August 21, 2025 • 34 mins
Life doesn’t send you a calendar invite for adversity—it blindsides you. One moment everything’s fine, the next you’re in the fight of your life.
So how do you prepare for the battles you can’t predict?
In this episode of The Impossible Life, Garrett and Nick break down the mindset, tools, and training you need to face any difficult situation. From Bruce Lee’s philosophy on strength, to Navy SEAL anti-interrogation lessons, to simple everyday practices like breath control and visualization—this is a tactical field guide for mental and spiritual endurance.
Don’t wait for life to throw you in the ice bath. Train for the pain now, so you can come out stronger later.
Level up your life with IDLife nutrition by clicking here.
Apply to join Giant Killers here if you're a man that wants real accountability and training to become a leader.
Level up your greatest asset with us in Mindset Mastery. How you think will change everything in your life. Click here to learn more.
GET IN TOUCH
Advertise on the podcast by clicking here.
Growth focused content - https://www.theimpossible.life/blog.
Sign up for our Mission Ready Mindset Once-A-Week Motivational Email
Instagram - @theimpossiblelife
So how do you prepare for the battles you can’t predict?
In this episode of The Impossible Life, Garrett and Nick break down the mindset, tools, and training you need to face any difficult situation. From Bruce Lee’s philosophy on strength, to Navy SEAL anti-interrogation lessons, to simple everyday practices like breath control and visualization—this is a tactical field guide for mental and spiritual endurance.
Don’t wait for life to throw you in the ice bath. Train for the pain now, so you can come out stronger later.
Level up your life with IDLife nutrition by clicking here.
Apply to join Giant Killers here if you're a man that wants real accountability and training to become a leader.
Level up your greatest asset with us in Mindset Mastery. How you think will change everything in your life. Click here to learn more.
GET IN TOUCH
Advertise on the podcast by clicking here.
Growth focused content - https://www.theimpossible.life/blog.
Sign up for our Mission Ready Mindset Once-A-Week Motivational Email
Instagram - @theimpossiblelife
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's impossible.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let me tell you what I believe.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Second, an idea that is fully formed, fully understood.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
That sticks.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick and I
are attempting to live impossible lives. What we know is
that nothing is impossible. So instead of using impossible as
an excuse to not try, we'll use the pursuit of
impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's never been
done before.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
That just means it's unexplored.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
If they tell you it's too hard, it's just waiting
to be simplified. Impossible as a default label used by
uncourageous people unwilling to take a risk. The real truth
is this. The solution to any impossible task starts with
this question, if I had to what would it take?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
What would it take?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surface, and I'm looking across a
demand who's trained in combat weapons and corn dog consumption.
That's right, friends, Garrett Unkleback, a man who is a
jack of all trades, including fine dining.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Jack of all trades and master of corn dog consumption.
Wouldn't say master, wouldn't say master of corn dog consumption.
I would say master corn dog connoisseur.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, I don't want to be the master of consumption,
I think on anything except maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Poor Okay, all right, well yeah, I'm glad that you're
critiquing my my. Uh well, you've been critiquing my my interests.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Being you since before you knew I was critiquing you.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So that is a very true statement and one that
is loaded with lots of things that we can get
distracted on, but we're not going to do that today
because we are folks as people. So today's shortcast is
very much tactical, and it's something that it's one of
those ones to kind of bookmark for later because or
you could be going through some stuff now that makes
it very relevant. But it's how to get through a
difficult time.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We're all going to go through them.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It's I'm gonna go ahead and say that you're almost
never going to see them coming, because that's truly what
makes it difficult is whenever something just gets sprung up
on you.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I have a saying what say, Even.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
If you're not in a difficult time yet, you should
listen to this today because we're going to talk about
some of the things you should do before you get
into a difficult time. So the best time to prepare
for a difficult time is not the day that it
happens to you, right, whether or not you should listen
to it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, we're also going to talk about what not to do.
You tell a story, Garrett about ho whenever COVID was
going on, like you had a bunch of people reaching
out to you, like hey, bro, like if it all
goes terrible, like you know, we're gonna we're gonna be together,
right like you got me you were just check.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
People were like, you know, we got to start getting ready,
and like, you know, I'm on your team. It's like, bro,
if you're not ready, you're not on my team, right,
Like you bet you should have started getting ready before it,
before it showed up at your front door.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, exactly right. Because the truth is, difficulty and adversity
and pain is coming for you. It's just a matter
of when. And I have the saying I go, you know,
some days I get the ice bath, other day's life
throws me in the ice bath. AKA, there's been days
when I'll be like, oh, this day is blowing up
and it's whatever, you know, six in the morning, and
I'm like, looks like I don't have to get the
ice bath today, Like the ice path has been forced
(03:30):
upon me, and fortunately I can recognize that now. So
first of all, we're going to talk about what.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Not to do.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And you have a quote, g that you love from
our man Bruce Lee, who's an underrated philosopher.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Oh man, he is.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
He truly is an underrated philosopher because that's exactly what
he was. He had a very philosophical, philosophical approach to
martial arts. He's probably it's probably a top ten people
that I quote Bruce Leka. Bruce Lee said, don't wish
for an easier life, wish for the strength to endure
(04:03):
a difficult one, and which kind of leads us right
into where we want to start today on this episode
of how to get through a Difficult time is let's
start with what not to do when bad things are
happening to you, because bad things are going to happen
to you, and Bruce Lee actually says it right here
here's what not to do. Don't wish for an easier life, right,
(04:25):
That's what a lot of people do. They wish that
it was easier. They wish things were different. If you know,
you're walking down the street and some dude ambushes you
and jumps on you and starts fighting, you don't start
wishing that this hadn't happened to you. Like, that's a
recipe for failure. That's a recipe for dying or ending
up in the hospital when somebody has assaulted you. You
(04:46):
need to have the right mentality and the right approach
when bad things happen to you. And the same way
that you've got to have some rules and standards in
your life for what you do and how you do things.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
If I'm going to go to the gym, I'm gonna
you know, eat right, I'm going to drink my pre workout,
I'm going to drink my protein shake.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I'm going to go in there with a plan. I'm
not going to go in.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
There and say like, well, let's just see how I
feel today. And you know, if you if you're new
to the gym, it's good. It's better that you just
go than that you don't go at all, but when
you're trying to grow in that area, Like I'm going
to show up with a plan, and I'm going to
execute my plan because I'm going to bring a plan
that I probably don't like and it's going to make
me feel uncomfortable, and so I'm going to go ahead
and prepare now for what I do when I feel uncomfortable.
(05:30):
Just like you know, if you drink, you shouldn't drive
after you do that.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's an easy.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Standard for how you manage your life, and there's some
standards that you need to have for how you manage
pain in very difficult circumstances. Here's one of the first ones.
Don't wish that things were different, because that is putting
you in a very impaired situation.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, it's escape thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I mean the great martial artist Jim Rohn said, I
don't wish it was easier, wish you were better, right,
And it's almost the same thing as what Bruce Lee said.
Second thing not to do is to ask why this
is happening to you, because that is what a lot
of people will do, like why. It's very similar to
wishing away. I had a situation literally last night where
I was helping a very wonderful, lovely, emotional twelve year
(06:14):
old daughter of mine go through some math problems. And
that was the that was the number one question that
she was asking, because she was not in a good state,
was why did they Why did they have to give
this to us? Like, why can't they just make sure
that all the all the work is done when we're
at school? And I'm like, all valid questions, none of
which are helpful. And but like, because once you're doing that,
what are you looking for? You're just looking for the
(06:35):
escape button. You know, you're looking to You're you're looking
for the injustice that can justify why you feel the
way that you do, and it's not helping you.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
That's That's a lot of people when difficult things are
happening to them, they're they're saying, you know, whether it's
to God or to the universe or just to whoever
they think they're arbitrator, is they're asking why, why? Why
did this happened to me? Why did you do this
to me? And that why mindset again, it's going to
put you in a situation where that when you're asking why,
(07:06):
because you can't ask why in the right way. But
there's kind of an assumed tone here. You know, if
you go through something difficult, you should, you know, you should,
in post reflection, say you know, Lord, why why did
I end up here? Did I do something wrong? Are
you teaching me a lesson? Is this for my good?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Now?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
God's probably not going to give you a direct answer,
but it is very good that you learn from your mistakes,
that you learn from your difficulties. It's not so much
that the why question is wrong. The problem is that
most often the why question comes with an air of entitlement.
When you're asking why, it's from the foundation or from
the assumption that this shouldn't have happened to me, So
(07:46):
why did it? Right?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And that's not always true.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
No, yeah, you're exactly right, man, you're feeling sorry for yourself.
Another thing not to do is ask when it will
be over, because there's a great question to to just
make yourself off wallow.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And are we there yet?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah? Are we there yet?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I mean, but it's amazing, like we're saying that, And
that's like such a little kid question to ask when
everything's driving on a road trip, But it's amazing, how
we will we take the same little kid mindset into
a lot of things that we deal with as adults
and we're completely unaware of it. It's like we would
never ask a six year old for financial advice, but
all the time we will go back and like take
a six year old's perspective on difficulty because we develop
(08:26):
these habits in this way of viewing, like, well, we
shouldn't have to do this or this, this shouldn't be
this way, and we have these wrong assumptions about life
that then keep us in that little kid state for
our adulthood, and then we can't figure out why it's
not working out. It's you know, when you when you
think about it that way, it's very obvious. But I
remember when I first realized, I was like, oh man,
I'm bringing some very old, like little kid thought patterns
(08:50):
and doing them as adults. And you see it all
the time. You see grown adults that are that are
behaving like small children.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
And the truth is, people, people, unless you had things
to you in your life that taught you this, unless
you have parents that taught you this, or a mentor
that taught you this, this is an area that many
people are uneducated in. You go to school and you
learn about math, and you go to work and you
learn what it means to have expectation put upon you.
(09:18):
But when it comes to dealing with pain and difficulty,
a lot of people, when they go through great pain,
they really do turn back into a five year old
or a six year old and they're looking for someone
to come and care for them. And I'm not saying
that that makes you a bad person. What I'm saying
is that there's more maturity for you if you'll understand that, hey,
there's actually a This is a young person's approach to this,
(09:42):
But as I get older and as I'm mature, there's
a right way to approach this. And what I need
to do is have the right mindset, have the right actions,
and I'm going to get through this, and I don't
want to have a six year old's approach to dealing
with pain.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Very good and similar to what you said, another thing
not to do is try to get to the root
source of what caused because similar to what you said
about how you should have a reflective why perspective afterwards,
if you're in the middle of a storm and you're
trying to figure out what caused it, guess what you
can see a storm you have, you're not wearing like
a clear lens. You have no perspective, Like if you
want to get a lay of the land, get to
(10:15):
the top of a mountain. Don't try and figure out
the lay of the land. Whenever you're deep in the
valley and all you can see is like trees, jungle
and mountains all around you, you have no idea what
the lay of the land looks like. But oftentimes this
is like people will be like, oh, man, I just
I think this is what would happened, And actually this
is why, this is why this is going on, because
you're just developing a narrative that will lead you all
sorts of places and none of which will be correct.
(10:37):
But it's a very natural thing.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
As the saying goes, can't see the forest from the
trees right when you're when you're in the and when
you're in the middle of it, right, don't try to,
you know, work it all out, solve the why why
this happened to me? You know, you can say it
really is similar. We're just saying this one is another
thing of what not to do because it's it's not
(10:59):
the same, but it is similar. When you're trying to
get to the root of it. You are looking.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
For the why.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
You're just not necessarily asking it, but you're searching for.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It, right, And it's we put those in there as separate.
It's a good points we put those in there as
separate because they're like two sides of the same coin.
But they're different enough that you might be like, oh, well,
I'm not asking why. It's like, no, you still are.
It's just a different you're phrasing it different. It's it's
not helpful.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
No. And the last thing not to do, and I
will be obvious.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I will say, Nick, we didn't state this, but the
prerequisite for all of this is that when you go
through hard things, you want to be victorious on the
other side of it. If you don't want to be
victorious on the other side of difficulty, then then this this,
all these lessons they're not for you. But if you
do want to be victorious, then the same way that
you would listen to you know, your your fitness coach,
(11:46):
or your golf coach, or your if you're a quarterback,
your quarterback coach, whatever it is, You're going to listen
to them when they say, hey, this is how I
want you to respond when you get hit. This is
how I want you to respond when you're when you
have a difficult lie. This is how I want you
to respond when you're not feeling well.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
And what I would say victorious is is not necessarily
that you have a predetermined outcome that you're like, this
will be my victory is when it ends up a
specific way, but that you've gotten stronger and that you've
grown and you've learned. That's what victorious looks like in difficulty,
because as you gave such a great example of it's
like someone put in a bunch of weight on a
bar and you're at the gym. You can cry about
it and then like you know, collapse and then they'll
(12:22):
take the bar off you. Or you can push through
it and then when you're done, guess what next time
that weight comes on the bar, you're like, oh, okay,
I've been here before.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
I would say victorious is like, if you've read Victor
Frankel's book Man Search for Meaning, he lived a victorious life, right,
and he went through like being a prisoner of war, like, yeah,
so ultimately America and that the Allies won and the
guys were freed, and you could say that was the victory,
(12:49):
that was one out of his control. He was, he
was victorious in his.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Victor.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Frankel was victorious, and I'm also thinking of Louis. Both
of these men were victorious and how they dealt with
their moments not what they could want, what they couldn't control,
but what they could control.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So the last thing not to do is to bargain
with yourself, with others or God. You are literally at
your most vulnerable and it's the worst place to make
a decision. We have great biblical example of this in
Jacob who was like, hey, birthright and everything that is
coming to me from my dad's inheritance or bull of soup.
I'll take the bull of soup for five hundred please,
Alex Like not a good decision, right, but like that's us.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, that's you know.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
People read that story, if you've read in the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Bible, you're like, man, what an idiot?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, because you're sore, comfortably in your air conditioned hull
of judging this guy.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right, But we do it all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, people, you're you're in the ice bath, or
you're in you know, one of life's real situations and
you're saying, well, what do I gotta do to make
this end? What do I got to do to make
this end sooner? How do I get out of here?
How do I make it up? What do I need
to say? Who do I need to be? And what
(14:04):
you want? Like this sounds brutal, but you want to
be the type of person that can't well, well it
doesn't suffer, and you want to be the type of
person that cannot be intimidated by life or like this
is anti interrogation training, you know, when truly that's what
(14:24):
it is, is anti interrogation training. That when you're being
forced to suffer and they're literally telling you we could, well,
this will all stop if you'll just do this, they
put you in a difficult situation and try to bargain
with you, and you have to be the type of
peron because what are you going to do at that point?
You're going to betray your country, right, And so that's
(14:45):
the test. And oftentimes when you're in a difficult situation,
you're not it's not interrogation against you know, an adversary nation.
It's between you and your destiny, and you're going to
make a bargain that gives up your future. And so
you want to be the type of person that when
you are put in this situation that you would say,
(15:05):
I don't bargain, right, And that's the essentially that's like
the standard they give us and when you prepare for
anti interrogation training is we don't play this game.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, here's here's how you stay in your box and
you and you be who you're supposed to be and
you maintain the character that you're called to have. We're
not going to bargain with them. We're not going to
see how we could make this end.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I get to experience this all the time whenever
I try and like ask you stuff and you just
stay in your box and don't respond at all. It's
wonderful if you if you want to know what this
looks like in modern day times, gee of like this
if you want to get a great example of why
you shouldn't bargain when you're in your weak is most
vulnerable place payday advance businesses, if you could call like
learn how predatory lenders exist. And it's a crazy no
(15:49):
one would say, Hey, I'll tell you what if you
give me twenty percent of the paycheck you've got coming
in one week, I'll give you, I'll give you that,
I'll give you know X. Now, it's just it's a
whole like it's just it's a really bad negotiation. But
when you're so tight that you need money right then
and there, we see these places all over America, and
unfortunately they're always in impoverished areas, and it's like way
(16:10):
to take advantage of people who are already in a
tough spot, Like I would not want to be you,
because the Bible is and God speaks explicitly about taking
advantage of those who are already oppressed. And I just
I just think it's a horrible thing. But but in
somebody's mind, because you're in a bad spot, it's like, sure,
I just need this money now, I don't care what
it costs in the future. And you're just sacrificing your
future and digging the hole deeper.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And it's awful. So let's get to what to do, Gie,
And as you.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Talked about before, the worst time to prepare is whenever
the crisis hits. So before we even get to what
to do in the moment, you got to have preparation, right,
Like you have to be preparing yourself to for when
pain comes.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So what are you going to say?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
A great example of this and this is these are
people that I've learned from. This is Spartans in the
Agogi training. Okay, these they put these in I think
it's seven or eight years old and they're not done
until they're twenty. That's a lot of preparation. And what
comes out of that is a man who's fully ready
(17:11):
for the most brutal form of war, and not just
that he could, you know, still be a man on
the other side of it, but that he would perform
at an elite level, right right, So that's what it
takes to make a man that way. It took them,
you know, twelve thirteen years to be able to do
that in young men. So that's a lot of preparation.
(17:32):
And that's just you know, giving you an example of
what kind of preparation it takes to know that when
you face the worst of circumstances, you could perform at
the highest level. That's the power of preparation. One of
the things that they would do in that the Spartan
training taught and that they would do in the Agogi
and they did this a lot with the young men
is what they call and that this is a part
(17:54):
of Spartan training. This is stoicism, what they called negative visualization.
They would rehearse the worst possible things happening to them.
Their arm getting cut off, you know, they're all their
teeth getting knocked out, whatever, getting stabbed in the like,
whatever it is. They would rehearse, like mentally like spend
(18:14):
time meditating and visualizing these terrible things happening to them.
And what they were doing is they were preparing their
response for what would like how they would act when
those things actually happen. This really is many of you
listen to the podcast have heard about equanimity, want more
equanimity in your life. This is actually what an equanimity
(18:35):
training plan looks like. So when you've mentally rehearsed this
over and over again with the thought, with the predetermination
that I'm doing this to get stronger, when those things
actually happened to you, it's not a shock or a surprise.
You've already said, Oh, I've been here before and i
know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
By the way, you can do this on this pro
tip for you. You can do this for things like on
a workout literally, like as you're driving to like maybe
you have a point in your workouts where you start
to kind of cave and crater and now, well, I'll
just do eight reps and set of ten, and I'll
do three sets instead of four, or whatever kind of
workouts you do. If you have a point where you
(19:14):
kind of start to fall off and you're maybe you're
not pushing yourself to your best as you're on your
way to the gym or you know, walking into the gym,
whatever your path there is, just spend a few minutes
like meditating and rehearsing and visualizing how painful it's going
to be. And what'll I promise you what will happen
is when that moment comes, you'll go, oh, I already
(19:34):
knew this.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Was going to come, and I already decided what I do.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, And that's the forward looking visualization. What I think
is equally as powerful, if not more powerful, is to
actually give yourself an experience of something difficult, aka do
hard things. I will say that the great thing is
you can literally chart and hear we talk about all
the hard things that we've done in the past.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Four years on this podcast. If you listen to every episode.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
But what's happened is my definition of heart has changed.
It literally in my life, not just physical challenges. The
physical is great because you know when you're feel like
you're drunk and you have earth sorry, when you feel
like you have COVID and the hangover combined aka the
altitude sickness we had the first time we climbed Mountain Massive,
and then you know, blizzard conditions come in with sixty
miles prior winds and sideways snow and you're up on
(20:17):
a mountain and there's no one coming to get you.
Nice go, I feel terrible, and we've got a long
way ahead of us. Man, I that was such a
I just laugh about that moment now. But when you
sit there and think about that, like truly, you know,
you're like, wow, this is not something I experienced.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
How hard is it?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Whenever you start to have like, oh man, you know whatever,
something happened in my house and now I have to
replace my fridge, or oh man, something's not going right
at work, it's like, well, you know what, no one's
going to die. I feel physically okay, and whatever. This
is not like this is this isn't gonna last much
longer than a couple hours I have left at work.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
It's a good thing we had flights at the end
of that day and we might have lost a man
up there.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah for sure, Yeah, dude, I actually, I really do
think it was God's grace that having now completed that climb.
Can you imagine being on some of those peaks when
a sixty mile prior wind comes and the condition of
some of the guys that were slipping on the way down.
I genuinely think someone would have fallen over to that
second peak.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
There would have been a few of us at the top.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Dude, you say that with a smile, interface, I genuinely
think someone would have died.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I'm not even joking anyways. I was talking about that.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, dude, if someone gets blown off the side of
that second peak, they're going to be gone before you
can do anything. I remember looking down and going, oh,
that's death. And it was like three feet from us
when we were doing that. There was that one part
where you're walking literally on.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Like a tip.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Don't anyways, don't do that?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Okay, Well, hey, great advice. Thanks, Do you appreciate it?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So doing hard things will change your definition of hard
perspectives are so powerful to take and know, like because
when you get caught in a moment one of the
first one. I talk about this all the time we
had doctor Robbie on. The more I read scripture, the
more I see Paul the Apostles Jesus talking about thanksgiving.
You know what I mean, Like, how important is to
be grateful? What are you grateful for? If you're sitting
there and you're like starting to feel yourself get down
(22:01):
the dumps, what are you grateful for? Because the moment
you start finding the things that you're grateful for, it's
going to completely flip how you're looking at the problem.
It's like putting on a new pair of glasses and
suddenly you see things that you didn't see before. The
other perspective I would say that's so helpful is it
could always be worse. And this is tied to the
preparation of doing hard things. This is a perspective that
you've shared at length and mindset master, which we're covering
(22:23):
perspective right now, and that I've learned from you. Let
me give you a practical example of how this happened. Recently,
I went for celebrating my twenty years me and my
wife went to Costa Rica, which was amazing. While I
was there, on like two days before we were due
to catch a flight back, I got a parasite, which
I'd never had a parasite before, and nor have I
ever experienced a mass evacuation quite like that, to put
(22:47):
it mildly, and it was awful. In the end, your
mom diagnosed me better than the doctors and gave me
ivermected because the doctors gave me antibiotics that made it worse.
But anyways, so I'm sat there when you're like supposedly
in paradise and you're having I've had a great week
with my wife, and I could have this mindset of like, oh,
it ruined the whole thing. I never took that thought.
I'm flying on super small planes that don't have a bathroom,
(23:08):
and then flying on a commercial plane, I'm in places
that it's like ninety degrees high humidity, no air conditioning,
so I'm already dehydrated from flushing my body out. I
was in a lot of pain, not gonna lie, and
it was very inconvenient, very uncomfortable, and all I could
think anytime I felt myself starting is spiral because there
was a couple times when I was like, oh my gosh,
I just.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Want this to be done.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I would immediately go, you know what, thank God, you
don't have to run one hundred miles. Why because I'd
done something difficult before when we ran our one hundred
milers both times, And even though sometimes on the practice runs,
my stomach will get jacked up, and so like when
you're sitting there and you're like, oh, my ankle won't bend,
my knee won't bend, and I've got stomach issues and
I've got to go back out and run another forty
(23:49):
miles or whatever it was at that point, that is
worse to me, and so it could always be worse.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I had a very practical example.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Of going like, you know what, I feel bad, but
thank God, I just get to lay here and drink water.
And it helped a lot. I never I never spiraled,
got back to America, you know, eventually got back on
my feet, lost.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Ten pounds, Praise the Lord.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
When I go through things that are painful that aren't
just like a workout, like when I get a bad
headache or a migraine or an injury, one of the
things I'll do is like I've had knee surgery before,
so I know what it's like to not have a
functioning leg, right, And like if I have a really
bad migraine, one of the things I'll do is like
I'll flex my arm or flex my leg, just like
(24:28):
telling my body, like, look at this functioning arm that
you have. Look at these great functioning legs that you have.
Like like literally get my mind thinking about the things
that are working well, not focus on the things and
reverse right if like I'd sprained my ankle or like
jam my wrist, like, man, I'm so glad I don't
have a headache right now.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, And they're virtually the same thing. It's what are
you grateful for? And it could always be worse. It's
the same thing, just asked a different way.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
And either way it's easier. Yeah, it's easier for people
to think about how it could be worse. Right, But
then you just then you let your your brain start
to go in that direction and you mental judo yourself
and flip it and say, well, good thing, it's not that.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Dude, mental judo. That's going to be an intro. I
love that you just said that. Okay, so gee, let's
get into what to do. So you're a difficult situations.
Come on, you've been punched in the face in life, or.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, this is what everybody wants. What's the uh, what's
what's the hack?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What are the tips?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The magic two step process that gets it over five minutes?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I will I've responded to some people in really difficult
situations and I didn't teach this to them. I just
helped them, helped walk them through it. And this is
what you can do with other people, like help walk
them through. You don't need to try and tell them
what you're doing. Just help them with some of these things.
And I'll mention in that part. Really what you want
(25:45):
is to take this in and have practiced these things,
use these things a lot so that when some of
the worst things happened to you. And I got that feedback.
By the way, this last year, somebody was telling who
had listened to this before, was telling me a story
of how they got in a terrible car accident and
they were okay, but it was the scariest thing they'd
ever been in their life. And they immediately jumped into
(26:06):
breath control, which I love. So let's talk about the
Seal Big four really quick. This is how to respond
to the most difficult things. This is what they taught us.
And the Seal Team's like, hey, you're going to face
you know, extreme chaos and duress, and this is what
you need. Number one is breath work. They called this
arousal control. It's like your your body can get into
(26:27):
this zone and it's just running away from you emotionally, hormonally,
your brain turns into you know, fear lizard brain and
it's bad. And the simple is do controlled breath work
that just have its active breathing is what it is. Right,
we inactively breathe all the time. We passively breathe all
(26:47):
the time, but active breathing where you're controlling your breath.
What they would teach us is box breathing. In for four,
hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Now
there's if you're like a super breathwork nerd h there's
better like breath work patterns that you can do. But
the point is that it's really easy to remember four
for four for four right right in for four, hold
(27:08):
for four, out for four, hold for four. And if
you just do like two or three of those boxes,
you can be like in the most uncomfortable situation, it'll
straighten you out. And I won't go into all the
science in this episode today, but that's one of the
first things you need to do is just some breath
work arousal control. Second thing is segmentation. Right in Sealed Training,
(27:30):
this was sometimes you're having like a day that's going
to be the worst day of your life, and you
can't say, like, man, I just got to get through today.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Sometimes you're going to say like, Okay, I'm just gonna
make it to the next meal. But sometimes that's an
hour and a half away, and all you've got to
say is like, hey, I'm not going to let my
boat crew down on this next evolution, right, the next
three minutes are going to be really terrible, and I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I'm going to push through it.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Right. So segmentation is breaking big things down into manageable,
manageable chunks. As the saying goes, how do you eat
a l one bide at a time, but first you
have to kill the elephant. It's not an easy undertaking either,
but you eat an elephant one bide at a time.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, and for for somebody that's not going through like
seal training. You don't really know how long it's gonna last.
So I would say that it's just do the next
right thing and make sure it's done. That's right, Like
if your life is falling apart, if you've had like
a bunch of like a bunch of stuff break around
your how let's say you had aza like you had
a car crash, like what you said, Okay, so you've
caught yourself under control. What's the next right thing? The
(28:30):
next right thing is check and see if everybody's okay,
then call the police.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Like it's just I.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Don't need to know how this is all then and
or when it's gonna be over. I'm just gonna do
the next right thing and make sure I do it well.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
I've heard people that I respect and who've been through
a ridiculous amount of combat, people that I learned from
in the military. They talked about like the battlefield mindset
of It's like playing pickup basketball and the only question
is what's next, right, Like, oh, the other team got
the ball, Okay, get down the court.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
It's the only thing you do.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Is what's next, What's next? What's next?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
And eventually that turns into I've eaten an elephant, right,
number three visualization. This is like, okay, when we were
in boats and logs, which is like some of the
evolutions and seal training that people would say is like
the most difficult evolutions. What you've got to do is
like sometimes in the middle of it, right, like I
(29:24):
would almost start to meditate or visualize, see myself looking strong,
doing this thing, see myself completing this thing. Right when
we when we were climbing the mountains, right when we
did mountain massive, like I would when it started to
get hard, I'm seeing myself at the top. Right, Visualize finishing,
visualize completion, and visual even visualize yourself standing up taller.
(29:47):
If you can't take another step, see it in your
mind before you do it. My dad taught me about
the you know, this is a baseball thing, right, like
see the see the ball hitting the bat, right, And
I had a great coat which when I was young
and did some private lessons, and it wasn't just actually
see the ball on the bat with your eyes, but
see it in your mind. And that's exactly what you're
(30:07):
doing here, right. You need to see yourself taking the
next step, see yourself hear yourself, responding with the right words,
responding with your emotions under control. You have to see
it in your mind before you're actually going to do.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It, and then Numbechologically that's called disassociation, which I think
I've said this before. I'll briefly note it for those
that haven't listened to that episode when your dad was
saying to you when you were a kid, I wish
you could see yourself now. It was actually genius because
when you disassociate, aka you view it like you're watching
a movie. You move into the logical part of your brain.
So if you're going through something difficult and you like,
now see yourself, Like I'll do this when I'm in workouts,
(30:44):
I'll be like, be strong, act like a man. I'll
see myself from the outside, be like, I don't want
to look pathetic right now, so immediately I sit up
and I want to be a man.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
It's one of the strongest like you know, you know
this from guys like Mookie Bets or like the greatest
athletes they or great gymnasts. They have incredible body awareness
right they know where they're they're actually at in space.
But you know someone who's a terrible athlete zero awareness
of like where they're at, bump into things. Great athletes
(31:15):
can see, like they know exactly. They could draw a
perfect picture of themselves, like they could re you know,
if they were great artists, they could draw the film
of what they looked like as they made the catch. Okay,
that's that's the like the kinesiology of it, the body
form of it. But you also need that same level
of body awareness from like an identity awareness perspective. And
(31:38):
this is one of the things that I focus on
the most, is like who am I actually in this moment?
Not just what is what's the shape of my body,
what's my posture, what's my physical form? But what's my
identity form in this moment? And that's something we can
probably jump into more. Last one here is self talk, right.
This is I take self talk a step further and
(32:01):
just am totally okay with being a crazy person when
tough things happen to me and I'll say stuff, say
things to myself, right like you guys have heard me
talk about my temptation response, I'll say out loud, I
bet you'd like that, wouldn't you, And saying it out
loud for me from a spiritual from a sin perspective,
gets the internal battle out right, and it divides, It
(32:26):
divides me. It helps me understand that there's a part
of me that's destructive and there's a part of me
that wants to follow God. In the same way self talk, right,
if you're listening to your thoughts and difficult situations, you're
probably having a bad time now when your thoughts get active,
Like I had a mantra that I used to say
to myself when I was going through seal training, some
really simple things that I would say to myself, just
(32:46):
speaking positivity over myself. And I literally just like went
into dumb mode right as literally I couldn't think of
anything else except like a few words, and I would
just keep saying these positive things over and over again.
And so you want to have the great internal self
that's active, that's positive, and the next step really is
like letting it come out of your mouth. The words
(33:06):
that we use are so important. This isn't just like
some manifestation whatever about words. It's actually it gets your
brain and the right like the same way that breath
work gets you in frontal lobe. Self talk gets you
in frontal lobe, which is the smart, the logical, the
reasoning part of your brain.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, I mean all these things are really just you
pushing back from the inside rather than allowing what's outside
to push in on you. I mean, we talked about
locus of control in one of our previous episodes.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
That's really what this is.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's just it's not being pushed around by the situation,
but instead controlling your controllables. I mean, there's never a
time you can't control your breath, your segmentation, your visualization,
your self talk.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
You always have a choice. Thank you very much for listening. Guys,
remember to share, like subscribe.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
If you think that this would be something that someone
would enjoy, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
At the Impossible Life.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
You'll find us on there.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You can also email.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
At Impossible Life Podcasts at gmail dot.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Com if you have any questions.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If you want to get in touch and find out
about Carrott's personal or business coaching, that's the way to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Thank you again for listening.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Go out there and think better and live the impossible.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
See you again soon.
That's impossible.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let me tell you what I believe.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's your weakness, it's not your technique.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Don't think you know.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
The Impossible Life Podcast and yes, sitting on a winning lottery.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
Second, an idea that is fully formed, fully understood.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
That sticks.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
This is the Impossible Life Podcast because Nick and I
are attempting to live impossible lives. What we know is
that nothing is impossible. So instead of using impossible as
an excuse to not try, we'll use the pursuit of
impossible as an accelerant for greatness. If something's never been
done before.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
That just means it's unexplored.
Speaker 4 (00:45):
If they tell you it's too hard, it's just waiting
to be simplified. Impossible as a default label used by
uncourageous people unwilling to take a risk. The real truth
is this. The solution to any impossible task starts with
this question, if I had to what would it take?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
What would it take?
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Welcome to another episode of the Impossible Life Podcast. I'm
your co host, Nick Surface, and I'm looking across a
demand who's trained in combat weapons and corn dog consumption.
That's right, friends, Garrett Unkleback, a man who is a
jack of all trades, including fine dining.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Jack of all trades and master of corn dog consumption.
Wouldn't say master, wouldn't say master of corn dog consumption.
I would say master corn dog connoisseur.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
You.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yeah, I don't want to be the master of consumption,
I think on anything except maybe.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Poor Okay, all right, well yeah, I'm glad that you're
critiquing my my. Uh well, you've been critiquing my my interests.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Being you since before you knew I was critiquing you.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So that is a very true statement and one that
is loaded with lots of things that we can get
distracted on, but we're not going to do that today
because we are folks as people. So today's shortcast is
very much tactical, and it's something that it's one of
those ones to kind of bookmark for later because or
you could be going through some stuff now that makes
it very relevant. But it's how to get through a
difficult time.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We're all going to go through them.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
It's I'm gonna go ahead and say that you're almost
never going to see them coming, because that's truly what
makes it difficult is whenever something just gets sprung up
on you.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
I have a saying what say, Even.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
If you're not in a difficult time yet, you should
listen to this today because we're going to talk about
some of the things you should do before you get
into a difficult time. So the best time to prepare
for a difficult time is not the day that it
happens to you, right, whether or not you should listen
to it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, we're also going to talk about what not to do.
You tell a story, Garrett about ho whenever COVID was
going on, like you had a bunch of people reaching
out to you, like hey, bro, like if it all
goes terrible, like you know, we're gonna we're gonna be together,
right like you got me you were just check.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
People were like, you know, we got to start getting ready,
and like, you know, I'm on your team. It's like, bro,
if you're not ready, you're not on my team, right,
Like you bet you should have started getting ready before it,
before it showed up at your front door.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Yeah, exactly right. Because the truth is, difficulty and adversity
and pain is coming for you. It's just a matter
of when. And I have the saying I go, you know,
some days I get the ice bath, other day's life
throws me in the ice bath. AKA, there's been days
when I'll be like, oh, this day is blowing up
and it's whatever, you know, six in the morning, and
I'm like, looks like I don't have to get the
ice bath today, Like the ice path has been forced
(03:30):
upon me, and fortunately I can recognize that now. So
first of all, we're going to talk about what.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Not to do.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And you have a quote, g that you love from
our man Bruce Lee, who's an underrated philosopher.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Oh man, he is.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
He truly is an underrated philosopher because that's exactly what
he was. He had a very philosophical, philosophical approach to
martial arts. He's probably it's probably a top ten people
that I quote Bruce Leka. Bruce Lee said, don't wish
for an easier life, wish for the strength to endure
(04:03):
a difficult one, and which kind of leads us right
into where we want to start today on this episode
of how to get through a Difficult time is let's
start with what not to do when bad things are
happening to you, because bad things are going to happen
to you, and Bruce Lee actually says it right here
here's what not to do. Don't wish for an easier life, right,
(04:25):
That's what a lot of people do. They wish that
it was easier. They wish things were different. If you know,
you're walking down the street and some dude ambushes you
and jumps on you and starts fighting, you don't start
wishing that this hadn't happened to you. Like, that's a
recipe for failure. That's a recipe for dying or ending
up in the hospital when somebody has assaulted you. You
(04:46):
need to have the right mentality and the right approach
when bad things happen to you. And the same way
that you've got to have some rules and standards in
your life for what you do and how you do things.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
If I'm going to go to the gym, I'm gonna
you know, eat right, I'm going to drink my pre workout,
I'm going to drink my protein shake.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I'm going to go in there with a plan. I'm
not going to go in.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
There and say like, well, let's just see how I
feel today. And you know, if you if you're new
to the gym, it's good. It's better that you just
go than that you don't go at all, but when
you're trying to grow in that area, Like I'm going
to show up with a plan, and I'm going to
execute my plan because I'm going to bring a plan
that I probably don't like and it's going to make
me feel uncomfortable, and so I'm going to go ahead
and prepare now for what I do when I feel uncomfortable.
(05:30):
Just like you know, if you drink, you shouldn't drive
after you do that.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's an easy.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Standard for how you manage your life, and there's some
standards that you need to have for how you manage
pain in very difficult circumstances. Here's one of the first ones.
Don't wish that things were different, because that is putting
you in a very impaired situation.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, it's escape thinking.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
I mean the great martial artist Jim Rohn said, I
don't wish it was easier, wish you were better, right,
And it's almost the same thing as what Bruce Lee said.
Second thing not to do is to ask why this
is happening to you, because that is what a lot
of people will do, like why. It's very similar to
wishing away. I had a situation literally last night where
I was helping a very wonderful, lovely, emotional twelve year
(06:14):
old daughter of mine go through some math problems. And
that was the that was the number one question that
she was asking, because she was not in a good state,
was why did they Why did they have to give
this to us? Like, why can't they just make sure
that all the all the work is done when we're
at school? And I'm like, all valid questions, none of
which are helpful. And but like, because once you're doing that,
what are you looking for? You're just looking for the
(06:35):
escape button. You know, you're looking to You're you're looking
for the injustice that can justify why you feel the
way that you do, and it's not helping you.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
That's That's a lot of people when difficult things are
happening to them, they're they're saying, you know, whether it's
to God or to the universe or just to whoever
they think they're arbitrator, is they're asking why, why? Why
did this happened to me? Why did you do this
to me? And that why mindset again, it's going to
put you in a situation where that when you're asking why,
(07:06):
because you can't ask why in the right way. But
there's kind of an assumed tone here. You know, if
you go through something difficult, you should, you know, you should,
in post reflection, say you know, Lord, why why did
I end up here? Did I do something wrong? Are
you teaching me a lesson? Is this for my good?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Now?
Speaker 4 (07:23):
God's probably not going to give you a direct answer,
but it is very good that you learn from your mistakes,
that you learn from your difficulties. It's not so much
that the why question is wrong. The problem is that
most often the why question comes with an air of entitlement.
When you're asking why, it's from the foundation or from
the assumption that this shouldn't have happened to me, So
(07:46):
why did it? Right?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And that's not always true.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
No, yeah, you're exactly right, man, you're feeling sorry for yourself.
Another thing not to do is ask when it will
be over, because there's a great question to to just
make yourself off wallow.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
And are we there yet?
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah? Are we there yet?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
I mean, but it's amazing, like we're saying that, And
that's like such a little kid question to ask when
everything's driving on a road trip, But it's amazing, how
we will we take the same little kid mindset into
a lot of things that we deal with as adults
and we're completely unaware of it. It's like we would
never ask a six year old for financial advice, but
all the time we will go back and like take
a six year old's perspective on difficulty because we develop
(08:26):
these habits in this way of viewing, like, well, we
shouldn't have to do this or this, this shouldn't be
this way, and we have these wrong assumptions about life
that then keep us in that little kid state for
our adulthood, and then we can't figure out why it's
not working out. It's you know, when you when you
think about it that way, it's very obvious. But I
remember when I first realized, I was like, oh man,
I'm bringing some very old, like little kid thought patterns
(08:50):
and doing them as adults. And you see it all
the time. You see grown adults that are that are
behaving like small children.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
And the truth is, people, people, unless you had things
to you in your life that taught you this, unless
you have parents that taught you this, or a mentor
that taught you this, this is an area that many
people are uneducated in. You go to school and you
learn about math, and you go to work and you
learn what it means to have expectation put upon you.
(09:18):
But when it comes to dealing with pain and difficulty,
a lot of people, when they go through great pain,
they really do turn back into a five year old
or a six year old and they're looking for someone
to come and care for them. And I'm not saying
that that makes you a bad person. What I'm saying
is that there's more maturity for you if you'll understand that, hey,
there's actually a This is a young person's approach to this,
(09:42):
But as I get older and as I'm mature, there's
a right way to approach this. And what I need
to do is have the right mindset, have the right actions,
and I'm going to get through this, and I don't
want to have a six year old's approach to dealing
with pain.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Very good and similar to what you said, another thing
not to do is try to get to the root
source of what caused because similar to what you said
about how you should have a reflective why perspective afterwards,
if you're in the middle of a storm and you're
trying to figure out what caused it, guess what you
can see a storm you have, you're not wearing like
a clear lens. You have no perspective, Like if you
want to get a lay of the land, get to
(10:15):
the top of a mountain. Don't try and figure out
the lay of the land. Whenever you're deep in the
valley and all you can see is like trees, jungle
and mountains all around you, you have no idea what
the lay of the land looks like. But oftentimes this
is like people will be like, oh, man, I just
I think this is what would happened, And actually this
is why, this is why this is going on, because
you're just developing a narrative that will lead you all
sorts of places and none of which will be correct.
(10:37):
But it's a very natural thing.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
As the saying goes, can't see the forest from the
trees right when you're when you're in the and when
you're in the middle of it, right, don't try to,
you know, work it all out, solve the why why
this happened to me? You know, you can say it
really is similar. We're just saying this one is another
thing of what not to do because it's it's not
(10:59):
the same, but it is similar. When you're trying to
get to the root of it. You are looking.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
For the why.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
You're just not necessarily asking it, but you're searching for.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
It, right, And it's we put those in there as separate.
It's a good points we put those in there as
separate because they're like two sides of the same coin.
But they're different enough that you might be like, oh, well,
I'm not asking why. It's like, no, you still are.
It's just a different you're phrasing it different. It's it's
not helpful.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
No. And the last thing not to do, and I
will be obvious.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
I will say, Nick, we didn't state this, but the
prerequisite for all of this is that when you go
through hard things, you want to be victorious on the
other side of it. If you don't want to be
victorious on the other side of difficulty, then then this this,
all these lessons they're not for you. But if you
do want to be victorious, then the same way that
you would listen to you know, your your fitness coach,
(11:46):
or your golf coach, or your if you're a quarterback,
your quarterback coach, whatever it is, You're going to listen
to them when they say, hey, this is how I
want you to respond when you get hit. This is
how I want you to respond when you're when you
have a difficult lie. This is how I want you
to respond when you're not feeling well.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
And what I would say victorious is is not necessarily
that you have a predetermined outcome that you're like, this
will be my victory is when it ends up a
specific way, but that you've gotten stronger and that you've
grown and you've learned. That's what victorious looks like in difficulty,
because as you gave such a great example of it's
like someone put in a bunch of weight on a
bar and you're at the gym. You can cry about
it and then like you know, collapse and then they'll
(12:22):
take the bar off you. Or you can push through
it and then when you're done, guess what next time
that weight comes on the bar, you're like, oh, okay,
I've been here before.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
I would say victorious is like, if you've read Victor
Frankel's book Man Search for Meaning, he lived a victorious life, right,
and he went through like being a prisoner of war, like, yeah,
so ultimately America and that the Allies won and the
guys were freed, and you could say that was the victory,
(12:49):
that was one out of his control. He was, he
was victorious in his.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Victor.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Frankel was victorious, and I'm also thinking of Louis. Both
of these men were victorious and how they dealt with
their moments not what they could want, what they couldn't control,
but what they could control.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, so good.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
So the last thing not to do is to bargain
with yourself, with others or God. You are literally at
your most vulnerable and it's the worst place to make
a decision. We have great biblical example of this in
Jacob who was like, hey, birthright and everything that is
coming to me from my dad's inheritance or bull of soup.
I'll take the bull of soup for five hundred please,
Alex Like not a good decision, right, but like that's us.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, that's you know.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
People read that story, if you've read in the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Bible, you're like, man, what an idiot?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, because you're sore, comfortably in your air conditioned hull
of judging this guy.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Right, But we do it all the time.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
You know, people, you're you're in the ice bath, or
you're in you know, one of life's real situations and
you're saying, well, what do I gotta do to make
this end? What do I got to do to make
this end sooner? How do I get out of here?
How do I make it up? What do I need
to say? Who do I need to be? And what
(14:04):
you want? Like this sounds brutal, but you want to
be the type of person that can't well, well it
doesn't suffer, and you want to be the type of
person that cannot be intimidated by life or like this
is anti interrogation training, you know, when truly that's what
(14:24):
it is, is anti interrogation training. That when you're being
forced to suffer and they're literally telling you we could, well,
this will all stop if you'll just do this, they
put you in a difficult situation and try to bargain
with you, and you have to be the type of
peron because what are you going to do at that point?
You're going to betray your country, right, And so that's
(14:45):
the test. And oftentimes when you're in a difficult situation,
you're not it's not interrogation against you know, an adversary nation.
It's between you and your destiny, and you're going to
make a bargain that gives up your future. And so
you want to be the type of person that when
you are put in this situation that you would say,
(15:05):
I don't bargain, right, And that's the essentially that's like
the standard they give us and when you prepare for
anti interrogation training is we don't play this game.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, here's here's how you stay in your box and
you and you be who you're supposed to be and
you maintain the character that you're called to have. We're
not going to bargain with them. We're not going to
see how we could make this end.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And I get to experience this all the time whenever
I try and like ask you stuff and you just
stay in your box and don't respond at all. It's
wonderful if you if you want to know what this
looks like in modern day times, gee of like this
if you want to get a great example of why
you shouldn't bargain when you're in your weak is most
vulnerable place payday advance businesses, if you could call like
learn how predatory lenders exist. And it's a crazy no
(15:49):
one would say, Hey, I'll tell you what if you
give me twenty percent of the paycheck you've got coming
in one week, I'll give you, I'll give you that,
I'll give you know X. Now, it's just it's a
whole like it's just it's a really bad negotiation. But
when you're so tight that you need money right then
and there, we see these places all over America, and
unfortunately they're always in impoverished areas, and it's like way
(16:10):
to take advantage of people who are already in a
tough spot, Like I would not want to be you,
because the Bible is and God speaks explicitly about taking
advantage of those who are already oppressed. And I just
I just think it's a horrible thing. But but in
somebody's mind, because you're in a bad spot, it's like, sure,
I just need this money now, I don't care what
it costs in the future. And you're just sacrificing your
future and digging the hole deeper.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
And it's awful. So let's get to what to do, Gie,
And as you.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Talked about before, the worst time to prepare is whenever
the crisis hits. So before we even get to what
to do in the moment, you got to have preparation, right,
Like you have to be preparing yourself to for when
pain comes.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
So what are you going to say?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
A great example of this and this is these are
people that I've learned from. This is Spartans in the
Agogi training. Okay, these they put these in I think
it's seven or eight years old and they're not done
until they're twenty. That's a lot of preparation. And what
comes out of that is a man who's fully ready
(17:11):
for the most brutal form of war, and not just
that he could, you know, still be a man on
the other side of it, but that he would perform
at an elite level, right right, So that's what it
takes to make a man that way. It took them,
you know, twelve thirteen years to be able to do
that in young men. So that's a lot of preparation.
(17:32):
And that's just you know, giving you an example of
what kind of preparation it takes to know that when
you face the worst of circumstances, you could perform at
the highest level. That's the power of preparation. One of
the things that they would do in that the Spartan
training taught and that they would do in the Agogi
and they did this a lot with the young men
is what they call and that this is a part
(17:54):
of Spartan training. This is stoicism, what they called negative visualization.
They would rehearse the worst possible things happening to them.
Their arm getting cut off, you know, they're all their
teeth getting knocked out, whatever, getting stabbed in the like,
whatever it is. They would rehearse, like mentally like spend
(18:14):
time meditating and visualizing these terrible things happening to them.
And what they were doing is they were preparing their
response for what would like how they would act when
those things actually happen. This really is many of you
listen to the podcast have heard about equanimity, want more
equanimity in your life. This is actually what an equanimity
(18:35):
training plan looks like. So when you've mentally rehearsed this
over and over again with the thought, with the predetermination
that I'm doing this to get stronger, when those things
actually happened to you, it's not a shock or a surprise.
You've already said, Oh, I've been here before and i
know what I'm going to do.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
By the way, you can do this on this pro
tip for you. You can do this for things like on
a workout literally, like as you're driving to like maybe
you have a point in your workouts where you start
to kind of cave and crater and now, well, I'll
just do eight reps and set of ten, and I'll
do three sets instead of four, or whatever kind of
workouts you do. If you have a point where you
(19:14):
kind of start to fall off and you're maybe you're
not pushing yourself to your best as you're on your
way to the gym or you know, walking into the gym,
whatever your path there is, just spend a few minutes
like meditating and rehearsing and visualizing how painful it's going
to be. And what'll I promise you what will happen
is when that moment comes, you'll go, oh, I already
(19:34):
knew this.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Was going to come, and I already decided what I do.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah, And that's the forward looking visualization. What I think
is equally as powerful, if not more powerful, is to
actually give yourself an experience of something difficult, aka do
hard things. I will say that the great thing is
you can literally chart and hear we talk about all
the hard things that we've done in the past.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Four years on this podcast. If you listen to every episode.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
But what's happened is my definition of heart has changed.
It literally in my life, not just physical challenges. The
physical is great because you know when you're feel like
you're drunk and you have earth sorry, when you feel
like you have COVID and the hangover combined aka the
altitude sickness we had the first time we climbed Mountain Massive,
and then you know, blizzard conditions come in with sixty
miles prior winds and sideways snow and you're up on
(20:17):
a mountain and there's no one coming to get you.
Nice go, I feel terrible, and we've got a long
way ahead of us. Man, I that was such a
I just laugh about that moment now. But when you
sit there and think about that, like truly, you know,
you're like, wow, this is not something I experienced.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
How hard is it?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Whenever you start to have like, oh man, you know whatever,
something happened in my house and now I have to
replace my fridge, or oh man, something's not going right
at work, it's like, well, you know what, no one's
going to die. I feel physically okay, and whatever. This
is not like this is this isn't gonna last much
longer than a couple hours I have left at work.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
It's a good thing we had flights at the end
of that day and we might have lost a man
up there.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah for sure, Yeah, dude, I actually, I really do
think it was God's grace that having now completed that climb.
Can you imagine being on some of those peaks when
a sixty mile prior wind comes and the condition of
some of the guys that were slipping on the way down.
I genuinely think someone would have fallen over to that
second peak.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
There would have been a few of us at the top.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Dude, you say that with a smile, interface, I genuinely
think someone would have died.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I'm not even joking anyways. I was talking about that.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Well, dude, if someone gets blown off the side of
that second peak, they're going to be gone before you
can do anything. I remember looking down and going, oh,
that's death. And it was like three feet from us
when we were doing that. There was that one part
where you're walking literally on.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Like a tip.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Don't anyways, don't do that?
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Okay, Well, hey, great advice. Thanks, Do you appreciate it?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
So doing hard things will change your definition of hard
perspectives are so powerful to take and know, like because
when you get caught in a moment one of the
first one. I talk about this all the time we
had doctor Robbie on. The more I read scripture, the
more I see Paul the Apostles Jesus talking about thanksgiving.
You know what I mean, Like, how important is to
be grateful? What are you grateful for? If you're sitting
there and you're like starting to feel yourself get down
(22:01):
the dumps, what are you grateful for? Because the moment
you start finding the things that you're grateful for, it's
going to completely flip how you're looking at the problem.
It's like putting on a new pair of glasses and
suddenly you see things that you didn't see before. The
other perspective I would say that's so helpful is it
could always be worse. And this is tied to the
preparation of doing hard things. This is a perspective that
you've shared at length and mindset master, which we're covering
(22:23):
perspective right now, and that I've learned from you. Let
me give you a practical example of how this happened. Recently,
I went for celebrating my twenty years me and my
wife went to Costa Rica, which was amazing. While I
was there, on like two days before we were due
to catch a flight back, I got a parasite, which
I'd never had a parasite before, and nor have I
ever experienced a mass evacuation quite like that, to put
(22:47):
it mildly, and it was awful. In the end, your
mom diagnosed me better than the doctors and gave me
ivermected because the doctors gave me antibiotics that made it worse.
But anyways, so I'm sat there when you're like supposedly
in paradise and you're having I've had a great week
with my wife, and I could have this mindset of like, oh,
it ruined the whole thing. I never took that thought.
I'm flying on super small planes that don't have a bathroom,
(23:08):
and then flying on a commercial plane, I'm in places
that it's like ninety degrees high humidity, no air conditioning,
so I'm already dehydrated from flushing my body out. I
was in a lot of pain, not gonna lie, and
it was very inconvenient, very uncomfortable, and all I could
think anytime I felt myself starting is spiral because there
was a couple times when I was like, oh my gosh,
I just.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Want this to be done.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I would immediately go, you know what, thank God, you
don't have to run one hundred miles. Why because I'd
done something difficult before when we ran our one hundred
milers both times, And even though sometimes on the practice runs,
my stomach will get jacked up, and so like when
you're sitting there and you're like, oh, my ankle won't bend,
my knee won't bend, and I've got stomach issues and
I've got to go back out and run another forty
(23:49):
miles or whatever it was at that point, that is
worse to me, and so it could always be worse.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I had a very practical example.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Of going like, you know what, I feel bad, but
thank God, I just get to lay here and drink water.
And it helped a lot. I never I never spiraled,
got back to America, you know, eventually got back on
my feet, lost.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Ten pounds, Praise the Lord.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
When I go through things that are painful that aren't
just like a workout, like when I get a bad
headache or a migraine or an injury, one of the
things I'll do is like I've had knee surgery before,
so I know what it's like to not have a
functioning leg, right, And like if I have a really
bad migraine, one of the things I'll do is like
I'll flex my arm or flex my leg, just like
(24:28):
telling my body, like, look at this functioning arm that
you have. Look at these great functioning legs that you have.
Like like literally get my mind thinking about the things
that are working well, not focus on the things and
reverse right if like I'd sprained my ankle or like
jam my wrist, like, man, I'm so glad I don't
have a headache right now.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah, And they're virtually the same thing. It's what are
you grateful for? And it could always be worse. It's
the same thing, just asked a different way.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
And either way it's easier. Yeah, it's easier for people
to think about how it could be worse. Right, But
then you just then you let your your brain start
to go in that direction and you mental judo yourself
and flip it and say, well, good thing, it's not that.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Dude, mental judo. That's going to be an intro. I
love that you just said that. Okay, so gee, let's
get into what to do. So you're a difficult situations.
Come on, you've been punched in the face in life, or.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Yeah, this is what everybody wants. What's the uh, what's
what's the hack?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
What are the tips?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The magic two step process that gets it over five minutes?
Speaker 4 (25:25):
I will I've responded to some people in really difficult
situations and I didn't teach this to them. I just
helped them, helped walk them through it. And this is
what you can do with other people, like help walk
them through. You don't need to try and tell them
what you're doing. Just help them with some of these things.
And I'll mention in that part. Really what you want
(25:45):
is to take this in and have practiced these things,
use these things a lot so that when some of
the worst things happened to you. And I got that feedback.
By the way, this last year, somebody was telling who
had listened to this before, was telling me a story
of how they got in a terrible car accident and
they were okay, but it was the scariest thing they'd
ever been in their life. And they immediately jumped into
(26:06):
breath control, which I love. So let's talk about the
Seal Big four really quick. This is how to respond
to the most difficult things. This is what they taught us.
And the Seal Team's like, hey, you're going to face
you know, extreme chaos and duress, and this is what
you need. Number one is breath work. They called this
arousal control. It's like your your body can get into
(26:27):
this zone and it's just running away from you emotionally, hormonally,
your brain turns into you know, fear lizard brain and
it's bad. And the simple is do controlled breath work
that just have its active breathing is what it is. Right,
we inactively breathe all the time. We passively breathe all
(26:47):
the time, but active breathing where you're controlling your breath.
What they would teach us is box breathing. In for four,
hold for four, out for four, hold for four. Now
there's if you're like a super breathwork nerd h there's
better like breath work patterns that you can do. But
the point is that it's really easy to remember four
for four for four right right in for four, hold
(27:08):
for four, out for four, hold for four. And if
you just do like two or three of those boxes,
you can be like in the most uncomfortable situation, it'll
straighten you out. And I won't go into all the
science in this episode today, but that's one of the
first things you need to do is just some breath
work arousal control. Second thing is segmentation. Right in Sealed Training,
(27:30):
this was sometimes you're having like a day that's going
to be the worst day of your life, and you
can't say, like, man, I just got to get through today.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
You can't.
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Sometimes you're going to say like, Okay, I'm just gonna
make it to the next meal. But sometimes that's an
hour and a half away, and all you've got to
say is like, hey, I'm not going to let my
boat crew down on this next evolution, right, the next
three minutes are going to be really terrible, and I'm gonna.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I'm going to push through it.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Right. So segmentation is breaking big things down into manageable,
manageable chunks. As the saying goes, how do you eat
a l one bide at a time, but first you
have to kill the elephant. It's not an easy undertaking either,
but you eat an elephant one bide at a time.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, and for for somebody that's not going through like
seal training. You don't really know how long it's gonna last.
So I would say that it's just do the next
right thing and make sure it's done. That's right, Like
if your life is falling apart, if you've had like
a bunch of like a bunch of stuff break around
your how let's say you had aza like you had
a car crash, like what you said, Okay, so you've
caught yourself under control. What's the next right thing? The
(28:30):
next right thing is check and see if everybody's okay,
then call the police.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Like it's just I.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Don't need to know how this is all then and
or when it's gonna be over. I'm just gonna do
the next right thing and make sure I do it well.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
I've heard people that I respect and who've been through
a ridiculous amount of combat, people that I learned from
in the military. They talked about like the battlefield mindset
of It's like playing pickup basketball and the only question
is what's next, right, Like, oh, the other team got
the ball, Okay, get down the court.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
It's the only thing you do.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Is what's next, What's next? What's next?
Speaker 4 (29:02):
And eventually that turns into I've eaten an elephant, right,
number three visualization. This is like, okay, when we were
in boats and logs, which is like some of the
evolutions and seal training that people would say is like
the most difficult evolutions. What you've got to do is
like sometimes in the middle of it, right, like I
(29:24):
would almost start to meditate or visualize, see myself looking strong,
doing this thing, see myself completing this thing. Right when
we when we were climbing the mountains, right when we
did mountain massive, like I would when it started to
get hard, I'm seeing myself at the top. Right, Visualize finishing,
visualize completion, and visual even visualize yourself standing up taller.
(29:47):
If you can't take another step, see it in your
mind before you do it. My dad taught me about
the you know, this is a baseball thing, right, like
see the see the ball hitting the bat, right, And
I had a great coat which when I was young
and did some private lessons, and it wasn't just actually
see the ball on the bat with your eyes, but
see it in your mind. And that's exactly what you're
(30:07):
doing here, right. You need to see yourself taking the
next step, see yourself hear yourself, responding with the right words,
responding with your emotions under control. You have to see
it in your mind before you're actually going to do.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It, and then Numbechologically that's called disassociation, which I think
I've said this before. I'll briefly note it for those
that haven't listened to that episode when your dad was
saying to you when you were a kid, I wish
you could see yourself now. It was actually genius because
when you disassociate, aka you view it like you're watching
a movie. You move into the logical part of your brain.
So if you're going through something difficult and you like,
now see yourself, Like I'll do this when I'm in workouts,
(30:44):
I'll be like, be strong, act like a man. I'll
see myself from the outside, be like, I don't want
to look pathetic right now, so immediately I sit up
and I want to be a man.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
It's one of the strongest like you know, you know
this from guys like Mookie Bets or like the greatest
athletes they or great gymnasts. They have incredible body awareness
right they know where they're they're actually at in space.
But you know someone who's a terrible athlete zero awareness
of like where they're at, bump into things. Great athletes
(31:15):
can see, like they know exactly. They could draw a
perfect picture of themselves, like they could re you know,
if they were great artists, they could draw the film
of what they looked like as they made the catch. Okay,
that's that's the like the kinesiology of it, the body
form of it. But you also need that same level
of body awareness from like an identity awareness perspective. And
(31:38):
this is one of the things that I focus on
the most, is like who am I actually in this moment?
Not just what is what's the shape of my body,
what's my posture, what's my physical form? But what's my
identity form in this moment? And that's something we can
probably jump into more. Last one here is self talk, right.
This is I take self talk a step further and
(32:01):
just am totally okay with being a crazy person when
tough things happen to me and I'll say stuff, say
things to myself, right like you guys have heard me
talk about my temptation response, I'll say out loud, I
bet you'd like that, wouldn't you, And saying it out
loud for me from a spiritual from a sin perspective,
gets the internal battle out right, and it divides, It
(32:26):
divides me. It helps me understand that there's a part
of me that's destructive and there's a part of me
that wants to follow God. In the same way self talk, right,
if you're listening to your thoughts and difficult situations, you're
probably having a bad time now when your thoughts get active,
Like I had a mantra that I used to say
to myself when I was going through seal training, some
really simple things that I would say to myself, just
(32:46):
speaking positivity over myself. And I literally just like went
into dumb mode right as literally I couldn't think of
anything else except like a few words, and I would
just keep saying these positive things over and over again.
And so you want to have the great internal self
that's active, that's positive, and the next step really is
like letting it come out of your mouth. The words
(33:06):
that we use are so important. This isn't just like
some manifestation whatever about words. It's actually it gets your
brain and the right like the same way that breath
work gets you in frontal lobe. Self talk gets you
in frontal lobe, which is the smart, the logical, the
reasoning part of your brain.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, I mean all these things are really just you
pushing back from the inside rather than allowing what's outside
to push in on you. I mean, we talked about
locus of control in one of our previous episodes.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
That's really what this is.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's just it's not being pushed around by the situation,
but instead controlling your controllables. I mean, there's never a
time you can't control your breath, your segmentation, your visualization,
your self talk.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
You always have a choice. Thank you very much for listening. Guys,
remember to share, like subscribe.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
If you think that this would be something that someone
would enjoy, please send it to them.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
We appreciate it all.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
If you want to get in touch, you can follow
us on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
At the Impossible Life.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
You'll find us on there.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
You can also email.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
At Impossible Life Podcasts at gmail dot.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Com if you have any questions.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
If you want to get in touch and find out
about Carrott's personal or business coaching, that's the way to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Thank you again for listening.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Go out there and think better and live the impossible.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
See you again soon.
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