A podcast-style interview in which Ryan Daniel Moran asks Aubrey Marcus about his tolerance for discomfort. Marcus argues that the ability to confront and "collapse" fear—pushing through beneficial discomfort—is the single defining characteristic of successful, fulfilled people. He describes physical and psychological examples (cold showers, difficult workouts, examining trauma) and tells a detailed anecdote about confronting his fear of cockroaches as a deliberate practice to build courage.
I'd like to ask you about your tolerance for discomfort or your tolerance for pain, because little things like cold showers or jumping into the pool in the morning, which is something I know that you practice. That takes getting through that part of your brain that is like, I don't want to do this. This is gonna be uncomfortable. And I'm curious what your relationship is with that and how that has influenced the rest of your life.
I think it's the single defining characteristic of anybody who's really able to achieve what they want and those people who aren't is the ability to collapse. You know, their fear surrounding something or ability to push through beneficial discomfort. You know, there's pain just for pain's sake, which is just masochistic, right? Like. But there's the beneficial pain of self exploration and looking at your own shit and looking at your shadows or, you know, taking. You know, it can be played out in the physical. Going through a hard workout, working out when you don't want to. You know, taking the cold shower or evaluating, you know, your validation patterns in your relationship, evaluating trauma that's come from your childhood, sitting with yourself quietly without distraction. You know, those type of things. That's what really defines, like, a truly happy, fulfilled life, and one that is it. So whenever I see something that's out of alignment, where my fear is greater than actual danger, or I have discomfort preventing me from doing something that's beneficial, I go straight at it, because I know that I have to collapse it. And even if it's like a weird, silly example, like, I've given this example before, another podcast, but I just did it last night. So I'll tell a story like, it's now becoming tree cockroach season in Austin. So the tree cockroaches, they. They slide under the doors and they get in little cracks in the house. I hate them.
I hate them. I'm scared of them. And so I. Here's the options. One, you smash them, and their guts go everywhere. And then you got to clean it. And I feel bad for killing it. Why does it deserve to die? It just found its way into my house, you know, so I don't like doing that. The other option is to get, like, a little dish. Like, I would a spider, slide a paper under it and let it out. That's really easy. I can do that. But the way that I can collapse, because there's no actual danger from the cockroach, the way that I can collapse my fear around it is to grab it with my hand and let it outside. Right. Like, that is. That is the thing that if I wasn't afraid at all, you know, I just scoop it up and outside. And so I know that that's an area where I can work. That's an area where I can confront fear. Like, okay, here's this big pocket of fear that if I apply myself and go straight into in that specific instance, I'll be able to use that courage universally when I'm faced with something else. So again, yesterday, first cockroach of the season. I see it on the wall and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do this first. I ignored it first I ignored it, and I, like, walked by and, like, maybe it'll go away. It didn't go away. I was like, fuck. Like, I know what my job is here. So I got myself kind of psyched up and not quite psyched up enough, you know, like, you really gotta get in the. In a state where you're ready to confront your fears. And I went to grab it, and I, like, touched it, and it spazzed out and, like, fluttered its wings, and I went jumped. And then my heart rate got elevated. And then I'm, like, trying to chase it around. I'm, like, in this totally stressed out state, like, not giving up, not quitting, but, like, battering this cockroach around like I'm a cat. And it was like this horrible, horrible scene. Eventually, I take a couple deep breaths and, like, come on, man, get it together. Scoop it up in my hand, get it in my hand, calmly walk outside. And then it spasms and I freak out, and I get that jolt of fear as it's trying to squirt out of my hand, calm myself again, and then let it off out into my garden. And, like, that moment is even though, like, my battle report is, like, not good. You know, it's like, fail, flail. Keep trying. Scramble, get afraid. But that's the first cockroach of the season. Maybe next one will be a little better and next one will be a little better. But at least doing that now, I know that, like, all right, you know? But in the back of my head, it's like, at least you did it, man. At least you didn't ignore that thing. Like, at least you had the courage to try it. And so whatever. The next thing that I need courage for, I'm building up this pattern. I'm building up this way that I know myself, I know Aubrey as the person who will collapse fear and be courageous in the face of fear when it's not correlated. To death danger. And so you start to know yourself that way. And then if you start to know yourself that way, you can really achieve the kind of personal power that we all have as potential.
