Embracing Misogi

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Unearth the transformative power of an ancient Japanese ritual that's more than just a grueling trial; it's a metamorphosis of mind, body, and spirit. Together, we traverse the concept of Misogi with Harvard's own Marcus Elliott and discover how it challenges modern notions of what we're truly capable of. Picture yourself moving a boulder underwater, confronting nature’s raw challenge - it's this mental and physical odyssey that could redefine the boundaries of your resilience.

In the communal forge of adversity, we find unexpected joy and camaraderie. Let's regale you with tales from the intense GoRuck challenge, where the weight on your back is only surpassed by the weight of your will. Surprisingly, it's not the strain that stays with you, but the silent epiphanies and the bond formed with fellow participants that etch deepest into the psyche. Learn how these rigorous rites of passage, though steeped in tradition, have morphed into vehicles for self-discovery and community in our modern tapestry.

As laughter intermingles with vulnerability, we approach the precipice of the flow state, where life's harshest tests morph into sources of amusement and profound insight. We'll share how these challenges, from braving blizzards on birthdays to contemplating the ascent of Colorado's formidable Longs Peak, serve as defining moments in life's narrative. Let this episode be a siren call to embrace your own Misogi and, in doing so, uncover the strengths that lie dormant within your story.

Episode Transcript

Brad (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Terribly Unoblivious.
On today's episode we talkabout the ancient Japanese
ritual of Masodi or, in our newWestern culture, doing something
so fucking hard on day one thatit affects the other 364 days
of your year.
We talk about how Masodi comesinto existence, how it affects

(00:21):
your mind, body and spirit, whyDylan refuses to go into caves
and what some lasting effectsare of Masodi challenge.
We hope you enjoy this episodeof Terribly Unoblivious Yep.
I said it before and I'll say itagain Life moves pretty fast.

(00:43):
You don't stop and look aroundonce in a while, you could miss
it.

Dylan (00:56):
Welcome to another episode of my co-host of Blind
Sides, me with a topic I don'tknow anything about.

Brad (01:04):
That's not true.

Dylan (01:06):
Oh sorry, you gave me the three minute synopsis right
before this.
This, let's just be clear, braddoesn't use the technology
associated with the podcast tomake sure that the other guy
knows what's happening.

Brad (01:20):
I wrote this tonight essentially, and your microphone
.

Dylan (01:24):
while I'm eating, your microphone label is upside down
again.

Brad (01:29):
Is it?
Do you love it?

Dylan (01:32):
Can you just?
Rotate the base 180 degrees andthen flip it to the other side.
Please, I'm going to mute yourmic.

Brad (01:39):
I can't do it.
I can, I have to unplug it.

Dylan (01:43):
Do it now.
It's unplugged.
I muted you.
Is that good?
Yep, do you like that better?
Yeah?

Brad (01:51):
This is stupid.

Dylan (01:52):
We don't even have a camera and I can't do it Every
time I know, Every time I dealwith this, I know.
Yeah, you want to introduce thetopic.
Oh, we're going to talk aboutsome Japanese stuff today.

Brad (02:07):
Real things you got to be careful how you say that, but
we're going to talk about someJapanese stuff today.
Yeah, well, why?

Dylan (02:13):
Is Tom Cruise on the episode no no, the last samurai.

Brad (02:20):
Yeah, I don't know about that title.
I don't know, I don't know ifthat was an appropriate title.
It's a good movie though it'salways a good movie when a white
dude assimilates to an ancientand interesting culture.

Dylan (02:38):
I think no appropriation whatsoever.

Brad (02:42):
I wouldn't call it appropriation if you're actually
living the lifestyle True.

Dylan (02:46):
I guess when I went to Mexico City Anthropology Museum
down there is beautiful, Amazingexhibit.

Brad (02:53):
Just the history of the culture.
Is that the store they sellcandles in?

Dylan (02:56):
Yeah, yeah, I think Lavender Mint was the newest hit
one.
While I was there they talkedabout.
When the Spanish came they leftcertain divisions of guys along
in Mexico and then certainpeople went back but they kind

(03:18):
of created I guess that would becamps, forts, spearheads, if
you will.
One guy absolutely just waslike no, I don't like Spain
anymore.
I think I like the indigenouspeople and actually Avatar is
based on history.

Brad (03:34):
Oh, really Like that.

Dylan (03:36):
Yeah, it was fun, it was fascinating.

Brad (03:38):
Yeah, Avatar is the.

Dylan (03:39):
They said he was savage and bad.
When the Spanish came back theywent to war and he was like
kill them all.
These are my people, let's doit so anyway that's what you
gotta, do you gotta do what yougotta do, we're not talking
about killing today, though,damn it.

Brad (03:54):
Yeah, this is a positive episode.
Hmm, I think Positively boring.

Dylan (03:57):
It should be boring.
No, it's not going to bepositive.
Okay, not boring.

Brad (04:01):
Yeah, masogi, there's going to be a lot of Japanese
words, initially Okay, and thenwe're going to get over it.
But I feel like it's my duty tobring you guys a little bit of
education.
I try to make sure that youlearn something, even if the
other 99% is not worthwhile.

(04:22):
Crowd Some of the texts fortoday.
Michael Easter's the ComfortCrisis.
This is coming mostly from oneparticular chapter where he
talks about Masogi, and we'regoing to get into what that is
and how it comes about and howwe can apply it to our lives, if
we are indeed crazy enough todo so.

(04:43):
Mm-hmm.
So let's go in the way backmachine 712 AD to the Kojiki.
So this is from Japanesemythology, and so we're going to
take a little story time hereand we're going to end up at the
Masogi.
So I don't know Japanesemythology.

(05:06):
Are you familiar with it?
No, okay, no.

Dylan (05:09):
There's a bunch.

Brad (05:12):
There's a bunch of deities , a bunch of gods.
Two of the last ones is a Nagi.
They had deities.
They had deities.
I thought they were more.

Dylan (05:21):
They're like Shinto gods, basically Spirit gods, yeah.

Brad (05:26):
And they cover a range similar to the Greeks in terms
of like this is the god of thisand this is the god of this.
It's a similar idea to that.
Okay, so two of the last onesto come about that actually
create, I guess, the or afterthe world creation.
These were the two that were, Iguess, credited.

(05:50):
Yeah, yeah, okay, credited withthe Japanese island.
There is a lot of them.

Dylan (05:58):
Yeah, seven lucky gods, anywho.

Brad (06:00):
Okay, sorry, okay.
So, like every time they woulddo something.
There would be like a newisland right, so they would cry
or they would like sneeze orthey would do you know whatever,
and then all of these islandswere made.
So it's.
It's an Nagi, a creator, deityof both creation and life.
In Japanese mythology.
He had a sister wife, which Idon't exactly know how to

(06:23):
explain, but it seems like it'sboth his sister and his partner.

Dylan (06:29):
Maybe sister wife?
Why is that?
Why is that?
Why is that hard to understand?

Brad (06:33):
Well, because the Mormons use sister wife in a different
way?

Dylan (06:37):
because they're not related.
See I'm saying but this is likethe episode on Christianity,
where people got mad that hedidn't look like a white dude.

Brad (06:48):
That's what you just did why.

Dylan (06:50):
You're saying it's like well, it's on the same term as
the white people's term.

Brad (06:53):
What?
It's just no, no, no, no, no,no no, no, no, no, no no no, no,
no, no, no, no.
But I think in the sense thatthey both came from a previous
deity.
So that's why the relation likethat, I believe Zeus and Helena
.
Yeah, sure, let's, but let'swait, we'll skip over that part.
Let's just let's just slideright over that.
Okay, the whole sister wifepart.

(07:15):
Okay, her name was Isanami, sowe got Hera.
It's not Helena, sorry, it'sHera.
Isanagi is the dude.
Okay, isanami is the girl I get.
Why don't I bring Isador?

Dylan (07:30):
Isadora, isador.

Brad (07:35):
So these are the creators of the Japanese archipelago, and
out of their many secretionscome other, lesser deities as
well, and one of the ways thatthey needed to create was to, or
procreate, in a sort of sense,was to do this ritual.

(07:56):
And it's not sex, you know,just don't no, don't ask about
it.
It was more than sex.
No it was like no, they likewalked around a pole and met
each other.
Okay.
That's what it's described asAnyways, she talked first, which

(08:17):
apparently is a no, no, walkedaround a pole.

Dylan (08:18):
Walked around a pole.

Brad (08:19):
They walked around a pole and then they met each other.
I don't know, okay.

Dylan (08:23):
We'll stop there.

Brad (08:23):
I'm not trying to make sense of this, I'm just telling
you the story.
Okay, okay, and, and then theyit didn't go well, and then they
tried it again.
And then they, they formed somemore islands and they had
babies of sorts.
The babies are when they createthings Sometimes they're
islands, sometimes they're othergods.
Okay, wow, the last time thatthis happened is Anami was badly

(08:48):
injured and eventually she diedafter giving birth and she gave
birth to a fire god, which kindof makes sense, like you would
think that you know.
That kind of makes sense thatyou're badly injured and then
you die from giving birth to afire god, maybe, okay, yeah.

Dylan (09:07):
Was it a dachy?

Brad (09:09):
I, I don't know.
Okay, I, I, they don't, theydon't give the details why, I
don't know.
Okay, maybe the Kojiki has it.
I just I have not read thatbecause I'm not fluent in
Japanese at all.

Dylan (09:22):
So I thought this.
I thought this series was aboutgrowth, and you're not growing
by learning Japanese.

Brad (09:27):
You're really letting our listeners know I have a hard
time reading symbols.
True, okay, okay.
So Isanami dies.
Isanagi is heartbroken andagain he's crying.
He's creating islands withevery tear right, just all over
the place.
This is awesome.
And he decides that it's toomuch to be without his partner

(09:51):
and so he goes down to Yomi,which is the land of the dead,
like a hellscape essentiallyOkay, because that's where she
descended into and he was goingto go down there and was going
to try to save her.
So he's like too much, I wanther back.
I'm going to go get her.

Dylan (10:09):
So he is like is this like Hercules and Hades and all
that fun shit?
Yes, okay, yeah, okay.
This very much lines up with it.

Brad (10:16):
It's amazing how it kind of gets recycled.
Yeah, okay, okay, I'm following.
It's not exactly the same, butthe premises are there All right
.
So he finds the entrance andthe last.
Greek on earth and starringItcherous.

Dylan (10:28):
Suzuki, okay, he finds the entrance down to this
hellish landscape and goes downthere, he finds her somehow.

Brad (10:38):
Okay, she had already eaten the food in hell.
Which?
So now we're Adam and Eve.

Dylan (10:48):
This is fun.
Which apparently means youcannot leave Forbidden fruit.
Bro, you're done, this is fun.

Brad (10:54):
So he went to rescue her and she's like okay, I'm going
to go get her, All right.
So he went to rescue her andshe's like Sorry, she's too late
, I already ate dinner.
Okay, and then Isanagi did theunthinkable Pretty unpar for a
woman, though.

Dylan (11:08):
Let's be honest.

Brad (11:09):
Pretty unthinkable.
The hangry oh wait, it getsworse.
Okay, I mean he starts a fireso that he can see her.
Like, did he use his kid?
No, that was good, very good.
Wow, like that, okay yeah.

Dylan (11:24):
The plot twist he had a zippo.

Brad (11:28):
He just pulls a fire.
Got out of his pocket, it's mykid and after he lights the fire
, he sees that she is now arotting corpse.
Yeah, cause she ate the food,she ate the whole food.
Not good Right?
Isanagi did not like this.
She felt very shameful becausehe saw her rotting corpse now.

(11:51):
She didn't like it.
It's like when your wife wakesup in the morning and Don't look
at me, don't touch me, don't Igotta put my eyebrows on.

Dylan (12:00):
That thing, yes, yes, yes .

Brad (12:04):
And maybe some girls react this way she let loose a horde
of hellish warriors to chase himdown and keep him in hell.
So, wow, isanagi makes a runfor it.
He's just running through hell,hell, yomi, and he barely makes

(12:26):
it out.

Dylan (12:27):
Why did she go to hell in the first place?
That's where you go.
Okay, there's no up above.

Brad (12:36):
It could have been walking around the pole the wrong way.
Okay, could have been.
Yeah, okay, something in theritual that didn't go according
to the plan.
According to the plan, the waythat it was supposed to.

Dylan (12:46):
Yeah.

Brad (12:46):
So when she died, they were like you know, what you
shouldn't have done, that.

Dylan (12:50):
Okay.

Brad (12:51):
And so Isanagi makes it out, rolls a big stone over the
entrance so that nobody can getback in there.

Dylan (12:58):
Okay.

Brad (12:59):
They have this little tiff back and forth where she's like
.
I'm going to take a thousandsouls a day.
And he's like, oh, I'm going tosave them and you know all this
kind of stuff.
So when he gets out of Yomi,he's got the ics, he's not
feeling very good, so he feelshe's feeling contaminated by
being in the underworld, and so,both physically and spiritually

(13:22):
because it's obviously aspiritual place as well, it's
not just a physical place in thesense With demons so he decides
to purify himself by bathing inthe cold waters of the river
Takibana.
So ice, cold water, get allthis stuff out of me, get my
mind right, okay, thus the ideaof Musogi is born.

(13:44):
So Musogi is definedtraditionally as the Shinto
practice of ritual purificationby washing the entire body, and
typically this is done in prettycold waterfalls, especially so

(14:05):
the idea that they standunderneath these waterfalls for
an extended period of time,trying to cleanse both their
body and their spiritual nature.
So today, as we Westerners havedone with a lot of things, we
take ancient ideas and thentransform them into podcast,

(14:26):
podcast, yes, yeah, okay, I gotit, yeah.
Or maybe like a YouTube videoor motivational speech.
But today Musogi has beentransformed into what we would
call a Musogi challenge.
So in the sense that standingunder ice, cold water in a
waterfall or doing an ice bathor something like that, that is

(14:52):
what Musogi challenges isturning into now a little bit.
Masogi, in terms of Shintowarriors, is more of like a
preparation to unlock physical,mental and spiritual what can be

(15:13):
, if we can put it that way.
Okay, so it's the beginning ofa transformation, right?
Okay, that's what the cleansingis about, so that you're able
to receive some new type ofthings.
So as we start talking aboutMasogi, keep that in mind.
But the idea of this challengeis to push you to your limits,

(15:38):
both physically, mentally,spiritually patella, kneecaps,
depending on what the challengeis.
Push your limits there and itforces you to Like rug burn on
your knees.
Okay, depends on what thechallenge is.
Okay, I don't know, we'll getinto it.

(15:59):
Okay, it forces you to confrontdoubts, fears and weaknesses
about yourself.
So, like I said, a lot of thiscomes from this chapter I think
the chapter is called 5050 andMichael Easter's book the
Comfort Crisis, which has a lotof good chapters in it, and it
talks a lot about the generalcomforts that we as humans now

(16:22):
enjoy, that we previously youknow, even a hundred some years
ago did not.

Dylan (16:32):
So circling back, not necessarily coming full circle,
but Don't bring up the fire, god, it's probably craps.
This episode goes a little bittoo.
Maybe we're a little toocomfortable and so maybe some
things in our life we can pushourselves out of our comfort

(16:53):
zone, not just in intellectualdebate.
We've spent a fair amount ofthis podcast and the episodes
leading up to this aboutdiscourse and discussion with
others, and now this is more ofan internal growth movement,
which is how do I grow withinmyself?

Brad (17:14):
Yes.

Dylan (17:15):
Okay.

Brad (17:16):
And that actually becomes a fairly important part of this
challenge.

Dylan (17:22):
Not only we learn how to talk politics with our crazy
family, we're going to learn howto do some cool shit.

Brad (17:27):
Okay, so we're going to separate these two things,
though, right, because some ofthese are going to Like that's a
, that is a mental, emotional,familial challenge, however you
want to put it, or what thesituation is.
Replace cold water fall with abottle of Jack Daniels.
And also, we've talked aboutexercising and how that's good
for your mind and body, and allthat kind of stuff as well.

(17:49):
And you can push yourself inmany ways in that shape.
That's a challenge as well.
Okay, masogi is an epicchallenge.

Dylan (18:00):
Something that's you got to dedicate a whole host of.

Brad (18:03):
Way outside your comfort zone, right.
So you're at the gym or you'reon, like you were just on the
bike downstairs for a little bit.

Dylan (18:10):
Don't talk about my part.

Brad (18:11):
Don't talk about Peloton, what I'm just gonna.
I didn't say it was no, yousaid it was Shit.
You're right, I wasn't gonnaname it, okay.
And you're getting to the endand you're like I got pushed
through this incline and thenyou get into that discomfort
zone, right, and you go a littlebit farther.
Masogi goes way into yourdiscomfort zone, like so far

(18:34):
that it stops being a physicalchallenge and it becomes all
mental.
So that's where we're goingwith it, and somebody's idea of
Masogi is do something so hardone day a year that it
profoundly impacts the other 364days.
That's the kind of challengethat you're looking for.

Dylan (18:56):
Like, for the following 179 days you're like, oh my God,
I'm so glad that's over.
And then, when you get past thehalfway point, you're like, oh
shit, every day I'm gettingcloser to it again.

Brad (19:04):
No God, maybe I think that's how you think about it.
Yeah, I mean there's definitely.
If you're planning somethingbig enough, the anxiety should
definitely be there.
I believe so in this particularchapter called 50-50,.
It's called 50-50 for a reasonwhich we'll get to in a minute.

(19:27):
He's doing an interview with aHarvard PhD doctor like an
actual medical doctor namedMarcus Elliott, and if anyone
wants to look him up, we'll do areal brief bio.
But super interesting guythat's doing super interesting
things, I see you have two firstnames.
Marcus.
Elliott I don't like it.

(19:47):
Elliott's a pretty good lastname, ts.

Dylan (19:50):
Elliott.
Is he TS Elliott?
No, no, no, okay.

Brad (19:55):
Is he from ET phone home?

Dylan (19:58):
ET Elliott, I'm bored now , continue, okay.

Brad (20:02):
He's the owner of P3, which I pulled up somewhere.
I don't remember the three P's,but there are three of them.
That's why it's called P3.
And he is really good atoptimizing professional athletes
for both performance and, let'ssay, health, longevity, to

(20:24):
decrease injuries.
So they analyze individualathletes and then tailor
training regimens to them.
But he is the one that hasreally taken hold of this Musogi
challenge.
He's the peak performanceproject.

(20:45):
Peak performance project.
Okay, sick website, nice, good,let's steal it, okay, okay.
And so he uses this Musogichallenge to up the level of
what people think is possible ofthemselves, and in doing so,

(21:05):
sometimes he brings professionalathletes with him.
Okay, one of the ones he talksabout in this chapter is they
moved a I think it was a 80pound rock underwater for five
kilometers.
So it was off the coast ofCalifornia, and there was three
of them that did this, so himand two other athletes, and they

(21:30):
would dive seven to 10 feet,pick up this rock, walk along
the bottom of the ocean as longas they could, and then come up
in surface, and then the nextperson would dive down, pick up
the rock, carry it as long asthey could, which is usually
like 10 yards or something, andthey did that for five
kilometers.
So three 3.1 miles.

(21:52):
So that was the.
That was the Musogi challengefor them that year.
How long did it take?

Dylan (21:58):
I don't know you came to this podcast.
Are you prepared?

Brad (22:02):
Uh well, you will find that time is not really of the
essence.
Okay, In this.

Dylan (22:07):
Okay.

Brad (22:09):
So, uh, elliot says of the challenge, take on challenges
that radically expand your senseof what's possible.
There are just two rules.
You have a 50% chance ofsuccess at best and it doesn't
kill you.
So those are his two rules forwhen you're trying to plan a
Musogi is that's where the 50,50 comes from for the chapter

(22:33):
title.
You got a 50% chance of success, okay.
So let's break that down intowhat may or may not qualify as a
Musogi, right?
So, uh, you are, let's say, inpretty good running shape, right
, you run a couple miles acouple times a week is.

(22:55):
And then you're, you'retraining, so you're doing some
long runs.
You get up to like 15 miles.
Yeah you're in good shape, yourun 15 miles.
Now stop and you say well, mymissokis gonna be a marathon,
not a missokie it's not gonnaqualify.
Is it a challenge?

(23:16):
Yeah, sure it's a challenge.
Is it going to change the wayyou think about yourself if you
complete it?
Probably not, if you've alreadybeen running 15 miles nonstop.

Dylan (23:27):
Mm-hmm.

Brad (23:27):
Okay.
So there, you got to becreative and it is what is
basically what he gets at.
Okay, and he has.
So those are the two rules 50%chance, completion, don't die.
Okay, don't die parts alsoreally important, because
otherwise you can't do it again,obviously.
But did he die?

(23:48):
But did he die?
Yeah, if somebody's asking you,that could be a missokie.

Dylan (23:53):
I feel like that was my childhood, but did he die like
how many brushes of debt thatyou have as a kid?

Brad (24:00):
That I was aware of.

Dylan (24:02):
Yeah but if you look, I think the ones that are more fun
are the ones that you weren'taware of, and then you look back
and go oh my god, so.

Brad (24:11):
Oh, I want to talk about different episodes way off topic
, but but get the sense thatsomebody's looking down on you
without you Knowing they'relooking down on you and then the
potential that they may havejust been there to like a
petafile Maybe kill you.

Dylan (24:24):
Oh yeah, like a petafile Maybe, yeah, yeah, okay, you
talked about this one time.

Brad (24:29):
Yeah, it wasn't.
That wasn't the specific case,it was probably something else.
But okay, yeah, okay, thatcould have been a close call, it
wasn't a close call at all.

Dylan (24:36):
I think I read that book the lovely bones, oh, oh, oh.

Brad (24:41):
Stanley tucci too I didn't like him as a villain.
No, he's not a villain.

Dylan (24:44):
I love Stanley tucci.
He's got another show.
He's doing another Italiancooking show yeah.
I can't wait he's great Stanleyto actually that should First
celebrity.
We're not doing celebritiesuntil we get Stanley tucci.
We're just gonna blanket nocelebrities on the podcast until
Stanley tucci says yes so whathappens when it's like that's?

Brad (25:02):
our misogi it that's not challenging in Trying to get no.
No, it's impossible, Exactlyyeah, but it's not like
physically and mentallychallenging.

Dylan (25:14):
It's mentally challenging because we got a, we got a, we
got to keep writing.

Brad (25:17):
You know what?
Well, we could just yeah.

Dylan (25:19):
I could build a spanbot.

Brad (25:20):
Well, no, no, he's not gonna like now You're right, no,
that's not his style.
Okay, so make it hard, 50, 50,don't die.
So if you are doing somethingwhere you could die, maybe put
some stuff in place.
So like when they did theunderwater rock carry, they had
some divers out there with them,okay, so okay, something went
terribly wrong.

(25:40):
Yep somebody's there, right?
They did another one where itwas like a stand-up paddle board
across like an entire bay.

Dylan (25:48):
Don't like that.

Brad (25:48):
They had a layered Hamilton did that, he did the
Laird Hamilton does misogies,probably on the daily I was he's
bananas.

Dylan (25:56):
He did all the islands, either swimming or paddle
boarding or no.
He had a bike on between them.
Yeah, no, he did all theHawaiian Islands and he biked.
That's what.
He had a bike on every islandand he had a paddle board and he
would paddle to the next island, get on a bike Right across the
island and then paddle board.

Brad (26:15):
I got he's, that's, it's bananas that guy.
I'm there to Hamilton like if,if you don't know who Laird
Hamilton and he's a professionalsurfer Mary do a supermodel
Married to well, she's a Gabby.

Dylan (26:29):
Gabby was volleyball player.
Oh right, hey we shouldprobably both, but I thought she
also do like a ton of modeling?

Brad (26:34):
Oh, probably yeah.
So oh, let me guess Super tallsand volleyball player?
Yeah, probably does somemodeling.

Dylan (26:41):
Yeah, makes sense he's also just.
Yeah, they did the pedal andpaddle for autism.
He's a fitness, that's you rule.

Brad (26:49):
That's it in a lot of different ways, yeah he's
interesting character.
My first introduction to himwas writing Giants, the movie.
If you haven't seen it, ohthat's wild, check it out.
2004.
Writing Giants it's a bit of awhat is this?
Multi-generational insiderslook at the origins of surfing

(27:10):
and then Laird comes around andit just changes everything about
it.
And he hasn't really stoppeddoing that.
So he's for sure got some.
So he's under his belt.
I would say so.
Those are the two rules.

Dylan (27:25):
Then there's two guidelines and they did it over.
Sorry, one, two, three, four,five.
Seven days they did a weekpedal Island of Hawaii paddle
channel to Maui.
So they paddled from thechannel to like those are not
close.
No, it's, it's, it's a big deal.

Brad (27:45):
It's a lot of, it's a lot of distance.
Yeah, so anyway, sorry, basedon my Mm-hmm super special
knowledge of the HawaiianIslands.
Mm-hmm two guidelines.
Quirky, creative, far outuncommon is number one.
So the more quirky the misogi,the less chance you can compare
it to anything else.
So it's, this is not a I'mcompeting with somebody else

(28:12):
type thing, so this is not well.
Dylan ran a 330 marathon.
I'm gonna run a 325 marathon.
That's not that, mm-hmm, okay.
Number two you don't get toadvertise it like you can talk
about.
You can talk about it withfriends, family.

(28:32):
It is not a Thing that you wouldpost about or Take video of the
entire time you're doing it orturn it to a documentary, most
likely On your own Doing, Iguess.
And what this does is itinvites a Level of

(28:55):
self-reflection.
So the idea of misogi isinward-facing.
And can you confront all of thethings within you to accomplish
a task that's really hard?
And can you do it while no oneelse is watching you?
So I didn't quit because noone's watching me, but I'm
watching me, so I didn't quit.

(29:15):
Did you really do the rightthing when you were the only
person watching?
Essentially, hmm, is thequestion.
So those are the the two littlethings.
It's also not a Like atelevised, you know, like so why
is this important?
Why is it important?
Why?

Dylan (29:35):
is it important?

Brad (29:36):
Oh Cuz I said Okay, we'll just go.
Yeah, that's what we're goingwith.
Cool, jacko, thanks.
Well, since you bring that up,you know how a lot of people
have like anxiety and depressionand and all of these things in
our today world.

Dylan (29:54):
Yeah.

Brad (29:55):
There is a strong belief that our evolutionary biology
prepares us for a Life that weno longer live.

Dylan (30:07):
So we have an abundance of adrenaline and other
fight-or-flight.
Yes, we have fight-or-flightinstincts that aren't being met
because we don't have that.
We don't have those triggersanymore.
So that builds up and itcreates yeah, kind of false.

Brad (30:21):
Well, so Even 150 years ago, you had to do hard things
to survive, and those variedBased on how far back you want
to go or what kind of landscapeyou were living in.
Sometimes that was travelingbetween seasons.

(30:42):
Sometimes it is Fighting yournatural predators, of which
there were many.
Now we only have Karens, got alot of Karens, the natural
predator of target.
But if you were, if you're upnorth well, actually, if you're
still up north, you know you got, you have bears, you have

(31:03):
wolves and you're in theelements and you have to contend
with those kind of things youhave to.
If you're hunting for food, youmight have to pack out a Large
amount of meat over some reallybad terrain for a long time.

(31:26):
That's otherwise you'd diebecause you'd starve.
There's all kinds of ways inwhich humans have had to
constantly be Challenged andovercome those challenges just
in order for them to survive.

Dylan (31:43):
Hmm.

Brad (31:44):
And so, yes, maybe it wasn't a daily activity,
depending on the type of societythat you lived in.
Sometimes, like I said for ifyou're look at, let's look at
Native Americans maybe it wasmore seasonal, right.
So like, ooh, we're here rightnow and at summertime and things
are pretty good.
Now we got to pack up and wehave to heave all this stuff

(32:06):
around, so a lot of weight overa long distance so that we can
get to a next camp so that wecan survive the winter, so
anything like that.
And now we just we don't, wedon't have to do any of that.

Dylan (32:22):
So Dr Brad saying we have an abundance of energy that
gets sometimes channeled thewrong way because we don't have
outlets that properly channelthat energy.

Brad (32:34):
That's part of it.
But they're also saying thatdoing really hard shit is
fundamentally human.

Dylan (32:41):
Yeah, it really is.

Brad (32:42):
That's a part of it, and so what he says I think this is
Elliott says that by notchallenging ourselves, we forget
something truly important aboutwhat it is to be human.
So there is a sense that andI'll get to this in a little bit
but that we long for somethingmore, and a lot of times that

(33:04):
something more is something thatis really fucking hard to do,
so that we get that sense ofovercoming and surviving in a
sense.
Now do we have to manufactureit today?
Yeah, we do a little bit,unless you're really on the
outskirts of civilization.
Hey, man, I mean, you could dothat.

Dylan (33:22):
I had to forage my oat milk from my latte.
So fuck you, that's fine.
I don't know where to get oatmilk.

Brad (33:30):
Do you squeeze Quakers?
I don't know actually Quakersdon't like to be squeezed.
They're very strict people.

Dylan (33:37):
Cool hats though.

Brad (33:39):
I guess, if you want to do that.
So this made me think about aquote that I really liked in
high school, and I don't thinkit was really attributed to
anybody.

Dylan (33:51):
Is this where I'm supposed to?

Brad (33:51):
remind you, this is no, not yet.

Dylan (33:54):
Okay.

Brad (33:54):
No, maybe later.
No, this will be a differentepisode.

Dylan (33:57):
Okay.

Brad (33:58):
And it's.
I've seen it in a lot ofdifferent ways and this is the
way I remember it, so I wrote itdown this way Only those who
risk going too far can know whatis truly possible.
It's a lot different, so it'skind of about pushing the
boundaries and seeing what isyou know what we're really
capable of.
So at some point in the Sahara,like somebody had to fight a

(34:19):
lion, and up to that pointeveryone was like you can't kill
a lion.
And then the guy was like, yeah, fucking watch this, hold my
beer.
Yeah, actually used to be arite of passage.
Yeah, a lot, of, a lot of youngmales.

Dylan (34:37):
Didn't make it back, didn't make it back.
Lion dinner and the ones thatdid normally became chief.

Brad (34:43):
If you, if you've seen the movie 300, the Spartan one,
there's a little clip in therewhere they send the probably
teenage, they send a Scottishman to become a Greek God.
Okay, I'm just yes, they dothat too.
Why does he have a Scottishaccent?

Dylan (35:00):
Why are they speaking English?
Does Jared Butler know how todo anything else?

Brad (35:04):
Oh, he doesn't, he is.
They send a young teen, so,after they've gone through their
training and adolescence andthey think that he's ready, they
send them into the mountainsand he's got to fight,
apparently, a 600 pound wolf orsomething along those lines.
But throughout, I don't know,since society has existed in

(35:25):
different, in different ways,there have been different ways
to test people in terms of howdo you become a part of of this
community and for what's thehard shit?
Yeah, and, and it can be bothways, right.
So sometimes there's nodiscrepancy between male, female
, sometimes there was.
Sometimes they'd have to dodifferent things.

(35:48):
Another thing that stretch yourneck, another thing that we're
still terrified of publicspeaking can go back to being
ousted from the community, andso sometimes the challenge for
women would be you know, don'tdo this wrong thing, otherwise
you get kicked out.

(36:08):
If you get kicked out of thecommunity, you're probably gonna
fucking die.
You're probably gonna fuckingdie Because, scarlet letter man,
it's a rough world out there.

Dylan (36:16):
So yeah, there was safety .
It is interesting because we've, you know, high loan, some
braving the wilderness, We'vetalked a lot about that.
But there was safety andcommunity because the world, it.
We used to truly live in awilderness and it was dangerous.
So you needed you needed acommunity to keep you safe from

(36:39):
physical danger, and now that'skind of evolved to where we're
at, where we need community eventhough you're not so dangerous
on the outside.

Brad (36:48):
Yeah.

Dylan (36:49):
It's interesting.

Brad (36:49):
You do for different purposes.
Well, maybe less purposes.
Yeah, you know, I think theystill needed community for that
as well the mental, social, allthat kind of stuff.
But they also needed it forvery physical reason as well.
So so that leads me into whatDylan has done.

(37:12):
That's really hard in hislifetime.
Not a lot what you didn't tellme you were gonna talk about me.

Dylan (37:17):
I don't like this.

Brad (37:19):
Oh well I was just wondering if you had any
examples.
No, no, okay, let's talk aboutwhat.
What they're not.
This is a short clip in the NewYorker Charles Bethea.
This is his little descriptionof it.
So we're gonna.
It's gonna clarify some of theguidelines.
Masogi is a physical trial thatyou don't practice or prepare

(37:40):
for, no marathons, you don'tperform before a crowd, no
CrossFit style competitions, andyou don't brag or pay to enter
tough motors.
Thinking outside the box isimportant too, so the other
thing that those three have incommon is that you're doing them

(38:00):
with a lot of people.

Dylan (38:01):
There's a huge community aspect.

Brad (38:03):
Even if you're there by yourself, you're not, you're not
really right Because you're,you're, you're taking on all of
that extra stuff.
So my example in some sense andwe'll go a little bit against
what Charles just said so myexample would be the Go Ruck,

(38:27):
and this happened almost 12years ago now that I had done
the Go Ruck challenge.
So, for anyone unfamiliar, goRuck is a is a backpack company,
a Ruck company and it's.

(38:48):
It started out special forcesguy that decided he was going to
make a backpack that wasmilitary grade quality.

Dylan (38:56):
That I have a lot of them .
I love them.
I love your compliments on themall the time.

Brad (39:01):
Yeah, I did.
I did too.
It's great.
Actually, the other daysomebody was like were you in
the military?
And I was like no, and he'slike.
We came all backpack and I waslike I already have a black one.

Dylan (39:10):
That's a gray camo black, you know it's fine.

Brad (39:15):
So he comes up with a, a very rugged military style, but
more stylish, modern, civilianminded pack and the way
originally that they decidedthey were going to test this
pack out was they put out a callfor any idiot that wanted to

(39:37):
come do some green bit brayselection style training.
So, like you know, like a 12hour training be fine.
We're going to load it up.
It's going to get dirty and wetand nasty and we're going to
drag it around and throw itaround and and see what happens
after 12 hours.
And what they they didn'trealize is that there's I mean,

(40:01):
if this doesn't cry out for asponsorship for Misogi, I don't
know what does.
But all these these people showup.
It was a lot of their friendsinitially in the first ones.
They show up, they do thischallenge.
You know, 12 hours later andand they're like yeah, yeah,
when are we going to do thisagain?

(40:22):
And Jason, the founder of GoRook, was like huh, what you
guys like this, like yeah, itwas fucking fun, great, I'll do
it again, 100%.
So the, the company started tosell backpacks and now part of
the foundation is thesechallenges.
So there's there's differentlevels way back when it was just

(40:45):
the, the Go Rook toughchallenge.
Now there's some, some babyones and some harder ones.
But the, the challenge theoriginal is a 10 to 12 hour
event covering 15 to 20 miles.
It does have a high completionrate because it is a team

(41:07):
building type of challenge.
So and then you're required tocarry 30 plus pounds typically
and you you do a bunch of crazyshit.
Essentially, you start offgetting burned for an hour or

(41:28):
two with PT style exercises,until they call that section the
welcome party, welcome party.
Yeah, so you're just doingexercises as a group until you
want to fucking kill yourself.
And then we're ready to go.
And then you're.
You're going to go walk 15 to20 miles with a pack bow and, by
the way, we're going to makeobjectives along the way, which

(41:51):
also require you to do moreexercises, carry heavy, heavy
weights like tree trunks,telephone poles, boulders,
whatever your naturalsurroundings happen to provide
for you.
You're going to love it, trustus.
There are rules, as there arein any military operations,

(42:15):
things that you should not do,and if you do them, you die.
And if you die, your team getsto carry you.
So, along with carrying allkinds of shit that you find
along the way, you're bound tohave some fucking idiots that
don't follow the rules and die,and they get to carry them too.
So, yeah, there's, there's alot of, there's a lot of

(42:36):
hardships that endure over that.

Dylan (42:39):
So you're going to talk about yours.

Brad (42:41):
Yes, but I do.
I do think that falls a littlebit into what he's talking about
, where there's there's still acommunity there, right?
Because the idea is, you startto work as a team and if you
falter, another teammate isgoing to pick up your slack, and
that way everybody completesthe thing.
Right, and the, the cadre thatare there, they don't.

(43:02):
They don't actively try to makepeople quit, right, they're
there to make it hard, to makeit challenging, to be not nice
or pretend to not be nice, andthey're very effective at that
also.
But by and large, you, the ideais to complete it as a team.
Now, if you're to Take all ofthe challenges and put them side

(43:28):
by side, are they all?
Do they all look exactly thesame?
Fuck, no, like If you have aclass and it's just they're
fucking bonkers, and then youhave another class and and
they're they're not really readyfor this, right, those two
challenges are probably gonnalook a lot different.
Are they gonna be really hardfor both groups?

(43:48):
Yeah, they will be, but youcan't.
You can't take this one.
That's.
That's an experienced and andnot as.
Maybe they're not in as good ashape, or maybe they're just
more sane than this group is, ormaybe they don't hate
themselves as much as this groupdoes, you know whatever, the
self doubt is strong, whateverwhatever the case, I could smell
itself-loathing can get you

(44:09):
through a lot of shit.
So it's hard on both sense, butin either sense you have a team
and then you have the, theultimate challenge of go-rock,
which is called selection, andthis is a truly individual event
where you sign up it's a 48plus hour event and you have,

(44:35):
instead of 20 people in onecadre, it gets down to like
three people and more like 20cadre, and the idea is they they
don't want you to quit per sethere's a standard to uphold,
though.
Yes, they have a standard thatyou have to meet for whatever

(44:55):
you're doing.
You do not know what thatstandard is all the time, and,
mentally, when they keep tellingyou that you are not upholding
the standard, you, theself-doubt is is really high.
So that Leans a lot more intomisogy, I think.
Except you are your own cadrein that sense, right, so you

(45:18):
You've set up a.
So Marcus Elliott, the guy wetalked about from p3, a one of
his.
He's like he's failed his lastcouple when, when Easter was
talking to him, one of them waslike a rim to rim to rim of the
Grand Canyon, yeah, and he'strying to do it three times.

Dylan (45:40):
So you start at the south , you go to the north and come
back to rim.

Brad (45:44):
Okay, so rim to rim is just one way.
Yeah and he's going both ways.
I think that's right.

Dylan (45:51):
Yeah, yeah.

Brad (45:52):
Yeah, yeah, the rim to rim .
Yeah, that's not.

Dylan (45:56):
Not easy.

Brad (45:57):
The one the one-way trip is is pretty taxing for most
people.

Dylan (45:59):
Yeah, it's a grad.
People don't realize the amountof Elevation, elevation.

Brad (46:04):
Yeah, water is a real issue, all those kind of things.
And he just, you know he wasn't, he thought he was, he was good
to go and and Just mentally waslike, yeah, I, I just wasn't, I
would, just wasn't there.

(46:24):
And I knew that mentallythere's that that don't die part
going in you.
And he's like I knew if Icontinued on after He'd made it
to the north rim, I think he'slike if I go back down there,
like they're gonna have to comeget me and helicopter rescues
are not cheap Usually, sowhoopsie.

(46:46):
So you get it.
You want to get into that zonewhere your mind starts going is
Is this a good idea?
If you're there, you're in amisogy.
So yeah, so go rough.
For me I felt like was, and Ithink it accomplished what a
misogy is supposed to do, whichis to unlock New potentials for

(47:10):
you, both physically andmentally.
Would you unlock you?
You don't understand Quite whatyou're capable of when you just
quit, if you keep going andthen you keep going and then you
keep going.
At the end of it You're like,oh, remember, in minute, 10 out

(47:31):
of 12 hours when I wanted toquit and then I didn't quit and
then I went another 11 hours.
That's pretty cool.
And so you, you realize thatit's not really your body that's
saying I can't do this, it'syour brain.

Dylan (47:46):
It's, it's the ignoring the abort mission at all costs
bell going off in your head.
Yes, it's being able to.
It's being able to take thatand ignore it and move on and it
.

Brad (48:00):
It's kind of weird because in one sense, like we don't,
we're not good with failure.
Humans we don't want to putourselves in situations where
we'll fail.
So when you put yourself inthat situation it gets real
uncomfortable, real fast,because both your body and mind
initially are like we're fucked,we're gonna fail, yep, for sure

(48:24):
Yep.
And it's kind of up to thatother side of your brain to be
like alright, let's hold on,let's, let's see what we can do
here.
Maybe this isn't everythingRight and Maybe there's a tea
break.

Dylan (48:37):
Maybe there's crumpets, may cucumber sandwich, I don't
know you.

Brad (48:42):
You find yourself Hoping initially.
The hope is what kills you no,that's a Ted Lasso saying.
But you do find yourself hoping, like I hope this Stupid
exercise that we're doing rightnow ends.
I hope we don't have to dofucking a hundred more burpees
and I hope we don't have to bearcrawl downhill with a 40 pound

(49:03):
pack on my neck again and thenAt some point that changes to
One burpee at a time, five feetat a time.

Dylan (49:15):
And Andy, and Andy stump talks about this and he said
Going through buds.
Your job as a student, goingthrough buds is to keep your
world as small as possible.
And that is to your point.
Next burpee Get to the neck, hegoes.
They have to feed us every Fourto six hours.
It's like get to the next meal.
I mean quit.
You can quit when you get tothe next meal, right.

(49:36):
I mean when you get to the next.
They're like no, I don't wantto quit.
Yeah, and he goes.
And then your job as aninstructor is to try to make
their world as big as possible.
And he's like I've seen reallygood, how are you gonna do four
more weeks of this?
Yeah, and he's like I've.
He's like I've caught studentsin weak moments where I made
their world so big and I he goes.

(49:57):
I've had post exit interviewswith them and they're like oh my
god, you caught me at the wrongtime and I'm I regret it the
rest of my life.
And he goes.
But that's what this selectionis about, because you're not a
lot of weak moment.
Yeah, we go out there.
Yeah, so he goes.

Brad (50:10):
Your job is to be able to keep your world as small as
possible, no matter what'shappening and so With like, when
we talk about go-ruck selectionand the cadre talked about this
extensively, 48 hours is notthe fucking green Bray selection
process, right?
So their, their goal is to havea really high standard and

(50:31):
Bring a lot of aspects of thatselection process to an area
that both civilians and formermilitary or current whatever
Whatever you're at in life youcan get a piece of of that kind
of style of of what that processis and Pretty much all the

(50:54):
cadre that are there.
When asked, they're like wouldyou sign up to do this?
And like, fuck, no.

Dylan (51:01):
To do this terrible but they they are all you can't do
three weeks.
They are.
It's not a real.

Brad (51:07):
They're all elite forces To some in different branches,
so like they've, they've allkind of done it.
They're like I wouldn't fuckingsign up for this for fun, you
know.
Like I wanted to do a job.
That's why I went through itand and did it.
But Then they talk aboutparticipants that Make it
through some of the harder, likethe really high dropout rates.

(51:30):
So the the welcome party inSelection is like six hours long
, where it's just constant PT up, down, up down.

Dylan (51:38):
Yeah get in the water, get out of the water.
Get in the water, get out ofthe water.

Brad (51:40):
Give me burpees, give me push-ups, it's just non-stop
movement for what seems like forfucking ever.
And then after that you get todo some more fucking terrible
shit and Eventually they starthitting you with the standard.
Some people are performingbetter than you're performing
and and you're only 25% waythrough this.

(52:02):
You know 12 hours can reallyfeel like a long time and and
they make it seem like the next.
You know 36 are gonna be Justunbearable.
And so they quit.
And you know, I like hey, takeit back off right now and go sit
over there.
You, peanut butter and jellysandwich.

(52:23):
There's fire over there, it'snice, warm.
And they go sit down.
And then, five minutes laterthey they look at the cadre and
they're like I don't know why, Iquit, I'm fucking fine.
Their brain is just soScrambled, so scrambled, that
it's like get out of here, getout of here, get out of here,
get out of here right now.

Dylan (52:43):
Jacked eject, eject.
Yeah, it's being able to heareject and ignore it.

Brad (52:48):
And so, in terms of misogy , how do you?
The creative process is tryingto create situations where you
get some of that introduced toyour brain, where you, you have
these unknowns right.
So, like in the selectionprocess, you know you're gonna
be moving shit around, you knowyou're gonna be walking for
ungodly amounts of time, you'renot gonna get much rest or food,

(53:09):
and so you know those things.
But in the moment it'sdifferent and you start having
all these doubts and fears andquestions.
And then what, what does yourbrain do?
Right?
So maybe you, maybe you failyour first one.
You fail your first misogy, andKind of like those guys five

(53:31):
minutes after you quit, likefucking I Could have kept going,
you, okay.
So next year, you know, like,right, first chance I get to
quit, not gonna quit, I'm gonnakeep going, right.
And then you start buildingthose pathways and you transfer
those skills to once you quit.
Every year it's then it's toohard.
You got to hit that 50-50 rule.

(53:54):
If you're failing 100% of thetime, that's not 50-50 24 hours
in a waffle house.

Dylan (54:00):
Done you wow.

Brad (54:03):
Um depends on which waffle house one waffle an hour 24
hours.
Oh no, I meant just likestaying in one yeah that's what
I'm saying too.
Oh yeah, yeah, some of it mightreally force you out, mm-hmm.

Dylan (54:15):
They're 24 seven.
I've seen some fights.
Oh well, that's your miss overthe bar.

Brad (54:20):
Fight waffle house, fight waffle house fight, so throw a
mug.
I I'll read this real quick ifyou don't care no go for it.

Dylan (54:29):
So this I was not.

Brad (54:31):
I was not writing Extensively, and this is one of
the few journal entries I madeat the time that wasn't so just
full sunk depression mode.

Dylan (54:40):
So it wasn't like every other day.

Brad (54:43):
No, yeah, it was for like a month and then I wouldn't
write until the next year.
Moody Grootie yeah, pretty muchso.
Broody, moody.
So, like I said, this is about12 years ago and it was at the
time.
It felt like somethingSubstantial, substantial, and it
it still does, because I can'tthink of too many things harder
than I've done Since then.
Live with Shannon.

(55:03):
Hi Shane, good luck with that.
You got a couple weeks.
Good, yeah, you can figure itout.
I Recently completed the go-rockchallenge and it felt compelled
to write about it.
Obviously, the challenge is a10 plus hour challenge endurance
, military style series of teamchallenges covering 12 plus

(55:23):
miles, 40 plus pounds on yourback, lots of rucking, which is
just carrying weight on yourback and backpack, carrying
formed objects, carrying people,carrying trees, etc.
And lots of military style PT.
I signed up knowing this wasgoing to be one of the hardest
things I had done to date, andthe event did not disappoint.
20 minutes into our welcomeparty, I was having serious

(55:45):
doubts as to whether or not thiswas the kind of workload that I
could handle.
Push-ups, burpees, elephantwalks, crab walks, bear crawls,
flutter kicks and on it goes.
Just make it through thisexercise, I had to tell myself
there will be an end.
So many thoughts and lessonshappened in the next 12 hours
and they happened with little tono talking or explanation.

(56:08):
My first thought initially wasto quit.
That was followed quickly byjust making it to the end of the
set of whatever exercise wewere on by morning.
So what did we?
we started this at like 10 pm, Ithink okay so sometime around
sunrise, I was ready to dealwith the task at hand.
Didn't matter the length of, orthe time, or the distance or

(56:31):
the weight.
It was getting done, and theonly expectation I had was that
after my task was accomplished,I would be dealt a new one, and
so it went.
I Learned that my initialinstincts are weak.
I learned that strength comesfrom the mind and not from the
body.
I learned that depending onother people makes you more, not
less, capable.
I learned that overthinking cankill motivation and capability.

(56:52):
I learned that working withpeople is easier and more
effective than working againstthem.
I learned how to figure it outand how to get shit done.
These things can all be appliedto everyday life, and I need to
be more diligent about doing so.
Consistent work ethic issomething I am overly capable of
but all too often fail toemploy.

(57:12):
I Just need to figure it outand get shit done.
Which, side note, at the timeDidn't know I had ADHD for a
little, a good period of my life.
It's a plot twist for most ofus, and it was.
It was always like wow, I don'tunderstand why you just can't
fucking do it.
Just go fucking do it, that's.

Dylan (57:33):
And so favorite words in the whole world.

Brad (57:35):
Yeah, and so it's just you know, raymond, that square key
into the the circle nails on achalkboard, mm-hmm.
The other thing I quicklylearned was that things can
always be worse.
Learn to embrace.
Embrace shitty situations,because they won make you
appreciate the good and Iquotation mark the good, as if I

(57:55):
knew Jocko would be coming intomy life in about four years,
because I was worried about that.

Dylan (58:01):
That was like eight years ago.
And so did you like pick up oneof, like the Japanese deities,
that like the, the deity ofsight, picked up on the, on the
mind reader and the futureforecaster.

Brad (58:12):
Maybe, maybe I did, maybe I unlocked that potential in me
that night.

Dylan (58:16):
You cried a little.
Even though you cried a littlebit, you created an island.

Brad (58:20):
Yeah, maybe Think about how many island you have out
there think about how I didn'tship myself, which is a real
accomplishment.
Yeah yeah, krone's is a bitch.
I don't know if I could do thatnow and to, because it can
always get shittier.
I Sometimes dwell on thenegative, especially when going
through my depressive states.
When does that happen?

(58:40):
And this is when I most need tofocus on the good in the
situation, even if the good isonly knowing, is only the
knowledge, that it could beworse.
So we you go from I want toquit, I don't quit.
I don't want to quit right now,but I want to quit soon, maybe

(59:00):
10 minutes, maybe the next 10minutes, and then you just
eventually get to.
I remember the very ending.
We had done some fuckinghorrendous like everybody died,
like half the team died, so theother half of the team is
carrying the other half of theteam, and Everybody's bigger
than me, you know, and you don'thave to just carry them,
they're also carrying weight onthem.

(59:22):
So it's worse.
And then you stop because youfucked up so bad.
And then you got to do someother PT and you're supposed to
be going to an endpoint so thatyou can close this thing off.
And you get to the endpoint andthen they're like Miss, your ex
Phil.
Now we got to go the next placeand you're just like and

(59:42):
Everybody was just like- Okayokay, here we go.
And then he's like, oh fuck,with you we're done.
But you get into that mindset.
We're like, yeah, we're just onto the next and we're just
going to the next thing.
And it was an interesting takeinto what you're capable of, how
that mindset changes the themore fun version of this that I

(01:00:06):
thought of that I wrote down washash house Harriers.
Yeah, where it's a, it's adifferent kind of challenge.
We're like you know what, I'malready fucking hammered, but
the next stop, gonna do it again.
Mm-hmm next stop gonna do itagain.

Dylan (01:00:24):
I'm point two miles, five more beers in point two miles,
five more beers.

Brad (01:00:30):
So there, there have been some other, I Would say,
challenging aspects, some thingsthat we've done, but this is.
I used to do a birthdaychallenge.
Do you remember these?

Dylan (01:00:45):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah but for the audience I'llact like I don't know.

Brad (01:00:51):
Jack Lillani Lillain.
He was an old fitness guru andhe started this thing called the
.

Dylan (01:01:00):
Richard Simmons.

Brad (01:01:00):
No, it's not Richard Simmons.

Dylan (01:01:02):
Okay, Paulie, Sure no okay, I know different,
different Okay.

Brad (01:01:06):
Yeah, he started this thing when he was older called
the birthday challenge, andevery year he would.
He would just come up with Someevent like something crazy to
do, and it was different.
All the time I was like I'mgonna pull a Fucking tugboat
across a giant lake using thisrope, and then he would just and
that kind of looks like, itkind of feels like that fits in

(01:01:27):
the die category.
No cuz he's on land.
Oh he's just.
He's not swimming, he's justpulling.
Oh, he wasn't like pullingswimming.

Dylan (01:01:39):
That seems like it would not go on Dye category.

Brad (01:01:42):
I mean they could break in the rules, right now, right,
yeah, so he would do that, andit was.
It was something different, andI Someone else had picked it up
along the way and startedmaking up.
This was when blogs were comingout, like blogger, yeah, okay,
and so somebody had the hot take, we're gonna have a blog what,
what?
No or not?
Okay, no blogs already have one, oh cool.

(01:02:03):
Let me tell you what it isBrad's blog.

Dylan (01:02:05):
Fuck you.
You don't get to know, okay.

Brad (01:02:09):
I do have one somewhere though out in the ether.
What is it called Zanga?
What's that?
No, I don't think so, so I cameup.
I came across this the birthdaychallenge website, whatever,
and and people would essentiallypost like their misogies on
this on this website.
I was like I'm, and one of themwas a lady that I follow to

(01:02:32):
this day, who was a recoveringaddict, had gotten a Gambler
name it no drugs and not as fun,no, nothing.
And that had become an endurancerunner and at the time she was,
I think, in her 40s and and shewas going to run her age in

(01:02:53):
hours.
Oh wow, I was like oh fuck.
And so.

Dylan (01:02:58):
I so much easier when I'm younger right, and so I had.

Brad (01:03:02):
I had done several in a row and it sucked because my
birthday's in December and so Idon't think it snowed on my
birthday since I stopped doingthese challenges, damn it.
But I'd be like I'm gonna run26 miles, a bike 26 miles, and
I'll do you know Something else,and so I would just come 26
miles like that.

Dylan (01:03:21):
That's me going to the bar.
That's pretty easy To what forbiking?

Brad (01:03:25):
I know, but I don't bike and, as it happens, snow yeah, I
got a fight back in the.
I don't, I don't, I don't havethat.
Okay, I was on a ten speed roadbike.

Dylan (01:03:36):
That's dangerous, that's dangerous a foot of snow.

Brad (01:03:39):
That's dangerous, right?
How would you?

Dylan (01:03:40):
do that.

Brad (01:03:42):
Because I, because I rode it on the block, I had to do it.

Dylan (01:03:44):
That doesn't fit in the do not die category.

Brad (01:03:47):
There's not.
There wasn't a lot of cars onthe road.

Dylan (01:03:48):
Then there's too much snow, it's lip fall hit your
head as wearing a helmet.
Oh I could.
I'm sure it was totally legityeah okay, let's move on, let's
pull leather.
I'm over this conversation.
I like it.
No, okay, pig skin, pig skin,yeah, mmm, no this was real
leather, Ah yeah okay, killed acow for this one, not, not Gator

(01:04:09):
.

Brad (01:04:10):
Was not Gator skin bummer, so that's kind of those were
some things I did.
You know what?

Dylan (01:04:17):
can people hope to gain by doing, by implementing a
misogy in their life?
How can they start thinkingabout it?
How can you test your limitswithout putting yourself in the
dead category?

Brad (01:04:28):
you have to know Start, start out by when are you at
right now, right?
So the way the Elliottdescribes it is a marathon could
be your misogy, right?
So if you've, if you've justran like a 5k and you you think
you could Maybe run 15 miles,like you're, like, I think, I

(01:04:52):
think I could put 15 milestogether, marathon might be a
misogy, you know.
Okay, you could do that.
Yeah but it's also can you getoutside of.
So if you are just startingsome of those kind of standard
type, you know, physical typethings, those count, you can do

(01:05:15):
those okay but they have to be.
It's not like I've beentraining for a marathon for a
year and then I'm gonna go do it.
It's like no cuz you shouldfucking do it.

Dylan (01:05:25):
Okay, you Got you guys you're not gonna be able to
prepare for the misogy.

Brad (01:05:30):
Not to the extent where you're almost guaranteed success
.
No, I see what you're saying,right, okay, so that doesn't
mean you you can't run, you haveto sit on the couch, and you
know.
It just means that, like you'venever tested whether you can do
15 miles, I the farthest you'veever run.
A seven miles, right, seemslike a lot, is it?
There's a lot.

(01:05:51):
Yeah, I did seven miles.
Okay, can you do like three anda half times more?
Yeah, I don't know about that.

Dylan (01:06:00):
What about 15?

Brad (01:06:01):
Can you do it all like without walking?
Can you do it on a trail?
Can you do it underwater?
I don't know about theunderwater part.
I know what your meso.
You could be what.

Dylan (01:06:14):
Cave exploration Nope, hard down.
Yep, nope, you can do it, notafter seeing that it's really
good mental preparation for you,not after seeing that.

Brad (01:06:25):
What if it was like a thoroughly explored cave that
you knew, like, like?

Dylan (01:06:31):
you knew that I've gone cave Like you knew there would
be some sketchy parts, but notlike I'm out.
No, you don't.
Okay, I don't need that.
That's not growth.
It could be how, mentally Okay,suddenly Dylan's over this
fucking idea all together, thisis dumb.

Brad (01:06:55):
One of them for me, one I'm thinking of is I've always
wanted to do long speak the hike.
That's something where it's.

Dylan (01:07:04):
I thought you were going to talk for a long time.
It's like that's what thepodcast is called Longs Peak.
You said long speak, longs Peak, long speak yes.

Brad (01:07:14):
Okay, long speak, but that's something that maybe 15
years ago I was a little bitmore confident.

Dylan (01:07:24):
What is it?
What are you talking about?

Brad (01:07:25):
Long speak is just one of the 14,000 foot peaks in
Colorado Just one of them, justone of them.

Dylan (01:07:32):
Okay, anything more treacherous about it than
anything else.

Brad (01:07:36):
Yeah, it's kind of.
It's an all day affair.
Okay, you have to pull into theparking lot in the AMs early in
the AMs, like eight, no, no, no, like what.
Like five would be a good starttime Probably.
I'm out already.
It's a trek up and anytimeyou're doing mountains you don't

(01:07:57):
want to be there past lunch.
Typically Bears, no Lions,maybe bears.
They get hungry around noon.
Okay, sometimes no Lightningstorms.

Dylan (01:08:09):
Storms roll in often in the afternoons.

Brad (01:08:11):
Yes, so you go up early Big alpinist.
Well, the other thing is if yougo up late like you're, good
luck because you're going to bescrambling on rocks at 14,000
feet in the dark otherwise, sobetter get some nods.
It's a chunk of mileage andthen you have to do some
scrambling, some route, findinga couple of exposed places.

(01:08:33):
It's definitely not thegnarliest thing to do, but I
haven't been on rocks for awhile, you look shaky at best.

Dylan (01:08:45):
I don't give you props on that at all.

Brad (01:08:47):
And I don't do well at altitude.
Yeah, I get the headaches inthe nausea.

Dylan (01:08:54):
That's not good.

Brad (01:08:55):
I've already got you at less than 50%.
We're in Illinois, iowa, not alot of mountains, so you can't
like.
You can train but you can'tproperly train for it.
You're not hiking mountains at11,000 feet to prepare for it.
So something like that I feellike would be a good get out and

(01:09:18):
do it, kind of thing.
But yeah, you gain a newperspective on what you're
capable of and how to overcomeadversity.

Dylan (01:09:28):
Yeah, so that's what people hope to gain out of this.
What is the payoff?

Brad (01:09:33):
The payoff is mostly mental.
You get that little extra boost.

Dylan (01:09:38):
You get to that next level.

Brad (01:09:40):
Every time that little voice in the back of your head
says I don't think you can dothat.
Quick aside, I hate the termlevel up.

Dylan (01:09:48):
Okay, do you like that term?

Brad (01:09:50):
I don't use that term.

Dylan (01:09:52):
But you know how people are.
Like I leveled up.

Brad (01:09:54):
No, I've never heard of that.
No, I think somebody getssmacked for saying that.
Thank, you.

Dylan (01:09:58):
It's like saying you have a case of the Monday, so I
found you.
Fuck off yeah.

Brad (01:10:01):
I didn't know, I don't know.
Shit no so it's a lot of that.
It's about realizing what yourweaknesses are.
I mean, it's dealing with fear.
I don't know why you don't wantto get in the cave.
You got to deal with it.
What applicable what isapplicable to dealing with the
fear, is applicable.
Nothing about the cave, unlessyou're played on.

(01:10:23):
You want to talk about theallegory?
It's a different topic.
But being able to be like I'mterrified to do this thing.

Dylan (01:10:32):
I did it.
I did it in Vietnam, but notwhy do I need to do it again?
Because it clearly didn't work.

Brad (01:10:41):
Okay, I don't think it works.
Jesus, you need to do it again.
This is so dumb.
So the mental fortitude thatyou can do, and then it's one of
those it's just like when youdo something hard, physically as
well, everything else.
It's like when you get up andyou work out.
In the morning you had afucking hard workout and the day

(01:11:03):
seems so nice.
Yeah, and everything else isfucking easy.
You're like breakfast is.

Dylan (01:11:06):
It just falls into place.
Breakfast is awesome.

Brad (01:11:09):
They're like I had a bad day and they're like I don't
fucking care about your bad day,I just sweated my nuts off this
morning.

Dylan (01:11:15):
Life falls into place.
That's amazing, and perspective.

Brad (01:11:20):
So it's that on steroids.
That's that's what you'relooking at.
So it's a cold bath, yeah,which is it's really interesting
.
That's that's popular again,because part of the cold bath
obviously there's a lot ofbiological stuff, but part of
that is that it's not fun, it'sfucking terrible.
And part of that is that mentalcapacity to be like you know

(01:11:42):
what I'm going to do this.
I don't know if I have that inme.

Dylan (01:11:46):
This podcast a little bit of misogy.
For me it's super uncomfortable.
Okay, I know it seems like likejust in general every time.
I'm like, obviously, you and Italk a lot and we're buds, and
like I'm pretty open with youabout how I feel and how I am,
but you don't like sharing.
I don't like sharing withpeople.
And so this is very vulnerablefor me and then also, it's hard

(01:12:06):
in the sense where I have a veryI'm very busy in my
professional life and being ableto carve time out to do this
and like, try to hit deadlinesand go okay, we do have Monday
episodes, we have Fridayepisodes.
We committed to this we.
We have to like now it's likethis episode will come out next
Monday.
It's allegedly it's, it'sholding yourself when you're
going.

(01:12:27):
I should be doing somethingelse professionally right now
because I'm trying to look.
I almost use the term goddamn,I almost use the term level up.
I'm gonna go shoot myself.
Please don't do that.
I should be doing somethingprofessionally to ensure the
continuity over there and it'slike well, no, I got to take an
hour here to make sure this getsout, because we've made a
commitment and then I can go toit.

(01:12:47):
So it's extended my life alittle bit and I've, I've, I've
sacrificed a little bit on thepersonal side because these are
extra hours.

Brad (01:12:56):
I enjoy the hell out of it , don't get me wrong.
But it is also every time inepisode.

Dylan (01:13:00):
I haven't listened to one , by the way.
I mean, I listened to it when Iedited it.

Brad (01:13:03):
I have not listened to one full and it's I still haven't.

Dylan (01:13:07):
I haven't committed to my , I haven't posted on social
media about it.
I know and I've broken mypromise to you.
So I think, I'll probably haveto post on Monday.

Brad (01:13:15):
I'm taking.
I'm taking this as the part ofthe misogy where you're not
doing it for anybody else andyou're the only one that's
watching, and that's why I keepshowing up here.
I'll take anybody else'slistening.

Dylan (01:13:25):
I don't really think so either, but it's fun though it
is.

Brad (01:13:30):
I think maybe stressful, but it's fun, maybe someday,
maybe someday.

Dylan (01:13:34):
I don't know, it's cool, yeah, but physically, like
physically, this sucks.
Physically I kind of.
I don't know.
I'm not a specimen by anystretch of the imagination, but
I hear about you saying that,peak, I'm like I can go do that
and it's going to be okay.
I usually walk away fromphysical activity, normally,
okay.

Brad (01:13:52):
Yes.

Dylan (01:13:53):
I'd get fucked up by Leadville, though I would
absolutely get fucked up byLeadville.
Yeah, that's how I got intorunning.
I was going to go run Leadville.

Brad (01:14:00):
Yeah.

Dylan (01:14:00):
And then I didn't get in.
And there's a, and now I wasrunning all the time and I still
didn't do it.

Brad (01:14:05):
And that's what it's about .
It's about like finding out Ifyou're, if you're like me how
many rounds of golf can I playin a day?

Dylan (01:14:12):
That's a good one.

Brad (01:14:14):
And shoot, oh yeah, and hold yourself to a standard.

Dylan (01:14:17):
Yes, how many beers do we have to drink around?

Brad (01:14:19):
I'd not have no beers.
Okay, I see, I'm not doing this.

Dylan (01:14:24):
Oh, you have to play five rounds.

Brad (01:14:26):
No, you have to play five rounds Sub 82.
Like it's not impossible forand you can't quit you can't
quit until you play five rounds.

Dylan (01:14:33):
No, okay, this is fun.
I like this game.

Brad (01:14:36):
It's not supposed to be fun.
Why?
That's certain yeah.

Dylan (01:14:39):
I mean it should be.

Brad (01:14:39):
You could enjoy it at some point, I don't know, to your to
when it's done.

Dylan (01:14:44):
You kind of touch on this with the go rock.
At some point it becomes fun.
You're like this sucks whenyour mindset changes and that
and it gets there eventually.

Brad (01:14:53):
And.

Dylan (01:14:53):
I'm not saying I've done a lot of hard things in my life
and we kind of skipped a point.

Brad (01:14:58):
You just giggle, You're like I'm here, we skipped over
the whole thing, which, whenthat happens, that is flow,
state, flow state's a real thing.
Yeah, so that's essentiallywhen your brain's like, all
right, we're in this, we're inthe spot, we're here and we're
just staying here.

Dylan (01:15:09):
We're here.

Brad (01:15:09):
Yeah, so that's.
That's something else.
Major, major benefit is maybeyou can figure out how to get
into that state more often doingother things, which is a big
deal.
It is so anyway all right.

Dylan (01:15:23):
Well, I hope, I hope, but I hope you guys can cry islands
, I hope you can cry islands.

Brad (01:15:28):
I hope nobody dies giving birth to fire.
It's weird that he's perfectlylogical that he started a fire
but it wasn't with this kid.

Dylan (01:15:36):
I just feel like they were throwing shit at the wall
and they had a big opportunityand missed out.
They did.
There are so much that thereare so much they can circle back
on.
He should have drug them downthere with him as any good dad
would have must purify ourselves.
All right, everyone Time tocleanse, you're still here.

Brad (01:15:59):
It's over.

Dylan (01:16:02):
Go home.

Brad (01:16:08):
Go.