Q&A 101

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (wind blowing) So, hello again.…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) So, hello again. Hi.

   2. JOJonny0:09

      Hello there.

   3. YUYusef0:09

      Hi.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:10

      Joined again by Johnny and Youssef from pro pain fitness dot com. And-

   5. JOJonny0:14

      Youssef and Johnny.

   6. CWChris Williamson0:15

      Youssef and Johnny indeed. And we are today doing our first ever Q&A episode.

   7. YUYusef0:22

      This wouldn't be possible without the valuable contributions from you guys, so...

   8. CWChris Williamson0:26

      Our listeners at home.

   9. YUYusef0:27

      Thank you for the, uh-

   10. CWChris Williamson0:27

       Our listeners at home. So yeah, I, I posted and so did you guys on our respective Instagrams asking for people to submit questions. And we got-

   11. YUYusef0:36

       Really sensible questions.

   12. CWChris Williamson0:38

       ... um, some unsensible ones, but interesting ones.

   13. YUYusef0:41

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson0:41

       They were all interesting. And we got-

   15. YUYusef0:43

       I was being slightly facetious, but...

   16. CWChris Williamson0:45

       ... 60.

   17. YUYusef0:45

       Were there any mentions of, uh, Johnny's legs?

   18. JOJonny0:48

       There weren't actually.

   19. CWChris Williamson0:49

       No.

   20. YUYusef0:49

       Surprising.

   21. JOJonny0:49

       Which is very refreshing.

   22. CWChris Williamson0:50

       I wanted to ask myself the question why are Johnny's legs so long, but I couldn't.

   23. YUYusef0:53

       To ask yourself that?

   24. CWChris Williamson0:54

       Yeah.

   25. YUYusef0:55

       I see.

   26. JOJonny0:55

       It's very introspective.

   27. CWChris Williamson0:56

       Yeah, I know. So we're going to do Q&A today. There's a couple that have been asked-

   28. JOJonny1:02

       Oh, there are.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:03

       ... a couple of questions that people have requested remain anonymous. Other than that, I think we can just-

   30. JOJonny1:10

       Can I know who, who's anonymous?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      gonna have their, um, extensors, their, uh, quads-

   2. JOJonny15:05

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:05

      ... and they're just not gonna be able to... Like, how much power, uh, have they got in their feet, little feet?

   4. JOJonny15:09

      Yeah. I think you could, you could, you could... (knocks on hands)

   5. YUYusef15:11

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:12

      One hand.

   7. JOJonny15:12

      ... against it, yeah. And then-

   8. CWChris Williamson15:13

      One hand and just wrap it.

   9. JOJonny15:15

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson15:15

       Yeah, cool. Okay, yeah. I like a penguin. I think-

   11. JOJonny15:17

       I think it could be bigger than a penguin maybe, but-

   12. CWChris Williamson15:18

       I think funniest animal that you could do to that would be something like a flamingo.

   13. GIGuest (Jonny or Yusef, minor interjection)15:22

       (laughs)

   14. CWChris Williamson15:23

       Because it would just be, it would just be its single head poking up and over. Yeah.

   15. GIGuest (Jonny or Yusef, minor interjection)15:29

       (laughs)

   16. JOJonny15:29

       Yeah. Sloth?

   17. CWChris Williamson15:31

       'Cause it moves slow.

   18. YUYusef15:32

       Sloth would love it.

   19. CWChris Williamson15:32

       It's got very, very sharp claws.

   20. JOJonny15:33

       They're weird, aren't they?

   21. YUYusef15:34

       Sloth's rude.

   22. JOJonny15:35

       So weird. Um, you can talk to dogs for 60 seconds. What do you say?

   23. CWChris Williamson15:39

       That's not what it said.

   24. JOJonny15:41

       Y- (sighs)

   25. YUYusef15:42

       Who's it from as well?

   26. JOJonny15:43

       Andy Stoko.

   27. CWChris Williamson15:44

       Andy Stoko.

   28. JOJonny15:45

       You can talk to doggos for 60 seconds. What do you say?

   29. CWChris Williamson15:50

       I would ask-

   30. JOJonny15:50

       Was that because you write "doggo" on everything?
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Paragon of virtue. …

   1. JOJonny30:00

      called, um, Productivity Advice for the Manic, Depressive, and Crazy Like Me. And it's, like, f- 10 minutes long, and it's basically just something that w- we talk about all the time, which is like, we ... Everyone focuses on pr- everyone thinks that the people that they follow online are these pictures of efficiency, productivity, and everything in their life is great. That's very rarely the case.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:24

      Paragon of virtue.

   3. JOJonny30:25

      Paragon of ... But the people who are getting loads of stuff done in their life typically are fantastic at prioritizing and just focusing on one thing at a time.

   4. CWChris Williamson30:34

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JOJonny30:35

      And so his advice is, like, pick one thing to do every day, and just do that for two or three hours. And that's-

   6. CWChris Williamson30:40

      As Dr., as Dr. Ewan Lawson said on, uh, Your Desk is Killing You, the podcast I did recently-... multitasking is for muppets.

   7. JOJonny30:47

      Mm-hmm.

   8. YUYusef30:48

      But it feels like you're being more productive.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:50

      Yeah.

   10. YUYusef30:50

       Like the, the sensation of time passing accelerates when you're switching between tabs and doing things. You go, "Oh, I'm blasting through this." But actually, total output is terrible-

   11. CWChris Williamson30:58

       Mm-hmm.

   12. YUYusef30:58

       ... if you're doing A, B, C, D, as opposed to just A, A, A, A, finish-

   13. CWChris Williamson31:03

       Exactly what-

   14. YUYusef31:04

       ... and then B.

   15. CWChris Williamson31:04

       ... exactly what Peter C. Browne says in Make It Stick on a recent podcast, which may or may not have been published before this one as well. (laughs)

   16. JOJonny31:10

       In the past or the future.

   17. CWChris Williamson31:11

       Yeah. Focus. How about you?

   18. YUYusef31:15

       I, I also like where this question's come from, that it's, what's the one thing that you find yourself returning to the most?

   19. CWChris Williamson31:20

       Yeah.

   20. JOJonny31:20

       Mm-hmm.

   21. YUYusef31:20

       'Cause I think it's very easy to read an article like the, the Manic Depressive Tim Ferriss article and be like, "Oh my God, that's such good advice. Great." And then two weeks later-

   22. CWChris Williamson31:28

       Forgot it.

   23. YUYusef31:28

       ... you've forgotten it, and like... But actually the... And then you keep searching for new information and new stuff that you're like, "Well, I found the answer." The an-

   24. CWChris Williamson31:35

       Yeah.

   25. YUYusef31:35

       The solution is not in more information, it's in implementing the good advice already.

   26. CWChris Williamson31:39

       Mm-hmm.

   27. YUYusef31:39

       And so, like if you use Evernote, and we'll discuss this in life hacks, like save something down, put it into your shortcuts, set daily reminders for it, or weekly reminders, and just-

   28. CWChris Williamson31:48

       Build back up.

   29. YUYusef31:48

       ... keep it on the top of your mind.

   30. CWChris Williamson31:48

       So what's yours?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughing) …

   1. JOJonny45:01

      So the way the day panned out was, um, used to train in my garage in the morning. So I'm in my garage squatting and really hard set. It's the only time this has ever happened to me. My, my nose just completely popped, so like blood just went like that mid rep, and I spat the blood all over the garage. It's like, you're like pretty intense morning, like pretty, feeling pretty fragile. Get to work, walk in, very sort of fabricated office environment, very bright lights. Like, (exhaling) you're like 10 minutes ago I'm bleeding all over the garage and now I'm here. Sit down, and as I sat down, just heard the entire gusset of my trousers just go...

   2. YUYusef45:37

      (laughing)

   3. CWChris Williamson45:38

      (laughing)

   4. JOJonny45:38

      And you're like, I'm in this office in Tees Valley auditing this company thinking, "I've got the entire day to just deal with this." So I ended up, the way I dealt with it, because it went all the way up the back of my ass. So you could...

   5. CWChris Williamson45:49

      Do you think this was due to quad padding from the-

   6. JOJonny45:51

      Flapping, prob- probably.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:52

      From the squats?

   8. JOJonny45:53

      I just walked around in my jacket on the whole day and like-

   9. YUYusef45:55

      Tried to hope for the best there.

   10. JOJonny45:56

       Yeah.

   11. YUYusef45:57

       Just stayed in one piece.

   12. CWChris Williamson45:57

       Little bit of posterior, posterior tilt.

   13. JOJonny45:59

       So not, not embarrassing, but like that kind of like socially awkward, like nasty-

   14. CWChris Williamson46:04

       Hyper awkwardness.

   15. YUYusef46:04

       So, that, that reminds me, I've had a very similar thing, which was, um, front squatting in the gym and then went to the bathroom, came back, finished my session, left, and then realized... It was a very, it was a very busy gym. Realized that, um, I was wearing like swimming shorts for some reason. I must have like not had my kit available and it's one of those flies that doesn't...

   16. JOJonny46:28

       Flaps open.

   17. YUYusef46:29

       Yeah, it just flaps open and I had full penis out for, I don't know how long, like probably since I went-

   18. CWChris Williamson46:34

       (laughing)

   19. YUYusef46:34

       ... to the toilet for an hour afterwards walking around.

   20. JOJonny46:36

       There's a story.

   21. YUYusef46:37

       Didn't get put on the, uh...

   22. JOJonny46:38

       On the register.

   23. YUYusef46:39

       ... offenders registry, so that's...

   24. JOJonny46:39

       You're not on any lists. Well, I suppose you might not know.

   25. CWChris Williamson46:41

       Right. Um, so there's a question here. I'm not going to say the person, because I think that's what they mean. How do I lose weight? And then in brackets, please don't post this. I presume that you mean please don't say who posted this as opposed to please don't post this.

   26. YUYusef46:55

       As I said-

   27. CWChris Williamson46:55

       Because if that is the case, then the question was completely, the name wasn't it?

   28. YUYusef46:59

       Void.

   29. CWChris Williamson47:00

       How do I lose weight? Calorie fucking deficit mate.

   30. YUYusef47:03

       Listen to the Get Lean for Summer podcast.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:07

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CWChris Williamson1:00:00

      in isolation of external factors.

   2. JOJonny1:00:04

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:00:05

      And for most people solitary confinement is considered the worst punishment in the world, but these people have f- found solace in that.

   4. JOJonny1:00:10

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:00:11

      Um-

   6. JOJonny1:00:12

      I mean, is that right? Have I, have I blended that-

   7. YUYusef1:00:13

      No, you're right, yeah. Like n- no attachments, no aversions means that you've got ultimate freedom to-

   8. JOJonny1:00:18

      Mm-hmm.

   9. YUYusef1:00:19

      Like there's no suffering.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:00:20

       You're not, you're not at the mercy of anything.

   11. JOJonny1:00:21

       Mm-hmm.

   12. YUYusef1:00:21

       Yeah. Like if, i- if you equate ... It's, it's the idea that if you have this circuit of desire, f- chase the desire, fulfill the desire, happy for a moment because the mind quiets on the fulfillment of that desire-

   13. CWChris Williamson1:00:35

       Get that, get that.

   14. YUYusef1:00:35

       ... and then a n- new design comes up, and then you repeat that cycle. Whereas if you were to short-circuit that whole process, eliminate the desire, which you can do consciously through repetition, then you've got the quieting of the mind without having to go through that big loop and chase the desire and fulfill it.

   15. JOJonny1:00:50

       Mm-hmm.

   16. YUYusef1:00:51

       And then you've just got that from the beginning.

   17. CWChris Williamson1:00:52

       Comp in fulfillment.

   18. YUYusef1:00:53

       On tap.

   19. JOJonny1:00:54

       What were the things you said about feelings of, from your retreat? Un-satisfactoriness?

   20. YUYusef1:00:59

       Oh, so the, the, yeah, the, the Buddhist approach is, um, everything is anicca, anatta, and s- su- sukka? I think so impermanence-E- everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self in its qualities. And so the sooner that you can teach your nervous system that, not just consciously but, like, at a deep level, then you don't attach to anything, and you can just let experiences flow through you without having to grasp or push away.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:01:35

       So it's everything, both good and bad, is temporary and never enough.

   22. YUYusef1:01:39

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson1:01:39

       And as long as you... 'Cause, so it was, it was-

   24. YUYusef1:01:42

       So the reps of that are just, like allowing-

   25. CWChris Williamson1:01:44

       ... reinforced that.

   26. YUYusef1:01:44

       ... those things to flow through you.

   27. CWChris Williamson1:01:45

       So I think, like, realizing that your entire life you're going through this material, uh, like externally validated, motivated approach to try and feel happy. I think that's really what everyone's trying to do at some level. And the way you explained it, wh- then it, you, once you hear it like that, you're like, "Oh, actually, it's kind of pointless is, to, to have all this time that's gonna pass regardless-"

   28. YUYusef1:02:06

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson1:02:06

       "... and not at least try and work on the thing that is the most valuable thing you have."

   30. YUYusef1:02:12

       The thing, the thing that is actually perceiving all of this. The-

Episode duration: 1:45:52