The Bamboo Lab Podcast
"Ordinary people doing extraordinary things!"
The Bamboo Lab Podcast
Becoming Undeniable: The Power of Voluntary Adversity
What if embracing discomfort was actually the secret to happiness? In this powerful solo episode, Brian Bosley challenges conventional wisdom by introducing a game-changing concept: voluntary adversity—the practice of deliberately seeking out difficult experiences to build resilience and control over your life.
Using the compelling metaphor of buffalo versus cows during storms, Bosley reveals why running toward challenges rather than away from them is transformative. While cows flee storms (extending their misery), buffalo charge directly into them, minimizing their time in discomfort. This natural wisdom applies directly to our lives—when we avoid pain, it pursues us relentlessly.
The heart of this episode centers around the "happiness pie chart" that breaks down our contentment into three segments: 50% genetics, 10% external circumstances (money, status, possessions), and a crucial 40% intentional activities we can completely control. It's this 40%—particularly through voluntary adversity—where true transformation happens.
"Earn your comfort, don't seek it," Bosley advises, sharing his personal practices like cold plunges, weighted runs, and role-playing speeches before delivery. Through practical techniques including breathwork, mantras, and Mel Robbins' countdown method, he provides tools to overcome the mind's resistance to discomfort. With examples ranging from cold showers to public speaking to taking different routes home, he demonstrates how even small daily challenges build extraordinary resilience.
The choice we face is stark: experience the temporary pain of work (rewarded forever) or the temporary reward of avoidance (regretted forever). Which wolf will you feed? Start practicing voluntary adversity today, and become truly undeniable.
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Hello and welcome to the Bamboo Lab Podcast with your host, peak Performance Coach, brian Bosley. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of life, spinning and spinning but not really moving forward? Are you ready to jump off and soar? Are you finally ready to sculpt your life? If so, you've landed in the right place. This podcast is created and broadcast just for you, all of you strivers, thrivers and survivors out there. If you'd like to learn more about Brian and the Bamboo Lab, feel free to reach out to explore your true peak level at wwwbamboolab3.com.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of the Bamboo Lab Podcast. This week, or at least this episode, you get me and only me. You know I do get a lot of emails from people asking if I could just do a few more of the solo. I call them monologue shows. Quite frankly, I prefer to interview people, and it's all because of very selfish reasons. Number one it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier to ask questions and learn from someone else and take notes than it is to come up with content and have to speak for 20 to 30 minutes. And number two I love talking to people because I learn so much from every one of our guests. When you hear a guest tell their story, share their wisdom, that's the first time I've ever heard it. I don't see their notes. I don't see other than my research that I do on them. I don't know anything about what they're going to say prior to coming on. So I like that aspect. But I do like to bring up new topics as well, and there's one that's been sitting in my heart for the last few months only because I've really seen the benefit it's allowed me in my life, probably more so over the last three or four years.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to share start with a story, and I'm sure many of you have heard this the metaphor of a buffalo versus a cow. So what kind of tends to happen when you have a herd of cows in a pasture and a storm comes in? What cows tend to do is they tend to run away from the storm instinctively. And that seems to make sense, because that's what most of us do in our lives. We tend to run from pain, we tend to run away from things that cause us discomfort. But man pain, discomfort, fear it's a dogged pursuer and it eventually catches up to us. Well, a buffalo, on the other hand, what buffalo tend to do in the fields when a storm is coming, they tend to herd up and run toward the storm, because they instinctively know if they run toward the storm, they're going to spend less time within the storm because they're going in the opposite direction. So where a cow runs away, the storm catches up and then it just runs with the storm for a while. That's what we do too quite often. I know I have many, many times in my life.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I want to do is I want to talk about a topic, maybe do a few series on these by myself, like this, also bringing guests on on how to be undeniable. So today the topic is be undeniable, with the subset of practicing voluntary adversity. So I'll ask you a few questions. First of all, what scares you Think about? The part of your life, the things that you do, the encounters you have, the experiences you experience what are the ones that really scare you? What are the ones that really scare you? What are the things you dislike doing the most, day to day, week to week, and what are the things in your life that truly take you out of your comfort zone? I want you to put those either on paper or think of those right now. It can be a multitude of things Asking someone out on a date, offering an idea in a planning meeting, going for a run, entering a room by yourself. There's a plethora of things. There's no shortage of things that can scare us, and they're different for each of us.
Speaker 2:So one of the things we've talked about in previous episodes that ties really well into this is something we call the happiness chart. So, if I can ask you, if you have a piece of paper, just draw a circle. If you don't picture a circle. We're going to create a three-part or three-portioned pie chart. So think about that circle. Now Cut that circle right in half from top to bottom, so you have two halves 50-50. Now on the right side, cut a little sliver on the bottom. That's about 10% of the circle. So now you have three pieces of pie. One represents 50%, one represents 40% and the other represents 10%. This represents your happiness, and happiness can be actually broken down in such a simplified term for lay people like us. Now there are experts out there. There are books called the Happiness Advantage. I mean, there's a number of books out there, experts far beyond my pay grade who understand happiness at a very scientific, psychological level. But this can be. For us, this is a really good representation of happiness and it can help us to really grasp how we can internally become more joy-filled people, more content with our lives, more in control of our destinies.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that one side, the left side of your pie chart, that represents half, put DNA or genetic. Because here's the deal good or bad, half of your likelihood of happiness in your world, in your life, is designed or comes through genetically. It's in your DNA. Think you can think mom and dad and grandmas and grandpas from generations back. Either you have a little happier gene or you don't have a little happier gene. You have no control nor any influence on that, so there's nothing we can do about it. Now. We can take medication to appear more happy, but it doesn't actually change your baseline happiness.
Speaker 2:Now let's go to that little sliver of 10%, because this one's intriguing, because 10% of your happiness level is a combination of a multitude of things that you probably think about, focus on, dream about or worry about throughout sliver of your happiness is comprised of the house you live in, the car you drive, how popular you are, how attractive you are, how much money you make, how much money you have in investments, how much respect other people do you feel they give you, how much respect other people do you feel they give you. So all those things that we think about in the course of a day, that we worry about. We wake up at three in the morning concerned about all of them. If they were perfect in your life and you had everything you wanted in all of those areas, it would only comprise 10% of your happiness, and you have no control over those things. Right, you have influence over those. You can influence the car, the house, the money. You could do things to make yourself more attractive. You could do things to make people like you more, put you on a higher pedestal, but every one of those things can be ripped away at the drop of a hat. Therefore, you don't have total control over those.
Speaker 2:The thing is, there's nothing wrong with focusing on those things. There's nothing wrong with wanting those things, I should say. But when you spend your life focusing on those, you're missing that 40% that we have left. That 40% that we have left is something behavioral scientists call intentional activities. When you, as a man or woman, do things intentionally to become a better human, that could be taking better care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. That can be serving other people who need your help. It can be spending quality time with loved ones, being surrounded by people who you really deeply love and who love you, and or a big part of intentional activities is, in fact, voluntary adversity.
Speaker 2:It's doing that shit that scares you, doing those things that pull you out of your comfort zone. Doing those things that pull you out of your comfort zone, doing those things that make you feel frightened, nervous, apprehensive as long as those things are good for you in the long run. Now I tell you I would be scared to death to take heroin, so that would not be considered a voluntary adversity activity, because it's not good for me. But there are so many things and I'll share an example of those near at the end here. But you already started thinking about that a few moments ago when I asked you what scares you, what do you dislike most doing during the course of your day or week? What really takes you out of your comfort zone? Those are things we need to start thinking about. The thing is so we call this focus on the 40. If you spend your life focusing on the 40% of the things, those intentional activities, one primarily being practicing volunteer adversity you're going to gain more control over your life, and when you gain more control over your life, you become a better human. When you become a better human, you become a happier human. And the thing is that 40% that we just talked about is the only part of the happiness pie chart that you have complete control over, because you can decide to or not to do these specific things that scare you.
Speaker 2:The thing is, people, we run away so often from adversity, from pain, and the reason is because there's so much involuntary adversity in our world. You think about the things we go through involuntarily, the pain we suffer. It could be financial loss, it could be losing your job, getting demoted, going through a divorce, coming through a health scare, having problems with your children, not getting along with your neighbors. There are so many things that we just can't control that we go through hardships, challenges, some very, very painful moments that we're not in control of. We didn't volunteer to do those things. We might have contributed a little bit, but we certainly didn't volunteer to go through that type of pain. So those things are going to happen to us. We know through the course of life, the thing is the best way to effectively handle involuntary adversity, those things that happen to us, is to practice voluntary adversity on a consistent, regular basis. To practice voluntary adversity on a consistent, regular basis.
Speaker 2:One of the things I've learned a few years ago was the power for our minds and our bodies to take cold plunges or ice showers every day. I hate every second when the water is running across my body for four to five minutes and it feels like ice cubes. I hate every second of it. But when you do that things like that, things that take you out of your comfort zone, and especially if you do those things first thing in the morning, all the things that happen to us involuntarily during the day, are much easier for us to handle Because we've already done something hard. When you've done one thing hard, other things that are hard become much easier and we actually put ourselves in a position to feel discomfort. What a confidence builder that is. But you don't take cold showers. You can pick your own voluntary adversity. You know.
Speaker 2:The thing is I do this thing called ruck running. So basically primarily what it is, it's running. I like to run hills and trails with a 21-pound ruck vest on my back, or kind of on my back and chest. It wraps around me. I say I like to do it. I don't like when I'm doing it so much, but I love when I'm done and I love the fact that I have done it, that I'll do it four to five times a week, because it's in those times when I'm going through pain like that, where my body does hurt. I come up with ideas, and this idea struck me literally three or four days ago and I was thinking about how much over the course of my life.
Speaker 2:Up until a few years ago, I was really seeking comfort a lot. I thought that comfort was something we should seek as human beings and I realized no, we should never seek comfort. What we should do is allow ourselves to experience and enjoy comfort once we've earned it. That's a completely different change. That's a completely different perspective. To's a completely different perspective. To seek comfort is to sit on the couch and watch Netflix rather than reading a book for 15 minutes. For me, seeking comfort is scrolling mindlessly through YouTube, which I do far too damn often, rather than picking up a client file and reviewing what I have to do tomorrow for this particular client, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:Getting up and cooking a healthy meal, going for a walk, you know or reading, meditating. So when you do those difficult things and you earn the comfort, the comfort is so much more delicious. Earn comfort is the most amazing experience. It's nirvanic almost, and I honestly, before I shot this episode, I made myself go do 3.26 miles of hills and trails with the ruck vest on. Come home, do a light lift, do a long stretch, do an ab workout, take an ice cold shower for about five minutes and then meditate All those things I don't like to do and honestly, before I, earlier this afternoon, I was trying to convince myself not to do those things.
Speaker 2:Our minds really never get fully accustomed to doing difficult things, but when you practice Mel Robbins for those of you who don't know who Mel Robbins is, I would recommend reading any one of her books the Five Second Rule I think. The other one is High Five, and then the third one I'm reading right now is called Let them. But in her Five Second Rule book she talks about when you need to do something or you have a thought of doing something that's good for you but that scares you. Count down five, four, three, two, one and go. Don't think about it, because your brain will convince itself not to do it after five seconds.
Speaker 2:The alarm goes off at 5.30 in the morning. Don't push the snooze button when it goes off. Say 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and jump out of bed. Now my brain tries to convince itself before 5 seconds. So I do the 3-second rule, because right around 3 to 5, my brain's already convincing itself. Eh, maybe you could do this tomorrow or maybe it's better to just take a little break today. So I do the 3-second rule and over the last 3 to 4 years it has really changed my perspective on life, but again, I still don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:So that's the difference between people who will get shit done and people who won't. It's not that one person is a better human, or one person is more energetic and others less more lazy. It's just the fact that fact that we, we don't. You don't give yourself your mind enough time to convince yourself that you shouldn't do something that's good for you. You just do it. Three two one. Get your shoes on. Three two one. Enter that building. Three two, one. Raise your hand. Three, two, one. Ask that that person on a date three two one. Get up and cook a healthy meal, whatever the hell. It is the only way to come back.
Speaker 2:Because one of the things I've noticed a lot, and thankfully on social media I don't follow any dipshits. I don't get to see all the people's ranting of political posts. If they do that, I unfollow them. When I see somebody criticizing another person unless it's a legitimate criticism, like maybe of a P Diddy or somebody or Epstein, I get that. But when people are criticizing family members or friends or just normal other citizens, it gets to you after a while, especially if you're the one being criticized. And I see people criticizing constantly. And I see people criticizing constantly and even on YouTube. When I get on YouTube and just follow it mindlessly, you know political pundits come on and they start bashing the other party. If it's Democrats or Republicans, it doesn't matter, they're both doing it and I think they're both wrong. But so we do handle.
Speaker 2:We have seen a lot more criticism in this world, I think over the past 10 to 12 years, primarily due to the social media and all these keyboard warriors who are very brave and confident when they're typing on their phone or their computer and that can get to people. And one of the things I come to realize is the best way to combat criticism is become successful. And I don't mean successful financially, necessarily, or professionally, I just mean become successful in becoming the best version of yourself. And when you're practicing on a consistent, daily basis a form of voluntary adversity, you become the best damn version of yourself. Adversity, you become the best damn version of yourself and you gain far more confidence, far more confidence than you will if you only allow your life to be ruled by involuntary adversity and you try to seek comfort prior to it being earned.
Speaker 2:But it's not easy, it's not. You know, one of the things that I started doing about six years ago is every day getting up and usually it's the first thing I do. Within a few seconds of rolling out of bed, I put my sweatpants on and I throw my shirt, my indoor shoes on I call them is, I do planking and I go down on my knees and I plank, and every day I add a second to it and it hurts. It really does, and I just thankfully I'm half asleep before I, probably in the first minute or two I'm still asleep. But one of the things my girlfriend recently taught me when we were doing yoga is the power of breath work.
Speaker 2:When you're feeling that pain of your body or you're doing something that's painful whether it's again raising your hand in the class, getting ready to ask someone out Maybe it's going to see a movie or dinner alone by yourself Is practice breath work. You know, breathing in through your nose, holding it, breathing out through your mouth, holding it, and when you do, make sure you don't breathe through your diaphragm, let your gut fill up so that your belly should stick way out when you're breathing in. So sometimes you want to do this at home, because sometimes when your belly's becoming completely inflated, it doesn't look very attractive, trust me. But it works. Even just 30 seconds of that is focusing on your breath while you're doing something difficult can take so much of the discomfort or at least so much of the anxiety away. Another thing I've learned recently is when you're doing something difficult, you're practicing this voluntary adversity is maybe have a mantra that you say to yourself out louder in your head. You know it can be anything, never give up. A lot of times I say strive, love, live. A lot of times I say I'm ready, I'm grateful, I'm excited. It could be anything that gives you a sense of power and for that moment it takes you off the emotional, the mental, the spiritual or the physical pain you're experiencing while you're practicing that activity. But the breath work and having something that you can say out loud or in your head that gives you a little more push, a little more fuel in the tank, can get you through some of those moments. I got to tell you, man, getting through those moments is crucial. I thought about this over the course of the last few days, kind of thinking of this topic more specifically as I'm writing it for some training and speaking I'm going to do on the subject. I really thought to myself why in the heck have I not shared this with the bamboo pack or even with a lot of my clients or loved ones over the past few years? And I don't have an answer. It's just when I sat down and thought to myself what is one of the things that you've done over the past three or four years, brian, that's been the biggest benefit to you. This is it, and yet I've never shared it, not with you, until today.
Speaker 2:We've talked before about the concept of choosing your pain, and that's really what we're talking about here. Because in life we try so desperately to avoid pain, we run from it, we hide from it, we try to do things that will kind of keep pain at bay. But, like I said, man, pain, fear, insecurity, discomfort. They are relentless pursuers and they always catch up, because life is nothing but pain. And I don't mean that in a cynical or a skeptical way. It's a realistic way. It's a realistic way of perspective to look at life. But it's just the type of pain you choose. There's the pain of the work or there's the pain of regret. There's only two types.
Speaker 2:And if you choose the pain of the work and you get up at five o'clock or six o'clock or whatever time and you get out of bed when that alarm goes off and you do something right away that causes you a little discomfort, you, right away, are punished instantly because you will feel that pain. Right, you'll feel the physical pain, you'll feel the intellectual, the emotional or spiritual pain of whatever you're doing, but as soon as you're done, you are instantly rewarded and that reward lasts forever and you do that consistently every day. That reward builds up that confidence, builds up that sense of self-assurance, builds up that thought, that feeling that you can do whatever you need to do today and you can get through any type of crap that the world throws at you. But see, you don't have to choose that pain. None of us do. There's no buddy force, there's no mandate on how we choose to live our lives and what kind of pain we experience. But I will guarantee, if you do not choose that pain on a consistent, regular basis, you will experience and you have, involuntarily, have chosen the second pain, which is the pain of regret.
Speaker 2:When you choose the pain of regret right away, you're rewarded. When you decide to stay in bed on a real cold day and you're under your warm down comforter and maybe you're lying next to a loved one who's getting off a lot of warm body heat. That's a reward, man. You're staying in bed for the next half hour. You got an extra hour of sleep. Or maybe you push that snooze button for nine minutes. There's a little reward there.
Speaker 2:But then when you do finally get out of bed and you face life, there's a regret there. You might not even feel it. It might be a subconscious regret, but you know what that regret does. It never leaves you. That regret is eternal. It's for the rest of your life, because you'll never be able to go back and get that moment back where you chose to lie in bed versus getting up and starting your day doing something uncomfortable. Now am I here to tell you that you should never sleep in God? No, no. There's days when you have earned the comfort. Sleep in. Have a day where you sit around and watch Netflix all day, order pizza and wings. Have ice cream around and watch Netflix all day. Order pizza and wings, have ice cream.
Speaker 2:As long as the comfort you're experiencing has been previously paid for by your actions, I do a talk and I actually did one on here, maybe three years ago I think. I did a three-part series on the laws of food and poison and how we can determine whether our behavior is a food nourishing behavior or it's a toxic, poisonous behavior. And one of the key elements of how you can determine that whether your behavior or thoughts are food or they're poison, is how we look at the most difficult things in our lives. What I mean by that is when a nourishing food, positive person, a value added human being that I believe you are, when you experience, when that person experiences and they're doing something they just hate to do. They don't deny that they hate doing it, but what they do is they change their perspective and they say I hate doing this, but I know by doing this it brings out the best in me, it makes me a better human, it makes me a better contributor to my family, to my loved ones, to my job, to my community, to my church, to the world, to whatever you belong, to my church, to the world, to whatever you belong to.
Speaker 2:One of the things I don't like to do, probably above all things, is I don't like to role play speeches before I give them. And I have a rule If I've already given the speech once, I role play it three times prior to giving it again. Unless I've just given it in the last week or two, I'll role play it once. If I've written a new speech and I've never spoke these words in public, I role play it five times. So whether that speech is 15 minutes or three hours long, I role play it five times before I actually go on stage or go in front of the crowd and give it. I hate every minute of it.
Speaker 2:I used to have my dog sit on the couch and I would talk to it and I had these a bust of Beethoven and this kind of Pharaoh's sculpture that my daughter bought me years ago. I would put those things like there so I would have some type of things to focus on. Kind of felt like a damn fool in my living room but and I just didn't like doing it living room but and I just didn't like doing it. It's just it's so, it's very time consuming and it's kind of it's awkward. But I admitted, I had to admit to myself every time and I still do. I hate this, but I know it makes me a better speaker. I know it makes me much more prepared. It gives me, allows me the opportunity to give the audience a much better experience, because I know what I'm going to be saying and I've gone. I've given this speech now five times before giving it to the live crowd, so it's the same thing we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:We don't have to like the voluntary adversity. We don't have to like the pain or the discomfort. We can hate it, in fact, but we just have to realize that it brings out the best in us. Here are some examples that I've heard from people that I've worked with and talked to and asked them about. Some of mine are on here too. So what are some of the things that are good examples?
Speaker 2:Now, this is a small short list. You can come up with your own. You can take from this, you can add to this and, in fact, I'd love for anybody to email me. If you have myself or those people who are close to me out there, text me some things that you do to practice voluntary adversity, because I want to make this a topic we discuss further and more in the future. So some examples like I said, cold showers, cold plunges, hot saunas, becoming a member of the 5 am club, which means getting up at five o'clock every morning, doing planks, going for hard runs, lifting weights, doing yoga, going hiking. It may just simply be going for a walk around your block, be going for a walk around your block, reading rather than watching TV. Giving service to others, giving to the community, helping with the homeless or a children's organization or a battered women's shelter, whatever it could be is giving back to the community.
Speaker 2:Entering rooms or buildings that make you uncomfortable, and I don't mean a place where there's danger. I mean sometimes walking into a restaurant, a movie theater, an office building, a bank can be a little uncomfortable, for people Do it anyway. Sometimes taking a different route home is a form of voluntary adversity. We get stuck in our patterns, so much we become. You know, we get in these ruts, and a rut is just a shallow grave if we stay in it too long. Volunteering to speak, that's a big one for a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Just experiencing new places, asking that person you have a crush on, out on a date, raising your hand in a class, taking a day break from social media or taking a day off from your phone, making eye contact with somebody, can also be a form of volunteer adversity, if you're uncomfortable with eye contact, I mean. Some obvious ones are skydiving, which my son did a couple of months ago. Hot air balloon was Jackie's and she did it on her own last year. Just a little short hot air ride. It's a great example of somebody just overcoming some type of discomfort Fasting for 24 hours. Or, if you're my good friend Gina, who I know is listening every six months, fasting for three days and drinking only water, and that's another one drinking water instead of drinking pop or soda. It can be eating a healthy meal today versus something fast from a fast food restaurant.
Speaker 2:My point is this it really doesn't matter what you do, because we're all going to have different things that stretch us, that scare us, that increase our anxiety. We're all going to have different things. We're going to share some, of course, but many of us are going to have our own, our own private, our own personal things that bring us out of our comfort zone. What I would recommend is you do one thing a day. It doesn't have to be big, it can be something small, something that takes you a little bit away from your patterns. It breaks a pattern you have and it's just something that's a little bit scary, a little bit away from your patterns. It breaks a pattern you have and it's just something that's a little bit scary, a little bit uncomfortable, and you do that over something that's comfortable.
Speaker 2:If you do it every day and try to increase it every time you do it, it can be different things every day. It doesn't have to be doing the same thing every morning. It can be something different and you don't have to do it in the morning, you can do it any time of the day. I find it works better for me if I do some difficult things right away, because it gets me ready mentally for the day and I just feel better. But it doesn't. You could do it anytime you want, and if you say I don't want to do it every day, okay, do three a week, practice three voluntary activities or voluntary adversities every week and then maybe after a while, go to four, then to five, then to six, then to seven. If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a big fan of starting small and growing big. So just do something and notice over time how amazing you feel. And notice over time how amazing you feel.
Speaker 2:I know many of you know this and I've shared this on the show before and I've shared it, I guess, in my speaking engagements before the story of the grandfather who's telling his granddaughter about the two wolves that live within each of us. And he shares the story that every one of you, every one of us, has two dominant wolves inside of us, fighting battling. One wolf is honorable and strong and courageous and powerful and kind and curious and wise, and courageous and powerful and kind and curious and wise. The other wolf is devious and angry and mean and cowardly and deceptive, but also very powerful, in fact equally powerful. And every day the grandfather tells his granddaughter these two wolves are competing. They're fighting a battle inside your heart, your mind and your soul. They're fighting to see who will control you. The little girl looks up at her grandpa and says well, papa, which one will finally win? And he was waiting for that question because he had the answer. And he looked down and he gave her a hug and he said honey, whichever one you feed.
Speaker 2:So, folks, I'm asking you to get up there and feed the wolf today. Feed that right wolf. Feed the strong, brave, kind, wise, powerful wolf. The best way to do that is to give yourself the reward of doing something that stretches you today. Until next time, please get up there and strive love and live. Strive to be your best. Show love and respect to others and yourself, and live with intention. Please smash that like button, rate us, review us and please share this episode with three people you love. Until next time. Please know that I appreciate every single one of you. Take care.
