933. What You Tolerate Is What You Become.

We talk a lot about habits, but what we don’t talk about enough is tolerance—what you let slide, what you justify, what you slowly start accepting. In this episode, I explore the asymmetry of tolerance—how we unconsciously expand our tolerance for destructive behaviors, while simultaneously shrinking our tolerance for the discomfort that accompanies growth and success.

You're going to learn how to spot your tolerance leaks—those small, seemingly harmless decisions that eventually cost you your fitness, your focus, your finances, your relationships, and even your identity.

We’ll break it into two parts:

• How to tighten destructive tolerance by setting hard limits and increasing your awareness.
• How to train successful tolerance—raising your threshold for resistance, rejection, and effort—so you can stretch your identity and win in the long run.

This isn’t about being perfect—it’s about raising your standard and shrinking the gap between who you are and who you’re meant to be.

Let’s get it! 

Transcript

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All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, MARSH BUICE and today I wanna talk about your tolerances and specifically how your tolerance can lead to success. Our tolerance can lead to your demise because it's a funny thing, man. When it comes to tolerance. There's an asymmetry to it, and asymmetry means it, it's, it's not equal. So we're quick to expand our tolerance for destructive behavior, and we do it through these micro justifications. I mean, bro, if you think about it, you could justify anything. You can rationalize it all, all the way and, and a, a quick thing, man, like if, if you, if you catch yourself. I trying to explain things and like you're overexplaining, that's a dead giveaway, that you are increasing your tolerance for something that's probably not gonna serve you well. In other words, if you did this, repeated this every single day for the next six months, am I gonna land on a 10 or am I gonna land on a negative 100? I mean, that's the thing that you gotta look at. So if you, if you find yourself starting to rationalize and overexplain things. That could be something for you to be aware of and say, eh, I may be increasing my tolerance for destructive measures. So that's, that's tolerance on the destructive side. But when it comes to growth or success, we're quick to shrink our tolerance. That's the first thing that we do. I mean, we want the results. But we don't wanna put forth the effort, the sweat equity. We do this so subtly, man. And that's the thing that I wanna bring to your awareness, the tolerance. It's these tolerance leaks is what I like to call it. And so you, you, you build in these, these subtle tolerances through your comfort zone. And even though you know you should be doing more. You just kind of put it off. You procrastinate, you rationalize, you explain it. And so I wanna bring this to your awareness so that way you can spot your tolerance, leaks, but on one side and quickly identify that and be like, yeah, this, this is a leak man. I need the, I need to plug the hole. And what's good is, is you can plug the hole instantly. Like it's just a slight course correction is all it is. But then also I wanna bring into your awareness too, on how you can increase your tolerance in productive ways as well. So that way you don't get comfortable and you're willing to embrace the uncertainty and handle the adversity as well. So let's talk about the bad first, the destructive tolerance. Because one thing you have to remember, you get what you accept. Whatever you accept in your life, everything that you, where you are right now. Is because you accepted that it is, and you made these thin slices of, of exceptions along the way, and this is why your money may be funny. It's why your relationships may not be where they need to be. It's why you, you just kind of stuck it on your job. This is why your your, your weight's starting to creep up. It's the tolerances. So let me give you five ways, that you're unconsciously. Increasing your tolerance for the wrong thing. Number one, just this once. Just this once isn't a moment, it's a mindset. And it's kinda like skipping class man. It's a whole lot easier after the first time, right? So you do it once and it just becomes a little bit easier. So whether it be that you're skipping a workout. That you're binge watching, that you're staying up late, late night junk food. You, you think it's okay just this once, but just this once. It's, it's the door opener. It's the thing that opens up for opportunities, but not in the right way. Number two, micro slips how you do the smalls is how you do the alls. It's not one decision, man. It's, it's a bunch of small ones. Think of a snowflake. That becomes a snowball, that becomes an avalanche. That's what happens in your life. An avalanche is just a whole bunch. Of snowflakes that stuck together and said, yay, let's go down this hill and and destroy everything. That's, that's what a snowflake is. And a lot of times, man, we make these snowflake decisions. And these little small things, you're like, ah, it's no big deal. Everything counts. Everything matters. And I'm not saying, bro, you gotta walk through life at an a plus, but you can do better than where you are right now. And it's just being able to see these little micro slips that you're making along the way. And dude, some of the micro slips, or just like as soon as you do it, you're like, why not even do that? I mean, you didn't have to. You could have changed the environment, done something different. And then that way the tolerance doesn't build up in the in the negative way. Number three, comfort seeking your brain whispers to you. Sweet. Nothings the first thing. Your mind, when you don't want to do something, your mind is gonna whisper to you and just, just say, look man, just double up. You get to it tomorrow. Nobody's watching. It's all good. And this is where we have the double up moments. And the double up moments are where we just, we add extra work on top of. But what happens is it's not yesterday's work. You, you, you, you keep adding to it. And because you got away with it, which is the fourth one, uh, the no consequence loop. So because you got away with it. Then it's just like, and it just builds up, builds up, builds up until finally the down breaks. So let's talk about the no consequence loop. That's number four. You got away with it. Time can be your greatest enemy or your, or your greatest ally. It can. And so thank God things don't happen in an instant. Now when it comes to success, we want an instant. When it comes to something bad destructive, we don't want it in an instant. Well, you can't have it both ways. And so again, everything counts. And so thank God you don't bite into a whopper and you drop dead. Okay? Your body gives you these tolerances, this margin for error. It gives you those things. But also it's the exceptions that you make. And because you got away, here's the elusive thing, you got away with it and you're like, oh. And what happens is, I don't know what it is, dude. It's just human nature I guess. And so we got away with it. So then we like, can I get away with it? And a little bit more the next day and a little bit more. And what happens is the baseline continuously moves. And then the last one is the comparison trap. Is another way that you build tolerance in a destructive way, so you're better than the person back here. It's kinda like the skinny girl who hangs out with a bunch of fat people to make themselves look better, right? Or the real pretty girl hangs out with ugly people because when they go out, they look like a, a superstar, or you hang out with friends that are more broke than you. But the problem with that is, you hang out with f. People, the best you're gonna get is a D plus life. That's it. And so you have to have that awareness and that how are you comparing yourself? And I say comparison sometimes, man. It's just subtly like who you just gravitate around. Do you gravitate? Toward people that are just, they're, they're just not on a good trajectory. It's not that we can't be all up and comers, I'm not saying that at all. It's not that you're better than anyone else, but are you better for you? That's the thing. And are they doing better for them? And if we're doing that together, even if they're a mile or two behind me, that's cool. As long as they're, they're trying to do better, bro, I'm with you. But if you just keep. Regurgitating and going back to your own vomit in destructive ways. I, I, I can't be with you like that. Alright, so that's the, that's destructive tolerances. The, the, the five that I just outlined to you. Was it five? Yeah, the five that I just outlined to you. Where do you spot yourself in those? Could be a couple of them. Could be one of them. But the good news is, is bringing, bringing an awareness. Now you're aware, now you're awake. You're like, ah, okay, I get it. Life is super sneaky, man. It is. And so we do things and it just kind of, things just sneak up on us. But they don't have to if we stay aware. Alright, so let me give you some different ways. To stay aware. Number one is a daily awareness practice. Now, I'm not big on a whole bunch of rituals and all that kind of different shit, but I would tell you this, like there are five areas, core pillars in your life. They all start with the letter F to make it easy. Okay? So it's fa, it's faith, family, fitness, finances, fulfillment. So on a scale from one to five. Grade yourself every day in each one of those five categories. So five being the best, one being not so good how did you practice your faith today? Did you stretch your faith? Did you build more knowledge about your faith? Did you step outside of your comfort zone and Learn things? stretch your faith a little bit? Okay, family. Were you more preoccupied on social media than you were with your family on finances? Did you spend extra vowing to double up? Oh, I'll pay it off next month. And you don't even know how you're gonna pay it off, like you're barely making ends meet. Now it's bullshit tolerance. So just look at yourself and then at the end of the week, tally 'em up. And so if you get a 28 or higher. Then, okay, that's 80%. It's passing. It's not that you have a plus all the time that you get, you know, five in each category, seven days a week, that's a 35. I don't expect you to have a 35 in every category, but a majority, like you're doing better. It's just bringing an awareness to it. You don't have to be an A plus. You don't have to be perfect, but you just have to do better. Another way to increase your tolerances, set hard limits. Some minimum standards, minimums of excellence, I say. And so build in your consistent, you gotta be average to be great. Build in your averages first. Okay? What can you, what is the minimums you can commit to? Again, consistency over intensity. The intensity's gonna naturally raise anyway, so. What are some bare minimums? I know, given my circumstance right now and how I feel, I will work out three days a week. That's what you're gonna say. So you build a rule based on that three days a week. It could be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and I'm off for the rest of the week. I don't care. Do it however you want to. I don't care what all the science, bro science says. I don't care about none of that. First do it for you. Okay, so your minimum standards, write one page every single day. I bang the drum on this. I'm telling you, it'll empty your mind. Clarify your thoughts. Write one page. You do this as a daily practice. I very rarely ever write one page a day, but I tell myself one page a day, that's all I gotta do. Because initially that resistance is saying, eh, I don't have anything to write like today, man, I have nothing to write about. I set my timer for 15 minutes and I doodled and I wrote, I just, I just did things. I didn't feel like it, and it really didn't come out to anything, but it triggered, I wrote one word tolerance. I. And, you know, some other words, but that was the, the word that really stood out. I went to the gym to work out. On my way home, I started thinking more and more about tolerance and why this is how this came about. Why do we have tolerance for destructive things? We're always trying to move the, the needle on that for destructive measures and justifying it. And then, but when it comes to success, we don't, we're just like, oh no, I don't wanna do all that. This is how this came about, that write one page every single day. So setting a rule like that drinks, when you go out for drinks, know yourself, man. So when you go out for drinks, just a couple of drinks after that, it gets wild and wooly. All right? So that's what it is. Another way to tighten your tolerance. If something lights the fuse, don't do it. Know yourself. Know yourself. So if something lights the fuse, don't do it. Your baseline is easier to keep than it is to rebuild. Always remember that. That's good, isn't it? Your baseline is easier to keep than to rebuild. So if you're tired of quitting, stop starting over. It's the same sort of thing. People say, going back to the basics. It's 'cause you just, you just tolerated too much in a destructive way. Now you gotta, so you know, you, you never have to, you never have to start again. If you just keep. Keep building on it, right? And it's these small measures every single day and just having an awareness about it, man. And then the last thing is another way to tighten your tolerance. This is really good. Use social media, leverage it as an accountability partner. Some of you may have an accountability partner, okay? I don't, so my thing would be my accountability partner is my Instagram stories. And so wake up at a set time, write every single day, read something random every single day. Share something of value, which is what this is, and then design my day. I know what I'm gonna wear. I know what I'm gonna eat that day. Okay? And so that's, that's just my checkpoints that I do every single day. And so I use social media in that way. And you may wanna consider doing this too. It's not about showing to the world. You know, look at me, look at me. No, it's basically using, leveraging social media in a way that, 'cause people are watching you, people are seeing if you're gonna show up, right? And so when you do that and you put that out there, this increases your consistency and like social media becomes that digital mirror for you. All right? So that's on the destructive side of tolerance. Now let's talk about successful tolerance and how you can actually raise the bar. So think of it like this. Destructive tolerance. You should set rules, productive tolerance, successful tolerance, however you wanna look at it. You should, make it a challenge. So set rules on the destructive side, make it a challenge on the productive side. You have to train for tolerance. If you're gonna grow, if you're gonna do anything exceptional, you have to train for tolerance. That means. Yeah, there's gonna be the ever presents resistance. Resistance will never go away. I don't care how much your life is liquid gold, I don't care. You're always gonna have resistance. It's never gonna go away. So just embrace it. Know it's gonna be there. So there's gonna be all kinds of re resistance. There's gonna be the discomfort, there's gonna be boredom, there's gonna be rejection. There's all kind of different ways. Adversity, uncertainty, and complacency. There's all those things. So start training for it. And the real test of it is when life's not really loading the bar for you. When things aren't really, nothing's really bad happening, it's just kind of. Everything's good. Move around long. Watch your tolerances. This is where you should watch because you lose that awareness. You kind of doze off and you get complacent. And then the destructive tolerance starts creeping in. You start making these micro justifications, explaining things, doubling up, laying up a little bit, sleeping in a little later, eating a little bit more. It's the smalls, and then they all add up. So. Let's look at some, some ways that you can train for tolerance in a successful way. Number one, micro, micro challenges. So this, this is your base hits over home runs, man. You're not swinging for the fence or anything like that. The, the, the challenges are just these micro doses, man, just take these small risks. So wherever you have that. Procrastination, that hesitation, that second guessing whatever, uh, do it tomorrow. I'll double it. Do it right then and there. Here's a rule that I, that I put in. If it takes less than five minutes, go ahead and do it. It does. Or what? How much time, if you had to do this right now, how much time would you wanna, man, I got like 10 minutes. Set your timer for 10 minutes and then when the timer goes off, if you're not done, you have permission to walk away from it. But a lot of times what happens, this is one of those little mine hacks. A lot of times what happens is, is you do it, you get to that 10 minute mark and you're like, bro, I'm almost done. Lemme go ahead and knock it out. And then you're done. Then you, you're free up. A lot of the stress that you have is just procrastination. That's what it is. It's, it is things that you keep. It's these regrets that lay up these daily regrets and these little things. There's things you should be doing. Folding the clothes, knock it out, man. Knock it out. Other micro challenges would be like going for no, like how many nos can you, you know, whatever. I'd rather hear a no than assume a no. So instead of assuming you're gonna get rejected, go out there and go, go hear a no good, notch it up. What happens is a lot of times you go for, no, you'll find the yeses. You definitely will. Andrea Waltz wrote a whole book, go for, no, I would tell you to get that book even if you're not in sales. Get the book. It's an excellent book and it's too tiny. So it's all these little micro challenges. Walk into a room that you're uncomfortable with. Strike up a conversation with somebody on the elevator. Dude, I gotta constantly push myself. I act like an extrovert on camera. I'm not okay. I am not. I just push myself to, to do these things. Number two. How to build your success tolerance. Build some capacity at failing failing's a process. Failure is an identity, it's a label. And the only way that you become a failure that you become the label is if you just stop trying. So every L that you take, man. It just, it sharpens your skills and it expands your identity. What you're doing is you're writing a new narrative. So when you do tougher things, things that you don't really feel like doing, like, let me tell you this, anything you don't feel like doing is probably a good thing for you. It's probably something that is really beneficial for your life. I mean, think about that. So if you don't feel like doing it, it's probably a good thing because how many justifications, you know, it's not like we, oh man, I really don't feel like drinking this beer and smashing this seafood. Pla. Like, no, we're just like, we'll cave it that quick. But if it's like going to work out for 30 minutes, we're like, oh, it's, I mean, it's beneficial making these block of phone call. Oh. It's beneficial. Do it, man. So anyway, build this capacity for failing a little bit more. Every time, man, you do things outside of your comfort zone, you're, you're building a capacity, you're building a tolerance to be able to handle more. Nobody likes rejection. Nobody likes like, especially working out all the damn time. Nobody likes getting up early. Nobody likes reading, writing. I, I, I learned to love it, but initially, like, dude, I hit the resistance every single time. So it's facing that resistance, embracing it, knowing that bitch was gonna be there. I. And you, and you do it anyway. You just do the things and this is where you stretch. This is how you get outside and keep building that, that tolerance. Number three, bust a sweat every single day. And I'm saying this physically, but I'm also saying this mentally as well. Physically, we all know that you're getting out older. This is the youngest you're ever gonna be. Train for life, man. You don't wanna be the guy with a tennis ball and walker. You don't want, you don't wanna be the guy that walks around with a walker and tennis balls on the back. You don't wanna be the guy that wears coveralls, the one zip coveralls and no underwear underneath and talking about what you used to do. So you don't wanna be that guy. So get some physical bust of sweat, man. Just a little bit. You don't have to, we don't have to be Ed honored. You don't have to be Mr. Olympia man. But you gotta, you gotta stretch yourself a little bit. Get that stiffness, work that rust out. Now bust a sweat. Also, is a mental sweat the thing that you don't feel like doing. Again, walking into uncomfortable situations. Asking something directly, asking someone to buy, asking someone to do something. Ask, you know, saying what your, what's your expectations for some like, man, have these conversations, the confrontation piece, but in a productive way, man. Do those things and you're gonna build that capacity. I. Number four, reframe the narrative. Okay? You gotta remember, man, like when you fade away from adversity or uncertainty, are you, are you, you comply with complacency, you're building that narrative. It's what you're doing. And if you wanna rewrite that narrative. Then you have to push yourself outside. And then when you do that, man, you're rewriting that narrative. You're doing things outside. And dude, again, I'm just talking about small things. It's the small things that build these little micro doses up. So when hard things hit, you have something to fall back on and remind yourself that, look, I've done some hardship before. Okay, but you gotta, you can't just like. Sit in a chair all day long. We atrophy in life when we're not pushing ourselves, and that's what we do. We just, we sit in these metaphorical chairs and we're just like, well, it's, it's, I mean, when time comes, I mean, we'll just deal with it there. No, you deal with it every day by just building in your tolerances. Again, it's the thing you don't want do yet. It leads to something productive. Go ahead and do it. The last one create a new identity. Well, I guess I just talked about identity, so, but I didn't really talk about reframe, so let me swap number four and five out. Okay. Reframing the power of reframing. I did a whole podcast episode on this, have no idea which number it is, but the power of reframing means that you take something and instead of going off the rails talking about woe is me, you reframe it and you find your do wells like what did you do well in this situation? How did you handle yourself? Draw on the good. Un understand, analyze, learn from the, the not so good, the bad, and then you reframe it and roll on, man, you're just, again, you're just building the capacity and you're rewriting the narrative itself. So here's my challenge for you today, okay. What are some things that you're tolerating but shouldn't be? And what are some things that you should be tolerating more, but you're not? In other words, what do you need to do less of and what do you need to do more of the answer's in your next move. All right, let's get outta here. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.