Transcendence through intensity
HOST
Lets talk about intensity, which is a very misunderstood term, especially with the advent of the Internet. A lot of people, especially youngsters, have really never experienced the full scope of what it means to go berserk or to ferociously attack something using the full extent of all of your faculties. The Internet has somewhat blunted this. It's somewhat tempered a lot of people's moods and abilities to summon sort of these primal energies that we all have in order to essentially annihilate the obstacles that stand in our way.
You know, when I was in my twenties, I devoted my entire, the entire decade of my twenties to learning the tough lessons. I was aimless, I didn't really have much of a plan. I had kind of a Dionysian sort of approach to life. Take things day by day.
I learned very early on that you can only build things on a day by day basis. Projecting out into tomorrow or the next day was a, was an exercise in futility. So I lived with a full might and strength and courage of just day to day. And I didn't really give a fuck at the end of my day what had happened.
All I cared is that I laid it all on the line pretty much daily. And I did that and I lived that life for well over a decade. Sports betting has been one of the most incredible outlets for this kind of energy that I'm about to speak of because I have been slain over and over and over and over and over again and I've been lacerated, pursuing very lofty goals, very lofty missions. A typical day in the life of me in my early 20s was scrap together as much cash as possible, fire at the books.
I would go on runs that to this day I, I couldn't even put it into words like there's no way to articulate it because it's so surreal the things that would happen on a daily basis when you don't live in fear and you don't have any kind of restraint. The things that are possible, the hurdles that you're able to overcome are just out of this realm. I'm talking starting in the morning with 10 G's. Three hours later you're at a quarter million bucks in cash.
Then you keep pressing, then you keep pushing, you lose it all. You're back to zero. 8am you had 10K. 1pm you got quarter mil. 2pm you're at zero. You go get another bag, you run it up again. Maybe you hit a quarter mil again.
Two times in the same fucking day, you could run up a bag twice. A statistical anomaly Something that's never supposed to occur. A black swan, a blue moon. Happens fucking twice in one day.
And then you go busto again and you're back at zero again. And you end the night at zero and you wake up again and you start firing again. Let me tell you something. The parallels between a blood stake, bone and equity investment in any pursuit, what it does to the physical body is something that a lot of philosophers have had a lot of trouble articulating.
Because as much mental fortitude and as much mental strength as you need to, essentially, because any business you're going to do, any enterprise that you're going to launch into, you're going to get annihilated. There's going to be days where nothing you do. You can do everything right, you can do everything to the letter, you can do everything textbook. And you're still going to get worked, you're still going to get your ass whooped.
And I experienced this to a level when I was lifting weights and I wanted to compete in the nationals and I wanted to go to the world stage and I wanted to compete and get a gold medal in Olympic lifting. That was the lofty goal that I had. In my 20s, I would have to pull up into the gym with my net worth deployed on a game. The game is going on while I'm lifting.
So I'm on my phone the entire time in between sets, watching scores. The stress is so cumbersome that it feels like I'm 30 pounds heavier than I really am. And in between sets, I gotta attack big weights and I gotta have all my focus and I gotta be concentrated so I don't fucking drop a 300 pound barbell on my head. Then I got sales calls, I got a fucking team I'm working with, I gotta answer their calls.
It's, there's, there's no pause. There's no pause. Like all these little hacks about people telling you, go to the gym, put your phone down, relax, focus on one thing. That's not the recipe to becoming the best.
If you want to be the best, Anthony Lionheart and you got to juggle it all at once. Doesn't matter what kind of pressure is on your back, you still got to show up and perform. There were days where we, when I wanted to snatch 300 pounds, I would miss 16, 17 repetitions in a row. And you missed for different reasons.
There's different reasons why you miss. And I could tell on some of those days I had the power. The power was there. Maybe my legs were tired.
Maybe my Lower back, was tired. Maybe my positions were out of whack that day, because in weightlifting you have to be able to hold positions in order to lift the weight. So there's a multiplex of reasons why on a particular day I wasn't able to perform my best. And I would leave the gym on those days, and I would be so besides myself, angry and fucking pissed off that I didn't snatch my goal that day, that I would go home and I would be stewing for hours over it, just stewing.
I just kept envisioning me hitting the fucking lift. And after two hours, I would be so distraught and so disoriented and so upset that I wasn't hitting my goal that I would drive my ass back to the gym and I'd go attempt it again. I'd go attempt it again. I remember one day, particularly at probably my peak athleticism, it took me 41 attempts. 41 attempts.
And on the 42nd try, I snatched 300 pounds after failing 41. And every pull off the floor, I just remember driving my heels into the ground like I was going down to hell, like I was digging a hole to China. I would strain every fiber in my body, find a focal point on the wall in front of me and lock my gaze onto it, and I would rip that bar off the floor like I was prying open the jaws of a lion and just pull with every telomere in my body completely stretched to her band, and I would just explode that weight over my head. And it's a game of inches.
I would come so close on some of those attempts, I knew I had it. That kind of intensity, that kind of just not taking no for an answer, refusing to quit. The days that I would hit those numbers in the gym were. Were also days where I was getting annihilated in the sports markets.
I'm talking the kind of beatings, the kind of brutal beatings where you're one shot away from winning a million bucks and it goes the opposite direction and you end up with $0 million swing in 10 minutes of time. Has happened to me so many times, I can't even recall how many times a situation like that has occurred. And it's the kind of thing where when you have those kind of swings on a daily basis that are so remarkable, it shocks you into silence. Like some of those beatings that I took, especially in my early years, I.
I was woozy afterwards, like actually dizzy. I was having fucking vertigo. Because of the physical toll that it takes after it chews through your mental Capacity, it starts to wear you down physically, you know what I mean? Like there were days where I got brutalized so bad in the market that I couldn't even formulate a sentence.
Uttering a single word, uttering a word from my vocal cords felt like I was bench pressing 335 pounds just to speak a word. Because I'm just shocked into reticence from just living at a full capacity, at a full clip, at a maximum level, every single day, putting it all on the line and, and then, and then realizing how the am I still standing? I just took a million dollar hail Mary power punch to the jaw. I'm still standing.
I still gotta show up to the gym. I still have a business meeting at 7 o'. Clock. I gotta show up to a dinner, I gotta be sharp for that.
So I have a couple hours to mentally recalibrate, get myself back in the game, turn the jets on, you know, turn on the gregarious showman for the business meeting, whatever the it is. And all of that's occurring in a 24 hour period. I gotta go hit a max lift. I gotta deal with the fact that I just torched a mill.
Then I gotta show up to a business meeting. I can't bring my baggage into that. My eyes are bloodshot. There were days I trained so hard in the gym, I trained so hard that I was shaking, my entire body was tremoring and I was, I would puke, I would puke afterwards.
The workouts were so fucking brutal. And then I'd give myself about 30 minutes to chill out and I'd recover and I'd get right back on the saddle, right back to dialing up the phones, making moves, right back into the game. Never took days off, never slipped into self pity. Just hobbled though.
Like mornings I would wake up and I'm not kidding, I couldn't walk in a straight line. I got sucker punched the day before so bad that I, I was physically impaired. Like I couldn't walk into a straight line. I was mentally disoriented and I'm still performing at the highest of levels, right?
I'm still handling all my responsibilities, still showing up, still suiting up, any obligations I have. I don't shirk from it, I don't shirk from a fight. I'm not shirking from conflict. I'm just right back in the game, give myself, like I said, 30 minutes to an hour to recharge.
And that has been a policy of mine for a very long time. I do not give myself permission to stew in negative emotions for very long at all. If I have to be depressed, if I have to be crestfallen, I give myself a very brief moment to experience it. And then I just let it go.
And then I just let it go. And that's what you have to do. That's what you have to do if you want to be a player in this game, because the game is extremely brutal. But let me ask you a question.
What is the purpose of being born into this life against your will? None of us had a choice to come into this realm. You hit the ground running at an early age and it dawns on you after a certain point, the only purpose of this life is to see how far you can go. That's it.
What other purpose in life is there is to just see how high you can climb with the little bit of allocated time that you have. There's nothing else to do. Like there's nothing else to accomplish than to just see how far you can push it. How far can you push the envelope?
How many gauntlets can you subject yourself to? How many times can you come out of it? Now I'll tell you something. I have never come out of any of these scenarios that I'm speaking of weaker.
Not one time. I've never come out weaker that I do know for a fact. I was armoring myself with experience. I was armoring myself with stress tolerance, and I was also armoring myself with.
With an indomitable confidence that you can't pay for. Because the reality was, is that because I was living at this capacity for so long, every day of my life, doing the same things, walking into impossible stories, stories that are so unbelievable you can't even tell them. You can't even tell them. Which is why I'm excited to release my book.
Because even in my book I have to. I had to tell my story in sort of a fictitious manner just to make it digestible for the audience. Because the things I've seen, the things I've done, the things I've witnessed are honest to God not believable. Like, I wouldn't blame a soul on earth if they didn't believe the things that I've actually endured and gone through and live to tell about it, you get to a point in life where you're living at that capacity and you just have mind blowingly interesting stories to tell every day.
Every day. Every day I come home and my girl asks me what's going on. I have a very fascinating, intriguing story to tell daily. There is not a day that Goes by where something absolutely mind blowing does not happen.
It's never happened. I've never had a drab day, a banal day where nothing in extraordinary happened. Because I'm living at my maximum edge all the time, all the time. Physically depleted, sapped, emotionally scarred, emotionally worn.
The down. And then you live through it. And you get up the next morning and you. And you take a breath of air and you just can't believe that you're still here.
You're like, how is the body so incredible? How is the body so impressive? How is. How am I still carrying on?
What is it? It's the human spirit. It's that intangible force that I always talk about that no testosterone supplement, no injection, no book, no knowledge, nothing holds a candle to the power of the human spirit. Nothing.
When nothing is supposed to be working. The way I'm living, my testosterone should be double digits. Do you understand? My testosterone is supposed to be gutted.
I'm supposed to be walking around with probably a 50 testosterone level. But that's not my real world feedback, experience. It's the opposite. I'm invigorated.
Every time I go through something that I thought would bring me down, it never has. So I don't need a fucking blood test. I don't need someone to fucking gauge my testosterone levels. I know I'm a howitzer tank.
I'm just gonna keep coming and coming and coming and coming and I'm never gonna stop. I'm never gonna stop. So what the do I give a what my levels are? There's something.
I'm playing a different game. I'm tapping in to the soul. I'm tapping into something that's pataphysical. I'm tapping into something that is so grand and so powerful in its might that nothing is a substitute for it.
It's invisible. It's an invisible power that men are endowed with that supersedes everything. It supersedes everything. The.
There is zero physical explanation or scientific explanation why as a natural athlete I should be able to lift the numbers that I lift with the kind of lifestyle stress that I endure on a daily basis. It. It should not be possible because science can't take into account the intangibles. You understand?
The intangibles is where all the juices, it's where all the magic is. All those subliminal forces, all those sonic forces creeping underneath that, that gives the man his makeup. That is your constitution. Your constitution comes from those intangible forces in the human spirit.
You have to understand that there is no proxy and no substitute for those forces. Nothing, nothing comes close. Everything pales in comparison to the powers that you can summon from within. I love the game.
I love the game. And I'm always pushing the envelope and I'm always testing. I'm always testing the people around me, my loved ones. I'm always pushing the people that I am involved with to the edge, to whatever their personal edges because I expect them to do the same to me.
I don't want anything less. I'm not settling for anything less. I want to know what I'm capable of and I want to know who I am every single day I wake up. That's what men do.
Men have to prove themselves to themselves on a daily basis. Women are born, they know exactly who they are. You understand from birth. Women know exactly who they are.
Men have to consistently test themselves on a daily basis to prove their worth to themselves. That is a beautiful burden. It's a beautiful burden. You shouldn't want it any other way.
I don't want it any other way. I want to wake up and have to perform all over again. I don't want a chill, relaxed life. I can't do beaches and palm trees indefinitely.
It drives me crazy. I have to push myself. I have to see things in a different light. And you know what it is?
I'll tell you something. The greatest in the world, the people who are the best at their craft are running away from something. They're running away from something. Anybody, any top tier professional is running away from something.
It's a pretty good strategy if you ask me. It's a pretty good strategy if you ask me. Because you can come home and dial it back down after you win. I talked about this on the timeline the other day.
There is no point. And abusing stimulants and smoking cigs and chain gunning you coffee all day if you're not gonna use it for force production, is it bad for you? Of course it is. Of course it is.
That's not the point. The point is that things that are bad for you also have functional utility. I. I'm not over here glamorizing cigarette smoking by any stretch of the imagination.
Do I think cigarettes are healthy? No, I don't. Do I smoke them? Yes.
Because to me it's a tool. To me, it's a tool to get me over to the next hurdle. There will be a point in time where I've accomplished the vast majority of what I've wanted to accomplish on this planet. And I know for A fact.
It's going to be easy to just go cold turkey because I will have my day to heal eventually. Eventually, when it's all said and done and I've accomplished and knocked off all my goals, I will definitely come down to earth and heal from the damage that's been done on this path. My body is a wreck. It's a wreck every day.
Every morning I wake up. It's a. It's a. It's a.
It's a. The, the zealousness for life is there. So, like, I'll spring up and get up out of bed, no problem. But I feel the wear and tear in a big way.
I feel it. I feel it in my joints. I feel it in my bones. I feel it mentally.
But I also have this sort of solace and this sort of solitude that nobody can take away from me. Like I've. I've christened myself in the fire. I forged myself in the fire for so long, similar to how you would forge a battle axe that I'm just sort of.
I've been smelted down into. My core is so. Just impenetrable. I know who I am.
I know what I'm here to do. And that's like one of the most simple pleasures for a man. Like, you can take so much pride in just knowing that your core is. Is unshakable.
It's unshakable. How could it be shakable? How could it be shakable? It's.
It's hilarious to me. I'll be driving on the road and I'll. Someone will honk at me. Someone will honk at me.
And I. I realized this the other day. I was laughing. I was like, everything I've overcome in my life, this thinks a honk is gonna get me rattled.
While they're cussing and cursing behind their. Their wheel and flipping out like little things like that just don't get under my skin anymore. Any insecurity that I ever had has evanesced. It's gone.
It's. It's evaporated. Which is why I've always urged young men to try to live at the edge of their capability every day. Not just physically, but mentally as well.
Because when you're in a state of fatigue that I'm suggesting, and you're really pushing the brink every day, you simply are impervious to the trifles of life. You're impervious to it. It doesn't. It doesn't.
It doesn't get under your skin. It doesn't affect You. It doesn't bother you? Let the little circus freaks chatter?
Let the little whispers in the corridors happen behind your back. Who gives a. Who gives a. You know what you're here to do.
You know what you're about. That's all you need. That's it. It's so simple.
You think a man who's beaten down by the. By the blades of his own mission, you think that motherfucker cares about his. About how he looks, about how he sounds, about how he feels? Think he gives a fuck?
Of course not. Of course not. How could he? That's where the benefits really start to kick in.
You know what I mean? And then you walk through the real world after you go through these experiences, and again, you want to talk about juxtaposition? Get a motherfucker like me, right? Look, I look extremely athletic.
I'm walking around with bloodshot eyes, death stare, and I walk into a restaurant. Every motherfucker's cocking their heads. Who's this guy? Who's this guy?
I just lost a million bucks yesterday. I lost a million bucks yesterday. Who's this? They know.
People know when you're living at your capacity. That's why most people are invisible, because most people don't have that aura that I'm talking about. Your aura gets severely diminished when you don't live at the edge. As a man, you see the male beast, the male body is the most capable organism on planet Earth.
It's the most adaptable. You can mold it any which way you want to, and you can craft it from nothing. You can literally craft the male body from nothing and turn it into something like, that's enough right there. That's the only argument I ever need to hear to know that none of the excuses matter.
It's all. Because nerds have become heroes, Dorks have become cool. Like these transfigurations are happening every day. They're happening every day.
And I just don't. I don't. I think it's extremely unwise to leave energy in the tank, especially when you figure out real quick, when you live the way I live, that the. Actually, the biofeedback loop is so incredible that it's actually a restorative process.
In other words, when you live at the edge of your capability for so long, it has its own definition of restoration. Like, the feedback cycle completes itself, and the. The window of recovery that you need to get back on the horse becomes less and less over time. So I'm 35, but I'm still recovering as fast as I was in my 20s, because I'm forcing my body to adapt.
That's the whole game right there. It's a game. It's a. It's.
It's an endurance game. Life is very much an endurance game. How much can you take, but then how much can you sustain for an extended period of time? And the ones who don't make it are the ones who call uncle way too early.
They call uncle way too early. They wave the white flag when things get tough because they're afraid something's gonna break in their body or mind. And that's the point when you really gotta ride the tiger. You really gotta ride through the turbulence when you feel like things are gonna snap, because that's really the.
That's the line. That's the fault line where growth really occurs. The days where I. I legitimately don't even want to take a phone call are the days where I take the most phone calls.
The days where I despise the thought of even picking up an empty bar and putting it on my back are the days I go lift the hardest because I force myself to do things all the time that I don't want to do it.