Why You NEED to Let Go of Ego & Finally Be VULNERABLE | Matthew Hussey

It's nice to have areas of our lives where our competence in an area is visible from the outside. People can see it, people acknowledge it. That's nice. But if we're needing that in every area, we're going to live very small lives. How many people don't go to the gym because they're out of shape? I mean, think about that. There's a lot of people who don't go to the gym because they're out of shape.

Yeah. Right.

And that's a resistance to being bad at something.

I feel like I need to ask about your ongoing recovery because I know I've seen you hobbling into the studio today, just hauling yourself into your chair carefully like a granddad. And I'm wondering, what's going on with old Matt?

Well, I tell you, Steve, this is actually the best I've been walking all week. I, for a lot of people, they know I recently did the it's called Hell on the Hill. It's a challenge at Jesse Itzler's house. How do you even describe this? This is. There is a big hill outside Jesse Itzler's house. Jesse Itzler is a guy that came to the Wim Hof retreat in Poland with me. You know, Steve, you know, back when I did the Wim Hof retreat in Poland, which, my God, we could do a whole other episode on, but that was. us, me and a group of guys, some amazing guys, it's a superhuman type guys all went to Poland to do Pursuits in the snow and the ice that were, I mean, designed to freeze our balls off and see what we had in us, basically. So that's what we did. But since then, I've had this amazing tribe of guys, Steve, that every time they get together, you sort of can't say no because you know it's going to be interesting. You know you're going to get so much from it. And even if it's something you don't want to do, you still say yes because you just know that the time together is going to be worth it. Well, this was one of those things. It is a it's a race where you have to go up and down this giant hill a hundred times. It takes four hours to complete. So it's like the length of a marathon.

And.

And by the way, it's not like it really takes an hour, but they give you four just for the people that, you know, need to take their time. It takes four hours at a good Pace. If you're not at a great, like, if you're not going a good Pace that whole time, you're done. You're not going anywhere. You're NE, you're never gonna finish. and I'll tell you, Steve, I was doing it with our friend Lewis Howes. I was doing it with Jesse Itzler. I was doing it with Mitch, like all these amazing guys that came to Poland with us. I wasn't ready. I was not prepared for this.

I mean, these are guys, you know, your. Your group of sort of Superman friends, if I can call it that.

You know, you're, you know, and, and you, you know, Steve, I'm not, I'm, I'm a person who's, I'm a fit person. I work out. I, I've boxed for a long time. I'm not, do you know what I mean? I'm not precious in that area.

No, no, you, you work out. You're not a big cardio man.

I think that's, no, I'm not.

But, but these are a group of, these are like your, your man friends. that you've made and you, you know, you love your little man bonding time. And yeah, I do. I couldn't be happier for you. And they're all very, you know, kind of semi thrill seeking, athletic, manly competitive men. And this is the kind of thing where any, any guy in that group is going to feel like he's got to keep up fitness wise. So did you sort of go, were you sort of bowling it in thinking, well, I've done the Wim Hof now, I've proven my mettle. this is running up a hill. I can, you know, I can just style that out. Were you prepared for what was coming?

Well, you know what I thought, Steve? I was like, I, you know, I box a couple of times a week. I do jiu jitsu. I've got, like, I mean, I'm in decent enough shape. I'm in pretty good nick. And, you know, someone even said, someone even said before the hill, because they know I'm a boxer. Someone said to me, Matt, and he, this is one of the, like, ultra marathon runners. How, I don't know exactly, Jameson, how far do ultra marathon runners run? It's like a hundred miles, right? Something like that. Yeah, it's wild. I've heard you say it's a hundred in a day, which I still can't wrap my mind around. Yeah, well, Jesse Itzler's no, no, one of his feats is he was known for running a hundred miles in a day. And one of his super, one of his ultra runner friends, said to me before the race, Matt, let's just remember, you're not getting punched in the face. So whatever it is this is, it ain't as hard as what you do all the time. It's not, this isn't getting punched in the face. No one's punching you in the face as you're going up and down the hill. Well, Steve, it bloody well felt like they were. They may as well have been punching me in the face. because this thing was so much harder than I could have ever realized. And by the way, I'll tell you this, here's my journey there, right? I get on the plane. I've already underestimated what's coming. I'm so casual that I realize I forgot my running shoes. I've got a morning in Manhattan before going out to the house where it's happening, could have gone to pick up a pair of running shoes, but thought, I've got quite a lot of work to do. You know what? I'll just wear my Air Force Ones. So my clumpy, heavy, flat-footed Nike Air Force Ones were what I decided would be okay. to scale this hill a hundred times. And I got there, Steve, and people looked at me like I was either the dumbest man on the hill or was being paid a fortune by Nike. And I'll tell you which one it was. I didn't. I don't have any money in my pocket after that hill, and no one.

Was filming it, so it wouldn't have been really. been a big thing.

Oh, no, they were filming it. They were filming it. But, but I, I'll tell you this, Steve, if Nike were filming it from the point of view of trying to show what their Air Force Ones could do, they wouldn't use the footage. They'd say, look, we'll, we'll pay you because we've got a contract, but we can't air this. This is, this is bad for our brand.

Use that shot of Matt crying. Crying with his shirt off in his Air Force Ones. Holding his swollen feet.

Steve, I have, I don't think I've ever done something that physically demanding or painful in my life.

So what is it? Is it the incline? It's not, because the distance isn't long, right? Is it just the incline? It's like going up steps.

Well, it's the incline and the decline, because the decline is just roughing up your knees the whole time. It's just pounding. You know how going downhill is hard on your knees? so every time you're going down, your calves and your knees are getting destroyed. And it got to, I'll tell you, I was on pace with a bunch of people until about lap 50. And then the people I was going around with started disappearing. And, and I just, at 50, I thought, I had this moment, Steve, you've done a marathon, haven't you?

I've done one marathon.

Right.

I don't know if you had this moment on the marathon, but I had a marathon. I had a moment around lap 50 where I thought, oh my God. This is like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I have 50 laps to go and I'm all, my body is already shot. Not to mention, I wasn't on pace. I was not on pace to finish in the four hours. That was the terrifying part. I realized that I wasn't going fast enough to finish the race in time. So I was going to have to do the second 50 laps faster than I did the first 50.

Oh, God. Four hours is longer than I thought that was as well, the 100 laps.

Four hours at a good click going up and down the hill. And I, I mean, I, Steve, you know me, I burn easily. I was either dowsing myself in, in sunscreen at the top of the hill every time I went, did a lap, or at the bottom of the hill, there were people that could see my, there's all sorts of people on hand to to try and help you. At the bottom of the hill, my legs, they could see my legs had completely locked up. Like I was carrying them around like they were just two stumps that I was dragging. They weren't moving properly. They weren't bending. If I made one wrong move, you know that excruciating cramp that makes you feel like if the definition of hell must be this feeling forever. yeah, I, I, they saw that and they were just chucking salt water down my neck, trying to get, like, trying to uncramp my legs for me so that I could keep going. It was a horror show. And then in the last, and then in the last fifth, in the last. No, it was the last eight laps. I got to lap 92 and Mitch and Lewis could see. that I was cutting it so fine to be able to finish in the time limit. So they started coming around with me on the downhill part, holding my arms and my back so that. Because by this point, by the way, my knees were shot. Like, I couldn't. My knees were done. I was like, if I keep going down this hill forward, I'm gonna screw up my knees big time. So I thought, you know, you always have that, there's that conflict. I once heard the Rock tell a story about, like, about wrestling when he'd massively injured his back in the middle of a fight. And he tells an inspirational story of continuing on and finishing the fight. And I sort of, I remember reading the comments for it, and there was one person that was like, yeah, finish a fake fight. to prove to everyone that you can finish when you're risking long-term back injury in the process. That seems like a good idea. And I remember thinking that it's true. That's a valid perspective. Like, I don't know if the inspirational story is the one where you stop because screw pride, let's protect your back, or the one where you carry on and potentially injure yourself for life because you wanted to prove to everyone you could. You know, like it's, that's always about, and I, I, my knees were shot and I was like, is it worth it to screw up my knees for the sake of finishing this thing? But I found the solution. And the solution was going down the hill backwards. So I started, every time I had to go down the hill, I started going backwards, which is dangerous because if you take a tumble down the hill, that's a different kind of problem. So because I wasn't on pace, I was having to go so fast down the hill backwards, like I was having to do a bit of a sprint backwards to make it in time. So the lads had to hold me so that I didn't trip and go rolling down the hill and could go really fast. And there were times where I was going too fast for them to hold me. So they weren't able to go fast enough to keep up with me as I was going down backwards. It was, and Steve, I'll tell you this, it made me feel like I was back in high school and I was 11 years old. Because when I was 11 years old, I remember doing a race for swimming. And I don't want to make anyone think that I'm some incredible swimmer here, like I was on the swim team. In England, I don't know if it's like this in America, in our school we had houses like Harry Potter. You know, we had different houses you belonged to. You and I were in North House, weren't we, Steve?

Yeah.

North House, we had to, basically they needed swimmers for the race, so they just grabbed the nearest people in the end. I was in this swimming race doing breaststroke. Well, I tell you, Steve, I'm actually not bad at front crawl. But my breaststroke, if I was trying to get away from something in the ocean, I'm dead. That's it. If they said you could get away, you could only escape this thing through breaststroke. I'd just say, Just eat me. I was in this swimming pool, Steve, and racing against the other kids, everyone had finished. I had about two laps to go. And it was just me in the pool swimming on my own in a race. Imagine that. I'm having a race where I'm the only one in the poll. So this reminded me of that. I haven't felt that feeling, Steve, since I was 11 years old. Like I said, I walk into a boxing gym. I feel capable. I know what I'm doing. I got on that hill and. And I was amongst the last to finish that race, and I had this really weird. feeling where I had this very strange mix of emotions. I was a bit embarrassed. I felt a bit of shame, like I can't believe I've I cannot believe that I am struggling this hard and I was looking at all the people at the top of the hill who had done their 100 laps already and think and being like, you know, that immediate feeling of I'm not as good as everybody else. and then at the same time, I've got my friends helping me down the hill who have already done their 100 laps, who are helping me as I'm running backwards down this hill in order to make time, which was one of the most beautiful acts of friendship of my entire life. like I, at the end of that race, I felt in, I felt emotional. Like I got teared up, I choked because I couldn't, it was such a, a beautiful act of love that they wanted to help me finish. And, and I remember at the end, everyone cheering me on. And it was such a, it was such a funny feeling, Steve, because I'll tell you this, in any other context, everyone cheering me on for being the last person to finish would. Would be my nightmare. Like, you know, it wouldn't. It wouldn't be. It wouldn't be a movie moment for me. It would be my nightmare. Yeah, it would. I'd feel. It would be like the ultimate in. in feeling patronized.

It's like a tension for the wrong reason.

Exactly.

Everyone looking at you.

And. And let me tell you, this was so weird. I. I actually. I. I had a moment where my brain, my pride was doing that to me, and then it stopped. And here's why it stopped. I. I had a moment of complete. acceptance where I just went, this is as good as I can do today. This is not, this is not people cheering me on for half trying. This is, this is whatever I am today. This is where I am.

Yeah.

The hill don't lie.

No, no. Do you know what's so funny? Someone literally said, the inverse of that. Someone said at the end of the race, and this was one of the super athletes, but he was just like, man, the hill was honest today. He literally used that language. The hill was real honest today. But I, that's as good as I was that day. And that's as much as I'd prepared. and that's. That was me having given my all. And so it was very freeing because instead of thinking I should have been this or I could have been that, I just thought it doesn't matter. None of it matters. None of the judgment of myself matters because this is as good as I am right now. now, the fact that if I do that again next year, which, let's face it, I almost certainly will, and the fact that I'll prepare differently for that, and that I, well, I actually will prepare for that full stop, is a different thing. I, I can be better at that. I can learn more about what it takes to actually be good at endurance sports, which have never been my thing, but. that's as good as I was on that day. And I think that it was a real good lesson because, Steve, you know, we've talked about our publisher, Karen Rinaldi's concept of suck at something. You know, Cameron Rinaldi has that idea that you should be prepared to suck at something that. That a beautiful life can come from not just doing things you're good at, but. Being okay with sucking at something, whether it's because you're just not good at it and never will be, but you enjoy doing it anyway, or whether it's because you're at the start of your road on something and you have to be prepared to suck at something in order to get better. Sucking at something is important.

It's a very freeing philosophy.

Right.

I needed that philosophy on the hill. That it's okay for me to suck at this. Like, that's okay.

And.

It made me realize for myself, God, how many areas am I still... How many areas of my life am I still resisting sucking at something that would open up my life if I stopped resisting not being good at that thing? Is the resisting not being good at something that stops us from doing it in the first place? When you think of public speaking, It's the resisting the resistance of being bad at it is what stops us from doing it. Because no one's gonna, you know, it's not like you're standing in the, in the, you're standing on stage in the theater and someone's gonna take a shot at you.

Yeah.

You know, no one's coming to the, no one's coming to assassinate you. It's just, you public speaking. The resistance to being bad at it is what stops you doing it. Whether it's the gym. How many people don't go to the gym because they're out of shape? I mean, think about that. There's a lot of people who don't go to the gym because they're out of shape.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And.

And that's a resistance to being bad at something. You know, on some level, it's also a fear of discomfort or a fear of pain, but. But it's also that feeling of I'm gonna be bad at this.

Yeah, people who don't do the gym have a often have a very strange aversion to even being in the gym working out. They think there's gonna be a spotlight effect and it's gonna really show them up. Like, oh God, if I walk into a gym, what am I gonna look like?

And it is this ultimate fear of being bad at something. I'm not as good as other people. But the thing is, the thing we all have to remember is there are areas where we're pro.

Right?

If in your job, you may be a pro or you may be a pro when it comes to kindness. You might be a pro when it comes to empathy. Like if someone came to you with a problem, you're a pro at sitting and and connecting with them and listening, which is why everyone comes to you to talk about their problems because you're like a Jedi master when it comes to helping people with their problems. It's nice to have areas of our lives where we are, you know, our competence in an area is visible from the outside. People can see it, people acknowledge it. That's nice. But if we're needing that in every area, we're going to live very small lives. Our lives will contract. They will not expand. because you can't be that in every area. And a big part of what we talk about, a big part of the Love Life philosophy, both here with the Love Life podcast and in our Love Life Members Club, a big part of that philosophy is life expansion. It's expanding out your life, the people that you know, the experiences you have, the emotions you experience, the things that you add. to the portfolio of your life. Maybe you have specific love life questions for me about something you're going through right now. Well, there is a place where I answer them, and that's my Love Life Club. This is for a group of people who have decided to be coached by me every month in a more intimate setting than YouTube. If you want to come be part of this, go to askmh.com/club the link is in the description for a 14 day free trial. And you cannot do that if you're not prepared to go into something and be a complete amateur. Yeah. And I'm not even talking from the point of view of getting good at something. I'm saying that even if you never get good, even if all you do is embrace new experiences because you're comfortable with who you are and what you're good at, and you're willing to do something just for the experience of it, just to learn more about yourself.

I.

That day on the hill, I learned about myself. I learned how I pushed through like that was. That, for me, was an unbelievably hard race that I pushed through. that breeds confidence because it wasn't that I did a good job compared to everyone else, but I genuinely did the best I could do. And that's pride comes from that. That's real pride. I also experienced genuine, beautiful love from other people in the process because at the point of complete exhaustion, at the point of having nothing more to give, my pride went away. My pride disappeared. And all that was left was I'm grateful for the support because I really want to finish this race. The combination of hard times and love melted away all the nonsense of ego and, you know, oh, I shouldn't be taking this help. Oh, I shouldn't need this help. I should be better at this. I should be as good as everybody else. All of that melted away in the face of me trying my best. and being grateful for the help along the way because I knew I needed help. And I think that the more we can start to understand that about our lives, that ego and pride and comparison and judgments about ourselves can melt away in the face of us just genuinely doing our best today to get through, to deal with our problems. to deal with our problems. Because that's the thing. When we're comparing ourselves to somebody else, we're comparing, we're not, we're not factoring in their problems versus ours, what they've been through versus what we've been through on that day. Comparing myself to other people is stupid, really. Other people might have trained more. Other people might be built differently. Other people might have done 10 of these races and they knew what was coming. you know, other people might be athletes who have focused on that their whole lives. Other people have different psychology. There's all manner of things that mean that comparison is, is just silly. Because when you're just doing, when you're actually just doing your best, all the comparison in the world won't make you better because you're doing your best by definition. the comparison is completely redundant. And if we in our day to day can focus on doing our, the specific word, our best, if we can focus on doing that and then simply just be grateful for any help we can get along the way, because pride in that sense is silly.

Right?

It's, you know, Henry Fraser, Steve, who came to, he was one of our interviews in the Love Life Club.

Yep.

This is a tetraplegic guy who is the most beautiful human being when he was, I think he was 18 or 19 at the time. He went on his first trip alone with a group of guys. he dove into the ocean. He wasn't diving off of a cliff. He was literally wading into the ocean and choose and dove in, but didn't realize that there was a sandbank in front of him and dove head first into the sandbank and immediately became paralyzed from the neck down. I think he's now in his. I think he's around 30 years old.

.

And, you know, his latest book, which unfortunately I can't remember the name of, but his second book, he literally goes through the daily routine that he has. And the daily routine that he has is one of constant help. It's one of someone helping him to get out of bed, someone helping him to the bathroom. When he paints, because he paints with, he can't use his hands, he paints with his mouth. When he paints, he puts a brush, a paintbrush in his mouth and paints with his mouth. Someone has to help him get into a position where he can sit there with a paintbrush and then paint for the next couple of hours. There is literally nothing in his life, relatively speaking, that he can do, even the things he has to like does to achieve. There's nothing he can do without help.

Well.

That doesn't take away from any of the pride of him doing his best every second of the day. And by the way, it's the same, it's the same with everybody. Everyone needs help, whether they admit it or not. Everyone needs help to get through their day. Everybody. And so, We almost should be less worried about asking for help, less worried about taking help, less worried about seeking out help, and more concerned with what help can I get just to help me be the best I can be. It's why I applaud anybody who chooses to do therapy or anybody who chooses to come to one of our programs or come to the virtual retreat. or hire a coach. I applaud people who do that from an, not from a place of, you know, we all know there's kind of a seminar junkie type. That's a different thing. That's someone who's addicted to help but doesn't actually do anything with that help.

Right.

But I'm talking about people who genuinely reach out to say, I can be better. I want to be better. What can I know? Or what help can I get in order to help raise me? to better. That's a beautiful thing. I really want you to check out this next video. I believe it's going to help you a lot. Click here. We were in the locker room at school when guys made our life difficult or in a place of business where we constantly felt like we needed to be tough, we needed to be alpha, we needed to take control because otherwise we're going to be eaten alive. Not by women, but by other men.