Showing Anger is Showing Weakness | Warrior Notes

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

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Albert. Our mission is to provide tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas that help The US military veteran community to show up as the wisest, strongest, most capable versions of themselves in the civilian world. If you're not a veteran, stick around because anything we talk about will most certainly apply to you as well. This podcast is made possible with the help of F Bomb Nutrition. They make delicious packets of fats that you can carry around anywhere with you in little portable packets.

They make macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate. They mix them up with sea salt. They mix them up with coconut butter. They're absolutely delicious, and they're really good for you.

They don't have any sugar. They also make a lot of cheese snacks. They make meat sticks, and it's just a great company. These guys send packages of this stuff to the troops who are on the front lines overseas to supplement their MREs, and we didn't ask them to do that. They just did that on their own initiative.

Really great company. If you wanna get 20% off your first order of f bombs, head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. This podcast is also brought to you with the help of Save the Brave. Savethebrave.org is a five zero one c three charity for veterans. They run camaraderie events that include fishing, golfing.

They also do a lot of work with gold star families. And unlike a lot of other organizations, their board doesn't take a salary. Really great organization that is doing amazing work. So go and check them out at savethebrave.org. With that, thank you guys so much.

Let's get into today's programming.

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.

And 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 podcast.

You know, one of the things that I think throws a wrench in a lot of our games is that in this community, the veteran community, a lot of us wear our hearts on our sleeves. Many of us are very honest people. We put our feelings out there into the world. We let people know exactly how we feel when we feel it. And that's a very admirable quality.

It's a very honorable quality. But there's also a problem with it. And the problem with it is that people can take advantage of that. People can also box you in based off of the emotions that you're showing. One of those emotions, anger, is something that while you might feel like you are exuding strength while you're angry, losing your temper, Becoming wild.

Becoming loud. The truth is that what's happening is you're showing the world that something's got control over you. The stoic philosopher Epictetus said that any man that drives you to anger becomes your master. That is the case. That is the case because they know that they control your emotions.

Same is true with relationships. One thing I learned from a very, very early age is that any woman that makes you angry is not a woman you should be around. Any woman who drives you to anger is not a woman that you should be involved with. And we've seen that case over and over again. And the problem is that passion drives this.

When we get angry, a lot of times it's because we care. It's because we care so much about an issue that we want to stand up for what we believe in. We wanna right an injustice that we see. Or we want to let somebody know that they've crossed a line that is something we're gonna defend. And I'm not telling you to allow yourself to be bowled over.

I'm not telling you to allow yourself to be bullied. But maybe anger is not the response we should be going for.

If you ever read the book, The 48 Laws of Power, law number 39 is stir waters up to catch fish. And Robert Greene gives us a few lessons there. He talks about the history of Napoleon and Talleyrand. Talleyrand was one of Napoleon's closest advisers. Happened was that Talleyrand at some point began conspiring against Napoleon.

And what he did was he would purposely do things to make Napoleon angry. And his whole point was to get Napoleon to blow up in front of everyone. And when Napoleon finally lost his temper with him, Talleyrand remained calm. He stood there. He took Napoleon's abuse.

And essentially when Napoleon started blowing up in front of everybody, everyone knew it was the beginning of the end for him. Everybody knew that Napoleon had showed his cards, that if he was so quick to drive to anger, then he wasn't gonna be fit to lead. And it took six years to to bring Napoleon down. Right? And a lot of that was his own doing, some of the mistakes he made in his defeat at Waterloo, but that was the beginning of the end.

Had Napoleon kept more of his social capital and not thrown all of his cards on the table, what he could have done was approach his affairs with strategy. Approach them in a more rational manner. Now, of course, I'm a lowly peon, and I'm talking about Napoleon here, one of the greatest leaders in history. Alright? But at the same time, that's one of the benefits of reading history.

You get to see the mistakes that great people made. And that was one of Napoleon's greatest mistakes, Was that he lost his temper, and that in losing his temper, he took his eye off of what Talleyrand was really doing, which was undermining him. Undermining his image. Showing people that because Napoleon was so quick to anger, so easy to control, that, you know what, this guy, if he makes a few more mistakes, we're gonna have to ditch him. That's essentially what you're doing when you are showing the world your anger.

Essentially, you're showing everybody what your weakness is. You're showing everybody what they can do to control you. You're showing them how they can throw you off balance. Same is true with jiu-jitsu. Alright?

When I go to jiu-jitsu practice, now that I'm a few years in to, training jiu-jitsu, one of the things I've started to understand is that if somebody gets a little bit wild and they get a little bit emotional, they're far easier to tap out. Key to jiu-jitsu is to remain calm, see the moves, to to try to see a few moves ahead. And, again, I'm talking as a white belt here. But what I've started to see is that when I'm rolling with a higher belt, somebody who's a purple belt, somebody who's a brown belt, even a black belt, you know, they are looking to see what I'm thinking about. They're looking to see what I'm telegraphing.

And if I lose my head, if I get emotional, if I get wild, they shut it down right away, and they're able to take me out in just a few moves. But if I stay calm, and I don't telegraph myself, I put up a much better fight. I still get tapped out, of course, but I'm starting to learn. I'm starting to learn the art. And that's what we all have to do.

We have to learn the art of social dynamics. We have to learn the art of relationships, and we have to learn the art of power. If all we do is get angry, if all we do is get loud, then all we're doing is boxing ourselves in. If you look at what's happened in the veteran community over the past decade and a half, and not even just the past decade and a half, I would say since Vietnam, what's happened to us is we've made ourselves a fringe element in American society. We've boxed ourselves in.

We're known as angry or as quote unquote dysfunctional. And to some extent that's a stereotype that we've perpetuated. It's a stereotype that we've put out there. And it's a really bad move on our part. If we truly want to advance the veteran community, if we truly want to advance our vision of what this country should be, if we truly want to advance ourselves, then we need to be thinking in a much more strategic manner.

I'll give you an example of this. I have talked to many Veterans who say that they can't get a job because nobody wants to hire veterans. So they come away from their job interviews and they come away from their job applications with a really bad taste in their mouths. They tell themselves, hey, these civilians just don't want to hire me. They they can't stand who I am.

I can't stand them. I just can't get along with them, so I'm just gonna give up. And what you're doing in that situation is you're allowing your anger to take over your better judgment because the way to go is actually to take a look at where you screwed up in the interview process. Not to say, hey. Alright.

These people just don't like me because I'm a veteran. Not to say, hey. These people have some stereotype in their mind about what a veteran is, but how you perpetuated that stereotype in the first place. And if you don't wanna sit down and analyze yourself and and analyze your approach, analyze how you interacted with people, analyze what your resume looks like or what you did during the job interview that that might have turned them off, then what's gonna happen is you're never gonna get what you want. Because the goal isn't to isolate yourself and to justify your preconceptions about who you are and who other people are.

The goal is to win. The goal is to get that job. The goal is to put yourself into position so that when it comes time for you to be the decision maker on whether or not you're gonna hire a veteran, you can be there to do so. But that's not gonna happen unless you overcome that anger, unless you overcome that bitterness, unless you allow yourself to take that anger and turn it into something else, to turn it into strategic thinking that's actually gonna allow you to move ahead and allow you to win. And that goes for all levels.

Like I said, that's on an individual level what we're doing with ourselves and what we're doing with our lives, what we're doing as a community, and what we're doing as a country. If we allow ourselves to just be quick to arise to anger, then we're not going to attract other people to our cause. Whether we like it or not, we all need other people. Our community can't survive without civilians. We can't survive without other good people in our lives.

And if we isolate ourselves, then the community dies. Well maybe it doesn't die, but maybe it just continues to be isolated and we don't push forward on anything. And we continually isolate ourselves and keep ourselves in a position to be marginalized and fringe. Few practical things that I suggest you do. So number one, I highly suggest you read the biographies of great communicators and people who have been able to make things happen in life.

So a really, really good one is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall. One of the things I think we forget about Arnold Schwarzenegger is that his success in life wasn't just based around him being a bodybuilder and then an actor. What Arnold was able to do, prior to ever becoming famous, he built up a significant amount of wealth. And he did that as businessmen. Him and Franco Columbu had a masonry company where they would build walls around Hollywood.

And one of the things about him in business was that he used his relationships with other people to move forward. And when somebody wronged him or somebody, you know, put him down for any reason, he didn't get angry. What he would do is he would observe, he would switch tactics, and then he'd make another move. And that's what we all need to do. The other thing about Arnold is that it was his relationships throughout his career that moved him forward.

Had he not had a strong relationship with Lucille Ball, who was kind of like the Queen of Hollywood at the time, he wouldn't have ever gotten the acting positions that he did. Had he just approached everything like he was this big bodybuilder who was just into himself, then he wouldn't be who he is today.

His ability to interact with people is why he was able to do what Sergio Oliva, Lee Haney, even Ronnie Coleman couldn't do. None of them built large acting careers after the bodybuilding careers. Arnold was able to do that because of his ability to interact with people. He was also able to become governor of the state of California as a Republican. Not exactly the most Republican friendly state.

So think about that. Another thing to do is, and again these are tools that I'm constantly talking about, but meditate. Meditate. And the reason why I say to meditate isn't so that you can calm down, it's not so that you can find some sort of Zen, not so that you can become a Buddhist or anything like that. The reason to meditate is so that you can become a better observer of yourself.

You see, I still get angry. I can't control that. Right? You can't control the emotions that are going to enter your head. You can't control the the emotions that the emotions from just coming in.

Right? You're still gonna encounter things that are gonna make you angry. But what you can do is you can observe the fact that you're becoming angry, and then you can respond accordingly. You can control your reaction. And rather than reacting immediately, you can pull yourself back a little bit, and then you can respond.

You can respond in a far more strategic manner than you would have had you just flown off the handle. And I have to say that this has been a huge tool for me in my relationship. I've been with my girlfriend for seven years now, and we get into altercations, we fight, but rather than flying off the handle ladder, what I'm able to do is remain calm, and within an hour, we're working it out. Right? Because your partner is not your enemy.

Your partner is somebody that you want to compromise with, that you want to negotiate with, so that you can both win because you love each other. Right? And that's what it's about at the end of the day. Whether you're it's your relationship or whether it's somebody on your team at work or whether it's somebody that is looking to give you a job or or interviewing you you for a job, the goal at the end of the day is to win and to get everybody to win. Right? If somebody's looking to hire you, you want that organization to win by hiring you. Right? Not just hand you a paycheck or anything like that, but you want to be an asset to that organization.

That's what brings meaning to your work. So at the end of the day, what I'm saying here is this. Don't allow your emotions to control you. The quickest way for you to become controlled by your emotions is when you get roused to anger. Anybody who sees what rouses you to anger can control you.

Because it's a weakness, it's your Achilles heel. And if you allow people to see that, if you're constantly displaying that to the world, what essentially will happen is you'll start to isolate yourself. Because at the end of the day, nobody, including you, wants to be around somebody who's a bitter asshole. Who is always angry. Who's always bitter.

They want to be around people who get things done. And if you allow yourself to take a step back, to respond rather than reacting all the time, then you'll become a person who's more capable of getting things done. Definitely check out the books that I mentioned here, 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Specifically, covered Law 39, Stir Fish Up, and in that chapter, he talks about historical examples of people who were easy to rouse to anger, like Napoleon. Like I said, Napoleon did a lot of great things, but he could have done a lot more had he not constantly lost his temper.

The other book I mentioned here was Arnold Schwarzenegger's Total Recall. Definitely suggest you read that. I've read it a couple of times. And just understanding that man's story is like reading a textbook on how to move yourself forward in the world. Right?

He came over here from Austria with pretty much nothing, and he built an empire based off of his relationships. And then finally, I highly suggest you guys check out more Stoic philosophy. I mentioned Epictetus here. He's got a famous writing called Enchiridion. In English, that means the manual.

And he's got some great teachings. Him, along with Marcus Aurelius, who I've talked about extensively before on this podcast. Epictetus was Marcus Aurelius' tutor at one point. And Marcus Aurelius is famous for his writing meditations, general Mattis would carry around with him whenever he was on deployment. And then Seneca, whose writings have become increasingly popular.

You can check out letters from a stoic. But again, this all goes back to understanding life better by reading. Right? I've been trying to make a concerted effort to read more in 2020. I spend at least an hour every day doing so, and I hope you do too.

I have all the links to these books up on the show notes for this episode so you guys can check them out if you wish. And just a few more things here before we go. So first is this. If this is your first time listening to the Warrior Soul podcast, thank you for getting through this episode. I do this three times a week.

Normally, I'm here, am speaking to somebody who is a lot smarter and a lot more accomplished than I am. People like Gary John Bishop, people like Bas Rutten, people like Ben Greenfield, Nick Koumalatsos, Bing West. We've had so many amazing guests on this show. People like Robert Greene, the author who I mentioned during, this episode. The whole point behind this show is to empower The US military veteran community to live their best lives by showing up as wiser, stronger, more capable human beings in the civilian world.

And obviously, anything I talk about here is gonna apply to civilians too. So if you've never served, stick around because you'll gain a lot of benefit as well. I publish three times a week. One is normally an interview, sometimes two. And I do a few different types of episodes.

So this is what's known as a Warrior Notes episode, and this is where I'm giving a tool, a tactic, a strategy, something you can apply right there and then after you listen to the episode. And then the other type I do is our ask me anythings, and that's where I'm sitting down and answering actual questions from our private Facebook group, which you can join free of charge. That's the Warrior Soul Agoge Empowerment and Resilience Facebook group. Most of what we cover here involves ways of improving yourself, ways of moving yourself forward. I I hate calling myself self improvement, but I guess that's what it is, because self improvement has certain connotations to it.

But we're talking about ways of strengthening your mind, making you smarter, making you physically stronger. Alright? I'm a trainer. I've worked with a lot of high level athletes, and I'm putting a lot of health and fitness information out on this podcast as well. We talk about nutrition, we talk about life hacks, we talk to a lot of other really great people about how they've achieved success and the great things that they're doing in the world.

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I've also got courses up there on how to build your own personal brand and how to develop your own coaching business if that's what you're interested in. And then finally, we have our mastermind, which is the Warrior's Obituary Society. The whole purpose behind the Warrior's Obituary Society is to empower its members to live epic lives worthy of epic obituaries. And that involves it starts with you figuring out what your vision is, what you actually want out of life, getting really clear on that. And then we put you through an eight week development program.

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Each week, we meet on a live call. We have a private forum where we're constantly interacting, and we do it all over Slack and on Voxer. I don't do anything over social media because I don't want you to feel like somebody's looking over your shoulder, and I don't want you getting distracted by a bunch of alerts. Each month, we are working towards specific goals and we're pushing each other toward those goals. And if you're interested in checking out the Warrior's Obituary Society, you can head over to www.warriorobituarysociety.com.

And then once again, shout outs to our sponsors, F Bomb Nutrition. They make delicious packets of fats. They make macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with coconut butter, with chocolate, with sea salt. You can carry these things around with you.

They are such a good, nutritious, low carb snack. You can also get their meat snacks, and they have some amazing cheese crisps. Great company run by great people. And if you're interested in that, you can head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. And with that, guys, I wanna thank you once again so much for listening.

You know, I was thinking about this yesterday, and it's been four years since I started this podcast. And there's been many days and nights where I've come close to quitting. There's been many days and nights where I didn't think anybody was listening, and I felt absolutely worthless. And then I'd get a note, and that note would come from a veteran who would listen to one of these episodes. And sometimes it would be a veteran who was close to making that decision that so many of us had made.

And that veteran would tell me that listening to the show kept them from doing that. And then there'd be other veterans who told me that they actually took advantage of some of the things I was talking about here, and they were on a much better path than where they were before. And honestly, it's those notes that have kept me going. I honestly have not earned a dime since doing this show. I have I'm not rolling in in money over here or anything like that.

The reason I do this show is because I absolutely love this community. And I truly believe that the veteran community is the sleeping giant in this country. And that if we wake up, we can turn this country into an amazing place, even better than it already is. And that's why I do this every week. So thank you to all of you who supported me and supported this show throughout its years.

God bless you. I'll be back at you later on this week with some more awesome content. This is Chris, and I am out.