The Sevan Podcast - #309 - Jim Hensel

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

Jim Hensel is a mental conditioning coach and the man behind "Mayhem Mindset". He works with the whole gambit of people helping people establish their identity and organize values around what your identity is. He works with everyone from high level athletes to a businessperson trying to establish purpose. https://thesevanpodcast.com/ https://www.paperstcoffee.com/shop https://www.barbelljobs.com/ "The Sevan Podcast" T-Shirts https://asrx.com/collections/the-real-sevan-podcast-collection Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/ Support the show Partners: https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATION https://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK! https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS ... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You didn't tell them that you were doing the largest podcast you've ever been on and they give you a better room? I did. Like, fuck, we'll put you in the Mayhem studio. We'll have Rich walk by with his shirt off a few times. I said all of that and it just walked past me. They obviously don't understand your identity. I know my lane, all right? I mean, it's all good.

I'm going to plug this in. I want to tell a story real quick while you get your audio right. So you guys know I'm good friends with Josh Bridges. Oh, now we have an audio problem. Whatever you plugged in. Sorry. Yeah, that's cool. We got to hum as soon as you plug those in.

When I first started this podcast, I was friends with and I still am good friends with Josh Bridges and Matt Fraser. And Josh Bridges had a coffee called Good Dudes. And I drank that coffee and I loved that coffee. And Josh would offer to send me free coffee. And I would not accept his free coffee because that's a friend of mine who's running a business and I wanted to support it. who's running a business and I wanted to support it. And, and I, and I believe strongly in that. And I have some really funny stories of some friends who are cheapskates who tried to like, you know, get discounts, like on a doula or a midwife. You don't want, you want, or you don't want a discount from your psychiatrist or your dentist. You don't want discounts on those things. I pay full price. You don't want to get the feeling that came out of Jim's mouth anyway. And so a guy reached out to me called from a company called paper street coffee in New Jersey. And he said, Hey, I want to sponsor your podcast. And I said, Oh, but I already drink a coffee. And, um, and I didn't

get, like I said, I didn't get any money. And he said, I don't care. I said, okay. I go, but I'm going to still drink that my friend's coffee. And he's all, I don't care. I love your podcast. And that's why I'm giving the money. I'm like, oh, fuck this guy. So I go, okay, send me out your coffee. Let me drink it first before I let you sponsor. So he sent me out a bunch of bags of coffee. This is the coffee right here. And I started drinking the coffee

and he started sending me money. And it's the only coffee I drink now. And he sent me a text yesterday saying, hey, we're getting a lot of great response from your listeners. Thank you. And I just want to tell you guys thank you because, like, this podcast does cost me money and a lot of money. And it costs Will Branistetter and Caleb and Sousa. And so when you guys do that, when you buy stuff like this or you go to barbelljobs.com or you go to our sponsors, and we have a bunch of sponsors lined up.

We just can't get to them because we're too busy doing podcasts every day and this thing's exploding but i just wanted to say thank you because you buy this guy's coffee and and and you validate us it's weird but anyway that's how it all went down and thank you okay house cleaning done it's weird when you take a shower you think of those stories you know what i mean like i got soap in my pubes and i'm like wow i better tell the coffee story. I think showers are a good time for me to just kind of get lost in my own thoughts too. So it's, yeah, I guess I wasn't lost. I wasn't lost. I get lost. Jim. Um, I am one of my favorite hobbies is identity. Yeah.

And not so much mindset, but identity. And maybe, obviously, maybe we're just talking definitions, but I'm a huge identity freak. And when I, I think it was, I think I had Rich and Scott Vanderstute on the show. And they mentioned your name. And they said that they mentioned the thing called mayhem mindset. And then, so, and then they're like, you should talk to him. And so before I did any, you know, hardcore research on you, I'm like, well, shit, an endorsement from rich, like, and so we reached out to you, but in the last four days, I've just been devouring everything I can find with you and wow um sometimes i'm nervous to do podcasts because of the guests but i'm nervous because of how excited i am of this of this topic you know

what i mean this is like we are at a point in history where people are very confused very very very confused if we lived in a cave um and we didn't have electricity or running water we wouldn't be so confused um one of us would stay home and protect the women one of us would go out and get water we might go out together to kill an animal we would know every day what our job is right people are fucking confused now They don't have to worry about shit. Which which which you help them get their house in order. Yeah. Yeah. Define yourself. What's your identity? Connect that to your values. Connect that to a great routine. connect that to your values, connect that to a great routine, be able to re-aim your life every day.

I hate, I hate. Be able to what your life every day? Say that again. Be able to what? Re-aim. Re-aim. Re-aim. Refocus. Okay. I, I hate, um, I hate the term mayhem mindset. Um, it rhymes, you know, know so but everything

that I do is simply based off my journey to figure out identity in my life I didn't read any of this in a book I'm not an expert at anything other than this process that works for me and so I'm trying to communicate it to other people

so yeah this idea like look if like, look, if you, if you don't know who you are as an individual, then it's, it's just logical that you won't know how you fit in family and society and community. And excuse me, your image just flipped sideways. I don't know why I did that. I didn't touch anything. I have no idea why I did that. I've got an iPad right here and all of a sudden it went sideways. I'll tap the screen here and see what happened. Could you just turn it? I didn't turn anything. I literally was just talking. Could you turn it again? Yeah, I can try. Or not again. Sorry. I believe you that you didn't turn it the first time. Usually

you got to close the iPad. Yeah. And then it'll open and it'll do what's right. All right, you ready? Yeah. Sorry. No, I'm good. I literally don't know what happened. How about if you went like this? I'm going to try that.

Oh, yeah. Damn, you look good straight up and down. I apologize. I don't know what happened. Unneeded. Hey, do you not like the term mayhem? I looked up the definition just now because it says needless or willful damage. And so that with mindset doesn't work for you. The definition of mayhem.

Yeah, I was in a is that talking to a judge? Yeah. Well, I just don't like the idea of mindset because it just means so many so many different things to so many different people. I was talking to a judge the other day in Ohio, and we were talking about some stuff, using this in some prisons and with kids on parole and stuff, and he was just like, man, I can't have that name in my jail. I get that. One of my biggest challenges is explaining to people what I do. That's a huge challenge for me because it is about identity, getting clear on your personal identity and an opportunity for you to do that.

I don't tell anybody what to believe in mayhem mindset. It's simply a process for you to use to establish your identity, reorganize those things, get clear on what your strongest beliefs are, and then use those every day. Keep yourself grounded. Get clear on what your strongest beliefs are. You use the word values a lot. And I don't use that word, so I have trouble for it. You know, it's sticking with me. I looked it up.

People on the shows talked about it. You did a show with that, the, the pro football player, um, two pro football players. Bussing with the boys. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other one, isn't that guy, is that guy, Darren, was he a football player too? Oh, Darren Woodson. Yeah. He was a Dallas Cowboy kind of. Um, tell me what me what are values?

I define a value as it's simply the language of what you strongly believe in. It's that simple to me. Think about this. You show up at a, let's use CrossFit, for example. You show up at a CrossFit gym. YouFit, for example, you show up at a CrossFit gym, you're super fit. You arrive a little bit late. You didn't hear what the coach did as far as explaining. You jump into the workout and it's an AMRAP, but you don't know what an AMRAP is. Well, you're two rounds down before you figure it out. I don't care how fit you are. before you figure it out. I don't care how fit you are. So there are a couple of things that we know that are just true because it's to be human. It's the experience for all of us.

We're working at trying to keep our emotions controlled because we know we feel first. The science is the limbic part of your brain's fire and first basics. So we're going to feel first. And the second part of the brain is the ne basics. So we're going to feel first. And the second part of the brain is the neocortex and it's putting language. If you can't say it, you can't write it, you can't live it. So we're all trying to keep our emotions under control. And then we're all trying to make a good choice or a good decision based on what's going on in our world today. And that's happening. And so if we're not working at articulating or being able to speak clearly about or write clearly about what our strongest beliefs or our values are,

then how the hell do you use them? This is the space that I found myself in when this became important to me. He just used the word space. We're going to come back to that word too. That's, I think, a much more come back to that word too that's i think much more poignant and powerful word in jim's world and my world than probably a lot of people give it credit space is a really really um important idea here um in the context um of all the interviews that i've seen that that you've done and i'm sure there's how many clients do you have how many

people are signed up is it a lot is it like five or is it more? It's not, you don't just have like five pro athletes. Okay. Um, in the context that I've seen this, the mayhem mindset applied in it's for, it's a very, very simple idea. It's for guys who've invested their whole life into like being, um, the, the best at something, you know, best pole vaulter in the world. And then all of a sudden they reach an age and their pole vaulting career comes to an end for whatever reason, like they're 37, they just finished their last Olympics. They know they're not going to go again. Now, who are they? Because their whole life for their whole life, um, the 10 years prior to that, or 20 years or 30 years prior to that it was all about um how far they threw a stick

and what's going to happen when you can't demonstrate who you are anymore and so some people well what's interesting about that is at some point everyone should have to go through that in life. If you don't, you will, in my opinion, you will not have the opportunity to find God, find yourself, find enlightenment. I use those terms interchangeably. If you don't, and I'm reading a book called Mask right now, and the guy's going to come on the show, the author's going to come on the show, and he basically said the same thing that Lao Tzu said but in a different way he said to to be to be someone new you have to lose the person you are you have to give up the person you are to be someone new and so that that's framed as kind so help me out here or take off here wherever you want basically that is that your primary clientele or is it just everyday men is it is it people who like it's like i graduated from i've been in school like i experienced uh my first sight of that when i you know i went to school from when i was three years old to when i till i was 25 right and then all of a sudden i get out of school i'm like oh shit. I'm not a student anymore. I mean, this, this, this process is applicable everywhere. Okay. Like you get a divorce. Who am I now without my wife?

So a guy that sold his business for a hundred million dollars in 65 and, and then he had defined himself with his business and now he doesn't know what to do. Greg Glassman, Greg Glassman. He founded CrossFit, and he did CrossFit since he was 15 years old, and now the whole thing's gone from him. Who is he without it? College student at Middle Tennessee State. I'm teaching a class over there in the past, and they got a degree in business,

and that's the, oh, my God, I don't want a job in business. Hold on, hold on. Everybody relax. This is the way I talk to this. Before you decide what to do next, the job, the task, or even the emotion, stop and get organized. And I call it who you be, just for purposes of defining a person. This is your values, your talents, and your purpose. Just for purposes of defining a person. This is your values, your talents, and your purpose.

Get that organized first. Figure out how to re-aim. Figure out who you are and what you believe in. Develop the ability to be in control of the emotion. Recognize some of the negative emotion in your life that kind of seems to get the best of you. And let's figure that out and work at putting that in its place. And let's eliminate some of the negative stories or themes in your life. Um, so that, so that you really know it's analogous to, let's say you're going to power clean and you're teaching someone to power clean. Um, the first thing we're going to talk about is

where your feet go. That's the first thing we're going to discuss the setup. That's what, that's what this is. It's the setup for everything that you're going to do. Don't just allow emotion and momentum to be what's pushing you around. Have a fighting chance. Be a defined person so that you put your feet in the right place or you aim correctly, you know, today and then tomorrow and then string a bunch of days together where you're really present and you know who you are. Or in my game, the mayhem mindset game, who you be. And then you've got a fighting chance at how the day's going to go. I can't predict at all. I'm not even trying to, but you've got a fighting chance because you can get up every day and go, this is who I am. This is what I believe. And this is where I'm headed. And that was for me

in my own personal life, revolutionary, um, and helped me straighten my life out. Yeah. Um, and, and obviously a lot of this stuff, this, this came to you. I heard your story and I'm sure we'll get into parts of it. Um, this came to you out of necessity. We're all going to be in this conversation at some point. It's just a matter of when it's important to you. And it doesn't have to be a disaster. Sometimes it's opportunity. Sometimes it's not because of a bad situation. It's just like you fail at an opportunity and you step back and go, oh man, I wasn't able to articulate who I am and what I believe to sell myself to somebody. I had a kid come to me and he's going to get a chance to interview in a huge division one football program that we'd all know. And he's

going to, he has a very small window of time, but he's going to get to have the conversation with, with the head football coach. And I'm like, bro, do not go in there and tell them what you can do for them. If he didn't think that you were capable of all the things that he has on his list of the things that you can do, he wouldn't be talking to you. You better figure out how to connect with him at a heart level or at a values level. Are you right for his organization? Cause he's assuming you can do the job. So don't take the five minutes you're going to get and make a list of all the things you're competent at. Tell him who you in my game, who you be, be clear about that. Um, so that's what it was for him. So I think, and I got,

it's, it's, you know, Rich is, Rich was a client of mine and then believed in what I was doing and then has allowed me to have the platform here at Mayhem. And so now we have, we have people all over the world doing the online course and it's everything from baristas at coffee shops to single moms to professional athletes, because I think this conversation about identity and values, it applies everywhere into everybody. And we're all going to be in that conversation at a certain point in our lives when our, when our level of consciousness grows enough where we see that it's important. Yeah, man, there's so much, there's so much. I have real issues with sociology and psychology because of how soft they are with their words, how loose they are with their words, the things they say. They make up words. They say things that mean one thing, but they really don't understand the mechanism of the brain, and they cause another thing. anytime you put anti in front of anything if you're if you're in the psychology or sociology place and you believe in something called anti-racism you you have a serious in my opinion the way i see the way the brain works and everyone in brain you have a serious problem it's like um you're against something that you're keeping alive you're you're you're beating the dragon

with one stick while feeding it with the other hand. It's a fucking twisted thing. Can you give me an example of values? I want to tell you two values that I think I had in my life, very primitive ones. At one point in my life in my 20s, I had this value that I would never kill anybody. That was like the only value I had. I never wanted to kill anybody. I really wanted to avoid hurting anybody at all costs. And one day I woke up in my house.

I had kids and I thought I heard something and I took the gun and I went outside. I was ready to kill something. And I remember going to bed that night going like, holy shit. Well, I guess that went away. That value went out the fucking door. It got replaced with protect my kids at all costs. fucking door it got replaced with protect my kids at all costs yeah um and another value that i i had was my mom um purchased me a uh at the age of 18 when i graduated from college she purchased me a toyota 4x4 brand new truck and this was in 1990 when cars used to remember when there used to be

cars but you're same age as me right i'm 49 you're like 52 or 354 okay and um do you remember when there used to be cars broken down on the road every time you went on the freeway there was a car on the side so i decided that for a since i was getting this car i for every time i saw someone broken down for a year i wrote the date down i was gonna stop just like as a thank you to the world i don't know why i'm not yeah i'm not like a religious guy i wasn wasn't spiritual. I was a fucking knucklehead. I was an 18-year-old kid who just wanted girls and to drink alcohol. But I just felt that for some reason. I don't know if felt's the right word.

And I did it. And I did it for a year. And I stopped, you know, even 2 in the morning driving drunk home from somewhere. If I saw someone's car broke down, I'm like, shit, I made this deal. Are those values? I mean, they're not very deep. They're not very deep. deal. Are those values? I mean, they're not very deep. They're not very deep.

I love what you just said, because I think you really accurately just described what happened in the thinking process. You did feel it, and then you actually responded. Then you did something about it. So in the way I think about it, there was this emotion that you experienced. And then, in the way I think about it, there was this emotion that you experienced. And then, I mean, I mean, do it right now. If you had to narrow what you did to one word, the act of stopping, what would you call that? What would be your word for it? Love. I don't know if that was my word then, but now it is. That would be my word now, love. Trying to express some sort of love to my fellow man. Yeah. I'm in agreement with that. I might define it as service. Right. There's no right or wrong answer here. It is that we do. These emotions come to us, and emotion gives our life meaning. And so in the places where we try to dial those things up

and make sure the people that we love know we're connected to them, and in the places where we try to dial those things up and make sure the people that we love know we're connected to them. And in the spaces where emotion is not useful, like maybe in competition, we try to put it in neutral. And so that's this idea of mindset in my way of communicating. And then the value is that that's the language of action. of action. Um, you know, what, what is it, what is it that, how do we put that motion and feeling in neutral or into action? And that's by giving it a definition. And so, um, my, I want people to be authentic more than anything. That's what I care about. I, I, I value authenticity in, and so for me um what what is that what is that what does that mean i i i interviewed um i interviewed a wheelchair athlete the other day jedediah

and on his instagram account he says that god told him to quarantine and he's a pretty sincere guy but i don't believe that i don't think god did tell him to quarantine you know so right so but i think he thinks he's authentic and maybe he is and maybe he is authentic i'm totally open to it like i'm open to it i'm open to it i know it's just a little thought i had when he said that. I'm like, motherfucker, I didn't tell you to quarantine. Well, here's here's here's I mean, what is authentic? Is that when you act from love? Is that when you act from fear? Is that when you act from your your your scrotum? Yeah, I think I think the test for me is a great question. That's a great question. The test for me is, is what you say you believe in or these values that you've identified bullshit or are you really living them? Oh, wow. Wow. had allowed him to, um, to address, to interpret or to receive gods in that. And it was true to

his values. Then it's authentic. I'm not validating it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not validating, but you, you, you made sense of it for me. Shit. Why am I blurry? That's God's smiting me. Oh, but I, but I get what you're saying. I think I get what you're saying. I have this happen to me all the time. People will come up to me and say, hey, God told me to tell you this. But well-meaning, sincere people, right? Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, that's crazy because God didn't tell me that.

Because you were out shooting guns with rich and you couldn't hear it yeah maybe that's it right maybe that's the way to avoid it god talking to me just more more uh more rounds down range um like i there's a difference to me there's a difference between trying to be right in somebody's life, and that comes with ego. I need to be right here or trying to speak the truth. And so I think language is important. And so how I say it and what I say it, it needs to be authentic. And I'm trying to live my values, walk it out before I talk it out, be that person that I don't have to talk about it. You see it demonstrated in my life.

If you want to know what I'm about, look at my family, look at my children, look at my life, let that body of work be that. And so what I'm trying to help people accomplish is to test what they say they believe in and make sure, once again, it's not bullshit. It's real. It's not some slogan that somebody else says. It's not something that you've just heard that you think sounds neat, but it's really applicable to your day. Because if it's not real, it won't withstand a pressure test. First, if it's not in language, you can't live it. And if it's not real, if you can't write about it, and then it's something you can't actually apply, then in adversity, you'll be willing to compromise.

I think about it like this. When we see this happen to us all the time in our culture, if your platform gets ahead of your character development as a person, then eventually the truth, not what I say about you, but what you're actually living, it's going to double back and get you. Wow. That's a millennial talk right there. If you're a millennial, he just, that was very generous of you to break that down for people. Wow. Not millennial talk on your part. I mean, like you just spoke to a whole younger generation right there. Holy shit. I want to throw one, I want to throw one thing on top of that. I've seen people who didn't earn money get a lot of money a lot

of money and it's the exact same thing it fucking erodes their soul and the reason why is because if you have money that you didn't earn you will have if you have money and you don't have meaning in your life or direction or vision you're fucked for sure you are fucked if you're some dude or some chick who marries someone i i just said that because so I wouldn't sound sexist. What I really want to say to you is if you're some chick who marries some rich ass dude and you haven't earned that money or you don't have a vision, you're going to lose your mind. I'm not even joking. You're going to start doing the weirdest shit. You're going to start having your body cut open and fake titties put in Botox.

You're going to get into supporting the local animal shelter. Like you're going to start having your body cut open and fake titties put in botox you're going to get into supporting the local animal shelter like you're going to have 50 cats in your backyard you're going to start doing some weird weird shit i'm just telling you i know it sounds like fuck you savon i can manage it i'm telling you if you run into a lot of money you better is fat and you didn't earn it you better get your shit fucking organized because i've seen all these i've seen it a million times too many times i haven't seen it happen to any men but i've seen it happen to a lot of women i just don't know any men who married any rich women which is yeah that everything not that they're not out there everything kind of in the culture we're living in right now and that's what you were saying right by the way about the platform if your platform if you if you put on three million followers on Instagram and you're not capable of being authentic, you're going to be exposed.

Yeah. And you'll probably go crazy trying to appease three million people because you're not yourself. Yeah, that's it. Like to this podcast, for example, for me. Jesus, my beard is shedding like a mofo. OK, go ahead. You're just shedding like a mofo. Okay, go ahead. For me to come on your podcast and not be able to communicate who I am and be authentic, and I have some sort of need to be liked by you more than being authentic, it would put me in a place where I may be on this podcast trying to get you to like me or to speak to

me in a certain way. And then it compromises me in that space. Yeah. There's so many, there's so many. And then I sound like an idiot when I come on here. You know what I mean? It's pandering. So you name it, whether it's athletics or entertainment or Instagram, any of those kinds of things, this idea of identity, knowing really who you are and being able to use the tools, not have the tools use you. And you started the podcast by talking about the confusion that we face right now as it relates to identity in our culture, all the way to, and look, once again, listen to me very carefully.

I'm not putting it on anybody, but people don't know whether they're male or female. There's that kind of confusion. We could start naming but we people don't know whether they're male or female. There's that kind of confusion. We could start naming all, you know, they don't know how to define themselves and they they're unclear on identity. And if you're not clear and you don't have some sort of solid foundation in identity, then everything else after that is compromised. I'm not telling anybody what they should do. I'm just saying you should know, or you need to know. You're going to be, this whole idea of the metaverse kind of blows my mind,

you know, to live in real life with real people, not the texting world, not the online world. It requires you to understand identity for your life. And it requires you, in my mind, to do the work. You're responsible to do that, to be authentic and to you in my mind to do the work you're responsible to do that to be authentic and to put that down and to do that work and not have somebody else do that for you so i i that subject right there the male female one and unfortunately it's it's everywhere right now and it's been everywhere for a long time and I've talked about this fucking ad nauseum to the audience. It's because they conflate reality with ideas. There are things – we have to be so honest with ourselves.

There are things that are real. That hat that you are wearing, Froning Farms that are real. That hat that you are wearing for owning farms is real. It's as real as real as real as real as real. And we know that the word hat signifies it, and we know those letters are an alphabet, and that's how we view the world. I've been thinking about this a lot with what you're saying, because you say that if you don't put it in language, it's not a tool you can use. And there is a statement in the Tao Te Ching that Lao Tzu says, and I'm sure it's somewhere in the Bible said differently. Naming is the origin of all particular things.

Without naming, there is no – and what's fascinating, I was reading – I'm going to show you this thing. without naming there is no and what's fascinating i was reading i'm going to show you this thing there's a russian um a mathematician named pd auspensky from the turn of the century and he basically explains that because there is no there is no jim there is no savon and that the trick is is that that we're named at our youth and we do spend our entire life fighting to keep that shit together but there is no i and and and i and we'll go down that path in a second because i think there's two things i'm bringing up here what you're doing in in the mayhem mindset i think from what i'm seeing it's it's relative identity there's something else called absolute identity that really no

one wants to fucking touch they got these barriers up in front of it like it basically religions up in front of it and at the center of that absolute identity is something called some people call it god but i would call it and i like that word but it's so confusing i would call it no thing not nothing but it's no thing and that's that's absolute – but when you conflate reality with ideas and you can't distinguish the two, you start to go insane. And I use gender as the example. You can – like I, Seval Matosian, I don't have a gender because my brain doesn't go there. I have a sex. Sex is reality.

It's defined by what's in my pants. And gender is is idea and so if you do pick an idea you have to also remember and and it's and it's your imagination do you really want to spend your entire life defending that do you know what i mean like I want to pick things in my identity that like that have purpose by defending them. Not I don't want to go around like I don't want to spend my whole life trying to convince you that Bigfoot exists. There is no Bigfoot. Do you know what I mean? There's no value. More kids don't get fed that way. Are you following me on this? Yeah. So I just trip on the fact that why would someone complicate their like you can pick you can pick values. You can you can create create your world so that it's it's easy and fruitful and profitable and energy. Maybe easy is not the right word. But someone said someone said this to me.

They go, hey, it kind of bums me out how much fun you're having with the chaos in the world right now. And I said, do you know why I'm having so much fun with the chaos in the world right now? And they said, why? I said, because it's my calling to speak up against it, to fight for people who are too scared to fight. And so I'm enjoying – I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I guess. Yeah. I call it – I know that was a lot.

I know that was a lot. No, that's good. I love this idea. I mean, there's a lot to think about there. You know, like you and I could be talking about this for eight hours today, and I call it, I call it, I call it values-based identity. I'm not an expert at, I'm not an expert at a lot of things. I'm an expert at mayhem mindset because I created it. And, and so I'm interested in somebody coming out with a real strong idea of identity. And I'm not telling anybody what that should be, but I think there's a requirement in order to be successful. And you just spoke about how that works in real life. And then this idea of strongest beliefs, and then putting that into language that

in 30 seconds or less, you know, you can define yourself in a real clear way. So we've, we've taken this whole idea of all the things you think about and believe about, and we've narrowed it to where whatever it is you say is super powerful, whatever the values that you believe in or you say you believe in are powerful and they're actionable and you can speak to them. So I flipped the camera on you and said, define yourself. Well, you can do it and you don't need to be looking at notes, you know? And I also think that values from, for me, this value should represent your strengths, your weaknesses, and your ideals. Say that again. Your value should represent what? Your strengths, your, your emotional weaknesses, and then your ideals. Okay. I work with companies and people all the time and they think, well,

geez, I can knock this out. Like in an hour, we can write down 10 cool words and then off we go. Now we've got values. Or I'll go into office buildings or boardrooms where they've got the values on the wall, but nobody knows what they are, and they're not living them. So that thing is a dead thing. So values for me are something that should continually be growing in our life. You shouldn't be more than 90% finished with values. And we've got these mountains we're willing to die on. So these are kind of what I call strength values. Then I've got values that are a clear target to aim at when I feel bad. My commitment to respond when my emotions aren't in the right spot. Like simply one of them for me was I spent a lot of

time after my wife left way back in the day worried. And so my commitment based on my code was to respond as a hopeful man would respond. I don't mean fake it till you make it. I mean, I'm going to do what a hopeful man would do right now, get out of neutral, stand up. So that was that kind of a value. And then values that represent my ideals. I change those out every year. I put a couple new ones really intentionally in my code so that that's what I'm kind of grinding at over the year. Like I'm, I'm working on like, like this year I went back to freedom. What the hell does that really mean? I mean, what does that mean? We're, we're talking about that.

So let's, let's start with from the time my feet hit the floor and my eyes pop open until I go to bed. Am I free? Well, there's a lot in there. And so I, I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about that every damn day, you know? Um, and all day it's on the front of my brain. Am I an influencer? Am I being influenced? Um, is some algorithm have me, uh, you know, am I paying attention to the, my family, which is a value that means a lot to me. Um, you know, I used to have coffee with my wife in the is a value that means a lot to me? I used to have coffee with my wife in the morning time. Why am I not doing that?

We want to talk about it from our government to your money to your time. That's what I'm doing with this idea of freedom. I'm journaling about freedom all year long. Then by the time I'm done at the end of the year, I've got to, I've applied that, worked at that value, put it into practice in my life. I know what freedom means to me. So this is, this is how I'm using values. It's not just 10 neat words. These are things that I'm actually, and I keep the list to nine or 10 every year so that it's actionable. I'm literally waking up with a clear understanding of identity and I've used and I've defined myself in a manner where I can pair my identity all the way back to three or four words. It doesn't have to mean anything to you, but it's cues for me.

This is what I know. This isn't what I know Jim Hensel's on this planet to be doing. is what I know. This isn't what I know Jim Hensel's on this planet to be doing. And this is what I believe in. Now I can refocus and re-aim every day. And so instead of being someone who's lost in gray or the haze of life, it's two very different kinds of people. The person who's defined their fight is to be the person that they said they would be. That's their fight. is to be the person that they said they would be. Yeah. That's their fight. And I like that.

That's an established, well-defined battle. The other group of people are people that don't have a freaking clue. They don't know who the hell they are. And they're pushed around by momentum and emotion. And they're in the gray. Yeah. And that's two. I'm not saying better or worse.

I'm not trying to put that on anybody. I'm just saying those are two different ways of living. And I want to be over in this space where, for example, to use your example, where I feel like I'm full of gratitude about the vehicle that I have that works because I'm used to having the shitty ones that don't. I've been that guy. And so I'm going to put that love into action today by pulling over and putting myself in a space to help somebody or to serve my community. That's how that works. Once we know what they are, then we commit to doing it. Then we can actually live it out in our lives. Towards, towards, I don't know, 2014, Greg started Greg Glassman, the creator of CrossFit, started saying that, you would eat, eat and practice the, you know, the pyramid and be dedicated to it and your body. You, you would have no choice at the expression

of your body. Like some girls be like, I don't want to be bulky or I want big. No, he'd be like, fuck you. This is like, just do this. And, and your vessel will turn into what God meant it to be. Right. What, what, what it sounds like you are offering. Well, even if you're not, this is my takeaway from it. This is what inspires me about what you're saying. This is what I'm taking away and doing with what you're saying. You are, you are giving people the tools to rewrite the program for the human being in the most superficial way. What, what time to get up in the morning? Um, how long to make sure you hold doors open for people. Um, make sure that you, uh, uh,

don't put bad things in, don't put shitty gas into the gas tank. Um, you're doing the, um, his was the physical and yours is the mental. You're sitting people down. If people can take just a second long enough to hear what you're saying, they can maybe break the hypnosis they're in and be like, okay, shit. I'm going to take five minutes and try to reprogram myself. Think about it like this. Think about it like this. Am I on to something?

Is that what I'm seeing? 100% But you need space by the way This sounds like You need space And if you don't know what space is Keep thinking about that word space It takes a while to understand what it means

But space is not nothing Space is real You need space Sorry go ahead Jim No it's really good. I mean, you're, you're, here's how I say what you just said as it relates to what I'm hoping people will do. Three components to being, to, to be able to re-aim your life on a daily basis. Identity, values, and routine. To me, that's what you just said. You got to know who the hell you are. You

got to know what you believe. And then you have to connect that to a great routine. Around here at Mayhem, CrossFit is our great routine. So the components of routine are staying motivated, habits, some systems, some rules, all those things are important. What you just said to me was, hey man, make sure that we're executing in routine. It's important to stay motivated. Let's develop some habits. Habits are like a reserve parachute. We need them. You know, rules. Rules are like a reserve parachute. Habits, systems, all of that. Super important. But if you don't do the work over in identity and values, you don't have all components. What happens when your habits fail you, when the system fails you, you miss the goal.

And all of those things happen and are supposed to happen if we're aiming for more. So in order to, unfortunately, people in our culture, they want the, hey, tell me how to be motivated. They don't want to understand they need to create some space to think and do the work in identity and values. They're leaving that up to somebody else. And so I think- Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Say that last part again. People are leaving who up to what? They're leaving other people up to do what? If you don't define yourself, then somebody else or something else will define you.

Oh, my God. So if you don't know who the hell you are. I want to cry. I want to fucking cry. That's the TV set. I saw that happen to everyone in my fucking town. Yeah. The TV fucking told them who they are and they fucking fell for it. Like a fucking Bugs Bunny cartoon. It cast a spell on them.

When I see TV, I just, cause I'm old. I mean, just whatever. Yeah, me too. You just say it,

whatever. Telephone, whatever. Did anyone say telephone anymore? You were told it by some device. Oh my goodness device oh my goodness oh my goodness they were say it one more time for me say it one more time for me i like i really like this um it really helps me understand what happened i mean i i know what happened but i just

like to hear it in different words that i've never thought of if you don't do the work to define yourself then somebody or something else will do it for you. Identity, be clear on identities. Choose it for yourself. Establish it. Put it into language so it's a tool. Connect it to your strongest beliefs or your values because it's simply true that that's how it works as a human. We're all trying to keep our emotions under control and use our strongest beliefs. I am not going to put anything in my body that poisons myself. I am not going to allow anyone to feed poison to my children. You think that's a fucking good value, people?

I have my mother-in-law who I love dearly in the house, and she says, do you mind if I feed your kids some of this popcorn? And she pulls out a little glass jar and it's caramelized popcorn and like a fucking bitch i said yeah go ahead and i let someone feed my kids fucking poison what would you kind of fucking values are those what kind of values are those oh god i just play my game for a second nuts it's nuts and that seems like such a basic value. I want to play your game. And once again, I want to say one thing on top of that. When when Jim and I were kids, this thing popped up in super in supermarkets that never we had never seen before. Someone invented this thing called a microwave. And then every grocery store that Jim and I went to opened up two or three full aisles of just shit that

could be microwaved but when we before when we were really little they didn't have that and no one questioned shit i did as a kid i remember thinking that doesn't make any fucking sense that that and that thing in there just cooked but it's not hot in there that makes no fucking sense to me and at that point on i knew plastic was the enemy i don't want to eat that and now they're saying it makes dudes dick small and cuts down their testosterone and all the shit but i knew i knew something was wrong plastic and the heat like they they just put three aisles in every grocery store with microwavable shit and the day before when jim and i went with our mom sitting in the cart like begging for like a bag of chips.

Now all of a sudden there's three rows of shit they're calling food that's garbage. I mean complete – do you remember? My mom used to go down there and just be pulling – oh, we're going to have this tonight and just pulling the microwave meals down. Holy fuck. And that goes back to what – I connect this to what you're saying about like what are your values? Can you think for yourself? Are you being – if you don't have them, you're being given them. I should have had some values around food.

There's a war that goes on around us in our culture. It's, I mean, it's not, it's not a silly or nefarious thing necessarily, but there's a war of values happening all the time. I like how you say it's not nefarious. I agree with that. I think people are good people. I think people are good people. I think people are good. Well, sometimes it's nefarious and sometimes somebody wants to put what they believe on me, you know. But it's not always that way. We are – it's to be human to organize this idea of values in an order or a hierarchy, you know, what's at the top and then what's less important

in your life. That's important. Putting that in language is important. What would you call that value based on the emotion that you just, that you just spoke with and, and the story you told me a story, there's nothing wrong with that. What would you, I want to cry when I'm telling that story though. You know that like I, like I literally i feel too i feel my uh tear ducts turn on yeah yeah it's powerful right what would you call it i'm gonna call it you know i know right from wrong and i did wrong i know right from wrong and i did wrong and i don't know how i just and i justified it and some like oh i didn't want to hurt her feelings i did the first to be to be honest let me let me stroke myself here a little bit she actually offered the night before and it

was like 8 15 at night and i said no not now they're going to bed i don't want that shit sitting on their teeth all day then first thing in the morning she woke up so how about now my god well what would you define it if you had to you had to take that value and make it i'm asking you to narrow it to one word it doesn't have to be permanent what would you define it if you had to you had to take that value and make it i'm asking you to narrow it to one word it doesn't have to be permanent what would you call that value not the emotion of it in in i don't know if this is i'm just trying to sound dramatic and cool indomitable responsibility what's indomitable mean damn usually i have someone who helps me look up words yeah that's good it's indomitable indomitable can't be changed can't be dominated incapable of being subdued yeah indomitable i'm my responsibility to my kids should never be compromised in my mind like never ever ever like if someone's like like my friend travis

his son just won the harlan award as a junior that's the heisman but for division two yeah and and when he was when and he and his and his other son right below him is the best uh quarterback in in the in the world in high school so he got these two sons he he works at fucking strip clubs at night he works as a bouncer. He'll fly to Serbia to fucking guard some fucking king over there. He'll do anything, but he will not get a full-time job because it will stop him. And he's done this since he's been in the hustle winning arm wrestling matches.

And he's done this since the kids were born because he wants to spend every free second he can with his kids and play football with them. And he's done that. And he stayed true to himself. And I talked to him recently. He goes, damn, I'm the smartest motherfucker ever. You know, West Virginia trailer boy. Yeah. Raised his kids and his kid.

And I interviewed his son. His son is like, like you said, when you interview his son who just won the award, he never tells you about how great he is. He just shows you his character and you just want to fall in love with him. You're like, man, I wish I had a daughter who can marry this dude. My wife deserves this guy. You know what I mean? What, what an incredible, so, so, so yeah, that's it. Indomitable responsibility. I love it. So now think about, you just did that work. Think about that as the definition to family. Let's just use the word family for a second. I'm not, I'm not putting it on you, but Hey man, how do I define family? Because you've spoke a lot on this podcast today about the importance

of your wife, your family, your kids. So we'll use family. Am I going to owe you money after this? Yes. Yes. I've already been. What a cool, authentic definition. Hey man, you want to talk to me about my family i'll tell you what in short it's about indomitable responsibility that's authentic it's heart language and then also it is kind of fake because i'm i am making it up you're defining yourself well you tell me if it's fake do you really live it or not you tell me well i didn't i didn't live it last night i didn't live it yesterday afternoon but i didn't say but i do successful i didn't say that again successful i didn't say were you successful or

or did you fail that's to be human right i'm asking you is that something you're authentically willing to fight for? It's not about whether we make it all the time. It's like, oh, hell yeah. So what does family mean to me? What is actionable? What will cause you to get your emotions in the right spot? Meaning, you know what?

Hey, mother-in-law, I love you like crazy, but that's not what we're doing. Right. And you approach that appropriately. So she's not as, what if she gets offended well people need those tools like you just said like i don't sometimes i don't have those tools like you like what you just said oh um uh uh laney i love you to death i just don't want to feed my kids that instead i go to this place of pouting right you know what i mean like the emotion comes up from the basement and takes me over the number the first the first thing we talk only around my kids though it's crazy because the rest of my life i'm like fucking i walk around like i'm the king

shit i'm immovable you know what i mean you could say i could read the nastiest shit about me on the internet i'm like yeah boy yeah i get it levels importance, the hierarchy of how we rate that in our life. The first thing we talk about is be in spite of what other people think. Be, in my game, values, talents, and purpose. That's the first place. If you shit can your values every time somebody has an opinion about you, then what good are your values? Where will you make the stand for what you believe in because we have to shoot like think about you probably and i i don't know you personally this person ever talked to you

but you're you're a person who has a platform so there's i don't know what the percentages would be but in general there's a bunch of people that like you and a bunch of people that hate you and then in in general because of your maturity and who you are and your understanding of your identity and your values you don't care and you shouldn't care yeah you the people in the middle somewhere well you care but for your we'll get back to that go on sorry you you but you don't care to compromise you know no what they're saying over here on the right or the left is not going to cause you to be like well i guess i gotta do it their way i just don't want to alienate i know i'm speaking some truth and so

sometimes i realize i'm alienating people and so it's a balance right i want people to feel included yeah but i don't but i'm there's a lot of people out there who think they're doing good and are doing so much harm to the world they think they're helping people and really they're keeping them in prison yeah and and it's brutal it's brutal to see i mean on both sides of that right we have the culture we live in today there are so many stinking good things going on and so much positivity and so much power. The light's really light and some of the dark's really dark. My concern, my mission in life is not to tell someone what to believe, but to help them quantify that.

Because positive values, that kind of stuff, that helps us be everything we're designed to be. We know that there's a day we're born and there's a day we're going to die. And that's going to happen. And I'm motivated. I probably spent the first 25 years of my life really messing that up. And I made a lot of mistakes. I only know what I know now because I screwed it up, not because I was the smart guy that got it right. I messed it all up, hit rock bottom. And then, and so for me, I know you did hit rock bottom for sure. I mean, for sure. Do you remember where you were? Was it

a moment in time? My wife left. I had, I had two little girls who were three and five. I, the woman I married known since I was seven left me and walked out for, you know, a famous person. You know, I, I was face down depressed and literally that's the origin of all of this. Like not, I realized that I didn't know how to move forward and I couldn't keep my emotions under control. So I was drowning. Um, and I, and in that moment, I realized that the way forward to move forward was to get my emotions somehow under control, but I didn't have the skill set to do that. And then past that, this idea of strongest beliefs belonged to my dad or some preacher

somewhere. They weren't mine. And I'm not joking when I, were you suicidal by any chance? Were you suicidal? No, no, I think there's a huge difference. I think I didn't want to kill myself, but I wanted to die. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Well said. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was literally was literally, this is no joke. Savan, I was watching Gladiator. I put the girls to sleep. This is the VHS days. I popped in a videotape and it's the scene where Maximus flips off his helmet and he tells Commodus, my name is Maximus Aurelius Decimus,

General of the Felix Legions. In that moment, I heard him say, this is who I am. This is what I believe, and this is what I'm going to do. And it took me about, I don't know, it took me six months to sort this out for my life. But I was bitter and angry enough that I was going to define myself. I wasn't going to read a book. I wasn't going to listen to a podcast. I was going to sort this out for me, and I was going to get it nailed down, and. I was going to sort this out for me and I was going to get it nailed down and then I was going to live it and be committed to living it or I was going to just die. That's literally the spot that I was in. And that's the genesis of all of this.

I'm going to play this clip here real quick. I think this is it. If this isn't it, just interrupt me. I'm going to see. I think maybe I found it. I think maybe I found it. Is this it? Yeah. I don't think there's ever been a gladiator to match. This young man, he insists... Slave! Will you remove your helmet and tell me your name?

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius commander of the armies of the north general of the felix legions loyal servant to the true emperor marcus aurelius father to a murdered son husband to a murdered wife oh that's his emotional fuel right there. Jim. Yeah. That's that's the scene. That's the scene right there. So you you you're down in the dumps and you play this.

And how does it move you? I just popped in a guy movie. Right. Yeah. And in remember space, you just asked about space, right? Yeah. I was, we were talking about space. I was forced into a space where I did not have a clear understanding of identity or values. I knew that I had these two kids that I was going to take care of, but I didn't see a path forward from my life. I couldn't, I couldn't create a vision for myself past what had just happened to me. I didn't know where to go or what,

what, what do I do next? Dang it. You know, what do I grab hold of here? You know, what are the, what does Jim Hensel really believe in? That's going to get, it's going to cause him to get up the next day and make something happen in his life. And I literally popped that movie in just trying to get my mind off my life. And I heard Maximus say that. And in that space, as I was thinking about what is my identity and what are my values, how do I move forward? I heard him recite all that. So I wrote a code for my life. I called it the Strength and Honor Code. I tattooed it on my arm. I started living it out every day in my life and my life straightened out. I started living it out every day in my life, and my life straightened out.

And then 18 years later, it became the process that we now call mayhem mindset. I started looking at my life. All right, so challenge one, two, three, four. In this game, we call them challenges in mayhem mindset. The first challenge is, well, where do I throw out my values when somebody else's opinion causes me to move off what I believe? Where are my emotions destroying me? And do I have the ability to actually live in the present? Like, can I get my feet grounded and pay attention today? Or am I lost in worry and regret, you know, about the past or fear about the future? And I worked through all of that and got it sorted out and wrote about it.

And that became challenge number one. And all the hurdles that I cleared to create this language that became my personal code is now what we call mayhem mindset. And it was literally because of the spot that i found myself in and and being motivated by that movie that's how it started um are these are these values i don't i'm embarrassed to say i don't even know these that well but are these are the 10 commandments values yeah Ten commandments, values. Yeah. Yeah, in my opinion, sure. Sure. So there's one on here that I – this is the only – well, I guess there's a bunch. This honor your father and your mother.

In my 20s at one point, something happened to me where i was just like i'm not gonna say no to my parents anymore especially my mom you know what i mean so if she's like hey come over to my house and help me take the trash out or if she's like hey i need this or i was just like i'm done saying no to her i'm gonna make that a uh a habit i think let me think i had kids and then i and then i switched i think i had kids and then i was like, now my mom calls me. I'm like, nah, you come here. Let me fix what I say. And let me just give you what that would be to me. Because once again, other people would see this differently.

But I have a core value of faith. That's a core value of mine. And what you just saw, as far as the 10 commandments, I would consider the right thing to do. That's the job or the task. So the way I think to do that would fall under the value of faith in my life is what I'm saying. I know this wasn't your point, but what is faith real? If you don't mind. Well, for this is also something that's super, that I say what I say about me. I decided for my life, based on my personal experience, that I was going to define religion as rules without relationship.

This was based on my own personal experience. Rules without relationship. To me, Jim Hensel, the most important thing about this idea of faith in my life is a personal relationship with who I say God is or the creator. remember, once again, I'm not putting this on you or anybody else. I'm telling you what it is I believe about it that made this authentic and real in my life. Because I came from an environment where when someone talked about religion and faith, it was more about being told what to do or all the rules. They told me about rules first. And then the relationship part that was supposed to be meaningful and real, that was left out. Not all the time, but in many ways. That's the space that I was in. So I said, in the process of defining myself, I'm going to throw this idea of faith completely out unless it can be real to me. I'm not going to live that way any further

because I've seen so much hypocrisy in that space. So I'm not going to live that way any further because I've seen so much hypocrisy in that space. So I'm either going to figure out how to define it for me, and I'm going to know how that applies in my life, and I'm going to use that and be committed to it, or I'm going to throw it out. It's not going to be something that I'm going to believe in or I'm going to use. something that I'm going to believe in or I'm going to use. And so for me, Jim Hensel, my definition, religion became rules without relationship. And my faith, this idea of faith, which is one of my anchor values, is grounded by this idea of a personal relationship or a conversation with God. Church, that doesn't come first. That comes after. In my life, the Bible, that doesn't come first. That comes after. In my life, the Bible, that doesn't come first. That comes after. It's not for me, for Jim Hensel. I'm not

putting this ideology on anybody. I'm telling you how it works for me. That's how I live with my wife. My relationship was based on communication with her, something personal, getting up, being in front of her, communicating with her, talking with her, growing relationship in that space like that. And that's how I look at this idea of faith or my relationship with the creator or God. I don't need somebody to help me prove it. I don't need science. I'm not interested in any of that. It's what I choose to believe based on who I am as a person and how I'm not interested in any of that. It's what I choose to believe based on who I am as a person and how I'm going to operate in my life.

And that really freed me as a person up because I came from a space where I was really bitter and angry about this idea of rules or somebody trying to put their ideology on me does this make sense yes very um so when i have a question though it's a little bit of a rabbit hole question but how do you facilitate that relationship or what's the protocol for that relationship with with did i think you used the word god yeah um man i don't know what like Yeah. Man, I tell you what, for me, it's my quiet time where I'm having a conversation with God is the most personal thing that I have. And I do that alone in the dark so that nobody's watching me and thinks I'm pious in some kind of way. I'm not trying to be a preacher, man. That's not my goal.

Right. I swear people judge me all the time, whatever. I, I, I'm, I gotta be careful how I say, because I get really aggressive about this because of where I've come from. And I don't want to, my goal is not to offend anybody, but I don't care. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. Me too.

My goal is not to offend anyone, but I don't care either. Yes. Yeah. I'm not trying. As long as I'm being, as long as I'm being real, like real. My worst moments are in life when I hurt someone's feelings on purpose. Yeah. And I do that occasionally, and I feel fucking horrible. And my mom calls me on it. My wife calls me on it. Hey, you were mean. I go, you're right. I'm not purposely setting out to do that.

So for me, quiet, alone, in the dark, me being an authentic conversation with God, that's important to me. And making the most of my life on this planet, that's important to me. I'm not overly concerned about what happens after I die. That's way above my pay grade, and I don't spend a lot of time. I feel like, and this is Jim Hensel, and be careful, listen to what I'm saying. I feel like and I think, both are very important, that that's above my pay grade. And that if God's not big enough to handle all that, then He's not really a big enough God, right? So I've eliminated a lot of that confusion in my life. For me to serve another person, to be kind to someone, to feed somebody, to make sure that they're not hungry,

that they have a place to be. Those are the things that I value the most about from faith. And I've been to, you know, I've been involved in churches where that was their main goal and they took care of their communities, much like, honestly, much like a really cool CrossFit community where they're paying attention to their people and loving on people and taking care of people mentally, physically, and spiritually. I've been to churches like that where they were encouraging people to understand what that meant to them individually. And then I've been in churches where it was all religion or rules without relationship. And I'd rather be high in the woods than to go back to that place ever again. that place ever again. So this is the work I had to do, Jim Hensel had to do, to choose what faith was going to mean to me and then set it up in a way that I could actually live it. So for me,

it starts with personal relationship. It starts with, that's where my feet go. I'm having that conversation all the time. It's more of a meditative thing for me, a place to be still and get quiet, remove my ego, stop with right or wrong. How do I show up for somebody else today? Damn it. Where do I need to be right? Where don't I need to be right? What are my responsibilities? Do I got to tell my 29 year old daughter this is what it is or do I stand still and be quiet? All that kind of stuff goes on in that space for me. And then supporting it after that, then maybe go to church, not go to church. How much time I'm spending, and this is what Christian people would say, how much time I'm spending reading the Bible, all those kinds of things.

That comes after this foundation of authenticity and real for me. So I'm not asking you to believe it. And I'm not asking anybody who listens to your podcast to think that I'm right. I'm just telling you how it works for me. Understood. And over the past 18 years, it's caused that to be real in my life and caused it to be actionable. And it's meaningful to me. And what I know, the proof in my life is I'm getting the things done that I believe are purpose, that I've said are purpose. I'm the fruit of what goes on in my life. You can see it. If you want to know what kind of tree it is, we'll wait till the spring and see what kind of fruit it is. Does that make sense? Hell yeah. I always love a good tree analogy. The proof is that you've

planted trees over the last 20 years and you're harvesting. Yeah. You're harvesting fruit. A couple of things I just want to throw out there, opinionated things. From the time of what I call my awakening in my 20s somewhere, I became acutely aware that if you point the Bible at yourself, it is the greatest tool discovered in all of mankind created. And if you pointed at someone else, it's the most destructive tool ever created. It is good when you point it at yourself, and it is the source of all evil when you point it at others. And like you said, you don't have to – no one has to take my word for it.

No one has to believe – I'm not asking anyone to believe that. It's just what I've seen. You were to judge other people based on something that you're supposed to be using to judge yourself with is fucking gross. I love that. I love it. cohort of ours, citizens who roam the planet like us, human beings, little ant creatures, us little humans, who argue other people's limitations. They're basically like, think of them as like, we want to ascend and they're holding our feet. There's this value that people think, and it comes often in the guise of kindness, helping, good, but it's not.

They're arguing our limitations. And there's this Taoist saying, argue your limitations and they're yours. And I went and heard this guy speak one time, and he said, God will never give you anything that you don't want. And then it was a way to how to use your mind and get rich. I was making a movie about a guy and he was going to seminar and the whole thing, I was just listening and kind of like rolling my eyes. Cause I knew he was just trying to sell DVDs at the end. And I was judging the shit out of him. But he said that if you resent rich people, God will never let you be rich because he doesn't want you to become something you don't want to

become that you resent. i thought holy shit holy shit and and i and i've said this before i didn't believe i don't believe in god but i knew that was true i knew that god wasn't gonna it's a weird paradox i know i can't get my head wrapped around it either but i knew that you were never going to enjoy the fruits on this planet if you resented the people who have them because the because because you were going to create and so there's the but these people who argue there's a lot i'm trying to paint here it's a pretty big picture i don't even see it clearly but they're arguing other people's limitations is nuts and i and i see you as someone who just knows that and would never do that to someone are are there bad values i mean there's people who that's their value.

Arguing other people's limitations. Worrying. That's like a value of theirs to worry, right? At Air Miles, we help you collect more moments. So instead of scrolling through photos of friends on social media, you can spend more time dinnering with them.

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Air Mile. You see it. We're surrounded by those people. So there are bad values, right? I mean, I think like, yeah, you can say it that way if you want to say it for sure. Or maybe bad. Let's come up with something maybe a little more generic. Let me ask you a question. Is there a litmus test for values

is there like a maybe you don't want that one as a value yeah i i have a i have a i say positive values anchor you through adversity and ground you in success um wait say that one more time say that one more time positive values that one more time. Positive values. Positive values anchor you through adversity and ground you in success. Oh, yeah. That's like this thing you kept saying this one podcast. Also, it's the same thing. You should be ready to handle your darkest moments and also your greatest opportunities. I was like, holy shit, this is so good. This is the question that we start with in this process. Okay.

Am I enough? I think everything comes back to we're asking the question every day in some way, some shape or form, am I enough? We're asking that question or we're trying to answer it. In your greatest moment of opportunity or in your darkest hour, will you be enough? First, can you count on yourself? And then can the people you're responsible for, can they count on you? That's my premise. That's the start of this whole entire conversation. And so this is, to answer your question, this is why it's imperative for each of us as individuals to do this work so that we understand what identity and values are prior to somebody else trying to put their ideology or their thought process on us. Can I give your kid some candy?

If I would have been prepared, if I had rehearsed that, I would have been prepared to, instead of like throwing a temper tantrum in my head, I could have been like, Oh, you know, and I want to be truthful too. My wife's told me my wife has beat all the little lies out of me. So like if someone calls and you just want to get off the phone, you don't say my wife's calling me never,

ever, ever. You stop all lying. That's like one of my values. Now do not lie. You say I'm done talking and you get off yeah my friend dave castro taught me that too it's called integrity zero i like that and people and people will start to respect you want to be around you they didn't they end up not they start doing it

back to you i got to go bye and they just hang up you're like oh that's cool you know what i mean 100 yeah no little lies no white lies especially if you're pretending like you're trying to be nice. Like, fuck off. We have a challenge in mindset called reliability or integrity. And once again, what good are values if you won't hold yourself accountable? Right. It doesn't really matter what you say. And so figuring out where your power leaks out in that regard is important. There are so many different people with

so many different ideas about what values are, how to believe, what to believe. So for me, I've got to be able to stop, go back. I don't think this idea of identity or purpose, I think the first clue at it is it's in your design. It's how you're wired. It's already in you. The actual purpose or the need to have one? In the mayhem mindset game, it ends up being important to define terms so we don't get lost, right? Okay. Yes, sir. That's really important. So when I'm saying something, we're all saying the same thing, because think about how open-ended what you just said could be, we could really get stuck talking about.

Yep. I appreciate it. I want to be the question I had that I, this is a good example. I asked Rich, Rich, if, if I could take CrossFit from you tomorrow, I mean, let's say I'm king of the world and I say, you never CrossFit again. Who the hell are you? And he just paused. That was the start of our first conversation when he came to me. Is the do, the job or the task or CrossFit completely defining your life?

And that's because that's going to come to an end at some point. So if you believe that that's purpose, I didn't say it wasn't filled with purpose or purposeful, but if you believe that's your only purpose, well, then you're screwed because you're only going to get to do that for 10, 11, 12 years. Right. So this idea of purpose and identity, the clues are it, you're wired up that I think in my way of thinking, God gave me all he was going to give me when I was born. It's my job to define it, you're wired up to it. I think in my way of thinking, God gave me all he was going to give me when I was born. It's my job to define it, figure out what it is, and then do it. Put that into action. Understand identity, define it. Why am I on this planet? And that's what we do in

Mayhem Mindset. We work it all the way back to you have a really clear understanding of what identity is. And then, and then every, listen to what I'm saying. Everything you do after that should be filled with it. The do should be filled with who you be, not the other way around. So many people in our culture define themselves by fame, fortune, money, stuff, whatever the stuff is. And so I don't want to be confused by that. I think that I'm wired up. Think about this.

How scary is that? How scary would it be to be that? That's like standing on the eye of a needle or on the head of a needle. I would hate to be – well, and I tell people this. My greatest – and it hurts me to say this because I have three little boys now, and they really are the joy of all my life. I'm probably – my identity is completely lost in theirs. But when I was homeless, there was no greater moment. I was so – it was the greatest fucking two two three four five

six seven years of my life it was nuts it was nuts the freedom i didn't have to defend shit in my identity i was i am and now you're responsible for three other lives you know yeah and i have a and i have this nice filson vest and I got this cool podcast and I got, yeah, it's, it's, it's a mess. It's turned into a fucking mess. Well, can you imagine if you decided that, that, that your life began and this happens all the time, you know, the success that we experience, the vest, the cool podcast, all of that causes you not to be there for the kids. Yeah.

It happens all the time. And then we make this excuse that, hey man, I got to pay the bills. That's, and that's important. But now somehow we've got the values out of order. And that's where faith comes in, by the way. Okay. Right.

Is that, are you telling me in your life? I'm telling you and asking you. Because like, like in my situation, is that are you telling me in your life i'm telling you and asking you because like like in my situation anyone to start a podcast was fucking crazy and i do a podcast every morning like really early so that then i do my podcast from seven to nine then i spend from nine to nine with my kids and then from nine to one in the morning i work on my podcast again reading books prepping for guests blah blah blah blah blah working out in the gym you know what i mean just all that shit and anyone be like dude that's how you're gonna take care of your family you're

fucking nuts but there was like but there's a and like like there's a faith part like i'm i i have faith i believe i i i have i don't even know if i can define it it's almost like i feel like i i live a charmed life like i i just have to put my head down and work and the rest will come into play. So that's what I mean by faith. Like, and every, every once a week,

there'll be a guest who's like, Hey, I can only do four in the afternoon. And I'm like, well, fuck that's when I should be at jujitsu with my kids. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And it's all, it's all, but I keep it so simple, but is, is that, that's what you're saying. I don't know. That's how I define faith. I know you're not, you're not, but I keep it so simple, but is that, that's what you're saying? I don't know. That's how I define faith.

I know you're not, you're not going to define it for other people, but please define it for me. I'll give you how it works in my life. Please. I wrote a code for my life. I called it the Strength and Honor Code. Faith and family are two of my anchor values or my strength values. And so when it, for my belief, the way I believe is that my daughters

are my responsibility, mentally, physically, and spiritually. There isn't anything more important. What could, to me, what could be more important than two little humans who are born with purpose, and it's my responsibility to raise them into independent young women to go live that out on the planet. So what is more important to me? And so I'm going to be sure that inside of the way I structure my life, that I give them the time that they need and I arrive and I'm there. And that included for me, based on what happened in my life, quitting my job and reorganizing everything so I could be there. Wow. Like Travis, like we were talking about Travis. Yeah.

You're like, hey, I got to do this. It was 100%. For me, the most important value was my family, and my daughters were a really important definition or the definition of what family meant to me. Think about how that value grows. What does family mean to you before you're married? Well, it means one thing. Then you get married. And then that definition of family for me grew

a little bit. And then it grew a whole lot more when I had children. Then it grew when I got divorced. I'm not done with family as a value. It's evolving and I'm shaping it and molding it and making sure that I'm living it in the way that I think is authentic and is connected to my purpose. And so I was looking at my children, trying to not allow all the stupid stuff that I did in life to run off on them and be their problem. And then show up as their father to help them grow into the people that they were designed to be. And that's different than me. Their mission and who they're supposed to be on this planet is not mine. But it was my responsibility to stand in the gap.

If I couldn't handle my own responsibilities, then I sure as hell couldn't be there for them. And now I'm wildly excited. My kids are crushing life. And I'm wildly, I'm excited. My kids are crushing life. And my 29 year old came back to of mistakes made, but I have been living the value of family out. And it's easy to see if you just look at the fruit of my life in that space, clearly defined. One of the most important anchor values in my life is the idea of my responsibility to my family. So I'm not going to let my career and let those other things steal or rob my time. I want to be intentional. I don't believe in

balance. I don't believe in balance. Balance means you can be pretty good at a lot of things, and I don't believe in that. I want to be excellent at a few things. I believe in being intentional. I'm talking about when we're talking about the values based kind of a strategic look at life. So it has to stay narrow enough where I can be excellent in those things. I don't want to be juggling a million things. I want to be really great at the four or five things I say I'm really committed to. Let me throw a little bit of a wrench in there. Maybe it's an easy, easy slam dunk, throw you an alley-oop but so you say that and yet interpersonal relationships i'm not even sure what the fuck that means are important

to you and you talk about in a few podcasts and after hearing about it in one of your podcasts the very next morning i made sure that like my one of my kids was sleeping sleeping next to my wife and usually i tipped out of the tiptoe out of the room i'm like well i'm gonna fucking change shit up today and i squeezed in between my kid and my wife and spoon my wife for five minutes and rubbed her back and i'm like take that interpersonal i don't know what interpersonal relationships are that's something like so out of like i never do that right now like like they're sleeping they're cute maybe i pull up my iphone take a picture of them in bed or something but like i don't i don't i try not to disturb them i tiptoe away like now i'm gonna

change something up in our relationship today or i'm gonna like go out of my way to spend like make eye contact with her like three or four more times or like maybe i'm gonna wash one cup today because i never do wash shit um uh and and that that's that's it's important that i get some better at maybe some other things. You know, I mean, I'm trying to throw a wrench in your system of like where you're like, well, you can't be just good at everything. How does that how does. But I have to kind of break up my habits once in a while. Right. I have to go into my uncomfortable zone. Not that it's uncomfortable spooning my wife. But you know what I mean? Like I was in a rush to like get my podcast ready and print out my notes. I was like, nah, nah, chill, buddy. Set your alarm five minutes early and spoon your wife.

Yeah, we're saying the same thing. I'm not saying that there aren't a million things going on and that we're going to be pretty good at a million things. All I'm saying is in order to not let the ball drop, so to speak, when it comes to the most important things, these core things in your life. Those are things we have to address every day and be super intentional with. I think you have to scale it like you do CrossFit. And back when I was in this dark space that I'm telling you about, and my emotions were completely out of control, what I did, and this is going to sound silly,

but it's going to make complete sense when we use the CrossFit analogy. If you're going to teach someone to power clean, you don't give them the bar with weight on day one. You give them a PVC pipe, you tell them where they put their feet, and then you begin to work on it as a motor skill because we know they won't get hurt and they won't fail. And then we put a little more weight on it, a little more weight on it, a little more weight, and then we're able to kind of start to progress in that manner. That's what you do with living values. You don't just start tomorrow and say that, well, I'm going to be the super dad and I'm going to do this with every day and every space in my life because you'll fail because you've got a million other things going on. Not because you're bad, but you've got a million other things going on.

So you scale it. So I did this. As it related to my emotion and my children and this idea of family. I got in control and got completely present with my kids in the car. I took the car back. Every time we got in the car, and we were in the car a lot, because I'm like shutt shuttle them all over the place. Of course, turn the radio off, put, put the phones away and was super intentional in the car. I heard them. We, we, we played, we got, you know what?

We played eighties music when they were little. Cause I took them to school and, and we laughed and we had a great time in the car and then I got really good. It became a habit for me. a great time in the car. And then I got really good. It became a habit for me. I got disciplined in the car. My brain was connected to them. Then I took back, when I got good at that, I took back Fridays. And if you ask my children now, they will tell you that Fridays were the greatest day on the planet with them.

Oh, I love this story. This is some practical shit. Super intentional on Fridays. But Brittany came to me one day and this was when Starbucks was first coming out, you know, and I'm like, I'm an idiot. I'm an idiot. You know what I mean? Like I just I had so much to work on in my life. But she said something about let's go to this Starbucks place and get a Java chip Frappuccino. And I'm thinking in the back of my head, Java chip Frappuccinos are for pussies. You know, that's

where this is how stupid I was as a human being, ego and all that. No, man, stop. We're going to Starbucks. That's what we're doing on Fridays. And I was business wise in a position where I was set up to do what I wanted to do on Fridays. So they were doing great in school. So I would take them out of school. We lived in Colorado. I would drive to Boulder. We'd go up to the University of Colorado. We went to every home soccer match that year because the girls were into soccer. And we celebrated Fridays. And what happened is by the time I took back control of the car and Fridays, it had become a habit in my life. I had developed it and it had been successful where I was able to do that in other areas or more areas of their life. And the value

of family began to be authentic and it began to be automatic in my life. I knew who the hell I was as a father, what my identity was in their life, that value of family as it related to my children. I'd rather be dead than not operate in that space. And I got good at it over time, not by just deciding tomorrow I needed to be a super dad. And that's the way we take these things and make them actually work. Identity and values connected to routine. Scale it. The routine was the car then fridays and then i was doing well in all other spaces uh you say that last part again what you said about you didn't decide to be a super dad you instead this is what happens to us right we yeah we we have this strongly held belief of family but but we don't connect it to routine and motivation and all

those things that are proper. And we try to do it everywhere the next day. And then we fail because we, and then we hate ourselves because we spent too much time at work. I didn't get home. I promised I'd be there for this. Yeah. Oh my God. I don't really, I don't, do you think, I mean, think about this. I used to be a player development coach at a university. So I'm around all alpha male kind of guys, 19, 20 year old guys. I'm down in Nashville. I'm purse shopping with my wife. You don't know me very well, but I don't give two shits about purses.

I like purse shopping. I can't wait until I'm a filthy rich again and can take my wife purse shopping but go on yes but i just like i just like shopping i think shopping's so fun but go on and i haven't i haven't shopped in years but what say it again i like shopping for ar-15s but right right right that's one of the first things i'm going to buy with my next sponsor my next big sponsor yeah so i'm i'm down in nashville i love my wife i love to hang with my wife so i'm she loves to purse shop i'm in a shop whatever down in nashville and i'm holding four or five purses up for her a couple of the guys from the football team unbeknownst to me see

me uh-huh take a picture of me holding these purses, right? I'd post that shit straight to my main page. Oh, I'd show up to the next defensive meeting and they got the picture of me purse shopping. Yeah, I love it. Now I'm going to be aggressive and use this as a teachable moment, right? So they're laughing and I stand up and I come hard. You know, hey man, do you think I effing like purse shopping? And they all freeze because they all know me. Yeah.

No, but I'm'm gonna make that sacrifice i'm gonna be there for her because i love her yeah and i love hanging with her and she's a blast and she's a riot and she listens to me tell ar-15 stories yeah so and actually you're right i don't like purse shopping i like going shopping with my wife. You're right. You nailed it. I like spending time with her. You're right. I had my fucking shit confused. I love seeing my wife happy.

My wife hates shopping. A few years ago, I don't know, a few years ago, I took her to Lululemon. I had saved up like $5,000, and I took her to San Francisco. I never – and I just said, we're going to go clothes shopping all fucking day. And I just said, we're going to go clothes shopping all fucking day. I had no better fucking – probably one of the best days of my life. Went to Nordstrom, flew to Lemon, went to just all over San Francisco before it turned into a zombie fentanyl mess. Yeah, you're right. I liked it because it was with my wife.

I like seeing my wife happy even though she hates shopping. She likes the new clothes. The definition of family, my daughter's my wife, what that is, then it works out from there. There are other people that are included in that definition of a family and the time I spend with them and then scaling it to do that in a way where I can be successful and develop some habits instead of waking up tomorrow and going, well, dang it. I listened to Jim and Servan and I'm going to be a super dad tomorrow. Now, if you don't create some language, develop identity, develop values, and then get that connected, set some goals, some proper goals in your life and do that work to think about that first, ultimately, you're probably going to fail and get frustrated and be mad at yourself. And then we circle back around into that dark spot of, am I enough? I'm just, I'm a crappy dad. I'm just, I'm not enough in that space. Wow, dude, you're really like,

like you'll say stuff and I'll be like, that's not how it worked for me. That's not how it worked for me. And then like two seconds later, it is how it worked for me. I define my, one of the tenets of how i define my relationship with all human beings is i love seeing them move i love watching people move i love watching everything move whether it be like a fucking tractor you know i got that little kid in me you know what i mean like if i see a cow i still look out the window at it you know what i mean and when i start and when people say they don't train with their wife i'm like how could i love watching my wife but the reason the reason why I got into my kids so much is I love watching them move.

So if I can watch them move, it's that simple for me. From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., I'm in my happy place. And I would define that in my head years and years ago. I just love watching them move. I love watching them do cartwheels i like looking at their little fingers play the piano i like it when they're chewing when they when they lift their spoon up i i just love watching and that's why i loved rich so much that's why i love crossfit games so much i didn't give a fuck about the sport i there was nothing more fascinating

than that one second where rich would lock it out and i'd be like holy because no one else was doing that there was like they were trying to go as fast as they can and rich would that would be creating space at the at the poses as romanoff would say you know what i mean at these critical points and i was just like yeah i just love and that's enough that's enough to be a good dad you don't have to try to be a super dad right all you took back fridays That's fucking, and all I heard in that, by the way, people, people think you need to add things to your life to make it better. You don't, it is the opposite. You need to remove things. And so when he said he removed the phone, he removed the text messages, he removed, that's all I hear. He took back Friday in the car by taking things away and just leaving what there was.

And what was left? A car, a dad, and some girls, some daughters. And then that's where I call faith. The rest is just faith. Like, hey, you're making space to let God do – and that's probably one of the biggest secrets to my life you have to let you have to you have to be ready to work hard but you also have to let god handle you you have to let some things happen as i get older maybe i'll be able to explain it better i don't want it to sound all whimsical and and um and and spiritual wishy-washy but there's a, um, that car,

that car story really hits home with me. You have to take shit away and to make space. And for me at the foundation of the value of faith and family for me is relationship. Yeah. Take whatever is getting in the way of communication and relationship out of the equation. How do I get my brain? We talk about being present a lot as a mindset tool. How do you how do you be capital B-E, values, talents, and purpose where your feet are? Values are only force multipliers in the present. So how is that actionable today?

How do you live out faith and family and fitness? Fight, work, hope, faith, team, family, excellence, purpose, responsibility, love, and freedom. It's the 10 core values that represent my strengths, my weaknesses, and ideals. And I'm waking up today as a challenger, an exhorter, and an encourager. What's exhorter mean? What's exhorter mean? What's exhorter mean? Exhort is to encourage you aggressively. Okay. It's three words that say the same dang thing. My purpose on this planet is to coach, to teach. It comes out of me without me even trying.

I broke that down when I defined myself by saying I'm a challenger, exhorter, and encourager. That's the first, that's identity for me. Everything that I do needs to be full of challenge, exhort, and courage. And then I'm living through the lens or the filter in my life of fight, work, hope, faith, team, family, excellence, purpose, responsibility, and love. And I'm connected to a code and I'm connected to a mission statement that says I have the strength to do what is right. Honor is the foundation of my code. I commit to live my values. I'm going to serve myself, my family, and my community with dignity and with hope. I have that all put into language.

And that's the language that forces me to look at it and to have to fight to be the man that I say I'm going to be. Now, I can get up every day. And in that time for me, based on this idea of relationship, in that time where I can get quiet, I can re-aim, get my emotions under control or dial them up. My wife needs to know that I love her today, so I need to give her some more emotion. Maybe I'm not connected in a way I should be or I'm going to go compete today. I know that emotion needs to be in neutral in that space for me. I need to be solely focused on the task or the behavior. I have language now to use these things and I've got a fighting chance. I know I can take care of myself and I know I've

got a fighting chance to be there for the people that are counting on me in my community. And it's not that I don't screw it up because I'm human and I screw up all the time. But it's, I have a fighting chance and I know how to be accountable. I know how to say I'm sorry and I know how to fix it. These are the tools that I'm interested in helping people grab hold of so that it's real practical. And once again, the world we live in, if you don't do that work right now, you're going to end up just, just emotion, momentum, algorithm, all of that. It will put you in a space that you didn't intend to be in. Uh, uh, when you did that work with Michael Chandler, um, he basically, he, he talks about

that. Hey, and that's a pretty common theme amongst, um, meditation too. You better practice this shit when, when times are good. good don't wait till don't wait till times are bad to um to practice uh your your your your mental mindset practice when your times are good and that's what he said he said yeah i found um i found jim hensel now times are good but i don't want to be i want to mitigate any damages probably that's verbatim he wants to mitigate any any damages that could be coming down the road. Because he knows his career. What's interesting is that's in 2019, and his career has only skyrocketed since then.

I was so honored to be in those conversations with him. I remember sitting in a park in Nashville with him as he was working through this. I wouldn't be careful what i say so i don't divulge anything that's personal but he was working through leaving bellator to the go to the ufc and and literally this is what he was doing was what's valuable to me let's get it ordered up you know he comes across as a man of tremendous uh mental discipline like that under self-awareness he is so amazing because he on one hand is one of the silliest people i've ever met like the most funny silly likable human beings on the planet and then he

flips into compete and he's gonna knock your freaking head off the cage doors go unclosed and you're in there with the human being that the question of am i enough think about it in those terms there's it's other than combat actual combat in our culture you're walking into a cage with another human being and one of you is going down for sure yeah it's nuts and so he he did not want to carry all the worry all the trouble, all the stuff that would keep him from being present and fully capable. And when the cage door goes closed, he wanted to be task oriented and he wanted to put his emotions in neutral and be ready to compete. So like you just said, you must do the work prior to that or you're screwed. It's not going to happen in the space where there's all

the pressure. You got to do the work when everything's okay and everything's calm. So that when you're faced with adversity or you're faced with opportunity, you've done that work. You've got a fighting chance. You know how to re've got we're talking about sports now it's a little bit different than life in some ways if you've got some talent and you work at that maybe you'll win you know but at least you'll know who the hell you are in the space and that's half the freaking battle at three two one go i say this to crossfit athletes three two one go one goes off what's in your mind, man? I call adversity a dragon. What are the dragons? I said it to a female athlete here who's a top female athlete. And I said, three, two, one, go to her.

And she looked over me with kind of a crazy look on her face. And she's like, what are you talking about, man? What's in my mind is let's compete. Oh, that's the right answer. If it's what I look like, did I do all the right things? Did I train? Did I have all that emotion, all that? It's going to negatively affect this idea of being present and performing.

Three, two, one, go in our life. What are the dragons? What are the dragons you need to deal with so you can be present and be everything you were created to be um what would man there's something i want to say about presence but i want to go back to chandler really quick what tell me um what tell me about the line here again uh be able to respond in opportunity and adversity right that's the it, I think that's a really powerful thing. How amazing is that, that when Michael Chandler gets in, so when originally all the times you've said that, I thought of that as two separate things, right? Opportunities, you're walking into your job

interview. Are you going to be ready in the right mindset? Adversity is you just got in a car accident. You wake up and you're from unconscious and are you going to respond properly to get your kids out next like the i but in michael chandler's world probably a lot of places these two things fucking happen at the same time the greatest adversity and the greatest opportunity simultaneously as someone locks a door behind you and the whole world is judging you um that that's fascinating to me also i wanted to explain to people what presence is and you can slap me around jim if i'm wrong here you can be completely present and be worried about the way you look you could be freaking out in your fucking head and be present unfortunately the thing you're focusing on is the noise in your brain

and and it's a it's it's an important distinction because people think that when they're present Be present. Unfortunately, the thing you're focusing on is the noise in your brain. And it's an important distinction because people think that when they're present, they might not be trapped in their brain. You could be completely present. It's actually where really high levels of depression are when your brain is so fucking noisy that you're forced into presence to listen to the rattle in your brain. And then there's this other presence where you're running down the field and the quarterback's throwing a pass and it's, who's going to be more present the defender or the receiver. Who's going to like get abandoned. Savon Matosian.

Don't worry about the guy hitting you. Don't worry about any of like, what ifs and jump and get the ball. Right. That's, that's kind of the presence you're, we're referring to as presence. When I vanish, when Jim Hensel vanishes,

it's kind of, and maybe it doesn't say this in the Bible, but in my mind it says it in the Bible, there's somewhere in the Bible where Jesus tells the apostles, hey, when I'm gone, they're going to come after you. Do not prepare your defense. Open your mouth and God will speak through you. Like to me, that's the biblical version of presence. That's like where you want to be.

Yeah. So I just wanted to I just I just wanted to draw like a distinction of that because you can be present and be thinking about the future. If you're if you're if you're present while you're thinking about the future. Yeah, that's good. I had not really ever heard it explained like that. And I like that nuance. I guess when I'm talking about it, I'm talking about it like in a very tactical way,

like strategic 30,000 foot view, we're planning and we're thinking about everything from A to Z and all the details of it. And then when we're actually going to compete or in the opportunity or in the adversity, or to use the example with the kid going for the job interview at the university football program, he's in the elevator. In that moment or in that space, do you get jammed up or can you begin to execute based on what you've done or is worry and regret and imagination and fear and all of those things overwhelming you?

I'm talking about tactically how that applies. I think that's where the term out-of-body experience comes first for some people also. And this goes back to the very beginning of the podcast where we're talking about absolute identity versus relative identity i think that and i have no idea i'm completely making this up and i would and i would love i should ask a fighter this but there's a i'm guessing michael chandler wants to watch himself throw a right he doesn't want to think hey i'm throwing a right hook right i need to throw a right hook i think he wants to like be so present that he's almost observing his body do the training, do the – Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's not autopilot, but it's – you're the observer. You've developed a skill set to where it's a motor skill. Yeah. And you're not thinking about how to have to do that. Yeah. It's a motor skill. And so you, your brain can go to be, to be tactical. If you watch Rich work out, it's very, he's developed the motor skills of what he's doing and he can be present enough. So that means what I care about is that emotions aren't affecting you physiologically or psychologically, because if emotions affect us, then our pulse rate,

pulse rate goes up, heart rate goes up, and then we can't perform like it needs to. We have an adrenaline dump, all those kinds of things, things that we're talking about competition. So he's so present that not only is what he's doing on autopilot because he's worked at it so much, it's a motor skill. And then he's strategically thought about it. Now he's trying to apply it in the workout, but he can pay attention to what his competitors are doing and decide when to go faster. So this is, and think about how many people can't do that. And I'm not trying to judge or compare people. No, no, no.

I talk to people who they're walking to the bar and the only thing they think about in the workout here tonight at the gym is how stupid they think they look. Yeah, yeah. Now you're in trouble or you're walking into the boardroom worried about what someone thinks about your suit. Yep, yep. All of a sudden we're trapped in that space and all the great things. Think about how many times you've left a room or a conversation and wished you'd have said something different or you've done something different. Every day with my kids, every day with my kids, I wish I would. I'm like, oh man,

I wish I wouldn't have reacted like that. So Michael wanted to use mayhem mindset and did use mayhem mindset to get really clear about his life, his personal relationships outside the cage and what that meant from his family, his son, his wife, business. So that that was all really clear and filed away and put it in its place. So that's not noise in his head when he goes into the cage and the cage door goes closed then he's over here as an athlete developing the motor skills and the combinations to be successful so that all he's doing when he gets there is instinctively what comes to him but it's not when i say instinctively i don't mean it's an accident i mean there was a ton that went into planning for that yeah training for that in that space to give him the best opportunity to look for the opening and land the punch he wants to land. And sometimes he's successful and sometimes he's not.

But what he knows for sure when he leaves is he's enough. Winning and losing doesn't define his life. It's not the only defining thing in his life. He's got his values in place so that when he goes home after a big loss, or remember, values, these values keep you anchored in adversity and grounded in success. He's got a fighting chance. His platform is not growing faster than his character development. So that money, fame, all those things put him in a position where he's compromised all the things that he really said he believed in. Those were his concerns. I had this practice. I used to fly a lot. I would never stay anywhere for more than five days for years. And I would fly a lot and I'd fly all over the planet, right? All the continents. There was nowhere off limits for where I would end up going.

cannot stand turbulence and so i had this practice that every time there was turbulence i would i would stop and i would say i love you and then the first person's name that popped in my head i would say it i love you jim hensel and there would be people's names pop in my head that i hate it i love you and i would say their name and i would just and i would just do that until the turbulence stopped always. And it was, and I put that plan in place. It's good. It worked like a motherfucker.

It was so good. Oh, so good. And I always felt better. And those people that I hated, I didn't hate them anymore. I was free from it. It's like,

well, I'm feeling like two birds with one stone. I'm not afraid. In my game, in my game, that's a mindset tool. That's a tool. You, you took the value of love and used it as a tool.

I do the exact same thing with gratitude. Explain. Explain to me. Give me an example. If I'm in a space where I'm worried or I begin to think about me, my ego, my emotion, all that starts to get out of control, I stop and begin to think about and call out the things that I'm thankful for. You can't be doing both at the same time. You can't be loving people and hating people at the same time. I can't be focused, my mind be focused on thinking about the good things going on in my life and be lost in worry. I call those gateway values. Those are important values. Gratitude is a really big deal.

Gratitude is a big deal for an athlete or a competitive person because we can get to spinning and it's almost mandatory. Hold on. Give me some examples of an athlete literally as they're putting the Vaseline on the guy's face before he goes in the cage to thank some people in your mind? This is why all of this has, the work has to be done ahead of time and it has to be narrowed to one or two words. And those one or two words for the athlete have to mean all of this. This work has to be done. Like Sam, Sam Coyier, this year.

Samuel, Samuel. Samuel, I got a chance to work with him. I love this guy. I love this guy. And, and we did, we did all of this work and he narrowed everything to, to one word. And this was, this is, this is taking his personal identity and his personal code and then applying it in an athletic space, which is a condensed version of all the work that you do. But he had perform on his whoop, written in white on his whoop. It wasn't just a cool word he picked out. It was the encapsulated version of all the work that he'd done.

And really, it narrows down for him to this idea of his identity as an athlete and his responsibility to perform. And he could communicate that to you very different than I would here. But there were these three values that were performance values that he, these were his, his nature is to pick apart every dang workout. He's kind of got a, he's got an engineering sort of kind of mind and he can get lost after the workouts over and overanalyzing the workout and analyzing everything to death when he needs to just be quiet and get ready for the next workout or the next behavior. So developing that language in his life gives him a fighting chance at three, two, one,

go to simply perform. It isn't. And are you tracking with me? It means identity values and routine, all that work he did very similar to what Michael Chandler's doing when he goes into the cage. You're kind of hijacking the automation. You're like, fuck you. This is my brain. You're not just going to run just, you're not just going to run wild. I'm taking control. Maybe you can run wild later when I'm going to bed. But not right now. Not right now. I'm taking control. You're plugging in. You're plugging in your practice to override.

It's like one of those movies where like the security cameras like filming something and the thieves like put in like a little recorder recording loop so they can break in and save. It's like, no, no, no. I'm putting in my own loop here. Yeah. Quiet down, buddy. Yeah. Take control. And you put in the work already.

Yeah. A hundred percent. Dealing with with military police fire. Yeah. Instead of instead of compete, it's more about adversity and it's more life and death. And so how do you how do you keep your emotions in neutral while you go to work and do your job or behave properly, including all the physical things that you've got to do where your blood pressure is going up and all there's that emotions going on and then take that off and go home and be a father. Go home and be a mother and connect with the people in your life that you love. That's a giant challenge, right? So if we don't have a definition of what that means inside of competition or adversity, then it's hard to shift those gears and then behave properly or be in relationship

in the interpersonal relationships that, you know, when your little girl doesn't need you to come home and be the law enforcement officer. She needs you to come home and then not to have to carry all the burden that day with you too. I'm not being mean mean or being bad i'm just saying no how do you know how to shift gears and just get on the floor and play dolls with your daughter you know um it's applicable in all these spaces of life there i'm guessing you've been in this situation too and this isn't really nice what I'm about to say, but fuck it. There are these situations where the worst thing you could do is scream or panic. And I'm trying to think of one, but I see it all the time.

I can think of the big global picture one right now. The worst thing you can do is scream or panic, and there's people who scream and panic in those situations. They're contributing nothing. And there's people who scream and panic in those situations. They're contributing nothing. It would be like being – and it just really sucks. It really, really sucks. Like I do really, really well when shit's really, really bad for some reason. I do better when shit's really bad than when shit's really good.

Like I thrive under pressure. I thrive under discomfort. I thrive you know i mean like if one of my kids like a perfect example is like one of your kids like falls off somewhere and like hits the concrete right and now they're bleeding from their head and they're unconscious i don't fucking panic at all zero i walk over there i pick the kid up i take him to the car i drive him to the hospital like there i become extremely focused there's only one thing to do i put everything else on fucking lockdown but there's parents there's moms who will just sit there and scream right and um and we're seeing that on the planet right now someone someone went boo there's not even a real threat here someone went, boo. There's not even a real threat here. Someone went, boo. And we saw half the planet scream in fear.

And when the last thing you should do is scream in fear, you should figure out, well, if this threat is real, what are the things I can personally do to mitigate the damage? Stop eating added sugar. Stop eating refined carbohydrates. Start walking one hour a day. You know what I mean? It goes back to the bible thing instead instead of like well you're pointing the book at someone else instead of pointing at you this is a self-help book when you point it this way it's a fucking it's a scorch earth book um and then there and then there's the then there's the trick right there that those of us who are taking ourselves, we fall into the pitfall to start looking at them, and now we're doing the exact same thing they're doing. Do you know what I mean?

It's like the thing that happened with Joe Rogan. Everyone's commenting on Joe. I want to hear about the people who take that in and how they're going to take responsibility for being offended by it. How am I going to work on myself so that my identity isn't to be offended? Do you know what I mean? Where are those people? Where are those people who are going to take responsibility for being offended instead of blaming him for offending you? Do you feel me on that?

I do. I want to be with the cohort that's like – that's why my wife and I get along so well. We know at the end of the day, our ultimate responsibility is our own for our happiness is on our own. Now, granted, if I was like coming home every night high on coke and beating the kids, she'd have to make some hard decisions like, OK, this I can't I can't do this. This is I'm going to have trouble finding my own happiness here. do this this is i i'm gonna have trouble finding my own happiness here but if it's but if it's but if it's that i just if she's all if i'm always upset because my wife leaves her shoes in the entryway at some point i have to stop being a fucking idiot and let that go and not let my happiness be around where my wife puts her shoes it's been five years she hasn't changed

and so yeah i i don't know where i'm going with this this point but i just it's this general lack of um personal accountability and people wanting to have the right values and the right be able to do the inner work so that they're prepared when something like this happens so you don't have to be blaming joe for it you can be like oh i have an identity that's that's i created that i'm responsible for that's that's i created that i'm responsible for that's that's taken the uh do you want us do you want to spend your whole life being offended by other people's words and defend that from the day you were born to the day you die i sure as fuck don't go ahead good offended to me means that i have not developed my words and my communication levels sufficiently.

Say that one more time. Say that one more time. If I'm offended, if I'm offended, my response is to be offended. It means that I haven't developed language and communication skills about that particular subject. communication skills about that particular subject. So, yeah, yeah. Like, like my, like I was offended when, when, when the mother-in-law offered my kid candy, but that was my fault because I got emotional about it because I didn't have the right words, the confidence, the honesty to say, I really don't want to feed my kid poison or say something. Yeah. Perfect example. We have the ability, people, People make us feel for sure. Things that people do make us feel.

But we have the ability to choose our attitude and our effort and our response. We do. And we have to practice at it. So anytime I get offended, this is for me, that I realize that my response is to be offended, then I know I need to do some personal work because there's no reason for me to be offended, especially if I can communicate in a responsible, intentional way back. I'm not talking about I can change somebody else or what's going on in somebody else's life, but there really isn't reason for me to be being offended. And so anytime you get around

someone who hasn't done any really personal development work and their entire response comes from offense, man, that's a space I really don't even want to be over in. I'm happy to be in a conversation, even a challenging conversation where we're discussing values and it can come from emotion, but we can, I mean, this is the conversation that we need to be in our culture. You said, Joe, Joe says all the time, you know, that the antidote, the antidote for bad speech is better speech. Get good at what you're saying and be able to work past the emotion of being offended. Again, it happens all the time.

Somebody says something to us, we get upset, we're offended. What comes out of our mouth is not really what we intended it to be. We didn't say it quite right and or we don't know what to say. And so 10 minutes later, we think about it and we wished we'd it to be. We didn't say it quite right. And or we don't know what to say. And so 10 minutes later, we think about it and we wished we'd have said that. And so if we can work at, hey, I feel offended here. Feel, filter, think, flow.

It's a tool I created. This is what the emotion is. That's something that we would work through in Mayhem Mindset. You will not get past feel if you do not create space people there you go and that requires a shitload of practice people a shitload of practice and by that i mean real quick uh imagine you're sitting there and all of a sudden you feel something what happens is is that feeling comes up from your basement up to your head and it takes

over your personality. So someone flips you off, and you feel offended. And next thing you know, you're like, fuck you, bitch, and you flip them all back. You didn't create space. What happens is they should flip you off. You should feel that. And then you should have cultivated through this practice that Jim is talking about enough awareness to where you feel that. And then you let that pass.

You observe it. You can choose to say fuck you, but you don't react to it. You maybe let that pass. And the next thing you say out your window is, oh, sorry, dude. Sorry, my bad. Or, hey, you'll fuck yourself back. You then can choose. You're now in control.

That emotion is just not useful. Yeah. Feel, filter. And then what's the next one? Think and flow. Think and flow. What you just said, your word for space and my word for filter are the same thing. We mean the same thing.

Okay. We know we're going to feel. We know that we have to deal with emotion. Emotion gives our life meaning. Life wouldn't be worth living without emotion. We want to learn to control it, dial it up, dial it back, depending on what we're doing and where we're at. And that's accomplished by creating space. And that's a mindset tool, how to think and a value, what to think, how to think and what

to think are equally important. And that's that filter for me. So when I feel offended and I feel that coming on or I feel worry or I feel fear, I immediately go to fight, work, hope, faith, team, family, excellence, purpose, responsibility, love, and freedom. What do those values that I'm practiced at say about that emotion? Feel, filter, think. Now I'm over in the part of my brain that's thinking in a rational, reasonable way as quickly as possible so that the flow or the do, I can make sure that my response is both. You shouldn't be able to see where your emotion and then the value start and end. It's part of it. You should not.

Yeah. Like what I want you to do when you define yourself is to separate emotion from values. But they're supposed to work together. In real life, they work together. You should feel, and then you should process it, and then you should respond based on what you're feeling and with your strongest beliefs. Man, man, you're saying good shit. Offended is not useful.

I feel offended all the time. But I've developed this process and I'm aware of offense in my life. And in general, it makes me laugh now because it means I'm at a deficit. This person has just said something to me that I don't know how to respond to properly. And I'm not smart enough there. And I need to get smarter. Or I need to get better with my words. Or maybe I just walk away and it's not worth addressing.

How many times is it really valuable to flip the person off who cut you off? Never. Never. How many times have you cut somebody off and went oh my bad bro yeah never so that's just one of those things where we do it over and over like an idiot walking into a brick wall right and you feel so much better when you go my bad and the person who flipped you off goes and and like you guys make he he realizes he like everyone cool. You feel so much better. Don't want to waste energy and time in those spaces. Yeah.

But we still – yeah, it's crazy. I use this example a lot. Well, not quite like this, but I want to put a little example to what Jim just said. It's not as good as what he said, but maybe it will help someone. Two plus two is four, and you think about about that and there's no emotion in it but it is except but it is also okay when you're a seven-year-old boy and you see this and you ask him what's eight plus twelve and he says 20 and he's happy you have both things going on at the same time he's used his logical mind that's completely let in for the sake of this conversation separate from his feeling. And yet he doesn't let his feeling cloud his ability to make that decision.

But, but, but, but there is also feeling in it too. Yes. Yes. I got it right. He sees daddy smile.

He got it right. Or, or he got it wrong. And I need to see his daddy go and he doesn't feel good. You know, you got to try to keep those two separate. The feeling's not helping you do eight plus 12 it is not helping it is not it is not uh it's not um and another thing i i said this thing that a lot of people say

and it's very cliche and i want to i want to take it back i said doing the work is really hard there is a freedom and an ease to the work that's so freaking cool. And I'll tell you, when I started the show, I used to say, God damn it, and Jesus Christ a lot. And a lot of people would came on to my DMs, not a lot, a handful of people came on to my DMs and said, Savon, I love you. Could you not do that? And I've told the story before and I stopped doing it and not because I want to, well, I do want, I do want to please them, but, but the main reason is, is I'm up for the challenge. I wanted the discipline. I wanted the discipline. It's not a big deal to me. I feel like it alienates people. I love, um, I, I, for the most, I really like

religious people who are deeply religious. I feel regardless of their religion, I enjoy people who have a practice and a commitment. I think it's their intentions in the right place. And, um, but, but it really, once I'm, I just tell my brain, Hey, don't say that. I start making myself accountable and it actually does the work for me. I'm not like catching myself nonstop or like worried about it or have notes up everywhere. I'm just, it's, it's kind of like if I was, um, if in a week I forget Jim's name, I could be like, Hey, who is that guest I had on from mayhem mindset? And then I can leave my brain alone. And then later on, I'll be on the assault bike. And it'll be like, by the way, that was Jim Hensel. I'll be like, Oh, thank you. Like,

do you know how the brain, I don't know why the brain does that, but it does that. Right. Yeah. Like you're trying to remember something you're, you're addressed when you're a little kid. And then an hour later, it just gives it to you you don't you don't gotta stress you just have to put in a little bit of the work just start the push the rock down the hill and it will start it will start 100 it's speak speak emotion, not because of emotion. Wow. Wow. Play sports with emotion, not because of emotion. Emotion is not a sustainable fuel. It's a fire starter, but it's not sustainable fuel. Wow. So this is this is where values come in. come in. We've got to, we've got to be, we got to, I know this is not proper English, but be speaking based on the value with the proper emotion to, to connect. And so many people, it's flipped, right? That, that they say what they say. Like if you, if you. Emotion's the ultimate tool. Don't let it use you. You use it.

Yeah. Like if, if you hear me, if you, at this point in my life, if you hear me swear, I'm doing that not because of emotion, but I'm doing it with emotion. And I, I've made a choice that this is how I'm going to speak. There are some, some swear words I don't use and won't use. And I'm mad when I do just like you just, and some that I'm okay with. And that's not everybody else's value. No, I don't put it on anyone. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not putting on anybody, but that's how I choose to live my life. And like when my girls were little, we sat down literally at the table and I just got that out of the way. All right. They, I don't remember. They were maybe seven and nine. All right. Let's, we're going to make a list of every swear word that out of the way. All right. I don't remember. They were maybe seven and nine.

All right. We're going to make a list of every swear word that you've ever heard. I mean, in every one of them. I don't know what we can say on your podcast. All of them. All of them. Every one of them. I try to say them all. You name it.

You said it all. These are two little girls, and they're looking at me like, and we made a giant list of them. I did not want the words to own them. I wanted them to want the words to own them. I wanted them to own the words. So, hey, man, I want you to be intelligent. I want you to be respected. I want you to be independent.

I want all those things for your life. So make sure when you're saying what you're saying, you're doing it with intent and not because you're lashing with some sort of emotion. And I've made the mistakes in this area. I'm not saying I'm perfect at this, you know? And so taking that back, right? Like, hey man, don't be leading with all of that. I've dealt with coaches where simply because they could not get their emotions under control, the people around, consistency breeds trust, right? And so if we can't be consistent, especially with emotions, then people, they don't trust us.

They're not sure what kind of person you're, what dad is showing up today. And if dad's just dropped the F-bomb, well, for sure his emotions are out of control. We all need to stay hidden behind the couch you know yes so when it comes to language once again speak with emotion to to say sometimes to say like like i i've said i think bullshit here today on this podcast i use that word specifically because to say poop does not convey the gravity that I wish to convey. It doesn't, it's not the right word. Now I would not say bullshit if I was over at

the high school. Right. You know what I mean? Right. I want to be intentional about it and I'm not putting, I'm not interested in what anybody else thinks about it and I'm not trying to put that on you. I just, this idea of language ends up being paramount. Early on when we first had our kids, my wife pointed out to me very clearly that every time you lose control in front of your kids, you're teaching them one thing. That losing control is what you should do as a child. Anytime something's not going your way or there's a problem. And then she said to me, so is there any, any time in your life that you think losing control is beneficial?

Like, damn. And, and it's really, these are the, these are the things that like, unfortunately, so many people don't know before they have kids,

just the mechanism of how the brain works. You might think you're teaching your kid one thing, but you're really teaching them something else. You're yelling at your kid and all your kids is like, well, I'm learning about this guy. Like you said, he gets out of control. So I should fear him. You definitely don't want your kids fearing you, but also, okay, so this is how I behave. When someone cuts me off, I lose control. The coolest person and the most successful person is never out of control. No one sees Rich Froning out of control. We love him to death.

He's the coolest dude in the room. People – and that shouldn't be a fallback. And we teach that to people. It's fascinating. Do you think that there's an age, this thing that you're talking about? Do you think that there's a, this, this mayhem mindset? What's the youngest someone could do that? Oh, real quick. I want to read this real quick before I go into that. I, all I, all I read was this was my wife and I thought, wow, what a great kind of marriage counseling it is just to do this because my wife and I have this belief that I think it holds our relationship together. That's

where we're responsible for our own happiness. And I think at the end of the day, that lets us get through a lot of shit. My wife and I completed mayhem mindset recently, highly recommended and extremely valuable. I use the mayhem mindset tools every day. I'm grateful for having the opportunity to learn. Yeah. What a cool thing to do with your wife, right? Well, let's be clear. So I require, I require when someone wants to work through the process that they, that they do it as individuals first. Right.

Okay. And then when you're clearly defined, and so Ralph and his wife worked through the process at the same time, but their agreement was they weren't going to talk about it. Okay. Because what I wanted them to do. Yes, you don't want to be influenced. It would be so easy to be influenced. Yeah, I don't want them to be influenced.

You don't want your wife being like, what do you mean fighting's your value? Correct. You're like, no, no, no, you read that wrong. It's riding. It's riding bikes, yes. Yeah. And then when they were finished with the process, then they then here's who I am as an individual. Here's who I am as an individual. Let's see where our values overlap.

And then and then they created the values that they wanted to teach their children from the work that they each did as individuals. That's that's the goal. And so we can do that for business. Hey, everybody in the boardroom should know who the hell they are and what their values are. And then wherever our values overlap, that's this place where we can really make a difference and create that language. And so, you know, mindset ends up being a good thing for families and good thing for couples so that we're really clear about where we're at. Do you have anything on the wall in your house that says, hey, these are the values of this family? No, I don't have anything on the wall in the house for family. I'm remarried now. I'm divorced and remarried. My wife and I were

really clear about who we were, but I've been married 11 years now. She's got hers. I've been married 11 years now. And so she's got hers, I've got mine, and we've got what works for us for sure. A lot of people who do go through mindset, though, that the last challenge is, hey, where are you going to write it down? And where are you going to display it? And so have a lot of people, you know, come up with like, a guy, a guy named Ron Worley. He developed the Worley way. He, he, he simplified it. He put it on the headboards of each one of his kids. He did the work first and he created what he wanted to do. I love this idea of writing a code, an honor code or a crest or a mission statement. And then, and then something that, that a picture, a graphic, something like that, that defines it so that you can keep it in front of you. So there are tons of examples of people that have done that. And I

really enjoy that at the very end, encouraging people to, you know, my tattoos represent all of that. I'm all linked up based on these things in my life. So I think it's vital. And I think it's an important finish to this process. What about this process for kids? What's the youngest? We've got, we've got kids. We've got kids as young as 15 and 16 on probation, you know, kind of working through it. Like here's, here's the deal, right? Like having, planting these kinds of seeds and having this understanding, kids, this whole thing is supposed to grow when it does grow all the way through life. So we're never supposed to be

finished with developing these ideas, right? A younger person who, who their brain hasn't even quit growing yet, that they're not really well established in identity and values. And they shouldn't be and it's okay. So with, with the younger, with the younger generation, we're, we're simply planting seeds and helping them understand what those things are. Once again, if you go online, and your identity is defined by someone who's bullying you or what's going on on Instagram or what you think you're supposed to look like based on what you see on YouTube, well, you're in trouble. So we want to help that young person develop some of these skills and ideas early and then grow into it and use it as they develop through life. So once again,

this space you just talked about is important, you know, to have, to be willing to think about these things and to have space and have, have the time ends up being the barrier to entry. I would not know anything I know. I would have no value to my fellow human being, very limited value, if I hadn't gone through the hardship that I've been through. And I had an author on the show named Kyle Creek, and he put this perspective on it, and I just thought it was so good because, well, you're another living example of it. All the shit that happens to you in life, the shit is, um, is fertile soil for other stuff to grow from. So that's, that's such a hard thing. People will always say stuff to you like, well, it's a lesson or they, they, they give you, tell you why hard things happen to you so you can overcome them or just all there's all these ways to word it. But I really

like this at 49 years old for me because so many of my funny stories and so much of my humor and so much of like my insight into the brain works only comes through the hardships I have. And I couldn't trade any of those hardships. I almost wish I had more because I wouldn't have any of this. And here we are listening to Jim Hensel speak in this whole thing that he's dedicated his life to is come from the fertile soil of really the worst moments of his life and what happens is is it's a big pile of shit and then eventually because of the elements around it it turns into fertilizer and then once it turns into fertilizer and you put effort into it and you nurture nurture that these incredible incredible things will blossom out of that that fertilizer i mean it's um all the comedians

like everyone is telling all your um another another way to simplify it i tell this story i was in a taxi cab one time it was four in the morning it was in a thunderstorm in kansas i was headed to the airport i was with my girlfriend at the time and the taxi cab driver was like a 500 pound guy no exaggeration he had the seat all reclined all the way back, all the way down. And he was still sitting upright. And he said, Hey, I have to stop and go to the bathroom. And we were in a minivan. And I'm thinking to myself, how's this guy going to get out of the car? He's too big. I don't even think he's mobile. And, uh, he pulls over on the side of the freeway and he pees in a cup or a Gatorade bottle. And I would never remember that taxi cab ride. And I would never remember

that day if it wasn't for that guy and him peeing in the bottle. And some people would have been grossed out by it. But I remember thinking from that day forward, wow, that I owe that I'm remembering that day of my life because of what this guy did that would have offended or grossed out most people. And I'm thankful for it. What a great story. And so remember that, especially young people, as you're going through your life, like these hardships, I know they suck. I know it's easy to stay in it, say now from my, from sitting in my office, doing my little podcast, but the, without these hardships, you will be nobody. You will be a mess. You're listening to two really grounded individuals who are

partying their asses off right now jim hensel and sev amatosian and not in the sense like partying like drinking but we're partying with our with our our plants that have grown from our hardship and we're and we have an abundance of fruit and we're sharing it with the world and we're throwing it around and we're peeling it and we're blending it and we just want you guys to drink right but but but it only came through a shit ton of hardship fair the the the amount of success that you experience in your life will largely be shaped by how you handle adversity and adversity will refine you and the heat and the pressure from adversity will refine you, knock off the rough edges, polish you, and shine you up, or it will crush you like gravity. Drug use.

On a final note, I wanted to share this one idea with you. This guy, P.D. Ouspensky, this Russian philosopher, and I'm really oversimplifying it. He wrote like 45 books, but one of the books he wrote was Psychology, the Evolution of Man or something like that. I forget. Anyone can find it. that i forget anyone can find it his name just pd like the letter p patty d dog ow spensky o-u-s-p-e-n-s-k-y he wrote this book and um he he shows a picture i i was gonna share it i just can't find it now let me see if i can put okay maybe i can share here Let's see if I can share this. Okay, do you see that? It's a square with a bunch of I statements in it.

Okay. And he basically said that we are all just a series of I statements. I am Sevan. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I have an itch here. I am angry. I am horny.

I am Sevan. I am hungry. I am thirsty. I have an itch here. I am angry. I am horny. I am happy. And that if you could sit still long enough and they hang out together in groups and some of the groups don't even know the other groups. Right. So one group can be like, I'm happy and I'm horny. Another one can be and I'm angry and I'm and I want to hurt people. And, you know, they you have these different identities and they're fighting to get their way and surface and express themselves at the top. But if you were to sit perfectly still and I formed a lot of ideas about free will around this, too. If you were to sit perfectly still, those eyes and deny those eye statements, not react to them. I am hungry. I'm happy. I'm horny. I have an itch on my arm. I have to go to work. They would slowly die. They would get more and more agitated, but they would slowly die,

and you would be left with one I, I am. And I was reaching a point in my life where I wanted to die. I was in my mid-20s. And I like the way you said it before, there was no way I was going to hurt myself, and I wasn't suicidal, but I was done. I was absolutely done. And I was at a friend's house and I saw this book sitting on the ground in his bedroom and everyone else was looking at the marijuana plants he was growing in his room. And I saw this book and I went over and I picked it up and I said, what's this? And he says, Oh, some book I'm reading. You can have it. And I saw, and it was P.D. Ouspensky's book. And I saw this. So I read the book a couple times.

I read a couple of his other books. And then about, I don't know, at some point I was like, okay, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go, I'm going to lay down and not move until I die or until I see this singular I statement. And I did that. And I lied down for five days days and I went to war. I went to war to not move a fucking muscle and to turn myself off. I thought, OK, if you really are going to die, you're going to do it yourself. describe it and these are just words this isn't exactly how it happened these are just words but there was an i statement over here and that was the me just fighting to let all the others die and there was one i left i had seen all the other ones die and go away and it's a terrifying experience because the brain makes up crazy shit to try not to let you get to this point right so

you have to almost you have to be committed to die to get past some of the hurdles because there's monsters in there and demons in there they will threaten you with your life and you have to be committed to die to get past some of the hurdles because there's monsters in there and demons in there. They will threaten you with your life and you have to say, fuck you. I don't care. I want to die. And then they go away. Right. The illusion of them goes away in a nutshell. I'm being a little dramatic, but in a nutshell. When that final wall came up and I could see that other eye, they came together without getting too descriptive what that other eye was. But it was it was familial. It was like family stuff. And there was one eye left and I was that eye. And that is why when I brought it up in the beginning that I'm fascinated by what you're doing, because there is, I feel like there's

a relative identity and an absolute identity. And, um, and so I just wanted to, I just wanted to leave you with that just like as a as an idea and that's why people who think that they have free will my thing is is you don't have to argue it you can test it you can try to impose your will on yourself by letting yourself die you can lie down and let yourself die and it's a it's a um it's what it's probably it's the most noble endeavor i've ever partaken on i i love that that's one of the that's one of the most powerful things you just said in this in this time we spend together you don't have to argue it you can test it you can test it yeah you can test it and it's like it's like what you did when you go in the dark room you you can test it we don't have to

argue whether god exists or what's there, what's not there. You can go inside yourself. But man, it's... And then fix it. What doesn't work, fix it. Test it. Figure it out. If it doesn't work, fix it. To me, what you just said is the highest definition of the truth to me. If it's truth, it works. Test it. If not, fix it. Re-a test it test it if not fix it re-aim test it again and the story that you're building not you jim the the you and and i do this too because we all do well i don't know if we all do this but i do this all the time you start defending your narratives and when you get yourself defending your narrative or your truth that's because something's not right it's not going to need um it's not going

to need defending you you don't have to build a story to to make it fit anyway i i i i'm thoroughly stimulated by the conversation today thank you someone said that there weren't they're like this isn't going to be one of those shows with a lot of fart jokes. I'm sorry. I tried to work in some fart jokes, but I, uh, I, speaking of farts, I, I, I don't know if you've done this. Um, but I came home with like a gallon of milk, like two days in a row, like a knucklehead, just not thinking. So we had three gallons of milk and I normally don't drink a lot of milk. My wife's like, you're gonna have to drink a lot of milk. So I've been drinking like three pints a day for the last three days. And I've been farting up a storm. Hey, nobody, everybody, let me give you mine. Let me give you mine then.

Because I hate this because I have to be the guy, like I call what I do bad brain when it's not mindset coaching, but I can just be the guy. Right. But we go down to the local Mexican restaurant, my wife and I, and we do trivia night. And the name of our team a couple of weeks ago was Hoofed Hearted. And we were just waiting and waiting for the announcer to say Hoofed Hearted. It was beautiful. Who came up with that? That's like some Simpsons shit. Who came up with that that's like some simpson shit who came up with that i don't know about about question number three he says it he goes oh oh you got me

that's good you know sometimes you sometimes it's okay bad brains all right it's all good oh man it's what life's about it. It's if you can't have fun. Jim, I hope you had fun. I feel like a kindred spirit to you. You are helping people free themselves. I like to think of myself as offering a platform where I can be the bad guy so people can be free. I pride myself on that. Sometimes I even build walls around people so they can break them down on the podcast and experience what it's like in a safe place and to be free. And so I really appreciate you being on here. I never thought of myself like that until the last four days that I was studying you. And I realized, man,

we're doing the same thing. We just do it differently. I really want my podcast to be four days that I was studying you. And I realized, man, we do, we're doing the same thing. We just do it differently. Like I really want my podcast to be a place of love and acceptance where people can feel free. Even if I am being harsh, I want them to be able to push back and be like, and experience freedom on here.

So. This has been a great conversation. Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it immensely. Cool. And bam.