017 How To Level Up After Taking A Break: The Philosophy Of Fitness

Life ebbs and flows. There's a lot of talk about seeking "balance" in today's world. There's also a huge emphasis on "hustle culture", work ethic, and leveling up. But here's the thing...sometimes you have to sprint to make the progress you need, but by its very definition, you can not sprint all the time!

In this episode, we explore some of what it means to have a "periodized" program in fitness, and what it can teach us about living life in seasons. Some seasons are sprints, and some are rest periods, but you need to have strategies for getting back up when you're down. 

00:00 Intro

00:47 Ice Breaker: "Favorite" parts of our recent Vacation

03:58 How to increase your listening and reading speed

09:44 Intro: Sprint work is necessary, but unsustainable long term

12:51 Fatigue from constantly trying to level up

15:36 There is an opportunity cost to being in self-improvement mode all the time, and it's huge!

18:02 Jordan Peterson: Your Kids are only small for 4 years...( watch clip here )

18:28 Too far in the other direction leads to stagnation and depression. You must get uncomfortable once in a while. 

21:04 Tough dilemma: Momentum is powerful and starting from a standstill is hard, but you do need some downtime.

23:32 To help with the dilemma, take a lesson from fitness periodization: Have a plan! 

25:11 Cal Newport: Deep Work, Time Blocking

30:16 Keystone Habits BOOK Recommendation: ATOMIC HABITS that lead you to do other good things

32:01 Balancing autonomy and structure

37:57 "Deserving" a break

43:52 Learn by teaching

45:14 Knowing yourself well enough to recognize the signs that you need to pay attention to.

47:36 Striving for consistency is touted as a virtue, but perhaps peaks and valleys are O.K.!

49:23 To pick yourself up from the valley and head to the next peak, change your focus!

52:26 Taking The Leap!!! It's sometimes more exciting to live when you don't know where it's leading you! 

54:34 A Vulnerable window into our lives. Sometimes a good teacher doesn't have all the answers, but they know how to ask the right questions. 

56:17 Taking a break from leveling up could mean pivoting to a different domain in which you can level up.

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Transcript

Hi, this is Cody Limbaugh, and I'm Tali Zabari, and you're listening to the Philosophy of Fitness Podcast on the Lyceum network.

Okay, so for this week's icebreaker for those of y'all who don't know, Cody and I went to California for a week to attend my sister's wedding and we stayed for several days after. Some of it was eventful, some of it less so. But I just wanted to find out what your favorite part of the trip was, darling.

Hmm. Favorite part. I always have a hard time with that word. Favorite as you. I know, I know. Cause what? Yeah, it's a lot of pressure. What part's? A lot of pressure is notable. . Enjoyable. Well, on the way down just to fill everybody in, we were on time for our flight and then our flight was gonna be delayed and then it ended up not being delayed and then delayed and not being delayed.

And we got shuffled around a few times. But Delta took really good care of us. And when we finally got on the plane, we got bumped up to first class for the long part of the trip for free, which was pretty rad. Yes, it was. Made me feel like that's something worth doing sometimes . So that was kind of cool.

I was sick for most of it, so the rest is sort of tainted for me. But the wedding itself was pretty rad. Yeah. Like it was a lot of fun. Everybody was happy. I think my favorite part, if I really was gonna pin it down, was being able to see all of your family again, cuz I think your family's so cool.

That's so sweet. We didn't get a lot of in depth kind of time. No. But we did have a nice chat with Isaac and Oji. Mm-hmm. . That was really fun. Yeah. We got like small pockets of time with Yeah. A few different people, which was really nice. That was definitely my kind of a highlight for me was being able to visit with those guys and it made me eager too, to host them here on the mountain.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Similarly a highlight for me was getting to spend a lot of time. Joyce and Judy's family. Oh yeah. That was so fun. Yeah. I miss living close to them and being able to just like pop to their house whenever. So I guess I'm not surprised that we ended up spending a lot of time with them just when we had the opportunities too.

So I'm really grateful for that. Yeah. Especially with having their family and my whole family together. It was just really amazing to see how far we've all come. . Yes. Yeah. It's, it was a beautiful time. Yeah. Yeah. That evening was definitely a highlight for sure. That was just so fun. I did not know I was sick at the time, so I ended up making a bunch of other people sick, and so myself included, I feel terrible about that.

I didn't know. I thought I was just run down from our schedule. Yeah. So if today's podcast feels a little slowmo or interrupted by bodily noises. . Yeah. That's why we got the cs. Yeah. Yeah. We finally, we're finally part of the in group. It's the first time you and I have been really exposed to it through this whole thing.

It's also the first time that you and I have been sick since we've moved. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not surprised by that. Yeah. So it was not a big deal for us, but it's kind of a lingering fatigue. So that's where we're at. Yeah. Maybe you should just speed this up when you listen to it, that always Oh yeah.

Makes people sound way more likely. Yeah. . Yeah. More lively, more intelligent, you know, speaking more intelligent. Yeah. Cuz you're speaking quickly. Oh, coming up with ideas. Uhhuh, I listen to all my podcasts at least one and a half, and sometimes when they're slowed down to regular speed, I'm like, I feel like this person is really slow all of a sudden.

Like I get so used to the high speed and it's totally fine if you can like, ease up into it, but sometimes I will come into the room and you are listening to something at two x. Yeah. And it sounds insane. Like it takes such a, it takes a leap for me to be able to comprehend anything that they're saying.

Yeah. But maybe if I start from the beginning, it would be doable. I have a pro tip for people who want to be able to listen to things faster. And this is a technique that I borrowed from speed reading courses that I've taken. Mm-hmm. . And it's a weird thing. I'm not sure how to, that I need to come up with a title for what the concept is.

But basically you practice faster than you want to a, as your target. So if you wanna be able to understand things with ease, at two x what you do is you listen to the first two minutes or so at three x. And your brain is just like on like total confusion mode, but then when you slow it down to two x, all of a sudden it's like crystal clear, like, ooh, sweet relief.

Yeah, . It's a very strange phenomenon, but it works. It works really well. It probably can't translate to all things cuz it immediately made me think about those videos of people online who get on treadmills that are too fast for them. , that's  maybe a different thing. I mean maybe it does work quickly.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Where they get spit off the back Uhhuh? Yeah. It works with speed reading and it works with speed listening and I actually gonna try and experiment at some point when I have a little more free time of guitar and trying to use that with guitar. So yeah, playing obviously faster than I'm capable of.

And just tripping. Just tripping it up for like the whole way for like five minutes. Yeah. Just, but then seeing if that can translate into more speed and dexterity as I kind of slow it back down to regular. What about the whole concept of slowest, smooth, smoothest, fast? Well, that is true for like learning things or being precise, but there is some mechanism to like hyper clocking things faster than you want and then backing it back down.

Hmm. So I'm, it's an experiment. I'm gonna, I know it works with audio and reading, so I thought I'd try it with a skill and see what happens. Well, it's definitely making me question the universal truth, quality of the slowest, smooth, smoothest, fast saying. Yeah. Because if the opposite is also true, I don't know.

They're really conflicting with each other. Well, they might have different functions.  that would make sense. Like they different objectives. Yeah. Hmm. So when I'm listening to something super fast or reading or in the guitar example the idea isn't when you're doing the super fast version, it's not to be able to comprehend it better or to play more precisely.

It is to sort of put your brain in a different frame so that when you slow it down a little bit, then you have, it's like a, like you said, kind of a feeling of relief. Yeah. Like you can handle it. That's interesting because I'm trying to think, Oh crap, I just lost it. Something. Like overdoing something so that Oh, I know what it is.

So one of my favorite lifting days is when the snatch and the clean and jerk are reversed and you clean and jerk first. Mm-hmm. . And I love that because a lot of times when you're entering a training session with both lifts, you enter in the snatch, which is inherently lighter than the cleaning jerk and is super cerebral.

Like all the stars have to align for the lift to come together. And if you are already fatigued by a cleaning jerk, you aren't thinking about shit by the time you get to the snatch. So I think it's just a great tool every once in a while. Yeah. Just to take your mind out of it and just let your body perform in the way that you have trained it to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's actually at one point I was experimenting with warmups for CrossFit workouts that involved. Moving weight. Hmm. In a metabolic conditioning setting. So if you're doing say, dead lifts and running and pushups or something, and you're doing this four time for quite a few reps, I would, I was experimenting for a while with warming up above the working weight.

Uhhuh, Uhhuh, . Mm-hmm. . And so you, you know, do short sets as you're warming up in between like some jump row biking, that kind of thing to get general warm up, warm up that deadlift to maybe 120% of what you're actually gonna be working with. Mm-hmm. . And then you strip the weight down for the high reps.

Totally. And that's, that's had a good effect as well. Oh yeah. Cause you're, you're dialing in the bracing function. When it's heavier, you're like, you're stacking properly, you're getting braced, anticipating that heavier load. And then when you back off of it for higher volume, you've kind of warmed up that neurological mechanism.

Well, and you've kind of explored like this range of relativity where if you had just stopped at your working weight, you might think to yourself like, Oh, this is fucking heavy. Yeah. But if you push beyond it and then dial it back down mm-hmm.  relative to your final set at your top set it feels like no big deal.

Yeah. I love drop sets. A lot of people don't , but yeah. Oh yeah. I think that's why. Yeah. Yeah. All wanna introduce today the, the topic for today? That was a fun tangent. Today's topic, we have not come up with a title, but it is,  essentially that intensity is sometimes needed for progress, et cetera, but intensity is not sustainable.

Word. So today's topic is a little bit about like working in energy spurts or seasons or however you wanna, like, We're gonna come at it from a few different angles, but from the fitness standpoint intensity, which. Again, we're gonna kind of reference CrossFit here and there because we're CrossFit coaches and have been for a long time.

But one thing that really drew me to CrossFit initially was that they are very much sticklers on having precise definitions for things. And in the fitness world, even the word fitness has never been adequately described, which is so strange to me that an entire industry could be built on such nebulous terms.

Things like core conditioning or fitness in general, or gpp. Yeah, general physical preparedness. And intensity is one of those words. So in body building intensity might be described in volume or like your inability to finish a set, like you're going to Failure. Failure, Yeah. And intensity in sprinting is obviously like It's kind of a perceived rate of exertion or rpe rate of perceived exertion, whatever,

And so, but those are really subjective and in CrossFit they define intensity by basically the amount of work you're doing in a certain amount of time. And they use the actual physics and engineering definition of work. So it's force times distance divided by average time. So you're literally measuring the actual physical work that you're doing.

Mm-hmm.  in a very objective way. And intensity is defined by the relative improvement of that. You're either increasing the load, increasing the reps within an average timeframe to achieve intensity. So anyway, the reason I wanted to go into that definition for those who may not have been familiar is that it's an objective measurement.

That is very valuable in gpp general physical preparedness and trying to become overall fit. Ramping up intensity is very important if you never, if you never go there, so to speak, like in air quotes, if you go there or you wanna call it red line, maybe? Yeah. If you're wanna, if you never red line, if you never push your boundaries, your boundaries will never improve.

Mm-hmm. , or I should say, they, they won't improve to the same degree as someone who has the ability to dig deep and go there. So intensity is really important. However there's a difference between sprinting and. An ultra-marathon. You cannot sprint an ultra-marathon. You know, I mean, some of those people run  26 miles fast, like at of rate that I can't run , you know, a mile.

But that's again, relative to the person. They're not sprinting through it. So today we're talking about that need for intensity, but how to balance it with longevity. You know, where you wanna start on that. It's kind of a long intro. Yeah. Well, there's a concept that Cody and I have talked about for a long time, and it's kind of funny looking back on it now because it's, I'm definitely at a different vantage point than when we had first discussed this.

But it was the idea of being fatigued from constantly trying to level up or constantly trying to maintain or increase the intensity of our lives, our pursuits, our desires, our skills. When Cody and I met, we were. I mean, I wouldn't say that we aren't ambitious now, but at the time we had very lofty desires for our lives and we were in pursuit of them at the time.

And I remember just, I'm not sure exactly what sparked it, but I remember just being like tired of being like always having to think about different ways to improve myself. Mm-hmm.  over and over and over again. And I had come to the conclusion that, you know, that's just not something that you can do all the time.

And it now being about five years later I feel like I've kind of seen a full cycle of, you know, ramping up and going back down and just seeing that pendulum swing in terms of how much energy I have in terms of. What I'm wanting to put myself through to be a certain kind of person. Mm-hmm. . So feel free to elaborate on that.

Yeah. You know, I remember that very distinctly when we met, we, we were both really on fire for self-improvement. Yeah. Which is one of the reasons we were attracted to each other. Yeah. Constantly seeking and sharing things with each other, experimenting with things. And we were I remember that we were, we would go for walks intentionally every day.

And on those walks we were either listening to like Seth God's podcast mm-hmm.  or You're a badass with money. Yes. Book we like made the most of every moment it seemed like. That's why I just, I remember it so well. We were stoned and we were in the bath together, , and we were just like lounging in the water and you're like, you ever like get sick and tired of just trying to level up all the time.

Yeah. And I thought it was so great that you. Would bring that up because it was a vulnerable moment, you know, because it's, it's sort of like not something you're supposed to say. If you're a type of person who's interested in personal development and self-improvement and leveling up, well, you're breaking the fourth wall there to come up and say that.

Yeah. And just say, Man, you know, do you ever get just sick of that, like, pursuit all the time? And I remember it sparked a great discussion then, and it's something that we've revisited ever since then because trying to squeeze personal development into every waking moment is counterproductive really.

I think that it can really lead to burnout. I heard somebody sent me a clip the other day. My friend Kyron and I really send each other a lot of, you know business or motivational type clips online. And one of 'em he sent me was this guy who's, who was talking about. Never cooking for yourself unless you're like a millionaire, because you shouldn't have time to cook for yourself.

If you're cooking meals for yourself, you're wasting time. I've heard you quote this so many times with man, that same aggravation in your voice, . I was, yeah. I was just like, No, I'm gonna push back against that. Cuz that is fucking bullshit. You cannot be on all the time. Yeah. You can't be on all the time.

And to criticize that particular thing of like cooking a dinner for yourself because you haven't quote unquote, made it yet. I, I have been in that mode and I was in that mode for years and I wrote about it in my book where, you know, I was in like an Amway distributor and working with this organization and, and it was kind of that mentality, like, I'd work all day at a job to pay the bills.

And then when you weren't at your job, you're working on your business. And when you're, you know, and they, you know, they would talk about trying to find some balance, but they would also talk about like, well, sounds like they really pushed it hard.  it's important to. Spend quality time with your kids and, and enjoy your family.

But if you were just more successful, then you'd have more time. So maybe instead of taking that, you know, Sunday picnic, you should just be out there fucking hustling so that you can achieve this level of success and then have all the time in the world with your family. The problem with that is what if that takes 15 years?

Yeah. Your kids are fucking grown and gone and you missed it. And that's what happened to me. I mean, I have a lot of regret maybe not, isn't the right word. Mm-hmm. , because I think everything's a learning experience and I was a really young parent, but it really is something that I look back on and, and I do have regret over this constant pursuit of leveling up all the time, and I just missed like, a big chunk of my fucking life.

Well, you can push back against it because now you're looking back, right? When you are a young parent and or a young person and you're being given that message about just hustling continuously and always having your foot on the pedal as hard as possible. It probably at the time feels like it makes sense.

Mm-hmm. , you know, and only somebody who has been through that could push against it. Yeah. And you don't realize just how fleeting those opportunities are, you know? Jordan Peterson has this quote that's like going around the internet pretty heavily right now about, you know, your kids are only little for like four years.

Mm-hmm. And it goes so fast, you know, like it's one of the most incredible times in a person's life. Like, it just, it's a one time thing and you get it for four years, so don't squander it. Don't push through it. Yeah. Yeah. So, Well, it's interesting that we're talking about kind of this negative side to the hustle because there's also a negative side to the other part of it too, which is the vantage point that I am at now where I feel like it has been literal years since I have pushed myself emotionally, mentally, physically, and I have reached a point of restlessness and boredom and really craving like, Newness and novelty.

And new ideas. And new experiences. Remember the other day I was just telling you like, I need like an adrenaline rush. Like I wanna do something I've never done before. Yeah. Because we were watching I think a video of some, or you were telling me about somebody who went skydiving. Mm-hmm.  Online that you had watched and a video and I've just been really craving life experience and there's only so long that you can ride out the card of I'm giving myself a breather.

Mm-hmm.  to constantly leveling up or settling into our new lifestyle and things like that. Where I am really feeling the desire to ramp up again. And just like with anything else ramping up from, you know, a standstill is really hard. Yeah. It's super slow moving and it's not just. Taking time. It's I was just telling you earlier today how, you know, watching something on Netflix that's educational as opposed to something that I've already seen before or that I already, you know, don't really need to pay attention to, just something for pleasure.

I feel a lot of resistance. Like when you are like, Hey, let's watch this. And I'm like, I have to like turn my brain on for this. I don't really want to documentary. Yeah. Yeah. But I love documentaries. I really do. Mm-hmm. . I just have kind of been telling myself this story for years now that like I'm taking some downtime.

I'm kind of like checking out from leveling up. And I think for so many of us, like through lockdown and that whole time of life, a lot of people did that too. Mm-hmm.  and it kind of gave us all the permission to like wear sweatpants for two years or however long it was. And. You know, here we are on the other side, feeling like really un underwhelmed by our lives.

Mm-hmm. . So it's a hard place to be. But it is interesting to think about the same concept from a different part of that wave, you know? Mm-hmm.  or part of this cycle, I guess, because when you and I had talked about it, it was at that point of burnout and now I'm burnt out on the burnout. . Yeah. So this brings up one of two of the really tough dilemmas that I've tried to work through for many, many years of my life, which is that momentum is so critical.

Yeah. Like being able to keep momentum. It's, we've talked about this before and I think in a previous podcast that Sure. Relating back to fitness, if you're working out consistently especially if you're on a very consistent program where it's five. Six or seven days a week. But those seven days are like, you know, there's two or three recovery type days, but those recovery days are still in the gym.

You're still moving, or you're doing like hot and cold contrast therapy or you know, there's intention every day. It is so much easier to stay in that groove than it is to stop and then start again. It just fuck suck. Yeah. Don't do it. . It just sucks to start over. But with some things, you know, it's really tough to keep, You can't just be consistent with everything all the time either.

Totally. And so I, it's kind of this ironic thing where one of my last blog posts was like a year and a half ago, and the blog post was about trying to approach writing and the, and a lot of the creative pursuits that I have in seasons mm-hmm. . And I think the article was good, like I was talking about.

Seasonal things. So in, in the case of writing, what my sort of dream is is that we have hard winters up here on the mountain. We've got lots of snow, and the amount of work to be done outside is diminished considerably. Mm-hmm. . So I would love to have sort of a writing season where you're, it's snowy, you're, you know, by a crackling fire and you got some incense on and you're just, you know, in that creative mode.

And then in the summer maybe back off of the writing so that we're out doing what needs to be done on the ranch. And it sounds great, but what happened is I lost my momentum to such a horrible degree that an entire year has gone by since that season. And I'm still not in the writing group. You're talking about just this last year?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was writing every day. Up to three hours a day. I love that you and enunciate writing then sweetly the way you do. It's different riding. I know. Like riding a horse. So , . I just like that there's a distinction. Anyway, that's been one of my dilemmas for a lot of my life is like, how do you take a break without losing momentum?

Yeah. Like those are are difficult. It's a difficult thing to balance, especially for someone like me who's like struggled with energy, like physical energy issues all my life. It's really hard to get going again. Well, we've talked also about periodization and that was gonna initially be a different podcast entirely, but I think that it really applies here because when it comes to program design, when it comes to CrossFit or weightlifting it takes foresight.

You have to zoom out and see the next 4, 10, 12 weeks in advance and plan when you're ramping things up, when you should be. Peaking when you should be dialing things back in order to get, get the best result from the work that you're doing. Mm-hmm. . And I'm thinking that that same approach should be taken with other pursuits in life too.

It can definitely feel like your life is a little bit too planned maybe, and that you can't live spontaneously if you're setting yourself up for guardrails. But I think at least for us as people who want to achieve a lot, we also do need some guardrails. Mm-hmm. , because I know re recently we've been talking about you know, taking breaks or a day off before we feel like we need it mm-hmm.

so that we're not like totally useless on those days off. Or like, it's, it's not like overdue at that point that we're being preemptive in some way of like, when. It's important to like, unplug or whatever so that we can continue forth and like create, you know, stay with that momentum without it over overdoing it.

Yeah. So Cal Newport has a concept called Deep Work and he talks about managing or your time with time blocking, and I'm not sure I might be butchering his definitions of things, but in my book I write about this a bit, which is to have a specific amount of time you're gonna devote to something rather than a a an objective task.

So it's very common for, you know, getting back to the writing analogy that people are gonna write for, they're gonna write a thousand words a day, and that's their goal is to write a thousand words a day. But what I prefer to do is set a timer and say, I'm gonna write for 30 minutes a day. And that 30 minutes could be like, Three paragraphs of torture, or it could be like super flowing and like I get 2000 words.

And so the work amount can ebb and flow, but the time commitment remains. And so I think that's one way for me at least, to build those guardrails that you're talking about. Yeah. That feel like I have the freedom to approach it a different way each time. Well not be attached to an outcome. Right. Like that's such an important thing in life in general to not hold your worth or like your time and how valuable it is to a certain outcome, to just be appreciative of like what you were able to commit to.

Mm-hmm. , you know, within that time given I know we've done that with like clearing out the shop, for instance, like creating the gym space. Yeah. We'd be like, All right, we're gonna give it an hour. And sometimes we'd go over that hour and it was great. Yeah. But we weren't holding ourselves to. A certain standard other than showing up and doing it.

Yeah. And that happens a lot on the ranch because there's mm-hmm.  So many things that you look at a project and think, Well, that's gonna take a day. And it's like five weeks later, you know? I hope you've learned that lesson like super solidly now. Cause you, you have a tendency to simplify things. Yeah.

In your mind. I can imagine it being steps in time. Yeah. I can imagine it being done in my head. Really easy in a vacuum. Yeah.  Building a fence, You know, it's like, I, I know all the steps. I know what that's gonna take, but then you'd forget that you're driving fence posted into rock or that you just need to find the tools, the right tools.

Looking for tools where we live is a joke sometimes. Yeah. That's half the project is finding the tool. . They're all there. Yeah. It's just one of those like puzzles that you would see in kids books of like, try to find the wrench in this pile of stuff. Yeah. , which is a whole other project. Yeah. But you know, you're mention something with periodization.

That could be kind of the answer to my question, I guess, which is the idea that we need to plan breaks and but without losing momentum might be similar to the way that I described the seven day workout plan where there's two or three days of recovery work. Mm-hmm. , but you're still in an intentional mode with that thing.

So I can see, but then the volume or whatever some sort of variable is right. Eased off. So you might have more intensity on one day, less intensity on another, maybe even a different mode that you're working in, but it's still related to keeping that momentum, keeping your attention and intention for the thing that you're doing.

So, Sure. If I can relate it back to writing, what that might look like is like I write every day for this certain amount of time, but. Maybe three days a week is on the blog and two days a week is on a book and two days are just like free form, like journaling journal or even recording like, or the just spit out ideas.

The artist way. What does, what does she call it? Like Oh man, I don't remember. It's just like, it's just like vomiting everything out. Mm-hmm.  basically onto the paper. You're not thinking Yeah. Through anything. It can even be gibberish. You're just like writing. And so I wonder if that might be a way of sort of building in recovery without losing your momentum on certain things.

Yeah. Yeah. It's keeping it familiar. Yeah. Well, and keeping that intention and focus. Yeah. Well, I think that's easier said than done. Of course. When your time is dictated,  in a way that you did not set up for yourself. Yeah. Having jobs for instance. Yeah. You know, if we were talking about the, like, we had no way, no idea how to structure our lives when we didn't have jobs.

We just were like, we're gonna wake up and make a decision that day of what we were gonna do. We did not at all do any kind of like zooming out to be like, This week is gonna be focused this way through the Covid thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that was a super huge misstep, but like whenever else in our lives have we had time like that.

Mm-hmm.  we're not, you know, I, we both grew up like going in through the school system, like we are used to having our days regimented. And you had your own business so you know, there were enough things that you were, you know, required to maintain and uphold that. Yeah. Like I said earlier, created a schedule for yourself.

Yeah. When we were talking, I would paint myself into a corner cuz I knew that I needed some structure. Even though I crave freedom all the time. Right. Well, in that way we were like really praising it cuz we were talking about it being kind of like a, I was talking about how coaching other people is a keystone habit for me right now.

Which, or a keystone skill, I'm not quite sure. But it's really like a huge motivation for everything else that is going well in my life because I feel like I need to be accountable to my clients and that is getting me into the gym. It's getting me to read more, think more about how I can help them.

Mm-hmm. , which of course is, you know, giving me all sorts of great benefits. Yeah, yeah. Accountability to another person is huge in that quest for creating structure. And that's part of the problem.  jobs versus entrepreneurialism. Mm-hmm.  is the inability to create your own structures. So Well, and you can't even like, be able to, like, you can't appeal to your needs.

Right. Effectively, like everybody has different thresholds for how much sleep they need. Yeah. For how much physical activity na they need or whatever it is. Or even just the, even just the order of things, you know? I'm on a schedule right now where I'm getting to work super early and I've never been a morning person.

Mm-hmm.  and I also eat lunch really early. Like our lunch break at work is 11 and That's wild. And then I'm sluggish until I get off at 4:00 PM and it's weird. Cuz if I had my natural schedule, you know, I would kind of do more intermittent fasting type of eating and eat later in the afternoon. And you'd be up all night?

Well, not, not necessarily anymore. You are when I met you. Yeah. Yeah, but you know, it might also just be like there a lot of other folks other than just like jumping to the conclusion of like, I need to have my own business would probably just be like, I need to find a bo a job that's better suited for me.

There are lots of different kinds of jobs out there. That's true. But I guess my point is, you know, we were talking about working in seasons or setting up structures for yourself where there's intensity one day and less intensity on another day, and you don't, don't have that option when you're working a job.

Don't. Cause it's constant. It's constant. It's, you know, the seasonal aspect to it is there with some jobs, but with most jobs it's you're looking forward to a two week vacation a year if you're lucky, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. So finding a, an ebb and flow that's more healthy and suited to your own personal interests is almost impossible if somebody else is dictating it for you.

I'm really determined to, to figure that out more because there are. Things about a job that I really like. I would say number one is the social aspect. I love where I work because of the people I get to work with and I get to spend time with. I love you so much, sweetheart, but you can't be everything and all.

I can't, no . And so it's just really valuable for me to have those relationships at work. And I'm sure that I could maintain those relationships even if I dialed things back a bit. But yeah, I think trying to find a job that would be allowing me to like say coach kids after school, that's something I really want to be able to do.

But right now I'm working into the evenings mm-hmm. , so that wouldn't be possible. So, you know, if back in the day when I was just coaching and I had a very insane schedule, I was always able to justify it or at least. Have some appreciation for it because it allowed me to train at the time that I wanted to with my coach consistently all week long.

And that was the most important thing in the world to me at the time. So I feel like this really starts to get outta balance when your job or whatever structure you have, doesn't allow you to do what's important. Mm-hmm.  to you, that gives it meaning or purpose. And so I feel like that's where you are, where it's stripping too much from you that there isn't a balance there.

Yeah. At all. Yeah. And it's really an imbalance of energy more than time. My job sucks so much energy out of me that even when I do have time, that's my own, I, it's the best of me is already gone. Right. It's used up . Yeah. So, yeah, I think it would be really different if you were able to dial that back because, you know, there was a time in life where we were really grateful.

to get the jobs that we have now. Maybe not exactly right now, but there have been times like where we have made progress in our professional lives that we were able to support ourselves a lot more comfortably. Mm-hmm.  that we were super grateful for. Mm-hmm. . But I think the current fit that we have right now is not working for us because not only the reasons that you just said, so, but I feel like you and I spend way too much time apart.

Yeah. That I feel like our marriage has really shifted and I, I really don't want it to keep going in that direction. Not that like things are bad. It's just like you said, like it takes all your energy in all the best of you. And I work at a very social job. I'm working with customers and so I am depleted mm-hmm.

With social interactions by the time I get home. And that's not really where I wanna be when I'm with you. Right. Yeah. We both kind of get into that mode, which is leading to. A TV habit and that kind of thing, which you, you and I neither won really desire a TV habit and we've done really well in the past of just limiting, you know downtime TV type stuff to once a week and just like stuff we really wanted to see.

It was like an occasion when we watched television. Yeah. When Cody and I first got together, we watched one hour a week. It was something insane like that. We were watching a show once a week. Mm-hmm. . And throughout the week we were like going on dates or drawing or you were drawing. I was not, but other things with our evenings, we used to read out loud to each other.

It was super sweet. Mm-hmm.  and we watch so much F and TV now it's crazy. Not just together, but when I get ready in the morning, I'm watching tv. I squeeze it in time, like hours of my life that like it should not be present and.  as it's happening. I really hate the way it feels, but there's like a numbing to it.

Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know, and I think it's from overstimulation in other areas that's causing that. At least I, that's how I feel because, well, wouldn't I crave silence? Silence if that were the case? Well, it's, it's different though, cuz you were talking about it being numbing and when you're dealing with customers or your coworkers, you're engaged.

Mm-hmm. . Right? It's, and that's how I'm feeling about the whole thing, is like, I'm sprinting so much at work physically, that like, I'm not interested in writing or playing music or working out or anything in the evenings. I'm just sort, I'm just spent like, I just want, I want to numb out. Yeah. Like, I almost feel like I need it.

Well, maybe you haven't numbed out enough to be on the upswing that I feel like I've been craving lately for myself. No, I'm, I'm there with you. Are you? It's just that I'm frustrated with the energy aspect, you know? Yeah. Cause my, cuz my work takes so much that I have all this ambition and things I want to do and improve on, but at the end of the day, I'm not, I just don't feel up to the task, you know?

Yeah. And it sucks. Yeah. It's a really frustrating place. Well, it's rising to the occasion and it's like leveling up in a way, right? From where we currently are our like current normal, we want to break out of that and kind of like raise to the next level, which is like using our time together a lot more wisely and a lot more fulfilling.

Mm-hmm. , you know? Yeah. So this kind of brings me to, you know, I mentioned earlier that there's two big dilemmas with this topic. One of them was losing momentum when you take a break. The other thing that is. Kind of a chronic issue with me that I've dealt with for years and years and years, is never feeling like I deserved any sort of break.

Mm. Like You're not like a treat yourself kind of guy. Well,  yeah, I'm not. But it's also, it's also a little bit bigger than that because it kind of goes back to those early days in my training with business that I described to you where it's like you should be filling in all the gaps with something productive kind of thing.

And the idea behind this sort of like delayed gratification being this pinnacle of. Ethics. Really like the more you delay gratification, the better person you are. And so if you are taking a break, slacking off, doing a hobby, doing something that's just for your own pleasure, how selfish. Well, yeah. And it's not just selfish, but it's like you didn't earn that yet.

Like if you're not financially successful, you have no business going on a vacation. That's so ed up. You know? I feel like that's not the, the paradigm of the new gen of like the younger generation now. Yeah. I think all of them would hear that and be like, fuck that . Yeah. But I'm kind of in that weird, I'm a Gen Xer.

I'm in that weird middle generation where I have, I think. But you have the father, You have I've been introduced, yeah. I've been introduced to the idea. You know, steering your own life and living a more free existence and not necessarily having to live up to other people's expectations and societal norms.

Like I'm in that generation, but at the same time, I'm still feeling guilty all the time if I'm taking any breaks. Like, I actually posted a funny meme that I came across and I think it was like a d a, a dictionary entry for a word that was like what was it? Stress laxing or something like that.

Where what, Oh, yes, I did see that. Yeah. Where every time you relax, you're actually just stressing about all the things you haven't done or didn't do well enough or whatever. And I, that's, that really is where my head is at all the time. Like, I can't. Sit on the porch and relax because I look out at all the chores that need to be done on the ranch.

Well sometimes those those times where we are sitting on the porch and like just looking at the land and like really soaking it in and it's super beautiful and we do talk about the chores that need to be done. Sometimes it's just an opportunity to dream a little bit, you know? Yeah. And I can go there cause none of those things are, have tos.

There just want tos some. Yeah. Getting in the firewood is a pretty . I know. That's a haveto for sure. And it will happen. It will because there's gonna be a point where there's gonna be a fire under our asses and hopefully the weather chills a little bit and it's not so, so hot. Yeah. Cuz it's sweaty right now.

Yeah, we're mostly naked now.  swimming in my chair right now. It's hot. It's real hot. But yeah, maybe there's just like a way that you can change that tune of like dreaming as opposed to like, Looking at it with regret. I don't know if that's something that you could call upon regularly, but that stress laxing thing you were talking about is, That's a bummer.

It's the dilemma that I'm bringing up though. It's not, it's not like a switch I can just turn off. Yeah. Like I've been in that mode for so much of my life. I don't know how to escape from that. And I know it's something I need to work on, not only for my current sanity, but I also know that it's so ingrained that once we are more financially successful and I'm free from my job and our business is up and running fully, and you know, once we are pulling stuff off the vision board, I'm still gonna feel that way.

Well, we're gonna put more things up there. Yeah. But I'm, My point is, is though that I don't feel like I've ever earned like relaxation or stepping away from work. Like, I feel inadequate and it, that's so ingrained that it does not matter what I achieve. I will still feel that way. Yeah. And I know that.

And so I need, I need to deal with this shit. Like, I need to figure out a way to not feel like I'm guilty every time I take some time off. Are you saying that even now when you're thinking about it more as like an abstract thing that you still don't feel like you deserve it? Absolutely. Really? Yeah. Huh.

Cause I know in the moment, and like when anxiety is running high, it's really easy to tap into that thinking, but I figure like now we're able to kind of observe our lives and that's what's cool about this podcast. I would, I don't know. I would think that you're, you'd be thinking a little bit more logically about it.

No, I, conceptually I understand what you're saying. Mm-hmm. , It's not like I don't get it. I'm just saying it's a deep emotional groove. Yeah. If I'm not being productive or working. I feel like I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And, and particularly when it comes to results, like I know we're not where we want to be financially.

I know we're not where we want to be in time freedom and we're not where we wanna be physically. Yeah. Long list right now, physical fitness, like all these things that we're working on and we are making progress in most of those areas. But I feel like I feel like conceptually it makes sense to plan like, Okay, Sunday we're just not gonna worry about being productive at all.

We're gonna go get some ice cream at the lake and we're gonna watch a movie and we're gonna chill. But I can't, by the time Sunday rolls around, I just look back at the week at all the things I didn't get done. Didn't make progress on or we're not there yet on. And so the whole time that we're in that relaxation mode, I have to fight the urge to be feeling guilty and crappy about fact that I'm not doing something well.

Forcing it isn't enough for you. And it might have to be like what I was saying about coaching. It's so easy for me to, you know, we always say how it's so much easier to like diagnose someone else's relationship problems when it's not your relationship. It's, it might be something that you have to learn through teaching others.

And I know that that is something that you want to be doing is teaching others. This might have to be part of that curriculum. Yeah. I think that would be super valuable because you're not gonna say something to people that you don't believe. I know. You're just, you're not that kind of person who would just like sell something just because you would only do it because you really believe in it.

And so it sounds like this is somewhere you wanna go. Yeah. And so maybe that's something that you have to teach others to do. I feel like this is one of my big motivations for wanting to go on a big mushroom trip , is to try to break this stupid pattern that I've had for so long. You know, I wrote about it in my book to the tune of a lot of regret because of what we were talking about earlier with the kids growing up so fast.

I remember times when we'd be doing sort of family fun day, you know, and I was just somewhere else in my head the whole time. Yeah. Cause all I'm thinking about is like, shit, we're like the power bill, like is two months overdue. Like, I was just so stressed out about that kind of shit all the time. I can relate to that.

In our last week in California part of me has been wanting to call up my family and be like, Hey, not sure if you picked up on this, but I felt like super mentally checked out for a lot of it. Of course, we were sick for a lot of it, so we were just, you know, flopping around on the floor, watching TV and like trying to stay cool and stay away from everybody.

But. . I also just knew I wasn't at my best. There are a few different things, a few different cues that I have in my life that I can tell that I'm not like operating optimally. And one of those is eye contact. If I don't make eye contact with people, I know that something's wrong. Mm-hmm. . And another one is how much TV I'm watching.

So if I'm watching an absorbant amount of tv, which I definitely have been over the last year I know that, that, that there's something wrong. And I think just like general, like social anxiety and like not feeling interested in spending time with people or new people or going out, that kind of stuff.

I definitely know that there's something wrong because I love to spend time with other people. I used to squeeze it in every mm-hmm.  chance that I got, I'd say yes to like 10 things in one day because I just wanted. Be there and do it all. And I just noticed that when I don't have that desire anymore, that like, okay, something's like outta whack or outta balance.

And I felt that on our trip where, yeah, I would say with like certain people there was like some good quality conversation but given how much time we were there, yeah, like it, I'm kind of surprised how little I feel like I got to like truly engage with people. Yeah. And it's kind of a bummer cuz we don't get to spend very much time with them throughout the year.

So I'm trying not to be too hard on myself and like think of it as like a quote unquote waste cuz I know that there's a lot of other great ways that I can make up some of that ground. You know, I have a call with my mom and sister every week. Bet is here in town right now. And I know that there are some other ways to.

To be in touch with people. But it's kind of like what you were just saying. I feel like I was mentally somewhere else the entire time that we were with those people. Mm-hmm. . And I think that's just like a like if you distill it down, it's just like having presence or feeling present in the moment.

And I think when you're just feeling super depleted or super stimulated you can really lose sight of that. Mm-hmm. , But I don't know about you. I, I got to thinking about when I was weightlifting and my coach had me do a meet every month, because the idea was, is that I would have a more even keeled performance.

It wouldn't be so, so good one day and so shitty the next that I would have like more predictability. But part of me in all of our talks through seasons and the benefit of living your life in seasons is that maybe those peaks and valleys are okay. Mm-hmm. .  and that like being consistent all the time is like, not really that cool.

Yeah. I mean, we're not machines, right? Well, we change, we get older, like mm-hmm.  shit happens. Yeah. Yeah. I just haven't really like, figured out how to map it out or the right mechanisms to like get up again. Mm-hmm. . And it's interesting because I feel like it's a lot clearer when there's tragedy in our lives about how to tap into being resilient and coming back from those.

But when it's something a little bit more subtle, like what we've been going through, which is just like general depletion or boredom or whatever how do you bounce back from that? Yeah. I mean, maybe it just, it does take drastic change. Yeah. We gotta shake shit up. Yeah. Well, I, I've said many, many times that like I have been much more.

like comfortable or I feel like I'm enjoying things more when we've been in like super desperate situations with our finances. And then once we get to a place where things are comfortable and we always have gap money and like we're able to pay everything, like I get kind of bored , which is like a super strange thing to have because that's the goal.

That's like always what we're aiming towards is like to always have money for the things that we need and want. But there's something super boring about it. ? Well I think that's where the self-imposed challenges can come in cuz you know, we wanna, we wanted to do some real estate investing and vacation rentals and things like that.

So I think it's a matter of shifting that intensity from. A sense of security to a sense of like prosperity, like wanting to prosper as much as you want to be secure. Yeah. Cause you know, they, they've done this study in the past that it's easy to take issue with this study and anything that comes out and says, Well, this study says blah, blah, blah.

That's like, well that's not necessarily, not the whole picture universal truth, but, but there is some truth to this study that found that you know, the correlation between satisfaction and happiness and, and income it kind of went up sharply up to about $75,000 a year per person and. , this study was a little while ago, so with inflation and everything, you're, maybe you're talking about six figures, you know?

Sure. And then it kind of leveled off, like happiness was no longer really correlated with income beyond that point. Mm-hmm. , and it had a lot to do, I think, with what we're talking about, which is like, once you've got enough money that you feel like you're secure and you can do, you know, live generally the lifestyle that you desire that's in, in line with your values, et cetera, then finances for a lot of people are no longer a motivating factor.

Mm. Mm-hmm. . However, , I think that that study doesn't necessarily take into account like other variables, such as creativity, imagination, like you're, cuz I can think of a very happy lifestyle with very low income, you know, gardening here on the ranch and. Living a very simple life. I, I, I know I could be really happy that way, but you gotta be able to have the time to do it.

Yeah. . But I also know that if we had our own private jet, that'd be really fucking cool. . . Like, I, so yeah. I don't think I, I think it's a matter of building intensity in a different direction. Hmm. Which is a little bit like what we're talking about. Like the constant need to level up and, and the intensity and sprinting and all of the things that need to ebb and flow.

But one way to have that ebb and flow is to shift what that intensity is toward. So rather than be toward security, having some money in the bank not worrying about things, that shift of intensity could be toward adventure. Yeah. Prosperity, legacy, that kind of thing. It wouldn't have to be like, we wanna get to the next tax bracket.

It's just like, how can we buy our time back? Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the. Always been the biggest thing for me. Well, we've been able to do it. Mm-hmm. , we've done it before. There was a time when I was working at Nike and you were able to pull hours off your schedule because we were starting to shift around how the money was coming in.

And I feel like with the threshold and like the kinds of the dollar amount that we're talking about now, it would be super doable. You know, Super doable. Super doable. And part of me part of me wants you to just like, take the leap. Like I know that there's a certain financial goal, if you will, that we want to have set aside before you take the leap into quitting your job and investing in this full time.

Part of me wants you just like, just do it. Well, and that's mostly because of like what you had said about sink or swim. Like not only is life a hell of a lot more exciting, but like you really find out what you're made of with creating that kind of intensity for yourself and for us really. Yeah. Because I was talking to my mom about this when we were in California, but like there's nothing exciting to me about knowing where this story goes.

And the longer we stay in jobs, the more predictable our lives are. Is everything gonna be paid off and like cushy and comfy? Yeah. But I also don't get to spend time with my husband. I also don't get to create anything and I really want to get into coaching more deeply and I don't have the bandwidth to do that.

Yeah. I gotta get back to teaching more because that's my passion. It just really the thing that makes me come alive. Is touching me. Quit tomorrow, baby. Let's do it. I'm serious. I think my definition of hell is knowing what I'm gonna be doing six Thursdays from now. You know? It's like, ugh. . Yeah. But well, hopefully this doesn't just sound like a big, like complain fest from both of us, but you are like, everyone who's listening is catching us at this point where, you know, the leveling up has taken place for many, many years.

Then we took a couple of years where we gave ourselves the break from leveling up. Mm-hmm. , but now it's like, oh, that feels pretty hollow. We need to enrich our lives more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a therapy session. Thanks for joining us, everybody. But I, we, one of the things we really want to do with our writing and with our coaching and with our podcast and everything that we're doing is to bring people in to the processes and.

Journey, if you will, into the dance that we're doing in real time, because so much of what we're exposed to in the world with, of social media, et cetera, and it's not just social media, it's everything. It's been books for the last couple hundred years. You know, people put their best foot forward. They want to, they write about the things that they're an expert in or that they've achieved.

And, and you're seeing things in hindsight. And one of the things Thatt and I wanna bring to everybody is to show you in real time both the achievements, but also the struggles and the things that we are processing in real time. But we don't have the time to post it . But, but my point is, that's, this podcast is like this, this podcast really highlights some of the things that we're struggling with.

Not because we're experts trying to teach you exactly all the answers, but to bring up interesting questions. You might be able to relate to and Absolutely. And having the interesting questions, I think is sometimes even more interesting than having the answers. And so that's where we're at with this particular podcast is these are challenges.

Well, and the idea of the philosophy of fitness is that these are gonna be concepts that we can look back on our past with some clarity and also have tools for our future as well. Mm-hmm. , a lot of what we've been talking about so far has been, this is what I've learned and this is what that time of life meant, or that's what it was all about.

And you know, I think it's really important for us to, to take those concepts to be like, Okay, how are we gonna take this into where we're going? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And hopefully it's super different. I don't wanna keep doing what I've done already. , like I was telling you about that with weightlifting.

Like, I don't. . I don't want to do the whole train 20 hours a week thing jump when coach says jump you know, wear glitter on the platform thing. Like I already did that and it was such a glorious time in my life. Mm-hmm.  and I wanna know what else I can do with the world of weightlifting. Mm-hmm. . And we had talked about knowing when to quit in another podcast.

I remember, but we were talking just earlier today when we did our show note date. That like I had recently seen a lifter that I loved to watch. She just blew out one of her knees. And it was the second time it had happened and I am so grateful that I got to compete at a level that felt like I had accomplished a lot.

Yeah. But I was able to leave that stretch of it when I wanted to, not because I had to. Yeah. And that's. You know, that talks about the intensity right there. Like there's only so long that your body will afford you to work that hard. Yeah. And you know, if you're lucky, you will see yourself out before it's debilitating.

Mm-hmm. . And that's, you know, for me, I want be able to li the rest of my life, I wanna be able to continue to use this medium and this way of learning that resonates so well with me to continue the work that I wanna do in this world. What, however, direct or indirect. Yeah, Yeah. There's a lot of anguish over people who quit when they're on top.

But I think there's so much respect for that too, because you know, Seinfeld was offer. Millions of dollars to do another season, just one more season of Seinfeld. And he's like, No, we've done it. Like, that's as good as it gets. So I'm done now. And Joe Rogan talks about this quite a bit where, you know, he'll admire fighters who step out when they still have their wits.

Like they haven't been their bell rung to the point of brain damage, which is a real thing. I mean, it's, it's sad when athletes in football or whatever, like they're debilitated for the rest of their lives because they didn't quit soon enough. And there's this pressure to keep leveling up in that one domain where we forget that we can shift gears and we can level up in a different domain that's gonna be a little healthier for us.

And that's, that's talking about contact sports and everything. But, you know, in the case of like Seinfeld, you know, think about the, the personal fulfillment of being able to go out and pursue other things. You know what's the Jay Leno? I've, I've never, I don't know much about Jay Leno. I'm not a huge, like, fan of his or anything, but he ran the Tonight Show for however long, 20 years probably, or something like that.

But what's funny is him and his retirement, he's super passionate about cars and he has this huge car collection and he knows all this stuff. And he is got a staff of people who take care of his cars. It's like this amazing hobby, but it's like this passion that he has now where he has a new show about his cars and he has other celebrities no way, who comes in and they, they talk shop and, and it's, we, I think we need to keep in mind that our life can afford.

A lot of different songs. Like we don't have to just play that one instrument our whole life. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and that's what you and I are so desperate to find, like that's why we buy instruments and moved out to the ranch. Like we just wanna see what other things resonate in our lives other than like living in Portland, in the city.

Like I love living in the city, but like I'm ready for something new. Yeah. There's a lot more to life than like hitting up the bar and I don't know, whatever else I was doing. , sushi conveyors. I miss though the conveyor about sushi. Yeah. . There is one thing that will always stay. I think a constant, no matter where I live, is that I love life.

I love live music, but I was gonna say something way more shallow. I was gonna say that my love for shoes will never change. It just depends where I live. I've come to find that a lot of shoes that I have now just really don't make sense in my current life. And they just sit on the shelf and it's super sad.

But who knows? Who knows? Yep. We'll get our city apartment, we can go visit and you can keep all your fancy shoes there. Sounds good. So we've talked about or I have mentioned in the past podcast of the difference between prospering and perishing and how perishing doesn't mean to die, It means to rot.

You know, that's, it's kind of like a, if you picture fruit, you know, it's either growing on the tree and it's becoming more enriched with nutrients or it's getting, you know, eaten by fungus and, and, and dying. And we've talked about this idea of working in seasons and how difficult it is to take time off.

and not perish because I think you're either doing one or the other. Like there's no maintenance phase really. That's just a myth that to, to live in balance or to maintain those due words just don't really mesh well with the human condition. That's interesting because there's a lot of talk about maintaining in the diet world, nutrition world, I should say.

Yeah. But I think that's maintenance. Maintenance macros, maintenance calories. Mm-hmm. . Hmm. But I feel like you're either making progress somewhere or you're backsliding, like there's one or the other. And even if you're nutrition is always on point, like you're still aging. So then what, how do, well, like what does a plateau represent to you?

I think it's a warning sign of perishing, but I, sticking with that fruit analogy of what I was thinking about today is that we're not the fruit though. Like maybe we're the tree and so. Oh, we're still able to work in seasons, but you're producing, you're producing at a certain time and then you're like maintaining your reserves.

You're, you know, digging your tap route and you're like preparing for the next season, that next opportunity to sprint and to put intensity in. I love that. So you had actually sent me a podcast, I wanna say it's called like Fire Starters. Does that sound like a podcast to you? Entrepreneur on Fire? Yes.

Yeah, . Fire Starters. I like it. It's been a few weeks. Anyway, I was listening to it while I was watering the plants at work, and you had sent me a specific episode and it was talking about the difference between men and women and their hormone levels and the way that those levels can be used to your advantage in terms of productivity and that men are on these like 24 hour cycles and women are on these.

Months long cycles, 28 year cycles. Yeah. And the whole time I was just thinking like, okay, well men, you know, are, were on this 24 hour cycle, which, you know, it says to like, start your day at six o'clock, or your most productive time will be earlier in the morning. And was like, Great. That's gonna be super beneficial for somebody who works every day.

But if you're talking about women being their most productive selves, you know, month to month or certain times of the month, how do I realistically like work that into my life? My job demands the same thing of me every day. Right. So it just didn't really feel realistic, but it gave me a really, like, it gave me excitement about, you know, doing our own thing and how we can structure things like totally differently, like you were saying about there being times where we are writing, writing, writing, and other times where we're maybe just like hosting clinics or something, you know?

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.  Just. Tuning into that, because I feel like when we aren't tuning into that, it's like, what's the point? Yeah. It feels really wrong the more we talk about it because it's becoming such a, an attractive idea to me, that makes so much sense. Mm-hmm.  Yeah. Yeah. There's a concept you and I have talked about for quite a while, which may be another book in the future, is the de-industrialization of the human soul.

Like for reals, you know, I, I'm a capitalist. I think that free market does wonderful things, and I think it's the only real ethical way to build an economy is a free market. But some of the things that have been conflated with capitalism is like cism cor corporations are not part of a free market.

They're not free. They're like government protected entities of people who are manipul, not held, liable, manipulated. Yeah. They're not held li liable for their actions. I mean, that's what a whole. That's what a corporation is. It's a protection bubble by the government. Yeah. And what happened with the Industrial Revolution is, yeah, it, it brought an era of prosperity that the world has never seen with technology.

And a, a middle class, like a middle class has hardly existed in human history. You know, it's been the haves and the have nots. Mm-hmm. . So there's positive aspects to everything that happened through the Industrial Revolution. But one of the real shitty aspects is that you've reduced people to machines.

And it's not stopped, even though we're not in an industrial revolution anymore. Now we have this sort of decentralized internet of, of an economy, but our school system is still designed to.  machines, like people who respond to a bell and yeah. Eat lunch at the same time every fucking day, every Monday through Friday and yeah, Monday through Friday and, and ask to go to the bathroom and that kind of thing.

And it really has set us up in a society where we think we're doing something wrong, if we are not a consistent machine working every day. Yeah. Well, and there's your dilemma that you were talking about earlier with all that guilt that you feel when you ta take time off. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of two different things.

I'm not sure what we were talking about, but I was out with my mom and sister when I was in California and my mom had said something like, Do you think that there'll even be like a Monday through Friday? Maybe Dory said it, I can't remember. But that like in 10 years, like Monday through Friday will be a thing.

Mm-hmm. . Cause we all talk about how we want. Like have three day weekends being like our next step. And then you know, they had taken so much time off, This is what it was. They had taken so much time off for the wedding that they didn't even know what day it was anymore. And they're like, That is cool.

It's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how it felt all knocked down. I remember being like, What the hell is the date? Yep. And it was, I don't know how like neat it was, but it was just like definitely an interesting experience to forget what day it was. Yeah. And then it also made me think about a meeting that I just had at work.

We were talking about inventory and we're gonna shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year's. And they were like, Yeah, we wanna build it into our culture of like, we take this time off. And I was like, It's not enough time. Like I want to have more than just a week off. Like until once whole year.

Yeah. Yeah. It was just weird. It was just weird because I'm feeling it more and more and I don't know if it's because of living here or just getting older or having these conversations with you mm-hmm. , but I'm starting to notice more and more that like. There are certain things that, like we are affording ourselves in a, as a society that like seem like such bull to me.

Yeah. Like this is not, that's not enough. That's not, that's not right for like human existence. Yeah. It's not organic. It's not biological. Yeah. It's like you're, you're treated like a fricking machine. Well we used all of our paid time off for this trip. Uh, And like part of me was just like, well, okay. Like sure.

That doesn't mean that's gonna be the only time I take off this year. I'm gonna take off a hell of a lot more time too. Yeah. It might not be paid, but I'm also not working. So Yeah. It's, it's all good. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It, you know, I brought it up before, but there's this term called work ethic, but there's no term called rest ethic or, you know, connection.

Like, it's a weird thing that there's this thing called work ethic because it, it elevates. That to a higher standard than sanity. Yeah. Or, or any other aspect of our life. And the the interesting thing too here is that like, I feel even in having this conversation, I feel like there's judgment that could come our way toward us being like entitled or lazy or any of these kind of labels.

Well, that's not to say that we won't be producing still. Yeah. And that's my point. We'll still be accountable to what we want to be accountable to. Yeah. The clients that we want to have or the work that we want to have. Yeah, that's the point I was gonna bring up is that like, just because we don't want to work with the structure and, and accountability mechanisms of a machine with, you know, day after day after day after day, that does not mean that we're not wanting to be ambitious and create things and teach people and.

People and produce, you know? And so I think we need to break that paradigm that people have of the more hours you work, the more ethical you are. Well, I wonder if this comes up for you at all, but I know a hesitation I've had in pursuing our own business, and I think I've brought this up before I maybe even on the podcast, is that I worry about like attaching myself to something and then having to maintain it and not feeling like I have the room or the fluidity to change things up entirely.

Mm-hmm. , because I mean, we, in the way that business is structured so commonly is that there's a predictability to it or a level of accessibility to it that creates more business. Mm-hmm. , I just haven't seen it done in a way that has more fluidity. Mm-hmm. , you know, we've talked about like launching little programs here and there, and I like the idea of just like, Cool.

Throw it out into the world. That thing will generate income, but also be able to move on from it and do something entirely different. Yeah. Like that's a muscle that I know I don't have yet. Mm-hmm. . And so I have to just have faith. But we have had a taste of it because there was a time when you and I were teaching workshops together.

Mm-hmm.  I did an Indian club workshop and you filmed for me, and then we did like a toaster bar clinic for a group of clients. It was so fun. It was so fun. And one of the fun things about it is that it can be a novel experience, not just for our students, but for us, where an open ended personal training client could be.

or even, even more redundant, is like an open ended class schedule. , where you're coaching classes at a certain time, at a certain day, day after day for year after year, is a lot different experience than coaching an eight week course on something. And so I feel like that's another way we can produce more and get our creative juices flowing and find that sense of adventure and freedom and prosperity and, and moving forward while still offering value to people.

Well, that doesn't necessarily work with the, even the current model that we have right now with the business, with coaching clients out of our garage. There's, there's a schedule there, but at least I guess we. , we, we would have the freedom to change it if we wanted to. Yeah. And that's the, that's the kicker.

We've even discussed doing that seasonally. Yeah. You remember there's a meme that goes around every once in a while of like, it shows a lion in a, in a cage at the zoo, and then it shows lions like out in the world that are wild. And it says like, which one do you wanna be? And it's like, this lion in a cage gets like three square meals a day and you know, has safety.

Yeah. Safety and all this stuff. And then there's one that's just like living on the edge and is fully self-sufficient and is out in the world and it's risky, blah, blah, blah. And I feel like that's the exact same conversation that we're having here is like, which value is more important to you? Mm-hmm.

and And I really just feel like this might not be for everybody, but I feel like for you and I, we don't really feel like we're living unless we're doing it. Mm-hmm.  ourselves. Yep. But I don't know how to grapple with how we landed in jobs, if that's the case. How does that make any sense? You know, we had lost that momentum.

You, we talked about how the, the lockdowns affected us because it, we were on a certain trajectory and it's almost like if you're walking on train tracks or something, you know, and you're balancing on that beam and then somebody just side swipes you and like pushes you off. That's what it felt like to me.

Like we were headed a certain direction and then we just got blindsided, as did many millions of other people all over the world. And I think that loss of momentum and focus is something that caused us. Develop other patterns. Kind of like what I was talking about with my kids, how they grow up so fast, you know, that kind of thing.

And that happened to us. It's just that we didn't realize that we had lost momentum for so long, like 18 months, two years. All of a sudden we're, I mean, we did some things, Oh, we did a ton here on the ranch, that's for sure. You did a bunch of stuff on the ranch. I did get the book published. Yeah. And you had some freelance writing gigs and like there were some I did.

I was a freelance writer for like a whole year. Yeah. And so there were some cool stuff happening. It just wasn't really to the degree that we would like for ourselves because I think we just we were blindsided by that total derailment of the direction that we had been heading. Well, we've been talking about having some structure.

To push off or to push against. Yeah. And I had been dealing with some burnout as far as coaching, so I resisted opportunities that I actually had to coach online. Yeah. Which I don't know if regret is the right word, but sometimes I'm like, Shit, why didn't I do that? Like, we'd be in a Oh yeah. Much better place right now.

Had I done that, we spent our money differently. We could have like, totally outfitted the gym already, but you know what, like, we're in it. We're learning mm-hmm. , and I mean, these are gonna be valuable lessons for us throughout our whole lives. And our lives are gonna change all the time. So there's no, there's no, there's no regret, like you said, like, that's not the right word, because that's also not like a way I ever want to feel about something.

Yeah. It's just, it's just, it's a silly word. It shouldn't exist. Do you ever experience a feeling of optimism, almost like euphoric feeling when you recover from having been sick? . Do you ever get that feeling? I don't think so. . Not that I can, like concretely recall. Cause I've been, I was a very sickly kid, and so I don't know if it's like a psychological pattern for me or if there's some biological mechanism, but if I've been sick for a while, like I get really bad head cold, and then the day I wake up and the symptoms are dramatically better, Like there's that day you wake up and it's like, Oh, finally I'm over this.

I get such an energy surge. It's like, it's like I almost feel better than I did before I got sick. Mm. And that's nice. I'm kind of looking at our sort of financial slash job situation in a similar light. Like being sick leave. Yeah. Like maybe I needed to kind of get my knees like cracked with a baseball bat.

Oh. What, why is that coming to mind? Just to appreci. The recovery process. Like I feel like I, I feel so motivated when I think about quitting the job and going full time into our coaching and teaching business that I, I have no fears or anxieties around being able to put structure in my life to get the shit done that we want to get done.

Mm-hmm. , like, I have no, no expectation that that's going to be a challenge for me because I have had enough of a taste of working at a, in a way that I don't wanna work that now I feel like I have much more head space around what I need to do well to live the life I want. I think it should also be given some credit that like you.

And I have been creating this plan for ourselves all the while. And so now that we've got like a quote unquote program, like a periodized program, I guess, of the steps that we wanna take to do this, it's not all lined out, but there are certain things that we want in place that are gonna give us our cat is really funny,  oh man.

We're gonna have to post a picture up of her with this podcast or something. It's super funny. Anyway I think it helps to have some distance because when we were given all that free time we didn't really use it very wisely. Mm-hmm. , you know? Yeah. So I think that this is really potent learning for both of us.

Yeah, that's my point, is that I think that Being in a position that we don't wanna be in has kind of given us some feedback. Mm-hmm.  of what we need to do in the future to avoid winding back up where we started kind of thing. For real? Yeah. Are you cooking? I'm roasting. It's only getting hotter in here because of the time of day And you're in front of the window.

It's about 98 degrees outside for those of you listening. And we're in the end of the house. That's the furthest from the ac. So  and where the sun is going down. Yeah. And on the, We were supposed to record in the morning. We were, but we had a great day. Anyway. We did. So anyway, thanks for tuning in and catch you on the flip side.

Anything else you. No. All right. Good talk. Love you. Love you too.

This episode was produced by Tali Zari and Cody Limbal. Check out our writing, coaching services and home studying adventures at live all your life.com. For show notes, resources mentioned, or to submit a question or contribution, click on the podcast tab.