Everyone Has Problems | You Are Not Bulletproof

What's up family welcome back to stay in process this is a reflection podcast where I slow down after a long week and just kind of reflect on some of the things that I'm reminded of that I've learned it's certainly been a chaotic week, so a lot to take away on the front end. And reason it's been a chaotic week I drove 27 hours this week to Colorado and went back with my girlfriend Mikaelin and with our little puppy puppies almost six months old last week I got a call from my mom I think it was last week and her eyes were turning yellow skin was turning yellow her urine was orange and so something was obviously wrong. She goes in and she gets a MRI and is getting clarity from the doctors and a bunch of numbers are off and it comes back that she is sick and that she has a tumor on her pancreas and so it turns out it's pancreatic cancer. So obviously crazy time crazy week from her being extremely healthy to having some stomach pains over the past two weeks to having pancreatic cancer and in this moment it's just kind of confusing right like she's a younger woman she's healthy and it's just you have no idea how somebody like that gets sick and obviously there's a lot of emotions all across the family people are scared I'm scared. And I think that's normal but obviously as I go home with something that serious there's a lot that I took away from it and I think that it's relevant to this community I think it's worth sharing. You know I talk about the mental game I talk about systems and strategies to get the most out of your life and while that's amazing we're trying to always be peaking and getting the most out of ourselves. I think the biggest thing that the mental game has done for me is it has prepared me for these moments. It's prepared me to be flexible I have athletes that I work with every single week I have to be flexible with my scheduling. I was up at 4.45 to 5.15 am every single day I was in Colorado taking calls with athletes so that I could be in the hospital so I had to be spontaneous which is something that I always talk about with athletes. Things are not always going to go according to plan it's not always going to be easy shit's going to go wrong and so you have to be spontaneous. To be able to manage your emotions I understand that emotions color your reality you don't see things as they actually are you see things through an emotional lens. And so with that the ability to slow yourself down to be consistent and unemotional especially in high stress moments is a is a very valuable thing and in that moment everybody is emotional with my mom. Everybody everybody's in tears everybody is frenzied and so the best thing that I could be for her was somebody who was calm somebody that is focused on our next best decision. Somebody that is reminding her that she is strong and she is the storm rider if you've seen any of my posts or you're an athlete that works with me I always I always have my athletes kind of reinforce that idea that no matter what storm comes you're going to ride that storm. Take pride in that identify with that you are the storm rider and so I literally made her put on my glasses from Italy the first day I saw her she's all drugged up in the hospital and she's just grateful to have us there. And I put my glasses on her and I made her look at me in the eyes and say I'm the mother fucking storm rider and so obviously she she giggled a little bit and she had a little bit of conviction in that moment that she's going to be just fine. My mom is somebody that when I was a little kid would work night shifts at Home Depot she would work multiple jobs she she started multiple gyms like she would move and grow and move the gym completely like she's always been a storm rider in a way. She had my older sister when she was young and so she's she's prepared for these moments and as I go to God I remind her that God has prepared her for these moments to be resilient to be consistent and to make her next best decision. I love her so much and it does nothing for us in these moments to be a victim and trust me she is a victim like she is every right to be she has cancer but it does nothing for us to be a victim I just don't think it does and in this moment like she has stage one B of cancer of pancreatic cancer which is so much better than it could have been. It started out as stage two and they reflected and it's now stage one B and so they fully think that she's going to make a recovery and and even with that information like there are still family members around her that are extremely emotional and honestly negative and you can't blame them because it's an emotional thing but it does nothing for us to be negative it does nothing for her to be that person that is super emotional and so again going back to the mental game. It feels as if all this training that I've put in I talked to athletes about it I obviously live it out like it has trained me for this moment and it's trained me to be able to endure indoor shitty moments and ultimately to be an observer of thought I talk all the time about observing thought being a witness not identifying with it the minute that you identify with it you put an emotion on it and obviously in a situation like this you guys can imagine. The plethora of negative thoughts that I've had and then everybody else has had I just choose not to identify with them I just choose to be a witness of them and and refocus my attention at the present moment what can I do now how can I support her what can we do what's our next best decision and then we're going to make that decision and so yeah I think those are my two biggest things right off the bat the one about the mental game is very prevalent and it's something that I was proud of this weekend. The last thing I'll say before I get into I have I have six takeaways from the time that I was home but the last thing I'm going to say is there's a book called man search for meaning where he says in there he gets take into a concentration camp I've talked about it before but he talks about how there is a space between stimulus and response and in that space lies something called choice and you have something occur and you have you can always respond to it but in between that response and that's still the same. So in response and that stimulus you have a choice for how you choose to see things we can never be stripped of our choice and so in these high stress moments it's important that we are intentional and we choose to respond to them in the best way possible that's all that we can do. He also says I'm looking at my notes when you cannot change your situation you are challenged to change yourself and so in a situation as serious as this one we are all challenged to change ourselves how we see this how we go about this my mom I have her on the morning pages I have her on the daily stoic I have her I brought her a Bible back home she's never read the Bible I read her the Bible in the hospital. Like she's going to be challenged to change yourself to be somebody who is glass half full to be somebody who is grateful can you live out the emotions and the identity of somebody who is healthy prior to the event. And while I understand this is kind of a dark podcast I hope that you hear this and one you reflect on how you're taking care of yourself to I hope you see that the mental game isn't just for your sport it's for everything you do your sport is not who you are it's just something that you do. There's going to be a day where you hang up the cleats there's going to be a day where you face serious adversity if you haven't already it's guaranteed it is guaranteed that you are not going to that you're going to deal with some shit at some point and this is probably the most jarring thing I've ever had to deal with for sure but I was proud that I at least responded with I chose to respond in a way that was beneficial for my mother so. I'm diving into this podcast again I have six things that I've reflected on and the first thing is that everybody has problems until you have a health problem and then you only have one problem and you may have heard that before but oh my god is it true you're so stressed about optimizing your week you're so stressed about about can I get to jujitsu classes in this week I can't believe I got submitted in jujitsu and then I get told my mom has cancer and very quickly jujitsu matters far less to me. And my effectiveness throughout the week matters far less than me and I missed reading the daily stoic one day okay like I'm not so bad that I have to feel perfect to go show up for her right I missed my morning pages one day okay like these are just processes to help you be in the present moment there are things that matter far more and if you can have that perspective of the things that actually matter and recognize that everything we talk about are just tools you're actually going to be better for it. So yeah everybody has a problem until you have a health problem and then you only have one problem reflecting on that I've written in my morning pages multiple days in a row I am not bulletproof and I drink 600 milligrams of caffeine a day I stay up later than I should I wake up at 5 a.m. most days I don't drink enough water my diet probably isn't squared away in the way that it should be and don't get me wrong like compared to the average individual I'm pretty good but to recognize my mother. And my dad said this to me since I was a kid that you are not bulletproof is important we have to do the little things right we have to honor our health we have to honor this body that God gave us right that's a different level of intention I'm not I'm not working out to get a six pack so that I look good for McKaylin I'm working out because I'm honoring this body that God gave me I'm working out and I'm drinking water and eating healthy to honor the brain that God gave me, because there are people that trust me and work with me. And so I'm gonna do everything I can to get the most out of my brain and get the most out of my energy, right? It's a different level of intention. It's not about status or ego. It's about taking care of myself because I'm not bulletproof. I wrote down, "Do the little things right." Like I talk to athletes every single day. Every athlete's got a problem with their smartphone. Mark my words, the smartphone is going to continue to be a problem. iPhones are a problem. Scrolling on TikTok and Instagram is a problem. And I read Count Newport and he said, "The relationship an athlete has with a smartphone is every bit as important as diet and strength training." So if that doesn't tell you something, I don't know what will. But with that, do the little things right? Like let's make sure we're honoring our sleep. Let's not stay up late scrolling. Let's do the little things right. Let's not wait until it's too late. Let's not wait until we have a health problem. Why does it have to get so fucking bad that we have to wait until then to change something? Let's take ownership over our life and over our process and over our health and over the little things and just execute on them. Because I certainly like, I have this moment where my mom has a health issue and I just recognize I need to take this a little bit more seriously. I wrote down, "I'm binging caffeine, I'm staying up late. I'm borrowing, as I'm doing that, binging caffeine and staying up late." What it's all I'm doing is borrowing from tomorrow's focus and willpower. There are trade-offs. Hear that loud and clear. There are trade-offs here. You will face trade-offs if you continue to make short-term decisions. And I'm somebody that always talks about focus on the long term, committed to the long term. Well, binging caffeine and staying up late, you are continuously borrowing from tomorrow and there will be a price to pay for that. And so I certainly have decided that I'm going to make some intentional shifts moving forward and that's all we can do. That's unemotional, it's just information and I'm going to take the information and kind of refine the process there. Now my second takeaway, this is kind of separate from my mom being sick, but it has something to do with it. I said that I haven't been feeling my best mentally. What are the facts? I work with an individual who is-- he's in his '80s, I believe. And he's had some health scares. And he always says to me, what are the facts? He has something that measures his breath, his heart rate, a bunch of things. And instead of falling into the anxiety loop and identifying with these emotions, he just assesses what are the facts. And that's been something that I've been asking myself lately. Like I go home, I drive 13 hours home, not sleeping much, coaching every morning early, I set it. And so what are the facts? I'm not feeling great, what are the facts? The facts are that in the past couple of months, I've averaged about two and a half hours of zone two, slash zone three, a week. And in this past week or so, I averaged 30 minutes. And I think it's more than just this past week. I know that when I move my body, I feel significantly better. OK, information, that's the facts. I'm not moving my body. I'm staying up late and waking up early. That's the facts. I'm not drinking nearly enough water. I'm not eating enough because I'm going between hospital back to coaching, driving back to my mom's place after she got out of the hospital. There's just a bunch of things that are taking me away from it. And as I assess these facts, I understand why I don't feel good. And so this is a little nudge for you as you're listening to graded accurately and to not be emotional about it. Just take the information. And the information for me is that I have a lot of room to improve on my health and from honoring my commitments to myself. I'm as sharp as I've ever been from a coaching perspective. All I do is read and study and coach. It feels like it's all I'm doing. And so I'm at the very best I've ever been there, but there are trade-offs. And my overall health, my weight, my strength, my cardio, my sleep, like those things that have taken a hit, OK? Information on emotional. What's my third takeaway? I said, in a world where everybody is frenzied, it pays to be calm. Hear that again. In a world where everyone is frenzied, it pays to be calm. There's a chapter in the daily stomach that talks about it's a chapter, it's a day. It says calm is contagious. And this gig that I'm in as a coach, athletes are going to come to you emotional, frustrated, pissed off, angry. Calm is contagious. And life, there's going to be things that take you away from the present moment. People are going to be emotional. People are going to be frenzied and stressed. And they're going to put that onto you. They're going to put that onto each other. Calm is contagious. If you're going to be anything in those moments, be calm. Take a breath. Get back in control. Focus on your next best decision. Protect your inner world, right? That's being greater than your environment that's getting at a survival. That took a neuroscience class. It's talking constantly about how you can't create or change your reality when you're in survival. And yet the world's a valuable place where the architects of our life, but you will not change your reality while you are living in survival. So get back to calm. Get back to stillness. Get back to the moment. Calm is contagious. I wrote down here also, what's your next best decision? You throw an interception. What's your next best decision? You throw a bad pitch. Give up a home run. You get cut from your minor league baseball team. You get benched. You get cancer. It's all you can ever do. We can't change the past. All we can do is recommit to the present moment and recommit to living out the emotions and the identity of the person that we want to be. Right? I said that emotion colors reality in these high stress moments, whether you're on the field or whether you're in a waiting room, waiting to hear what stage of cancer your mom has, like emotion is going to color your reality. You will not see things for how it actually is. And I think to practice discernment is to be led by spirit. To be led by Christ. It's to be led by spirit and not be led by flesh or insecurity. Flesh is doing what's easy. Some examples are dordash, porn, staying up late, comparison, scrolling, flesh, right? Another example of flesh, to complain, to be a victim, to be emotional, to be stressed. That's easy. That's easy. Insecurity, easy. It's a whole lot harder to be led by spirit, to be trusting, to be courageous. It's easy to be scared. And so with that, I put down the quote here from Joshua one in the Bible. It says, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and be courageous. Do not be frightened. Do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Once again, "Have I not commanded you? It's not a gentle recommendation. It's a commandment. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. And do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." And so again, I'm around people that are extremely frenzied. And I don't blame them. But the one thing I'll tell you is that none of them have opened their Bibles. None of them have opened their Bibles. And when you open your Bible, you learn about Jesus. And you learn about the miracles of Jesus. And you read that he has told you, I want to say 26 times to not be afraid, to not be discouraged. He says, "Do not be frightened. He commands you, not a gentle nudge." And so with that, I've read the Bible. I've gotten in there. I know very clearly the power of prayer. I know the power of Jesus. I've read about it. And so I'm less frightened in those moments. My faith is stronger than my fear. But it is not by accident. And when I get on these podcasts, and I tell you guys to practice discernment, and to practice discernment, we have to open our Bibles and read about it, with to read about God and about Jesus, and about just the word, with to get into the Word. It's the truth. Heaven will pass away, earth will pass away, but the Word is forever. And the Word is the truth. And so you gotta get into the Word to be able to know the truth. The second part of that is to seek wise counsel and discernment. Seek wise counsel. The third part of it is to pray. And honestly, I think that this is actually the second part, but you should pray about it. You should ask God if you don't know, ask Him. And then the fourth part of it is to slow down. In these moments, these individuals are sped up. Once again, they're sped up. Take a breath and slow down. The devil wants to speed you up. And so with that, I'm not surprised that I responded in this way. I sank to my training. You don't rise to your goals. You sink to your training. This is just a very extreme example. Next best decision, calm as contagious. What's important now? What can we do? Subordinate your ego. Subordinate the emotion. And obviously, like, ego has got very little to do with this. I'm more so meant to subordinate the emotion. But in these moments, have courage, have faith, have trust. God is good. God is an abundant God. There are many stories in the Bible about Jesus healing people, about disciples healing people. Miracles happen in the Bible. And so I believe that miracles can happen for my mother. Fourth reflection, I said, is that environment really is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. I probably have rattled this off 15 times on 15 different podcasts. This is from James Clears book. I completely believe in it. He talks about the Vietnam War. People go over there. Everybody is doing heroin. all of a sudden these, these, individuals that are in the war are my computer just close. Sorry. So these individuals that go to Vietnam for the war overnight become heroin addicts. Why? Because people in Vietnam are heroin addicts. They're in an environment of people who are heroin addicts. They come back overnight, cold turkey, no longer a heroin addict, when they come back home. Why? Because they're not in the same environment. The cues, the triggers, they're not there. Right? And so environment is a very important thing. And I constantly talk about priming yourself and overcoming your environment. But man, if you can get into an environment that serves you, it's going to put you ahead of most people. It will change your life. If you can get around people that are better than you, get around people that are more positive that are more intentional that are. I think the word is just better that are doing it at a higher level. Get around them. Get around people that light you on fire. Do not be around pessimists. Do not be around negativity. Do not be around people that secretly hope for you to fail. I mean, it's a it's a version of self-sabotage if you choose this around yourself with those people. And so with that, it's an environment really is invisible hand that shapes human behavior. I guess the last part I want to share about the James Clear thing is he talks about drug addicts. They go to rehab. They get clean. They come back. They're in the same environment. What happens? They relapse. It's an extreme example, but it helps drive home the point. And so as I go home, I'm around the old hospitals that I used to work in when I was doing medsales. I am around people that are frenzied. I've chosen to not be around that. Right? I'm around where I used to go to high school and I'm in places that I used to be that didn't make me feel great. When I was there, I wasn't in a good spot. And so it's so interesting to see how how much that environment does shift your internal world. And the only way to counter that is to wake up every morning and prime yourself to go internal before you go external to sit down and do your morning pages to remind yourself of who you are. And I think I did a really good job of it. But I have I have more conviction than I've ever had that the environment that you are in matters so much. Okay? Fifth reflection. I said, pick the right partner. This is a pretty quick one. But man has McAlan been a rock star. I've been with McAlan almost six years. And the minute that this all happened, McAlan called at a work. We left the next day to drive to Colorado. She's been a trooper. She was in the hospital room with my mom, with me, with my family. She picked me up in so many different ways. She helped me get organized like it's just the two biggest decisions in your life that you can make is where you choose to live and who you choose to marry. And I would argue that the latter is the most important decision. She empowers me. She believes in me. The confidence boost that I've gotten just from dating her is astronomical. The piece that she's brought into my life, the love that she's brought into my life, the patience, like she's brought me closer to God. And that is what it means to have a good partner to have a to have. Yeah, that's it. That's that's what it means to be in a relationship. You should be around somebody that makes you better. And in these high-stress moments to have a partner that slows you down. That just listens. That that is by your side is invaluable. So good reminder for all of us that we should be very intentional with who we choose to be around. And especially with who we choose to date or who we choose to marry. And I think you see that. Like I think you see that with like Ilya Taperia. Great example UFC fighter. His wife is saying if somebody's gonna die in that ring it's not gonna be my husband. She's speaking life into him. The sixth takeaway, this is my final takeaway, is this is what I've told my mom. I said to her to tell her brain what she wants. I've been wanting to make a podcast on this lately. But there is something called your default mode network. This is a part of your subconscious mind. And in your default mode network, it's like the autopilot. It's the loop. It's when people fall into loops. It's it's active when you are not conscious. And with that, you have an identity. And your brain is gonna do everything it can to affirm that identity. And it's gonna do everything it can to predict a future based off of past experiences. And so I've told her that she needs to be very intentional with where she puts her focus to be an observer of thought to disidentify from these these terrible thoughts and emotions and to get back to the present moment, right? And that we have to be greater than our environment. We have to get very clear on what our identity is. What are we identify with? And refocus on that every single moment. And that takes you being in the present. And it takes you being aware catching your mind wandering. And so for you listening this listening to this, you damn well better be training your your your presence. Be training your focus. Those are skills that can be trained. And if we can train our focus and our presence, we're able to direct our thoughts better. We're able to be an observer and decide what thoughts we want to pour into. Now, there's something called the reticular activating system. This is another part of your subconscious mind. You take in so much information every second and we can only process so much of it. And so this is not completely accurate. The exact percentage we can take in. But I did find this on the internet. Now I don't it's again, you can't measure this. And so it's somewhere in this range. But for however many bits of information we take in every second, we are processing about 0.005% of reality. And so what you see in front of you is not reality as it actually is. A small fraction of it is. But the rest of it is your brain is filling in with it's filling in based off of your identity based off of your beliefs based off of what you choose to focus on. Right. And so it's a very interesting point about the reticular activating system that is your filter for your brain and what it can focus on. And so if you're living your life in a way on autopilot and you're not directing your intention every single day, every single second, like you're you're living you're playing this game of life on hard mode. Right. And what is intention? Intention is is information or instructions for your brain. You're telling your brain what you want to accomplish. And so as I'm talking to my mom, I'm telling her very clearly every morning she needs to wake up and set her intention. She needs to tell her brain what am I getting out of today? What kind of energy am I showing up with? What kind of perspective am I choosing to have? Right. Tell your brain what you want to do. She's going to have chemotherapy and surgery and she's real nervous, real scared. Tell your body how it's going to respond. And I sound like a hippie, but I had knee surgery. I had a menaceous surgery. I did it in two weeks. My rehab. I had Tommy John. I rehabbed it in nine months, fully recovered. Blue out my ACL and Patel attendant. Blue out my shoulder. Never had surgery on it. No pain. I promise you. If you tell your body, what it needs to do, your body will respond. But we have to live out the emotions and the identity every single day. That's a choice, consciously directing your subconscious. When we when we fall into survival in our mind wanders, we have to consciously direct our subconscious back to the present moment. We have to consciously direct our subconscious out of survival back into creative. That's a choice every single day. Right. I've reaffirmed to her that we are not we are not victims. And we are going to make our next best decision. I've told her that she needs to be very careful about the information that she she takes in. She needs to be very careful of listening to other people's opinions. If you want all the wrong answers, listen to everybody's opinion. Right. Everybody has their own bias and and their own limiting beliefs. And you cannot let people put their limiting beliefs on you. We're fragile beings. Be careful with what you consume. Be careful with who you are around. Once again, we're going back to the picked the right partner. We're going back to the get into an environment that is empowering for you. Like let's get around people that are speaking life into you. I said to commit to being an observer of thought, I told her to practice faith, to have faith over fear, to trust God and to open her Bible. She's never read the Bible. Right. The devil's native language that says in John is lies. And so she's going to hear lies from the devil about how this is going to be for her, about how chemo is going to be for her, about how long she's going to live. It's dark. These are defining moments. It's so much more than just having a bad outing. These are defining moments for her for how she chooses to respond. And the last thing I just said to her is to have her affirmations. She's the mother fucking stormwriter. Excuse my language. But have some conviction in that. When you say your affirmations, you have to feel the emotion behind it. She's the stormwriter. Say your affirmations every day. Make a vision board. Get very clear on what you want to do. See it every single day. Wake up and see it. When she's going through this chemo process, look at it. Reflect on it. Feel the emotions of what it would feel like to be there. These are all things that we can do that are in our control. Stoicism 101 is that we cannot control what happens to us, but we can always control how we respond. So with that, that's six reflections that I've taken away from this time back home. I'm certainly humbled as I come back to Arizona and we'll be making a more intentional effort to take care of myself and to just keep hammering away and to be more intentional with where I put my focus and my thoughts because I certainly see the impact they can have on myself and the impact that it can have on everyone. So with that, I'm so grateful for you guys being here. Sip is growing at a crazy rate and I just can't help but be humbled by you guys who are here listening to this podcast, who share this with people who cares so much that they're willing to spend 31 minutes out of their day to just listen to my perspectives. So above all else, I just am so thankful for you guys and all we can do is make our next best decision in whatever you're going through. Keep stacking days and yeah, thankful for you guys.