Productive Discontent

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Walking Talk And Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Train for a Great Life. You might hear the birds. I'm sure you do. I'm out on a stroller walk with Calvin, and um on my way out to the beach path, I ran into my neighbor who um we we stop I stop when I walk by his house and we end up having these like um I don't know, he's an intelligent guy, reads a ton, he's very introspective, we have these talks about motivation and what things mean and this and that. Um, you know, and I suppose like I'm a I'm a good candidate for him to kind of get all that stuff out, right? So I want to share a little bit about what we just talked about.

Discontent As Constructive Awareness

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Uh and it's the idea that you're discontent with yourself is a great thing. So long as you use it to do something constructive. Okay, there's the caveat. So um being being discontent with yourself. It's it's not we're not talking about hating yourself, we're not talking about hating something about you or or you know, something that you can't change, or um, you know, something that you've done that you wish you didn't do, anything like that. We're just talking about this, this sort of thought that I could be better at something, right? At this or that, you know, my job, parent, fitness, whatever it is. Um because what it is is is awareness, right? And that's I talk to a lot of people about this stuff, and I have talked to a lot of people about this stuff over the last two decades, and that's all it is, it's an awareness. And if you do something about it, it can lead you to to wonderful things, right? It's also that it's that thing on your shoulder, you know, you have to sort of know when to turn it down a little bit because you know the the type A person is you know, you don't want to be just you have to learn how to be content as well, learn you know, enjoy the the fruits of your labor as

Coaching Through Failure And Effort

SPEAKER_00 2:14

well. Um, but it can drive you to wonderful things, right? So um I've I've noticed it actually in in my son Leonardo, shockingly, right? He's four and a half, even when he was two and a half, but shockingly, right? Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Um I would notice when he was starting to you know interact with the world around him and do things and try things. He had this very strong discontent with failing at something and get very upset, you know, as most children do, I I imagine too. Um, but that's not a bad thing, right? You know, it's it's easy to want to um you know comfort and soothe. I don't like those words though. Uh, you know, they have connotations with them that that that lead to negative outcomes. Um as long as he learns to keep trying and not to shut down at the first sign of failure, we are gonna be just fine, right? And that's a big part of like how I've coached people over the years, and and I think one of the reasons why I've managed to be very effective with people is that I'm not looking at you as you are right now, right? I'm looking at you as you know, if you put this work in over the next whatever few months, years, whatever the timeline may be, I I I have a pretty good sense of what you can become, right? At least it at least in the arena of my gym and and what we do in there. I have a very good sense of that. Um, so yeah, I mean it it but it's got to align, like you sort of have to have that that discontent with you know not feeling as strong as you'd like to, or not being able to do a pull-up.

Roger Bannister And Breaking Limits

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Um, neighbor and I talked to but he brought up the name, he said, You know who Roger Bannister is? I said, Yeah, it's a four-minute mile guy, right? Um he was the the first first man to break the four-minute mile, which was thought to be like this is funny, this is how we we used to think. Um it was like the limit of the human body, just this of course it's gotta be this rounded number, right? Four-minute mile, nothing uh nothing above or below, right? Um, and the body just would not go below that. Well, he was the first person to do that, and I would imagine large in part because he had a discontent with believing that that was his limit, you know, a strong discontent with like 401, 402 is going to be all that he can achieve, right? And so, anyway, he's the first guy to do it, and I I can't recall the exact stats off of memory, but I know it's something like within the next uh year, two years, five years, there's just a slew of guys that came in behind him and broke that record. Now, I'm sure they have sort of that same discontent. Um, but you know, and anybody performing at that high of a level, yeah, you're you're pretty spectacular. But he was the one that did it first, and then it opened this floodgate that maybe there was this sort of glass ceiling where people, you know, you're rounding the corner heading into that last lap, you're at you're at three minutes, you're at 259, you're at 301, and and oh my god, I'm on pace.

Using Discontent Without Self-Hate

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Uh you start to tie up, you know, it starts in the mine. Um hopefully this is aroused some thoughts um in your own in your own life, in your own world, about discontent and and how to use it, how to utilize it to find a little something, a little piece to be better at. Calvin's discontent with something out too. Alright, I will see you in the gym.