Jesse Itzler

00:00four three two one boom so 100 mile man or 100 man what is it the 100 mile man what is that I ran 100 mile race years ago and that's it like I'm the man let me grab if it's available that's cool that you got it that's a very popular thing now yeah did you run this before or after you did the book with David Goggins I ran it before okay yeah I think at the time when I did it they were like four hundred Americans that I ran 100 miles or something it wasn't a lot so that's why it was available isn't it crazy how many people do it now yeah I think I was trying to figure out in my head how many do it a year and like how many races hundred mile races there are there a month and then multiply it out so probably five or six thousand I'm guessing six thousand people have done it I think probably I think so Wow Americans yeah it's a long way it's a long way we're just about

01:01talking right before the podcast about how Miss America yanked off all of theirs they're no longer judged by their beauty and I post this because I thought it was silly and there's just these fights online man this fights in the comments and fights and people are tense yeah people need to go out run those hundred miles yeah they listen up fast fast I know what the is gonna miss America is scrapping the swimsuit competition we're no longer be judged on physical appearance it's literally a beauty contest that is what it is what are they replacing it with I mean I gotta think it's like when playboy decided to not have people nude right that like and but here's the thing but no longer judging them on their physical appearance well what does that mean like what does that mean that's we're no longer a pageant gretchen carlson says we're a competition okay I give up

02:06I don't know I think that might have be a bit of you know hurt the ratings a little bit I think a little bit or not maybe people will get very excited about it maybe it'll ramp up yeah get a lot of talk yeah maybe people will be pissed off and so they'll tune in it's just I don't know where do you stand on it I don't give a it's so stupid Miss America I mean this is what's really fascinating to me is that uh it was a read in the comments a lot of feminists were angry at me that I was mocking and I saw a few of them I don't get it like why would you even want a who I'd most like to contest because that's what it is I mean that's really what it is you're having these gals parade around their bikini it's a beauty contest do we have a mr. America contest like is that just the president is that what the mr. American contest is I don't know I don't know I'm you know I

02:56tried to ask you as someone who's deeply connected to competition and mind sets yeah I don't know I'm not following it that closely but I am gonna miss that part of the competition yeah are you know really yes there's so many opportunities to see people naked today yeah but you know as a kid watching the Miss America pageant was like you know there weren't a lot of options back then yeah yeah kids today are broken Sports Illustrated and that's Ryan swimsuit issue I wonder if they're gonna continue the swimsuit issue mm-hmm maybe they just see their faces and just have to assume they're in this warm suit you know the view like a bubble a thought bubble and it'll be filled with an amazing quote that they say that'll be the new swimsuit issue cuz we're just judging them on their minds right and the content yes speaking of content living with monks yes what is

03:54it called living with the monks living with the monks um this is your new book yes why'd you say I'd do that and how long did you do it for I did it for 15 days Oh enough that's more than enough man yeah weird like this for an hour your finger will fall off you're doing with your finger up and uh yeah just a repetition what did you have to do I live with there were there were eight monks four which have been there for 50 years fifty-fifty on a monastery 800 800 acres kind of in the middle of nowhere and I went for 15 days so I figured you know I'd invested so much of my life on the physical side and ran 100 miles and just always active and this and that and have really invested very little on my own inner work and I just felt like man I just felt overwhelmed a little bit and I said to my wife you know who were the Masters and if everything pointed to monks and I said I

04:52want to go live on a monastery there's something romantic about that right it's almost like the guy who goes off into the woods to write a book like being with a with a monk like and just being you know in a monastery with monks there's something very romantic about that right that you've shed all your worldly belongings and you no longer care about the day-to-day nonsense that everybody is fixated on and just decided to just do it I lived the opposite of a monk's life my life is filled with I get it yeah where'd you go so I went I went to a monastery just south of Canada in the States ah yeah but no what state is it it was in upstate New York oh okay yeah like on the Vermont border and it was um you know no phone total kind of separation from my family have four kids my wife and just got to get to know myself a little bit Wow now when you were up there was there any

06:00time we were like what the by doing like one minute into it I got when I first got up there the main monk like my go-to monk yeah brother brother Christopher took me to my room they called the rooms the a cell which is about the size of this table and I had a bed I walked in there was a bed there was a little desk with a night lamp on it and nothing on the walls and he said tomorrow we're gonna start prayer reflection and meditation at 7:15 am and I looked at my watch and it was 6p and I asked him well what do we do between now and 7:15 a.m. and he looked at me dead in the eye and he said you think and I said to myself I'm because I don't really like spending a lot of time in thought so I went and I said okay I'm gonna I'm gonna meditate you know like I'm here let me start this journey with meditation I had taken a little a course in transcendental meditation I'm not a big meditation guy

07:05other than running and so I set my timer for 20 minutes and I sat down in my chair and I started like focusing on my mantra and like immediately I'm bombarded with how is my wife the kids the Hogs all this you know bumper tickets the Atlanta Hawks I love Atlanta like you know about your kind of hawk everything's coming at me and I'm you know time is going by and I'm just getting bombarded with thought and I'm like why isn't my timer buzz like it's been I've been here forever so I was gonna look and reset my thing I'm like that would be cheating let me keep going and I'm going and all the time's going by and I finally I'm like is going on with my timer you know so I open my eyes and I look to reset my timer it's three minutes and 27 seconds No and I said to my son II really thought it was 20 minutes I thought it was like hours man I mean like I've never really sat in

07:55a room like with nothing going on and just closed my eyes alone and thought and time to stop and I calculated how much time I have left like 15 days times 24 hours of 60 minutes and I said to myself like man I'm in trouble this isn't like like this isn't what I'm on Gilligan's Island this is a real like I can't get out of here and I had a really hard time with it what was the commitment the commitment was 15 days so the only it was a personal yeah yeah he did it up to you like there was no nothing in writing and did you have a way to escape I mean I was thinking of escape plans but um on the monastery and this is a little crazy the the way the monks keep the lights on is they breed German Shepherds that's how they make money they breed German Shepherds the large I've seen this they wrote a book yeah they wrote a book I have the book it's a book about raising puppies correct the

08:52same guy same guys ah so they weren't Buddhists they were Russian Orthodox and they raised German shepherds so they live on this property and they're these 11 German shepherds and at the end of the property the only way off the property were two mobile homes unconnected to the monastery at the end of this road that leads up to the monastery and both of those homes had German shepherds as well that were a little territorial so there really was no way for me to escape like I couldn't I ran a hundred and twenty miles up and down the driveway while I was there because I couldn't leave the property so you just timed yourself or paced yourself with using an app or something I said like 2,000 steps equals a mile he's encountered your steps oh Jesus Christ dude yeah I counted and marked it what did they think about you running a back and forth like that thought it was a psychopath I'm

09:47like you guys have been here for 50 years man I'm just trying to get some extra sell what are the guys like that have been there for 50 years uh quiet now they were they were you know extremely listen the date they were doing what they wanted to do with their life so they were super happy really yeah super present I mean very present and I'm not living the world that to-do list man and like you know they were very president very happy and really really nice to me and and everybody what did you talk to them they speak English mm-hmm what was that conversation like like what do you say to a guy who's been in a monastery for 50 years staring at the walls well I wanted if I could have talked to him about the pageant that would be when I first got up there and they were asking me a little bit about my background I told them you know I was in the private jet business they didn't understand

10:44private jets really and then I said I had a coconut water company they never heard of coconut water I told them I was involved with the Atlanta Hawks and one of the monks said oh I've been to a an expose game and I'm like that's a different sport and they don't play they don't exist anymore and is this very like time-warped at first it was really interesting really interesting Jesus now what led these these guys that are 50 years 50 years on the monastery how old were they so some of the the age range from I think the youngest monk was probably 35 up until late 70s so late seventies were the guys that have been there for 50s yeah they checked in when they were 20 yeah they're young 20s in the same spot they actually built this monastery by hand they bought 500 acres for very you know I think it was like 50 thousand dollars or something I'm something crazy and then they built the

11:41monastery by hand and so it's been a passion of love and labor and they've been there since and so they vow celibacy the whole deal and celibacy poverty comfort in celibacy at 20 yeah they they take a vow for things of celibacy poverty's they pledge all their personal belongings to the monastery so really their only possession is a driver's license obedience and stability meaning we're not leaving I think this is what we're gonna do so let me talk about discipline just awesome to do forever forever and what do they get funding they are self-sufficient so they stay free German Shepherds they sell them that's kind of one income stream and then their masters world masters of dog training training so every two weeks they have ten dogs that come in and they and I watch this I mean they literally dogs come in like spuds Mackenzie and leave like they just left

12:43etiquette school like it's it was like any time you're in the presence of the people that are the best in the world or what they do it's fascinating and these guys were masters they are the masters of I'm sure there's a lot of people that are great but in their space of dog training and breeding what was so special about the way they trained dogs just the command like like they had an energy that the dogs responded to I mean I would walk in the dogs would go crazy the sniff my nuts they just like they go nuts right these guys would walk in and like they could just sense but they were in control they they were in control you know and like the eye contact that they everything the way that they talk their tone their hand mannerisms they just have mastered this and they have a deep connection with the dogs dogs are weird in that way like I have a one-year-old

13:38golden retriever and he has different rules for different people and he knows who he can get away with what with like my wife's mom has zero shot at controlling this dog like it's right he's like oh no no no I'm the boss I think I'm gonna jump up on you and kiss ya you know no I'm gonna just run around and put a pause on you and sit the chair and you know we're like Marshall come on man what the what is this you don't do this and it doesn't matter when she's here he just decides man new set of rules with this lady yeah doesn't seem to know what the to do with me but when I had a trainer that I worked with him for in the beginning when I first got him and when Ryan the trainer comes over he just like sits down he's super chill he listens he's like oh this guy knows what the to do yeah knows how to control me right let's it's it's very interesting he's even different with me than he is

14:30with my friends like my friends have come over he's like let me try you out on you see what's up and I wish he would be like across the board with everybody but he's just it's all love so it's not bad you know he's just a lovey dog yeah but just like pause on you and you know and I'm not really a dog person I like dogs but if you have one no no but we don't really connect you know I'm not like instant love when they see me the way that they are with other people you know but the monks were using that with teaching me various lessons almost like Karate Kid style through the dogs so like the first day I got there every day I was signed a different role with I would shadow one of the monks and there were eight and they had different responsibilities around the monastery the first day I was in the training centre with one of the most it was training the dog and my job

15:23was to be the distractor so rainbow this dog would walk on and I would go Adam and jump and run and like try to do whatever get him to break his goal of going they were kind of simulating a park scene or city scene and making this dog not get distracted so I would go nuts with a porkchop and this and throat whatever the dog would just go unwavering from point A to point B and the monk said to me at the end is like it's just like life man is like if you have a goal just like rainbows goal is to get from A to B you can't be distracted in your goal and I was like that makes sense some karate kids stuff yeah my song yeah like wax on and but all these different lessons started to emerge it was pretty interesting Wow so that that isn't it's it's interesting too that they're doing it with German Shepherds are really really smart dogs I want like what's that dumb dog uh

16:20what's like a generally thought of as down the dog doesn't think think what would generally be thought of as a dumb dog there's no like prejudices for dogs right is there this is like like one breed really like this dumb breed I don't think of like when if you say like a dumb dog this dumb individual dogs but I don't ever think of like oh that there's some dogs that are like right like Jack Russell Terriers are kind of but that's because they were raised to kill rats and they just like they have a high kill Drive and they're super hyper but like I can't think of a dog that's supposed to be stupid but German Shepherds are generally supposed to be smart lists as English bulldogs but I don't know if that's really there I think they're just lazy and my dog Brutus is half English bulldog and half Shibui no he just has bad joints and he's just lazy he's just

17:21totally stupid yeah he's kind of a dick he said dick to other dogs but I just think this is in pain a lot these dogs were super smart they're so smart man those dogs look at you and they're little they're sizing you up checking you out see what the you're up to making sure you're cool but there's this feeling like they know oh they could kill you like they're looking at you like I could kill you but I'm just checking you out I had that feeling that they could kill me too yeah it's a real feeling yeah yeah they could and they were like I was scared they were sensing that he's trying to like down downplay my fear yeah my friend who trains him has a dog that's like he does police work and it's like a serious dog and he'll attack like a thing if you're holding like a stick like on command and he jumps and one of the things he does he bites the stick and then two paws go right into your

18:15nuts and I don't think it's on purpose but damn it's an effective strategy like it's like bite and a nut stomp all in one maneuver right yeah but those dogs are you know they're they're a dog that's sort of bread and designed for protection work and police work and stuff yeah they are and they trained their dogs for as pets so they didn't do any kind of you know police work or anything like that so the the the 11 German Shepherds that were on the property were super well be hey I'm in like ridiculously well behaved so when they train them are they just training them to make sure that they're obedient you know they just listen watch the house bark at strangers that kind of yeah hand signal is obedient you know not jumping but really that you know they know who's in control so did these guys do that before they started running the monastery or was it something that they decided to do while

19:07they had the monastery no so they they fell into it they didn't go up there that none of them had any experience in dog training that wasn't the intent they just said we got to keep the lights on here and they had a dog they had a dog that as a pet and fell in love with the dog and ultimately they when the dog passed away they all got killed they wanted another dog and they went to a breeder and they got two dogs and they actually just they realized that they once they bred an amazing puppy lived their first litter that and trained these dogs that there was demand and they just scaled it like any other business you know and they learned along the way trial and error just like any entrepreneur I mean these guys were like first of all they were monks and they're theirs super spiritual that religious they were Russian Orthodox they weren't they're not Buddhist and but they're amazing

20:00entrepreneurs I mean like they ran this thing super efficiently but the so but the point would only be to make enough money to keep the lights on correct so as an entrepreneur it's almost like they're limited in their ambition I think excess you know it's not like they're if they have excess money and revenue it's not going to material things but it's for the life and the extension of them of the moms monastery yeah so they would save it and put it away for taxes or what-have-you yeah where they have you know they're in the hands of God they have they don't have a lot of litters or they don't have a lot of puppies or they have no income right right that's fascinating now these guys what do they do for recreation they pray Jesus they think they read yeah what do they read and they had like an amazing collection of books fiction everything really no super well read so they do

20:56have some entertainment yeah like fiction yeah and you know periods of it now went up there with no expectation not the only like I've heard of monks I watched I've seen monks in movies and read articles and blogs but I never I don't know much about it about the culture certainly about Russian Orthodox and the different factions and this and that so I went up there eyes wide open and but I went up there really just to detach and get away from feeling overloaded and feeling distracted and man I'm a father of four and I have a business and my wife has an entrepreneur etc and I just wanted to see like you know this kind of might been my journey I learned best by diving into the unknown just like I did with Dave and just as I've done in businesses and other things it's just like I learned best by going into the unknown hmm so I didn't do a lot of research around them

21:47or how they made money or this or that I just kind of showed up wow that's a it's a crazy undertaking but I guess if you knew you only had 15 days at least you have like some light at the end of the rainbow when that 15th day came and would you get in a car and drive away from that place yeah good did you check your phone really undated what's going on on twitter day four and five I was already kind of making excuse I was rationalizing in my head that seven days would be enough so like in my head I was going home day seven oh well I mean I was like no one's gonna know the difference or care if I went fifteen days or seven days or it's not like if you're at Mile fifteen you're like that's enough it is same kind of thing same kind of thing until you wake up the next day and you're like I dropped out right and you feel like you know so anyway I decided like you know I'm gonna

22:41stick this out and then when I left it was a good feeling and the feeling was proud I felt proud of myself for sticking through it you know I wasn't that funny these guys have been there for 50 50 years man like I did two weeks man yeah it felt good also felt good to go into a bed well it's good the 50 years when you're describing that that seems so insane to me that I can't even relate but when you're talking about your 15 days like man you poor bastard like I feel bad for you the guy the 50 50 years he might as well be living in another dimension yeah as I'm concerned yeah I mean when they're in his 20s that is just so nothing no sex no family no no neighborhood nope no hobbies no drive to work no and you know their their impression of it is like we made this decision so it's not we didn't sacrifice it like we decided this is the life we want to live but when he made

23:42this decision it was 19 what 1968 that's just like my TV's oh my god that's a crazy decision that's crazy to decide back then like I see what's coming and I've had enough yeah I've I don't know if these daily newspapers it's just too much information right exactly that's a crazy time to check out so they don't know what the going on in the world did you quiz them on I didn't really quiz them I mean every Sunday night they have one there's one TV in one back room and they watch the news so they get a sense of just like you know it's kind of where we are stating war yeah if there's a nuclear meltdown yeah one hour yeah they watched about an hour on Sunday no.19 a week and that's how they tuned it who do they was go crazy I was immediately like my head went to like I'm sure we're being attacked right now and I'm stuck at the monastery right yeah I'm sure the airlines aren't

24:42flying I'm stuck here for another 30 days right you know my mind went to a place where I was thinking just the worst of everything you know what news do they trust uh I think they trust it all boy what which channel do they go to oh they would just watch like you know the local ABC see the local so whatever is local in the upstate New York okay there are Netflix options do they have internet uh I had no access to the Internet I think they have access probably further Dre yeah but I didn't know access or the dog training Jesus Christ it was wild but why is that so romantic to people because it is it's very romantic right there's something about this idea of checking out it's just I had a buddy who did it I mean for all I know he still does it I lost touch with him 25 plus years ago but he was a Taekwondo guy and he started to meditate because he was always very nervous about

25:44sparring and very nervous about competition so excuse me he was trying to figure out what was going on so he said let me just take some meditation classes it took some meditation classes and really enjoyed it got really really into it and then one day decided to give up all the worldly possessions and all of the trappings of civilization and move into the monastery and I remember we went and we met him for lunch one day he'd also become a vegetarian so we only ate vegetables and we were all just hanging around and he seemed oddly a piece and it was Soudan confusing to me because at the time I was like poet 20 and I was just didn't know what the is going on the world he was maybe 10 years older than me man this guy just decided I'm had enough weird to me though he made me nervous like you know like he made me nervous that like he was on to something

26:41it may be nervous that he was wiser than me that it highlighted how up I am and you know especially at 20 years it's so life is so chaotic right no idea what the future holds for you if it's gonna be success or failure if you're gonna slip it every banana peel you run across but he seemed to have it figured out sitting there eating vegetables all calm and where is he now I have no idea I lost touch with him I lost touch with him you know probably like 30 years ago but when I was 20 those guys freak me out too yeah they must have freaked you out just when you did this book I mean I freaked them out really I was an alien I'm I came in there high-energy you know rah rah and like he's the only guys ever done that uh probably probably at this particular place I think for an extended period of time like that yeah Wow what why they let you do it well that I

27:42written a book prior living with a seal and they knew I was coming up there to write a book and I guess they liked the first book well I'm sure it'll be good for the dog business too yeah yeah yeah so they read your book they read my book were you allowed to read books while you were there I was allowed to I broke I brought I'm not like a big reader so I figured two books would carry me for 15 15 days but I read them like you know I read both in like the first day like the first two days yeah so then I was like a check whatever they have well look Mary Poppins he hadn't read the stupid yeah I said I'm good just thinking wow so was there any point at like day 13 when you're like I actually kind of like this yes I think around day 7 once I realized like you know I got the excuses out of my head that I'm staying I'm not I'm not leaving I mean this this is what I'm doing and I

28:38settled into it I got tremendously energized because like at the monastery you don't any decisions do you eat when they tell you to eat you eat what they tell you to eat you go to service when the church bell rings you go you wear one outfit I showered once so all these all the decisions were taken away from you but when all the decisions are taken away from you it frees up so much energy hmm so I was forgetting like super clear and I was like I like this this is like no one can get to me I'm not getting bombarded no one can schedule appointments with me mmm this isn't so bad have you ever done the sensory deprivation tank mm-hmm there's the thing about the sensory deprivation you know what it is right the thing that's most interesting about it is that in the absence of input your brain is freer and you can make decisions better and think about things

29:31better because there's no input coming in you don't think about it but as we're sitting here just touching this table is input you and I look at each other across the lights all this is input and in that tank there's no input and in the absence of input it frees up more resources for your brain so in a sense what these monks you're saying or doing by having everything on a schedule you don't have to think about anything and there's nothing coming in there's no Twitter or Facebook all that jazz you're you have more resources correct and you feel better that's exactly right and I experienced that you know I think the average American makes like 35,000 to 50,000 decisions a day and there's a real thing called decision to fatigue really yeah and when you eliminate oh I gotta member when I came home I came home and the day I got home my wife is like sweetie I'm gonna take the kids to

30:26you know school and I'm gonna take the blue car I was like cool take the blue car and she came back a minute later she's like you know what I didn't think the other car because I want a park and blue car is too big and I was like I coul take the other car and then she came back in she goes you know what I'm gonna take the blue car because I'm like Sarah you're using so much energy already it's 7:45 a.m. on what car to drive and I realize like that happens all the time you know it's like exhausting man yeah can you I'm sorry going no no I'm just saying like when you know I didn't have any of that so it freed up all this energy I was making like massive lifeless what I want to do I became very aware of my relationship with time I mean when we think of relationships we think of our relationships with our mom or a dad or our kids or this and that but like no

31:13one thinks of a relationship with time I'm turning 50 the average American lives to be 78 years old so if I'm average I hope I'm not that means I got 28 years of life left if you reverse engineer that if you reverse engineer it you're like I just climbed Mount Washington there were no 70 year olds climbing Mount Washington the act the actual years that you have left to be active and do the that we want to do they shrink significantly as a percentage as you get older so once you get aware of your relationship with time everything shifts and I had a fundamental shift when I came home with as it relates to my relationship with time and who I want to spend it with and and what I want to do and I want to put more on my plate of the stuff that I love to do with the people I love to do it with and I started getting like a lot of clarity around that when I wasn't

32:05getting bombarded with everything else like I don't spend any time alone the only time I spent alone isn't if I go for a run everything else is I'm getting influenced by everybody else and everything else so I'm losing my main superpower my instinct when I deserve I got a 980 on my ass a team and I survived on instinct and gut and I was losing that because I was so distracted so once I started to get that alone time you know to go to a monastery to do it you just got it you know carving out a little bit of time for myself every day I just started to think a lot clearer I'm like you know how do I want to live reverse engineer the rest of my life Wow do you think this is something you would do on a regular basis no but I'm it's something that I have and I feel like you know like I said like going into the unknown it gives you an edge you know it gives you if you

32:56come out of it a little bit different than you go in it doesn't have to be a monastery it could be a race it could be business experience or whatever right but just doing something different doing it different because you know so yeah I feel like it's I don't think I would do it again but I don't think I have to because I already have I can tap into that when I need it do you think that'll wear off though because a lot of times inspiration for people it's it's fleeting the takeaways won't won't wear off like I'm already back on my phone I'm back in modern day life I'm no I'm all up again but the main things like my relationship with time and certain things of you know who I want to spend it with and what I want to do and continuing to build what I call my life resume doing these things that build up my not my business resume but my life resume that's things that I know I want

33:47to do more of and that will never go away so you know there's there's things that came out of it that will last forever like what kind of adjustments did you make when you came back started saying no started prior like I just I reversed engineer my life so let me give you an example my parents are mm-hmm 88 okay I have a good relationship with my parents my parents are 88 they live in Florida I see my parent let's say my parents lived to be 92 I hope they live longer but let's say the live let's say they live five years right I don't have five years left with my parents I see my parents twice a year that means I have 10 visits with my parents hmm so when I started to look at like that I made significant changes like okay I'm gonna get on the plane and see my parents and when I'm in those moments my feet are on the ground that's where I am because I only have a limited amount of

34:42time with them he understands like it's not five years people know I got five more now you know how many times you see him in you see him two times a year you got ten visits so I just started looking at stuff like that and became really aware when I'm in moments that are big moments to take it in and take note of it so it has an impact on me and I appreciate it Wow did you did you shift anything else in your life like as far as like what you do with your time during the days I did so you know I started putting parameters around simple things like my phone so like I was the guy at the movie theater I'd be checking my yard forgot it Bing ID like look under my shirt so the light doesn't light up and no what you know well glad at least you did that no courteous yeah that's true but I put parameters you know nothing at I'm not keeping my phone in it at at nighttime

35:31and you know I've seen anything coming at 5:00 in the morning mm-hmm nothing at the dinner table with my kids and so like basic obvious things like that but as far as my time I made two really big changes one changes and I kind of always been doing this so I won't necessarily say was a change but I take three hours a day for myself religiously every day I got a little these new just since the monster it's it's it's kind of like um it's unwavering since the monastery he's kind of been in my life and out of my life but I just made a pie chart of time it's 24 hours in a day we all have the same pie chart starts the same you know like and that's said I sleep seven hours I mean sometimes I'm out of balance if I'm doing something big and but right now six or seven hours I take three for myself and it's cumulative so like I'll take could be I'm gonna go for an hour

36:25run I'm gonna sit in the sauna for 20 minutes I'm gonna do nothing but when I'm in my time I'm not mad that I'm not with my kids or my wife or or I'm not mad that I'm not at my office like that's my time and when I'm with my kids I'm not mad that I'm not at work or whatever because I don't want to resent my wife or my boss or anybody for taking away the that I love to do like if they said you can't run you can't go in the sauna I'd be really pissed off I've even missing my wife I'd be pissed at everybody right so I take three hours for myself the average American works 40 hours a week that's eight hours a day you still have six hours left in the day now of course you have to eat if the commute you got family and this and that but my point is even take 24 hours a long day I'll learn that running you can get a lot of done if you keep moving for 24 hours even if you take

37:17three hours for yourself if you get rid of the stuff that doesn't move the needle in the buckets that are most important to you you can get a lot done so I take three hours for myself and that's been you know and I'm not mad about it I'm not like guilty about it at all and I feel like I'm Way out of balance and then the second thing actually didn't come from the monastery but it was like kind of an offshoot of the monastery I was mentioned to you that I climbed Mount Washington 9 Washington's in the winter is one of the 10 most dangerous mountains I think the climb certainly in the states is the highest death rate because the winds are go up to about anywhere from on any given day 50 to 100 miles an hour minus 35 degrees no visibility it's it's just a hundred miles an hour yeah what the is that like it's I mean I didn't experience a hundred but I experienced super high winds like when

38:13did you experience 50 I thinking more 50 60 yeah what is it like well the first I went twice the first time I went to do it I didn't make it to the summit because it was too dangerous I actually timed out like I don't have time to get back to make it in altitude no just into the amount of darkness yeah darkness they were just gotten too tough to get back down right I was with five friends no tour guide I mean did everything wrong ruin and I actually came home after that attempt which was a year ago and I was talking to my wife about it and I was getting I posted it on Facebook so everybody was blasted did you make it you know Mount Washington is only about four or five five miles to the top four point six miles just the elements and the weather that make it so hard and I said to my wife I failed you know like I didn't make it I feel like an ass I'm so

39:05disappointed you know I want to go back and she said we'll get it tour guide break in your boots to properly train for this and go back next winter and check it off your list and I was like next winter I'm going back on Saturday next winter like who knows if I'm gonna be healthy enough next winter right so I went back next went there that me next that Saturday with the same guys and we did it and then recently this year I took my son who's eight not to the top but like we're gonna go camp out I want you to experience this got him a minus forty sleeping bag and all this stuff and we went out there with my friend who's a police officer in Suffolk County he brought his daughter and we're sitting on out there sleeping outside freezing freezing and I'm all bundled up and I turn to him and I'm like Kevin how often do you do like this you know he's a police officer he's the happiest guys

39:58rock star shape and he goes I call it the Kevin rule he goes every year I go on one trip a year with my college roommates I've been doing it since I'm 21 and then once every two months I take a weekend and I do something I go camping I've run a marathon I'll go hiking I'll go to me whatever with my family or friends and I said to myself if I can't going back to your question about time if I can't take a weekend every eight weeks once every two months if I can't carve out day or two to take some kind of adventure to put on my life resume or to have collect a moment for me then my life is out of balance I call it the Kevin rule and I said if I lived thirty more years if I live to 80 and I'd do that you know for 30 years that's a hundred and 50 or 100 basic 150 more amazing memories that I'm gonna create and that became another one of these time-related monastery related urgency rules so I

41:05just again it just became a real big clarity around like man I want to live with urgency and I want to do as much as I can and put as much on my plate of the stuff I love to do with the people I love in my life and have it on my resume and that's how I want to live my life forward that's very inspiring so when you decided to cut out or carve out three hours a day for yourself what was the first that you eliminated literally just saying no to the request for my time like what kind of hey yeah Jessica can you um do you think you can meet me for lunch I want to talk to you about a business idea that I have in the beverage space I know that you had your coconut water I want to talk to you about that no I'm going for a run mmm yeah oh no I don't want any money I don't want any money I just want to talk to you for 15 minutes a friend um I know you think on Friday night you can come

42:00down for fifth and see this but no cuz it's cumulative right it's not one or I mean I mean like one person ever no no it's gonna be one person every day or so with some new requests so that was the first shift and the second thing is for the and I put myself first you know and a lot of times I don't but in certain times I do and I realized that I was this is kind of might be a little bit more specific but I realized I love football I watch a lot of football man I realized that I was watching two games the college game on Saturday fantasy football Sunday I'm locked in Sunday night game Monday night Thursday night and I realized that if at this point if I live to be eighty five eighty whatever that would be thirty six thousand hours of football thirty-six thousand hours of football that I'd be watching I throw in some of the fights throwing some of the other stuff it's

43:00like I pull I just took the foot the plug out and I freed up these thirty six thousand hours my wife said you wanted you wouldn't mean to live in the monastery I'm like it's 15 days sweetie I just freed up 36,000 hours you get the benefit of that I'm going for 15 days so I freed up the time by eliminating stuff that like didn't move the needle so you stopped watching football told I still watch it but I mean I became very aware of it and I'll just like I still watch it but I check in I'm not sitting around the you know on Sunday nothing wrong with it it's just it wasn't moving the needle in my family my finances or my wellness hmm but what about recreation time like does recreation time is that valuable like enjoying things sitting back and watching a good movie enjoying absolutely and I do I do but I'm not I'm not you know I'm asking for myself as

43:54much as I'm asking for you yeah I mean I think look you got to be happy and do the things you like to do but you know again for me I look at it I look at it very simply I got three or four buckets I got my family my wellness five my finances and causes that are important to me and you know if it's not moving the needle in those four buckets it's really just a distraction honestly and now that doesn't mean I'm not going to go to a movie that family that's well it's part of my wellness relaxing is part of my wellness you want to go but you know those are kind of everything else kind of gets to know like going to lunch to look at someone else's idea in a category I don't really know much about because they want to maybe get to me or they want my wife or no no no no no make a t-shirt I've said listen I get it when I was starting out as an entrepreneur when I was 20 years old you

44:51know and I was cleaning kiddie pools and through in the music business as doing all this stuff I laugh at a lot of jokes that weren't funny mmm I know what you mean you know what I mean yeah to get deals to get stuff out of laughs laughs and I'm sick of laughing at jokes that aren't funny that's actually very funny like you saying that it's very funny it's a smart thing to do but in the beginning it's very hard right because you're trying to get momentum you try and establish relationships here you want people to like you you don't want a dead face a stupid joke go that Jesse guy that guy's a dick I'm not doing anything with ya so you laugh yeah hmm so do you organize your time like very specifically now and did you do that in the past I do now I did it in the past cuz you know in the path I do i'ma do anything I say yes to two action things without really

45:47thinking them through very often right now what I do is I have a third grade a three year old system I have two notebooks I'm all kind of old school I don't really operate well keeping stuff in phones I just take everything that comes into my head I put it on pit out of my head to free up space in my head so I have one journal that has everything I need to do and I just do that to get it out of my head so I don't the remember that I have to get my son's friends eight-year-old birthday present for Saturday I just write it down doesn't mean it goes away but it's out of my head right and then I have my daily from that list I picked the most important things that have to get done and then another night before I write them down or the beginning of the week knock him out man and how long ago was it that you went to this monastery and did this variant a year ago one year ago

46:40and has this enthusiasm or this feeling waned at all no wow that's really interesting do you think do you conveyed that in the book I do I mean I've been living I feel like I've been living my life like this even before the monastery just reinforced mm-hmm a lot of things I think combined with the fact that for some reason you know I'm turning 50 it's had it's with me in a way that I didn't think it would and I don't know how you how we'll do you 50 yeah so I don't know if you had the same impact on you but like you know there's not a day that goes by where I don't say to myself man in 30 years you're turning 80 why do I look at I'm gonna look at the live with urgency you know and you know all those my enemies the clock I feel like my enemies the clock and there's a lot of stuff I want to do in my life and my enemy is the clock do you feel like you

47:36live in the moment enough absolutely you do I do because that would be the worry right like if you're constantly worrying about damn 20 years of movie 70 30 years I'm gonna be 80 if you keep doing that like there there are people that look ahead too much and don't Justin's I've talked to people that are 20 like I can't believe I'm 20 and like listen you just turned 20 dude relax just ready you're a baby nah man I'm gonna be 30 in ten years like you shut the up you're 20 now I use it as a motivator and I remember I remember when how it when I was starting out I was 21 years old this is a crazy story I just got dropped from out record label I signed to a record label called delicious vinyl how did you do as a had a rap record on the rapper I was a rapper side too delicious with tone Lok and young MC so my album doesn't get picked I don't get picked up for a

48:32second album and I moved to New York City I have two things on my resume kiddie pool attendant because I was a kiddie pool attendant and rapper so I'm staying on my friend's couch living on his couch with his roommate and he tells me on Monday I gotta get out of the apartment so instead of going to look for a new apartment over the weekend I go to my friend's bachelor party on the Jersey Shore I'm at the bachelor party I'm getting a drink at the bar and I see this girl I start chatting with her she asked me where I live I told her actually as of Monday I have nowhere to go she takes out a napkin she writes her address on the napkin I'm 21 years old and she says if it's an emergency on Monday and you're stuck you can come live with me Monday comes I get kicked out of my friend's apartment I have nowhere to go I'm like this is an emergency I take out the napkin and I

49:20live with this girl and her roommate for six months whoa turns out that her father is a big entrepreneur businessman owns a piece of the Yankees just like Monster mogul I write this song for the New York Knicks called go near go and it becomes a big success you remember that song no no okay that's okay that's okay I'm not a sports that's fine it becomes a big hit and I just realized that there's an opportunity to write theme songs for all these professional sports teams but I don't have a penny to go in the studio to do the demos to shop them to the teams so I need money so I go to this music guy and he says I'll give you ten thousand dollars to go and do these songs for ten percent of everything you make for the rest of your life he wants to buy me like is that the rest of your life I'm 21 he's like a rest of the rest your life everything you do I will

50:12invest in you own an airplane business he owns 10% yes forever yes you have to kill him then yes yeah you have to kill that guy but I needed 10 grand so I say I'll take it so before I take it i go to this girl's father for advice this business mogul that i'm living with her and i sit down i go to this guy's apartment again i'm 21 he's got in his part and he's got a swimming pool artwork like fancy women he's MACT out man it's like I've never seen anything like this in Manhattan in Manhattan I'm just setting the stage of the shopper station and I go in and I tell him the story about the tenement and he says to me I would trade this is exactly what he said to me I will trade everything I have to get out of my daughter's life exactly I'll trade everything I have for the one thing that you have and I'm like me I'm broke what he taught me I go what's that

51:15and he said youth because he had already gone through the journey even though he had everything he already had gone through the process he wasn't that twenty-year-old that you're talking about that whatever he had gone through it he had it all he he would he miss the process the journey of being you coming up at 20 and not know like you know here you are but it was that those were the years man right the first fight the first dislike that that's what that's what makes you like so and that's stuck with me man at 21 years old it's stuck with me and realized that like man I got to enjoy the process and it's really never rubbed off on me it from me oh well why didn't that guy how old was this guy at the time the old rich dude he was let's see he must mean his 60s when I just do do a bunch of shoot day lounging around his swim animation he was 20 he had an amazing life he had an amazing

52:12life so what did you wind up doing he said the sect the second part of that conversation he said do you uh will you make this work on your own I said I think I can he said I didn't ask if you can he said I I said he said will you make it work I said I will he said then go tell the guy to off and make it doesn't go make it work and I did so how did you get it funded that I I somehow got I went to the Dallas Mavericks after the Knicks and told them that I convinced them to give me a $2,500 the Knicks paid me was just a crazy part of my life but they gave me $2,500 to do the demo and then they bought the song for like twenty thousand dollars and that funded the rest of the business that I ultimately sold to a public company wow that's crazy and you almost gave away 10% of your whole life that guy wanted 10% is that piece of what a like that's a steal just business jealous business and I

53:15know I said go to but no he's taking advantage of a 21 year old kid who's just got some dreams and needs some cash and ten grand to him is probably nothing I called my father my father on the plumbing supply house in Mineola Long Island and I during this time and my thing and my father said you know I love them to death that buddy's like you know do it do what you think is best you know he just didn't you know I didn't know what had to turn to I know what to turn to yeah don't don't give up 10% of your life that's just crazy that someone asks for that but you hear things like I mean this is similar to what they do in the music business like how the music business treats artists they essentially sign you to these contracts and then take a piece of everything they take a piece of if you do a movie they take a piece of your live performances your merchandise sales everything they just

54:07say look we'll we'll help you out a little bit but you know we want you right yeah I mean at least you're in a contract though but there's some creepy contracts that they used to do in the old days of Hollywood that were similar to that right they just take a PC yeah forever yeah but not you know when I signed my music deal I didn't care all right you can take whatever you want man get me on MTV right of course yeah because here you know well that's the whole idea there the reason why these exploitation contracts work is because in the beginning you're just so desperate and what you have is what they don't have you have talent right you have as you're creative you're young and full of energy and you've got something exciting that people want to look at and so what they do is they go oh you look we got a we got a way through the door but we want 75% of the profits

54:54we want a little bit of this and and you don't get any money back until we recoup our money that we spent on executives and parking and car leases and they they calculate all that how much the building costs how much electricity all that stuff they cut it's you've seen those I'm sure oh yes contracts they're i siren I've sat in on my own way yeah but you know it's part of the process and no leverage no leverage that's the thing they've got the leverage but now and now they don't have the leverage but they still figure out a way to pull it off it's really weird cuz who the is buying an albums now no no one right yet these record companies are still figuring out that Klingon do you like a lamprey suck blood out it's still stayin alive and their fat fingers driving their fat mercedes-benz they know how to do it they just figure out a way to grab people that are just just getting poppin

55:54you know and just sign it and then figured out a way to get in with these streaming companies have you paid attention to that a little bit yeah that's the darkest it's even darker than the music distribution yeah cuz the artists get like no money point oh oh oh oh wow yeah Steven Tyler was talking about it with me it's just he was explaining it and there's a it's the company's actually core the organization's actually called MMA what is something what would it stand for musicians for some some sort of an act where they're you know trying to stop these streaming companies from ripping off these artists music Modernization Act yeah it's dark yeah but it's along the same lines it's like people figuring out a way to just take something from somebody because you need it you know you're broke you're desperate you're something you signed a contract oh we gotta buy

56:53contract as soon as they and then music that was invented like how they put Led Zeppelin on the streaming service you know they that would date there was no streaming well that's it should be a whole new contract right mmm it's true with audiobooks too you know I mean even books now and all these old publications they never envisioned that there would be you know IV ebooks and audiobooks and all these different distribution areas I would imagine that audio books probably mirror the sales of regular books now I know something at least in my circle I know so many people who just use audiobooks and they hardly ever they hardly ever read and what they've essentially done is taken that commuter time that was just dead air and filled it up with books I can't when I went seals when I put in the steelbook I couldn't believe how many people hit me about the audio cuz I did my own

57:49audiobook and I just couldn't I didn't even it was your was that came out two years ago hmm and it just never dawned on me that people even listen to audiobooks you know I when it made me angry that I did the read so quickly I was like I should have invested a little bit more time like gotten a coach or something right you know I just like read it what percentage of your books were audio versus paper it's a good question I'm gonna I'm gonna guess about 30% for maybe four thirty forty percent so it's closing in closing it is fifty yeah because you know people can now speed it up a little bit so they can get through it quicker you know they will do that with podcasts right listen to us right now like we're on speed yeah yeah now when you're done with this book and you know you you get back from this monk thing and you you realize that this is made like some sort of a fundamental

58:48shift in the way you live your life and you put this book out is there a real sense that people who read this book are gonna get that from you and I mean are you aware that you're probably gonna change the way a lot of people live their lives I hope so I'm at I don't know if they'll change their lives but I think it I hope I hope that it helps them look through things through a different lens you know and you know make their own decisions you know one of the takeaways from the book isn't so much specific around the monastery it's around this notion of building your life resume you know and just stepping into the unknown because to me that's for me that's where I learned the best I mean you could I could get a traditional coach or go to seminars or experts but I just don't learn I learned by going into the unknown and I hope it just it just motivates people to have a little bit

59:36more urgency and do stuff like that mmm little monastery right but you know there's an old Japanese ritual you might be familiar with it I don't know called the misogi and the thought around the misogi is it was introduced me to me by kyle korver played at the hawks for the Atlanta Hawks and the the notion around the misogi is you do something so hard one time a year that it has an impact the other 364 days of the year on you there you go so far beyond you know for me that was my hundred mile run I mean I can look back since 2008 I've had moments like that every year but though and I believe in that I believe in that and I don't know why just brought that up but but it's true and so I it's just kind of one of the themes around this urgency and and you know creating memories etc you know I think there's things like that sort of highlight that urgency that if you just live your life

60:39like at the same steady static pace maybe sometimes you don't feel it as much like like I'm sure after you did your hundred mile run like when it was over you probably probably felt so good to relax oh well first of all for me the the pressure around completing the run when I did the run I raised millions of dollars for charity and everyone in my world knew I was doing it I gave myself 90 days to train for it is that what's normal I would say like for the people in the shape that I was in going into it probably a year eight months six months I mean well I mean I gave myself 90 days I started in August and the race was 90 days later and everyone in my world was donating or involved or knew about it so if I didn't finish it so much can go wrong in a hundred mile run you know like if something goes wrong in a marathon at Mile 19 you got it out you got seven

61:41more miles let you know something goes wrong at Mile 19 you have 81 miles left you can't gut most people can't cut that out I don't think I could I felt so relieved when it was done because I was like man I did it and no one can take it away from me what was the longest you had written wrote not written ran before that I ran 250s 250s 250 miles I mean never did miles at a time so I did two 10-hour about 10 hour runs twice and 50 miles in those 10 hours probably around there somewhere in there so but you knew that you were at the halfway mark roughly and you could push through the rest I knew that if I got to 50 mile if I could get to 50 miles in 10 hours I could basically even injured walk the rest right the allocated time now after that was over and after you did do that 100 miles how much of a shift did that make in the way you thought about time and effort totally changed my life

62:41completely completely talking about this miss Sookie it completely changed my life that was in 2006 I think that I did the run and it's completely changed my life because when I started running my goal was to run two miles if I could run two miles in 18 minutes nine minute pace I considered myself a runner and I worked towards that goal like out of college I was like just got out of college and let me try to run two miles you know like it took me a little to get there mm-hmm and in nine minute pace you know and fast forward I ran there's nothing in my body changed this is the same legs God gave me same lugs God gave me I'm not very strong nothing's changed but I took that two-mile body and ran a hundred miles I bet almost a lot of people that are listening this could run two miles and with a gun to their head they could run two miles if they had to and the only

63:41thing that changed was the way I perceived what I thought I could do in this run and I realized after the race that holy I did 50 X what my initial goal was like I was under indexing 50 X in this category of my life mmm what are the areas of my life Jesse what other areas of your life man are you under indexing in like okay if your sales quota at Marquee jet my company was 20 Jack cards is that because I knew I could get it and it was comfortable or should I be like Anna put me on the board for 40 fellows this month let me see what the I can do right I was living in this like humfrye was going through life like this routine mm-hmm and routines are great but routines can also be a rut you can't get better in a routine and if you get soaked when you're in a routine time goes fast when you're add to your routine time goes slow so I was so comfortable in my routine I was like man

64:37it I don't wanna go through life like this I don't go through life like this you know and I was just listening you're going up I'm going how's particular listening yeah I'm sorry so I'm sorry I do this all the time I'm just locked don't even know where people are listening yeah I'm locked into you I was going flat you know I was just doing the same and I want a nice 45-degree upward angle yeah so this this run showed me man I was under indexing so much what I thought I was capable of and it made me think like what else am i capable of what about recovery like what was it like when you were done well at Mile 94 I realized that had six toenails in my shoe so that was an uncomfortable feeling and when I felt them rattling felt and rattle around and when I took my shoes off my feet were so up is it because your feet swell while you're running and you if you have like

65:34a size 10 you're supposed to swap out to a size 11 later that's not yes I swap I want to size up but I blisters I bad Lister's my blisters were really bad and bad before you ran or know them I got them as I was going and they looked like it literally looked like I'd swallowed red grapes and they went to the bottom of each of my toe I mean it was just so I was in a wheelchair for four days after the race four days just goes to the bottom of the blisters and you know but so for me for me it's like a regular guy it was a it was a very powerful moment for me you know and it was worth it was worth it it was all well well well worth it once Ike was done I realized like I'm okay I'm not in shock I'm not dehydrated I'm just in super pain that was a great moment and I have a regret from that race like one of the biggest regrets in my life like I don't like the way I finished the race I ran 99

66:34the last mile took me 48 minutes and literally had to like grab my show my brothers shoulders and like I just if I could do it all over I wanted to really finish that like a champion you know and I was just very disappointed I'm very happy about it but I also have one of my biggest regrets from the race it's just that you know I got to that moment where and I just didn't finish it the way I wanted to finish it what was wrong oh man my joints like my hips and my knees were just like swollen just so much from just so much pain they were just it was just so at 75 I felt I just kind of like was running and then also I was on the ground because like I just buckled because the it was it was my joints not my muscles just like my you know like I said if you if you roll your thumb around for 24 hours your thumbs gonna fall off you know it's just that motion and pounding and and and I didn't know

67:31what I was wearing cotton I was like I did everything wrong you know but I did it and when you did get done with that in the wheelchair for four days how long did it take before your body felt normal like your joints normalized your hips and your knees and took about to over the little over two weeks Wow yeah so you just hobbling around for two weeks thinking about it I'm still impacted by it really mm-hmm how so I like a huge cyst like from all the stress on my foot making like a ham sized when you say like yeah yeah you have a skull yeah like oh like how big was it like big enough I couldn't wear shoes what I wear sneakers that like yeah it was I'll show you a picture he removed I got a drain twice and then I went to like a real like Oh almost fruitarian diet and went away fruitarians is all fruit why did that do it I I don't know oh yeah I used to try fruits with

68:35vegetables or fruits with anything else so I've I'll for 27 years I've only had fruit till 12 o'clock noon that's all he in the morning but I extended that out further and it went away on its own from fruit I don't know if that's the reason maybe over my just went away right but I've made some significant changes in my diet yeah so but but what led you to be the fruitarian idea I read a book called fit for life when I was a 20 right before my first marathon I was 21 or 22 years old like looking for an edge and in the book it challenges the reader to try to eat one of the principles of the book is to only fruit until noon we can talk about it but it challenges the reader to try it for 10 days and then day 11 go back to your regular breakfast and see how you feel so I did like I could invest 10 days to try this and on day 11 I went back to oatmeal and toast

69:31or whatever and I was like oh my god man I felt so sluggish right and like bloated and I was like I never went back and it's and that that's unwavering I'm unwavering on that I've run marathons and never changes fruit till noon and so that's why now what are these people eat in the monastery so they have a very light breakfast so that suited me well they've fruit in the morning and then their lunch they called dinner that's their big meal so the afternoon meals sup is this like dinner and then at night it was super light like soup and salad or whatever's really like almost one meal a day are they vegetarian somewhere but others weren't that censures not all of them were which was which was interesting did you expect them to be I did I lost a lot of weight there I lost like 17 pounds 70 pounds yeah weeks yeah why so what do you think it's lack of sugar yeah no

70:29carbs lack of sugar one meal a day they don't eat any bread or they did I didn't mm-hmm you know I wanted to put a little asterisk next to my thing I want I went in there saying to myself I didn't want to have I wanted to come back clean mm-hmm so I really try not to have any grains and I did have some grains but not not a lot and I walked a lot I walked 120 miles over the over the time I was there up and down their driveway and so I lost a lot of a lot of weight I gained it all back but it yeah now these people that live this life do they have something they're working towards do they have an idea that they're working towards I mean when you when you press them on it and ask them like why you here do you ever plan on leaving do you ever see yourself going somewhere else it's a really good question I asked them all those questions so no they felt like that was their calling

71:22they were doing what they were supposed to be doing and that they were committed to that lifestyle so no they weren't uh there was no thought of going back there had been monks that have left the monastery just wasn't the right lifestyle for them but the monks that were there when I was there you know 50 years they were committed and they're not going anywhere when they say that's what's confusing to me like I understand that they're enjoying and I understand that they're they they like that life but that it's a calling like the calling to do nothing or just think that's just sacrifice mm-hmm serve God live a life of purity this is not right I couldn't do it but I think that's kind of the mindset around it and step away from the regular life that they were living what's interesting is that the they weren't born into the monastery right a lot of these guys made

72:26this decision in their 20s 30s you know so what were their jobs before they did it all over the board all over the board literally one guy I mean one of the most was a lifeguard as a teenager Wow I mean just all over the board so but regular jobs just always felt connected to God and connected to this higher living a life just you know under these terms why what's fascinating to me is that you're saying that they're so happy because if you get around me how many how many people were in this monastery eight and they're all male yes eight men if you get eight random men in there you know what's the youngest age of the guys 35 35 or 70 is you get eight random 35 to 70s now how many of them are happy actually truly happy maybe two right how many people do you think are happy well they just did a study that is a famous Harris study on happiness in this country I think 67

73:28percent of people are unhappy that it's here's what here I did this Jo this is a good test maybe you'll want to do this I did this when I was speaking at an event for 500 Wall Street people recently and it was fascinating a queue through it you can tell me if you feel comfortable with it but if you take all the areas of your life and put them in a blender okay so take where you live your relationships your finances your health you everything everything put it in one big blender and blend it up and on a scale of one to ten with a ten being the Dali Lama of happiness and a one being a guy that's at rock with zero being some of this at rock-bottom what's your happiness number me yeah I'm pretty happy well I don't know I wouldn't do it that way I definitely wouldn't give it a number okay because I feel like that you're making something you're you're turning

74:22like a constant state of thinking and expression and consideration you're turning it into a number and I just I don't like that idea I don't like that idea because I think it's a management issue I think a lot of what happiness is a management issue and decisions that you're making right now like you could be in a state of mind right now but you could make some decisions to adjust that and over the next couple hours you'll get to a much better place and these constant management decisions they waver in and out of your life on a daily basis like this idea that you could have a good mindset and all sudden you'll be happy that's horseshit like it's that's like it's like the tide it comes in and it comes out there's gonna be days where you're just not feeling so good physically and that's going to affect the way your happiness level is it's never static it's never the exactly the

75:16same true but if you look at it overall at 30,000 feet and you had to give yourself a grade we cannot be as it's what I would say okay so you're happy okay so I I'll take that I'll take that most people in that room yeah raise there I said if anyone is seven and not you know for anyone the listening that wants to do it raise your hand if you're you know seven or below I don't to put anyone on the spot and majority the room stood up right being a seven and thinking you know like seven is a pretty happy number mmm-hmm but a seven if my son comes home with a seventy on a test to see - right and all I'm saying is but what's interesting about the test though if you do actually go through the process for those that like go through that and get a number in their head or whatever you want to give their self a grade right your brain automatically goes to a 10 and then subtracts the two

76:08or three things pop in that make you better bring your happiness down it's a great way to identify what's making you unhappy and that you know what I mean right like you started attending like oh my relationship this is that usually it triggers an automatic like this is what's up in my life response right and you can it helps you identify but it's interesting we have benchmarks in so many things in our life you have an IQ test you have tax brackets to measure your your wealth or financial statements you have IQ tests like I said you can get on a scale to measure your weight but you're right happiness is one of those things it's like how do you benchmark it you know what I mean it kind of fluctuates and it's like hunger I mean it's it's it's it's something that's go go in and out it's always there but happy as is a good answer yeah but I this is something I've cultivated for a

76:57long time and avoided things that make me unhappy and figured out what those things are and been very rigid about eliminating them from my life and one of the big ones is eliminating interactions with people they're negative that is gigantic and be because I've realized that I'm not really as independent as I used to like to think I was I used to like to think that my thought process was independent and that I don't give a what anybody thinks that's nonsense people say that because they absolutely care what people think and it bothers them so they say I don't give a but that I don't give a stuff is almost entirely nonsense you you care and you care in both ways you care if people critical of you care if people are positive you but you also care if people are living positive lives and they're motivating you that's that's a big one people are fuel and other

77:52people it's one of the reasons why I like talking to people one of the reasons why I like to do podcasts because I get a lot at a you know like just talking to you about your time in the monastery or your your push to get to that hundred miles like you get energy out of people like that and you think about this energy and you think about this inspiration when you're doing other things and it also sets in your mind that when you meet these exceptional people that move you like what are the characters what are the qualities that they have what are the characteristics that they that they possess and those things become significant and important to you whereas if you live around a bunch of people that are complaining and bitching about everything and they see the negative and everything and they're always whining those people are the opposite of that they're the opposite of inspiration and

78:40they're just they're they're mud you're just like what it's like you're up to your ankles in mud you try to trudge through life it's difficult you're not light it's not it's not pushing it it's not a wind at your back the winds in your face and it's rough you know and over time I've learned that these people you just you're not gonna fix them I used to want to fix them when I was young I used to want to go hey man I see what you're doing like - don't do that anymore listen just try just just do this and and stop doing that and start doing this and if you just work towards this you could be successful and then a week later the guys doing the same you're like okay I'm wasting a significant amount of my energy on someone who doesn't want to waste any of their energy on themselves and so managing the the community and the tribe that you're in making sure that you're a

79:30good member of that tribe that you're doing your part you know and there's a lot of cynicism in these days about inspiration and about motivation because there's a lot of fake you know you can go on Instagram and you see a million of these inspirational quote pages and they're run by people that are probably depressed you know you see a lot of people that are you know talking about how to get ahead in life but they're not really doing anything themselves so there's a lot of cynicism involved in that but there's also sincerity in it and you can get if you just look at it with a pure heart in a pure mind you can get a lot of energy out of that and when you around happy inspirational people that are successful it makes you feel better and you get inspired and if you act on that inspiration your life will be more fulfilled and it's not just inspirational in terms of financial

80:27success but in terms of doing difficult things whether it's running a hundred miles it doesn't pay you a goddamn thing other than the the wealth of the knowledge that you can push yourself to such an extreme or anything else whether it's someone who becomes really good at playing chess or someone who's really good at martial arts or or whatever it is there's there's a great feeling in these overcoming these difficult things because life is never this just constant state of I'm at a nine all day and what I'm with my wife I hit ten yay and I stay like that that's not real what's real is like you saying that you went to this monastery and felt all this this angst about meditating and being alone and not having your phone and not having the input but then when it comes out of it then you have this reward so you you push through this and you have these uncomfortable feelings and you

81:24came out of those uncomfortable feelings with this newfound appreciation for time and this newfound respect for your own existence in your own space and carving out three hours for yourself a day that's where it all comes from it all comes from life lessons and the lessons are learned through struggle and I think that there's a lot of people out there that think somehow or another you're gonna get to someplace where you living in silk sheets and you're getting your toes done on someone's dropping grapes into your mouth I don't want that I've never wanted that that guy's not gonna be happy he's gonna be bored hour into the grapes you can get those grapes away from me stop painting my toes what am i doing in this bed I got to do something I'm not stimulated the human organism the animal that we are needs constant stimulation because it evolved trying to find food

82:13and escaped enemies and find shelter escaped nature escaped the elements try to survive and this is the great joy that you have in taking care of your children so you can protect your children from the elements and the enemies and feed them and and it's also the great sadness that you see in losers when I see a loser I see some guy who's 43 years old lives in his parents basement he hates the world like that was a baby man this is a baby that somebody just gave shitty nutrients to whether it's nutrients in the forms of food or in the form of thoughts and ideas and examples and this kid developed these horrible self-defeating patterns of behavior that have led them to this point where there this this middle-aged person with no future and no idea of how to get out of this rut and probably never will escape it and might just wind up sucking on a gun you know I

83:09mean this is this is the world that we live in today and I think part of that world is because we have been fed this line of horseshit that you're supposed to seek comfort and I don't think you are I think you're supposed to seek lessons and you're supposed to seek difficult tasks and and and and accomplishments and through those things and through doing things that are hard to do even if it's just a 90 minute hot yoga class I do a 90-minute yoga class man those last 20 minutes I do not want to be there man and I definitely don't want to give a hundred percent and I can cheat I can I could kind of half-ass it I can I can but if I don't and I get through it when that time is up and the lady says namaste and everybody gets up like man I made it you know I lost 15 pounds my yoga mat is drenched at the point like it literally wring it out and fill a jug up with water but through

84:01that struggle I will now have a better day and I better do it again tomorrow or do something else because if I just think well tomorrow I'm just gonna coast and eat Twinkies and watch TV oh hello sadness my old friend hello depression because when you're not doing anything you feel like and that's just a part of human being and we can pretend that were something other than what we really are and we could pretend nah me man I'm just cool just chilling doing nothing you're a human you're human being you evolved from the hundreds of thousands of years of hunters and gatherers and people that were struggling those were human reward systems are carved deeply into your DNA and if you don't respect that if you don't respect the mechanism of happiness and fulfillment and what you really need to do in order to feel satisfied in life camaraderie love family friendship

84:53struggle testing yourself learning all those things are imperative they're all a giant part of being a person I love it that was amazing and I'm thinking in my head am i checking those boxes as you're talking and am i living my life like that you know and uh yeah I agree with you it sounds like you are I am yeah no I feel waiver right yeah have days in and days absolutely but to be reinforced yep and I feel like you know as I'm listening to talk about that I'm literally going through like the last 10 years in my life you know and when I live with David when I went on the modest with all these things they're all about getting an edge and doing what you you know and it is it's I think it's like part of being human yeah that stuff makes me feel most the most alive too you know like that just makes me feel alive yeah you know and also like little improvements over things

85:47it's why doing difficult things is good whether it's running so I give you're running and you run you could run two miles and then one day you get it up to three it's like I remember when I struggled with two now I can do four little improvements you know and you really see that in yoga class and in particular for me because I'm not good at it you know so when I do a yoga class and I can hold a pose until the net you know you're holding these pose for a minute if you could stand on one foot grabbing your other foot lifting it above your head and keep your arm out straight and your balance and your foots on fire and your cores engaged but if you can get to the point where they say stop you you've you feel like wow I didn't used to be able to do that I used to be with the whole for ten seconds and I would fall down and then I have to start all over again start from scratch there's little

86:38improvements where you feel yourself getting a little better at something whether it's jiu-jitsu or anything else little improvements I think are what life is all about and I think also they're they're a tool to feed the mind because I really believe the mind needs these little lessons the mind needs these little these little tasks and if you your brain doesn't get that I think it atrophies and it gets depressed and it's like it's like I think that's half of what a lot of people's sadness is is this lack of stimulation and reward lack of these peaks and valleys and this again this idea that we're constantly fed that you should be comfortable it's so true I mean when Goggins live with me his rule is we had to do something every day that sucked that was his really he's a master at that tell me about it and what did he make you do every day sucked he didn't

87:35tell me that we're gonna do that five times a day though you know no I mean I remember one day well if the first thing we did was we came in and he he wanted to see how many pull-ups I could do so we could map out the month he lived with me for a month and I went to the pull-up bar and I got like maybe eight pull-ups which is an exaggeration I probably got like four pull-ups a lot of people listening say eight and then he said I wait thirty seconds go and do it again and I went up on the pull-up bar and I did maybe like three or four you said I'd wait thirty seconds I want you to do it again and I got up on the pull-up bar and I did maybe like one kipping you know getting my damn chin over the bar barely and I dropped down I was all jacked up and I said all right well what's what's next he said well what's next is we're not leaving here until you do a hundred more we're not leaving the

88:23gym till you do a hundred more that day now like right now right now so you have seven other like probably seven or ten and I was like man Goggins that's impossible and he said you know I already I already know what your biggest problem is and he's like the limitations you're putting on yourself our self-imposed get back on the bar and you know Roger that man and I got up on the bar and I over over the course of an hour - I did them and that started our journey of like you're about to go in a place where you've never been on the you know and you know we went I remember one day I was sitting on the couch and in Connecticut where I was living at the time and on the ticker on the on the TV the emergency broadcast system came up stay inside freezing rain icy conditions high winds stay inside like beeping stay inside and goggles like this is amazing man let's go for a

89:18run and I'm like they're telling us the exact opposite there they're broadcasting to the whole community to stay inside right so we go for a ten-mile run in the blizzard and we come home and I lived on a lake and kids are playing hockey on the lake so we go down and he takes his hand he moves all the snow off the ice he gets a boulder and he breaks the ice a little hole in the ice with the boulder and then he takes his hand he makes the hole little bit bigger and then he jumps in and then he points at me and he takes his finger and he singles for me to jump in I'm not going in the bucket freezing cold water cuz my mother told me as a kid in Long Island don't go anywhere near the frozen what you fall in you have like a minute you know right he's bathing in it so of course I go in and he looks at me is like man you got about him about 4 to 2 or 2 to 4 minutes gonna get hypothermia

90:11we just went on a run we got to get you out of a lake and I go to get out he goes you can't get out he goes if your skin touches the ice it's gonna stick to the ice like the kid and Christmas story his tongue that sticks to the pole you know so he puts my shoes back on my hands and picks my ass up and puts my sock I put my socks on or whatever night I could bear crawl out of the ice and I run up and I see my wife looking out the window as I'm running into the house and we come in she says to Goggins you know like what's the medical benefit of jumping in a frozen lake and he said to her there's no medical benefit she's like this is what your husband signed up for you know I was like I want to see how far he's willing to go to get to his goals and I was like this is gonna be some 30 days Jesus was the toughest thing he made you do it was just the consistency of it you

91:02know is this like it was just like it was just went everywhere I went he shadowed me for a 30 day he went to every business meeting we flew together he lived it you know with my wife and I did you think like what the did I sign up for this is back in 2010 so this is a you know yes I did I was and the book came out two years ago no okay yeah I waited five years I didn't I didn't you know and expected to ever be a book it was just like you know at all there was no book being discussed I I kept a little blog about it you know so why'd you do it um I just felt like there was so much in it there's so many lessons and it was funny fish-out-of-water like he's coming into our house my wife owns Spanx I mean like the dull dynamic of this was crazy and I just felt there were a lot of lessons that could be learned through it and you know hook a shot at it Jesus Christ yeah he's a maniac when he did

92:04the podcast I got here he showed up super early and when I got here he was already with his shirt off doing chin-ups it was like I walked into the back where the gym is and he's he's in there I'm like look at this amazing he's a savage yeah he's legit but these are all the lessons you know that you're talking about you know and you don't know where the nuggets come from you put yourself in a position mm-hmm for the nuggets to appear and they don't appear addict oposition is like I'm gonna go get Goggins I'm gonna go live with a month really radical but you put yourself out there like you were saying and you live a life where those lessons find you yeah and then in seek them you seek them yeah well Goggins story is so fascinating because he wasn't that guy he was fat and out of shape and unmotivated and lazy and you know talked openly about the first time

92:55he ran like he quit he was supposed to you know I ran about 3/4 of a mile I think he said and quit and he was exhausted and it's just drinking milkshakes and all up and somehow or another decided he's not going to be that guy anymore and went a hundred and eighty degrees yeah came this intensely motivated iron man yeah yeah I was at the race I saw him at the race where he broke all the bones in his feet you know I saw him I was at that I participated in that race it's the first time I saw him it's how I met him and 2007 and uh you know he broke all the bones on his feet he broke yeah he was running a hundred I was running this race it was a 24-hour race as a relay team I was with four friends and the format of the race is you know you run a mile I run a mile mother whatever team runs the most amount of miles right wins the race he had no teammates that sounds like

93:52where's the rest of the team that sounds like him and he weighed a lot at the time so and I watched him wait a lot was he bodybuilding at the time he was just baiting it probably two hundred and sixty 70 pounds maybe was dead lifting and maybe maybe even worse so was this the one where he ran 24 hours all around the riches to show that he could run a hundred miles yes and he won of himself yeah yeah he told me about that I saw it I didn't know he broke all the bones on his feet he broke some bones yeah he didn't even tell me about that and then he ran a marathon a month later yeah he's a animal yeah yeah I mean he really is yeah just tell me also the play that is your wife when you say he's coming to live with you I just said it really fat old Sarah clay I flew out I flew out to meet Goggins after the race you know I cold called him and my wife asked me how the meeting went and in the

94:49meeting you know I realized like I kind of wanted to get the secret sauce like fries you know yeah and um was that the idea like yeah I was like by being around some such an intensely motivated guy that you would get the rub get the rub and I'd fallen into routine I couldn't get out of mmm and I just you know like I was like just get me out of my routine man you know and I want to learn from you and that kind of thing and my wife asked me have a lunch meeting way and I told her that you know he's come live with us she was like why was lunch meeting him and did you were you gonna propose this before the meeting I went with that what happened was I went to the meeting and with no real agenda other than like I want to meet this guy man you know it's 2007 I want to meet him 2008 something around around there was 10 years ago and I was just so like drawn to him you

95:49know and I actually went home and then and then asked him to come you know live with me and and he said yes and then I told my wife after this guy's coming in two days now why did he say yes I mean isn't he busy did you offer him money like how did this know he was on he was uh he was act he was still in the military at the time and yeah I think I don't know exactly what triggered I remember asking him to comment I remember him saying to me if you're crazy enough to ask guy like me to come live with you I'm crazy enough to come three days later shows up with one bag knowing him that is exactly what it would sound like if he said it with those crazy eyes Jesus Christ sweetie this is David Wow did you give him an objective do you say did you say why you wanted him to come or what what you're dragging out at that time in my life I had a I was I had a just left I

96:58have my timeline right I think I just left the my private this private jet car company I had a marquis jet I was just starting out in the zeeco there's coconut water business and I was in a routine you know I was in a rut not a I was just doing the same stuff man I was so comfortable and I was just like this come shake it up man you know you can travel with me I got some meetings coming up we'll live together and there was no book there was no anything right the book happened years later and he said you said he would do it that's crazy that he just I loved it by the way it was the best months of my life I love being around him he's an amazing guy I loved you know we were watching games we were working out I was going out midnight 3:00 in the morning we were running in the blizzards we 3:00 in the morning one one day he was like we're gonna run for miles every four hours for

97:5148 hours Joe I was like I gotta work he's like no you don't know you don't you can work 40 in 48 hours so I would wake up at midnight we started at midnight we would run let's say it took us 40 minutes and then we would come back we'd have you know what 3 hours and 20 minutes of rest and then at 4 a.m. we go again for miles boom boom boom boom boom 48 hours Jesus Christ one time I've a million stories I mean we went in the sauna and he's like alright we're gonna stay in the sauna for uh and I'm a sauna guy I thought I was a sauna guy by the way and actually this was the steam and he's like we're gonna stay in here for thirty thirty minutes eight ounces of water okay we jack it up it's cooking in there it's I walk in I'm like holy it's so hot in here he sits down he's whistling Dixie you're sitting in the corridors I'm like you know eight minutes in and my waters gone

99:01I've already tracked my eight ounces of water and about 19 minutes in I'm like Goggins I gotta get out he's like you can't get out I'm like no I'm gonna I'm gonna pass out I gotta get out he's like you can't get out I'm like no no and I just I couldn't even wait for him to say no again cuz I'm about to I'm about to pass out I can feel myself about to pass out I open up the door all the smoke from the steam room goes flying out of the door I sit right in the chair he comes storming out and he looks at me he's like oh you don't look good I don't know I'm gonna pass out he goes we got to abort abort to be like we're not doing the rest of the 30 minutes like I got it passed that was the only pass I got cuz you almost died in the sauna or the steam I was steam room is different because it's moisture in your pretend I was taking in like the eucalyptus cooked cooked yeah I mean you're really

99:52getting cooked it's not like it was sauna you're getting like kind of dry roasted but in the the moisture is different like you can't get his hot in a steam room as you can in a sauna correct yeah yeah so this was a series of these it's them you know getting poached throughout the yeah god no he would just make these up like come up with these ideas it was just constant man like I mean we would go to work we would be sitting at work and I'd have like a 30 minute break and he'd be like Burpee test like wow I'm at work he'd be like I want to see how many burpees you can do in 10 minutes I'd be like Burpee test and I was like in the middle of work I would like get down take off Mike you know whatever I was wearing I'm getting like my boxers or whatever like just to get and I would do as many burpees as I could in 10 minutes and be soaking wet and I'd walk

100:43into my next meeting and everybody knew he like he was there was part of the thing so you explained to all these people here Wow closed every deal I close every deal head cuz you so amped up in fact plus he was there who's gonna say no is that you were fascinated I've walked in and maybe like at the end of them at the end of the meeting I'm like you want to talk it's like whatever the you guys remember we're in we're in wow that sounds so much better than living with a monk I miss them yeah it's you keep in touch yeah we go I haven't spoken to in a while but yeah I'm known if since 2007 now minutes in ten years Wow yeah would think that that would be hard but exciting whereas the monk thing seems like the drone of it all would just get to you yeah and like I couldn't go back to my room and my surroundings right in the monk thing I was like in their world forever forever

101:50and they live in the same way that you did they have a little cell as well yeah I actually didn't see their rooms but yeah from what I understand even smaller than when I was in I wasn't just Mahler smaller than this table of my room is about the size this table the weather's were smaller from what I understand yeah how's it impossible dad what there's no pizzetta's little bit like just a little bed and just going to a space with god blackout backup start all over again drone drone yeah no I think the four miles every 40 minutes or whatever the it is or four miles over four hours that sounds way better yeah that sounds crazy at a time but yeah how'd you end it how did he end the 30 days he left me a note on a post-it thanks that's it that's it Jesus that's intense yeah thanks Wow Jesus Christ Micah byes are like long hug right changing exchanging planning Thanks

102:57that would be an incredible service like if he wanted to do that just go to like billionaires and just say you have to do what I tell you to do for a month I bet a lot of people would do that I'm sure just charge charge some stupid amount of money and have him live with you for a month you know it's hard and anybody personality-wise overtime having roommates it's hot you know what I mean yeah so he's with you 24/7 yeah I'm it's hard do you ever wake you up every day every day he woke you up yep come in and tapped me on the shoulder time to get up let's do with my wife right next to me Jesus Christ it wasn't happen time to do this it was get up does it say Elise who's courteous doesn't wake your wife up yeah was your wife like what in the full of your doing she loved them one of them but was she to you like what in the are you doing she said you're a do you mind she she

104:05said you crazy but 30 days later you must have been in sick shape ridiculous shape no ridiculous I when he left I didn't do anything for six weeks just to catch I didn't do anything for six weeks because I couldn't keep the intensity up I just I couldn't do it I've run a hundred miles I pat on the you know endurance paddle races I've done all this I couldn't do it Wow I was just like why you know it was wild damn I look back on that stuff man it's like I just feel so lucky to have had the opportunity you know what I mean oh yeah like I said you're around that you're around the best dog trainers you're around you know and I get to live with it cuz my wife's an amazing entrepreneur I get to live with greatness you know and just you go around these things and it's just these people it's just the stuff that you can learn if you allow yourself you know to

105:06listen you know I'm not a great listener I'm learning to be a good listener because even like you were giving that little monologue and you were going through it I was like yes and that is resonating with me on a high level you put yourself in this position and then you have to do you have to be able to extract it and apply it yeah yeah and exactly what I was saying is what you got out of Goggins like you were around greatness you around a man who just does not accept mediocrity and does not accept a shitty effort he wants everything your body can do and through doing that you just get something more out of your mind you get something more out of your life the those hard days the the relaxation is earned you appreciate it yes relaxation without any effort it's just you feel proud of yourself too yeah like that's I think like you know it's so important to do things that

106:04make you feel proud of yourself right you know and that's when I left the monastery you asked me like you know how'd you feel when you got in the car and the the exact feeling was proud that you did that I did it wow this is like proud of myself like just I stuck with it I did it and like did you have a little bit of that place - yes yes I'm like can I Obert eats when I get home like stop it the first five guys burger yeah exactly exactly oh man well listen dude I really appreciate you coming in here man I really enjoyed talking to you likewise awesome stories and and so the two books are available right now anybody could buy them is there an audiobook of both yes audiobooks available inaudible and Apple books and living with the seal and living with the monks thanks a lot brother really appreciate you man thank you I enjoyed it yeah we have a mutual friend