REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 575. Q&AF Ft. Layne Norton, PhD: Forgiving Others, Feeling Overwhelmed & Being A Man

Episode Date: September 18, 2023

In today's episode, Andy & DJ are joined in the studio by Dr. Layne Norton. They answer your questions on whether you can still be friends with someone after you forgive them for the mistakes they've made, how to manage your time better when you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, and the best way to be a man when you've grown up without any father figures.

What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the real, let's say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness, and delusions of modern society. And welcome to motherfucking reality, guys. Today we have Q&AF. That's where you submit the questions and we give you the AFs. Now, you can submit your questions a couple different ways. The first way is, guys, you can email your questions to askandy at andyfussella.com. Or you can go on YouTube and on the Q&AF episodes, you can drop your questions in the comments and we'll answer some from there as well other times

We have CTI that stands for Cruz the internet. That's where we put topics up on the screen We speculate on what's true What's bullshit and then we talk about what we the people can do to solve some of these problems going on in the world Other times we have real talk real talk is just five to twenty minutes of me giving you some real talk and then other times We have 75 hard versus 75 hard versus is where we bring people on who've completed 75 hard, talk about how they were before, how they are after. And then we talk about how you can fix what's going on with you as well. If you want the 75 hard program, which is the first phase of the live hard program, you can get it for free at episode 208 on the audio feeds only. And then

other times we have full length full length is where we just bring someone on and we have a talk i know i said i wasn't going to do many of those but i think we're going to bring those back because i like them anyway q and a f and we have a special guest got my friend back in the house my good buddy lane norton what's happening bro it's good to see you good to be back yeah what's been, bro? Good to see you. Good to be back. Yeah. What's been going on? A lot of the same, just doing business, lifting heavy and doing the dad thing. Calling motherfuckers out on the internet. I do some of that, you know, kind of the science-based side of things, you know.

It's important work. Ruffling some feathers. It's a hard job, but somebody's got to do it. It is what it is although i will say like i'm seeing so many more evidence-based people coming out and doing like kind of like my debunk style videos and people have said to me like doesn't that bother you i'm like no i think it's great yeah like we need more people i felt like i've been out on an island for a long time doing this stuff you know so i've seen a lot of that too i've seen a lot of the uh they're they're like guys in their mid-20s that are starting to kind of like take up that same style yeah um even some females too yeah i haven't seen any of that i've seen i've seen a

few i only see them because you you shout them out on your page yeah um which i think is cool you know yeah yeah like i i mean i tell everybody like i yeah we're all in competition but it's like you know i don't not nearly as big but i don't have something in line but we're not competition like i care about good folks in the industry is i want to align myself with as many like good people as i can because to me like rising tide floats all ships. And I think that's that's come. I think that's become like you and I have been in the industry for like literally the exact same amount of time. Do you feel like that it's been that that's changed?

Because I feel like personally, it used to not be that way. I felt like the owners of companies weren't friends and people didn't get along and like everybody kind of just fucking hated each other and then recently over the last like four or five years people have started to like realize like oh shit we're kind of on this little boat all together and we should sort of work together otherwise the entire government system and everything that we have going on makes it hard for us to exist. You know, I feel like there's been a lot more, I don't know, friendships. Maybe it's just me. I don't know. I think, you know, the internet's not great for some things, but I do think it has brought people in some ways closer together.

I think, you know, when I first got in, like I didn't know a bunch of owners from back then, but I think things are more siloed. You know, you didn't really interact that people that much except at trade shows now it's like you you never know if somebody's going to be the same way they are online but like you know i i had a pretty good idea coming to meet you like you and sal were going to be the same way yeah you are on social and i think like you think i'm probably the same way for sure so like you can kind of get a feel for oh you know i think i'd vibe with this person i think we'd get along

that sort of thing um whereas before you know if it's just like you're seeing another company's ads in a magazine or something like that or you know it's so easy to become adversarial you know and i think now it's kind of like i just want to see good people win yeah you know because to me if i take care of my stuff like my stuff's gonna be fine you know i don't need to be in competition with somebody else yeah uh question number one uh guys in a recent andygram uh andy you have mentioned learning to forgive others that made mistakes. Does that mean you still need to be friends with them after you forgive them? It's hard after friendship trust gets broken to still talk to them.

What's your take on this forgiveness and continuing relationships? Yeah, no, I don't think you have to continue to be friends. In fact, I think you should be very selective on who you call your friends. And I think that who your friends should be, should be people like Lane has just talked about a minute ago that want you to win, that are willing to help you win, even when that's uncomfortable. So that's, that's a criteria that is very hard for people to stand up and step into for a lot of different reasons. You know, it could be their background. It could be, you know, where they come from.

It could be their level of insecurity. But it's very rare that we can find people that truly want us to win and are happy for us when we win. And when you find those people who want you to win, who are happy for you when you win, and who also help you win, and sometimes you have to understand that helping you win is maybe telling you some shit that you would rather not hear but need to hear. Those are your friends, man.

And outside of that, those people aren't your friends. And so I think the term friend gets tossed around very loosely today, especially with social media, which is kind of what we were talking about earlier. I feel like everybody thinks that everybody's their friend and i can tell you for experience and extensive life experience you have very few friends if you think you have a lot of friends you do not have a lot of friends you have a lot of people you know you have very few friends your real friends you know they're going to contribute to your life in every single way possible they're not going to install seeds of doubt in your brain they're not going to cut you down they they're going to contribute to your life in every single way possible. They're not going to install seeds of doubt in your brain. They're not going to cut you down.

They're not going to be the person like this, right? Because we have two kinds of people. We have the kind of people that will tell you you're great, tell you you're great, tell you you're great, even when you're not great. And those people come along after you've had some success. When you've had some success- Those are the most dangerous ones. Yeah, bro. They're going to come along and they're going to tell you, you're the best, you're the greatest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And dude, you'll believe it because, you know,

you have some proof of that in reality. So you're starting to think like, okay, yeah, I am the best. And then you have the other kind of person. And the other kind of person is equally as damaging. These are the kind of people that think that because everybody tells you yes, that they are required to always tell you no. And they're always required to tell you, you know, you're not as good as you think you are. And they'll say things like this. They'll say, look, man, I'm not going to be one of these people that kisses your ass. And they'll, they'll preface everything they say like

that. Or, Hey, Andy, I know everybody's always kissing your ass, so somebody's got to tell you. And those people will constantly tell you all the negative shit. So you have to find the people who are real, the people who will tell you when you're doing good, but also, like Lane said a minute ago about his buddy Mike, they'll say, hey, that's not you, bro. Don't do that.

You know what I'm saying? And those people are few and far between. And you should try to be one of those people as much as you possibly can to as many people as you can. But you should also expect that not many people are going to live up to that back to you. And so when people fuck with you or they do something wrong or they fuck you over, or I was talking to one of my good friends yesterday. He had this guy, you know him too, Honey. Okay. And I was talking to Honey and we were friends yesterday uh he had this guy you know him too uh honey okay and i was talking to honey and we were talking about a relationship that he had with a previous

athlete this previous athlete had basically trashed him in public said all kinds of lies about him did all this stuff and then came around years later and tried to apologize and honey's like dude you and this is to me right he? He's telling me this. He's like, dude, this guy has no idea the pain, the stress, the frustration, the damage that he's caused to something that I've worked my whole life to create. And, you know, I don't have any hard feelings, but fuck that guy, you know? And like, that's sometimes where you need to draw the boundary, you know? Like we have to be real. We can forgive people. We can say, hey, it's all good and never talk to them again and let them go live their life. And in fact, it's usually a good idea because if you continue to forgive those people and then let them close to you again, that likelihood of them repeating the same kind of shit over and over again is very high.

And that's coming from someone who's 44 years old, who's had enough of these experiences to at some points in my life make me very bitter about people so i think um i'm not a mental health expert but uh one of my friends john deloney is and he says you know forgiveness is not for the other person forgiveness is for you right now i guess where i stand is and i'm definitely more on the side of like somebody apologized to me. I'm like immediately like going to pull them back in, that sort of stuff. I think what I would say. Dude, you and I are so much alike like that.

I think what I would say is, you know, the context is important. Like what was the, what was the disagreement over? What was the, how did they hurt you? Right? Like if it's like, oh, they were two hours late for dinner or didn't show up or something like that. Okay. Yeah, of course. That's one thing.

Somebody stole money from you. Somebody lied about you. Somebody really harmed you in some way. Compromising values. Yeah. End of the day, it's kind of like you have to make that decision whether or not you think that's a friendship worth continuing. What I will say is, like, make them prove it. You know, don't put them in a position where they can hurt you like that

until they have consistently proven it i think the one thing that stood out to me when you were talking about like the the right kind of friends is will somebody show up for you even if it doesn't benefit them right in some way now at some point um and i've said this to a number of friends like man i hope i know i hope i don't ever have to repay you this way, showing up for you this way, because, I mean, you're in a hard place, but, you know, I would love to be able to show up for you

the way you've shown up for me, you know? And so that's why I think the friendship is reciprocal, but it's not like, what can you do for me? What can I do for you? It's like, I love this person. I think they're a great person. How can I support them best? You know? And, um, so you really have to make that decision, whether how much you value it, how long was the friendship, you know, how many times did they show up for you? Was this just a,

that's where people do stuff out of character sometimes. Like it happens when they want shit. Yeah. I think that's an important point you're hitting on there brother you have to evaluate was the friend ever really a friend was this person ever really your friend or were they along for the ride or were they there because you knew them from way back in the day like just because you've known someone for five years or you 10 years or you went to high school with them or you went to college with them that doesn't mean that they're your friend dude that just knowing them yeah that's correct but like we have this idea that everybody's friends and that doesn't make what i'm now that doesn't make everybody else your enemy there's three classes of people here right there's there's enemies then there's acquaintances people that you know and generally like and can drink a beer with and hang out with and be cool.

And then you got friends and that friend group should be really tight, really small. And that's been the experience of my life. And you and I, I think, are a lot alike, dude. You know, we give people the benefit of the doubt. We give a lot of grace. When people wrong us, we want to forgive them because we want to resolve the issue but we have to also be smart to not invite these issues back into our lives from someone who has a faulty character trait for example right sometimes people just can't be there and be the right kind of friend that we have or that we need i'm sorry i think one of the things that i heard that was um that i've used a

lot is you can love someone from a distance yeah you know what i mean yeah like sometimes you can love somebody i'm not just talking about romantic relationships right you know friendships too that's a good point family and know that their family you can love somebody and know that their presence in your life is not good for you like does somebody you know and and i think like so so again, John, I'm going to, I'm going to use him. He always, when people will call his show and he has a great podcast, by the way, everybody should listen to it. When people call his show, he'll talk about, I never thought about this. He's like, he'll identify what's happening in their body. What's happening in your body. Right. And he'll talk about it i never thought about anxiety and stress that way right but like it does show up in your body we think about it all here right but it shows up in your body and i know like and i went through a lot of stress over the last couple years and once i started making changes to like get out of the things that were really causing me

a lot of stress i mean not only did i feel better i physically got stronger in the gym yeah like pretty rapidly i mean it was crazy how it works out yeah and so when you're around somebody do you do you generally feel at ease do you feel like you can be yourself do you feel like you can let your guard down or do you feel like you know like i gotta protect myself like i gotta have my guard up if i say that like you want to be around people who put you at ease yeah right like it's almost like a a regulation you know what i mean and even if you got to have a hard conversation can you have that hard conversation and still feel a little bit of a sense of peace? Because I mean, some people will say they like hard conversation. Nobody likes hard conversations

with people they love. Like it's, it's, it always sucks, but can you, can they do it in a way? Can you do it in a way in their presence? Cause sometimes it's a dynamic, right? It's not just one person. It's a dynamic, but can you do it in a way where you still feel safe and you feel at ease those are the kind of people you want to have around you but if you're like you know feel like you're whether it's a family member friend romantic partner you're like walking on eggshells all the time you're constantly, you know, kind of in defense mode. They may not be a bad person, but they're bad for you. Mm-hmm.

You know? Yeah, I think one of the things, too, it's like, you know, this misconception, your friend group is going to change. Yep. And that's okay. Yep. Like, that's okay. And, like, I'm young, but I've been through- DJ, it's going to change many, many times.

That's what I'm saying. I'm young, and I've been through three different friend groups just in my lifetime, my short lifetime now, and it's, like, just getting to the point where it's, like, I'm young, but I've been through- DJ, it's going to change many, many times. That's what I'm saying. I'm young and I've been through three different friend groups just in my lifetime, my short lifetime now. And it's like, just getting to the point where it's like, it's okay. Like, that's fine. You know, like not like, you know, and I think what it is, because I was over thinking about it, you know, you watch these movies growing up as a kid and, you know, watch movies like Little Rascals and it's like, oh man, we're going to be friends forever.

And so you have this like, this expectation that have this expectation that your friends you grew up with from the neighborhood or the school you went to, you're going to be lifelong friends. And the reality is those things, those situations are so far fewer in between, it doesn't happen. You know what I'm saying? So knowing that your purpose in life is to grow and elevate, that means the people around you are going to have to grow and elevate

or just change in general. some people are there for good and some people are there for a season yeah and i also think dude i think it's important for us like what you said about loving them from afar i think it's important to recognize that the world you would be a lot happier and i'm speaking to all of you you would be a lot happier if you would take the position that you can not be as close of friends with someone and still want them to win still want them to do good still be there if they need something like bro i take the approach of like being at ease around everybody until they give me a reason not to yeah you know and um but i also take the approach

of not letting people in my proximity as easily as I once did. So, I don't know. I think navigating these issues is definitely something with nuance and there's all kinds of ways you can look at it. But ultimately, you know, DJ's correct. Your friend group's going to evolve.

You're going to grow. And if you're not growing and your friendship isn't, your friend group isn't evolving, it probably a sign that that you need to maybe do some growth on your own yeah because they can leave you just as easily yeah i do yeah and just you know make sure like getting back to the kind of the core question like ask yourself is this is i don't i think people are their habits you know they're not we've all done stuff at one time that was outside of our character yeah you know and so and none of us are perfect right and

so and by the way bro guess what you're probably going to do some shit outside your character again at some point in your life and so will i and so will him and so will everybody here listening yeah you know that's that's the unfortunate uh condition called being human yeah so i think again that careful balance between accountability and shame right where it's like um being able to because you can be too easy on yourself you're like well i don't you know i'm human this and that people can justify a lot of stuff by saying, well, you're human, you know? Oh, no, I'm not saying that as an excuse. No, no, right.

I'm saying that from the, because like, dude, remember, we come from the place of the internal dialogue that like my internal dialogue when I fuck up is not like, oh, bro, you know, it's all good. Everything's going to be fine. It's like, bro, you're the biggest fucking piece of shit that walks the face of the,

like, that's my shit is like, you guys think I'm hard on everybody else, dude. If you heard my internal shit, you know, and people are gonna say, well,

that's unhealthy. No shit. Yeah. No. And it's, I, again, so you,

you pointed out it's, it's nuance, right? At the end of the day, you, me, DJ, we're not gonna be able to tell

you like should you still have a relationship with somebody who hurt you it's really going to boil down to your values their values and all we'll say all i'll say is you know if you choose to bring that person back in your life okay just do it stepwise and pay attention and pay attention and you know, be open, but also protect yourself, right? Don't put them in a position where they can hurt you. Yeah.

Real shit, man. Uh, guys, question number two, uh, I'm a first year med student and I'm getting my ass kicked. Uh,

it's only been a month. There's a lot thrown at me at once and I constantly feel behind. I know to improve. It's a combination of managing my at once and I constantly feel behind. I know to improve. It's a combination of managing my time better and me not being efficient with the work that I'm doing. I don't believe I have built the proper skill set just yet. I have been using the powerless, but I'm only finishing two or three of my five critical tasks that I need to get done each day.

The problem is everything compounds and the work still needs to get done regardless. Andy, do you guys have any advice for time management? And more importantly, how do I make sure I'm working more efficiently? So I think knowing yourself, this is a very individual thing. So I was somebody, I have very severe ADHD. I was diagnosed when I was six years old when I was doing grad school, undergrad, things didn't really come easy for me. Like I had to study a lot. And I think a lot of times we end up comparing ourselves

to other people and that like, we feel like, oh, I'm doing this wrong. It must be something wrong. I know for me, first off, when I study, I'm gonna lay on the ground. I don't know why I can't be at a desk, right? The other thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go hard for 30, 40 minutes with background noise. I don't know why I can't study in silence.

And then I'm going to take a 10 to 20 minute break because I just know for me, if I try to go hard for multiple hours, once I get hour one, two, it's like, now I've got to take an even longer break to reset myself. Now I'm not saying this is what this person should do, but I know myself, I found that over time. I think the other thing is really, it sounds like, and I'm kind of trying to read between the lines. It sounds like he's getting a little bit overwhelmed. And then that like has a freeze response. Yes. You go, I can't do anything.

I've been there. I can tell you there have been so many times in my life where I'm like, there is no way I can get done everything I need to get done. And you can start to stew in that and then not do anything. And then by the time you actually try to get it done after you've gone through that anxiety, like then it is too late. What I'll say is like, try to disconnect your feelings and go into execution mode. Maybe you can't get it all done, but stewing about it is not going to change anything. So focus on, okay, what is the most pressing, like what is something, what is the thing that is most important that is also very time sensitive? Let's work on that right now, right?

Where in the case of school, you know, usually what I look at is, okay, this area of this topic, let's say in biochemistry, I feel like I've got this down pretty good. I'm struggling here. Now I could, I'm at 95% here. I could put more time in and get to a hundred or I could go over to this thing where I'm at 60% putting the same amount of time. Maybe I get to 80. That's a bigger gain, right? So I'm gonna look at where my deficiencies are. And the other thing too, is like, honestly, and I, I've never went to med school. I, again, it was a PhD research scientist, but man, I, I, I got my money's worth out of my professors. Like I was at their door asking questions, you know, and if not them,

then the teacher's assistants, like you're paying a lot of money to be in med school. Those people should be supporting you. So if you need help, go get help. Get in a study group. That's another thing I did. Like being involved with study groups, that helped me a lot because just conversating with people and it's kind of like lifting. Have you ever gone in for lifting and like I'm trying to show somebody how to squat?

I can explain a squat five different ways of whatever way on the fifth way of me giving them that cue, it clicks, right? Sometimes explaining, you know, because they're obviously a scientist if they're in med school, explaining a mechanism in a different way or just hearing somebody else repeat it back to you, for whatever reason, all of a sudden it clicks.

So I think being involved in study groups is a great idea. The other thing I'll say, I think, because when I was at every level, I was like, man, this is overwhelming. This is overwhelming. This is overwhelming. Now I look at like, okay, owning, you know, either owning or having a piece of four different businesses that include over, you know, 20, 30 employees and having two kids, one of whom is special needs. And then like a bunch of other stuff I'm doing competing. Like if I write it all down, oh man, you know, but I have gotten to the point where I can manage that over time because I built that resilience. And when I look back at what used to overwhelm me when I was doing my PhD,

I'm like, oh, that's nothing compared to now. You know, but you can- You acclimate to it. You acclimate to it. Yes, that's- People think there's like this, like I used to think this, that there was like a defined amount of willpower.

And now psychologists have debunked this. So like there's really, there's no limit on this, but there probably is a limit at the moment in time where you're at because you have, it's like progressive overload for life. The more difficult stuff you do and get through, the more difficult stuff you can do and get through. And so what I'll say is you may feel overwhelmed. I'm not saying your overwhelm isn't real, but your feelings will lie to you. Try to go into execution mode. Just focus on moving your feet forward

with whatever you can do and getting support where you need it. And here's the one other thing that I think a lot of people need to hear. You can't prioritize everything all at the same time. People talk a lot about life balance okay i think over the course of your entire life you should have a balance between work life family friends but at any one cross-section of time you are going to be unbalanced in some direction

correct right when i was in grad school i was lifting and grad school and that was pretty much it. There wasn't a whole lot of time for socializing. I did a little bit, but it was pretty rare. Right. But that was fine with me because I knew what I was there for. Right. Then when I got out of grad school, I was biased towards competing and my businesses. And then when my kids were born, I was more biased towards like this shifts over time. And I think a lot of people get anxiety because they feel like they should be able to prioritize it all at once. And listen, we're all about like, Hey, good nutrition training, but Hey, while you're in med school, maybe you're just trying to maintain what you have, right? Like you're getting in two times a week. Cause right now you have to focus on this because this is the priority because you're probably spending three four hundred thousand dollars to be there right that's really important to you right yeah right so pick your priorities and realize not everything can be a priority at the same time yeah dude i like all that i i especially like the part that you talk about acclimation because when you first start something new you

know he said it's only been a month it's no different than we were talking about the cold plunge in the locker room all right the first time you get in some cold water doesn't have to be a cold plunge it could be a cold swimming pool this swimming pool could be you know 75 degrees and you get in you're like oh this is 10 minutes later, you're splashing around like an idiot and you don't even notice it. All right. And this is how your skillset and stress management will work over the course of your life. You are overwhelmed now because this level of load is new to you now. And the best thing that you could do is not to go listen to one of these hippie motherfuckers on the internet about balance the best thing you could do no for real the best dude i'm just being

honest man like you're gonna dude these these kids now they see these motherfuckers out here fucking kids bro in the van traveling the world living those motherfuckers gonna be broke in 10 years bro like you don't i've already seen this i've seen what those people end up becoming you guys think that shit's new because it's not new the same thing was when i was a kid like there was still those people like when i was out hustling when i was building my business and they were telling me bro you're working way too hard you need to live your life you need some balance you need this you need that And now these same motherfuckers are asking me for a fucking job. Okay. So I fucking know exactly what the fuck that's about.

Like real talk. I've experienced it in my life. It's not new. So when you're overwhelmed and you have the propensity or, you know, the inclination to read some of this shit on the internet that says, oh, I need to get some balance. And then you go away from the overwhelm. What you're doing is you're deconditioning yourself to handle the load that you need to be able to handle. So you're only prolonging the pain. So the reality is, is you should lean into the overwhelm, learn how to handle it, and you will acclimate to it. And what will happen as you acclimate to it, you become more effective and more efficient. And then some time opens up. All right. You start to have more time for other

things. And so when we talk about, you know, how to handle these difficult situations, we've got to be real. You're not equipped to handle that yet. You're just not equipped. And it's day one, bro. This is build mode. Like when you start a business, I just had this talk with one of my teams yesterday. This is build mode and build mode. It is 24 fucking seven. That's the way it fucking works. If you want to build something. All right. And you're trying to build a life. You're trying to build a medical career. We need good doctors. All right. It's important that you see this through. So my advice would be lean into this, give it another six months, and what will happen is you're going to look back and be like, man, I can't believe I thought it was that hard.

And that's how it'll end up being for you. If this was three years from now and you're asking this question, okay, maybe there's some issues with efficiency. One thing that I want to point out, man, because I think it's so important that I've learned just since I've been with you, but more importantly than the last couple of weeks man it's like you know i think so often people when they're getting into something and they start getting these these feelings whether it's anxiety whether whatever it is they look at them as if like these are problems and these are reasons

why i should not be doing this when When the reality is you're doing this. This is what comes with this. Dude, this is how it's supposed to be. Absolutely, bro. Let me ask you something. And this hypothetical for everybody listening. Tell me one good thing in your life that came without stress and anxiety and pressure. It doesn't exist.

It does not exist. And when you feel the highest pressure, the highest stress and the highest anxiety, when you're in the pursuit of something greater, it's a good indication that you're actually on the other side is the fucking promised land that you've been looking for that nobody else ever gets to because the minute that they get into that pressure stress and anxiety they read some bullshit on the internet and they go live in a fucking van like that's what we're talking about here you're not wrong it's a universal set dude we've all heard it it's always darkest before the what the dawn before the dawn you have to push through the hard to get to the place you're trying to get to and this is just a fundamental reality and we have so many people on the internet trying to convince people that they found some other way okay so you're the first person in 12 000 years of documented human history to find another way around this man dude you

should be the richest motherfucker on the planet then like you should you should you should have more money than elon musk because you found it you have found the way to live your whole life free and easy and pain-free and stress-free and anxiety-free and still fucking win. Like, you found it, bro. Congratulations. You'll be in the history book. He doesn't have strong opinions about this. I actually just gave a talk, like my talk at University of Missouri yesterday

was kind of on this, and I called it, I love to relate things to lifting, okay? Because obviously, like, it's something I'm passionate about, but... You're pretty fucking good at it, too. Thank you. too thank you be real it's like progressive overload for life yeah right so if i like my best ever squat was a 668 pound squat right if i went in the gym the first time it's all right it's a little light if i if i went into the gym the first time and tried to do that

what's gonna happen it's gonna crumble you right even after a few you couldn't even walk it out right even after a few years it's gonna crush me yeah right like and this guy he's been in school for a while he did his undergrad obviously and now he's getting crushed it's like or you're just not used to it yet yeah but so even a 500 pound squat gonna crush me first time right but what happens and i it's funny, I tell people this, like, even though I can squat, you know, 600 plus pounds now, 500 pounds doesn't feel any different on my back. It still feels heavy. I just got better at handling it. Yes.

That's the only difference. Yes. Okay? 500 pounds is still 500 fucking pounds. Exactly. Yeah, man. And so- Henry Rollins has a great quote about that.

Yeah, it's always the way. And so this, it should feel hard. It's going to feel hard, but you're going to get better at handling it. So just, I love this is lifting term, but just stay in the pocket. You know what I mean? Sitting at discomfort, stay in the pocket, keep showing up. You're describing something that I describe in a different way. So, so I describe when people ask me like, what is success? Success is the commitment to the pursuit of your ultimate potential. And the reason it's not the pursuit of your ultimate potential or the realization of your ultimate potential is because your ultimate potential can never actually be realized because of what you,

how you explain progressive overload for life. When you go out and you set out to do anything in life, whether that be lifting weights or building a business or anything else, you have X amount of potential because you have X skillset. But as you go down the path and you get crumbled by the weight a few times and you get back up and you put it back on your back and you do a few more reps, what happens is, is your hypothetical skillset for life, because that's what we're talking about here, not weights, gets stronger and more equipped. And when you have better skillset for life, your potential on the back end expands. Okay. So when you think about this and you think about like where you want to be long-term, you have to understand that where you want to be long-term as you are right

now will not be where you want to be long-term in five years from now, because you're going to, you're going to open up a whole new potential because of the skill set that you gained during this five-year journey of hard shit. And so that's how true, real, massive, great things are built in life is by consistently raising the bar before you get to the bar because you're recognizing that your skill set has improved, your potential is greater greater and still committing to pursuing it even though you understand that you'll never actually realize it so this is this is the way that like the people who build the biggest shit who who live the fullest lives who do the most shit over the course of their life who become the people who shape the culture and change the world this is how they see the

world and this is how they operate they're raising the bar before they get to the bar because they understand that their capabilities have expanded and i think um you cannot even have a an idea of how capable you could possibly be in a few years if you continue to develop those skills because again like i remember it's light years right yeah i remember you know hitting my first 400 pound squat and feeling how heavy that was and i could never have a and that's after that was after six seven years of lifting yeah could never have fathomed the 668 pound squat right but six months before i hit that 668 pound squat well, I could fathom it. You know what I mean? I could taste it. But it had to be grown over time and, again, go through a lot of hard stuff.

And I think the other thing, people in this situation, and you mentioned it, like they go into something, they get knocked down, or they come up against that stress, that anxiety. They feel like something's wrong. No, no, you're right where you need to be. And the question is, I tell people, I truly believe the only reason people quit on stuff they're passionate about is to protect their ego.

Because they go, what if I put everything into this and it doesn't work out? No, no, no. If you don't put everything into it, it's not going to work that's right go all in like go all in for that that what if question that what if that exact what if question cost almost every motherfucker their entire dreams in life yep and i'll the

other thing i'll tell people this is kind of a separate topic but i'll say over planning paralysis by analysis and perfectionism has killed more dreams than failure ever could failure is a great teacher and like there's so many people it's the only real teacher bro yeah and i i i gave a talk in canada and i was kind of like i just thought of this on the spot i i said you know what when i was doing my phd i got to the point where i almost got put on probation from the program i was so um despondent and i was actually making pretty good money at the time from coaching i'm like i don't need this aggravation you know and i remember having this like this internal talk of man i could put everything in

this maybe i won't maybe i won't get it. And I just remember thinking, yeah, but let's find out. Yeah. And I, that was, that became the talk was like, let's find out, right? Maybe not, but let's find out. And I promise you, even if you don't get that, the resilience you will acquire from actually putting in the work and giving it your all is going to translate into something else. And I was crazy is, um, the guys who organized the seminar, they started sending me texts, like four different people got let's find out tattooed on them after that, after that seminar. But it's like, yeah, you, you, if you're going to try something hard, there's no other way than to really give it your all and but it's scary because it's like what if i did give it at all and i just wasn't good enough

at least you know dude that what if question you know i've been in the personal development game for you know at a high level for about 10 years and that question i think what if i do all this work and it doesn't work i think that is the biggest fucking lie that's that people tell themselves in any way shape or form ever about anything because i believe it's not even possible i believe that if you, and I've seen this, I don't have a single case that I can point to and say, here's the exception to this rule. I'm not a single one. If you do the work, the result will come. You may not become exactly what you wanted to become. Like, let's say I want to become LeBron James. All right. I'm not becoming LeBron James because I'm not six, eight. All right. And I'm not the level of athlete that that man is. But if I wanted to become pretty good at basketball, I could probably get pretty good at

basketball. If I showed up every day and I did my drills and shot my free throws and did my three, uh, my three pointers and did my dribbles and did all this shit in five, 10 years. I'm pretty fucking good. That's reality. Okay. Same thing with you over here with jujitsu. You're a new guy at jujitsu, so to speak. If you give another five years to jujitsu, dude, there, there could be no limit to where you go. You could be the guy in the UFC ring. We don't know. But this idea that people do all this work and then somehow it doesn't create anything is a fucking lie. It's not reality. That's something that is told by our loser friends or our loser parents or our loser teachers or people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about that talk you out of just

going down the path. You have to go down the path and you have to go before you believe in it because the work will always come before the belief. All right. After you do a little work and you start like you see a little bit of result, you're going to start saying, wow, just like you just explained lane. did you come to my talk no but i mean yeah this is that's because this is reality and we're both realists that's the way it works okay this is that's because this is how fucking works it's universal this ain't my shit this is just how the fuck it works if you do the work you're going to get a little bit of result when you start to get a little bit of result you you start to say, oh, and it clicks.

And you're like, okay, I did this work. I got a little bit of result. Then you're like, well, fuck. All right, I'm going to do a little bit more. And then you do a little bit more and you get a little more result and it clicks again. And then all of a sudden, now you start to understand how the game works in reality. And then you're all in. And when you go all in and you start going down the path with the belief that you can become whatever it is that you can become, your limits become literally limitless. I love that. Two things you said walking the path. So that that gets into the like I tell people like just start executing.

Yeah. Stop fucking overanalyzing this stuff and just start doing because if you're walking the path, sure, maybe you stumble, maybe you fall down, but other paths will start to open up to you as well, okay? That you don't even know exist yet when you're walking the path. But if you never start, you're not going to have those opportunities. And it's just,

the other thing that this made me think of was there's so many like books and seminars on how to develop confidence. I can tell you what develops confidence in 10 seconds. Do attempt really hard shit. Go through really stressful times where you don't think you're going to make it and keep going. That's what develops confidence because when you've been through some shit and got through it you go with the next time life punches you in the face you go okay maybe i'm maybe i'm i'm not going to stay down i can get through like the stuff i've been through in the last five years

if that had happened to me when i was 20 oh dude no fucking way it'd break you know what i mean it would break me but i mean it's again progressive overload for life, right? The only way you can develop true confidence is to attempt hard stuff, run up against the obstacles, get through those. And I can tell you, whenever you, like I don't sit there and look at the trophies. I don't sit there and look at the degree. That's not what I think about. What I think about is the really hard shit I went through to get to it. That's what I remember fondly. If you just have everything go right and get something, it's going to be like Dave Ramsey is saying, you eat enough lobster, it tastes like soap. Right?

Yeah. going to be like you know uh dave ramsey is saying you eat enough lobster it tastes like soap right yeah that's that's because and the same reason why people who win the lottery are broke in five years because you didn't have to go through anything it did life didn't teach you none of those skill sets that you gain that you would gain during the normal path were acquired exactly right it's easy come easy go exactly that's some true shit some more of the bargain no that question no that's some true shit what you're saying about ramsay said too about like people don't realize that like when you when you you acclimate to anything oh yeah okay so like all right and i'm not saying this to be an asshole but like i could eat whatever the fuck i want every single day all right and like not saying calorie wise but i'm talking quality wise sure all right like if i wanted to eat the best fucking steak for dinner that the world has to

offer every single fucking night of my life i could and in fact i did that for a while you know what started happening i started not appreciating it and so i told emily i said don't get those steaks anymore go back to the regular steaks because my friends used to sell me send me these like gourmet steaks i forget where they're from they're from new york and um i fucking loved them so much i started ordering them they were expensive as fuck but i didn't give a shit right like this is what the fuck i work for i'm gonna eat fucking the best steaks ever right and i got so used to eating them that like i was like this is it like this is it and so dude i intentionally went back to like just getting the regular shit from the grocery store because i wanted to be able to appreciate the good steak

when i had a good steak and so we have to be aware of these things in our lives that we become so accustomed to even the good things and sometimes intentionally make things hard so that we can keep our edge and keep our appreciation our gratitude for the the really truly good things in life unless we have to reset that yeah yeah and i i like i've i told people like i'm you know i do well for myself and i'm very grateful that it's been a stepwise 20-year process and i didn't just hit it big really quickly because there's just been little things along the way where it's, I remember like the first time I had a hundred dollar bottle of wine.

I'm like, Oh, this is cool. You know, like I still got to have those little wins where it's like, you know, if you have it come quick, I mean, you can blow your wad, you know, you can punch that dopamine out pretty quick. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it doesn't mean anything anymore. Right.

Exactly. And so, again, no matter what you make, what your job is, whatever, it's going to come down to none of that's going to make you happy. It's feeling like what you do has value and that your work has meaning to me yeah and so like don't get me wrong i want to make a lot of money i want a whole boatload of it you know but i know that that's not going to make me happy all that's going to do is give me an opportunity to buy some of my time back to do more of the stuff i like to do that's real shit guys andy i think we got one final question this is this is a good one um andy i'm 18 years old and i was raised in a single parent household by my mother she did her best to guide me but i have

massive anxiety when it comes to feeling prepared as a man. Never met my father, no real desire to either, but I've never really had any real man figures to learn from. I see a lot of men online who I feel I can learn from, but I don't necessarily connect with the macho, macho cut down trees mentality that they define a man of having. What are your thoughts on this? I would love your insight. Well, first of all, you know, I think it's important to recognize that just because you didn't grow up with a father doesn't mean that you can't be a great father or a great dad

or a great man. All right. That's, that's, that's the first thing. In fact, the likelihood of someone who's grown up with a shitty dad or as a shitty father figure to actually be a good father figure and a good dad is much higher than someone who grew up with a good one. Because it's no different than someone who grows up rich and then it's generational wealth situation, right? Where you have the founders and they do very well. They build something from scratch. Then their kids come in and they do very well. They build something from scratch. Then their kids come in and they fuck it up. They become poor. Then they have kids and those kids don't want to be like their parents. So they work very hard. So you have this like every other generation type situation. And I've seen this over and over again with people who grew up without a dad who decided that they want to be a great dad. In fact, that's you. All right. Um, yeah.

And, and so you should see that want and that desire that you have inside to be a good man as a tremendous asset to your life, because a lot of people take it for granted and they don't even think along those lines. So you were gifted with something that like a lot of people aren't really ever going to have. So recognize that to start. That's a big deal. Okay.

Because if you want to be great, you have to have the will and want to be great. And you can't have the will or want to be great unless you can recognize that there's something that needs to change. And you've been gifted with that perspective. And I would see that as a gift, not as a disadvantage. So that's the first thing the second thing is you know when it comes down to this uh cut your tree down you know masculinity man i understand yeah dude i get that too like because that's you know it's it's way overcooked

right um you know we have we have a lot of really dumb shit out there when it comes to being a good man, you know. I think this person, your gut of who you connect with and who you recognize to be a good, strong, solid man example is probably going to be the right person to follow. We have good gut instincts naturally, especially when we apply our own perspective, whether we're aware of that perspective or not aware of it, we understand, okay, this makes sense to me. This sounds good to me. This looks good to me. It passes the sniff test, and you should be able to recognize that. And there's nothing wrong with saying, like, this isn't for me. Because, dude, I got to be real with you.

Like, there's a lot of this masculinity shit going around. And while I agree that masculinity is very important, I think that it's misrepresented by a lot of the masculinity figures out here. Maybe even me sometimes. You know, I curse a lot. You know, I do have a beard. I work out. You know, like I, you know, but i don't sell myself as that that's not yeah that's not my brand makes me a man but like yeah but like dude i see this with people in their

content right like people will try to replicate my level of content or my style of content not recognizing that that's authentically who the fuck i am right so we have to be authentic as well so my advice here if like dude if you really want to, like, who a good man is without this overly, like, look at my brother. Like, look at my brother Sal. You should follow my brother Sal. Like, he's a dad. He's a husband. He works his ass off.

There isn't a person I know that works fucking harder than him. And he's an ethically grounded, moral person with high fucking standards for the people around him. And he does the right thing. He helps people out. He doesn't let people take advantage of him he's he has boundaries i mean like when i think of a like a good example it's really hard for me to find one that i would recommend more than him and that's you know that's coming from somebody who's watched it materialize and i'm not saying that because he's my brother i'm saying that because it's the truth. But, you know, all in all, man, here's the reality. Be a good person. Work to be the best that you can. Work hard. Do the right thing. Treat people right. Pick people

up. Do good things for people. Live the code. You know what I'm saying? Do onto others what you would want done onto you, even when they don't do onto you the way that you would expect them to, you know, there's, there's, these are basic things. These are have high integrity. You know, when you fuck up, like we talked about earlier, own it and say, Hey, I fucked up. That's my bad, right? All of these qualities make up what I believe a true masculine man to be. And I think it's misrepresented and kind of overcompensated right now because we've spent the last 20 years demasculating men. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, we've been trying to make men feminine. And the reality is they've put atrazine in the tap water and they've worked to put chemicals into food that reduce natural testosterone production like they're it's a scientific reality that the average testosterone of a young man now is much less than it was 25 years ago so these are things that have been intentionally removed from society through you know whether it be uh food or chemicals or social movements such as the Me Too movement or the feminist movement or any of these movements that have basically villainized men for being men,

toxic masculinity, right? We've been the enemy for a long fucking time now. So it's very important to recognize and realize that we're overcompensating some on the back end right now. And some of this shit that you see out here, like you don't have to go, you don't have to be a bow hunter. You don't have to be someone who walks through the woods with a fucking ax or a chainsaw. Like you don't have to pose real hard in your pictures.

Like, bro, it's real simple. Like be a provider, be a protector, be a man of honor, be a man of truth, be a good friend. Like these are simple things, man. Give a fuck about people. Give a fuck about what's going on.

That to me, when I look at men, that is more masculine to me than some dude with a fucking beard and an ax pretending like he's some sort of hard ass. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the,

the point I would make is like, just try to be a good person in general. I think, you know, everybody has their own definition of what masculinity is. And like a friend of the family that I grew up with, I would consider a very masculine person. He was never loud. He was never boisterous, you know, but he had a quiet confidence about him.

And I'm not saying you have to be quiet either because I'm not, you know. No, but that's masculine as well yeah so kind of like just i think the confidence of like stepping into who you are yeah um and then i would say you know being able to lead you know and and make hard decisions and like you said having good boundaries like being empathetic and being able to like be soft when you need to be soft but also be a protector when you need to be a protector you know those sorts of things and i think that's a hard balance to walk you know and i think it's pretty rare but i think it's more about being a good person than just like the idea of being the right kind of masculinity right but the fact that this kid is asking this question it means he's aware of it he's gonna be okay yeah right exactly the awareness doing self-introspective

you know you're already asking the hard questions so many people in life when bad stuff happens to them they just start they immediately start pointing fingers because they can't take the the internal stuff i've been there you know yeah we've all gone um and so you know like it was like when i was getting ready to be a dad i was like you know? Yeah, we've all gone through that. And so, you know, like, it was like when I was getting ready to be a dad, I was like, you know, I'm worried about being a good dad. And somebody said, that's why you're going to be, you know? Yeah, dude, the awareness creates the action that's needed to become.

Right. And I mean, like, you know, I'll use a quote from my friend John Deloney and how important it is to have, I mean, having good fathers, um, because what I'm going to butcher the quote, but John's quote was, uh, generational trauma is like a wildfire that rolls downhill and burns everything in its path until one brave soul stands up and says, not on my watch. Sorry, I'm getting choked up thinking about it.

Because my dad, his father was absent, abandoned his family. He had abusive stepfathers. All of his brothers, you know, had all kinds of issues. And my dad isn't perfect by any stretch, but he, you know, like he spanked me a couple of times. We never like actually put his hands on me as we would call it. And he was a great dad by any stretch, but he spanked me a couple times. We never actually put his hands on me, as we would call it. And he was a great dad. It was literally down to him.

He said, I just decided that I was going to be everything that my father wasn't. And I think the people that are actually able to make the difference, it boils down to victim mentality versus accountability. I can control how this happens. Like my story isn't written. You can change right now. In fact, one of my favorite quotes is when Robert Downey Jr. was on Oprah, right? This is years ago. I got this out of a motivational video I saw. And he's, he was talking about his drug addiction and he said um you know it's not that hard to get past all these seemingly ghastly problems in your life and oprah interrupted him and was like wait you're saying it's not that hard he goes no what's hard is to decide because you have to become somebody different.

Like when, when something gets so ingrained in who you are, even though you may know it's not good for you, it's not who you want to be. There's so much comfort in what you know, the human brain is wired to like basically hedge all your bets, right? It's not wired to reach necessarily. And so when, even if you know, I could have a better life, things would be different. I would like who I am more. It is so hard to get past the idea of being something different,

of doing something different. And different and um one of the things i said on i think on huberman's podcast i said you cannot i'm talking about like weight loss but this applies to anything you cannot become a different person or the person you want to be while dragging all your old habits and behaviors behind you. And Ethan Suplee, you guys know Ethan? Yeah. Awesome dude. Yeah, he has a phrase, whenever he puts up a picture from the gym,

he said, I killed my clone today. And if you talk to people who were addicts or people who made drastic life changes, you know, there are skills, there are, there are not tricks, but you know, there's certain things that are evidence-based to do. But at a certain point, it just boils down to you make a decision that this is not going to be like this anymore. And it doesn't mean that you never slip up again. It doesn't mean that you don't, you know, screw up here and there, but for the most part, you walk the path of being the person you want to be and if i think about the only times i've really struggled with like truly feeling bad about who

i was is when my actions were not in alignment with the person i wanted to be and so like you get to make a choice every day about who is the person that I want to be. And that boils down to on a, on a grand scale, it is the summation of little choices you make every day. And I'll tell everybody like, listen, again, we talked about it. Like nobody's perfect, but be really careful about the small things that you let slide. It is so easy. This is coming from somebody, and I don't mind talking about it, who had an affair.

Okay? First, it started out as like, oh, it's just nice to get some attention. You know? It wasn't like, oh, I didn't want that to happen. But I slowly eroded what my hard boundary was. Yeah. And eventually you wind up in a place where you go, how the fuck did that happen? Well, I know how it happened.

This was my line. I said, you know, that line's okay. You know, no, it's not okay. That's right. So having your, I think, again, like getting back to masculinity and ethics. Again, nobody's perfect. But having your mind like, and having kids now, this really changes it. Would I want my daughter to grow up married to a guy like me?

Would I want my son to grow up to be someone like me and now i need to retroactively think about how am i going to handle these situations with that being my mindset you know and you know again i'm not perfect and i still screw stuff up but that has been a little bit of a game changer in terms of how i approach things yeah Yeah. I got two things on this. The first thing I would say is, again, great being aware. Like you mentioned, this was my life. This was my upbringing. You and I have talked about this a hundred times.

Plenty of times. And I think for me, one thing that I kind of had to, that I adapted quickly with my perception of the world was that, you know, I wasn't able to lean on what I didn't know. I leaned on what I knew. Right. And I use the opposite, meaning, you know, I didn't know what a good dad looked like. I knew what a bad one looked like. So just don't do that. Right. Like when it came to and that goes with anything, I just was able to use the opposite. But I would say this, like, like you know when it comes to being authentic

you know you don't have to go chop down trees but you should have the capacity to do it you don't have to be a violent person walking through mad every single day but you should have the ability to be violent right like you you have to learn all of these skills and i think as a man that's one of the most important things is being able to put on these different hats metaphor metaphorical hats, and being able to do that when you need to do that. Like if you have to be a protector, be that right there in that moment. If you have to be violent and handle business, be able to do it. Right. And to me, I mean, that's my biggest thing.

I think it's great. I mean, being that young, I think I was probably around that same age when I started like thinking about, OK, well, shit. How old did he say he was? He's 18 okay now I think I was about the same age when I was like okay well who am I supposed to be you know who you're supposed to be you you know and it's gonna take some time to get there yeah like knowing like knowing who you are internally and then making sure the external manifests that you know just thinking about what you said I remember what is the old Chinese or Japanese proverb which is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war right that's

real shit man it's real well guys andy lane that was three yeah hey lane thank you so much for coming on the show again bro thanks for having me yeah welcome anytime it's always great to see you um i thought the show was great i appreciate your input and advice i'm sure everybody else did as well uh where can people follow you at if they're not following you so far yeah so i mean social media is kind of my digital business card at bio lane is where you can find me on most platforms and then my website biolane.com has all my stuff on there and then then my nutritional coaching app, Carbon Diet Coach, for people who are looking for really affordable nutritional help.

But I do the whole gamut in the fitness industry. So whatever you need help with, one of my companies or one of my products can help you. There you go. All right, guys. Well, that's the show. Don't forget to pay the fee. And don't be a hoe. Share the show. Don't forget to pay the fee. And don't be a hoe.

Share the show. We're sleeping on the floor. Now my jury box froze. Fuck a bowl. Fuck a stove. Counted millions in the cold. Bad bitch. Booted swole.

Got her on bankroll. Can't fold. Just a no. Head shot. Case closed.