How to Pull Yourself Out of a Rut

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

What is going on everybody? Welcome to the Warrior Soul Podcast. This episode is going to be a solo episode, and I haven't done one of these in a while. This is how the Warrior Soul Podcast started. It basically started with me just shouting my thoughts into a computer and then broadcasting it out to whoever would listen from our community.

And, I wanted to do another one. I've been wanting to do one for a while, but we've had such a busy schedule with guests that I hadn't been able to do so. But this week we got a little bit of a lull, so I decided to put one out there. And this episode is for those of you who are currently down, who are feeling like you're in a hole and you can't get out of it. And so I've been in many holes throughout my life and I've been in a lot of different situations that I thought I couldn't get out of, that I felt like was the end for me.

And so what I wanted to do was give you guys some advice that I've learned along my way because I realized that there is no hole that you can't get out of. And so we're gonna go through some of those things today. Before I get into it, I just wanna give you a quick note from our sponsors, f bomb nutrition, amazing products by amazing people. They create these delicious, awesome, portable packets of fats. And, I am in love with their fuel packets.

They've got these macadamia nut butter fuel packets. They're they're different types of blends. They have them with coconut oil. They have some with pecan butter. They have some with sea salt, and they're absolutely delicious.

They taste like a macadamia nut cookie just crunched up into a paste and put into a little packet for you. Really great for those of you guys who are going out to the field. They're awesome. They're portable, and they don't have any sugar. And you can get 20% off of your first order if you go to www.dropanfbomb.com and you use the code Warrior Soul at checkout.

They'll give you 20% off of your first order. So definitely check them out. And with that, let's get into this episode. This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die.

Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited. We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Pod Podcast.

Those of you who aren't familiar with the Warrior Soul Podcast, what do we do here? We're a podcast that aims to help US military veterans to live their best lives. We do that by bringing tools, tactics and ideas that can help to motivate them, can help to push them, can help to drive them and that can help them to become the best version of themselves. And so a lot of times I bring guests on here, I brought a lot of different guests ranging from Gary Taubes to Thomas DeLauer, people who comment on fitness. I brought on other veterans.

I've brought on, I just had Chris White from Freedom Hard, US Marine Corps veteran. Had my friend Scott Huesing, the author of Echo in Ramadi, Marine Corps officer who led his marines through Ramadi in 2006. Really amazing stories there. But on an episode like this, what I'm doing is really trying to help you guys with specific problems, specific issues that come up and I publish not only on iTunes, I also publish on my YouTube channel, The Warrior Soul Agoge and on my website at www.warriorsoulagoge.com. So if you're interested in checking other episodes out, please do so and please share.

Because we aren't ultra leftist and we're not super liberal here, I tend to get my videos flagged on YouTube, not because I'm saying anything controversial, not because I'm, you know, doing doing anything wrong here, but simply because YouTube for some reason loves to flag my videos. I'm assuming it's because I have a US Marine Corps flag behind my head. I can't really think of any other reason why they would flag my videos to say that they weren't safe for advertisers. Maybe somebody from YouTube get back to me on that. But anyways, this podcast, this episode of the podcast is going to be about how to dig yourself out of a hole.

And, you know, a lot of people in the veteran community. I mean, I've been doing this podcast now for two years and, you know, in the in the beginning, we dealt a lot with pain and resilience. And what is resilience? Well, a lot of people think of resilience is like if you're poking a foam ball, right? The foam ball comes back and it goes back to its original shape.

But when we're talking about resilience with human beings, we can't negate the fact that people do become injured by what they've done. They do become injured by their past in some way. And when that happens, when you have a tragedy happen in your life or or maybe a downturn, or or maybe you just get yourself into a rut, one of the things you have to remember is that it's those experiences, those those difficulties that actually make us stronger as human beings. So when you encounter one of these downturns, when you encounter a tragedy, when you encounter a difficult period, one of the things you have to do to the best of your ability is to integrate it into your being and integrate it into your experience and learn how you can use that experience to make you stronger. And so that's a lot of what we've covered in earlier episodes.

And I really want to bring the podcast back to that and helping you guys to become more and more resilient, to become more and more mentally strong. Of course, we still focus on the physical, how to how to make your body as physically strong as possible, but it's the mind that really drives that. It's you that really drives that. It's your will that drives that. The the ability to to get that discipline that you need in order to continue when things get hard.

And one of the things I say about fitness all the time is this. It's easy to be fit when your life is easy. Right? But that's not necessarily when you need fitness the most. It's those of you who are putting in long hours at work, those of you who are undergoing massive amounts of stress, those of you who are undergoing a lot of sorrow and a lot of depression, you are the people who need fitness the most and you are the people who need self improvement the most and you are the people who truly need to lift yourselves up because nobody else is going to do that for you.

And so today's episode about digging yourself out of hole, we're going to get into some techniques that at least in my experience, have really helped me to get out of some dark holes. Know, a little bit about my story. I served in the US Marine Corps from 1999 to 2005. And, you know, after I got out and after I was done with my service, went on and went to school. And main reason I went to school was because I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life at the time.

So I hid out in school for a really long period of time. I'm talking, I went all the way up through PhD at University of California at Santa Barbara. And I didn't finish the PhD or anything like that. But you know, the main reason I was there was one to hide out and two, because everybody in my family told me that they wanted me to become a PhD. And so that's what I did.

I did it to, I guess you could say, please other people. It took about four years before I realized that wasn't the path I really wanted to be on. And so from there, I decided I was going to open up a gym and partnered up with my brother my brother Eddie. Eddie Avakoff, he's not my real brother, but but he's my brother all the same. And at the beginning, that gym didn't do very well.

Right? It went on to become, you know, it is now and it was then Metroflex Gym, Long Beach, which is one of the most famous gyms in the world. But at the time, we weren't doing well and I really couldn't afford to be in the business. And so I went broke. I married.

I got married and made that mistake, ended up getting a divorce and ended up being financially ruined and had to give up my ownership of Metroflex, had to end up I ended up living out of my car for a while and really had to pick up the pieces. And that's how eventually I got on YouTube was because guys like Mike Rashid, who's a good friend of mine, he said, you should put some of your thoughts out there. You should start talking about fitness. And that's how I got into the online fitness game. And I started my YouTube channel, started giving fitness advice out, started making money from clients who were coming my way, and eventually pulled myself out of living in my car.

I got myself into a rented room and lived down the street from Metroflex for a while in that rented room. And, you know, from there picked up the pieces even more, met an awesome girl, my current girlfriend, Shauna, and eventually was able to move out, move into my own apartment. And then eventually, now I'm in a house and, you know, I'm slowly building the pieces up here. But I've opened several businesses since then. I work at Warrior Soul, Warrior Soul Agoge, which is my fitness site and and the site that houses this podcast.

And of course, Warrior Soul Fitness, which is actually my clothing brand. I know that's not very good marketing, but it's a clothing brand for US military veterans. And so, you know, I've done that and I'm also the lead instructor for London Real, which if you guys haven't checked that show out, he's, Brian Rose, another really good friend of mine. He has an amazing show called London Real, where he talks to some of the most interesting people in the world. And so he also runs business courses, fitness courses, fitness course.

I say it's a life course, a course called Life Accelerator, a public speaking course and a podcasting course, which I help to instruct while I'm the lead instructor and then we have a team of instructors who operate along with us. So that's what my life is like now. But like I said, at one point it wasn't very good And, know, in the ten years after since, you know, 2005 all the way up till, well, it's more than ten years now, we're talking about thirteen years, it's 2018. I went through a lot. I went through alcoholism, was drunk almost every single day at different periods of time during that experience.

I also developed ulcerative colitis, which is an autoimmune disease that has periodically made my life a living hell. You know, literally running to the bathroom 30 to 40 times a day. I also, you know, fell into massive amounts of depression and really never expected that I would ever be with a person again. You know, I'm I'm so grateful for my my girlfriend, Shauna. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.

But, you know, I had been broken hearted for a while after relationship ended. And, know, I I let that bring me down for ten years, ten years before I was able to to really recover from that and and be in a relationship with somebody who I actually cared about and actually wanted to be in a relationship with. So how was I able to turn that around? And by turning by saying I turned it around, I don't wanna convey that everything's perfect right now because it's not. Obviously, I'm not rolling in dough.

I don't have millions of dollars or anything like that. And that's not what I mean by turning around. But turning it around in a way where I actually had hope for myself, and actually had things in my life that drove me to get out of bed every morning, and currently drive me to continue to try to become a better person, no matter what else I do. And I have to say that one of the big things that that really started to drive me was in understanding that a lot of the people who I served alongside in the US military, they no longer have the opportunity to make their lives better. You know, they they aren't here right now.

And one of the things I realized at a certain point was that I could spend this life in misery for the short period of time that I'm here, relatively short period of time that I'm here, Or I could take advantage of the opportunities that I have by just being here, being able to breathe, being able to move, having all my appendages, and and make the best out of this opportunity to do that. So that brings me to the first step of pulling yourself out of a difficult situation or pulling yourself out of a hole. And that is is gratitude. Really, truly being grateful for what you do have and and not worrying about the past because you can't control that. You're not worrying about what you don't have.

Now you might be sitting there and you might be saying to yourself, well, what do I have to be grateful for? And what why do I have to be grateful for anything right now? And you might be in such a bad state that you can't put your finger on anything that you can truly be grateful for. And I've been there before. You know, it's it's almost like being blindfolded.

You know, you don't see anything good about your life. But here's the facts, guys. I mean, if you look around yourself right now in your immediate environment, Because I know if you're listening to this podcast or if you're watching this on YouTube, you're watching it on an electronic device or you're listening to it on on an iPhone or an iPad or something like that. And you currently have more opportunity at your fingertips than most people who've ever lived on this earth throughout the history of man. Right?

So that's that's one big thing that you have going for you. You could type anything into Google right now. You could research it. You can learn about it. You can learn about new jobs, new opportunities.

You you can learn about anything you want to right now simply by typing it into Google. There's never been a point in history like this. So the first thing you definitely can be grateful for is the fact that you live at this time and point in history. Right? The next thing is that, you know, if you have an electronic device at your disposal right now, and you are listening to this, then it's probably a good possibility that you also have a shelter over your head.

You also probably have some place to sleep tonight. That's important to remember too, because even if you're making $30,000 a year, that puts you in the top, I think, 3% of all people on this earth. And so that that's another big thing to remember. If if you got food in your belly, you've got shelter over your head, and you're listening to this on an electronic device, that means you have more than a whole heck of a lot of people. And so it's really up to you what you're gonna do with that opportunity.

What you're gonna do with the tools you've been given. Right? And so a lot of times when you're thinking about what what what am I gonna do with what am I gonna do with these tools? Well, a big thing you can start to think about is how you can help others. Right?

That's the second point that I wanna bring up here in trying to figure out how you can get out of a hole. When prior to me starting my YouTube channel and prior to me, you know, getting into the fitness industry, I was feeling really, really down on myself. Like, I felt like nothing I could do could come out correctly. I felt like no matter what I did, I was always gonna be a loser. And it sucks to say that because I think about that now in the way I used to think.

But in so many ways, I I kept putting up barriers around myself. My relationships weren't going right. So I didn't want to be in relationships or real relationships that consisted of anything more than sex. Being sober sucks, so I kept drinking and kept putting booze in my body and polluting the greatest gift that was ever given to me, was being born with a healthy body. And I kept turning down any hope that I had for an opportunity to make things better.

But when I began giving out advice to people about fitness and about how to improve their fitness, how to build muscle, that's how I started because I was a bodybuilder and how to build strength. I realized that I really got joy out of helping people to find their way. And the big reason as to why I started Warrior Soul was never because I ever thought that I wanted to make money off of off of helping veterans. It was because I actually got a whole heck of a lot of enjoyment out of it. I got I got so much enjoyment off of thinking that there's a veteran out there right now who who is listening to this podcast who might be in a really bad state, who might see a glimmer of hope in what I'm saying, who who might feel like what I'm saying resonates with him and and who might decide that he or she is going to now dedicate a period of his or her life to to making other people's lives better.

And so, again, I'm going say this, if you're trying to pull yourself out of a hole, start by, realizing what you should be grateful for. And the second thing is, figure out a way you can help other people who are less fortunate than you, or less knowledgeable than you, or who don't have your experiences, or who might be hurting. Because that in and of itself, when you start to do it, it's gonna give you a reason to get out of bed. It's gonna give you a reason to continue to make yourself better. It's gonna give you a reason to give those people an example for what they should do.

The next thing is this. You know, even after you have those two things covered, even after you realize that you should be grateful for what you have, and even after you figure out ways of helping other people, It's not a surefire way to get rid of all the negativity or or or to get yourself out of that hell or out of that rut. So the next thing I recommend is is for when you're in the moment, and you are dealing with a really, really rough day, or maybe you are just just not feeling it on that particular day. Whenever I'm having a really rough day, the big secret that I've learned is to get out of my head as much as possible and try to get into my body. Now, how do you do that?

Well, physical exercise. Now, I run every single day, and it's not because I like running. It's not because I feel like I need, you know, to have a superior cardiovascular endurance or anything like that. But it's because running makes me feel amazing. After I'm done, so many hormones, so many chemicals get released.

You know, everybody's always talking about, doctors are always talking about putting people on antidepressants, putting people on more pills. What I realized was that there was no pill out there that could do what my natural pharmacy does for me. And you can release so many amazing chemicals in your body naturally that you can't overdose from, that aren't going to be deleterious to your health just from physical exercise. And if you can't run, walk. And if you can't walk, do push ups.

You know, whatever you're doing, as long as you're getting your heart rate up in some way, that can be a huge factor in just helping you to feel better. So get out of your head and get in your body short periods of time a day. And it's not only going to help you to to feel better, it'll help you to look better, it'll help you to perform better. It'll help you to think better. The final thing is this.

You want to take action. Right? So I mentioned this, or I alluded to this at the beginning. We only have a short time here on this earth. Right?

And you realize this if you ever get a chance to travel to some ancient ruins. Right? And a few years ago, back when I was in my depression, I actually got the opportunity to, travel to Greece. Somebody paid for me to go to help and teach philosophy to to a group of fraternity brothers who were traveling Greece. And so I went along to teach them philosophy.

And, you know, I had my expertise in politics and political theory. And so when I got there and I got a chance to go to the Oracle at Delphi, when where back in ancient times, people used to come to hear this girl who was all drugged up giving them prophecies. And they were debating about religion, right? The students were debating about religion, and I was off to the side. And as they were debating about religion, I was looking around at this pile of rocks all around us, Right?

You had a part of the temple up there, and then there were just rocks everywhere. And this place was like the Disneyland of the ancient world. Right? This is where people came from all over. You know, thousands of people from all over the place.

And what I was thinking to myself at that point, because I was staring at this column of ants that was just going off on the hunt. And there was nobody else out there except for us, some birds in those hands. And what I was thinking to myself was, well, we have these rocks here. We have these ancient monuments. But but what about the people?

Normal everyday people who who, you know, maybe spent their life savings to try to come here to hear the Oracle speak. And the truth is they are lost to history. Right? Those are people who had their own worries, they had their jobs, they had their family stress, they had, you know, maybe financial stress and things like that. But we don't hear about that.

All we have left there are the rocks. And so it hit me. And I said to myself, well, wait a minute. If those people are gone and nobody's ever heard of them and their problems now are insignificant, then then my problems are insignificant too. My issues are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

So what am I sitting here so miserable for? I only got a, you know, if I'm lucky, what am I, 38 years old? Hopefully, I got forty more years left in me at least. But that's a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. That's like like a speck on the timeline.

And if I'm wasting even five minutes of it in misery, I'm wasting my life. And the truth is I have nothing to be miserable about Because I haven't faced the hardship that those ancient people faced. I'm not facing the hardship that, you know, 75% of the human population on this earth today faces. I'm facing some pretty insignificant problems in the grand scheme of things. And so whenever I've gotten to the bottom of my barrel, including, you know, being homeless myself and living out of my car, Think about that.

And the only way that you're gonna stay exactly where you are right now is if you don't take any action, is if you don't make any decisions to do anything. Now what tends to keep people from taking action? Well, I think it has to do a lot with fear. Fear that they're gonna lose the the little bit of comfort that they might have right now. Fear that, they're gonna make a fool out of themselves.

And in large part, I also think it's self sabotage. Because I think a lot of times people like to be in the patterns they are, no matter how miserable they are, because they are comfortable. A lot of times, people say they're scared of failure, but that's the thing. Failure is easy. Failure doesn't look like a scary person or anything like that.

Failure looks like a bottle of Jack Daniel's, or, you know, your couch or your your PlayStation or things that cause you to waste time. I'm not saying that sitting on the couch or playing PlayStation or even drinking Jack Daniel's is a bad thing. But I'm seeing if you you spend too much time doing those things that you're used to doing and you don't try new things, if you don't try things that make you uncomfortable, just like all of us who went to boot camp and served in the military. It was a new thing. You had to be uncomfortable for a while in order to become that new thing, that that that marine, that soldier, that sailor, that airman.

You had to go through a bit of discomfort to become that. In order to become the new you, there's going to be some discomfort. There's going to be some work that you've got to do. Just get up and do it. Right?

Don't think about it. That's going to make it worse. Don't dwell on it, don't dwell on your past, that's not going to help anything. Get up, make a decision, take some action. So, you know, again, I'm not the wisest person on the face of the earth or anything like that when it comes to this stuff.

And Lord knows, I've screwed up more times than than I can count. And I'm not sitting here and pretending like everything is perfect in my life because believe you me, it's it's definitely not. But at the end of the day, I've been able to hold on to hope. And I've been able to pull myself out of some really bad situations. It's because of the four things I discussed today.

That's being grateful for everything that I have. That's figuring out how I can help others. Getting out of my head periodically, getting into my body, taking advantage of my natural pharmacy, and minding my natural pharmacy, making sure that it's in balance, and then taking action when I knew that I had to change my life for the better if I wanted to make my life better. So that's all I got for today, guys. You know, again, a different kind of episode here.

Wanna get into doing more and more of these things as as we move along. But I hope this helps. And, know, for the Warrior Soul podcast, we've been on for about two years now. I highly suggest you check out some of our other episodes. For those of you on YouTube, I'll put a link below on so that you guys can can learn more about the Warrior Soul podcast.

And if you can, like and share this video. Like and share our episodes. That's that's the biggest compliment ever. If you do that, If you feel like you've gotten something out of this and you feel like, you know, it could help someone else, then please subscribe. And if you're on iTunes, please leave us a review.

Definitely helps. And with that, I wanna thank you all for listening, and I will be back at you next week with a new episode.