this year or calm, whatever for sure, by 80% of the people that are listening to podcasts have definitely tried it and probably 90% have stopped it. Just if they don't need it. But you have to get in the moment and this is something that's totally lost because the first thing we do when we face adversity

is we try and leave the moment. We try and go back, I wish I was still on the beach or we try and go, I can't wait till I've gone on the beach again. And that's what I was doing in that hospital bed. Until I've went back to sleep and woke up and looked at myself and said, what can I do right now? Now I'm in the moment, I'm me, I'm with my hand,

I'm going backwards, I'm going forwards. Presence is absolute key. Another thing is just smile. Like honestly, mate, the power, look at the research, the power of a smile is just insane. And okay, sometimes we have to cry. But a lot of the times after crying, we start to smile. Look at people that cry. When we get them out of it, how do we get them out of crying? We tell them jokes, we make light, and then people start crying and laughing.

It's really, really powerful. So I think they're probably choice, presence, and final smile. I'm probably my three, and they always kind of have been made. You know, I think I just haven't really, like Holly gets upset with me sometimes. She goes, you're excited he excited about the holiday tomorrow Hey, yeah, I'm excited, but holy shit. I've still got 12 hours of today to live and Epic shit can happen right now You know what I mean and I'm like, mate. I'm excited for today. I'm excited to sit here with you

I was excited to wake up. I'm excited to go to the next meeting that I've got. I'm excited for today. I'm excited to sit here with you. I was excited to wake up. I'm excited to go to the next meeting that I've got. I'm excited that tonight, you know, I'm excited for all these things, but right now, I'm not thinking about tonight. I have to be here and it's fun. You know, and I think I think a lot of the time, this is because we're not fully happy in what we're doing and we're having you know I mean mate in a nice way like I get asked to do different things with different people and most of them are like you know I can't say yes to everything. Why did I suddenly say yes to you? Because I just felt it was right and when you say yes, you can make 100% and we're all in And we're here and we're going to make this the best hour. And I wouldn't give a shit if I had to turn up and like luckily I checked out the podcast,

let's listen to the one with Seth, he's one of my heroes, you know, and I'm like this guy's going to be cool. But even if I've got an hour of my life here, no matter if you're a good dude or not, I control if I want to and I have to have the confidence to control it. I'm going to have a good time in this hour if you're an absolute douchebag or if you're a 10-hour three nice guy. No, so it's all good. But you know what I mean. We control it and people are not taking their ownership because people are going to dinner with fuckwits. They don't like, they're hanging out with people that don't make their lives better and they only make it worse because that's what society says. It goes back to what you said.

And I know we're sort of wrapping around here but it's totally true. We're going out and hanging out with people that we don't actually even like. One of the things I've been thinking a lot about this year is the reason that people go and do big things. I'd say that as someone who's just taking a trip out to Dubai and is on the 25th floor of Dubai Marine. But I think one of the reasons that people do big, impressive events, they book a trip away to somewhere that's grand, they decide to buy a new card, they do something epic. It's because it's very hard not to be present when you have that much stimulus.

It's because it's very hard not to be present when you have that much stimulus. And one of the goals that everybody should have is to try and find that level of presence without that level of stimulus. It's very hard though, right? Oh, absolutely. Like if you're taking the same route to work that you've taken a thousand times before, what's the reason for you to be present? You know that tree, you know that like Ford Mondale with the dent in the side of it, you know that like guy with that dog like you know of this

stuff. And Sam Harris has this beautiful quote where he says that what most of life is is giving our minds a reason to be here in the present moment. That's what we should be aiming to do in life, giving us self a good enough reason to be here in the present moment. That's what we should be aiming to do in life. Giving usself a good enough reason to be here in the present moment. Now you could do that by jumping out of a plane. That's one of the attractions I think of extreme sports. Also probably one of the attractions of people that are into bondage. There's this famous dominatrix who says nothing captures attention like a whip. And you think like if you want to get someone's attention,

slap them. For one or two seconds after that, you're thinking of nothing else. I'm sure that as you, the moment in between hitting the truck and hitting the wall at 54 kilometers an hour, I'm sure that that dilated out to feel like an eternity. And you can delve back into that so quickly, because it's such an extreme

event. Yes. But the goal is to try and find that level of presence in everyday life and it's again the armchair philosophising can go on for forever but the point is that there are things in the present moment we can find that make us feel happy, that make us feel fulfilled, that make us feel connected with other people and the more that we're masking over that with ship friends, with nights out we don't even enjoy, with hobbies that haven't been relevant for five years because if we leave them we're not going to have the same support structure. And it's one of the advantages, conversely, to something that maybe sounded like a weakness earlier where you were like, well, you know, I struggled necessarily to connect with as

many people as you might think. Yeah. The advantage of that is it makes you a lot more agile and flexible to do just what you want without the influence of other people. Yeah. So again, it's interesting how it all maps on. Yeah. Oh, it's talking about self-doubt.

Yeah. You don't sound like the sort of person that has doubts. When they come up, how do you deal with them? I think self-doubt is a product of thoughts and behaviors. So why are you getting self-doubt? Because you think that you can't do something. So thought behavior is the doing something. Why are we getting that?

Why are we getting in that situation? Is it because so that's happened in our past? Or is it because of something actually real? And what example could we use? But I don't really have one off my head. But the point is is that, okay, you're going into interview. And we've heard people go into, how many people go to an interview and

they're like I'm ready for this I'm an absolute fucking smashist and I'm probably gonna get this job. Almost no one. No! How are you before you're into it? Yeah I'm a bit nervous. Well I've applied for the job and the job is to drive a tractor and I've only driven a scooter before.

Okay well that so that is, we don't have the behavior to get that. So self-doubt comes in. So sometimes it's real, because we're signing up for something that the task, we don't have the skill set for, but we don't have the skill set for it yet. When I started ultra running, I didn't have the skill set for, but we don't have to skill set for it yet.

When I started ultra running, I didn't have to skill set for ultra running. The most I'd run was like marathons, but I wanted to develop that skill set, and I knew I could develop that skill set over time, and I knew it was a learning experience. At the start, was this self-doubt? I don't think so, mate. I've never suffered really from self-doubt, because I think I've always had confidence because probably because of the way that I was brought up.

I understand that a lot of people were brought up different from how I was brought up and a lot of people have been told no a number of times and that brings in self-doubt. If we go back to what's important here is how can we eliminate self-doubt? It's by training it. We have to put in things that if you want to drive the truck and you can only drive a scooter, then start upgrading your skill set, and then your doubt and your confidence is going to come. And there's certain, it's like when we get people in that want to lose weight. There's certain people that want to go cold turkey and they're happy to, you know, we can drop five kilos off you in a month.

And there's certain people that, okay, I'm not just willing to give up that quite yet. No worries. And that's fine. We can give up dairy. We can remove sugar. We can remove soft drinks. But you can keep your chocolate. And this is what people don't understand when it comes to health weight loss nutrition

is that you don't have to go to cold turkey. You don't have to, today drive a scooter and tomorrow go for truck driving lessons. You can go from a scooter to a car to a this to that and to the other. There's different routes we can go based on what's gonna make you feel comfortably uncomfortable.

So it's still gonna push you out the comfort zone. Do I get, do I sign up for things, do I commit to things and sometimes wonder if I can achieve it? Yes. Absolutely mate. Again, I don't think that's, I would lie if I said no because then what's the point in signing up for things? Does 300K from the top of general jace to my gym? Do I think, like there's a chance that I could fail at this? Yeah, there's a legitimate chance, but I'm going to do everything that I can. The first 10K is literally 20% downhill, there's no path. It's carnage mate, and the time that we're going to start to the time that we want to finish it's going to be pitch black. There's absolute real chance that within the first 100 meters, I

contribute over a rock for break my leg and the whole thing's over and everything that I've told you that I'm going to do it on the show that I'm going to tell all the other media that I've trained that I've worked on up early that I've left my wife on her own, I've sacrificed my business, time on my business, I've sacrificed time with relationship, is all gone in a hundred meters. But when I was coming here this morning, I could have got stuck in the lift. I don't even think about that. So we kind of, why would we control? I got in the lift, I pressed the button, I'm done.

If the lift breaks, when I'm on the 24th of 25 floors, that's it. I've done all of the training. I've got all of my equipment right. I set off at the time, I go on the pace, I go on the track, and then I keep going. Why would I worry about it? We're worried about things that we can't control.

And this is very stoic at the same time, very, very stoic, you know, and the more, it's funny because three or four years ago I started sort of reading more about stoicisms and stoicism and it sort of really started to resonate with me and then you know daily stoic podcast as well and then you know Ross is actually the story exports science This is like it all just stuff that but is it is it the stoicism? Or is that just a way of human behavior that they found that they wrote about that we find about being present? You know, focusing on what you can control and putting all of your energy into what you can control will remove

self-doubt. You're only going to doubt stuff if you're not confident in the planning of the decision-making process. I make bad decisions, mate. I made a load of bad decisions, but we made decisions in that time based on a decision-making process. Have I since tweaked that decision-making process based around certain situations? Absolutely. I think that's learning and I'm turning 42 next month. I'm still so young. I'm still trying to figure shit out and whether my shit really works or not. But at the same time, I don't think, I think self-doubt comes from issues that we're not addressing in the correct way. And why we're not, mate, because

we come, everything we've spoken about, all these different angles that we've gone through on this show, we've kind of come to the same thing that a lot of this could be based on subconscious behaviour from our past that sometimes is really hard to address. The more I learn about motivation I work with people in performance in really tough situations tonight I'm going to take a guy to the middle of the desert at 6pm and he's going to run for 24 hours non-stop. Wow. And he's going to learn shit that he's never learnt before. He's going to have moments that parts of his childhood and behavior and with his relationship with his wife, with his kids, with his parents, he's going to start to come and fuck with his mind.

It's going to be an insane experience for him. But he's going to bring that behavior. Maybe not definitely right up here and get it out. It's really hard, mate. And that's why people are unable to achieve great things a lot of the time. That's why we have self-doubt, confidence, we have a victim mindset, because we've not dealt with things in the right way.

And it's tragic. You mentioned, you've, buddy who's about to run 24 hours, you've done a variety of different endurance events as well. Is there a particular point that you could identify as the most discomfort you've been in during them? Every event's different, mate. This time last year I was running around 400 meter track.

I did that for 24 hours and it was about, it's quite a weird story this one mate, but there's human to it and then there's some posterior spot. It was about 11 a.m. I started at 3 p.m. It was 11 a.m. the next day. It was getting hot. When heat comes to gut microbiome changes, I was incredibly fortunate that I had a lot of people that were running with me the whole time around the track. I think I only did like two laps on my own. And some of these people, I didn't really know them very well. So which I shouldn't have done. And this is so like not like me, but I didn't feel it was right to fart in front of them.

So, literally, I'm fucking, I'm 18 hours, around the track, and when you're doing physical activity and you're taking on different foods and caffeine gels, and it's not healthy mate, you've got to in a mess. And I'm not able to fart. And I got to a point where Tom Walker, who works with me and helps me with a lot of these things, he's a very intelligent sports scientist. So when we were on a get geek, we go into stuff. He was running with me and I said to him, I said mate, you've got to get rid of these people. He's like mate, the people have come for you.

And I'm like, well, mate, I'm literally about to shit myself. Ha, ha, ha. So he says to the people, he says, can you give him 20 meters? And he just needs a bit of space. And honestly, mate, there are some fantastic human beings on the planet in my life and I am genuinely grateful. They all just said yes and they're just backed off and are literally just farting like it's just. But they're running downstream of you.

They're running, yeah, it's a disaster. You should have said go ahead of me 20 meters. And I'm obviously incredibly fatigued. I've done about 180, 100, son of about 180k let's say. And this pain in my gut was getting worse when I was farting. And I said to Thomas, it made this is not really helping. And it was getting hot as well. It was about 30 degrees. We had everything. It was quite good for Dubai. I mean, it rained.

It was cold. Like one point of running in a long sleeve and then it was getting hot towards midday. And I said to myself, mate, I need to go. We need to go to the toilet. And he was like, well, of course we can go to the toilet. But I'd got in this sort of tunnel vision that I just had to keep running. And anyway, I'd gone to the toilet. But I've got in this sort of tunnel vision that I just had to keep running.

And anyway, I've gone to the toilet. And literally I went in the toilet mate, and I've got my sunglasses and my cap on, no share. And I dropped my shorts, and I'm sat on the toilet, and aeronics come out. And I'm in this incredible amount of pain. My legs are fucked. Like completely running on a track is just, it's just the same, I shouldn't even know. And I'm shitting myself, and I look around, and I see the butthos, which is very common here, the butthos, you don't have much in the UK.

I was like, fuck me. And I start having a shower. I don't like my legs are killing, I don't like, I didn't know where I was. I was just in this, I was just in this insane state of pain, of just pure joy of everything. Because I knew I was getting better, I was getting cooler and and ton not on the door, I know I've got three minutes later or five minutes later he goes, you okay and then mate? Oh yeah! And then I realised I was there to run. And I put the butt hose down and I pulled up my shorts and gripping

way through, water everywhere, I don't even know if my ass is clean. And I just got up and I just went out to the track and I carried on running incredibly slow for the last two or three hours. Why do I share that mate is because this is an incredible experience on so many different levels. There's so many different moving parts. There's not wanting to let people down. There's am I embarrassed? Why do I care? There's the pain that I'm going through. Then there's just getting into this cubicle. And the picture is you've all just thought through some of you a bit more scarved than others of this man laying back on a toilet like half an almost like you find someone drunk in a nightclub or something there I say. Just sharing with the butt

hose and it's literally one of the most amazing moments of my life because everything is coming together. I'm so fucking alive right now and that's what these events do mate. They they cause you to go into such an unusual situation, hallucinations, pain, call it what you will, mate. And then you just, and I had it, you go in the Sahara, and I've just walked around a corner, where it feels like you're cornered. There's really no corners in the Sahara.

And you just look up and you're like, fuck, I'm a human and this is earth. And I'm running across this fucking Sahara desert. And it's amazing. It's like you were reborn, mate. And I was in Kenya last year. In hell, literally in hell, I've got chaffin' as a picture of me.

This race was self-supported, so I'm carrying everything, and it's awful and it's hot. And then I find a picture on my GoPro, and I'm next to a fucking giraffe. Is this real? Like, if I was fighting, which I was fighting the pain, but then you're just reborn, just through a giraffe. And this is one of the things that we haven't touched on, which I just think is super important. The power of the planet, of nature, of animals, of plants, of sunrises, of the circadian rhythm is absolutely incredible. It's hard for me to explain pain

and suffering because I think it's different for everyone and I can we can do a whole hour about the pain I've been in but it's irrelevant. I chose to be there but the lessons from it and the amazing things that Ult-skeven me that human beings has given me that allow me to be present, that allow me to live. I really think is what contributes to wanting to wake up early every single morning before my alarm, some days, some days on my alarm, mate. Some days I'm like, what the fuck? You know, I'm the same as everyone like, bang! And just get up and live.

And overcome those tough things of, you know, I don't feel 100% today. And that's why I do this stuff because those situations that I've been in, and we've all been in situations, but I chose to be there, and I've unpicked those situations and I've thought about the track one is really I don't think I fully understood it yet it's only a year on and you know there's so many moving parts there's what Tom did there's the time in the cubicle there's the people there's so many different things going along and that's what's

amazing though I can literally sit and look at a picture that's on my camera wrong from when the altars that I've done and I'll look at it like it's the first time I've looked at it. And these are free tools to us. We're always looking and but it's hard because I have to relive those situations and that's tough because if you remember it for the pain but a lot of time I try to remember it for what it's brought me and the great tools it's brought me to deal with life. To deal with 25 people working for me I have relationships I have parents that I have to deal with at a 75 and want to travel during COVID you know what I mean and there's these different things that you can take from it

in one of the most beautiful things, and the thing that I'm not one of these massive hashtag grateful thankful gratitude people, but I do have an incredible amount of gratitude, and I think I don't need to show it off on Instagram with people, but through having these opportunities to do these challenges, I'm able to, the guy that's going to, we've got a few guys running long tonight, I'm able to

share that with him and then watch him and his relationships and his life grow and that is one of the most incredible things. I've got somehow this gift that I can help someone do something better. I'm not Tony Robbins, I can't change a thousand people at once, but I can take him and I can, he's gonna be in hell. He's gonna address some things and tomorrow night, 6 p.m. when he stops running and he has a cold beer, he's gonna be reborn, man.

And it's literally, there's a picture. And it's one of my, it's my favorite picture of 2019. I can't say it's my favorite picture of the decade, but it's one of my favorite pictures of 2019, where at the end of my 24 hour run, I was hugging Holly. And one of my mates sent me a message. I don't know if you wrote them a post or you sent me a message. I don't know if you're right on the post or you sent me a message. You go, in this situation, you feel like death. But in the same moment, you feel reborn. Quite the conundrum. This is really it. Like, mate, you can see, I'm emotional about

it because that's really it. You've been in such a tough place. But now you're just so fucking alive. And it's just, how do we get that more of the... I've never wanted to do endurance stuff. And the last couple of days, last couple of weeks, I've been listening a lot to Brian Keen, and I've been showing a few weeks, I've been listening to yourself. Tom Oden is going to be sat where you are in a couple of hours. I don't think I've ever heard people talk about endurance events in this sort of a way. If there was ever a front end of the funnel man wanting to start doing this. I've never even wanted to run a half marathon. But I just think, wow, what an opportunity for growth, you know?

I released a podcast today called It's Not About Running. And honestly, I was, I didn't know what show was gonna put out this week. I didn't have any guest lined up and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I went through a lot of my old articles and wrote an article in 2018 or 2019 called It's Not About Running. And I read it and I was like, you know what?

That's actually a really good article. I'm like, pat on the back sort of thing. And I was like, you know what? I can share this with people and I can put it into a podcast because you said it that I've never run a half on. It's not about the running, mate. I can share this with people and I can put it into a podcast because You said it there. I've never run a half or it's not about the running mate. I haven't talked to you about running we've talked about life and

I don't think I definitely didn't realize the power of ultra endurance until I got needy pinn it mate. I never thought, how did it start? Is what a lot of people ask me and honestly mate, a lady walked into my gym one day and said, I need your help. She said, I'm going to run this ultra-math and I was like, never done one. She goes, no, I just wanted to help me on my strength and nutrition. So I could do that. I said, what do you mind if I learn? I said, because I find it difficult to tell someone to do something, I haven't done. And that's what started it in 2009.

And it's incredible, mate. A lot of people, I'm so grateful again, that you spent the time and you've understood a little bit because a lot of people, anything over their threshold, and it's 10k, 5k or 21k, it's all just running but it's not, it's life, it's something that's so unique mate and it's something that's so innate, it's what we're designed to do without trying to sell it in

endurance, it's actually what we're designed to do. Look back to our ancestors, they worked here, they got water here, 10 miles away. We went by walking or running. It's only in the last 50 years that we don't move in the way that we're supposed to move. And that's led to all the problems that we've got now. It's so natural for us. Be it happy about it, it's what we're supposed to do. Man, you might not be trying to advertise long-distance stuff, but it's gasmed me up, and I'm sure it's really sort of invigorated a lot of people as well.

And if ever there was a year to do it, when your gyms have shut down, a number of people that I think have taken up distance running and hope they'll have taken some of the lessons that you've had today from their own experience as well. So, man, I've adored today. You've got to get on, and I've got... I need to have another

coffee, I don't know what to do after this. I don't know whether I want to cry, whether I want it from myself, after roofing to the pool, whether I need a coffee, whether I need a sleep, I need something. I'm just trying to keep it real mate, I appreciate you, you're chatting to me mate, honestly, really good questions and as I said at the start, I try and talk a lot because I try and share with people and get out as much as I can because I don't have all the answers, mate. And I just have these experiences. And I just hope that other people will try

and find experiences. Are we looking for answers? I don't know. Here's one thing that might be a nice part in, inside for you. There's only a few people on the planet that have done the things that you've done. Bizarrely there's a duty of those people to teach everyone else about their insights. We go to the moon, we collect samples, we come back home and people who are experienced

and analyze their samples. People who decide to push from tears in other areas, whether that be with meditation, whether that be with physical training, whether that be with reading and compiling wisdom, whatever. It's their job, it's their duty. They are the person who knows it, they are the people who've experienced it, it's their duty to then teach the rest of us because that's how we move forward, right? And I think that very virtuously that's what you're spending your time doing as well with these events. So people will want to check out more about you. Where should they go? These are things Instagram made MJD

underscore Smith. Hit me up on there. I reply to everyone. I'm not a rude prick. Dig for the Insta Slats! Brother, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. That was awesome. Thank you very much for tuning in. Don't forget, if you haven't picked up a copy of my ultimate life hacks list yet, then what are you doing with your life? Head to chriswillx.com slash life hacks and you can pick up your copy today over 200 ways that you can upgrade your life instantly and it's free and you'll get added to my three minute Monday newsletter. chriswillx.com slash life hacks go and sign up right now.

Peace. This will x.com slash life hacks go and sign up right now. Peace.