Can Stoicism Change Your Life? The Amor Fati Mindset

Welcome to the show that punches you in the face with information. Welcome to the Enterprise Fitness Podcast. Today I'm joined by Ari. Welcome to the show, Ari. How are you?

Good, Mark.

And you? I am— I'm, I'm right. I'm all right.

Just all right.

A few challenges. Yeah, a few challenges. Uh, but you know, you, um, you keep persevering in life. I had an interesting thing that happened this morning. I had a— you know, the stories that I've been having with builders and stuff.

Sure do.

Yeah, he came at me for some money. I sent him a pretty stiff email back anyway. As it resolved, he's, he's now not asking me for that money because I, I clearly showed him where, uh, he would be very liable if I proceeded. And let's just say he backed down.

Yeah, you show him, do you?

Well, I mean, look, in, in this game, in business, unfortunately, you know, you've got to have a very generous side, but you also have to have— you have to have a backbone, you have to have teeth, yeah, and you have to have claws.

And, um, I'm glad I just get to see the generous side there.

Isn't it?

Lucky me.

You're just saying like you're fucking not generous.

Uh, you get to be on the podcast with Mark.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, that's— that was my morning. But, um, now we're, we're good. So today we're going to be heading into philosophy.

I know about philosophy. Deep and meaningful conversations. Let's see where it takes you.

Aristotle. I mean, this is a fitting conversation for you.

It's true. This is me. This is my true calling, you know. Plato and Socrates couldn't be here today. Um, they're, they're dead.

They were very much dead. Yeah, very much dead.

They haven't been here for a while now.

Yeah.

So, um, I'm still going, you know, the, the beard and the curly hair and the, the togas gone, but, you know, for sharpened up a little bit, a little bit less hair.

But I'm filling in for Marcus Aurelius. Sure. Yeah, he's been away for a while. Yeah, I shortened it to Mark.

Fair enough.

Yeah, Aurelius was just too much of a mouthful to say. So yeah, um, I've got 2 tattoos. I've actually got 3 tattoos. Nice segue.

I love how right before this he just confirmed that he's got 3 tattoos. As soon as we jump on air, I've got 2 tattoos. Brilliant.

Go on. I've got 3 actually.

He's got 3.

Yeah, I've got 3. There's Amor Fati and there's, uh, Memento Mori, and there's a Valkyrie, the mother of my children, and there's my boys' names in, in that one. But the reason why, for the two that I was, I was going to segue into, is the Amor Fati and Memento Mori. So do you know much about Amor Fati?

Yes, let's talk about Amor Fati. Let's, let's start by talking about when you first got the Amor Fati tattoo and then took the time to explain the meaning of it to a couple of the boys at Enterprise when we were sitting at one of the tables and Mark spent about 5 minutes just giving this real passionate— you know where I'm going with this— passionate, deep explanation as to what agopari means. And the conclusion that I came to is he takes the 5 minutes to explain it, and there's a pause, and I just say to Mark, so basically it's just a, it's just a very elaborate Latin way of saying it is what it is. And he paused, he looked at me, he said, fuck you, Ari, because he knew I was right. So why don't you tell him what you told me?

Well, you've already told him, huh? You've already told him. It is what it is. Oh, that's great. Um, it was very good value. Yeah, it was good. What's that one that Ben Cousins has on his stomach? Such is life.

Sure, I don't know how we segued into that, but you want to get that one next?

You should. So just type in Latin though.

I just want to get— I'm gonna get Enterprise in a Latin font across my stomach.

Yeah, definitely.

Um, to Mark's pleasure.

Oh, um, I'll chip in if you do.

Done.

Yeah, yeah, sorted. That's good. So Amor Fati was, uh, one of Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophies, which he wrote in the book The Gay Science, I believe. And, uh, essentially, obviously translates to love of fate, love fate, but it really means love of your fate. And he wrote something very profound, and I'm going to paraphrase because I don't remember it off by heart, but basically, don't wish for things to be different, don't wish for things to be backwards, forwards. If you were to live 10,000 lifestyle— lives to have gratitude essentially for all those lives and for things to be perfect the way they are. And to not just be— not just to be at peace with your fate, but to love the challenges, the obstacles, and everything that's happened because it's brought you to this point. And I think for me, you know, at the time I was going through a lot of challenges, and getting that, you know, on my heart, symbolic of being close to something that no matter what happens is still try and find the gratitude. And, you know, getting gratitude on your chest, it's like it's not as I don't know, for me it's not as powerful as a philosophy. It's not a— well, I think— well, it's not.

Gratitude is what it is is way better.

It's the Aussie version. It's the Bogan Aussie. It is what it is, mate. Yeah, it's good. Um, the pub version.

In a parallel universe, there's a Bogan Mark out there with just all the Bogan translations of—

yeah, I reckon he's got more tattoos too. Yeah, I reckon he's got— definitely got the Southern Cross tattoo. Yeah, definitely.

Instead of a Valkyrie, it's just a— it's just a tradie.

The VB.

Yeah, holding a BB. The dart.

And he's probably has a lot more kids too. Yeah, all these, uh, stars. Yeah, pretty much beer cans, maybe.

Yeah. Um, anyway, go on.

So I, I just love it as, as a philosophy for life. So for me, it was something that I wanted to, to tattoo as, as a reminder each day that, uh, no matter what happens, is to, to love what happens. And it can be very challenging at times. It's not to say that it's always going to be easy to see that, but I think the challenge of life is, is to see that. And I think you make sense of life— you don't make sense of life when you're in the moment, you know, you never do. You can never see, you know, 10 steps ahead. No one has a crystal ball. And, you know, the fortune teller was almost never right, or, you know, might be right in parts, but he's so vague that it can't be right, you know. And you can only make sense in hindsight. Looking back on this event led to this event led to this event, and if it wasn't for this event, I wouldn't have been here. And I think that's both the challenge but also the beauty of life that is worth, I think, reflecting on.

I think, I think, I think no one wants to endure the hardships when, when they are going through them, but in retrospect, in most cases, it's going to be something that they can look back on and take something from. I think there's always— there's lessons that you can take from things good and bad, and every— everything that you go through is an opportunity to learn something from and to take with you going forward. I think there's a lot of stuff that we can't stop from happening to us. I think I've heard the, the adage that, you know, life is 10% what happens and 90% how you deal with it. And I think that applies to, you know, most of what I've experienced. I've seen the same, the same hardships make people stronger as the same hardships that have broken people. And surprise comes and we've got the tattoo salon out the back alongside the, the smoothie bar, and then we'll, we'll see what I want to get.

So, uh, you're not gonna get— what was the one you said? Such is life.

Such is life.

Such is life.

You get that for my boy Ben.

Would you get tattooed on you?

Um, well, it ties in probably to the next tattoo that you've got, your Memento Mori, because something that I'm a big fan of is what's called La Catrina. So La Catrina is the Mexican mythical figure from the Mexi— that's the essentially the face of the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, where essentially they have one weekend where they will essentially not use death as a means of mourning but as a means of celebration, and celebrating life and celebrating death without fear of or sadness. Um, now for me personally, obviously controversial opinion, but I believe that, uh, you're born, you live, you die. So I'm not hanging out for anything being here after me once I'm, I'm gone. When I'm, when I'm gone, that's it. So it's been a long-term process of, well, accepting that and making peace with it and understanding that not to be afraid of death, because I actually wouldn't have wanted the opposite. If someone said to me, oh no, you're going to live forever, I think that would be a fate even worse. Quite overwhelming death, because if you had all the time in the world to do things, you'd probably never do it.

And you also see everyone around you die. Everyone ever gets close to you, they'll end up dying, right?

Correct.

Um, they're not also living forever.

Yeah, correct. So just understanding that you've got one life and to do everything that you want with it.

Would you, would you, uh, identify as an atheist? I would, yep. And have you seen Coco?

I have not.

That is an amazing movie.

I do need to see it.

It's, it's all about David.

I haven't seen it, given that I'm, I'm such a fan of the, the art surrounding La Catrina and what's called the, the sugar skulls that you'll often see as part of, of Mexican art.

Yeah, it's, it's a tearjerker as well. It's, it's, it's an amazing movie. I mean, some of the Pixar movies that they've made— the other one I really love, Pixar, is, um, The one with the kids and then dad. Forget what it's called now, it's going to come to me.

Is it a newer one?

It's a newer one.

Then, then I'm useless here.

It's, it's amazing. And, uh, it's actually based on a true— basically these kids heard there's a recording of their dad and they heard the recording of their dad, and this was actually true, this is how the writer wrote it, and that was all they had. And they'd listen to it every night, every day, and then, you know, essentially he made a movie a kids movie about it. And, uh, yeah, amazing. But anyway, so you describe as an atheist, so there's nothing in the afterlife, so what's the point of life? So would you almost be like nihilism? Because a lot of people would attribute nihilism to being atheist, but it's not necessarily though.

No, because I would never want to live forever, but I like the idea of being remembered forever. I like the idea of legacy and leaving the world and leaving people better than how I found them. And if that's something that I can do and have that effect on people, then happy days. And find what I enjoy, find what I value, and lean into those things, triple down on them. And I feel like that's something I've been able to work— make a lot of progress towards doing in the last couple of years. And just keep life simple, and I understand what I value, what I enjoy in life, and I think I understand the things that I'll have time to enjoy now that I perhaps can't enjoy as much later. And yeah, just understanding that, like, legacy—

it's almost paradoxical though, right? Because legacy and the afterlife are almost closely tied. Because on one hand, it's like, well, you don't believe necessarily there's anything after, but then you also want to leave something for when you're after.

Well, there's nothing for me after, but for other people there will be.

That's true. So, but then what's the point? Why not just live for the moment?

I do live for the moment, but I think there'll be people who still know me when I'm gone, and I think being remembered for something nice is a nice little thing that you can leave behind.

That's true. I don't disagree with any of that. Um, one interesting take was, I think it's Native Indians who also believe that you only really die when someone stops saying your name. So people can live, quote unquote, forever in terms of the hearts and the mark they leave in the world. But when someone stops remembering that person— and it's very much Day of the Dead, actually ties in directly— and that's why the celebration of the Day of the Dead is to remember the dead so they're never actually lost. Um, and I think Coco the movie paints that, uh, beautifully, uh, in that. So, you know much about, like, the differences of schools of thoughts with hedonism versus stoicism?

Stoicism, but I'll, I'll leave it to you to expand on it.

Right, well, if we kind of like paint this, and there's like Epicurism in there as well, if we kind of paint the scenario, like Stoics like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, you know, they're very much about living to the highest virtue, and then, you know, they have their virtues of Stoicism. And I'm not an expert in this, but I do like the, you know, living for a higher virtue. The way I interpret it is to live for, live for purpose rather than live for say the opposite spectrum, say hedonism, live for pleasure. And man often doesn't buy pleasure, he sells himself to it. And in selling himself to pleasure, then becomes a, I suppose, a vehicle or a tool to pleasure, and then just constantly seeking pleasure for the pleasure's sake. But that also in many ways is the antithesis of accomplishment, because to have accomplishment or to achieve things, which often achievement is linked to fulfillment, if to— for us to achieve things and to become fulfilled, we need to delay pleasure. So hedonism, whilst it sounds good and seems good— and this is where things like the dopamine hit on Instagram, the, you know, Pornhub, and being able to have access to, you know, swipe left, swipe right 24/7, Uber Eats— this kind of modern world that we live in, it's instant gratification. And it detrains our dopamine receptors, our brains, to constantly get that influx of I can have it now. And we're taught, I think it's really problematic for kids, is we're taught that we can have it now and we don't learn to delay gratification. But 100%, you know, based on multiple papers, research, I suppose just practical success, is one of the key things you need to learn if you want to achieve things. And by way of metric of achieving things is feel fulfilled, is you need the ability to delay pleasure, to learn the skills to actually push through the pain. This is why I think being a hedonist and just someone who— because the other, the other part, it's like, well, why should I delay? You know, if, if life is short, as you know, in your instance, let's say you don't believe in an afterlife, and I'm kind of undecided about that personally because I don't know. Like, no one knows. No one knows. You know, people say things like, you know, we're reading, you know, Buddhists, I think you're reincarnated, there's an afterlife, there's a heaven, there's a hell. There's this, and depending on religious beliefs and backgrounds and cultural beliefs and backgrounds, there's all these different permanent combinations of all these things. And, you know, spirit and soul— I definitely believe in spirit and soul, and that is eternal. But what he's after, like, no one knows, right? Um, so I don't know is the answer. It's an infinite possibility. So in saying that, on one hand, if life is temporary and you only get one shot, then why not live for pleasure? Why isn't that like our highest thing? And I think because pleasure is not why you're here, fundamentally, whether you believe that you get one trip around the sun or whether you get multiple trips and goes at this, I think fundamentally is, is most, if not all people will feel fulfillment in the service of others. And that gives meaning, which gives fulfillment, because if you don't have a meaning to an anchoring point in life to hook yourself into, life can feel very aimless. And when it feels aimless, you feel that— not— think of nihilism, think of what's the point of everything. And when you go to nihilism, then it becomes just pleasure-seeking, which then you don't— then the cycle of not having any fulfillment and having any satisfaction in life, which then creates a downward cycle. Thoughts?

Um, totally agree. And I think if we take off our philosopher robes for a second and put our PT hats back on, If we talk about, say, the, the one for instant gratification in the context of food, I know this is something that you talk about in your book, where, where at the end of the day, we're still the same human beings that we were millions of years ago who didn't know where our next meal was going to come from. Whereas now we live in an age where food is, is readily accessible everywhere we go. And highly palatable foods essentially make it a lot easier to, I guess, hijack the, the pleasure center of our brain, which is, well, you know, causes people to fall into, you know, looking for those highly palatable foods and just not being able to, to put it down, even though our bodies don't actually know that, yeah, the food is available and we actually do know where our next meal is going to come from.

I think Because of that, I mean, it's people like, you know, David Goggins of the world, the Wim Hoffs of the world. And the reason why these guys have so big of a following in terms of the movements that they've made is because these are guys who voluntarily seek out pain. Because I think people, for the most part, what you're talking about with even food, the basic needs and fundamentals of food, we haven't made. And it's like, what's the challenge? And I think when people get stuck in like, what's the challenge, people seek that voluntarily. Things that, you know, whether it's a marathon, whether it's training, whether it's sitting in ice for 5, 5 minutes or whatever, doing, uh, you know, the ultra marathon events that David Goggins does. I think these things is because people identify with these things and go, yeah, you know what, life is too easy. This is— where is the challenge? Where is the— the great gratification because life is feeling unfulfilled. And when people have that, they, they attach. And I think the same thing's true, like I said, bodybuilding. Why get up on stage? Why get up on stage in, you know, dick togs or a bikini and/or board shorts, depending what you're competing in, and stand on stage in front of people and do all that hard work? What's, what's the point? There's nothing pleasurable. But for a lot of people, it's fulfilling because there's an achievement attached to that, and that's what we actually want and drive to. So I, I think as a philosophy for life, whether you believe in an afterlife or not, you need to anchor yourself into that 100%.

I think people get a lot of pride and fulfillment, similar to what you touched on before, uh, in participating in things that are perhaps bigger than themselves or doing things to help other people. Or I know personally for me it's the pride in perhaps being able to do something that not everyone can do. Not everyone can step on stage, or no one— not everyone has put in the work to, uh, do a photo shoot or to run a marathon or to, you know, be the 1% in something. And I think there's a lot of fulfillment that I've gotten from doing something of that caliber.

I interrupt this podcast to give you a very special message. December, we are running an Elite Results Bootcamp. What is the Elite Results Bootcamp? It is a 3-day bootcamp where we teach our systems around strength, hypertrophy, and fat loss. It is intense. There are 6 workouts over the 3 days, and our trainers not only spill the beans on all the techniques, methods, systems that we use to get next level results, We take you through actual workouts so you can experience in real time. If you're a client, if you're someone who's interested in Enterprise Fitness, or if you're a trainer looking to level up, check out our course, Enterprise Fitness Academy, and click on Elite Results. You know, memento mori, you know the phrase. So in Roman, ancient Roman days, you know, it's almost like people say you think of it when things are bad. In actual fact, it's no, when things were good was when it was whispered. So if you had a tribute, which is the highest honor in Roman tradition, if you were a warrior or something and they made tribute to you and you're on parade, you could be like, you know, senator, say in Rome, and people were celebrating you, throwing rose petals at your feet, that kind of thing. You would have a servant, a lot of senators would have a servant who would follow them around. And say, whisper in the ear at this time, Memento Mori, Memento Mori, at the highest peak, which basically was a sign of saying, you know, all this pleasure, all this fame, all this recognition, remember, in a heartbeat, this all could be over. In a day, this all could be over. So Memento Mori means remember that you're mortal, remember that you can die, or remember you will die, in fact, which I think a lot of people take it as when I tell people what it means. And so remember, oh, that's kind of like bleak, but it's— for me, it's not bleak at all. It's true. Remember, you're mortal.

It's quite liberating.

Basket in the middle, you have the first layer of people who are weeping at any funeral. That first layer, people are weeping and very, very upset and sad and grieving for that loss. That's the first layer. These are the people who really cared about you and you really cared about them. And then there's a second layer, which is the people— those people who are just there for the other people, that first layer. You know, the— if you're the son of someone who died, it's the girlfriend or the, you know, the boyfriend, whoever it is. Um, they're supporting that first layer. And then that third layer is the people who just knew you and everyone else who were in and out of your life and kind of— and most people live their lives for that third layer. They don't live their lives for that first layer of the people who actually will be the ones weeping. And for me, memento mori is also about remembering that. It's like, what, what am I doing? Why do I care about what that person thinks about what I'm doing? Because this doesn't bring me happiness, but if I let this go, this person's going to judge me for, for letting this go or whatever it is. And it is very, very liberating.

What do you think of people who like to measure measure their impact that they've had on people, uh, by the number of people who attend their funeral. You'll hear people say, you know, I mean, I'm going to measure the effect I've had on people or how good of a life I've had by the number of people at my funeral.

So I think it's an interesting thought, but I think that's more to do with popularity than it is to do with meaning. And I think people conflate those two because there's been many great men and women who've died that we hear about them years after and their writings have changed the world. But there were, I think Friedrich Nietzsche would be one of these people who I think would check himself into a mental asylum. He's, his books never did anything when he was alive, but then years after, you know, transcends the world of psychology and has had an enormous impact on, on the world. So I think, I think it's, I think there's a lever effect. You can, you can you can have— I mean, it's that saying, right? To the world, you may just be one person, but, uh, to that one person, you might just be the world. And I think that the meaningful— like, because to say, you know, if you— if your fulfillment is raising a family, let's say, you know, and you have an amazing connection with your kids, your wife, or your partner, whoever it is, and you really give, and there's only, let's say, 4 people, or, you know, 10 people in comparison to let's say a Michael Jackson of the world, where there's millions and millions of people who are mourning, you can't say that that meaning that that person had— that mum, let's say in this case, or that grandma— and the effect that she had on her whole family. And perfect example would be my, my nonna, right? Uh, she made the courageous decision to leave Italy when she was, I think, 19, and she bought— her and her husband, they came to Australia and set up shop. And she didn't know the language, you know. My mum was 5 when they moved. She was fresh off the boat. So my nonna might have been a bit older, maybe like 25, but she was young, right? She was a young girl just with 2 kids and then the third on the way. And, you know, that completely changed the course of our whole family life. And when my nonna passed away, there were obviously, you know, she changed a whole generation of families, like 3 families that She had 3 kids, 3 families with grandparents, obviously kids in every family and parents and kids and grandchildren. So I think the impact is not to be understated. Now, that impact is obviously locally, but it's meaningful. And you can be an influencer, you can be a celebrity, and you die and sure, it's popular for a week, for a week. But did that person really have Were they really remembered? Was it really impactful? Is anyone really putting their photo up at their house, lighting a candle, thinking of them? Probably not. So for me, you know, how many people have been in your funeral? I think that's a very commercialized Western way of trying to measure an immeasurable. And I think in the world, I think there are many currencies, not just Bitcoin.

Well, that was going to be my next question. You just said immeasurable.

Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Yeah, exactly. How much Bitcoin did you die with? Determines your worth as a human, but what do you believe would be, uh, the best metric in your opinion of, I guess, measuring the positive impact you've had?

I have an answer for this.

Name it.

A full table. A full table. So for me, my metric of success is a full table, and it's this concept of when I die, I want there to be a full table of people who are at my table and my table is full. That's how I measure my success now. Not money, not gyms, not success. It's who's at my table and is my table full. And have a full table, you have to have good relationships with people, right? And that's what's going to be remembered is when I'm older, um, are people going to want to be at my, my table when I'm older? Are people going to want— like, was I a good person in that sense, you know? And when you say a good person, people ascribe to being a pushover or being, um, you know, constantly giving or not being able to stick up. And I'm not saying that, like, there are times you're gonna have difficulties in relationships, that's just a part of life. But being able to work through those relationships and still have people who want to be at your table, for me, that is a measure of success when I'm alive. And I think for me, beyond that, it's like, well, why do I care? You know, when I'm dead, what do I care? Something, you know what I mean? Like, because I don't know the, the afterlife. Thoughts?

Totally agree. I think I can think of, uh, there was something that I did endure, uh, earlier this year. Even though 2023, I can confidently say, has been the best year of my life, there was something that I did endure that I can actually confidently say was the worst day of my life. Um, which is also a testament to how great of a year it's been, because even having endured that this year. This year has still been phenomenal, but I think the thing that centered me when I was going through it was understanding that the people closest to me were still there for me, still loved me, and my relationships with them hadn't been affected. And if I knew that, when I reminded myself and had the validation that those people were still in my corner, then that was all that really mattered, and it didn't matter what the outside world had to say or what was going to transpire.

Yeah, I think people always— I think that's kind of the world that we live in, is people want the two-dimensional character. They want to make you an Instagram profile, and you are this 2D person who posts nothing but happiness and everything is always great and rainbows and sunshine and hedonism. It's, it's, it's— I think the drug of Instagram and modern life is that people are addicted to hedonism. They're addicted to pleasure.

It's the highlights reel, isn't it? That's all you see.

And, and people aren't two-dimensional. People are kind and they're cruel. People are nice and they're mean. People are happy and they're sad. And that is, that is the truth of life, is the, the opium of the masses is to always be happy, and that's just not true.

And never has been.

Today on Instagram, you know, or any social media platform for that matter, is people don't, you know, it's always contrived when people do. People don't post, you know what, I had a really fucking shit day today, and, uh, this is me looking really fucking ugly. You don't, you know, and when people do, it's, it's a breath of fresh air. Yeah, or it's contrived, you know, it's very contrived, and They're doing it to be the anti-establishment to the fitness model who's always posting perfect photos.

It's kind of the anti-hero. It's like, do you, do you, what, do you need to document it?

Yes.

Yeah.

Do you need to document it? No, you don't. So I think, you know, all in all, um, it's, it's increasingly, yeah, it'd be interesting world when, you know, interesting world that kids, I think, you know, there's a big difference, you know, there's obviously a generation difference between you and I. You grew up on the internet. I grew up with the internet, if that makes sense. You know, internet was there for you. I remember there's 56K modem and was it 56K? You know, and you'd make that noise and connect. And if you want to download a song, it took like 3, 5 minutes and good old LimeWire. Yeah. That's the one.

And your computer needs to download one song.

Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, you know, you would— your friends would burn MP3s and you would pass them around. And, and now, like, kids, they have access to everything. Everything. Actually, I could tell this story, right? My kid the other day, um, said, Dad, I, um, I looked on the internet and I saw a girl. I'm like, so what do you mean you saw a girl? He goes, oh, you know, I looked up a girl And now, you know, he was quite confused. He looked up one of his friends at school who's older than him, basically Googled porn. I had to explain to my son, I go, well, when I was your age, porn was in a magazine and there was maybe 10 women in that magazine with 10 pictures and you couldn't buy it. Like, if I was your age, I couldn't buy that magazine because I had to be 18. Access, you know, how many, how many women could you look up on the internet? Millions. Exactly. Uh, you have at your fingertips access to millions of these photos, millions and millions, unlimited. Most men my age can't handle that. You're 9. Do you think you could handle that? He goes, no. I go, so what you got to do is, you see, I don't want you to look at it, right, because it's going to mess you up. So instead, if you start getting interested in girls, what I want you to do is when you start talking to the girl, say to her, do you want to hold hands? Do you want to play? Or just have a conversation with her. Ask her how her day is. Tell her her hair's nice. Like, have a conversation with her. Rather than, uh, and start talking about these things with my kid. Because I think there is a lot of shame and guilt around sexuality. And kids these days, because they've just accessed— parents, they don't want to talk to their kids about sex, and they don't want to talk to their kids about these things. But your kids have the internet, dude.

Yeah, it's either you're going to educate them or the phone is.

They're going to look up porn. Yeah. And if you're like, oh no, my kid will never look up porn, Man, you know what they do at school these days is they, they merge the school, like, so there's like 5 and 6 or like 3 and 4. So my kid's in year 3, but he's in school with year 4s. And there's, you know, that developmental age of a 9-year-old being with potentially 10 or 11-year-olds, man, the 11-year-old, potentially the 10-year-old for sure. They're seeing these things. They're interested in these things. They're going to bring it down to that year level. And you got to educate your kids on these things.

So pretending these things don't exist isn't and has never been a solution to susceptible to anything that can, that can go their way in terms of It can be them learning something from the phone or them learning something from someone else at school who you wouldn't want them to see, or they show your kids something that you wouldn't want them to see. How much control do you feel like you have over that? How much control do you feel like you should have over that?

This is my stance on it, right? And why I want to be talking about this, if nothing else, I hope people get this, is that I personally think that we're entering the age of transparency. In that there is access to everything. Um, and if you— so in the 1950s, it was the age of obedience. That's how you raise kids. It's do what I say or else. Yeah, but you're not doing that. Shut up. You know, and you get smacked, right? I think that's how my dad was. Like, not my dad to me, but my dad's dad. Like, my nonno, you know, he— my dad got beaten, right? And, um, yeah, if you did that today, obviously, bye-bye. Yeah, bye-bye. That doesn't happen. And you know, then there's my dad's generation and your dad's generation who, you know, got raised by very hard men and, you know, they were hard. And then we got, you know, a different end and they expressed it differently with emotional. And then there's our generation where we're raising kids and figuring it out and we're a completely different new age. And kids have so much access today and so much choice and their brains are just, you know, sponges. And I think the age of transparency is You need to talk to your kids. And I think the age of transparency also brings about a really beautiful dialogue with children. At least that's what I find is that I want to create a space that you can talk to me about anything, anything, anything you want, because if you can't talk to me, you're going to be talking to someone else and you're not going to be getting my advice. And I've lived all those mistakes. So why wouldn't I? Like, who, why, who else is better than me to do this job? 'cause I know what I've lived and I know that I can do this kind of thing, right? It's my responsibility as well as a parent. So I think really it's the age of transparency is how I approach it personally for me in my model of the world.

Well, makes perfect sense because I guess there's no reason why that wouldn't be applicable to children of past, you know, being the voice of of stability and reason to your kids, there's no reason why that wouldn't have been applicable to your dad's generation or your dad's dad's generation, being the person that your kid can turn to when they want to know the answer to something or something bad happens or they're unsure about something.

Well, I think, I think it's a thing of where people, and I think parents, males potentially, we idolize the achievement money, commercialism kind of thing. And it's like, you don't want to give, you don't want to give your kids everything that you never had. Like, that's the myth. I want to give my kids everything that I never had. You do, you do. Yes, that's true. But what's actually more valuable to them, I think, is you want to give them all the advice you never got. That actually is, is for me, it's, it's not, it's not the material. Yeah, I didn't have the video games or the toys. I want to give them that because they're going to forget about that. But what is the advice that you needed when you were 8 and going through all that? What did you need to be told? And it might have just been, you know what, I love you, kid, you know, you're a great kid, or whatever it may have been, but that's what you needed. Or you needed that direction and then creating that space for that. So for me, that's my, say, as a parent, North Star of anchoring into that.

I think, because how, how do you teach a child or prevent your child from enduring many of the same hardships that you have to endure without breeding a lack of resilience? Because I know there's a fine line. There's a, there's a saying, there's a cycle. It's hard times create strong people, strong people create easy times, easy times create weak people, weak people create hard times. And the cycle—

yeah, I'm very cognizant of that, and that's why I don't want to give my kids too much. Yeah, I, I want them to go through hard time. I want them to lose. I don't want them to get the trophy all the time. I want them to earn everything. Um, you know, my kid competes in— he competed in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He got a— he came third. He really wanted a medal. He came third. He beat one kid, and there was another kid that he was very good— like, these kids he went up to. I'm like, it's like, oh, I lost. I'm like, yeah, man, he— the kid was very good. He was, he was excellent. This kid was excellent. And I'm just glad the kid didn't hurt my kid, right? Like, I'm walking away, this kid's gonna be a killer. Um, but yeah, I agree, you want your kid to lose, you want your kid to fall over, cry, and what did you learn? And one of the things I think, primary principles, is you win or you learn. And it is a balance of how much do you intervene, because if you do everything, they don't learn, they're not responsible, and they don't develop that as adults. And I think that's equally as bad, uh, well, probably not as bad, but you know, someone who doesn't do enough has its problems. Someone who does too much, you create dependency. And it is a challenge, definitely is a challenge of, you know, I think Warren Buffett, good old Warren, was I? I think he said it best, which was you want to give your kids so much, you want to give your kids enough in life so they can do anything. But not so much they don't have to. And I think, you know, even if you apply that philosophy to teams, um, in managing people, you know, I, I, I, you can apply that to everything really. Um, you know, I've got an incident where there was a trainer here and he'd been here for a long time and he gave me the program and I said, there's mistakes on here. He goes, what are they? I go, you're a smart guy, you figure it out. Gave him back the program. Okay, just send it back to me when you figure it out. Credit to him, he went back and he started reading, and he leveled up because I just kept challenging him on things because I knew he could take it. I knew he was ready to, to go into that, and he wanted it. And that built resiliency. So I think you can apply it to multiple things.

What's the biggest difference between teaching kids and teaching someone from the team.

Kids don't have the biases of their own bullshit, if that makes sense. Kids are— and they're also unfiltered, so they're not going to give you what you think you, you want to hear. They're not going to give you what you want to hear. They're not going to play a game. They're not going to pretend they like something when they don't. They're just gonna be the mirror for how you showed up. It's, it's kind of, I think, the level of, you know, the emotions that a kid has. You know, kids feel the emotions the same as us, except they have these little tiny bodies. So when they explode, they explode because their bodies can't contain these big, big emotions which they've felt for the first time. They don't understand. I think as an adult you have to really detach. It's like, why is my kid throwing this tantrum? What are they actually upset about? Do they need to be pushed now, or do they need love? Do they need to be challenged? They need a hug to support. And I think when you can take that step back and breathe, um, yeah, so there's, there's, there's a definite difference because between working with adults, definite difference between working with adults and having a child. Who's feeling these things and confused and for the first time. But it is definitely a, a potent, uh, experience in the sense of reflection.

Would you say it's easier to do with kids in a lot of ways then, because they're more of a reflection of you and you understand the emotions that they're feeling and they're less, as you said, impacted by external bias?

See, this is where the paradox is, right? Because in theory it's easier, but there's more emotions because they're your kids. So you're like, why aren't you doing it like this? So your emotional component of it is because you care so much that you get suckered in. And it's not always easy to, to, you know, you need to detach a little bit so you don't have that emotional response. Um, whereas with working with, say, an adult, you can be a lot more detached because You're going to go home, drive your car, go in your house, feed yourself, do all those things where it's like, I really need to teach you how to do this and you're not doing this thing. And if you don't learn this thing, like, you're not going to be an adult one day and I need you to be an adult one day. So you care more, I think, and it's natural to care more. So you have to catch yourself as well. So I think it's, it's different is the answer I would give.

Sure.

I've really enjoyed this conversation with you today, Ari.

Parenting 101 with Mark Tobin.

And philosophy, parenting and philosophy. Where can, where can the folks learn more about you?

And you guys can find me at Enterprise, and you can find me on Instagram at coach.rio.

And my name is Mark Tobry. Thank you for watching. If you've enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast or video on. And, uh, till next time, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart.