Ben Hardy - Willpower, Discipline, and the Hidden Keys to Success

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Welcome guys and gals to the Man Talks podcast. I'm Connor Beaton, the host and founder of Man Talks. This week I have a special guest joining me who is an incredible writer and since 2015 he's been the number one writer on medium.com. you've probably seen some of his work kicking around. His writing focuses in on self improvement, motivation and entrepreneurship. His readiness fueled by his personal experiences, self directed education and formal education. He's currently finishing up his PhD in industrial and Organizational Psychology at Clemenson University and his research focuses in on the psychological differences of wannabe entrepreneurs and actual entrepreneurs. So what he refers to as dreamers versus doers. And he's currently finishing his dissertation which should be out by this summer. So joining me today is Ben Hardy. And Benjamin Hardy is, like I said, an incredible writer. He's done some really incredible pieces through medium.com, which I suggest that you check out. Some of the pieces that he's written have gone super viral and really been featured on Forbes and Fast Company and Inc. And Business Insider and Huffington Post and Fortunate Entrepreneur. There's just so many psychology Today. He's really been featured on so many. And he's also an Amazon bestseller with a book called Willpower Doesn't Work. Discover the Hidden Keys to Success. And I thought that this was really interesting because willpower is something that I've heard a lot of people talk about in our community. And a lot more and more we hear entrepreneurs and people talking about how willpower is so important and how discipline is so important.

Ben kind of breaks down what's actually important for our own success and what actually drives, from a human behavioral standpoint, what actually drives success. And so we dig into that. In this podcast episode we really talk about how important our environment is and Ben unpacks some of the key drivers behind why our environment shapes us and our behaviors and our values and our beliefs in such a deep way. And it really shifted my personal perspective. I always knew that environment was important. I always knew that environment growing up was important. But I think this podcast episode really gave me a different look at how important environment actually is to our own personal success, which was really interesting. And then we kind of touch on how to make willpower irrelevant and we go into high performance. And Ben actually has a very interesting and different definition of high performance, which I freaking love and I hope you do as well. And really how to create not only the environment for success to be possible, not only how to create the environment for your own personal high performance to be Possible, but how to maintain that in a way that is manageable and doesn't cause burnout. And so it's really interesting because Ben's story is pretty incredible, actually. He has his own family. They've adopted a few kids, and he's going through. He runs his own business. He runs a seven figure business, and he's going through a PhD writing a dissertation. Plus he writes for all of these different companies. So he really kind of does it all and is definitely somebody that I would consider to be a high performer, but also somebody who really values personal time and family time and has that at the forefront of everything he does. So there's a ton of value to this episode. So if you don't have a pen and paper with you or if you're able to take notes, I would definitely recommend that because some of the perspectives and principles that Ben shares are definitely powerful. So without any further ado, without any further delay, please, please, please welcome Mr. Ben Hardy.

Really glad to be here with you.

So I wanted to start things off and kick things off as we normally do on the Man Talks podcast, which is tell us a story about a defining moment that made you who you are today.

Absolutely. So When I was 11 years old, my parents got a divorce. And, you know, that's not very uncommon. What happened was, is after my parents got a divorce, it threw my dad into a tailspin, and my mom just was trying to run a company, and so she was just super busy. And my dad, it just. It threw him for a loop. You know, one of the things I've spent a lot of time studying is addiction. And Gabor Mate, he's one of my favorite thinkers in that space. He talks a lot about how addiction is not genetic or biological. More than anything, it's just the result. It's a product of trauma. It's a product of pain. You know, and so what happens is you go through pain and you suppress it, and then you. You deal with it in unhealthy ways. You know, addiction's a solution to pain. And so my dad ended up diving deep into heavy drugs and, you know, meth and all sorts of stuff. And thankfully, he's, you know, since turned it around and had an amazing recovery. And he's, you know, but during my high school years, it was really bad. And so I kind of just kind of barely made it through high school. Had a totally volatile growing up experience. You know, the year after I graduated high school, I pretty much did nothing. I mean, I barely made it through. I really have no Clue actually how I graduated. Looking back, I barely went to school, but I was playing World of Warcraft, you know, like 15, 17 hours a day, just living at my cousin's house, didn't have a job, was, you know, eating Little Caesar's pizza and drinking soda all day, and just totally was not moving forward and was kind of just avoiding reality, which, you know, so isolation, you know, is often the product of trauma as well, and just not knowing how to process it. And so, I mean, that's kind of, I think, where I was. And it was about a year after I graduated high school that I started running just in the middle of the night. I don't know what prompted it. I just decided I'd just start running. And I'd started with like a mile or two, and then I just run in the middle of the night, literally in the dark. And then it got to the point where I was running more and more, like longer distances. And when I was running, one of the benefits is that it would. It allowed me to kind of get outside the environment that I was living in. You know, like I was at my mom's apartment playing video games or my cousin's house. And when I went running, it kind of allowed me to get some space, you know, looking out at the. Just kind of running through different neighborhoods. And it was. It allowed me enough time to kind of just think and kind of process all the pain I'd gone through growing up. Process where I was at, process, you know, because I think a lot of people, and myself included, you know, life happens to you don't really realize how you got there. And like, my life, that's kind of where it was. I showed up at like age 19. I'm like, how the crap did I get here? And it was during those runs that I was able to kind of think about, okay, what do I need to do? You know, I'm becoming a product of a situation, of a life that I don't want. And so I decided, decided to, you know, ultimately serve a humanitarian mission, which was a two year experience. So I was able to leave. It was really interesting because the moment I kind of left and I knew that I needed to leave in order to actually make the change that I needed to. It was literally like a light switch flipped. Like, immediately I was. I went from playing video games, like 18 hours a day to, like, working, like, hard, different type of work, like doing like, community service. And like, I was reading books. And I was totally like a different person in a new situation, you know, and that Was like the first time I really realized the power of environment and how that reflects in identity, like that those two things are tied together, which is totally different from how most people think in the Western culture. So that's kind of, you know, it was that two year experience that really I started reading a ton of books. I started writing in my journal every single day. And it was that experience that, that, you know, kind of cemented to me that I was going to live a much different life. Like I was going to create the life that I wanted. I was going to become a writer. I was never going to stop learning, I was never going to stop evolving. And so when I went back from my mission, you know, it was so obvious that I had transformed so much that I couldn't. I knew if I had, if I went back to like hanging out with my old high school friends or if I stayed in that same situation that I would divert back. And so I just, that was kind of my first like real wake up call and my first initiation to like, okay, environment matters. And also like I have to choose my environment. And also I'm going to have a life of learning and transformation and so I have to surround myself with those types of people and never stop. So I mean, that's kind of where it all happened.

Nice. I mean, maybe not such a nice experience growing up, but I think, you know, what you really talked about there in terms of isolation and addiction being a byproduct of trauma are so, so, so true. I mean, I see it in, in so many of the guys that, that I work with just consistently, you know, having some childhood trauma or past trauma or traumatic accident in, in the recent past causing them to completely shut down or you know, trying to like numb out through drugs or porn or even video games can be, can be an addiction. There's some great work that, that's being done surrounding that. And I really like the environment piece too. You know, I think it's, it's, it's so true. I remember I took a two year span off, much like yourself, where I just like read books every single day and, and worked and journaled and did that type of work. And I remember having this period of like what I would consider growth and expansion and then finding myself back, you know, going back home into that home environment that I grew up in and feeling like a, like those old habits and those old thoughts and those old pieces started to like creep back in. And it wasn't until that experience where I like really started to understand how much environment actually impacts things like mindset. And so I'm interested to know how that all correlates to things like willpower. Because, you know, you. You. One of the main reasons why I wanted to have you on this podcast, you know, outside of the fact that you're an incredible writer and you've done a lot of. A lot of amazing articles for Medium and on your website, is because you've. You've just written this new book that I found even the title just, like, really fascinating. Willpower doesn't Work. And so I want to start there because, you know, we have a huge community of guys who are constantly, I think, trying to cultivate this sense of discipline, this sense of willpower. And I'm curious as to why. Let's just start with the general question of why doesn't willpower work?

Yeah, that's a beautiful question. Real quick, just so that, you know, there's a guy, there's a guest that I'm gonna have to fully recommend on your show. So his name is Richard Paul Evans. He's written 38 New York Times bestsellers. He's one of my best friends, and he has a men's community called Tribe of Kings. And I'll jump right into. Willpower doesn't work. But a lot of what you've just said, and I'm realizing the power of this audience you have, he has some amazing insights. I'll connect you with him later. But anyways, back to willpower. So why does not willpower work? So willpower is a very popular topic today. It's a very individual. It's a very individualistic concept. So, like, you know, because we live in such an individualistic society, we're so focused on the self. We're so focused on, like, what the person can do. You know, in our culture, we have, like, Marvel shows all about superheroes and about superpowers, and it's all about, you know, just who people are. And there's such a. There's such, like, a avoidance or just a complete lack of appreciation for the environment that shapes the person. And so willpower, it can only exist if there's two forms of conflict. You know, if a person has internal conflict, like, if they're just not sure what they want to do. So, like, let's just say they. They. They want to eat the cookie, but they don't. But they want to be healthy. Like, there's an internal conflict right there. So, like, willpower exists if you don't know what you want. And it also exists if your environment is opposing your Goals, like, if you have to try to, like, resist something. So every environment is either pulling you forward, pulling you the direction you want to go, or it's pushing against you. And the problem with most people is, and even society at large when we're talking about men, is that society, in a lot of ways, is pushing against you. You know, it's like, it's very difficult. You know, it's not like, you know, for some people, maybe, but for most people, it's not like you just are born on this, like, treadmill to success. No, like, for the most part, like, you have to figure out how to get there against a lot of the systems and paradigms of society and environment and education, all this stuff. I mean, in a lot of ways, it's pushing against you and forcing you into mediocrity. And for men, in a lot of ways right now, speaking of that topic is men are being suppressed in society in a lot of ways and undervalued and pushed indoors. And so what Willpower Doesn't Work is all about is this idea of, you know, quit trying to put all the pressure on yourself. Because the. The research on willpower is very clear. Like, willpower is an exhaustible source. You know, any attempt at using willpower long term cannot work. It's. It's unsustainable. And it always leads to failure because the will. Because the environment always wins. And so what the book is about, and you know, what psychologists say, is that almost all behavior is outsourced to the environment anyways, you know what I mean? So, like, every environment creates certain rules and expectations. On an airplane, you're not going to smoke a cigarette, you know what I mean? Like, the environment outsources the behavior. It shapes the behavior of the people. And so the goal of the book is to help people, first off, realize that the environment is shaping them and then to empower them onto how to realize, you know, and the book's really a strategy guide on how to shape the ultimate environment, so. Or how to create those environments that make willpower unnecessary and that make success inevitable. So, I mean, that's really what the book's all about.

Really Cool. Yeah, I think that's interesting. It's a very different approach from the sort of, like, traditional methodology or like the traditional thoughts around willpower, you know, because I think in the past, at least, the work that I've seen and a lot of the mentalities that a lot of people have, especially like when you say willpower, the first thing that comes to mind for me is around Eating around food, and it's like, you know, having the willpower to not eat the chocolate or the cookie or drink the booze. Like, I just. I've been going through this. I decided that at the beginning of the year, I wanted to stop drinking, and I wanted to stop drinking for a multitude of different reasons. But it's been interesting to then see, you know, how when those. When those sort of urges come up to have a beer or have a drink, when you're. When you're out in the social setting come up, that it's like, oh, I have to have the willpower to not do that. And it's interesting to have the approach and the perspective of, you know, creating the environment rather than working solely on the mindset and working solely on the sort of, like, thought process or cognitive processing in order to be able to have that. And I think the other thing that really stands out to me about what you're talking about is this idea about decision making and utilizing or looking at decision making from a different standpoint. So how does this approach allow us to make different decisions in our life? Because I think one of the things that, you know, I've seen with, you know, a lot of the guys in our community and. And even just like, couples and in relationships and whatnot, is that a lot of people struggle in this modern era to make some of these big decisions in their life. When we are inundated with a massive amount of choice, you know, in every single minute, in every single hour, no matter where we are, we're just inundated in choice. So how does your approach start to shape and help people, help the listeners, help us actually make some of these bigger decisions? And what might be a different approach to this?

Oh, my gosh. I mean, I love this. I mean, so there's several different angles we can go on, but, I mean, ultimately, what this is all about is about making real decisions. And when you actually make a true decision, it can't be in your head. It has to be in the real world, you know. And so what does that mean? It means it has to be shaped. You know, it has to impact the environment in one way or another. One of the big reasons why people don't actually change their environment is because they're too afraid of how that's going to impact other people. When you transform your environment, you have to disrupt the environment of other people, you know, because, you know, the relationships, the expectations, all those things are keeping you where you're at when it comes to, like, information overload and Making big decisions and stuff like that. I mean, one of the biggest things that I've found.

So I've spent my entire PhD research studying the differences between wannabe entrepreneurs and actual entrepreneurs. And I've been studying, like, how does a person go from wannabe to doer? How do you go from dreamer to doer? And I spent. You know, I decided back in 2010 I wanted to be a writer. And it wasn't until 2015 that I started. You know, so what. What happened during those five years and what stopped me from actually doing it? You know, that's. That's kind of what I've been studying. And obviously, we're talking about decision making. How do you get yourself to make decisions? How do you actually get yourself to go forward? And in my opinion. Well, really, it's what I found in my research is that the primary way to actually initiate yourself to go forward is by starting to make financial investments in something. I mean, it could be very small, you know. So, like, when I wanted to become a writer, first off, there was a lot of external pressure that was placed upon me. So, like, at the beginning of 2015, my wife and I became foster parents of three kids. And immediately my situation demanded more of me. And that's one of the quotes that I put in the beginning of the book just to kind of prove the power of situation. Will Durant is one of the most famous historians of all time. And after he studied the history of the world, he decided that the shaping of history was not done by. By people, but by demanding situations. You know, it's kind of like necessity is the mother of invention. And he basically said that heroes are not what shape history, but, you know, demanding situations are what shape heroes. He said that the, you know, the power, the ability of the average person could be doubled if their situation required it of them. And so that's kind of what happened to me. It's like, once I became a foster parent, all of a sudden I realized I had this. This new set of very heavy external pressure, this responsibility. And that forced me to think very differently about my life. I mean, it was like, okay, I've been wanting to be a writer for a long time. I now have these kids to support. I just started my graduate school, and it's like I realized that time was gonna get moving a lot faster, and I needed to actually start acting on my dreams. And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had the external pressure to do it. And so then I started investing dollars into my goal, you know, I bought a domain name. And, you know, when I was in my first year of grad school, I was making 12,000 bucks a year. They do not pay grad students a lot. And so to pay $800 for a domain name freaked my wife out. You know what I mean? It freaked us both out. She wasn't sure if I was just like, if this was just a phase, because I had said I wanted to do it for a long time. But when I made that investment, I then became increasingly committed. And I think that that's so key for people who want to make big decisions, is put yourself in a position where it happens. It's like, if you want to run a marathon, sign up for a race, like, six months in advance and buy the plane ticket. Like, put yourself in a position where you're invested, because once you're invested, you're committed. And then, you know, I. I started educating myself. I bought an online course that cost 190 bucks, you know, and I started to learn how to write viral headlines and stuff. And. And so, like, I think a big part of it is starting to put money where your dream is or money where your decision is. And once you make that, once you start investing dollars, you start becoming committed, and, like, you didn't make a true decision if you weren't committed. And so, you know, that's. That. Those are some of my thoughts on commitment and decision.

Nice. No, I think that's. I think that's great. And I love your. Your personal example there. I like to say that that choice is a representation of our truth in the world, and that when we make choices, it's a. It's an outward expression of what our internal truth is. And in a lot of ways, when we make those choices, like, we set an intention for something, or we have a dream or we have a goal or we have a vision, and then there's action. There's always the choice in between those two pieces, and it's that ability to what we choose, it sort of sends us in the direction of our dreams or of our vision or of our goals. And so, yeah, I love that, man. I love that. And the investment piece is really important. I think that for me personally, the more that I've invested in myself and my own commitment, my own growth, the more that I've seen those results, the ROI is just on the other side of it, you know, it always is. So let. Tell me a little bit about this environmental piece, because it really is interesting. Like, I remember reading, I think it was like, Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and they kind of touch on it in there. And then there's the other book about tidying up. I can't remember the full title of it, but there's. There seems to be this sort of unfolding of people talking about the importance of the environment that we're actually in. And in the book you talk about how to create a daily sacred environment, to live your life with intention and not get sucked into cultural addictions. And I think that this is a really, really massive component that I would love to unpack and just sort of like look at the different avenues of it. Because environment is huge. So maybe, maybe tell us, you know, how do we start to create and why is it important? But how do we start to create this daily sacred environment that you talk about in the book?

Totally. So, I mean, one thing just really quickly, even before that, just to kind of hit the impressions you're getting, you're starting to see environment becoming and more of a conversation piece, is because it is. I mean, and then I'll talk about the daily sacred environment. But I mean, there is so much science finally coming forth that's just starting to eradicate this individualistic perspective that's been so dominant, you know, I mean, you know, just so that, you know, like, and I don't even go into this in the book, but in western culture we are so focused, we're obsessed with isolating things, isolating variables, you know, individualizing stuff. Like almost all of the leadership theories, like back in the 1920s and 30s and stuff, they were all focused on, they were called the Big Man. I mean, the Great man theory of leadership. Like it was so believed that in. Or the only way you could be a leader is if you were a man. You know what I mean? Like it was. And then like over time you had to be like a six foot tall man. You had to have these certain traits. There was, there was a focus on traits and like that's what leads us to all these personality tests and types. And like, we're so focused on like isolating ourselves and putting ourselves in boxes and stuff like that. And we're ignoring the fact that like in every situation you're in, you're a different person. And so like what the science is showing, and it's been showing it for decades in psychology that like who you are is a product of the situation you're in and that, you know, the most mindful and powerful thing you can do is be aware of the situation and be aware of how it's influencing you and be aware of the roles that you're playing and about how you can proactively shape the situations that you want. I mean, that's what's. There's so much research that's been talked about that in psychology for decades, but now the research in biology and in neuroscience is just like blowing it up. I mean, if you haven't heard about neuro, I mean, epigenetics and Bruce Lipton, Bruce Lipton's work in epigenetics. I mean, basically what the research is showing in biology now is that our gene, our gene expression is, is mostly, it's not the product of the DNA. I mean, the DNA is kind of the source, but what genes are expressed is the products of the environments you're in and the choices you make. And so our biology is very fluid and our psychology and our personality are very fluid. But because of our culture, we have this fixed mindset where we think like the, the personality you have when you're born is the personality you're going to be when you die. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's not your personality that shapes your behavior. It's your behavior that shapes your personality and also the environments you place yourself in. And so I think what you're going to find, and one of the things I say in the book is that the next evolution of high performance and the next evolution of self improvement is not going to be about the self. It's going to be about the environment that shapes the self. And if you think about like, men, like men are different now than they were before, like even like 10, 15 years ago. And it's not because the nature of man has changed, is because the environment around us and culture has changed us. And it's creating these challenges. And so my, my opinion is, and I think, you know, this is my prediction, it's a heavy prediction, is that in the next 10, 15 years, this is not going to be the only book on this subject. There's going to be tons and tons and tons of books about environment. This is kind of, in my opinion, the first one I've found that's just like, okay, let's, let's talk about this like this. We need to talk about this more directly when it comes to creating like a sacred environment. In the book, I talk about optimal environments. I talk about how there are enriched environments. And enriched environments are environments that you're fully absorbed in. Like you're either fully on in some environments that are really demanding. Like situations that demand you to rise up, you know, to do more than you've ever done before. They're inherently challenging. There's consequences, there's risks. Like, that's how the work we should be doing should be. And I give plenty of examples, like, the work we're doing should be high, highly challenging, and somewhat stressful. It's like going to the gym and having a personal trainer. It's supposed to be pushing you. You know, you're supposed to be pushing your boundaries and growing and being challenged. And that's what's required to get into a flow state is to have, you know, consequences and to, to be challenged. And going back to the Durant quote, you know, your, your abilities could be doubled if your situation demanded it. So, like, that's one type of environment. And how many people's work environment is like that? Most people are not in an enriched and engaging environment. Most people are distracted because their environment is not optimal. And then the opposite side, you know, if you push yourself intensely, you know, at a workout, where are you going to grow? Well, you need to go and rest. You know, rest and recovery is where most of your growth is going to happen. And it's usually when you're resting and recovering as well from work that your best creative insights happen. Only 16% of creative ideas happen when you're sitting at your desk. They happen when you're at home resting. And so those are the two types of optimal environments is either high stress or high rest. And in both cases, you shouldn't be distracted on your smartphone, you know, like most people and myself included. It's embarrassing when you're with your kids or when you're in a social setting and you're not engaged in this situation and you're staring at your phone. Semi there, semi not. And so in both of these situations, you're fully absorbed. One is just you're in high demand, and the other one, you're in high rest. And so that's kind of one, one key piece of the book. But when it comes to sacred environments, what I talk about is you need to make big decisions outside of your routine environment. It's just like Bill Gates with his Think Weeks. You know, he would leave, make huge decisions for Microsoft, and then he'd come back. And when you come back, you need a daily environment that keeps you going. And that's your sacred environment. And like your sacred environment, it doesn't have to be like a temple, although it could be. It just needs to be something simple. For me, it's my car, like every day first thing in the morning, and this is my morning routine, is just wake up, get in my car, drive to a parking lot away from my house. Because at my house there's just too many triggers, too much environment, too much energy, and I just go to a place where I'm free of all that. No cell phone, no anything. And that's where I write my journal, and that's where I allow myself to live in alignment with the person I want to be. And I think that every person needs to have some form of sacred environment where they can go and meditate and ponder and reflect and put themselves in a position to live.

Yeah, that's. Man, there's so much in there. That's awesome.

Yeah, I know. Sorry, I just threw a bunch at you. I just felt like I needed to kind of frame environments before I go into it.

No, no, that's really good. That's really good. I mean, it's. When you were first starting, it really reminded me like I had Dave Asprey on the podcast and he was talking about. Now I'm like connecting the docs backwards to what he was talking about. But, you know, he was talking about sleep and how important sleep was, and we were kind of getting into that. And he kind of talked about like his sleep chamber, you know, and how he's got like his whole bedroom set up to be conducive for sleep to be optimal. And I think he's. He said something along the lines of, if you create the environment for sleep to happen, then then it'll be a lot easier. But we live in this age where, you know, we look at our cell phones right before bed. You know, we've got like a lot of non natural light coming in from street lamps and, you know, external, just external light sources. And he's like, you're not in the environment for sleep. You're in the environment for your brain and your body to basically be active. And so if you create that environment, then it makes sleep a lot more easy and a lot more possible. And so I like this very simple concept of high stress and high rest. And I think that we should definitely unpack this a little bit more because we've also culturally, I think in some cases, in some channels here in North America especially, we've kind of gone down this path of, follow the path of least resistance. And there is this like, high value on being able to work the, like, work less and, and avoid any stress and avoid any sort of like, not responsibility, but avoid risk, you know, and so I'm curious if you can unpack that high stress environment and maybe define that a little bit more, because I think that would. That'll be really interesting for people to have clarity on.

Yeah, no, I mean, I, I love your insights, man. This is a cool conversation. I mean, real quick, just on the day of asprey thing, I mean, pretty much what he said about sleep, you have to set up the environment for it to happen. That's pretty much the whole book. You have to set up the environment for anything to happen. Whether it's a positive social experience or whether it's to write a sweet viral article, you know, or whether it's to do anything. You got to set up the situation to make it do it. When it comes to, you know, the American culture of do as little as possible to get the easiest result. You know, it's funny, I have a family member who kind of, he actually did a humanitarian mission in, in Korea. And in Korea, they value high, like hard work. The. Basically my, my in law or my. I think it was my brother in law. He, he talked about how in America we talk about how like, it's so cultural to say, don't work too hard. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, if someone's going to work one day, it's like, all right, don't work too hard. You know, like, they would never say that. They would never say that in Korea. Um, anyways, when it comes to high stress. So there's a concept in, I think it's. I mean, it's really just like a fitness or something concept. It's called eustress, you know, so in order to grow a muscle, you have to put pressure on it. I mean, you can't get stronger by not stressing something out, you know, and then you have to rest it. Stress, rest. And, and basically what's really cool about human beings and it's, it's undervalued again because of this fixed mindset, is that humans are very adaptive. You know, if you think about the story of Viktor Frankl in man's Search for Meaning, he said that the biggest surprise of the concentration camp was how fast everyone adapted to the environment. Like the shock and horror of just what was happening. All of the people getting murdered and stuff. He said it was surprising how fast the horror turned into apathy. Like you know, eventually and very quickly. It was just like they were just watching it happen and the emotions went away. And that's because human beings are so emotional. It's like jumping in a swimming pool. Like when you jump in a pool, yeah, it's cold for, like, 20 seconds, but very quickly your body acclimates to the new environment. And, like, then the. Then you're no longer conscious of it. Like, then you're just operating subconsciously and swimming. You know, you're not even thinking about the temperature anymore. And so when it comes to high stress, you know, I think recognizing the ability that you have to adapt very quickly to intense environments and learn through experience rather than just reading books, it's like, I could have spent. I could have read thousands of books on. On parenting, and there's no way I would know as much about parenting as I do after three years of actually foster parenting. Three kids like learning through raw experience where the. Where the stakes are high. It forces you to. It forces you to just figure it out because the consequences are real, and they're in real time, and they're immediate. And because you're forced to learn things that you've never done before. And, you know, I provide a lot of examples in the book of how people set up their situations, you know, so that. So that the stakes are high so that they perform at the highest level. I mean, one of the stories I use is John Burke. He's a brilliant pianist in Atlanta, and, you know, age 29, he's composed and, you know, released like, nine or. I don't even know, several amazing albums. And last year he was nominated for an Emmy. And I interviewed him and just asked him about his creative process, and basically, this is what he said. I mean, this is what he does whenever he decides he wants to create a new album, the very day that he thinks about it and the very day that he kind of gets the idea that this is what he wants to do, even if the idea is not fully fleshed, it's just like, yeah, I want to do this thing. I want to create an album around this theme. Immediately, that same day, he calls his sound engineer, and he. And he schedules an appointment to record the album, which is, at this point, only an idea. So, like, three months in advance, he says, I want to get on the calendar to record this album. And then he pays the cost of what it's going to cost to record it, you know, for that week. So he's not only invested, like on his calendar, but he's financially invested. And then he blocks out his whole calendar for the next three months, puts in a bunch of creation time, you know, and he. He literally views that as a meeting. So, like, if gigs pop up during his creation time, he says, no, I've got a meeting, like. And so he blocks out his calendar, and then he creates social pressure. He gets on social media and starts, you know, talking to his fans and emailing his fans and saying that he's working on a new project and telling him the day it's going to be released. So, I mean, ultimately what he does is when he has this idea, he immediately goes about creating all this external pressure around himself to make sure he does it, and then he does it. You know, that's how he creates so much and so fast, is he's always creating the situation to make it happen. And so, I mean, I just think high pressure is a good thing. They talk about how pressure can either, you know, make a diamond or bust a pipe, but you need that pressure. But then you need rest, you need recovery. You need to allow yourself the time to totally unplug and detach. And that's kind of what makes it all go around.

Nice. No, I think that's. It's really good. It's like, what. What came to mind for me was, I mean, just like, personal experience and then Japanese culture. And so I'm going to tie those two things in here really quick. Last.

Do it, man. I'm excited.

Last year, it's interesting, like, last year I put an event called the Real Talk Summit for just over 1500 people in Vancouver. And initially I just had this idea where I was like, I want to put on this. This event, and I want to, you know, have like over a thousand people there, and I'm going to hire Gary Vaynerchuk, and I don't know how to put this all together, but I create this brand, I'm just going to do it. And so I initially was going to partner with somebody, but as soon as I signed the contract for Gary V, the partnership sort of fell apart. And so all of a sudden, I was left with this huge bill for his speaking fee and the venue and AV and just like all these other things. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And so there was this immense amount of pressure that I felt. And there was actually, like, looking back in that moment, there was actually something so, like, invigorating about it where I was like, wow, I have all this pressure, and, you know, my. My wallet's on the chopping block. Like, I have skin in the game. And it was just like, well, I either have two choices. One, I can buckle under this pressure. I can be the pipe and let it bust and have everything fall apart, or two, I can refuse to let this Fail. And I can choose to do whatever it takes in order to make this a success. And it was really interesting because that sort of, that day I like vividly remember just sitting in that moment and being like, you know what, I am not going to let this break me. I am going to truck forward. I'm going to make this happen. And so there was this incredible amount of pressure and, you know, the event turned out great and there was 1500 people there and we had some cool sponsors and some other great speakers and et cetera, et cetera. But the moral was, is that I had never put myself in that level of a pressure situation before. And I remember so many people asking me like, how did you deal with this? And I was like, well, I just chose. I just chose to not fail. I chose to do whatever it takes in order to have this be successful and actually unfold properly. And so I fundamentally agree that sometimes putting ourselves into those situations, into that good type of high stress that's going to push us outside of our boundaries and choosing to be there, because I think sometimes people find themselves there through circumstances and, and allow those circumstances to crush them. And then I think on the other side of this, how I wanted to tie that into Japanese culture is like, you're talking about Korea. And what came up for me was, you know, in Japanese culture, there is a huge amount of pressure for people to work. These insane, insane. They're like counter United States, you know, like where we have like the four hour work week, they have like, or they have like the 40 hour work day. You know, it's just like, how much can I work? So I guess my question is, before we move into the high rest, is there such a thing as too much high stress or is it just about finding that balance with, with the high rest?

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely too much. I mean, think about it. If you, you know, I mean, if you don't have the muscle capacity and you try to lift 400 pounds, you know what I mean? Like, you know, there is too much on a psychological and on kind of like an emotional level, I'm not necessarily sure what the limits are. I mean, who's to say, you know, when you created that situation with Gary Vee, that you were ready for that, you might not have been ready for that, but like, that situation, you know, is a defining moment for you now. And so, you know, when it comes to taking on high realms of responsibility and stuff like that, I'm not actually sure what the limits are. I definitely know that there's you know, too much is, you know, you've got, you've got to kind of pace yourself. I mean, I think you can make quantum leaps. I mean, what I like about this approach to self improvement, rather than making incremental progress, like to your behavior, which is what I would say is like the more individualistic and willpower approach, you know, where you're just trying to incrementally, like, you know, improve yourself. What's cool is when you, when you, when you take on big situations like this, you can make huge leaps. You can make quantum leaps. I mean, you, you can go from like taken on. I mean, I mean, I don't really know what, what you had dealt with before that, but this might be like five levels up, you know what I mean? As far as like the amount of intensity, you know, and that forced you to evolve to a much higher level, which then expanded your psychology and changed your worldview and changed what you view you can view, you can do, you know, and then obviously you can't do that every single day or else you're gonna bust, you know. But like, I bet you walked away from that experience a new person with a new perspective of what you could do. And that's probably altered your approach since I'm guessing you're living a little bit bigger than you did before that, you know.

No.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And so, I mean, I love that. And so, so I was going to.

Say if you can unpack the high rest, because this is something that, you know, as, as sort of like a type A in the past, I definitely undervalued rest a lot. And I would just like push, push, push, push, push, until basically like my body would shut down or, you know, something fell apart. You know, like one of the spinning plates eventually fell and smashed on the floor. And so can you, can you unpack a little bit around? How do we set up an environment for high risk? What does that look like? And do you have any sort of like tips that people can implement?

Absolutely no. So I have an article and I'll, you know, we'll get you a Link. It's called 6 things you need to recover from every single day. That article's done very well, probably been read half a million times. But I would say when it comes to high rest, I think that there needs to be a. And I think that this, this cultural narrative is kind of being reversed. But the whole notion of productivity and working all the time is not, it's, it's, it's flawed. Like rest and productivity are actually like go way more hand in hand than like being busy and being productive. Like for me, like some of my most productive moments. And when we're talking about productive productivity, it's not about, you know, doing tasks, it's about making progress, you know, if you, if you can. And I think that's really what the four hour workweek is actually all about, is, it's, it's about what one slice, you know, will move you forward 20 steps versus taking 20 actual steps to get there. Like, and so when it comes to rest, there's so many things. I mean, I already brought up Bill Gates. You know, Bill Gates took think weeks. And so like two weeks out of every year he would go away, he would be totally unreachable and he would just spend time literally sleeping, reading articles, thinking, visualizing, meditating. Like, and he said that that's where all of his best ideas for Microsoft came from was like when he was resting. You know, Tim Ferriss says the exact same thing. Like, you know, you need these mini retirements. And why? Because when you're recovering and resting, it's in that mindset when you're resting that you're going to have the most clarity. You're also going to have the most creativity because the situations you're in are usually new and novel and novelty and newness are flow triggers, you know. And also when you're in new situations, your brain and your mind can wander and connect to things that allow you insights because creativity is really about just connecting things, you know. And so when you're in new situations, when you're resting, when you're recovering, your mind can wander and make connections that you can't make when you're just pushing, push and pushing. There's a really good TED Talk and I forget what it's called, but it's, it's all about sabbaticals. I mean, if you just type in TED talk sabbatical, there's a conversation that a guy has who's a really famous artist who has a studio in New York, and he talks about how every, every year, every seven years, he takes a one year sabbatical. So he works six and takes a, a full year sabbatical where he closes his studio. And during that year he just travels the whole world and just rests and just relaxes and just enjoys his life, goes and does stuff. And he says it's during that year that he gets all of his inspiration to do the work that he does for the next six years. And so obviously we've talked about creativity, we've talked about ideation, we've talked about decisions, we've talked about fitness. The theme is that the fundamental growth happens, and the best stuff occurs when you're. When you're resting. And there's so much psychological research. So my field is called organizational psychology, and there's a lot of research on a concept called psychologically detaching from work. And basically what that means is to detach from work means that emotionally, you know, mentally and physically, you need to detach from work on a daily basis. Like, unless you fully detach, you can't actually fully reattach. And to be attached at work, to be fully engaged means you're deep in flow, like, you're fully there. And if you're. If you can't fully detach and let it go, you can't reattach at the highest level, you're always just semi on and semi off. And even if you think you're being productive, you're probably performing at a lower cognitive level than you definitely could. And so kind of going back to the whole idea of enriched environments, like, what does a restful environment look like? What it doesn't look like is it doesn't look like it's used. It doesn't look like you staring at your phone. You know what I mean? Like, sure, it's okay to, like, watch movies and enjoy, but if you're with other people, I mean, one of the concepts I talk about in the book is called forcing functions, which means you've created a situation that forces you to act how you want to be. When I go home from work, I leave my phone away from my body as a forcing function, it forces me to be active. I mean, it forces me to be engaged. And so in order for something to be fully restful, you need to be just as absorbed in the rest as you would be in the stress. So that means, like, if you're with your kids, you're fully with your kids, you're not like, halfway there and halfway in your phone. Like, no, you're fully wherever you are. If you're on vacation, you're fully on vacation. If you're, you know, at the gym, you're fully at the gym. It really just goes to the quote. Wherever you are, make sure that's where you are. You know, wherever you are, that's where you should be. And when you're resting, unplug. Like, leave the technology away. There's so much research about how you can't sleep as good if you're staring at a screen 10 minutes before, like create the environment where rest can happen, where you can actually be with your loved ones, where you can actually decompress, where you can actually relax and like enjoy life again rather than just be a workaholic. So I think that.

It'S just really simple. Just set up the environment so you're not thinking about work. I mean, it's okay to get thoughts and when you do plug them down, but actually be where you are.

Yeah, it's so hugely important. I mean, just, just on that note, the TED talk that you're talking about is, is by Stephen or, sorry, Stefan Segmeister, and it's called the Power of Time Off. So that I'll, I'll put a link for that in the show notes. But I really like the, the force function idea. Like, I, I do something similar. When I come home, my fiance and I have a tray of, on the side of the kitchen counter that our cell phones go on. And after a certain period of, after a certain period of time at night, like after 8pm we'll put them over there. And unless it's an emergency or unless we're going to like call our family or something like that, they just, they just get put over there and we don't touch them. And it has fundamentally changed our home life in a huge way because we're much, much, much more present with each other rather than sort of like, like you said, being half present, sort of half there, half recharging and fully in the moment, which is an incredible experience. So that's awesome. And so thank you so much. I think just because we're, we're running out of time, we're going to wrap up. I mean, I could talk to you for hours about this because I love this topic. I don't know if that's clear, but, but I love this topic. I am curious, what is one of your favorite parts of the book that we maybe haven't touched on yet?

Thanks, man. Yeah, thank you for that. Oh, man. I mean, you've done a really good job at facilitating this conversation. I mean, I talk about all sorts of stuff. I mean, I think we've hit some of the big keys. I really like the, you know, the beginning of the book about really just kind of providing the actual, you know, and I'm not going to go into it now because it's not as strategic, but for people who read the book, I think the first two chapters really are convincing about that you and your environment are two parts of the same whole, that who you are in one situation is who you are in a different situation. And so I think. I guess I'll just kind of, like, close this down with a couple ideas that I think, you know, if you really think about, will ring true. But they're actually the reverses of what most of our culture believes. So, like, number one, and I think I've already said it, it's not your personality that shapes your behavior. It's your behavior that shapes your personality. You know, and the behaviors you do are deeply resonant with the environments you're in. And so, you know, there's another quote, you know, from Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. He says, if we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us. So, you know, either you're being shaped by an environment you don't want, or you're creating an environment that shapes you into the person you want to be. It's not choice or environment. It's the choice of environment. And that's. That's, I think, your biggest responsibility. And that's kind of what you did with the. With the Gary Vee thing, is you created the situation that forced you to do something. So just like. Just like our personalities are not fixed, our confidence obviously isn't fixed either. You know, it's not confidence that leads to success. It's successful behavior that creates confidence. And that's why you need to have these morning routines and actually behave in ways that are congruent with what you want, is because when you start behaving in desired ways, then the confidence comes. And so I think those are just some of the big keys is what I really try to destroy is this idea of this fixed personality and instead tried to show that your personality. First off, there's. So back to the idea of trauma. There's a book that came out in the last couple years, but it's now starting to finally get some steam. It's called the Body Keeps the the Score. It's something I recommend to anyone, especially men, because, you know, we've all gone through a lot of trauma and challenge. And that book talks about how when you go through a traumatic experience, your personality literally freezes. You get stuck in time, and even though you're having new experiences, you're not living there. You're living in the past, and you're not integrating those new experiences in, and you're not evolving as a person. And so there's two. I would say there's two core reasons why people get stuck and they plateau as people. One is that they have, you know, these suppressed traumas that Keep them frozen. You know, your personality is never supposed to stop developing. It's never supposed to stop changing. But we have a culture that believes that it does, but it's really the product of trauma. And the second one is kind of going with your Gary Vee thing. People aren't creating what I would call peak experiences like that Gary Vee thing. For you, that was a peak moment. That's now a peak memory. That was a life altering experience. And in the book the Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath talk about how certain experiences alter your trajectory. And most of those experiences for most people happen in their teens and in their 20s, and then they stop happening. And that's where people's personalities get frozen. It could be trauma, or it could just be because people aren't taking on that high pressure that forces them to figure things out in new ways. And so just bringing all this together, you know, you don't have a fixed identity. Your environment is shaping you and, you know, you have the power to make big decisions that can alter who you are. And that, to me is very empowering. And that's where all the science is going, is that, you know, nurture is far more powerful than nature. And we're figuring out a lot about how fluid people really are, both on biological and psychological levels.

Amazing, Amazing, man. Well, this, this has been a really great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on for, for all the listeners out there, definitely. You can check the show notes or you can head on over to, to Amazon and check out Willpower Doesn't Work. Discover the Hidden keys to Success. Or you can check out Benjamin Hardy on his website. It's benjaminhardy.com Ben, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This was an absolute treat.

Yeah, man. No, this is an honor. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. So for all the other listeners that are out there, thank you so much for joining us today. Do not forget to over to Apple Podcasts, Apple Music and leave us a review goes a long way. Leave us a rating and man it forward. If you love this podcast episode, man it forward. Get it into the ears and onto the phones of somebody else that could use this podcast episode because there was a ton of valuable information. So until next week, this is Connor Beaton signing off joining me next week for another inspiring conversation, another inspiring individual, Sam.