Mental Fitness: The New Performance Enhancer | Aaron Machbitz - Journey to Well

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, Welcome back to the podcast Journey to Well,
I am so excited.
I was on Aaron's podcast awhile back and then I was like
you have to come on my podcastso we can keep talking.
So today I am joined by AaronAmashbitz.
I don't still don't know if Isaid that right, but we're going
with it.

(00:23):
He is also a podcastersomething for everybody podcast.
He is a emotional projector inhuman design and that is all the
introduction I'm going to giveyou, Aaron.
If you could introduce yourself, who is Aaron?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, who am I?
If I think about that question,first thing that pops into my
mind is like, what are my corevalues?
Because I've been talking aboutthat a lot on my podcast and so
, because I'm also about to be adad for the first time, I've
also been thinking a lot aboutthat and what sort of how I want
to stand up with my words andactions and how I want to line
those up.
So who am I to be?

(01:00):
Someone who's consistent,someone who lives with a lot of
zest, someone who's veryresilient and who's honest and
loving.
So that's who I try to be.
I don't know if I show up thatway every single day, but I
think I'm doing a pretty goodjob.
So when someone asks me who Iam, I try to answer those

(01:20):
questions.
It's kind of weird if someoneasked me that, like in a passing
, but you asked me, so that's my, that's my answer.
And then, like on top of that,what do I do?
That makes me who I am.
Well, that's a lot of sort ofdifferent things.
In the last week I've beentelling people what I do is I
just put out little fires,because that's what's been
happening in my businessrecently.
I feel like a small businessowner just puts out little fires

(01:41):
every day, um, because I don'thave a huge team.
I've got a couple people thatwork for me, but mostly I do
everything myself, um, but inreality, I talk for a living.
A lot of talking, whether as aon a podcast, talking wrestling,
talking sports, talking, mentalhealth, talking, personal
development, um, talking infront of businesses or schools,
uh, coaching, um, all that sortof stuff, and then, uh, so

(02:05):
that's pretty much what I do.
That's why I built this studiothat you see in my backyard, so
I can continue talking while myson takes over my room and my
house and my life, which will bea beautiful, beautiful thing.
So then I'll have even moreshit to talk about, which will
be my son and fatherhood,because since I got with my wife
, we've been together like fouryears now, married last year.
I've been talking a lot aboutrelationships, because that was

(02:26):
just like very on the top of mymind.
So now I'm sure I'll talk aboutrelationships, fatherhood,
maintaining intimacy that's beenon the top of my mind a lot as
well with her, with me and mywife.
We had a conversation aboutthat the other day, um, but yeah
, so my opening answer to yourquestion Love that.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Honestly, it's one of my favorite questions to ask,
because I love hearing howpeople how, how do you answer
that question?
And that's such a wide openquestion, and it's also just
exciting to hear people sharehow they would introduce
themselves, because, you know, Ican tell you all my accolades
and everything that I do for aliving, but that's not really
who I am.
So it's fun when I hand overthe reins and let people share
who they are and it's, you know,some people just answer with
what they do and some peopleanswer the whole, the whole

(03:13):
shebang.
So, yeah, so today we are goingto be talking about
relationships, would love totalk about intimacy.
I think that's a huge touchpoint that draws a lot of
interest in my audience and Iwould love to talk a little bit
about the mental health, mentalfitness aspect.
You said that you love talkingabout mental health, slash

(03:34):
mental fitness, and my firstthought was what is the
difference between the two, howdo you distinguish them and why
do you have both of those inthere?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
distinguish them and why do you have both of those in
there?
Yeah, so I mean I can I give alittle backstory about why the
those words are important to me?
So for my whole life I've beenan athlete.
So being an athlete since I waslike four years old, baseball

(04:07):
was my first love.
After baseball, I foundprofessional wrestling, like wwe
um, and so after my baseballcareer ended, I became a
professional wrestler.
I will not tell you what mywrestling name was, because I
don't want you to see picturesof me in my underwear on the
internet.
Uh, so I won't ask I want you totake me seriously, as a serious
person, okay, not as someonewho runs around and got spray
tans and had blonde hair and,you know, showed off their

(04:28):
fucking butt, cheeks or whatever, but anyways.
So then I became a professionalwrestler after my baseball
career and that was my full-timejob.
That's what I wanted to do forthe rest of my life until
something really really, really,really sort of catastrophic and
pivotal happened in my life.
Really really sort ofcatastrophic and pivotal
happened in my life In 2018,we're coming up on the seven

(04:48):
year anniversary of it but Ilost my big sister, rachel,
september 3rd 2018.
She died by suicide and youknow, any, anytime you'd lose
someone to anything.
Your whole life sort ofswitches.
But I think it's a little bitmore when it comes out of
nowhere, especially somethinglike a suicide or it's sudden,
or you feel like you didn't getto say goodbye, and so my life

(05:10):
drastically changed in thatmoment.
It took me you know, likeanyone, a few weeks, few years,
few months to figure out how Iwas going to allow that to
transform my life.
The first couple of weeks, Iwas just trying to stay afloat
like anyone else, sort ofgrieving in that, in that space.
But I say that because that'swhen, just to give a brief

(05:32):
backstory to.
That's the reason why mentalhealth became so important in my
life and so, to sort of at thevery beginning, I dove into
mental health after my sisterdied to avoid my own feelings,
because if I went out and Itried to help a bunch of people,
then I could avoid somefeelings that I didn't didn't
want to.
I knew she was gone.
That wasn't like an issue.
My sister and I had a reallygreat relationship.

(05:54):
I also knew she was reallystruggling and there was always
like this back cloud in the backof my mind that something was
going to happen Because she hadsome scares.
She was in some mentalhospitals.
Police were called a couple oftimes.
I was not living near her, Iwas chasing my dreams.
That's some guilt potentiallythat I have to work with.
So it wasn't anything like that.
There was one specific emotionthat I hadn't dealt with that
we'll get to in a second and soI just dove into this mental

(06:17):
health space trying to learnanything.
I possibly could talk to people, have conversations.
I basically became because Ihad a decent following with
wrestling and there's a lot ofmental health issues in the
professional wrestling space,like drugs, alcohol, all that
type of stuff, like any sort ofentertainment space.
And so I basically became likethis 24 7 hotline for
professional wrestlers and likethat's like not a way to live

(06:39):
life.
Because there was this momentwhere I was like in my bed, like
3 am and I'm like if I go tosleep and I turn my phone off,
right now I could be, someone,could call me and that could be
the last call they ever make.
And I have someone I don't evenknow and I I just can't.
Let's look, not a way to livelife.
And so I had to sort of stepback for a second, reorganize my

(06:59):
own thoughts.
And then I joined a supportgroup, a suicide loss survivor
support group, and this is whereI finally started to sort of
confront my own feelings andemotions, and the and the
emotion that I was avoiding wasthis emotion of relief.
And so I heard this persontalking in this support group
and they were just like theywere like six or seven years in
their journey.
They also lost their sibling aswell, so very close lead to

(07:21):
what I was going through.
And they were talking aboutlike how they had to come to
terms with feeling relief thattheir sibling passed away.
And I was like, fuck you, thefuck are you talking about?
Why on earth would I be relievedthat the person I love most in
the world or one of the people Ilove most in the world is dead?
Why would I feel relief aboutthat?
And it's because if you, like Itold you, like I understood

(07:45):
that my sister was deeplystruggling and there was always
this black cloud saying thiscould be the day, and so if you
don't actually face the factthat there is a sense of like I
don't have to worry every singleday anymore, there is a sense
of relief with that.
And that's very hard toconfront because I'm not, like,
relieved she's dead.
That's a horrible thing tothink about, but I am relieved

(08:07):
that she's no longer constantlyin suffering and in pain and we
can talk about some suicidemyths and things of that nature
in a second that I'm verypassionate about.
But through all that I thenbecame even more aware about
mental health and all thesesorts of things and then,
through that journey of learningabout suicide and suicide
prevention and mental health andmental health conditions and

(08:28):
sort of all the brackets andtrees that come off of that.
I then figured out like okay,now.
I'm in the sports world.
What's like a more proactiveway to think about mental health
?
Because, like, at least when Ithink about it or when I talk to
people about it, you hear thewords mental health and for me,
like, what comes up is likeblack cloud person in the corner

(08:49):
, dark, depressed, not talk tohim.
That person's a psycho, crazyperson.
We don't want to get near.
That's just not, and this isnot how I think about mental
health.
There are certain mental healthconditions that are very, very,
very scary.
I mean, my sister had severedepression no-transcript this.

(09:34):
She talks about emotionalfitness and mental fitness and
she's a genius.
You might want to check out herwork.
I also did an episode with heras well.
But she talks about this likehow, how do we do an emotional
pushup instead of, okay, we goto the gym to work out?
I love working out.
I've been working out since Iwas 13, trying to be jacked or
whatever, like John Cena, so Icould put a fucking armband over
my bicep.
I still haven't gotten thereyet, but it is what it is, and

(10:09):
so the same idea then relates tomental health.
So if we think about mentalhealth as the umbrella term,
okay, this is mental health ishow I think, feel and act in the
everyday and branches that arelike mental health conditions
very serious but also a mentalfitness.
Like what am I doing every dayto be proactive about my mental
health?
You know, every every May wehave this, this month of mental
health awareness month, and Ithink it should be rebranded.
Mental health needs a sexyrebrand because branding is
everything right.
People are not going to buyinto anything unless they feel
like inclined to do it.
That's why all ads have likesex appeal to them.

(10:30):
Okay, let's make mental healthsexy again, which is like mental
health action.
What can I fucking do every day?
Like that is proactive, that Ican get ahead of this stuff
that's going to help me havethis emotional pushup.
So when the death setback, I'mgoing for my first job out of
college and I get rejected, likeI have some actual tools and
practices that help me recoverfrom that.

(10:51):
It's still going to be hard.
You still have to grieve theloss of that thing or that you
didn't get the job or that itwas challenging, but at least
you have a proactive set oftools that you've built around
your mental health toolkit thatallow you Okay.
So I journal here.
That works for me.
Actually.
I go for a walk here.
That works for me.
Actually I do.
This works for me, this worksfor me.
Someone said that like a coldshower was good for them.
That's not really my vibe.

(11:11):
I'm staying on this vibe, Likehow do you know that works for
you if you've never likebasically thrown shit against
the wall?
And so I feel mental health islike the umbrella term that we
have.
We think about now like mentalperformance, as like a
performance enhancer.
We think we think about sleepnow as like performance enhancer
.
Okay, how do I think abouttaking care of my mental health
as a performance enhancer?

(11:32):
That is what.
That's what I'm trying to getto, and then relating it to
fitness as like okay, what'ssomething I can do every day to
take care of my health?
And so that's what I thinkabout mental health and mental
fitness, and also a littlebackstory on why it's important
to me.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
What can I do every day for my mental health?
That's a performance enhancer,love that, love that question,
love that mindset of how am Itaking care of myself.
So let me ask you, and I wouldlove in terms I love talking
about relationships and I knowthat you have been talking a lot

(12:08):
about relationships, so maybemore so tailored towards
relationships but what can I doevery day, or things that I do
every day, or what has beenworking for you to protect your
mental health, to build thatmental capacity and your
emotional capacity, to then showup for your people?

(12:28):
And that can be your wife.
It can also be your friends,your community, your parents,
your family, your clients.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
I think it starts with asking yourself a bunch of
questions.
I think three questions aresuper important and they're very
easy, and in the sports world,we call them start, stop and
continue.
So if you want to think abouthow you want to start taking
care of yourself, for yourself,so you can be there for other
people or be there for yourself,whatever the case may be,

(12:59):
because the fastest way toimprove your life is to stop
doing the things that make youfeel like shit, so you got to
figure that out, okay.
So that's where you get thisstart, stop, continue method.
So the first thing is okay,what should I stop doing?
Everyone knows they have thisinkling like in their life.
We have really strong intuition.
Sometimes we don't trustourselves, but we know deep down
we're our, we're our best coach.
That's why you have to have toask yourself the right questions

(13:21):
Okay, what should I?
What should I stop doing?
What's not really helping me?
Okay, I'm having three or fourbeers every night.
Maybe I could have one.
I'm getting too late asleep.
I'm on my phone right before Igo to bed.
I'm on my phone right when Iwake up.
Okay, I'm not nurturing myrelationships.
I'm not taking time to takecare of myself.
I'm not moving my body, I'meating too much sugar, whatever
it is.

(13:41):
There's a list of all the shitthat we do that all of us could
stop doing.
Now, don't stop doing all ofthem.
Pick one, one thing you wannastop doing, and you know that
you've been thinking about it.
Someone brought it up to you.
Maybe you like spin in the backof your mind Okay, I'm doing
that thing, I'm stopping thatthing.
Then you don't just wannaremove a bad habit, you want to
replace it with something good,okay.

(14:01):
So that comes into question.
What should I start doing?
So I'm going to stop this thingand I'm going to start this
thing.
Okay, what should I start doing?
Easy, think about your fourfundamentals eating, moving,
sleeping, thinking.
Pick one from one of them.
I want to start moving, well.
I want to start eating well.
I want to start sleeping well.
I want to start thinking well.
Again, we can't do everythingall at once.
Pick one thing Okay, I want totry and get seven and a half

(14:22):
hours of sleep every night.
I usually get four.
That's not very good.
Okay, let's ramp it up.
So now we have a start and wehave a stop, and then, um, most
of us are very hypercriticalabout our lives.
As an athlete, I'm alwayspinpointing the things that I do
really bad because I want toget better.
So that's a normal thing, butwe don't really accentuate the
positives.
I tell this story all the timeabout if you don't reward

(14:45):
behavior you like, it's nevergoing to get repeated.
So, for example, if my wife andI are going out for a date and
she gets like, really dressed up, she takes time to get ready,
she continues to eat well and goto the gym and take care of
herself amidst everything thatshe has going on and I never
once appreciate that when shegets dressed up, I don't say oh,
you look beautiful, thank youfor getting dressed, thank you

(15:06):
for taking care of your health,thank you for making it a
priority, Thank you for holdingyourself accountable, and
nothing.
And it happens.
Maybe once she lets it go, shegets dressed up again, don't say
anything.
She gets dressed up a thirdtime, don't say anything.
Now, 10 years later, I'mwondering why she's fat, she's
fat, out of shape and neverfucking takes care of herself.
Well, it's because I neverrewarded the behavior that I
thought was important.

(15:26):
I never once said I appreciateyou for doing that Same thing
for me, and so we have to do itfor ourselves.
So what's the one thing youwant to continue doing that
you're just fucking crushing.
You're getting a good night ofsleep, you're having a good,
solid breakfast.
You're going to the gym everyday.
You're getting 8,000 stepsevery day.
You're having a one hour phoneconversation with your best
friend every week.
That's on the calendar likereward that behavior, right, if

(15:47):
you don't, if you don't rewardit, it's never going to get
repeated.
So you ask yourself start, stop, continue.
So now you have sort of a basis.
And then underneath all of that, once you do those things and
you have sort of a a rhythm inyour life going, you can ask
yourself the question that sortof sums all that up is like
what's my number one self-carestrategy?
And then when people thinkself-care, they're like okay,

(16:08):
well, I'm going to get my nailsdone in six weeks, then I'm
going to go on a vacation that Iplanned 12 years from now.
It's like that's not fuckinghow it works.
A self-care is something thatyou put in your calendar every
single day.
That's a non-negotiable for me.
If I get eight hours of sleep,that's my number one self-care
strategy.
I got.
I played a men's leaguebaseball game last night.
I got home at one.
I still woke up in my regulartime at five, got four hours of

(16:31):
sleep.
Don't feel my best today, butwe just champions, adjust, you
figure it out right.
But my my like six times a weekI'm trying to get eight hours
of sleep.
Now when my son arrives I'mgonna have to sort of readjust
that sort of pattern.
Because you got to get eighthours of sleep in a 24 hour day,
that's going to be my goal.
But my point being is like,whatever it is for you, you got

(16:52):
to know what makes you feel yourbest.
You got to put that in yourcalendar.
If you know that you talk toHannah for 30 minutes once a
week and you're just, life feelsbetter.
That's a non-negotiable, that'sa non no-transcript down eating

(17:34):
well, moving well, sleepingwell and thinking well, and
those are all just habits.
And when you're thinking abouthabit formation, the best thing
you can think about is makingyour habits too small to fail,
too small to fail.
So, for example, if I want tostart a I don't know we'll do
we'll use working out because Ilike working out.
Okay, say, you want to startworking out, which you
absolutely fucking should.
You should be lifting weightsthree days a week.

(17:56):
You should be moving your body.
You should get an eight to10,000 steps, like all of these
sorts of things.
But you say you've never doneanything in your whole life and
you make the decision that youwant to start working out.
Awesome, to make this habit toosmall to fail, you say I'm going
to do one pushup one day perweek.
That's a habit that's too smallto fail.
Now you might think when I saythat, like oh, that's really

(18:17):
lame.
One pushup one day a week,that's my exercise routine.
But because you have along-term vision for your life,
like where can I be in sixmonths?
Where can I be in two years?
Not where can I be next week,say you go to the gym three days
a week, 60 minutes.
For that, you do it for one weekand you're off the next week
and you're off the next week.
That's not a habit.
You're not building anything.
But you do one pushup on aMonday, boom, knocked it out,

(18:40):
you crushed it for the week,check mark.
What's week number two?
Two pushups, boom, boom.
And then, of course, whileyou're down on the floor, you
don't think you're going to getany bonus reps.
Of course you are.
You're already down on thefloor.
So you've only told yourselfyou're going to do one rep, but
it's too small to fail.
So now you have actuallysomething that you can check off
.
You say that's like me, eachother.
So you can build your habitthat way.

(19:03):
Or like James Clear talks aboutin Atomic Habits, you can just
stack them as an anchor.
So if you can think about itlike an algorithm, so you can do
like if this, then that.
So if I brush my teeth, then Itake a deep breath.
If I walk through a door, thenI do a pushup.
If I get into my car, then Isay a blessing, I don't know,
whatever you're trying to do,right, but it's like if this,

(19:23):
then what.
You already brush your teethevery morning.
Attach the habit, anchor it tothat, and so those are a couple
of ways you can start to thinkabout your habits.
But you have to have somethingthat you're actually trying to
meet.
And so those questions you askyourself, you journal about it.
That's a forcing function, getsit out of your brain into a
sheet of paper.
Now we can see it and nowcalendar and actually start to
make it work for ourselves.
Yeah, there we go.

(19:44):
I just went on a big ramble,but yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
I love it.
I love how quickly you speakand you're just boom, boom, boom
.
I think one of the things thatI'm always very cognizant of is
when we hear these ideas andwhen we hear, I mean, everything
is very clear and okay, let mejust add one thing to my.
Let me take one thing away, Letme add one thing, Let me

(20:09):
celebrate myself.
What?
Where is the support that inthe in between, when we're
building the habit?
Because taking something awaymight seem easy when we're
talking about it, but what we'renot really talking about is the
addiction part.
So stop scrolling on your phone,stop drinking the alcohol, stop

(20:32):
smoking a cigarette, stopovereating or having the sugar I
mean all of these things thatwe know are not good for us.
We also should know, hopefully,that we're addicted to it.
If you can't stop drinking,then maybe you know you have a
problem.
If you can't stop eating thesugar, there's a problem, and
not all of it is on you, right?

(20:53):
Because these things arecreated.
Instagram and social media iscreated to be addicting.
So how do we move from takingit away, adding the thing,
celebrating the good things thatwe're doing, and there's 21
days to build a habit at least?
How do we get through those 21days without failing which I'll

(21:15):
put in quotes yeah, that's aninteresting question.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
I would say, like, if it's become like a, I think
there's a difference between acompulsion and an addiction.
So I think if it's reached thisstage of like addiction in
terms of like, it's reallydetrimental to your health and
it's actively ruining your lifesay an addiction to alcohol,
drugs I'm not sure this sort ofprotocol is going to work.

(21:39):
I think you need some actualprofessional help, you need a
recovery plan, you need some AA,you need some whatever sort of
domain that lives in.
I think this stuff works.
For, yeah, I think you're goingto be addicted to social media,
but I think this can still workin terms of.
I really do think it's this ideaof making it too small to fail,

(22:01):
like, I think 21 days thiscould really happen.
So let's use social media.
For example, let's say I scrolleight hours on my phone every
day.
That's a lot, okay.
If we want to make this habittoo small to fail, that over
time, we want to use our phoneless.
The habit that's too small tofail is I'm going to look at my
phone seven hours and 59 minutestoday.

(22:22):
That's possible.
That's a one minute reductionand something you can do
consistently for 21 days.
But we get so much in our headabout okay.
Well, what if other people seethat and they look at me like
I'm like, I'm lame, like DrJordan Peterson talks about this
all the time.
He's like if your fucking roomis a mess, it's a fucking mess,

(22:45):
absolutely.
You got to step over socks anda vacuum cleaner and a fucking
dead body to just to fucking getout of your room.
Like you telling yourself toclean your room is a joke.
You're not going to do it.
But what if?
What if you put one sock?
One sock in the proper drawerone time this week and that's
all you did?
That's what we're.

(23:05):
That's what I'm trying to getto in terms of this habit,
formation of like.
Yes, I know I understand thatyou're like compulsively doing
this or this.
Or if you have an eatingdisorder or an addiction, that's
sort of beyond my scope and youneed to see a professional
because eating disorders areextremely, extremely complicated
and extremely dangerous.
From what I know, you knowresearching the mental health
field most dangerous.
You know mental illness outthere.

(23:26):
So go see an actualprofessional who's going to help
you with that.
But now, if you just want tomake your life better, you have
this sort of ambient feelingthat things could be better,
that you're not living up toyour full potential.
These are the little piecesthat you could potentially do,
because I think there's a bigdifference between being
depressed and your life justbeing shitty.
Those are not the same thing,right?

(23:46):
Like if I have no job, nofriends, no girlfriend, uh, I
don't go outside, I have nomoney, you of course you're
going to be fucking sad, likethat's a sad life, but that
doesn't mean you have depression.
That's a totally differentthing.
That just means you need tolook at your life and think okay
, what are the little things Ican do to make myself better?
So in two years, I can besomeone who is attractive to the

(24:08):
opposite sex, or I can besomeone who's purposeful and
fulfilled in my life.
These are the ways you start.
You start with them so smallthat it's impossible for you to
fuck it up and it might.
If don't tell anyone else, it'snot for anyone else.
They might laugh at you, dudewhat.
You put one sock in a drawerthis week.
You fucking kid who gives afuck, fuck them.
It's about your life.
It's about your life and whatyou're trying to do.

(24:30):
But we have this sort ofshort-term vision of our life.
We're like we overestimate whatwe can do in a year and we
underestimate what we can do infive years, because we just
can't see that far ahead,because our life is just not
where we want it right now.
But where can what if you're 22years old?
Okay, where can you be at 27?
I'm 33 right now.
Where can?
Where am I going to be at 40?
I don't know.
Hopefully I have anotherpodcast studio that has fucking

(24:51):
better AC, because I'm sweatingright now, because I'm getting
fired up about talking aboutthis right.
But my point being is likethat's the idea here is that we
have a longer term vision forour future.
We're understanding that we'remaking this choice right now and
that maybe nothing will changein three weeks, but something
definitely will change in sixmonths, in a year, in two years,

(25:13):
in three years.
And then you know, if you speakrelationships, then you might
be ready for something great tocome into your life, because if
you don't have this stufffigured out, it's going to be
really hard to accept, receivethat love or be prepared for
something that might actuallychange your life.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
What a segue, aaron.
You knew where I was going.
I sent Aaron this video earliertoday and it was so profound
and I'll try to link it in theshow notes below so you can
actually hear this man speaking.
But he is talking about likehow every man right Everyone,

(25:49):
and he's a man speaking aboutmen but so do women.
But every man wants a goodwoman until he gets one, is what
he says.
And it's all about how we wantwhat we want and then we get
what we want and then itcrumbles, or we crumble because
that we haven't spent time doingthe work to prepare ourselves

(26:12):
for that.
And so I would love to hear alittle bit about your personal
story just because I haven'tlistened to those podcasts of
how you ended up meeting yourwife and, in your experience,
what did you do that reallyhelped you prepare for your wife
?
And then, what are the thingsthat you didn't see coming that

(26:32):
you're like, oh fuck, likedidn't, didn't expect this to
happen or didn't expect to haveto grow in this way to be able
to show up and really co-createthis relationship that you have
today?

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, yeah, I love talking about this, so let me go
way back.
There's a long journey here.
So in high school I didn't talkto girls.
I wanted to, but I didn't.
And so I got to college as abaseball player and I decided I

(27:04):
was going to be the person Iwasn't in high school.
I was going to be sort of likea big man on campus, try to
bring out my ego loud,especially when I started
drinking, and I got positivefeedback from drinking and
positive.
Got positive feedback fromdrinking and positive feedback
from girls about drinking andbeing this kind of person and
also being good at baseball andbeing on the team and all this
sort of stuff.
Um, so, for lack of a betterterm, when I got to college.

(27:27):
those four years there I triedto make up for lost time, uh, in
terms of trying to have sexwith as many human, human
females as possible, and thenthat sort of continued.
Because I got into professionalwrestling and sort of the same
thing happened.
I would be in wrestling, fanswould think I was, or fans,
whatever wrestlers, people,anyone would think I was cool.
I thought it was cool.

(27:48):
There's a lot of drinkinginvolved and drugs involved in
professional wrestling and allthat type of stuff.
And so I did that for a longtime and in my brain I was not
going to get married and I wasnot going to have kids.
That was not in the plan.
Because I also knew that mysister was very relationship
oriented and she wanted to havekids.
She was going to have the bigfamily and that would be good

(28:08):
for my parents.
Maybe she would have a boy girlcouple.
Everything would be good.
I would just be like a sweetuncle that was like had a cool
job and could take him towrestling shows and it'd be
fucking awesome.
But, as I mentioned then, youknow, my sister passed away and
so that changed everything.
Now it took me a few more yearsto figure out like that.
I needed to be a better man.
I need to figure out how Iwanted to be in this world until

(28:37):
I had these two back to backencounters with two different
females.
At the end of having sex withboth of them in my bed, they
both looked at me and said thesame thing.
They said, aaron, you look likeyou just had a horrible time
and you're not even here.
Both of them said the sameversion of the same thing and I
was like to both of them.
I was like, yeah, you're right.

(29:02):
Right, I don't, I wasn't here.
That wasn't very fun, hasnothing to do with you, I guess.
I like, I don't know.
And so when you hear that fromsomeone that actually two people
that I did care about, but alsoalso seeing them at the same
time, so maybe that you know,didn't care about them that much
, but you know, whatever,anyways, um, and so I had that
sort of happen back to backtimes with the two couple people
that I, I uh, that really caredabout and, um, I just felt sick

(29:24):
to my stomach, really sort ofgross.
Um, and in that moment I made Imade a choice.
Um, that was about four yearsago.
I made the choice that I wasgoing to, uh, be celibate, be
celibate until I met the personthat I wanted to marry.
I made a decision that I wasgoing to stop just sort of
fucking around.

(29:44):
Um, cause I had been learningall this stuff mental health
related, personal development, Iwas talking on my podcast a lot
, or at the beginning of stagesof my podcast.
So I I had like good ideas oflike how I wanted to show up in
the world.
I was showing up in the worldreally good with other people,
just not with the females in mylife.
I mean, I felt like I was beinghonest with them, but I really
like wasn't at the same time,and so it was like this sort of

(30:07):
tug of war.
So I made the decision I wasgoing to stop watching porn,
stop talking to girls, I wasgoing to go celibate and I
wasn't going to masturbate.
I was just like well, a cleanslate about like really sort of
releasing all of this energy,giving my time to just be a
person.
Focus, really sort of releasingall of this energy, giving my
time to just be a person, focuson my life, focus on getting
things together like studyingother great men, asking my dad

(30:28):
about certain things, cause myparents are still married, god
bless.
They're the best parents in theworld Fucking, super cool, even
after losing a child, likeunbelievable type stuff.
Um, and so we're really, really, really, really close.
They're very excited to begrandparents, like the whole
thing is incredible, it's amiracle, um.
And so just spent like a lot oftime the first six months just
trying to figure that out,trying to reconcile if I wanted

(30:49):
kids, uh, or if I just wantedkids because I knew it would
make my parents happy, causethis is like early stages, only
two years after I lost my sister.
So my parents are, are reallyin the trenches right here, like
the really just in guilt andshame and all this.
So I was like if I have agrandchild, they'll be fine,
like they'll be good.
And then I didn't know if Iwanted it for myself or for them
, and so I had to figure thatout.
And then, about eight monthsinto the journey, I'd said, okay

(31:12):
, I feel pretty good in thisspace, like I feel good about
being alone.
I feel good about I stoppeddrinking as well, because I was
drinking way too much.
I just like clean slate about mylife.
I headed in the right direction.
I had a vision for my future,about how I wanted to make money
, how I wanted to take care ofmy family, like how I wanted to
provide, what sort of man Iwanted to be, how I was going to

(31:32):
feel useful, what being a manactually means and all that
stuff.
And then about eight months Iwas like, okay, I'm going to get
on some dating apps and I'mgoing to be very intentional
about how I speak to each woman.
I'm not going to have sex withthem until I feel very like the
relationship is going to be theperson I'm going to marry.
I'm not going to wait tillmarriage, but I'm not going to
have sex with someone until Iknow this is the person I'm
going to spend my life with.
Because all the friends that Ihad said, like you just know,

(31:56):
bro, like you know, and I didn'tknow until I did know.
And then I was like, oh, I getit now it makes sense.
And so I met my wife on Hingeand the beautiful part about it
was it worked out very perfectlythat she was moving to Dallas
where I live, but she wasn'tmoving for about, I want to say
maybe it was like four to sixweeks.

(32:16):
So the first four to six weeksof our relationship was strictly
over the phone.
So there's no physicality,there was no seeing her,
touching her, anything.
It was just like how can I getto know this person as deeply as
possible?
We played a bunch of games, wehad a bunch of phone calls.
Uh, we did date nights over thephone.
We played we're not reallystrangers.
Like I got to know this person,said person, my wife and she got

(32:39):
to know me on the most deepestlevel possible and then the
moment I saw her in person, Iwas like, oh yeah, it's done,
this is done, deal, it'sfinished.
Like this is it?
I know?
Um, and then she actually wasthe first person that said I
love you, because I'd never saidI love you to a girl before,
and so I was really scared aboutit.
And she like rolled over in bedone night.
She's like I can't fucking holdit.
We were like, uh, she was likeat a wedding.
I was at a wedding and I likeknew I wanted to say it when I

(33:01):
hung up the phone and so did she, but we didn't either say it.
And then when we got backtogether, she's like if I, if I,
can hold it anymore.
I was like sorry, I was being afucking pussy about it.
I've never said it before, Idon't know what I mean.
but I definitely love you.
I love you for sure.
Um, so I did all of that stuffto basically prepare myself to
meet the woman of my dreams, sothat I could actually meet her

(33:23):
and receive her love and shecould be in her feminine and I
could be in my masculine and wecould join together and and
create a beautiful family.
And I also, at the time I mether, I told her very honestly
about kids.
I didn't know if I want it, butthen, you know, six year, a
year, down the line, I was likeI do.
I mean, I can't not havechildren with you.
It's like it would be the you'dbe the great mom.
Everyone keeps telling me I'llbe a great dad.

(33:43):
I have no fucking idea if Iwill or not.
It's gonna be hard, but I'mgonna try my best.
Um, and so here we are.
We've been married sinceSeptember 22nd 2024.
We're about to have a kidsometime in September and, uh,
it's the greatest thing that'sever happened to me and, um, a
couple things that we do tomaintain our relationship, since

(34:04):
I'm like very sort ofbusiness-y minded, analytical
type, sort of obsessive aboutthings, not sort of obsessive,
I'm extremely obsessive aboutthings, which is like a good and
a bad thing, right, I'mobsessive about my wife and my
business and probably beobsessive over my kid.
But I also get obsessive over athing that sometimes I have to
wake up in the middle of thenight.
If I think about it it's likewell, anyways.
And so we we do like weekly,monthly business meetings for

(34:27):
our relationship about certainthings that are really important
to talk about finances,intimacy, everything good.
Did I say something thatbothered you?
What's something that youhaven't said that you need to
say?
What are our goals for the week, for the month, for the year,
all those sorts of things.
So we do that a lot.

(34:47):
We talk a lot about.
Recently we've been talking alot about our intimacy and how
we can maintain that with havinga kid.
The first couple months it'llbe hard, obviously, and sort of
not allowed because she's got torecover and repair and all that
type of stuff.
But how are we going to makesure?
That's important?
And my wife and I view intimacynot just about sex but like
physical contact and like makingsure we touch each other when
we pass each other in the houseor like giving each other a kiss
when we leave the room and allthese sorts of things that build
this like real emotionalconnection over time and just

(35:09):
let each other know that weappreciate you, I love you.
I see you I'm busy right now,but like, but we're also gonna,
you know, think about puttinghaving sex on the calendar.
It's like non-negotiable.
That's a self-care activity,baby you you know what I'm
talking about.
So it's like got to put it onthe calendar.
So, uh, and some people thinkthat sort of ruins the spark.
But I've talked to a lot oflike sex therapists and like
that's not true.
Um, we're just putting a timehere to block off, like we have

(35:30):
an hour to do whatever we want.
It doesn't mean we have to dolike sex, it just means we're
going to like be with each other.
We're going to just give eachother massage, whatever the case
may be Right, it's like part ofour vibe.
And then still, going on datenights, like Dr Jordan Peterson
talks about, like dating hiswife, still, that's like a big
thing for us, like I want todate you forever, my girlfriend
forever, and so all those thingshave been really, really,

(35:54):
really beneficial in terms of usmaintaining our relationship.
I mean, we're only in our firstyear of marriage.
We've been together for fouryears now.
Things have gone pretty fuckinggood.
So I would say we're doing allright.
So we'll see how that goes witha kid with that in the mix.
But we're really blessed, we'rereally fortunate.
We have a house to live in, wehave a job, we have a good

(36:16):
amount of resources, we havehelp, so it'll be all right, I
think.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
How is the experience of okay, this is who I want to
call in and okay, this is who Iactually called in.
Oh my God, it's fuckinghappening.
How is that experience?
Because, well, yeah, I'll justask you.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Can you say that again?

Speaker 1 (36:41):
How is the experience from you?
Like you choosing, I wantsomething different.
So I'm going to be celibate,I'm going to stop doing these
things.
I'm going to start, you know,get taking mental health
seriously and taking myselfseriously with the relationships
that I'm calling in female wiseUm.

(37:07):
So making that choice andmaking having that mindset of
I'm not going to sleep withanyone until I find the person
that I want to marry.
I had like that experience andthen going from just having this
idea and this conception to itactually coming to fruition and
meeting your wife.
What's your wife's name?

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Rihanna.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
Rihanna, meeting Rihanna, and I mean, obviously
it was like the beginning of it,but was there this like
dumbfoundation?
Like I was like dumbfounded orlike I am like freezing, like
during the headlights, or like,oh my gosh, no, like I feel very
confident.
This is what I spent the pastsix to eight months building
myself up to.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Yeah, definitely the second part.
Yeah, like I don't know, maybeI'm like a weird person, but I
just decided, like a drop on adime, like I'm going to do this,
and when I say I'm going to dosomething, I just do it Like
there's just no, that's it.
Like I don't know.
I don't know if everyone's likethat, but I learned that
through sports and the bestperformers in the world do what
they say they're going to do,and so that's what I try to be.
Um, and so when I said I wasgoing to do this thing about

(38:04):
going celibate and not doingthis and not masturbating and
not watching porn and not sortof doing all these sorts of
things, uh, the my expectationwas that I was going to meet the
person of my dreams.
Um, maybe that was a little tooforward or like like sort of
delusional thinking.
Um, but that's exactly was thewhole point of it all, because I
had met great women.
Like meeting women was like notnot so that hard, I don't know.

(38:27):
Yeah, uh, we're everywherethey're, they're all you just
gotta speak to them.
That's like all there is to it.
Sometimes they'll tell you tofuck off, and sometimes they
tell you they won't tell you andhe's got to keep swinging.
Um, but we could talk.
We could talk about that withyoung men, but anyways, um, and
so I just like that was the idealike I don't know how long it's
going to take.
I didn't know if it was goingto take six weeks, eight years,
two years, six months, eightmonths to find the person that I

(38:50):
wanted to spend the rest of mylife with.
But I knew there'd be adifferent sort of feeling in my
body because I wasn't likeconsumed with all this other
bullshit in my life.
If I was still still doing allof these other things, I
wouldn't have had the space orthe recognition to know that
this unbelievable woman wouldhave walked into my life.
I tell that my wife all the timeis like, if I would have met
you a couple of years earlier,yeah, I definitely would have

(39:10):
had sex with you, but that wouldhave been about it.
You know what I mean.
Like that's not what I wantedand so it happens in.
I think it's good.
I mean we can use Taylor Swiftfor it as an example.
She just got engaged, right,what a dream.
I mean.
I do hope that she, her gettingengaged changes the cultural
conversation around marriage andencourages more people to get
engaged and find their partner,and like kiss a bunch of frogs

(39:31):
and whatever the case may be,but like she's now ready for it.
And same with Travis Kelsey orI mean, I don't know them
personally, but I assume that'sthe sort of vibe they're on.
Or maybe he just wants herbillion dollars, who knows Like
who knows?

Speaker 1 (39:45):
He has his own money.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, he's only got 90 million.
That's like fucking wiping herass with that every day.
She's unbelievable.
Anyways so off track, super offtrack, but yeah, so, like that
was the sort of mindset I had,like this is the expectation,
like I'm going to keep doingthis until my wife walks into my

(40:08):
life, cause I'm ready formarriage, I think I can be the
man that I set out to be.
I think I can be the man thatmy parents raised me to be, and
I think I can be the man that,um, uh, that I've seen in other
men that I idolize and look upto, and so, yeah, so, when I,
when I met my wife, it was likewow, this is this, is like this
is what it feels like, well,this is cool.
And you know, I still stillcouldn't have the.

(40:30):
It still didn't have the, thegumption to say I love you first
.
But we figured it out, we gotthere.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
We all get there, no.
Well that's so interesting andwhat a cool testament to mindset
and belief, and belief inyourself and confidence.
And is that something that Imean you said you've always kind
of been the way of like.
When I make a decision whichI'm very similar to, like it

(40:57):
doesn't.
I don't think that I take, Idon't think that I make split
decisions I'm.
It takes me a while to make,especially a big decision like
to leave a relationship or toleave a job.
It's I don't make splitdecisions, but when I make the
decisions like, yes, I'm doneand there's not much wavering
and going back and forth, isthat something that you have

(41:22):
built and worked on building, oris that something that you just
were born with, that you feelthat you've always had?

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I think I think all of this just came from sports.
Like I don't know how I waswhen I was like eight or nine,
you know, but I've always justplayed sports and mostly just
played baseball.
And baseball is is a game oflike you get out a lot.
Like if you're really reallygood at baseball, especially in
like high school college, you'regoing to get a hit four out of

(41:49):
10 times.
So I mean the other six orseven times you're out.
So what do I?
How do I handle that?
That's just like learningthrough life.
Like most of the time you'regoing to get rejected until you
don't, and then you don't, andthen you don't, and then it
becomes the greatest thingthat's ever happened to you.
Same with if you're anentrepreneur.
It's like maybe you start acouple of businesses, or this
one sucks and that one fails andthis one's some fucking
moneymaker right, whatever thecase may be, or with dating, or

(42:09):
the case Like.
So I just learned that throughsports and I remember this like
really impactful moment which,like I remember, because this
past summer I coached 17 yearolds and we started with 21
baseball players on our team andwe ended at the end of the
season for the last tournamentwe had 10, which means 11
baseball players quit throughoutthe summer who claim to want to

(42:33):
play college baseball.
And you claim to love the game.
Fuck out of here.
You don't love the game.
It's embarrassing anyways.
And so I'm thinking about, like,when did I that?
Like giving up on something wasjust not an option.
Now I want to make thisdistinction Like quitting
something and giving up are notthe same as like leaving
something that's like unhealthyto you, right and so like or not

(42:57):
loving the thing anymore.
If any of those 11 baseballplayers came up to you and said,
coach, I just like this is toomuch for me, it's too much,
travel too much, it's too hard.
I'm not into baseball this muchand I don't really want to play
anymore, I'd be like dude,totally fine, you're 17.
Go do like figure somethingelse out that you love, or
explore things, or go hang outwith your friends or do whatever

(43:18):
, like that's a fine, that's acool thing, like you should if
you know that and you can admitthat, awesome.
But if you're just like quittingcause it's too hard, or like
you don't get enough playingtime, Like that's not a, that's
not a vibe, especially whenyou're 17.
What are you teaching yourselfabout later on in life?
Like you get your first job andsomeone gets a promotion over
you, you're just going to be,like you're just going to get up
and leave.

(43:38):
No, you're going to try and dodifferent things to work harder,
to maneuver, to navigate, tobuild great relationships, to so
you can be that person thatgets the promotion next time.
And so I was talking to my mydad and my mom and I remember
this moment when I was nine andwe lived in California and I
played on this little leagueteam.
That was like the best.
We were the best team in thestate for nine-year-olds.
It's like that's a weird thingto say.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Weird say um weird flex, but I like it but I did.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I never played at all , never got on the field at all,
until the very last inning ofthe game where they had to play
you.
So I only got that because Iwasn't just.
I wasn't good at baseball whenI was nine, but I just loved the
game.
And I remember like a coupleweeks into the season, when I
wasn't playing at all, I wenthome to my parents and I was
like hey, I just I want to quitthe team.
And my both of my parentslooked at me like I was like
they're like, do you want to doyou want to what?

(44:23):
You want to quit the team?
I'm nine and they're like.
They're like not a chance.
They're like you will finishthe season.
We paid for it, you committedto it.
You will finish the season andwhen the season's over we can
reevaluate.
Where you want to play onanother team, that maybe you get
more playing time, but you arenot quitting the team.
That's just not how it worksand I didn't realize that at

(44:43):
nine.
But, like I never quit anythingever.
You know what I mean.
It's like I have well, this islike a sort of a bad analogy,
but you know, I chew tobaccobecause of baseball and I tell
people all the time that, like,I'm not a quitter, so I'm not
giving it up.
It's like like that's a whole.
That's called an addiction,which I have.
I have an addiction, so don'tdo that.

(45:06):
But my point being is like, sothat, like, I came to this
realization when I saw 11baseball players quit over the
summer and, uh, that's prettymuch where I learned all my
values of life, like I had.
You know, you have issues incollege about playing time and
this guy not liking you and andthis person getting played.
How do you deal with that?
Just, I didn't like, liketextualize it or like write it

(45:26):
down or understand that I waslearning it.
But when I got into the realworld and had to navigate
certain things, like I said atthe top, like putting out little
fires for my business almostevery second, when this gets
hacked and that gets hacked andthis thing doesn't go upload the
way he wants, it's like, okay,how do I blah, blah?
Okay, how do I?
How do I?
How do I do this?
How do I handle this?
Okay, well, I learned to handleadversity, setbacks and
challenges via sports.
I've sort of mastered them bytrying to teach them to other

(45:48):
people and having thousands ofhours of guests on my podcast
who know more than me about it.
Okay, so I can like figure thisout.
I've changed the texture of mymind to sort of handle these
challenges.
I view obstacles now that thingsthat are just going to make me
stronger, and co-care, because Igot that thing going on now and
so just learned learned throughexperience basically started
when I was eight or nine, allthe way up till very now, and

(46:10):
I'm sure I'm going to learn evenmore when my son is a mirror to
me.
My wife hasn't slept and Ihaven't slept.
And how do I actually act?
Am I the man that I think thatI am?
When we're in the trenches,when we're like the chips are
down and everyone needs me andeveryone's looking at me like my
wife's tired, my son is cranky,he gots, he needs to do this or

(46:31):
this or this.
Okay, I got it, I'll figure itout.
This is the person that I claimthat I am.
So now I got to stand by myaction or my words and line them
with my actions, and so this iseverything that's been
happening is preparing me justto be the best husband and
father that I can possibly be,and that's cool, cause now I got
to put that shit into practice.
I got to do it.
I got to do it in real time.
This is the most important gamethat I've ever played in my

(46:52):
life, and hopefully I show upwhen it matters most, and so
that's basically how I'velearned it all just trial and
error, practice and sports.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Yeah, it's such a cool mindset to have of it's
figureoutable, and one of thethings that I always share is
all of the hardest seasons of mylife and how I have shown up
for myself and how I and showingup for yourself oftentimes is
reaching out.

(47:20):
By the way, it's not I canfigure everything out.
It's I trust myself enough tofind the people that can help me
with whatever you're dealingwith, whether that's, like you
know, a mental health thing,whether whatever it is, whether
it's just you know, like goingthrough a breakup, like you
don't have to do it alone, andthat this strength doesn't come

(47:40):
from being alone, it comes fromreaching out.
But everything that hashappened in my life that's been
very difficult, all the darkseasons in my life, it builds
that mentality of but I knowthat I'll be able to figure it
out.
So, whatever comes in thefuture, I might not know how I'm

(48:01):
going to figure it out, how I'mgoing to show up, I might not
know how I'm going to act, but Iknow that I will be able to
figure it out.
And that's that resilience thatyou said.
One of your core values isresilience, and truly resilience
is built and it's built bygoing through the hard season

(48:21):
and having that Sometimes Ithink it's proving it's like the
hard season and having thatSometimes I think it's proving
it's like the hard season andthen you prove to yourself that,
oh, I can do it, but notquitting the baseball thing.
I mean like, sometimes we buildour own resilience.
Sometimes, when we're little,our parents build our resilience
or life situations.
If it's something that we can'tactually quit, we're going to
build resilience that way.

(48:41):
And having that reminder of ohthat's why I went through that.
And and having that mindset ofyeah, I can, I can, I can now go
through whatever it is,whatever, because it's just
going to hit the fan.
I mean whether it's parentingrelationships, it's not going to
be easy.
It's not going to be smoothsailing, so interesting,

(49:04):
interesting yeah, I mean, Ithink, to comment on that
quickly.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Um well, I don't know if I do anything quickly when
it comes to talking, but anyways, I'll try my best.
Uh, yeah, it just makes methink about confidence, because
I think about the definition ofconfidence is having intense
trust in oneself, and the onlyway you have that trust in
yourself is through credibleevidence, and that's exactly
what you just talked about.
Like I have the credibleevidence that says I can

(49:31):
overcome this thing and even ifI step into a new environment
like I've never done this thingever in my life, you still
actually do have credibleevidence that you've done
something you've never donebefore in another domain and so
you still can walk inconfidently with that intense
trust in yourself that you can,as you say, sort of figure it
out.
So I think that's important.
If you don't see yourself as aconfident person, maybe you just

(49:55):
have to look deeper at what theword actually means and say,
wow, actually I do have thecredible evidence.
That's how confidence is built,which means I can step into
this conversation, job interview, presentation, school with some
trust in myself that I canfigure it out, and I think
that's quite a powerful reframeif you're thinking about
confidence.
It's not just like being, youknow, thinking you're the best,

(50:17):
that's like doesn't matter,that's like doesn't mean
anything for anyone, but there'slike a real concrete way to
think about it.
And this is how I tried toteach my athletes how to think
about confidence, especially ifthe day before they had a really
bad day 0 for 4, 4 strikeouts,whatever the case may be you can
still act confidently the nextday with your body language,
with your self-talk, with howyou breathe, and then the trust

(50:38):
starts to come back.
And then you're just on a rolland you just let it rip.
So just figured I'd mentionthat.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
And that's what happens in relationships,
because I know you and I talkedabout, I think, in our podcast
the boys boys don't talk togirls anymore or you know, and I
would assume that that's a hugepiece is that we don't have the
knowledge, we don't have theproof, the concrete evidence

(51:09):
that you can have thisconversation and it's okay if
she says no, or it's okay if shedoesn't even respond, or it's
okay if it doesn't work out.
I think that's a huge thing.
One of my biggest things that Italk about in relationships is
when we go through breakups,somebody always has to be a bad
guy, somebody always has to be agood guy and there always has
to be a bad guy and it alwayshas to be this he was so toxic
or he was, you know, we werecodependent or he was

(51:32):
codependent or whatever it is,and there always has to be this
bad thing about them and that'swhy we broke up.
What if it just didn't work out?
They were a great person, they,we just didn't align, we didn't
mesh, we didn't have the samecore values, and there's so much
freedom in that, but I thinkthat we don't want to.

(51:52):
Maybe that's an ego thing, Idon't know.
It's like they.
They had to be a bad guy, theycouldn't just, it couldn't just
be, we didn't align yeah, I meanI totally agree.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Like when I, when I got with my wife, I started
thinking a lot about my exrelationships and, um, I started
thinking about this one woman Idated in particular.
Like, right when my sisterpassed away, she was right there
and I, I like she didn't, shedidn't ask to be thrusted in
that situation, but she was theonly person who was there with

(52:23):
me when it happened.
And, uh, I mean, I treated herpoorly, I pushed her away, I
said bad stuff to her, I was ina horrible spot it's no excuse
for horrible behavior either.
But like, I reached out to her acouple years later saying, like
, when I thought about all thisstuff, like thank you, like you
literally saved my life andwe're not together and I don't

(52:44):
want to be with you, you know,obviously but like that's a
still very powerful relationshipthat changed the fabric of who
I am as a person and it's okayto actually admit that.
Um, like it's veryinterestingly enough, I dated
this girl in college and, uh, afew years before my sister
passed away, maybe like fouryears before that, her brother

(53:04):
also died by suicide and so nowwe're sort of connected in that
space forever and she's got afamily and a couple of kids and
she's doing beautiful and allthat type of stuff, and so so
all these relationships have somuch meaning in your life and
they do alter you as a person inhopefully a powerful way, like
maybe not have been a good quoteunquote relationship, but it

(53:26):
still alters you in a good way.
And if you think and you likeyou're saying if you think about
it outside of, just like thisperson was toxic, outside of
like they abused you like ofcourse, there's like certain
very stock, like stark linesthat like this was a bad
relationship, but if it was justlike yeah, we broke up again,
they don't, you know, like itdoesn't have to be anything.
It could just been like wedon't mesh at this time or this

(53:46):
is not the right moment in ourlives, or like I need to do this
or whatever the case may be.
And so I think about that a lotwith my past relationships and
how they changed me and theyhelped me and they saved me and
they built me into trying to bethe best man that I could be,
and like there's no other way Icould have like without
experience.
And so, yeah, it's like areally, really, really powerful

(54:07):
stuff If you think about it withsome open eyes and an open
heart, rather than just likethey suck, they were the worst,
it's like that's not helpful.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
No, and every relationship I mean you chose to
get into that relationship fora reason and every relationship
has these invitations for thingsfor you to learn and lessons to
learn.
And some of those lessonsmight've been harder if it was a
more difficult relationship.
Some of them might be easier,but really having that, I like
the, the analogy of like thebaseball.

(54:35):
You know like you're gonnastrike out and that's okay.
And that doesn't mean that youfailed, it doesn't mean that
it's a bad thing, it doesn'tmean something's wrong with you.
So, anyway, relationships arewild, though they're wild man.
Um, I'm going to start wrappingup.
I have a last question Beforethen, was there anything else
when you were kind of thinkingof coming on the podcast that we

(54:56):
didn't touch on?
That you're like I really wouldlove to share this with my
audience.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
I don't think so.
I think this has been a veryfruitful, very enjoyable
conversation.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
I mean, I've definitely hogged the airspace
for the last like hour and 15minutes, but I guess that's why
I'm a guest like I spent spendso much time talking when I am a

(55:32):
guest on someone's podcast andother besides when I do my own
solo podcast episodes.
But when I have guests, I love,I love just you riffing and
going on your on your wholejourney.
So thank you for coming on.
Where can people find you?
Where can people stay connected?
Where can people find yourpodcast?
All of those good things yeah,so we're.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
We're up over 400 episodes on my podcast.
I mean, on YouTube we releasesomething every single day, so
seven days a week on YouTube.
Uh, on audio, we releasesomething five days a week, um,
so there's pretty much somethingthere for everybody, uh, almost
every day of the week.
And, um, those conversationsare a lot like these, Um, when I

(56:08):
have guests that's why I hadHannah on my show I do solo
episodes as well.
Sometimes I talk about currentevents, political issues, things
of that nature on solo episodeswhere I get a little frisky and
controversial.
I am Jewish so I've talked alot about that stuff over the
last couple years.
But, yeah, something foreverybody on every major podcast

(56:29):
platform you can think of.
And then, if you just want likea hub resource for everything
that I got going on, you canjust go to AaronMashBitscom.
There's a newsletter on therethat you can sign up for, so
you'll get emails like four orfive days a week about stuff
that I got going on podcastepisodes, easy ways to do stuff
yeah, it's an easy place tocatch everything, but I'm
aggressively online, so you cansort of find me anywhere, I

(56:51):
guess.

Speaker 1 (56:52):
And, yeah, aggressively online maybe
chronically online, alsoAddicted to online.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
No, I love that.
So last question If the worldcould only remember one feeling
from your work what do you hope?

Speaker 2 (57:18):
that that feeling would be empowered, maybe.
That came to my mind.
First word that came to my mindwas like, also like satisfied,
not in like a, a food way, butlike, uh, like, uh, like I feel
satisfied with myself so I cango out and maybe be the best
version of myself because ofwhat I've heard or read.
So maybe empowered I was gonnasay motivated, but I don't love

(57:39):
that.
So those three words came to mymind immediately.
I also hope that the words thatI say, you know, yeah, make you
feel loved about yourself.
I have a nonprofit mental healthnonprofit about my sister
called you Are Loved, and allthe three of those words are

(58:00):
technically one word for mynonprofit.
So I thought that was one word.
I want you to feel loved, lovedenough that you feel empowered
enough then to then try to bethe best version of yourself in
greatest service to the world.
I think that's very important.
Um, yeah, it's like the worldneeds you here.
Uh, it's very, very, veryimportant.
The world needs all your faultsand mistakes and everything you

(58:22):
have to offer, because there'llnever be another you and uh, you
might be the second bestsomeone else, but you're going
to be the best you, and so, nomatter how many times you
stumble or fall down, fuck it,the world needs you, just you,
exactly how you are, because theworld would be a totally
different fucking place if youweren't here.
And so I think, if we start tothink about it like that I'm

(58:43):
super into cliches and thingsthat are cheesy.
That's why I named my companyyou Are Loved, but that I don't
think is cheesy.
I think it is like the mostrealist thing possible that the
world needs you, uh, in all theways that you could think about.
And so maybe you'll take thatmessage and, uh, do something
small today that helps yourselfthree years from now thank you

(59:08):
so much.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
Aaron're the best.
I appreciate having you on ourpodcast and I appreciate your
time.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
Thank you, this is awesome.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mental Fitness: The New Performance Enhancer | Aaron Machbitz