Modern Wisdom - How To Go Hard, Even When You Don’t Want To - Sam Sulek - #1157

Starting point is 00:00:00 People of the UK and Ireland, I'm coming to you live. Imagine that. Me on stage in your city. Dublin is completely sold out, but everywhere else has got limited tickets left, and you can get yours now at chris Williamson.com. This is a custom-built live show. I absolutely adore it. I've spent over a year working on it.

Starting point is 00:00:15 So if you're a fan of everything, Modern Wisdom, come and see me on stage this October around the UK and Ireland, Chris Williamson.com. You have spent a lot of time training physically. I'm interested in how you think about training mentally. how that comes into your development goals. Who for, like for me? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Because I mean, I feel like I end up splitting, like, how I'm thinking about training between myself, of course, because I care about my own training. But with all the videos I make, I'm talking kind of to everybody, because I want to be able to give reasonable tips, at least from my own experience. So I'm, like, half thinking, like, okay, what kind of bar do I want, but also, like, what's semi-reasonable for someone else? Because for me, I'm going to say, you want to go to a steak dinner, like last night, okay, this Wellington's probably 50 grams of carbs, probably 20 grams of fat, I can tell.

Starting point is 00:01:08 It's a little greasy. And however, like, super specific about all sorts of stuff. But I'm not going to say, like, that is the bar for somebody who just started working out. Because, like, you got to creep your way up to it. So it's like, you know, I always make this sort of analogy where it's not necessarily where you are specifically. right? I mean, we're about to see the Olympia this week. There's going to be dudes who are, they wouldn't even, they would fill the frame right here. Like, you wouldn't, they'd have to adjust the camera.

Starting point is 00:01:36 Quite a lot, yeah. And I don't look at that and think, oh, my God, I'm so small. All I'm really kind of proud of is like, man, I, every time I see a picture of like younger me, and I'm like, I don't even know if you'd believe it, like where I'm at now. But it's like just gradually raising the bar for yourself, meeting it. But now you've got to raise it again because now you've met it. like normal. So it's, uh, that's probably the biggest thing I think about is like even now, like I've been working out for, it's like eight years, pretty much. I'm still thinking like,

Starting point is 00:02:07 okay, I want to raise my own bar. Like there's no, there's no end to it either. Like, there's no end point where I'm like, okay, now I'm totally perfect and I know everything. And like, everything I do is awesome. It's like, I'm always just trying to creep up like, what can I do a little better? Like, what can I do a little bit harder? And like, the more you do that, going harder becomes more normal And now I feel like I'm kind of spoiled Because the dude who's at your gym Who's like the most jacked Just looks insane

Starting point is 00:02:34 He looks like he's going the hardest He actually has it the easiest Because now he is like adapted himself His baseline to doing that For him this is a normal day If you think he's going crazy hard It's because you're not used to that level But it's almost like I want to

Starting point is 00:02:49 I've got two sort of approaches Like I want to bring it super hard But I also want to like be able to tell myself, I could do this set as hard as possible, just like that, like nothing. Like, I wanted to be seamless, but still actually really bring it extra hard. Effortless effort in that way. Yeah, there's this, I don't remember where I heard it.

Starting point is 00:03:12 Someone commented on one of my videos after I said it, but I really like this analogy. It's called practice without striving. So you're going as hard as you can, but you want that going as, as sort as you can to just be seamless. Like, it's just what you do. Like, when with the gym, I mean, what?

Starting point is 00:03:32 How long until you look like you've done something? How long until you look like you lost a bunch of weight? It's like years. Guys will come up to me at a fitness expo. And it's like, look at this picture. 200 pound guy, 500 pound picture. And I've been making these videos for so long that he says, your videos got me to start doing this.

Starting point is 00:03:54 And it just feels like totally crazy for me to even hear that because every time someone is like, you know, I've been tracking my calories, I've been doing my cardio, like I know they actually are thinking about things differently than regular people, which I kind of blame just regular American upbringing. You know, everybody just thinks bread makes you fat and, you know, just eat your vegetables. And like, that's the extent of what a healthy diet is. But it's, yeah, just a lot of just going harder than I've gone before. I find so many times it's a fortune, I think, that you have, and I know that I have as well. Whatever, like, autism-adjacent audience I've decided to cultivate,

Starting point is 00:04:35 some of the comments and the feedback that I get are, I'm like, I then end up citing that in future. I'm like, that's essay-worthy. It happens all the time. And someone just comments on one of your videos, and you're like, oh, that's now an idea handle that explains the shit that I thought I came up with better than I could have done. It's like, thank you for this. It's like a human centipede, but like you're all attached to each other, like just helping each other to sort of feed. On the sort of lowering the baseline or

Starting point is 00:05:04 raising the minimum level of bad performance or what my worst day looks like, there's this great line from Floyd Mayweather. I think he's talking about, I think it's actually about his fight with Logan Paul, which makes it way less romantic. But Floyd Mayweather talks about facing an opponent and he says, I don't got to beat you with my A game. I could beat you with my C, D or E game. And I fucking love that idea that even on my worst day, I'm still better than I need to be to do what I want to get done. And that's obviously in a competitive environment.

Starting point is 00:05:40 But similarly, it could be I can still make progress on a day when I don't want to go in because I've drilled the basics, the muscle activation, the diet. I've got all of the things sorted. controlled all of the shit that I can so that when some of the stuff that I usually can control gets out of control, progress is still made and I still move forward. Yeah, I think there's, I think a lot of people right now are kind of falling for this tutorial based mindset, where they're thinking, okay, what are the steps that I need to do to achieve whatever my goal is?

Starting point is 00:06:15 And it's like the step is a workout and dieting in a certain way and like cardio and whatever, or this kind of annoys me. Guys will be essentially just hyping up very, just strange workout movements, like doing a curl in a very weird way where they lean over in a certain, or like climbing into a machine and using it backwards, which I'm not always against,

Starting point is 00:06:38 because sometimes I'll do stuff in the gym where I'm like, it's just kind of funky. Have I seen you do curls with a hamstring machine before? Did I make that up? Leg curls on a leg extension. That's it. You stand on it backwards. Yes.

Starting point is 00:06:51 And it's the same as a leg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that actually works. So it's not like I'm saying you can't change this stuff up. I mean, I have seen people get into Smith machines from the ground up. That's usually interesting to see. You know what I mean? Like they put a couple of yoga mats underneath them and now they're doing a inverted leg press using the Smith machine.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Yeah, I'd categorize that as funky. Okay. You've got to see some of the stuff. These dudes are like, they're doing a squat variation on a seated cable row. How? They like put a straight bar on their hips and like they then load it from there. Okay, facing the other way, so facing away from it. It depends on the machine.

Starting point is 00:07:33 Either way, you wouldn't catch me doing it. But it's this just idea that if I do something this right way specifically, it will work for sure. And they're highlighting this like just, and I mean, that's kind of how we're all raised, right? First grade, you pass your test, second grade. and it's like, you know, is that really that much of an accomplishment? It's kind of just like status quo. But getting into the gym, it's like if I do this workout right and if I do 10 reps, that's perfect.

Starting point is 00:08:03 Whereas in my head, I'm like, well, you could put me in a hotel gym with just 40 pound dumbbells. And I could probably get a good workout in for any body part, like even legs. Then during COVID, what I would do is I would take a belt, like, for your pants, wrapping around a dumbbell onto my ankle. Now we're getting funky. Well, this is because there's nothing else to do. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sit on the-survivor gym.

Starting point is 00:08:27 Sit on a bench and you're doing a leg extension. Single-leg-leg-leg extension with your leather belt. With a dumbbell on your foot, like things like that. And I just think it's way more important to just, like, this is the most simple thing anybody could ever say, but just go harder. Like a set of straight dumbbell curls, which anybody, everyone in the world would know if you ask them, how do you build your biceps?

Starting point is 00:08:51 They say, do a dumbbell girl. They wouldn't say do a inverted preacher curl triple drop set. They wouldn't say do self-assisted whatever. They're just going to say do a dumbbell curl. So I think there's as much value as there is in like super specific training and everything. Like, if you just go harder, you're probably going to get better results. So you're the secret to building muscle is just go harder. Well, there's more to it.

Starting point is 00:09:15 But as a theme. Like the training principle. Yeah. Like as a theme, I think that's overarching, way more important than necessarily training right. And I get myself in trouble because by saying that, that sounds like I'm saying don't train right, just train hard. It's more like this should be first and this should be second. Right. Like they're close to equivalent values, but I'd rather train super hard than super smart.

Starting point is 00:09:38 It's kind of how I would put it. What do you make of the exercise science sort of optimal structure that's kind of a big, I'm a little annoyed. Not annoyed, but what kind of like peas me is the people in these studies are not me. And they're not a lot of other people who want to work out super hard either. I mean, they're based on like the regular dude. And what's the regular guy? Like FDA based, what, 5, 980 pounds, 2,000 calories per day, 50 grams of protein per day.

Starting point is 00:10:12 I mean, no activity. You know, what regular person has like cardio actually? in their routine. You know, you're just not normal. These studies aren't, it's just not necessarily directly related. So I'm not saying they're not, but you're going to have more, there's more to gain from just going into the gym

Starting point is 00:10:31 and going harder than sitting at home reading a book about training. It's how I feel about it. But again, that doesn't mean I'm not saying that this information isn't valuable, but there's like intellectual value and there's practical value. You know, intellectually, guys are going to be very interested to say, oh, well, we just came up with this new, with this new, like,

Starting point is 00:10:53 life-assated fat for this protein bar. Like, you know, the David bars where they have this thing, where it's like, I don't know, I don't know the specifics, but it's like, oh, we have this really crazy specific thing. And like, oh, that's very interesting. And that probably does have benefits of you can eat something that makes you feel more full, but you don't actually break down the calories or whatever. Or you just not eat as much.

Starting point is 00:11:14 and they both result in the same end state. So I think it's, you know, guys are going to look at that and say, oh, well, man, if I just eat 30 David bars every day, I guess I'm going to get late. And it's like, no, that's just not even the answer. Just someone has tried that. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a trend online at the moment, which you might have been tracking.

Starting point is 00:11:34 And it seems like you're talking about the same thing but in health and fitness, which is a pushback against over-optimization. So it's called grind slop in my world. which is people sort of over obsessing about always trying to optimize each different part of their day, the perfect morning routine, and then the perfect nutrition habits, and then ensuring that sleep and wake time is completely dialed and no room for resilience or redundancy that's in there. And it seems to me like that trend of people feeling like everything is homework.

Starting point is 00:12:09 I'm overwhelmed with this. This is too much. I'm a bit fatigued and exhausted. I do think that the volume of information people are consuming through social media and AI plus uncertainty about whether I'm going to have a job in future and whether the geopolitical climate is going to cause me to, you know, is this country even going to exist in the next 50 years? Who knows? All of that is just making people feel a bit burdened by things. And it feels a little bit like what you're saying here is learning robust principles that work in a lot of different environments inside of the gym is more useful than trying to. to just have individual tactics that you snipe each time in the same way as I try to get

Starting point is 00:12:49 enough sleep and if I am tired, I go to bed, understanding the principles of regularity, duration, cold, dark, quiet, stuff like that, that is a better principle to follow than I will completely obsessively have this particular routine because that has fragility baked into the system because if you break it, then it no longer works. Is that like a fair comparison do you think? Yeah, I think it's definitely similar. It's like, oh, crap, my, my house is about to burn down. Well, I can't call 9-1-1. My phone has blue light. I got to go to sleep. I can't look at blue light right now. I guess I'm boned. Obviously, that's like a stupid extreme. Yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, I got this comment getting back to like how the comments

Starting point is 00:13:33 are a good reflection where a guy, um, what is this full day of eating? I mean, a big bowl of egg whites and rice, eating this chicken pot pie casserole, my wife made me. What's sweet. Steak, rice cakes. Like, just what I would consider an effective day of eating for what my goals are. I'm not going to say specifically the best for someone else, but for me, this makes sense. And these are all pretty solid foods. All the protein was what I'd call like S tier, like beef, chicken, some dairy, eggs, fish.

Starting point is 00:14:07 That's like S tier protein. I got comments, well, what about the protein and the rice? I'm going to call that D-tier protein. If it's in there, I'm not counting it. It's like, it's very, it might just be one of the amino acid chains, which isn't really going to do anything for you. But the comment basically goes like, I can, or what I said in the video was,

Starting point is 00:14:26 look, you're not going to see me make an extra fancy avocado toast with like a perfectly sliced thing and show you the picture and it looks really nice. Like, that's just for fun, for like an Instagram full day of eating. Like, oh, I eat my avocado toast every morning with my Himalayan salt that I get imported from overseas. Like, that's fun to look at, but like, that's just not even real.

Starting point is 00:14:49 And the comment was basically just like, thank you. I've seen so many avocado toast videos. Like, I've been working out for 20 years. I wish more people were hyping up just the basics of like, get your protein in, however many carbs you need, don't eat too many fats, like, you know, kind of things like that. What's that trend?

Starting point is 00:15:07 called boy kibble or like man kibble or something yeah it's um oh yeah it's like just the guy ball it's slop it's it's eat boy slap eat eat your slop it's some form of meat with probably potatoes or rice and a sauce in a large bowl with some sauce and if there's vegetables they're on they're in a different location they don't there it is viral social media trends there it is so it's this it's that it's all of those things it's just you take a carb a and then some sort of vegetable or sauce. He just mixed it all together. And look at that guy in the tank top.

Starting point is 00:15:43 There it is. Down one from the cursor on your left? Yeah, there it is. What is boy kibble all about the viral trip? Boy kibble to girl dinner. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He definitely knows how much protein and how many carbs

Starting point is 00:15:54 and how many fats are in that bowl. You know what I love? Every man, every Jimbrough has a favorite bowl in the house. I remember for a good while, I must have had, fuck at least 50% of my life calories for probably about five years from in one bowl and I couldn't get it again it was discontinued in Ikea I was treating it like a fucking Bitcoin I'm like there's a limited supply I can't get this bowl back again but like the perfect bowl I

Starting point is 00:16:23 think is an underrated hack needs to be high sides um yeah exactly yeah it needs to be high side so you can have it for small meal, big meal. It needs to be microwave safe because you are going to, you're going to reheat or like heat a little, I've heated it in the glass top of wire, but it needs a little bit much. Just needs another minute. I'll pop it in. But yeah, I think a, a high quality bowl is an underrated life hack for most guys. Yeah, I think so. I've been, I guess mine must have evolved over time. Because if it used to be like a smaller pyrex, now if I'm looking at the cupboard, I'm like, okay, we've got this set of plastic ones, you know, maybe. No plastic bowls. Come on, Sam.

Starting point is 00:17:01 Hey, sorry. I haven't been using them as much, that's what I'm saying. Okay. But it's like if I want a bowl that's big enough to mix all this stuff in and not spill anything. Strong salad bowl. It's got to be like a full maybe two gallon. It's a big salad bowl. It's like a beach ball that's being cut, the top half of it's being cut off. Yeah, it's perfect.

Starting point is 00:17:19 Just bring it wherever you're going. Very, very strong on that. But no, I know what you mean around like the way that food looks. I'll make one argument, which is any. bread either toasted or untasted or untasted cut corner to corner as opposed to side to side immediately tastes about 20% better if you cut it corner

Starting point is 00:17:43 to corner. There's something about the aesthetic of that type of bread I think which highly improves it. Second thing is Rob Henderson's got this fucking awesome line he says working class food tastes better than it looks and upper class food looks better than it tastes and every bit of boy kibble or Jimbrough food. If you were to post it online, it's like that, that slop, you've posted a bowl of slop on the internet. No one cares about it. But like, that will taste better than some perfectly garnished thing that's well presented on a bunch of wood. Yeah. I think one thing that's

Starting point is 00:18:18 kind of underestimated about it too is like, well, there's a different method of enjoyment when you eat a bowl of food like that. Because most people, like regular kind of folk, let's say they're not as tapped in with like, they don't count their carbs or whatever. Well, they're looking at of food as though this is just a thing for me to enjoy right now. I want to enjoy this. Why would I eat this bowl of rice and steak? That seems crazy. Whereas for somebody like us, I'm looking at this and I'm like, okay, I get the food enjoyment because for one, it does not taste bad. You guys are eating with your eyes and I'm still, you know, feel super full after. So like the enjoyment of the food for me is still fine. But also I get this extra enjoyment of nice, this is good for me

Starting point is 00:18:56 for what my goals are. So now I'm enjoying it in two different ways instead of just a you know what, treat yourself, get some canes or something. Yeah. If you're going to spend an hour in the gym, you might as well look hot and feel comfortable while you're doing it. And honestly, who wants to be in the background of a TikTok is highlight reel dressed like a chump? Gymshark makes some of the best men's and women's training gear on the planet.

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Starting point is 00:19:54 or heading to jim.sh slash modern wisdom and using the code Modern Wisdom 10 at checkout. That's jim.sh slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom 10 at checkout. You were, you jump scared people with your marriage announcement a couple of months ago. Yeah, this is something I get sometimes. I get another comment, not to just bring up all the comments, but it was essentially like, you know, Sam, we see you all, like every day for the last like four years. There's so much we still don't know.

Starting point is 00:20:24 It's like. Secret wife. What secret fiancee? Exactly. Turn in wife. Yeah, that was a long time in the making. But yeah, it's like, I'll see dudes where it's not as though I think you're setting yourself up for, like, failure. But what I think happens is they make videos.

Starting point is 00:20:41 If you make videos about the gym, it's very repetitive. I mean, I don't know if I could even estimate how many chess days have been uploaded. It's in the hundreds. So if you can chat GPT, how many chess days has Sam Sulaic uploaded on his YouTube channel? That would be hilarious. It's probably about 250 because there's like 1,200 videos. and it's usually chest every four days, so a quarter. So at least 250 of a chest day.

Starting point is 00:21:05 And for me, I'm like, well, this is just what I'm doing. This is a thing to build over time, and it's just kind of fun for me to do. So I like it. But some guys, they get very view obsessed. And it's a... Well over 200 videos. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:21:20 We didn't need chat GPT. We had sound GPT here. Yeah, I already knew the data. But I think they, this is just maybe some that's fitness-centered. I'm sure it happens to people who post about everything else, too, when it's just them. They need to spice it up. They start out of different bits of their life. But they're like, well, what can I talk about?

Starting point is 00:21:40 Ooh, let's talk about drama, which is usually step one. But then, ooh, let's talk about my own drama. I'm like, you guys are crazy. Not like I'm saying, I get a bunch of drama I'm hiding. But it's like I've got a, there's like on the camera, Sam. And then my normal day is just like for me. So that's just how I can go about it. Mary Harrington talks about a digital,

Starting point is 00:21:59 hijab. She says that there's certain parts of her that are for the internet and then there's certain parts of her that are for private. And it is interesting. I'm really glad that I did the type of content vertical that I have done, which is where it feels like there's still bits of life that are for me. And I can choose to open up about them or not. But, you know, as a piece of advice for anybody that's considering pursuing writing or video or, you know, short form aphorism stuff or fuck me like music or whatever um when you open the door to that part of your life it's very hard to close it so i think levels of personal disclosure should be done very carefully with a lot of thought of if you bring up this relationship if it ends in future people

Starting point is 00:22:47 will still be asking you about the relationship and if you're in a new one your new misses is going to be mad at the fact that your audience thinks that you're now and then they're just going to Having a relationship's hard, having a relationship in public's got to be like infinitely harder. So all of that, like the level of personal disclosure, I think, is, is an interesting one. How, from your side, how has married life changed your conception of you and the way that you sort of face the world? Has there been that personal philosophy changes now that that home base is fully, fully cemented? Yeah, I think so. Maybe I don't want to compare marriage to the gym.

Starting point is 00:23:30 It's a little. Go on. But what I was that? The little Sam Sulic answer ever. Tell me about how marriage is similar to the gym. Go on. I know, right. But it's a,

Starting point is 00:23:37 so this is just something I've thought forever about guys who've been, because now I've been, you know, I've been making these videos. They've been all kind of blown up for, like, years at this point. So I see guys who are in my position in different kind of areas. And I'm like, oh, you're 35 and you're, you're like, dating around. And you should be doing cooler stuff than that.

Starting point is 00:23:57 Like, I think now probably the biggest flex that I see is when it's like Chris Hensworth surfing with his kids. I'm like, that is sweet. Like, I got another question. It's like, Sammy Avery going to have kids? Totally. Because like that's, when I look at a guy like that or hear what they say, I mean, you'd probably trade any material thing that he's gotten or whatever for that. He knows that that's the most valuable thing he's got. Look at Seabum.

Starting point is 00:24:26 Seabum did trade everything that he'd worked for for his wife and his kids. Well, it helps that he got everything first as well. Of course. So a little different. But yeah, it's like there's, so again, you get like social media you. We're like, oh, you're super cool and like you're doing your videos and you're going up on stage and whatever. But it's like, you know, you're also you, for the rest of your life, there's things that you want to kind of progress in over time. So making like that gym comparison, like, well, what's the difference between like 20-year-old you versus 30-year-old view?

Starting point is 00:24:59 Or like now 24 to, you know, like 30. Like there's things that just take time, you know. Or like when guys are, and this is probably different for younger guys now where it's, everything's very career focused. Like, oh, well, you know, I don't have time for kids right now. Like nothing like I'm saying, I'm going to have a kid in like two months or anything. But the logic is like, oh, well, you know, I'm not ready. or, and when I hear that, I'm like, well, when are you going to be ready, man? You know, like, time's kind of ticking.

Starting point is 00:25:26 So I think if you ever get into a situation where you could see, like, okay, there's actually a really long-term thing that we can build here. And like, it's super valuable. Like, you just love it. Like, literally. Well, why wouldn't you want to do that? But a lot of guys are very, I mean, you tell me what you think. But I think anti, maybe not anti, but just, like, afraid of commitment like that. It's like, oh, I want to keep my options open.

Starting point is 00:25:52 I ask the live show that I'm doing, I did one last night, and partway through the show, I asked the women in the audience, what are the problems that they're hearing from their girlfriends from when they're dating men, and one of the most common ones is won't commit. And there's this weird situation that people get into, I think, where cynicism is a good defense against heartbreak and betrayal. It's very effective at doing that. But the trouble is that you get so good at it that you accidentally defend yourself

Starting point is 00:26:24 from ever falling in love or ever being committed. And yeah, look, to fly the flag for a generation of guys who certainly focused on the build first, there is something to be said for working your own shit out and getting yourself set. There is something for that. But the situation I think you're

Starting point is 00:26:47 pointing at is if you find the person, if you're like, oh, this is my fucking person. There's nothing that's missing from this. And still, you decide to do the postponed thing because you've got your eyes set on something else. That, I think, is almost unanimously just an error. It's like, what? A good career and an unhappy marriage will make you miserable, but a bad career and a happy marriage will mean that you probably don't give a fuck. So, like, just, way, those priorities appropriately. And you don't know what you don't know either. If you're someone that's very focused on career, you can't understand how fulfilling having a deeply connected relationship could be. And if it made all of the other things in your life sort of pale into

Starting point is 00:27:33 insignificance, even a little bit or maybe a lot, well, fuck. Like, why wouldn't I do that? It's just a huge performance enhancer where you can step on stage at the Olympia knowing that you've done absolutely everything that you can, really trying your heart as being proud of what you've done And whether you win or you lose, you go back to your partner and she still thinks that the sun shines out of every part of you. Like, that's like I literally, even if I lose, I win. And I think the same thing is true for women now as well as that, you know, increasingly having to have careers and pressure on them to be professionally successful and stuff like that. So, yeah, I think the relationship, like competitive advantage, not to talk about relationships as a productivity tool. But the competitive advantage of having someone that's just always in your corner,

Starting point is 00:28:19 the rest of the world kind of is, their love is mostly predicated on what you do, not who you are. And being in a relationship with somebody that really cares about you is predicated on who you are and doesn't really give a fuck about what you do, which is pretty great. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to, I don't know, it's hard to advertise that, though, because now someone might be thinking, like, okay, I need to find this thing. But it's like, it's not necessarily something you find. It just kind of happens.

Starting point is 00:28:45 But what you just said about the idea of having everything set before, like, looking for a long-term relationship, like, I've been hearing that a bunch. Like, when I talk to some of my friends about it, it's like, well, you know, once I get this business started, you know, once I sell this thing, I'm like, well, how long is that going to take? So now you're just delaying what you definitely think is probably the fun part, which would be like, like I told my one buddy, I'm like, you definitely know that in the future, you're just. thinking like however many kids house you and her like that's like golden retriever yeah yeah exactly like you you definitely are thinking that's where that is at the end for sure so what how are you not acting in a way that would like build towards that now because if you fast forward you would want to think like that is way more important than any of this other stuff I have not to say you don't also want it but you can just do both at once I think you're an example of

Starting point is 00:29:45 unusual self-awareness in that regard. Like most people, certainly me included, I actually had my head at my own ass until I was about 28, 29, building the business thing. And this is why I said sort of speaking for the generation of guys. Fortunately, there are conversations like and examples of people like you or like Chris Bumstead. Like C-Bum's only what, like 32, something like that, I think.

Starting point is 00:30:12 32, 33. So still like pretty young. No way, he's 30. Everything he's fucking done. Oh, yeah. That 15 years ago, when I just left university after doing two degrees, the internet wasn't talking about that. Like, YouTube was PewDie Pie videos.

Starting point is 00:30:30 And maybe not even that, right? It was bullshit. Like, there wasn't any personal development in the same way that was made to be applicable and really curated for the stage of life that you're in, you know, personal development. book's like Tony Robbins unleashed the power within, which is great, but it's like broad ranging and a little nebulous compared with this is a specific message for you at your stage of life. And then, yeah, you kind of, I think it's less so that people are choosing to do something else. It's that there's lots to do and they're not thinking about where do I want to be in future. You're right to bring up, hey, if you know that you're going to get there, why not get there a little earlier or why not think about the end destination when you're starting off on the journey?

Starting point is 00:31:14 I certainly think that, you know, that is for the guys that can. I mean, fucking Kevin, social media guy. When did you get married? 23? 22. 22. Yeah. 22.

Starting point is 00:31:27 Then his Sunday is church, Costco and coffee. I mean, like, you are the 22 going on 52. It's kind of crazy. It's pretty. Talk to me. So what, married, but also still obsessed with a gym. What does a wife have to talk? tolerate if you're married to a bodybuilder.

Starting point is 00:31:47 Oh, yeah. So the preps were definitely the trickiest part. Because honestly, for me now with like regular go to the gym, eat in a normal way, like my normal, so however different that is from like real normal, it's kind of seamless. Like that's all stuff I just do on my own like normal. Like it's not, I don't necessarily need to be catered to or anything. It's like, I don't go to the gym right now. And then we'll come back.

Starting point is 00:32:09 We'll do this later. And like it's not in your face or whatever because I've been doing that the whole time. But like the actual show preps, now it almost makes me, like this is an angle where it makes me like resent the bodybuilding shows. Not that that's the most I think about it, but just that percentage because it's like, you just wanna do nothing. You do a workout.

Starting point is 00:32:28 All you're thinking about is like this show, this day, and the ones that I did were in the winter coming into March. So it's the full winter period of time. And I'm just like, I'm not stewing, but a lot of time where, would normally be much more casual was kind of just me like, all right, get an hour of cardio in 20 minutes. Just whatever. And it's, you know, we, so I'll look back at pictures during some of the preps.

Starting point is 00:32:56 I'm like, man, I don't even remember this day. Because I was thinking about this, the show and this, like, competition and everything. Because I'm putting so much stuff into it. And it's, so that could be a little, because it's just, you end up drawing back a little bit, which is kind of like, not so much in the second prep, because you learn it from the first one. But when we're when those were both done, it was like, okay, yeah, now we can get back to a totally regular chill. And, uh, but in the scheme of things, you know, I think I handled it pretty well. Like even just with the regular bodybuilding and stuff, like, you know, I don't think I'm walking around apart from like the size. Just like advertising to everybody like, oh, man, all bodybuilder only. Which might sound funny for me to say because I guess that kind of is the perception. But at least in my head, I don't feel like that. You got too many cats to be bodybuilder. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:41 So you rarely seem dependent on perfect conditions. How should people get better at that, especially going into winter, which removes a lot of the external motivation? Yeah, I think there's, well, you would know this. There's a little physiological angle. You got no vitamin D because you're not getting out in the sun, however much that is really affecting people. But I think more so, you know, it's just, it's colder, I'm not going out and having as much fun, you know, because in the wintertime, The only stuff you really do, activity-wise, would just be usually in your house or, like,

Starting point is 00:34:14 you're going to a club or something. And, like, who actually is going to clubs for real? Like, who really goes to their, what, a badman club or something? I'm not saying that wouldn't, like, I'm saying that would be cool, but who's actually going out in doing it and making sure that they're still maintaining, like, this certain amount of, like, fun activity in the winter? It's, you just kind of end up getting a little more seclusive. But it's, for me, at least, this is kind of how,

Starting point is 00:34:39 I think it's more important to have this wiring in your head of like, okay, the harder I go, the more progress I'll make. Because if I'm wired like that, well, then if I wake up and, you know, maybe I'm not feeling as good or as like motivated to get after it, you know, I mean, for a while I was doing, I'd wake up instantly, sit in the bike for an hour, come back, go work at a couple hours later, come back, go to the bike again for an hour, come back. Like it's very much just the same stuff over and over again, yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:08 And it's like, where's the, where's the fun? Or at least for a bodybuilding show, the fun part is at the end. So it's like you're doing a lot of extra work with basically no fun until that later portion. And it's, you know, you could either look at that and think, oh, my God, this freaking sucks. Or you could, in my head, I like to imagine, like, maybe the fictional version of Sam, where this version is like, oh, man, it's extra hard today. All right, sweet. Good. Do it even harder than before.

Starting point is 00:35:36 Have you ever heard Tyson being asked about why he gets up at 4 a.m. to go for a run? Because everybody's still sleeping. Yeah. Can you find that, Mark? This is like the best winter arc justification ever. Look, I did five years of pretty aggressive monk mode, a thousand days sober, 500 days without caffeine. They weren't crossed over. That would have been fucking miserable.

Starting point is 00:36:01 There were two separate things, experiments. And this really elaborate morning routine where I was, like doing stretching and going for a walk and romwad and fucking meditation and breathwork and journaling and all of this stuff like this unnecessary cathedral of things largely but it was me trying to work out who the fuck I am like locking in and it wasn't for five years completely but it was a good chunk of it and that took me from 27 28 to like 32 33 and then I moved to America at 34 And the amount of progress that I made there, yeah, I sacrificed a lot of things. I wasn't going out as much. But then I'd spent a decade going out two nights a week and partying until three in the morning for, you know, a good bit of it, running nightclubs and doing all the social thing. I'm like, huh. And you're ahead from that time.

Starting point is 00:36:54 Yes. So you had this delayed gratification. Yeah. And then I'm now like, okay, I need to lock in and do the me thing. So I think the winter arc for guys and for girls, although I don't want to mansplain, can be a really good tool. If you have a period that you're facing that you know is going to be dark and difficult, just deciding, okay, this is going to be tough.

Starting point is 00:37:20 And I have the choice to either lock the fuck in or complain about it. I'll take the locking the fuck in. Thank you. Yeah, I'm always thinking, okay, what would me three months want me? need to do right now. Are you out running 4.35 o'clock in the morning and not later in the day? Why do fighters do that? Because I don't want to do it.

Starting point is 00:37:42 I mean, just if the disciplines are to do things that you don't want to do. They don't want to get a foreign run. Sometimes I get up and run. I see guys and I like to hang out and see people in the car. They party. It came from party and hanging out. Guys are going to have a fight. I'm running.

Starting point is 00:37:55 I think that might be Cam Haynes. I'm not sure who that is. That's a very white Mike Tyson if that was the dude that was running. But I think that might be kind of... Somebody else. Yeah. We got Tyson at the end. Yeah, cool, cool, cool.

Starting point is 00:38:06 Yeah, he was in there. Yeah, it is. But it's like, what would you in a year want you to do right now? I love that question. Which I would have locked in. And I feel like nobody thinks like that because every time you're kind of retrospecting and you're like, it ends up guys just love putting themselves down. This is, and I'm not upset when I hear people talk like this because it's not necessarily

Starting point is 00:38:30 your fault if you're in this slump of like everything sucks some of it might have been my fault some of it is just kind of you know life you never know what might happen sometimes you just get delta totally shit hand but it's like to just crumble into yourself and be you know everything sucks what's the point oh you know and then you just never get after it and when i hear that i'm like well you know if if what would you in a year have wanted you to do you because I went on a big kind of rants about this where when you're really freaking out anxious about something and maybe you're, some things really deserve real anxiousness,

Starting point is 00:39:12 but some things you over freak out about. So when you're really tweaking, you don't actually know because you're in it. You're not looking at it from like a third person perspective. But it's like, you know, even if I was going through something like that, or I'm in this like, what might even feel like a pit of like, I got no hype. I'm not excited about whatever I'm doing.

Starting point is 00:39:32 It's like, what's the point? I don't even see it. I'm like, well, if in three months you somehow get out of your funk, which normally sometimes will just happen, it's just a time thing. Well, now you are three months into the future. Three months, you could say wasted towards whatever your certain goal may have been. The veil has been lifted. You're back to your normal kind of like thought process.

Starting point is 00:39:55 You're like, holy crap. Gained 50 pounds? Yep. Well, now you're really really. screwed. So getting back to what I was saying before about being able to bring it, but have that be like just your normal state of being, well, even if you do go through a funk, like something really rough, you know, I can't even tell you. This is like up to, up to the listener to know what your funk is. If by the time you get out of it, you still kept up your normal routine of things,

Starting point is 00:40:20 maybe it wasn't at like 100%, but you were still going through your motions, you're going to feel way better about it. But even me saying that, I could see. how there's no kind of energy to want to do that because I just said go through the motions. People would rather do nothing than going through the motions. Like they only want to do it when you're extra motivated to do it. People believe that motivation is an unnecessary precursor to doing the thing. It's this optimal mental state where you feel like you want to do it or it's good to do it or it's easy to do it or something.

Starting point is 00:40:55 But feeling motivated is an unnecessary middle step between where you are. and doing the thing. You can just do it anyway. You can do it without the motivation. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You train regularly, you eat reasonably well, you feel fine, but you're just kind of going off vibes. Most people have absolutely no idea what's going on inside their body, and that is why I partnered with function. Function gives you access to more than 160 advanced lab tests, spanning hormones, heart health, kidney function, and even detects early signals linked to more than 50 types of cancer. To put that in perspective, your typical annual physical might test 20 markers. Function runs over 160. It's huge. Best of all,

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Starting point is 00:42:13 Engineers build systems with spare capacity because systems operating permanently at 100% are fragile. Bridges aren't engineered to withstand precisely the weight that they carry on an average Tuesday. They're built with a safety margin, and you probably want the psychological equivalent. If your emotional life requires 95% of your available capacity merely to remain operational, anything unexpected becomes catastrophic. And that's the same as we're talking about here, that if your baseline capacity is way more than you need to operate, that's redundancy in the system. I've done, when things are good, I've pushed myself really hard so that when things are bad, I have so much momentum and so many good habits.

Starting point is 00:42:55 And look, I'm speaking from personal experience, because I've done, been kicked in the nuts a lot over the last couple of years from a routine perspective, like an energy perspective. And you can see why there's this idea called the Matthew principle. It's from the Bible and it says, to those who have nothing more will be taken, to those who have everything more will be given. And it kind of explains why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Good habits compound, but so do bad habits. Some stuff spirals up, some stuff spirals down. That's why people end up being bankrupt and addicted to drugs and out on the street and with no relationship to their family

Starting point is 00:43:27 and other people end up being smart and in shape and with a great partner and having both of these things can occur in that way. And sure the external environment is going to throw insults at you a lot. But the core driving force, the core momentum

Starting point is 00:43:44 is largely your sense of hope and agency over what you're going to be able to do. And yeah, the ability to go like to wake up one morning and just say, okay, that's enough of that, I'm going to go in a different direction, is kind of a superpower,

Starting point is 00:44:01 and I wish I could, I know, bestow it under someone that feels like that's not something that's accessible to them. Right. I guess I never say the downward spiral of the gym as much in the core. I'm gonna say, I probably said it 20 times by now. I'm talking about this upward spiral where, okay, work out really hard. When you first start working out, you don't even notice to like, what, maybe two months in?

Starting point is 00:44:23 but like if you let's say your high school dude you start working out one year you visit your grandma again the next year she will notice and like that's super validating to see that there is no compliment more validating than the grandma compliment you're right yeah exactly but uh but just anything like that but so once you're in a groove of like you're making steady progress well how i look at again back in like the mental wiring thing is like okay i go really hard i come home i eat more food because i'm maybe hungrier from going hard because i actually trained hard I'm going to sleep better because I train hard and now I'm tired.

Starting point is 00:44:56 I'm probably thirstyer, so I'm going to drink more water and then I'm going to wake up and because I was hungry and thirsty and sleepy, I drank eight and slept well. I'll be able to train hard again the next day. And then over time, that just keeps moving forward. And once you start actually seeing yourself a little bigger, at least in like a size gaining phase,

Starting point is 00:45:15 well, now you get this extra angle of motivation. Like, holy shit, what I'm doing is working. Even the pump. Like chasing... Yeah, chasing the pump. You're slightly bigger. In the gym. And you're like, dude, if I keep going in four months, I look like I do pumped flat.

Starting point is 00:45:30 And then, but then when I get there, what I look like pumped will be in another four months, what I look like flat. And then you're just permanently chasing. It would be like if learning a language, like if learning Italian meant that during your Italian lesson, you were somehow four months better at Italian. But that's not the way that it works. It's one of the reasons I think that the gym is particularly addicting. And that's a good thing because it's something that's good to get stuck into. One of the reasons that the gym's so addicting is that you get a preview of where you will be if you keep going during the process, as opposed to learning fucking Italian, which is just being frustrated in the moment and then finally getting there in a few months time. Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot more positive feedback with the gym.

Starting point is 00:46:12 But it's a, but yeah, the downward spirals just as bad. Well, I skip three days this week. Well, you know what? Screw it. Rest week. Do I want to cook a bunch of ground beef right now and do a little meal prep and make some rice or something? Or do I just want to get some in and out? All right, I should probably go to bed. I got to wake up tomorrow morning at 6. You know what, screw it. I'll skip that class.

Starting point is 00:46:34 I'll just stay up on Discord playing games. Now you're sleeping terrible. You're bloated because you've been eating trash. You're not working out. So now your base metabolism is going down because you're not stressing out your system. You're just starting to pack on additional body fat, which all four of those are. all three or four of those things you know are negative but each one probably feeds into that next negative step here that's like i'm already in this bed okay you know what give me some chips or something

Starting point is 00:47:01 and it's like all you'd have to do is change it to what you said like okay i just got to change it i'm just going to wake up today and totally flip all my habits but that's not something i can tell you how to do that's where all my motivational speeches end i go i can't tell you any more than that i can tell you what I do and how I feel about what I do and how far I've come or how far I've gone, but I can't actually tell you how to do it because you're you and not me. There's an interesting insight here. So we're what, toward the end of September, three months before the end of the year, so three months until January 1st, which is when most people want to hit the ground running.

Starting point is 00:47:37 They don't want to try and reverse direction on January 1st because that means that it's going to be very hard to do. I went out to Thailand 10 years ago, and I wanted to go to a bunch of days. different Thai boxing gyms and I wanted to learn to fight. So I spent nine months before I went to Thailand doing Thai boxing classes because what I thought was, hey, if I've learned a lot of the basics, when I get out there, I'll get to learn really cool stuff, like more advanced techniques or at the very least, I'm not just going to spend my trip around Thailand learning to throw a jab properly. So I spent a good bit of time drilling the basics. And then when I got out there,

Starting point is 00:48:12 sure enough, I was able to actually really tap into some of the expertise. So I sort of used the momentum in advance to carry me into this period that would be an extra boost when I got there. So given that we're three months away from the end of the year now, if someone wants to enter January with as much momentum as possible, what do you think they should start doing now? Well, I think they should just start a, well, I guess you'd say, or at least what you did was you did your homework first. So if you're thinking, I mean, every January that shows up,

Starting point is 00:48:40 and now I've been through, I think this will be the ninth one. Obviously for the first one, that was a year into the gym for me, so I'm still the beginner. But at this point, depending on how much of a regular you are at a gym, you know who the real regulars are and who are the guys who just showed up today are. And I'm not dogging on them for showing up, but it's like, you know, the, you know, that little marble toy where you flip it upside down and it always ends up in the same distribution. Like, no matter what, like, look, I'm glad you're here, but I know a bunch of you guys

Starting point is 00:49:13 are just going to flake out and be done. So, yeah, I mean, if he could just start easing into it, which is not a cool thing to say. What's cool by the gym is, you know, bring it, just go totally nuts. But in reality, it's like, well, you should probably just ease into it. When I'm talking to guys are just, you know, getting into like what you should do when you start working out. Like, what's your level at right now? Are you at zero gym days per week? Well, guess what?

Starting point is 00:49:40 One is more than zero. And one, after you've actually done it, it's not. that bad. So now two is probably a little bit easier. Three, or even just getting a membership in general. I think a lot of these guys, they might even fail to launch in that sense because it's like, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go in at six and get my membership. Well, you're setting yourself up for failure, man. Why don't you get it before? Why don't you do all the, just do a little bit before? But yeah, just easing into it. Because that whole, you know, if right now my bar is like, well, I want to get to the point where I can just go 100% all the time without fail. And like,

Starting point is 00:50:15 You know, I didn't just give up on that rep because it was hard. Well, that's just my bar where I'm at. But way down is the bar of, I got my membership today. And I went to the gym three days a week today. I did 10 minutes of cardio today. Like, to start from zero is half the hardest part, but also half the easiest part, because the smallest incremental changes are percentage-wise huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:50:42 Relatively massive, absolutely small. Yeah, but. they might feel small. So it's like if you have this perception of, oh, well, I don't want to be the three gym. I don't want to be the three day a week gym guy. Oh, fuck, man. You're the zero gym a day a week guy.

Starting point is 00:50:57 Like, you got to get the three. You know, you're not better than three. Everybody came in to get their one membership for the first time and they didn't know what they're doing and they were kind of anxious. I mean, I remember I'm on vacation. I went to the YMCA in Florida. And I'm like two years in at this point. I'm shoulder pressing the 50s.

Starting point is 00:51:13 I'm maybe 170. And I'm thinking, these guys looking at me. Like, like just very self-conscious a little bit, well, relative to now. Now I don't think like that. But it's, yeah, it's like you can't, you can't be above the small steps. Because I think so many people are in their head, they think,

Starting point is 00:51:35 all right, well, you know, if I, I mean, I'm sure you hear this. Well, you know, if I dieted, I could get shredded. Guys are going to show up to the Olympia. You know, if I really bodybuilder, I could get that big, Like, okay, well, you're not even doing any of it right now. You're doing totally zero. So it's like, could you really actually? And it's this idea that it's like, if I can't be perfect, it's not even worth trying.

Starting point is 00:51:58 But that's combined with the pretentious of, I totally could do it. I could do it for sure. If it wasn't for the skill gap and the consistency and the ability and the hard work and the time and the duration. Because it's easy to tell yourself, I just don't want to do it. because it's just a preference thing for me. I don't really want to. It's not very fun to say, yeah, I'm just, I don't, I don't want to go that hard. I don't want to actually work out.

Starting point is 00:52:22 I don't want it that hard. I'm nervous about it. I don't want it. Don't fucking kid yourself, dude. I could do it if is I don't do it. Yeah, every I could do it if is more of a, I don't want to do it because. Yeah. But you're lying to yourself by saying, well, it's because of 10 other things.

Starting point is 00:52:40 What would you say to the guy who. who is currently going through that downward spiral. They don't think that they've got the capacity to do what they want to or what they're used to. They've talked themselves into a rut. I think they would just have to, I mean, I think the best example to get good at anything, or not even just get good, but get inspired to do anything,

Starting point is 00:53:02 is just to watch people who have done it. Like, when I'm training legs and thinking squats, it's like if I see a Tom Platt's workout added on my phone, like, holy crap. And like, it's so basic, oh, I'm watching this guy do this thing that I'm about to do. Oh, that's making me excited about it. Like, just monkey see, monkey do. But, like, if you're, you know, I pretty much say this to everybody, it's like, what's your beginning state right now?

Starting point is 00:53:26 Where are you at? If you can find someone who has been there documented it and showed it off from where they were to now where they are, like, the guy who was 500 to 200, well, I mean, I can tell you the basics of, like, you know, do your cardio and, like, diet and everything. but I haven't lived that exact, like, scenario. Like, I can tell you tips that I think would apply. But if you want to hear from someone who's really done it, then you've got to find someone who has, and hopefully they've been posting stuff about it. Can we find Tom Platt's leg training motivation?

Starting point is 00:53:59 I'd try and find a short. There'll be some unreal edits of this. It's crazy. But just seeing something, seeing someone do what you want to do, I think it's probably the most motivating thing you can, because now not only, or you're seeing somebody do it, but you're just getting it proven in your own head,

Starting point is 00:54:14 like, this is totally doable. This is also another guy. I'm a guy. He's just some dudes. I remember watching Greg Plitt as a early 20s guy, and he used to do videos outside of the gym in the parking lot, the middle of the night,

Starting point is 00:54:30 like three in the morning. And that guy was just so fucking positive. And so I often think this is kind of a weird fork to imagine in reality. But if, Greg Plitt and Ziz hadn't passed away, I think that we would have a markedly different gym culture today. I think that they were so formative and at the time, like think about where Ziz would have been. He was in 2012, he was probably 23 or 24, something. So he's like similar, similar age to me.

Starting point is 00:55:05 So he would have been absolutely rip. When Instagram comes along, would have been like peak, peak shape. He wouldn't have stopped that whole culture, which was, would it have survived Me Too? Maybe it would have had to have been sanitized a little bit. But it wasn't like he was super toxic.

Starting point is 00:55:25 He was more, like his whole line of disregard women, acquire dance moves, was like kind of proto, lux maxing, in cell, but without any of the toxic elements of it. I think him and Greg Plitt and fucking Rich Piana,

Starting point is 00:55:40 dude, like we lost some of the greats. The last decade and a half. That's a big three. They are the big three. That's the Mount Rushmore. That's three of the Mount Rushmore. I don't know who the fourth one would be of the influencer world for probably Seabom, I guess.

Starting point is 00:55:53 But yeah, fuck, if we've got one or three. Have we got a freakish video? This is really just too impartials, isn't it? He's screaming more. If you didn't know what was happening to the lower half of his body, you could be quite surprised if you didn't know gym culture. Yeah, like the normal person would look at that. Like if they walked, let's say that was like a gym with a garage door

Starting point is 00:56:19 next to a sidewalk of like a town and like a normal person walked past, instant reaction, what are they doing? These guys are totally nuts. But like once you're in it, I'm like, nice. That's a good set. That's probably a really good set. It's kind of sick. The supplement industry is full of products making claims that they can't back, which is why I'm such a massive fan of Momentus.

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Starting point is 00:57:28 slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. Wasn't there a thing that Tom Platz, was he chewing tennis balls or something? Didn't he say he was like working his mandible job? Maybe he was using mastic gum or some early version of mastic gum or something. I didn't hear it, but maybe.

Starting point is 00:57:43 I swear that he was saying. I mean, there was an era. This is something for me to mansplain to you or generation spain to you for a second. There was a beautiful era in the world of bodybuilding where we didn't know the truth about lots of things and it meant that you wasted

Starting point is 00:58:00 shet tons of time and effort and money on stuff that was completely pointless but fuck it was exciting like is this new blueberry extract perhaps the reason what maybe it is better than steroids and then you have to go on this weird Russian website and order blueberry extract

Starting point is 00:58:17 and like you're on the MISC forums of bodybuilding.com like desperately trawling trying to find the guy that's got the secret to big delts and like now bodybuilding is largely a solved problem and at the time it felt much closer to like the frontier that we knew enough to know that some stuff worked

Starting point is 00:58:36 but there was still enough unknowns to be able to be super experimental that fucking Rich Piano's eight hour arms workout was something that people were like that might be the answer that might actually be the answer I'm uh I guess I'm actually if you asked me like a year into the YouTube videos when they're actually taken off I probably would have said that I've definitely have done the eight hour arm day by now I haven't done it yet. I guess I probably should sometime.

Starting point is 00:58:58 That would be a huge request. I wouldn't be opposed to it just for the fun of it. Yeah. But yeah, it's definitely different now. I think one of the bigger changes, bodybuilding-wise, is just the performance angle of it. Because when I think bodybuilding character, or like someone who, maybe not even that,

Starting point is 00:59:17 but someone who actually gets me, like, excited about it, just the gym in general, you know, because that's kind of the precursor to even getting on to the stage is the training part. Like, that's the part I really get excited about. But it's like watching a Tom Platz or back in Pump and Iron, like, everybody had a lot of personality. Or, I mean, even Dorian Yates, which compared to like an Arnold, a person with a personality from a completely different side of the universe. But they still were able to, like, portray what they did and how they did it in just like such a cool way.

Starting point is 00:59:48 And I think it was, you know, maybe a combination of just the fact that you would now, I would kind of call that social media. But that was like CDs and just documentation. And like since it was so new, they maybe didn't have this like mental construct of, okay, I should put on an act in a certain kind of way. What is up with that? Because I would agree even the last era of bodybuilding that I think people really obsessed over the competition itself and the characters that were inside of it was Jay, Ronnie, like that run, Branch Warren, like that era.

Starting point is 01:00:28 And then, I don't know, something just, obviously, like, Seabom is a phenom, but it was about him. It wasn't really about the competition. And there's other guys that have got great physiques. But I don't think anybody cares about the personality in quite the same way. And I don't know, I know that Haddy Chupan's like an absolute turbo freak,

Starting point is 01:00:52 like massive jack guy. I don't know anything about him. And maybe that's me just growing out of it and aging out of it. But I get the sense that it's not just that. I feel like the world of that has sort of fallen away. Am I right there? Yeah, I think so. And I think about this all the time.

Starting point is 01:01:07 Or maybe not just when I'm like sitting. But when I talk to anybody about bodybuilding, it's like, yeah, the 90s, early 2000s. Like it was to the same prestige as like the WWE. Like these guys were, they were characters. They were coming out. There was like more. And it was also the, what's kind of weird is it was like the most competitive era. Like even now, people do an interview with Ronnie Coleman.

Starting point is 01:01:32 And he's like, Ronnie, what do you think of all these current guys? And he's like, they don't got it. And he's just telling him that he's just saying a fact at that point. Like they just had something, but there was also this character and this charisma to it. And it wasn't even so much that they were the most competitive. Like Ronnie and Jay were, I mean, I can't even imagine it. how they like really felt about each other and like the most competitive period of that time.

Starting point is 01:01:58 But like I've never heard Tom Platt say, you know, I need to win. I need to win this show. And yeah, all the stuff that I hear him talk about was like, even when you go up on stage too, we're just talking about training. He's like just the enjoyment of doing it, being around other people doing it with him. And he's like, you know, you just come out and there's this. I'm trying to just say what he said, like almost verbatim, but he's like, There's just this energy from the crowd and they're all just cheering for you.

Starting point is 01:02:26 Like, he just wanted to do it. He didn't care if he came in last place. Whereas now, I mean, there's different videos of guys, like, more current bodybuilders, where it's like a full-on interview, like, day in the life of the show, like, mini-documentary. And the guy's like, you know, if I don't place in the top five, I'm actually quick bodybuilding. So it's much more performance focused, much more outcome focused. Yeah. I would actually, I want to amend my previous era finishing point.

Starting point is 01:02:57 I do think Phil Heath and Kai Green. Yeah, I was going to say they also still. And that was what, early 2010s-ish, probably. And then it was after that. But yeah, the WWE analogy is perfect. It's like Branch Warren was the sort of skinhead, new metal, heavy metal, like hard, long shorts, boots guy. Everybody was like just so interesting. Kai Green was the artist philosopher with the hair.

Starting point is 01:03:20 and the dance moves and stuff. Phil Heath was like the All-American College Ball Athlete. You had different roles that everybody took. Jay Cutler was sort of like classic Florida man on like a lot of drugs. You know, he's great. And I don't know. It's strange that a sport can be carried so much by individual characters. And I suppose it's because it's such a small pool.

Starting point is 01:03:46 How many NFL players are there, including all of the squads, fucking thousands, thousands and thousands, and people can support the team and the team plays as part of a group. Like, even tennis, yeah, sure, you can have generational talents and stuff, but like tennis is a sport outside of the people that just play it, too. It's like a thing. I don't think that bodybuilding is. I think that bodybuilding in particular is reliant on not just the bodies, maybe even more the personalities of the people that are involved in it. I think so. And it's, I'm kind of coming up with this thought, as I'm saying, it but I think the it's like what is the nature of bodybuilding anyway right we say

Starting point is 01:04:25 bodybuilding competition but it's a bodybuilding show and what I think is different now is everyone can post their own videos and their their their prep their training and their everything is just how it is whereas before all these guys I mean you did a couple DVDs every year but pretty much the show was the show and they came there to show off and that was just just something about it had some theatrics. Whereas now, I think with the social media side of things, somehow that's changed like the hype that just gets built up behind it. That's strange, right? Because it's more transparency but seems to be less relatability. But I feel that I have, there is not a person on the planet I

Starting point is 01:05:10 have less in common with than Kai Green, right? If you were to pick two humans on opposite ends of every spectrum, it would be me in Kai Green. However, I feel like I knew him. to a degree. I feel like I know him. I don't feel like I know the only person I think that's the two people I think that are broken through are you and CB. And that's one of the reasons that maybe even in a world where there's more opportunity and more people attempting to try the relatability thing, there is a sparser supply and an even greater demand. You got to spend a good bit of time with CBOM. What did you learn from hanging out with him? Yeah. Now it's, oh, I say this, I don't know if I've told this story before.

Starting point is 01:05:50 So I'm at, we're at the Olympia. This was maybe two Olympias ago. This is, I think, the first one they did in Vegas. So this would be two ago. Maybe one, I don't remember. But this was one of the Olympias where they do this little press conference with a lot of the classic guys first. So Chris is up there, errs, everything.

Starting point is 01:06:09 And I remember just walking backstage. And, you know, I'm just, like, chatting with everybody. And I see Chris from, like, a distance. And this was pre-com, like, I think he was competing the next day. maybe the day after that, but just like, he was standing with so much aura, it was nuts. Like, I think it was, uh, it wasn't necessarily how he was standing,

Starting point is 01:06:26 but you could kind of sense how everyone standing around him and like in the outskirts of where he was, like, was acting. And, uh, like, he was just super intense focused. Like, I've seen, the only time I've seen something with that much, like, just, it's, it's, it's, it's called stopping power of like people around was, uh, I get to do a little back workout with, Arnold at Gold's Gym, which was nuts because he just rolled up on an e-bike.

Starting point is 01:06:54 It was just him coming to hit a... I've seen that video. Coming to hit a workout. Yeah. But when he walked in, just looking across the gym was like somebody's holding, like, somebody's holding, like, launch codes or something. It's a reality distortion field that's around this one person. In a positive way, but just like, that's Arnold right there. Like, it was just crazy.

Starting point is 01:07:18 But yeah, I mean, getting to talk to him like normal. I haven't been spamming all the C-bomb videos. But just from all the different back and forths, it's crazy. I just kind of casually is. But I'm not always like prying, like for tips and everything. And maybe half of that is just because I'm like, I kind of want to figure it out on my own. Like that's part of the fun part of it.

Starting point is 01:07:39 But now, every time, usually with all the gym truck stuff, like any time we're at a different shoot or different events or things. I'm trying to go a bit with him, right? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, with David. Yeah. Yeah, it's just kind of cool being around. David got shouted out for being on his phone.

Starting point is 01:07:53 A little bit. But no, he's, yeah, it's crazy to see somebody who's done so much like that. Yeah, he's a unique guy. I think Chris is a very unusual candidate for someone that goes on to be as well known as he is. He's not got the construction or desire for much of the notoriety that he's ended up being afflicted with. It almost does feel a little bit sometimes like maybe a not quite an affliction, but maybe somewhat closer to a burden. Like, fuck. Like the guy that kind of is introverted, smart, thoughtful, deep dude now trying to navigate this.

Starting point is 01:08:43 insane level of attention, like the most attention of anybody in what was and still is to some degree one of the most cult following sports ever. And yeah, he's just complete dad mode now, which is cool. I mean, he's, I think, I absolutely think the world of him. He's been massively influential on me. But yeah, like a really odd, I think about this to do with Rogan a little bit as well. We're very fortunate that the first person we got in the world of podcasting was like a benevolent leader largely for all of the criticisms that people that don't like him can have about him. Joe is a fucking, even the people that don't like him have to concede. He has been amazing for the world of podcasting. He's so pro-social. He's so positive some. All he wants to do

Starting point is 01:09:37 is lift up other people. He very, very rarely starts beef. Like, he's not backbiting. He's not fucking people over for money. There's never headlines about Joe Rogan does this with his cash or invest in this thing or whatever. Like, it's just, all he wants to do is train, commentate, do comedy, and do his part. And that's it. You're like, fuck. Like, we could have had the most descendant medium of the last 20 years be headed up by someone that was a total asshole, right? Like a complete, like, tyrant. And we got someone that was like a really wonderful figurehead that's just trying to make the industry bigger and help everybody along that he can. And the same thing's kind of true for Chris. You know, you reignite classic, or ignite classic, basically, with this one guy.

Starting point is 01:10:24 And he's openly talking about crying in his girlfriend's arms weeks before he goes on stage and singing the song of how beautiful it is to have a baby and to get married and to live a simple life. And then he moves away to Nashville to like have an even simpler life. You know, a whole ranch thing. I don't know. I think people can have problems with whoever they want. But you need to accept, hey, if we rolled the dice, there aren't many universities where we would have got a better person that was the figurehead for this particular industry. And I think we've done it, we've done it pretty well in two different domains.

Starting point is 01:10:59 Yeah, I think there's something, an X factor with guys like Chris. And it feels kind of weird for me to say that about me, because it's like now I'm talking about myself. I would agree. I think you've done it as well. Just with social media in general, like getting back to like why it's different now compared to it before. Like I, you know, how you just said there's so many more people

Starting point is 01:11:20 getting into it. Because now it's the thing. Now social media is the, you know, the gold mines in California, which this is what I'm. I got to do to be successful at whatever I'm doing. And I always think that the guys who end up doing the best are the ones where what they're doing is just what they would be doing anyway. So there's, there's, I guess you'd call it different kinds of social media because there's ones where guys might be like putting on a show like this. Like this isn't necessarily something that would just happen casually.

Starting point is 01:11:50 Like this is a little bit more put up. But when it comes to anything that's like activity based or like just personality based like following. Like for me, it's like seamless because I would already work out anyway. Honestly, my days don't feel like the addition of the recording takes away at all from the gym. Like it's almost second nature. I just pick up the camera and move a little bit. It's just maybe a bit more talking out loud. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:13 A lot more talking out loud, that's for sure, like in the car. But it's just something I would do anyway. So with that being the setup for it, I just talk about what I would already talk about. You know, I don't have, I'm not hitting like script lists. of the video. Yeah, because it's, but that's kind of what I think people try to chase when they say, like, okay, well, you know, you got to be relatable. I'm always scrolling on my phone way too much, but I'll see like a TikTok live with like

Starting point is 01:12:41 four different people on it and they're talking about what they want to do. And they boil down the social media to like the specific angles that you can change to try to somehow make it successful. They're like, oh, man, you got to start being way more relatable, bro. Or like, no, you just got to find your niche. You just got to find your specific niche. And it's like, well, ooh, you're boiling down what I would consider maybe a YouTuber who I really like. Or, um, like, look at what, like the outdoor boys guy.

Starting point is 01:13:12 He just was doing that. And then he said, you know, let's start making videos about this. I don't know the exact origin of when he started. But this is the thing that he already does is good at. And then he was able to talk about it and like make a video out of it. But since he would already do it anyway, it's, not extra for him, like the way that it comes off is so natural. And I think now there's however many thousand times more people posting things and trying to get into different subjects of like

Starting point is 01:13:39 even tech videos or the gym or anything. But they're trying to force this relatability. They're trying to do something for the sake of this like end point of like, oh, I want to get like this many followers or something or whatever. And it's, I can't even relate to it almost. Because for me, there was never this like analytical plan of oh i should start talking more something or anything it was like this is what i do i'll just keep doing it and then the x factor for me was i got really lucky and it just started taking off really well the it is far fewer people than think it are good enough actors to be able to pretend to be something that they're not like most people can see through the bullshit in that regard and uh yeah speed running authenticity

Starting point is 01:14:25 is not an option. You can't like growth hack relatability. You can either just be yourself or not. And there's a guy, can you find Henry West gaming? I think he's called. So he's a British guy. And he dresses in like 18, he has like a bugle and a monocle.

Starting point is 01:14:44 And he plays over the top war games. Bro, fucking Henry, go to his shorts. Go to his shorts. This guy fucking rips. Just go by most popular. Right. Top left.

Starting point is 01:14:56 Yeah. Yeah, let's go to the shoe on head video, Ultimate. What is the ultimate male fantasy? Company, on my order. Company. Company. Come on. Yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion that he's having a lot of fun right now.

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Starting point is 01:16:13 Right now, you can get up to $50 off the RP hypertrophy app by going to the link in the description below. Are heading to RPstrength.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout. That's RPstrength.com slash modern wisdom at checkout. You talked about sort of doing it yourself. How come you chose to coach yourself for your prop? By then, the social media was really big. And I've seen guys where they're like my demographic of like an influencer,

Starting point is 01:16:41 bodybuilder type dude. And they always just get drama when they get a coach. Really? Well, it's not always, of course. But it's, but I mean, it was like in the first year of the bodybuilding channel, like my workout videos, it was like zero to. like 1.8 million on YouTube. We're like just nuts.

Starting point is 01:17:00 So that was two years before the first bodybuilding show. So by then they like the infamy of like Sam, like Sam was like a character in the space. And it's, for one, I just think I could handle doing it on my own because it's like that's how I do all the other stuff about the gym. Like one of the best parts about it is just the fact that like it's my thing. Like that's my version of like the sanctuary where, like the point almost isn't to try to push the envelope to the absolute maximum with like 10 different coaches and with the bodybuilding you know there's not like 10 different pharmaceutical like care you know like guys like a like a hoti chupin like are these the olympia bodybuilders like everything that they do is this regimented like it's just that's just not even the point for me but the fact that i do it for me makes it more fun because if you gave me a piece of paper that had the workout for the day and my meals for the day and my meals for the day. And I'm just,

Starting point is 01:17:57 day, for me, I would feel like, this guy just gave me a bunch of homework to do, even if it was, but if you have to design the homework for yourself, if I make the homework for me, it's better. It doesn't feel like work. Like if I had a listed workout, I think, I wouldn't, it just wouldn't feel the same, kind of. And that's just maybe a me thing. Is there a level that you think you would get to where you would consider a coach more seriously? Yeah, I think, like, if somehow it turned where I'm like, okay, you know what, now we're, we're, we're switching gears we're going to aim for an Olympia debut so that'd mean i'd have to get big enough

Starting point is 01:18:32 to win a pro show or you can kind of cheat it you could do a bunch you could schedule a bunch of pro shows that are like in um you know south mexico or ireland or just do all the you're saying that the south mexicans and the irish are not that jacked well more so you could do a bodybuilding show that is somewhere that not a lot of people will be yes yes yes so the difficulty of the show is only how difficult are the competitors there. So typically everyone goes to like the New York Pro or the Pittsburgh Pro like these. But some guys will go to like the tiniest corner of the world show and maybe they're not at the biggest level they could be at, but since they wanted, they would qualify. So you can kind of game it. But yeah, if that were the point, then that would

Starting point is 01:19:19 kind of demand like a team. But for my first shows, it's like half. I just want to do it to my own because that's fun for me. And for me, that's like this mental flex of like, if I do it for real, that means I didn't. It was my, and this whole thing has kind of been my thing, like, from the beginning. But also, here's what would happen if I had a, going, getting a coach for the second pro show,

Starting point is 01:19:43 or the second show that was, like, the pro debut at the Arnold earlier this year. Like, if I looked decent, which I did, uh, well, he got a coach this year. He got a coach this year. I guess the coach reeled him in. this is the dumbest dude ever, but the coach figured it out for him. Or if I do bad, the coach is going to say,

Starting point is 01:20:03 and maybe they wouldn't, but I wouldn't be surprised. Oh, well, this guy just wouldn't listen to my program. And I'm like, save me the trouble. It feels like you want to own the consequences, good and bad.

Starting point is 01:20:15 Yeah. If I showed up and I look like total trash, I guess I'd have to just be like, all right, guys, whoops. I don't know what I'm doing. Sorry. Whoops. I guess I said.

Starting point is 01:20:23 And for me, like the, I don't know, something about that approach to it, I just liked. But beyond that, I, yeah, I mean, I've been working out of my own for from the beginning. There's a difference, though, right, than getting yourself in shape to getting yourself stage ready. Yeah. And there are a lot, just by design, there's fewer and fewer people that know the absolute elite

Starting point is 01:20:46 level procedures for, okay, what are you doing with your salt? What are you doing with your carbs? What are you doing with your water and timing and body fat coming in? and how can we hack your mental state so that you feel in a good way, all of these different things, which I'm sure that Chris has got dialed down to a T. But yeah, as you get more and more attuned

Starting point is 01:21:06 to a higher and higher level, I imagine that maybe at some point you're going to have to pick up the phone. Yeah, and maybe this is just kind of how I think about things, but when it comes to like looking, let's say looking big, just walking around. In my head, I'm not thinking I want to wear the tightest shirt I can. I'd rather have a bigger shirt and fill it in.

Starting point is 01:21:26 So I'm not necessarily trying to optimize the tiniest, like if we, or if I, when I first did an expo, I remember taking a picture of somebody and I like, make myself like extra big. And I'm like, whatever. If I'm big, I should. Well, that's because you're big. Yeah. But you don't need to make yourself like extra big when you're like an outhouse.

Starting point is 01:21:44 But it's like if I'm, if I'm trying to be big, well, for one, I should just be big. But also, why would I want to tell you? Like, that would be insufferable. Hey, do you see how big I am? Well, if you did see that, why would I even say that? This is like the trolley problem for the skinny dude. Like, if you knew how big I was, I wouldn't be so big. And now that you do it, what about, what was the hardest decision that you had to make during your prep as your own coach?

Starting point is 01:22:11 I don't know if there was a specific hardest decision. It was, I guess you just kind of say doing it anyway. Because you got to plan this sort of thing out. And with the, with the NPC shows, which you'd call the Little League. and then the I.fbb Pro shows are like the big league. NPC, highly unfortunate acronym now. Really? Yeah, well, non-play character.

Starting point is 01:22:30 Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right. I wouldn't want to enter my little league bodybuilding show, though. Yeah, exactly. I'd prefer NPC. Yeah, yeah, you're right about that. But they're not always scheduled until like semi-short notice. So I was asking around, I'm like, okay, which show can I do that's right before the Arnold?

Starting point is 01:22:51 Because that would be the point. You do the qualifier show and then the- You roll the condition into the next one. Yeah, exactly. She only has to do one prep for both. So once I got that figured out the year prior, like, okay, and we're going to do the show in February and Vegas, that basically broke down, like, okay, so now I'm here in October, and now this is middle of February.

Starting point is 01:23:11 So by here to there, I got to get into my version of show ready. But other than that, it's kind of just the doing it. Like, there's no one day where I was like, okay, now I really got to bring it, except for when I worked out with Jay Cutler. What was that like? Well, I mean, Jay's super cool. Very, if you ever talk to Jay, just very casual, like, lighthearted. And I think that's because he, with his career, he ended it very well.

Starting point is 01:23:34 So, again, nothing to be like bitter. Doesn't feel unrequited or unfulfilled. Yeah, and he's doing so good. He doesn't need anything from anybody. So guys like that are the most chill. What is he doing now? Just all sorts of stuff. I mean, into, um, business shit.

Starting point is 01:23:47 Yeah, like different kind of realist. Like, that was something that people have been hyping up Jay forever. Like, there's a, there's a, there's different. different stories about how after every Olympia win, he put all this stuff into something. And then he spent three months, like, touring. Like, he's a, he was hyping on Instagram as soon as they came out, like, to the other guys. Like, you guys got to get on Instagram and YouTube. Like, he's ahead of the game.

Starting point is 01:24:09 He's like the Gary Vee of bodybuilding. Interesting. But I remember, this is like a two or three months before the show. We were doing a little workout and go in the posing room. He's like, right, your condition's decent. That was like the, that's like the clipped line. Because it's like, yeah, look reasonable at that point. But when he said that, he didn't mean like in that bad of a way.

Starting point is 01:24:29 But what he really said was like, you better get serious. So I started doing a little extra cardio after that. Isn't it interesting that a compliment could be one of the biggest motivating things because you're like, that should have been a better compliment. He's being somewhat polite there. Do you think there's anyone whose bodybuilding advice you would accept without questioning it at all? I mean, so it's not like I don't, I guess it's more so I just don't want to be,

Starting point is 01:24:57 what would you say? I guess, I guess the only word I can think of is like commanded. Because if you have your coach, now you're essentially given this coach, like this control, right? That's kind of the nature of it. But I want to, I'm taking advice from everybody. So it's like I want to be constantly open to what this guy's saying

Starting point is 01:25:13 or what this guy's talking about. Okay, this makes logical sense in my head. Like, things like that. Because also this was just a regular. person and he just learned all this knowledge. It is not as though he is just magically knowledgeable. The knowledge is out there. So in my head, that's almost its own challenge of gathering it for yourself. So I can find it. Yeah. Or he found it and he just told it to me. Now I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Now I stole it from him. So thank you for that. But that's why people use, you go to experts, right? Like when you think

Starting point is 01:25:40 about, think about this from a book perspective, somebody goes and writes a book. And they have spent decades, decades and decades of their life looking at this one particular area of this one particular part of the world and you now get to look at this entire life synthesized down into a single single 60,000 words, like a bit of paper this.

Starting point is 01:26:05 You go, okay, how long did it take this person to get to this stage? And I just get to read it and like draw out, like sucking water out of a sponge I get all of the concentrated information. And that's why you go to experts. That's why you go to the Chris Bumsteads or the Phil Heats or the Jay Cutlers. Yeah, exactly. You've got all of this stuff in there.

Starting point is 01:26:26 So it's not as though I'm saying, do not get a coach. It's more like, for whatever reason, I just don't want one right now. And I reserve the right to change that in the future. You talked about co-owning a peptide company. What's that being like? Yes. Well, it's certainly not bad on my end. terms of like actually how they're moving forward.

Starting point is 01:26:46 We've got a kind of a bigger, not, you wouldn't call it a release, but they're just changing the nature of it to more of like an actual telehealth, like doctor prescribed thing, October 1st. But yeah, peptides are very, I mean, it's not like they're new, but it's quite the topic now because they're the thing.

Starting point is 01:27:06 Remember when Oshuaganda was the thing? And Tercastron was the thing. I live through the Ticastaron era, yeah. Yeah. So it's just the thing. But it's like, you know, every time I, like, I've just got BPC and TB 500, like, just at all times. What's your experience with peptides? What have you found to be useful?

Starting point is 01:27:26 Definitely those two, for sure. And then as of late, you've ever heard of GHK. That's the copper thing. People use for skin and hair? Yeah, I've been doing some of that. I feel like that's been kind of clearing me up a little. More so, it's like a more of an inflammation reduction kind of thing. And then that extra collagen upregulation.

Starting point is 01:27:43 and so I haven't noticed like, I'm not sprouting hair everywhere, but I can definitely tell my skin's looking a little better from that one. Like every time I would actually tweak something or like when guys, so so far I haven't, I don't talk about it as much in the videos because for one, once everything's like fully regulated,

Starting point is 01:28:00 there's a huge percentage of people that are just waiting for that. They're not thinking, they're not thinking for themselves per se, it's, there's a green light. Now it's, now I'm fine with it. Yeah, which is just kind of unfortunate. And then the 10, percent who are knowledgeable and have done them, no, this is just a thing. My shoulder's out

Starting point is 01:28:18 of whack and I hurt my rotator cuff and my golf swing hasn't been the same. I started doing BPC for two weeks and now I'm back. And like that's kind of the extent of it. But it just gets overhyped, you know, because now, I mean, you get all the, all the TikTok kids and like literally kids. These guys are like teenagers and they're on like a TikTok live, hyping up like, oh, you didn't get 10 vials of so-and-so that they're just ordering. Tassamerala and all, yeah, exactly. And it's, um, it's kind of, I'm trying to think of something else that is a good,

Starting point is 01:28:51 comparable situation. But it is just this thing that has legitimate use case, but it is so overhyped and just like dramatized because of just everything involved with it. Plus now pharmaceutical companies are more involved once Eli Lilly like patents, red at true tide. Like it's funny. Every TikTok ad, by anything, two vials are read of True Tide included. Because all these companies are about to get cease and desisted.

Starting point is 01:29:21 Oh, that's interesting. They're just trying to give the stock away. Yeah, so for them, they're like, this is going to be worthless to us because we're not to be able to actually sell it in a legitimate way. Oh, that's interesting. So a lot of stuff like that. But it's sprinting for the finish in an attempt to try and get rid of all of their stock. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 01:29:34 Wow. But it's so crazy that it's just like a lack of knowledge. because would most people say that O-Zempic is a peptide? They wouldn't know that it is. Yeah, they wouldn't know. They just say Ozempic is Ozempic. And then that's funky too, because I don't know how you feel about, actually, I would imagine I know how you feel about Red of Trutide,

Starting point is 01:29:54 but it is just a thing that beyond, or of course I'll change my opinion if a certain study comes out revealing this crazy side effect, which there's no leads of yet. But of course, if there were, then I'd say, hey, whoa, don't do this. But it's like, are you mad at somebody for taking caffeine when they're tired? It's a little bit of an extra step to stretch that to like a red at Trutide. But it is just taking an intervention of what you'd call a normal human process without that much of a, in terms of like a negative effect.

Starting point is 01:30:31 So it's like some guys still hate on caffeine for pre-re-re-they're like, you shouldn't be taking caffeine for pre-workout man. I mean, David Goggins says that you shouldn't ever train with music. on. So, you know, there are levels of Puritanism that you can get to from Reda Trutide at one end to David Goggins' dark thoughts as a soundtrack on the other. But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. A lot of it, I think, is because of the delivery mechanism. Like, if anorectics and GLPs were first released as a shot, that you took a shot, or it's just a tablet or something, or maybe it was a patch or something else, there's something. very intimate and medical and for some people icky about the needle thing.

Starting point is 01:31:16 Yeah, exactly. If you can do the needle thing or that takes it to another level of medical supervision that's needed as opposed to if I just pop this pill or if I drink this shot or if it's a shake or something, if it was a special shake that you had that was like a meal reduction shake, not a real replacement shake. Where when you drank it, you didn't want to eat for the rest of the day. one meal a day shakes. Not only do you need to have this,

Starting point is 01:31:41 but it'll make you feel full for the rest of the day. I'm sure that you could do that. It wouldn't surprise me if we end up having that at some point. And you go, okay, if that was the original delivery mechanism, I think people would feel somewhat different about it, but because it's not. I mean, because you can do the opposite.

Starting point is 01:31:54 There's ways that you can encourage Grelin release. Like you can make yourself more hungry. And is that, to people look at that as being a weird kind of hack way for us? Well, that would be like, That would be people talk about MK67, which I guess I don't know. We need Huberman right here to really tell us the total crazy specifics. Have you ever tried to know?

Starting point is 01:32:17 This isn't really that cool anymore, but it was 15 years ago. GHRP2 and GHRP6. So it's growth hormone releasing hexapeptide. And you used to take that with mod GRF. So it was an endogenous way to get your body to create more growth hormone. One of the side effect of it was fucking insane. Grelin release. So, bro, when me and my house, man, this was 2010, 2011, I was using it.

Starting point is 01:32:43 So I knew bacteriostatic water, research use only peptides. This was fucking 2010. Yeah, like 15 years ago. Drawing it up. And we used to do it, the way that I was able to do it post-training, the only way I could do it is if I was already cooking when I shot it. Because by the time that the meal was finished, I was like, like, fucking starving. And it was, I've never had hunger.

Starting point is 01:33:05 like that before. But it was two good things. If you're looking to put a little bit more in or a lot more in from a calorie perspective, it's really encouraging. You'll get that. Yeah. There's definitely, I mean, it's just a huge subject anyway, because like where's the line, right? Because between, uh, because like if you look at something like when guys talk about, um, I guess not even like HCG. Yep. So now you're promoting natural production of your testosterone. Same thing would be true with Clomid. Right. But it's, well, you're still raising it by taking this thing, but just because you went through three other steps. What about Fodogra aggressus? What about Tonkat Ali? What about boron? What about like the studies where your testosterone is raised just from training legs versus not? You're not allowed to do that. Like where's the limit?

Starting point is 01:33:48 Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you get enough sleep, you raise your testosterone. Yeah. But I think the, it's just like a knowledge thing. Like the smarter people get in terms of actually knowing what things do. And not even that, but like even with a diet and everything else, it kind of just opens the door to like, okay, what should I be doing? Or what would be like unnecessary? I think two things are anchoring an adoption. So what is the current status quo and how much are people anchored to what now is considered to be normal or typical or whatever? And the new thing is always going to break this status quo. So people are always going to be skeptical or feel like that is some kind of different intervention that's not familiar with. And then the other one is

Starting point is 01:34:26 adoption. Because so many people use caffeine, very few people would point to caffeine and say that's an unfair competitive advantage. Because so few people, you know, use MK667, they're going to point to that and go, well, you know, that feels alien, that feels like an unfair competitive advantage. But if you end up with anchoring bias changes, changing, which is just a matter of time, it's just time and detention, and then adoption changing, you end up with a very different world. Yeah. Yeah, I think probably within the next, well, I mean, I don't know, what's the year cycle of when the next thing is? It depends if I try to stick about for a while. I mean, you don't know what's going to come

Starting point is 01:35:05 next, but I think a lot of peptides, I'll be interested to see if RFK when he leaves, if this peptide thing gets rolled back, because at the moment there's a level of use that's permitted, and I don't know if that's going to continue on the other side of it. But I also know that there are some companies, collective OS is one of them that are trying to make, like, access to peptides and presumably your place as well. Like, okay, this is not Chinese bathtub grade, market bullshit. This is legitimate, high-quality peptides that you know from a source that's presumably inside of the US.

Starting point is 01:35:43 Okay, like I have that. And over time as that rolls out, it'll be interesting to see. But who knows? Maybe we'll come back around to blueberry extract that I was using fucking 15 years ago, desperate to work out, Christian Tebowdo and his blueberry extract. See if that works. Yeah, we'll see. But, yeah, I think as soon as that, what, you're, you know, you know,

Starting point is 01:36:05 you'd call the uninformed majority. Here's FDA Greenlight. Oh, now, we'll switch to the next thing that is, that is still waiting for like, oh, is this thing okay? Because this is something I end up bringing up with everybody when they talked to me about, um, about like red at true tide or like if somebody's actually

Starting point is 01:36:25 like, oh, was it cheating your diet? And in my head, just in general, I'm like, well, okay, how many like middle age housewives are going to lose like 30 pounds before, people start saying like, okay, this is probably just a good thing. Yeah. Have you tried any of the GLPs? Not yet. Okay.

Starting point is 01:36:43 Would you maybe consider it if like, oh, I need a bit more help in my diet or it seems like you're pretty locked in as it is. Yeah, I'm kind of right in the, I call it a sweet spot of diet, that's called the appetite, where it's like for me to eat more food than necessary or to eat slightly less food than necessary isn't too wild. But for somebody who's just constantly starving all the time, and it's hard for them to even get any like app definition from diving down. Well, it's like, that's kind of just luck of the draw. Some guys are going to walk around like bone dry shredded because their appetite is at

Starting point is 01:37:15 zero. So they just kind of have this natural predisposition of like, I don't know, I had like a couple chips this morning. And that was it. And I had a coffee. Yeah. Robert Plowman, who is, I think the fifth most cited psychologist in the world in the 20th century, is the guy that founded the field of behavioral genetics. I was one of the guys that really really sort of pushed it and popularized it. Twin Studies Environment versus Nature versus Nuture. And he was giving me this example about there's many ways to get fat, he was saying. And he used the example of himself where he said

Starting point is 01:37:48 he wasn't a massive fan of exercise. Just exercise doesn't make him feel all that good. But also, if he walks past a bakery that's baking bread, his desire to eat is fucking massive. And also apparently he could. can put away quite a bit of food and also and also. The fact that he's a pretty in-shaped guy, he's got, you know, this stack of five different comorbidities

Starting point is 01:38:12 that are contributing to him supposedly being a fat guy, right? And he has to work super hard. But you can imagine a world in which the total opposite exists. I enjoy training and exercising, and so do you. It makes me feel good. And I started doing it when I was young, but I almost don't choose to do it. Like, I feel worse if I don't than if I do.

Starting point is 01:38:33 And for a lot of people, might feel worse if they do than if they don't. And well, I'm not really that fuss about eating that much food. And you go, okay, the same species, right, but two completely different worlds when it comes to training and diet, which are the big levers when it comes to your body composition. So, yeah, it's not, blanket advice is right. Like calories in calories out, progressive overload over time, train regularly, right, okay, there we, and sleep, right, okay, there we go. There's like most of it. That's 90% of training. Like progress. But each person, you can't just throw that at Robert Plowman with his bread fetish and say that he's going to take the same advice in the same way that you might do.

Starting point is 01:39:13 Yeah. So I think it's, so when I talk about guys like that and it's like, all right, man, if you're trying to cut down and you just don't have an appetite, I guess you're spoiled. If you're the guy with a huge appetite, you're kind of just boned. But that's just how it is. So you can accept or not accept, but like understand these core principles and then know based on like your own situation what you should do or how you should like acts going forward. You know, you get teaching me how to like replace a tire on like a NASCAR car and like put the bolts in or something.

Starting point is 01:39:44 But if there was an actual problem and maybe something was off kilter or whatever, since I don't know any of the core basics, all I know is you told me to bolt this thing in. I can now do nothing and I'm like totally useless. But if you told me the basics of like all the different things that go into whatever that little trick would be, I'd be able to like keep an eye out for it

Starting point is 01:40:02 and make adjustments. Yeah. Principles versus tactics. You're right. Like tactics are very fragile and principles are much more robust, which is why, because you did eight years or whatever, six years of training yourself before you then decide to try and compete. Okay, well, I have an understanding of the principles. Yeah, these are the principles. Yeah. Then just workmates off those. Yeah. Heck yeah. Dude, I appreciate you. Where should people go to check out everything that you got going on? I guess it depends, you know. I throw an Instagram up every so often. I think it's Sam underscore Sulick. Fucking Sam Sulek was taken. Let me check. Let me actually check to make sure I'm not certain. But either way, if you look up Sam Sulik, it's definitely the first one.

Starting point is 01:40:40 If you're not the most followed Sam Sulik on the planet, I'll be very surprised. Yeah, same underscore Sulic. And then the YouTube account, Sam Sulic, that's every day. So I'll post one today. And the next day, you know, there's 1,200 so far. It's probably going to be, it'll, I'm sure that'll be a day where I'm like, oh, 2,500. It's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:40:58 But yeah, just everywhere like that if you want to see a good workout, that's for sure. Okay. Appreciate you, man. Until next time. Goodbye my beauties. Dude.

Modern Wisdom - How To Go Hard, Even When You Don’t Want To - Sam Sulek - #1157

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