Episode 6: Winning the Battle Within Ourselves

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

Good evening and welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast episode six. My name is Chris Albert, and I am here today to bring you another discussion about life. And today's discussion is going to be about another type of fear. It's going to be about a fear called resistance. And it's discussed in a book by Steven Pressfield.

Then if you watched last or listened to last week's episode, then you heard us discuss one of Pressfield's novels, one of his fiction pieces. It's called The Gates of Fire. And this week, we're talking about one of his nonfiction pieces, and it's called The War of Art. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, Steven Pressfield is the United States Marine Corps veteran who writes about battles. He writes about regular battles, war, and he writes about internal wars.

Wars that we fight within ourselves. And so you see this kind of theme going across all of his writing. It's a theme of strategy. And in particular in this book, he talks to us about the artist's struggle. Whenever we're trying to create something, it turns into a kind of struggle for us.

And that struggle is characterized by a fight between us and our resistance. Us and this kind of devious force that tries to keep us from doing what we want to do. And the book is really tailored to writers, toward creators, toward people who are in arts, and also to entrepreneurs. But there's a lot that we can get out of it. Because if you're listening to this podcast, it means that somehow you want to change your life.

You're trying to learn something that's going to make your life better. And in trying to learn something that's going to make your life better, you're also probably trying to do things that are going to make your life better. You're trying to take big steps. Maybe you're trying to open up a business. Maybe you were trying to start a family.

Maybe you're trying to buy a house. Maybe you're just trying to pull yourself out of that hole and trying to get yourself back in the world of the living. Maybe you just want to be happy, and so your pursuit is happiness. Whatever it is, then it's likely that you're facing resistance. And the reason why it's likely is because resistance happens whenever we're trying to do something that can change our lives.

Something that can change our lives for the better. And whenever we begin the project or attempt to begin the project, or just before we're trying to begin the project, we find ourselves hesitating. We find ourselves distracted. And we find ourselves trying to do anything but actually work on this thing that's going to make our lives better. I'm going to start with reading a little piece from the book.

Excuse me. I lost my page. Most of us have two lives, the life we live and the life unlived within us. Between the two stands resistance. Have you ever brought home a treadmill and let it gather dust in the attic?

Ever quit a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice? Have you ever bailed out on a call to embark upon a spiritual practice, dedicate yourself to a humanitarian calling, commit your life to the service of others? Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless, to run for office, crusade for the planet, campaign for world peace, or to preserve the environment? Late at night, have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being that you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture?

Then you know what resistance is. Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet. It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.

If you believe in God, you must declare resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when he endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word. The Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling. A writer writes with his genius and artist paints with hers. Everyone who creates operates from this sacramental center.

It is our soul's seat, the vessel that holds our being in potential. Our stars, beacon, and Polaris. Every sun casts a shadow, and a genius's shadow is resistance. As powerful as is our souls to call to realization, so potent are the forces of resistance arrayed against it. Resistance is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, harder to kick than crack cocaine.

We're not alone if we've been mowed down by resistance. Millions of good men and women have bitten the dust before us, and here is the biggest bitch. We don't even know what hit us. I never did. From the age of 24 to 32 resistance kicked my ass from East Coast to West and back again 13 times and I never even knew it existed.

I looked everywhere for the enemy and failed to see it right in front of my face. Have you heard this story? Woman learns she has cancer. Six months to live. Within days she quits her job, resumes the dream of writing Tex Mex songs she give up to raise a family, or starts studying classic Greek, or moves to the inner city and devotes herself to tending babies with AIDS.

Woman's friends think she's crazy. She herself has never been happier. There's a postscript, Woman's cancer goes into remission. Is that what it takes? Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront resistance?

Does resistance have to cripple and disfigure our lives before we wake up to its existence? How many of us have become drunks and drug addicts, developed tumors and neuroses, succumb to pain killers, gossip, and compulsive cell phone use, simply because we don't do that thing that our inner genius is calling us to do. Resistance defeats us. If tomorrow morning by some stroke of magic every dazed and benighted soul woke up with the power to take the first step toward pursuing his or her dreams, every shrink in the directory would be out of business. Prisons would stand empty.

Alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, along with the junk food, cosmetic surgery, and infotainment businesses, not to mention pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and medical profession from top to bottom. Domestic abuse would become extinct, as would addiction, obesity, migraine headaches, road rage, and dandruff. Look in your own heart, unless I'm crazy right now a still small voice is piping up, telling you as it has 10,000 times the calling that is yours and yours alone. You know it, no one has to tell you, and unless I'm crazy, you're no closer to taking action in it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. You think resistance isn't real?

Resistance will bury you. You know Hitler wanted to be an artist. At 18 he took his inheritance 700 Kron and moved to Vienna to live and study. He applied to the Academy of Fine Arts and later to the School of Architecture. Ever see one of his paintings?

No, neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it an overstatement, but I'll say it anyway. It was easier for Hitler to start World War two than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas. And there we have it, you know, The big thing about what Pressfield is saying there is that in all of us, have this kind of internal battle.

We have this person we want to be. This person we know we can be. This person that we've crafted ourselves to be over the course of our lives. But a lot of times when it comes time to be that person, when it comes time to step up, when it comes time to actually accomplish what we've always dreamed of accomplishing, we put it to the side because of some sort of fear. Some sort of thing inside us that keeps us from getting what we most want out of life.

The funny thing is that I get resistance whenever I'm trying to do one of these podcasts. I can tell you I I start and stomp this thing like 40 or 50 times before I ever actually get an episode out. And each episode I've done so far is taken about probably a good six hours. Because I record, and I rerecord, and then I listen to what I was saying, and then I don't like the sound of my voice. And then maybe I said something stupid, or maybe some maybe I stuttered somehow, and then I erase it.

I take it off, and I tell myself you're gonna be stupid. You're just gonna sound so stupid if you put that out there. And it's this inner voice inside me, criticizing me, tearing me apart, telling me that everything I've ever done is a fluke, and everything I will do won't ever add up to what I want it to be. And that's my daily battle. That's what I go up against.

And you know I also see how this has been a theme throughout my life. You know for a good ten years there, I was running away from a lot of different things. And I moved from Connecticut out to California, to a place where I had no family. I had no friends. I just had people, acquaintances, you know, eventually I got friends.

But for a long time out here I was lonely. And I would go to the local mall. I would go and sit in the Starbucks, and I'd stare at people. I'd look at families, and I would say to myself, wow, you know, I wish I could have a family like that. Or I'd look at couples and I would say, I wish I could be in a relationship like that.

But then I tell myself, there's no use in trying. You can't be with anybody. You can't love anybody. There is no love within you. There is no way that you're ever gonna be able to give anything to another person.

There's no way you're ever gonna be able to take care of a woman in the way she wants you to. And it stems from a lot of mistakes I made in my past up to that point. It stems from, a lot of insecurities I had leading up to that point. But I kept telling myself I was devoid of emotion. The reality was I wasn't.

But because I kept telling myself that I was devoid of emotion, because I kept telling myself that I wasn't good enough to be in a good relationship, that I wasn't good enough to ever have a family. I kept myself from doing it. And it wasn't until I put those thoughts to the side, and I told myself, these things that you're thinking, they're really just your own fears. Your own fears of opening up to another person. Your own fears of being vulnerable to another person, and your own fears of being rejected.

And they're figments of your imagination. They're things that I made up so that I couldn't or didn't have to put the effort in into opening myself up to somebody. And it was that resistance, that form of resistance that robbed me of a long period of time in my life when I could have been developing fruitful relationships where I could have opened myself up to somebody. But I'm glad it didn't in the end because the girl I'm with right now is absolutely amazing. But the only reason I could be with her is because I was able to overcome that.

And I was able to realize that those things I kept telling myself, they weren't reality. They were just things that I was telling myself to keep myself from actually doing the work, to improve myself, to make myself a better person, so that I could be in a relationship, so that I could give something to somebody else. It's been the same thing with my business. You know, for a long time, Warrior Soul Apparel, it sat fallow. It wasn't doing anything.

I mean, I looked back at my year long revenues. And in May of last year, one year ago today, I earned a total of $100 in sales, which is a fraction, a minute fraction of what we earn today. And I think back on what was going on at the time. And it was because I kept telling myself that it's too hard. You know, I kept telling myself that I don't want to get I didn't I didn't actually tell myself this.

I I kept telling myself that everything I had tried up to that point wasn't working. And I kept telling myself that the business the business wasn't viable. You know, people wouldn't like this type of clothing. And the reality was I was just all I did was put up a website and make a few Facebook posts. I really wasn't trying to get in touch with anybody.

But it wasn't until I realized how little I was doing that I actually started to put the work in. And I started building our social media following, and I started creating good content, and I started spreading our message out to all the Marines and all the veterans out there. And it was only at that point when we started to make some sales. And the reason why I held off on for so long was because I was scared of putting my message out there. I was scared of the rejection.

So resistance took over my life for a good year and a half before this business ever did anything. And the other side of that story was that I was too comfortable. Know, an as an online trainer, you know, prior to being an online trainer, I had a really hard life. I was working fifteen hours a day for virtually no money, because I had another failed business that that didn't work out. And because of my financial situation I had ended up living out of my car and I was homeless.

But when I started online training money came in and I was making a pretty good living off of just working a few hours a week. And so I had a lot of time on my hands and and life was really comfortable. And so part of me just wallowed in the comfort. Because I was so comfortable I didn't want to put the work into to start a new business, even though I knew that having Warrior Soul and starting this company that was dedicated to veterans and dedicated to United States Marines and dedicated to soldiers, and dedicated to sailors and airmen. I knew that this was my dream.

But every time I went to put the work in, every time I went to try and do something, would get almost fearful. I'd be brought back to that time when I was sitting in my car with no place to live, listening to the radio to try to go to sleep. I'd be brought back to that time when I was sitting there in the Starbucks looking at the couple in a beautiful relationship and wishing that could be me, but thinking that I didn't have what it took. And there was a period of time when I had this company where I would go to other companies websites, and I'd wonder in my mind how much money they were making, and I'd wonder in my mind how many people they were reaching, and I'd wonder in my mind how happy their NCOs were, not their NCOs, their CEOs were. And I would sit there with jealousy in my heart.

And that jealousy emanated from the thought that I could never be them. That I could never do what they had done. And it was a bitter feeling. It was the coldest feeling I'd ever felt in my life, next to the loss of a loved one. Because I felt empty.

And I felt like everything that I had done in my life up to that point was meaningless. And what I wanna tell all of you is that I know. I know that those of you who aren't exactly happy right now, who might be experiencing depression, who might be dealing with one stressor or the other, or who are struggling through life. I know what it's like to sit there. I know what it's like to watch the rest of the world and think that the rest of the world doesn't care about you.

I know what it's like to think that you're the only person in the world who has shitty luck. But my message to you today, and one of the major themes of this show, and the themes of everything I do with Warrior Soul Apparel, the world's not against you. The world is just the world. The world is going to do what it does. And that makes it a pretty difficult place to thrive. But there's a lot of people out there who do thrive.

Because they thrive, you can thrive. You just have to realize that the world's not your obstacle. Your main obstacle is you. Your main obstacle is the things that you tell yourself, and the things you tolerate, and the things you justify. So you got to think to yourself, what am I justifying right now?

What am I tolerating right now? What am I telling myself that keeps me from doing what I should be doing? What types of lies am I creating in my head that keep me from being happy? What types of fibs am I telling myself on a daily basis that keep me from putting the work in that could change my life? You know, and it could come in so many forms.

You could sit there, and you can make up a million stories for why you can't get something done. I'm going to go back to the book real quick. I wake up with a gnawing sensation of dissatisfaction. I already feel fear. Already the loved ones around me are starting to fade.

I interact. I'm present, but I'm not. I'm not thinking about the work. I've already consigned that to the muse. What I'm aware of is resistance.

I feel it in my guts. I afford it the utmost respect because I know what can defeat me on any given day as easily as the need for a drink can come overcome an alcoholic. I go through the chores, the correspondence, the obligations of daily life. Again, I'm there, but not really. The clock is running in my head.

I know I can indulge in daily crap for a little while, but I must cut it off when the bell rings. I'm keenly aware of the principle of priority, which states a, you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and b, you must do what's important first. What's important is the work. That's the game I have to suit up for. That's field on which I have to leave everything I've got.

How many times in our day do we tell ourselves that something's urgent? It might be an email, it might be a text, it might be a phone call, but we distract ourselves with whatever that is. Or maybe maybe it's not a phone call. Maybe it's not a daily task you're doing. Maybe it's a quest you're going on your life.

Maybe you're trying to lose weight. Maybe you're trying to get better physical fitness. And on this path to trying to get a fitter body and to be healthier, you end up taking a trip. Maybe it's a business trip. And on that trip, tell yourself you're gonna run into clients, and they're gonna want a wine and dine, and you're gonna have to eat whatever the hell they eat.

The fact is you don't. The fact is you'd have just one drink. Maybe a glass of wine, a glass of red wine, be a little bit healthier for you than a beer. Maybe rather than getting a hamburger at the restaurant, can get yourself a salad. You know?

But the story you're telling yourself is that that's not possible. Maybe you're trying to get fit and you have kids, and you're telling yourself, well, your kids aren't gonna wanna eat fitness food. But how much is it benefiting your kids if you're just giving them junk food in the first place? Are they really gonna grow up healthy? Are they gonna are they gonna have the same problems with losing weight that you had?

So again, you have to think about the story you're telling yourself. Is it really impossible? Maybe you're telling yourself you can't exercise because you have kids. Well, the only thing you need to exercise is your body. You don't need a fancy gym membership.

Maybe you can go out on the back patio and get yourself some burpees done. Maybe you could do 50 jumping jacks. Maybe you can keep a kettlebell in your living room, Whenever you pass by that kettlebell, you can give it 50 swings. But the lie we tell ourselves is that it's not possible. What makes it possible is when we step out of the lie.

What makes it possible is when we get out of that tunnel vision that the resistance creates for us, and we allow ourselves to see what is possible. Because the only way you can get around this type of resistance, the only way you can work to improve your own life, is if you live in a realm of possibility. If you stop telling yourself this is not possible, that's not possible. If you stop telling if you stop telling yourself I'm not made for that. You stop telling yourself, the world's not letting me do it.

Then that's when you enter the world of possibility. It's possible for everybody who is listening to this podcast to live a fantastic and amazing life. And as I've said in the past, there's gonna be pain. There's gonna be sorrow. There's going to be really hard times.

But you have to understand that those times are going to come. And they come to everyone, whether they're happy, whether they're living the life of their dreams, or whether they've been struggling. But what matters is what's important, and what's important is you getting to where you want to go. Taking all the things you're telling yourself are urgent, putting them to the side so that you can make yourself better. And in the process, being better able to handle those little quote unquote urgent things that come up.

Now I'm not saying that you don't want to handle family emergencies, and I'm not saying that you want to be negligent. But what I am saying is that a lot of these things you're telling yourself, they're not really holding you back at all. You're just telling yourself they're holding you back. So for this week, with this episode, what I really want from you is to ask yourself, am I living in the realm of possibility? What is possible in my life?

What am I telling myself I can't do that probably could be done with a little bit of tweaking, with a little bit of change? What small changes can I make in my life that are gonna make all the things that I want to do possible? What are ways that I'm putting resistance on myself? What lies am I telling myself? What things am I tolerating?

You know, maybe it's the fact that you're trying to start a business, but TV's on in your house all the time and you can't concentrate. Maybe it's time for you to go back to a spare room, set up a home office back there, just put a little cheap desk in there. Maybe you're trying to lose weight, but there's no good food in your house. And you keep telling yourself that because there's no healthy food in my house, I can't lose weight. Well, go out there and get yourself some healthy food.

Maybe you can't get to the gym. Well, go out there and do some burpees. But think about not about what you can't do, think about ways in which you can make what you want to happen, happen. And sometimes it's as little as realizing that you just have to make the swap the smallest tweak in your life in order to make some time for you, and make some time for what's important to you. To build your dreams, and to build the life you want to live.

So when we think about getting into building our own lives and taking control, there's a simple concept that applies to it, and that is discipline. And what I mean by discipline is not, you know, some sort of strict hardcore thing. It's not some sort of, you know, it's not like a drill instructor breathing down your neck or yelling at you or screaming at you. It's holding the line in your own life. Keeping yourself on the path to where you want to go.

And you know I'm a big fan of Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and their book Extreme Ownership. And I mentioned this in other podcasts, but they have this awesome saying, it's from Jocko, and it's discipline equals freedom. The more vigilant you are in guarding your time, the more vigilant you are in making sure that you're getting up at the proper hours, and that you're getting the proper rest, and that you're doing everything you need to do in your day that's gonna get you to where you wanna go, the more freedom you're gonna have. That's, like I said, one of the reasons why one of my practices is getting up at 03:30. Because I want two or three hours of uninterrupted work before I interact with my girlfriend when she wakes up.

I sometimes, maybe sometimes I'm not even working. Sometimes I'm just PTing. Sometimes I'm just meditating. Sometimes I just need some time to myself to get my thoughts out. Because if I don't, then I'm letting the world dictate my thoughts for me.

You know, if I wake up at seven and I have four or five texts on my phone, and then I have nine or 10 emails that I have to answer, and I start to answer them right away, then I'm letting the world take most of my creative power. But by controlling when I wake up, and controlling when I interact with people, I'm preserving my strength. I'm preserving my mental strength, so that I can push forward. I'm preserving my mental strength so that I can create, and so that I can come up with new ideas. And I'm giving myself the ability to do what I want to do.

Because without that time, I will be just a little bit more tied up. I'd be just a little bit more prevented from what I was what I wanted to do in that day. But again, it's not the world that would be preventing me from doing it. It's me because I make the choice about when I wake up in the morning. And I make the choice about how I'm going to spend that time.

You all have the choice. We all have twenty four hours in the day. Right? So what really matters is what you do with it. How closely you guard it, and how closely you keep yourself on the path to get where you want to go.

So how do we get into this? How do we actually institute some best practices in our lives that are going to help us to stay on that path? Aside from the general concept of just saying we need to be more disciplined, and the general concept of saying that we've got to look at what's more important in our lives and put some of those little urgent things to the side, and so that we can pursue what we really wanna do. Well, one of the things I've done recently, and this is an idea that I've gotten from Tim Ferriss, who I do listen to his podcast quite a bit because I find it really, really useful, and he's got some really interesting people on there. But, I keep a pack of sticky notes right by my desk.

And every day, I write down three things that I'm going to do. Right? So there are three things that I'm absolutely going to get done that day. And it's usually one big thing, like, today I have to do this podcast recorded. You know, it might be a big thing like maybe getting a big article done or, you know, launching a new project or something like that.

So my one big thing and then two little things like maybe putting out a three to five minute video, for the YouTube channel, maybe, posting a new product, maybe starting a new ad campaign. Those are some of the little things I might do. And so I'll make sure that I get my one big thing done first. That's the first thing I'll do in the morning, and then my little things I'll get done later on in the day. But beyond that, I also do is write down everything I'm not going to do that day.

I'm not going to look at my email. I'm not going to constantly check that the performance that ad to make sure that the click through rate is good. I'm not going to, mindlessly start looking at Facebook. Or maybe it could be a task that I'm saving for another day that I'm not gonna do that day. Maybe I'm not going to talk to fitness clients that day.

Maybe I'm not going to answer any texts that come in from a certain somebody. Maybe I'm not going to work on products that day. Maybe I'm just going to exclusively work on content. But that helps to really prioritize what's important for that particular day at that particular time, and it helps me to stay away from things that are just gonna eat up my time and take me away from what's important. Another really cool thing that I think, all of you should do, at at least it's worked for me, is when I wake up in the morning, I have a little moleskin book, and I keep this moleskin book with me almost all the time.

It's actually a practice I got from when I was serving in the Marine Corps. Kept, you know, one of those those green notebooks on me all the time just to to write things down to, you know, write down knowledge to write down, different things from the squad and weapon serial numbers and things like that. But I keep this little moleskin notebook with me and whenever I have an idea I just write it down in the notebook. And whenever I wake up in the morning I'll usually write down my first thought of the day. How am I feeling?

What kind of thoughts I'm having? Am I happy? Am I sad? What am I happy about? What am I sad about?

What am I grateful for? And that helps me to do a lot of self analysis. Because one of the things I really try to do is if I'm feeling negative about something, I really try to figure out why. So if somebody's pissing me off, if it's a particular person, if it's me, my girlfriend, you know. I'll write down exactly why she's pissing me off, and I'll try to figure out what I can do to fix that situation.

And just, you know, ten, fifteen minutes of journaling that can actually help me to come up with some solutions to things that might be nagging me in my life. Or it might make me realize that my life is awesome, you know, by focusing on the things that I'm grateful for. But these are just a couple of little things that you can do to focus your life, focus on what's important and focus on making your life better. You know, and then I have other things in my day that are like brushing my teeth. They just have to get done.

And those aren't things that I write down. They're just things that I do, like PT, like training. You know, at 10:00 in the morning after I've done my morning work session and after I've got my girlfriend out the door to work and, you know, made some breakfast for her, I don't eat breakfast. I go right out after she leaves, and I PT. I get a run-in.

I get some sprints in. I get some burpees in. And I do that for whatever amount of time I wanna do it. Usually, it's just about a half hour because I gotta get back in here and get get to work. And then at nighttime when my girlfriend comes home, 07:30, I stop work right at right right at that time.

As soon as she walks through the door, put my work down, and we are getting ready to head off to the gym to get some weights in. Because fitness is something that I have to keep in my life. It's something that's important to me. And if it wasn't in my life, I wouldn't be the person I am. That would change me fundamentally and would make me into a very unhappy person.

So you have to think about what you're going to be able to do to hold that line in your life. What are you gonna be able to do to make sure that you're not doing anything that's compromising your identity? You're not putting anything off that's going to alienate you from yourself? Because unless you hold the line there, you're gonna lose yourself. You're gonna allow the world to take its toll on you.

And again, that's not the world's fault, that's yours. So just some thoughts from that awesome book, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. I definitely suggest you read this book, and if you're looking to get a copy, have the Warrior Soul book reading list that is up at www.warriorsoulfitness.com. You can take a look there. Any book that I mentioned on this podcast, we have there on the Warrior Soul bookshop that you can order, and that is a way of supporting this podcast.

We get a small percentage of whatever you buy from that place. And another way of supporting this podcast is by getting Onnit supplements from our site. We have the link up there on the Warrior Soul Fitness website. We're in warriorsoulfitness.com. It says Onnit supplements, and they have some amazing stuff, guys.

I am not a fan of the fitness industry much. I'm not a fan of the supplement industry in particular. There are some good companies out there, but there's a lot of bad ones. And Onnit is one of the good ones. Their Alpha Brain has significantly helped me to be creative and to get my brain to a state where I am able to work for hours, get articles done, get podcasts done, get videos done, and still have enough energy to get out and get in the gym afterwards.

Their MCT oil is also amazing. It's a medium chain triglyceride oil that you can put in things like coffee That's really gonna help to power your brain and allow you to lower your carbohydrate levels a little bit so that you're fueling yourself with your fat cells. Not your fat cells, with your fat stores. And giving yourself some long lasting energy that way without upping yourself with sugar or carbohydrates or things that are gonna have you pack weight on. If you're interested in taking a deeper look at ketosis, can check out chrisalbertfitness.com.

I've actually written a book on it, and ketosis is the state where you are fueling your brain with your fat stores and burning fat by pretty much eliminating carbohydrates from your diet, focusing on a diet that most that consists mostly of fat and vegetables and a little bit of protein. And it's something that I used in my bodybuilding career, in my powerlifting career, in training for Spartan races, and in getting this business up and running because this takes a lot of brain energy. But Onnit's MCT oil can definitely help you out with that. They've also got some amazing equipment there. They've got kettlebells shaped like zombies.

They've got, you know, batons that you can train with. They've got a whole bunch of awesome functional fitness stuff that you can use to set up your home gym for a pretty reasonable price for the type of equipment they have there. You can do so much with a kettlebell, so much with their battle bags, and so much with their batons and things like that. Just awesome, awesome stuff. So if you guys wanna check those out, you can check those out as well.

As far as questions for this week, I didn't get a lot of questions. That might be because I haven't been asking for them. I've been out and about. I was on the East Coast last week visiting my mom. I had an amazing visit out to Connecticut, and I got a chance to visit Philadelphia.

Got to see the Liberty Bell. I went to Eastern State Penitentiary. And this place, if you ever get a chance to go to Eastern State, I definitely suggest you. If you're ever in Philadelphia, yeah, you wanna see the Liberty Bell, you wanna see Independence Hall, absolutely. But get yourself over to Eastern State Penitentiary.

It's the first penitentiary in The United States. And, basically, the place is supposed to be one of the most haunted places on I don't know if you believe in that stuff or not, but it's pretty interesting. And I came across this plaque while I was there, and it was one in one of the central areas. And I posted on Instagram, and it was a plaque dedicated to the inmates who'd served in World War one. And it didn't identify the inmates by name, it identified them by their inmate number.

And I did some digging into it and I found that when World War I broke out, the warden of Eastern State Penitentiary, he was writing out pardons to people who volunteered for the US Army or the US Navy. And I thought to myself, because World War one is one of those wars where it it it was hell on earth. I mean, the Western Front was hell on earth. And I thought to myself, either die on the Western Front or not die on the Western Front, live on the Western Front for a while and experience the immense possibility of death or live in Eastern State Penitentiary. It's kind of a hard choice there.

Right? Because the Western Front at the time was, you know, you're living amongst the corpses of your friends. You're living in your own shit, and you've got thousands of Germans who are just yards from you that wanna kill you. And of course, yes, I'm sure most of us would make the choice to serve our country in the great war, but I'd say that in my own weak hindsight, I guess, is that I'm pretty glad that I didn't exist when World War two was around. Or not World War two, World War one.

World War two, I think was a different story, World War one, my god. Reading some of the books on it, on the history of it right now. I'm reading Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. And I just finished listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Blueprint for Armageddon. Oh my God.

That series is so good, but and Dan is so good at describing the history and describing the story behind World War One, but it is just it sounds like it was a brutal war. I mean, I think France lost 75,000 people in the first day. And the amount of life lost there, I mean, we think about our losses today and then in the most recent wars, and we realize that countries like France lost 75,000 people in one day. That is absolutely insane. And the fact that, you know, technology was way ahead of tactics at the time and tactics hadn't caught up.

And to think that you could be ordered into a wall of lead, that was gonna cut you down. And to think that if you survive that, you'd have to do it again the next day, and do it again, and do it again for probably two, three years. Wow. That that's insane. And so a lot of respect for those who served in that in that war.

It's just I could not imagine what something like that would feel like. Even given my military experience, I could not imagine having served on the Western Front in World War one. But one of the reasons why I like to read history, and why I like to have a good knowledge of history, is because it gives us perspective on what we're facing now. Not only for good, but not only for bad, but for good. Right?

Like, could learn a lot about reading the history of The Middle East about, you know, some of the enemies we face today. But you can also learn a lot about our own existence, and how good we have it today, and how amazing our lives are because we live the lives that we're living now in the time that we're living now. It gives you an appreciation. It also gives you a little bit of drive and a little bit of motivation to take advantage of it. Because all of you, you have a date with destiny.

You were chosen to live at this time in this place, and you're blessed to be living at this time and in this place. And to have a smartphone that you can listen to a podcast on, or a computer, or your friend's computer, or an iPad, and to be able to access everything that we have, and all the resources that we have to learn, to make yourself smarter, to make yourself better, to learn about things like history, but also to learn about things like learning a new language, or how to train yourself better, or how to build a business. These are all things you can learn very easily because you live today. And I want to thank you all for listening to me and taking the time to listen to this podcast. Even though I know a lot of you have busy lives, and I know a lot of you are working on things.

I wanna thank you for giving Warrior Soul the support that you have. And above all, I just wanna thank you for being you. You're awesome. You just gotta realize you are. You just gotta stop telling yourself all those lies you're telling yourself about why you can't succeed.

So get out there, make stuff happen, and do something today, tonight, tomorrow to make your life better. I'll talk to you guys all next week. Peace.