Modern Wisdom - #300 - Greg Everett - How To Truly Build Toughness

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Greg Everett is a weightlifting coach and an author. We're in the middle of a toughness revolution. From David Goggins motivational videos to cold showers, it seems like becoming tough is a skill many people want to develop right now, but what IS toughness and how do you cultivate it? Expect to learn how character, capacity, capability and commitment combine to create a truly tough human, how you can develop your resilience to adversity, why Greg says confidence can be built like any other physical pursuit, how to become more disciplined and much more... Sponsors: Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D & Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount on all pillows at https://thehybridpillow.com (use code: MW20) Extra Stuff: Buy Tough - https://amzn.to/39cbTgF  Check out Greg's Website - https://www.catalystathletics.com/ Check out Greg's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/CatalystAthletics  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

Hello friends, welcome back. My guest today is Greg Everett. He's a weightlifting coach and an author. Right now it feels like we're in the middle of a toughness revolution. From David Goggins' motivational videos to cold showers, it seems like becoming tough. It's a skill many people want to develop. But what is toughness? And how do you cultivate it? Today, expect to learn how character, capacity, capability and commitment combine to create a truly tough human. How you can develop your resilience to adversity, why Gregg says confidence can be built like any other physical pursuit,

how to become more disciplined, and much more. It's so good to see a common term that everybody is throwing around in the growth world at the moment, broken down into its component parts. It really helps us to see exactly what we are talking about. Remember the first thing that used to write in an essay when you're at school at university? You would try and get a definition in there because without defining our terms, we don't actually know what we're talking about. And today definitely defines toughness in a way that I think is really, really useful.

If you enjoy the episode, hit subscribe. It makes me happy. Thank you very much. And now it's time for the tough and wonderful Greg Everett. For the people who aren't familiar with you, what do you do? Who are you and what you do? I do all kinds of things. Best known though as a coach of the Olympic sport of weightlifting, producer of all kinds of educational content primarily.

So for coaches and athletes, got a number of books out, lots of video content, tons of online content. So since about 2006, it's kind of been the, well, arguably the biggest resource out there for Olympic weightlifting, an instructional educational material. Cut list athletics YouTube channel for people that want to check that out, am I correct? Yeah, well, catalystathletics.com will get you even more.

There's something like, you know, I personally have 300 something articles on there. There's a thousand plus videos. You can actually find them, because they're searchable and categorized on YouTube, which is just someone just put a big pile of stuff and you have to dig through it. It's crazy how much-

I'm not smelling a little bad. Yeah, it's crazy how much content you can get out of just two lifts, isn't it? Yeah, it's actually pretty silly, but it just never ends. And then now you've pivoted and we're talking about tough, building true mental physical and emotional toughness for success and fulfillment. Yeah, I mean, theoretically, it's a bit about weightlifting too, but it's a little, a little broader of an umbrella.

What do most people have wrong about toughness? What is it not? Well, I think the biggest common mistake people make is that it's we see it as being a masculine quality or somehow inherently related to manhood or the condition of being a man. And I spend a lot of time in that early on in the book really breaking it down and explaining what exactly being tough truly is. And it has nothing to do with sex, gender, or any of these things. They are totally independent elements that anybody can attain with the proper work and understanding. And the kind of the secondary part of that

is that it is associated a lot of the times with kind of violence or aggression or that sort of need to demonstrate our ability or our superiority over others. And again, totally unrelated to what being tough truly is. But we have these associations in our minds, especially based on our past experiences with people who claim to be tough or who mothers tell us our tough, which is often far, far off the mark.

There's been a recent, I would say in the last five years, I've noticed quite strongly a surge in content around fortitude and resilience and toughness and people like David Goggins are being really upheld and cold showers are becoming a thing. And, you know, why do you think people are drawn toward a discussion about toughness in 2021? I think because you simultaneously have it becoming less of a normal trait for people than it used to be, but more and more necessary for us to get through our lives now. And those things are related, certainly. You look back at say like my grandfather's generation going through the Great Depression, World War II,

these sorts of things where my grandparents grew up on farms. They were dirt poor. There were traits that you developed as a child growing up in a situation like that. You know, a lot of people still do in both of our countries, of course, but where it wasn't this thing that you sought out, it was just something that naturally you developed because there was no other choice. You want to eat, or you better figure out how to eat, and it's going to take some work. Versus my daughter's generation, like, hey, I want

to eat, may, boop, boop, boop, and someone delivers food to their door 20 minutes later. While they're sitting there watching 15,000 different shows on TV. So it's this totally different experience that we're having in our lives. And I think what's happening is that more and more of us are recognizing that there is something missing that we're. There's an absence of experience. And a sense of fulfillment and contentment and accomplishment because we're not required to engage in things that are difficult and demanding and require commitment and an understanding of who we truly are and what's important to us. So we're kind of just flailing around searching for ways to entertain ourselves and distract ourselves,

which temporarily is satisfying, but in the long term kind of leaves us having a continual series of midlife crises, right? So instead of having one midlife crisis like the olden days, now we have one every five years. It's like, what have we been doing? What do I want to do? Who am I? This is awful. So I think that's why it's becoming more and more of a popular topic. How do you define toughness then? What is it? If that's what it's not, what is it? So I break it down into four elements. The first one is character. And that is simply, what is your identity and the corollary to that is are you secure in that identity? So who are you and what is important to you? What's meaningful to you?

Because without that, that's your guide for every decision you make. And so many of us are just absolutely clueless when it comes to who we actually are. A lot of us have stories in our minds that we've been telling ourselves about who we are for our entire lives. Most of the time very far from accurate, but that's kind of what props up our egos and makes us believe that we have this kind of dialed in and figured out. And the security and identity is key too because so many of us are totally insecure in who we are. And that's why we have so many of us secure in who we are. And that's why we have so many of us, you know, constantly on the search for recognition and appreciation and credit and, you know, these desperate pleas for validation, you know, look at social media every day. It's just sad, honestly. And so much of it is unconscious. Like, people are not setting out every day. Like, I need someone

to tell me I'm strong and pretty but that's what it is and and without that security we end up with the you know those kind of behaviors and also you know the ridiculous unnecessary competition and the one upmanship and all these things that just drive ridiculous behavior and prevent us from accomplishing anything actually meaningful long term. Next, you have capability, which is not just physical ability and physical traits and skills, but knowledge. It's in it's, you're, we need to garner this through the accumulation of very broad experiences, novel experiences, and learning, you know,

collecting more and more tools physically, mentally, emotionally, in learning how to succeed through different situations, unpredictable situations, and gaining the confidence that comes along with successfully experiencing such things. Next, we have capacity, which is what, you know, most people think of as resilience, but I distinguish this from resilience in that. Resilience technically is a return to your original condition following some kind of adversity or trauma. So that, to me, the analogy is storm comes, you go downstairs, you ride it out in the

cell or you wait for it to clear up, you go back and just resume your life. That's resilience. That's good, right? We're not getting destroyed by it, but what I want is to use those experiences that adversity, hardship, challenge to develop further, to become stronger, more intelligent, more engaged with the world, to add to that toolbox, to get more experience using those tools in unique, novel ways. And then finally, is commitment. And this encompasses, you know, discipline, habit building routine, these sorts of things. And this is really what brings all of the previous

three together. Because without the commitment to it, the rest is just kind of a private fantasy, right? This is the story we're telling ourselves, well, I am resilient and I am capable. But if we don't actually put those things into use during meaningful, significant experiences, then we're not those things. We either have the potential to be those things or we're just lying to ourselves. And so that's what kind of wraps it all up and that's how we create that life. Going back to character, do you think it's built or revealed? Is character something that's innate or is it something that we have to construct? I don't think it's innate,

although I do think obviously we have, much of it is built without our participation early on in life, right? It's, you know, through our influences, our parents, our family, our friends, our teachers, coaches, whatever. And so when you're six years old, you're not conscious of the development of your character unless you're some kind of genius, prodigy kid. So because of that, there's always opportunities for character to be revealed for us to

experience something that forces us to look at who we are at present. But at the same time, I do think we have, you know, a complete ability to determine who we are, to decide our character, to figure out what then, you know, the behavior, the speech, the ways of thinking, then support that identity, and then to make those changes in our lives who reflect it. So it's, you know, a dialectical process where maybe we experience something we see, wow, this is who I am. It is not who I believed I was. It is not who I want to be. So who do I want to be? And now more importantly, how do I actually make that true? What do I need to

change in my life? How do I need to behave and think and speak in order to actually become that person, rather than just thinking this is who I would like to be. Man, the more that I look at learning about character and personal values and why are you here looking at the core reasons for you being on the planet, I don't think that there's a more important question that anyone should be asking themselves. It took me until I was 31 to do sit down and actually work out the five core values that my life has built upon, which is mental. How did I get through 18 years of full-time education,

two degrees, including a master's, and no one ever said, why are you here? Like what's the reason that you're here? I'd done it for businesses. So the young entrepreneurs that are listening who've sat down and said, right, okay, so let's talk about the brand values that we've got. While the people sat around the table haven't got their own values organized. Yeah, it's bizarre. And what's more bizarre is that as you said,

they can be completely unaware of the ridiculousness of that situation, where they're putting so much effort into what is meaningful to my business, right? Like the business is this living entity that has its own values. It's like, no, those are your values expressed through your company. So like, why would you not do this for yourself? It's bananas. It's bananas. Yeah, man.

It really is, I think it's one of the big changing points, a big inflection point that you have when you actually sit down and do that exercise. And I've been banging on about this for the last year. So everyone that's listening will be familiar with this. But for the people that haven't already decided to do this exercise, I implore you, whether it's through Greg's book, tough, which will be linked in the show notes below,

or Taylor Pearson's core values exercise, which you can get online, or whatever it is, like you need to do it. What was life like for you before and after? Was there something where you realized, right, I need to sit down and get my core values in order or have you always had them set? No, no, definitely have not had myself sorted out always. It's been a continual series of events that have kind of nudged me in various directions and it is something certainly that is ongoing, right?

So even if you do sit down, you figure out your values today. Those things are very likely going to evolve over time based on new experiences, new interactions with different people and new demands, things like that. But so I mean, really early on in life for me, I struggled very much. I was a really self-conscious, insecure kid and I mean, I don't think I had any solid identity. I was the chameleon, right, where I was popular because I could be whoever I needed to be in any group, any situation.

And that works great when you're 16, 17. You know what I mean? And you can get whatever girlfriend you want, right? Because you're always the right guy. And you have these friends. And but when you get a little older, you recognize, well, this isn't gonna get me very far. I'm unhappy that none of this stuff is working for me.

And so my personal experience early on was I had a huge drug problem. Right? And so by the time I hit, you know, at 19, 20 years old, I was, that was the, I think the first big thing where I was forced to step back and say, is this actually who I want to be? Am I willing to continue down this road? You know, and I had good friends who had you know serious drug addiction problems I had friends who died had friends who were getting arrested. You see sorts of things So it wasn't it wasn't a purely conceptual exercise for me

It was like very clear what my potential paths were and so that was the first thing where I really had to take a step back And be like I need to figure myself out. And it wasn't a straightforward, quick thing. It took a number of years to get through that. But I think since then, what I learned was how critical that ability to be self-reliant and independent and know exactly who I was and what was meaningful to me because that was what was driving all of my decisions. And without that again, I said earlier, you're just kind of flailing around,

being discontent for the rest of your life. Let's say that someone does go through their core values and work out why they're here or they have a good concrete idea of that. Like what's next? Like just because you've got your values written down in a piece of paper somewhere, that doesn't really mean anything. Yeah. What's next is the continual self-monitoring, right? And so being aware of what you're

doing and being willing and able to ask yourself with all these decisions you're making, does this reflect who I am and what's important to me? Because so much of what we do in a given day is habitual, right? We continue to do these behaviors because we've always done them. It's, they're so well ingrained. And so much of the time, those things are discordant with what we actually want to achieve or who we want to be. And so if we don't address that, we kind of just remain on that same course just through inertia.

And so when we get to these various We don't address that, we just remain on that same course just through inertia. So when we get to these various inflection points or forks in the road where we have to actually make a conscious decision, we have to fall back on these things, fall back on the identity and our values to make those decisions to ensure that they are in harmony with what is actually meaningful to us, because so many of us are just driven by convention or tradition or what we are expected to do or what we're told that is important to us. Look at how many people take personality tests or these things that are supposed to tell

us who we are and what we want. And then, you know, I'm very, very dubious about the accuracy and the value of those things in so much so because once you have decided, okay, well, this is my personality. I took a test in Cosmo or whatever. And so now I have to match all of my decisions and behaviors to this. Well, that's the same thing as not knowing who you are because that's very likely not who you are.

It's just that now you feel like you have this structure, but it's still leading you down a path that is not going to deliver you repeatedly as it should to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. It's an interesting one. I had Dr. Benjamin Hardy on the show, discussing his book personality isn't permanent about a year ago. And he was an incredibly critical of pretty much every different personality test except for the big five. And his reason for not being critical of the big five was because you're not put into a type with the big five.

They don't say that you're a green or an MBTI or a classic, classic sparkly dragon or a new wage sparkly dragon or whatever it is. Like, it doesn't give you a category that he feels constrains people. But yeah, man, looking at the way that character relates to capability, capacity and commitment, it seems to me that character needs to be there to form the foundation that everything else can be built upon very very shaky underpinnings if you don't actually understand why you're here and what you're doing as mutual friend Ben Burjoran talks about you say you can spend a lifetime climbing a ladder only to

realize it's put up against the wrong wall. And Greg McEwan told me this story about when some executive high, high flying executive, some massive media company had been working out for years and years, and he'd sacrificed family time. He'd been doing 18 hour days, five days a week for 20 years, and he finally gets to the top. and he speaks to Greg and he says, man, my son won't talk to me, my 19 year old son won't talk to me. Like, I don't have a relationship with my son because I've never spent any time with him. My family's in tatters and all that I want now is to have a family life. I've got all the way to the peak of this world that I thought I wanted and look at what happened. Like I don't want this.

So you can very, very quickly put yourself in the wrong direction if you haven't got distorted. So we've got character in the book. There are some core values exercises that people can go through and will help to give them some clarity on that. Moving on to capability, it's what are you able to do, right? That's your capacity is your ability to deal with things,

your capability is what you're able to do. Yeah, and this is such a large umbrella, right? This is really all encompassing again, not just skill and physical ability, like strength, endurance, whatever, but the knowledge. And this is so much predicated on experience, ability like you know strength endurance whatever but but the knowledge and This is so much predicated on experience novel experience varied experience Because so many of us are are really stuck in this very narrow bandwidth of life experience where we have our profession We have our specialty. We have our narrow set of interests

We all watch pretty much the same handful of TV shows. We all look at the same Instagram accounts. I mean, you look at, again, going back to my daughter's generation, they all talk exactly the same where when I was growing up, it was regional, right? So where I was from, people spoke one way and then, you know, other side of the state, they spoke a little bit differently and now it's like everyone is so tied together across the world that it's just so homogenous. And so we have to break out of that and go into peripheral realms, not just for the sake of learning what's out there, but understanding that the things that you learn outside of your specialty and your area of comfort and

expertise will contribute to your expertise. We'll contribute to your specialty, and you don't know how it will because you have never experienced it. It's unpredictable. But also, a huge part of that too is we very much overestimate our abilities when we never get outside the area in which we're already comfortable. And we develop this false sense of confidence that can harm us anytime we're forced to step out of there.

Whereas if we're constantly seeking out novel experiences and developing the abilities to successfully deal with them. Now we're building legitimate confidence. We're creating not just the ability to handle things that are unpredictable and different, but we're developing the confidence that we can. The more of those experiences we have, where we successfully deal with things that we haven't dealt with before, the more we recognize our ability to take care of ourselves, to handle the unpredictable, to handle adversity. And so we start chipping away at that very natural sense of intimidation and fear and anxiety that people experience when, you know, they

have to encounter things that they are not already comfortable with and that just think about how much of Life opens up to you when you have that attitude and that mindset and that confidence What's that movie yes man with Jim Kerry where he just has to say yes to everything? You don't want to go too crazy, right? Like you have to be work within reason there But that's the idea is is rather than finding reasons to avoid things because they're scarier, intimidating, or you've never done them before. Get out there and dip your toe in the water at least and see what's going on because chances are you're

going to discover things that are wildly enjoyable, but also beneficial to what your primary focus is. The interesting thing about capability is that someone's confidence is actually limiting factor on it. When you think about, I am able to do this physically or mentally if you put me in the situation, I'm able to do it. But if your belief is downregulated from that, then that's what you're working off. You're actually working off 80%, 70% or 50% or 10% of whatever you're available amount is. So let's say that there's someone who's listening who is a little bit low on confidence, so it doesn't have that self-belief. What's something that they can go out and do this week? Or how would you prescribe them some

strategies for starting to build that confidence up? Well, here's the key thing, and I talked about this a lot actually in the capacity section of the book, but this is like any other physical training where your challenge is, and the exercises you're doing to this end have to be appropriately designed and dosed. So for example, like if you want to, you say, I want to go learn how to rock climb. I've never done it before. I've never set protection. I've never been on a rope. Don't go try to climb El Capitan next week, right? You're going to die. You're going to have a bad time. Instead, you know, go do something small, go do some bouldering, go to some top-roping with someone who's experienced. And so these things have to be very individual. They need to be initially, of course, they should interest us to some degree, ideally.

But they should be related somehow to our lifestyle, our needs, in terms of our profession, and our locality. Because those are the abilities we want to develop first. Those are our priorities. What's critical for us day to day? But then you have to determine, okay, what's my starting point? Because my starting point is very different from your starting point in any given endeavor

because our experience is in our knowledge is different. So for someone who's an experienced rock climber, maybe their next challenge is to, you know, free climb the nose of LCAP, whereas, you know, I haven't climbed in 23 years. I'm not getting near that. No, I won't even walk to the base of that thing right now. So it, this can be literally anything. And for some people, it's going to be as seemingly simple and mild as getting past the anxiety and going to the grocery store by themselves. I mean, that can literally be a huge challenge for some of us.

It was for me as an older teenager. I would run out of food every once in a while because I couldn't get myself to go to the store. That's how out of my mind I was with self-consciousness and anxiety about it. And so it's about sitting down and figuring out, where do I want to go? Now, how do I break those things down into smaller and smaller and more manageable pieces?

Where do I start? What's step one out of a thousand or whatever it is? And so I don't have specific prescriptions for that. It's more of a guidance on how do you determine what's important to you, what you need to work on. And now let's figure out what's the first step, right? And so I guess what I would say is, you can figure out today, what is something

that I know that I'm lacking in capability right now? What's something that's holding me back from what I want to do or who I want to be? I guess is a better way to think of it. And now, what's step one in that potentially very protracted process to move me in that direction? And so you create the map and then you create those little way points along the way to keep you moving in that direction, no matter how tortuous it may be, it's very unlikely to be a linear course, but that's what keeps you on course. And those little way points, those little landmarks along the way, is what stokes your enthusiasm,

right, versus like, oh my god, I'm never going to get this. It's such a huge goal. But each one of those little steps is an accomplishment. And that's what kind of keeps propelling you forward with greater and greater momentum. What are some capabilities that everyone should have? These things are in some of this sounds silly, I know, but I think it's really important. But like the ability to drive a manual transmission, right? That like, this one I say, I grew up driving stick shifts and I finally got rid of them as I got older because I got lazy and I got tired of

driving through LA traffic, you know, stop and go, stop and go, try to eat a taco, change my shirt all at the same time. But you think you think, oh, well, that's dumb. We don't need that. Okay. What if you are somewhere, your child is seriously injured, you have to get them to a hospital and the only vehicle available is a manual transmission and you can't drive it. You're just going to give up on your kid. So it's like little things like that. People say, oh, that's so dramatic. Yeah, it's mellow dramatic until you're in that situation and then you go, that Greg, he was right. And now your kid hates you.

So things like that, things like literacy, being capable of reading and comprehending things well Things like that, things like literacy, being capable of reading and comprehending things well and being able to absorb information. So many of us, the longest thing we read now is a Twitter or an Instagram caption. And I look at adults my age, I just turned 41. And I read emails from people and I'm like, how have you survived this long with, you know, so much difficulty with the language,

like you're missing out on so much without developing that, you know, reading more books, writing, even if it's just a personal journal developing that ability to articulate and communicate. So there's a long list in the book of kind of universal capabilities, but they're primarily about giving us the foundation to be successful versus specific long-term capabilities, you know, being able to climb L capitane or whatever. It's more like what are the foundational things that allow

us to move toward those things long-term? You've got a quote in that section which I loved which says, all toughness is ultimately mental in nature regardless of how much the physical body is involved. A hammer can't pound any nails if we never pick it up off the workbench or can't find the nail. Such a good quote. Yep, finding that nail sometimes is the hardest part.

Yeah, talking about capacity, I think this is what people believe you're referring to mostly when they talk about toughness, right? Like resilience to adversity, what you able to withstand. Right. Yeah, and these are the, these are the really compelling stories that we hear, right? People who survive, like I talk about Stephen Callahan in the book, survived alone in a life raft on the Atlantic Ocean for 76 days. I mean, that, imagine simply being alone, being unable to communicate with anybody for 76

days, even in the comfort of your own living room. Most of us would go crazy. Like that alone is difficult, but now you've got sharks bumping up under your raft. Your raft is leaking. You're getting blown around by storms, getting soaked. You've got sores all over your body from the salt water. That's the kind of story where we really are so enamored with that sort of thing. I think that's where we see toughness really standing out, but people forget that, you know, toughness is demonstrated on an infinite gradient of intensities and durations. And so we take that example on one end, or you know, Victor Frankl, you know,

surviving his incarceration in a concentration camp during World War II, and finding a way psychologically and spiritually to find that sense of inner peace and freedom. We look at that, and then we scoff at the, you can't get over yourself and go to the grocery store sort of thing, but it's like those little things, or seemingly little things, are critical to building the capacity that gets us through the big things.

And so we can't discount those things, we can't trivialize them, we have to put our effort into those things because that is the practice, that's the foundation that moves us toward the capacity to withstand the big glamorous things, falling off the side of a mountain or whatever it is, and walking home with one leg, whatever it takes. But if you're unwilling to do the work and the day-to-day stuff, it's very unlikely you're going to get to that point where stories will be written about you. What was your favorite story that you researched when looking at the capacity chapter. I think Stephen Callahan's really stood out the life wrapped experience. You tell us about him.

He wrote a book. Yeah, he wrote a book called A Drift. And this was in the mid 80s, I believe, but he was sailing solo. I forget where he started, Canary Islands maybe, and almost immediately into this trip, a whale rammed his boat and the thing sank so quickly he couldn't even get all of his

survival supplies out. Thankfully, he got the life raft that had some gear with it. And so, reading his account of that, it's just mind blowing because the degree of ingenuity and resourcefulness that he displayed is just on such a higher level that those of us can even imagine. The favorite for me is that he had this leakin as raft and he was trying everything in all these different ropes and knots and trying to prevent it and it just would never stop leaking. And so he finally ended up using a fork to fix it. And so you look at the kind of creative thinking that involves. And if you see it now, you're like, oh, no big deal. He used the fork as like a toggle to crank on the thing. It's so obvious. No, it's not. A fork is something that we associate with creating leaks, not fixing them.

So most of us who are very judicial thinkers would not even entertain that as a possibility, let alone take the time to think, here's what I have. One of these things is a old Boy Scout fork. How can I use this to repair this leak and then actually make it happen and save that raft for another 60 days or whatever it is, which those things are meant to last like a week maybe at best, I think. And so there were just many stories like that. And in him having this internal dialogue, and he kind of described having two people in his head. One was the very emotional person, and one was the very emotional person.

One was the more rational kind of the captain, I think he referred to it as like nope. This is what has to happen. You have to do this, this, and this. And the other guys in there like, nah, I just want to lie down and just sleep this away and forget it, I don't want to do it. And so it was, it's just, it's this like perfect story

to me of survival, but the, the internal dilemmas and difficulties mixed with the, the, the necessity of being so resourceful and creative and bringing that all together into this unbelievable harmony. And then it's so incredible. He gets seen by a fishing boat finally after 76 days. And he's so dialed in and like accepting of his situation that when the guys come to save him, he goes, I don't know, you guys go ahead and finish fishing

and then pick me up when you're done. So he literally sat there and waited for these guys to finish their day of fishing, just waited in this raft. He's like, hey, 76 days, what's another six to eight hours? That's unreal. You know, most of us, if we were in there for six hours, would be like crawling out of there, swimming to the boat, get me out of here. And he's, ah, you guys, I'm just going to enjoy the view for a little while. So that, I mean, that book, if you haven't read it, that book is very much worth the time.

That's a sixth story. Have you read The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Erkart? No, I've never even heard of it. It's such a hidden gem. So I got told about this about two years ago from a buddy. Think of man's search for meaning. subtract all of the psychological insights, add in about 10x the amount of extremeness, and you've got this book. It is unreal. So this guy was a in the Highlanders, so one of the Scottish Regiment over in Japan, and then when World War II began, he was captured as a part of that when Japan left or joined the war. And he gets put on these death ships, which are essentially tin boxes with 150 people in for a month at sea with no water and no food.

He doesn't die. He builds the bridge over the river Kwaai, and is constantly dealing with dysentery and like a million tropical diseases at once, doesn't die. Gets locked in a cage in the middle of the midday sun for like three days straight because he'd done something to piss off one of the Japanese people, still doesn't die. Then gets shipped over to ward the mainland

and gets knocked off his feet by the aftershock from the Nagasaki bomb drop still doesn't die and then stays silent for 50 years because the army told him to to keep diplomatic relations proper and then he writes this book as a memoir and a call to account for the Japanese government to be brought up in front of the world for the crimes that they'd done against humanity while he was there and it's so bad but dude like if you want the contrast effect that brought up in front of the world for the crimes that they'd done against humanity while he was there. And it's so bad. But dude, like if you want the contrast effect that you get where you realize all of the problems that I have are absolutely tiny. And then also

to see the capacity of what people are able to go through, it's phenomenal. Man, like seeing people that can go through this and highlight. Forgotten Highlanders. That's a forgotten highlander. Yes, it's really easy books. Like 250 pages, super easy read. Oh, it's uncomfortable read, but it's great. Yeah. You talked about there about remaining composed and rational and stressful situations. How can people build that in themselves?

Just like I talked about previously, this is something you practice every single day in even the most minor situations. And so we look at, you know, so many of us just flipping out because we have to wait an extra minute for a traffic light signal. Or, you know, our Instagram won't load fast enough for us to look at someone else's lunch. Or whatever stupid things we get so frustrated, irritated, and wound up about. That's where you start. Is you recognize that reaction and you step back and you say, is this really who I want to be? Do I want to be the guy who's screaming at my phone because the Wi-Fi signal is 2% worse than it should be? And then you employ the various strategies that I talk about in the book that are

well-known, you know, breathing techniques, different ways to change your focus, different ways to kind of create that sense of composure. And then you build from there. And so then you go into, you know, like we talked about the various challenges you're going to create and employ for yourself. talked about the various challenges you're going to create and employ for yourself. And you start implementing those composure tools in greater and greater challenges, intensity and duration and variation, of course, until you develop that ability,

and along with that comes that confidence from the development of capability and that accumulation of experience. And so all those things coalesce to create that ability to remain composed in situations where most of us will be running around like our hairs on fire, you know, looking for mom to come figure it out for us. What is the situation that you still struggle to maintain composure in?

Is it getting a red light when you shouldn't have done with one of your athletes at a big competition? Is it stuff to do with business? Where have you still got work to do in this area? It's definitely primarily work related. And I think that it's almost entirely concentrated on anytime I have to rely on someone else to do something for my business, I can't take it

because it's never on time, it's never done the right way. There's always some kind of problem and I'm always asking myself, why am I wasting time and money dealing with other people? I could have done this myself. And so anything that disrupts my smooth fluid flow of work still gets me. And so I am increasingly conscious of that

and really working to be able to take a breath and realize like, hey, we're not storming the beach here at Normandy. It's just a website or whatever the case is. And like you said, that comparison of suffering sort of thing, yeah, I'm not locked in a 10 box on the ocean for 150 days. I'm just a day late getting this website fixed on. It's not that big of a deal.. So being able to step back and have that big picture perspective is a key part of it. That's what gets me every time. I agree, man. So over the last year, my main business, which is running Club Knights, has been dialed

down. And to operate this podcast, which has been my main project, there's only me and one guy. And both of us know what we need to do. He does his bit and I do my bit. And it's only upon no longer, because I run club nights, which means that I'm dealing with a thousand drunk students a night. I need to mediate the relationship between the club manager and the door staff and the glass collectors and the bar staff and the bar manager and this council on the street and the police on the street. And it's, there's a million different actors,

all of whom have their own stake, the different stakeholders within the event and making sure that this thing happens and sometimes they conflict and sometimes they don't. And then there's a designer and then there's the guys that run the ticketing website and then there's all of the reps and the staff and blah, blah, blah.

And when you strip all of that back, you realize how much stress comes from other people because I think the reason it triggers you and me specifically is that you know you did all the things that you needed to do. It's like I did my job. I did my bit and this is being fucked up because of something that you did. because of something that you did. And that's something I often think when we see influencers online or very sort of small individual-based businesses now, so the YouTuber that's absolutely smashing it,

and he has a team of maybe like three or four people, but is able to turn over great money and has fantastic impact. But that person isn't dealing with a million different stakeholders. They're not dealing with California state coming and asking you for many, many thousands of pounds per month that needs to be increased because of the rent on your gym and other stuff like that.

And there's two ways that I think about it. One is aim to create a business in an industry that is as insulated as possible, like a hermetically sealed business in which you have as few external stakeholders as possible. And then the other side of it is when you see these people and they're fantastic and they're doing really, really well,

but remember that the massive success of their business does not come with the same level of discomfort as the guy that owns the delicatessen or the butcher's shop around the corner. Because that person has to deal with more stakeholders and that is where as a business owner, someone that wants to make things happen and do them correctly,

that's where so much of the discomfort lies. Yeah, well, that was one of the big decisions I made with Catalyst Athletics. My own company is a number of years back. There was a very clear fork in the road where I could have gone full blown, corporate, brought on a lot more employees, got the big media team, all these things. And it would have expanded the business and potentially made it more profitable. But the dilemma was, I don't want that. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a content producer. I want to be a coach, first and foremost. I don't need

the added stress of more overhead. And, you know, a bigger ship takes longer to steer. And all these things, I got the little rowboat man, I can turn on a dime whenever I want. So I sacrifice some of that potential top end in terms of profitability in spread, but I have more than enough of both of those things And I retain that complete ownership, that complete control, and that complete enjoyment of what I'm doing. And I don't have to depend on other people and take on that added stress that I don't need.

If I'm gonna be stressed, it's because I'm struggling to produce something that meets my standards, not because I'm waiting on someone else, and I know they're not gonna meet my standards, or whatever the case is on someone else, and I know they're not going to meet my standards. Or whatever the case is. And so that's been like the best decision I ever made when it comes to business. I'm glad to hear that.

I've got a lot of friends I think who have big desires for where they want their companies or corporations to end up. And I always ask, especially when they're talking about growth and levels of revenue and stuff like that, especially if it's a big number, if they're talking about growth and levels of revenue and stuff like that, especially if you're to big number, if they're talking about, yeah, man, we're going to try and sort of hit 10 mil top line next year. I'm like, in the nicest way possible, man, like, how much is enough? Like, how much money do you need? And I'm all for growth, and I love these inspirational stories about people that are able to make

unbelievable apps or products or services that are worth millions and millions of pounds. That's fantastic. But at what point is the dis economy of scale being paid by you in terms of stress? And I think that's a question that it's quite uncool to ask because in a meritocracy that values where people get to and you've got quantifiable metrics of the fortunes, hundreds, the most rich people in the world and how many followers have you got on Instagram. It's not very cool to say that you're satisfied. But that doesn't mean that you're settling. It just means that you know what is

all what is enough. Yeah. Well, and that comes right back to the character and values thing. And when we do our self evaluation, I make the point in the book that self evaluation should be concerned with only two things. That is your own values and the goals that you have set for yourself based on those values. There should not be any metrics of self evaluation that involve comparison to other people or other standards because that's how you pull yourself away from what's actually meaningful to yourself. So that is the perfect example.

Like, well, I've got a clear 10 million a year, or I'm not successful. But what is that actually going to get to you? Like speaking of Ben Burjeron, he does the five Ys. Like, oh, I want to clear 10 million a year. Why? Because once you start actually looking into it, you're like, well, I don't know why. It's kind of a stupid metric. Like, it's just this thing that sounds like a good idea

because that's what everyone else is doing. And, you know, I want 500 million followers on Instagram. Like, why? Like is that going to actually make you content? You know, I want that little blue check on Instagram, but only because they've been dogging me for so long and it tries me nuts. But it's not actually going to make me happy. You know what I mean?

Like I think somehow I offended somebody at Instagram years ago and now they're just doing it to mess with me. Despite you, that's funny. Yeah, I genuinely believe that you can inculcate this, you can habituate reminding yourself that you're being pulled away from your core values. And until you've done them, you'll never know when it's happening. But in the same way as when you realize that you've become lost in thought, if you've spent a bit of time meditating and you realize, hang on, I was dreaming but awake there. I was lost in thought without knowing that I was lost in thought.

That is what it is to be dreaming while you're still awake. And the same thing can occur when you get this compulsion. I often get it when looking on Instagram. There's a lot of people from the UK that are out in Dubai at the moment because they fled before the lockdown kicked in and they're having this great time out in Dubai. So I get jealous about my buddies that I see out there that are doing this thing, but then I just ask myself, hang on, why would you want to be there?

Like what is it that you're missing? And as you start to dig into it, you realize, well, hang on, all of the things that I value for my short and medium term goals are here, right here, right now, and that's why you made the decision to be in the UK. So it doesn't matter, but because we have this system one thinking, this impulsive just reactionary way that it's, I want that. Why? Why do you want that? Well, he's got it.

That is a fucking stupid reason to want anything because he's got it or she's doing it. Like, and the more that we can assess our assumptions, the more that we can act intentionally, and until you've got your values in, you don't know when you're being drawn away, but you can habituate it. You notice what you feel when the texture of your mind is starting to be drawn away from the course and the path that you are on.

And when you start to get drawn away, you go, there's that thing again. There's that thing. There's that thing that just pulls me away. And then you can just return back to what you're doing. Man, it is so liberating. It's so, I need to, you know, it happens. I do it like 1% of the time that I should do it, but that 1% it feels that's such a victory. Hey, that's 1% more than most of us do it. A big part of that is recognizing that feeling you get when you see those pictures of everyone parting and do by while you're

back at home in the rain. It's an emotional reaction. It's not a primary emotion, it's a secondary emotion, and it's like that jealousy or envy or resentment or the really gross, unhelpful feelings that we get. And if we can recognize that and step back and say, well, like you said, why am I feeling this way? We recognize, well, for no good reason at all, so I'm gonna go ahead and put that aside and remind myself what I'm doing. And having that ability to take a look at your own life, recognize what's important to you truly.

But then also have that sense of gratitude and recognizing, okay, well, I'm not in Dubai getting drunk with my buddies, but this is what I am doing and man, I am extremely grateful for these opportunities I have and whatever the case is. And that really keeps you grounded and focused on what's important versus like you said, constantly getting pulled in, you know, infinity directions at a thousand miles an hour of all these things that you're not doing. Well, okay, we're all not doing a lot of things. We're not doing a lot more than we are doing, but what we are doing is important to us, and that's what we should be focused on. I love that, man. I absolutely love that. Talking about commitments, this is the delivery mechanism

for everything that we've spoken about up until now. You can have the best core values in the world, you can have your capability, you can do a handstand in Climal Capitan, but if you're not prepared to actually do the work, nothing matters at all. And I think that a lot of people who enjoy listening to podcasts like this one, who like reading, who like personal growth and self-development, the hurdle that many people get stuck at is action, is taking action. How can people take more action? How can they be more committed? Funny, you use that word because at the end of every chapter that book there's an action section and it is practical steps and that was critical for me because nothing drives me

crazier than a self-help book that's just purely philosophical. And so here's how you should see the world, and good luck actually implementing that, and of course, everyone throws the book to the side of the bed and goes back to normal. So first and foremost, again, is once you figure out who you are, what's important to you, what you want to achieve, now you have to determine what the actual practical steps are. And most of that is going to be conscious development of habits and routines that support those things, right? So we do not have the brain capacity to make that many conscious, willful decisions

every day in our lives. That's just a fact of the human brain. And depending on the source you read, it's 40 to 60 percent of the things we do in a day are habit. We're not consciously deciding. Like when we get dressed in the morning, we're not thinking like, okay, put my left leg through my pants and then I put my right leg and You know, it's we just do it. And so we need to create more routines like that that are

conducive to where we want to go. So for example, simple stuff like putting your phone on do not disturb and leaving it in another room while you're supposed to be working Right, we sit there and we work for three minutes and then we check Instagram. Something important must have happened in the last three minutes. It can't just be a bunch of more nonsense that I saw earlier. Developing things like that that sets you up for success and help you prevent blocking yourself from these things that you want to achieve. Reading every night before you go to sleep, doing some kind of morning journal routine, meditating or, you know, breath work,

things like that where you create these habits and routines that then continue to provide you the structure, the foundation, to reach farther with the more ambitious things that you want to accomplish and who you want to become, that's really the most critical part of it. It's not necessarily saying like, oh, I got to get super committed to this long-term goal of making it to the South Pole. It's more like, well, what do I need to do day to day? That's going to change my life in a way that allows me to work toward that goal

without constant disruption. And that's what most of us are missing. We kind of skip over the basic stuff and just look for these really lofty goals. And then we're constantly disappointed because we don't meet them because our day-to-day life makes it impossible. What would you say to someone who's really struggling

with commitment at the moment, or quote-unquote motivation? They feel like they're built for more, they feel like they have some potential inside of them, but when they promise themselves, they're gonna get up at 6 a.m. the next morning, they always hit snooze when they say that they're gonna to stick to the diet, they never do, and the gym they always miss it. How would you advise that person?

So two things. Number one is you have to associate the behaviors you're trying to implement with your values, right? You have to make that connection because so many of us look at motivation like it's this, we can flate motivation with enthusiasm. Where if we say like, well, I don't feel like going to the gym and training, oh, I'm not motivated. Well, no, you're probably motivated still, but you're not enthusiastic because it's hard and you're tired and you got things on your mind.

But if you can remember, what's the actual motivation? And that might be that you want to get healthier so you can play with your kids or your grandkids, maybe that you need to get in better shape so that you can do that big climb or whatever the case is. And so always having that, you know, the actual driving purpose in mind to associate with the behavior, but then also you can start with what Charles Dewey in his book, The Power of Habit, called Keystone Habits. And so these are things that, you know, relatively small habits that support the development of other good habits and more discipline.

And so this is, you know, the typical classic one is Make Your Bed in the Morning, which I'll admit, I don't do. That one for me doesn't mean anything, but that's been helpful for a lot of people where it's like this one little thing that they can control and they can easily create a habit out of. And then it essentially fuels that sense of ability, that confidence.

Well, I do actually have control over myself. And it's, as he says, kind of the accumulation of small wins. And that bolsters enthusiasm. And that pushes that drive to continue to do the bigger and bigger things. But again, it's really critical to understand the why and then to start, you know, with those smaller things and build from there rather than trying to skip ahead to step 10 when you haven't even done step one yet because that time you get on that hamster wheel and you're you just never actually making progress you're just constantly you know being disappointed in yourself

And well, I don't have the discipline. I'm not good enough. I can't do it versus like hey, I made my bed for 10 days in a row now What's next? I'm gonna add on the next layer now. I'm gonna good enough. I can't do it versus like, hey, I made my bed for 10 days in a row now. What's next? I'm gonna add on the next layer. Now I'm gonna start waking up 20 minutes earlier every day for the next two weeks Then 45 minutes. So now I have time. I'm used to it. Now I can get to the gym in the morning without feeling like a zombie and hating my life. So it's just the incremental progress, I think, is key. life. So it's just the incremental progress, I think, is key. One of the things that I think is so insidious about waking up at the wrong time, and this was something I'm battled with for ages, because working shifts, it's technically, which is what a club remote that does. And getting in at three in the morning, inevitably my sleeping partner was thrown off. And for anybody out there,

the nurses and the taxi drivers and the people that do night shift in petrol stations and stuff like that, I feel for you because it's savage and you don't realize just how important not hitting snoozes. Like as soon as I banned myself from hitting the snooze button, because it's the first thing, it is the actual first thing. Before your days begun, you've already said I'm going to let today beat me. And hitting the snooze button is like saying, I hate waking up so much that I'm going to do it multiple times per day. That's what hitting the snooze button is. And that making your bed just tiny, you're totally right, little winds on a morning. What are some tiny little things you can do, a five minute

walk, like around the block, around the little green belts next to your house, just those because it makes you feel like you're in control of the day and the commitment there, I think, is important. And then, I mean, coming from a weightlifting background, everything that we've talked about today is in some form or another progressive overload. It really is king. Absolutely. It's king and everything. It's king and reading and meditating and learning to do a world championship snatch or clean and jerk. Yeah, and that is, you know, that goes back to the idea of dosing with the challenges and things like that and with the habit building. And just to reiterate the point about starting in the morning with those habits, that is key too, because that sets the tone for the rest of the day.

If the first thing you do in the morning is that new habit you're trying to develop, you're already off to a good start. Whereas if the first thing you do in the morning is hit snooze and go back to bed, you've already showed yourself that you're not able to do it. I had a roommate in college who was terrible at getting up and he would put his alarm clock outside of his bedroom so he could hear it and he would have to get up out of his bed to go turn it off because by then you're up, right? You're not as likely to get back in bed. Of course, he used to drive me nuts.

You know, because we both worked on an ambulance at that time. So we would work 24s. And then I would work graveyard dispatching shift 11 to 7. And so it was a mess with the sleep situation. But that's what it took for him to figure out how to get out of bed in the morning. Man. Yeah. So get creative. You know, do what it takes to get that start. I know. I am. I have two alarm clocks and one of them is right there, which is far enough away from bed and right next to the curtain. So I can drag those open. So I've got a, I've got a similar strategy. Putting outside of the room is, is another level of extreme. I can't believe there's these mats that you can buy. These alarm clocks that are mats and you stand on them and they have to have your feet stood on them

for a certain amount of time to force, to turn them off. I'm like, I mean, that is just the same as putting your alarm over the far side of the room, but fair play to them for finding a niche in the market for people who want to be upright for 30 seconds before they can turn their alarm off or whatever it is.

I've never heard of that, but that's kind of smart from a business perspective. There's another one, another one that's like a really simple Rubik's Cube, and you're supposed to do the Rubik's Cube, so you have to be sufficiently cognizant to turn this alarm off. But you can imagine that if you had a particularly bad day and you wake up and you just defeated by some Rubik's Cube and your alarm's just going off, it's going to end up out of the window. Oh yeah, it's going to get smashed under my foot for sure. So what about parting thoughts from this man? Obviously we've gone through a lot today,

the four C's. If there was a fifth C, would you have put another chapter in? Was there anything that you left out? I mean, there's always stuff that you leave out. I don't, there was not enough that I felt required getting it into the book, but I do think that is, I think the way I approach most of this stuff, I write, is that it's a jumping off point, right? And so these are, this is a foundation. It's a place to get started.

There's a lot more to do. There's a lot more to think about. There's a lot more to talk about, but this is what's going to kind of get you going. So if there is a 50, maybe it would be confidence, but I kind of saw that as really a result of the four C's, right? That's what you develop. And that includes that sense of peace, that sense of security that we feel that we're all really looking for and actually being feeling safe and secure and satisfied with our own lives versus constantly feeling uncertain and anxious and worried about what's to come. And so I think that is really the ultimate goal is finding that really sense of inner peace with our lives, what we do and who we are.

But then none of those are seized. So I have to go with confidence. Ha ha ha. I love that, man. I am, I wrote in a newsletter recently about what confidence actually is and it's the belief that your abilities will match the required abilities of you. And you giving a public talk, you very well may be a little bit nervous beforehand because

you don't know if what you are being asked to do is what you can do, but doing your washing up is you're not even going to think about comfort aspects you've done it a million times before and it's not going to be too expensive. I'm really good at that. I'm awesome at doing it as well actually. And yeah, I think a lot of the time what people think they want when they talk about confidence is this extraversion charisma, this sort of outgoing bravado, they're kind of flamboyant, and they got all of this sort of fancy moves, everything's done with a twist,

like even washing the plates up is done with like a 360 spin. That's not what they mean. They just mean, I wanna feel comfortable, that I can do the things that are required of me, and it really does seem like the forese's that you've given before that would build up to give someone a firm foundation as you say a starting off point. So tough building true mental, physical and emotional toughness for success and fulfillment

will be linked in the show notes below and catalystathletics.com if people want to get a thousand plus articles and videos and how to lift everything. Spend the rest of your life happily perusing that website. Watching your face over and over and over again. Yeah, well I don't know if you want to do that for the rest of your life, but it's available if you do. And at Greg Everett on Instagram or at Katalist athletics. It's at Catalyst athletics and also at becoming tough is the account for that book.

So that will have excerpts and audio clips and things like that for those who are curious. Perfect. I love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you having me.