Episode 53 - Reclaiming Mind: Closing the Gap

Michael and Preston return in Episode 53 to discuss reframing, space repetition (another 75 Hard go by Preston) and taking steps on the path toward closing the gap between us and our dreams!

Transcript

Preston: 0:09

All righty, Michael. Welcome to year number two, officially of the Reclaiming Man podcast, episode 53. You got me. Yeah, according to the day that we released our first episode. What is the date today? Is it the? March 9th. Oh, dang. Yeah. That's pretty freaking cool, dude.

Michael: 0:34

Yeah. That was the day that we released our first few episodes, it's crazy. This

Preston: 0:38

time last year, Scott and I were in St. Louis or something like that, and you weren't there. Now, this year. Scott's doing family stuff today. He's got his like in laws in town for a visit and you and I are hanging out. We should yeah, really quick episode 53 reclaiming man, Preston, the Southern Canuck Radomski here. And we got Don Miguel, otherwise known as a Michael, the mastermind Beckwith over there on the other side there. But, we were with Zach Babcock last year, cause we were learning how to do this whole podcast thing. Have you seen his picture recently? No. What did he do? He shaved his beard off, bro. Beard is gone. He looks fantastic.

Michael: 1:22

You know why I did, right? Cause you did. Yeah.

Preston: 1:26

Yeah, Zach. It's very honored that you took a page out of my book and shaved your beard off. And it's looking good. You're looking about as handsome as I'm looking these days. But you gotta get a little bit more gray in your beard like I do and then you'll be up to par with me there, buddy. Ha Until then. It adds the wisdom. You're welcome. Yeah, but he does have some really fricking cool tattoos. So I guess he's got the edge in that aspect. Or I guess that maybe makes us tied. I don't

riverside_preston_the southern c... _ mar 10, 2024 001_reclaiming_man: 1:53

know.

Preston: 1:54

So what are we talking about today? Michael episode 53 reclaiming mind. Are we on?

Michael: 2:01

Yes. Reclaiming mind. I was thinking we would harken back to a concept called close the gap. And I was rereading through some of the Tony Robbins materials that I went through last year and one of his four day conferences, which was really good. Unleash the power within and, close the gap. It's just the concept that there's always. going to be something between you, some amount of space or some skill that you need to acquire or level up on, some additional time that you need to spend executing against some plan to close the gap between where we're at right now and where we want to be in the future. And I was delayed getting in here because, My sister in law and Jen, my wife and Paige and Lucy, my father in law were downstairs and they were tapping. Are you familiar with tapping? Like tap dancing? It's like priming. Tapping with you use, your fingers like on different parts of your bodies. And you basically, as you're doing it, you're doing incantations, like you're talking about things that you want to like negative energy that you want to release or things that you want to do. There's all sorts of different Or

Preston: 3:20

you do, like Allah, Akbar, like stuff like those guys. No,

Michael: 3:24

I'm just kidding. Yes.

Preston: 3:25

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Now that sounds really interesting. Is it like a meditative thing, almost, or?

Michael: 3:33

So I don't know too much about this yet, right? I just I saw them down there and it reminded me, because they were talking about things in the future. That's a car. I had this workbook open as I've been just. Reworking through it independently and I saw this close the gap exercise that he does where he you know has us Help actually like he brings in Dean Graziosi. Do you know that name?

Preston: 4:00

Sounds familiar, but I don't like I don't know offhand No,

Michael: 4:03

okay. I won't go down into too deep of a Tangent on it, but either way, you know Closing the gap just, you know referring to what? Whichever area of your life. And I think for me right now, it's mostly mentally that I need to close the gap and put myself in position to acquire the the knowledge and the skills to take me to where I want to go next, because we always have this place where we are right now, and then. There should be a tension between a positive tension between where we want to go and those dreams that we have it's like it makes for the uncomfort it makes for the challenge and the stress. But in some cases, it's like just changing the perspective on the stress to realize that it's good. And so that was what I wanted to basically talk reframing. Stress in a positive manner and how that can help us close the gap. I like it. Yeah I think

Preston: 5:02

I struggle too with the what you're talking about like mentally I guess accomplishing things or being mentally focused or being mentally tough. Yeah, Yeah, and it's I think a lot of people I don't think I know like I bet like I would I don't know 75 percent of Americans gosh, I would say probably even more Struggle with that on a daily basis And then when you Look at what America kind of is right now. Just how we were all overweight, and we're all not eating right, and we're You know just suicides are up, like children are lost. The gap is widening. The gap is, yeah, widening extreme. It is and it isn't. There's like the people that are, yeah, you're right, the gap is widening with a lot of people. But there are the folks that are. Yeah, with some people. Recognizing that and attempted to do something about that close that gap for themselves. And I think the more people that do that, the more, and talk about it too, I just started 75 hard again. I'm on day six. I think I'm on day six. And I haven't told my wife I'm doing it yet. It was funny the other day. She's are you doing 75 hard again? I was like, no, not like really. Cause what was it? It's Sunday night or Monday morning or something. Just Oh, you want to have some champagne tonight? I was like, nah, I'm good. And I forget something else. And then, Oh, and then I was getting granola or peanuts and stuff ready for my lunch. And it was like a trail mix with M& M's and stuff in it. So I'm at the kitchen like picking out all the M& M's and Rivanna comes up and she's like, Why are you doing that? I'm I just don't want to. Cause like my whole thing is I want to try and do 75 hard without anybody knowing. I'm telling you right now because like it just, I have to know that we're talking about this concept because it's Exactly. It's one of those tools. It's a great tool. Yeah. And the idea of if I can do it without anyone like knowing, then like that, cause the whole point about like 75 hard is like the mental toughness challenge. And when we all did it last year, I made it to, I don't know, day 40 or something like that. And just fell off the wagon after that. And I remember thinking the whole time, like even my wife was like what, even if you made it to day 75, what do you do on day 76? And I had just been. I just read the 75 Hard book recently, or I started reading, I finished it to this morning and I was listening to, he's got two podcasts. One is 75 Hard and one is the live hard program and 75 Hard is part of that program because I'd always wondered too yeah, what do you do after day 75? And what Andy does is it's this whole one year program of Live Hard. I won't go into it, but if you look up on his podcast, episode 14 of Real Af. is the 75 hard program and I forget the live hard aspect, but it's just okay, so it's not just something you do once and forget about. It's like you, you turn it into this lifestyle and it seems unsustainable. But as I was thinking about, because the last time it was hard because I would have to get up early for work and work out and then I would have to Get a workout in at the end of the day, which would cut into family time. But this time around, I was how can I do this? So that no one knows. And it's I have to take an hour lunch at work. And it's what do I do during that hour lunch? I just fuck around on Instagram and Facebook. Absolutely do nothing for myself. So what if I just take a ruck to work and walk around for 45 minutes, wherever the hell I'm at, whichever city. And it's then that's all done. And like reading takes 10 or 15 minutes, like here and there. And the rest is like easy. And then you figure out if you can do that, then you can do a lot of things. I'm assuming like when I get to day 75. And it's just, it's hard mentally because. I half did it the first time. So starting over is ah, fuck. Like I already made it this far the first time. It's hard to start over again and redo it. But at the same time, when, you get a few days in, it's okay. This does feel good, even though it's rough. So totally lost my train of thought. I don't know where the heck I was going with that.

Michael: 9:42

No, I think both of the things that you're mentioning with regards to 75 hard and closing the gap you have to find these. Different tools to help, routine is one of the things that we've talked about so much. And I agree that the same really does apply to the closing the gap because it has to be something that's a consistent part of your routine that you're going to do. And, so the the. The mindset gaps that we all have the more, the more that I read in the, in this space they re I feel like there's quite a few through lines around mindset and closing the gap for me anyways. Like I think about, like the, I was talking about the aspects of positive stress and The tension that exists between where you are, for instance, with, playing a few gigs down at Broadway to I want this to be my main thing. There's tension because your desire is to be playing more. And so in order to do that, it's, that's where you look at something like 75 hard and I would say, yeah, that's a great program, but also add in the element of. Music, because if you want to be doing anything for 75 days straight, yeah, working out is great, but hopefully you'll find with rucking, like if you just do the ruck and then this sounds so weird, but do the rock, but then at the end of it, do some squats, try to do some pushups with that rucksack on. Like your body is going to be like full full workout. It's going to be So anyways, my point is I would suggest that replacing some part of the 75 hard day with just more music, more guitar, because the goal of that 75 hard program to your point is to get to like really rapid improvement and then find a way to sustain it afterwards. Yeah, which, I know you have you want to have from a physical and body perspective, you have these other goals, but mentally, and musically, you also have these other more important goals. So that's where I, think with the 75 hard program, it's important to tailor it to what are you trying to accomplish at the end of these 75 days? And it's not like a specific goal as much as it is a change in direction. I think our change in energy and velocity, because it gives you so much more momentum. And that's where I was like, why I was revisiting this Tony Robbins stuff. I was like, I need to put more energy, more focus into these things again, because last year when I was doing it, then I was finding a greater level of success a greater level of growth was happening because I was just putting more energy and focus on my mindset. And by the end of the year, it wasn't like, Oh, I think I have this figured out. It was more I was focusing on other things. I was putting my energy into other places. Focusing on the positive stress as I was looking at this last couple of weeks, which had a number of different like work deliverables and personal stuff that was going on. There, there's just, quite a bit of disconnect with just family stuff and, raising kids life. And yesterday at the end of the day, I realized that. In every area that I thought I was struggling, I just had this reframing moment of looking at it like, Oh, this is making us stronger. This is making our family stronger by going through this stuff. And so it just gave me so much more patience going into the conversations with my daughter and my wife. And, there's just it So many good effects, I think when you can reframe something that most people consider as negative and look at it from the perspective of is this helping me move towards my goals? And in this case, I think it really is like all this stuff is helping me move in the right direction. It just is stressful and that's not a bad thing.

Preston: 14:13

Yeah, no I totally feel you. It's. One of the main reasons, one of the other main reasons why I wanted to do 75 hard again was because I really want to get out of FedEx and onto Broadway. And while it might seem counterintuitive to spend that much time working out during the day, it's I'm still doing like a ton of music when I've been rocking at work. What's building discipline, right? And that's a huge that too. And it's, that's really good. It's well, yeah, it's extremely good. And it's and I like, I need to be, cause I played a gig last weekend and, like I wore my cowboy boots down there. And then like for two days after, like my knees were just fucking gone. I didn't, cause I, I got these like new flat shoes a few months back and like my knees have been feeling like so good at work and getting stronger. What kind of shoes are they? They're this brand called Lems and they're just like a zero lift heel or something like, I forget what the term is, but they're just, they're flat. They're cushioned, but they are designed cause like basically our, the way we're designed to walk, it's like our feet are just our feet. And when you have a raised heel. It affects the way your knees and your posture and stuff works. Yeah, that makes sense. And, wearing my boots at that gig, like just threw them out again. And so I was like, okay I've got at least part of the 75 heart two is like getting my legs so much stronger in the muscle, stronger around those knees. And then also, what was I going to say? Oh, just. When I've been rocking, like I've been doing it with no headphones. Like I'm just walking around these towns, like in my head for 45 minutes. And I'm like, I'm plotting things. I'm planning things. I'm like organizing stuff for Broadway in my head. And then I, yes. Okay. I love it. So it's I have, yeah. Method and a plan for all this and it's, I feel like I'm building confidence in myself back up again by, by doing this and feeling good about accomplishing these things. So it's like now I, cause it's just we talked with Brad last week, just how intimidating it is like getting down there and doing, putting yourself out there, but it's like, You just got to do it. Building this confidence up in myself is making me feel more yeah I can just, I'll be fine. Like I've got a gig next Saturday and, I'm going to try and get it one before that same day. I don't know if that will happen. It just depends if anyone needs a guitar player or not. But yeah, just getting down there and just doing a bunch of things and being more attentive around the house and just just focusing the mindset. I really feel like this second time around, I have a different, attitude mindset going into it because I also understand like day 76 is, it almost I'm assuming it's just, my plan is for it to like not in, not that I'm going to do 75 hard for the rest of my life, but, to some extent, I really feel like I just need to, on some level and it's the way the kind of, what was the year long program works is like when you're done 75 hard, like in order to start phase one, Do they

Michael: 17:50

still not drink the whole time like are they like really focusing on that piece to work the live harder?

Preston: 17:56

Yes, sort so there's three phases. 75 hard is 75 hard And then during those other three phases you can't drink but those three phases are one month each So it's like when you're done 75 hard, you have to take, I think you have to take a month off. Like you can't start phase one for a month. You can keep doing 75 hard or whatever you want, but it doesn't. quote unquote count towards the lip because it's like the point is that you take that month off and then if you, when you have to get back into it so you can have a cocktail or whatever, like maybe do one workout a day. So the first phase one is like 75 hard plus a few other things you add. And then I think you take a bit of time off to phase two. I think it's just 75 hard again with a few other things. And then phase three you can, you have to start with 30 days left to your year anniversary of starting 75 hard. So if you fail phase one, you still have time to like complete phase one within that year, but if you fail phase three you, you're fucked for the year. You got to start over basically. And phase three, there's something like you got to talk to someone new every day out in public. There's some, it's really interesting. It's it's worth looking into just for, I don't know, it's just an interesting dude.

Michael: 19:18

Yeah, I should have read. I think I should have read more about it before I did that, because I think. The way that I looked at it was probably more in one of those types of phase one, phase two, phase three approaches where I was just thinking like, Oh man, at the time. And I still, let's say I'm in the same boat. Like I'm not overly dissatisfied with my body. Yes. I would like to be stronger. Yes. I would like to have more endurance, but, I look at it as okay, what are the outputs of that? Gosh, I, that just Means I have to eat more. I have to eat more calories if I'm going to work out twice a day. And so if I'm going to eat more than it just I'm like I have to, find more things to eat, so I there's this is one of those areas where I look at it, it's I don't think it as much, think about it as much as two workouts a day. It's just like making sure that you spend at least 45 minutes outside a day. That's yeah. Yeah, that's huge. Especially if it involves anything out in the sun and just the therapy of, like you said, walking around and being able to be up in your head because your feet are just taking you where they go. Yeah, exactly.

Preston: 20:26

Yeah, I think if, maybe by the 75 hard book, cause it's So much of what the, it's not a fitness challenge and that's he emphasizes that on the, cause he's got like a dedicated podcast to the program of 75 hard like an episode and then an episode dedicated to the live hard. And it's it's, yes, it's technically a fitness challenge to some aspect that you're going to get more fit, but it's the whole point of the program is to build mental toughness. And Yeah. Yeah. A side effect of that is the, getting more healthy and all that. And that's, I think what is lost on, because of like the Instagram world and the way people like tag it online, it can very easily just become this oh, make your body look better challenge type of a thing. And it does, and it will, but that's not the sort of end goal of what his.

Michael: 21:19

Yeah, exactly. It's not the end goal.

Preston: 21:21

It goes to what we're talking about today, like that closing the gap, like being mentally strong.

Michael: 21:28

Yeah. That's great. I think that's a good way to wrap the show. Ultimately there's a couple of different things that we're talking about here to ways to close the gap. And the first one that I brought up was reframing some of The stress that we're experiencing in life. And it's not to say that negative stress doesn't exist just coming out of some episodes where we talked about anxiety and stressful situations in the case of our interview with Brad, where there's some social drama or whatever it may be, there are true negative stress situations. Let's avoid those. But then. Totally. Also recognize that the stress in your life also could be positive because it could be that tension. That's you making efforts to get to that next level. I certainly have felt that way. And I think Preston with kicking off another, effort at 75 hard, I feel coming into it and you doing it for yourself, not for other people, not for social media, that's a really cool aspect of it. And I think it's going to be very helpful for you and also closing the gap, especially the stuff that you were talking about with just doing planning for Broadway. That's super exciting. Hope the listeners also can think about something in their life in a similar way, whether it's doing another 75 day challenge or just assessing where your mindset's at and seeing if, are you becoming more resilient mentally to Preston's point? Are you building up that mental toughness or are you starting to just take a step farther away from what your dreams are by. Not taking action.

Preston: 23:03

Go out there and start something today. That's right. What did you do this morning for a workout? I did a kettlebell leg workout. Nice. So second leg workout, which is like, yeah, because I'm I was following like in his, in Andy's book, he goes through what he would do during his work and he would do weights every day and then some kind of cardio in the afternoon outside. And so he would do it was like shoulders, shoulders, back legs. Arms. What is the other one? It was like four things and then two leg days a week and just, and then rotate. So it's cause leg day sucks. Like when I did it on Wednesday, I did one on Wednesday and like Thursday and Friday, I've just been a fricking mess. And so this morning it was like, here we go again. It was rough. Like I was having a hard time. Keep up with my keeping up with my girl. But in two weeks, like my legs are going to be fucking tree trunks, so it's like. I just don't, I'm not going to skip leg day. It's just going to happen twice a week. And that's going to be that. And and to your

Michael: 24:10

point about being on stage and feeling more comfortable and not having your knees hurt there's so much more important. I'm building out that like in core strength. So totally. Yeah. That's where I was just like thinking about. 75 hard again, it's just that's a really good way for you to help close the gap. So yeah, super cool, man.

Preston: 24:32

Yeah, but we'll get there That's right. Episode 53. I'll see you next week in the books. Hell yeah. Everybody have a great week. And if you get into any shenanigans on a St. Patrick's day, get an Uber. We'll see you next time.