The Safety Net Suicide Pact Keeping You Stuck

In this episode of The Long Game, we stop treating personal development like a lifestyle choice and start treating it like a biological ultimatum. We’ve been conditioned to think growth is something we browse in a catalog—a hobby we pick up when the "vibe" is right. 

The reality? Nature doesn't reward potential; it rewards adaptation. You don’t grow because you want to; you grow because the version of you that exists right now is no longer allowed to survive in your current environment.

We’re diving deep into the mechanics of Internal Hardware Updates - how pain, necessity, and pressure are the only tools sharp enough to forge a stronger version of you.

In This Episode, We Strip Back:

• Pain as a Feature: Why the brain constructs pain as a signal for mutation, not just a warning of damage.
• The "Hormesis" Factor: How a controlled dose of "toxin"—stress and difficulty—is the biological requirement for a massive strengthening response.
• The Safety Net Trap: Why having a "Plan B" is actually a suicide pact for your potential. We discuss the "Burn the Boats" philosophy and why a way out is the enemy of the way up.
• Logotherapy & Purpose: Borrowing from Viktor Frankl to understand that pain without purpose is suffering, but pain with a "Why" is training.
• The Stagnation Tax: The brutal cost of refusing the ultimatum. In a world that never stops spinning, staying still isn't "safety"—it’s a head-on collision with obsolescence.

Stop asking, "How can I make this easier?" and start asking, "What version of me is this pressure trying to create?" Necessity isn't your prison; it’s your forge. It’s time to stop fighting the heat and start shaping the metal.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back. Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful day here in sunny Orlando. And we're back for episode twelve. And today we're going to be talking about why I believe pain is a feature, not a bug. Ultimately updating your internal hardware. So I think we treat pain in a way that is seldom used in the right way. There is a defining trait between those who use pain as a tool versus those who use it as a defense mechanism ultimately in their lives. Pain is constructed by the brain from signals and other inputs. We change how we process pain, and you can change how we perceive pain altogether. So I think the best example of this, and for anyone who's an avid podcast listener, has probably heard this before, but when they talk about pain, one of the best examples you'll ever get is during wartime. So back in World War I, World War II, there's countless stories of this of where references of sh soldiers who were carrying friends, um, fellow soldiers into the medical tent only to be told that they had their own injuries, missing limbs, broken bones. You see, the brain is such a powerful tool that's seldom used for the power it holds. Pain is one of those. So to give you a bit more context on the soldiers, they'd walked back into the medical tents, um, friend, fellow soldier on their arm, um, carried them in from, you know, they'd been shot, they may have had a missing limb themselves on the leg, um, shot in the arm, etc. etc. And they're like, Medic, medic, we need some help. And only for the see the face of the medic turn round and take the fellow soldier off them, only to say, you also need help, and they'd be missing an arm, they'd be missing half an arm, half a leg, that have been shot somewhere and profusely bleeding. However, the brain is such a powerful thing that when it can override the pain, the receptors inside of it, it can make you completely forget it altogether. And I think that's exactly the same thing when you look at, you know, we're not talking about wartime here. We're talking about general personal development and the pain that we go through in everyday life. And that's really what today's episode is all about: how pain is a feature, not a bug. And when used to constantly update your internal hardware, you will be a much more proficient, um, at least I believe, human being. You see, we treat it like a choice, like a like a hobby. We pick it up when we have the spare time and the right vibe. We say, I'd like to develop my leadership, or I'm working on my resilience, as if we're browsing a catalogue of personality traits. It's something quite nice to us. It's, you know, we want to develop, we want to develop in the phases when almost everything feels comfortable when life's on a, you know, when when this situation happens or when this is sorted, then I'll work on my leadership, or I'll go to the gym once I've got, you know, best example, once I've got all the nice clothes, I'll start the diet on the first of January, once this has gone out of the way. We pick all these things up like it is a once once the atmosphere and once the situation is all perfectly aligned, then I'll do the thing. Um, but the problem with that is that that's not really how evolution has ever worked. I think if you go back thousands of years, you would watch this. I mean, in the real world, the biological world, development is an ultimatum. You see, you don't grow because you want to, you grow because the version of you that exists right now is no longer allowed to survive in the current environment. Let me say that again for you guys. You don't grow because you want to, you grow because the version of you that exists right now is no longer allowed to survive in your current environment. You see, nature doesn't reward potential, it rewards adaptation. It rewards surviving and thriving in the moments when the ceiling feels like it's been hit only to push through. Look around us. In every moment of a thousand years, two thousand years, three thousand years, we have always survived. One of the most wonderful, beautiful things about a human being of you and I is that our ability to survive. You see, we've always been able to adapt. And we consider these fleeting in the grand scheme of things as the worst of times. However, when you zoom out, widen the lens, and you'll see humanity is characterized characterized, sorry, through adaptation. You see, those who adapt thrive, those who won't tend to be left behind and chastise those out the front leading and play the ultimate blame game of poo or me. Why wasn't it me? Why couldn't I have survived like thrived in this scenario? The reality is that we all feel the same pain in some which way, shape, or form. It's how we choose to utilize that pain that defines who we are as a person and often how much success that we're going to have. An adaptation only happens for you when the old you hits a wall it can't climb. You see, if you feel a crushing weight of necessity right now, if the stakes feel too high and the pressure feels too heavy, well, congratulations. You finally stopped trying to grow and you've started being forced to grow. You see, necessity is the only forge that actually changes the shape of the metal, i.e., you, your human being, your traits, your mentality, your standards. Necessity is the thing usually that will give you the most rapid growth and it will give you a fast track to where you want to get to. So welcome to the long game. This is episode 13, the ultimate ultimatum that growth bestows upon us. Are you up for the fight? So last week we talked about the high price of a wasted winner, the environment that tests you. Today we're going to go inside the engine of that. We're looking at the mechanics of how you actually change. You see, the hard truth in this scenario is that human beings are fundamentally efficient, which is a polite way really of saying we're lazy until we're allowed to be. So Victor Frankel has this beautiful quote He who has a why to live can bear almost anyhow. Just unbelievably powerful. He who has a why to live can bear almost anyhow. This connects the pain to the purpose. You see, if the pain has no purpose, it's just suffering. But if it has a purpose, then it's training. See, in reality, we stay in version 1.0 as long as version 1.0 can pay the bills and keep us safe. Many of you will have heard the question, if money wasn't an an if money wasn't an object, what would you be doing now? The problem with that question is it's far too nice. It's a utopian world, right? And it doesn't really lean on the fibers inside the body that drives you. That purposefulness that needs to make a decision, to make a commitment. So it's very nice for most of us. And for some, it it's a nice ideology, I think, to think about and get us out of certain states. But the reality is if money wasn't an object, well, this whole world would probably be on the same pathway anyway, because we'd all be in the similar, similar board. So to me, the question doesn't really make that much sense when we're trying to get movement um towards a goal. It doesn't really utilize the purpose of what a human being is, which is to constantly develop themselves through a series of challenges and a set of challenges that are presented upon us and to bask in the glory of those challenges that are given to us. That is to me at least, again, my experience of this, is that the most developed by development I've ever had, whether it be personal or professional, is when there is a huge stressor and often there is a time crunch to it, and I don't really have any other options other than to power through and to get to the next phase. I'll talk about that a little bit later in my in the episode, I think. Um but to give you a bit more context, and I always like to take it out of the context of myself as well. I think there's two wonderful examples of this. Um, one I heard recently on a podcast and one I think everyone knows. So for those guys who know who Mel Robbins is, author of the Let Them Book, got her own podcast, um, very successful businesswoman, incredible, incredible business, um, and just an incredible human being as well for what she's been able to achieve. She told the story recently, I think it was on Jay Shetty's podcast. She's probably told it on plenty of what plenty before that as well, I'm sure. But I was exposed to her on the podcast. Uh I've known of her, but I really kind of listened to her in a story. And she really started to thrive when she was literally going broke and needed to save her family from bankruptcy. For anyone who's listening to this podcast and is um in a similar scenario or listening to this, thinking I'm in this scenario, go find the podcast by Jay Shady that has Mel Robbins on it. She talks about exactly where she was. She also talks about where she is now and the hardy adds to get there and what it takes. It wasn't some quick fix, it wasn't some flick the switch and turn the taps on and everything was all golden. It was a constant hard battle to get there who went through a lot of pain, but used the pain in terms of protection, the protecting the family to be able to get to the next level of where she is today. The second one is Elon Musk. Again, personality-wise, you can have your opinions on him and think what you want. Uh Elon Musk, though, ultimately, for anyone who looks at him now and says, Oh, you know, what it must be like to be, you know, rich or it must be like to have all this money. Elon Musk started his journey when he was in his early 20s, built um several companies, sold them, and then reinvested it all into Tesla and SpaceX. Slept on car, slept in his car, slept on friends' uh sofas, on the floor, because he nearly actually lost all the money investing it in Tesla and SpaceX. And it really wasn't until Tesla broke through with the Roadster and SpaceX quite literally took off that you see the success that he had today. But that guy had to go through a hell of a lot of pain to get there. So again, take your um thoughts about his personality and who he is as a human being out of it and look at the lessons that that guy can teach you, and the lessons of Amel Robbins and the lessons of many people who've achieved incredible success and who are, yes, at the you know, levels that probably most of us would like to be at, but no, most of us probably won't go on the journey and go through the hardy odds that those people have been on. But look at the story and what lessons can I take from it. You see, the world shifts, the industry moves, and the relationships break. The necessity arrives at every one of those points, right? So for some people, when I'm saying the industry moves, they will be made redundant. They'll have been let go because of um COVID has happened, or right now there is a war which is increasing um oil prices, which will mean that I know in the aviation world there is a lot of people who will be leaving um being pilots or will be flight attendants and will suddenly start careers that will absolutely send them to a different stratosphere because of it. Some people will go on that journey and they'll use the pain of the industry moving to get there. When relationships break, it'll be exactly the same. They'll use the pain of that to go and do something amazing. And when the world is shifting, i.e. COVID or there is a technological breakthrough in terms of moving to a more online world, people will take that and go to a different stratosphere. The necessity is essentially arrived for all of those human beings at some point, and they have decided to utilize the pain of that moment to get to that point. So we're going to look at something called um the desirable difficulty. And it's a psychological fact that we actually learn better when it hurts a little. I'm not saying it hurts absolutely, you know, to a complete brutal nature, but when that there's almost this um, I think it's the it's the bell curve, and there is a perfect point to which you have the desirable difficulty. Um for anyone wanting a little bit of a uh read this weekend, um, or this week, sorry, great book I would recommend you to read is uh The Sad Truth About Happiness by Dr. Gardsard. He talks a lot about this kind of idea of desirable difficulty, but the almost the optimum happiness state, the optimum um difficulty state, the optimum everything, and it kind of works in a mathematical um equation almost. It's a quite brilliant way of viewing it. So again, the sad truth about happiness by Dr. Gardsard, I'd highly recommend um listening to it or listening to it on audiobooks or reading it. I know I read it, um, I'll be honest, I couldn't put it down for a week, and I love, love, love listening to him um talk about um his particular field and and his thoughts and processes. We're also gonna talk a little bit about burning the boats, why and why having a safety net is actually a suicide pact for your potential. You'll have heard the burning the boats, anyone who's a UFC fan will have seen the um hilarious video where um David Goggins was training Tony Ferguson and uh Paddy Pimblett was basically saying who's gonna who's gonna carry the boats after he um knocks Tony Ferguson out. So if anyone's seen that, if you haven't seen it, go watch it. It's quite a funny little 20-30 seconds. And for any Americans um who want to listen to a scouse um talk and not understand what he's saying, go listen to it. Um it is absolutely incredible. Um the core idea though here is uh growth isn't a suggestion, it's a requirement for survival. If it feels hard, it's because it's working. You see, because here's the biological reality if I come back to that. Stress is the signal for mutation. So in a lab, if you give a cell everything it needs, perfect temperature, perfect food, no predators, it kind of stops evolving, it stagnates, but the moment you introduce a stressor, it starts to change. Why? Because it has to. So we all remember COVID, and every time, if you actually go back on that and think about the um strain and the mutations of it, every time we push back as humanity on COVID, it mutated. And so went on this cat and mouse game of mutation between humanity and this um gene that was going on until finally both parties in the fight began to remember how to survive. COVID, by the way, still exists. So do people. We just know how to coexist now. The same can be said exactly when you think about humanity and people going through pain. So when this happens, when humanity pushes back, when people push back on the pain, the pain will typically mutate. It will look slightly different, it will cause a different challenge, it will bring different stresses, different things that you have to overcome, different obstacles. Now, pain isn't just a flicker switch and it's sorted. It is a pain is a flicker switch, it will sort a problem, but then it will present a new one. Until the point that you have managed the pain. So I'm not trying to say that this is gonna be some um wonderful solve the problem, do something once, and everything's everything's you know, causy. What I'm trying to say here is that when you feel pain, you're gonna go through a multitude of stresses, and you have to mutate with the pain in the same example I'm giving here with COVID, until the point that you can coexist with the pain. So you can then now, the next time anything like this happens, you're more prepared, you're more aware, you might even see it coming, and you'll be able to navigate it a much better way. So, this is the concept of hormosis. A small dose of the toxin, the stress, the pain, the necessity is exactly what triggers the massive strengthening response. Most of you are praying for the stress to stop, not realizing that the stress is the literal start button for the version of you that you claim you want to be. So let's talk about the safety net trap and why your backup plan is killing your front frontline progress. So I said there about the hormosis and the kind of the squeeze. So this explains that the cells only uh strengthen under deliberate stress, right? Is the reality of this. If we take it away from pain, we're thinking that cells only strengthen under deliberate stress. So if your life is starting to feel heavy, it's because you're in the high density development zone, really. Pressure and demand meet force and growth. And the harsh reality of this is most leave here. So if you think about this, by the way, I've just, if you go back two minutes, I've just talked about this about the idea of how we as human beings have to mutate with pain multiple times over until the idea that we coexist. Now, if I go on the opposite side of that, the problem with most people in these situations who don't see it through is that they dilute the pressure or they'll try and balance it out when actually staying in the high density zone for long enough is what is triggering your growth. The new versions of you capable to achieve what you need for the next phase. So um, saunas and ice baths are great examples of this. Um, marathon runners are fantastic examples of this. So when you first start going in an ice bath, right? Now I'm not attesting this by the way. I've got friends who've done it, colleagues who've done it, family who've done it. I've never got into this idea of ice baths and all the benefits of it. Again, I again, maybe it's just me, but I just don't kind of see the benefits that everyone else seems to see, the benefits in it. But if you go in an ice bath, the first time you go in is probably a 15-20 seconds, I'm guessing, right? But the more that you do it and the more that you can survive the pain that the body presents, right? Of cold and the shivering and the lack of oxygen and the breathing, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Before you know it, you've gone from 20 seconds to two minutes, from two minutes to three minutes. The same is with marathon runners. When you first start running, running a mile feels horrific. All of a sudden you're doing three miles, five miles, and then 10, 12 miles. And you kind of forget what one mile felt like, right? You kind of forget what that feels like. But the pro the thing is is to stay in how long can you stay in that high density zone of pain for long enough that it's gonna trigger the growth. Because in that moment, in those growth, in those moments of high density, is when everything is taking place to get you to the next level. So the next time you face the issue, you're gonna get be able to face it for longer and longer and longer. I talked also a little bit about the safety net trap. Again, we talked earlier about what would life look like if money wasn't an object object, what would you be doing? In a similar vein to this, is the safety net trap. So why option B essentially is your enemy. So as long as you have a way out, you'll never find the way up, right? So I talked a bit about David Goggins, the burn the boats ideology. Um, and the theory here is basically uh I'm probably gonna butcher this ideology, but it was basically what you're gonna do when there's no boats left and you can't get off the island, you have to stay on the island and face the problems, you have to face the war, you have to face the challenge ahead of you. As long as you have a way out, as long as you have the boats on the shoreline waiting to get you to go, you're never really gonna find a way through the way up because you've always got a safety net. It forces you to do something like that, it forces you to have to solve the problem in front of you. If you had no other options, this is again, I go back to this. If money wasn't an object, what would you be doing? I think a probably a better question of this would be um, if you had no money at all, what would you do to get through it? If you had no money at all, what would you do to create a world that you wanted? Then go go do that. Because the reality of this is most stay most stay most of us stay in a job because we're comfortable with the salary, we're comfortable with the situation at hand. Most of us will stay in a relationship, and again, I I'm probably generalizing here, but stay in a relationship because it's good enough. Because it's just it's okay, right? But the reality is if all of this is well, actually, was it were you really striving for good enough? Were you really striving for okay, or were you striving for a love and an affection and a relationship where two people can coexist and get along together? Prior to this podcast, um one of the things I love about doing this is um I get to kind of just sit in a room on my own, right? And I get to just kind of like speak and talk and just talk through ideas and sometimes even talk about my own personal life and almost vent, it's a it's almost like a a weird therapy session sometimes for me. Um as for any new listeners, um, I recently moved to America and I live here now with my partner, my girlfriend Sarah. Um and I'm in a podcast studio in a complex right now where uh we live. And she came with me today and we sat and we came in for 11 o'clock, and I think the whole idea was I would get started and just you know, I usually do about 20-30 minutes worth of prep work because I've already prepped the episodes, and then I kind of get to recording and I go through all my you know my talking points, my notes, and I was thinking I'll be out of here in an hour and ten minutes. We just ended up um sitting together, just talking for 90 minutes. We just ended up sitting and just chatting about life, about future holidays, future plans, the idea of us doing a podcast together and all these things. And I'm gonna be really honest with you, I have no idea why I got onto this topic. This is where I need a host, a co-host. I need someone to bring me back and just tell me, say, how do we get here? Because I've just completely lost my train of thought. Um yeah, I've completely lost my train of thought here. Um honestly, I was a boat burn the boats, and I've somehow got on to um talking about the last 90 minutes being sat in this room just talking and um talking about life and things that could be coming in the future. Um yeah, God knows how I've got onto that. God knows how I've got onto that. Anyways, um, we talked a little bit about desirable difficulty. Let me try and get us back on track, right? Let me try let me try and get us back on track here, right? Um the safety net trap, why option B is the enemy. Um, if we have a way out, you'll never find a way up. Honestly, again, once you can place those stresses on your life and understand that those stresses are the tools for success rather than a tool to defeat you and to bring you back and keep you trapped, again, you'll be in a much better spot. And and everything we talk about today, and everything we talk about in every episode, is not to give you a you must do this, but is a Somewhat of a guide in the hope to understand that the next time something happens, that it is there is a better way through or a better way out or a way to solve a problem. Again, for some of it it'll work, for some of you it won't work. Again, this isn't about a utopian 100%, you know, Bible of how to solve the world. I'm not someone who is experienced enough, um, gone through enough to be able to give that. I'm someone who's gone through some stuff and gone through some things and I've worked with hundreds of people and experienced uh a worldwide view of things, having been able to travel around the world and and do these things and see different relationships and friendships and uh cultures that I now have a varied opinion and a varied thought process on these things to come to a wider opinion, I think, of it. But the reality is it's not an ideal way to operate, it's a way that works for me, is the reality, and hopefully it works for someone else. But I talked a little bit about the desirable difficulty, right? Um and then if it's easy, well, then the reality is you're just repeating. Um, you aren't really developing. And ultimately the burn is the signal of upgrades in a progress. Now, that's not me saying that you should, you know, um go too hard, because that's likely burnout, right? And that's where you start having challenges and issues and maybe mental health problems, and you start to lose relationships because there's got to be a happy medium, and and I think the idea of a desirable difficulty level of where it's not too easy because then there's not really a growth level to that, right? Because we're just gonna kind of repeat the same patterns, and that might look like a salary or a wage or certain states in a relationship or a job or anything like that. For a business owner, it might be a certain level of revenue. You also don't want it too hard because again, you're pushing too hard, you you're probably gonna break the thing, which is you. Um, so there's got to be this desirable middle ground here that is um somewhere I think that is you wanna you want to live in where you feel the burn. Again, the best analogy if you're if you're someone who goes to the gym, you'll feel this. You'll definitely feel this in a in a way that is um you go to the gym and you start lifting weights, there comes to a point where the weight is too easy for you and you've got to go up a level. If you stick at the same weight, your body will never develop, you can't tear the muscle enough, which means it can't repair enough, which means we then can't lift a heavier weight after that. So you're always gonna be in this um kind of stagnation phase. And I think that is, again, it's a perfect analogy here of this. You've got to find the desirable difficulty for what you are trying to achieve. Not too hard that you're gonna kill yourself, but not too easy that you just stagnate. And I think um there's a wonderful little pattern to this, right? And it's kind of reactive versus proactive when you're talking about pain as a tool. You see, most people I would argue would live their whole lives in level one, which is reactive growth. They only change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of the change itself. So essentially what I'm saying is they wait for the rock bottom. The first and I mean the first time you might need to hit this, right? Mel Robbins is a great example of this. She needs to hit rock bottom. And you might need to hit it, but learning from it for the next challenge, identifying it, that's leverage. You see, the long vein for me is moving to level three, purposeful development. It's about taking that necessity and giving it a why. Because pain without a purpose is just a wound. Pain with a purpose is a scar. And scars are much thicker than the skin. So let me go through these three things together, right? So level one, reactive, pain driven. You change because staying the same hurts more than the change itself, the rock bottom mechanic, right? Essentially, that's what you're that's what right now you probably will stay stuck in that. You will wait until the point that this thing breaks, then to make the adaptive change. So you wait until the relationship is fully broken until you start to react. You wait until the job gets so bad until you have to react. That is the reactive growth with level one. That's where most people sit. So level two is the necessity-driven one. The environment demands a version of you that doesn't exist yet. So level two, the necessity-driven. The environment demands a version of you that doesn't exist just yet. But it forces you to do that. It's probably more in the desirable difficulty. And I think most of us are probably going to get to that phase, right? And most of us, sorry, want to get to that one, right? Most of us probably want to get to this at a bare minimum, that's where you need to sit. So the environment is constantly demanding a version of you that doesn't exist yet. That's not to say you constantly seek those changing, but when it gets too comfortable, you seek the next environment. When it gets a little bit comfortable, you go to the next thing. That to me is a great place. So again, for give it context in the world of um business and in and jobs. That is like putting yourself in a room of people that you don't belong until you start to belong and you start to climb that ladder. And once you do, then find another room that you don't belong and become the amateur again. And do it again and do it again and do it again. Watch what happens when you when you when you go on a journey like that, and you don't chase states or titles, you chase, you chase the environment. You watch how quickly you will grow when you find that you are constantly adapting the environment to demand more of you so that you learn and grow. That again, that is my personal experience of it. I've always tried to put myself in a room where people are greater than I am because I think that that is where I definitely learn most, it's where I grow most, and I can also adapt most in that to start to bring on new points of view, new ways of working, new standards, new traits. I talked earlier about having a worldwide view, right? And I don't mean that in some obnoxious, um, egotistical driven kind of statement. What I mean is I've been exposed to different things at all times, which gives me a different point of view on things than the small town mentality that traditionally, when you come from a small town, is kind of how things go. Level three, purposeful, transitioning from being pushed by pain to being pulled by the vision, right? Now I'm I'm not here saying that you should be everyone at level three. I think level three is when you're getting to high-level CEO entrepreneurship, the the you know, the top probably 10%. My point here is that I think level one is where most of us stay. Level two is where we definitely a minimum have to be in, and I think is a great place. Level three is the top 10%. And like I said, that's transitioning from being pushed by pain to being pulled by the vision. And the pulled by the vision is a constant chasing of that, it's a constant chasing of um what is necessity. Now, again, I'm not saying that everyone's gonna be in that part of it. Um I think there's a there's probably a very few that probably live in there and thrive in it, and they probably, I think there's probably a balancing act for the majority of us, right? That are gonna bounce between they stay in level two but drive towards level three and then come back to level two, and then they kind of go up and down from that. Again, my biggest point here is from a pattern perspective, is it's it's the reactive versus proactive case, and most of us are sitting level one at all times rather than I would say stay in level two, bounce up to level three for most of us. If you're at the highest and highest of levels, I think level three is where you're probably going to constantly, constantly play and constantly stick out stick around at. You see, what's the cost of missing it? And I love doing these in these episodes of identifying what the cost is. I mean, if you refuse the ultimate and that it that it gives you, and if you keep trying to find a workaround for the growth, you ultimately pay the stagnation tax. And it's a muscle that isn't challenged, doesn't just stay the same. It atrophies. And if you aren't evolving to meet the necessity of today, well, you're becoming obsolete for the opportunities of tomorrow. You see, the two little thoughts around this, right? Number one is the check engine light. And I'm gonna make some people in my life laugh in a second. You see, the check engine light ideology is we mistake the pain for growth for the pain of failure. And when the check engine light is on, we signal for help instead of asking how can I fix it. Now, here's where I'm gonna make some of my family members laugh, and I'm gonna make my partner laugh. So, anyone who knows me knows that me using this car analogy, right, when she knows and when my family knows, when it comes to cars, I am utterly useless. I do not understand them in terms of the under-the-bonnet side of things, right? So when my check engine light comes on, the first thing I would usually do is I'm calling um I'm calling Howard and I'm sat there going, Howard, this thing's come on. Um, can I bring it over here to you? Can you have a look? Right. So again, I do appreciate that when I use an analogy, sometimes I'm gonna make some people in my life laugh because they know who I am and they know exactly how I operate. The analogy, that doesn't mean the analogy doesn't work. It doesn't mean what I'm talking about isn't real. It just means that I also am a little bit self-aware of um the irony between me using an analogy to make the point like this. You see, what I would say though, however, is I'd like to call this delegacious delegation and purposely using my time. Now, again, I would get some rich smiles and some raised eyebrows, I'm sure, from family members, but I'm I'm gonna stick with that right now. Um while everyone else laughs in my family at me. And the other one is this it's the stagnation fallacy, right? Or the stagnation taxes we talked about. Um, thinking that essentially if you stay still, then you're safe. So if I don't really do anything again, go back to relationships. If I stay safe in my relationship and I don't move, I'm gonna be alright. Like it's good enough, right? This thing is good enough, but you know, it pays me enough attention. Um, she does enough for me. We um love each other just enough, and the good times are just enough to cover over the bad stuff, right? Now, again, right, so for some people that's what you want, and for some people that's good. Again, I always talk on my own personal opinion and I always talk on what I want. To me, that's not good enough, right? To me, I don't want good enough. To me, over the last um six months, and for what I have, and again, I for some people I might piss some people off right now in a second. Um, what I have in my relationship um is everything that I've wanted, and again, I I get it in spades and abundance. For me, I've always wanted someone who um would push me and um drive me forward and yes, want the best for me, but do it in a way that that really is a purpose-driven way. Um I think I said this before on a podcast, but the reality is is that this started because of a conversation with Sarah and then ultimately it was a realization, and even today we're beside together talking, and I'm probably gonna go off a tangent again here. I'll try not to. Um, but yeah, it's you you want someone who in absolute spades will um push you and or at least sorry, let me rephrase that. For for me, I want someone who's gonna push me and drive me to be the best version of myself, and then when I get to that version, wants me to go again and to go again and to go again and to create a life for us that ultimately we look back on, and you know, I sit back on my deathbed and and later in life, maybe when I'm old look overlooking on a balcony or on a beach, and I'm going, Are you happy with the life you created? And I go, You're damn right I am. Um and I think I have to thank partially for you for that. And I think that's what when I like I say, when I want a relationship and the idea of not staying still and staying safe, I think that's what that's what I thrive for. And again, I know from conversations with her, it's it's very similar in in terms of what we both want, and we understand that, and there's a we have a very high level of what we want from this, and I think that is a again for me, anyone who knows me, that is exactly what I want. And I hope that's exactly what again she's that's what she wants, and we get to live in this beautiful world together, and it's slightly chaotic and it's fun, and um there'll be a lot of good times ahead of us. But again, going back to this of the the idea of sitting still and you'll be safe, again, for some people that's okay, that's what you want. I'd say you go back to that's the level one, that's the reactive growth. It'll come to a point where it gets bad enough to that you have to move. You see that and I think to wrap that up in a moving world, staying still is a rapid way. So, slight irony there, the staying still is a rapid way to head on collision with being left behind by the world. It won't stop spinning because you stop moving. You either have a choice you're gonna move with it, or stay cursing it. You choose wisely, choose which one you want to be in. Um choose which lane you want to get uh behind and see what happens with your life again. You can spend a life cursing it, or you can spend a life trying to move with it. Um you don't always have to agree with it, you don't always have to enjoy it, you don't always have to you know sit there and say that this is the right thing, but I think you've obviously got to sit and go, what is this trying to tell me? Where what's the pathway look like and and where are we going? You see, look uh at the ultimatum sitting on the desk right now. So look at the ultimatum that is sitting on your desk right now, table, whatever you want to call it. That problem won't go away. And the gap between who you are and who the situation requires you to be is always going to be there. Again, that gap only widens as the years go on, as the days go on, as the minutes go on. And if you don't choose to change that, well then you have to accept the version of you that you are that will always stay there, and you cannot curse it or complain about it. You see, I think the ultimate will be stop asking, How can I make this easier? And start asking what version of me is this pressure trying to create. It's a very, very ideology way of looking at it. But I think again, it's not about being perfect, it's about understanding that again, it's just sitting and going, What is this moment trying to teach me and how do I learn my lessons from it to get to the next time so that the pain that I feel today I don't feel tomorrow? And the pain that I'm gonna feel in the future, I can control it and I can work with it and I can understand it for what it is. You see, necessity isn't a prison, it's a forge. Stop fighting the heat and start shaping the metal. Talked about this a little bit earlier, right? You hit metal only bends realistically when you heat it up, right? And if you don't heat it up, it's a lot harder to bend it, it's a lot harder to get it to shape towards the will that you want and to the way that it wants to look. Otherwise, it's just a sheet, it's just a sheet of metal, it's just a piece of steel, it's a piece of it's just a rod there that's just in a straight line, never developing, never creating some beautiful sculpture or image, right? And the reality of it is it's that only the moment when you start to heat it up can you actually start to bend it to create the the sculpture you want. The metaphor, although, is the life that you want in this scenario. So don't fight the heat. I don't want to get into some cliche quote here, but you have to kind of thrive in the heat. You have to learn to love the heat. Um I'm pretty sure there's a film with a quote like that on. Um it's escaped me right now, but I'm definitely there's definitely a film um about it. Or maybe it was a uh video on social media. I'm sure, yeah, maybe it was. Maybe it was a video on social media about a boxing coach who is talking to his fighter, um essentially saying that we are something about being a firefighter and that we thrive in the fire. Um we live in the fire, we breathe the fire. Something to do with that again. I'm sure someone listening is is listening to me talk about this goal and saying they know exactly what I'm talking about, and then the other 95% have no clue, um, either because they can't understand my northern British accent or they just genuinely don't know what I'm talking about. But again, to wrap this whole thing up, um yeah, learn to live and l learn to love the heat that you're in right now and and bend this metal that we call life into a into a beautiful sculpture that you get to look back on. And maybe later on in life, you like I said, you sat there in your living room, you sat there on a kitchen looking at a sculpture that's on a side and saying, what a beautiful little life we we built for each other, what a beautiful life we built for ourselves, and um look at what we did manage to create, whether that's a if that's a job, if that's a a lifestyle, if that's kids, if it's you know, for some people it's pets, and for some people it's it's all of the above. Um But yeah, I think I couldn't I mean the more I talk, the more I think I couldn't wrap it up better than have an image of what that sculpture looks like. Maybe that's the best question. Maybe that's the question that when I talked about sitting here and talking through ideas and just kind of a bit of therapy, that's kind of what I want to get to is the goal is not to sit there and say, if you had no money, or if money wasn't an object, what would the life what would life look like? I think actually the question now is at the end of it all, when you look across and you sat on your balcony or you sat on the island um in your house or in your living room, what does the sculpture look like of your life? Are you happy with it? Would you have changed anything? Would you regret anything? Would you have shaped and mold molded it into a different version, or do you look at it and there's a little rice smile comes along your face and you say I'm pretty damn happy with the life I've built? I think that's the question. I think that's definitely the question. I'll see you all in the next one.