How To Truly Build Toughness - Greg Everett | Modern Wisdom Podcast 300

Greg Everett is a weightlifting coach and an author. We're in the middle of a toughness revolution. From David Goggins motivational videos to cold showers, it seems like becoming tough is a skill many people want to develop right now, but what IS toughness and how do you cultivate it? Expect to learn how character, capacity, capability and commitment combine to create a truly tough human, how you can develop your resilience to adversity, why Greg says confidence can be built like any other physical pursuit, how to become more disciplined and much more... Sponsors: Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D & Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount on all pillows at https://thehybridpillow.com (use code: MW20) Extra Stuff: Buy Tough - https://amzn.to/39cbTgF Check out Greg's Website - https://www.catalystathletics.com/ Check out Greg's YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/CatalystAthletics Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #toughness #mindset #resilience - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Gets seen by a fishing boat finally after seventy six days and he's so dialed in and like accepting of his situation that when the guys come to save him, he goes, no, no, you guys go ahead and finish fishing and then pick me up when you're done. So he literally sat there and waited for these guys to finish their day of fishing, just waited in this raft. He's like, hey, seventy six days, what's another six to eight hours?

• 0:25Chris Williamson?

  What do most people have wrong about toughness? What is it not?

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Well, what I think the biggest common mistake people make is that it's we see it as being a masculine quality or somehow inherently related to manhood or or the the condition of being a man. And I spent a lot of time in that early on in the book, really breaking it down and explaining what exactly being tough truly is. And it has nothing to do with sex, gender, or any of these things. They are totally independent elements that anybody can attain with the proper, you know, work and understanding. And the kind of the secondary part of that is that it is associated

• 1:10Speaker 00

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

• 1:40Chris Williamson?

  There's been a recent, I would say in the last five years, I've noticed quite strongly a surge in content around fortitude and resilience and toughness and people like David Goggins are being really upheld and cold showers are becoming a thing. And, you know, why do you think people are drawn toward a discussion about toughness in 2021?

• 2:05Speaker 00

  I think because you simultaneously have it becoming less of a normal trait for people than it used to be, but more and more necessary for us to get through our lives now. And those things are related, certainly. You look back at, say, like my grandfather's generation, going through the Great Depression, World War II, these sorts of things where, you know, my grandparents grew up on farms. They were dirt poor. There were traits that you developed as a child growing up in a situation like that, that, you know, a lot of people still do in, you know, both of our countries, of course, but where it wasn't this thing that

• 2:48Speaker 00

  you sought out, it was just something that naturally you developed because there was no other choice. You want to eat, well, you better figure out how to eat and it's going to take some work. Versus my daughter's generation, like, hey, I want to eat, and they boop, boop, boop, and someone delivers food to their door 20 minutes later, while they're sitting there watching, you know, 15,000 different shows on TV. So it's this totally different experience that we're having in our lives. And I think what's happening is that more and more of us are recognizing that there is something missing, that we're, there's an absence of experience and, you know, a sense of fulfillment and contentment and accomplishment because we're not required to engage in things that are difficult and

• 3:33Speaker 00

  demanding and require commitment and, and an understanding of who we truly are and what's important to us. So we're kind of just flailing around, searching for ways to entertain ourselves and distract ourselves, which temporarily is satisfying, but in the long term, kind of leaves us having, you know, a continual series of midlife crises, right? So instead of having one midlife crisis like the olden days, now we have one every five years. It's like, what have we been doing? What do I want to do? Who am I? This is awful. And so I think that's why it's becoming more and more of a popular topic.

• 4:09Chris Williamson?

  How do you define toughness then? What, what is it? If that's what it's not, what is it?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  So I break it down into four elements. The first one is character. And that is simply, what is your identity? And the corollary to that is, are you secure in that identity? So who are you and what is important to you? What's meaningful to you? Because without that, that's your guide for every decision you make. And so many of us are just absolutely clueless when it comes to who we actually are. A lot of us have stories in our minds that we've been telling ourselves about who we are for our entire lives. Most of the time, very far from accurate. But that's kind of what props up our egos and makes us believe that we have this kind of dialed in and figured out.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  And the security in our identity is key too, because so many of us are totally insecure in who we are. And that's why we have so many of us, you know, constantly on the search for recognition and appreciation and credit. And, you know, these desperate pleas for validation. You know, look at social media every day. It's just, it's sad, honestly. And so much of it is unconscious. Like, people are not setting out every day like, I need someone to tell me I'm, I'm strong and pretty. But that's what it is. And, and without that security, we end up with the, you know, those kind of behaviors. And also, you know, the ridiculous unnecessary competition and the one-upmanship and all these things that just drive ridiculous behavior.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  And prevent us from accomplishing anything actually meaningful, long-term. Next, you have capability, which is not just physical ability and physical traits and skills, but knowledge. It's in its, you're, we need to garner this through the accumulation of very broad experiences, novel experiences. And learning, you know, collecting more and more tools, physically, mentally, emotionally. In learning how to succeed through different situations, unpredictable situations. And gaining the confidence that comes along with successfully experiencing such things.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  Next, we have capacity, which is what most people think of as resilience. But I distinguish this from resilience in that resilience technically is a return to your original condition following some kind of adversity or trauma. Right. So that to me, the analogy is storm comes, you go downstairs, you ride it out in the cellar, you wait for it to clear up, you go back and just resume your life. That's resilience. That's good, right? We're not getting destroyed by it, but what I want is to use those experiences, that adversity, hardship, challenge to to develop further, to become stronger, more intelligent, more engaged with the world, to add to that toolbox, to get more experience using those tools in in unique, novel ways.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  And then finally is commitment, and this encompasses, you know, discipline, habit building, routine, these sorts of things. And this is really what brings all of the previous three together, because without the commitment to it, the rest is just kind of a private fantasy. Right. This is the story we're telling ourselves. Well, I am resilient and I am capable. But if we don't actually put those things into use during meaningful, significant experiences, then we're not those things. We either have the potential to be those things, or we're just lying to ourselves. And so that's what kind of wraps it all up, and that's how we create that life.

• 7:40Chris Williamson?

  Going back to character, do you think it's built or revealed? Is character something that's innate, or is it something that we have to construct?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  I don't think it's innate, although I do think obviously we have, much of it is built without our participation early on in life. Right. It's, you know, through our influences, our parents, our family, our friends, our teachers, coaches, whatever. And so, you know, when you're six years old, you're not conscious of the development of your character, unless you're some kind of, you know, genius prodigy kid. But so.

• 8:16Speaker 00

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

• 8:59Speaker 00

  How do I need to behave and think and speak in order to actually become that person, rather than just thinking this is who I would like to be?

• 9:07Chris Williamson?

  Man, the more that I look at learning about character and personal values, and why are you here, looking at the core reasons for you being on the planet, I don't think that there's a more important question that anyone should be asking themselves. It took me until I was thirty-one to do, sit down and actually work out the five core values that my life is built upon, which is mental. How did I get through eighteen years of full-time education, two degrees, including a master's, and no one ever said, why are you here? Like, what, what's the reason that you're here? I'd done it for businesses. So the young entrepreneurs that are listening, who've sat down and said, right, okay, so

• 9:47Chris Williamson?

  let's talk about the brand values that we've got, while the people sat around the table haven't got their own values organized.

• 9:56Speaker 00

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

• 10:30Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, man.

• 10:33Chris Williamson?

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

• 10:55Chris Williamson?

  core values exercise, which you can get online, or whatever it is, like you need to do it. What was life like for you before and after? Was there something that where you realized, right, I need to sit down and get my core values in order? Or have you always had them set?

• 11:10Speaker 00

  No, definitely have not had myself sorted out always. It's been, it's been a continual series of events that have kind of nudged me in various directions. And it is something certainly that is ongoing, right? So even if you do sit down, you figure out your values today, those things are very likely going to evolve over time based on new experiences, new interactions with different people and new demands, things like that. But so, I mean, really, early on in life, for me, I struggled very much. I was a really self-conscious, insecure

• 11:48Speaker 00

  kid and, and was, I mean, I don't think I had any solid identity. I was the chameleon, right? Where I was popular because I could be whoever I needed to be in any group, any situation. And that works great when you're 16, 17, you know what I mean? You can get whatever girlfriend you want, right? Because you're always the right guy. And you know, you have these friends and, but when you get a little older, you recognize, well, this isn't going to get me very far. I'm unhappy. None of this stuff is working for me. And so my personal experience early on was I had a huge drug problem, right? And so by

• 12:30Speaker 00

  the time I hit, you know, 19, 20 years old, I was, that was the, I think, the first big thing where I was forced to step back and say, Is this actually who I want to be? Am I willing to continue down this road? Um, you know, and I had good friends who had, you know, serious drug addiction problems. I had friends who died. I had friends who were getting arrested. These sorts of things. So it wasn't, it wasn't a purely conceptual exercise for me. It was like very clear what my potential paths were. And so that was the first thing where I really had to take a step back and be like, I need to figure myself out. And it, it wasn't a straightforward, quick thing. It took, you know, a number of years to get through that. But uh, I think since then, what I learned was

• 13:15Speaker 00

  how critical that, that ability to be self-reliant and independent and know exactly who I was and what was meaningful to me, because that was what was driving all of my decisions. And without that, again, like I said earlier, you're just kind of flailing around. Being discontent for the rest of your life.

• 13:35Chris Williamson?

  Let's say that someone does go through their core values and work out why they're here, or they, they have a good, concrete idea of that. But what's next? Like, just because you've got your values written down on a piece of paper somewhere, that doesn't really mean anything.

• 13:49Speaker 00

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

• 14:33Speaker 00

  forks in the road where we have to actually make a conscious decision. We have to fall back on these things, fall back on the identity and our values to make those decisions to ensure that they are in harmony with what is actually meaningful to us, because so much of, so many of us are just driven by convention or tradition, or what we are expected to do, or what we're told that is, you know, important to us. I mean, look at how many people take personality tests, or these things that are supposed to tell us who we are and what we want. And then, you know, I'm very, very dubious about the accuracy and the value of those things, and so much so because, once you have decided,

• 15:18Speaker 00

  okay, well, this is, this is my personality. I took a test in Cosmo or whatever. And so now I have to, you know, match all of my decisions and behaviors to this. Well, that's the same thing as not knowing who you are, because that's very likely not who you are. It's just that now you feel like you have this structure, but it's still leading you down a path that is not going to deliver you repeatedly, as it should, to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

• 15:46Chris Williamson?

  It's an interesting one. I had Dr. Benjamin Hardy on the show, discussing his book, Personality Isn't Permanent, about a year ago. And he was incredibly critical of pretty much every different personality test, except for the big five. And his reason for not being critical of the big five was because you're not put into a type with the big five. They don't say that you're a green, or an MBTI, or a classic, classic sparkly dragon, or a new age sparkly dragon, or whatever it is. Like, it doesn't give you a category that he feels constrains people. But yeah, man, looking at the way that character relates to capability, capacity, and commitment, it seems to me that character needs to be there to form the foundation, that everything else can be built upon.

• 16:32Chris Williamson?

  Very, very shaky underpinnings if you don't actually understand why you're here and what you're doing. As mutual friend Ben Bergeron talks about, he says, you can spend a lifetime climbing a ladder only to realize it's put up against the wrong wall. And Greg McEwan told me this story about when some executive, high, high-flying executive at some massive media company he'd been working at for years and years, and he'd sacrificed family time. He'd been doing 18-hour days, five days a week for 20 years, and he finally gets to the top and he speaks to Greg and he says, man, my son won't talk to me. My 19-year-old son won't talk to me. Like, I don't have a relationship with my son because I've never spent any time with him. My family's in tatters

• 17:15Chris Williamson?

  and all that I want now is to have a family life. I've got all the way to the peak of this world that I thought I wanted. And look at what's happened. Like, I don't, I don't want this. So you can very, very quickly put yourself in the wrong direction if you haven't got this sorted. So we've got, we've got character. In the book, there are some core values exercises that people's can go through and will help to give them some clarity on that. Moving on to capability, it's what are you able to do? Right? That's your capacity is your ability to deal with things, your capability is what you're able to do.

• 17:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, and this is such a large umbrella, right? This is really all encompassing. Again, not just skill and physical ability, like, you know, strength, endurance, whatever, but, but the knowledge. And this is so much predicated on experience, novel experience, varied experience. Because so many of us are really stuck in this very narrow bandwidth of life experience where we have our profession, we have our specialty, we have our narrow set of interests. We all watch pretty much the same handful of TV shows. We all look at the same Instagram accounts. I mean, you look at, again, going back to my daughter's generation, they all talk exactly the same where,

• 18:35Speaker 00

  when I was growing up, it was regional, right? So where I was from, people spoke one way. And then, you know, the other side of the state, they spoke a little bit differently. And now it's like every, everyone is so tied together across the world that it's just so homogeneous. And so we have to break out of that and go into peripheral realms, not just for the sake of learning what's out there, but understanding that the things that you learn outside of your specialty and your area of comfort and expertise will contribute to your expertise, will contribute to your specialty. And you don't know how it will because you haven't ever experienced it. It's unpredictable.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  But also, a huge part of that too is we very much overestimate our abilities when we never get outside the area in which we're already comfortable. And we develop this this false sense of confidence that that can harm us anytime we are forced to step out of there. Whereas if we're constantly seeking out novel experiences and you know, developing the abilities to successfully deal with them. Now we're building legitimate confidence. We're creating not just the ability to handle things that are unpredictable and different, but we're developing the confidence that we can, right?

• 20:00Speaker 00

  And the more of those experiences we have where we successfully deal with things that we haven't dealt with before, the more we recognize, you know, our ability to to take care of ourselves, to to handle the unpredictable, to handle adversity. And so we start chipping away at that that very natural sense of intimidation and fear and anxiety that people experience when, you know, they have to encounter things that they are not already comfortable with. And that just, think about how much of life opens up to you when you have that attitude and that mindset and that confidence. What's that movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey where he just has to say yes to everything? You don't want to go too crazy, right? Like you have to be work within reason there, but

• 20:43Speaker 00

  that's the idea is is rather than finding reasons to avoid things because they're scary or intimidating or you've never done them before. You know, get out there and dip your toe in the water at least and see what's going on because chances are you're going to discover things that are wildly enjoyable, but also beneficial to what your primary focus is.

• 21:06Chris Williamson?

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

• 21:47Speaker 00

  Well, here's the key thing, and I talk about this a lot, actually, in the capacity section of the book. But this is like any other physical training, where your challenges and the exercises you're doing to this end have to be appropriately designed and dosed. So for example, like if you want to, you say, I want to go learn how to rock climb. I've never done it before. I've never set protection. I've never been on a rope. Don't go try to climb El Capitan next week, right? You're gonna die. You're gonna have a bad time. Instead, you know, go do something small. Go do some bouldering. Go do some top roping with someone who's experienced. And so these things have to be very individual. They need

• 22:31Speaker 00

  to be, initially, of course, they should interest us to some degree ideally, but they should be related somehow to our lifestyle, our needs, you know, in terms of our profession and our locality, because those are the abilities we want to develop first. Those are our priorities. What's critical for us day to day? But then you have to determine, okay, what's my starting point? Because my starting point is very different from your starting point in any given endeavor, because our experiences and our knowledge is different, right? So for someone who's an experienced rock climber, maybe they, their next challenge is to, you know, free climb the nose of El Cap. Whereas, you know, I haven't climbed in 23 years. I'm not getting near that.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  No, I won't even walk to the base of that thing right now. So this can be literally anything. And for some people, it's going to be as seemingly simple and mild as... Um, getting past the anxiety and going to the grocery store by themselves. I mean, that can literally be a huge challenge for some of us. It was for me a, as a, an, an older teenager. I would run out of food every once in a while because I couldn't get myself to go to the store. That's how out of my mind I was with, with self-consciousness and anxiety about it. Um, and so it's, it's about sitting down and figuring out where do I want to go? Now, how do I break those things down into smaller and smaller and more manageable pieces? Where do I start?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  What's step one out of a thousand or whatever it is? Um, and so I don't have specific prescriptions for that. It's more of a, of guidance on how do you determine what's important to you? What you need to work on? And now let's figure out what's the first step, right? And so I guess what I would say is think you can figure out today. What is, what is something that I, I, I know that I'm lacking in capability right now? What's something that's holding me back uh, from what I want to do or who I want to be? I guess is a better way to think of it. And now what's step one in that potentially very protracted process to move me in that direction?

• 24:40Speaker 00

  And so you create the map and then you create those little waypoints along the way to keep you moving in that direction. You know, no matter how, uh, you know, tortuous it may be, it's very, very unlikely to be, uh, you know, a linear, uh, course. But that's what keeps you on course, uh, and, and gives you those little waypoints, those little landmarks along the way is what stokes your enthusiasm. Right? Versus like, oh my God, I'm never going to get this. It's such a huge goal, but each one of those little steps is an accomplishment. And that's what kind of keeps propelling you forward with greater and greater momentum.

• 25:13Chris Williamson?

  What are some capabilities that everyone should have?

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Uh, these things are, uh, and, and some of this sounds silly, I know, but I think it's really important. But like the ability to drive a manual transmission.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Right, that like, this is one of the things, I grew up driving stick shifts and, and I finally got rid of them as I got older because I got lazy. And I got tired of driving through LA traffic, you know, stop and go, stop and go, trying to eat a taco, change my shirt all at the same time. But uh, you think, you think, oh, well, that's dumb. We don't need that. Okay. What if you are somewhere, your child is seriously injured, you have to get them to a hospital, and the only vehicle available is a manual transmission and you can't drive it? You're just gonna give up on your kid? So it's like little things like that, you know, you, people say, oh, that's so dramatic. Yeah, it's, it's, it's melodramatic until you're in

• 26:12Speaker 00

  that situation. And then you go, that Greg, he was right. Uh, and now your kid hates you. So, uh, things like that, things like, um, uh, you know, literacy, uh, being capable of, of reading and comprehending things well, and being able to absorb information. So many of us, the, the longest thing we read now is a Twitter, or a tweet, or an Instagram caption. And, you know, I look at, um, you know, adults my age, I just turned 41, and I read emails from people, and I'm like, how have you survived this long with, you know, so much difficulty with the language? Like, you're missing out on so much, uh, without developing that, you

• 26:57Speaker 00

  know, reading more books, writing, even if it's just in a personal journal, developing that ability to articulate and communicate. Um, so there's a long list in the book of kind of universal capabilities, but they're, they're primarily about giving us the foundation to be successful versus specific long-term capabilities, you know, being able to climb El Capitan, or whatever. Uh, it's more like, what it, what are the foundational things that allow us to move toward those things long-term?

• 27:27Chris Williamson?

  You've got a quote in that section, which I loved, which says, "All toughness is ultimately mental in nature, regardless of how much the physical body is involved. A hammer can't pound any nails if we never pick it up off the workbench or can't find the nail." Such a good quote.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Yep, finding that nail sometimes is the hardest part.

• 27:46Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. Talking about capacity, I think this is what people believe you're referring to mostly, when they talk about toughness, right? Like resilience to adversity, what you're able to withstand.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah, and that these are the these are the really compelling stories that we hear, right? People who survive, like I talk about Stephen Callahan in the book, survived alone in a life raft on the Atlantic Ocean for 76 days. I mean, that imagine simply being alone, being unable to communicate with anybody for 76 days, even in the comfort of your own living room. Most of us would go crazy. Like that that alone is difficult. But now you've got sharks bumping up under your raft, your raft is leaking, you're getting blown around by storms, getting soaked, you've got sores all over your body from the salt water. That's the kind of story where we really are so enamored with that sort of thing. And so I think that's

• 28:42Speaker 00

  where we see toughness really standing out. But people forget that, you know, toughness is is demonstrated on an infinite gradient of intensities and durations. And so we take that example on one end, or, you know, Viktor Frankl, you know, surviving his incarceration in a concentration camp during World War Two, and finding a way, you know, psychologically and spiritually to kind of find that sense of inner peace and freedom. We look at that, and then we kind of scoff at the, oh, you know, you can't get over yourself and go to the grocery store sort of thing. But it's like, those little things, or seemingly little things, are critical to building the capacity that gets us through the big things. And so

• 29:26Speaker 00

  we can't discount those things, we can't trivialize them, we have to put our effort into those things, because that is the practice, that's the foundation, that moves us toward the capacity to withstand the big glamorous things falling off the side of a mountain, or whatever it is, and, you know, walking home with one leg, you know, whatever it takes. But if you if you're unwilling to do the work and the day to day stuff, it's very unlikely you're going to get to that point where stories will be written about you.

• 29:57Chris Williamson?

  What was your favorite story that you researched when looking at the capacity chapter?

• 30:06Speaker 00

  I think Stephen Callahan's really stood out, the life raft experience. Can you tell us about that? And he wrote a book, yeah, he wrote a book called Adrift. And this was in the mid eighties, I believe. But he was sailing solo.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  I forget where he started Canary Islands, maybe. And almost immediately into this trip, a whale rammed his boat. And that thing sank so quickly, he couldn't even get all of his survival supplies out. Thankfully, he got the life raft that had some gear with it. And so, reading his account of that, it's just mind blowing because the the degree of ingenuity and resourcefulness that he displayed is just on such a higher level than most of us can even imagine. Like, so my, the favorite for me is that he had this leak in his raft. And he was trying everything in all these different ropes and knots and trying to prevent it. And it just would never stop leaking.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  And so he finally ended up using a fork to fix it. And so you look at the kind of creative thinking that involves. And if you see it now, you're like, oh, no big deal. He used the fork as like a toggle to crank on the thing. It's so obvious. No, it's not. A fork is something that we associate with creating leaks, not fixing them. So, most of us who are very judicial thinkers would not even entertain that as a possibility, let alone take the time to think, here's what I have. One of these things is an old Boy Scout fork. How can I use this to repair this leak? And then actually make it happen and save that raft for another 60 days or whatever it is,

• 31:49Speaker 00

  which those things are meant to last like a week, maybe at best, I think. And so there were just many stories like that. And in him having this internal dialogue, and he kind of described, you know, having two people in his head. And one was a very emotional

• 32:05Speaker 00

  person, and one was the more rational, kind of the captain. I think he referred to it as like, nope, this is what has to happen. You have to do this, this and this. And you know, the other guys in there are like, nah, I kind of just want to lie down and just sleep this away and forget it. I don't want to do it. And so it was. It's just, it's this like perfect story to me of survival, but the the internal dilemmas and difficulties uh mixed with the uh the the necess- or necessity of being so resourceful and creative and bringing that all together into this like unbelievable harmony. And then it's so incredible. He gets seen by a fishing boat finally after seventy six days.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  And he's so dialed in and like accepting of his situation that when the guys come to save him, he goes, no, no, you guys go ahead and finish fishing and then pick me up when you're done. So he literally sat there and waited for these guys to finish their day of fishing. Just waited in this raft. He's like, hey, seventy six days. What's another six to eight hours? That's unreal. You know, most of us, if we were in there for six hours, would be like crawling out of there, swimming to the boat, get me out of here. And he's, ah, you guys, I'm just gonna enjoy the view for a little while. So that, I mean, that book, if you haven't read it, that book is very much worth the time.

• 33:28Chris Williamson?

  That's a sick story. Have you read The Forgotten Highlander by Alister Ercart?

• 33:33Speaker 00

  No, I've never even heard of it.

• 33:35Chris Williamson?

  It's such a hidden gem. So I got told about this about two years ago from a buddy. Think of Man's Search for Meaning. Subtract all of the psychological insights. Add in about ten X the amount of extremeness and you've got this book. It is unreal. So this guy was a um in the Highlanders, so one of the Scottish regiment over in Japan. Um, and then when World War Two began, he was captured as a part of that when the, when Japan uh left or joined the war. And he gets put on these death ships, which are essentially tin boxes with a hundred and fifty people in for a month at sea with no water and no food.

• 34:19Chris Williamson?

  He doesn't die. He builds the bridge over the River Kwai uh and is constantly dealing with dysentery and like a million tropical diseases at once, doesn't die. Gets locked in a cage in the middle of the midday sun for like three days straight because he'd done something to piss off one of the Japanese people, still doesn't die. Then gets shipped over to toward the mainland and gets knocked off his feet by the aftershock from the Nagasaki bomb drop.

• 34:46Chris Williamson?

  Still doesn't die and then stays silent for 50 years because the army told him to to keep diplomatic relations proper. And then he writes this book as a memoir and a call to account for the Japanese government to be brought up in front of the world for the crimes that they've done against humanity while he was there. And it's so bad. But dude, like if if you want the contrast effect that you get where you realize all of the problems that I have are absolutely tiny. And then also to see the capacity of what people are able to go through. It's phenomenal, man, like seeing people that can go through

• 35:23Speaker 00

  Forgotten Highlander.

• 35:24Chris Williamson?

  Forgotten Highlander. Yes, it's really easy book. It's like 250 pages. Super easy read. It's uncomfortable read, but it's great. You talked about there about remaining composed and rational in stressful situations. How can people build that in themselves?

• 35:39Speaker 00

  Just like I talked about previously, this is something you practice every single day in even the most minor situations. And so we look at, you know, so many of us just flipping out because we have to wait an extra minute for a traffic light signal. Or, you know, Instagram won't load fast enough for us to look at someone else's lunk or like whatever stupid things we get so frustrated irritated and wound up about. That's where you start is you recognize that reaction and you step back and you say, is this really who I want to be? Do I want to be the guy who's screaming at my phone because the wifi

• 36:18Speaker 00

  signal is 2% worse than it should be? And then you you employ the various strategies that I talk about in the book that are well known, you know, breathing techniques, different ways to change your focus, different ways to kind of create that sense of composure. And then you you build from there. And so then you go into, you know, like we talked about the the various challenges you're going to create and employ for yourself. And you start implementing those uh those composure tools in greater and greater uh challenges, you know, intensity and duration and and variation, of course,

• 36:58Speaker 00

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

• 37:20Chris Williamson?

  What is the situation that you still struggle to maintain composure in? Is it getting a red light when you shouldn't have done with one of your athletes at a a big competition? Is it stuff to do with business? Where where have you still got work to do in this area?

• 37:36Speaker 00

  It's it's definitely primarily work related. Um, and I think that it it's almost entirely concentrated on my any time I have to rely on someone else to do something for my business, I can't take it because it's never on time, it's never done the right way. Uh, there's always some kind of problem and I'm always asking myself, why am I wasting time and money dealing with other people? I could have done this myself. And so any anything that like disrupts my, you know, smooth, fluid flow of work still gets me. And so I I am increasingly conscious of that and and really uh working to to be able to like take a breath

• 38:21Speaker 00

  and and realize like, hey, uh, you know, we're not storming the beach here at Normandy. It's just a website or, you know, whatever the case is. And and like you said, that that comparison of suffering sort of thing. Yeah, I'm not locked in a in a tin box on the ocean for a hundred and fifty days. I I'm just a day late getting this website fixed done. Like, it's not, it's not that big of a deal. And so being able to step back and have that big picture perspective uh is a key part of it. But yeah, that's that's what gets me every time.

• 38:51Chris Williamson?

  I agree, man. So I've, over the last year, my main business, which is running club nights, has been dialed down. And to operate this podcast, which has been my main project. There's only me and one guy and both of us know what we need to do. He does his bit and I do my bit. And it's only upon no longer, because I run club nights, which means that I'm dealing with a thousand drunk students a night. I need to mediate the relationship between the club manager and the door staff and the glass collectors and the bar staff and the bar manager and this council on the street and the police on the street. And it's, it's a, there's a million different actors, all of whom have their own stake, the, there's different stakeholders within the event and making sure that this thing happens. And sometimes they conflict and sometimes they don't.

• 39:34Chris Williamson?

  And then there's a designer and then there's the guys that run the ticketing website. And then there's all of the reps and the staff and blah, blah, blah. And um, when you strip all of that back, you realize how much stress comes from other people. Because I think the reason it, it triggers you and me specifically is that you know you did all the things that you needed to do. It's like, I did my job. I did my bit and this is being fucked up because of something that you did. And um, that's something I often think when we see influencers online or very sort of small, um, individual based businesses now. So the, the YouTuber that's absolutely smashing it and he has a team of maybe like three or

• 40:19Chris Williamson?

  four people, but is able to turn over great money and has fantastic, um, impact. But that person isn't dealing with a million different stakeholders. They're not dealing with California state coming and asking you for many, many thousands of pounds per month that needs to be increased because of the rent on your gym and other stuff like that. And there's two ways that I think about it. One is aim to create a business in an industry that is as insulated as possible, like a hermetically sealed business in which you have as few external stakeholders as possible. And then the other side of it is when you see these people and they're fantastic and they're doing really, really well.

• 41:02Chris Williamson?

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

• 41:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, and that's, that was one of the big decisions I made with, with Catalyst Athletics, my own company, is a number of years back, there was a very clear fork in the road where I could have gone full blown corporate, brought on a lot more employees, got the big media team, all these things. And it would have expanded the business and potentially made it more profitable. But the dilemma was, I don't want that. I don't want to be a manager. I want to be a content producer. I want to be a coach, first and foremost. I don't need the added stress of more overhead and, you know, a bigger ship takes longer to steer and, you know, all these things. I got the little rowboat, man,

• 42:07Speaker 00

  I can turn on a dime whenever I want. So I sacrificed some of that potential top end in terms of profitability and, and spread. But I have more than enough of both of those things. And I retain that complete ownership, that complete control and that complete enjoyment of what I'm doing. And I don't have to depend on other people and take on that added stress that I don't need. If I'm going to be stressed, it's because I'm struggling to, you know, produce something that meets my standards, not because I'm waiting on someone else and I know they're not going to meet my standards, or, you know, whatever the case is. And so that, that's been like the best decision I ever made when it comes to business.

• 42:52Chris Williamson?

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

• 43:31Chris Williamson?

  That's fantastic. But at what point is the diseconomy of scale being paid by you in terms of stress?

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:42Chris Williamson?

  And I think that's a question that it's quite uncool to ask, because in a meritocracy that values where people get to, and you've got quantifiable metrics of the fortunes, hundreds, most rich people in the world, and how many followers have you got on Instagram? It's not very cool to say that you're satisfied.

• 44:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:03Chris Williamson?

  But that doesn't mean that you're settling. It just means that you know what is

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Not at all.

• 44:08Chris Williamson?

  what is enough?

• 44:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, and that comes right back to the character and values thing. And when we do our self-evaluation, I make the point in the book that self-evaluation should be concerned with only two things, and that is your own values and the the goals that you have set for yourself based on those values. There should not be any metrics of self-evaluation that involve comparison to other people or other standards, because that's how you pull yourself away from what's actually meaningful to yourself. So that is the perfect example, like, well, I've got a clear 10 million a year, or I'm not successful. But what is that actually going to get to you? Like, speaking of Ben Bergeron, you know, he does the five whys. Like, oh, I want to, I want to clear 10 million a year.

• 44:55Speaker 00

  Why? Because like, once you start actually looking into it, you're like, well, I don't know why. It's kind of a stupid metric. Like, it's just this thing that sounds like a good idea, because that's what everyone else is doing. You know, I want 500 million followers on Instagram. Like, why? Like, is that gonna actually make you content? Uh, you know, I, I, I want that little blue check on Instagram, but only because they've been dogging me for so long. And it drives me nuts. Uh, but it's not actually gonna make me happy. You know what I mean? Like, I, I think somehow I offended somebody at Instagram years ago, and now they're just, they're just doing it to mess with me.

• 45:33Chris Williamson?

  Despite you. That's funny, man. Yeah, I am. I genuinely believe that you can

• 45:41Chris Williamson?

  inculcate this, you can habituate reminding yourself that you're being pulled away from your core values. And until you've done them, you'll never know when it's happening. But in the same way as when you realize that you've become lost in thought, if you've spent a bit of time meditating and you realize, hang on, I was dreaming but awake there. I was lost in thought without knowing that I was lost in thought. That is what it is to be dreaming while you're still awake. And the same thing can occur when Yeah. You get this compulsion. I often get it when looking on Instagram. There's a lot of people from the UK that are out in Dubai at the moment because they fled before the lockdown kicked in and they're having this great time out in Dubai.

• 46:22Chris Williamson?

  So I get jealous about my buddies that I see out there that are doing this thing. But then I just ask them, I ask myself, hang on, what, why would you want to be there? Like, what is it that you're missing? And as you start to dig into it, you realize, well, hang on, all of the things that I value for my short and medium term goals are here, right here, right now. And that's why you made the decision to be in the UK. So it doesn't matter. But because we have this system one thinking, this impulsive, just reactionary way that it's, I want that. Why? Why do you want that? Well, he's got it. That is a fucking stupid reason to want anything because he's got it or she's doing it. Like, and the more that we can assess our assumptions,

• 47:07Chris Williamson?

  the more that we can act intentionally. And until you've got your values in, you don't know when you're being drawn away. But you can habituate it. You notice what you feel when the texture of your mind is starting to be drawn away from the, the course and the path that you are on. And when you start to get drawn away, you go. There's that thing again. There's that thing. There's that thing that just pulls me away. And then you can just return back to what you're doing. Man, it is so liberating. It's so, I need to, you know, it happens. I do it like 1% of the time that I should do it. But with that 1%, it feels like such a victory.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Hey, that's, that's 1% more than most of us do it. And so a big part of that is, is recognizing that, that feeling you get when you see those, the pictures of everyone partying in Dubai while you're back at home in the, in the rain.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's an emotional reaction, right? And it's, it's a, it's not a primary emotion. It's a secondary emotion. And it's like that jealousy or envy or resentment or the, the really gross, unhelpful feelings that we get. And if we can recognize that and step back and say, well, like you said, why am I feeling this way? We recognize, well, for no good reason at all. So I'm going to go ahead and put that aside and remind myself what I'm doing. And, you know, having that ability to take a look at your own life, recognize what's important to you truly. But then also have that sense of gratitude and recognizing, okay, well, I'm not in Dubai getting drunk

• 48:41Speaker 00

  with my buddies, but this is what I am doing. And man, I am extremely grateful for these opportunities I have and whatever the case is. And that really keeps you grounded and focused on what's important. Versus, like you said, constantly getting pulled in, you know, infinity directions at a thousand miles an hour of all these things that you're not doing. Well, okay, we're all not doing a lot of things. We're, we're, we're not doing a lot more than we are doing, but what we are doing is important to us. And that's what we should be focused on.

• 49:14Chris Williamson?

  I love that, man. I absolutely love that. Talking about commitment, this is the delivery mechanism for everything that we've spoken about up until now. You can have the best core values in the world. You can have your capability. You can do a handstand and climb El Capitan. But if you're not prepared to actually do the work.

• 49:34Chris Williamson?

  Nothing matters at all. And I think that a lot of people who enjoy listening to podcasts like this one, who like reading, who like personal growth and self-development, the hurdle that many people get stuck at is action, is taking action. How can people take more action? How can they be more committed?

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Funny you use that word because at the end of every chapter of that book, there's an action section and it is practical steps. And that was, that was critical for me because nothing drives me crazier than a self-help book that's just purely philosophical. And so here's how you, how you should see the world and good luck actually implementing that. And of course, everyone throws the book to the side of the bed and goes back to normal.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  So first and foremost, again, is once you figure out who you are, what's important to you, what you want to achieve, now you have to determine what the actual practical steps are. And most of that is going to be conscious development of habits and routines that support those things, right? So we do not have the brain capacity to make that many conscious, willful decisions every day in our lives. That's just a fact of, of the human brain. And I, you know, depending on, on the source you read, it's 40 to 60% of the things we do in a day are habit, that we're not consciously deciding. Like when we get dressed in the morning, we're not thinking like, okay, put my left leg through

• 51:04Speaker 00

  my pants and then I put my right leg and, you know, it, we just do it. And so we need to create more routines like that, that are conducive to where we want to go. So for example, uh, simple stuff like putting your phone on do not disturb and leaving it in another room while you're supposed to be working, right? We sit there and we work for three minutes and then we check Instagram. Like something important must have happened in the last three minutes. Like it, there, it can't just be a bunch of more nonsense that I saw earlier. And so developing things like that, that set you up for success and, and help you prevent blocking yourself from these things that you want to achieve.

• 51:45Speaker 00

  Uh, you know, reading every night before you go to sleep, uh, doing some kind of morning journal routine, uh, meditating or, or, you know, breath work, things like that, where you, you create these habits and routines. That then continue to provide you the structure, the foundation to reach farther i- i- with the more ambitious things that you want to accomplish and and who you want to become. That's really the the most critical part of it. It's not necessarily saying like, oh, I gotta get uh, you know, super committed to this long term goal of of uh, you know, making it to to the the the South Pole, right? It's more like, well, what do I need to do day to day?

• 52:28Speaker 00

  That's going to change my life in a way that allows me to work toward that goal uh, without constant disruption. And that's what most of us are missing. We we we kind of skip over the basic stuff and just look for these really lofty goals. And then we're constantly disappointed because we don't meet them because our day to day life makes it impossible.

• 52:49Chris Williamson?

  What would you say to someone who's really struggling with commitment at the moment? Or quote unquote motivation? They feel like they're built for more. They feel like they have some potential inside of them. But when they promise themselves they're gonna get up at s- six AM the next morning, they always hit snooze when they say that they're going to stick to the diet. They never do. When they're going to go to the gym, they always miss it. How would you advise that person?

• 53:13Speaker 00

  So, two, two things. Number one is you have to associate the behaviors you're trying to implement with your values, right? You have to make that connection because so many of us look at motivation like it's this, we conflate motivation with enthusiasm. Where if we say like, well, I don't feel like going to the gym and and training. Oh, I'm not motivated. Well, no, you're probably motivated still, but you're not enthusiastic because it's hard and you're tired and you got things on your mind. But if you can remember what's the what's the actual motivation? And that might be that you want to get healthier so you can play with your kids or your grandkids. Maybe that you need to get in better shape so that you can do that big climb or whatever the case is.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  And so always having that, you know, the, the actual driving purpose in mind to associate with the behavior. But then also you can start with what Charles Dweig in his book, The Power of Habit, called Keystone Habits. And so these are things that, you know, relatively small habits that support the development of other good habits and more discipline. And so this is, you know, the, the typical classic one is make your bed in the morning, which I'll admit, I don't do. That one for me doesn't mean anything, but that's been helpful for a lot of people where it's like this one little thing that they can control and they can easily create a habit out of.

• 54:37Speaker 00

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

• 55:22Speaker 00

  I can't do it versus like, hey, I made my bed for 10 days in a row now. What's next? I'm going to add on the next layer. Now I'm going to start waking up 20 minutes earlier every day for the next two weeks, then 45 minutes. So now I have time, I'm used to it. Now I can get to the gym in the morning without feeling like a zombie and hating my life. And so it's, it's just the incremental progress, I think is key.

• 55:44Chris Williamson?

  One of the things that I think is so insidious about waking up at the wrong time, and this was something I battled with for ages, cause working shifts is technically, which is what a co-promoter does, you know, getting in at three in the morning and inevitably my sleeping pattern was thrown off. And for anybody out there, the nurses and the taxi drivers and the, the people that do night shift in, in petrol stations and stuff like that, um, I feel for you because it is, it's savage and you don't realize just how important not hitting snooze is. Like as soon as I banned myself from hitting the snooze button, because it's the first thing, it is the actual first thing before your day's begun, you've already said, I'm going to let today beat me.

• 56:24Chris Williamson?

  And hitting the snooze button is like saying, I hate waking up so much that I'm going to do it multiple times per day. That's what hitting the snooze button is. And that making your bed just tiny, you're totally right, little wins on a morning. What are some tiny little things you can do a five minute walk, like around the block, around the little green belts next to your house, just those, because it makes you feel like you're in control of the day. And the commitment there, I think is important. And then, I mean, coming from a weightlifting background, everything that we've talked about today is in some form or another progressive overload. It really is king.

• 57:05Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 57:05Chris Williamson?

  It's king in everything. It's king in reading and meditating, in learning to do a world championship snatch or clean and jerk.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. And that is, you know, that goes back to the idea of dosing with the challenges and things like that, and with the habit building. And just to reiterate the point about starting in the morning with those habits, that is key too, because that sets the tone for the rest of the day. Right? If you, if the first thing you do in the morning is that new habit you're trying to develop, you're already off to a good start. Whereas if the first thing you do in the morning is hit snooze and go back to bed, you've already showed yourself that you're not able to do it. I had a roommate in college who was terrible at getting up, and he would put his alarm clock outside of his bedroom, so he could hear it, and he would

• 57:55Speaker 00

  have to get up out of his bed to go turn it off. Because by then, you're up, right? You're not as likely to get back in bed. Of course, it used to drive me nuts. You know, because we both worked on an ambulance at that time. So we would work 24s, and then I would work graveyard dispatching shift, 11 to 7. And so it was a mess with the sleep situation. But that's what it took for him to figure out how to get out of bed in the morning.

• 58:21Chris Williamson?

  Man, yeah.

• 58:22Speaker 00

  So get creative, you know, do what it takes to get that start.

• 58:25Chris Williamson?

  I know. I have two alarm clocks and one of them is right there, which is far enough away from bed and right next to the curtains. So I can drag those open. So I've got a similar strategy. Putting outside of the room is another level of extreme. I can't believe there's these mats that you can buy, these alarm clocks that are mats and you stand on them. And they have to have your feet stood on them for a certain amount of time to force to turn them off. I'm like, I mean, that is just the same as putting your alarm over the far side of the room. But fair play to them for finding a niche in the market for people who want to be upright for 30 seconds before they can turn their alarm off or whatever it is.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  I've never heard of that, but that's kind of smart from a business perspective.

• 59:04Chris Williamson?

  There's another one, another one that's like a really simple Rubik's cube. And you're supposed to do the Rubik's cube. So you have to be sufficiently cognizant to turn this alarm off. But you can imagine if you had a particularly bad day and you wake up and you're just defeated by some Rubik's cube and your alarm's just going off. It's going to end up out of the window.

• 59:25Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's going to get smashed under my foot for sure.

• 59:30Chris Williamson?

  So what about parting thoughts from this, man? Obviously, we've gone through a lot today. The four Cs. If there was a fifth C, would you have put, would you have put another, another chapter in? Was there anything that you left out?

• 59:44Speaker 00

  I mean, there's always stuff that you leave out.

• 59:48Speaker 00

  I don't, there was not enough that I felt required getting it into the book. But I do think that is, I think the way I approach most of the stuff I write is that it's, it's a jumping off point, right? And so these are, this is a foundation. It's a place to get started. There's a lot more to do. There's a lot more to think about. There's a lot more to talk about. But this is what's going to kind of get you going. But I kind of saw that as really a result of the four Cs, right? That's what you develop in, that includes kind of that sense of peace. That sense of security that we feel that we're all really looking for and actually being, feeling safe and secure and satisfied with our own lives versus constantly,

• 1:00:33Speaker 00

  you know, feeling uncertain and anxious and worried about what's to come. And so I think that is really the ultimate goal is, is finding that really sense of, of inner peace with our lives, what we do and who we are. But then none of those are Cs, so I have to go with confidence.

• 1:00:53Chris Williamson?

  I love that, man. I wrote in a newsletter recently about what confidence actually is, and it's the belief that your abilities will match the required abilities of you. And you, giving a public talk, you very well may be a little bit nervous beforehand because you don't know if what you are being asked to do is what you can do. But doing your washing up is, you're not even going to think about confidence because you've done it a million times before and it's not going to be too much.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  I'm really good at that.

• 1:01:26Chris Williamson?

  I'm awesome at doing it as well, actually. And yeah, I think a lot of the time, what people think they want when they talk about confidence is this extra version charisma, this sort of outgoing bravado, they're kind of flamboyant and they got all of this sort of fancy moves. Everything's done with a twist, like even washing the plates up is done with like a 360 spin. And that's not, that's not what they mean. They just mean, I want to feel comfortable that I can do the things that are required of me. And it really does seem like the four Cs that you've given before that would build up to, to give someone a firm foundation, as you say, a starting off point. So, Tough, building

• 1:02:10Chris Williamson?

  true mental, physical and emotional toughness for success and fulfillment will be linked in the show notes below and catalystathletics.com if people want to get 1,000 plus articles and videos and how to lift everything.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  Spend the rest of your life happily perusing that website.

• 1:02:26Chris Williamson?

  Watching your face over and over and over again.

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, I don't know if you want to do that for the rest of your life, but it's available if you do.

• 1:02:36Chris Williamson?

  And at Greg Everett on Instagram or at Catalyst Athletics.

• 1:02:40Speaker 00

  It's at Catalyst Athletics and also at Becoming Tough is the account for that book. So that will have excerpts and audio clips and things like that for those who are curious.

• 1:02:53Chris Williamson?

  Perfect. I love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  I appreciate you having me.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:03:21Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  And Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stalled, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:03:36Speaker 04

  I'm not the first man.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.