Modern WisdomStop Being Shamed Out Of Your Competitive Edge - Mark Bell
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,005 words- 0:00 – 3:37
Intro
- MBMark Bell
I think it’s really important to be around like-minded people. A quote from Louie Simmons is, "If you walk with the lame, you’ll develop a limp." When you share a success, they immediately want to bring up their own successes to try to measure up. And if that doesn’t work, they will immediately go to some negative context around how you did it. If you’re getting more out of life than I am, I’m gonna sabotage you. (wind blowing)
- CWChris Williamson
Mark Bell, welcome to the show.
- MBMark Bell
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
- CWChris Williamson
For the people that aren’t familiar with you and your background, what is it?
- MBMark Bell
Uh, l- uh, many, many years of powerlifting, lifting some heavy-ass weight, and powerlifting consists of a squat, a bench press, and a deadlift. And so most of my time was spent trying to build strength in those exercises, and then, in the gym, when you work on a, a squat bench and a deadlift, all the workouts that I did for about 30 years were all ... Everything was focused and honed in on how to make those lifts stronger.
- CWChris Williamson
And you trained under some of the, uh, savants-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... in terms of coaches of our era?
- MBMark Bell
Yeah, I got to rub elbows with Louie Simmons, Charles Poliquin, uh, Dave Tate, a bunch of different, uh, kind of giants in fitness, giants in strength. And, uh, Louie Simmons, I actually went and trained at his gym, Westside Barbell, and he was a mentor of mine, and, uh, that gym was very, very intense. S- uh, Westside Barbell had probably about 50 or 60 lifters in there. Uh, each guy probably ... Uh, most of the guys were big. Most of the guys were really big, like 275 and up. And, uh, it was intimidating. There, there was a ... The squat rack was all the way in the, well, not all the way, but it was in the back of the gym. And, uh, first couple times that people went into the gym, they would kind of go by the dumbbell area. They might make their way to the bench press. But most of the time, people didn't make it to the back of the gym until they felt, uh, a little more comfortable, which was pretty much never, because it was, uh, high-intensity, just everyone in there, their goal was to get as strong as possible, and not even just that. Some of the guys were in there trying to be the strongest in the world.
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, I mean, the legends of those stories, the videos that people have seen of Westside, of Louie training. "Up, up, up, up, up."
- MBMark Bell
Yeah. "Back, back, back, back, back."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) So what do you think, um, what do you think's been lost with Louie, or has, 'cause he's now passed-
- MBMark Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Has his legacy managed to live on, do you think? Has he made a sufficient impact that people are now taking the good stuff that he brought in and continuing that?
- MBMark Bell
I think, uh, some of the movements and some of the things that he brought to the table, they're still around, and there's still a lot of people utilizing his, some of his inventions. He created the reverse hyperextension machine. Uh, he is the guy that brought bands and chains and stuff like that to the forefront, uh, dynamic effort work, you know, moving weights fast. He brought a lot of attention to that. So I think that, that a lot of his stuff, uh, still lives on, but it ... What I th- what I really enjoyed about somebody like Louie Simmons is, uh, his ability to be creative, his ability to also pull information from old texts, uh, pull information that's been around forever, and try to repurpose it and put it back into the universe, basically. So, uh, the things I've learned from him are, you know, they're gonna continue on forever within me, and they're gonna, gonna continue on w- uh, with a lot of other people that he mentored as well.
- CWChris Williamson
We went
- 3:37 – 14:03
Surrounding Yourself with Success-Minded People
- CWChris Williamson
for dinner last night before my housemate Zach had his tuck trote, uh, which he only got back at midnight.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
One of the conversations we had there that I thought was super interesting was about being embarrassed about your competitive edge.
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So Zach was telling this story about how, when he was younger and in high school, some of his friends would take the piss out of him because he would want to win. He would want to do well. He would want to take things seriously. And, uh, I, I think that's such an interesting ... I, I, I see that in myself. It's a very interesting concept or topic-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... because it's kind of cool. Some people see it as cool to be blase and nonchalant about d- whatever it is that they're doing, because it, it gives you-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a get-out-of-jail-free card. Someone trying hard, in certain respects, is c- is a bit, kind of a bit lame, but that disincentivizes people from trying hard and from pursuing excellence. So thinking about Westside, thinking about your lifting history, what you're aiming to do there, or what it seems like you're aiming to do is surround yourself with people that are chasing excellence, surrounding yourself with people who take things seriously. Do you agree?
- MBMark Bell
I think it's really important to be around like-minded people. Uh, a, a quote from Louie Simmons is, "If you walk with the lame, you'll develop a limp." And so you want to try to get around like-minded people, and you want to kind of question who you, quote-unquote, "run with." I had the opportunity yesterday to run with Zach Bitter, uh, and we ran six miles, which to a, to a runner, six miles is not really a thing. Uh, but me coming from a former powerlifting background, I have t- there's a lot of, uh, things in my head that I have to, I have to get rid of these limiting belief factors that are there, because I could easily say, "Well, I'm not a runner," but, but I am, uh, I'm running, so, like, what, what else would quantify me as a runner other than me running? Uh, I have competed in running before, so therefore I'm, I'm a runner-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- MBMark Bell
... just the same as him. Uh, but Zach Bitter is a, a world record holder. He, he broke all-time world record. Uh, he ran I think, like, a 6:34 minute mile for 100 (laughs) miles straight, which is just, uh, absolutely mind-boggling to me. But it's also really inspirational to me, because I'm like, uh, th- I might have trouble doing that, because I'm not Zach, and he dedicated his whole life to it. So I'm, I'm okay with saying, like, it's possible that that may never happen-... uh, however, I have so much progress that I can make. Because when you talk to somebody, like a Zach Bitter, you talk to somebody that's broken world records, you'll ask them, you'll say, "Hey, do you think you coulda done even better?" And they will start to give you a list of things that they coulda done a lot better with. So if somebody who's already really proficient at something can get better, somebody who's, uh, you know, reading, you know, eight books a month or something like that, could they-
- CWChris Williamson
(coughs) .
- MBMark Bell
... uh, maybe not necessarily read more books, but could they get more out of those books if they are to listen to information from Tim Ferriss years ago talking about efficiency and how to have better reading comprehension and things like that? So everyone that you would ask, "Can you get better?" doesn't matter if it's The Rock or whoever we put up on a pedestal, everyone has the ability to get better, at least in their own eyes, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
But that pursuit of excellence comes back to what we were saying before, right? It's ... I, I've only just recently realized it in the conversation with Z over dinner last night-
- MBMark Bell
If I can just interrupt for a second, I think what we're alluding to is sometimes it's hard to celebrate victories around certain people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- MBMark Bell
So, uh, let's say I did a million dollars in sales last month. You know, there's a short list of people that I feel I could share that with where it doesn't feel like ... All, all it's really saying is, "Hey, like, I, I'm improving. Like, I did this last year, this, at this time, for this particular month, and now I'm doing this." It's not like, "Hey, I'm a millionaire and you're not." Like, that's not really what I would be trying to say. Uh, but it's hard. You know, messages, all we have is our ability to interpret stuff, and we can see how ugly things can get. Like email's probably the worst. Text messaging isn't too far behind. And if you have issues with people and if you ha- y- you wanna try to figure out what is the easiest way for this person to interpret this information the way that I am actually trying to convey it. And the easiest way would be to maybe make a phone call and say, "Hey, I would love to talk to you more about this in person, uh, because there's a lot of int- intricacies of what I'm trying to communicate that I can't put through a text."
- CWChris Williamson
But think about, think about all of the hurdles that you're having to jump over-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... just in order to be able to celebrate a win-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... with someone that's supposed to be on your side.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
This isn't to say, like lots of people that I'm around are perfectly happy to celebrate my wins.
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like me and Z tell each other each day about what it is that we think's gone well the day before. And it's not a dick-measuring competition between each of us. It's one of the reasons that we get on so well. But the idea that excellence is a lonely pursuit is one that I don't think most people think about.
- MBMark Bell
They, they have those studies with the lobsters, where the lobsters gets depressed and, uh, they won't play with the other lobsters unless they, like, play nice. And I think they'd done studies with mice and stuff like that too.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- MBMark Bell
I believe Jordan Peterson has referenced, uh, some of this as well.
- 14:03 – 19:41
Awkwardness in Receiving Compliments
- MBMark Bell
think the, the key factor is, can you get better? And when you are communicating with somebody that's trying to share something with you, it's also okay just to compliment them. And then, in terms of receiving compliments, people really fail at that too.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a really good point.
- MBMark Bell
People stink at that. I, I, uh, I spent years deflecting so many, uh, compliments from fans, and I was like, "That is really foolish of me. Why can't I just say thank you and give the person a hug?"
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's uncomfortable, that's why. If someone comes up to you and says, "Mark, I just wanted to let you know-"
- MBMark Bell
It shouldn't be uncomfortable. Like, we're, we're... (laughs) We go to great lengths to-
- CWChris Williamson
To try and have that impact.
- MBMark Bell
... get these studios, and get these lights, and have these cameras and these microphones.
- CWChris Williamson
Maybe I, I, uh... this is gonna be super idiosyncratic, right? Like, your motivation for doing it might be different to mine, might be different to somebody else's, but I remember I was at Bodypower in 2018, so classic fitness expo-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm, I've been.
- CWChris Williamson
... shirt off, doing, doing the, the muscle-ups on a CrossFit rig and stuff like that. This guy came up and told me a really meaningful story about... his father passed away, and this thing from the show, and blah, blah, blah, and he starts weeping, and then I start weeping. I'm like, "Oh, fuck." Like, I'm, uh, I'm supposed to be in this testosterone-fueled alpha fest-
- MBMark Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and there's me with tears rolling down my face 'cause this guy's just told me this beautiful story about how he's reconnected with his family and all of this stuff, just fantastic. And then I realized that the opportunity, although stories might not hit quite so emotionally hard every time, the opportunity for me to connect with a, a nice message from somebody or something like that, rather than, rather than w-... I don't know where the discomfort comes from. I don't know where, but it is, it is there. Even though that's the thing that you're seeking, you know, somebody watches you do a presentation at work or a sales call at work or whatever, or you start going to the gym and you look better or something, and a lot of the time someone will give you a compliment... What I found myself doing for, uh, a good while was, I would come up with a excuse about why that compliment didn't really matter. So for instance, if someone came up and said, uh, "Hey man, like, you're looking bigger. You must have been training pretty hard." Go, "Oh, well, uh, you know, it's, it's easy when you don't have a life outside of the gym." That just classic defense-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... just completely... and it makes the person that gave the compliment feel like shit.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You don't actually imbibe what it is that they're saying because you've created an excuse about why that compliment doesn't really matter, and it, it is such a good point to say that taking compliments is a skill, because you're disincentivizing other people from telling you something that would make you feel better. And maybe that's a, a thing, like me saying, "Oh, you know, I wish that there was more support, and I hate tall poppy syndrome in British culture," and blah, blah, blah. I wasn't massively receptive to the antithesis of tall poppy syndrome. Like, I wasn't being super receptive to that, so maybe it was my fault. In fact, it almost certainly would have been contributed to by me.
- MBMark Bell
I think, again, I think, uh, que-... you know, questioning stuff and just hav-... getting into good conversation with somebody, somebody is really complimentary... Uh, "Hey, I love those bench videos you did years ago. I-... it got me into powerlifting. Uh, powerlifting got me out of..." You hear people always say, like, dark times, "got me out of hard times, dark times." I will usually follow that up with like, "Hey, if you don't mind me asking, like, what were those dark times?" So can you, just for a second, stop being such an asshole, and can you communicate with somebody and ask them about themselves? I think we have a hard time doing that even in relationships. Um, you know, like with my wife and I, we've been married for 20 plus years, uh, we d-... we do the best we can with that. We try to say, like, like, "How, you know, how are you doing?" You know, "How was your, how was your day?" And then, uh, you know, my wife, my wife might fill it in with, uh, "Oh, you know, Quinn did this." That's our daughter. "And Jake, Jake did that, and I had to take the..." "Baby, how was your day?" Like, h-... I, like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- MBMark Bell
You know, and she was like, "Oh, it was really cool. I got an opportunity, I swam in the morning, and I got to read a book afterwards, and I-
- CWChris Williamson
I imagine-
- MBMark Bell
... talked to my mom, you know."
- CWChris Williamson
... I imagine as a mother that that, uh, placing...... personal worth (clears throat) second to the family, to the child-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like I imagine that that must just be-
- MBMark Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... fucking endemic amongst women.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) Yeah, I think 100%. 100%. I just ... Again, when somebody is, is complimenting you and you start to, uh, you start to get into these conversations and, and even amongst friends, that this is what good friends should be doing with each other. We should be complimentary of each other. We should be asking more questions. If somebody's sharing with you that they read something really interesting, what you'll find yourself doing, you'll say, "Actually in 2019 there was a study that, uh, diffused that whole thing that you just said about cholesterol," (laughs) or whatever it might be. And it's like, I think, a better stance would be to ask another question, ask a follow-up question, say, "Hmm. That is actually quite different than something I learned years ago, but what's your belief on this?"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
And learn, like continue to learn more. You already have that stored in your head and maybe you can bring this, this other conjecture up as you move forward, uh, but I don't think it's a great way to like, you know, hit somebody with right off the bat.
- CWChris Williamson
Assuming that the person that you're speaking to has something worthwhile (laughs) that you could learn from them is just such a fantastic first principle. But
- 19:41 – 26:39
Unexpectedly Creating Negative Environments
- CWChris Williamson
yeah, I, I wonder about the challenges that people have of holding themselves to high standards as well. So this is ... There's kind of a double-edged sword, right, that in order to be excellent at a thing, you need to demand a lot of yourself, but as soon as you posit an ideal, you then begin to put yourself and whatever you do in reference to that ideal, which inevitably creates a gap. Like if this is what you want, anything that you do is always going to be in reference to that.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And even if you overshoot your ability as a type A driven person to go, "Uh, actually I meant this," you know, catch back, "Well, I meant this." And you just continue to... One of my friends refers to it as like running toward the horizon, that every time you take a step toward it-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... it takes a step away from you. And, um, that ... Learning to be able to be more holistic with your pursuit of goals and high standards specifically, I think is something that takes a very long time to work out how to do in a way that isn't toxic.
- MBMark Bell
I got a question for you. Do you think, do you think that people, uh, like might not be aware that they're negative? And, d- and in addition to that, do you think there's some people that, um, maybe are unaware or maybe they feel as if they're like making progress and they're really, they're really maybe not moving forward? Like people that are negative and just like stuck?
- CWChris Williamson
I would say so. There's certainly people... I'm not sure about the progress thing. The progress thing might be more difficult to hide from, um, but the negativity 100%, that you can be in a environment that treats negativity, it praises negativity.
- MBMark Bell
So maybe their interpretation of even what they perceive as being negative-
- CWChris Williamson
Yes.
- MBMark Bell
... uh, maybe they don't even believe that it's that negative. Maybe they just think it's their nature.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. And, or maybe that's just the way that you're supposed to respond. You know what I mean? This is the British art form of piss taking (laughs) and satire, right? Like that's-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... what we're, that's one of the things that we're really, really good at, and it's fantastic in a comedy, but it's not great for personal development.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And it's one of the things that I love about America, that you guys genuinely support success. Like someone does well, and I'm sure that there's subcultures in America that's full of people that are like tall poppy tear downers as well, but if you find the right group of people out here, I think the American dream's super, really is still alive.
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You do well and people want to raise it up. And they go, "Wow man, like that's, that's awesome," and the sentence finishes there. It's like, th- that's not, it's not, "That's awesome, but that's awesome and-"
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
It's like, "That's awesome. Congratulations for you." Um, but yeah, a- another thing that you were talking about with why we sometimes struggle to accept compliments for what they are, we were talking about this over dinner last night again as well, the asymmetry in what we experience of our own lives-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and what we see of everybody else's, because our own inner experience is so rich, this textured world, and we understand the decision that we make, we see every single different vacillation backward and forward. It could be this, it could be that, it could be the whatever, and all that the world ever sees is what you end up doing at the end of that. "I'm going to have the chicken sandwich or the beef sandwich?" "Chicken, beef, chicken, b- uh, beef," right? And then you end up doing it. And that's for everything, for the business decisions that-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... you make, for the partner you choose, for the life, all of that stuff. And I think inevitably, it leads us to have, for the most part, a lot of self-doubt, because everybody else just looks like this really smooth acting-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... self-reliant agent that seems to be able to make shit happen-
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... and we see us tumble over our own decisions from a front row seat on a daily basis, and I think that that asymmetry, um, can lead us to not value simple compliments and simple successes perhaps as much as we should, because we see all of the stumbles that we took en route to getting there.
- MBMark Bell
A hack for me over the years, uh, and this probably had to do with, uh, perhaps some financial freedom and getting into positions where, uh, maybe I felt strong enough and confident enough to, uh, maybe hand opportunities to people, but I've found so much utility in ... Sometimes I'm probably, to some people, I'm probably almost annoyingly kind. Like I want to assist people. Like there's people in my life, uh, there's people that are in my phone and things like that, that I know I have the ability to assist and to help, and so I'll send them a lot of messages, text messages, voice messages, um, but it's been really-It's been a, a really amazing thing for me to think, "How can I connect this person with somebody else? How do I... This person's amazing." Like I can't even, I can't even believe how awesome, uh, Andrew Huberman is, who came to my gym a while back and was on my podcast and stuff like that. How do I share him with more people? How do I figure that out? I, you know, I could share him on my Instagram. Like, that's a good start, but what about maybe connecting with, uh, some, um, potential, um, uh, sponsors, and stuff like that, for his show? And the reason why I think that way is because that'll just help me look better too. So selfishly, there's, there's always a little selfishness and-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
... wrapped up in everything, I think. And so, selfishly, uh, that's wrapped in there as well. But I w- I would love for him a- and people like him to feel better, to feel more comfortable when they think about me or they think about my team, or they think about Supertraining, or they think about, uh, anything to do with me, my products, the podcast. I want them to have a really good feeling about it. You know that friend that when you see him, like, y- you just start laughing? Like you're, you're 100 feet away. You seen him at the airport to come pick you up or something like that, or, or you saw him in an unders- unexpected, he went to the coffee shop that day a- and there's your old buddy who is always hilarious. He's, he's no drama, and you're, you just light up automatically. You just start laughing, and you start thinking. I don't necessarily have that personality (laughs) that way, to be, uh, that, quite that dynamic, maybe, but I think my strength's, a lot of time, is in, is in connecting people. So, for people listening that feel like they can connect the dots here and there for somebody, which I think everybody can if you really think about it, because, uh, we know a lot of people, and we're in closer proximity to people than, than ever before, just with social media. So, uh, this, an example of this would be if you heard something, uh, that you felt could serve somebody else, and it's just a message on a podcast or Instagram, copy it, paste it, shoot it over to a friend. Maybe it helps change their life.
- 26:39 – 30:49
Can You Be Selfless Without Being Selfish?
- CWChris Williamson
it's a interesting nuance to consider the respective glow, the reflective glow that you end up basking in when you do the thing. Like for Andrew, you know, he, he's phenomenal and should have more people than the, like, mountains that already listen to him, listening to him, because I think science-based tools for health and fitness and wellness and mindfulness and stuff is great. But there is a, you can start to feel a little selfish or a little guilty because you know that there's something coming back to you.
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But ultimately, any selfless act has a, uh, a selfish component, even if it's completely subconscious, because by doing something selfless, you're ultimately going to get a good, a sense of goodwill from it. Studies that have been done, which I'm sure you're familiar with, where they give people £10 and they say, "You can spend this on yourself or you can-"
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... "spend this on something for someone else." And the difference in the amount of pleasure that people take from the money they spend on somebody else is way more. So you go, "Okay, so the most selfish thing I can do is to be selfless."
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"Okay. How do I do something selfless then?" Genuinely, h- how do you do something that is, at its purest sense, selfless? Well, I would need to do something that's for someone else, but somehow didn't make me feel better. But where's the incentive to do that?
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And if you can have a positive sum game, they feel better, I feel better. Fantastic. They feel better, I feel worse?
- MBMark Bell
Maybe they're morose.
- CWChris Williamson
But that's somehow, what, more fucking virtuous?
- MBMark Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
I don't understand. But yeah, I think the connecting thing... I, I've been a club promoter for 15 years, man. It's like in my DNA now. Whatever epigenetic for, uh-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... networking has been switched on, and it just doesn't-
- MBMark Bell
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... stop. And, um, the connecting thing, connecting people thing is so cool. And there is a little bit of a, a winner-takes-all, power law, Matthew principle thing going on, because the more contacts you have, the more people you can connect, and the more people that you connect, the more contacts you get-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... which means that there's more opportunities. We were out there going, like, "Oh, do you know someone from this place?" "Oh, yeah, I know someone from that place."
- MBMark Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"Like, do you know someone from here?" "Oh, yeah, you should really intro the blah, blah, blah." Um, so you do start to see coalitions of people move and win together. But going back to the very beginning about supporting each other's excellences, being in a community of people that wants to raise others up as opposed to tear them down, or even just be neutral about what it is that they're doing, if you support that person, you can fly along with them. Like, when I think about some of the people that I've been around and some of the different positions that they've got themselves into, the same names keep popping up.
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, there is no reason that you should continue to be an absolute beast in this industry and that industry, and oh, you also happen to be an amazing trader, and also, you know, you know tons about crypto and you know about investment, and you've got some stuff to do with content creation. Well, why? And also, why wouldn't I want that person to be around me? So yeah, I think the networking thing is interesting because it's become very transactional. People can see it as like, what can I do for them if they can do something for me?
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But ultimately, if you do that from a virtuous, holistic, I want everyone to be better place, I think that you can do that without feeling too guilty.
- MBMark Bell
Yeah, and that's the way I view it. I view it as over time, you're gonna understand who I am better. So I'm not, I'm not concerned about, I'm not concerned about, uh, if the person in the back of their head's like, "Oh, is this guy trying to do something?" Because, uh, you know, hopefully I know you more than just for like a month. And hopefully I know you more than just a transaction of you coming in and doing my podcast. That's why I invite so many people out to my gym in Sacramento, my headquarters where I have my podcast and everything's under one roof, is because they get to see my employees. They get to see the vibe there. They get to see everything just like we're doing here at Nick's place. We're at, uh, BPN headquarters, and this is absolutely, uh, amazing facility. It's got the gym, and, and everyone here is super kind, and each person has their own journey and their own story. A guy was telling us about losing, uh, over 100 pounds. So there's like, you know, these remarkable stories everywhere, and I think these guys get it. Like they...... uh, they know and understand, and probably a lot of that has been, uh, handed down from Nick of, uh, just figuring out ways of being helpful.
- CWChris Williamson
There was this story that I remembered from
- 30:49 – 38:31
Power of Having an Abundance Mindset
- CWChris Williamson
a Peterson live talk, that I went to go and see him in Manchester. This must have been 2017 or 2018, just before the guy even knew who I was. And, uh, he was in Manchester, northern town in the UK, lot of gangland sort of violence and stuff outside of that, and there's boxing gyms. And one of these particular boxing gyms, it's placed in the middle of a gang area. That's the safe haven for these young kids-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... so that they don't get picked up by the gangs, right? And i- it's a classic story of some, you know, patriarch leader, tough, grizzled, northern British man who has been a boxing coach for 40 years or whatever, and he's telling the kids what for, and he's got the flat cap on and, and stuff like that. And Jordan went to go and see these kids, and he was talking about it during the Q&A. And, uh, one of these stories, this young guy said that, uh, he had been trying to spend more time reading and learning at home, and it was his mum and his stepdad, and his stepdad it seemed like was treating him pretty badly or whatever. And, uh, his stepdad came in one evening and, like, hit this book out of his hands and said, "What are you reading for?" Mm-hmm. "Like, this, readings, reading's for idiots?" Or, like, "Do you think that y- y- it's not gonna make any difference in any case?" And Peterson, in his sort of classic way, he gets this gnarled finger out, and he goes, "If you want to punish somebody, tell them that they're wrong for doing something wrong. But if you really want to punish somebody, tell them they're wrong when they do something right." And fuck, man, like, I was, I sat there, like, with hairs standing up on the back of my neck, 'cause I go, "That's that disincentivizing excellence thing all over again." And just trying to get people out of the scarcity mindset and into the abundance mindset, that's one of the biggest changes I think that you can make, because every single interaction that you see is an opportunity. Every single time that you sit down with somebody, that you meet somebody, this is an opportunity for me to learn from them, for me to connect with them, for me to make their day better. And it's ... you don't need to get into woo and spiritual karma, although we are in the, like, capital of that at the moment in Austin. You don't need that. You can just say, "Look, I, I just feel like this would be a better way to exist." From first principles, I think it's a better way to exist. Uh-
- MBMark Bell
I think when your brain is, is honed in on, like, better, I think it's, it starts to home in on better for everything. "Maybe I could have better language. Maybe I can be better educated. Maybe I can make, uh, better decisions, better choices with my food." That's how it's worked out for me, and I feel like, uh ... it, it's an incredible feeling. It's hard to communicate, because I would love to basically just make a post on social media and be like, "I feel fucking awesome, I feel amazing, and a lot of it's because of A, B, C." Um, that would be received pretty good by some people, but it also, uh, you can't control how it's perceived by, by everybody. But it is literally how I feel in this pursuit of trying to make things better, and I think it all starts ... For me, it started with just putting more time in other people. Like, just not being in a rush. When I communicate with somebody, I don't have somewhere to be. I'm fucking with you, and I love sp- I love spending time with people. There are times where, yes, I do need to fucking jet and I need to go (laughs) , uh, but when I'm driving home in my car, and I'm like, "Damn," I'm like, "Damn," like, "I shouldn't have probably spent that 30 minutes with that person, 'cause it doesn't really impact much." But then I'm like, "No, no, no. It, it impacted them, so you gotta remember that." Like, that's ... You know, you ... And I, and I gotta s- I gotta stick by that, that w- okay, that was the right decision, and I gotta communicate that to myself throughout the day. And it's been something that just, it just makes me feel good. I just feel at peace. So sometimes when I hear of somebody, uh, making a lot of money or somebody just making these big moves, um, I don't co- I'm not in a spot in my life where I feel like I need to come at that with anything negative. I'm not in a spot in my life where I feel like I need to match that. I- it's something that I'm probably not completely over.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
Uh, maybe I never will. Maybe there's some competitive nature in there or something like that. Um, but to go back to what we were saying in the beginning about, uh, you know, not wanting to maybe shine too much or not wanting to just crush everybody with what you're good at, I, I think that there's appropriate times, there's appropriate times to bring stuff up. So if somebody, uh, if somebody is mentioning they're really struggling on their diet, well, maybe that's where you can start to ha- start to say, "Hey, I learned, I learned this, and I'm really excited, and this helped, and this helped." "Well, they just mentioned," they, they're kind of opened the door-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
... for you to lay out some groundwork for them. Uh, but if they don't, and you're trying to impose this way of living on them, that's when we get into really dangerous situations, because I don't know how much judging we can really do. It's, it's tough. When somebody's, you know, when somebody's heavy, we would like to automatically think, "Well, that person's 60 pounds overweight, and we know that that makes you unhealthy." We kinda know that, but we don't (laughs) ... there's, there's some pretty decent evidence, but also maybe, you know, if that person's 60 pounds overweight for just two, three years, maybe it's not that detrimental. We, we have no idea where the person came from. We have no idea, a glimpse into, uh, what their life looks like. And so trying to, uh, you know, enforce or trying to push a- an agenda on somebody just is something that probably is gonna fall short.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting the balance between being sufficiently gentle with the messaging, with the framing, with how you put it across. Uh, we were talking about how some women that ha- gain an awful lot of weight do so in response to sexual trauma-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that they've been through in their past, and that by gaining a ton of weight, they ...... think that they exclude themselves from being an object of sexual desire, so they use their weight as a protection strategy so that they never go through that potential assault or whatever again. And you go, "Okay." And here's someone, some well-meaning person going, "Have you heard of carb cycling before? Because carb cycling is a very, uh, I ƒ (1:07) I've got this local, this local guy, he's great, they're like high-intensity classes, but they're going to be gentle on your joints." Meanwhile, you've got this sort of inner trauma just screaming out, and that is a very difficult line to walk. You know, how do you, how do you push hard enough with someone ... And this is another, uh, another interesting, mm, progression I think that people go through as they grow up. A lot of the things that people are developing when they start, you know, the 20 to 30s strategies, how to stop being a man-child, the basics of productivity, the basics of a health and fitness regime, I need to get up and go to bed at the same time, blah, blah, blah. That's interesting. What interests me more now is how you get from 80 to 90, not how you get from naught to 30. Like, okay, I know that I can push ... With Z, I can tell him, "Dude, I think that video sucked." Like, "I don't like the pacing, I don't like the this, I don't like the that." And I know that he's ready to take it and sufficiently robust. And that, again, is what's important about growing and evolving as you progress, because it's the same as in the gym. You're not going in and squatting one plate for one rep, whereas when you first started you did. Progressively over time, you're going to add more stress and more load because the greater stress and the greater load are going to yield greater results. But you don't do that in the beginning. You also don't, don't do that with beginners, even if you're an advanced person. So yeah, maybe when we were talking before about, uh, uh, curating
- 38:31 – 45:47
Mark Has Never Had a Bad Day
- CWChris Williamson
the message for the audience, making sure that it is well-received, uh, but I'd heard you say once that you, you don't have bad days or you've nev- never had bad days. What, what do you mean by that?
- MBMark Bell
I mean exactly what I said. (laughs) Uh, I think, you know, I, I've been working over the last several years, maybe even like a decade on just, uh, reinterpretation. Uh, uh, it's my belief, and I try not to get too attached to those as well, but it's my current belief, um, that negative emotions, they only come from one spot. Negative emotions come from negative interpretations. And there are some things in life where you're like, "I think that's bullshit," (laughs) because sometimes, like something like rape or something like that, there are things that are like, it's just bad. Like it's, it's a, it's a fucking horrible thing to have happen to somebody. Uh, so there are things that, that are, there are things that are nuanced that are like maybe outside the bubble-
- CWChris Williamson
Edge cases.
- MBMark Bell
... sometimes, sometimes on some of these things, but, uh, it's my belief that, uh, negative, uh, interpretations, uh, are the thing that spark, spark a negative emotion, and it could lead you down a bad path. And so when I started to think about some of these things and I review them in my head, I start to clean out the closet of my previous ideas, and I start to go through and I start to evaluate and I start to say, oh, like me, when I grew up and I thought I was dumb, I thought ... I bought this story that I was stupid, um, there was really nothing bad about that. I needed a unique ... I grew up, uh, upper middle class, no friction anywhere, so it's like I needed some sort of friction to, uh ... Me personally, I'm not saying everybody needs that kind of friction, but I needed friction, uh, to fine-tune myself. And what did me thinking that I was dumb, thinking that I wasn't going to be able to, uh, maybe do stuff other kids could do, uh, in school, it pushed me towards being more physical, so I lifted weights and it turn- turned into a thing. (laughs) It turned into something for me. It pushed me so far that way. So, when I think about, you know, good days and bad days, I can think about those frustrating times I had in school and now I can look at them and be like, no, those were things that really helped to mold me. Because you're ... The things that make you, uh, the things that make you cry, the way I kind of view it, is, uh, your brain is just wor- it's just working through a bunch of stuff. Uh, I say lift through it. I also will share the idea of run through it. A lot of people that I've run into that lift and run or exercise, w- when they, when they go and do these things, they are working out, uh, traumas is like a strong word, uh, but they're, they're working through shit when they go and lift. Um, when you talk to somebody about their weight loss journey and find out that someone lost 100 pounds, a lot of times there's some sort of trauma from their childhood when you talk to somebody that's obese and they're working through it with their diet and with their exercise. So, the things that really, uh, may have hurt you at a particular time, I think when you heal from those things, you're a little stronger and you're a little more resilient. And over the years, you know, I certainly didn't start out this way, but I've always had a pretty calm demeanor, and it's just gotten more and more calm (laughs) over the years to the point where sometimes even that's misinterpreted. Me just not saying anything could be like, "Wow, he's ... Maybe he was in a bad mood." (laughs) You know?
- CWChris Williamson
Or maybe he doesn't care.
- MBMark Bell
Maybe I don't care. Uh, and really, it's just a balance. I have what I believe I, I am starting to get better at is having some equanimity. Equanimity is just a balanced mind in the face of adversity, in the face of something that somebody else might otherwise perceive as a stressful situation. So, uh, people get into these, uh, arguments and they get in these fights with people and they get into these little nasty things here and there and your, uh, emotions will flow a particular way. Uh, what I've learned is they don't necessarily have to, because you have an opportunity to think about your thoughts a little bit more. If you can pause...... and just take a second, you're gonna find that your delivery and your reaction to whatever it was, is probably gonna be more efficient and more effective. A lot of times that's not really what we're taught though, because, you know, if you play a sport, especially as a male, play football, uh, play cricket, whatever sport you may have (laughs) ended up doing, uh, that you chose, a lot of reaction time is, is a big factor in there. And your response to what's happening is critical. Now, that's on a physical side, (laughs) but on a mental side, it's ... it, there, it couldn't be any more important. I can't think of any, uh, greater strategy than just pausing something for a moment. Say you got into an argument with your significant other, and you said, "I'm not, I'm not exactly sure, um, but I'm, I'm really frustrated, and I need to think about this. Can you ... can we ... is it possible ... can we, (laughs) can we shut this down for a minute? Uh, and, and can I come back and, and talk to you more about this in like five minutes?" I know how difficult that can be, but I can't think of a more effective strategy. Sometimes people will say, you know, sleep on it, which that could even be more difficult, and then they'll-
- CWChris Williamson
Live through it, run through it.
- MBMark Bell
(laughs) Yeah. And a lot of times that's, that's where the things will work out. I think if you do stuff physically, uh, it really has a benefit. But anyway, just, yeah, just, uh, over the years as I started to think about it more, I was like, "Ah, yeah, I've only had a couple bad days." My mom died, you know, y- uh, a couple years back. Uh, my oldest brother died, uh, he was bipolar and had, uh, uh, drug problems and stuff like that. My mom basically died from obesity, and so she was a hard person to try to get to head in the right direction and take the, the steps that we're even talking about right here. And so that's why I feel like I can speak upon these things, 'cause these are things that I have had to work on. And part of the reason why I even went down the road of studying things like equanimity and stoicism is because of people like my mother, 'cause I'm like, "I know that she can do some of these things. I know that she can make some of these changes," but to be honest with you, at this stage of my life, I am actually thoroughly confused on whether people possess the ability to truly change or not. (laughs) It's a, it's a really interesting thing when you start to really, uh, think about it deeper and deeper, but it's a f- it's a ... it's a tall task for some people if they haven't started to change some of their mindset already, uh, it's like, uh, eh, I'm not even gonna bother to climb, uh, that mountain because I'm gonna be embarrassed that I'm, I'm only gonna get a couple hundred meters up it unfortunately.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. I
- 45:47 – 1:01:09
Results of Younger People Being Exposed to Self-Development
- CWChris Williamson
wonder what the future generation of young people will look like once they have been exposed to self-development from a younger age. I'm sure that this is the case for everyone, but every generation looks back at people that are, when they're 34, at kids that are 14, and goes, "I remember me when I was 14. I didn't look like that, act like that, think like that, talk like that, be around friends like that, spend my time like that." And it permanently seems like, uh, kids are maturing more quickly, sometimes in ways that are worse than others and maladaptive. But I wonder whether that sense of agency, sovereignty, ability to enact change within our lives, I wonder whether that's going to be democratized a little bit more. I wonder whether people are going to feel that, but, dude, that's a really good question. Like, just how much-
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... just how much leeway do people have to change?
- MBMark Bell
Yeah, in your experience, I mean, you've been studying a lot of this. It seems like, uh, from my communication with you so far, it seems like not only are you listening to stuff, but I'm imagining that you're like taking notes. I mean, you took notes last night a little bit on the conversation we had. Do you find yourself like diligently, like it's a l- almost like you're still in school?
- CWChris Williamson
No. So the reason I did it last night is because there was stuff that was so good I didn't wanna miss it today. But I am pretty undisciplined when it comes to note-taking or having an external second brain. A bunch of my friends, Ali Abdaal, Tiago Forte, these guys literally wrote the book. He wrote a book called Building a Second Brain. Like he's got the thing created. However, for me, it just doesn't work. And w- the best way that I've found, which might be a cope because I don't have the system, is Tim Ferriss's The Good Shit Sticks.
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
The stuff that resonates with you is the stuff that you'll carry with you, and if it didn't stay in your brain, it wasn't meant to be there. Now, you can lean on the side of being lackadaisical with that and end up just forgetting everything and go, "Well, nothing's sufficiently interesting." Uh, that seems unlikely. I feel like my, um, the rate of income, uh, uh, or input and the rate of retention is, uh, pretty well balanced now-
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... um, but a big chunk of that is because I have an outlet that I'm always looking for stuff to use on. You know, another story about Winston Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare or whatever book I'm reading, like that's a story that I'm using because I have an outlet. If people don't have that, they have less incentive to retain, which means they have less incentive to grow. It's fortunate that in between the income or the input for me and the output of being on the show, I end up taking stuff for myself. It has to go through me-
- MBMark Bell
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and during that, that forces me to change. So I wonder whether a vehicle for change for people, a men's group, a woman's group, a friend that's really inquisitive, some sort of creative pursuit like a Substack or painting or poetry or music or whatever, I wonder whether as more people do that and as more people get interested in not just being consumers but in being creators, whether that will encourage them to do more. But yeah, man, uh, it, it's sad to think, you know, that our parents' generation didn't necessarily have that-
- MBMark Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... belief put in them-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... so early that you-
- MBMark Bell
What, what I think is interesting about that generation is that, that generation kicked so much ass and made so much money that people aren't hurting nearly as badly as you think. And I know people are gonna be like, "Oh, easy for you to say, you're rich." Uh, during the pandemic and, and during these times where a lot of businesses had to shut down and people really did... They were suffering at, at, at a point, uh, there's still people with a refrigerator full of food, a freezer full of food, a cupboard full of food, and there's still people, uh, there's still people stacking up, like, just really shitty, unhealthy foods. I mean, what did people do during the pandemic? They ordered fucking DoorDash. (laughs) I mean, it, it... But then people are talking about their stress and their anxiety. It's like, again, it's, it's hard, right, to not come from a place of being judgemental, but you're like, man, like, you just told me that you wanna completely get rid of this drinking problem, and you just, (laughs) you just downed a whole bottle of vodka. Like, what's going on here? Like... And, and I, that's, in my view, that's what we saw. We saw people were hurting, uh, during that time, and we saw people going through some hard shit. But I do think that the generation of, like, my dad who's probably 74, 75 now, um, I think that generation put up so many fucking points on the scoreboard of life-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
... that a lot of, at least in America, a lot of people are set up pretty well. My dad has been doing taxes for a really long time, and it could be the area where he does taxes or whatever, but, uh, he's been doing it probably maybe 40 years or something like that. Maybe 50 years. And I was like, "Dad," I'm like, "These peop- anybody that you do taxes for, like, do they not have a fridge full of food, a freezer full of food, a pantry full of food?" He's like, "Yeah, no, they all do." And I'm like, "Well..." And, and, uh... Oh, he said, and even, and he goes, "And furthermore, they usually have a free- a freezer in their garage that has, you know, more food in there." So, that generation, they did miss out on some really cool stuff. They missed out on believing in yourself and believing that you can probably, uh, achieve higher things, and you might be able to choose your own path.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. It was more linear.
- MBMark Bell
But they, they, they took a path, and they-
- CWChris Williamson
Went hard. (laughs)
- MBMark Bell
... did it. And they didn't really know if there was other options. And you gotta kinda think that their parents, like my grandpa and stuff like that, who worked on the railroad, and like, there was an even more direct... Like, there was no conversation about you trying to go to a different college. You were going to this, you were going to this school, and then you're going to this school, and then you're working the railroad or whatever. Maybe they didn't have an opportunity to go to college, right? I think college was something that was, you know, from 30, 40 years ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Well, think about the challenges that people face when they don't have those different opportunities, when they don't, at a young age, get given all of those. But then on the flip side, I think that the pendulum swings back too far, and we now have the paradox of choice. People have so many different life routes that they can go down. There's... I, I wonder if there's a name for it. I haven't found one yet. But commonly, when people leave university, and for the first time since the age of four or five, they're now freewheeling on their own. They've been on train tracks all of this time, up until the age of 21, 22, 23, and they're released into the open world, and they go, "Holy fuck, I can go anywhere that I want." Even if I've been on the, the tightest track of medicine or chartered accounting or, you know, dentistry or whatever that kind of has a very obvious progression, there's still a sense of freefalling, because they go, "Well, what do I do?" Since the age of five years old, when I had to get up, where I had to be, what I had to learn, what I was expected to do, the progression over time, the time I was gonna spend away, the time that I was gonna be... All of that has just been prefabricated for me. And now, I'm released into the world, ostensibly as an adult, but functionally as a child, and I have to make all of these decisions. And Barry Schwartz's the paradox of choice suggests that it looks fantastic when you give people a ton of different options, because it allows them to choose an option which is closer to the precise thing that they actually wanted. But what it ends up with happening... I fucking... (laughs) I learned this stat about jam, right? So, uh, when there were fewer types of jam, I was-
- MBMark Bell
You're talking about, like, peanut butter and jelly type stuff, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. Yeah, so we would call it jam, like a preserve, perhaps-
- MBMark Bell
Yeah, I got you.
- CWChris Williamson
... over here. Um, 40 or 50 years ago, I think there were, like, six times fewer different variations of this particular product we're talking about. But they sold 50% more.
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And there may be a whole host of reasons for why preserves aren't being used as much. I don't know. But the argument that was put forward is this paradox of choice, the fact that when you go in and you have... You get paralysis by analysis. You look at all of these different types of jam, and you go, "Do I want the marmalade with bits or without bits? Do I want it to be the orange, or do I want it to be the blood orange?" Like, all of this stuff. Uh, and I think that the same thing happens with life, that people have all of these different options in front of them, and that that can cause them a high degree of anxiety, because they know that if their life ends up in a place that they didn't mean it to be, it feels like it's more on them. And there is a beauty to having a reduction in the number of choices that you can make. You know, for all that we can say, look downstream from it at what our parents have got to deal with, with a, a, a reduced amount of sovereignty and more challenges and, and a lack of sort of self-belief in being able to change the direction and stuff like that, yes. But they also didn't have the pain of-... as many decisions or maybe even any decisions. You know, go back, and we've got this sort of mating crisis thing going on at the moment with men and women not being able to find partners that they feel attracted to, and 100, no, 200 years ago, in the year of Darwin's birth, which was 1830, the average number of divorces in the UK was four.
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- 1:01:09 – 1:16:10
Practices to Reframe a Negative Situation
- CWChris Williamson
Going back to the reframing thing, there's a, a quote from Marcus Aurelius that I'm sure that you're familiar with that says, "The whole universe is change, and the life itself is but what you deem it, either gratefully better than or bitterly worse than something else-"
- MBMark Bell
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... that you alone choose." But I mean, "The whole universe is change, and life itself is but what you deem it." So that is talking about what we are angry about for the most part is not the thing, it's the story that we tell ourselves about the thing, and it is the perpetuation of the anger by continuing to think about it. Sam Harris has this little experiment where he says, "Get angry about something and then try to remain angry without thinking about the anger." And it's impossible. It dissipates within two minutes, th- You, you become the architect of your own misery, right? You perpetuate these problems yourself. You're the person that is coming in. Yeah, maybe someone came in and rang the bell, but it's you that continues to pick the hammer up and ding, ding, ding over and over again. When it comes to situations that you are triggered by that ring the bell, what are practices that you go through in order to reframe in a more effective manner?
- MBMark Bell
I love this topic because I think so much stuff has to do with, like, stress mitigation, you know, again, using, like, uh, grappling as an example. If I learn something like a sprawl, which is to defend somebody taking me down, if I just learn that, uh, maybe for five sessions and I get to try it out with some different body types and different people, the mitigation of somebody confronting me wanting to, uh, take me on in some way changes dr- drastically. The, the stress of it is like, "Uh, I don't know what the fuck this guy's problem is or what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be able to, uh, handle myself at least okay."
- CWChris Williamson
So it's directly proportional to your capability or your competence at being able to-
- MBMark Bell
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... deal with it.
- MBMark Bell
So I think so many things are a skill set, and these skill sets that we acquire can be ways to really dampen and mitigate the stresses in our lives, and I think we have a tendency to, day in and day out, just kind of sweep some stuff under the rug, sweep some stuff to the side that we know that we should work on and that we could work on. Uh, but we think of every possible thing, uh, that we, that we can to not do the thing. We keep putting it off. We keep putting it off. You'll find yourself distracting yourself with stuff that you don't normally do, like you might all of a sudden start kind of cleaning out your closet or something like that at home (laughs) when it's like- It's not a practice that you normally do, but you're doing it because, uh, you know you're supposed to run five miles for the day, and, and you, you went to grab your shoes, and you're like, "This closet's a mess," and next thing, and you're just like, you're, you're wasting all this time so that later on you can kind of make the rational decision of like, "Ah, I don't have the time to do that for today." (laughs) And so for me to try to, uh, mitigate or defend or any of those things is like how can I learn or how can I do... What can I do? What is something I can go and do? So if something lands on me awkwardly for the day and I- I didn't particularly like the way someone talked to me or something stressful, uh, popped up, I mean, the first thing is I don't have to interpret it as being stressful. I do not have to interpret it as being negative, but sometimes that shit happens (laughs) , right? So if I did choose to, uh, put it in a negative, uh, category, then I would think there is stuff that I need to do today that i- has always been in my best interest. It's what makes me. And so you can make up... I love th- this term, make up your mind. Make up your mind to go and do something else. So for me it would be like run or lift, but it wouldn't necessarily be direct. It wouldn't be like, you know, you and I are talking and then all of a sudden we got into this heated discussion and I got stressed out or something like that over s- maybe something you said insulted me or, or made me sad. Maybe something you said... I can be a sensitive guy. Maybe something you said made me sad, and I'm like, "Man, that, that really hurt, man. Fuck, I don't know how to explain that to him that that hurt. It's a little weird. We don't know each other that well. I don't even want to if I can tell him, so yeah, I'm just gonna go." But I, it wouldn't, like, I, one, I guess what I'm trying to say is I wouldn't necessarily, like, you know, uh, go and run immediately after that. It just, like, some part of the day I'm going to run and lift and start to contemplate, uh, that discussion a little bit more.
- CWChris Williamson
So it seems like time, creating a buffer is a big part of this, and that goes back to not reacting immediately.
- MBMark Bell
Ti- time is a huge component, but again, I, I also think... (sighs) I have a saying of, of do more, be more, and sometimes people take that a little bit, they take that a little bit extreme. I know everyone's got, like, their morning routines and they got these fucking rituals and shit, and then they're trying to optimize everything, and I... That's cool, like if that sets you forth in the, down the right path for you and, uh, it's been a success for you, that's really cool. I don't really, I don't really operate that way because I just have so much stuff that I want to do in a given day, um, that I'm gonna get to them, so it doesn't really have to be routine. Um, (laughs) you can almost view it as a challenge to sometimes be anti-routine. See, like, can you, can you, uh, you can say to yourself, like, "Am I so much of a pussy that I have to have my specific routine?" I have to have, like, my raw milk in the morning and I have to (laughs) have this very specific thing going on e- each and every day, otherwise I'm too thrown off and, uh, I get out of balance, I get out of equanimity. So do more, be more is concept of motion is the lotion. Movement is the key. Movement is your motivation. Motivation is outstanding. It can be a great thing. Uh, it can be a really strong...... driver, there's many different versions of motivation that people can, uh, people can get from all different kinds of other people and other things. Um, but I think the act of actually going and doing something, it could be anything, could be like gardening, you could be, um, hiking. Like for me, it's just, it's pretty much just walking, running, lifting. But I have found that movement is the most therapeutic thing that there is. And I think ... And I've heard other people say stuff like this, I mean, if you were to, if you were to think of all the things, put together a compilation of all the things that exercise, resistance training, all the things that those things do, that would be probably like a four-hour pharmaceutical commercial, listing off all the positive things that it does, and maybe at the end it would say, uh, "Please check with your doctor because this, uh, this particular exercise could be, uh, very addicting." (laughs) You know, something like that. It might drop off at the end with like a, a little negative caveat, or, "You can overdo it, you can hurt yourself," something like that. But the benefits are absolutely insane, and I think it helps when you make up your mind to safeguard yourself from the outside world, of all the different distractions when you ... I, I kind of refer to it as fat-proofing, because when you have a child, you baby-proof your home so your child doesn't get hurt, you put a block, uh, you know, on the stairs so they can't fall down the stairs, and you put things in the electrical sockets and stuff like that. And I think you have to fat-proof your life, because the, the world outside is chaotic. It's like a giant fucking zoo out there with all the different, uh, types of convenient foods that are bad for us. However, (laughs) we're also in an amazing time where if you're in the United States especially, I don't know about all the other countries, but if you're in the United States and you're in a ... especially if you're in a prominent city, you have so much access to healthy, good food that it's ridiculous. Pr- probably almost the same as you have to bad food.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so talking about the fragility of routines, this was literally the newsletter that I sent out two days ago. Uh, for a long time when I first started Modern Wisdom, I was focused on productivity and optimizing my life, strategies, tools, apps, books, and biases that would improve daily efficiency. My presumption was that pretty much everything would be fixed if I got more focused and applied more effective effort. Upon reflection, I see it as an important period to go through. I think everybody needs to spend a year or two obsessing over deep work and productivity, kind of like how you need to learn what progressive overload and good macros are for making strength gains. These are the physics of a productive and efficient life. But it's an incomplete, uh, it's incomplete for a number of reasons, one of which I want to focus on today, having hardcore routines makes you fragile. And this is an Alex Hormozi quote, "Everyone can agree that they feel better if they sleep well, but the issue is if you create the story that you must sleep well in order to perform, if you make it a requirement to function, then that is where you get more negative ramifications from the belief that you must have it. It makes you fragile. You need to view all of your optimal approaches as preferences. I prefer to sleep more, but if I don't, I'm still going to show up, because winners win." And that's do more, be more, I think. That is, look, what's the actual outcome goal that I'm aiming for here? Is my outcome goal to have a fancy productivity system that makes me feel good about the process that I went through in order to get to something? Or am I just getting the work done by any means necessary? Now, this is not a beginner's approach, because you need to understand the physics of what you're trying to do. You need to understand the base- It's all well and good you saying, "Do you know what it is? Uh, I can do a little bit of lifting, a little bit of running, maybe I'll, like, roll with Ensima and get choked out a couple of times and do BJJ." But all of that works because it's, you've transcended individual, uh, domains of training, right? You've transcended an individual different type of programming. You can't do that in the beginning, but I think that holding on to this sort of very rigid, everything's about productivity, I have to be as effective as possible and I need to make sure that my, my Pomodoro time is perfect, and the morning routine that takes 90 minutes, and whatever, whatever. It's like, okay, well, what if you could get the same amount of work done but with less of that input? Maybe you've created some habits that allow you to take less of a dose of that. Maybe instead of doing three-hour strength sessions in the gym, which I imagine Westside would have been, you know, these-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... super long sessions and, like, insane amounts of calories and stuff. Okay, well, maybe my goals have changed, but maybe my approach is better, maybe my approach is more efficient or effective now. Maybe some of the gains that I've made in the past mentally or physically are carrying over-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... and giving me this, like, afterburn effect, uh, across years, years and years. So routines making you fragile, yes, 100%.
- MBMark Bell
Why do you believe that, uh, it's harder to do if you're a beginner? Or, or not advisable?
- CWChris Williamson
Because I think that it's, there's too much complexity in that, that learning incrementally and periodized, "Okay, I'm going to learn what a strength routine looks like," and you need to spend, you know, six months to three years learning about how, why cooking chicken in different ways is, tastes terrible, and how hard it is to get one gram per k- pound of body weight in terms of protein into your body, and, uh, why you shouldn't try and eat all of your food just before you go to bed 'cause it ruins your sleep, and what it feels like to do full body every day, and what it feels like to train seven days, and what it feels like to train three days. Like, you need to go through all of those things, and if you're doing that whilst trying to do Brazilian jujitsu, whilst trying to do a running program, I don't think that you condense and synthesize the learning down into a purer form.
- MBMark Bell
I see. I see.
- CWChris Williamson
We have limited RAM. We have limited ... Um-
- MBMark Bell
Mm-hmm. I just, I c- Where I would have pushback is just against, uh, routine.... ever, pretty much. (laughs) Um, be- because, uh, it's been my experience that, like, the beginner phase can really be, like, a lot of fuckery. Like, like you're talking about, like, like, the chicken and stuff like that, like cooking it, like, we get our knowledge from our experiences and/or somebody else's experiences. It doesn't really come from anywhere else. Um, so we, we ex- we experience these things or we've heard previous experiences, but, uh, I'm a big fan of the term "dicking around". I think there's a lot of, like, dicking around that happens when you first start lifting-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MBMark Bell
... all the way to the point where when you ask somebody, "When did you lift? When did you start lifting?" They always have two separate times.
- CWChris Williamson
"Well, this is when I began, and this is when I started doing it properly."
- MBMark Bell
Right, right. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- MBMark Bell
And it would be nice to start out routine. It would be nice to start out with, uh, somebody sat you down and explained a lot of it, and somebody's like, "This is a really good program to stick to, and you should go three days a week," and, and all that. And, and that, and to that extent, I think you'd be 100% right. That person would have way better progress, probably, uh, than the other person. But I'm a big fan of sticking with things that you're interested in and sticking to things that you like. So, my son and a bunch of his friends have been, uh, training in my gym, uh, for the last few years. And man, it has been really difficult. I've had to bite my tongue because my son just hangs out on the preacher curl machine, or at least he used to. And I'm like, "I should have ... We sh- I should go say, 'Don't say anything.' Go tell him to squ- No. Oh, don't say.'" (laughs) You know? And it's just, it's killing me, you know? I'm like, I'm like, no, these are important, like, bro sessions. Like, I'm just so happy that he's in here. I'm so happy that he's finding some interest relatively close to the things I'm interested in. I don't care that he's just hanging out (laughs) at preacher curl. Hopefully he ends up with freakishly large, uh, biceps. Uh, so it's, it's been, it's been tough, but I've watched them, him and his friends, all, I mean, literally grow. Like, they're, they're all getting bigger, and it's really awesome. And it's really fun to see the bro sessions going on there, like bench pressing, um, like-
- CWChris Williamson
They never training light.
- MBMark Bell
It's every day that they bench press.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Well, you remember that, right?
- MBMark Bell
They've got, like ... Yeah, they got, like, one buddy who, like, who, who will actually follow, like, a prescription or a program. Uh, but most of the time, they're just, you know, hanging out, uh, either benching or, or doing curls. Uh, but again, you know, uh, even with my running, the beginning stages of it was just like, "Let me just, uh, shuffle. I'm gonna run as slow as I can." Uh, just, the only rule is not to hurt yourself. And, uh, it's all been stuff that I, that I made up. But again, back to some of what you were saying earlier, I already have a, a large foundation of physicality-
- 1:16:10 – 1:16:10
Where to Find Mark
- MBMark Bell
Episode duration: 1:16:52
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