00:02.80 | mikebledsoe | Fear and goals this comes up a lot lot of people are I talk to people all the time and who are interested in developing themselves and 1 the common things that come up is. Yeah, ask them. You know what's holding you back from you reaching your goals right now and they'll be they'll just say fear or go. Oh well, what are you afraid of and ah and then they go oh I haven't thought that far. Ah. And so we start naming them off. So ah I'm excited to talk about today's topic which max suggested which is fear and goals identifying fierce sateers of goals. So ah, oh oh. |
00:53.44 | Max Shank | Spoiler alert there's only 1 fear. |
00:58.74 | mikebledsoe | We're not going to tell you what it is until the very end though so you got to stick around. |
01:00.38 | Max Shank | Ah, it's not much of a spoiler alert thing. Is it. |
01:06.12 | mikebledsoe | Ah, the no no, it's not. |
01:10.75 | Max Shank | It'll make sense too. Once I say it people you'd be like oh yeah, of course, there's only 1 thing that we're really afraid of. |
01:15.70 | mikebledsoe | Ah, so what we were talking just before we hopped on about people feeling safe and how most people in order to feel safe try to make enough money and if I make enough money then I'll feel safe. You know then I'll be able to live a good life and then ah people make the money and then you know now they they realize that they're responsible for their own health or their own physical protection and so they start investing in that next. Ah, but ah, the way I think about it is you know you can always just decide to feel safe and then because there's always gonna be something to do next in order to feel safer. |
02:10.92 | Max Shank | It's kind of the it's there's a parallel between how evolution first ah like prioritized armor in fish like bony. Armored fish and then they just got faster and faster so speed was king and since we have this pretty far out ability if you pardon the pun to see pretty far out into the future. The. Fastest speed ever is preemptive. So once you settle or um, swaddle maybe like 1 fear you like make yourself feel safe. Then you just think forward on to the next 1 and usually the people who make the biggest waves in their lives are the ones who are never satisfied with where they're at they're thinking on to the next thing and on to the next thing and on to the next thing and I mean I was definitely that way. It was always. Onto the next thing and once you get ah 1 thing ah locked in because that's what people really want because we can think forward. We think like okay if I have this much money for retirement then I'm like locked in to safety if I get married then I'm locked in. To a romantic relationship and you know you have all of these ideas. So um, security can span usually does span. Well beyond security in the present moment which is really just a reflexive reaction to danger rather than fear which is a preemptive prediction of what could happen in the future. |
04:09.93 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, because it's not true until it happens so fear fear is and is born out of imagination. |
04:15.88 | Max Shank | Right. |
04:21.58 | Max Shank | Right? And it's effective to preempt um situations like so a squirrel saving nuts for the winter is making a prediction of how many extra nuts to save up. In order to go through the season where there aren't going to be any growing on the trees. So. It's effective and that's like ah I heard this term the other day about attention Deficit which is a warrior. |
04:42.43 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, the. |
04:56.47 | Max Shank | In a farmer's world or maybe a hunter in a farmer's world and I thought that was I thought that was 1 of the best ways I've ever heard it described it just says so much you know a lot of folks who would be amazing hunters like as soon as they see the tracks. |
05:03.69 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, that makes sense. |
05:14.99 | Max Shank | They're on it and they won't let go of that track and they'll just grind through and push and keep walking and keep going and hunt that thing down Maybe don't have the patience to hoe a field and like plant a bunch of seeds and you know plan that whole thing ahead. |
05:26.63 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
05:32.49 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, yeah, not projecting as far out into the future I was listening to a guy guy named Matt john vervacki he did a a youtube series of sixty 1 hour lectures and I forget. |
05:33.78 | Max Shank | Right. |
05:51.27 | mikebledsoe | Something about the meaning crisis is the name of the lectures and he talks about just the word project comes from projectile. Yeah, like the the hunters when they got they evolved far enough to start being able to go. |
05:52.89 | Max Shank | A. Project. |
06:11.27 | mikebledsoe | This target is moving in this direction at this speed and I must predict where it'll be as I let go of my spear and project it into the future because once you let it go. You know it's gonna land in the future and I was really. |
06:21.30 | Max Shank | Who. |
06:27.88 | Max Shank | Love it. |
06:30.79 | mikebledsoe | Really really fascinating as he said was saying that I go and the word project is used in business to with a series of targets in which you're going to hit to accomplish a specific goal at the end and I go man. This is so brilliant So he's so spot on. So. |
06:42.60 | Max Shank | Ah. |
06:50.32 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, hearing you talk about? ah yeah, projecting in the future made me think of that. |
06:57.21 | Max Shank | That's 1 of the most challenging things for people today I think is to be an active participant in selecting their time period that they're going to be in so you have ah the crystal ball which is projecting forward. You have the. |
07:07.55 | mikebledsoe | Um. |
07:14.84 | Max Shank | Book on the wall which is looking backward and then you have Baba ramdas be here now and then the future and the past just dissolve into this moment and if you're able to, um. Consciously instead of compulsively choose where you are then you're essentially some sort of superhuman. You know if you're constantly in the future. You're probably going to be in a very anxious individual. And you're not going to experience a lot of peace but you may. |
07:50.10 | mikebledsoe | Or or you could be just ah, a lazy daydreamer if you if it's a positive if if you're thinking about things positive in the future all time. But you're not taking the action in order to make it happen right now. That's not gonna you know. |
07:54.81 | Max Shank | Yeah, that's true. |
08:05.43 | Max Shank | Right? I I think dwelling. Yeah well, it's ah anxiety is like a fixation or you're stuck in the future depression is usually you're stuck in the past |
08:07.65 | mikebledsoe | That happened I seen that happen a lot too. But most people get anxiety. |
08:22.22 | mikebledsoe | Okay, in. |
08:24.78 | Max Shank | And everything's a gradient right? Everything is absolutely relative to your experience which is a funny term that I like absolutely relative but I like the I like the I never thought of ah project and projectile which is funny because it reminds me of. |
08:39.26 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
08:43.46 | Max Shank | 1 of my favorite scenes in any movie ever which is in 2001 a space odyssey where the Monkey man learns that when he's holding the bone in his hand and when it falls it creates like a bigger impact in the pile of bones. |
08:47.94 | mikebledsoe | Where. |
09:03.20 | Max Shank | And it's this dawning realization that there's an extension of his ah will let's say through the bone that increases the level of Impact. So What's funny is um. Like chimpanzees ah fight a lot. A lot is also relative. But what's interesting is when they're doing ah a display of a oh yeah. |
09:29.66 | mikebledsoe | They have full on wars between the tribes. Not not just 2 champions chimpanzees fighting. There's like a tribe over here in a tribe over there and they go to war and they'll eat each other or bit bit cannibalistic as well. |
09:37.83 | Max Shank | Ah, it's gnarly. Ah, oh yeah, yeah, cannibalism is not reserved for humans Apparently a lot of animals do that and not just the female. |
09:49.49 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
09:56.87 | Max Shank | Eating the male after mating which is crazy common too. Anyway, my point if I. |
10:04.16 | mikebledsoe | Thank God I'm human that's not and that's not I might have to be afraid of my girlfriend eating me. |
10:08.91 | Max Shank | No, no, no, they don't they don't like literally eat you. They just ah and I I'll save that for I won't offend our last 3 female listeners. |
10:16.58 | mikebledsoe | Ah, you. |
10:23.52 | Max Shank | Ah, ah so anyway, the chimps they during displays of dominance will pick up huge tree branches and swing them around like they can hold it in their hand. They'll swing and they'll It'll be like Holy Lord that. |
10:34.81 | mikebledsoe | So a. |
10:42.88 | Max Shank | Monkey that chimp just swung a fucking like 4 by 4 sized cylindrical log through the air with insane speed but they never hit each other with a stick that. Amount that amount of extension. Ah cerebrally doesn't exist for them. So even to go from hand to stick to projectile is a huge ah extension of your will. |
11:20.67 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, someone call that expansion of consciousness. So yeah man I'm not the guy who wrote power versus force remember him what's his name man he had a quote which is ah. |
11:20.94 | Max Shank | Into the future. |
11:28.70 | Max Shank | It's a good word for it. Yeah. |
11:33.21 | Max Shank | No. |
11:39.94 | mikebledsoe | Ah, there is no passage of time. There's only an expansion of consciousness and something to it's so it's a good. It's a good meditative quote to consider I've found. Ah so I'm curious since we're gonna be talking about. |
11:43.40 | Max Shank | So. |
11:50.81 | Max Shank | Right. |
11:58.83 | mikebledsoe | Talk about fears and goals and you and I are both 1 of the reasons we do. This show is because you and I have both accomplished a lot of goals. You know, a lot of people set out to do things and they don't do them I know that you and I have both set out to accomplish goals failed out them. We've also succeeded at them and then realized we didn't want the thing that we thought we wanted but it was good that we accomplished the goal so we could learn that we didn't care about that. Ah, and so we've gotten very good at reaching goals which means that we've also. Been able to overcome a lot of fears in the process. So I'm curious for you. You know I'd love to know what your biggest fear was as you were developing as a young man and you were trying to achieve goals. What was the thing that. |
12:50.39 | Max Shank | Oh. |
12:55.65 | mikebledsoe | I know what mine is I'm wondering if you you know, but that there was like 1 primary fear that that held you back maybe in business or in athletics or something like that. |
13:04.80 | Max Shank | I mean I actually just wrote them all down the other day um, trying to trace him back as far as I can't for me, it was ah the fear that I I wouldn't be like physically safe. Um. |
13:09.32 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
13:19.60 | mikebledsoe | Um. |
13:23.19 | Max Shank | The other thing was ah, not not being good enough I think these are really common fears but they'll relate back to the same ah single point of fear which is ah the death of the ego. The reason people fear their physical death is because they fear the the death of the Ego. So when people are afraid of Judgment. They're afraid of what that means for their story for their ego when they're so everything relates back to. |
13:53.14 | mikebledsoe | So that. |
13:59.60 | Max Shank | Can you move past the fear that the story of you will be harmed in some way so 1 of the things I've noticed is that. |
14:10.22 | mikebledsoe | What do? what do we want to do we want to find ego sounds like you've given it somewhat of a definition and I know that when people hear ego. There's cool I like that I. |
14:19.26 | Max Shank | Let's just call it. The story. The story of you Yeah, your identity your identity your self image story of you So when you're thinking about like how do I protect myself physically. Yes, That's a natural instinct and it's also because the thought of not existing is like really scary to the ego I mean the reason people want to be good. Parents is they want to be thought of as good parents and they want to set up their loved ones. But it all it all relates back. To the fear of the identity being tarnished and that leads back to ancient cultures where it was thought of as way worse to be exiled than it was to be killed and you can even look at ah. Less ancient cultures where you know they have hara kiri where if you you know, shame your family or shame yourself you you disembowel yourself with a samurai sword and your buddy will chop off your head as an act of Mercy. After that just to make sure the job gets done and that's a way that you don't bring shame to your entire lineage so that multigenerational or intergenerational ego or identity is preserved even though the life. Of the physical body of that individual. Um, you know was caught in momentary shame and that's how you sort of save Face. So. It's really interesting to see what lengths human beings will go to to preserve. Story They'll kill themselves. They'll kill other people. Um, yeah, you know how dare those other guys believe in a different deity than us We have to kill them. |
16:15.63 | mikebledsoe | They'll kill for it. Yeah. |
16:31.83 | Max Shank | What. |
16:31.85 | mikebledsoe | Ah, you said 1 thing which was you had a fear of not good enough I've always thought about that fear I come across that a lot in coaching and you know it's a good blanket because it that is the phrase. That runs through someone's mind I'm like oh I'm not good enough to curious what you didn't feel like you would like what are the things you were afraid you were not going to be good enough at you weren't going to be good enough to do what. |
16:58.59 | Max Shank | Well initially I just struggled really hard with school I mean I almost got held back in several grades I failed Classes. You know I'd be there sitting in the desk just fucking suffering. Thinking back to the old days where I could just run around outside and play with a stick then you know ah not being able to pay attention and so I would get really bad grades and really Behind. On everything so I was just always behind um with regard to what I thought was everybody else learning all these things that you know I was made to believe were were really important. Of course that's not. Not really the case like memorizing factoids and obeying Authority turns out is not actually that useful for overall overall life Success. So. |
18:03.85 | mikebledsoe | That's not learning. Yeah well 1 of the things I I tell people early and in my courses is learning has been Misrepresented. You were. You weren't actually taught how to learn you were taught how to I don't I leave the obey part out because I don't want to trigger people too bad, but ah, not early on but why I like that it's it's a gradual trigger system. You know I start with like 1 that they can palate and then. |
18:28.49 | Max Shank | You don't want to trigger people too bad. That's funny. |
18:40.50 | mikebledsoe | Make it palatable. Yeah. |
18:40.53 | Max Shank | It's like Scientology. It's like scientology at first it's like you just got to get your thinking clear and then level 10 is like the evil alien overlord is making you sad and you're like whoa. If you had talked about this on day 1 I might not have stuck around. |
18:56.50 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, Ah, but you know ah in in our education system people are taught that being able to memorize and regurgitate is learning and so they. People become adults and they listen to podcasts and they make notes and they think they're learning but you don't you didn't learn anything until you've actually gotten the benefit of the learning which is you've changed a behavior. So I I like to define learning as Behavior change. |
19:29.51 | Max Shank | And. |
19:34.38 | mikebledsoe | I Don't want to hear from any of my students that you learn something until you've done it because until then it's still just an idea in just because it came from me doesn't mean it's right, You got to test it out for yourself. |
19:43.99 | Max Shank | Oh man I couldn't agree with that more because not only that if you don't apply something even if you did learn it and use it once. It's not going to stay I mean that's 1 of the it's probably an advantage. Um, emotionally that we don't remember every single thing that happened to us all the time if you take in some information and use it 1 time.. It's probably not going to really permeate into your identity or into your life. It's only the stuff that you use with some regularity that stays in the in the tool belt which is what you have access to all the time. |
20:28.47 | mikebledsoe | You know all right? So you you fell you weren't gonna be good enough. You didn't do well in school. |
20:35.44 | Max Shank | Yeah, so I mean the main thing really was just I didn't feel ah safe financially and you know we got foreclosed on evicted a couple times and bumped around like that. Oh yeah, i'm. |
20:48.57 | mikebledsoe | When you were a kid. Oh wow. |
20:54.00 | Max Shank | I mean I've had a job straight through since I was twelve I start ah contributing to the the family unit which I actually see as a pretty big advantage in a lot of ways. Um because you just get more experience. |
21:05.43 | mikebledsoe | I. |
21:13.40 | Max Shank | With the concept of value generation which I think is the absolute most important thing. So It's um, hunger pain and desire are all synonyms. And I think that's 1 of the most important things to understand if you're looking to pursue some goals or overcome some fears fear is like ah a psychological pain almost.. It's a fear of a feeling more than anything else or you're just pre-empting some sort of. |
21:43.19 | mikebledsoe | No. |
21:49.40 | Max Shank | Loss. Um, and ah, it's a feeling right. |
21:49.94 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, most of the time when we're avoiding a situation. We're avoiding a conversation. We're avoiding it having a feeling. It's not the situation. It's how it's gonna make us feel and 1 of the things that's created the most freedom for me is. Taking on the you know made it made I've made it a goal to accept love and eventually become comfortable with all feelings that come Up. You know so that the the feelings I used to avoid because I I didn't like them. |
22:19.31 | Max Shank | Oh. |
22:27.50 | mikebledsoe | I Can I can now love sadness. You know where whereas I couldn't love it for I dwelled in guilt where now I just get to be with what I felt guilty about and then move on whereas yeah there was just. |
22:33.18 | Max Shank | Oh. |
22:43.77 | mikebledsoe | Were things I would indulge in and things that I would avoid and it all came from fear and getting to know that that which I'm afraid of Intimately has created a lot of freedom for me. Um I call it emotional freedom but you know that radiates into. |
22:45.31 | Max Shank | Oh. |
22:57.61 | Max Shank | Oh. |
23:02.36 | mikebledsoe | All my behaviors. My psychological freedom my physical freedom all of that I found that if you if you manage the emotional fear and you become friends with it then it loses its power. |
23:05.35 | Max Shank | M. |
23:17.72 | Max Shank | I would have to agree I mean and as you well know a lot of our fears and pains are psychological but they manifest physically so you may have I mean that's why. |
23:31.41 | mikebledsoe | Me. |
23:36.27 | Max Shank | Low back pain is 1 of the I think it is still the most common pain even in sedentary workers. So workers comp. It's ah it's full of people with low back pain who don't lift anything and it's not.. It's not just because they're. Weak is because they're sad and that's the that's a funny revelation. Especially if as I did I started approach I started my approach to physical freedom with get as strong and fast as possible. |
23:55.38 | mikebledsoe | Um, you know. |
24:12.56 | Max Shank | Circled back to oh wait, everybody hurts all the time. So then I became like a ah body mechanic and was like oh well your knee hurts because your hamstrings are weak and your quads are tight now tell me I'm smart or something like that. Ah. And it gets like more and more complex into the nervous system and motor unit recruitment and all this stuff and if you don't respect the reality that psychological pains can manifest as physical pains. Your. Gonna have a really hard time treating that whole self right. |
24:51.46 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah I watch people when I when I started getting hip to the emotional um emotional energy and whether it's being whether it's flowing or suppressing. Ah once I got hip to. Oh. |
25:05.89 | Max Shank | A. |
25:11.11 | mikebledsoe | Ah, like I had some emotional energy moved from my my pelvic region and like I really felt it move like it was a brick that moved out of my body all of a sudden I had flexibility in my hamstrings that flexibility in my hips. My back stopped stopped hurting ah and. |
25:20.50 | Max Shank | A. |
25:29.81 | mikebledsoe | And I really went down a deep rabbit hole with that and then I would walk into a gym and talking to people and they're having to they're wrapping themselves with bands and doing all sorts of crazy Mobes before they work out and you know I come to find out they have to do that. |
25:40.29 | Max Shank | Who. |
25:47.75 | mikebledsoe | Every single time before they squat I was like oh you can't just do like a simple five ten minute warm up and then squat without pain. It's like this is not a this is not because you're not wrapping yourself with enough bands. This is. |
25:48.50 | Max Shank | Ah. |
26:02.50 | Max Shank | Just need a few more bands I think it's just a couple more you're like 3 bands away. |
26:06.26 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, yeah, was like it's like wow you know, um and I remember bringing this up years ago when it was first dawning on me and you know having a popular podcast and talking about it. Publicly people are like mike's lost his fucking mind. |
26:24.42 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
26:26.23 | mikebledsoe | And I was like okay I think now I think it took me some time to learn how to explain it better. But I also think that generally our culture is has become more hit to these ideas as well. Not everybody but I would say. |
26:41.16 | Max Shank | Now some. |
26:44.76 | mikebledsoe | More I come across more people that that immediately agree with that I get less pushback than I used to. |
26:50.19 | Max Shank | Well, the purpose of pain is to get you back into safety. The the reason for pain is it's just an action signal but it's not specific. So if you feel a pain in your knee. That's not necessarily where. The problem is it's just saying do something different. That's all very nonspecific, but the purpose is is to protect you and protection and safety and security. Once again, they're all synonyms like we're all you know we're framing. |
27:11.76 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah. |
27:28.34 | Max Shank | These fundamental realities of life as slightly different things. Hunger pain desire safety security. They're all very very similar so you have to I you don't have to but I I think it's helpful to recognize which are which are synonyms. So you can sort of start grouping them together and discover what the underlying sensation is right? and it's like we talked about a few episodes ago. Ah with the 3 levels of your brain you have to secure the lizard love the mammal so you can free the wizard which is the. Reptilian mamma alienlian and neocortex and if you are just living in a state of fight or flight which you can send yourself there just by watching the news. It's game over you'll just be constantly like I'm I'm afraid and you have no ability. To use your Neocortex. It's like an abused dog who just bites anyone that comes close. |
28:35.76 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
28:36.67 | Max Shank | Ah, it's ah it's It's a tricky thing I mean we're really emotional creatures but that's also our strength because we want to share um the bounty we want to share the load. We want to alleviate the suffering of our of our fellows. Um. You know Lizards don't really do that I'm not trying to like ah bad mouth Lizards or something like that I think Lizards are great creatures as Well. It's just a different strategy. |
29:05.34 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, you believe in the lizard people. |
29:10.14 | Max Shank | I Believe some people exhibit lizard-like characteristics. but but I also usually can see different traces of animals in people. |
29:22.78 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
29:25.26 | Max Shank | Like I'll see someone be like oh that person looks kind of giraffe-like or that person looks kind of bird-like you know what? I mean. |
29:29.60 | mikebledsoe | Ah, ah yeah, there's something about women who wear like pointing masks that like I see a woman with a pointing mask at the grocery store and I want to get I Just want to go? Ah, ah. |
29:38.16 | Max Shank | Ah, that's that's a bird. |
29:47.73 | Max Shank | Well I think in ah the U K they I think in the Uk they're called Birds ladies. Yeah, yeah, these birds were down at the pub that sounds right? doesn't it. |
29:47.86 | mikebledsoe | No woman wants to be called a bird I don't think what are women oh really? Ah well I well I know that. What was that tv show always sunny in Philadelphia they ah, they always called the woman in that show a bird and she hated it. D. |
30:11.49 | Max Shank | D yeah, yeah, she hate it. Yeah of course. Well, that's America it's different in ah in the u k you can also walk up to a guy on the street and say hey can I bum a fag and that's it's a totally normal thing to say. But if you said that here. People would find that offensive it means can I borrow can I borrow or have a cigarette That's what that means. |
30:29.43 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, or you might yeah exactly I'm glad you cleared that up that that might have eluded some people. Ah 1 of the things I the pain like having knee pain may not meet. Mean and it usually doesn't mean there's a problem with your knee it it means there's a problem somewhere else, but it is a sign to change Behavior. It says hey let's do something different. Um, 1 of the things that I I ah try to be. |
30:54.36 | Max Shank | Um, yeah action. Signal. |
31:07.70 | mikebledsoe | Because again, if you're in this game very long. You realize that any pain in your body probably isn't because of that thing Specifically it can be but the best way to be is is to be curious and to start asking like hey what should I be what have I been doing that might be contributing to this. |
31:15.33 | Max Shank | And. |
31:26.55 | mikebledsoe | All right? do experiments to try to change it. Ah because really it comes down to you're you're responsible for your own health and you know, Ah, ah someone else can help you figure some things out and start pointing in the right direction. But. It's really up to you at the end of the day to figure out what's actually going on with you. |
31:48.13 | Max Shank | That's ah, that's a super wise and powerful tool is curiosity I Even think the word curiosity is probably as close as you can get to a medicine for fear. Because Fear is also about the unknown rather than the known like you're afraid of what might happen to my story. Oh My God What if people hate me because once you know for sure that people will hate you. It's not really like a ah. You're not afraid of it Anymore. You're just like oh well,, That's what's going to happen Now. So Curiosity is also you don't know what's going on. So. It's also the unknown but it's just in a positive light. So you're bringing light to the unknown instead of. |
32:25.70 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
32:43.26 | Max Shank | Being stuck hiding from the darkness. So I think that that is probably if there's a big takeaway about Fear. It's that curiosity is the opposite it. It puts you right back into Neocortex it puts you right back into. Conscious takes you right out of compulsive fear spiral so fear and and curiosity. Um, you know you'll of course be afraid of things and really afraid of um. What may come to be right because you don't know exactly what it will be but curiosity same unknown but a totally different frame of reference. So that's that's huge I think of goals. |
33:29.42 | mikebledsoe | E. |
33:40.20 | Max Shank | And I think of action. So I always think of whenever I create a message of some kind I always start with what do I want who to do exactly. So. |
33:54.40 | mikebledsoe | Hey. |
33:56.51 | Max Shank | Who am I talking to and what exactly do I want them to do ah quite frankly, ah the time where I just write something so people read it is is long gone and it's not enough for me to get off my ass and do it's it just doesn't feel worth it. Which is exactly what I want to talk about now which is the pain to prospect ratio. It's an estimate that we make consciously or unconsciously about is the juice worth the squeeze and people. |
34:27.53 | mikebledsoe | E. |
34:31.63 | Max Shank | Especially with exercise are very bad at estimating they think oh it's it's just not worth it to do ah a ten minute exercise session or movement session because they're ah it's too much. Yeah, too much effort. Not enough payoff. Right? The pain is too great. The cost is too high. The benefit won't be high enough. So. |
34:51.90 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah I don't think they realize the accumulatative effect people have a hard time projecting positivity in the future. |
34:59.40 | Max Shank | What? Well you have to be able to defer gratification because in the short term exercise makes you weaker. Ah it depends what you do I mean there's ah. |
35:09.67 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
35:18.33 | Max Shank | Like a curve right? If you do a little bit of exercise. It makes you much stronger that day. But if you do a lot. It makes you much weaker that day and it's probably you know like most things kind of Bell curvish. But you have to be able to see long-term and defer gratification till later just like. Investing just like working on a long project. Um, some people maybe write books in 1 day but that's probably not very many people. The reason more people don't is you have to string a lot of. |
35:46.62 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
35:53.37 | Max Shank | Writing sessions together and in my case, the hardest part for sure is editing writing is so easy editing is is way ah way tougher I think ah but in order to do anything you have to meet a catalyst. |
35:57.67 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah, yeah. |
36:13.30 | Max Shank | In your pain to prospect ratio which so I have a pretty weird motivational technique which is I don't I don't I'm not a good cheerleader but I just kind of point out the obvious and say look you know you can do this. And if you don't it just means you don't think it's worth it yet. That's all that's okay, like if you write in your journal for fifteen minutes every morning for 2 weeks. It means that you're probably taking this um mental practice that we're trying seriously and then. At the end of those 2 weeks. We'll have an idea of whether or not this is ah giving you some benefit and what you've gotten out of it and here are some tools of course like um, fill in the blanks type of stuff can be really beneficial for help. Ah I call it ah mind mining. |
37:08.60 | mikebledsoe | A. |
37:09.20 | Max Shank | Like you're a minor with like a little pickaxe so you help people ah mind their minds and the reality is ah hunger is the motivator hunger pain desire all synonyms ambition same thing I didn't even really consider the fact. That I named my gym ambition athletics which is basically a synonym for desire athletics and is just so funny like thinking back into it and it is the desire to achieve something and you need to experience some sort of pain. With the status quo even if it seems like very love-based like I want to I I Love the I Love Children. So I Want to save the children. It's like yeah you want you feel pain right now that they are suffering. Basically so everything relates back. To whether or not the pain to prospect ratio prospect being like what you predict the outcome will be is sufficient of a catalyst for your action. That's true for basically everything. |
38:17.60 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah I agree with that Always always calculating the um yeah tote. |
38:28.48 | Max Shank | Um, even unconsciously. |
38:34.79 | mikebledsoe | Probably mostly unconsciously. |
38:36.90 | Max Shank | Like oh I'm I'm uncomfortable. So I'm going to eat a donut. It's worth it. It's it's only 10 feet away that's 10 steps eat a donut that's well worth it. But the. |
38:40.86 | mikebledsoe | Exactly yeah. Yeah I don't I don't get this much anymore. But I've had people I'd be somewhere and they're like you want to eat this food and we go now and then it's usually somebody overweight who goes he goes. Oh you're you're 1 of those people that punish yourself with. |
38:59.14 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
39:09.58 | mikebledsoe | I'm like I go no I just I realized that if I eat this in an hour I'm gonna feel like shit and if I eat this repeatedly I'm gonna just my whole body's gonna feel like shit not in the five minutes while I'm eating it. But. Every other moment after that's worse so like it's just and it's funny. How like I just remember people trying to guilt me into joining them and making poor decisions that way. Yeah, yeah. |
39:41.60 | Max Shank | It's like drinking. It's like drinking drinking alcohol. The trick though is we. |
39:46.35 | mikebledsoe | Just have a beard just relax. |
39:49.61 | Max Shank | I Remember when I was in my early twenty s we used to show how tough we were by having a little competition to see who could drink the most poison. |
39:59.38 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, yeah, you too? Yeah, but. |
40:02.97 | Max Shank | Ah, oh yeah, I was the toughest guy there was and then I was vomiting in the gutter where I then passed out So I mean have you ever like I think isn't there like a euphemism for you know my life was in the gutter I hit like rock. I've literally like woken up in a gutter before that's not a proud moment but the problem is yeah that means yeah I have good friends with you at least that's silver Lining. That's good. |
40:23.99 | mikebledsoe | No, no yeah I've I've been peeled off the sidewalk and carried home. Yeah I did I did they didn't leave me behind. |
40:38.94 | Max Shank | I would just wander off. Ah, um, the problem that most people have though is not only is there estimate of the effort required ah sort of fallacious and driven. By the law of least action which is we always want to preserve energy. But we also have no clue as to what all the variables are you know algebra and math is usually very clean like 2 x equals y plus four. You know, even that is like fairly cut and dry. But when you start thinking about all of the variables involved with whether you decide to exercise in the morning and tackle a writing project for the next sixty days. There are so many variables that you can't imagine. Another example is. Ah, investing like how do you choose what company to invest into and you know 1 of my absolutely closest friends for a really long time is really, he's like so sharp and we talk about investing and you know i. Kind of like to ah go with it and I talk about the ah fundamentals because that's all I know about businesses I don't study ah like business numbers and sales and all that stuff I just think about what? ah. Value is being provided essentially and I think about like the human aspect of it but in order to look through. Let's say even a thousand companies and pick your favorite 10 is so crazy. Because there are so many variables that you're not aware of so you take that level of complexity and you apply it to your own life. The difference in the like probability of how your day will go of starting with. You you know thirty minutes of exercise or thirty minutes of tiktok is pretty dramatic but you can't possibly know what you're going to experience in both of those situations right? So the variables get way too complicated to have. Ah. |
42:59.75 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
43:06.86 | Max Shank | Perfect prediction so you can't expect to be perfectly ready and that's why you know I I like ah Perfectionism is a sophisticated form of procrastination and so you'll. You'll try to get all the variables lined up but just the understanding that nobody ever gets all the variables lined up and usually the people who do the most things are the ones who go way before they're Ready. It's like they used to frustrate me a lot because. |
43:40.16 | mikebledsoe | M. |
43:45.15 | Max Shank | Ah, used to have you ever been envious. Anyone anyone out there. Envy is is really hard to not to not be envious, especially when you're young and you fancy yourself smart and you see. |
43:50.58 | mikebledsoe | Ah, oh yeah. |
44:04.50 | Max Shank | Very very successful. Successful people who you recognize as very very dumb at what they're doing and it's not a personal attack. It's just Wow people are are buying this line of B S. Are you kidding me like this is a. How is this guy so popular like and and it's because they just go go go way before they're ready and so there's ah, there's a balance there with the the craftsmanship of. |
44:22.90 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
44:41.20 | Max Shank | Refining that skill and there's also that advantage to being a little too ignorant to know that you're not ready and just going anyway. So finding finding that good balance is. |
44:53.96 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
45:00.10 | Max Shank | Is quite helpful and a lot of the stuff that I've done actually I went before before it was ready and it worked out really well. |
45:08.44 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, I think that's 1 of the things that have helped me achieve the amount of success I have is I I was a little delusional when I was younger about how good I was gonna be at something i. Just didn't think about all the potential variables I Just go oh I had like this this faith that I would figure it out like oh yeah, I know what I'm doing and then I get into it and I realized that there was a million things I had no idea about that I now have to figure Out. Um. So I think a little bit of delusion early on was helpful that delusion is faded I now know that I don't know a bunch of shit. But 1 thing I've learned is that I have the ability to jump into a project and I'll figure it out I don't I don't care what it is. |
46:01.87 | Max Shank | Will you need that faith. |
46:03.53 | mikebledsoe | So as long as I want it if I want it I go you know what? I'll figure it out I mean my whole thing is is I will figure it out or I won't either way I've got to try and if I don't then I'll just move on to something else because there's the the micro in the macro. |
46:15.95 | Max Shank | Um, right. |
46:22.10 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
46:23.47 | mikebledsoe | Like oh I want to go up this 1 thing I go after I go Wow The cost of reaching that goal is actually not worth it to me anymore now that I'm now that I'm aware of all the variables and like you know what? I'm okay to walk away from this because I actually desire something else more that I'm willing to to sacrifice. Right now in order to get there. So It's ah that's really been beneficial for me and I do see a lot of people get caught up in that this like fear of they talk about fear of failure and there's a fear that ah they're not gonna get not get it right? I agree and that's. |
46:58.37 | Max Shank | It's fear of shame. |
47:02.63 | mikebledsoe | That's actually that was ah my biggest fear when I started in my business was I didn't want to look like I tried hard and then like like I either had to act like in the beginning I act like I I didn't care ah because if it didn't go well and I. |
47:05.36 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
47:22.50 | mikebledsoe | And I looked like I didn't care. It didn't mean anything about me. But if I yeah but if I try hard and I fail that means I'm dumb you know and and and for me like my my big 1 of my biggest fears was like being seen as as. |
47:25.70 | Max Shank | Isn't that funny totally or bad. Yeah. |
47:41.67 | mikebledsoe | Dumb because I deep downwn believe that I believe that I was dumb when I was a kid and so I had to overcome that so I had to prove to the world that I that I was smart I was trying to prove to myself that I could be smart and but yeah, 1 of my biggest fears was was looking dumb. |
47:41.69 | Max Shank | Um, same. |
47:57.56 | Max Shank | I feel that 1 |
48:00.78 | mikebledsoe | And I didn't want to look like I tried hard. Um, but even then like you know, ah raising my prices in my gym to be at ah at the appropriate price was very difficult because I was afraid of what. People who I was going to charge that amount of money to were going to think of me for charging that I didn't want to be seen as greedy so I didn't want to be seen as dumb I didn't want to be seen as greedy. It's Funny. He's like oh I don't want to fail but I'm also don't want to be seen as a greedy person. |
48:22.66 | Max Shank | Right. |
48:36.25 | mikebledsoe | And then there's this box of like limitation around success that gets they gets built. It's like okay well I don't want to be seeing this greedy I don't want to fail and look dumb. It's like Wow What do you get? where do you go from there you there's very little to go from there. |
48:38.98 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
48:52.40 | Max Shank | There's no wiggle room whatsoever. |
48:54.24 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, and so there's these conditions that we put on our in place because of yeah that that perceived shame that people will shame us and then we'll feel guilty and ah yeah, yeah. |
49:06.56 | Max Shank | You'll feel less. You'll feel less than and it goes back to that same eat. It goes back to that same like your your story is tarnished it always comes back to that judgment shame and shame I've heard is the single most. |
49:11.63 | mikebledsoe | Loss. |
49:15.65 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah. |
49:24.18 | Max Shank | Ah, powerful visceral emotion. There is which you would imagine that our evolution would select for that based on our dependence of cooperating together in groups you touched on something though which is like. |
49:35.96 | mikebledsoe | Right? right? definitely. |
49:43.68 | Max Shank | You just had to believe you just had to have faith that it would work and you need that because there's no guarantee that anything will work. You know, even someone? Um I I Really like to have all my ducks in a row. Ah before I start something. Try to limit the risk as much as possible but you can't take any action without having faith and I'm sure that's part of the reason that religion has sprouted so much is in order to have that. Forward thinking of like this is what the future could hold and understand that there are so many possibilities it can be an advantage to have faith that everything will go well or or perhaps that a um, a deity of some kind. |
50:34.70 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
50:41.56 | Max Shank | Has ah a grander plan where it does all work out. Well I mean that's that's ah, quite an interesting way of assuaging those fears. |
50:50.70 | mikebledsoe | Well, ah, human, they they did a study and humans generally think that the future will be better than the present and that's that's another challenge to investing either. You know in. And exercise in health or investing money in something is because people believe that they're gonna make more money in the future. They're gonna they believe they generally believe things would just be Better. There's an um overall optimistic thing going on. Not for everybody. But for. Vast majority of people. They they do think things that they believe that things progress to be better in the future and which could be true I think it generally is true. But when yeah, it's very relative and. |
51:41.72 | Max Shank | Bet Better is super relative right. |
51:46.49 | mikebledsoe | People Um, a lot of times because they believe things are going to get better. No matter what they don't take action. They don't do what it takes for things to be better, especially and is where religion can get funny a lot of times because. |
51:58.26 | Max Shank | Right. |
52:05.00 | mikebledsoe | There's something outside of themselves that is going to save them. There's something outside of themselves that's going to make it better and a ah lot of people I think get caught up in that belief structure and then just fall into inaction. |
52:20.52 | Max Shank | A. |
52:21.86 | mikebledsoe | Or don't see the role that they're going to play in creating that future. |
52:25.61 | Max Shank | Yeah, sometimes I get caught in exactly the opposite which is I predict all of the horrible stuff I predict based on ah all of the horrible stuff I've been made aware of and I just assume that ah me doing. |
52:30.96 | mikebledsoe | And he. |
52:44.22 | Max Shank | Anything will be like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon and it won't really make a difference Anyway, I'm like hey everybody it's ah time for your morning Mobility Exercises Meanwhile there's like you know all kinds of lobbying going on and all of the you know. |
52:49.39 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah. |
53:03.40 | Max Shank | Whatever you know I don't want to get too far down that road. But I think ah safe to say that we do a lot of stuff exactly the worst way possible in our current setup of organizing large groups of people so thinking that what you do will have some sort of. Benefit that is meaningful to you so that belief that faith has to um, be the catalyst for any action and that's that pain to prospect ratio. |
53:33.10 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I feel good with this anything else. You want to add. |
53:39.82 | Max Shank | Ah, so we talked about ah goals and fears primarily and then we talked a little bit about sticks and stones which was pretty fun in the beginning I think with regard to fear. It's important to understand that it's just your attached to your story and all of the um, the most wise stuff that I've read from throughout the Millennia of people trying to feel more at peace in their. Selves and hearts is about ah connection without attachment which is such a trite thing to say it seems so simple right? But it's actually extremely difficult to connect with everything around you without getting too attached and latched onto it. And so fear man we didn't even talk about ah like feeling physically safe and you know like having ah some food and some marshall capabilities. But yeah, if you can accept. The impermanence of your story. You won't be enslaved by the fear of tarnishing that story like the shame or the failures I mean I really like the phrase The only failure is to not try at all. |
55:12.41 | mikebledsoe | You know? ah. |
55:15.40 | Max Shank | Because you can I think you probably would agree that part of your success just like for mine is just that I simply tried lots of things and I you don't know which ones are going to work and I Also. Didn't get stuck in the sunk cost fallacy where you keep pouring more energy into something just because you've already poured a lot into it. You know it's It's good. You you stop doing that thing and you try something else. So It's good to try lots of things because you don't know just like investing. |
55:38.78 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
55:50.38 | Max Shank | Ah, Diversification. You don't know which 1 Ne's going to be awesome. But if you have 10 that have a really good chance of being awesome then hey that's pretty good I mean I'm not I can't predict the future. So yeah, there's that which is. You have to accept the impermanence of the story and then everything else is sort of a domino effect after that and. |
56:13.89 | mikebledsoe | I Like the impermanence of this story because after you die your story is I mean it. It contributes to the cultural story and gets passed down anceually. But. |
56:26.26 | Max Shank | Right. |
56:31.15 | mikebledsoe | No stories are ever told accurately. So just the the knowledge the knowledge that your story is going to be skewed no matter what? ah to me brings a lot of levity because I know that other people are going to write my story about me. |
56:33.33 | Max Shank | Now. |
56:50.43 | mikebledsoe | From their perspective. However, they want It's none of my none of my business really and once I stop making my business and how other people are gonna interpret my story. The easier got to just live out my own life The way I want to live it and yeah like this weekend I had my. |
56:51.63 | Max Shank | Um, right? yeah. |
57:09.88 | mikebledsoe | My birthday my birthday party and people were telling me all sorts of amazing things about me but that's not even the story I would tell about myself and and so it's It's a good demonstration of yeah that I think that this. |
57:18.44 | Max Shank | Yeah, of course, not. |
57:29.61 | mikebledsoe | The story we're telling about ourselves is is greater than what we think other people might tell a story about us. |
57:37.92 | Max Shank | Yeah, and subconsciously your self-image is going to guide your behaviors. Maybe even more than you're conscious. So if like subconsciously you think you're dumb and lazy. No amount of like trying to grit through it is actually going to. |
57:56.47 | mikebledsoe | Your yeah your behaviors may change it create a difference in your life. But that story is going to remain the same. |
57:56.84 | Max Shank | Help you do that So you have to. |
58:03.14 | Max Shank | Right? So that's why I think at least for me what makes the um, most sense is to not be too attached to any story because I think you you mostly just are what you do and the more attached I am to a certain thing. The. |
58:12.34 | mikebledsoe | On there. |
58:22.31 | Max Shank | The less the flow of energy is through me as like a conduit and so with regard to fear you are accepting your physical death and your the death of your story and and also the fact that your story could be. |
58:24.43 | mikebledsoe | Move. Ah. |
58:41.11 | Max Shank | Completely tarnished I mean Oedipus did a lot of great things. But no 1 remembers What those things are because he killed his dad and fucked his mom and that's all we know about oedipus right. So with like if you let go of the story thing then you won't fear Shame. You won't fear Judgment. It's like a top-down type of effect if you accept the impermanence and then with regard to goals. It allows you to seek goals outside of your um, extrinsic judgment of those things like a lot of people become doctors and lawyers not because they want to. Be a doctor or a lawyer just because it's ah it's an esteemed position. It's a position of power and wealth. They don't really want that they just want to be seen as Good. So if you can get your self out of the way you'll be able to choose a goal. |
59:41.50 | mikebledsoe | Right. |
59:46.57 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
59:57.46 | Max Shank | That is more conducive to what you really feel and I may have even mentioned this in a show before I'm sure I have but ah simon sinek has his it starts with why and that's good and james clear has his habit formation about. Starts with who like you choose your identity and then everything comes from there which is also good. It's kind of in line with the psycho cybernetics idea and then I just think about what I would want to have done if I could get no credit. If I had to be totally anonymous and that seems to be the truest ah goals that I have it takes into consideration. What my strengths and weaknesses are and it takes the um it takes the ego kind of out of the. Out of the equation a little bit and it helps me get more aligned to what I actually think is important versus what is just another ah power play like ah people will people will love me more and then my story will be vast and then I will have a. |
01:01:04.15 | mikebledsoe | Sir. |
01:01:13.27 | Max Shank | Gigantic tombstone. No I'll have a mausoleum that's when the ego goes beyond your physical life like the last thing I fucking want is gigantic mausoleum. It's so ridiculous. Um, hey I'm you know, no offense to the people with. |
01:01:32.17 | mikebledsoe | Mauselums. |
01:01:32.39 | Max Shank | Mausoleums and stuff like that. It's just it's just not for me. Ah, So there's the relating to fears relating to goals or perhaps a mission very valuable to get other people who feel the same way and then the last thing is just your. Physical safety which is your health your defensive power and um financial health to I would say you have like safety nets. It's like a health physical health physical mental Health Safety net. Ah, social safety net and then financial safety net and. |
01:02:13.98 | mikebledsoe | Was the 3 categories of personal development is health wealth and relationships was it. Those are that yeah those are the 3 things that people need to master in order to to live a good life. |
01:02:22.27 | Max Shank | That's right, pretty much everything is those. |
01:02:33.50 | mikebledsoe | You know I think what we call a good life in this in our current society and those are 3 topics that are not taught in our education system. |
01:02:34.18 | Max Shank | Oh. |
01:02:41.25 | Max Shank | Yeah, the only important things are not taught that's kind of relate. that's that's 1 of the things that makes me feel like I'm trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon sometimes is I'm like man 12 years we don't even teach the important stuff. It's out of control. But yeah, you're right. |
01:02:50.51 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, yeah. |
01:03:01.13 | Max Shank | You're right? It's those 3 things and combine that with the acceptance of the impermanence and you'll probably live your fullest life I know like live your best life is like a ah hilarious Hashtag ah, but yeah. But I think that's pretty good. Pretty good way to be there's there's no question reality about having financial. Well-being physical. Well-being and then social wellbeing. |
01:03:21.78 | mikebledsoe | I like it. Yeah. |
01:03:37.78 | Max Shank | I mean I feel super fortunate that over the past. However long this whole ah business has been going on that I've had close friends and um, plenty of Reserve capital and I live in a place where there's lots of sunshine and I. Went into it very physically healthy and if you're missing 1 or all of those you're going to have a bad time. |
01:04:06.15 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this ah this show to me I'm gonna have my students listen to it because this has ah been packed with a lot of really useful Information. So The the 1 thing I Want to remind everybody is is. Thing that's made the biggest difference for me is learning to be to love and accept those feelings which I tend to avoid and from there a lot of other wisdom has come online for me and ways to live just because of that 1 1 thing That's ah once you get to that point it opens up channels of information which you didn't have access to before. |
01:04:56.97 | Max Shank | That's so good because it also opens the door to being compassionate for other people and it also it also closes the door of being envious of other people because you don't know what's going on on the inside right. |
01:05:00.49 | mikebledsoe | It does. |
01:05:07.56 | mikebledsoe | In here. |
01:05:11.29 | Max Shank | We we like to envy like Cherry we like to do cherry pick envy we we like to envy the rock's body you know dwayne the rock johnson that guy but we don't envy like his. |
01:05:22.97 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
01:05:29.14 | Max Shank | Daily routine. Probably we don't envy the fact that I mean who knows what his home life was like but yeah I think if you can love and accept yourself and then still um, you know, not. |
01:05:29.30 | mikebledsoe | No. |
01:05:43.23 | Max Shank | Not feel shame for feeling those emotions but just get curious about them like you sagely pointed out earlier. It really will open the door for a a love-based change of self-image. Rather than a shame-based change of self-image and like I said it also makes you more compassionate and less Envious. So I think y'all I would like to re-listen to this 1 a couple times myself because a lot of things that you and I just say in the flow. Ah, are it makes me want to start jotting down notes and I think. |
01:06:21.10 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, I'm um like I added a couple things that I need to write about from this conversation. |
01:06:27.00 | Max Shank | Um, well make sure you share those with me I was thinking that part of the reason these conversations are going so well. What is this the ninth episode or something I think ah. |
01:06:36.71 | mikebledsoe | Number nine. Yeah. |
01:06:42.86 | Max Shank | Ah, 1 of the reason it goes so well is you and I have zero consideration for who said it. We only care that it gets said so we're trying to make the like the result of it. Good. And like I don't care if it was like you said the thing or I said the thing so it's a very um, unencumbered melding of. The experiences that we've had which are unique and then also the experiences we've been exposed to secondhand which is like the reading and the learning from others and I think that's that's what makes a body of work. Great is when you get the. |
01:07:32.20 | mikebledsoe | Agreed agreed well brother where can people find you he that he forgot he forgot. |
01:07:32.33 | Max Shank | Junk out of the way. Yeah man. |
01:07:42.50 | Max Shank | Maxshank Dot Com at Ma shank. Well I was just thinking. Yeah I I was just thinking I'm actually pretty hard to find like physically but on the internet I'm the easiest to find ever if you Google me I'm all over the place. |
01:07:47.54 | mikebledsoe | Air. |
01:07:54.17 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, same ah hit up at mike blood. So mike underscore bloods on Instagram and the strongcoach dot com if you're a coach and want to do some cool shit all right? Thanks for joining us today. |
01:08:12.32 | Max Shank | Love you brother take care. |
01:08:12.97 | mikebledsoe | And you max Love you. |
00:00.-3 | mikebledsoe | Animal facts. We're gonna talk about masculinity and femininity I hate that femininity How it I'm always always feel like I'm adding an n in there I think I am masculine feminine makes it way easier. |
00:10.7 | Max Shank | Femininity masculine and feminine. |
00:19.4 | mikebledsoe | So ah, yeah, we discussed talking about this last week because we we began to touch on it a bit so max you wanted to dive into the animal kingdom. Do we want to do that first. Yeah. |
00:33.7 | Max Shank | Yeah I just want to do like forty minutes of animal jokes if possible. But I think I think before we kick that off though we should draw attention to the difference between male and female and masculine and feminine. |
00:38.5 | mikebledsoe | Right? We'll see. |
00:50.9 | mikebledsoe | Um, yep. |
00:52.8 | Max Shank | Because those are 2 kind of different things. Um, it's funny I have the whole ah yin yang symbol behind me which is the masculine and feminine and there's ah, a drop of the light in the dark and there's a drop of the dark in the light and I think that's a good. Metaphor for what we're talking about. It's not just I am 1 hundred percent masculine or 1 hundred percent in a female is not going to be 1 hundred percent feminine. It's going to be a gradient and there are going to be different identities and personalities wrapped up into. Where someone is masculine and where someone is feminine and that's going to be instinct or genetics as it's manifested through the nurture through the learned behavior. So. That's why you get some. Guys who are way more feminine and you get some women who are way more masculine and I would probably argue that right now we have more feminine men. And more masculine women than we've probably had maybe ever in the history of humanity. Would you agree. |
02:16.5 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, from what I've studied in History. It does seem that that's that is the case I think that the the state of the the amount of wealth that we enjoy the amount of ah time we get to. Have for ourselves that the world is not as demanding. We're not demanded into a role as much. So I think there's a lot more choice. Men aren't necessarily expected to be more masculine and and I think it's worth bringing up the. Different traits of masculinity and and femininity. Ah the you know masculine is is normally the ah the what on yeah there they. |
03:02.5 | Max Shank | Light on light on active. |
03:13.0 | mikebledsoe | Usually are protectors producers. It's it's about production. It's about what doing penetrating? Ah, it's It's a lot of action and. |
03:25.5 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
03:28.3 | mikebledsoe | Thoughts could be thought of as a masculine trait whereas feelings is more feminine and and feminine is and masculine is on the on the giving side whereas feminine is more on the receiving side much more nurture nurturing more Accepting. Ah. The way things are versus trying to change them a masculine feature is yeah yeah, and I think it's an example I Really like to use here is if we're going talk about masculine and Feminine. We can talk about being paternal or Maternal. So. |
03:50.2 | Max Shank | Send and receive yes and and receive. |
04:04.7 | Max Shank | Um. |
04:07.2 | mikebledsoe | Eternal behavior is masculine and maternal behavior is feminine and ah if we look at you know I'll give an example that I think you and I will be able to identify with and probably a lot of people in the audience is. When you were a kid and at a baseball game you were playing and you struck out the what was what's the response from the typical mother if you strike out. |
04:34.4 | Max Shank | Ah, it's okay, you'll get him next time right. |
04:37.3 | mikebledsoe | Exactly What's the typical response of the father in that situation. |
04:43.8 | Max Shank | Ah, you're ah a worthless piece of dirt if you had if you had listened to me this wouldn't have happened now probably here's probably here's what you should do differently like here's how you fix it. |
04:51.6 | mikebledsoe | Well, there's varying degrees. Um, yeah, so like ah and it's funny. You mentioned that that first example because there's healthy and and unhealthy expressions of both so the the healthy expression of of of paternal. Ah, healthy expression would be oh yeah, let's ah, we'll get them next time. Let's make sure we go to batting practice. You know I'm going to take you out tomorrow and we're gonna they're going to paint a picture of the future that's different than what it is right now whereas. Yeah, the maternal is like you know it's all good. You could keep striking out. It's not a big deal. Yeah yeah, I also think about the the masculine as holding the vision of the future and wanting to create progress. |
05:33.4 | Max Shank | Um, it's like it's like fixing versus accepting. |
05:48.6 | mikebledsoe | Where the feminine is is more ah is more accepting of just the way things are currently so both both are both are absolutely necessary. Is 1 thing I want to point out. |
05:54.2 | Max Shank | Yeah, and. |
06:02.0 | Max Shank | No question and if you if you slide the bar all the way to 1 side or the other you become ah impossible to live with.. Basically you can't You can't be 1 hundred percent. Ah, feminine traits and you can't be 1 hundred percent masculine traits like it just doesn't work. Especially right now right. |
06:25.0 | mikebledsoe | Yeah there's a lot more flexibility. Um, and but you know we have more choice for sure. But there's a book. Um that I read a while backed by a guy who I'm not remembering his name right now. It may come to me but basically he wrote 1 book called integral relationships and ah and that was that book was specifically written for men and then which brought another book which it might be on my bookshelf over there but I'm not seeing it. Um. Was written for men and women which is a very like thick dense book on you know relationships now. Ah the the name of the book I read the first 1 I read of his is integral relationships and that was um. If you know, ken wilbur's work. He he's the guy who who you know really pushed forward Integral theory. So a lot of what this guy talks about it's a very intellectual approach to masculine feminine and and relationships. And he takes the integral approach which includes spiral dynamics and so spiral dynamics is basically a model for viewing stages of development of human development and consciousness and how we perceive the world and how we behave in the world. And really, it's a predictor of values and how those values can change over time and evolve over time and if your values are this today we can expect that your values when they change are going to change into this next thing and so 1 of the really cool things that this book did was it was showing how. The the ah men so we were talking earlier about being masculine and feminine is not necessarily gender specific. It's not men and women. However, historically men have been associated with being more masculine and women have been associated with being more feminminine. So in this book 1 of the things that he talks about is there. Are you familiar with spiral dynamics much almost not at all cool. So basically ah. |
08:35.8 | Max Shank | Um, almost not at all only from what you've told me. |
08:44.4 | mikebledsoe | All of society is going through a stage of development and Consciousness. So We all experience these stages of Consciousness development as individuals. So What it looks like when you're a baby all you care about is yourself is a very individualistic and then it's about the parents and the family. And the most important thing when you're a kid is that you're you're fed comfortable and you're taking shits and then you progress and you social things become more important and you progress and you. Just follow the rules because these are the rules and then 1 day you realize oh these rules are made up and they work for a specific amount of time but after amount of time I Want to become an individual I don't want to follow these rules anymore you know and everyone goes to this little bit of a rebellious stage. |
09:37.1 | Max Shank | A. |
09:39.0 | mikebledsoe | And then they become more about the collective the we and then ah after be after day like max out and they get tired of being an individual they go well how can we work together and then after that there's there's other stages of of development and so when. People who look at this what they say about society as a whole especially we could say look at America specifically it's in a phase of moving from orange to greens so that is from a very individualistic capitalist type of mindset into more of a. A we type of of place where it's more of a collective mentality and there's a lot more self-sacrifice when we're in the we whereas when we're in the eye an individual It's less self- sacrificerifice more self-serving and more self-expression. Not caring what other people think about my expression whereas when you get into the we. It's more about Belonging. You don't want to stand out too much. You want to blend in and so what a lot of these people are saying is we're moving into this we um and. The the average american like there's enough people, especially the people we hang out with are you know they're in a personal development. They've been actually consciously choosing to develop and so what you end up with is as men go into this green phase of more of ah carrying. By the way if I were to look at both you and I we've we've gone beyond the green meme that that the hippie ah we stage and have been able to integrate all of it. Ah, but what he talks about in this book is when men go into this. And to the green stage the we collective all that kind of stuff they end up becoming much more feminine like they they adopt a lot of feminine traits and 1 of the reasons is because when someone moves into the the we stage into that green meme when they look back on the previous stages of development. They look at it with disgust and so it's typical for a man to get into this phase look at his previous stages of development see it in disgust and want to to not have anything and do with it and then um in culture. A lot of times those traits are associated with being masculine so they they want to throw off what they were before and a lot ah spirituality becomes an important topic for these people a lot of times when they hit the green stage and if you look at the spiritual communities and you look at. |
12:22.7 | mikebledsoe | Like like if you look at immature spiritual communities. You'll find a lot of men who lack masculinity and have taken on being feminine and so ah, these. Men are way more nurturing way more compassionate all these things we've we've all witnessed that and then for the women when they hit the stage of development. They they hit a stage of development. Ah the independent stage they actually cross over from being feminine to Masculine. At a stage previous to the men so it actually throws off society and so 1 of the things that he notes in the book which is interesting is that ah that when when men and women are in the stage. They're never going to be able to stay in a relationship very long. So if you look at our culture as a whole It seems like there's ah it's hard to stay in a relationship longer than a year and a year and a half and after that there's there's some friction in the relationship and then it and then it dissipates and so. That's that's extremely common and people stay single longer until they hit a certain stage of development because this is where we're at in society so women cross over into this very independent masculine traits when they hit that independence phase and throughout the green phase of development and. Women in that in those phases look at men who are ah in a stage of development under them with with like they're they're just children. They're not interested in that and then the 1 that is at the equal stage of development that green meme that those men discuss them. Because ah, the polarity is flipped and whereas they may be able to start a relationship with those men. They're not going to be satisfied over the long term and so ah in the Book. What he talks about is then after the green meme people move into. Ah so ah. Like a tier 2 consciousness and this tier 2 consciousness is when you get to integrate everything from before and when you do that when you look at you know when you accept the the we I care about the earth the planet everybody I also accept the independent me the 1 that wants to achieve and compete. Also accept the the tradition and what got us here and maybe even look at religion differently and look at warriors differently like seeing a place for all these There's always a place for tradition. There's a place for being a warrior. There's a place for independence and achievement. There's a place for. |
15:04.3 | mikebledsoe | We in the collective and so um, in this place when someone gets to this tier 2 consciousness and they've integrated all that their ability to be flexible between the masculine and the feminine becomes way more possible. And it can be flexible from moment to Moment. So Um I Forget why I explained all that but I imagine it could be helpful. |
15:33.0 | Max Shank | I Mean it sounds like it's quite complex. Not necessarily complicated but complex I Always think of that journey as like ah me we all I just call it me. We all and you go from me to we to all. |
15:45.9 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
15:51.6 | Max Shank | And everybody goes through that at different times if you look at different cultures I think of asian cultures specifically where the last name is spoken First you would be blood. So mike I would be shankoax and I think that. Dedication to the legacy of the family puts them more in that perspective from the very outset so that culture really breeds that concept of legacy right. |
16:25.0 | mikebledsoe | Well, there was um, there's legacy. But then there's also ah I know about um what I've learned about the South korean my buddy lived there for a while and he said that everybody always knows where they're at in the pecking order in the room and it's by age and if you're the youngest 1 |
16:39.1 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
16:44.7 | mikebledsoe | Ah, like everyone is aware of where they're at in the pecking order at all times and they know if someone should be serving them or if they should be serving somebody. So if someone's older they're serving them So there's this constant awareness and vigilance in a culture about. |
16:47.6 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
17:00.8 | mikebledsoe | And who everybody else is and who they are in that context whereas here. That's ah, that's not so common. |
17:09.0 | Max Shank | It's sort of debatable where you are in the hierarchy for most people and I think that's also what makes cooperation so difficult. That's why that's why a well-trained military with a hierarchy is going to beat down a band of nomads where nobody's really in charge. |
17:25.0 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
17:26.9 | Max Shank | Right? So that that understanding of hierarchy is crazy valuable and 1 of the things that you said that I really resonated with was the fluidity and I'm not talking about gender fluid. But I'm talking about the being able to change between masculine. And feminine traits and if you're not able to do that. You're not really going to be able to succeed in every part of life. You might be able to succeed in some parts of life but you won't really be expressing your ultimate manifestation. Of what you can be if you're not balancing the 2 and that's why that yin and yang symbol has that dynamism to it that spiraling of the light and the dark you know spinning around chasing each other basically and. |
18:17.9 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I mean when you look at the graphic when you look at the symbol it. It appears to be still. But if you let it move over time. Yeah, it's something spiraling. |
18:30.2 | Max Shank | Yeah, it's ah it's a dynamic ability to alternate between masculine and feminine and you know if you read ah art of seduction by Robert Green which is a gigantic book. But it's really good you you see all the. |
18:43.8 | mikebledsoe | Good book. |
18:48.7 | Max Shank | Um, you know the casan novas which I think I think that means catch a new 1 casa nova catch catch a new 1 at least it sounds like it. Ah I haven't been I've been able I haven't been able to find a confirmation but casa means catch in spanish and. |
18:55.6 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
19:08.6 | Max Shank | Nueva means New So That's kind of funny Anyway. So ah, seduction is about balancing those masculine and feminine traits and seduction is actually a very so it's active right? seduction. So It's masculine. But. The actions are very Feminine. You know Femininity is about being like an attractor even the egg right is secreting these ah pheromones basically or hormones I guess for the sperm to find their way. Up to the egg and it's such a. It's such a wildly different process and um, most. |
19:50.6 | mikebledsoe | And anyone who's in a relationship will recognize. There are times of the cycle in which you're more attracted to your woman if you're a man than others and a lot of that it has to do with what's happening with that egg. So. |
19:58.0 | Max Shank | Ah. |
20:04.3 | Max Shank | Well and if you just look at the structure of the 2 objects right? You have the egg which is this glorious little sphere wrapped in all this ah nutrition stuff in this little. And this little River getting carried along by Celia down the Fallopian tube. It's this very like elegant single unit and then on the male side. It's like a squadron of Jet Fighters like up to 500 million of them. All trying to basically seek and ah impregnate that same Target. So Just that experience itself says so much about the difference between masculinity and femininity. |
20:58.6 | mikebledsoe | I Want to point out that some people may be listening to this and go hang on you just switch from from masculine and feminine conversation to male female. Um, and ah the what? what? What? um. |
21:14.7 | Max Shank | Don't don't Misunderstand I'm set I'm saying the action is masculine. It just happens to be attached to the male. |
21:17.2 | mikebledsoe | What I want What? what? what? I want to point out the action is masculine. Well I would say I would say a lot of what we Ah what we see as masculine has biological. |
21:35.8 | Max Shank | For yeah. |
21:36.1 | mikebledsoe | Manifestations masculinity manifests physically in certain ways and being feminine manifests in certain ways. 1 is you're talking about sperm and egg. But also the penis and the vagina 1 is penetrating and giving and 1 is receiving. |
21:51.1 | Max Shank | Um, exactly and it's it's different with different animals. |
21:54.5 | mikebledsoe | So there's I think a lot of people want to separate out and and 1 ah hundred percent separate biology and and and I guess what we call it gender and. |
22:06.7 | Max Shank | Well I mean gender and Masculinity or femininity are totally different things and that's that's why I bring up that point like if you want to be a good seducer. Fellas. You need to actively. Matt young. Do some feminine things to maximize your seduction capabilities right? Ah and you know you look at the Animal kingdom. It's almost always the male with the pretty feathers. |
22:27.9 | mikebledsoe | Um, your attraction. |
22:43.9 | Max Shank | Like look at the peacock. For example, like he's just you know So what's more flamboyant than a peacock. It's just ridiculous. So it's all trying to um you know, show off, they're pretty colors and then with humans. It's. |
22:52.1 | mikebledsoe | E. |
23:03.6 | Max Shank | It's kind of the opposite. The ladies are showing themselves as sexy and the guys by Ferraris and mansions to show that they can provide So it's just a different kind of like I just call it peacocking essentially men and women are always. |
23:17.7 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
23:22.6 | Max Shank | Peacocking and pee henning and the reality is we just we just repeat what we think? Ah, what we think works like I would say if if there was no um, incentive for a man to be. Like financially successful like almost no man would do it. They would just live um like if it didn't matter how well off they were in terms of their ability to get ladies because that's what we love the most as men. We love ladies. But. |
23:56.2 | mikebledsoe | Whole world revolves around it. |
23:58.5 | Max Shank | We Yeah, it's like how do I get in there like that right exact like we would all just live in like fraternity houses and everybody would pay like. |
24:03.3 | mikebledsoe | I got I I go I go ah hunting So I can provide for her me. Yeah. |
24:16.0 | Max Shank | Ah, hundred dollars a month in rent and there would be pizza all the time like it would it would be like total debauchery nobody would try that hard to ah do all these crazy things if it didn't have a serious benefit to getting ladies and. When you realize that it's kind of shocking like the lengths that we go to to do that. |
24:42.4 | mikebledsoe | I've had this conversation with many women where where um, we'll be they'll be talking about. You know how men are in Charge. You know they'll be complaining about something and I look at him like are you insane women have been in charge the whole time. And they're go. They're going. What do you mean is like the it's like every and yeah, y'all are the reason we do everything like like we build we build companies because of you we. |
25:05.3 | Max Shank | Wars have been fought and Empires have fallen over women. |
25:17.4 | mikebledsoe | Do this and that everything we do is is for you like you're You're very powerful I've I've had this conversation with many women and and we go back and forth and they realize that they they have some realizations with that. So it's that they. |
25:35.3 | Max Shank | But that's their job. |
25:37.2 | mikebledsoe | There There have been a lot of people that say that like ah the women are responsible for the development of consciousness because it went from who could be the the biggest brute in order to get women to intelligence became more important for the purpose protection and for. Ah, production and so men we as men recognize oh we need to advance our intellect and our ability to make money and this and that to serve for women so that requires us to have more intelligence and so that's driving. |
25:58.6 | Max Shank | Yep. |
26:15.2 | mikebledsoe | Us as well. So I think that even though there are ah unhealthy expressions men men are a lot of times confused about how to get women and I think that's what creates upset and and causes Wars and all this kind of stuff. |
26:33.9 | Max Shank | Yeah, and up. |
26:34.8 | mikebledsoe | Um, because they're confused about what women actually want and the more men can they can figure out what they want what women actually want. They probably have a lot more peace and just you know more production. Actually yeah yeah, well. |
26:47.8 | Max Shank | Wouldn't it be crazy if we just asked women what they wanted. It's weird. It's it's funny though because that's that's a feminine job is to be Judgmental now I can already hear. Ah, the like grinding of gears and all the lady brains who just heard that but it's actually a very important role like you have to determine if our feathers are pretty enough if we have like a nice enough nest or whatever. So I'm not surprised that. Women are more judgmental and that has its positive qualities and its negative qualities like how many men judge other men based on the clothes they wear. It doesn't really happen right? Yeah, mostly just right? exactly. So. |
27:34.9 | mikebledsoe | Mostly just the feminine men. |
27:42.9 | Max Shank | It's important to have that discernment which is a nicer way of saying judgmental and we have all these trigger words that make people really really upset and I think that's a huge detriment because it limits our ability to have clear communication. |
27:47.4 | mikebledsoe | E. |
28:01.7 | Max Shank | And use simple language. |
28:03.0 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I want I want to dig into hierarchy because you you did you used the word earlier I meant I mentioned being paternal maternal. You know I think people start thinking about. We just talked about. |
28:14.3 | Max Shank | Ah. |
28:20.3 | mikebledsoe | Ah, how women are really in charge and and they there's this conversation that's been circling society for the last decade about patriarchy and so and I've got a disclaimer for this real quick. My girlfriend's a psychotherapist from the Bay I ah I have had this conversation with with someone who is has been steeped in like feminism femininism femininism feminism. Ah so it's. Um, it's it's something I think for us talk about what's what are you laughing about my ability to say it. Ah. |
29:04.4 | Max Shank | Just because it's part of how we make things so extra complicated right? The the words that we use words really should just be there to. |
29:14.7 | mikebledsoe | What's that Oh yeah. |
29:22.0 | Max Shank | Make the communication have greater precision not to like obscure the facts of life and I think that unfortunately what happens is 1 way to get like 1 up over on somebody else which is like power in the hierarchy is to. |
29:27.1 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, my. |
29:41.7 | Max Shank | Um, camouflage What you're really saying and to hide the reality with language and that's kind of goes back to our um, previous statement about it. Went from who has the big stick in the big muscles to who can tell the best story. |
29:45.6 | mikebledsoe | In. |
29:59.5 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
30:01.6 | Max Shank | And who can use language to get the job done and I think that's kind of what's happening right now with the you know the assault on the patriarchy because all these ideas are they have an intended goal and. It sort of has to go against nature when you create these new stories. The whole reason is like you're sort of going against what would naturally happen in these roles and if you come up with a good assault on a certain ideology. Whether it's true or not ah doesn't really matter like here's an example of what I'm talking About. We need to search. Everybody's phone so we can catch the pedophiles now I think the word pedophile is the fucking scariest front page word. There could possibly be and I just want ah you to think about So It's totally wrong for people people to be able to search our phones right? But if you come up with an emotional enough argument for that like okay. |
31:08.8 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah. |
31:18.8 | Max Shank | Raping Kids has got to be the worst thing there is right? So How do you say that? the church is 1 hundred percent bad. Well they you know, raped these kids now I think teachers by sheer numbers rape or fuck more kids than priests do. But. And maybe doesn't make as good a headline I don't know Anyway, my point is this if there's if there Well what I'm saying is it's all about the story so you bring up that comment about like the patriarchy and femininity and feminism and. |
31:39.6 | mikebledsoe | I Love This is our topic now. |
31:52.7 | mikebledsoe | Which is feminism and feminity are are different things and that's worth talking about too. |
31:55.3 | Max Shank | It's totally different things like I mean we could try to. We could come up with a nice clear definition of feminism. But I think saying that men are worse or women are worse is ridiculous like. That that doesn't get us anywhere just the same way that saying oh well, you know because of this horrible thing we need to do an even more horrible thing. So. It's just like using a story to justify why it's okay. |
32:28.0 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I think it's a good foundation for for moving forward. Um, well,, there's the the story of patriarchy is that men are in charge and men have been in charge and I've been making all the decisions and you can tell because they're primarily the ones that are in office. Political office. They're the ones that are running the companies. They're the ones that are you know all these things like they're they're in positions of quote unquote power and women ah have traditionally been at home and ah. |
32:47.2 | Max Shank | M. |
33:03.8 | mikebledsoe | There has been a story told that there is no power in that position that there that the men are actually powerful and and the women are not when they're ah playing out the traditional gender roles and ah. When I remember having this conversation with 1 of my buddies danny and he was talking about how he was growing up and how his his dad was was largely absent. He would just come in and out he was dating all these different women and he grew up and i. Ah, home full of it was women the grandmother the mother the the ants and everything it was a highly matriarchal home he was he was brought up. He was raised by women. He was not raised by men and he. You know it hit him 1 day goes is like oh I was like raised in a matriarchy so at ah at the family level if you look if we're looking at traditional gender roles at the family level. The woman carries most of the power she spends most of the money she makes most the purchases. She chooses the food you're going to eat that the activities the kids are going to do the the father is usually so ah busy needing to make money to provide all the things. That the the family needs and wants and maybe what he wants for them. But also what the woman wants for the family and the kids but she's women are if we're looking at traditional gender roles are largely dictating the development of children and to me there's nothing more powerful than that i. Don't care who's running the businesses or running the countries and things like that. That's that's illusory in a way people men are being um so there's when I look at feminism complaining about patriarchy what I what I witness. Is that there is a feminist is somebody who says that the traits of men are more valuable than the traits of women and in order for men and women to be equal. Women need to be able to have all the traits they desire that that men typically fulfill and and for instance you know, like equal pay for for jobs and and being able to be ceo as a company and congresswomen and the president of the United states and all that stuff. |
35:46.7 | mikebledsoe | Which I have no opposition to whatsoever I Think that's I think that's great if women want to do that Then that's that's a great place to be. Yeah, it is already possible. So but it it. |
35:54.4 | Max Shank | That's already possible though. It's just about the blame game really like it's already possible for any man or any woman to make any amount of money as long as they deliver the value there is. Ah, the only privilege there really is is who your parents are and who you know because if my good friend. Ah if I'm the president and my good friend who is a woman wants a job. She's going to get a job even if there's a dude who's probably more qualified. Because that's how the world works you want people that you know and trust maybe even more generally than who is the best 1 for the job but the key with all those points is like who polices that ah concept of of fairness right? So it. All those arguments to me just make no sense because it goes completely against ah that whole Martin luther king idea of you know it's more about what you have on the inside than what you are on the outside and anything that divides people up, you know. Especially male and female like how is there going to be the the idea is we should communicate and figure out who naturally likes to do what and I think that's why you have certain relationships that work where there's a man. Who doesn't earn as much as the woman but he's a more ah nurturing type and she's more of a power type and that doesn't happen all the time but it happens sometime sometimes so I think it's more about finding someone who's a good match for your particular dna. Rather than for this like blanket statement that like men bad women good or or vice versa. |
37:50.6 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, and the roles that they typically play you know, being better than other roles I I think about roles versus hierarchy. Um, and so I mean this is what I've been circling a bit in that. Ah, there has. |
37:58.2 | Max Shank | Ah. |
38:08.1 | mikebledsoe | When I look at say the feminist movement. There's this, they're saying that that career is the more important thing and. |
38:14.7 | Max Shank | We should just let him have all the jobs and stay at home for a few generations like I want to I want to do it like lions where there's like a male lion and he's just like lounging around and the ladies are like we're going to go hunting again. Do you want to come. He's like no no no I got to protect the pride. And the lady's like yeah you got to protect the group of lions from all of the crazy predators that are going to attack us right? He's like yeah pick me up some zebra if you can I'm going to be here resting up for when it's mating time just wake me up when you get back. |
38:46.1 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm into it. Um, but but I just want to bring up like ah because there's this importance put on career if it over say family. Whatever, Ah then ah, there's this I think there's this confusion that that hierarchy like having a career is better like making more money is actually better that doesn't make you better or higher up on the rung um than if you're at home. Raising children for instance, like there's to me what I What I witness is like an even partnership between people. But there's been a ah story. That's been has been painted that the man is and you know he's the 1 that's in charge and if we look at. |
39:26.8 | Max Shank | Well. |
39:32.7 | Max Shank | Right. |
39:40.4 | Max Shank | Um, well merit a merit. |
39:44.1 | mikebledsoe | Masculine Feminine traits like we look at the sorry the paternal it is painting a picture of the future for them to live into and and the mother may be in that that role may be the more accepting and and nurturing of what already is it may appear as though there is a. There is this the man is Leading. He's leading in certain areas of the relationship and and of the family but the woman is also leading in certain areas and these areas are not necessarily more important than the other areas and I think that our society has gotten confused about that. Yeah. |
40:13.9 | Max Shank | Yeah,, that's the yeah, That's the crazy part because a marriage is really a business partnership marriage has nothing to do with Love it has to do with a business arrangement like we are going to now enter into this business agreement where. Our mission is to either like reproduce or at least work together to handle this family enterprise and it's kind of like saying that the Chief ah marketing officer is more important than the Chief Financial officer. |
40:49.4 | mikebledsoe | Right? right. |
40:51.0 | Max Shank | Right? Yeah, the chief marketing officer is out there making all the money and you know he's out there and he's like you know wheeling and dealing and he knows all these people and then the cfo is sitting in an office and saying to the Chief marketing officer. No you idiot we can't afford that. Right? That's what cf is supposed to do I think and so right exactly and you know if you're if you're on your own you probably need to have ah some of both of those traits but it's ridiculous. |
41:09.0 | mikebledsoe | Ah, that's ah, that's what the good cfos I've had have done for me. Yeah yeah. |
41:25.7 | Max Shank | To say that 1 is more important than the other right? um and look. It's only true in like 99 percent of animals that the females are the nurturing ones and just from my firsthand experience. Ah. |
41:28.6 | mikebledsoe | You know. |
41:45.2 | Max Shank | Women are way more nurturing way more like who could even argue that that's great. Ah, there are a few examples where the male does the nurturing you know what? a casso area is. It's like that. |
41:58.3 | mikebledsoe | No. |
42:03.1 | Max Shank | Blue faced dinosaur bird with the little thing on top. It's about the size of an ostrich. It's like the second largest bird. Yeah, they're gnarly they have these claws anyway like usual, the females are about twenty five percent bigger and the females. |
42:06.5 | mikebledsoe | Now a fart. |
42:22.7 | Max Shank | Go around and mate with as many males as possible and then the male sits on the nest and raises the kids and what's and what's crazy is when the female. Well. |
42:29.6 | mikebledsoe | So They get all the sex and then the responsibility. We were born the wrong species. |
42:41.6 | Max Shank | I still think I'd rather be a lion that seems the best ah but what's crazy also is she makes literally all the decisions even like whether it's mating time or not like I saw this crazy documentary where the female comes back. To the same male as before and goes it's mating time so you're going to have to let that little kid go because he's got 1 baby left that he is literally nurturing right? and it's her baby and she's like ah. No, no, no, it's it's mating time now you got to let that kid go and look for some new eggs and he's like no and she's like yes and so of course he just does so he like abandons this kid that he has been nurturing and then ah you know has sex with the Bertha big bertha and then just sits on another pile of eggs because she said so I mean that's rare is my point. It's rare that the male is the 1 who nurtures and I think with. Because we're mostly talking about people I got a million examples about animal facts but it like can't we just use a little bit of common sense and admit what we like and what we don't like you know the reason that women don't get into. Um you know. Some of the scientific fields as much and engineering is probably they just don't like to is that okay to say I mean I don't know possibly I mean culture has a lot to do culture culture has a lot to do with it too. I mean I think it goes. |
44:19.0 | mikebledsoe | Possibly Yeah I don't know I haven't haven't run the survey. |
44:29.8 | Max Shank | Even deeper. It's like what is rewarded is repeated so what? Ah Monkey see Monkey do what is rewarded is repeated. These are like very simple fundamental realities of how we become the people that we are and rather than like. |
44:32.6 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
44:49.6 | Max Shank | Blame 1 gender or the other It's like if we look into the past with any kind of like magnifying Glass. We're going to see a lot of very evil shit. We'll see a lot of good things too. But we'll see a lot of very evil things too. It's like oh man. See what's so crazy is I think of things and then I'm like I can't say that because everyone will hate me but didn't We have a hashtag Once that said, believe all women wasn't that a thing for a while about about the me too thing now I've never known a woman to lie. |
45:18.1 | mikebledsoe | I Think so yeah, oh yeah. |
45:26.0 | Max Shank | Ever. But but believe all women I mean come on like that any any of these like divisive things are just compounding compounding compounding the problem. Yeah, it's ridiculous. |
45:34.3 | mikebledsoe | Or yeah, the absolutes It's like this is an absolute thing. It's like this is always you know that the absolutes are always never anytime anyone starts using absolute language fucking red flag just start going up and what but yeah, you've bought into a story and it's. |
45:46.5 | Max Shank | Ah, oh my god yeah, it's ridiculous. Yeah, all all this divisive stuff like we're we're human beings first and foremost like if we can't if we can't like get together on that front. |
45:54.3 | mikebledsoe | You're full of shit. Ah. |
46:06.2 | Max Shank | Then all of these other arguments are taking us further and further away from the truth. Basically I don't think any progress can be made when we try to blame black people or white people or men or women or gays Or. Catholics I don't know why I've grouped those 2 together but you get the idea like it. It just is wrong to do that. |
46:31.5 | mikebledsoe | Yeah anytime I mean we talked about this before the the victim villain hero the the Drama triangle. Yeah anytime that starts coming into play it it create creates division and what it really I think. |
46:37.0 | Max Shank | Right. |
46:48.1 | mikebledsoe | Instead of division I think a better word for this and what's more accurate is conflict. It creates conflict like yeah division but division without division. Ah you won't get conflict if everyone's together and unified that reduces the conflict. |
46:52.3 | Max Shank | Oh yeah. |
47:03.8 | Max Shank | Um, right. |
47:05.7 | mikebledsoe | But when someone thinks that they're different than somebody else when they believe that thought that max is you know he's doing me wrong in some way because yes because he has something and I don't then you know that that doesn't It's not any good for Me. And how I may end up treating you because I believe that's not good for you and then that that creates conflict and even if you never receive in the impact of that the person who believes that someone else has an advantage over them. They're the ones that suffer the most from that belief. |
47:39.3 | Max Shank | Totally it's us and them mentality. It's like ah you know, eat eat the rich basically kind of thing I mean it takes ah it takes no subtleties or nuance into consideration and that's 1 of the big. Um. |
47:48.0 | mikebledsoe | I. |
47:59.1 | Max Shank | Growing pains that we're having right now because what catches the most attention is something that's like under 10 words and super inflammatory. So if you don't look at the big picture and be like well you know? Ah yeah I I can't say the picture in 10 words but you get the idea is. |
48:15.1 | mikebledsoe | Um, well I think I think the ah like language is is the language is people's thoughts what they say is what they're thinking. There's a lot of things that they don't say that they're. |
48:17.4 | Max Shank | You just become at odds. |
48:34.7 | mikebledsoe | Thinking. But if you reduce the vocabulary or if you reduce the amount of of words that are being used then you start removing Nuance and when you start removing Nuance it. It actually starts. Killing people's ability to critically think as a whole. So if you have the same narrative going all the time or it's just headlines and people aren't Discussing. You're not allowed to or it's not popular to discuss Nuance You can tell who's not thinking critically because they're not. |
49:07.0 | Max Shank | No. |
49:12.1 | mikebledsoe | And a nuanced conversation If you're entering into a nuanced conversation where we're getting a good understanding on what things are recognizing. It's not absolute.. It's not black and white. There's ah and it's not even gray. It's just everything is ah this unique. Ah. Thing that we get to discuss and we really want to discuss and understand all sides of it and semantics matter here as well. And so I think that like when we look at any of these things that causes conflict We have all these people that that are making groups of people. And then creating absolutes about those groups of people and leaving out any nuance and um, you know I hate to use the word brainwashing because I think brainwashing is is actually you know if if we took it literally to to wash the mind would be a good thing is to get rid of some garbage. |
50:04.6 | Max Shank | Well, it can be. It can be good or it could be horrible. It depends on what you put after. |
50:08.4 | mikebledsoe | But the but what we see here is just like it's ah it's a dampening of consciousness when you start when if you lack nuance and you reduce the vocabulary the book nineteen eighty four by george orwell 1 of the things that was a common. Ah. |
50:21.0 | Max Shank | Ah. |
50:26.4 | mikebledsoe | and and george r wells a fucking genius and understood language deeply and 1 of the things that was part of the book was that there was I think it was on the they were on the ninth edition of the special dictionary that the the people were to use and that culture and each book got smaller. |
50:40.8 | Max Shank | The. |
50:46.4 | mikebledsoe | Each dictionary had fewer words and words started to be outlawed. Oh you can't say that it's replaced with this or instead of saying and and everything just got shorter and shorter and shorter because people who have the inability to because what you're able to. |
50:47.2 | Max Shank | Ah. |
51:06.0 | mikebledsoe | Process becomes diminished when you when you don't have as good a use of language and you start missing nuance because this word means twenty different things instead of just this 1 thing and it's um, when people are confused. They're easy to control. And it's It's a very interesting thing to witness right now with with the division conflict and the absolute language being used and the inability of certain things or people to be able to use certain language or even discuss certain topics. It's.. It's a very sad state of affairs. |
51:44.2 | Max Shank | Well controlling language is controlling thought and you have censorship through self censorship which is basically through the the collective will shame you and then you have actual censorship where ah, you are legally not allowed. |
51:54.5 | mikebledsoe | So and. |
52:02.0 | mikebledsoe | Aka Fact checkers. |
52:03.9 | Max Shank | It legally not allowed to say something or ah, even beyond that where you speak up and you suddenly have committed suicide or you become suicided and the ministry of truth. Yeah, totally. |
52:15.2 | mikebledsoe | You're suicided. Well we I think we should just call. Ah the fact checkers the ministry of of truth or yeah. |
52:23.1 | Max Shank | Well Ah, what's that saying who will police the police even Thomas Sowell has a saying ah the the big question is not what will we do? It is who will decide what we do and that and that's that's a core question and the answer should be. |
52:34.8 | mikebledsoe | Um, like. |
52:43.1 | Max Shank | The individual 99 percent of the time. But if you convince the individual that they're not capable of making that decision then they will hand it off to somebody else and that's where like I just have this image in my brain It's a video of Mussolini saying. Ah. 1 country 1 decision and this huge crowd goes. Yeah like they are so excited they're they're they're like they're more like rocking and rolling than ah I don't know. Ah, foo fighters concert or something like that. They're just like going bananas I've never been to a foodo fighters' concert that was the only thing I could think of I'm like they're popular right? shows you? how much I know? Ah, but they were excited about 1 country 1 decision and. |
53:24.6 | mikebledsoe | I. |
53:35.0 | Max Shank | In order to get to that point you have to make those individuals believe that the result would in fact, be better and you can even take that idea back to slavery so you know terrorism is using fear to control people right. And the greatest terror organization I know of is our own media because they literally emit the most fear and control the most minds. Ah I don't I don't think ah any of those like Arabian fellows have even like come close scratch the surface. On their terrorism compared to the you know media here. But anyway so you use fear to control so you use fear to control people and think about Slavery. For example, you know I've heard some people ask the question. Well why didn't they just fight back. And it's because the thing that we all want most is to not die. That's so deeply primal and you would think like slavery slavery would be impossible if everybody just stopped working and would ah like fight back. But of course that didn't happen. |
54:37.5 | mikebledsoe | A. |
54:52.4 | Max Shank | Because a intellectually they didn't see that as a viable option and that's where the brainwashing comes into play because Slavery is a lot about definition. So if you are told that story of slavery and you believe that it's possible and I'm not just talking about slavery in the usa I'm saying. You know slavery throughout the history of mankind. It's almost every people have been enslaved. |
55:18.7 | mikebledsoe | There's usually more slaves than there are masters. That's basically how it works. |
55:21.0 | Max Shank | Yeah way more?? Um, and it it all has to do with the the fear of death right? or maybe because we're such compassionate creatures. You know we're afraid of them killing someone else like I say hey Mike you better. Get back to your slave labor I'm going to kill your lady friend over here and you're like okay, fine master I Will you know submit to you or whatever. But it's it's fascinating how the fear of death and the language- driven ideas are really what. Enable slavery as a whole and there are different. There are different types like some people are just slaves to their telephone right now they believe whatever comes out of their telephone. They check it all the time they're constantly plugged in and that's another thing that makes it difficult to think clearly. Is that you've now built up this addiction which is a you know form of enslavement. Basically where ah it's kind of unprecedented to have the world in your pocket all the time talking at you. |
56:31.5 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I spend the first four hours at least sometimes the entire day the first four hours not consuming any any content any media because it's um. |
56:45.5 | Max Shank | That's really smart. |
56:49.9 | mikebledsoe | There's so much for me to create and to consider and to be with that I don't need any outside information to pollute my mind I I wait till the second half of the day to really engage with other people's agendas. |
57:02.7 | Max Shank | Ah. |
57:08.6 | Max Shank | Um. |
57:09.0 | mikebledsoe | What they want me to do ah you know that means checking my email. Maybe even checking text messages. Ah, you know there's there's a lot of things that I just that that that habit and really recognizing at first was I want to be on my own agenda and I stopped checking my email. |
57:25.1 | Max Shank | Ah, the. |
57:27.9 | mikebledsoe | First thing of the day really really set the dominoes up to be at a place where like I'm not listening to music with lyrics in the morning I I am going to journal I'm going to be alone with my thoughts I'm going to write um and it's ah. It's created a lot more peace in my life I've become much more effective so you know for anyone who's listening a great tip that I'm um, bestowing on you now is ah 1 way to brainwash yourself in in a positive way is to spend more time with. Your own thoughts and writing them down and actually seeing if they're your own thoughts or not ah usually not and if you do that long enough. What's being put out in the media and what's being said by a lot of people you know people at large when I go out and talk to people. I can smell bullshit so much faster than when I was younger and I think it is because of the amount of time I've spent reflection and recognizing that most of my own thoughts are bullshit and you know if most of my thoughts are bullshit and I try hard to to know the truth. Then the majority of other people's thoughts are bullshit too. They're not better than you people people are generally just full of shit. |
58:51.0 | Max Shank | Yeah I mean that is such a valuable piece of advice that probably ninety percent of people will completely ignore and just move on to the next thing. Ah. It's difficult though because there's this hunger. There's this feeling like I need to learn more I need to know more and I just remember I was on a panel at a seminar and everyone's like what's ah, what's a Book. You would recommend. And so I'm up there with like maybe 10 or twelve presenters from this weekend of things and you know everyone's got their examples I'm like oh yeah I like that. But and I'm like near the end of the line right? and like oh yeah I like that book too and then by the time it got to me I was like. Listen everybody you just paid like 7 hundred bucks so you could hear us synthesize everything we know for the exact thing you're trying to do the last thing you should do is buy another Book. You should spend the next ninety days and deliberately not read. Any other book and just implement what you learned because that's where most people mess up is in the doing what they know it's not that people don't know what to do? It's just that they don't do what they know and the same thing goes for the creation consumption ratio. Um, journal out your thoughts on your life journal out. Ah why you think certain things write out your your plan write out a strategy for getting more customers or for getting more clients or for wooing a few more ladies. I mean when you give yourself up to the consumer archetype then that's just what you are and that's okay, like being a consumer is really fun. It's a devil's bargain like I can hardly resist I'm a curious guy I'll just watch national geographic. And like bbc earth like all day if it were out and just eat casead ideas or something I don't know, but but but if you you know when I kind of like you if I don't eat in the morning and if I don't consume stuff. Something good will happen. You know you just have to give yourself that space and that's that's the yin side. That's the feminine side is the space to create and that silence and that's where you're going to find peace of mind and if you're hyper young, you're not goingnna. |
01:01:20.5 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, um. |
01:01:26.3 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
01:01:36.8 | Max Shank | You're not going to find that peace of mind you're going to be looking or oh I got to find the next thing I got to do the next thing and it's like probably not. |
01:01:40.2 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, well it takes a little bit of masculine energy to create boundaries and uphold those boundaries and being in that space is more of a feminine aspect if we won't. |
01:01:49.6 | Max Shank | Ah, well yeah, and if you are like most guys afraid that people will call you a homo if you do anything that is like closely resembling femininity then you're basically shooting yourself in the foot. To please people who probably don't even like you I mean is or don't care is is so ridiculous. But. |
01:02:13.6 | mikebledsoe | Ah, oh yeah, most people don't care about. They're not thinking about you as much as you think that they're thinking about you Well that your this is an anomaly. |
01:02:19.7 | Max Shank | I mean I think about you a lot. |
01:02:27.1 | Max Shank | Ah, it's it's very liberating to realize like no 1 ne's thinking about you. They're just thinking about their own life and the the sooner you can let go of the attachment to masculine or feminine and just. |
01:02:33.0 | mikebledsoe | I Got the hour shut. |
01:02:46.2 | Max Shank | Use both when it's appropriate. It's like what's the best tool a screwdriver or a socket wrench. It's a stupid question like what's the best gender male or female. It's a stupid question What's the best. Ah. Type masculine or feminine. So another stupid question. What's better lightness or darkness they're they're all really really dumb questions that shouldn't even cross your mind. You should just learn when to use which trait like when is it appropriate to be more masculine and. Stand your ground and be an aggressive monster because look I'm a pretty feminine guy actually most of the time because it's it's more fun I like talking to ladies and when it's time to be Masculine. You should be a devastating monster. |
01:03:27.4 | mikebledsoe | But yeah. |
01:03:40.0 | Max Shank | And you should lay waste to any barriers that might enter your path and if you get stuck in 1 or the other you just won't be as effective. So I that would. |
01:03:48.6 | mikebledsoe | Well I think I think that it builds capacity for if you want a more have more capacity or range or'll call it range if you want to have more range and your masculine if you want to be able to be very masculine if you're trying to redline your masculinity all the time. |
01:03:56.5 | Max Shank | Range. |
01:04:08.4 | mikebledsoe | You're going to blow an o ring right? But if you if you allow yourself be in that feminine place and retract you got expansion and contraction if you allow yourself to come out of that then when it's time to really lay waste as you said you actually have the energy to do it. |
01:04:23.3 | Max Shank | Um. |
01:04:27.9 | mikebledsoe | You actually can show up and do it because you've been you've been waiting for that. But the waiting is not a masculine thing. It's a feminine thing so I've I've noticed that in my own work I've become much more feminine over the years and that is there's a lot more relaxation a lot more waiting a lot more patience for. You know things to line up and I've had moments where it's time to do a lot of work. We go. Oh we got 3 weeks where we're gonna fucking put our heads down or I have a retreat and I've got my team there who they I just wear them out. Like how's this guy who's older and doing this and like how does he have so much energy. It's like oh it's because I was waiting I went covid hit I I had was like peak feminine for myself when covid hit and hits I go oh we're going to change some things in the business I'm glad I've been resting. I can I can really do a lot of work now and everyone who had been in their masculine the whole time leading up to that then they had like push harder into their masculine and they just didn't have the juice there. |
01:05:22.2 | Max Shank | E. |
01:05:28.1 | Max Shank | O. Yeah I think the range is key but I'm afraid people won't think I'm tough unless I'm masculine all the time. |
01:05:36.6 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah I. |
01:05:43.9 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, just just so you guys know that's not going to get you laid I think we already covered the tough the tough guy ah podcast I think that's when 1 of our previous episodes I'm sure we'll cover it again. Any last word, you want to leave people with were. |
01:05:55.6 | Max Shank | Um, yeah, that's good stuff. |
01:06:03.4 | mikebledsoe | Over an hour now. |
01:06:03.8 | Max Shank | Ah, well just just look how many ways it can work in the animal Kingdom you know humans are just really weird animals I think the most important thing is you don't get caught up in. Your identity being based on whether you're a man or a lady and you recognize that masculinity and feminity are just our extensions of Yin and Yang and understand that there's an appropriate time to use both. When you're tired sleep when you're hungry eat. Um, when it's time to go hunting. Go be go be a monster and and do your hunt. |
01:06:47.3 | mikebledsoe | Beautiful. That's all I got I'm gonna leave it at that. Yep for max go to Maxank dot Com and what else what else you got just. |
01:06:53.9 | Max Shank | Sounds good. Thanks everybody. |
01:07:03.2 | Max Shank | Max shank I'm like the only 1 named that yeah just look me up. |
01:07:05.0 | mikebledsoe | Ah, search ma you are you are like the only 1 named that yep, find me on Instagram mike underscore Bloodso which Instagram's down today actually so we'll see maybe they all'll stay down dude I tried to get into Facebook earlier. |
01:07:15.2 | Max Shank | What are what are we gonna do I'm gonna start doing crack. |
01:07:23.7 | mikebledsoe | I think that's that next logical step. Yeah when Facebook goes down. Yeah, probably not ah so yeah and the strong coach for you coaches up there. That's all we got and until next time. |
01:07:25.6 | Max Shank | Might not be as destructive mentally. |
Timestamp | Speaker | Transcript |
00:01.87 | mikebledsoe | So so what's a coach max. |
00:04.97 | Max Shank | Ah, Coach is someone who gets you to do what you know you should mike. |
00:09.83 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, pretty simple, pretty simple shit. It's like I I tell coaches all the time that ah you know their clients know they're not supposed to eat that donut but they do it anyway. |
00:15.80 | Max Shank | Well. |
00:27.47 | mikebledsoe | You know if our job was to just get people Macros then you know robots to be doing this shit for us but people have real that the problems are are psychological. They're environmental. There's a lot of different factors there. They know what to do. |
00:41.65 | Max Shank | All of the all of the real difficult problems are psychological like physical problems are pretty straightforward unless they're stemming from a mental dysfunction of some kind like even guys with no legs end up on a good training program. So There's like the guy who's like oh well, my you know my ankle just hurts too much to exercise like look I know guys with no legs who exercise more than you do. It's not that you don't have the ability and it's hard to be honest with yourself about these things I mean the reality is. Our biggest barrier to getting the things we want is ourself by far and if you don't accept that then you're going to be in a state of like victim victimization and blaming your problems on other people. |
01:33.22 | mikebledsoe | You know. |
01:35.00 | Max Shank | Right? So everything is psychological. That's why when we were talking about coaching earlier I was thinking you know it makes sense that people want something That's just done for them like give me this nutrition plan. It's so straightforward just give me this marketing plan. Give me you know, tell me how many bullet points. |
01:51.35 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, somebody knocking at my door positive real quick I think I have to sign for a package. Yeah, so the the post postal service just stopped by. |
01:54.97 | Max Shank | I Need to put in my offer. Ah yeah, okay at the. |
02:09.47 | mikebledsoe | And um, they had a package for me and my girlfriend and from a girlfriend. Ah they asked I said hey because of the virus. Ah you I I can't You're supposed to sign this but you can't sign it because of the virus. But with your permission I'll sign it for you said sure this is my name and goes. Okay, Thank you. |
02:34.36 | Max Shank | Ah huh. |
02:37.18 | mikebledsoe | What what? what? fucking good is a signature these days. |
02:41.65 | Max Shank | I Guess in that situation. It's completely worthless. Yeah. |
02:46.22 | mikebledsoe | Completely worthless. So anyways and I forgot what we're talking about but we we were talking about productivity. Well we're trying to go down productivity. |
02:52.17 | Max Shank | Oh I remember don't Worry. We're well I mean I'm sure this is gonna be a heck of a fun time to edit this into a seamless transition but with with coaching the reason. That when it comes to business or nutrition or exercise people are just like give me the program tell me how many almonds to eat and when to eat them tell me tell me how many bullet points I need in my sales pitch tell me that I need 3 say here are the things that you're missing and I need 3 that say here are the secrets that you need or something like that right people want it done for them and the reason they want it done for them is because real deep change. Is crazy uncomfortable because it's psychological. It's essentially some sort of psychological trauma and very ingrained behavior that causes someone to slowly kill themselves with Donuts. For example. |
04:04.78 | mikebledsoe | You know? Yeah yeah, well it makes me think about the hermetic principles and the first of the hermetic principles is everything is mental. |
04:08.47 | Max Shank | And just. |
04:15.97 | Max Shank | Right. |
04:17.97 | mikebledsoe | And that I mean I think those principles are about 3000 years old to the best of our knowledge and that has been repeatedly supported over and over again. |
04:32.85 | Max Shank | Well, and even if it's not absolutely true. It's the most constructive belief to have right? because every all words are trying to be symbols for something else and. |
04:41.21 | mikebledsoe | It's empowering. Yeah. |
04:51.15 | Max Shank | None of them are going to be absolutely true, but some of them are going to be very constructive or empowering like you said that's a good way to put it So what? What are the most empowering ah lies available to you instead of the most destructive lies available to you. |
05:06.31 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, yeah, you know I wish I had that frame when I was younger I would have I was so caught up and figuring out what was true or not that I I totally didn't see that I I was if somebody was duping me I was getting duped. |
05:15.20 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
05:25.56 | mikebledsoe | By this pursuit that there's ah a right and a wrong way and there's the truth and there's a lie. It's like oh no, it's just all lies. It's just all different flavors. So useful or not. We talked about that last show. |
05:33.50 | Max Shank | Um, yeah, yeah, buyer beware exactly. |
05:41.39 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, you're talking about like people want things done for them. They want the result. Um, they're not really focused on how to get the result unless it. |
05:51.21 | Max Shank | Or why they are where they are It's deeply uncomfortable I mean I've had so many I mean I've coached a lot of people in fifteen plus years of personal training and there are people who I say the word food. And they're like I don't want to talk about it I don't want to talk about food and I'm like okay this is interesting. You know you're a hundred pounds overweight and I like doing these squats with you but I don't think we're going to solve the problem in here. |
06:09.74 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
06:25.35 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, there's ah. |
06:27.90 | Max Shank | I mean I'm getting I'm getting paid big money big money to help this person exercise and feel better. But I mean you're 1 hundred pounds overweight like I'm not going to solve this I could crack a whip. While you ride a bicycle or cross- country ski for an hour There's just no way that we're going to be able to resolve the real problem and the reason ah people avoid is because it's deeply uncomfortable your ego and your identity gets wrapped up into this selfim image and and that's. It's it's way more uncomfortable and that's why people don't want to face those uncomfortable ah truths about themselves and that's why they just want just do it for me I don't want to look at it I don't want to face it. |
07:03.16 | mikebledsoe | Play for yeah. |
07:14.30 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, well coaches do the same thing. Coaches are comfortable with training people. But they're not comfortable. It can be uncomfortable to talk have that conversation with someone says hey you're you're sick. You're. You're way overweight. You're obese you need to change your diet and you know I think a lot of coaches just they don't know how to approach the conversation and that's that's a skill in itself I remember a point where I i. |
07:43.66 | Max Shank | And. |
07:53.10 | mikebledsoe | Felt as though I had no business telling my clients who were there to get results how they should live their lives outside of working out and you know food suggestions. But then I was training a guy that was probably he was about 400 pounds he was over 200 pounds overweight. He was. |
08:03.20 | Max Shank | Right. |
08:12.94 | mikebledsoe | He was in bad shape 30 years old just you know like how the fuck does that happen type of guy. Yeah, yeah, and um, you know we were trying everything ah food like nutrition and training wise. Um. |
08:16.93 | Max Shank | Who hurt him. |
08:31.26 | mikebledsoe | But then you know as I got to know him better. He worked at a pesticide company like eighty hours a week in a cubicle under fluorescent lights and I'm like like dude that job's killing you. My job is not helping you and I just I got to the point where I was like. |
08:39.65 | Max Shank | Heavy. |
08:50.11 | mikebledsoe | Have to tell him this and um and it was helpful for him and it was it started a conversation that unraveled over time but that was that was me as a coach understanding that I can give Lifestyle suggestions I can talk to people about their work and their career that. |
09:07.18 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
09:09.45 | mikebledsoe | It's keeping them from reaching their goals. So most coaches are still they still are afraid to have those conversations. |
09:15.66 | Max Shank | Yeah I mean nothing is off limits if it's approached in the right way and you've built a foundation of some sort of rapport. You know if some if some lady comes in who's overweight. Ah and I don't know her very well I don't go oh hey, when's the Baby. Do. Because that would probably feel very offensive or something like that you know like there's got to be some sort of it'd be humorous, probably not to her but you have to base what you say on, you got to know your audience right? and. |
09:40.29 | mikebledsoe | Ah, now. |
09:50.48 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
09:53.36 | Max Shank | There's a compassionate way to have that conversation and usually questions make the most sense and making sure people are are ready to to make that change because you know we're talking about how old wisdoms are so true. Ah, how about you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink like you know that? What's that show intervention where they get all your family together and tell you to stop doing Meth and they're like we love you. We. |
10:15.18 | mikebledsoe | You know. |
10:26.84 | mikebledsoe | I I know that's an intervention. There's a show. Okay, yeah. |
10:31.38 | Max Shank | Yeah, that's what I'm saying Yeah um, that's some good Tv right there by the way that's entertainment. Ah, um, yeah, yeah, totally hey I mean whatever gets your rocks off is what I say. |
10:41.66 | mikebledsoe | For the sick fucks out there. Yeah I'm with you. |
10:51.24 | Max Shank | No shame in that game. Ah, but not all of them are are ready. You know you can have ah like the most professional therapist there and a loving family who's like you just wish you just would stop doing drugs and he's like I don't want to then he leaves like that happens Sometimes that guy is not ready. |
11:05.77 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, there's um, yeah. |
11:10.51 | Max Shank | So You got to you got to have a receptive audience. You got to have a receptive Receiver and that's true with business. That's true with relationships like what's that ah, you know what's the 1 advantage you would want in in business if you are selling burgers. Is it The best tasting burger is it The cheapest burger. No no, no, it's a starving crowd someone who is ready to receive the burger like the whole the whole phrase I'm going to sell ice to eskimos is a ridiculous phrase. That's that's not what a good. |
11:34.89 | mikebledsoe | Yep. |
11:47.56 | Max Shank | Business person would do they would they would sell them. You know Dura flame Logs and space heaters at an affordable price right? that you know it's you got to have a receptive audience. |
11:56.24 | mikebledsoe | What? yeah yeah, um, this makes you think about selling people something ah a solution that they actually want and and the way they want it solved. So. |
12:09.80 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
12:15.40 | mikebledsoe | It's something that I've been really focused on is meeting people where they're at and that how do they want the problem solved sell them that but then also layer in all the stuff That's actually going to make a difference because the truth is is if they solve the problem the way they wanted it solved it just wouldn't be solved. It's not. |
12:25.87 | Max Shank | Earth. |
12:35.80 | mikebledsoe | They they would just be able to solve it themselves. They wouldn't be here buying this package So so you got to sell them what they want and give them what they need and all that mess. |
12:38.87 | Max Shank | Ah, it's like. Well, it reminds me of a phrase. Ah, Beggars can't be choosers but Buyers can. |
12:53.50 | mikebledsoe | Ah, you know what's funny is I grew up hearing beggars can't be choosers and I never heard the second part did you well? Okay I felt like my dad jipped me up until you filled down like. |
13:00.30 | Max Shank | That's because I made up the second part. Yeah, no, everybody's dad chipped them like it's a ridiculous face baggars can't be choosers. That's that's like saying you'll always be weak. But leaving out the part unless you exercise but Buyers buyers can be extremely choosy you can if I mean if you have the dough you can make anything go are you kidding me? It's ridiculous. What people will do I can. |
13:20.17 | mikebledsoe | Ah, yeah, man, our parents did the best they could. |
13:29.90 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, know now. |
13:35.20 | Max Shank | I Can swipe my finger on my magic telephone and I can have if I wanted to I could have ah massuse a pizza and drugs delivered to my house probably within the hour. |
13:50.98 | mikebledsoe | Especially especially if you're in Medine columbia yeah well you have the right? you have the right? Well, there's just fewer people. You can get all the same stuff from there. It's but ah. |
13:52.86 | Max Shank | That's amazing. Or or if you're here and you have enough to buy it. |
14:05.89 | Max Shank | Oh I see what you're saying. |
14:09.53 | mikebledsoe | Ah, it's actually more convenient there believe it or not but ah, ah, do we want to? um, let's dig in a productivity. |
14:23.87 | Max Shank | Productivity yes, productivity is a competition that entrepreneurs have with each other to see the size of their entrepreneur dick hey blood. So how many books did you read this week |
14:37.60 | mikebledsoe | Just 1 and a half yeah ah |
14:39.39 | Max Shank | Fucking pussy I read 7 or it's like ah ah and so I think to just prove my point like the whole idea of the productivity. Ah, as ah as like a status symbol. Is is really unhealthy, right? It's ridiculous. It kind of reminds me of speed reading though too. You know how there's all these things about like oh speed reading and it's like no man like you don't need more information you need. |
15:03.38 | mikebledsoe | It's ridiculous. Well, there's a few reasons well ah 1 of the things. |
15:10.51 | mikebledsoe | Like know. |
15:16.89 | Max Shank | Better retention. You need more application of the stuff you're doing. It might be better to read slower actually so you are not in like this frantic mental state of like I got to get through this as fast as possible I think speed reading is actually um. |
15:28.40 | mikebledsoe | But what. |
15:35.64 | Max Shank | Like ah wolf and sheep's clothing kind of where it's like oh yes, be I would like to read that book a lot faster. It's like would you I mean I don't know if. |
15:43.70 | mikebledsoe | Maybe maybe well here's the thing here's the thing is the um and actually I want to tie this back into coaching later because I want to get into this all it all actually ties in together. But ah. Productivity is like speed reading speed reading is great and some speed reading your comprehension stays the same or goes down in which case, maybe not so great. But if there's a speed reading technique that also Improves retention. Which Jim quick is a guy who claims that not only will you read like 6 times faster but you'll retain 2 to 3 times better as Well. So 1 is are you lowering the quality by by improving the quantity ah and could that. Could it be true that that you could have both and then my the question I ask is well what books are you reading or your speed reading and taking in all this information but is the information useful to you right now is it something that that. Is it actually good information or is it information that's going to take you away from your your goal.. There's just as many bad books out there as there are good books just like everything else in the world. |
17:07.66 | Max Shank | That's 1 of the that's 1 of the values of a coach is helping you decipher because information is free but a coach helps you decipher which information is going to kill you and which information is going to heal you and this example of. |
17:19.82 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, and this. |
17:25.80 | Max Shank | Speed reading makes me think of the difference between active and productive because I think if we're going to talk about productivity. We need to talk about yield like what is the product. What is the gross domestic product. How much production is happening. |
17:29.61 | mikebledsoe | A. |
17:43.58 | Max Shank | How much produce is there at the end of it. It's so funny how that word has like everything built and because we think of produce as like fruit basically right fruits and vegetables. But it's it's the product of our effort right? So it's not about whether we are active. |
17:54.21 | mikebledsoe | Bam. Right? yeah. People do confuse productivity with being busy. Yeah. |
18:03.14 | Max Shank | Because. Well, that's where the busy badge comes in right? people think there's some sort of honor or moral superiority. If. You're a busy person. Oh I'm just staying busy I'm like oh god I'm so sad for you. You know like Hunter gatherers I can understand why those guys would be busy. |
18:24.40 | mikebledsoe | Well idle hands are the work of the devil. So. |
18:26.33 | Max Shank | But. |
18:30.17 | Max Shank | Ah, ah, ah yeah, you have all these like ah traps of like good and bad because that's what nurture does ah the parent, the parent child role. The coach student role. The teacher student role is all about. Go towards these things and go away from these things. Basically the the whole point really is to have you make better decisions and with human beings. It's a little more complex than with Gorillas Gorillas It's like this green plant is poison and this green plant is food. And they have this really big kind of Encyclopedia of which plants they can eat and that's the most important this is good. This is bad type of nurturing that guerrillas get basically but for human beings. |
19:22.93 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
19:26.86 | Max Shank | Have all these other complexities where it's like ah yes, ah you know suffering is a virtue so people get this certificate of suffering and oh it's it's good to be busy idle hands for the Devil's plaything um yeah you know it reminds me. There are just so many of these. Traps I always think of it like traps and treasures right? and when it comes to productivity this this false idea that just being active being busy is good. Um, if you're stuck in a rut then. |
19:48.11 | mikebledsoe | A. |
20:04.77 | Max Shank | Then getting active is the best thing you can do like if you're doing nothing go for a walk doodle on a piece of paper read a book get back in motion because inertia is a real thing like if you're at zero whatever you can do to go to 1 is great. But. |
20:20.79 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, and if you can move even if it's not in the right direction. It's usually a pendulum involved. You're gonna wobble around something. Yeah. |
20:23.63 | Max Shank | The last thing you wanted. |
20:28.52 | Max Shank | Yeah, you can slingshot around to the other direction you can slingshot around to the other direction. Um, so back to the idea of productive versus active. There are a lot of ways to. Be productive but you have to be aware of what the yield is of what you're doing and I think 1 of the most important things really is just recognizing that being busy isn't inherently good and I think that's really tough for entrepreneurs because there's this mentality. Tough it out and grind through and I can make it but I don't know I I try to instill this idea that we have the benefit of so many ancestors writing down their ideas. We should be able to work like a couple hours a day. And provide for ourselves the exact life that we want to and if you if you compound the effects of your effort It's very easy to do that. But if you don't then it's going to be very difficult. |
21:30.29 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
21:39.31 | mikebledsoe | You know it's the um thing about being efficient versus effective and when you're talking about yield and so ah, you know, being in the entrepreneurial world and hanging out with a bunch of. |
21:49.69 | Max Shank | Right. |
21:58.53 | mikebledsoe | These tech guys So many people are microdosing or taking nootropics so they can get more done in a day but have you ever just sat down and ask yourself what are you building like Great. You're working on this but what's it for you know why. Ah, what's the end result and or you're talking about productivity and yield and and you could look at the quantity of the yield I'm producing something that's generating all this income or or this particular product but is that to me for me the question I ask myself is. Is the product I'm creating and satisfying is is it satisfying to me. Um, and and what's the impact that's having on the entire Planet. You know everybody else as well and is that satisfying is that impact satisfying for me and so I think you have. |
22:42.97 | Max Shank | Oof yeah. |
22:51.44 | Max Shank | Oh my God yeah. |
22:55.81 | mikebledsoe | We have like ah a whole lot of people running around and not just entrepreneurs but like I know people It's probably even worse for people who just have jobs and they're trying to be really productive with their job and then come to find out you know their job is you know liquor distribution and you know. I'm not actually sure I want you to be really good at that like distribution of 1 of the most harmful drugs on the Planet. Ah, and you know I know I'm crazy. |
23:23.70 | Max Shank | Wait wait wait wait but alcohol is perfectly. Legal Mike How can you say that is fully approved able to be drunk I'm sure by everybody you can buy it right at the store. |
23:32.51 | mikebledsoe | Is it by the fda is it did the fda prove it. Yeah interesting. Yeah so that. |
23:40.90 | Max Shank | Once again, there's there's another. There's another like set of rules that that probably ah only make your life worse if you follow them exactly right. |
23:51.87 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, well and so this makes me think of like how far are we expanding am I more predictive. How am I more productive in this minute what's it mean to be productive. You know for the next sixty seconds. Well. |
24:05.93 | Max Shank | Well, how do you measure? How do you? What? what are you measuring I mean I. |
24:10.70 | mikebledsoe | Well, we'll say I'm writing how many words did I write in sixty seconds right so I'm writing a book but but ah all right? We zoom out how do be how do I be productive and in the next hour how do I be more productive in the next day years you start expanding out and then the. |
24:14.48 | Max Shank | Right? right. |
24:25.23 | Max Shank | Well. |
24:29.29 | mikebledsoe | That things that you have to consider and then the actual behavior starts to change huh. |
24:29.63 | Max Shank | But the amount of words don't mer right? but the amount of words are not equal to your productivity. You have to you could say it's the amount of dollars you could say the profit. Um, even the word product is ah. |
24:42.62 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah. |
24:49.87 | Max Shank | Multiplication like if you multiply 3 times 2 the product is 6 so just to give like 2 super opposite examples. You could say you know the Meth lord of the appellations has. |
24:51.27 | mikebledsoe | A. |
25:08.85 | Max Shank | Ah, really high efficiency and effectiveness. Maybe he makes like a million in profit every week or something like that and he's also dooming people to a life of Meth addiction a short life probably of me addiction but a life of math addiction nonetheless. So that guy is product from a monetary standpoint is extremely high then on the other hand you have let's say a japanese fella who's a a carpenter of some kind and all he does is make that fancy furniture that has no screws in it and it takes him. A ridiculous amount of hours you know and everything has to fit perfectly like a little puzzle and you know let's say he spends wow I don't know enough forty forty hours on something and he sells it for 1000 dollars which doesn't sound like. An amazing hourly rate. But let's just say that's what he does but he's like enjoying the whole process. His father did that before him his father before him you could argue that the product or the result of his effort over time is something extremely valuable and special. And that the experience itself is very good. But if you just measured how much money it brought in you would say that guy is a fool and the Meth lord of the appellations is a genius and he is way more productive. So I think there's a quantitative aspect which. |
26:39.26 | mikebledsoe | See. |
26:45.92 | Max Shank | I mean it has to be profit right? or people served um and then there's a qualitative aspect of. Do you enjoy the process and what is this doing to further your um Idea. Of how you'd like to participate in the world something like that. |
27:05.48 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, it's a lot to consider and people normally don't take the time to think these things through they just do. They're trying to survive the next day or the next week so I'm saying that they if you're too if you're shortsighted. You'll just keep doing. Ah, same thing. But if you are able to like a ah guy I know very very successful. He said 1 day ordinary people think in years extraordinary people think in decades and ah the really successful people. And this guy is probably worth close to a billion dollars at this point and he's been playing this game for you know 50 years he's seventy and this this game of accumulation of wealth and from iowa farm boy. So. It's not like it was. |
27:59.57 | Max Shank | Um, well he understands Leverage clearly. |
28:01.69 | mikebledsoe | Wasn't taught to him from a as a child on how to do this stuff very much so but he also planned in decades and he somehow because and you know some people are more suited for for this than others and people who. |
28:10.18 | Max Shank | Yeah. |
28:18.41 | Max Shank | No doubt. |
28:21.42 | mikebledsoe | People who have it have more space and money and things like this tend to be able to think further out. But if you're somebody who doesn't have a lot and you can expand your thinking out and consider more that meth idea sounds a lot less attractive than say the carpentry job even though. Total income is higher but but you could also um, you know, maybe that's where they start 1 guy starts at a million. The other guy starts at at at ah a carpenter at at this or that price and man there's just so many other ways to to make that that carpenter. |
28:40.37 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
28:58.89 | mikebledsoe | More valuable to other people in a way that in his work that he can demand more dollars per per thing he produces. |
29:05.65 | Max Shank | Well and you know suppose he's like very comfortable with the amount that he's charging right? Um, it all reminds me of the old story. The richest man in Babylon where the 1 guy invests his paycheck with the rich man and his friends all just. Spend their paychecks right away and I was actually on a podcast with a couple of guys who are doctors at johns hopkins and they were like well what's the what's the secret to wealth and I was like deferred gratification. And they're like anything else and I was like no, it's like do you have the ability to trade what you want now for what you want most and if you do you're going to do really? Well if you're. |
29:43.79 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
29:55.48 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
29:58.24 | Max Shank | Using your neocortex if you're using your third eye to come up with a ah plan that involves multiplying yourself and multiplying the yield or the product of your efforts. You will be rich. There's just no question about it and if you trade. What you want most for what you want now, you'll you'll probably be obese you probably won't ever um, make lots and lots of money I mean even something like medical school. That's a big upfront investment with no payoff for quite a while. So the longer you can defer that. Yeah, maybe ever yeah, true and the longer. |
30:33.36 | mikebledsoe | Maybe ever I Know a lot of people who went to medical school who yeah they have an M D next to her name but they're not even interested in doing that now. |
30:45.98 | Max Shank | Well I mean look if I could go back in time I would tell myself to drop out of high school because there's a fundamental realities about value that they just like they teach you the opposite you know they. |
31:00.50 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, great. |
31:03.47 | Max Shank | Write this essay. It has to be 3000 words what? huh like it has to be a certain amount of words this is ridiculous. So it completely misses the point of what is useful. Yeah. |
31:09.67 | mikebledsoe | Um, yeah I'm actually doing that exercise that exercise you told me about last week wow this is I'm actually like I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna pick it back up later today. |
31:20.67 | Max Shank | How fun is that amazing. Ah dude we should ah we should read them to each other or we should send them when we're done. You're an animal I Love it. Ah. |
31:28.54 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
31:33.59 | mikebledsoe | I'm going to post mine as a blog. Ah, what we're talking about is letters to our 12 year old selves. So yeah I'm gonna you know what? I I think people would enjoy it There's definitely be some stuff in there. That's gonna. |
31:42.54 | Max Shank | Yeah, what a great writing exercise. |
31:56.39 | mikebledsoe | Caused people to cock their head but you know like. |
31:58.68 | Max Shank | Mind mindsful of horribly obscene jokes. Um. |
32:05.88 | mikebledsoe | Ah, so what's cool about that exercise is we do get to zoom out on time and retrospectively and 1 of the the benefits of writing a letter to 12 year old self that I've found already is that a lot of the advice I'm giving my 12 year old self is the same advice I give myself now. |
32:23.50 | Max Shank | Right? Just just probably in a simpler and kinder way. |
32:24.75 | mikebledsoe | Ah. Yeah,, there's There's a lot.. There's a lot of stuff I was telling myself that's not for me now. But there's also some things in there where it's like do less of this and more of that like yeah I could do more less of that more that now. Um, but yeah I think I think. |
32:39.53 | Max Shank | M. |
32:46.35 | mikebledsoe | Understanding and what we're talking about here is being effective knowing knowing the end result of your work and I tell people it's like efficiency is great. But if you're not, you know if that's your sole focus is efficiency where a lot of people when they think about productivity they think about efficiency and. It is ah ah just it's going back to that busy thing like what are you doing? Why are you doing it. What's the end result whether there's money involved or not. |
33:17.69 | Max Shank | I would say that productive is anything that brings you toward what you want I think that's maybe even better. So like let's say ah you you have this desired identity. |
33:23.30 | mikebledsoe | No I like that. So. |
33:35.64 | Max Shank | And I think I've talked to you about this before you know Simon Sinek has that thing it starts with why James clear's ah, Habit stuff is by me synthesized into it starts with who and you have this I you have this self image. |
33:38.98 | mikebledsoe | Start a. |
33:45.64 | mikebledsoe | Ah. |
33:53.56 | Max Shank | Right? You have this idea of yourself and what you would like that self to look like so anything that brings you closer to that ultimate ideal is going to be productive right? It doesn't have to just be um. You know X amount of profits. That's usually a byproduct of your enthusiasm and impact. |
34:18.94 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, what about Ah I don't think we can talk about productivity or any of this without time about goal setting because the ah because that's exactly what you're talking about is well what is it that you want to achieve. And actually sitting down to think about these things I think again going back to the decades. It's like what do you want to achieve this is where I start all my students is what do you want to be different in ten years and than it is right now who do you have to be to your point who do you have to be. Who is the person who does this are you committed to becoming that person and what. |
34:58.58 | Max Shank | Right? Or or like I tell people you know what would you want to have done if you couldn't get any credit just to hone in on what you really think is valuable like who you really want to help with. |
35:08.55 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I mean that's a whole other. Yeah, that's a whole other conversation like what do you really? desire? Most people have no idea what their desires are you put a you put a because behind a goal and they have to tell you why if it's a real goal if it's actually their goal. It'll give it teeth. It's not their goal and maybe it's their dad's goal for them or what they imagine? yeah. |
35:30.50 | Max Shank | Second hand I think I think um, pretty much every goal is second hand most of it's just dependent on how we want to fit into the hierarchy. You know as a male I'm guessing most of the people listening to it are fellows. But if there any ladies out there. Hello ladies. Ah. |
35:38.94 | mikebledsoe | A. |
35:45.39 | mikebledsoe | Seventy five percent guys yeah what |
35:49.70 | Max Shank | Seventy five percent guys yeah that doesn't surprise me. Um, what's interesting and is in our culture. Ah men don't really have intrinsic value. Their value is correlated to what they can produce whereas women and children have intrinsic value. |
36:01.27 | mikebledsoe | Where. |
36:07.80 | Max Shank | That's why if the boat sinks you and I like are somehow left out of the fucking lifeboats because they're like what about those guys? Yeah yeah, what? what can we have enough paddlers already. They have no value. Yeah, so easy. |
36:16.42 | mikebledsoe | We can get. We can get more of them. They're easy disposable. |
36:24.15 | Max Shank | So it's all Ah, it's all related to what you can produce I mean the reason that fellasas get mansions and Ferraris isn't to like impress their other guy friends. It's to show that they ah deserve a good lady and that they can be a protector and that they're alpha yeah that they're alpha. |
36:31.86 | mikebledsoe | No no. |
36:38.24 | mikebledsoe | Produce and protect. Yeah. |
36:43.79 | Max Shank | In some way, right? It used to be like oh who's the really the really big man who has like a really big stick and can club a mammoth I don't know what it was really like probably something like that and now and now it's more like. Who's the guy with the mx black card that guy can that guy can do anything kind of back to our that adds like 5 inches to your penis size. Are you kidding me and it goes back to our phrase of beggars can't be choosers but Buyers can. |
37:03.90 | mikebledsoe | Like you whip it out slap down the counter hear. It thud the yeah at least? yeah. |
37:21.61 | Max Shank | I Mean that's ah, that's a blank Check you can have anything you want in that life and most of the problems that you might be concerned about that. Keep you in that lizard brain immediate decision making. Kind of evaporate you know money doesn't solve everything. Certainly there are lots of problems that a money doesn't solve but some of them it solves instantly like some some some real problems like I've been I've been very broke well look I've been. |
37:42.95 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, well most the problems that people who don't have it are are experiencing. |
37:53.61 | Max Shank | Very broke. Ah, and I've been not broke and the second 1 is way way way better like it. It didn't solve every problem I have but it's way better. So I think um, as ah as a man, there's a. |
37:59.42 | mikebledsoe | Way better. Oh. |
38:13.10 | Max Shank | There's a certain reality to the fact that we don't have an intrinsic value. It's just what we can produce so a lot of people just blindly chase that goal because that's that's what they've Seen. You know that's the current mythology if you're a rich guy hey great and if you're a poor guy good luck. Good luck finding a lady I think that's what made that book fifty shades of gray work out so well because the guy was really rich if it was like ah a fry cook at Mcdonald's like beating some lady in his mom's basement I don't think it would like sell any copies at all. |
38:50.46 | mikebledsoe | Um, ah so True. Um I I was reading a book on relationships and they made a really solid point which is men are judged on ah their success. Basically their financial success. And women are judged on their beauty and if if women if you know sometimes women talk about you know it's not fair this and that it's not fair for guys either like like if how what percentage of guys are really wealthy. You know, probably about his. |
39:19.86 | Max Shank | Oh. |
39:27.21 | mikebledsoe | The the same percentage of women who are really beautiful and you know women get to enjoy the the results of their beauty at a young age and men get to ah experience the success later in the game. So It's you know. Like a woman who's passed her prime. It's like well you did have a prime and maybe this guy's just not there yet. So It is I mean this is just exactly why there's a lot of older men dating younger women but not a lot of older women dating younger men. It just doesn't make sense. |
39:59.22 | Max Shank | I was just thinking about that and isn't it funny to see who gets really pissed off by those relationships I think hey look I mean if that 20 year old lady wants that guy for his money and he wants her for her looks then they deserve each other. |
40:05.79 | mikebledsoe | Yeah I. |
40:17.41 | mikebledsoe | Perfect match. Yeah I watch people get upset about other people's relationships like man how she treats him or how he treats her or how they are together I'm like yeah the perfect match. What do you expect like. |
40:17.79 | Max Shank | I Mean what the heck's wrong with that that they they they know what they're getting into. |
40:32.80 | Max Shank | It's probably just virtue signaling right? is probably just hoping that their ah faux outrage can attract the ah attention of someone on their level right? Oh yeah, I'm I'm upset by that too. How could that. |
40:43.50 | mikebledsoe | So that's right? Um, um, um, not only yeah, we're both better than them. Yeah, it's crazy why I well and I think there's going back I Want to go back to like the the beginning beginning. Um. |
40:48.89 | Max Shank | Oil tycoon marry that stripper I was like you don't get it. |
41:02.72 | mikebledsoe | And talk about people doing shit that they really don't want to do like if you really want to be productive and effective in the ways that you want to be most of the time you got to do things differently than the way you're doing them now and breaking those patterns can be really really difficult. Um, are you familiar with the four tendencies. There's a personality test. |
41:21.48 | Max Shank | No I think I have a few more tendencies in that but I can't discuss them on the podcast. |
41:27.80 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, it basically breaks it down into like there's really good information for coaches to know the four tendencies 1 of my 1 of my coaches actually put together presentation. Um, and which is living inside my little academy but ah. The idea is there are four tendencies that are made above 2 different attributes. 1 is I either. Ah want to meet the expectations of those outside of myself or I want to meet the expectations inside like that I have for myself. And then there's the rebellious piece which is like I reject the expectations of people outside of myself and I reject that inside of myself. So someone who is meeting the expectations externally and internally would be called I think it's an upholder and this person tends to be very effective is. |
42:14.26 | Max Shank | Flow. |
42:21.61 | Max Shank | No doubt. |
42:23.35 | mikebledsoe | They're meeting the expectations of the world and they have high expectations of themselves and they're always doing that they seem very orderly. They they follow the rules um and they don't need accountability. They're just they're accountable. Yeah, you can count on them and then you have you know the questioner. |
42:32.20 | Max Shank | Accountable, No no, they are accountable like you can count on them like they'll get it done. |
42:42.40 | mikebledsoe | And someone who Upholds their own but they they need a good reason if it's coming from outside you know if if they just they're gonna ask a lot of questions this and that and then there's ah, there's the person who ah will ah how it's a. |
42:48.30 | Max Shank | Her. |
43:00.81 | mikebledsoe | The obliger and this is the person who won't hold that their own expectations. They'll break their own expectations but they will definitely meet the expectations of the others. Yeah, and then there's the rebel who rejects the expectations internally and externally. |
43:08.88 | Max Shank | So it's like a matrix. Basically. |
43:18.42 | Max Shank | Um, I've been there. |
43:20.41 | mikebledsoe | And so ah so I ah you know I I don't think that like you're all the way 1 or another but I took the test and I fall heavily into the the rebellious side like rebellious maybe a little bit of questioning. Yeah yeah, so. |
43:33.71 | Max Shank | No, do you I'm shocked by that. |
43:39.46 | mikebledsoe | Ah, oh what's funny is I've been frustrated my the majority of my life have been frustrated and that I'll set goals and then just ah, my lack of consistency ah with with certain things. Some things I can be very consistent with other things I haven't. So ah, that's something that's plagued me my whole life and actually to me. It's a blessing because if I can figure out how to be productive and get things done I can teach anyone how to do it because the the Rebel the Rebel Ah really? Ah. What motivates a rebel is that they are experiencing choice. They need to think at least perceive that they have a choice from moment to moment and what they're gonna do right? and so because I have this tendency to ah. I I value choice over accountability or meeting expectations. Um, if I really want something I set up structures in my life to where I make the choices they're going to get me there. Easy. So I I yeah. |
44:47.25 | Max Shank | Um, probably makes you an excellent coach. |
44:55.13 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, so like I I know how to create structure for my own life in a way that guides me towards where I want to go for someone who has no interest in impressing other people or even myself and really is much more likely to just do things that feel good in the moment. Ah, and so there's It's like ah it's been a constant battle my whole life and as I've gotten older I've gotten very skilled at like if you walk into my home. You can you like you will immediately know this home is different. This home is made to you know I want to be healthy. So like there's. I've got a couple chairs but it's mostly floor seating. There's I make sure there's always fresh spring water available I have my gym space. That's always like like it's made for me to work work out and eat healthy like I have every. Piece of culinary tool that I need to to make a good meal I have yeah I have ah I have a grocery service that delivers food every week and I and I have ah have ah a software that I basically work off all the time. |
45:58.80 | Max Shank | It's like a trail of breadcrumbs that leads you to doing the right thing. |
46:12.89 | mikebledsoe | And I click ah when it's time for me to order the groceries it pops up I go in there I select the groceries takes me five minutes and then it automatically gets shipped I don't I don't have to hit the order button ever. So there's all these things these structures and these conditions I put in place that. |
46:24.48 | Max Shank | Um, and. |
46:32.83 | mikebledsoe | Really caused me to go that Direction. So Ah so what I found for myself. The other thing I have to do that that I don't think many other people do do is really set up a vision for my own life that that I. Um, excited about enough to create those structures to go through all the hassle knowing that you know I'm not going to feel like it tomorrow to do something I have to have to be very good with my planning and I find that I don't want to plan as much as. |
46:51.91 | Max Shank | Ah. |
47:11.50 | mikebledsoe | As much as a lot of other people want to plan but I I get a lot of benefit out of it. So if I if I practice willpower in any area. It's it's in the planning phase of things. |
47:20.30 | Max Shank | Well your your brain and body adapt. So I think it sort of ties back into what we were talking about before is like what patterns did you develop at a very young age and recognizing. That you have the ability to change those patterns. It'll be more difficult if they're already ingrained. No question but it's possible. You know if you understand I mean you don't have to understand how neuroplasticity works you just need to understand that. Neuroplasticity works like I don't really know how it works I know your brain makes new connections and you know what is rewarded is repeated. But yeah, it um, makes me think back to productivity. And what you said about the groceries is a big part of it so productive isn't just how much um, what's the product of your effort It's also how can you say no to more things that you have more effort available because I always bring it. I feel like a broken record because every thing comes back to opportunity cost you know and whatever you're doing the cost of doing that is everything else. You could be doing and that is a crazy crazy reality when you think about it you know like. |
48:35.66 | mikebledsoe | Now. |
48:45.82 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
48:52.10 | Max Shank | I'm gonna go hang out with this person I don't really like that much. What? why what? you you could like be talking to a loved 1 or you could just be like going for a walk like you don't have to do that and so that's what I'm best at that is like totally my superpower. Is just to be like so comfortable saying no to things that I don't really want to do like I remember my my my good friend brian and if he listens to this will be so Funny. He's like I'm having this party and I was like oh who's gonna be there and he listed off like a bunch of people and was like I don't really like them that much but if you want to go get lunch next week I'm um happy to go do that and that ability has saved me so much mental space because you know once again opportunity cost like is the is the juice worth the squeeze essentially and I think that's the first thing that i. End up working with my coaching clients on when it's more like lifestyle and business related is how to draw better boundaries so that you just have more ah clear mental space for the things that are actually important because anytime you say no. You're saying yes to something Better. You're giving yourself the ability to say yes to something better and I think I mean I really think the power of no is like the most important superpower. |
50:10.32 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, um. |
50:21.87 | mikebledsoe | Absolutely I mean there's you know there's a few different cliche terms out there is like you got to say yes to things. There's a lot of things I had to say yes to and then I'd learn how to say no I to say yes to things that were scary to do. |
50:34.90 | Max Shank | Um, who right. |
50:40.17 | mikebledsoe | Yes, so things have scared me but also no to the things that that are pulling me away from it and yeah, there's so many people have people pleasing tendencies My my ex had it heavy people pleasing tendency and. |
50:51.41 | Max Shank | Oh My God My. Ah, right. |
50:59.90 | mikebledsoe | It was it. It really was ends up being very harmful. Yeah. |
51:03.46 | Max Shank | Yeah, stressful and I think a lot of people have that. Um you know Jordan peterson talks about how agreeability is usually a disadvantage when it comes to business and then my friend. |
51:17.53 | mikebledsoe | If you're agreeable, you make less money. You're not going to negotiate that ah that salary. |
51:21.48 | Max Shank | Who isn't right? You're just oh yeah, that's fine. This is is okay and what's interesting is my friend who went into the air force Academy they were doing this class on negotiation with this lawyer and 1 of their assignments was to go around and ask for free stuff. And see how difficult it was for people to say no like you just go to Jamba Juice and like hey can I have a free smoothie and the guy's like what I I don't think we can do that How about just a little 1 Okay, it's like wait. What like all you have to do is ask. |
51:42.31 | mikebledsoe | Me. |
51:56.83 | mikebledsoe | I hate. |
51:59.70 | Max Shank | Crazy and it's It's true for so many things that um, you know people were so emotional like our superpowers are talking walking and being emotional. That's what human beings are better at than the other animals. Really so we're. We're deeply and we're not good at much other stuff. Ah, we're not ah, we're so aware most people of the feeling of rejection like we don't want to reject other people. We don't want other people to reject us and if you can get over that you. Will be successful because you will put out a lot of offers and it's way better to get half a percent of people to say yes, if you ask a million people than it is to get 1 hundred percent of people to say yes, if you only ask 5 and those four knows just Like. Daggers in your heart that make you question whether you're even good at anything so that ability to to ask without fearing rejection and also reject without thinking like oh oh you said no to me? Well I hate you. It's like oh okay, like. |
53:15.25 | mikebledsoe | Ah, sounds childish I went through a phase I went through a phase in my early twenty s where I I intentionally I'm not saying this is a good idea folks I went through a phase where I intentionally used pickup lines that would get me shot down at the bar. |
53:16.66 | Max Shank | Stupid. Yeah. |
53:31.69 | Max Shank | Ah. |
53:33.75 | mikebledsoe | I'd walk out to a woman and then I would say something like how do you like your eggs in the morning she goes what so scrambled to fertilized and or something like that which pretty much would invite a slap. You know, not just a rejection but you know like ah, an f you. So ah, it was it was. |
53:57.37 | Max Shank | Although I think that's a good filter too because someone who's likely to lay down with you would probably find that funny. |
54:05.95 | mikebledsoe | That's also true. That's also true. Ah, but ah huh go dirty early? Yeah yeah I mean the my my current girlfriend on my my bump. Um. |
54:07.83 | Max Shank | Go dirty early if you're if you're talking to late and if you're talking to ladies. This could get so dark So fast. |
54:21.80 | mikebledsoe | My bumble account. Yeah, my bumble account with my current girlfriend now just to give you some some context psychotherapist from the Bay right? So you're probably this is this is probably someone who's got like very indoctrinated with feminist ideas. So I'm not I'm not saying femin feminism's good or bad or anything like that I'm just saying that. Ah someone who is hyper feminist and does not have a sense of Humor. It will not enjoy me and in the the first part of my bumble account. Ah, it says. I just want a good woman to be able cook me dinner and give me a massage and then that was the headline and then it goes down and then I get into more like what I actually want um because I do want those things too I do want those things but ah, but it was funny is because we talked about it and she like gave an eye roll. |
55:04.20 | Max Shank | None. Wait You don't want those things who doesn't want those things. |
55:19.37 | mikebledsoe | Over it. But as more time goes on. She's realizing that she actually did want it. You know subconsciously and so ah, you know, being with a guy who's actually very masculine is is new for her and allows her to be feminine and that actually feels really nice. |
55:32.32 | Max Shank | Ah. |
55:38.14 | Max Shank | Could do a whole thing on that we could do a whole thing on that I mean I think right now. Yeah, maybe next show is like the feminization of men and the masculinization of women think that's ah, probably making life really hard for a lot of people. |
55:38.59 | mikebledsoe | But ah, but there was a filter. Yeah, maybe next show. |
55:50.54 | mikebledsoe | Um, well I Well I think it's a natural progression so we'll we'll talk about this next show. But I I think there's ah you know life is not all unicorns and butterflies and having this. |
55:58.46 | Max Shank | Um, yeah. |
56:10.52 | mikebledsoe | Reversal of of roles is is definitely part of our evolution but there's a lesson to be learned from it and there there is a continuation beyond that we'll talk about that. But um, yeah, it definitely I don't know what I was talking about now. But. |
56:28.12 | Max Shank | We're talking about saying yes to things and no to other things. |
56:30.40 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, but ah, creating creating filter I got used to getting shot down. So then I could I got really good at creating a filter and knowing that by by filtering out 99 percent that 1 percent was gonna be fucking super sweet and. |
56:34.82 | Max Shank | Ah, yeah. |
56:45.92 | Max Shank | Yeah, you build up the no callous Also like you get comfortable just being told. No. |
56:50.88 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, so I would ask way more girls out than the average guy because I was just like I get shot down like okay I've been shot down like a Hundred times. No big deal. |
56:56.54 | Max Shank | And you'll but I mean just think of what a disadvantage you're at if you are in a scarcity mindset when it comes to relationships I mean look if you choose a mate just based on looks. And you have a scarcity mindset so you don't ask out a lot of people. What are the odds that that relationship is going to be good. Are you kidding me like you you are going to have your life ruined because you're going to feel like I mean that's 1 of the that's 1 of the biggest decisions in your life. |
57:20.88 | mikebledsoe | Yeah. |
57:32.81 | Max Shank | You're telling me, you're going to date 1 person cling to them like hell because you're afraid to ask somebody else and you're going to choose them just based on their outward appearance via some like optic trick like are you the the chance that you're going to have like oh my god like. |
57:44.67 | mikebledsoe | Man I've seen so I've seen that play out so many times. |
57:52.46 | Max Shank | It's the worst way to choose a mate from a scarcity mindset and just based on like the visual trickery of what they can do with ah a makeup box and if they I mean who knows like it's just ridiculous I'm saying this I'm saying this knowing by the way. |
58:04.92 | mikebledsoe | Oh man. |
58:11.59 | Max Shank | That the lower levels of my brain. It's like ah a retarded monkey in a banana factory like I can't think from 1 second to the next. |
58:22.00 | mikebledsoe | No I'm making a note for next week so that we know what to talk about um because I do feel like we're complete on this productivity front now that we're talking about how to choose how to choose a mate. |
58:35.47 | Max Shank | Now The question is was this podcast productive and here's how we can tell if the podcast made listeners take an action that brings them closer to what they want. Then it was a productive podcast but that's not the only reason I'm doing this podcast I Also really enjoy our conversations. |
59:00.22 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, that was the every time we got on the phone we we well I thought I'm about you but I thought this should be recorded I think people would really enjoy this. Um and I was hanging on my buddy Josh has last or yesterday and he was asking me about you know. |
59:09.99 | Max Shank | Um, yeah, same. |
59:19.66 | mikebledsoe | Are you gonna podcast I'm like oh I'm podcasting I'm recording with Ma Shank I've been posting them over on my channel but I haven't I We haven't made the the move yet I feel like where we're out with the show is like like figuring out. Flow of it a bit and I I imagine we're going to start circling a theme which I'm not I don't see a clear theme yet. But I think we'll circle a theme that's going to make sense people know what to expect when they show up. |
59:50.51 | Max Shank | I mean I think the theme is pretty clear you and I are doing a mind meld to basically discuss how to avoid traps and how to find treasure and it encompasses your physical ability your relationships. Your um, psychological resolve and ability to evaluate your situation I mean ah you make better decisions and I'm also really funny. |
01:00:17.41 | mikebledsoe | What's the what's the benefit people get from listening to this. |
01:00:26.70 | mikebledsoe | Ah, ah, ah, better decisions I think there's a better way I I'm thinking about a marketing from a marketing perspective. We want people to see the name and go oh I gotta listen to that podcast. What's the benefit people are giving. That's what we got to figure out folks. Please. |
01:00:37.95 | Max Shank | Ah. |
01:00:43.49 | mikebledsoe | Shoot me a dm let me know I just put it I haven've been posting on the bletzout show since last November so I just started posting him up there. It's it looks like it's getting downloads I've got yeah I've got it up there under the bloodzo show. But I don't yeah. |
01:00:43.90 | Max Shank | Where are you posting these by the way. |
01:00:51.50 | Max Shank | Oh really do we get any feedback is it still called the blood social. |
01:01:03.41 | mikebledsoe | Um, there's I would have to start a whole another account and submit it to oh well, we should just all ah send you over the links I'll send you over the ah the. |
01:01:05.47 | Max Shank | We could put them on. We could put them on mine too I have a max shank show. |
01:01:15.95 | Max Shank | Yeah, we could try that out that'd be fun I Think for some reason I'm also I'm way dirtier on these than I normally am like I usually am like oh I'm going to try not to curse and then I'm thinking Oh Mike's audience these people are degenerates just like me. So. |
01:01:21.93 | mikebledsoe | Files. |
01:01:30.32 | mikebledsoe | Bunch of animals. Yeah I I I ran the name deviant dialogue by my girlfriend and for the name of the show. She was like no she says it's too dark. Oh. |
01:01:33.91 | Max Shank | Bunch of animals. |
01:01:43.97 | Max Shank | No, it's not good. Yeah. |
01:01:50.48 | mikebledsoe | She's like yeah people are gonna think deviant and they're gonna think devil and I was like oh shit. Okay I didn't think about that. |
01:01:53.42 | Max Shank | No, it's not actually a good name for a show but I mean it it does come back around to like how to coach yourself. Basically. |
01:02:05.26 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah. |
01:02:07.83 | Max Shank | I Don't know we'll think of something it doesn't have to be Maybe that's the last lesson for productivity is it doesn't have to be perfect for you to launch it out there like a lot of a lot of stuff I've done it evolved into something good. |
01:02:18.31 | mikebledsoe | That's true. Well, it's technically going out imperfectly it. It's being put out imperfectly. It's it doesn't even have a name and so I'm just throwing it up on a channel and and. |
01:02:25.92 | Max Shank | But that. |
01:02:31.97 | Max Shank | That's great. |
01:02:33.67 | mikebledsoe | Maybe some people are listening to it I mean it's getting downloads I know that but who knows yeah and more downloads as I post more which makes me think that it's doing something but I've yet to get any feedback being like oh I started listening your show I Love it imit. Well we'll see what happens all right. |
01:02:37.89 | Max Shank | That's pretty cool. |
01:02:46.82 | Max Shank | Um, ah I like it until next week that's been some good planning for both of us. Ah, that's been some good planning for most both of us. We just have a monthly. |
01:02:53.61 | mikebledsoe | Wrap this bad boy up Yeah, tell me where they can find you huh what? a weekly a weekly appointments in my calendar. It's easy. |
01:03:04.82 | Max Shank | Ah, monthly appointment where we sit down and talk how well has that worked. Yeah, that's what I'm saying it's great. Did I say monthly I meant weekly I don't have a lot of appointments. |
01:03:13.57 | mikebledsoe | Yeah, yeah, all right? Where can people find you no. |
01:03:20.53 | Max Shank | ah ah I'm hard to find maxshank dot com or at Maxank anywhere else. |
01:03:27.10 | mikebledsoe | So off I mean at mike underscore blood so on Instagram and the strong coach if you're looking to give me money all right? Thanks for joining us today. Yes. |
01:03:37.32 | Max Shank | Have a productive week |