In this episode Tripp Lanier shares how to gain authority in your field and prosper doing meaningful work. Tripp is also the host of The New Man podcast. Marcus and Tripp discuss the importance of actions over words, the pitfalls of chasing superficial goals, and the true essence of satisfaction and fulfillment. The conversation delves into personal hardship, the path to genuine gratitude, and the misconception of equating success with external achievements. Key topics include the value of aliveness, the necessity of discomfort in growth, and insights from Tripp’s book, ‘This Book Will Make You Dangerous.’
Episode Highlights:
01:41 The Hedonic Treadmill and Misguided Goals
03:42 The Pursuit of Aliveness and Avoiding Comfort Traps
06:12 The Importance of Genuine Connection and Reflection
15:01 Balancing Work, Family, and Personal Growth
21:54 Defending, Pleasing, and Proving
34:26 Fighting Reality and Acceptance
39:46 Embracing Discomfort and Uncertainty
Tripp Lanier is a renowned professional coach, author of This Book Will Make You Dangerous, and host of The New Man Podcast: Beyond the Macho Jerk and the New Age Wimp, which has reached millions of listeners worldwide over the past decade. Since 2005, he has coached countless individuals globally to break free from the rat race, establish themselves as authorities in their fields, and earn a living doing what they love. Tripp has also created several businesses that support his commitment to a lifestyle centered around freedom, ease, meaning, and fun, reflecting his passion for helping others live authentically.
You can learn more about Tripp here: tripplanier.com
Episode Transcript:
00:30
Acta Non Verba is a Latin phrase that means actions, not words. If you want to know what somebody truly believes, don’t listen to their words. Instead, observe their actions. I’m Marcus Aurelius Anderson, and my guest today truly embodies that phrase.
01:00
coaches men to get out of the rat race, become an authority of their field, and make a great living doing meaningful work that they love. From small business owners to startup founders to Navy SEALs, he has coached anyone and everyone who refuses to settle, play it safe, or follow the herd. As host of the New Man podcast, he’s wrapped up millions of downloads, conducting interviews with extraordinary thinkers in business, personal growth, and spirituality. He lives a quiet, simple life with his wife and daughter near the beach in North Carolina.
01:30
Thank you so much and shout out to Michael Ostrilink-Mo for connecting us and thank you so much for this epic book. This book will make you dangerous. We’ll talk a lot about that. I love how you kind of break things down. You talk about the hedonic treadmill. I know a lot of companies that do this as well as individuals, but they spend a lot of time and money coming up with a perfect plan, perfect steps. But then when it comes to execution, either they fall down or they realize once they achieve the goal.
02:00
But that’s not what they wanted at all. And now that they’re here, they’re not really even sure what they’re trying to find in the first place. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been that person and I’ve certainly coached early on in my coaching career. It was a lot of those folks which is like, yeah, we hit that goal. And they’re like, yeah, cool. All right. What’s that? And it was like, what? No, hold on. What do you mean? Yeah, cool. Whatever. And digging through that helped me realize, you know, what are we really playing for here? What is it?
02:29
that’s truly satisfying for us. And I just didn’t want to help people go after goals that didn’t mean anything to them anymore. Yeah, and I also find that, like you say, it’s almost like this artificial metric that they’re chasing and they hit X amount of dollars in the bank or X amount of things of execution. Tom Bilyeu, I remember a long time ago when he talked about how, when he became a millionaire and he was sitting looking outside this incredible view and he was like, why the hell am I so miserable?
02:56
because I had this huge goal that I worked so hard for. And he thought that getting that goal would mean that all the other stuff in his life would be fixed, but that’s usually never the case. It’s amazing. You can say that people like, oh yeah, of course I know. I know that if I hit this goal, it’s not all going to be perfect, but nonetheless, I think there we still kind of leaning into that. Yeah. It’s like you said, we become acclimated to it, but this level of pleasure, this level of expectation, the car loses the new car smell.
03:25
The new home no longer has the same allure and we’re back to that same, okay, what am I doing? It’s that thermostat that we’re kind of stuck at, as Ed Mylett refers to many times. And we have to be able to gauge that on our own and not allow things outside of us to try to dictate what that looks like. Yeah. And I also think I talk about this in the book, which is I think that underneath it all, we’re seeking kind of a once and for all, a set it and forget it. Like I’m done. I’ve hit the finish line in terms of comfort.
03:54
Yeah. In terms of certainty or safety or in terms of status, like I’m finally enough. And a lot of that stuff’s really elusive. We don’t really know that that’s what we’re searching for and hunting for. And then in our minds, like, oh, that’s it. If I had that, ooh, that would, I’d be set. You’d hear it in people’s, like, I’m set. I’ll be set if I get there. And we kind of know it’s not really about the finances. But there is a thing, like, I really thought that I’d
04:23
wouldn’t have to deal with XYZ anymore. Well, you don’t, you get to deal with a new version of it. And that’s where the discomfort comes in or the uncertainty, the risk. And then also that like, I thought I’d feel like I was enough. I thought I’d finally have the status I was looking for. But then you realize that gets, those goalposts get moved as well. Yeah, and then this book will make you dangerous to the book that we’re talking about. You also point out these ideas of, lots of times we’re trying to find things that make us feel alive, that make us feel wanted, that give us fulfillment or peace.
04:53
But yet we also want to do that while simultaneously having safety. And they’re many times mutually exclusive. If you put somebody into an environment where it’s groundhog day and they’re bored and they’re satiated, the human being we’re programmed to create adversity around us just to break that pattern, at least feel something different than the same monotony of mediocrity every day. Yeah. I don’t think a lot of us realize that we’re solving for that. You know, a lot of us are saying, I want to find my purpose. And I was like, well, if we looked at.
05:23
We’re going with actions here. This is a big thing for you, right? So if we looked at all your actions today, we could probably boil them down to, what do I do so that I’m not uncomfortable? What do I do so that I don’t put myself in any kind of risk or I don’t lose money or lose X, Y, Z, and what do I do so I don’t look like a moron or get criticized? And we can probably see that a high, high percentage of your actions are to avoid discomfort, whether it’s emotional discomfort or physical discomfort, uncertainty, risk.
05:51
and looking like a moron. And when we do that, when we bias for those things, by the way, those things are necessary. We need comfort, we need certainty, we need acceptance. I’m like living a comfortable, safe life. I’m not against it, okay? But if we’re biasing towards that and we’re optimizing for that without knowing it, we cut ourselves off from the things that we most want. And what I’ve found is that if people set goals and they get to the other side and they hit that…
06:19
magical finish line. I finally made it. This is what my vision board was all about. By the way, I’ve never had a client do a vision board. I don’t, I’m not into that. I just don’t. Ever since I saw the secret, I was like, all right, no, we’re not doing that shit. But the aspect of this, which is if you get to that goal and you feel trapped or you feel drained or you feel isolated, cut off from the people that you love, or you feel bored or you feel overwhelmed, those are amazing indicators that you screwed up somewhere. Like,
06:46
just deep down, you’re like, this is not what I was shooting for. This was not it. So as much money as that hits the bank or whatever, all the kind of external things that we can measure may show up. But if I feel trapped, that tells me I want to feel free. If I feel drained, it tells me I want to feel alive. If I feel isolated, it tells me I want more connection, genuine connection, genuine love. And if I feel bored, overwhelmed, it’s telling me I need that peace of mind. And so why don’t we start there? Why don’t we start with freedom?
07:16
Aliveness, love and peace. Look how we can start to allow more of that into our lives today and also work more towards that. And then, then the goals are a little smarter, but we also find out, geez, I don’t need to have such, maybe I don’t need to have such high gigantic goals because I’m not trying to satisfy this part of me that feels like it’s not enough. I love that. And I think also that a lot of people need that big goal to give them juice to push. But as you’re pointing out, there are things that are easily metric.
07:44
And definite timelines where it’s like, okay, I did this, I have this, I’ve acquired XYZ. But these other things you’re talking about, we can’t put an 8 out of 10 on them per se. It’s like, either I feel peace or either I feel satisfaction or I feel alive or I don’t. And because they’re more elusive, maybe that is even more overwhelming because that would force us to actually reflect and look and say, in the grand scheme of things, would I say yes to these things? Maybe not.
08:12
And these other things, as you’re saying, once we’ve achieved them, when we check the box, we can kind of put them out of our mind. As you were saying, we have all these people that we see that you have a leader or a CEO or a co-founder or a founder, and they worked their ass off for 10 years to get to this place. And they hit that, that big goal and other like, this is not what I wanted. So their default is redouble their efforts towards the next big thing. But eventually that’s not sustainable. Eventually they burn out.
08:40
And now their entire existence, their entire identity wrapped around this idea of their work ethic, how hard they push, what they can accomplish, what they can provide is no longer there. And now this empty vessel that is them is like, Holy shit, what have I been doing with my life? Yeah. And again, I want to be really clear. Like it’s tough when we find ourselves in those places and it’s largely a part of our culture, which celebrates those external measurable goals. That makes sense. It’s also fun.
09:07
You can see if you want or not, you can see your bank account go up or down. It’s much more confusing to actually start to check in with myself and say, but how do I feel? Is this enjoyable? Is this have me feel stronger, more expansive? Does it have me feel more aligned? And for a lot of people, those questions are crazy. Cause I was like, what are you talking about? I’ve just been told to jump through hoops. Give me more hoops. Give me bigger, better hoops to jump through. I’m good at that. That’s where I feel like I’m enough. That’s where it feels like I know what I’m doing.
09:36
But if I don’t have those hoops and I can’t have a sore on the board, then it can be very, very confusing. And for a lot of this, it’s like, just show me the hoops and then I can shut down who I am internally. I can shut down that internal guidance system. It’s like, hold on, you’re off track. Your marriage is off track. You’re not connecting with XYZ. Your health is off track. And we’ve learned to just kind of put duct tape over the dashboard, over the gauges on the dashboard. It’s like, oh, you know what? There’s a check engine. Like, let me put some tape over that too. I’m just…
10:05
going to ignore this information and just keep my eyes on the prize. And there’s kind of this culture that celebrates that grittiness and that, you know, put your head down and go for it. Tough guy stuff. But a lot of those folks, like you said, are empty inside. It’s not a, I wouldn’t want to trade places with them. And you very much had to experience a lot of this adversity on your own path to get to this place of being able to help other men. Tell us what led you here. I was fortunate enough to, and
10:32
talky enough to start my own business five months out of art school of all. All great business guys come out of art school. Right? Clearly, clearly. So the delusion that that takes, but I was fortunate enough that I had a media production company and I was doing that and I was fortunate enough that it did well. And I designed that company so that I could make my own music and travel and essentially like.
11:00
do the lifestyle thing. I wasn’t interested in climbing some big corporate ladder. But nonetheless, I went through a very big shift internally. I had a big emotional kind of a thing that, kind of a reckoning after some stuff that happened in my teen years. And it just like woke me up to the world that I was living in and had me question everything. I was like, what is it that I’m really doing here? And even though I have it good,
11:28
I have these, they’re kind of turning into golden handcuffs. I can see exactly what I’m going to be doing five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now. And is that okay with me? Do I want to just kind of bump it into autopilot and come from here? And I really wrestled with that. I felt so guilty. I felt like, gosh, you got it so good. Why would you want to change anything? Just settle in. Just go with it. And I was like, I just…
11:54
I can’t though. This isn’t what I feel called to do. This isn’t what I’m meant to do. And I wasn’t on some, this was before all the kind of internet, follow your dreams and follow your passion stuff. It was just internally, I was cooking. So I was doing a lot of men’s group stuff and doing a lot of meditation retreats and those types of things and developing myself in a personal and spiritual way and found out about coaching. And it was like, I could get paid to have conversations about like really deep and meaningful things.
12:22
sign me up, where do I sign up? And so that’s when I started to transition from the work that I was doing in that professional sense into being a coach. But even that process was very, very confronting because it was easy to hide behind my business, but then becoming my own coach was extremely vulnerable and I dragged my feet on that for a while too. Well and like you said, if you’re working with somebody and you’re helping them reflect back to them these blind spots, it often sheds more light on our own and it’s like, wow.
12:52
It’s almost like this guy is me and I need to help him because if I can’t help him figure it out, how the hell am I going to get there, right? It’s huge pressure and there was a lot of like, gosh, who am I to do this and who, you know, and I think when I started to adopt more of a shoulder to shoulder approach, like, hey, we’re both in this, the pressure’s off. Like there’s no high ground here where I finally got it made. I relaxed a lot more. It was like, you know, fourth graders can teach second graders how to tie their shoes. Let’s adopt that and then start to have some fun here. And I…
13:21
That was a lot more relaxing there, but you’re exactly right. Like there’s days where I’m coaching somebody. I’m like, am I talking to them or am I talking to me? And it’s very helpful to be in that it’s harder to sleepwalk in that environment. Yeah. Once you’ve been slapped awake, it’s hard to go back to sleep on yourself or somebody else for that matter. And then that gives us that accountability to ourselves. It’s like, I need to be better at this. I need to be a better coach. I need to have better exposure to these things. If I want to be able to help the people that I want to help.
13:51
Well, I’ll interrupt you there. It’s easy to isolate too, because as a coach, you’re in a helper role or I’m in a helper role. And it’s easy to not have anybody turn around and say, well, how are you doing? How are you challenging yourself? How are you growing or, you know, are you stagnating in some way? And so it’s, it’s important for me to, to reach out and to have people in my lives. That’ll challenge me and have an eye on me in that way. Absolutely. I have to seek it. It’d be easy to just have that power differential. Like I’m here, I’m the coach and you’re the client.
14:20
But that’s a lonely place to be. You gotta have others that are peers. Yeah, there’s no way for us to grow if we don’t. And so we’ve talked about some of the misconceptions, but what is the biggest misconception that you keep finding when you’re working with people that think that once they’ve achieved these things that it’s going to change their life and now everything else will be figured out, but there’s always this additional calculus that we’re trying to work towards to find the answer for. What seems to be the thing that was surprising you the most in all of these like high achievers that we’re continually pushing?
14:50
But yet there was the thing that they kept saying, oh, that’s a big deal. Oh, that’s important. I need to check in with myself or I need to have some sort of reflection to give me the capacity to know where I stand today. I think the thing that comes up over and over again is how we miss aliveness. And I primarily work with men and it’s very common for even guys that really love their business and really love their families.
15:20
to get rooted in a very domesticated world. So if it’s not for work and it’s not for wife or not for family or something, they don’t really have an outlet to go kind of get in touch with their more feminine, or excuse me, feral, wild side or the adventurer in them that is like, let’s fucking go. Let’s go sink our teeth into things. Let’s go get into some danger, you know, in a mild level, but just to go take risks.
15:50
And what happens as we get older is we tend to avoid that danger. I mean, the danger that I’m talking about in the book, what’s dangerous is anything that makes us uncomfortable or feels like a little risky or, you know, we might look a little silly. That’s what’s happening in our cushy world. And so the cost of that is we very rarely feel alive anymore. We don’t bring up, even it’s just like something I want to do with my wife in the bedroom. It’s like, you know, we’ll just kind of stick to the same thing and have sex on Thursday night after date, and, you know, it’s just like, it just turns into this.
16:18
We can go to Red Lobster and then we have sex. You know, it’s just like what everybody else does. It’s just, it just gets into a sad routine and we don’t break out of that because it’s a little dangerous. It’s a little awkward, but more and more, I just see how common it is. It’s we’re just, we’re starving for that aliveness and we think we’d need to double down on work. We think we need to double down on more time with family. But if this was nutrition, we’re not going to get that nourishment from them. Those vitamins and minerals don’t come from work or from family.
16:48
They come from being with other men. They come from being out in nature. They come from challenging ourselves and learning new things. And that’s where we find that, that stuff. But a lot of guys will think like, gosh, what am I doing wrong? I must be doing something wrong. I must not be doing enough. And it’s, it’s great to kind of help us and say, no, it’s more, it’s over in this direction and a lot of them like, wow, I don’t have men in my life that do that anymore. I don’t have, I don’t even know where to start or to begin to go and have start to have those experiences. It’s been so
17:16
And that connection, like you said, to the outdoors, that gives us that juice. That gives us that ability to, because it forces us to breathe. It forces us to, to fire on different cylinders that we wouldn’t normally do. And just that alone, sometimes it’s enough with the stimulus, as you said, that aliveness that gives us the real fire to really move forward where we want to go. And I want to raise my hand here. I’m 51 years old. I got a family, I got wife and a daughter and a business and I love all of it. And it’s really easy to just do those things.
17:45
I have to push myself. I have to set reminders, call this guy, go have lunch, go surf with him, go do this, just get out there because the tendency is to just stay home, stay stagnant, stay in that place. You have to work at it. Yeah, and that bleeds over into everything else that we do, like you said. And then it’s almost like this, like you said, this feral kind of mentality, this warrior mentality. I’m not saying that we have to walk around ready to go to war with people all the time, but that mentality.
18:14
serves us in any place that we decide to move because it helps us understand, I have to have a certain skill set, I have to have a certain amount of discipline, I have to have a certain amount of consistency. If I’m hoping to be able to defend myself or somebody else in the process, and that could be, again, from the physical component, but that also helps us in these other areas, right? If I’m physically strong, I can defend somebody else. If I’m financially strong, I can help somebody else that needs help. If I’m emotionally strong, I can help somebody that needs the emotional help.
18:41
And all of those fears begin to overlap in a way that serve us to make us better men, fathers, husbands, leaders, et cetera. Yeah. It’s like, which version of you do you want to bring to your family? The one that’s invigorated because he’s been out in the world and he’s been doing the things that he loves and he brings that into the home or the one that’s coming home from the country club drunk and dragging ass because he’s, you know, just kind of going through the motions in life. So I, I think a lot of guys are like, Oh, I can’t take time for this. And I can’t take time for that.
19:11
It’s like, you lift all boats when you bring that invigorated, alive version of you home. I also have found that when guys are trying to hit certain metrics, they sort of plateau in one area, so they may have one, you know, bar graph that’s going up to a certain point and they feel like I’ve topped out. But as you’re saying, when you reach these other fundamental things, foundationally, those things elevate and without any additional feeling of exertion, they attain higher and higher levels. And it’s almost effortless. It feels seamless to them.
19:41
simply because as you were saying, almost like nourishment, giving that missing component that they didn’t know that they needed, and that gives them all kinds of… That’s a great point, because a lot of guys that I talk to are like, oh, my job this and my job that. And it’s like, well, let’s go raise the temperature and the energy in these other areas, and let’s see, let’s take the pressure off of your job to check all these boxes for you.
20:02
Like think about the boxes we need our relationship to get. She’s going to be my best friend. She’s going to be my lover. She’s going to be my partner. She might even be my business partner. She’s going to do this and this and this. It’s just like, that’s a lot for one person. Really there’s a fundamental role in there, which is like, you’re my lover. And then we might be co-parents and then we might be like all these other things. And then the same thing with business. It’s like, this thing is to support me in the lifestyle that I want to have. And then I’m going to put all this, it’s my purpose in life and it’s this and it’s that, it’s all this.
20:31
pressure gets put onto these things. I’d like to see when we have a life that is invigorating for us and we have so many things that we’re able to dip into that bring energy into our lives. It takes the pressure off of work. It takes the pressure off of our wives, our families, our partners to kind of check all these boxes all in one place. Yeah. When I talk to people and they’re saying, Marcus, I need to push harder or how do I push harder or how do I maintain this pace? I ask them to pump the brakes and step back and I say, let’s ask the question.
21:01
Are you doing this for the right reasons? And then lots of times you can see it on their face because if they realize, Oh, I’m doing it for this metric or I’m doing it for this idea or for my ego, it becomes abundantly obvious. But if they feel that they are invested in it, it is giving them that juice, but it helps them take that breath. And now they redouble their efforts in a way that is meaningful. And now they click up to that next level, maybe not even realizing that it was there, but they needed that little additional kind of kick in the ass to, to really figure out.
21:31
Because it’s sometimes the question that’s so much harder to answer than actually just executing harder. And that’s a great thing that I like to ask is, you know, how much of our lives is spent protecting, pleasing, improving so much of our day is defending. And a lot of stuff we, yeah, you got to look out for, but a lot of it is like, we’re, we’re just in this fear mode. What could go wrong? Loss aversion, loss diversion, fear, fear. And we’re defending things that we could relax a bit. We’ve lost touch with reality there.
22:01
And then the pleasing, well, let’s make sure nobody gets upset with me here. Let’s make sure that these people are okay. There’s this kind of, or the magical they or them that we got to make sure that nobody gets upset. And then this proving still in middle school. And I’m trying to prove to everybody I’m tough and I’m not a little wimp that cries every once in a while or whatever that thing is, how much of our lives is spent protecting and pleasing and proving. I coached a guy one time. He was like, it was amazing what he had accomplished in Silicon Valley. And he had this huge chip on his shoulder about.
22:31
his high school friends. Something went down in high school and the shit hit the fan. He went back to his like 20th or 25th reunion. And he kind of walked in like, look motherfuckers, look what I did. And they’re all like, hey man, it’s great to see you. It’s so great. Like what happened? Like it was all water under the bridge. And he told me, he goes, I had no idea that I’d spent so much of my life preparing for that moment so I could stick it to them. And they did not care. It like genuinely didn’t care. Like loved him.
23:00
for who he was, not for what he accomplished. And if we can ask that deeper questions like you’re talking about, what’s driving this, and start to relax the amount of protecting and pleasing and proving, really find some strength there, we might reclaim a lot of energy, and we might be able to do more of this stuff that we genuinely wanna do. Yeah, those are the leaks in the boat, so to speak, and we can keep trying to go as far as we want, but until those things are dammed up, not gonna get far.
23:27
the bottom of the bucket for the business, anything you want to use for the analogy. And I see a lot of men now that feel underappreciated. And some of that may be because of who their relationships are with, but some of that may be simply because they don’t know how to allow that appreciation to be reciprocated to other people. What sort of advice would you give to those men? I had a conversation with someone the other day, one of my clients, and we were talking about gratitude.
23:57
And he was like, you know, things are going so well in my life. He’s like, I don’t feel like it’s safe to be grateful. Like if somehow if I’m grateful for it. And we had to unpack this because it was so unconscious for him. But he’s like, if I somehow shine a light on it, the universe is going to send me a bill. And it was just like, I don’t know if my kid’s going to get hurt or I’m going to have a financial problem. But it was this magical universe was like, hey, wait a second. You did a gratitude practice.
24:26
And this doesn’t add up. You shouldn’t have this much good fortune. You got to pay up buddy. And so we, we had this upper limit problem, this gay Hendrix calls, like we can hit this place where it’s like, Ooh, this isn’t okay. I think a lot of us are in that place where we never really learned how to appreciate what we have, even though it might be taken away and let’s face it. It is going to be taken away. All of it is going to be taken away. I’m more on the edge of like, let’s appreciate it while we got it. Drink it up while you have it.
24:55
Be so grateful that you have it because it will be taken.
25:00
Now I think that’s true. And I also think that like you’re saying, just avoiding it entirely. Or I see a lot of people that will bullshit their gratitude practice and they’ll kind of sit on their hands and their world’s fallen or art around them. But they’re like, Oh, but I’m grateful. And they’re using it like, is this cop out or this, you know, crutch to, to justify being mediocre. And that to me is like the, the mentality of a glorified victim. That’s just using it as a, an escape mechanism.
25:28
And if you have to gaslight yourself into feeling gratitude, that’s not gratitude. You’re now practicing not gratitude, but guilt. And now you’re no longer in this place of being able to even have the recognition of gratitude when something incredible happens. You’re like, man, I feel like I should feel grateful, but now I’m almost confused because of these conflicting stimulus that I’m getting into my mind of what gratitude really feels like or what I’ve been practicing. It’s tough. I mean, it’s a, we have to learn how to receive a lot of us are hammers and everything’s a nail. So it’s this.
25:57
Yang energy out, out, out, you know, and then to be able to soften and to be able to take a moment and receive and like in, like just take it in. Wow. What happens if I’m really allow myself to be impacted by this moment? It’s very difficult. I’m actually feel something. What was they’re trying not to feel things. So yeah, that I have, I have appreciation for that. Like it can be uncomfortable, but it’s also if we’re don’t feel like if we feel empty inside it was like, what would it take to fill this up?
26:26
Well, let’s start with gratitude. What does it mean to allow my good fortune to come in? It doesn’t mean you have to be braggadocious or grand about it, but just be like, isn’t it amazing? Even the most small things, the most small things. So I was like, isn’t it great? I didn’t get a flat on the way to work today. I’ve had flats on the way to work, and that sucks. So I’m really grad. You don’t have to go through the motions. You can really feel it. I was like, that was nice. I really appreciate that. I’m not entitled to anything.
26:55
So I’m grateful that it worked out. In my book, they get to have adversity in my TEDx. I don’t know if you know my story, I was paralyzed from the neck down, preparing to deploy. Pat died on the table twice. When I woke up, they said the good news is you get to live to tell the tale. The bad news is you’re still paralyzed and this is what your life’s gonna be. So at 40, I’m thinking about where everybody else is at 40. And here I am broke, divorced, bedridden, and paralyzed trying to figure out.
27:22
What the hell do I do with my life now? I’m trying to do the right thing in my mind and talk about feeling like a victim, talk about not having gratitude, but being in that place and thinking that this is what it is. Finally had to go through all the stages, went through anger for a long time, as you can imagine, but eventually got to the point of just, I just gave up all hope. I just let everything go. I let go of every expectation possible because I did mantras, I did all these things that should be.
27:52
People said that you should do, and just made me more angry when it wouldn’t work. So I just had radical acceptance and said, okay, what’s the truth? What’s real? What’s correct? And the only thing that I can control at that point was my breathing.
28:08
And that gave me a fighting chance to go from this fight or flight into this ability to actually unpack this thing. And then they gave me the capacity to have gratitude. But I found gratitude in the fact that I wasn’t deployed at the time. I found gratitude that nobody else was injured in the process of me being deployed because they can’t push their deployment back. And I’d just been given a team at that point. So all these guys are, you know, they’re counting on me. But for every one man that’s injured, it takes two to pull him to safety.
28:38
So in my mind, my team would have been compromised. Another team would have had to come down. A helicopter would have had to fly into a hot zone to come get me. And so even in this place, and I’m just like, man, I’m lucky. Not that I was lucky, but I was grateful that no one else was injured. And that’s when I figured out in my mind, gratitude is when you can be so happy that something happened, even if it has no direct benefit to me. And that was the cornerstone. That was the beginning.
29:07
And I became grateful that I was in the US. I became grateful that I had a bed. I had a gratitude that people would take care of me because I was not a really nice person to be around when I was in that place. I was not very grateful. But eventually, after months of that, of genuine no bullshit gratitude, 360 gratitude, I got a little bit of feeling back in my hand. And it wasn’t much. But when you haven’t had anything for months, it’s everything. And then you build on it. A year and a half later,
29:38
got back to that place and I was 40 when it happened, 42 when I got out and then what, now what? Because I can’t do any of the other stuff I had planned before this and so again, that hero’s journey continues, always evolving, always changing, always giving you new obstacles and resistance and adversities but if we make peace with the idea that it never gets easier, it makes it easier because now you understand this is just par for the course.
30:05
There will be hardships, there will be resistance, there will be friction, but those are usually the indications that we’re on the correct path. What was the thing that you wanted, the tendency was to slip back into that would keep you in a really miserable place? What was it? There’s like a temptation to go into a certain thinking or what was yours? I went through, cause Kubler-Ross talks about the five steps of like acceptance, right? Of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, but it never happens that neatly.
30:36
go from denial to anger and then back into denial. Denial, anger, Daniels. Yeah, exactly. And then into bargaining, which is I should have done this or what if I had done this or if I pray like this or if I say this mantra or if I have this thought long enough that it’ll change. And that’s expectation. Yeah. And when that leaves, we go back to anger, go back to denial. So you have these micro cycles and that’s where I was because in my mind it was like, I’m doing this for the right reasons.
31:04
I’m trying to help people. I was in chiropractic school before I went. My goal was to go out. My great uncle had passed away. He was my biggest male role model besides my father. Was in Vietnam, Green Beret. And when he passed away and I went to his funeral, it reminded me of all these acts of valor, all the things that he taught me. And at 38, I’d just gotten divorced right before that. So I have a year and a half till I finish my doctorate in chiropractic school. I’m like, I’ll go join the military, following his footsteps, my great uncle’s footsteps, go serve my country.
31:34
And then when I get back, I’ll go finish my doctorate, and serve my community with my hands for the rest of my life. White picket fence, happiness, blah, blah, blah. And in this life, there’s what you hope will happen, there’s what you fear will happen, and then there’s what actually happens. And so for me, it was about that idea of this isn’t fair, I’m a good person, why is the universe, why is God, why is this happening to me?
32:00
We have to realize that in the end, adversity doesn’t give a shit about us. And the only meaning that adversity has is the meaning that we assign it. So I was assigning the meaning that it wasn’t fair or that I was being punished. At the end of the day, we can either choose to say this is something that makes us better, something that makes us worse. But there’s a third option, which is I can completely circumvent it and says, this has no impact on me at all.
32:26
And irrespective of that, I’m going to continue forward with this thing, which is the acceptance of radical truth. And that’s what it took me, but it took me almost four months to get to that point because I kept going back. And something I don’t share in the book, when I started getting better, left hand got better, right hand got better, feet started getting better, a little bit of movement. And then I got hubris. I got arrogant. I got cocky. And then it became about me again.
32:53
Oh, see, I knew I could take care of this. I knew I could do this. I knew I could walk this off. They told me I overcame death. I can walk this paralysis thing off, right? I got that chip on my shoulder, that soldier in me, right? And man, as soon as that happened, I stagnated and I slipped right back to square one. And I had the audacity to be surprised when it happened. And so I went through those stages again. If I was like, breathe, step back, take a real look.
33:23
And then since then, finally getting back to that place of that real gratitude, I just never looked back. Once I started moving forward, it was like, you know what? And lots of times I know people talk about first world problems and about how everybody has hardships. But the truth is, like, if we look at the, like if we look at adversity on a scale, like a 10, if you look at our 10, and then we look at what we’re complaining about right now, my latte is not hoffing off. My
33:52
Wi-Fi is a little bit janky. Really? That’s not even a blip on the radar when you’re talking about genuine hardship that we’ve been through. So when we have those reminders of what our genuine capacity is, it makes us go, you know what, maybe I’m making more out of this than what it really is. And maybe I’m creating more adversity by trying to avoid my current adversity right now. And when we see that, it gives us that kind of like, oh, yeah, so now what are you gonna do?
34:20
And that allows us to really see things for what they are. So that was kind of my journey. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think the thing I was listening for in there was how we fight reality. This is happening. You are feeling this. And it’s just like, let me do all the mental games of the whys and the shoulds. And this isn’t fair, because I actually don’t want to be here. What can I do to avoid being here? And that’s the.
34:48
I find that that’s such a universal thing of like, I want to be anywhere other than right here. I want to be in a future that’s imagined of how it should be or in the past with figuring out the blame and the woulda, shoulda, coulda, but right here, no, I don’t want to be right here because this is unacceptable. And that’s the very reason why we have to be here right now.
35:08
And thank you for sharing that. Of course. Again, that’s what my journey was because I have neuropathy in my hands on my feet now. So going back to Chiropractic school, they were like, you can finish your degree, but you’re not going to be able to practice because you can’t actually palpate with your hands to adjust people. You’re like holding a beer. So again, yeah, it’s like, I’m trying to use, yeah, how do I keep moving? Right. But that led me back. I interviewed Robert Green and in mastery, he says, when you’re not sure where to go, go back to the beginning.
35:37
So for me, I went back to martial arts was my first love when I was like 11 and baked into the martial arts is philosophy. And so Zen, Taoism, Stoicism, even is all kind of thrown into that. And so when you go back to those things and you just break it down to the simplest form, stop overcomplicating shit, stop making it bigger than what it really is. Focus on this movement right now. And even for me being able to hold a blade or throw a punch properly or do a take down
36:06
I went from like 185 pounds in the military to like 230 pounds, like lost all this muscle mass, big fat guy, completely like not in a good physical place. I could take care of myself, but I had to like relearn that skillset and reacquire who I was. But it made me value it that much more when I had it and I never took it for granted. And so we were talking about physicality before. To me, that’s the very definition. It’s like a physical mantra of my gratitude for where I’m at.
36:35
because there was a point in my life when I took it for granted. And nothing breeds appreciation like deprivation. Yes, you’ve had it taken away from you. So that gives us real credit too. Yeah. Absolutely. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Of course. And I’m sure that you’ve seen that, like you said, in people that you work with as well, right? It takes that adversity to really force them to figure out what’s important to them, to figure out what they’re capable of. Hell, if nothing else, it gives them something to rail against, to create that purpose for whatever it is they’re trying to do.
37:05
Yeah, and I think ultimately we’ve got to go through those stages in whatever order that they arrive. We’ve got to get through whatever delusion that we’re in. And a lot of us are living in a delusion or whatever. It’s not if, it’s kind of to what degree are we living in our delusion. And is that getting in the way of the opportunities that we see or is that getting in the way of whatever I see possible for myself? That can be incredibly limiting, obviously, when we’re fighting reality. Because it’s like, how am I supposed to get?
37:35
there if I don’t even recognize I’m starting from here. And I might be fighting the reality, like for me, fighting grief, fighting sadness of something that happened or someone fighting the idea that, Oh yeah, everything’s fine at home when it’s obviously not fine at home. And, you know, but just this, like, I just want to stay in this world where I don’t have to be with reality. And of course you don’t want to be with it. It’s, it’s, it’s very difficult, but the more we’re willing to chip away at it instead of wait for some God awful.
38:04
situation to occur, there’s a lot more create, we can be creative there. We can be solution oriented there when we’re willing to turn into that, but it’s really uncomfortable for sure. It is. And I’ve, it’s funny because you see people and they’ll say things like, I’m going to wait for this to happen before I do this, or I’m going to wait for all the lights to be green or for X, Y, and Z to occur before I execute. And you’re laughing because you know, it’s true. But what I always say is like, what more has to happen before you execute this whole octanon verb mentality is I see so many people that are seeking.
38:34
wisdom, seeking knowledge and trying to acquire it. But knowledge that is acquired but unutilized is the equivalent of ignorance. It means nothing. You might as well not even be able to read if you’re not going to actually apply what you’re reading, right? So seeing that over and over again, whether it be in business relationships, whatever it is, I keep saying, do you have to lose your fortune, your family, your well-being before you execute on it? And if that’s the case, then you were literally in some ways maybe even manifesting that. Why not just attack this thing now?
39:03
while you have this knowledge, why not go, because you’re gonna have to go after it with that same vigor. Why not do it on your own volition now? Why not be the person that actually creates your agency now? If you’re waiting for something else to happen, it will. But by the time adversity shows up, it’s developed a hell of a lot of like gravity. And it’ll like kick your ass once it gets there. And if you haven’t practiced against smaller micro adversities up to that point, you’re ill equipped and you may not be able to actually recover from it. And that’s why we see some of these 25 year old men that stay 25.
39:33
until they pass away because that’s all that they know and that’s as far as they wanna go. And they wanna keep themselves cocooned and like bubble wrapped from these other things. Sure. That’s why we have to have all these things you’re talking about and all the stuff you talk about in your book as well. Well, I think just normalizing that discomfort and uncertainty and looking stupid are normal. Cause I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had with people and they’re kinda like, I must be doing it wrong if I’m uncomfortable.
40:03
I must be doing it wrong if I’m putting myself at risk. I must be doing it wrong if I’m being criticized, which is okay, I can appreciate that. Especially if I’ve been living in this kind of, what’s the hack? What’s the trick? What’s the shortcut mentality? And I’m not saying you gotta go make stuff more complex or more difficult than it needs to be. You don’t have to go like full Goggins and that kind of thing. But you can just recognize that.
40:30
If I want something and it’s outside of this comfort zone or it’s outside of familiarity, then it inevitably is going to be uncomfortable. Inevitably, it’s going to be, it’s going to assume risk and I’m going to look a little weird. I’m going to be a newb figuring something out for the first time. Once we normalize that, I think it takes a layer off of the, this shouldn’t be happening stuff. If I know going in, it’s like, okay, this is just how it’s going to be. I can expect.
40:57
this, whether it’s dating or it’s getting back into dating after being in relationship or going back into the gym after you haven’t been in there for a while or learning something new because you’re bored and you’re 50, you know, it’s just like all of it’s just like, yeah, of course this comes with it, but it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong or you’re doing it wrong. But it seems weird to have to say it, but a lot of us are like, ah, this isn’t uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m doing it right. Maybe I should wait or read another book so that it’s not uncomfortable or it’s not weird. And it’s like, no, no, you’re, you’re on it. It’s weird. Is this normal?
41:27
Yeah. You should actually seek that out. That indicates that you’re on the right track. Sure. Yeah. Or do it with others. I think it’s a lot easier if you do, if you’re being weird and goofy with others and it’s just a lot easier. Strength in numbers. I love it. Strength in weirdos, right? Yeah. Go get some weirdos. Yeah. Well, I want to be respectful of your time and I love your work. Everybody go grab this book. We’ll make you dangerous. Incredible. You’ve got an audible as well. And then tell us about your podcast where we can come.
41:57
to support you, where can we learn from you? Where can we do more things with you? Yeah, so I was, we’ve been podcasting since I think 2007. So we’ve had a few episodes out there. We were using stone. We were using stone to make podcasts. And papyrus. We were using papyrus and stone. It was so difficult to publish that podcast. Oh my God. Now that got looked in. We would use smoke sometimes to get the publish.
42:25
So yeah, it’s the new man beyond the macho jerk and the new age wimp. And even though it’s tailored to men, a lot of women listen to it. It’s essentially just kind of how to live more of an integrated life. And so I’m always looking for conversations and stories from people that are living life a little bit differently and on their own terms and what we can learn from them. And then as of late, my wife and I, my wife has been in the healing professions as a therapist and many other things for the last 20 plus years. And so- Beautiful.
42:54
We roast each other essentially for and have different conversations about stuff. So that’s been a lot more fun. I’ve had a lot of fun bringing her on. So yeah, so you can find the new man wherever you listen to podcasts, the book. Thank you for mentioning. And then if anybody’s interested in the coaching that I do, they can go to Triplinear.com. I love it. Tripp, thank you so much for everything that you do, my friend. And I look forward to more conversations in the future. Right on Marcus. Thank you, man.
43:20
Thank you for listening to this episode of Acta Non Verba.
