May 26, 2023 • 41 mins
Fixing The Fixerpunk episodes cover ideas about changing yourself and society from my own self-development process. These are generally far more unstructured episodes.
The inspiration for the title of today’s episode comes from Brandon Cutler’s quote from his match against Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli of the Blackpool Combat Club: “What do you do when the people that stand up to bullies aren’t here anymore? You Stand Tall, You Don’t Back Down, and You Be Elite!” I feel these words are very instructive amidst the manufactured debt ceiling crisis, created by Congressional Republican bullies (whom I will term the Black Pill Combat Club, get it?) who are holding the world economy hostage. I likewise feel they are applicable as pressures from the economic situation and a variety of manufactured crises are being applied to distract and intimidate workers seeking better conditions and a more equitable economy, and to those advocating for changes to create a better society through public investments in our social safety net, clean energy, and other programs that are being put on the chopping block.
TikTok Live coming soon? http://TikTok.com/@fixerpunk
The goal of the livestream is to help others through their journeys
Key principle: Everything takes longer than it should
Our idea of self improvement is based on that people know instinctively what they should do, and it’s the lack of resources more often that stops them from doing it, judgment and authoritarian ideas don’t help
One important “rule”: As soon as you see something go wrong, do not let it linger without taking care of it
Why this podcast has gotten deeper into politics
We need to address the systemic issues and crises that prevent people from reaching their potential
People are struggling out there, but we have to take time away to deal with contrived problems made up by people who want to oppress other people
We get distracted by random crises, pathological or not, in our lives too
A lot of today’s politics, especially with the GOP controlling the narrative, is fake issues designed to distract and take back progress
COVID pandemic created astonishing progress around actually helping people economically
Lots of people’s economic situations improved due to relief programs
Even low-wage jobs started treating people better
From this foundation, maybe now we have a chance to start building a better world.
This debt ceiling situation is designed to get you to believe that our chance to create a more economically just world with less inequality is no longer possible and that your leverage against oppressive bosses is gone.
Remember what your purpose and intention really is before you sell yourself short
Very carefully define what an “opportunity” is to you so you don’t define the scraps they give you in a crisis as your purpose and goal
My purpose is to advocate for others and find solutions to our economic and political state for those who have been oppressed can reach their full potential
The false “wisdom” around economic talks
What Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara can teach us about purpose, bad advice about “playing it safe,” and not selling out when given false “opportunity”
Sammy Guevara retweeted me!
Going beyond what others expect of you,
listening to others can keep you stuck and not achieving your dreams
There is practicality, reality, and time that need to be considered
Having some fun before it all crumbles down
Getting preoccupied with your worries when you are supposed to be having fun
The Superkick Party Ahead of the Apocalypse
Have fun responsibly and it can give you hope, it will help you know why you are doing all that hard work
You have to know why you are putting yourself through the suffering and pain of whatever effort you are putting in
If you lose sight of what will make you feel good, you won’t want to do the hard work
Stagnated in the area of fitness, not feeling as motivated about summer as I expected
Enrolled in a fitness challenge, still not motivated around diet and dropping fat
Being consistent in the gym, getting stronger though
Building a tolerance to dopamine
My key nutrition strategy has been substituting unhealthy foods for healthier, similar ones with protein and fiber
Have a ton of healthier snacks and junk food substitutes like Skinny Pop popcorn, Fiber One 70 calorie brownies, Quest frosted cookies, Chobani zero sugar yogurt, etc.
You have to understand where your body has a limit and isn’t in tune with your goals. No matter what motivation you have, it might just not go.
Have I weakened myself inadvertently? Hard to tell when you can push yourself more
Hard to get experts in coaching for achievement and goals with neurodivergence
Many are not
The inspiration for the title of today’s episode comes from Brandon Cutler’s quote from his match against Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli of the Blackpool Combat Club: “What do you do when the people that stand up to bullies aren’t here anymore? You Stand Tall, You Don’t Back Down, and You Be Elite!” I feel these words are very instructive amidst the manufactured debt ceiling crisis, created by Congressional Republican bullies (whom I will term the Black Pill Combat Club, get it?) who are holding the world economy hostage. I likewise feel they are applicable as pressures from the economic situation and a variety of manufactured crises are being applied to distract and intimidate workers seeking better conditions and a more equitable economy, and to those advocating for changes to create a better society through public investments in our social safety net, clean energy, and other programs that are being put on the chopping block.
TikTok Live coming soon? http://TikTok.com/@fixerpunk
The goal of the livestream is to help others through their journeys
Key principle: Everything takes longer than it should
Our idea of self improvement is based on that people know instinctively what they should do, and it’s the lack of resources more often that stops them from doing it, judgment and authoritarian ideas don’t help
One important “rule”: As soon as you see something go wrong, do not let it linger without taking care of it
Why this podcast has gotten deeper into politics
We need to address the systemic issues and crises that prevent people from reaching their potential
People are struggling out there, but we have to take time away to deal with contrived problems made up by people who want to oppress other people
We get distracted by random crises, pathological or not, in our lives too
A lot of today’s politics, especially with the GOP controlling the narrative, is fake issues designed to distract and take back progress
COVID pandemic created astonishing progress around actually helping people economically
Lots of people’s economic situations improved due to relief programs
Even low-wage jobs started treating people better
From this foundation, maybe now we have a chance to start building a better world.
This debt ceiling situation is designed to get you to believe that our chance to create a more economically just world with less inequality is no longer possible and that your leverage against oppressive bosses is gone.
Remember what your purpose and intention really is before you sell yourself short
Very carefully define what an “opportunity” is to you so you don’t define the scraps they give you in a crisis as your purpose and goal
My purpose is to advocate for others and find solutions to our economic and political state for those who have been oppressed can reach their full potential
The false “wisdom” around economic talks
What Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara can teach us about purpose, bad advice about “playing it safe,” and not selling out when given false “opportunity”
Sammy Guevara retweeted me!
Going beyond what others expect of you,
listening to others can keep you stuck and not achieving your dreams
There is practicality, reality, and time that need to be considered
Having some fun before it all crumbles down
Getting preoccupied with your worries when you are supposed to be having fun
The Superkick Party Ahead of the Apocalypse
Have fun responsibly and it can give you hope, it will help you know why you are doing all that hard work
You have to know why you are putting yourself through the suffering and pain of whatever effort you are putting in
If you lose sight of what will make you feel good, you won’t want to do the hard work
Stagnated in the area of fitness, not feeling as motivated about summer as I expected
Enrolled in a fitness challenge, still not motivated around diet and dropping fat
Being consistent in the gym, getting stronger though
Building a tolerance to dopamine
My key nutrition strategy has been substituting unhealthy foods for healthier, similar ones with protein and fiber
Have a ton of healthier snacks and junk food substitutes like Skinny Pop popcorn, Fiber One 70 calorie brownies, Quest frosted cookies, Chobani zero sugar yogurt, etc.
You have to understand where your body has a limit and isn’t in tune with your goals. No matter what motivation you have, it might just not go.
Have I weakened myself inadvertently? Hard to tell when you can push yourself more
Hard to get experts in coaching for achievement and goals with neurodivergence
Many are not
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is the Fixer Punk podcast,the podcast that encourages Democrats who are still
battling to get us out of thisdebt ceiling hostage situation too. In the
words of Brandon Cutler, stand tall, don't back down, and be elite
when facing Kevin McCarthy and the BlackPill Combat Club. I'm Grayson Peltier.
(00:26):
This is a Fixing the Fixer Punkepisode, which might typically release these once
a month, So this is goingto be more of an unstructured rant than
the typical episode, and I wasactually planning to possibly convert this episode over
to being a TikTok Live show.However, multiple things kept going wrong.
(00:47):
I kept kind of not feeling goodabout the idea because this tends to be
where I get a little bit morepersonally vulnerable, and I haven't really had
much time to test out all thetechnicality these of TikTok Live. Then I
just decided to record this just asa normal episode. So I kind of
failed myself a little bit, Andthat's been kind of a theme of a
(01:11):
lot of things lately, is thatI've kind of failed myself and kind of
backed away from things that I shouldn'thave backed away from. I don't know,
but if you want to see whenI do go live on TikTok,
make sure you're following at fixed orpunk fi xrpu NK. Because the goal
of this was to share some ofmy experiences and rants about some of my
(01:34):
experiences while also possibly giving you somethings that you can apply in your own
situation or at least help you tofeel like you're not alone, and maybe
a live stream would help with thatend. But I just didn't feel like
it tonight. And I've actually reallyhad this plan to take this to being
a full on live stream for atleast the last six eight months or so.
(02:00):
I think I've mentioned it on thepodcast as well, and I thought
that with the amount of times thatI've had freed up after last election season,
I could have set this up tobe on the live stream and have
everything all already. But somehow,I just things just keep happening to me.
And that's one of the things thatI'm realizing now is that everything takes
(02:23):
a lot. This doesn't even justapply to like that I said this is
a rule around like health related thingson a couple of prior episodes, but
it applies to everything. Everything takeslonger than it should. And we don't
have very many hard and fast rulesaround here about personal and social change because
(02:43):
we believe that people know instinctively whatthey should do. And it is the
lack of resources and the way thesociety is structured that doesn't allow people to
perform at their best that prevents it. Not the lack of an authoritarian system
to push people into things that theycannot do. But if I were to
(03:07):
state a rule, or if Iwere to state a list of rules,
certainly on it would be as soonas you notice that there is something that
is going wrong, do not letit linger without taking care of it.
Because that has been like a primarymistake in my entire life is I have
(03:28):
had problems of call up things fromthe head injury that I had, things
that in bad jobs, issues withmedications, and I have just let them
because I'm like, Okay, thisis good enough, I can survive this.
I have just let them go andkeep going and going and going and
keeping me from my true potential forso so long. And then it comes
(03:52):
to it, it's been months,it's been years, and the same thing
has happened and nothing has been doneabout it. So when you see a
problem and you feel like something isnot right, it's time to do something
about it. And obviously I haven'tfelt so right about how this podcast has
been going, and I failed todo something about it. So that's one
(04:13):
of the things is that the intentionhere was to start to create a more
socially progressive vision for self improvement andfinding a more a way to improve yourself
that isn't as judgmental or based uponsome of the ideas that have been internalized
(04:33):
in US through the ruling parties andthrough capitalism especially, and the whole self
help space that has been infiltrated byall these people that only have solutions that
work for the upper classes. Peopledon't really think about the solutions that will
work for people that are in worsesituations. And that was kind of the
(04:55):
intent here, and fundamental to thatis that for people to reach their best
potential, for all people to beable to reach their best potential, we
have to have policies and systems interms of government and in terms of economics
that allow that to happen. Andthat is where the podcast has kind of
taken a turn into is addressing thoseindividual issues. But it's sort of a
(05:20):
good metaphor for my life, becauseI've had to get dragged into sort of
crisis after crisis situation, random problemafter random problem that is preventing me from
doing the longer lasting, longer runningwork to build something out, and that
is going to always be a challengefor people. There are ways that we
(05:43):
can make things better. We couldtalk about on a systemic level. We
can think about this whole debt sealingsituation, this completely contrived, made up
warfare class warfare really that the GOPhas come up with as a distraction and
a way to get us away fromdoing the real work that's necessary to solve
(06:05):
the problems that actual people in Americahave, Actually solve the problems of people
who are not getting paid enough theirjobs, not being treated well at their
jobs, don't have healthcare, peoplethat are that are struggling with all types
of forms of discrimination, whether that'sracial or whether that's based on gender or
(06:27):
sexual orientation. We are having totake time away from those real problems to
deal with these contrived problems that aremade up by people who want to oppress
other people. And I think that'swhat happens to a lot of people in
everyday lives, and there's a lotmore banal versions of things that take you
(06:47):
off track from what you're trying todo and where you're trying to go.
And I've certainly fallen victim to those, but a lot of and the reason
why the like the number of politicaltalk picks that come up on this podcast
is rather restricted is because a lotof it is in fact just a distraction.
I know from my experience in politicsthat a lot of these things are
(07:08):
basically just side shows that are meantto make people feel upset about things and
that their side and that they're meantto basically just have you in a constant
state of crisis and not able tomove forward and in fact taking back the
progress that has been given to you. And that is a lot of the
(07:29):
social engineering around society is they wantto take back whatever progress is going to
normal average working class people like youand I, and it will be a
fight to just keep that minimal levelof progress. The level of progression we
saw through the COVID pandemic was veryastonishing in terms of economic injustice and inequality
(07:54):
and the solutions that obviously it hurta lot of people, but the widespread
political agreement how actually helping people wasprofound and for a while then in my
own life, and I would thinkmaybe in a lot of your lives,
as I'm seeing that financially I'm doingbetter, I'm at my best position financially
(08:16):
ever, and I'm seeing things justkeep getting better overall economically, in terms
of even job opportunities you're seeing,we were seeing that even low wage jobs
were treating workers a little bit better, not a lot better, but a
little bit better. That there's enoughof an opening in there that we can
(08:39):
go in there, stick something in, and we can claim our stake and
claim our space to start building anew world and to start getting into the
vision that I had at the beginningof the year, which is killing the
business, killing the old business ofhow things have been done our economy and
(09:00):
our government. There was enough spacethat we could get in there and climb
to the top of that ladder.There are a few seconds where we get
in there, but it feels likethat is gone. And that is exactly
what they want you to believe.That is exactly what this drumbeat of recession
and the debt ceiling and all that, that's what they want you to believe
they want you to believe that thatopportunity that was created for you there is
(09:22):
now gone, and I just feelI oftentimes ruminate and feel sad myself about
Okay, I've taken that opportunity,I've lost it, and I should have
acted one two years ago to gofurther. And now we're in situations where
on a personal level, the politicalstuff is starting to ramp back up again,
(09:48):
but it hasn't ramped backed up theway I wanted to. This podcast
hasn't quite gotten as far as I'vewanted it too. And then there is
this opportunity, or I think thatopportunity in a way is something that you
have to very very carefully define andwhen you're in a state of desperation,
which is what they're trying to doto all of us economically, all of
(10:13):
us in the working class, allof us want to create a different world.
All of us were working on diversity, equity, and inclusion. They're
trying to make us all scared,and they're trying to push us all backwards
and to then think that whatever scrapsthey give us are in fact an opportunity,
and that that's a good thing.And I think that a lot of
us are going to lose focus aboutwhat we wanted to do, what our
(10:37):
goals, what our dreams were,our intentions were, because we've gotten into
this crisis economic state again, andwe're possibly going to go into a recession.
Even with a dead ceiling deal,it's possible we're going to go into
a serious recession. But I wantto I want you to keep that frame,
and I'm trying to keep that framein my own mind, if what
(10:58):
is it that my purpose actually ishere? And I know that my purpose
is to advocate for others and tofind solutions to our economic and political state
so that people who need to berecognized in our society, people who have
(11:18):
been oppressed for way too long,working under far too low of wages,
without the safety nets and resources theyneed, they can get those and they
can achieve their full potential. AndI don't want to lose sight of that.
And there is a sort of athere is sort of going to be
(11:41):
this sort of wisdom associated with alot of the economic talk. They're saying,
well, Okay, once we hitthis recession, they're gonna be like,
maybe it's not so wise to pursueyour dreams anymore and maybe and I
go back and forth with myself aboutthis. But the other night, on
actually last night on AW Dynamite,there were two really good stories of Darby
(12:05):
Allen and Sammy Gavara. And SammyGavara was actually he retweeted me, which
I was so happy that Sammy Gavara, pro wrestler of AW retweeted me.
But he was talking about how hewould not sell out. He was offered
by the world champion, basically moneyto not challenge the world champion, but
(12:26):
he is challenging him. Not gonnaget too much into detail about that,
but he says that he's been offeredpromotions at jobs, he's been offered more
money, but that means that hewould have to grow up and go into
the real world. He chose notto do that. And look, he's
on national television, He's gotten onnational stage as a professional wrestler. He
(12:48):
has achieved his dreams and gone beyondwhat others have expected of him. And
I know that not everybody can dothat, not everybody can reach that reach
that level. But that kind ofinspired me in a way because I'm seeing,
Okay, am I going to haveto push myself back into a crappy
marketing job in order to survive.Am I going to need to settle into
(13:13):
corporate America and just making money forsomebody without having purpose of helping others and
trying to bring solutions to this direpolitical state where work is desperately needed to
be done and nobody's really doing itor will this all work? And I
(13:35):
really want I really want to.Even though I've probably screwed up the past
few months of just of not makingas much progress as I want to,
I still want to continue with this. And Darby Allen also made some remarks
about his journey. He says thata lot of people told them to not
expect a lot in his life.They told them to they told him to
(14:00):
aim so high when he graduated froHigh School from high school, and he
listened to them, and he saidlanded him at the working at the nine
nine cent store cleaning toilets when hispurpose was also to become a professional wrestler,
and he became a TNT champion.Both Samue Gavar and Darby Allen were
TNT champions. Now they're challenging ina four away for the World Championship this
(14:20):
weekend. At aw double or nothing, And that also inspired me because there's
a lot of a lot of peoplewould think that someone like myself who has
autism, who has gone through goingto college and got a degree, but
my degree maybe isn't in the mostlike high paying a fields. There isn't
(14:43):
like it isn't like a terribly highpaying thing to be a political science major
working in political and legislative advocacy orin political communications. But I know that
is where my purpose lies. AndI could either choose the path of being
stuck or and and and just listeningto what people tell me to do with
(15:07):
my life, or I could choosethe path that could lead me to my
dreams, into a level of successthat I wanted to reach all along.
But I do recognize there is practicality, there is reality, and there is
(15:28):
also time, and there's also theopportunity to have some fun before the world
starts to crumble down around me,which I had spoken on the January Fixing
the Fixer Punk episode after I wentto aw in La about how I felt
like I wasn't really in the momentand I wasn't really enjoying myself because I
(15:50):
was thinking about all this economic stuffalready that's coming up, and all the
things that could possibly happen to mefinancially. Even though I'm doing well again,
I'm doing the best I've done financiallyever in my life right now,
but I was still worried about that, worried about the job market and work,
worried about all these things that arehappening, and I felt, I
(16:15):
was like, if only I canhave another moment where I can really just
enjoy myself and not think about thatstuff, I would do anything to do
that. So I'm kind of gettinga due over. I am planning to
be at and I have my ticketfor aw in San Diego on May thirty
first, and May thirty first,that's the night before we're supposed to hit
(16:40):
the debt limit, which is Junefirst according to the Treasury Secretary. And
also going into June, I'm thinkingthat possibly there may be some recession stuff
going on, some economic turmoil that'sgoing to happen, and it's gonna come
regardless of the outcome. So Ihave this in my mind, the Superkick
(17:02):
party ahead of the of the apocalypse, and I plan to like have a
really good time. And I hadlike I was even gonna make some even
bigger plans, but I have tobe back here, back home the next
day. I was going to stayout there, but I can't. I
have stuff to do, I havefam members to take care of things like
that. But I was going toreally give it a last hurrah of just
(17:27):
of really really enjoying myself before Iknow that this economic system is going to
drag me down and take me backinto the pits of crappy jobs again.
But remembering that experience, I thinkI'm gonna take a much more positive outlook
(17:48):
to all of this, and I'mgonna have a ton of fun, but
hopefully it'll be the start of Iand I like having these really, really
beautiful moments of having a lot offun a lot of excitement. Lately,
it's been resting shows because that's beenmy thing. But I like the idea
of having those big moments where youcan just celebrate and enjoy and realize that
(18:11):
everything is going to be all right, and knowing that you've accomplished something,
and knowing that even if you don'thave a really good fun experience, that
you can hang your hat on thatexperience that you had then and you can
think about that, and that theenergy of that will carry you through a
long period of time. So Isome people might say, oh, yeah,
(18:34):
it's irresponsible to go and party andhave fun before major economic collapse.
I say, do so responsibly,be careful, don't spend too much money,
don't put yourself in a bad situation. But knowing that could kind of
give you hope, and knowing thisis why I do this kind of stuff.
(18:56):
This is the kind of stuff thatI would that I can enjoy in
life. Because the self help,especially the financial self help motto of basically
just depriving yourself forever, What isthe end goal of that? Why the
heck are you putting yourself through allthat suffering, all that pain of going
(19:18):
and working extra jobs and all thatfor what reason? How is it going
to materially make your life better?How is it going to make you happy?
What is going to make you feelgood about all this stuff that you're
that's making you feel bad? Andif you lose sight of that, if
you lose sight of what's actually goingto make you feel good from all those
(19:40):
bad experiences, then you're not goingto want to engage in those bad experiences
at all. So it is importantto give yourself hope through whatever means necessary.
One place that I still kind ofstruggle to give myself enough hope to
push myself forward on is in myfitness, which I have kind of stagnated.
I feel like I've got stronger,but of course, the thing that
(20:03):
you fight through and just about everyoneout there, the thing that motivates you
to fight through when it comes toyour workouts and all of that is summer,
and summer is coming right around thecorner. I am still in a
situation where I probably improved to anextent, but I've also gotten worse in
(20:26):
a different way. I've even enrolledmyself in like an online fitness challenge,
and I'm still having trouble motivating myselfto track calories, motivating myself to keep
going on stuff. I'm being consistentin the gym, but in terms of
diet, I fall apart at night. That's still happening, still an issue,
and I've been kind of nervous toeven like check my weight and take
(20:47):
progress pictures and stuff like that.And I felt like I needed a way
to push myself forward a little bitmore. But it's also been sort of
just my body for some reason,even though like work has been like very
light, very slow, for somereason, my body has just been kind
of getting janky on me, Likeit feels kind of like it's giving up,
(21:10):
like it just wants to eat andit just wants to sleep all the
time. And that's pretty hard.And then of course this economic uncertainty that
is coming in my mind, I'mlike, Okay, this summer, am
I really gonna need to be infull gear ready shape? Am I really
gonna need to be in this kindof shape? Am I going to be
(21:30):
at the beach at all? AmI going to be at the pool at
all? Or am I going tobe in a miserable job? And then
just crying myself to sleep and throughthe weekends because of that miserable job.
And doesn't really matter how my bodywill look at that point. But again,
I have to find a way togive myself hope for those things to
(21:53):
come to pass and for it tobe worth it, for it to be
worth it for me to do that. But sometimes that just isn't enough.
And on the flip side of enjoymentand all of that is that I have
noticed that maybe I've built a toleranceto certain types of enjoyment, certain types
of stimulation, certain forms of dopamine. My ADHD medication does feel a little
(22:14):
bit weaker now. I have totalk to the doctor about that. But
also in terms of like food,one of my like key nutrition strategies has
been basically just substituting all the kindof junk food stuff that I normally like
to eat. Like I'm I'm sortof a healthy eater, but kind of
not. I do tend to alwayshave some sort of protein and vegetables with
like my main largest meals, andI'm fairly consistent about that. I do
(22:41):
try to get but I do tryto get a good amount of just like
healthier carbs and vegetables along with leanerprotein. But I am definitely the kind
of person who has a ton ofstuff that's like snacks and kind of junk
food type stuff. And I havebecome I have like bought all these little
(23:03):
substitute snacks, like I substitute likesalty snacks and chips for like big bags
of skinny pop popcorn fiber one seventycalorie brownies for like when I used to
buy like large packets of those likecheap generic Oreo cookies. Now it's fiber
one cookies, are fiber one brownies, quest frosted cookies, which are only
like ninety calories each protein bars forsomething more substantial, And then I've really
(23:30):
gotten into Chobanni's zero sugar Greek yogurt. I'm actually going to post a sort
of a Costco haul. Typically Iget a lot of my stuff at Costco,
on the TikTok and possibly the Instagram, both at fixed or punk of
kind of the stuff that I useis like ways of substituting that unhealthy food
that I would have tons of intohealthier options. But I am still binging
(23:55):
on that. I'm still having hugeamounts of skinny pop popcorn. I'm having
like the three or four fiber brownies. I'm having two yogurt cups, and
I'm still like I have a thingwith nuts, Like I tend to eat
a lot of nuts, and Iknow those are high fat, high calories,
(24:15):
but they're still healthier, I guess. But I will have a sizeable
amount of walnuts. I'll put thatin the yogurt, and I'll just keep
keep going and going. And Ihave trouble controlling myself, trouble tracking and
all of that, and part ofit is definitely the motivation thing, but
there is sort of obviously there's externalmotivation, but then there's sort of this
(24:37):
internal state of motivation and like theway your body goes and like, I'm
autistic, so autistic burnout is clearlyan issue. It's kind of weird because
like even my psychologists is like,what would you be burned out about?
Because you haven't had that much workgoing on. But it does seem like
(25:00):
there is that like even if youknow you have like like I could in
theory set aside like a specific weekand a specific date, and I did
with this fitness challenge. I dohave a specific set date. I have
to submit progress pictures at the endof this. It's not coached or anything.
I wish I had a coach andI could do that. But if
(25:22):
your body and your mind are notsynchronized with that goal, if they don't
have the resources to keep that up, if you are pushing it to do
stuff when I can only like docertain basic things, like if you if
you're at a point in your lifewhere like or if you're just having a
day, a bad day where yourbody is just only going so far and
it's only letting you do just thebasic stuff in that day, and like
(25:45):
all of your household, your householdtasks are draining everything out, then good
luck getting that workout in. Nomatter how motivate you are, no matter
whether or not you have like aset a deadline for yourself, whatever the
extrinsic motivation you've put in, ifyour body is just not there, good
luck. If your body works likemine. There are some people that are
probably tougher than me. That's somethingI struggle with a lot, is that
(26:07):
I'm not as tough as I shouldbe. I'm not as I guess resilient
as I should be in terms ofachieving goals and getting them. But there
could be a There could be alsosort of the factor that maybe I've weakened
myself a little bit by not pushingmyself. But there is also a limit.
(26:30):
So it's that interesting balance, andI think that's something that's something you
can't really measure within yourself. It'shard to measure that within yourself and to
know when can you actually push yourselfmore, And it's hard to get like
professional guidance on this stuff. LikeI wants to do it for fitness.
I wants to do it for myown personal goals. But people actually get
(26:51):
like neurodivergence and all of this stuff. It's hard to find the right people,
but people that'll actually push you forwardon things and actually make you improve
because I've gotten a certain like coachingand therapy and they're just like and that's
just the way it is. Andthat's just the way it is. You
have to cope with the fact thatyour body won't go any further. You
have to just cope with the factthat things aren't going any better or how
does that make you feel? Howdoes that make you feel? And it's
(27:14):
just that type stuff, and whyare you anxious? What is making you
anxious? It's like, damn it, I can't achieve anything. I can't
seem to make any progress on mygoals and that's what's upsetting me. And
I need strategies and any ideas onhow to get better at that. And
it's hard to develop that from withinyourself. And one of the things about
(27:37):
coming from a more from a lessadvantageous situation is that you may not have
an environment that's supportive of that,and you may not be economically able to
do those things, or you mightjust be even if you're like myself,
you have the means to go outand do that to get the help that
you need, you might you mightbe reluctant to do so because you're like,
(28:00):
who knows what's going to happen.Recessions around the corner, or debt
ceiling might not get raised, theUnited States might default on its currency.
Why would I do the work onmyself? And of course also like if
you're like me and you live witha family member, you live at home,
they might criticize a little bit andthey might say, well, that's
(28:21):
an irresponsible that's a bad decision forwhat you're doing. Like the fitness stuff.
My mom's a pretty harsh critic ofthat, especially she thinks that a
lot of like and there are alot of scams out there, and I
want to I want to possibly dolike episodes that are just around debunking and
dealing with scams and frauds, becauseI've certainly had known people that were victims
of scams and frauds and stuff likethat, and I've gotten really really good
(28:45):
at sniffing them out and being criticalof people. So I've wanted to do
some episodes that are just dedicated tothat, but you'll have people around you
that are pretty critical and they're tellingyou, well, no, you should
just you don't really need help onthose things. And I've been listening to
a lot of like Chris van Vlie'sInsight podcast, and he had a guest
(29:07):
on who was saying that he hascoaches and experts that help him through everything,
every specific area that he's trying toimprove in his life. And obviously
that's unreasonable for somebody who is notdoing so well economically or financially. But
when you want to make that investmentin other people just don't understand it.
It can be a challenge. Andin general, a lot of times your
(29:27):
personal life can get a little toocomplicated. And that's kind of a different
topic, is that I do findthat I may be draining myself out a
little bit too much on random,like personal like items like I feel I've
made my life maybe a little bittoo complicated, like even on a physical
(29:48):
level, like I have a tonof clutter, a ton of messes,
and people get on me for howmessy I am, but I save stuff.
He's like, Okay, I'm gonnaget back around to that. I'm
gonna get back around to that.But just recently, I was trying to
look for something that I desperately needed. There was a gift certificate that I
thought i'd put in a safe place, but I couldn't find it, and
I'm looking around and oh my god, all this stuff that's around, all
(30:11):
this stuff that that's just laying aroundhere, and how I even like plan
out my meals and my eating andall that. I'm like spending perhaps too
much time in the grocery store.For some reason, I'm always slower than
everybody else at the grocery store.And again, I'm neurodivergent. I have
autism and ADHD, so that's definitelyplays into it. But I feel like
(30:34):
my personal life sometimes slows me downbecause I have made it terribly inefficient and
household stuff and all that, andI have to find a better way to
make it efficient. But sometimes Ican't find those solutions within myself. And
that's a little bit of a littlebit of a challenge and trying to find
(30:55):
the right solutions and the ones thatwork for me, because the default solutions
that you see out there may ormay not actually work for you. As
much as I'd love to hire it, people to just handle stuff for me.
Obviously I can't do that. Mostof you probably can't do that too,
But there have to be ways tomake things more efficient and prioritize it
(31:15):
to be able to do stuff that'simportant, like record these podcasts and improve
in my professional life. And whenyou find when you find those solutions,
then everything seems to be kind ofmagical. When you get good at those
things, then it starts to feelgood. Like I used to leave laundry
around for way too long, butnow I'm getting really good at making sure
(31:37):
that that's getting done on a regularbasis, and I've made progress on that.
It's not a thing that's like materiallygetting me closer to my goals.
And that's one of the things isis maybe I'm not progressing in the right
areas in the right ways. Butonce you find those solutions, then it
starts to become a lot more intuitive. And even in terms of fitness,
I've gotten good at working out andgetting to the gym and making sure that
(31:57):
gets done. But am I taxing? Am I taking up too much of
my resources on things that don't matterthat much? Now? My mom would
like me to believe that I shouldn'tbe using it up my resource, using
up my resources to go watch wrestling. But again, that's something that makes
me feel good, that's something thatmakes me motivated to want to do the
(32:20):
other stuff and to deal with theother crap in my life. Pro wrestling
has been super motivational for me andmotivational way more than typical motivational books and
certainly more motivational than most of mytherapists. So this is all very individualized.
And when you're not able to beyourself, then you're even if you
(32:40):
are put in a situation where somebodyelse wants you a trag grow like in
that Sammy Gavarreb's example where he's gettingpromotions at work and being told that he
can go into this path, buthe wouldn't be happy with it. Even
if he decided to give up hisdreams, then it's still going to be
in the back of his head andhe would not remotely perform at his highest
(33:02):
level in those jobs and that promotionbecause he had to quote unquote grow up.
That stuff sticks with you. It'snot going to be your ideal situation.
So even if you have the skills, the talent, the expertise to
do something. If your passion isn'tin it and you don't really have the
emotion for it, and you don'thave that drive for it, it's not
(33:22):
going to come to pass the wayyou want. And even if you're just
not happy in the situation you're in, it's not going to come to pass.
And this is a lot of timeswith employers. What they'll do is
they'll try to motivate employees and tryto make them do things by just grinding
at them, getting angry at them, and there's some sort of shock response.
People try to respond. They'll tryto comply to all the micro management,
(33:44):
all the nonsense that managers pull offto try to make you perform better
or performance reviews, whatever. Butif it's really your heart's really not in
it, and you're not really beingrewarded for it, and you're not really
feeling good about the place that you'rein, none of that negative reinforcement is
going to do anything, Especially ifyou're economically deprived, if you're having to
(34:07):
work two jobs, if you're notgetting paid enough, if you're living in
a bad living situation, if youdon't have the healthcare you need, you're
not gonna be able to perform wellat that job. You're not gonna be
able to perform well for that employer, no matter how much they poke and
prod and push you to try toperform well, and your destiny is not
(34:30):
going to come to pass. Andthey're not going to get what they need
either. And I think that alot of the people that are like shut
up and go back to work onthe conservative side, they're just like,
take a job, take any job, the old welfare to work motto.
They don't realize that they are notgoing to get the performance and they're not
(34:51):
going to get the ideal performance outof people by by just shaming them into
working crappy jobs. You have toactually make people feel like they're value,
make people feel like they're getting closerto their purpose or closer to their goals,
whether that's through financial compensation or througha more meaningful, socially impactful,
or personally impactful type of working environment, and even good kind people who care
(35:16):
about you in leadership in those environments. It's those things that will actually increase
economic productivity, not making people workmore hours. And to the working more
hours part, I was going tomake a post about this. I probably
will on the TikTok and on theInstagram at Fixer Punk. But EXOS,
which is a performance basically a highperformance fitness and training program group that's used
(35:43):
by a lot of like the topOlympic, NFL, NBA, MLB athletes.
These are the the world's top expertsin high performance. They are moved
to a four day work week.They're reducing the number of hours and days
at their staff has to work becausethey know that that increases formats, which
is a point that I brought upin one of my part episodes when I
was talking about excessive work hours.So just pushing people to work more,
(36:09):
especially pushing people to work more ina job that they don't like, isn't
going to improve overall economic productivity.It's certainly not going to make your life
any better. So obviously this isdefinitely an unstructured grant. That's what these
always are. But I think theconclusion we're kind of realizing is that,
(36:32):
and I go back to this pointthat I brought up in a few episodes
ago, Today's nuisance can be tomorrow'schampion. And I think that this Four
Pillars storyline in aw and especially DarbyAllen and Sammy Govara coming up and becoming
(36:53):
who they've become is definitely inspiring meto believe more and more in that.
And I believe we can start tosee if we stand up politically to make
sure that we can be our bestand bring others up along with us.
(37:14):
I think we can start to makechange and not get so distracted by these
crises. Do what you have todo, and I want to get a
little bit more practical. I don'thave the answers. I came into this
podcast thinking that I would have theanswers to give you, the solutions to
give you, but oftentimes I'm justcoming with more questions. But if any
(37:34):
of what I've said kind of appealsto you, if you have any personal
stories, anything going along these lines, then I do definitely want to hear
from you. I want you toreach out call in eight four four four
seven seven punk eight four four fourseven seven seven eight six five, leave
a message, let me know whatyou think. But for now, I
(37:57):
do want to keep everybody encourage andmotivated and knowing that a new future and
I need to convince myself. I'mtalking to myself here most of the time
on these episodes, I'm talking tomyself. But we need to stay convinced
that a new and better future isreally possible above the noise of all of
(38:19):
these crises, and we can havea fun, exciting world that makes us
pumped up, that makes us stokedto want to even do those hard things
in life. And if we makethe world that's possible, where we have
what we need to recover and toand to improve our health, keep ourselves
in good health, keep ourselves emotionallywell, and we have that motivation,
(38:46):
we have that baseline level of safety, security, our needs taken care of,
and then we have that motivation topush ourselves further and know that those
things are real, know that they'repossible. Then we can have a superkick
party above the apocalypse. We canhave our fun and we can enjoy what
(39:08):
it is we want to enjoy inlife and do the work that's necessary to
get there because we know that itis something that is there, that the
bad outcome is not certain, thatthere is something to change, because if
there's nothing for us to change,then why would you expend any effort moving
(39:34):
an immovable object. But I don'tbelieve this is an immovable object. I
believe we'll find an outcome in asolution to this debt sealing situation, and
over time, as we change people'sopinions about who they are and make people
understand the message of that things canget better and that you and that you
(39:54):
don't have to constantly work yourself intoa pit just to survive, and that
you can uplift others. At thesame time, this isn't a zero sum
game. Then we can make progressslowly and surely, and we are booking
the long term storytelling of a betterfuture for ourselves and for others. Well,
(40:21):
I thank you for taking the timeto listen today. I hope you'll
join me for the next episode andfollow along on social media at fixed or
punk on Instagram and TikTok on Twitterat Grayson Nation, and I will see
you again next week. Not surewhen I'm going to record next week,
maybe before maybe after Aid of Dynamite, but whenever it comes out, do
(40:47):
subscribe so you'll get notified for it. And I really do hope that you
will join me again for the nextepisode, because I do appreciate you and
appreciate your time and your support.
This is the Fixer Punk podcast,the podcast that encourages Democrats who are still
battling to get us out of thisdebt ceiling hostage situation too. In the
words of Brandon Cutler, stand tall, don't back down, and be elite
when facing Kevin McCarthy and the BlackPill Combat Club. I'm Grayson Peltier.
(00:26):
This is a Fixing the Fixer Punkepisode, which might typically release these once
a month, So this is goingto be more of an unstructured rant than
the typical episode, and I wasactually planning to possibly convert this episode over
to being a TikTok Live show.However, multiple things kept going wrong.
(00:47):
I kept kind of not feeling goodabout the idea because this tends to be
where I get a little bit morepersonally vulnerable, and I haven't really had
much time to test out all thetechnicality these of TikTok Live. Then I
just decided to record this just asa normal episode. So I kind of
failed myself a little bit, Andthat's been kind of a theme of a
(01:11):
lot of things lately, is thatI've kind of failed myself and kind of
backed away from things that I shouldn'thave backed away from. I don't know,
but if you want to see whenI do go live on TikTok,
make sure you're following at fixed orpunk fi xrpu NK. Because the goal
of this was to share some ofmy experiences and rants about some of my
(01:34):
experiences while also possibly giving you somethings that you can apply in your own
situation or at least help you tofeel like you're not alone, and maybe
a live stream would help with thatend. But I just didn't feel like
it tonight. And I've actually reallyhad this plan to take this to being
a full on live stream for atleast the last six eight months or so.
(02:00):
I think I've mentioned it on thepodcast as well, and I thought
that with the amount of times thatI've had freed up after last election season,
I could have set this up tobe on the live stream and have
everything all already. But somehow,I just things just keep happening to me.
And that's one of the things thatI'm realizing now is that everything takes
(02:23):
a lot. This doesn't even justapply to like that I said this is
a rule around like health related thingson a couple of prior episodes, but
it applies to everything. Everything takeslonger than it should. And we don't
have very many hard and fast rulesaround here about personal and social change because
(02:43):
we believe that people know instinctively whatthey should do. And it is the
lack of resources and the way thesociety is structured that doesn't allow people to
perform at their best that prevents it. Not the lack of an authoritarian system
to push people into things that theycannot do. But if I were to
(03:07):
state a rule, or if Iwere to state a list of rules,
certainly on it would be as soonas you notice that there is something that
is going wrong, do not letit linger without taking care of it.
Because that has been like a primarymistake in my entire life is I have
(03:28):
had problems of call up things fromthe head injury that I had, things
that in bad jobs, issues withmedications, and I have just let them
because I'm like, Okay, thisis good enough, I can survive this.
I have just let them go andkeep going and going and going and
keeping me from my true potential forso so long. And then it comes
(03:52):
to it, it's been months,it's been years, and the same thing
has happened and nothing has been doneabout it. So when you see a
problem and you feel like something isnot right, it's time to do something
about it. And obviously I haven'tfelt so right about how this podcast has
been going, and I failed todo something about it. So that's one
(04:13):
of the things is that the intentionhere was to start to create a more
socially progressive vision for self improvement andfinding a more a way to improve yourself
that isn't as judgmental or based uponsome of the ideas that have been internalized
(04:33):
in US through the ruling parties andthrough capitalism especially, and the whole self
help space that has been infiltrated byall these people that only have solutions that
work for the upper classes. Peopledon't really think about the solutions that will
work for people that are in worsesituations. And that was kind of the
(04:55):
intent here, and fundamental to thatis that for people to reach their best
potential, for all people to beable to reach their best potential, we
have to have policies and systems interms of government and in terms of economics
that allow that to happen. Andthat is where the podcast has kind of
taken a turn into is addressing thoseindividual issues. But it's sort of a
(05:20):
good metaphor for my life, becauseI've had to get dragged into sort of
crisis after crisis situation, random problemafter random problem that is preventing me from
doing the longer lasting, longer runningwork to build something out, and that
is going to always be a challengefor people. There are ways that we
(05:43):
can make things better. We couldtalk about on a systemic level. We
can think about this whole debt sealingsituation, this completely contrived, made up
warfare class warfare really that the GOPhas come up with as a distraction and
a way to get us away fromdoing the real work that's necessary to solve
(06:05):
the problems that actual people in Americahave, Actually solve the problems of people
who are not getting paid enough theirjobs, not being treated well at their
jobs, don't have healthcare, peoplethat are that are struggling with all types
of forms of discrimination, whether that'sracial or whether that's based on gender or
(06:27):
sexual orientation. We are having totake time away from those real problems to
deal with these contrived problems that aremade up by people who want to oppress
other people. And I think that'swhat happens to a lot of people in
everyday lives, and there's a lotmore banal versions of things that take you
(06:47):
off track from what you're trying todo and where you're trying to go.
And I've certainly fallen victim to those, but a lot of and the reason
why the like the number of politicaltalk picks that come up on this podcast
is rather restricted is because a lotof it is in fact just a distraction.
I know from my experience in politicsthat a lot of these things are
(07:08):
basically just side shows that are meantto make people feel upset about things and
that their side and that they're meantto basically just have you in a constant
state of crisis and not able tomove forward and in fact taking back the
progress that has been given to you. And that is a lot of the
(07:29):
social engineering around society is they wantto take back whatever progress is going to
normal average working class people like youand I, and it will be a
fight to just keep that minimal levelof progress. The level of progression we
saw through the COVID pandemic was veryastonishing in terms of economic injustice and inequality
(07:54):
and the solutions that obviously it hurta lot of people, but the widespread
political agreement how actually helping people wasprofound and for a while then in my
own life, and I would thinkmaybe in a lot of your lives,
as I'm seeing that financially I'm doingbetter, I'm at my best position financially
(08:16):
ever, and I'm seeing things justkeep getting better overall economically, in terms
of even job opportunities you're seeing,we were seeing that even low wage jobs
were treating workers a little bit better, not a lot better, but a
little bit better. That there's enoughof an opening in there that we can
(08:39):
go in there, stick something in, and we can claim our stake and
claim our space to start building anew world and to start getting into the
vision that I had at the beginningof the year, which is killing the
business, killing the old business ofhow things have been done our economy and
(09:00):
our government. There was enough spacethat we could get in there and climb
to the top of that ladder.There are a few seconds where we get
in there, but it feels likethat is gone. And that is exactly
what they want you to believe.That is exactly what this drumbeat of recession
and the debt ceiling and all that, that's what they want you to believe
they want you to believe that thatopportunity that was created for you there is
(09:22):
now gone, and I just feelI oftentimes ruminate and feel sad myself about
Okay, I've taken that opportunity,I've lost it, and I should have
acted one two years ago to gofurther. And now we're in situations where
on a personal level, the politicalstuff is starting to ramp back up again,
(09:48):
but it hasn't ramped backed up theway I wanted to. This podcast
hasn't quite gotten as far as I'vewanted it too. And then there is
this opportunity, or I think thatopportunity in a way is something that you
have to very very carefully define andwhen you're in a state of desperation,
which is what they're trying to doto all of us economically, all of
(10:13):
us in the working class, allof us want to create a different world.
All of us were working on diversity, equity, and inclusion. They're
trying to make us all scared,and they're trying to push us all backwards
and to then think that whatever scrapsthey give us are in fact an opportunity,
and that that's a good thing.And I think that a lot of
us are going to lose focus aboutwhat we wanted to do, what our
(10:37):
goals, what our dreams were,our intentions were, because we've gotten into
this crisis economic state again, andwe're possibly going to go into a recession.
Even with a dead ceiling deal,it's possible we're going to go into
a serious recession. But I wantto I want you to keep that frame,
and I'm trying to keep that framein my own mind, if what
(10:58):
is it that my purpose actually ishere? And I know that my purpose
is to advocate for others and tofind solutions to our economic and political state
so that people who need to berecognized in our society, people who have
(11:18):
been oppressed for way too long,working under far too low of wages,
without the safety nets and resources theyneed, they can get those and they
can achieve their full potential. AndI don't want to lose sight of that.
And there is a sort of athere is sort of going to be
(11:41):
this sort of wisdom associated with alot of the economic talk. They're saying,
well, Okay, once we hitthis recession, they're gonna be like,
maybe it's not so wise to pursueyour dreams anymore and maybe and I
go back and forth with myself aboutthis. But the other night, on
actually last night on AW Dynamite,there were two really good stories of Darby
(12:05):
Allen and Sammy Gavara. And SammyGavara was actually he retweeted me, which
I was so happy that Sammy Gavara, pro wrestler of AW retweeted me.
But he was talking about how hewould not sell out. He was offered
by the world champion, basically moneyto not challenge the world champion, but
(12:26):
he is challenging him. Not gonnaget too much into detail about that,
but he says that he's been offeredpromotions at jobs, he's been offered more
money, but that means that hewould have to grow up and go into
the real world. He chose notto do that. And look, he's
on national television, He's gotten onnational stage as a professional wrestler. He
(12:48):
has achieved his dreams and gone beyondwhat others have expected of him. And
I know that not everybody can dothat, not everybody can reach that reach
that level. But that kind ofinspired me in a way because I'm seeing,
Okay, am I going to haveto push myself back into a crappy
marketing job in order to survive.Am I going to need to settle into
(13:13):
corporate America and just making money forsomebody without having purpose of helping others and
trying to bring solutions to this direpolitical state where work is desperately needed to
be done and nobody's really doing itor will this all work? And I
(13:35):
really want I really want to.Even though I've probably screwed up the past
few months of just of not makingas much progress as I want to,
I still want to continue with this. And Darby Allen also made some remarks
about his journey. He says thata lot of people told them to not
expect a lot in his life.They told them to they told him to
(14:00):
aim so high when he graduated froHigh School from high school, and he
listened to them, and he saidlanded him at the working at the nine
nine cent store cleaning toilets when hispurpose was also to become a professional wrestler,
and he became a TNT champion.Both Samue Gavar and Darby Allen were
TNT champions. Now they're challenging ina four away for the World Championship this
(14:20):
weekend. At aw double or nothing, And that also inspired me because there's
a lot of a lot of peoplewould think that someone like myself who has
autism, who has gone through goingto college and got a degree, but
my degree maybe isn't in the mostlike high paying a fields. There isn't
(14:43):
like it isn't like a terribly highpaying thing to be a political science major
working in political and legislative advocacy orin political communications. But I know that
is where my purpose lies. AndI could either choose the path of being
stuck or and and and just listeningto what people tell me to do with
(15:07):
my life, or I could choosethe path that could lead me to my
dreams, into a level of successthat I wanted to reach all along.
But I do recognize there is practicality, there is reality, and there is
(15:28):
also time, and there's also theopportunity to have some fun before the world
starts to crumble down around me,which I had spoken on the January Fixing
the Fixer Punk episode after I wentto aw in La about how I felt
like I wasn't really in the momentand I wasn't really enjoying myself because I
(15:50):
was thinking about all this economic stuffalready that's coming up, and all the
things that could possibly happen to mefinancially. Even though I'm doing well again,
I'm doing the best I've done financiallyever in my life right now,
but I was still worried about that, worried about the job market and work,
worried about all these things that arehappening, and I felt, I
(16:15):
was like, if only I canhave another moment where I can really just
enjoy myself and not think about thatstuff, I would do anything to do
that. So I'm kind of gettinga due over. I am planning to
be at and I have my ticketfor aw in San Diego on May thirty
first, and May thirty first,that's the night before we're supposed to hit
(16:40):
the debt limit, which is Junefirst according to the Treasury Secretary. And
also going into June, I'm thinkingthat possibly there may be some recession stuff
going on, some economic turmoil that'sgoing to happen, and it's gonna come
regardless of the outcome. So Ihave this in my mind, the Superkick
(17:02):
party ahead of the of the apocalypse, and I plan to like have a
really good time. And I hadlike I was even gonna make some even
bigger plans, but I have tobe back here, back home the next
day. I was going to stayout there, but I can't. I
have stuff to do, I havefam members to take care of things like
that. But I was going toreally give it a last hurrah of just
(17:27):
of really really enjoying myself before Iknow that this economic system is going to
drag me down and take me backinto the pits of crappy jobs again.
But remembering that experience, I thinkI'm gonna take a much more positive outlook
(17:48):
to all of this, and I'mgonna have a ton of fun, but
hopefully it'll be the start of Iand I like having these really, really
beautiful moments of having a lot offun a lot of excitement. Lately,
it's been resting shows because that's beenmy thing. But I like the idea
of having those big moments where youcan just celebrate and enjoy and realize that
(18:11):
everything is going to be all right, and knowing that you've accomplished something,
and knowing that even if you don'thave a really good fun experience, that
you can hang your hat on thatexperience that you had then and you can
think about that, and that theenergy of that will carry you through a
long period of time. So Isome people might say, oh, yeah,
(18:34):
it's irresponsible to go and party andhave fun before major economic collapse.
I say, do so responsibly,be careful, don't spend too much money,
don't put yourself in a bad situation. But knowing that could kind of
give you hope, and knowing thisis why I do this kind of stuff.
(18:56):
This is the kind of stuff thatI would that I can enjoy in
life. Because the self help,especially the financial self help motto of basically
just depriving yourself forever, What isthe end goal of that? Why the
heck are you putting yourself through allthat suffering, all that pain of going
(19:18):
and working extra jobs and all thatfor what reason? How is it going
to materially make your life better?How is it going to make you happy?
What is going to make you feelgood about all this stuff that you're
that's making you feel bad? Andif you lose sight of that, if
you lose sight of what's actually goingto make you feel good from all those
(19:40):
bad experiences, then you're not goingto want to engage in those bad experiences
at all. So it is importantto give yourself hope through whatever means necessary.
One place that I still kind ofstruggle to give myself enough hope to
push myself forward on is in myfitness, which I have kind of stagnated.
I feel like I've got stronger,but of course, the thing that
(20:03):
you fight through and just about everyoneout there, the thing that motivates you
to fight through when it comes toyour workouts and all of that is summer,
and summer is coming right around thecorner. I am still in a
situation where I probably improved to anextent, but I've also gotten worse in
(20:26):
a different way. I've even enrolledmyself in like an online fitness challenge,
and I'm still having trouble motivating myselfto track calories, motivating myself to keep
going on stuff. I'm being consistentin the gym, but in terms of
diet, I fall apart at night. That's still happening, still an issue,
and I've been kind of nervous toeven like check my weight and take
(20:47):
progress pictures and stuff like that.And I felt like I needed a way
to push myself forward a little bitmore. But it's also been sort of
just my body for some reason,even though like work has been like very
light, very slow, for somereason, my body has just been kind
of getting janky on me, Likeit feels kind of like it's giving up,
(21:10):
like it just wants to eat andit just wants to sleep all the
time. And that's pretty hard.And then of course this economic uncertainty that
is coming in my mind, I'mlike, Okay, this summer, am
I really gonna need to be infull gear ready shape? Am I really
gonna need to be in this kindof shape? Am I going to be
(21:30):
at the beach at all? AmI going to be at the pool at
all? Or am I going tobe in a miserable job? And then
just crying myself to sleep and throughthe weekends because of that miserable job.
And doesn't really matter how my bodywill look at that point. But again,
I have to find a way togive myself hope for those things to
(21:53):
come to pass and for it tobe worth it, for it to be
worth it for me to do that. But sometimes that just isn't enough.
And on the flip side of enjoymentand all of that is that I have
noticed that maybe I've built a toleranceto certain types of enjoyment, certain types
of stimulation, certain forms of dopamine. My ADHD medication does feel a little
(22:14):
bit weaker now. I have totalk to the doctor about that. But
also in terms of like food,one of my like key nutrition strategies has
been basically just substituting all the kindof junk food stuff that I normally like
to eat. Like I'm I'm sortof a healthy eater, but kind of
not. I do tend to alwayshave some sort of protein and vegetables with
like my main largest meals, andI'm fairly consistent about that. I do
(22:41):
try to get but I do tryto get a good amount of just like
healthier carbs and vegetables along with leanerprotein. But I am definitely the kind
of person who has a ton ofstuff that's like snacks and kind of junk
food type stuff. And I havebecome I have like bought all these little
(23:03):
substitute snacks, like I substitute likesalty snacks and chips for like big bags
of skinny pop popcorn fiber one seventycalorie brownies for like when I used to
buy like large packets of those likecheap generic Oreo cookies. Now it's fiber
one cookies, are fiber one brownies, quest frosted cookies, which are only
like ninety calories each protein bars forsomething more substantial, And then I've really
(23:30):
gotten into Chobanni's zero sugar Greek yogurt. I'm actually going to post a sort
of a Costco haul. Typically Iget a lot of my stuff at Costco,
on the TikTok and possibly the Instagram, both at fixed or punk of
kind of the stuff that I useis like ways of substituting that unhealthy food
that I would have tons of intohealthier options. But I am still binging
(23:55):
on that. I'm still having hugeamounts of skinny pop popcorn. I'm having
like the three or four fiber brownies. I'm having two yogurt cups, and
I'm still like I have a thingwith nuts, Like I tend to eat
a lot of nuts, and Iknow those are high fat, high calories,
(24:15):
but they're still healthier, I guess. But I will have a sizeable
amount of walnuts. I'll put thatin the yogurt, and I'll just keep
keep going and going. And Ihave trouble controlling myself, trouble tracking and
all of that, and part ofit is definitely the motivation thing, but
there is sort of obviously there's externalmotivation, but then there's sort of this
(24:37):
internal state of motivation and like theway your body goes and like, I'm
autistic, so autistic burnout is clearlyan issue. It's kind of weird because
like even my psychologists is like,what would you be burned out about?
Because you haven't had that much workgoing on. But it does seem like
(25:00):
there is that like even if youknow you have like like I could in
theory set aside like a specific weekand a specific date, and I did
with this fitness challenge. I dohave a specific set date. I have
to submit progress pictures at the endof this. It's not coached or anything.
I wish I had a coach andI could do that. But if
(25:22):
your body and your mind are notsynchronized with that goal, if they don't
have the resources to keep that up, if you are pushing it to do
stuff when I can only like docertain basic things, like if you if
you're at a point in your lifewhere like or if you're just having a
day, a bad day where yourbody is just only going so far and
it's only letting you do just thebasic stuff in that day, and like
(25:45):
all of your household, your householdtasks are draining everything out, then good
luck getting that workout in. Nomatter how motivate you are, no matter
whether or not you have like aset a deadline for yourself, whatever the
extrinsic motivation you've put in, ifyour body is just not there, good
luck. If your body works likemine. There are some people that are
probably tougher than me. That's somethingI struggle with a lot, is that
(26:07):
I'm not as tough as I shouldbe. I'm not as I guess resilient
as I should be in terms ofachieving goals and getting them. But there
could be a There could be alsosort of the factor that maybe I've weakened
myself a little bit by not pushingmyself. But there is also a limit.
(26:30):
So it's that interesting balance, andI think that's something that's something you
can't really measure within yourself. It'shard to measure that within yourself and to
know when can you actually push yourselfmore, And it's hard to get like
professional guidance on this stuff. LikeI wants to do it for fitness.
I wants to do it for myown personal goals. But people actually get
(26:51):
like neurodivergence and all of this stuff. It's hard to find the right people,
but people that'll actually push you forwardon things and actually make you improve
because I've gotten a certain like coachingand therapy and they're just like and that's
just the way it is. Andthat's just the way it is. You
have to cope with the fact thatyour body won't go any further. You
have to just cope with the factthat things aren't going any better or how
does that make you feel? Howdoes that make you feel? And it's
(27:14):
just that type stuff, and whyare you anxious? What is making you
anxious? It's like, damn it, I can't achieve anything. I can't
seem to make any progress on mygoals and that's what's upsetting me. And
I need strategies and any ideas onhow to get better at that. And
it's hard to develop that from withinyourself. And one of the things about
(27:37):
coming from a more from a lessadvantageous situation is that you may not have
an environment that's supportive of that,and you may not be economically able to
do those things, or you mightjust be even if you're like myself,
you have the means to go outand do that to get the help that
you need, you might you mightbe reluctant to do so because you're like,
(28:00):
who knows what's going to happen.Recessions around the corner, or debt
ceiling might not get raised, theUnited States might default on its currency.
Why would I do the work onmyself? And of course also like if
you're like me and you live witha family member, you live at home,
they might criticize a little bit andthey might say, well, that's
(28:21):
an irresponsible that's a bad decision forwhat you're doing. Like the fitness stuff.
My mom's a pretty harsh critic ofthat, especially she thinks that a
lot of like and there are alot of scams out there, and I
want to I want to possibly dolike episodes that are just around debunking and
dealing with scams and frauds, becauseI've certainly had known people that were victims
of scams and frauds and stuff likethat, and I've gotten really really good
(28:45):
at sniffing them out and being criticalof people. So I've wanted to do
some episodes that are just dedicated tothat, but you'll have people around you
that are pretty critical and they're tellingyou, well, no, you should
just you don't really need help onthose things. And I've been listening to
a lot of like Chris van Vlie'sInsight podcast, and he had a guest
(29:07):
on who was saying that he hascoaches and experts that help him through everything,
every specific area that he's trying toimprove in his life. And obviously
that's unreasonable for somebody who is notdoing so well economically or financially. But
when you want to make that investmentin other people just don't understand it.
It can be a challenge. Andin general, a lot of times your
(29:27):
personal life can get a little toocomplicated. And that's kind of a different
topic, is that I do findthat I may be draining myself out a
little bit too much on random,like personal like items like I feel I've
made my life maybe a little bittoo complicated, like even on a physical
(29:48):
level, like I have a tonof clutter, a ton of messes,
and people get on me for howmessy I am, but I save stuff.
He's like, Okay, I'm gonnaget back around to that. I'm
gonna get back around to that.But just recently, I was trying to
look for something that I desperately needed. There was a gift certificate that I
thought i'd put in a safe place, but I couldn't find it, and
I'm looking around and oh my god, all this stuff that's around, all
(30:11):
this stuff that that's just laying aroundhere, and how I even like plan
out my meals and my eating andall that. I'm like spending perhaps too
much time in the grocery store.For some reason, I'm always slower than
everybody else at the grocery store.And again, I'm neurodivergent. I have
autism and ADHD, so that's definitelyplays into it. But I feel like
(30:34):
my personal life sometimes slows me downbecause I have made it terribly inefficient and
household stuff and all that, andI have to find a better way to
make it efficient. But sometimes Ican't find those solutions within myself. And
that's a little bit of a littlebit of a challenge and trying to find
(30:55):
the right solutions and the ones thatwork for me, because the default solutions
that you see out there may ormay not actually work for you. As
much as I'd love to hire it, people to just handle stuff for me.
Obviously I can't do that. Mostof you probably can't do that too,
But there have to be ways tomake things more efficient and prioritize it
(31:15):
to be able to do stuff that'simportant, like record these podcasts and improve
in my professional life. And whenyou find when you find those solutions,
then everything seems to be kind ofmagical. When you get good at those
things, then it starts to feelgood. Like I used to leave laundry
around for way too long, butnow I'm getting really good at making sure
(31:37):
that that's getting done on a regularbasis, and I've made progress on that.
It's not a thing that's like materiallygetting me closer to my goals.
And that's one of the things isis maybe I'm not progressing in the right
areas in the right ways. Butonce you find those solutions, then it
starts to become a lot more intuitive. And even in terms of fitness,
I've gotten good at working out andgetting to the gym and making sure that
(31:57):
gets done. But am I taxing? Am I taking up too much of
my resources on things that don't matterthat much? Now? My mom would
like me to believe that I shouldn'tbe using it up my resource, using
up my resources to go watch wrestling. But again, that's something that makes
me feel good, that's something thatmakes me motivated to want to do the
(32:20):
other stuff and to deal with theother crap in my life. Pro wrestling
has been super motivational for me andmotivational way more than typical motivational books and
certainly more motivational than most of mytherapists. So this is all very individualized.
And when you're not able to beyourself, then you're even if you
(32:40):
are put in a situation where somebodyelse wants you a trag grow like in
that Sammy Gavarreb's example where he's gettingpromotions at work and being told that he
can go into this path, buthe wouldn't be happy with it. Even
if he decided to give up hisdreams, then it's still going to be
in the back of his head andhe would not remotely perform at his highest
(33:02):
level in those jobs and that promotionbecause he had to quote unquote grow up.
That stuff sticks with you. It'snot going to be your ideal situation.
So even if you have the skills, the talent, the expertise to
do something. If your passion isn'tin it and you don't really have the
emotion for it, and you don'thave that drive for it, it's not
(33:22):
going to come to pass the wayyou want. And even if you're just
not happy in the situation you're in, it's not going to come to pass.
And this is a lot of timeswith employers. What they'll do is
they'll try to motivate employees and tryto make them do things by just grinding
at them, getting angry at them, and there's some sort of shock response.
People try to respond. They'll tryto comply to all the micro management,
(33:44):
all the nonsense that managers pull offto try to make you perform better
or performance reviews, whatever. Butif it's really your heart's really not in
it, and you're not really beingrewarded for it, and you're not really
feeling good about the place that you'rein, none of that negative reinforcement is
going to do anything, Especially ifyou're economically deprived, if you're having to
(34:07):
work two jobs, if you're notgetting paid enough, if you're living in
a bad living situation, if youdon't have the healthcare you need, you're
not gonna be able to perform wellat that job. You're not gonna be
able to perform well for that employer, no matter how much they poke and
prod and push you to try toperform well, and your destiny is not
(34:30):
going to come to pass. Andthey're not going to get what they need
either. And I think that alot of the people that are like shut
up and go back to work onthe conservative side, they're just like,
take a job, take any job, the old welfare to work motto.
They don't realize that they are notgoing to get the performance and they're not
(34:51):
going to get the ideal performance outof people by by just shaming them into
working crappy jobs. You have toactually make people feel like they're value,
make people feel like they're getting closerto their purpose or closer to their goals,
whether that's through financial compensation or througha more meaningful, socially impactful,
or personally impactful type of working environment, and even good kind people who care
(35:16):
about you in leadership in those environments. It's those things that will actually increase
economic productivity, not making people workmore hours. And to the working more
hours part, I was going tomake a post about this. I probably
will on the TikTok and on theInstagram at Fixer Punk. But EXOS,
which is a performance basically a highperformance fitness and training program group that's used
(35:43):
by a lot of like the topOlympic, NFL, NBA, MLB athletes.
These are the the world's top expertsin high performance. They are moved
to a four day work week.They're reducing the number of hours and days
at their staff has to work becausethey know that that increases formats, which
is a point that I brought upin one of my part episodes when I
was talking about excessive work hours.So just pushing people to work more,
(36:09):
especially pushing people to work more ina job that they don't like, isn't
going to improve overall economic productivity.It's certainly not going to make your life
any better. So obviously this isdefinitely an unstructured grant. That's what these
always are. But I think theconclusion we're kind of realizing is that,
(36:32):
and I go back to this pointthat I brought up in a few episodes
ago, Today's nuisance can be tomorrow'schampion. And I think that this Four
Pillars storyline in aw and especially DarbyAllen and Sammy Govara coming up and becoming
(36:53):
who they've become is definitely inspiring meto believe more and more in that.
And I believe we can start tosee if we stand up politically to make
sure that we can be our bestand bring others up along with us.
(37:14):
I think we can start to makechange and not get so distracted by these
crises. Do what you have todo, and I want to get a
little bit more practical. I don'thave the answers. I came into this
podcast thinking that I would have theanswers to give you, the solutions to
give you, but oftentimes I'm justcoming with more questions. But if any
(37:34):
of what I've said kind of appealsto you, if you have any personal
stories, anything going along these lines, then I do definitely want to hear
from you. I want you toreach out call in eight four four four
seven seven punk eight four four fourseven seven seven eight six five, leave
a message, let me know whatyou think. But for now, I
(37:57):
do want to keep everybody encourage andmotivated and knowing that a new future and
I need to convince myself. I'mtalking to myself here most of the time
on these episodes, I'm talking tomyself. But we need to stay convinced
that a new and better future isreally possible above the noise of all of
(38:19):
these crises, and we can havea fun, exciting world that makes us
pumped up, that makes us stokedto want to even do those hard things
in life. And if we makethe world that's possible, where we have
what we need to recover and toand to improve our health, keep ourselves
in good health, keep ourselves emotionallywell, and we have that motivation,
(38:46):
we have that baseline level of safety, security, our needs taken care of,
and then we have that motivation topush ourselves further and know that those
things are real, know that they'repossible. Then we can have a superkick
party above the apocalypse. We canhave our fun and we can enjoy what
(39:08):
it is we want to enjoy inlife and do the work that's necessary to
get there because we know that itis something that is there, that the
bad outcome is not certain, thatthere is something to change, because if
there's nothing for us to change,then why would you expend any effort moving
(39:34):
an immovable object. But I don'tbelieve this is an immovable object. I
believe we'll find an outcome in asolution to this debt sealing situation, and
over time, as we change people'sopinions about who they are and make people
understand the message of that things canget better and that you and that you
(39:54):
don't have to constantly work yourself intoa pit just to survive, and that
you can uplift others. At thesame time, this isn't a zero sum
game. Then we can make progressslowly and surely, and we are booking
the long term storytelling of a betterfuture for ourselves and for others. Well,
(40:21):
I thank you for taking the timeto listen today. I hope you'll
join me for the next episode andfollow along on social media at fixed or
punk on Instagram and TikTok on Twitterat Grayson Nation, and I will see
you again next week. Not surewhen I'm going to record next week,
maybe before maybe after Aid of Dynamite, but whenever it comes out, do
(40:47):
subscribe so you'll get notified for it. And I really do hope that you
will join me again for the nextepisode, because I do appreciate you and
appreciate your time and your support.
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