April 7, 2025 • 36 mins
What if embracing discomfort was actually the secret to happiness? In this powerful solo episode, Brian Bosley challenges conventional wisdom by introducing a game-changing concept: voluntary adversity—the practice of deliberately seeking out difficult experiences to build resilience and control over your life.
Using the compelling metaphor of buffalo versus cows during storms, Bosley reveals why running toward challenges rather than away from them is transformative. While cows flee storms (extending their misery), buffalo charge directly into them, minimizing their time in discomfort. This natural wisdom applies directly to our lives—when we avoid pain, it pursues us relentlessly.
The heart of this episode centers around the "happiness pie chart" that breaks down our contentment into three segments: 50% genetics, 10% external circumstances (money, status, possessions), and a crucial 40% intentional activities we can completely control. It's this 40%—particularly through voluntary adversity—where true transformation happens.
"Earn your comfort, don't seek it," Bosley advises, sharing his personal practices like cold plunges, weighted runs, and role-playing speeches before delivery. Through practical techniques including breathwork, mantras, and Mel Robbins' countdown method, he provides tools to overcome the mind's resistance to discomfort. With examples ranging from cold showers to public speaking to taking different routes home, he demonstrates how even small daily challenges build extraordinary resilience.
The choice we face is stark: experience the temporary pain of work (rewarded forever) or the temporary reward of avoidance (regretted forever). Which wolf will you feed? Start practicing voluntary adversity today, and become truly undeniable.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your
host, peak Performance Coach,brian Bosley.
Are you stuck on the hamsterwheel of life, spinning and
spinning but not really movingforward?
Are you ready to jump off andsoar?
Are you finally ready to sculptyour life?
If so, you've landed in theright place.
(00:21):
This podcast is created andbroadcast just for you, all of
you strivers, thrivers andsurvivors out there.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Brian and the Bamboo Lab,
feel free to reach out toexplore your true peak level at
wwwbamboolab3.com.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of the Bamboo
Lab Podcast.
This week, or at least thisepisode, you get me and only me.
You know I do get a lot ofemails from people asking if I
could just do a few more of thesolo.
I call them monologue shows.
Quite frankly, I prefer tointerview people, and it's all
(01:07):
because of very selfish reasons.
Number one it's a lot easier.
It's a lot easier to askquestions and learn from someone
else and take notes than it isto come up with content and have
to speak for 20 to 30 minutes.
And number two I love talkingto people because I learn so
much from every one of ourguests.
(01:27):
When you hear a guest telltheir story, share their wisdom,
that's the first time I've everheard it.
I don't see their notes.
I don't see other than myresearch that I do on them.
I don't know anything aboutwhat they're going to say prior
to coming on.
So I like that aspect.
But I do like to bring up newtopics as well, and there's one
(01:49):
that's been sitting in my heartfor the last few months only
because I've really seen thebenefit it's allowed me in my
life, probably more so over thelast three or four years.
So I'm going to share start witha story, and I'm sure many of
you have heard this the metaphorof a buffalo versus a cow.
(02:11):
So what kind of tends to happenwhen you have a herd of cows in
a pasture and a storm comes in?
What cows tend to do is theytend to run away from the storm
instinctively.
And that seems to make sense,because that's what most of us
(02:33):
do in our lives.
We tend to run from pain, wetend to run away from things
that cause us discomfort.
But man pain, discomfort, fearit's a dogged pursuer and it
eventually catches up to us.
Well, a buffalo, on the otherhand, what buffalo tend to do in
(02:54):
the fields when a storm iscoming, they tend to herd up and
run toward the storm, becausethey instinctively know if they
run toward the storm, they'regoing to spend less time within
the storm because they're goingin the opposite direction.
So where a cow runs away, thestorm catches up and then it
just runs with the storm for awhile.
(03:16):
That's what we do too quiteoften.
I know I have many, many timesin my life.
So one of the things I want todo is I want to talk about a
topic, maybe do a few series onthese by myself, like this, also
(03:36):
bringing guests on on how to beundeniable.
So today the topic is beundeniable, with the subset of
practicing voluntary adversity.
So I'll ask you a few questions.
First of all, what scares youThink about?
The part of your life, thethings that you do, the
(03:57):
encounters you have, theexperiences you experience what
are the ones that really scareyou?
What are the ones that reallyscare you?
What are the things you dislikedoing the most, day to day,
week to week, and what are thethings in your life that truly
(04:18):
take you out of your comfortzone?
I want you to put those eitheron paper or think of those right
now.
It can be a multitude of thingsAsking someone out on a date,
offering an idea in a planningmeeting, going for a run,
entering a room by yourself.
There's a plethora of things.
(04:39):
There's no shortage of thingsthat can scare us, and they're
different for each of us.
So one of the things we'vetalked about in previous
episodes that ties really wellinto this is something we call
the happiness chart.
So, if I can ask you, if youhave a piece of paper, just draw
(05:01):
a circle.
If you don't picture a circle.
We're going to create athree-part or three-portioned
pie chart.
So think about that circle.
Now Cut that circle right inhalf from top to bottom, so you
have two halves 50-50.
Now on the right side, cut alittle sliver on the bottom.
That's about 10% of the circle.
(05:22):
So now you have three pieces ofpie.
One represents 50%, onerepresents 40% and the other
represents 10%.
This represents your happiness,and happiness can be actually
broken down in such a simplifiedterm for lay people like us.
Now there are experts out there.
(05:43):
There are books called theHappiness Advantage.
I mean, there's a number ofbooks out there, experts far
beyond my pay grade whounderstand happiness at a very
scientific, psychological level.
But this can be.
For us, this is a really goodrepresentation of happiness and
it can help us to really grasphow we can internally become
(06:06):
more joy-filled people, morecontent with our lives, more in
control of our destinies.
Okay, so that one side, the leftside of your pie chart, that
represents half, put DNA orgenetic.
Because here's the deal good orbad, half of your likelihood of
(06:26):
happiness in your world, inyour life, is designed or comes
through genetically.
It's in your DNA.
Think you can think mom and dadand grandmas and grandpas from
generations back.
Either you have a littlehappier gene or you don't have a
little happier gene.
You have no control nor anyinfluence on that, so there's
(06:48):
nothing we can do about it.
Now.
We can take medication toappear more happy, but it
doesn't actually change yourbaseline happiness.
Now let's go to that littlesliver of 10%, because this
one's intriguing, because 10% ofyour happiness level is a
(07:21):
combination of a multitude ofthings that you probably think
about, focus on, dream about orworry about throughout sliver of
your happiness is comprised ofthe house you live in, the car
you drive, how popular you are,how attractive you are, how much
money you make, how much moneyyou have in investments, how
(07:41):
much respect other people do youfeel they give you, how much
respect other people do you feelthey give you.
So all those things that wethink about in the course of a
day, that we worry about.
We wake up at three in themorning concerned about all of
them.
If they were perfect in yourlife and you had everything you
wanted in all of those areas, itwould only comprise 10% of your
(08:04):
happiness, and you have nocontrol over those things.
Right, you have influence overthose.
You can influence the car, thehouse, the money.
You could do things to makeyourself more attractive.
You could do things to makepeople like you more, put you on
a higher pedestal, but everyone of those things can be
(08:26):
ripped away at the drop of a hat.
Therefore, you don't have totalcontrol over those.
The thing is, there's nothingwrong with focusing on those
things.
There's nothing wrong withwanting those things, I should
say.
But when you spend your lifefocusing on those, you're
missing that 40% that we haveleft.
(08:48):
That 40% that we have left issomething behavioral scientists
call intentional activities.
When you, as a man or woman, dothings intentionally to become
a better human, that could betaking better care of yourself
(09:09):
physically, emotionally,spiritually, intellectually.
That can be serving otherpeople who need your help.
It can be spending quality timewith loved ones, being
surrounded by people who youreally deeply love and who love
you, and or a big part ofintentional activities is, in
(09:32):
fact, voluntary adversity.
It's doing that shit that scaresyou, doing those things that
pull you out of your comfortzone.
Doing those things that pullyou out of your comfort zone,
doing those things that make youfeel frightened, nervous,
apprehensive as long as thosethings are good for you in the
(09:55):
long run.
Now I tell you I would bescared to death to take heroin,
so that would not be considereda voluntary adversity activity,
because it's not good for me.
But there are so many thingsand I'll share an example of
those near at the end here.
But you already startedthinking about that a few
(10:16):
moments ago when I asked youwhat scares you, what do you
dislike most doing during thecourse of your day or week?
What really takes you out ofyour comfort zone?
Those are things we need tostart thinking about.
The thing is so we call thisfocus on the 40.
(10:37):
If you spend your life focusingon the 40% of the things, those
intentional activities, oneprimarily being practicing
volunteer adversity you're goingto gain more control over your
life, and when you gain morecontrol over your life, you
become a better human.
When you become a better human,you become a happier human.
(10:57):
And the thing is that 40% thatwe just talked about is the only
part of the happiness pie chartthat you have complete control
over, because you can decide toor not to do these specific
things that scare you.
The thing is, people, we runaway so often from adversity,
(11:21):
from pain, and the reason isbecause there's so much
involuntary adversity in ourworld.
You think about the things wego through involuntarily, the
pain we suffer.
It could be financial loss, itcould be losing your job,
getting demoted, going through adivorce, coming through a
health scare, having problemswith your children, not getting
(11:42):
along with your neighbors.
There are so many things thatwe just can't control that we go
through hardships, challenges,some very, very painful moments
that we're not in control of.
We didn't volunteer to do thosethings.
We might have contributed alittle bit, but we certainly
didn't volunteer to go throughthat type of pain.
So those things are going tohappen to us.
(12:06):
We know through the course oflife, the thing is the best way
to effectively handleinvoluntary adversity, those
things that happen to us, is topractice voluntary adversity on
a consistent, regular basis.
To practice voluntary adversityon a consistent, regular basis.
(12:33):
One of the things I've learned afew years ago was the power for
our minds and our bodies totake cold plunges or ice showers
every day.
I hate every second when thewater is running across my body
for four to five minutes and itfeels like ice cubes.
I hate every second of it.
But when you do that thingslike that, things that take you
(12:55):
out of your comfort zone, andespecially if you do those
things first thing in themorning, all the things that
happen to us involuntarilyduring the day, are much easier
for us to handle Because we'vealready done something hard.
When you've done one thing hard, other things that are hard
become much easier and weactually put ourselves in a
(13:17):
position to feel discomfort.
What a confidence builder thatis.
But you don't take cold showers.
You can pick your own voluntaryadversity.
You know.
The thing is I do this thingcalled ruck running.
So basically primarily what itis, it's running.
(13:40):
I like to run hills and trailswith a 21-pound ruck vest on my
back, or kind of on my back andchest.
It wraps around me.
I say I like to do it.
I don't like when I'm doing itso much, but I love when I'm
done and I love the fact that Ihave done it, that I'll do it
(14:01):
four to five times a week,because it's in those times when
I'm going through pain likethat, where my body does hurt.
I come up with ideas, and thisidea struck me literally three
or four days ago and I wasthinking about how much over the
course of my life.
Up until a few years ago, I wasreally seeking comfort a lot.
I thought that comfort wassomething we should seek as
(14:25):
human beings and I realized no,we should never seek comfort.
What we should do is allowourselves to experience and
enjoy comfort once we've earnedit.
That's a completely differentchange.
That's a completely differentperspective.
To's a completely differentperspective.
To seek comfort is to sit onthe couch and watch Netflix
(14:50):
rather than reading a book for15 minutes.
For me, seeking comfort isscrolling mindlessly through
YouTube, which I do far too damnoften, rather than picking up a
client file and reviewing whatI have to do tomorrow for this
particular client, or whateverit might be.
Getting up and cooking a healthymeal, going for a walk, you
(15:12):
know or reading, meditating.
So when you do those difficultthings and you earn the comfort,
the comfort is so much moredelicious.
Earn comfort is the mostamazing experience.
It's nirvanic almost, and Ihonestly, before I shot this
episode, I made myself go do3.26 miles of hills and trails
(15:38):
with the ruck vest on.
Come home, do a light lift, doa long stretch, do an ab workout
, take an ice cold shower forabout five minutes and then
meditate All those things Idon't like to do and honestly,
before I, earlier this afternoon, I was trying to convince
(16:00):
myself not to do those things.
Our minds really never get fullyaccustomed to doing difficult
things, but when you practiceMel Robbins for those of you who
don't know who Mel Robbins is,I would recommend reading any
one of her books the Five SecondRule I think.
The other one is High Five, andthen the third one I'm reading
(16:22):
right now is called Let them.
But in her Five Second Rulebook she talks about when you
need to do something or you havea thought of doing something
that's good for you but thatscares you.
Count down five, four, three,two, one and go.
Don't think about it, becauseyour brain will convince itself
not to do it after five seconds.
The alarm goes off at 5.30 inthe morning.
Don't push the snooze buttonwhen it goes off.
(16:44):
Say 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and jump outof bed.
Now my brain tries to convinceitself before 5 seconds.
So I do the 3-second rule,because right around 3 to 5, my
brain's already convincingitself.
Eh, maybe you could do thistomorrow or maybe it's better to
just take a little break today.
So I do the 3-second rule andover the last 3 to 4 years it
(17:04):
has really changed myperspective on life, but again,
I still don't want to do it.
So that's the difference betweenpeople who will get shit done
and people who won't.
It's not that one person is abetter human, or one person is
more energetic and others lessmore lazy.
It's just the fact that factthat we, we don't.
(17:26):
You don't give yourself yourmind enough time to convince
yourself that you shouldn't dosomething that's good for you.
You just do it.
Three two one.
Get your shoes on.
Three two one.
Enter that building.
Three two, one.
Raise your hand.
Three, two, one.
Ask that that person on a datethree two one.
Get up and cook a healthy meal,whatever the hell.
It is the only way to come back.
(17:49):
Because one of the things I'venoticed a lot, and thankfully on
social media I don't follow anydipshits.
I don't get to see all thepeople's ranting of political
posts.
If they do that, I unfollowthem.
When I see somebody criticizinganother person unless it's a
legitimate criticism, like maybeof a P Diddy or somebody or
Epstein, I get that.
(18:10):
But when people are criticizingfamily members or friends or
just normal other citizens, itgets to you after a while,
especially if you're the onebeing criticized.
And I see people criticizingconstantly.
And I see people criticizingconstantly and even on YouTube.
When I get on YouTube and justfollow it mindlessly, you know
political pundits come on andthey start bashing the other
(18:32):
party.
If it's Democrats orRepublicans, it doesn't matter,
they're both doing it and Ithink they're both wrong.
But so we do handle.
We have seen a lot morecriticism in this world, I think
over the past 10 to 12 years,primarily due to the social
(18:52):
media and all these keyboardwarriors who are very brave and
confident when they're typing ontheir phone or their computer
and that can get to people.
And one of the things I come torealize is the best way to
combat criticism is becomesuccessful.
And I don't mean successfulfinancially, necessarily, or
professionally, I just meanbecome successful in becoming
(19:14):
the best version of yourself.
And when you're practicing on aconsistent, daily basis a form
of voluntary adversity, youbecome the best damn version of
yourself.
Adversity, you become the bestdamn version of yourself and you
gain far more confidence, farmore confidence than you will if
(19:36):
you only allow your life to beruled by involuntary adversity
and you try to seek comfortprior to it being earned.
But it's not easy, it's not.
You know, one of the thingsthat I started doing about six
years ago is every day gettingup and usually it's the first
thing I do.
Within a few seconds of rollingout of bed, I put my sweatpants
on and I throw my shirt, myindoor shoes on I call them is,
(19:58):
I do planking and I go down onmy knees and I plank, and every
day I add a second to it and ithurts.
It really does, and I justthankfully I'm half asleep
before I, probably in the firstminute or two I'm still asleep.
But one of the things mygirlfriend recently taught me
when we were doing yoga is thepower of breath work.
(20:19):
When you're feeling that pain ofyour body or you're doing
something that's painful whetherit's again raising your hand in
the class, getting ready to asksomeone out Maybe it's going to
see a movie or dinner alone byyourself Is practice breath work
.
You know, breathing in throughyour nose, holding it, breathing
(20:39):
out through your mouth, holdingit, and when you do, make sure
you don't breathe through yourdiaphragm, let your gut fill up
so that your belly should stickway out when you're breathing in
.
So sometimes you want to dothis at home, because sometimes
when your belly's becomingcompletely inflated, it doesn't
look very attractive, trust me.
But it works.
(21:01):
Even just 30 seconds of that isfocusing on your breath while
you're doing something difficultcan take so much of the
discomfort or at least so muchof the anxiety away.
Another thing I've learnedrecently is when you're doing
something difficult, you'repracticing this voluntary
(21:21):
adversity is maybe have a mantrathat you say to yourself out
louder in your head.
You know it can be anything,never give up.
A lot of times I say strive,love, live.
A lot of times I say I'm ready,I'm grateful, I'm excited.
It could be anything that givesyou a sense of power and for
that moment it takes you off theemotional, the mental, the
(21:45):
spiritual or the physical painyou're experiencing while you're
practicing that activity.
But the breath work and havingsomething that you can say out
loud or in your head that givesyou a little more push, a little
more fuel in the tank, can getyou through some of those
moments.
I got to tell you, man, gettingthrough those moments is
(22:05):
crucial.
I thought about this over thecourse of the last few days,
kind of thinking of this topicmore specifically as I'm writing
it for some training andspeaking I'm going to do on the
subject.
I really thought to myself whyin the heck have I not shared
this with the bamboo pack oreven with a lot of my clients or
(22:29):
loved ones over the past fewyears?
And I don't have an answer.
It's just when I sat down andthought to myself what is one of
the things that you've doneover the past three or four
years, brian, that's been thebiggest benefit to you.
This is it, and yet I've nevershared it, not with you, until
(22:53):
today.
We've talked before about theconcept of choosing your pain,
and that's really what we'retalking about here.
Because in life we try sodesperately to avoid pain, we
run from it, we hide from it, wetry to do things that will kind
of keep pain at bay.
(23:14):
But, like I said, man, pain,fear, insecurity, discomfort.
They are relentless pursuersand they always catch up,
because life is nothing but pain.
And I don't mean that in acynical or a skeptical way.
It's a realistic way.
It's a realistic way ofperspective to look at life.
(23:35):
But it's just the type of painyou choose.
There's the pain of the work orthere's the pain of regret.
There's only two types.
And if you choose the pain ofthe work and you get up at five
(23:55):
o'clock or six o'clock orwhatever time and you get out of
bed when that alarm goes offand you do something right away
that causes you a littlediscomfort, you, right away, are
punished instantly because youwill feel that pain.
Right, you'll feel the physicalpain, you'll feel the
intellectual, the emotional orspiritual pain of whatever
you're doing, but as soon asyou're done, you are instantly
rewarded and that reward lastsforever and you do that
(24:18):
consistently every day.
That reward builds up thatconfidence, builds up that sense
of self-assurance, builds upthat thought, that feeling that
you can do whatever you need todo today and you can get through
any type of crap that the worldthrows at you.
But see, you don't have tochoose that pain.
(24:39):
None of us do.
There's no buddy force, there'sno mandate on how we choose to
live our lives and what kind ofpain we experience.
But I will guarantee, if you donot choose that pain on a
consistent, regular basis, youwill experience and you have,
involuntarily, have chosen thesecond pain, which is the pain
of regret.
(25:00):
When you choose the pain ofregret right away, you're
rewarded.
When you decide to stay in bedon a real cold day and you're
under your warm down comforterand maybe you're lying next to a
loved one who's getting off alot of warm body heat.
That's a reward, man.
You're staying in bed for thenext half hour.
You got an extra hour of sleep.
Or maybe you push that snoozebutton for nine minutes.
There's a little reward there.
But then when you do finally getout of bed and you face life,
(25:23):
there's a regret there.
You might not even feel it.
It might be a subconsciousregret, but you know what that
regret does.
It never leaves you.
That regret is eternal.
It's for the rest of your life,because you'll never be able to
go back and get that momentback where you chose to lie in
(25:43):
bed versus getting up andstarting your day doing
something uncomfortable.
Now am I here to tell you thatyou should never sleep in God?
No, no.
There's days when you haveearned the comfort.
Sleep in.
Have a day where you sit aroundand watch Netflix all day,
order pizza and wings.
Have ice cream around and watchNetflix all day.
(26:06):
Order pizza and wings, have icecream.
As long as the comfort you'reexperiencing has been previously
paid for by your actions, I doa talk and I actually did one on
here, maybe three years ago Ithink.
I did a three-part series onthe laws of food and poison and
how we can determine whether ourbehavior is a food nourishing
(26:26):
behavior or it's a toxic,poisonous behavior.
And one of the key elements ofhow you can determine that
whether your behavior orthoughts are food or they're
poison, is how we look at themost difficult things in our
lives.
What I mean by that is when anourishing food, positive person
(26:49):
, a value added human being thatI believe you are, when you
experience, when that personexperiences and they're doing
something they just hate to do.
They don't deny that they hatedoing it, but what they do is
they change their perspectiveand they say I hate doing this,
but I know by doing this itbrings out the best in me, it
(27:11):
makes me a better human, itmakes me a better contributor to
my family, to my loved ones, tomy job, to my community, to my
church, to the world, towhatever you belong, to my
church, to the world, towhatever you belong to.
One of the things I don't liketo do, probably above all things
, is I don't like to role playspeeches before I give them.
And I have a rule If I'vealready given the speech once, I
(27:37):
role play it three times priorto giving it again.
Unless I've just given it inthe last week or two, I'll role
play it once.
If I've written a new speechand I've never spoke these words
in public, I role play it fivetimes.
So whether that speech is 15minutes or three hours long, I
role play it five times before Iactually go on stage or go in
front of the crowd and give it.
(27:58):
I hate every minute of it.
I used to have my dog sit on thecouch and I would talk to it
and I had these a bust ofBeethoven and this kind of
Pharaoh's sculpture that mydaughter bought me years ago.
I would put those things likethere so I would have some type
of things to focus on.
Kind of felt like a damn foolin my living room but and I just
(28:21):
didn't like doing it livingroom but and I just didn't like
doing it.
It's just it's so, it's verytime consuming and it's kind of
it's awkward.
But I admitted, I had to admitto myself every time and I still
do.
I hate this, but I know itmakes me a better speaker.
I know it makes me much moreprepared.
It gives me, allows me theopportunity to give the audience
a much better experience,because I know what I'm going to
(28:41):
be saying and I've gone.
I've given this speech now fivetimes before giving it to the
live crowd, so it's the samething we're talking about here.
We don't have to like thevoluntary adversity.
We don't have to like the painor the discomfort.
We can hate it, in fact, but wejust have to realize that it
(29:04):
brings out the best in us.
Here are some examples thatI've heard from people that I've
worked with and talked to andasked them about.
Some of mine are on here too.
So what are some of the thingsthat are good examples?
Now, this is a small short list.
You can come up with your own.
(29:25):
You can take from this, you canadd to this and, in fact, I'd
love for anybody to email me.
If you have myself or thosepeople who are close to me out
there, text me some things thatyou do to practice voluntary
adversity, because I want tomake this a topic we discuss
further and more in the future.
So some examples like I said,cold showers, cold plunges, hot
(29:46):
saunas, becoming a member of the5 am club, which means getting
up at five o'clock every morning, doing planks, going for hard
runs, lifting weights, doingyoga, going hiking.
It may just simply be going fora walk around your block, be
going for a walk around yourblock, reading rather than
watching TV.
Giving service to others,giving to the community, helping
(30:13):
with the homeless or achildren's organization or a
battered women's shelter,whatever it could be is giving
back to the community.
Entering rooms or buildings thatmake you uncomfortable, and I
don't mean a place where there'sdanger.
I mean sometimes walking into arestaurant, a movie theater, an
office building, a bank can bea little uncomfortable, for
(30:34):
people Do it anyway.
Sometimes taking a differentroute home is a form of
voluntary adversity.
We get stuck in our patterns,so much we become.
You know, we get in these ruts,and a rut is just a shallow
grave if we stay in it too long.
Volunteering to speak, that's abig one for a lot of people.
(31:01):
Just experiencing new places,asking that person you have a
crush on, out on a date, raisingyour hand in a class, taking a
day break from social media ortaking a day off from your phone
, making eye contact withsomebody, can also be a form of
volunteer adversity, if you'reuncomfortable with eye contact,
(31:24):
I mean.
Some obvious ones are skydiving, which my son did a couple of
months ago.
Hot air balloon was Jackie'sand she did it on her own last
year.
Just a little short hot airride.
It's a great example ofsomebody just overcoming some
type of discomfort Fasting for24 hours.
(31:45):
Or, if you're my good friendGina, who I know is listening
every six months, fasting forthree days and drinking only
water, and that's another onedrinking water instead of
drinking pop or soda.
It can be eating a healthy mealtoday versus something fast
from a fast food restaurant.
(32:05):
My point is this it reallydoesn't matter what you do,
because we're all going to havedifferent things that stretch us
, that scare us, that increaseour anxiety.
We're all going to havedifferent things.
We're going to share some, ofcourse, but many of us are going
to have our own, our ownprivate, our own personal things
that bring us out of ourcomfort zone.
What I would recommend is youdo one thing a day.
(32:30):
It doesn't have to be big, itcan be something small,
something that takes you alittle bit away from your
patterns.
It breaks a pattern you haveand it's just something that's a
little bit scary, a little bitaway from your patterns.
It breaks a pattern you haveand it's just something that's a
little bit scary, a little bituncomfortable, and you do that
over something that'scomfortable.
(32:51):
If you do it every day and tryto increase it every time you do
it, it can be different thingsevery day.
It doesn't have to be doing thesame thing every morning.
It can be something differentand you don't have to do it in
the morning, you can do it anytime of the day.
I find it works better for meif I do some difficult things
right away, because it gets meready mentally for the day and I
(33:12):
just feel better.
But it doesn't.
You could do it anytime youwant, and if you say I don't
want to do it every day, okay,do three a week, practice three
voluntary activities orvoluntary adversities every week
and then maybe after a while,go to four, then to five, then
to six, then to seven.
If you know anything about me,you know that I'm a big fan of
(33:33):
starting small and growing big.
So just do something and noticeover time how amazing you feel.
And notice over time howamazing you feel.
I know many of you know this andI've shared this on the show
before and I've shared it, Iguess, in my speaking
(33:57):
engagements before the story ofthe grandfather who's telling
his granddaughter about the twowolves that live within each of
us.
And he shares the story thatevery one of you, every one of
us, has two dominant wolvesinside of us, fighting battling.
One wolf is honorable andstrong and courageous and
(34:21):
powerful and kind and curiousand wise, and courageous and
powerful and kind and curiousand wise.
The other wolf is devious andangry and mean and cowardly and
deceptive, but also verypowerful, in fact equally
(34:43):
powerful.
And every day the grandfathertells his granddaughter these
two wolves are competing.
They're fighting a battleinside your heart, your mind and
your soul.
They're fighting to see whowill control you.
The little girl looks up at hergrandpa and says well, papa,
(35:05):
which one will finally win?
And he was waiting for thatquestion because he had the
answer.
And he looked down and he gaveher a hug and he said honey,
whichever one you feed.
So, folks, I'm asking you to getup there and feed the wolf
today.
Feed that right wolf.
Feed the strong, brave, kind,wise, powerful wolf.
(35:29):
The best way to do that is togive yourself the reward of
doing something that stretchesyou today.
Until next time, please get upthere and strive love and live.
Strive to be your best.
Show love and respect to othersand yourself, and live with
(35:51):
intention.
Please smash that like button,rate us, review us and please
share this episode with threepeople you love.
Until next time.
Please know that I appreciateevery single one of you.
Take care.
Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your
host, peak Performance Coach,brian Bosley.
Are you stuck on the hamsterwheel of life, spinning and
spinning but not really movingforward?
Are you ready to jump off andsoar?
Are you finally ready to sculptyour life?
If so, you've landed in theright place.
(00:21):
This podcast is created andbroadcast just for you, all of
you strivers, thrivers andsurvivors out there.
If you'd like to learn moreabout Brian and the Bamboo Lab,
feel free to reach out toexplore your true peak level at
wwwbamboolab3.com.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of the Bamboo
Lab Podcast.
This week, or at least thisepisode, you get me and only me.
You know I do get a lot ofemails from people asking if I
could just do a few more of thesolo.
I call them monologue shows.
Quite frankly, I prefer tointerview people, and it's all
(01:07):
because of very selfish reasons.
Number one it's a lot easier.
It's a lot easier to askquestions and learn from someone
else and take notes than it isto come up with content and have
to speak for 20 to 30 minutes.
And number two I love talkingto people because I learn so
much from every one of ourguests.
(01:27):
When you hear a guest telltheir story, share their wisdom,
that's the first time I've everheard it.
I don't see their notes.
I don't see other than myresearch that I do on them.
I don't know anything aboutwhat they're going to say prior
to coming on.
So I like that aspect.
But I do like to bring up newtopics as well, and there's one
(01:49):
that's been sitting in my heartfor the last few months only
because I've really seen thebenefit it's allowed me in my
life, probably more so over thelast three or four years.
So I'm going to share start witha story, and I'm sure many of
you have heard this the metaphorof a buffalo versus a cow.
(02:11):
So what kind of tends to happenwhen you have a herd of cows in
a pasture and a storm comes in?
What cows tend to do is theytend to run away from the storm
instinctively.
And that seems to make sense,because that's what most of us
(02:33):
do in our lives.
We tend to run from pain, wetend to run away from things
that cause us discomfort.
But man pain, discomfort, fearit's a dogged pursuer and it
eventually catches up to us.
Well, a buffalo, on the otherhand, what buffalo tend to do in
(02:54):
the fields when a storm iscoming, they tend to herd up and
run toward the storm, becausethey instinctively know if they
run toward the storm, they'regoing to spend less time within
the storm because they're goingin the opposite direction.
So where a cow runs away, thestorm catches up and then it
just runs with the storm for awhile.
(03:16):
That's what we do too quiteoften.
I know I have many, many timesin my life.
So one of the things I want todo is I want to talk about a
topic, maybe do a few series onthese by myself, like this, also
(03:36):
bringing guests on on how to beundeniable.
So today the topic is beundeniable, with the subset of
practicing voluntary adversity.
So I'll ask you a few questions.
First of all, what scares youThink about?
The part of your life, thethings that you do, the
(03:57):
encounters you have, theexperiences you experience what
are the ones that really scareyou?
What are the ones that reallyscare you?
What are the things you dislikedoing the most, day to day,
week to week, and what are thethings in your life that truly
(04:18):
take you out of your comfortzone?
I want you to put those eitheron paper or think of those right
now.
It can be a multitude of thingsAsking someone out on a date,
offering an idea in a planningmeeting, going for a run,
entering a room by yourself.
There's a plethora of things.
(04:39):
There's no shortage of thingsthat can scare us, and they're
different for each of us.
So one of the things we'vetalked about in previous
episodes that ties really wellinto this is something we call
the happiness chart.
So, if I can ask you, if youhave a piece of paper, just draw
(05:01):
a circle.
If you don't picture a circle.
We're going to create athree-part or three-portioned
pie chart.
So think about that circle.
Now Cut that circle right inhalf from top to bottom, so you
have two halves 50-50.
Now on the right side, cut alittle sliver on the bottom.
That's about 10% of the circle.
(05:22):
So now you have three pieces ofpie.
One represents 50%, onerepresents 40% and the other
represents 10%.
This represents your happiness,and happiness can be actually
broken down in such a simplifiedterm for lay people like us.
Now there are experts out there.
(05:43):
There are books called theHappiness Advantage.
I mean, there's a number ofbooks out there, experts far
beyond my pay grade whounderstand happiness at a very
scientific, psychological level.
But this can be.
For us, this is a really goodrepresentation of happiness and
it can help us to really grasphow we can internally become
(06:06):
more joy-filled people, morecontent with our lives, more in
control of our destinies.
Okay, so that one side, the leftside of your pie chart, that
represents half, put DNA orgenetic.
Because here's the deal good orbad, half of your likelihood of
(06:26):
happiness in your world, inyour life, is designed or comes
through genetically.
It's in your DNA.
Think you can think mom and dadand grandmas and grandpas from
generations back.
Either you have a littlehappier gene or you don't have a
little happier gene.
You have no control nor anyinfluence on that, so there's
(06:48):
nothing we can do about it.
Now.
We can take medication toappear more happy, but it
doesn't actually change yourbaseline happiness.
Now let's go to that littlesliver of 10%, because this
one's intriguing, because 10% ofyour happiness level is a
(07:21):
combination of a multitude ofthings that you probably think
about, focus on, dream about orworry about throughout sliver of
your happiness is comprised ofthe house you live in, the car
you drive, how popular you are,how attractive you are, how much
money you make, how much moneyyou have in investments, how
(07:41):
much respect other people do youfeel they give you, how much
respect other people do you feelthey give you.
So all those things that wethink about in the course of a
day, that we worry about.
We wake up at three in themorning concerned about all of
them.
If they were perfect in yourlife and you had everything you
wanted in all of those areas, itwould only comprise 10% of your
(08:04):
happiness, and you have nocontrol over those things.
Right, you have influence overthose.
You can influence the car, thehouse, the money.
You could do things to makeyourself more attractive.
You could do things to makepeople like you more, put you on
a higher pedestal, but everyone of those things can be
(08:26):
ripped away at the drop of a hat.
Therefore, you don't have totalcontrol over those.
The thing is, there's nothingwrong with focusing on those
things.
There's nothing wrong withwanting those things, I should
say.
But when you spend your lifefocusing on those, you're
missing that 40% that we haveleft.
(08:48):
That 40% that we have left issomething behavioral scientists
call intentional activities.
When you, as a man or woman, dothings intentionally to become
a better human, that could betaking better care of yourself
(09:09):
physically, emotionally,spiritually, intellectually.
That can be serving otherpeople who need your help.
It can be spending quality timewith loved ones, being
surrounded by people who youreally deeply love and who love
you, and or a big part ofintentional activities is, in
(09:32):
fact, voluntary adversity.
It's doing that shit that scaresyou, doing those things that
pull you out of your comfortzone.
Doing those things that pullyou out of your comfort zone,
doing those things that make youfeel frightened, nervous,
apprehensive as long as thosethings are good for you in the
(09:55):
long run.
Now I tell you I would bescared to death to take heroin,
so that would not be considereda voluntary adversity activity,
because it's not good for me.
But there are so many thingsand I'll share an example of
those near at the end here.
But you already startedthinking about that a few
(10:16):
moments ago when I asked youwhat scares you, what do you
dislike most doing during thecourse of your day or week?
What really takes you out ofyour comfort zone?
Those are things we need tostart thinking about.
The thing is so we call thisfocus on the 40.
(10:37):
If you spend your life focusingon the 40% of the things, those
intentional activities, oneprimarily being practicing
volunteer adversity you're goingto gain more control over your
life, and when you gain morecontrol over your life, you
become a better human.
When you become a better human,you become a happier human.
(10:57):
And the thing is that 40% thatwe just talked about is the only
part of the happiness pie chartthat you have complete control
over, because you can decide toor not to do these specific
things that scare you.
The thing is, people, we runaway so often from adversity,
(11:21):
from pain, and the reason isbecause there's so much
involuntary adversity in ourworld.
You think about the things wego through involuntarily, the
pain we suffer.
It could be financial loss, itcould be losing your job,
getting demoted, going through adivorce, coming through a
health scare, having problemswith your children, not getting
(11:42):
along with your neighbors.
There are so many things thatwe just can't control that we go
through hardships, challenges,some very, very painful moments
that we're not in control of.
We didn't volunteer to do thosethings.
We might have contributed alittle bit, but we certainly
didn't volunteer to go throughthat type of pain.
So those things are going tohappen to us.
(12:06):
We know through the course oflife, the thing is the best way
to effectively handleinvoluntary adversity, those
things that happen to us, is topractice voluntary adversity on
a consistent, regular basis.
To practice voluntary adversityon a consistent, regular basis.
(12:33):
One of the things I've learned afew years ago was the power for
our minds and our bodies totake cold plunges or ice showers
every day.
I hate every second when thewater is running across my body
for four to five minutes and itfeels like ice cubes.
I hate every second of it.
But when you do that thingslike that, things that take you
(12:55):
out of your comfort zone, andespecially if you do those
things first thing in themorning, all the things that
happen to us involuntarilyduring the day, are much easier
for us to handle Because we'vealready done something hard.
When you've done one thing hard, other things that are hard
become much easier and weactually put ourselves in a
(13:17):
position to feel discomfort.
What a confidence builder thatis.
But you don't take cold showers.
You can pick your own voluntaryadversity.
You know.
The thing is I do this thingcalled ruck running.
So basically primarily what itis, it's running.
(13:40):
I like to run hills and trailswith a 21-pound ruck vest on my
back, or kind of on my back andchest.
It wraps around me.
I say I like to do it.
I don't like when I'm doing itso much, but I love when I'm
done and I love the fact that Ihave done it, that I'll do it
(14:01):
four to five times a week,because it's in those times when
I'm going through pain likethat, where my body does hurt.
I come up with ideas, and thisidea struck me literally three
or four days ago and I wasthinking about how much over the
course of my life.
Up until a few years ago, I wasreally seeking comfort a lot.
I thought that comfort wassomething we should seek as
(14:25):
human beings and I realized no,we should never seek comfort.
What we should do is allowourselves to experience and
enjoy comfort once we've earnedit.
That's a completely differentchange.
That's a completely differentperspective.
To's a completely differentperspective.
To seek comfort is to sit onthe couch and watch Netflix
(14:50):
rather than reading a book for15 minutes.
For me, seeking comfort isscrolling mindlessly through
YouTube, which I do far too damnoften, rather than picking up a
client file and reviewing whatI have to do tomorrow for this
particular client, or whateverit might be.
Getting up and cooking a healthymeal, going for a walk, you
(15:12):
know or reading, meditating.
So when you do those difficultthings and you earn the comfort,
the comfort is so much moredelicious.
Earn comfort is the mostamazing experience.
It's nirvanic almost, and Ihonestly, before I shot this
episode, I made myself go do3.26 miles of hills and trails
(15:38):
with the ruck vest on.
Come home, do a light lift, doa long stretch, do an ab workout
, take an ice cold shower forabout five minutes and then
meditate All those things Idon't like to do and honestly,
before I, earlier this afternoon, I was trying to convince
(16:00):
myself not to do those things.
Our minds really never get fullyaccustomed to doing difficult
things, but when you practiceMel Robbins for those of you who
don't know who Mel Robbins is,I would recommend reading any
one of her books the Five SecondRule I think.
The other one is High Five, andthen the third one I'm reading
(16:22):
right now is called Let them.
But in her Five Second Rulebook she talks about when you
need to do something or you havea thought of doing something
that's good for you but thatscares you.
Count down five, four, three,two, one and go.
Don't think about it, becauseyour brain will convince itself
not to do it after five seconds.
The alarm goes off at 5.30 inthe morning.
Don't push the snooze buttonwhen it goes off.
(16:44):
Say 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and jump outof bed.
Now my brain tries to convinceitself before 5 seconds.
So I do the 3-second rule,because right around 3 to 5, my
brain's already convincingitself.
Eh, maybe you could do thistomorrow or maybe it's better to
just take a little break today.
So I do the 3-second rule andover the last 3 to 4 years it
(17:04):
has really changed myperspective on life, but again,
I still don't want to do it.
So that's the difference betweenpeople who will get shit done
and people who won't.
It's not that one person is abetter human, or one person is
more energetic and others lessmore lazy.
It's just the fact that factthat we, we don't.
(17:26):
You don't give yourself yourmind enough time to convince
yourself that you shouldn't dosomething that's good for you.
You just do it.
Three two one.
Get your shoes on.
Three two one.
Enter that building.
Three two, one.
Raise your hand.
Three, two, one.
Ask that that person on a datethree two one.
Get up and cook a healthy meal,whatever the hell.
It is the only way to come back.
(17:49):
Because one of the things I'venoticed a lot, and thankfully on
social media I don't follow anydipshits.
I don't get to see all thepeople's ranting of political
posts.
If they do that, I unfollowthem.
When I see somebody criticizinganother person unless it's a
legitimate criticism, like maybeof a P Diddy or somebody or
Epstein, I get that.
(18:10):
But when people are criticizingfamily members or friends or
just normal other citizens, itgets to you after a while,
especially if you're the onebeing criticized.
And I see people criticizingconstantly.
And I see people criticizingconstantly and even on YouTube.
When I get on YouTube and justfollow it mindlessly, you know
political pundits come on andthey start bashing the other
(18:32):
party.
If it's Democrats orRepublicans, it doesn't matter,
they're both doing it and Ithink they're both wrong.
But so we do handle.
We have seen a lot morecriticism in this world, I think
over the past 10 to 12 years,primarily due to the social
(18:52):
media and all these keyboardwarriors who are very brave and
confident when they're typing ontheir phone or their computer
and that can get to people.
And one of the things I come torealize is the best way to
combat criticism is becomesuccessful.
And I don't mean successfulfinancially, necessarily, or
professionally, I just meanbecome successful in becoming
(19:14):
the best version of yourself.
And when you're practicing on aconsistent, daily basis a form
of voluntary adversity, youbecome the best damn version of
yourself.
Adversity, you become the bestdamn version of yourself and you
gain far more confidence, farmore confidence than you will if
(19:36):
you only allow your life to beruled by involuntary adversity
and you try to seek comfortprior to it being earned.
But it's not easy, it's not.
You know, one of the thingsthat I started doing about six
years ago is every day gettingup and usually it's the first
thing I do.
Within a few seconds of rollingout of bed, I put my sweatpants
on and I throw my shirt, myindoor shoes on I call them is,
(19:58):
I do planking and I go down onmy knees and I plank, and every
day I add a second to it and ithurts.
It really does, and I justthankfully I'm half asleep
before I, probably in the firstminute or two I'm still asleep.
But one of the things mygirlfriend recently taught me
when we were doing yoga is thepower of breath work.
(20:19):
When you're feeling that pain ofyour body or you're doing
something that's painful whetherit's again raising your hand in
the class, getting ready to asksomeone out Maybe it's going to
see a movie or dinner alone byyourself Is practice breath work
.
You know, breathing in throughyour nose, holding it, breathing
(20:39):
out through your mouth, holdingit, and when you do, make sure
you don't breathe through yourdiaphragm, let your gut fill up
so that your belly should stickway out when you're breathing in
.
So sometimes you want to dothis at home, because sometimes
when your belly's becomingcompletely inflated, it doesn't
look very attractive, trust me.
But it works.
(21:01):
Even just 30 seconds of that isfocusing on your breath while
you're doing something difficultcan take so much of the
discomfort or at least so muchof the anxiety away.
Another thing I've learnedrecently is when you're doing
something difficult, you'repracticing this voluntary
(21:21):
adversity is maybe have a mantrathat you say to yourself out
louder in your head.
You know it can be anything,never give up.
A lot of times I say strive,love, live.
A lot of times I say I'm ready,I'm grateful, I'm excited.
It could be anything that givesyou a sense of power and for
that moment it takes you off theemotional, the mental, the
(21:45):
spiritual or the physical painyou're experiencing while you're
practicing that activity.
But the breath work and havingsomething that you can say out
loud or in your head that givesyou a little more push, a little
more fuel in the tank, can getyou through some of those
moments.
I got to tell you, man, gettingthrough those moments is
(22:05):
crucial.
I thought about this over thecourse of the last few days,
kind of thinking of this topicmore specifically as I'm writing
it for some training andspeaking I'm going to do on the
subject.
I really thought to myself whyin the heck have I not shared
this with the bamboo pack oreven with a lot of my clients or
(22:29):
loved ones over the past fewyears?
And I don't have an answer.
It's just when I sat down andthought to myself what is one of
the things that you've doneover the past three or four
years, brian, that's been thebiggest benefit to you.
This is it, and yet I've nevershared it, not with you, until
(22:53):
today.
We've talked before about theconcept of choosing your pain,
and that's really what we'retalking about here.
Because in life we try sodesperately to avoid pain, we
run from it, we hide from it, wetry to do things that will kind
of keep pain at bay.
(23:14):
But, like I said, man, pain,fear, insecurity, discomfort.
They are relentless pursuersand they always catch up,
because life is nothing but pain.
And I don't mean that in acynical or a skeptical way.
It's a realistic way.
It's a realistic way ofperspective to look at life.
(23:35):
But it's just the type of painyou choose.
There's the pain of the work orthere's the pain of regret.
There's only two types.
And if you choose the pain ofthe work and you get up at five
(23:55):
o'clock or six o'clock orwhatever time and you get out of
bed when that alarm goes offand you do something right away
that causes you a littlediscomfort, you, right away, are
punished instantly because youwill feel that pain.
Right, you'll feel the physicalpain, you'll feel the
intellectual, the emotional orspiritual pain of whatever
you're doing, but as soon asyou're done, you are instantly
rewarded and that reward lastsforever and you do that
(24:18):
consistently every day.
That reward builds up thatconfidence, builds up that sense
of self-assurance, builds upthat thought, that feeling that
you can do whatever you need todo today and you can get through
any type of crap that the worldthrows at you.
But see, you don't have tochoose that pain.
(24:39):
None of us do.
There's no buddy force, there'sno mandate on how we choose to
live our lives and what kind ofpain we experience.
But I will guarantee, if you donot choose that pain on a
consistent, regular basis, youwill experience and you have,
involuntarily, have chosen thesecond pain, which is the pain
of regret.
(25:00):
When you choose the pain ofregret right away, you're
rewarded.
When you decide to stay in bedon a real cold day and you're
under your warm down comforterand maybe you're lying next to a
loved one who's getting off alot of warm body heat.
That's a reward, man.
You're staying in bed for thenext half hour.
You got an extra hour of sleep.
Or maybe you push that snoozebutton for nine minutes.
There's a little reward there.
But then when you do finally getout of bed and you face life,
(25:23):
there's a regret there.
You might not even feel it.
It might be a subconsciousregret, but you know what that
regret does.
It never leaves you.
That regret is eternal.
It's for the rest of your life,because you'll never be able to
go back and get that momentback where you chose to lie in
(25:43):
bed versus getting up andstarting your day doing
something uncomfortable.
Now am I here to tell you thatyou should never sleep in God?
No, no.
There's days when you haveearned the comfort.
Sleep in.
Have a day where you sit aroundand watch Netflix all day,
order pizza and wings.
Have ice cream around and watchNetflix all day.
(26:06):
Order pizza and wings, have icecream.
As long as the comfort you'reexperiencing has been previously
paid for by your actions, I doa talk and I actually did one on
here, maybe three years ago Ithink.
I did a three-part series onthe laws of food and poison and
how we can determine whether ourbehavior is a food nourishing
(26:26):
behavior or it's a toxic,poisonous behavior.
And one of the key elements ofhow you can determine that
whether your behavior orthoughts are food or they're
poison, is how we look at themost difficult things in our
lives.
What I mean by that is when anourishing food, positive person
(26:49):
, a value added human being thatI believe you are, when you
experience, when that personexperiences and they're doing
something they just hate to do.
They don't deny that they hatedoing it, but what they do is
they change their perspectiveand they say I hate doing this,
but I know by doing this itbrings out the best in me, it
(27:11):
makes me a better human, itmakes me a better contributor to
my family, to my loved ones, tomy job, to my community, to my
church, to the world, towhatever you belong, to my
church, to the world, towhatever you belong to.
One of the things I don't liketo do, probably above all things
, is I don't like to role playspeeches before I give them.
And I have a rule If I'vealready given the speech once, I
(27:37):
role play it three times priorto giving it again.
Unless I've just given it inthe last week or two, I'll role
play it once.
If I've written a new speechand I've never spoke these words
in public, I role play it fivetimes.
So whether that speech is 15minutes or three hours long, I
role play it five times before Iactually go on stage or go in
front of the crowd and give it.
(27:58):
I hate every minute of it.
I used to have my dog sit on thecouch and I would talk to it
and I had these a bust ofBeethoven and this kind of
Pharaoh's sculpture that mydaughter bought me years ago.
I would put those things likethere so I would have some type
of things to focus on.
Kind of felt like a damn foolin my living room but and I just
(28:21):
didn't like doing it livingroom but and I just didn't like
doing it.
It's just it's so, it's verytime consuming and it's kind of
it's awkward.
But I admitted, I had to admitto myself every time and I still
do.
I hate this, but I know itmakes me a better speaker.
I know it makes me much moreprepared.
It gives me, allows me theopportunity to give the audience
a much better experience,because I know what I'm going to
(28:41):
be saying and I've gone.
I've given this speech now fivetimes before giving it to the
live crowd, so it's the samething we're talking about here.
We don't have to like thevoluntary adversity.
We don't have to like the painor the discomfort.
We can hate it, in fact, but wejust have to realize that it
(29:04):
brings out the best in us.
Here are some examples thatI've heard from people that I've
worked with and talked to andasked them about.
Some of mine are on here too.
So what are some of the thingsthat are good examples?
Now, this is a small short list.
You can come up with your own.
(29:25):
You can take from this, you canadd to this and, in fact, I'd
love for anybody to email me.
If you have myself or thosepeople who are close to me out
there, text me some things thatyou do to practice voluntary
adversity, because I want tomake this a topic we discuss
further and more in the future.
So some examples like I said,cold showers, cold plunges, hot
(29:46):
saunas, becoming a member of the5 am club, which means getting
up at five o'clock every morning, doing planks, going for hard
runs, lifting weights, doingyoga, going hiking.
It may just simply be going fora walk around your block, be
going for a walk around yourblock, reading rather than
watching TV.
Giving service to others,giving to the community, helping
(30:13):
with the homeless or achildren's organization or a
battered women's shelter,whatever it could be is giving
back to the community.
Entering rooms or buildings thatmake you uncomfortable, and I
don't mean a place where there'sdanger.
I mean sometimes walking into arestaurant, a movie theater, an
office building, a bank can bea little uncomfortable, for
(30:34):
people Do it anyway.
Sometimes taking a differentroute home is a form of
voluntary adversity.
We get stuck in our patterns,so much we become.
You know, we get in these ruts,and a rut is just a shallow
grave if we stay in it too long.
Volunteering to speak, that's abig one for a lot of people.
(31:01):
Just experiencing new places,asking that person you have a
crush on, out on a date, raisingyour hand in a class, taking a
day break from social media ortaking a day off from your phone
, making eye contact withsomebody, can also be a form of
volunteer adversity, if you'reuncomfortable with eye contact,
(31:24):
I mean.
Some obvious ones are skydiving, which my son did a couple of
months ago.
Hot air balloon was Jackie'sand she did it on her own last
year.
Just a little short hot airride.
It's a great example ofsomebody just overcoming some
type of discomfort Fasting for24 hours.
(31:45):
Or, if you're my good friendGina, who I know is listening
every six months, fasting forthree days and drinking only
water, and that's another onedrinking water instead of
drinking pop or soda.
It can be eating a healthy mealtoday versus something fast
from a fast food restaurant.
(32:05):
My point is this it reallydoesn't matter what you do,
because we're all going to havedifferent things that stretch us
, that scare us, that increaseour anxiety.
We're all going to havedifferent things.
We're going to share some, ofcourse, but many of us are going
to have our own, our ownprivate, our own personal things
that bring us out of ourcomfort zone.
What I would recommend is youdo one thing a day.
(32:30):
It doesn't have to be big, itcan be something small,
something that takes you alittle bit away from your
patterns.
It breaks a pattern you haveand it's just something that's a
little bit scary, a little bitaway from your patterns.
It breaks a pattern you haveand it's just something that's a
little bit scary, a little bituncomfortable, and you do that
over something that'scomfortable.
(32:51):
If you do it every day and tryto increase it every time you do
it, it can be different thingsevery day.
It doesn't have to be doing thesame thing every morning.
It can be something differentand you don't have to do it in
the morning, you can do it anytime of the day.
I find it works better for meif I do some difficult things
right away, because it gets meready mentally for the day and I
(33:12):
just feel better.
But it doesn't.
You could do it anytime youwant, and if you say I don't
want to do it every day, okay,do three a week, practice three
voluntary activities orvoluntary adversities every week
and then maybe after a while,go to four, then to five, then
to six, then to seven.
If you know anything about me,you know that I'm a big fan of
(33:33):
starting small and growing big.
So just do something and noticeover time how amazing you feel.
And notice over time howamazing you feel.
I know many of you know this andI've shared this on the show
before and I've shared it, Iguess, in my speaking
(33:57):
engagements before the story ofthe grandfather who's telling
his granddaughter about the twowolves that live within each of
us.
And he shares the story thatevery one of you, every one of
us, has two dominant wolvesinside of us, fighting battling.
One wolf is honorable andstrong and courageous and
(34:21):
powerful and kind and curiousand wise, and courageous and
powerful and kind and curiousand wise.
The other wolf is devious andangry and mean and cowardly and
deceptive, but also verypowerful, in fact equally
(34:43):
powerful.
And every day the grandfathertells his granddaughter these
two wolves are competing.
They're fighting a battleinside your heart, your mind and
your soul.
They're fighting to see whowill control you.
The little girl looks up at hergrandpa and says well, papa,
(35:05):
which one will finally win?
And he was waiting for thatquestion because he had the
answer.
And he looked down and he gaveher a hug and he said honey,
whichever one you feed.
So, folks, I'm asking you to getup there and feed the wolf
today.
Feed that right wolf.
Feed the strong, brave, kind,wise, powerful wolf.
(35:29):
The best way to do that is togive yourself the reward of
doing something that stretchesyou today.
Until next time, please get upthere and strive love and live.
Strive to be your best.
Show love and respect to othersand yourself, and live with
(35:51):
intention.
Please smash that like button,rate us, review us and please
share this episode with threepeople you love.
Until next time.
Please know that I appreciateevery single one of you.
Take care.
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