Moment 32 - Ant Middleton on How To Build A Bulletproof Mindset

00:03one of the questions i really wanted to ask you because of what's going on in the world with this whole pandemic and covid is i was thinking as i was like brushing my teeth or whatever this morning i was thinking there's a ton if my audience could ask you one thing probably would be around the fact that the world changed this year a lot of people's lives were uprooted they lost their businesses their jobs whatever and then i thought you know ants probably well i for sure has have been in situations where you felt like whether whether it's on the battlefield or whatever that this was a fight that the where the odds were against you yeah and in those moments there's winners and losers and i you know you always talk about mindset what is the mindset that people need in these moments where the odds don't look like they're very much in their favor that from that you've seen from the battlefield where you've emerged victorious because you know you didn't you didn't indulge in victimhood or whatever and you and you yeah does that make sense yeah 100% makes sense. For me, it hasn't, it's about embracing change. You know, majority of people, they live their life on autopilot, or they live in the void, I call it, where everything around

01:15them is changing. You know, the world is constantly changing. Everything around us is constantly changing whether it's you know climate control whether it's you know in the way that we think the way that we're evolving the way that the world is going the way that animals are evolving the way that the sea is is is encroaching or or you know decreasing whatever it may be everything is changing around us and we are designed to a change with it so what we're actually doing is we're actually going against the grain when we become complacent when we get comfortable when we get into one sort of situation and we stay in that situation it's going we're working in the opposite way that the world should be evolving we should be constantly changing we should be constantly evolving we should be constantly moving forward you know look at my career I've gone from the army to the marines to the special forces to the media to to books to authors to literacy to business. It's like, I love, love change. I love being put in a situation where I'm literally chucked in the deep end with dive boots on and I have to tread water. I love that because it's so challenging and it's so, so stimulating that you're forced to change. You're forced to think

02:36of something different. You're forced to, to, to do something differently. You're forced to change the way that you, you approach something because you've been put in a situation where it's been forced upon you but when it's not forced upon you when it's not forced upon you um which the world does it forces it upon us but when it's not forced upon you when you when you get comfortable then you get you fall into this void you fall into this complacency you fall into to not moving along with the world but does that is that are those your demons again because i'm thinking the reason why ant loves to be chucked into the water with his dive boots on is because you relish challenge.

03:13And this comes, maybe links to the victimhood point and a general problem in culture and society where people like comfort. Cotton wool, a lot of people are being brought up now with cotton wool. We're not designed to be comfortable. We're not designed to have cotton wool strapped around us. It's society, it's the restraints and the shackles of society that is forcing us to be like this. It's not who we are. Look how far we've come. you know look out look at look at just through history how far we've come and i feel like that we're actually devolving now i actually feel that we've got to a point where we're going backwards where you know used to be survival of the fittest yeah and you know you should walk in front of your cave you know i mean to survive you know used to be at the you know the top of the food chain um you know it's we're not designed to be comfortable we're not designed to be wrapped up in cotton wool. We're not designed to be shackled down. And that's why there's so many problems in the world right now. It's because of these shackles. It's because of these chains.

04:16It's because of the restraints that society is putting on us. It's forcing us into mental illness. It's forcing us to act in ways that we're not designed to act in. It's forcing us to switch off to the most powerful tool that's in the universe, your minds. We're forced to just put it on fucking dormant you know that be a it's it's we're going against the grain of what we're supposed to do of who we're supposed to be on how we're supposed to act and how is it's um supposed to evolve so when when you've got this going around like this and then this stops is is it you you there's this synchronicity that's not working in in in partnership with each other you know without us on this planet this planet wouldn't be as evolved as it was without the planet then we wouldn't be evolved as it was you know and what's actually happening is is you've got this this this these two forces that are grinding against each other rather than working together with each other in synchronicity i i i was reading this crazy thing the other day and i think i've talked about maybe once before but it shows that um the life expectancy in the uk and the us fell for two years in a row and i think it was like last year the year before whatever for the first time ever and

05:33look at the numbers as to why the life expectancy has fallen for the first time ever and it's because of like the opioid crisis people who are getting addicted to drugs and they say so why people getting more and more addicted to drugs and they say well because they're lacking meaning in their life and when people lack meaning the science is showing where you do it to animals you take away their meaning i i've talked i think in the last podcast and i i hate to repeat myself but i also don't care about these rats and i fucking because they're right about my back i'm so fascinated by it they put a rat in a cage and take away everything from it and they give it the option of drinking heroin water or normal water it becomes a drug addict they then introduce a partner some stimulation some running wheel some other things and they give it heroin water or normal water and it doesn't choose the heroin water it doesn't become a drug addict just by inserting meaning into its life it avoids the heroin and then you think okay so what's going on in society you think well people are lacking challenge and meaning because we're trying to create a culture maybe where challenge and meaning are a bad thing and and that's actually having an

06:27adverse effect because as you say very eloquently like that's not who we are you know i love how you just put that steve because you've just put my thoughts into a scientific sort of into a scientific form um because again i'm not an intellect i'm not a bookworm you know it's like i have psychiatrists come up to me and go where did you study at well but not honestly what books did you and i'm like no no this is all every single little ounce of me is through life experience i come from the university of life you know and what i've just said there's it's strange that and that's why I love talking to people like yourself because I've put that as in how I'm thinking.

07:02I haven't read anything from it and you've just put it into a whole sort of scientific and it's like, that's exactly that. It's exactly what I've just said and you've just put it into something that's been proven and that's the way that I think, that's the way that I perceive life.