The Exchanges

Q Why do you think athletes have coaches and most other people don't have coaches or not even don't have them, but are dismissive of them? Like nobody's in my car coaching me how to drive better, right?

A Uh, it depends on the task really. So why do athletes have coaches? Why do the, the, there's a lot of business owners hire a coach. Uh, why do life coaches, the good ones, right? Exist. Some tasks you need constant feedback about. You need constant feedback because the human being's natural tendency is entropy to always seek the easiest way, the, the configuration of events that will result in the least output of energy. A coach is there to make sure that doesn't happen. Furthermore, coach is there to correct you when the little things Are occurring. Little deviations are occurring that will eventually take you one way. And by the time you get there, you don't realize they were occurring. We don't let's use your, the example, like why don't you ever coach your car? Well, well, if you make a deviation, you're going to know real quick if, if you're going straight or not, and you can adjust that on your own. The self-correcting mechanism is there. The self-correcting mechanism is not there for, for an athlete or for a business owner or a person trying to improve their life. It's just, it's just not. I mean, even if they know, And they're the best. No, even Tom Brady still has a coach, right? He's the all-time winningest Super Bowl quarterback in history. He has all these records, and this is a great play, but he has a coach because when you have all so many parts, you know, we jus…

AI assessment note: “Some tasks you need constant feedback about. You need constant feedback because the human being's”

Q What happened when you stopped? What did you notice that you didn't expect?

A Um, you ever watch Angel? The old show Angel, uh, about the vampire with a soul, and he was a vampire, so he did a lot of ill shit as a vampire, and all of a sudden he's got a soul, and now he feels guilty about it, and so he spends a lot of time brooding and feeling bad and trying to do good to make up for all the evil he put into the world. That is something that no one warns anyone about, like, all the people I talk to, Who stopped drinking? No one ever mentioned that. I mean, I don't think I'm unique in that regard because I've mentioned it and Pete and God's right between me all the time and talk about that, that same experience. I say that you, it's like taking sunglasses off and seeing the light. Your eyes hurt because they're getting used to the light and the sunglasses analogy would like your emotions. None of my emotions are muted. I feel things completely. I'm not celebrating with alcohol. I'm not drinking alcohol when I'm down. I gotta experience and enjoy life the right way. And likewise, I can look back at all the stupid things that I did and all the stupid ways I may have behaved, and I feel genuinely terrible about it. And no one ever warned you that that's what happens.

AI assessment note: “None of my emotions are muted. I feel things completely.”

Q In the book you talk about the concept of good pain versus bad pain, and you said good pain comes from pushing towards a goal, bad pain comes from avoiding challenges, and you're gonna suffer either way, you might as well be better. Can you walk me through some of the thinking that led you to that?

A Right, so, I, I, I, I'm pretty sure when I wrote that, the first experience, because I always think like this, I think that everything can be like, ah, combined and explained, and you can take one idea and use it to explain other ideas. So, I'm pretty sure I was actually thinking about, like, romantic endeavors when I wrote that, and I was like, okay, it's gonna be hard if you're with somebody, But it's going to be equally hard if you like are to always run away. And I was like, oh man, that's like the same in fitness. Like either you're going to suffer because you're unattractive and you have horrible health, or you're going to suffer while you're working out that painful running. So what's the difference? Is it all suffering? The difference is one kind of suffering is moving towards something you want, a good body, a good partner. The other kind of suffering Pain is going away from things, going away from putting the work in, going away from being vulnerable and opening yourself up and taking risk. So, no matter what, there's going to be an uncomfortable process, and I think that's just part of the rate of change that is life. Always thinking things in terms of calculus for some weird reason. The rate of change of life. Uh, if you're going up, you're going to have effort and have an issue, and if you're going down, you're going to have Uh, an issue. It's just, what issue do y…

AI assessment note: “I was actually thinking about, like, romantic endeavors when I wrote that”

Q One of the big parts of the book that stuck with me is kind of your philosophy on self-discipline. Can you walk us through that a little bit?

A Uh, self-discipline is, is highly important, right? You can't, if, if, if you wait till you feel like doing something, you'll never do it, and furthermore, if you give in to your feelings about a thing, you will give up on many things, because anything worth having requires hard work, and hard work, by definition, is not pleasant. I don't care what anyone says to you, being in shape is great, Running is not great. I used to tell my friend all the time, you're never gonna like running. Stop looking for it to become enjoyable. Just go do the damn running and look at the results. With that said, my whole approach to self-discipline is to eliminate the emotional aspect of it. Or, you can feel a thing. No one's saying, get rid of your emotions. Not only is that not possible, uh, if it were possible, your life just becomes a series of, like, indistinguishable moments. You need emotion. But you You want to control it. Most people don't have emotional control. When you have emotional control, then you can look at a thing and go, man, for example, I, I, I'm an early riser, right? People are like, how you get up so early, man? Girl's like, why you always up so early? I'm like, because I need to get up early. Like, how I feel about it never enters. It's just a thing that needs to be done. I always say, if a thing is important to your success, it doesn't matter how you feel about it, it ju…

AI assessment note: “my whole approach to self-discipline is to eliminate the emotional aspect of it.”

Q Yeah. What's your experience with couples that are happy and how they argue? Is it all about kind of that compromise, or trying to find a solution instead of mudslinging, or?

A I have a buddy coming up to get married. He's been in with this girl for like two years, and my best friend out in LA, I was the best man at his wedding, getting married when we were 23. So, and they were together for like four years beforehand, so over 10 years. How do they argue? I haven't really seen my friend getting married coming up in June argue, but the couple in Cali, I've seen them argue a few times. They They never, I won't say never, but very rarely. No, I mean, I've never seen it, and I'm thinking about it. They don't insult one another. That, that always stood out to me, and I always took that as a powerful lesson. They never insult one another. Now, they are highly critical of how one might handle the problem that occurs, but in terms of character assassinations, those do not happen. They're focused on solving the problem, not on destroying each other. You know, they don't view each other as adversaries, and that's what happens, and I think that's the commonality. All the happy couples I watch, they never, ever view each other as adversaries, ever. They're always some, always, in my house, I use the word team a lot. I'm like, we're a team, we're working together. As long as we're together, as far as I'm concerned, we're a team, and you're either on my team or you're not on my team. She's bought into that, and that's good, so I think that's a really good Powerful …

AI assessment note: “They're focused on solving the problem, not on destroying each other.”

Q That's so beautiful and so true. From episode number 21, Ed Latimore. What's, what's your philosophy of happiness and what that means and how to achieve it?

A Happiness is, happiness is not an average rate, man. It's, it's a, it's a rate of change. You gotta go thinking in calculus again, right? If a person is sitting still, no matter where they're at, whether they have a bunch, let's use money. If a person has a bunch of money or no money, they just sit still and do nothing. In their life, they're going to be unhappy. We tend to think of people being rich as happy, but no, there's nothing for, nothing that pushes them, nothing that makes them grow and change. You can be miserable being poor. You can be miserable being rich. You can be miserable in a relationship. You can be miserable single. What are you doing to push yourself? All happiness is, in my opinion, is a person pushing towards something. Not the avoidance part. That struggle, it's this weird type of intertwined duality. You're pushing towards something. Pain is part of it. Happiness is like the other part, and they all kind of work together. And if you rest on your laurels too long, you'll become unhappy, but you always have to push towards something. And if a person wants to be, have a happy life, they must always have a challenge to push towards. This is why I think the people I observe who are great parents are not even great parents or good parents. There's a general, I don't want to call it lightness because that's not correct. Levity, maybe? I don't know. Um, they, …

AI assessment note: “All happiness is, in my opinion, is a person pushing towards something.”

Q How did you come to the conclusion that you wanted to stop drinking?

A Ah, man, you know, I looked at everything in my life, what I wanted to accomplish, where I was going, the potential I had, I wasn't satisfied where I was in my life, and I did a quick, 80, 20 analysis, and I was like, huh. In fact, I used to say, I used to say, if, I used to say, 95% of my problems, my personal problems are exacerbated, are caused by the influence of alcohol. Which is like an embarrassing thing to say now. Like, man, I was content with most of my life being a shit show because of drinking. Which, I mean, it wasn't that bad, right? What just wasn't what I wanted it to be. Once I realized what I wanted it to be. And I looked at all the things, and I said, alcohol is a commonality there. Alcohol is a commonality there. Alcohol is in all of this. What is the benefit? Do I need to keep drinking? No. Okay. See ya. And that's how I know I'm not an, like, that's how I know I don't, I'm not an addict. Like, all the guys that I've talked to who have been able to just quit like that are not addicted in this sense, right? A lot of the guys are the ones that, like, just stop smoking cold turkey, for example. They're just like, I don't want to smoke anymore. Peace. Smoke. Smoke for five years. And then, Those are the, those are the true I can quit when I want to type people. And I, and I don't smoke. I've never smoked, but I'd imagine my brain chemistry is probably somewhat …

AI assessment note: “95% of my problems, my personal problems are exacerbated, are caused by the influence of alcohol.”

Q You're a huge believer, um, that hard work and discipline are a precursor to success or deserve success. Can, can you tell me about how you would instill that in other people like kids or when you're coaching kids, how do you, how do you foster that?

A Kids have to get used to the idea that there's no such thing as being naturally gifted. So the first thing you do, I mean, we're going to work from the assumption that children are blank slate, whether you believe that or not is irrelevant, but for the sake of this argument, there's enough truth in it that we can use that as a basis for what I'm going to say. You have to begin speaking to children immediately in terms of effort as opposed to Any ability. There's no such thing as a good child. There is a such thing as a child that was able to wait 10 minutes and be quiet. There's no such thing as a kid that's good at math. There's a kid that was able to struggle through a problem. You don't want to get children used to the idea of instant gratification. There's an odd that they have to wait for things. They have to work and earn everything. Even if it's a small thing, I don't know, when I say work and earn, I mean, they have to get used to the idea of effort equals a thing. Like, if a kid wants to go, like, have candy, I'm not saying don't give them candy, right? I mean, I am saying that at the core, but, but for this argument, I'm not saying don't give them candy. Say, okay, you want candy, I'm going to need you to do X, Y, R, Z. I mean, obviously, like, good moral things that will help them become better, but they must learn the Concept of exchange. I think there's, I think th…

AI assessment note: “You have to begin speaking to children immediately in terms of effort as opposed to”

Q You had some pretty profound thoughts on relationships in your book as well. Can you kind of walk me through your, your high level view of your philosophy on this?

A My great, my, my high level view of relationships is that it's better to build a life and bring a person into it than it is to try and build a life around a person. If I could sum up everything and give you like the meta framework to work with, that is the framework you want to start with. You want to go, alright, how am I going to become a better person? And that's going to force you to become a better person. That's going to force you to grow. It's going to force you to improve. It's going to force you to become more attractive. That's going to force you to focus on Any goal. And then when you meet the right person, then the right person is better able to fit in, because it's not going to be compromised. I think compromise is one of the worst things you make in a relationship. You have to make it on some things.

AI assessment note: “it's better to build a life and bring a person into it”

Q It's not supposed to all be enjoyable, right? Right. So often it seems like parents are focused on preventing disappointment, only giving happiness, not instilling those.

A And that is not life. I mean, that's like, that's the equivalent of, of raising a teenager in college and expecting them to understand the real world. Right? See how that's turning out so, so far for a lot of young kids. People cannot expect the world to always be nice. That's just foolish. It's way better. What's that saying? I love some of these cliches, man. I got a few of them. Uh, It's not about waiting for the rain to stop. It's learning how to dance during a storm, man, and that's the truth. You don't, because it's ebb and flow. It can't always be good, and you wouldn't want it to be good. It's like music, man. Music is not enjoyable because of the notes you hit. It's the space between the notes. You need things to not be there. You need things to not be good to appreciate when they are there, when they are good. People try to avoid that not part all the time. Only to realize that it's just not fun, right?

AI assessment note: “And that is not life. I mean, that's like, that's the equivalent”

Q Like, after you win, how do you go to the gym in a couple days and, like, reset? Oh, my goodness.

A Ok, let's pretend I didn't have A mastery mindset. What I do have, and have always had, and I think this is a good sign of a, or a sign of a good coach, man, you couldn't tell whether you won or lost when you start watching film, because things start getting picked apart, what you did wrong, what you can't get better, and if you want to get better, if you're there to improve, You take them, and you start getting to work, and you realize, I always say, you're always one mistake away from losing the last fight, which means you catch it, and you go, okay, man, it's a good thing that I, I had just learned that from my last fight, and it didn't catch up to me, uh, this fight. Likewise, uh, the, the fight I lost, if I had somehow got that lesson beforehand, In a fight, but I didn't lose, then I'd be like, okay, I learned it, and then come keep moving forward. But I, but to stay motivated, even if you didn't have all that, the one thing you gotta realize is that you're never gonna be perfect. And you're not aiming for perfection. Once again, I think of things in terms of calculus. You are approaching perfection. The limit, uh, is it approaches perfection. You keep pushing hard work. If you keep doing work, you're going to get closer and closer and closer, but that's got to be your goal. You always got to be improving. I always tell people, uh, to talk about when they want to box. I'm …

AI assessment note: “you couldn't tell whether you won or lost when you start watching film”

Q Tell me a little bit about how you juggle between the military and school and a boxing career. What's your daily routine look like?

A Um, you know what's funny? Right now in my life, so my, so, so where am I right now? Um, last semester I took off school. I took off so I could focus on boxing. This semester I'm taking off boxing to focus on school. I'm done with my service and the National Guard. So, for the first time in over five years, the only thing I do, I mean, I wake up and I still work out, but I don't have to work out at the level of, like, where I'm in the gym two or three times a day, and then I'm trying to put that in between school, and then I have drilling on the weekend, and then I gotta come home and do stuff at home. Uh, so for the first time, it's a very relaxed life. I, uh, I'll tell you what I think I did to survive because, because you know what's funny about pain, right? When you look back at pain, you can't really remember, you can remember it hurting, right? But you don't know how you survived it. I heard this referenced, um, this idea referenced in like women who give birth. It's like, apparently it's incredibly painful, right? But somehow they do it more than once in their life. I'm not talking about the new mothers. I'm talking about the ones that have multiple kids who know what they're getting into. Uh, so how does that relate? I don't know how I survived. I really don't. I think about this all the time and I think I'm, but I know I'm thinking about it. From the perspective of hav…

AI assessment note: “This semester I'm taking off boxing to focus on school. I'm done with my service”