Episode 51 - Reclaiming Body: Treat Yourself Like Somebody You Are Responsible For Helping

Preston and Michael return in Episode 50 to discuss the importance of taking care of yourself so you have the ability to take care of others, including ways to get stronger that are focused on body weight and multiple sets throughout the day (pull-ups, push-ups, etc).  Give the Walk-by-five a try - push-ups or pull-ups!

Transcript

Michael: 0:00

welcome to episode 51 of the Reclaiming Man podcast. Michael Beckwith here this evening and with me through Marco Polo is Preston the Southern Canuck Gordomsky. We're on Reclaiming Body this week and reviewing the year to date in the context of Jordan Peterson's second rule found in his 12 rules for life and antidote to chaos. I just had finished his second book which is called Beyond Chaos, it's 12 More Rules for Life, and he describes that throughout both of these books, walking the fine line between both order and chaos in our lives, and how challenging that can be, but what are some of the key strategies or rules that we should live by in order to maintain that balance between order and chaos. And so tonight wanted to give a quick quote from his second rule, which is treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping. And so he starts off this with a. bit of data. It says imagine that 100 people are prescribed a drug. Consider what happens next. One third of them won't fill the prescription. Half of the remaining 67 will fill it, but won't take the medication correctly. They'll miss doses. They'll quit taking it early. They might not even take it at all, which leaves a very small fraction of the people who, when they are given help in a, doctor setting or in a medical situation, there's only one out of six people who actually will take care of themselves the way that they're prescribed to do so he goes on to contrast that with taking care of others and how we are much more. Predisposed to ensure that our dogs or our children or our spouses are taking their medications versus us ourselves. And so just thinking about the past couple months as we've all battled through sickness in the family, sickness personally, and coming to the realization that I think I certainly fall into the the broader percentage of folks who don't treat themselves as well or take care of themselves as well as I should. And I was more focused on maybe taking care of the family and feeling the pressures of being a provider and being strong and pushing through things. recognizing that there are constraints and limits and that's what I wanted to talk a little bit about this week and so curious to see Preston how you might think about that second rule that he has treating yourself like someone you are responsible for helping so I will kick it over to you and then can chime in with some additional thoughts here but we'll keep this podcast relatively short and succinct And look forward to this one with you, Preston.

Preston: 3:01

Hey, what's going on, Michael? Good morning, good afternoon, good night to whoever's listening to us abroad or wherever. I'm just on my way to a little quick Saturday overtime work shift for the old FedEx Corporation. You know what? I've never heard of, I've never heard that quote before, Michael. What was it? Take care of yourself as if you were taking care of someone else. I might not have that exactly the way you read it, but it's so simple, yet when you read it, I was like, man yeah, that's so true. When we Like you mentioned with our children, like we make sure they are eating correctly. That doesn't mean, we don't have, a peanut butter cup once in a while or treats in that aspect. When we, when I make them breakfast, it's like my son would like to have six pieces of French toast, he would eat them, but it's like, no, you get two and if you're, still hungry, that's what we have bacon and eggs for, and you got to eat that. They have to eat some of that. Anyways, cause it's like, if you just have a bunch of sugary bread for breakfast, you're going to go off the walls and be hungry in an hour. And so we look out for them or I look out for them in that regard, yet I'm not always the best with myself with, I'm a very bad like sugar head. I think I've mentioned that on this podcast before, I think early on because Scott's wife Kelly had heard it and made me like homemade kind of peanut butter alternatives with dates and dark chocolate. But it's like we know how to take care of other people so easily yet We will fall short of taking care of ourselves And I think to just remind us if you write that quote down if you're listening to this episode You know write that quote on a sticky note And put it on your I don't know if you sit at a computer every day or maybe if you have a commute to work I should take my own advice and actually fucking do that put it on your you know, your dashboard in your car So when you look at your speedometer You see that quote and it's like, all right, today's going to be the day that I take care of myself much more because if you can't, if you don't take care of yourself, then you won't be able to take care of the others that you need to take care of. It's all simple stuff that we talk about on here that for one reason or the other we struggle with on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to enact 100 percent all the time. And I think that's part of this journey for you guys listening. To understand that while you might be listening and thinking like, oh man, these guys really have their shit together. Or maybe you're not, maybe maybe you're on episode 51 and it's fuck these guys. Still haven't got it figured out. We're just, we're going through life trying to help each other out, push each other forward, pull each other up and these conversations are ones that we have with each other and that's what's so fun about sharing them with y'all. So that being said I know we had talked about you getting a pull up bar, Michael. The other day not on podcast just on our own Marco Polo And I had got a new one about a week ago because i've been I don't know. Maybe the last two three weeks, I think My wife has been working on Getting really good at pull ups. She can't do one yet. But like her progress is coming So like getting she's killing it. It's so interesting the way if you've never done a pull up before they're so Much harder than you think if you haven't done one or don't have the strength to do one, because, especially a men versus women thing, like just the way we're designed differently, like our wingspan and our shoulders, like our sort of natural muscle growth. But by all means let them compete against, let us compete against women in sports. That's, nothing unfair about that But she's been on this journey to do a pull up and so she's, I. Remember the guy who she's following, but she's doing these kind of certain exercises and then hanging on a pull up bar and Using resistance bands to help her do a pull up My point is that we have it set up in our hallway right now the pull up bar where I used to have it in The garage and I would set it up if I felt like doing some but since it's always been there and it's always set up I try and I've been trying to just do a few when I walk by it whether it's one whether it's two I try to do five and I was getting like really good at it and like I was able to do 10 in a row and like the ones where like you, pardon me, where I'm trying to do the dead hang with no momentum with your legs, like swinging up where you're just pulling up. I'm motioning this stuff while I'm on an audio podcast. But and so we got a new pull up bar cause that one we had was I think about 10 years old. So the foam on the grips, which it was all gone, it was like gaff taped and just, we needed a new one. And this new one had a, has a much wider cause there's like the chin up section, like the Close together handles for doing chin ups, then the kind of wide for doing pull ups and this one has like almost an even wider section. And so I got on it and right away it was harder, but since I'd been doing them, I had the, I guess strength to just muscle through it, but I like pulled something in my shoulder while doing that a few times and it's like, now I can't, I tried to do some last night and I can't pull myself up anymore cause there's, I don't know if it's something torn or bruised or what in my shoulder a certain way. So I gotta do something else. And we talked yesterday, you and I just, I think together about the, sometimes you take, four steps forward, but then it's two steps back or a step back or five steps back. And it's like you just have to know just don't give up, keep going. And I'll get back to that pull up bar. Maybe I'll just do some hanging, or I can still do pushups, so I'll just maybe double down on those. But anyway, that's what I'm thinking about that era. I really do like that Pope, my.

Michael: 9:36

Going in reverse order, but when you're talking about pull ups, I was laughing because As soon as I got up this morning, I was out in my garage and I was like, I'm going to do five pull ups. And then I mentally made the commitment, but now I'm verbally making the commitment to you Preston and our listeners as well to what I am now going to call the walk by five. So every time I walk by, I gotta do five, keep it simple. And I'm still planning on incorporating it into my workout more with dead hangs and just different variations on the pull up. You can do This is something that, that might help you, Preston. So you were talking about how your one shoulder was feeling more. a bit more sore by transitioning or transferring some of the weight to your biceps instead of your shoulders. What you can do is actually have reverse grip pull ups. So one palm is facing toward you, the other is facing away from you and the palm that's facing towards you is going to be more of a bicep activated pull up as long as you're keeping your hands closer together, a little bit, maybe a little bit outside of shoulder width or shoulder width apart. That's one thing for you to try, certainly, Preston, and definitely in the same boat of wanting to use that as just a consistent part of the workout going forward to number one, get, just get my heart rate up, get more of a, an upper body approach to my shoulders in addition to the rucking. And I'm thinking between the core body weight exercises that I want to be doing, which include I do, numerous different abdominal core muscle workouts like sit ups and I guess from a sit up, I do sit ups, I do leg raises, I do the crunches, I do what's called hello dollies, bicycle kicks crazy Ivans, the Russian twist, whatever people are calling that. Those are the general core workouts I do with also the gosh, what are they called? Planks. Escaped me for a second. Glad I can edit that one out and make it look like an idiot For planks, those are also great to do with the rucksack on your back because it makes it dramatically harder But then push ups, squats pull ups, those are the types of bodyweight workouts or with the rucksack that I'm going to be doing and Keeping it really simple in that regard also have a kettlebell and that's going to be more of my lifting routine outside of running and rucking. Those are the things I'm going to be starting to reinforce and formalize in more of a scheduled approach to my workout regimen. My wife has actually encouraged me to do it fewer times per week as far as like the workout. Not fully bought into that yet, so I will, however, alternate between what I'm doing to make it a little bit less intensity. But good on you for doing that, and I think it'll be something that we can, I know Scott has been working on pull ups, so he'll be all in on that piece.

Preston: 12:36

when you mentioned the walk by five concept, you're like if I walk by my pull up bar, I'm gonna do five pull ups. To all y'all listening, I, that, that's kinda what I've been doing with my pull up bar too which is, I think, what I was talking about as far as how I kinda got a lot better at them. But I've also been doing that for years at work where I have these timers on my watch throughout the day To where Because if you all don't know I work at FedEx right now and we have these service commitments throughout the day for Packages like 10 30 is one 10 30 a. m. Noon is another one 3 p. m. Used to be one and 5 p. m. It's this drop box time. So like at those four times throughout the day I have an alarm on my phone That or my watch or my phone right now That goes off and when it goes off I just I do 25 pushups. Sometimes it's 10, like I started doing it years ago where I would do at the time, I could only do five pushups at a time. So it was five. And then by the end of the day, I've done 20 pushups. There was a time last year, I think where I was doing 50 every time and I would do, so that was like 10, 30, 12 to six. Anyway, I was doing 50 at one point where now I'm just doing 25 and it's just. By the end of the day, I've incorporated just some of that body weight exercise into a routine that just takes About 30 seconds every few hours and it's super easy. You can do that with all kinds of stuff like that, like body squats, push ups. I guess maybe just those two without having a pull up bar, but that are really easy to just incorporate and then by the end of the day, you've had some stuff done that's made you stronger and more resilient. So that's my little add to that idea you said about The Walk by Dude 5. It's a great idea.

Michael: 14:39

So back to the quote and the comment about taking care of yourself, which I definitely think pull ups are very applicable. But, the Jordan Peterson quote and talking about treating yourself like you are somebody you are responsible for helping. Great idea, Preston, with regards to putting it on a post it note and putting it in your, or putting it in your phone, on the background of your phone. One of the things that we have had Lucy doing lately is a diet journal, not that she needs to lose weight, but we're really trying to see what kind of nutrients and and healthy food are you putting into your body. And making sure that she's drinking enough water, the reason being she's had these migraines chronically over the past year, which is just a huge bummer, missed a bunch of school and things like that. But I for a while have been doing a hundred ounces of water and I haven't been journaling and I've been using a nap on my phone just a reminder for the checkbox on that, which is great, but I haven't been doing the food journaling. So that was one of the things that I feel convicted by or just a perfect example. I'm saying, Hey, Lucy, you should do this. But then I'm not doing it with her and, I think in that case, it's just so much better to lead by example and do it together and get. More reinforcement for the habit for yourself more accountability for yourself, and I knew that I need it you know, I should be taking care of myself better as evidenced by Me not being as healthy for the first six seven weeks of the year and impress them to your comment about People think we've got together. I'm pretty sure they realize it's the exact opposite We recognize we don't have it all together and we're on the path of progress and the path to mastery In many areas in our life, but certainly nowhere close and yeah, so that led me to really integrity and just practicing the things that we're talking about on here and one of the key tenants or the last tenant of the slight edge principles is to practice this with integrity, practice the slight edge, knowing that there's an incremental growth. And yes, there are some step backs and corrections and, You have to build up some support in the terms of technical analysis before you can move up again and grow and reach new all time highs. And the integrity piece here is, with the journal, you're writing things down and you're keeping track of it. You're keeping yourself committed to other people, hopefully taking it to, some sort of doctor. Somebody who has more knowledge than you, so they can help you analyze that data and say, okay, what are these patterns and what needs to change? What can we, what new patterns can we create? And so I think those are the things that really stand out to me about this quote. The last couple of things I'll say so Ed Milette has a great podcast on this. I believe it's just called Put Yourself First. And it's one of those things where you say it and you're like, oh, that sounds really selfish. Or that sounds really. Not egotistical, but narcissistic? Is that the word? I don't Yeah, just, always being focused on yourself. It's, that's not exactly what we're saying here, but what we're saying and what Ed and my lead is saying is put yourself first where required, especially in the case of your health and the case of being able to take care of people. He uses The situation in an airplane, if for whatever reason, I pray to God I'm never in the situation, if the plane is starting to go down and the oxygen masks come out for whatever reason, you're supposed to put yours on first so that you can help others. And I think very similarly, If we're not taking care of ourselves and thinking about ourselves first, in many ways, we can't take care of people, period. And we won't have the strength or the energy to do so. And I really just wanted to call out that was a great podcast. So for me anyways, in closing, just want to express my gratitude for everyone who's listening and we're closing in on that year mark of By the time this one goes out, it will have been really close to one week away from a year that we put it out. It feels great, honestly. It feels good to have persisted and persevered and know that it's going to persist and persevere. And it's not something that I will discontinue. The gratitude that I have for you guys is hard to put into words but just also want to express it for the source of wisdom for this one, Jordan Peterson and the books that he's written. If you haven't read 12 Rules for Life, wow, if you haven't read 12 Rules for Life, An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson, pick it up, it's a great book, it's huge, but read one rule at a time, that's the guidance that I have because they're really dense reading Man, every time I'm reading it, it's just so motivational and it's So self evident when you read, you're like, Oh my gosh, this is, this is, it's true. And he just has a good way of articulating it. I feel, although his sentences are much more complex and in some cases and challenging to read. So thankful for that. Of course, grateful for you, Preston and Scott and this podcast. The mastermind that we formed to, to help us rise above ourselves and to tap into, a greater level of energy that we have together. And yeah, so check out that stuff, check out Ed Milet, check out 12 Rules for Life. And Preston, let me know if you have anything in closing here, otherwise I will cut that little snippet out and say thanks so much for joining us on episode 51 of Reclaiming Man. Hope you all have a great day. Have a great day, a great week, and remember to continue on 1 percent better.

Preston: 20:18

Great talking to you too, buddy. Love you. Love you, Scott. Maybe we'll get Scott for episode so episode 52, which is next, which will be our, technical one year anniversary. Take care, everybody.