Episode 20: It’s Not What Happens To You That Matters, It’s What You Do About It

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and I am now your cohost. Few months ago when I started this podcast, I was in the midst of, I guess what you can call the entrepreneurial struggle. Over the past year, we've built Warrior Soul into what I can say now is a pretty well known military brand. We've been focused on our mission of producing outstanding products for our customers.

We've been focused on our mission of trying to inspire all of our brothers and sisters to live their best lives. But at the same time, you know, I had to look at myself in the mirror and ask, am I doing everything I possibly can to fulfill the second part of that mission, which should be the first? Should be the first thing I think about waking up in the morning. And am I doing the best I can to add to this society to help people to be their best selves? And the honest answer was no.

You know, I've been designing t shirts. I've been putting these t shirts out there. I've been putting out content, but there is so much more we can do. And there's so much more we all can do. So on today's episode, our twentieth episode, we're making a little bit of an announcement.

And I'm happy to say that one, I'm bringing on a business partner, and two, we are expanding our mission. There is a world of tools out there that can help you to live your best life. There are things that people are working on, research that scientists are doing, products that are coming out that can literally change everything for you. Ideas, beautiful, wonderful ideas that you can learn. Beautiful, wonderful ideas that you can implement in your own life today that can help you to live better.

And we're planning on bringing that all to you. But I needed the perfect person to work with. I needed somebody who shared my ideals. I needed somebody who has already given his life over to this mission. And so I'm happy to say that I'm well be welcoming Andrew Marr, the founder of the Warrior Angels Foundation, former special forces operator, Green Beret, to the leadership group here at Warrior Soul Apparel.

I guess it's no longer Warrior Soul Apparel. We'll just call it Warrior Soul now. Andrew, welcome.

Andrew Marr 00:03:11 (link to this point)

My brother, Chris, I am truly honored to be a part of this mission. And, you know, we did a podcast a few months back, and we started to get to know one another and, develop our relationship. And and through that, you know, it became very apparent that our values were aligned and, that our vision for the future matched one another. And, you know, we have this passion inside us to, live in a peak state of purpose and fulfillment, that's realized through love and by contributing and performing to the best of our abilities in the service of others. And that's the direction we're taking this now.

With my background in special forces and now with the Warrior Angels Foundation, which is leading on the cutting edge of TBI and post traumatic stress care, which essentially is able to rewrite that analysis and bring people back to their pre injury status. And, don't take my word for it. You can check it out at our website over there. But what we have access to, like Chris said, is the top experts in neuroscience, the top experts in health and fitness, top experts in veteran specific topics, new mind expanding topics, and I'm not even gonna drop what those could be, but they will expand your mind. You know, exciting things in sports and recreation and and with health and fitness, supplement lines and talking about it.

All this from firsthand experience. You know, that's what we want to deliver to you, our listener. You know? And you will be able then to take that and say, okay. This can apply to my life and make it better.

Or, you know, I I'm not interested in that. But you're gonna have access to premier cutting edge intel, and that's what we're excited about.

Chris Albert 00:05:13 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And and, you know, I I was really excited when you came on the show the first time, and and I'm I'm even more excited to to bring you on here because what you've done so far in my mind with your charity is you've been one of the few organizations that has actually come up with a solution, that has presented something that can work. We're not raising awareness. We're not, you know, and not to talk bad about anybody, but we're not doing exercises to raise awareness.

We're not, you know, just talking about ideas. When I bring someone like you on, you're somebody who's taken action. Somebody who's actually come up with something that can actually help people and that's actually proven to have an impact on people with TBI, on our brothers with TBI, and and for that. And I yeah. My internal admiration.

I think that's such an thing.

Andrew Marr 00:06:13 (link to this point)

Well, you know, what we both are, what what Warrior Soul is, we're solutions based. You know what I mean? Not complaining, not pointing out what it's not going right or what we wish was better. If you don't like it, you fix it. And Plain and simple.

And that's what we're gonna be bringing to our audience. Ways that you can fix a multitude of operations in your daily life that will improve your quality of life, improve your marriage, improve your children. That's what we're talking about. That's real change. That's real impact.

And you know, Chris, we were talking and what kind of what spurred the talk that we had last week in Los Angeles, we're speaking at a conference together was, you know, what was the foundation? What I've seen now is we can eliminate somebody's problems with their neurochemistry. So say somebody has inflammation of the brain, we can get rid of inflammation. We can balance their hormones that are produced in the brain that aren't working properly anymore, and we can deliver them back to a homeostasis, a balance in life. But if that individual doesn't take control of his his or her thoughts, their emotions, their actions, what they communicate, what they put in their body, then at the end of the day, it's not gonna get the job done.

It's you need a complete package. And that's, again, what we're gonna be able to deliver. So what I have and I wanna read what I wanna read here is what I call my standard of performance. And I wrote this this is kind of my value set, my ethos statement, if you will, and I put the pen to the paper after my last appointment because I wanted to make sure that my kids would have something to live by. You know, at that time, I was still thinking I was gonna remain an operator for the rest of my days until, you know, we had the issues with TBI and had the medical retirement.

But that's why I pinned it. I pinned it because I said, you know, I want to leave this behind. I want to have a mission statement for my life. And so, this is it. It's called my standard of performance.

The real measure of life is how the race is run. Triumph and disaster are only byproducts. To run the best race, one must cultivate a process where a laser sharp focus results in the capacity to plan, prepare, and perform to the best of one's abilities. British philosopher author James Allen wrote, we are what we think. Our character is the complete sum of all our thoughts.

Whether you believe you can or that you can't, you're right. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can control what you will feel and do about what happens. And so in one way or another, you can shape your circumstances. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl said, our primary motivation in this life is our personal search for meaning.

His experience as an inmate of a concentration camp was a catalyst for his discovery of meaning in all forms of existence, even the most horrific. History reveals the presence of a relentless search for meaning amidst great tragedy, suffering, genocide, and more. If you have a big enough why, you will always find the how, A conscious effort to perform at one's best in all things at all times in the pursuit of meaning yields unlimited opportunity and fulfillment. Further, I believe purpose and fulfillment are ultimately realized through love and how we give to others. In this way, placing others' needs ahead of our own and consistent acts of selflessness provides for the kind of meaning and success we can only begin to imagine.

When things become hopeless and even when they are not, find a way to make what you do about somebody else. And I found, Chris, that when I follow those general guidelines and I shift the focus away from myself and towards becoming selfless, everything around me improves and things flow effortlessly. And I can see the benefit in my family's life, in my marriage, with my children, and people I come contact with, strangers. You know what I mean? And, that's what you meant to me.

That's what this podcast means to me is, again, another way for us to offer and bring these type of values, not only from Chris and myself, but from the, you know, experts in their field that we come across on a daily braces basis, bring that knowledge in a, entertaining and, way that can be easily comprehended again. And, that's why we're doing this.

Chris Albert 00:11:21 (link to this point)

Absolutely, absolutely. 100% you just went down to the marrow of what we're trying to do here. And, you know, one of the things that I've said I said since I started this journey is that no matter where you are in this world right now, no matter what you're doing, no matter what kind of state you're in, it's never too to take charge of your life and to take charge of your circumstances. There's nothing bad that can happen to you in this life that can remain bad. And what I mean by that is you can learn from everything.

You know, the the greatest lessons in my life have come from some of my most, what would be surface negative experiences, you know, being homeless, you know, going through a divorce, going through a rough childhood, suffering from depression, suffering from sadness. These are the things that teach us how to adapt, how to learn, and how to overcome. And once we're able to do that, we're stronger, more resilient people because of it. And dude, that that was just absolutely beautiful. And what I get from that and what what our purpose here is is one, to bring you amazing ideas.

Absolutely amazing ideas that are gonna change your life or that could change your life if you keep your mind open to them. Now, you know, when we go through life, sometimes we live in a tunnel. Sometimes we're not able to see the awesome thing off to the side that could really impact our productivity, really impact our relationships, could really impact our happiness. And so what we're gonna try and do here is to take a little bit of time each week just to expose you to some of that stuff. And then what we're gonna do is we're gonna give you some tools.

If you wanna incorporate more of this stuff in your life, if you wanna incorporate more productivity, better relationships, more happiness, more education in your life, we're gonna give you the tools to do that. And the third thing we really wanna do here, and this has always been a primary goal, is to give back to the veteran community. To take what we learn from these experts, from the from what we get from our civilian counterparts, and to bring it back to our brothers and sisters to help them to live their best lives.

Andrew Marr 00:14:07 (link to this point)

Yeah. Amen, brother. And, you know, I loved what you were talking about earlier, and it basically is we want to give you the ability to take control of your thoughts. When you can take control of your thoughts and not be controlled by your thoughts, that's when you're starting to rewrite these programs that no longer serve us. And I I can remember distinctly a troubled time in my life when I was going through all the neurological deficits of a TBI, and we had some life threatening illnesses with some of my children.

You know? And I was there at my son's hospital bed and, mixing opiates and narcotics and, drinking, you know, airplane whiskey. And I came to a crossroads, and I said, this is gonna go one of two ways. I can continue to go down this track, continue to blame my circumstances and talk about what I'll never be able to do again and how I've lost this and how unfair this is, or I can decide to act. I can decide now to take control of my thoughts again, take control of my actions, align my thoughts and my actions, and actually affect my circumstance.

Instead of waiting for a cause and effect, I'm gonna cause an effect. And that was a turning point in my life. And, you know, that was able to lead me on the path to find doctor Gordon to get help. And now, you know, through the proper treatment, I'm performing as good if not better than my pre injury status. But it all goes back to what what you're saying.

Like, your only significance of our subjective experience is what we attribute it to. Okay? So what that means is something same thing happens to two different people. One person, you know, twenty years later they say, wow. Why is your life turned out horrible?

And that person would say, it's because twenty years ago this thing happened to me and it ruined my life and that's why twenty years later you still see me in this same state. And what that really means is that person has not grown or expanded or matured at any level in twenty years. And then it happens so you look at somebody that have same thing happens to them, and they live a life of purpose and fulfillment and service. And you go back to them and you say, wow. Twenty years ago, this awful situation happened to your in your life.

How is it that you are able to lead a life that is changing other people's lives? How is it that your family and you are so happy? And what I found is that person will say, you know, what I once thought was the worst thing that ever happened to me is the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm so grateful for that experience because I had to draw on my perspectives. I had to look for new information.

I had to think about doing things differently because the same thoughts, the same actions produce the same results. And, again, when you can take control of that, you can take control of your thoughts instead of being, you know, controlled by them. You can become an observer of thoughts, what I was trying to say. You can take control of your life again. And Chris is a prime example of that through his trials and tribulations.

So, again, somebody who's who could have said, you know what? I've just decided to continue to wire my synapses and my neurons in my brain to the same old emotions that I'm going, that I'm living through every day. And when you do that, and I've seen this a lot in the veteran community, that's why I'm happy to speak about it, is when you think the same thoughts, when you bring up past experiences that don't serve you, you have now created a physiological chemical response in your body that is the equivalent of what you went through at that time. So if you continue to think about things that are not serving to you, that are akin to the stress responses that are elicited from a fight or flight mechanism, then you're gonna continue to live at a lower quality of life. And again, that's because we know in, neurons neuroscience has told us this, neurons that fire together wire together.

And what that means is once I learn some new information, whatever it is, I have an experience and I continue to think about it through a memory, and I relive that emotion. Again, I've now just brought that emotion to the present day, and that's how an emotion goes into a mood, which you keep that mood going for a while, goes into a temperament. You keep that temperament going on for months and that now turns into what? It turns into a personality trait. And now you've just memorized it because of your thoughts a traumatic event that's being relived every day in the present.

You're being haunted by your past by bringing these thoughts up and living in the present. And again, this is all this is not woo woo stuff. This is all very well scientifically proven. And so if we know that neurons that fire together wire together, we also know that neurons that no longer fire together no longer wire together. So how do you change your thoughts?

Well, first, you have to become conscious of them, and you can do that by taking a step back and realizing, hey. Is what all this chatter going on in my head, is this serving to me? Is this helping to inspire and empower myself and everyone around me? Is this helping me to live the life that I want to live? And if it's not, you need to examine that.

You need to examine that emotion and follow it back to its root cause and realize what that emotion causes you to think, causes you to say, causes you to do, and you'll start to realize, my god, I would never consciously wanna do something like that. And nobody consciously would because you're being run by a subconscious program that's been wired in your brain. So again, we're gonna give you information like this and the tools how to offset and reprogram program patterns that were downloaded into your subconscious probably without your knowing because majority of our habits and emotions and patterns are downloaded between nine months and the age of seven because you're at delta and a theta state there for the brain waves. So anyways, some interesting fun neuroscience facts for you for the day, but you know that's that's again how we're going to be able to shape our circumstances and understanding the mechanism at a level where we can all understand it and give it some practical applications about how to apply this to our lives.

Chris Albert 00:21:09 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And and and, you know, just to bring this back to to some personal experience, you know, and this is probably a story that that many people out there would be able to relate to. But, you know, when I was just getting out of the Marine Corps, I was in a relationship with a young lady, and I thought she was the love of my life. And, you know, I came back to Connecticut and wanted to start a life with her, but I wasn't acting right. I wasn't, was not acting right at all.

And I was drinking. I was drinking probably five, six, seven nights a week. I was really just an angry, and I can say this now, disgusting person at the time. I was out womanizing all the time, and then one day she smartened up and she left me. And so immediately I descended into this kind of spiral where I kept telling myself and that the person she left me with was a gentleman from my high school football team that I was friends with.

And she, you know, I kept telling myself this story in my head. This is so unjust. You know, they've been playing in this for months. I can't believe how happy they are together right now. I can't believe what's going on.

You know, I can't stay in this town. So I'm gonna head off to California. I'm gonna show them, you know. So I did that and the whole time I thought moving thousands of miles away was gonna take those thoughts out of my head, but it didn't. I sat there and I was, you know, all through my time moving out here, was like, oh man, I wonder what she's doing right now.

I wonder if they have kids. I wonder what those kids look like. And then one day I was thinking about it. You know, I had been still drinking. I was still, you know, messing around.

And I looked at myself in the mirror and I said to myself, dude, what are you doing to yourself right now? You're not actually living your life. You're living in hate. You're living in a mental hell right now. And every single bad thing that's happened to you over the last five years, that's been your fault, Chris.

Right, you brought this upon yourself. You're the reason why you're so depressed right now. And I said to myself, all right, from this moment, I am going to put this to bed and I'm gonna actually live. And when I look back on it now and it's not that easy to do this when you're in the moment, but I look back on it and I say to myself, if that never happened, one, I wouldn't be sitting here. Two, I would have never moved to California and got into some of the amazing experiences and opportunities I have out here.

Three, I would have never met you. And four, I would never met the girl who right now, the love of my life, you know? And so for all you guys out there who are suffering, who are literally suffering right now, feel like you can't get any better for yourselves. You know, the biggest thing I could say to you is that someday you're gonna look back on this as a really valuable lesson. And that lesson's either gonna come from teaching you not to do things that you used to do, or it's gonna give you perspective on all the awesome things that you learned from this experience.

Andrew Marr 00:24:46 (link to this point)

Yeah. You know, and I I want to I wanna say that, man, that that was from the heart, Chris. That really resonated with me. You know? And suffering, when you get down to it, most of the time, is self induced.

And, it it takes some introspection to to be able to understand that. But, again, you know, it's it all comes down to how you want to attribute meaning and significance and what kind of life are you wanting to live. We're not meant to live in states of suffering. You know, no no no being is is made to do that. We have this limited fight or flight state that elicits a certain chemical reaction to handle, things in a limited, for a limited time frame, and then we're supposed to we need to go back to homeostasis.

Humans are exceptional beings because we can elicit chemical reactions just by thought. And when you start to understand things like that, you start to think, my gosh, I'm bringing on all these undue emotions and feelings that at the end of the day aren't doing anything to help me. And so being able to identify that is the first is the first win. You know, that that's gonna get you on the right track saying, okay. Hey.

I this doesn't serve me. This isn't loving to me. This isn't loving to anybody. I I don't want to be ruled by what it is is fear. And fear then goes into other down regulated emotions that don't serve us.

And so isolating that, finding the antithesis. And the antithesis, the antidote to suffering, I found, is gratitude and service. Service. So, you know, if you're suffering, find a way to make it about somebody else. See see what you can do to put your time and value into somebody else.

I guarantee you that will put value back into you.

Chris Albert 00:26:54 (link to this point)

100%, man. And, you know, that's the biggest thing. And and and I tell young entrepreneurs this because I I coach entrepreneurs in in different venues, but, I tell them this all the time. You want to be successful in business, you have to be in the business of helping other people. Because regardless of what that business is, if it's gonna be successful, you need to be solving problems.

You need to be taking care of issues that people have. And you need to not be thinking about yourself and all the money you're gonna make. You know, it's gotta be about the value. And then the other thing is, living in gratitude, like you said, that entails not just being grateful for, you know, the awesome things in your life. You've gotta be grateful for all the bad things in your life too.

You know, you've gotta tell yourself every time something bad comes up, every time, you know, you miss the bus, you gotta figure out a reason to be grateful for that. And the reason that you have to figure out a reason to be grateful for that is because you have to understand the lesson that you're getting from it. You know, you miss the bus, well, next time you're gonna be on time. You you face the consequences that, you know, your boss yells at you because you're late or you get docked some pay or something like that. Be grateful for that because it taught you the value of being on time, you know.

There's too much feeling like, you know, we're being mistreated. We're being treated unjustly. All the world is against us on this planet right now. We have to get rid of those ideas if we're gonna if we're gonna be strong and we're gonna do great things. We need to get rid of the idea that the world is against us because it's not.

The world is just here to test you and the world has always been here to allow those species that are excelling to thrive and survive. And unfortunately, the world also gets rid of the weak. And when you start blaming everyone else, you create a culture of blame for yourself, that creates weakness. That breeds weakness. You know?

Andrew Marr 00:29:04 (link to this point)

Yeah. I mean, you know, you're devolving and and not growing when you're in that state. But I think, what it comes down to is choices. You know? What what life is about, what free will is is the ability to decide what choice we're gonna make.

And whatever that feedback loop or mechanism is from that choice, it's another opportunity to understand, okay. I can't I shouldn't proceed with the same actions, the same, thoughts because that choice lead led has led me all my life to these results. So start thinking about choices as an incredible opportunity to get it right. And don't beat yourself up. Just look at it as feedback.

Take the feedback, take the data, and say, okay. I'm gonna make a better choice when I'm confronted with this situation next time or a similar situation. Choices. You know? Choose better choices.

And at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is we're trying to make this whole system better, more organized, structured, going towards love and away from chaos. And when you're in a habit of being conscious of your thoughts, having your thoughts and your actions in alignment, making right choices, knowing that every time you have opportunity to make another correct choice or a better choice for you and your family at that time, that's how things start to improve. And they will improve dramatically if you can apply those simple principles.

Chris Albert 00:30:32 (link to this point)

Mhmm. You know, and and for those of you listening right now, Andrew goes through most of his story, in episode 15, and and I wanna just ask Andrew a question right now. You know, you you made a a conscious choice to understand that you had a problem at the time.

Andrew Marr 00:30:53 (link to this point)

Right?

Chris Albert 00:30:54 (link to this point)

And you made a conscious choice to to do the research that was required for you to come to the solution that led to you solving your issues with traumatic brain injury. And for those of you who hadn't listened to the episode, like I said, Andrew was a special forces operator. He was a breacher, and he was exposed to explosion after explosion on a daily basis. And, you know, his brain was literally shaking and quaking inside of his head. And that caused a good bit of inflammation there.

And after a few months of being home, Andrew's personality started devolving. He was getting depressed. He was, you know, dealing with so many negative experiences. There was a time where I don't think Andrew could walk in a straight line because of the issues he was facing. What was the point when you said, I am going to solve this problem?

Right? You might have covered it in the last time, but I'll I just wanna

Andrew Marr 00:32:00 (link to this point)

Well, it it a great question. It goes back to kind of this our central thesis, and it's understanding your why. And why, what I mean by that is your purpose, your mission, what's your what's your own reason, for being. And it's, individualized thing. So everybody is gonna have their own.

And you know what it it it is for everybody? Whatever you make it to out to be. And so what I realized when, you know, I was told, you know, hey. You can't face another head trauma. You know, you can no longer operate.

My entire identity was wrapped up in being an operator, and before that, I was an athlete. And I had a complete loss of identity because all of a sudden, I now I have this, you know, so called medical condition, and I can't do what I felt was my purpose, my mission, my why, and, life was spiraling out of control. So on 13 medications, you know, double double blurry vision to double vision to balance issues, to all the neuropsychological behavioral issues like we talked about. And it it got to a point where I was just like, this is this is going to kill me. And I I I remember a neurologist, had a functional, functional neurologist that I was talking to, he said, you know what?

You've had a lot of head trauma. There there's no doubt about it, but the rate at which you're drinking is going to kill you quicker than anything else. And so what's more important? Your family, your five children, or having another drink? You know?

And I was like, you know, oh, it's it's my family. He's like, if it's your family, then the next time you sit down and you think that you wanna have another drink, you better have you're gonna have to decide what's more important. Is it your family or is it having to drink? And that was October 2014, and I've been sober ever since. And from that day, you know, again, I realized that I had the power to choose.

I had the power to, choose how I would receive, internalize, and respond to the external stimulus and the factors in my life. And that and I got tired of I was unhappy with the medical system. Was unhappy how my family was treated. I was unhappy how I was being treated, and things just weren't adding up. The level of care wasn't adding up.

The information I was getting wasn't adding up. And so, you know, that that then pushed me when I made that decision to, you know what? I'm gonna get better. That's my new why. And, you know, I realized, okay.

I couldn't be I'm not gonna be able to be an operator anymore, but I'm still a man. I'm still a husband. I'm still a father. And my new drive in life was I'm like, I'm gonna get off these 13 meds, and I'm gonna be the man that my wife and my children need me to be. Again, the man of my the standard of performance that I wrote about earlier.

And doing that started to put me back on the track. And that's where I came to the realization. You know, I thought my life was being about being a Green Beret. Before that, I thought my life was about being an athlete. But when I looked to it, I realized what it was really about, what those what those identities afforded me was the opportunity to belong to and serve something bigger than myself.

So those weren't my whys. That wasn't my, you know, my sole mission in life. That was just my purpose at the time that was a vehicle that was able to drive me to fulfillment. And it's not about success. It's not about attainment because at the end of the days at the end the day, those will leave you empty and, you know, wanting more.

Being on the top, still wanting more. And so realizing that and saying, you know what? I'm gonna free purpose myself, and that is gonna be the key factor that's going to allow me to live a life of fulfillment again. And then when I started focusing on the things that were beautiful in life, my life became beautiful instantaneously. You know?

And we haven't looked back since, but that, you know, that that was kind of the decision point. And and that along with what I said earlier, being at my son's bedside and, you know, saying, you know, I can't believe I'm I'm sitting here popping Dilaudid and drinking, you know, whiskey. But I was doing it to try to to cope because I I didn't know how to at the time. But, again, what I thought was what was once the worst thing in my life was now the absolute best thing that's ever happened to me, Chris. And I and I mean it with with all my being.

Chris Albert 00:37:04 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And and, you know, it's funny because, you know, a week a week or two ago when we were together over in Los Angeles, you know, we we heard some people talk about synchronicity and and synergy and just commonalities amongst people and spirits and things like that, you know. I don't have I I guess I could say that I have the a similar experience to you surfaced on the surface, but I have a similar experience to you, I think, spiritually. And I say that because, one, you know, my my experience abroad with the military, I look back on it like it was a cakewalk. You know, it was I didn't go through half the things that a lot of our brothers did.

At the same time, I also know great loneliness. I know great defeat. And I've been in places mentally where I felt like I had nothing left. Like I had no spirit left to give. And to some extent, a lot of that was based on guilt.

You know, guilt that I didn't go through as much as some of the guys I knew. You know, a good friend of mine was shot in the face in Fallujah, a year or two after I got out. And, my old commanding officer was killed. And, you know, I lost a couple other friends and I'm here going to school. And I'm saying to myself over and over again, I don't deserve to be here.

I don't deserve anything. And I would make these lies up to myself saying, the hell I'm going through right now, I deserve it. I created this, you know? The reason why that girl left me was because I decided to get out, you know? And I know there's a lot of you out there who are telling yourselves right now, I still deserve to be happy.

I don't deserve any of this. I don't deserve life. I'm just gonna sit here. And I gotta tell you all, you do deserve good. You do deserve love.

You do deserve success. But the only way you're gonna get it is if you come to terms with the fact that you deserve it. You know, Andrew was talking about how his family needed him. You know, how his family needed him to be the man that he could be in order to survive and to thrive. And for all of you out there, even if you don't have a family, we need you to do it.

We need you to do it. We as a society need you to be a man, to be a woman, to base your problems head on. If you look at, and I'm not gonna get into politics here on this podcast, but if you look at the country itself, the lack of leadership, the lack of direction that people are having these days, it's because a lot of us are lost. A lot of us aren't taking full charge of our lives. And for all of you out there, you've been in leadership positions.

You know, especially the veterans who are listening to this podcast, you've been in leadership positions. You've been in situations that most people out there have not and will not experience in their lives. And so, in some ways it's your obligation to step up and come to terms with yourself. It's your obligation to care enough about yourself to know that you deserve all the good that comes to you. And that could be you coming to that realization through family.

That could be you coming to that realization by going out there and looking at what some of your brothers and sisters are going through, by looking at some of the suffering in the world that's out there, and by understanding that every one of us has to do something to add some value to this earth if we wanna really find meaning.

Andrew Marr 00:41:44 (link to this point)

Yeah. Absolutely, Chris. And it it's it's about self love. And if you don't have love for yourself, then how can you give or do to anything or anyone else? And I'm not talking about going out and getting a manicure or pedicure or buying a sports car or something like that.

That's pleasure. You know what I mean? That's not self love. Self love is taking control of your thoughts and raising your internal state to be greater than your external world. When you do that, when you can have an elevated internal state regardless of your external circumstances, you've you have self love. And now you're moving to those other elevated states of selflessness, of contributions, of performing at incredibly high levels, and that is what self love produces. And let me tell you, everybody has a right to it. There is no culture, creed, color, nationality, you know, political, association that has a cornerstone on this.

This is something that can be had by everyone, and I believe that's our natural state of being. And the world has deprogrammed us to become almost, just materialistic and thinking about it's how much can I get? And that that when you focus on those things, you're living, again, in a stress response. You're focusing on things that are selfish, revolves around the self, not loving the self. And I couldn't agree with you more, Chris, on that on that point.

Chris Albert 00:43:33 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And and another thing is this, and you mentioned this, that the idea of having a lot of money or that you need a lot of material objects to to be happy. And in some ways, I think that this is almost a plague on our society, the idea that materialism brings happiness. One of the things that I found is that you don't need much to live like you're a millionaire. You don't need much at all.

You know, I I after coming out of living, you know, in in my car and and going through some of those experiences, what I found is that experiences mean everything and having a good morning routine, for example, right? Waking up, getting a good breathing session in, getting a good exercise session in, getting a good meditation session in. I know that some of you think meditation's hippy dippy, but being able to create those experiences for yourself. When you wake up and for example, open up your tin of coffee and you get that first whiff of coffee in the day, and hear the whistle of water boiling, and you're about to taste your first sip of coffee, that to me is worth a million dollars. Those types of experiences.

Being able to feel like I've put work into myself in that morning to become better. You can do that, you don't even need a gym membership for that. You can do that with burpees. You can do that with a good morning walk. You can do that with some calisthenics.

And you can do that, like I said, through meditation. There's so many things out there right now that you could do immediately that can have an immediate impact on your life. So, my next question for you Andrew is, what does your morning look like? What do you what do you do to to get yourself ready for the day and to to get out there on your mission?

Andrew Marr 00:45:48 (link to this point)

Well, I I have a a number of of things that that are important, but I'll also I'll caveat that before I jump into the routine is that in no way, is my morning routine, predicated on the success of the day. So if something happens and I can't do it, it doesn't throw me off. It it doesn't change anything. It just means that some situations or some circumstances arose that I needed to take care of, you know, immediately. And, you know, I think we'll get we'll talk about sleep in later episodes, but, you know, I put a high priority on sleep and I used to just beat myself up if I didn't get up at 4AM regardless of if I went to bed at 2AM or not, you know, or I got eight hours or not.

And again, we'll go into some of the sleep myths and everything else in further podcasts. But if I know that my sleep has been compromised, then being a leader, you have to understand if I do get up at four and I know that now I'm going to perform at a lower level throughout the day, I've just made a poor choice. And so I choose to get the the right amount of sleep so I can wake up and perform at an optimal level. But my morning routine as I like it is right now I do get up around 4AM, somewhere between four and 04:30. I have a sleep system that wakes me up based on my brain waves.

And so instead of waking us up in a deep sleep being a delta or a dream state being a fade wave, it knows to wake me up in a I'm in a wave. And what it does is it allows me to not be in a fog because that's when you wake up and you're still not awake and you're not awake for a long time, that's exactly what would happen. You probably woke up to an alarm and your body was in a delta or a theta brain wave dominant brain wave state, and it's literally taking, you know, maybe hours for your body and your mind to warm back up and come up to a level where you can't start, you know, producing cognitive good cognitive abilities. So that that wakes me up, in a thirty minute window. So I say, okay, what's the time I wanna wake up?

And then I back it up thirty minutes and so somewhere in there it's gonna wake me up based off of my EEG readings, off that. From there, I go right into a meditation. So I immediately put on, some wool socks, sweatpants, and a sweatshirt, and I go through about a, seventy five minute meditation. And what I do with that is it works through some breathing exercises and and some priming, and then I identify things in my life that are not serving me. And, I try to really go inward and identify where those are coming from, how how I act, how those cause me to act, how those cause me to think, how those cause me to behave.

And then I think put myself in several scenarios where I'll now be aware when that thought, when that emotion, when that negative association, whatever it is, comes into play, and, I'll tell myself immediately, change. And, that's my trigger to stop something from progressing. And so I'll go through things that are in my life that I don't want to be there, that aren't loving or serving to me. So after I've identified that and I've worked through those through the meditation, I now will, go through the process of creating my ideal life and future step by step, from everything that I think is, the way my life should be. And then I associate that with, a feeling of gratitude, and I wrap it up in in an emotion that leads my body to think it's experiencing what I'm thinking about in the present.

What that does is it's you gotta understand some some things about the body and as we, you know, we are essentially, we have a physical body and we have an energetic body. If you look at the we took a microscope and we looked at focused up on the arm and going all the way down to the atomic level, the atom is 99.9 with 12 other nines percent empty space, and then point zero with 12 other zeros point 1% particle. And what what I'm saying is is that under understanding that at the subatomic level, we are we are energy, and then that that is actually broadcasted, that energy through our body and through electromagnetic field. And so our thoughts actually produce an electromagnetic field. They can read thoughts not only with the EEG, like I talked about earlier, but something called a MEG, a magnetoencephalogram.

And what that means is that they can use a magnet to read your thoughts without hooking up any wires to your brain. They can read them in the field that's outside of your skull. Very interesting concept. So we start to understand our thoughts produce electric electrical signal. Our feelings through the body, emotions produce a magnetic signal, electromagnetic field.

That's where it comes from. And so realizing that what we think, what we feel actually gets projected into the atmosphere, into the quantum field, if you were if you will, we're projecting that information out there. And that's why the the law of attraction says like attracts like. What that means is exactly that. What you focus on, what you think about, what dominates your thoughts and your actions, you bring into your life.

And so that's why it's important for me that first seventy five minutes of the day to eliminate things that aren't serving me, to rewrite how my future is going to be, and then broadcast a signal that shows that I'm grateful and I'm experiencing it right now. And guess what that does? That tells, that's sends that signal out and that brings that signal back. And so that's how we can manifest things in our life right now. And that that's the meditation process that that I've been doing lately, and it's really been a phenomenal aspect and improvement to my life.

I've been meditating for about two years now, but I've just recently gone to, this, method. And it's, it's I don't wanna give every anything away, but it's from a neuroscientist that, we'll probably have on the podcast here in the near future, and he can tell you more about this stuff firsthand. But after that meditation, I go through some I warm up my eyes. So I go through some eye movements, warm up the joints, then I then I head to the gym. From there, I I have a a normal routine I do.

And then by that time, I've got the things that I need to do for myself, which allows me to be able to fulfill my duties and responsibilities for the day. It's like, when you're on the airplane and, you see those emergency airbags come down, they say, you know, put the, put the airbag on yourself first before you apply it to a child. Well, the reason is is if you don't take care of yourself first, you're not gonna be able to take care of that child. So, you know, it took me a while to be able to come to that conclusion, Chris, and it was like, you know, I feel bad if I'm taking time out, you know, for myself. But I realized that if I don't do these things, if I don't set myself up for success as I see it this way, then I'm not gonna be able to take care of the other things I need to take care of.

So, going through that routine right there is what I've found right now has set me up for optimal performance throughout the day.

Chris Albert 00:54:06 (link to this point)

I love it. I love it. And, you know, it's funny. I I love also waking up at zero four. I haven't been as good about the sleep as you And we've discussed that amongst ourselves.

But, you know, I'm probably one of the worst people with sleep because my sleep usually expands between four and five hours a day. Yeah. It's something that I've been trying to get better at. And recently, I've I've expanded it to probably about six and a half, seven hours. I haven't been able to get to the eight hour mark, but it but it is really something that I've been working on.

Andrew Marr 00:54:43 (link to this point)

And you know what's important, Chris, is it's the quality of sleep. You know what I mean? So we can sleep for eight hours, but if we're stuck in a, a light sleep and then 10% in REM and and 10% in deep sleep, well, we really haven't maximized our sleep efficiency. And so, you know, you could be getting four hours and guess what? You could be having that mostly in theta, mostly in delta, and wake up feeling great.

And that happens to me all the time. So this myth of eight hours or or whatever, it's it's you it's individualized. How that person feels is the greatest indicator of it.

Chris Albert 00:55:19 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And what I found is that I do a couple of different things with my sleep that help me to have a better morning. One, I listen to binaural beats while sleep. These are just beats that you can get right off of YouTube, or there's apps you can get on your phone. They play different tones, and they put your brain into different types of states. So these beats have really helped me to get better sleep.

I usually take about four hundred, five hundred milligrams of magnesium before I go to sleep. And I've been experimenting with the sacrotropin, which is something that we're gonna be talking to all of you about as well, but something brings GABA, which stimulates the calming neurotransmitters in your brain and really helps with human growth hormone release while you're sleeping and suppresses somatostatin, which will will keep you from releasing human growth hormone, getting a good recovery sleep in.

Andrew Marr 00:56:31 (link to this point)

Has that had any benefit yet? Have you noticed anything?

Chris Albert 00:56:34 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. I went to bed. Last night I got to bed about 11:15 and this morning I woke up at zero 03:45 and I popped out of bed. Yep.

And and, you know, I I have a very similar routine to you as you do, but but, you know, I keep my room very dark, which Yeah. I do that keeps me keeps me in a good sleep. And, you know, I sometimes that can create kinda like a cave effect because you're not getting light on you, you're not having that natural light waking you up. But I just popped out of bed this morning. I had a clear head.

I got right into my morning routine. Threw my clothes on. Like to get warm after I wake up, just like you said with your wool socks. And then what I'll do is a lot of times I'll go out on my patio and I'll sit there and just get the air into my lungs. And I like meditating, but I also like priming.

Tony Robbins does a variation of it where you move your arms rapidly for periods of thirty seconds, then you go into a restful thought process, and then you do several cycles of that, and then you bring in positive thoughts, gratitude, utter feelings of gratitude. And then you envision that gratitude coming into you as light, and then coming out of you as light into the world and into the people who you wanna impact the most. And then I do a bit of journaling, and then I get a bit of physical activity in. And that can be anything ranging from like a hardcore weight lifting session to, you know, a high intensity cardio workout, to distance running. And I know a lot people say that distance running is bad for you, but it really helps me to clear my thoughts in the morning.

It makes me feel good as long as you're not doing tons of it.

Andrew Marr 00:58:36 (link to this point)

Then They're tools, right? You know? It it Mhmm. How can anybody tell somebody what what's good or not good for them if it's not Absolutely. Heating their well-being?

And so, you know, what you're giving is awesome tools, you know, that people have choose to in include or not.

Chris Albert 00:58:50 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And then I like to write. I like to be creative, and I get a lot of creative work done prior to 8AM, you know. And and Mhmm.

That way I feel like I've done something. I don't feel like I have to rush and that, you know, when my girlfriend is up, I can have breakfast with her and feel like I've already gotten a great start with my start on my day and and and really have a good conversation with her and not try to rush her out the door or anything like that so I can can get on with it and stuff.

Andrew Marr 00:59:22 (link to this point)

You know? Do you feel like putting yourself in that proactive mode as opposed to, you know, reactive or getting up and chest checking Facebook or checking emails or check checking text? I mean, how does that set you up, you think, to better prepare yourself for the rest of the day?

Chris Albert 00:59:39 (link to this point)

It it it makes me be more thoughtful about what I'm going to do. Because I think one of the biggest problems people run into is that most of what they do isn't actually for them. They react to everything. You know, you react to cell phone messages. You react to emails.

You react to the news. Know, check some people check like cnn.com like 30 times a day to see how what what news is up there. And, you know, for me, one of the things I've learned to be able to do is to keep my phone on silent for for most of the first part of the day and to be up for a while, you know. Right now it's a, I think it's a little bit after eleven where we are and I still haven't checked my email today. And the reason why I haven't checked my email is because I know that there's somebody out there who's trying to impose their urgency on me.

Andrew Marr 01:00:31 (link to this point)

Mhmm.

Chris Albert 01:00:32 (link to this point)

And when it's probably not really urgent, it's probably just something that that that can be solved in thirty, forty seconds. And, you know, if I continue to try to solve those thirty, forty second problems throughout the day, throughout my day, and and and and, you know, interrupt myself from my thought processes, from my flow to take care of those little things, then I'm not gonna get anything done. And so I I create blocks of time to look at email, create blocks of time to look at text messages and things like that. And and that allows me to get a lot more done rather than continually reacting to things and continually living in chaos and living in not my own chaos, but other people's chaos and the chaos they try to impose on me.

Andrew Marr 01:01:20 (link to this point)

Do you think setting up that precedent of not responding immediately or living in time by the email or living or dying by the text, do you think that is able to condition people to not continue to put those things on you, you know, by kind of like default?

Chris Albert 01:01:37 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. After a while, you know, the people get the idea. And, you know, whether it's clients, usually it's clients because I do coach and consult in fitness and write programs for people around the world. They're all in different time zones.

I have business I I do some business consulting, and I have people I work with around the world. I'm working on a business class right now that has, you know, I think 80 or 90 international students from every different time zone. So I make it known to them that there is about ninety minutes that I work on this stuff a day. Right? And whether that's answering emails or whether that's sending things out, sending things out that I want done, and that that doesn't usually happen until later in the day.

I wanna save all my creative energy and save all my my my spirit for the stuff that I'm gonna be putting out there. This the the, you know, this type of stuff. Having an amazing conversation that, you know, thousands of people around the world are gonna benefit from. Writing something that is gonna educate people. Creating products for our business that is gonna move the business forward.

Working on the business and not in the business.

Andrew Marr 01:03:07 (link to this point)

Yep.

Chris Albert 01:03:07 (link to this point)

And I see that's a huge mistake I see so many new entrepreneurs do, is they react to everything. They're putting out fires all day long, they're being technicians rather than being business people, and that's why they either stay in the same place or they feel like they're overwhelmed all the time and feel like they're drowning in water. And it's just little simple tweaks that you can do to the way you think, the way you interact with others, and the and the way you carry out your day that can can have such a huge impact on on whether or not you're moving forward or moving backward.

Andrew Marr 01:03:49 (link to this point)

Eliminating that unneeded stress, I mean, that can be all the difference between the top 1% and everybody else. You know what I mean? It's how we, you know, set things up. Or if because if you're proactive, then you're going after the things that you have identified as, you know, meeting your intent. And so anything else is gonna fall short of that.

You know? And so I I am a big believer in everything you just said, and and I think we can set ourselves up by a success for answering questions like that before they arise. How am I gonna, you know, how am I gonna handle this when and if this happens? And already knowing that, already having a game plan set in place, first of all, it takes away from the cognitive fatigue and the cognitive load you're gonna have to invest in in it at that time. And you say, nope.

I've already made the decision. This isn't important to me because it doesn't line up with my why and my other goals, whatever it is for the individual. But, you know, I I found that to be a huge benefit in in my life as well, in the life of my families and and the foundation and everything else when, you know, you can get out of that reactive mode. Because, again, what is that doing? That's eliciting a stress response based off a, threat, a perceived threat that doesn't really exist in the physical reality that that we live in.

And, you know, that's where, again, we start to get into problems, when you repeat that pattern of behavior over and over and over again.

Chris Albert 01:05:21 (link to this point)

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that, you know, one of the other things that people really make a mistake on is in thinking that they don't have any control over the day, Right? Thinking that, you know, hear so many people talking about, Oh, I have so much stress in my life. I have so much, so many things going on. So many pans on the fire.

But the the thing is, you have to realize that no matter what, you've chosen that. Right? And you've either chosen to take on too much or you've chosen the wrong things. And and you just really have to be honest with yourself about it.

Andrew Marr 01:06:11 (link to this point)

I agree, man. You know, it comes down to what can you really control, you know, outside of yourself. Not a whole lot. So control that. Focus your energy on that, and don't get you know, I found out, you know, with the foundation earlier this year, my happiness was so cheap because, I would employees or somebody else wouldn't be doing something the way I thought it should be done exactly, and that would throw me into this, you know, stress fit.

And I realized, you know, my god. I'm allowing these menial, situations just to ruin, my day. And at the end of the day, what is what does it really matter? How many, you know, people do you think are gonna be doing what I want them to be doing at every second of, every minute of every hour every day? Mhmm.

Zero. That happens about zero times. So understanding that, you know, nobody's gonna do something the way I I think it should be done allowed me to kinda look at things differently and think, you know what? What you know, does it always have to happen the way I think it's it happen exactly? And if it doesn't, should that just ruin my day?

How cheap is my happiness?

Chris Albert 01:07:22 (link to this point)

Right.

Andrew Marr 01:07:23 (link to this point)

And that, you know, that allowed me to to come to these conclusions to say, you know what? I'm not gonna let that rule me. I'm not gonna let that rule my emotions. I'm not gonna let it rule my behaviors. And so I'm going to affect what I can control, which is my attitude, my effort, my thoughts, things like that.

And and that's that's when you start getting that upper hand, without trying to get an upper hand because you're just living at a at a elevated state.

Chris Albert 01:07:49 (link to this point)

100%. 100%. And and, you know, we all have to make that choice. We all have to tell ourselves how what's our happiness worth? Is it worth ruining your day over a little insignificant thing?

Are you allowing yourself to live in suffering in this short time that we have on this earth because of some limiting belief that really if you if you break it down, it's just a little tweak you can make in your life, a little tweak you can perspective. Are we searching for the things that can change our perspectives on these things? And that's what this podcast is gonna be about. Giving you simple tools that you can implement that can have huge dividends in your life, in your performance, and making you the person you want to be. Right?

Being the person you should be, being the person you need to be if you're gonna fulfill your purpose here on this earth. And so one of the things Andrew and I were talking about last night while we were planning this podcast out is we wanna hear from all of you. We wanna hear what your struggles are. We wanna hear what your problems are. We want to answer some of your questions here to, you know, make sure that we're doing our jobs.

So I'm gonna create two ways of doing this for this show. One, I know that some of you out there are suffering from significant problems and maybe you don't wanna put this stuff out there on social media. So I'm gonna create an anonymous survey on SurveyMonkey. And this this simple question is gonna be, what is your greatest struggle right now? What can we help you with?

If you have a question for us, you can put it up there. The other way is if you have other questions that you think a lot of other people in this community could benefit from and you want them to see the question and and see who it's from, we can utilize social media. And so you can go to our Facebook page, Warrior Soul Apparel, and I'll put links for that in the show notes for this episode. Or you can go to our Twitter account, which is Warrior Soul Gear. And if you want Andrew's personal Twitter account what's your personal Twitter handle, Andrew?

Andrew Marr 01:10:43 (link to this point)

It's at WAFTBI. Warrior Angels Foundation traumatic brain injury. Yeah. At WAFTBI.

Chris Albert 01:10:52 (link to this point)

I'm gonna put links for that in the show notes as well. But we're here for all of you. You know, we want this podcast to benefit every single one of you in some way, whether we we give you a thought that's gonna have a positive impact on your life for for the next few hours, that's gonna make your day better. Whether we give you a tool that can completely change your life and change the course of your life. Whether we help you sleep better, help you work better, help you love better, help you create better.

Whatever it is, we wanna have an impact on there, and we wanna hear how we can help you guys. So, Andrew, any other things you wanna talk about for this week?

Andrew Marr 01:11:40 (link to this point)

I I think that's it, man. And just to add on to what you said, you know, everything that we aim to do, we're we're talking about from a place of, you know, personal experience, trails that we've already blazed and, lessons that we've learned, you know, and what's the prep lessons learned in the practical applications. And then if it's an area that maybe we don't have that much experience in, man, you guys are in for some treats because we have access to, just an incredible network of, professional professionals and subject matter experts that are literally gonna rock your mind, in the in the best way. So just could not be more excited to be a part of this as we, continue to ignite and start the revolution.

Chris Albert 01:12:25 (link to this point)

Absolutely. And it will be a revolution. A revolution of productivity, of consciousness, and of leadership in this community. So I'm really looking forward to this, and, I'm so excited about what's coming. So until next week, guys, this is Chris Albert and Andrew Marr with the Warrior Soul podcast.

And we will talk to you next week.