007 The Ethics and Effectiveness of Compulsory VS. Consensual Learning: Ep.4 The Philosophy Of Fitness

Learning "styles" are often discussed in the attempt to educate more effectively, but the most critical component of effective learning is consent. 

Tali and Cody share from their own experiences of finding fitness later than most kids, 
how we developed the drive to thrive, 
the idea of perishable skills, 
and how compulsory education might hinder the skills development of learning, decision-making, and self-discipline. 

Bottom line: Consensual learning is not only more ethical, but it's also more effective. 

What are your thoughts on this topic? Join the discussion at LiveAllYourLife.com

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Transcript

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Rolling. All right. So today's icebreaker is who was your CrossFit crush? Oh, Camille LeBlanc, I think is how you say her last name. I'm not sure. And then I found out LeBlanc bene. Yeah. And then I found out she's a twin, which is really hot.  it's like the double min gum commercial. Do you remember that?

Double your pleasure. Double your fun.  yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. So that's probably my CrossFit crush for, for a while there. My CrossFit crush. I do, I actually even have one. I can't even think of one. I have a weight lifting crush. Does that count? Well, you might as well go ahead because it's a little beyond a crush might be like an obsession, but it's not an obsession.

Okay. It's true. Love

It's true. Love and he's. I would say he's like my spirit animal  I never know what people are talking about when they're talking about their spirit animal. I'm just like, okay. But when I think of Donnie Schenkel, that he's like my muse. He's like my muse. There you go. That's that's appropriate. It's like my body of work is dedicated to him.

don't look at me like that. No, I'm not that's I think  that's great. And then who was that really hot CrossFit? Coach whi Whitman, Todd Whitman. Yeah. Wherever you are, Todd, you're such a babe. Yeah. I got to work with him a couple times. He is like one of the nicest dudes ever. I mean, he's just, I don't mean nice as in like yeah, you do get along with he's genuinely a very cool guy.

Yeah. He was the flow master to my CrossFit level one cert and I was just like eating it up. Every word, every word. Yeah. I've worked with him at a couple of competitions and learned from him at a cert like yeah, the Todd, the Boz. What was it? The Todd and Boz Bozeman. Bosman. Adrian Bosman. Yes. But there was a show that they did that was like, oh, I forget what it's called now.

But yeah, a couple cool guys, really like those. All right. Are, are, is the ice broken? I think so. Okay. This is the philosophy of fitness podcast.  on the Lim network in today's topic that we're going to approach. Probably a lot shorter than last week is only because we're making it shorter. We have dinner to make, well, maybe it's Sunday night.

It's compulsory learning versus voluntary learning. So it's, it's fine. Is it? Yeah, it's fine. Okay. She knocked a timer off and it's ticking and it's ticking like a bomb, which means it's going to  be really loud. No, I guess not. Okay. Yeah, compulsory versus voluntary learning. And the reason this fits into the fitness of philosophy podcast is I think it has a lot to do with both of our backgrounds, cuz we didn't really grow up, quote, unquote athletic.

But we found it a little bit later. Not later in life, I, it's kind of a weird way to put it, but I would say later than so many. Yeah. I mean, a most of my friends had been in the same sport or sports for many years, and it was a big part of their identity as young people. Mm-hmm  and I never really understood it at that time, but now having been involved in a sport for as long as I have, I totally understand how that can really shape you as a person.

Kind of thumbs me out that I didn't find it sooner. Yeah. But the reason you didn't find it, or at least I'll speak from my own experience, the reason I did not find, you know, athleticism or working out or anything until later in life is that I didn't have a great experience.  in the education world.

Mm-hmm  so compulsory learning when you're being forced to do something. And you're following a schedule that you didn't agree to. You're just, you have to be there. You're studying topics that you didn't agree to. You just have to do it. Mm-hmm  and it's non-consensual when you think of it, and that may seem extreme to some people that I would phrase it that way, but it's really true.

You don't consent to go to school as a kid, you are told to you're forced to, and the entire time you're, there is a series of non-consensual interactions with the adults in your life. You have to raise your hand to go to the bathroom. You have to raise your hand to speak or ask a question. You are, like I said, studying things that you may or may not be interested in, et cetera, et cetera, cetera.

So it's a, it's a long series of non-consensual forced activity. And. Some people adapt more quickly than others to that. And some of us resist it forever.  And I'm, that's what I love about you most, and I'm not sure, you know, what the deep seated, like psychological aspects of that are or evolutionary biology and all these cool things that I love to learn about, but I don't really know exactly where that comes from, why some people are just kind of cool with it.

And other people have resisted for a long time. But I have a theory because I am one of those resistors, is that learning or acquiring skills or really leveling up in any way in your life is more effective if it's consensual than if it's forced upon you. There's lots and lots of stories of people who are.

They get into books, reading after school because they find out that they enjoy it, but they avoided books for years because they were forced to do it and forced to read things they weren't interested in, et cetera, et cetera. You know, I wonder about this a lot, actually, because there are a lot of what I would consider more agreeable people out there who did all the things that you and I didn't mm-hmm , you know, as young people.

And I don't know if there was like a, I don't know what that's attributed to, like you were saying, it's like not an obvious thing, but I don't know. I had no problem when like my parents were like, you're gonna do this and I'd be like, No, not and same in school, but I guess I'm trying to think about like athletics and how that began.

And I just think about like PE in school, and there's only so much that you get exposed to. I honestly don't know what the training is of physical athletic teachers. Mm-hmm  I'm assuming it's like, it's not an all, they're all created equal kind of thing, but I would say the many that I had growing up really didn't inspire much  it was very much like you're gonna do this no matter what.

And I was always just so horrified of. Embarrassing myself in front of my peers that I, you know, on the days that we had to run, I would walk. Like I wouldn't even try. Yeah. Also because I didn't wanna get sweaty at the beginning of the day  and look crappy for the rest of the day. Yeah. I forget what movie it's on, but there's a joke cause that, you know, those who cannot do teach and those who cannot teach, teach PE, that was school of rock.

Okay. There you go.  So yeah, my PE experience was because I wasn't involved in sports or athletics outside of PE. I was probably in worse condition than most of the other kids around me. And. Even beyond that, I'm not sure if it's some condition or something that I grew up with, but if I would exert myself, I would turn green and throw up.

Like every time it wasn't just an occasional thing. It was like, it got to be a daily thing. Yeah. You've told me the like, stories about it a lot, but I've never experienced it firsthand. And like you have stopped and started. A handful of times since we've been together. Yeah. So it got to the point where my PE teacher got so tired of me, like throwing up, like physically throwing up in the locker room kind of thing that he would just allow me to sit out like a doctor, like as if I had a doctor's note, you know, he would just allow me to like, sit on the bleachers and watch to me that was like best case scenario.

You are so lucky. Yeah. Well that was would've. I would've died for that kind of free pass. There were two PE teachers at the time and the other one was a real hard ass cuz he was also the wrestling coach. Do you remember that teacher's name? So he would just run people into the ground and I was so thankful.

I didn't have that guy. Do you remember his name? Mr. Johnson was my PE teacher kind of Well, we live in a small town, so I'm not sure how much detail I wanna go into  that's a really common name. Yeah. He was an interesting guy. Let's just put it that way. Okay. He was kind of like, he almost reminded me of like a, a cartoon version of a PE teacher, just like,  like really tight pants and, and two small t-shirts and like really yolked upper body and too much detail showing through the pants.

Oh no. So like that. Yeah. And then the other guy   the other guy ended up being my science teacher. No, no, I'm I'm mixing them up. Sorry. Yeah, the other guy was kind of a character who I enjoy. More as an adult, like, I got his sense of humor, but as a kid, I thought his humor was condescending. So I didn't like him at first, but he grew on me as I got older.

But anyway, getting back to the experience that compulsory education was kind of, sort of lost on me because I resisted it. And I feel like in some cases, the people who Excel in sports or in education when it's sort of forced upon them or people who are like forced to take piano lessons and then they do really well.

I think it's just a matter of luck that they kind of like were forced to do something that they may have been interested in anyway, or had a talent for. Yeah. It probably creates an entire dynamic for like the rest of their lives, about what that kind of mentorship, if you wanna call it that Like as a blanket term, mm-hmm  what that does for your life, where I've always been incredibly untrusting of authority, figures.

Yeah. Or adults who tried to steer me in any kind of direction. Mm-hmm  don't you think, don't you think that, that, like those experiences that you would have as a young person, in terms of like that level of success, what that would mean for your interactions with people in general would be elaborate?

Well, I'm just thinking, like, if I had been introduced to weightlifting from a very young age and had realized that like, oh, I have a talent for this. And like, my coach is really doing the right thing by me. And it's because I'm winning all these medals, blah, blah, blah, that maybe as an adult, like I would respond to authorities.

Right. So differently. Yeah. But I've always pushed back. Yeah. Me too. I've always pushed back against authority and I still do to this day, but I've seen it once before. It was brilliant. I'm wondering if like I was trying to articulate and maybe I, I wasn't clear enough. It's just that let's say out of a hundred people five of them are gonna be really interested in learning a musical instrument.

And so if it's a compulsory requirement that all hundred people learn to play an instrument, those five people who would've been interested anyway, they won't feel a connection between this whole like compulsory aspect or voluntary aspect cuz they would've done it anyway. And so they don't look at that authority figure, enforcing things on them in a negative light because it just so happens that they were forced to do something they wanted to do already.

Whereas the other 95% of the people are like, fuck these guys. And and that's just like a weird example with skewed numbers, but I'm just saying like, I think that maybe some people who are okay and, and not just okay with, but who thrive in situations where it's a compulsory education format are just people who happen to sort of be lucky that they're hitting the things they would've wanted to do anyway, or have a proclivity for.

Hmm. And so they don't ever draw the connection that like, it's not miserable for them. , mm-hmm,  because they're already doing something they wanted to do or they're interested in. Well, and I would imagine that that would also maybe make that kind of person, like more privy to a belief of rightness versus wrongness in terms of there being like a way of doing things.

Mm-hmm  where, and particularly a top down way. Well, sure. Yeah. And I'm thinking about you. Kids who, you know, that we were like always had a skepticism of like, there's gotta be another way that this can be done. Yeah. It always just kind of boggled my mind of, like, I remember just like my parents being like, well, you're the kid, that's what you're supposed to do.

And be like, why mm-hmm  that's not a good enough reason. Mm-hmm , you know, there's gotta be another thing that I can do with my time, you know? Yeah. Not to say that I would've like.  well, I don't know, but I, I guess I think that, you know, if I, if it was up to me to, to have managed my time as a child and never go to summer camp or never go to a school or something that I would've like used it brilliantly, I don't necessarily have a lot of faith in that only because of how I use my free time now.

but it's probably because of, we talked about how it might be because of that rigidity that we are so extreme with our our off time. Yeah. And being so leisurely with it because it's unstructured, like we're sick of structure. Yeah. So it just makes sense to swing in the other direction. Yeah. Well, it's something that I think is often conflated to, is the difference between structure and or hierarchy and consensual or non-consensual relationships.

So for example, there are people who claim to be. Anarchists, for instance, who reject all forms of hierarchy as if hierarchy is evil. But hierarchy is just a natural order of the universe. EV there's hierarchy everywhere. You cannot avoid it. It's literally like it's super inherent a law of nature.

There will always be hierarchies. However, those hierarchies don't necessarily need to happen in a non-consensual way. So for instance, I can hire a business mentor or a coach who has a hierarchy of experience and knowledge. That's greater than mine. Mm-hmm . And therefore I might obey what they say, but I'm seeking them out and I'm hiring them because I recognize that hierarchy mm-hmm  and a desire to better myself by having them help me in that way.

That's an expression of a hierarchy, but it's done in a consensual manner for sure. Whereas compulsory education. Is a non-consensual. So you might be learning from a teacher who's quite frankly, a Dick or, you know, like I we've experienced that. Like there's awesome teachers out there, but it's sort of like , well, you're at the mercy of the teacher.

I was gonna go down a political ramp, but I won't. But the idea that every teacher is a hero because they're a teacher is ridiculous. There are really great teachers. And then there are people who suck, who happen to also be a teacher. Or we're not just talk about school teachers like same with coaches too.

Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. But I think there's sometimes a con conflated structure with a non-consensual organization. Mm-hmm  so just because you're doing something voluntarily doesn't mean it can't be structured, I guess is my point, you know? Totally. You can still implement structure or agree to structure with another person.

And even that person could dictate so to speak. What that structure is, but you enter into it voluntarily, so, and you can leave it whenever you want to. Yeah. And it's, yeah, that's part of con that's part of consent is the option to opt out, right? Yeah. Because if you can't opt out, it's not consensual. So showing up for a CrossFit class, for instance, there might be like, okay, for this 10 minutes, we're gonna do this warmup and then we're gonna learn these skills and then we're going to do more specific warmup, and then we're going to hit this metabolic conditioning, and then we're gonna stretch and we're gonna cool out and we're gonna log our workout.

And, and there there's this S I'm surprised that you went with like the new CrossFit structure instead of the older one. Well, , I was just trying to hit a lot of markers Uhhuh. And so that can, that's an example of how there's hierarchy, cuz there's a coach they're in charge and there's structure because everyone who's in that class is expected to do those things, but you are.

It's a voluntary situation, cuz you're paying the dues and voluntarily showing up to the class and you're agreeing to that hierarchy and that structure. And therefore, I believe you're gonna get a lot more out of it than if you are for instance, ordered by the courts to attend anger management classes or something like I can, I can't even imagine what a failure rate is of like court mandated therapy.

It's gotta be an immense failure rate because you're forced to be there and it's because it's not voluntary. You may not care to get better. You may not agree that you need to get better. You may not respect that authority figure needs to cross off a box. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many aspects of resistance to that because it's a non-consensual learning situation.

Yeah. There's an odd belief that a forced hand will. Become what you want it to be, or like the end result will be the same. Mm-hmm  yeah, you just brought up like a court mandated thing. You took a parenting class after you got divorced, right? Yeah. And you've been a parent for how many years?  well, so my kids, my youngest child at the time was 16 and my other kids were 21 in 26.

Yeah. And so 16, 21 and 26. And I had been married for 25 years. Well with the same person for 25 years. And in order for the judge to sign off on the divorce papers, this was not a contested divorce, by the way, like this was it a agreed. We both agreed upon it. The papers were drawn up. Like we literally just had to get permission from this freaking person called a judge to allow us to legally not be married anymore.

And so, because everything between us was all agreed upon. Yeah. There were no assets that we were fighting over. We weren't fighting over custody. We weren't fi there was no conflict whatsoever. And yet the judge would not release us from our contractual obligation of being married until I went to this stupid parenting class.

And what did you learn?  I learned that the government spends a lot of money on meddling in people's personal affairs. That the, well, what was the point of it? The whole point of the class was to, I mean, the only like takeaway that I kept, that kept coming up over and over again was, you know, don't talk negatively about your spouse in front of your kids.

And most of what the, the class was about was like little kids or custody battles or fighting in front of your kids, or, you know, fighting with your ex in front of your kids or, or smack talking your ex to your friends in front of your kids and all this stuff. And it's like my kids are adults practically.

Yeah. And so this, just this example of this one size fits all mandatory crap, which mandatory crap usually is a one size fits all. Well, I was gonna say, it's gotta apply to somebody, right? Like that's why it's in existence. Yeah. And we were talking about like different people have different relationships with Being required to do something and like how they interact with that or how they feel about it.

And so I'm sure there were, I'm sure it's beneficial to somebody. There were people there who were really appreciating it. Mm. But that brings me back to my first point, which is like, there are people in school who enjoy school or enjoy being, they enjoy their piano lessons, even though their parents are making 'em do it.

They still enjoy it because it's something they would've done. Anyway, there are people in that class who wanted to learn what they had to say, because they did have little kids. They did have ex spouses who were like, shiting them, mm-hmm  in front of their kids shit. Or using their kids as a leveraging tool and all that kind of like really gross things that people do sometimes.

Yeah. It's terrible. Those things did come up and it was appropriate for those people. But those people could have, if it was an, a voluntary situation where it's like attend this class, if you want, it's a free resource, we're offering it to you. Those people would've gotten the same benefit. Yeah, and I wouldn't have had to go

Yeah. And you wouldn't be mad about it still. Yeah. So I guess that's my point that I was trying to get out to begin with is like compulsory stuff. May, you know, you can throw a wide net and there's a few people that's gonna benefit, but those people would've been benefited had it been voluntary. Yeah. But the compulsory aspect just I think damages the opportunity to learn for most people.

Well, it definitely turns you off. And it can give anybody in that position kind of a bad rap. So like, even if there were like great parenting resources that came from that same institution, you'd be incredibly skeptical about it. And a recent example for me is, you know, when you and I moved here, we were so excited to find out that there were weightlifting coaches.

Mm-hmm,  like 10 minutes away from our house. And. , it was my initial inclination to like, oh yeah, we're gonna get in on that right away, because I had only known structure and you know, working with a coach for the last seven years and I had a lot of success through it, but you know, that story ended kind of roughly for me.

And it put a really bad taste in my mouth in terms of what a relationship between an athlete and a coach can be and how there can be things that feel like competitive or stifling or, you know, a number of the things that I felt like went down when I had decided to stop having coaching. And it made me really like freaked out as soon as I felt like I was being told what to do again.

and I was like, oh, we gotta quit. Like I can't, I can't do it again because I started to just kind of have like,  paralleling feelings that like I have felt before in that same dynamic that I don't wanna experience again. Yeah. I wanna give some context to that because when I first met you, your commitment to your sport was so admirable.

And I, I was really turned on by like how, like really you were devoting your life to, and what I mean, what I mean by that is you were structuring a lot of your life in order to accommodate your weight lifting mm-hmm . But I, I got a little, I don't know, concerned for you, like at one point, because early in our relationship we got strep throat and it was like a horrible, I mean, it was some wicked variant rare variant of strep throat.

That was just ho it was horrible. Like it was, I thought it was gonna die. And you were on my couch. Yeah. We weren't even like living together or like she took good such good care of me. Thanks. And then when I started to get better, I had scheduled to go to Mexico. So I left and then you got it. You got sick after I left mm-hmm  and I remember this time when you're like, you're driving to the gym and you're, I know what you were feeling like, cuz I had been there like five days before that and it was horrible.

And you were telling me that you were asking your coach if it was okay, if you took like one day off of training and I was like, what the fuck you, why are you asking? You should be telling him like I'm laid up. I can't come in. And you were like, is it gonna be okay? And I was like, oh shit that's are you okay?

well, so this is where things get kind of weird because I was incredibly defiant when I was in school as a young person and like was always getting into trouble for things. And then, so I found weightlifting and it was definitely something that I had kind of Like discovered on my own, I guess. Like I learned through it, I learned about it through CrossFit, but then I started to seek out my own programming and experiment with things on my own, just like on my own time, on the side.

And this is a thing that I find really odd. And it might actually kind of prove your theory about those who are already naturally inclined, might do better with authority or that kind of learning style. When I started to work with coaches, I was like coaches pet. I wanted to be the best I wanted to you know, they would ask me to jump and I'd be like how high it was.

Like, not even a question. And you know, your story about the strep throat thing is just like a small example of how that was the case. It definitely went. Much further beyond that to a point that I would consider looking back now kind of unhealthy. But I was so in love with this sport that I was such an eager student and was so eager to please.

And it wasn't necessarily like just for myself at that point, it was also to be coach's favorite. I wanted the attention mm-hmm  and I would say that that is the, like, never in any job, never in any other setting where there was anyone kind of monitoring me or prescribing things for me, I've never had that kind of inter like that kind of relationship with them.

It's very unique. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that, that was a voluntary situation though, too. Where that commitment came through was in the situation that you put yourself in. It was, but there are still strings attached. Like I had been training with that team for probably five years at this point.

And you know, with my very difficult like professional life and like not always being able to pay my bills, there was a point where I was like, Hey, I'm probably gonna have to quit the team because I can't afford my membership anymore. Mm-hmm  and they had offered me free membership and I was team captain at this point.

I had invested a lot of time and I think that they were just like, it's not about the money. Like, I would like to think that I gave a lot. You did, you did that, made it worth it.  Worth it to them even. And So it almost like intensified that desire to do more because I was like, they're cutting me a break mm-hmm  so I have to step up even more to like earn my keep.

So yeah, even though it was voluntary, there was a lot on my shoulders that I felt like I couldn't necessarily walk away from. And I don't think I really would have to be honest if it wasn't for you kind of pointing out these things to me, because I was okay with it. Well, I was okay with a lot of it, but there were also a lot of things that I overlooked because of it.

Yeah. Well, I don't know. The, you can see you were okay with it. Cuz there were the reason I was pointing things out to you is cuz you were miserable. Well, I could justify it I guess is what I mean? Yeah. There were times when you were like miserable and like broken hearted, like in tears. And I'd be like, well, you understand that it's because of this and this and this, right?

Like there it's, you know, we don't need to hash out the details here, I guess I'll let you do that if you want to. But yeah, there were, there were things happening that to me, from a sort of disinterested third party, if you will, like a bird's eye view, like I could see like, well, that's a really imbalanced, like shitty way to treat somebody

Well, I, I wasn't aware that there was dysfunction. I knew that I had like challenges and things that I wasn't happy about, but it was like, well, this is how it goes. Like, this is what it means to be in this kind of relationship or in this kind of setting mm-hmm . And I just kind of internalized them as like necessary evils.

And I figured that what I was getting out of it outweighed that, but it, it did create some  just a lot of difficulties that mm-hmm  I could probably have done for many more years, but I'd probably I'd probably be a lot more better  than I was over it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. There were, you didn't feel empowered to draw boundaries.

No, definitely not. Yeah. Even though it was a voluntary situation. Yeah. Yeah. But that just kind of lends to what we're talking about in terms of like top down learning styles and how you know, they might work for a while, but that, that relationship doesn't change. It's not designed to. And so when I tried.

Create more of like a collaborative experience. I was met with a lot of resistance and right. Like I said, like, that's how it's designed. You're not supposed to try to change it. Mm-hmm . But I kind of figured I had like earned my keep at that point. And so then I, like, I could have some freedom, but I think I mean, I've been on the other side of that too.

I'm a coach and I've had other people try to like like back seat coach, like clients try to back seat coach when I'm in class. And like that should, that annoyed me so much. Oh yeah. Well, you know, it felt terrible. There's a, yeah. I think there's a distinction between what you were going through in that situation, but I don't know if I do there, you're entering the space with an agreed upon dynamic, right?

Like I am meant to just absorb and deliver and I wasn't doing that.  I wanted more and rather than saying I wanted more, I just kind of did it, which can be really threatening. And that's how it felt when I was in the coach's seat. Mm-hmm  and I would have people come in and like, you know, when I worked at Nike, I had a I had a client who would try to like hop in on the coach's seat when I had my back turned.

And it's, you know, they're small classes, you know, when it's happening, but I, I didn't know how to draw that boundary and be like, Hey, this is my class. Yeah. I never did that. But man, did I stew on it still stewing on it apparently. Yeah. At that's a, yeah, that's a difficult situation to navigate, to be, to take that authority to be honest, but at the same time, try to be kind and not look like an asshole in front of the whole class.

yeah. So as far as this whole. Compulsory versus voluntary learning aspect. My son went to a headstart program like a government headstart program. What is that? It's kinda like a pre preschool. I don't know. It's like a pre-kindergarten it's supposed to be like a learning environment, but how old are you at that?

For that? I dunno, four or five, I forget. Okay. But it's kind of like learning play activities to kind of get them used to school. So it's somewhere between like a daycare and a school. Okay. They call it a head start program. I since have, I have a lot of opinions about that now, I think it's terrible.

But at the time, you know, it seemed like a good idea. So we put him in that. But that's just a, as an example, he was struggling to read by the second grade. And when I say struggling to read, I mean, like he couldn't, he couldn't recite the alphabet from a to Z in second grade. People would attribute it to maybe a potential learning disability.

People might attribute it to an ADHD situation, hyperactivity disorder, blah, blah, blah. And I can absolutely unequivocally prove that it was not a learning disability. And it was no mental condition whatsoever. The fact is he was bored as fuck because he was in a compulsory situation where he was being forced to sit for long hours and, and read about things.

He was not interested in because we went from public school in the first grade to trying to repeat that at a private school, we thought maybe he just needed a better quality of forced education.  more is more. Yeah. And so, and that didn't work. And so then in one summer of bringing him home and trying to learn at home, he learned to read actual books in one.

What did you do differently? Well, we used instead of phonics, we used a method called what is it called? Phonics is the method. Yeah. That schools teach kids to read. Yeah. Okay. Like sounding out letters basically. Okay. And there's I just remember, is it Alex TBE hooked on phonics?  maybe he sold. Yeah.

Yeah. There was like a program or like infomercial or something. Yeah. On TV. When I was a kid, there's another method. And I forget even what it's called now, but it's basically treating letters in the way that adults actually absorb words. When, when you read, you're not sounding words out. When you read as an adult, as an experienced reader, I should say you see a word and you intrinsically know what that word stands for.

It. That word is a symbol. That means something. So when you see the word house spelled out, you picture a house you're not. Spelling out, you know, you're not sounding out the word, you see the word and you associate it to a meaning. And so there's a method of learning to read where you learn to recognize groups of letters, Uhhuh as representing a sound, which is a little different than phonics.

It sounds the same, but you kind of look at parts of words as, as a whole. And so instead of learning, it's more like instantaneous. Yeah. So you're learning, you're kind of chunking things with this other method where if you see th O you're gonna, you're gonna say th like every time, and then you start to see words that are made of these chunks and you start to really be able to say them quickly, and it gets your brain shifted from sounding things out to recognizing words as pictures, as like a visual representation of a word, which is what they are

So he gets you reading a lot faster, but what really, really pushed him over the edge was a year or two later, his grandma Bev bought him a Pokemon book. And so this was like about an inch thick book. It was like a catalog of like every Pokemon and their backstory. Oh gosh. And like everything. Right.

and so he got so into it that this person who is accused of maybe having a learning disability or ADHD or whatever, he would spend like an hour before bed, every night, reading this book. Wow. And not just reading it, but absorbing it. That's the thing is he could recite stats and figures and, and you know, power levels.

And I, I don't even know cuz I'm not into Pokemon. But the point is, is that when it became a voluntary situation of something, he was interested in.  he learned the necessary skills to do what it took to understand the thing he was interested in when it was compulsory. It was all wasted on him. Yeah. You know, I think about when I was a kid in school, they would split the class up into maybe three groups and it would be based on your reading level and they would assign books to each group.

And I would imagine that it would be so interesting to be given three options for books. And then you get to choose which one you'd wanna read. Yeah. Like how different that approach is. Yeah. But the books, options are still the same, but the outcomes could be so incredibly different just being given choice mm-hmm

Yeah. Yeah. And there's, and you know, luckily in the last 20, 30 years or so I think there's a recognition of. Truth that people learn better under voluntary situations. Cuz now there's different schooling types, even besides homeschooling or unschooling, there's actual structured schools that you can go to now that are not broken up by class or age where older kids teach younger kids and where you have self-directed study and self-directed study doesn't mean you can just, well kind of in some situations it does mean you can just kind of screw off if you want to, but you're in an environment where other kids are learning.

And so there's a culture of learning. Mm-hmm  mm-hmm  but you're allowed to learn about the things that you're interested in. And it's so weird that we think that kids somehow would learn differently than we would wanna learn. Because if you think about being forced to read something for well, perfect example, go to the DMV.

and they hand you this form. That's like an 18 inch long piece of paper with four layers. And they're like, fill this out and read, read all this fine print. Would you rather do that or would you rather read a pamphlet on something that's interesting to you? Like Victorian architecture or clothing design?

Is this a trick question?  no. No. That's just like, what I'm saying is like, it's so freaking obvious. If you are forced to read something that's totally uninteresting to you, your focus level is gonna be vastly different than if you're reading something that's interesting to you. For sure. And that's so intuitive.

It's like a duh, like why, why are you even saying this Cody? Cause it's like, what you talking about? But then we expect kids to do that for six to eight hours a day for 12 years. Yeah. Or longer. It's ridiculous because why, why would we think it's any different? Just because they're living at home and dependent on their parents?

Well, so we've talked a lot about how CrossFit has a really. Awesome accessibility to all different kinds of sport. And yes, if you go to a CrossFit class, you are gonna do, what's written on the board and it's gonna have some sort of combination of things. And probably one of those things you don't like mm-hmm

But I also discovered that weightlifting was a sport in and of itself and that I didn't have to run. If I went to weight lifting, I could actually sit in a chair when I was not, you know, up at the platform. But at one point I had just decided like, I'm just gonna stop trying to do everything. Like I'm gonna stop trying to do the things that I suck at or the things I just don't look forward to and just dedicated all of my time to the strength portion.

Yeah. And it was great. I had never been dedicated to something more than that in my whole life mm-hmm  and it was just choosing to like not only just follow it, I gravitate towards, but also stop.  Having to like fulfill all of the requirements. Yeah. Am I a well-rounded fit person because of it?

Maybe not. My endurance is garbage. But I really hate running  and if no one's telling me I have to do it, that I'm not gonna yeah. But at the same time you acknowledge the importance of having a base of cardiovascular fitness mm-hmm . And so you participate in like a CrossFit work out a week at least.

Yeah. I try and we go for walks. And so you do non strength related things as part of your recovery and. Cardio base, I, I guess is what I should say. Mm. So there may be an imbalance there, but you recognize the need. Okay. Yeah. Imbalance. That's a nice way of putting it.  so it's not like you just totally lack.

No, because having strength in general is going to make you a better runner than doing nothing. There's a strong carryover, for sure. Having strength carries into all kinds of stuff, which is amazing. Yeah. But so this kind of harkens back to previous podcasts where we've talked about being a generalist mm-hmm  or another way of putting it in terms of education is strewing.

So if you strew out a whole bunch of stuff in front of somebody, and then they gravitate towards something, it's a good way to find the things that you're interested. People who say don't have a passion in life or people who say they just don't know what they would want to do either as a career or a hobby or, or what they want in a relationship kiss.

A lot of frogs try a lot of things. Mm-hmm, , you know, play a lot of games, travel, like expose yourself to as many things as you can, and you will begin to gravitate toward something. So I think people who say that they don't have a particular interest or are interested in enough things to keep them occupied or they feel like they need to be directed by somebody.

I think that's just a sign of being underexposed to the world. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Oh, well, I just apologize for like all the tension that like surrounds this conversation. Like I can tell just like the way that we talk about it, there's a lot of like like unresolved anger, maybe just because I know that you and I both had a really hard time growing up feeling.

Like we were just in the wrong place. And not feeling like we had the freedom to do what we wanted with our time. And it's, I feel like it's really shaped us in a lot of ways in terms of like what we are open to doing. And I know that trying things I know for me personally has been a huge obstacle and like learning curve as an adult, because I was not open to that as a kid, because I always felt like I had to be doing something that I didn't want to do.

Mm-hmm  yeah. I think when it comes to working out, I know this is diverging a little bit from what you were just saying, but you were talking about working out, so it's all relevant. Yeah. But I think a lot of people who dislike. Working out or have a hard time sticking to a program. It's because they're trying to force themselves to do something that they have been told is the thing that they need to be doing.

Mm mm-hmm.  rather than exposing themselves to lots of different things. So yeah. There's like gonna be something that resonates for sure. Yeah. I mean, there are some people who just think that, like, this is what fitness looks like, therefore this is what I need to do. And working out sucks and I hate it and it's something I have to go do.

And if you feel like working out is just something you have to do, but you dread it all the time. Try different modality, cuz eventually you're gonna find something that's so fun that you won't wor realize how hard you're working at least initially like yeah. Like going there, challenges of dance are going for walks.

There's absolutely. There's so many things out there that I don't think people would see as like traditional exercise. Mm-hmm  but it's good for your body it's movement. Yeah. Yeah. And sports can be.  in my mind, sometimes an exception to that because sports can beat the shit out of you. They can actually make it worse than just not doing anything.

and I know that's kind of a controversial statement, but there are a lot of sports out there that are so redundant, redundant in their movement. Yeah. That it's just like, you get carpal tunnel. If you type all the time, there are sports out there that will destroy your body. So you do need to be cognizant of like certain aspects of fitness to be broad enough to be good for you.

But I guess my point is, is like, I, it's kind of like when people tell me they don't like sushi or they don't like coffee, or they don't like, there's these common things that most people love. And then there's these weird people who are like, eh, I don't like huffy. I like the way it smells, but I hate the way it tastes.

like, well, maybe you've only had Folger. And it helps. Hey, I like soldiers, but I guess my, my point is, is that I think sometimes when you lack a desire to exercise there's two reasons. One is lack of exposure. You just need to broaden yourself to lots of different things and then find the thing you gravitate toward.

The other thing is being in shape and being outta shape are both a spiral type of situation. So the worst shape you're in the worst, it feels to work out mm-hmm  and it's really hard to get past that mentality of like, this feels like garbage. Well, the only reason it feels like garbage is cuz you haven't done it enough and you.

You feel like garbage cuz your body is not used to this, but if you're gonna find a stimulus, that's fun enough to get over that hump and get consistent. You'll find that working out actually feels good. Mm-hmm  like the more consistent we are in the gym, the the better it feels to actually be doing it.

It's well, and also to like really push the boundaries, like to red line or to yeah, really like beat the crap outta yourself. Like it feels good. Yeah. I rarely like, like your threshold. Yeah. Really changes. Yeah. Like I said, when I was a kid, I'd throw up in PE. Now I can get myself to a point where I can red line.

And when I say red line, it's like, I am literally digging deep. Like everything I've got. To do this workout and it kind of, there's a, there's a pain aspect to it, but I'm feeling good about it. I'm feeling victorious. And I don't feel even physically bad. Like as soon as the workout's over, I'm starting to recover and I'm feeling like endorphins and just feel awesome, you know?

And so just, I just wanted to throw that out there, even though it's a little off topic for people that may have a resistance to learning something or re exercise, is that you may just not be exposed to the right modality or form of it, or even the right mentor. Yeah. You know, point weightlifting was challenging to get back into because it's such a niche sport that there really are not many coaches readily available.

There are a lot online for sure. But you know, if you're wanting something a little bit more personable or Like traditional and you wanna work with somebody in person, like you only have so many to choose from. Which made it really hard for me, but I'm just saying in general, like if you are in an activity where you love it, but maybe the fit isn't right.

In terms of like the culture of the gym or the values of the coach or whatever, like those things can all be changed out. Like I would really encourage folks to shop around for what feels, right. Yeah, for sure. That's like the that's really like where the magic is. And that's what I, even, as a coach experience with my clients, we were talking in our previous episode about firing clients who don't really allow us to do our best work.

And I would say it's the same thing. Like we should be able to choose what we're working with. That's. Really allow us to do our best. Yeah. And feel good about it. Yeah. And I think that's an aspect of voluntary versus compulsory that is another, there's another detriment to compulsory education.

And that is that it trains people to feel like other things are compulsory when they're not, how do you mean, like, I need to work out, therefore I need to go to this gym or this culture that they don't like. Yeah. And the truth is, you're like, you're an autonomous person. You don't have to do that. You can get fit in other ways and you can go find other ways to do that.

But I think there's a mindset if, for people who have been, especially yeah, I don't wanna like pick on any or buddy or like offend anybody out there, but if you've been. Really highly educated. So you spent a long time in those structured situations or maybe a military situation. There are lots of situations out there where your life is sort of dictated for you.

Like when you get up and what you're doing and how you're doing it is dictated to you. And just like in fitness, there are perishable skills that people have an example of a perishable skill is that I've learned and gotten my first muscle up on the rings four times.  because there was the first time and then I would do them for a while and then I would lose, I would stop practicing it.

Mm-hmm  and I would literally lose the ability to do it. And then I have to relearn how to do it and, and recondition my body to be able to do it. And I've gone through that cycle about four different times in my life. It's a perishable skill. If you're not practicing ING. Interesting. I've never heard it explained that way.

Yeah. If you're not doing muscle ups consistently, you will not be able to do muscle ups and then you have to start over again. It's not like riding a bike, like there are perishable skills. I hate that saying so much. I learned to ride a bike when I was about 11 years old, maybe 12. And I have not been on a bicycle since, and I guess I don't know it for sure.

Yeah. But I have not hopped on a bike since, and I just have a feeling that it's not gonna like click right back into place. I have a feeling I'm gonna have to relearn a lot. Yeah. And there's, I was thinking about this a lot. The other day with perishable skills is the, the word perishable people think perish means to die, but perish doesn't mean to die.

Perish means to rot. And so there's difference, you know, if, if you have perishable food, it's not just. It's good this moment. And three seconds later, it's not except avocados, but , there's a, there's a process of decay, right? Uhhuh  and the process of decay when it comes to skills or fitness level, like to, to really tie it into the theme of our book of carrying over principles from fitness, is that when something is perishable, it's a gradual degradation.

So the longer, like, let's say you have a, a 20 year career as a gymnast, your perishable skills are such a high level to begin with. Mm-hmm  that, even though there's a slow degradation, if you stop practicing, you can probably return to the rings five years later, assuming you haven't put on a bunch of weight or something.

And you could probably do a muscle up. They will not be to the same level as they were when you were a professional gymnast. Mm-hmm.  because they're perishing skills, but you won't lose it all together. In my case, I would do muscle ups and workouts for like, eh, three to six months. And then I would stop doing 'em.

And because I had not built up to a higher level, that perishable skill dwindled quicker. So there's this concept of like the longer and the better you get at something, the more leeway you have to allow it to perish a little bit, but still retain it. What would you say? A a, what would the opposite be a non, a non-perishable skill?

Yeah. Or a permanent, what would you say your non-perishable skills might be? I don't know if there is one. That's why I was thinking of it in these terms, because really like, not even a squat. Yeah. Cuz I mean, you can lose hit mobility and you can, I mean, I. I've gone in phases where my squats were like deep and strong or like more shallow because I lost the ability to get to full range of motion.

So even at interesting, it seems like a perishable skill. In fact, I know it's a perishable skill because as people age not being able to get up off the floor is one of the most dangerous signs of somebody who might need to be like put in an old folks home or something, because if they can't get off the floor, it's dangerous to live by yourself if you fall and you can't get up.

Yeah. And so that's a perishable skill and people think it's related to age, but it's not, it's it's correlated to age, but there are people who maintain their fitness and their activity and doing squats and doing burpees and things that are require you to get up and down off the floor. And they can retain that their entire life, well age accelerates the process of the perishing skills, right?

Yeah. Because there are physical. You're perishing.  you're perishing, physically, too. You yourself are perishing you're rotting. Yeah. Yeah, no  but it, it is just like this universal theme in the universe of like something that's either being built or it's perishable, it's kinda like going one way or the other, but it's hardly ever just maintained in one static thing forever.

Never. Yeah. So getting back on the theme with the, the voluntary aspect of it I, I think that creating discipline, we self discipline is this highly touted virtue, but people it's not a virtue, it's a skill and it's a perishable skill. And so when we are in a compulsory education situation and I keep referring to kids in school, because it's like the greatest example of this in our society.

Well, and it's our foundation as adults. Yes. And if you ho if you regard. Self discipline as this virtue. And yet you are not allowing the autonomy in children to develop self discipline because they're being told what to do every minute of every damn day. You could just call it like appeasement or a, or accountability to another person.

It's not really intrinsic to themselves. It's not right. It's not self-discipline it's discipline from without. Yeah. Yeah. And so I believe that self discipline is a perishable skill. And if you expect children to enter a 12 year or more schooling situation and then go into higher education or a military or whatever it is, where they're constantly being told what to do, and then you expect them to have self discipline at the end of.

That doesn't make sense to me because no, it doesn't. I believe that that self discipline is a perishable skill. And the reason I believe that is not only because of my experience as a, as a father and the various types of education that we've experimented with. But for myself, I was such an undisciplined, like slug of a fucking person in my youth.

Like I would just, I'm perfectly happy to sit and stare at the wall, watch the paint dry. Like I, because I'm happy in my own head, I can think about things and be pretty content to do that. I say like in the moment over time, I'm miserable. Of course, cuz that leads to depression and all kinds of stuff. You know, sitting in marathon, watching TV night after night after night.

But that was my tendency to do that nowadays. There's all these practices that I'm always trying to implement in my life and morning routines. And I get up at 4 45 at the latest sometimes earlier. And I don't go out and vegetate on my phone. I meditate and I, or journal and I read and I work out and I, I do these things.

And so from the outside perspective, it's like, oh, he's just a, this disciplined person. No, it's a skill. It's a skill that I've developed, but it's a skill that I had a hard time developing early on because I was in this compulsory being told what to do all the time situation. And so I don't think I'm just alone in that.

I think that I think it is a skill and it like any skill you use it or lose it. Hmm. That's a really interesting way of putting it. And I guess I'm just thinking about why, why you wouldn't use your free time as a young person in the same way. I mean, I was really similar to you as a young person. I spent a lot of time in front of the television.

Well, I think I knew why, and it's not necessarily like, yeah, I could say it was my own fault, but I also. This is kind of like tricky to figure out how to wrap up quickly. But when my folks got divorced, their custody situation was like really puzzle pieced together. I'd spend the night at my mom's house, but my dad would, I'd be at my dad's house after school.

And that time was like really unstructured, cuz I didn't do like after school activities. And it was kind of before I started like hanging out with girlfriends regularly and it wasn't structured, but it was also really limited at the same time. I wasn't like allowed to leave the house or like explore things and that's what I would've wanted to do.

If I could have, yeah. And. I wasn't doing homework  I was kind of, and my sister wasn't around, you know, like having a sibling, like can really you know, you can spend time pretty wisely and pretty creatively when you have a sibling, but she was already like a high schooler doing her own thing. So I was just kind of like left within the confines of my dad's house and own.

And I don't know, I don't know if it was because school felt so rigid that I felt like to balance that out. I would do. Absolutely. That's what I've been thinking this whole time is like, there's like a fatigue of being structured all day, especially in a compulsory way. Like you're made to be structured all day.

So any free time, that's your own? It's like, oh fuck. I'm not gonna do anything because I've been doing shit for other people all damn day and being told what to do. And so now I'm just gonna.  this show, you know? Well, it kind of worried me, like before I had found CrossFit, like if you had asked me what my hobbies were, I probably would not have had an answer for you.

Mm-hmm  it did. I was not like inspired to do things and sure. It could be like a combination of like my family life and my home life and you know, having to kind of balance out the psych highly structured life and, you know feeling like I was always having to do something I didn't wanna do. But yeah, I think that in conjunction with like a lack of exposure and freedom mm-hmm  to do what I wanted.

Like, it was really detrimental to me. It was terrible for my body. It was terrible for my self image. Yeah. And I remember being an adult. Living in my own apartment and feeling like I can do anything that kind of freedom is amazing. And I feel like that's one reason I'm able to have a better relationship with like challenging jobs and what I mean by challenging jobs.

Maybe they're not super stimulating or maybe they don't pay enough or maybe they take up too much of my time. But I feel like I'm able to like cut myself some slack there because it's allowing me to explore or do the things that I wanna spend my time doing. So mm-hmm  yes, there's still this like balance of, I have to be somewhere at a certain time.

I have to do certain things in order to like keep my job. But the time that I have after that is my own, I get to do whatever I want with it. Where maybe as a kid, you know, other people are responsible for you. You might. Really not have that kind of freedom. Mm-hmm  and it's just simply because you're a kid and I remember always just wanting to be older, you know, you're always telling me like, enjoy where you are.

I'm always saying, I might, can't wait to be in my thirties, my forties, about 10 years too early. But I it's probably because I attribute like being a young person is like not having that kind of agency autonomy. Yeah. That was something I was always so, so hungry for as a young person. Yeah. Yeah. I'm boggle by people who aren't it's what do you like?

Who well, I just feel like there are some people who

I guess this circles backwards around where we started, but I think some people are just sort of trained through certain incentive. Mechanisms when they're young to obey author issue authorities, like where they need it. Yeah. To the point where they're either needed or they're just really comfortable with it.

Like they really enjoy just being told what to do all the time or, well, I think that there are degrees to it, right. Like when we were off for a year after we moved here, mm-hmm  I don't think it took very long for me to realize like, oh, this could be bad. Yeah. For me. Yeah. You know, it was the first time ever in adulthood that like, I didn't have to have a job.

I didn't have to do anything. There was couldn't for, right. Well, if a shutdowns, there was a lot off the table, but you know, we, weren't worried about rent, you know, Cody and I actually were receiving unemployment and with the pandemic federal matching of your Of your benefits mm-hmm  it was actually more than we were making, working.

Yeah. It was like the most money I've ever made in my life. And we moved to my family's ranch, right. Where overhead was incredibly low mm-hmm  we didn't have rent anymore. We still had bills and debt and stuff, but we, we didn't have to worry about finances for like the first time ever mm-hmm  and I started to realize really quickly, like, Ooh, like I actually need some structure to feel productive.

And like, you know, you talk about how a morning routine that's structure. Yeah. It's self-imposed structure though, which is my point. Yeah. Yeah. But that's that's hard to get going. It is, we came to like a complet. Stand still and trying to get that ball rolling is so hard. It's like what you were saying about if you're incredibly outta shape and trying to start working out, it's gonna be really hard.

Yeah. And so having some sort of like external structure really helps whether it's like in fitness, having a coach or a class to go to or something mm-hmm  that really kind of takes the, the pressure or the guesswork out of trying to get that process going and trying to make decisions. That's very hard to do at that point.

And for me, I felt like I needed a job, so I got a part-time job at a restaurant and it was great because it wasn't full-time I was getting out of the house, it was active. I was meeting a bunch of people. It was a social life that I hadn't had in a long time. So yeah. You know, I'd really like to find happy medium.

If I could work like.  25 hours a week. I'd be so delighted. Cuz I would have in a structured things in a structured thing. Yeah. And then the rest, because it, it creates momentum for other things. Yeah. When you start to tip too far into all of that time being monopolized by your job you know, it could have the same effect where you don't have the energy right.

Or the momentum to do what brings you joy. Yeah. And then you get back to that pendulum that we were talking about before, where you get home and you resist any structure cuz it's like, oh God, I'm just, yeah. And that's us during the week. At the end of the day, we have dinner love and watch a television show, which you know, part of me felt really crummy about it and still feel crummy about it.

And then I find out that it's incredibly common. So it kind of makes me feel a little bit better. Yeah. I'm not happy with that, but I'm giving myself a little bit of grace about it because I'm so damn tired when I get home, like I've really made an effort to be productive in the evenings. And our, our work days are so long that, you know, our evenings are just a couple hours together.

Really? Yeah. I mean, it's literally just a couple hours from the time you get home to the time we have to go to bed and to try to cram in productivity it sounds like this, like morally, you know, virtuous thing to do, but in reality, like I feel so ineffectual and exhausted that sometimes I get like, emotional about it.

Like, it's just, it's so tiring. Well, you know, we've, there's a concept that you and I have been talking about since we first got together that I'm sure is gonna be a, an episode and of itself, but that is the burnout of leveling up mm-hmm  or productivity burnout. And it's just like, evident that whatever, whatever pace you're working at or whatever level you're rising to all the time is just not sustainable.

Yeah. And so I would say that you and I are just like a little past the point.  Like beyond like where we would feel comfortable. Like we had talked about three day weekends and how I, I think that that would be huge for us. Mm-hmm , you know? Yeah. Not only just in our quality time together, but like our ability to create and to to make more of like what we're building here right now.

Yeah. So you know, we're, I think having some structure as a backbone allows us to like bounce off of it or build off of it. Yeah. So I don't think that there's like an inherent evil to structure. But it can show, but I think it needs to be self-imposed. I think it needs to be voluntary and not, not to like, be myopic about this topic, but if you really break down what happened to us in that year off from work and sort of.

Financial responsibility that was not voluntary either. No, it wasn't. So we did not know that that was the situation we were getting into. Right. We were, we moved here because we had a small nest egg of savings. Mm-hmm  and we knew that if we stayed in Portland, that would be gone in like three months.

Right. And we thought that if we moved out here to the ranch, we could at least make it last, like six months mm-hmm . And that was all that we had to go off of. We didn't know that an employment was gonna be available. Right. Extended mm-hmm . Yeah. And cause you and I, at one point where we weren't even sure if we were eligible yeah.

To receive unemployment. So if you think about it that year, we'd been talking about. Forced structure mm-hmm  that was forced unstructure. Like that good point. That was really forced honest. Now that doesn't mean that we couldn't have had healthier routines as far as like working out and getting up at a certain time.

Like we could have imposed that on ourselves, but think about the incentives just as a human being psychologically, we operate largely on incentives. You know, that's how we involve evolved. We, we evolved for incentives of like finding food or protecting our clans or whatever. And without incentive, when those incentives are taken away from you not voluntarily, they were forced away from us.

All of our incentives because. We were forced to basically take a paycheck from the government because the government told us we couldn't work. They shut down our jobs. They shut down our ability to go get new jobs, cuz all, all gyms, all restaurants everywhere that you and I shared any skills yeah. Was not available to us.

And that was not a voluntary situation. And so well, and even our employers, like they couldn't, they. Guarantee anything for us. We didn't, yeah. They didn't know it was gonna happen. And so they really couldn't make any promises. We didn't know if we would have jobs to come back to. Right. Yeah. I mean, considering how many people went out of business during that time, you know?

Yeah. Your employer just completely shut down for almost two years. Well, it's not likely that Nike would like ever shut down entirely like be closed business. But your department was though, they actually were like I think it was two years later, they actually ended up did I tell you about this?

That they ended. Requiring all of the coaches to reapply for their jobs because they had brought in a like corporate fitness company. Oh, geez. To take over I'm sure. That's quality.  gosh, he's such a bummer to hear about that. But my, my employer really been over backwards to try to help all of his employees and his members and to stay open, continued to go.

Yeah. During the pandemic, like he really got creative. I, I was really impressive, but we were in, in such a remote location at that point. And our internet kind of sucked at the time and that, so when we tried to hold onto as much money as we could, cause we didn't know if the economy was crashing or what, what was gonna come.

Right. It was so uncertain, which is still a concern. But I guess my point is, is to round out the topic is that forced structure is less effective than voluntary structure. But forced unstructure is also bad. Like we were forced to not do anything. Yeah. It's not like, oh, let's just like, take a break or a sabbatical or whatever.

Yeah. It's not like we were like, we were eating through our savings, but we were also being given money by the state. So all of our incentives to structure were not there. The only incentives to structure would've been for our own like fitness and mental wellbeing, which sounds noble. And, and I know some and worth it and I know.

Yeah. And I know some people out there really did do that. Is the serious psychological hit that a lot of people went through. I mean, we're not alone in this. Yeah. There were a lot of people who found themselves in this unstructured lives being paid by the government to stay home and not work basically.

And so good for you. Oh yeah. I mean, it's, it, it's a bad situation. So I guess for me, that kind of closes to the loop. I mean, I really feel like education is more effective if it's voluntary, if you're, you know, self-directed focus is gonna be better, retention's gonna be better. Enthusiasm's gonna be better.

Structure also is better for you. If it's, if you're entering into it in a voluntary agreement, hierarchy is still can be healthy or unhealthy. And it all depends on consent. If you're consenting to enter into the hierarchy, you can find benefit from it and consent allows you to leave by the way. So, well, that's incredibly hard to remember.

Yeah. And so. If it's a truly a consensual relationship, that means also that you can end the relationship, whether it's hierarchy, structure, unstructured incentives, like everything that we've just been talking about. So that's kind of the message I want to get out to people is to understand the value of consent in all of the areas of your life.

Not just like sexual consent, cuz that's the one that gets brought up a lot in our culture, but all of the areas of your life should revolve around the ethic of consent. And I think it's not only more ethical in my, this is just my personal philosophy, but it's more effective and that's a lot of what we're talking about in this podcast is using principles from fitness to find more effective ways of living our life and, and yeah.

To thrive. Yeah. And so I think just like finding your fitness groove through something that speaks to you and something that you've.  That you're drawn to I think that can be applied across the board. Agreed. Anything else you wanna add? No, I don't think so. Okay. Let's talk about next week real quick.

Should have brought this up ahead of time.

thanks.

 Comfort zone in progress. Is that, let me see a separate topic. I don't know. Maybe we need to like clean this list at well, you know, these are just notes. So I thought these were like chapter outline, comfort zone in progress. I feel like that's probably just like a, an addition to the failure thing. We covered that.

Yeah, for sure. Consistent practice versus binging. It's a lifestyle. Okay. All right. So next week we are going to be talking about consistency versus binging. Yeah. That applies to everything from, you know, from the fitness philosophy to yoyo. Dieting is kind of like the common example of that. Totally.

But we're gonna draw out some parallels to a lot of different areas of your life that might be surprising. So let's catches next week on the fitness' philosophy podcast on the li DM network. You mean the philosophy of fitness? What did I say? Fitness's philosophy or something? Yeah, I guess I'm tired.

all right. Join us for more bloopers the next week.

Thanks, babe. I don't want us to cut things like.