085： Aubrey Marcus ｜ Go For Your Win
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Summary
Aubrey Marcus, founder and CEO of Onnit, joins me to talk about how you can uncover your mission, train the essential skills, overcome the resistance, and go for your win. You re a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You re not easily deterred or defeated, you re resilient. This is your life, this is who you are, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
Transcript
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Every single one of us is looking for more out of life, and if you're not, you probably need to
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get that figured out. But that said, it is difficult to see beyond the reality that you
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and I have set for ourselves. My guest today, Aubrey Marcus, founder and CEO of Onnit,
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joins me to talk about how you can uncover your mission, train the essential skills,
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overcome the resistance, and go for your win. You're a man of action. You live life to the
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fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down,
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you get back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated,
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rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become
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at the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Men, what's going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and founder of Order
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of Man. Now, whether you're new to the show or you've been a longtime listener, I want to welcome
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you to the Order of Man podcast. This, guys, is the go-to podcast for all of the manly conversations
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that you want to and need to have. Now, I'm excited about this. I mentioned last week that we were
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going to hit 1 million downloads, and I'm stoked to announce that that actually happened last
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Wednesday. Now, my wife and I talked about it, and she actually asked me how I was going to
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celebrate the milestone. Guys, I simply told her that I was going to get busy creating another 100
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shows for you to get your earbuds on, so I am currently working on that. Now, I want to get into the show
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today, but before I do, I want to mention our sponsor for the show. Now, as you know, last week,
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we did pick up this new sponsor, Sheath Underwear, and I'll admit, guys, I was a little hesitant to
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bring them on. It's a men's underwear company, but I'll tell you what. They sent me a couple pair,
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and after trying them for just a couple of days at the gym, I will not work out without them.
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They are like the best of both worlds when it comes to the flexibility, but also the support that
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you need to keep things exactly where they need to be when they need to be there, and I'm going to tell
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you more about it during the break, but in the meantime, I want you to know that I've got a 25%
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discount for you on your own pair of Sheath Underwear. Use the code ORDEROFMAN at checkout
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at sheathunderwear.com. Now, guys, we've got a killer show lined up for you today with my friend
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Aubrey Marcus. I'm going to introduce you to him in a second if you don't know who he is,
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but the show notes for this show can be found at orderofman.com slash 085. All right, so with that
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said, Aubrey Marcus, if you don't know him already, he is the founder and CEO of Onnit. Onnit is a
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nutritional supplements brand, but what makes this company unique is his philosophy that he calls
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total human optimization. Since 2010, he has grown this business into an industry leader. In fact,
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they've got over 250 products, guys, ranging from peak performance supplements to food,
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fitness equipment, and apparel, and a ton more. Now, he's got a degree in philosophy and classical
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civilization and also has a background in brand development and e-commerce, and because of this
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unique background, which you're going to hear more about in the show, he's a multi-sport athlete and
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has, again, the philosophy degree. He has been able to create a company that has empowered customers
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to achieve their fullest human potential, and if that's not enough, he also hosts two celebrated
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podcasts, Total Human Optimization and the Aubrey Marcus Podcast. Aubrey, what's going on, man? Thanks
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for joining me on the show today. It's my pleasure, man. Yeah, I've been following you for a while,
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and I know we've tried to connect, but it's an honor to have you on and finally connect and get you
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here and talk about some of the things you're doing, so I'm stoked about it. Yeah, likewise.
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So tell me about Go For Your Win, because I know you've got a lot of things going on. I know this
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is pretty big for you. When you talk about Go For Your Win, what is it that you're actually talking
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about? You know, to me, this was the idea of encapsulating what it means to live the most
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fulfilled life, and for me, what I realized is that to live the most fulfilled life, you have to
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identify what your win is, like the totality of what you're here to do. It's not so much even about
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achieving it. It's about doing your very best, goddamn best to do it, you know, to try and do
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it, and that's what going for the win, going for your win is all about. It's your unique win,
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and then applying yourself to the utmost of your abilities, training the skills necessary,
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battling the resistance that's going to come up, so that you can be on the path to achieve,
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you know, your greatest potential, your greatest win.
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Yeah, I want to talk about each of those elements of that, because that makes a ton of sense,
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this is actually something that I'm just finding out recently for myself, just over the past couple
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of years, and I love the word that you talk about when you say fulfillment, and that's really what
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it is. I think everybody's trying to chase success. What does fulfillment actually look like for you?
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How do you define that? You know, fulfillment is the active process of doing your very best to
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do what you're here to do, you know, to do what satisfies your entire self, not just satisfies your ego,
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not just satisfies your lust, not just satisfies your greed, not just satisfies these
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impulses that we have, but satisfies the totality of your being, you know, your consciousness,
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your spirit, your mind, your body, everything encapsulated, you know, that is fulfillment when
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you're truly reaching and satisfying all elements of who you are.
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The interesting thing that you said there, and you talked about this a second ago as you answered
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that first question, was the process that you go through, or the journey, for lack of a better term,
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versus the actual attainment of that thing, whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.
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Talk to me about the differences between those two, and where should we put our emphasis and focus?
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Well, there's really only one destination, and that destination is death. And all the great
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warrior cultures realized that, and that was, you know, that's why they considered death to be a great
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ally. Because it puts everything in perspective. You know, every, all of these things that we think we're
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trying to achieve, you know, everything, nothing is going to be permanent. You know, everything is
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just a journey. And every summit that you create, you know, you'll find that in business, you'll find
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that in sports, you think that this one thing is what you're working for, and then you achieve that
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thing. And then you're like, Oh, wait, that was just, you know, there's another thing that I got
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to achieve. And if you're always thinking that this next thing is going to make you happy, and this
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next thing is going to make you fulfilled, you'll never be fulfilled. Everything is a false summit.
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It's only just a process. And the process of being in the moment, how many present moments can you link
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together in the journey towards your success, which is just the success is the process, you know
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what I mean? So, you know, that's something that's really important to remember. Because if you're
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living in the past or the future, you're never fully going to be happy. And you're going to look
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back, time is going to have flown by, and you're like, where the hell did my life go?
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Yeah, I know that that's like, tell me about your thoughts on goal
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setting, then. I mean, I'm imagining there's there's a place for this. But how does this fall
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in when you're talking about living in the present?
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Yeah, I think I think it's great to set goals. And I think it's great to understand, you know,
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that's part of what your win is, like, what are you here to accomplish? What is your mission?
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I think it's good to understand your mission more than your goals, and then how far you can go
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within your mission. And then, you know, but there's milestones that you can certainly set.
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But really, the important thing is that in every step of the way, you're doing your best to get
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there, you know, and not judging yourself whether you actually did it or not, because there's so
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many factors that are outside of your control. If your goal is to win the Super Bowl, you know,
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you're on a team with 52 people, you know, like, if you're judging yourself, and if you think you're
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a failure, because you didn't do it, even though you did absolutely your best, you showed up early,
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you went home late, you rolled out, you stretched, you trained, you did absolutely everything you
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could, you worked on your mind, and you didn't win it. Well, you know, you're not a failure. You know,
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you've done your absolute best along the process doesn't mean that have winning the Super Bowl
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shouldn't have been your goal. But just respect the fact that, you know, as long as you're doing
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your best in the process, you're winning, and you can be happy about that. How do you know if you're
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doing your best? Well, I think, I think that's something that only you can judge. And that's
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something that I think, you know, we all intrinsically know if we were able to do more and,
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and when that tipping point is where we're doing too much. And that's about understanding balance
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and understanding yourself. Because you can also push too hard. And you know, you see that in sports,
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you see that in, in life, you see that in different things. And that's actually counterproductive.
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So it's about just reaching, moving towards your resistance, you know, towards those points that
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you really don't want to do, whether it's, you know, turning on, waking up and having that cold shower
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to build those cold shock proteins in the morning rather than your hot shower, or whether it's,
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whatever little step that you want to take, knowing that you're doing your best is a very
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personal thing. And I think it's about reaching out, you know, there's also an ignorance factor,
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like, you have to do research, you have to read, you have to do things like, you know, like take
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this course, for example, and that way you can, you know, capitalize on all the knowledge that I have.
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And not that the course is the end all be all, but there's knowledge there, there's tidbits
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there, there's information there that you can get, that'll help you do your best. And then you expand
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that and go read something else. And maybe it sparks another idea and you're continually learning,
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you know, all of the ways that, um, that you can go about, you know, walking the path that you've
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How did you find this stuff out for yourself? Because I know, and I've seen some stuff based
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on you is that it's not just an aha moment. It's a series, like you said, of, of moments that have
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led to the culmination of where you are today. How do you start to explore this path and start
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Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of getting my ass kicked, but there's a lot of failures, a lot
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of, of some breakthroughs, some different things, uh, you know, a lot of reading, a lot of working
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with mentors and learning from athletes and learning from, you know, top performers. You
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know, I really pieced a lot of this together and, and just figured out what had worked in,
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in creating, you know, my ideal win in my path. I mean, right now, you know, when anybody
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asked me, I'm truly living the dream of my life. You know, I'm, this is a, I feel incredibly
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blessed and, and, but it's come through a lot of failure and a lot of struggle. And,
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um, you know, I think there's a lot of lessons in that. And I've really just been a perpetual
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student, just learning from everybody I encounter and all the sources, all the books, you know,
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part of creating this course, I thought it was actually going to be a book, you know, went
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into isolation. I wrote 35,000 words because I felt like at least at that point, if for some
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reason, you know, my plane crashed or something like that, I at least would have all of the
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knowledge that I had to date compiled somewhere. Um, so I could leave some, some small legacy
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behind. So, you know, yeah, you could share that if that were the case. Yeah. It was kind
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of my, uh, my Lakota Hoka Hay moment so that I, I could walk into every day with that attitude
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of today is a good day to die. You know, if it was to be my last day, at least I had done
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my best to get as much information out there as possible.
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Yeah. I, I can't even pronounce the term that you just said, but as, is that the concept
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of living every day? Like it's your last. Yeah. So the Lakota had a philosophy and Hoka
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Hay, you know, there's some different translations. Some people just say it means let's go. But,
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um, the classic, you know, translation like from Daniele Bolelli is, you know, today is a
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good day to die, which is a concept of all your affairs are in order. You've lived life so
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full and so rich and so present that, you know, in that day, the, the infinite moments
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available, if it were to be your last, it's a good day for it. You know? So, so it's really,
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and it was really powerful when I, you know, I came to grips and came to terms with that
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expression because it means a lot. It means that you've done everything that you, you know,
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everything that you could up to that moment so that if it was your last, you know, you were ready.
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And in warrior cultures where battle was common, you know, that was really important. You know,
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he didn't want to be out on the battlefield facing incredible danger thinking like, man,
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I never said goodbye to my girl. I didn't tell her I loved her. We ended in a fight. You know,
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I never taught my kid the things that I needed to teach him. I, you know, I never wrote down my,
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whatever I wrote needed to write down. Like, you don't want that in the back of your head. So you
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have to live every, you know, every day up to the point where if that was your last, you'd be ready
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to go. And I, and I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. And, uh, and since then trying
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to abide by that philosophy, I feel a lot more comfortable. So when that plane gets a little
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turbulence, you know, and you think, Oh, this is it. This is for sure. And we've all been there.
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For sure. You know, it's not that, that sheer terror. It's that, well, if it is, it is, you know,
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you certainly don't want it. It would be a damn shame if it was. Um, but at least, you know,
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your affairs are in order and, uh, and you've done your part to fulfill your mission at least
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as best you could. You talk about having a lot of, a lot of, uh, room to catch up. What'd you mean
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by that? Well, you know, I had, um, I had relationships that, you know, there was things
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that were unspoken, both family, friends, past lovers. I had, you know, knowledge that was still
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banging around in my head that I hadn't gotten around to putting on paper. I had structures that I
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had, you know, were incomplete within my company. And there was just a lot of things that if, if
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that, if I were to go that day, uh, it would have been real chaos and a real shame. You know, a lot of
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what I had learned would have been lost. A lot of what I built would have been, would have been
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broken down. And a lot of the relationships that I'd had would have been incomplete. So, you know,
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it took me some months to, to kind of catch up and, and get to a point where at least I feel like I
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was current, you know, so to speak, you know, I've really tried to keep it, keep it that way,
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you know, get as much out as I possibly could. Um, cause I just really feel like that's an,
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a great philosophy and a great way to live. Cause partly because we do never know when it's going
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to be our last, but it's also just a great way to live, you know, live. It takes a lot of the
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stress off. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Where did you, where did you start in this process? Cause I
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know there's a lot of guys that are probably feeling like this. They maybe feel stuck or they've
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reached a plateau. Where do you start in the process or where did you personally
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start? Well, I think the key for me was figuring out what my mission was, you know, and that's
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what I teach in the course too, is you got to know what your mission is. We're all a force
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and a force needs to have an effect, you know, in order, in order to feel fulfilled. And so
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what effect does your force, the totality of your being, what effect does that want to have
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on the earth, on yourself, on your family? Um, and then really understanding that. So you
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understand your mission. And for me, understanding my mission then helped everything else kind of fall
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in place. My profession, which was, you know, to create on it and be, um, be the leader of this
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movement to my passion. What movement, Aubrey, are you, are you referring to? What move? Sorry to
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interrupt. Yeah. On it. So I created a company called on it. And, um, the, the theme of on it is
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total human optimization. So it's taking all of the tools from fitness equipment, unconventional
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equipment to supplements, to foods, to, uh, everything that you can think of mindset practices
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to help people optimize their performance and wellbeing. And then, you know, in, in my personal,
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you know, kind of my personal blogs and personal side, I start working more directly on the
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consciousness elements and some more of the mindset pieces, but, you know, really the mission
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being to, to help people live the most fulfilled, happy life possible. And that's what I'm here to
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do. And when I really understood that, then a lot of these other things, founding a company like on
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it, having that as a mission statement made perfect sense. And in really, uh, truly the wind's been
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at my back, the wind has been at my back since then. Yeah, obviously. I mean, there's just stellar
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growth of the company and I followed what you guys are doing, which is incredible. Is it something
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that you just set out, Hey, I'm going to start this company or did it kind of morph into on it from an
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idea of wanting to help people and optimize human beings? A little bit of both, you know, I mean, uh,
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it kind of came from both this kind of commercial idea that man, you know, really I'm taking nine
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different supplements to help my cognitive health. Like, wouldn't it be good if there's just one
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pill and then I could, you know, adjust the dose based upon, you know, either two pills or three
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pills rather than creating a concoction every time I wanted my brain to turn on. So there was, there was
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that element of like, man, there's a market there. And then there's also the element of, you know, this
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really is directly flush in my passion and conforming to my mission. So it was, uh, kind of
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everything, the perfect storm, everything just came together.
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No, I think that's cool. You talk about finding your life's mission. I know go for your win. It
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talks a lot about that within the course itself. And, and I think you're right. I talk with a lot
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of the guys that are listeners of this podcast and read the blog and whatnot about creating
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congruency in your life. And what's interesting is you see these guys wearing so many different
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hats, you know, I'm a dad and I'm a employer, I'm a business owner, and then I'm this and then I'm
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that. And there's no congruency between their life. And so they feel frustrated because there's no
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efficiency in the way that they're doing things over here is completely different than the way
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they're doing things over here. So I hear you. And what I'm saying, what I'm hearing you say is
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the congruency of combining that with what you're actually doing for work and how you're approaching
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life. No doubt. No doubt. I mean, that's, that's optimal. And it's not always immediately possible.
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You know, you may have a job that you don't really like, but it's making you enough money
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that's allowing some things to work. And then you just have to reconcile like, what is your
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mission? And keep that in mind, even if your job is taking away some of your time, you know,
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but providing you the resources, you know, you might be all right with that for a while. I mean,
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ideally, like you said, you get congruency where everything kind of fits in. But as long as you
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know your mission, you can at least relax and say, all right, well, I have to sacrifice a little bit
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of time to get the resources that I need to accomplish my mission, ultimately looking to make the move
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to align everything perfectly. But I think people sometimes feel too much in a rush,
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you know, like they, like I got to switch now, you know, this is something I must do.
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I'm not happy with this. Like first understand what your mission is, and then figure out what
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you need to do. Because just that kind of panic to, to do something, be an entrepreneur, and I have to
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do this, you know, understand why first and really understand where you're going. And then you'll be
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able to make a more intelligent move. Sure. Yeah, it makes sense. So obviously,
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we're talking a lot about life's mission. What about you talk within the course about
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training essential skills? What skills are you referring to specifically?
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Yeah, there's a couple skills that I think we all need to be able to, to try our best and be able to
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have that opportunity to succeed. And I think, you know, one of the important skills is to cultivate
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stillness. And that's where you really allow all of the mental and emotional processes to calm down.
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That's like, kind of like turbulent water. It's like trying to, trying to see, you know,
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scuba diving when all the sand and all the silt is kicked up, you really have very little visibility.
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In order to get visibility into your life, you got to get still. And so I talk about the ways that
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you can get still. There's, you know, nine different types of meditation. And then there's
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practices like yoga and sensory deprivation and ecstatic dance and hyper oxygenation and all of these
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different methods that you have in order to really still the mind. And so we cover those,
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which I think are really, you know, an essential skill for anything that you're doing. Just the
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ability to get still, cultivate belief, harness choice. You know, choice is one of those things
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that people, people don't give enough credit. They don't, they don't train it like you would train a
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muscle. And, and it's probably one of the most important things we can do is just harness the power of
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choice. And, you know, I, I give a couple examples in there that, you know, one time I was, one thing
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I learned from one of my good friends, Bodie Miller, who's Olympic gold medalist, multiple world
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champion skier, um, downhill skier. And I went, we were hanging out one day and I said, Hey man, man,
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I got this song stuck in my head. And he looks at me and he goes, we'll get it out. You go, what do you
00:19:29.880
mean get it out? It's stuck. It's stuck in my head. Yeah. Can't do anything about it. Did you not miss,
00:19:34.000
did you miss that part where I said stuck? Like, I wouldn't say it was like drifting through, like
00:19:38.340
it's stuck. Yeah. He's like, no, it's not stuck. Like you're in control of your mind, choose to get
00:19:43.540
it out. And I was like, Whoa, okay. I guess I'll try that. And it took me a while, but eventually I
00:19:50.000
just chose to not have that refrain of that song in my head anymore. And I kept trying to fight coming
00:19:56.360
back, but I made that choice. And then he explained to me, he's like, man, if I'm in the starting gate
00:20:01.380
and I get a thought that I know is counterproductive, you know, that thought could kill me. You know,
00:20:06.620
I'm going 85 miles an hour down a sheet of ice wearing blades. Like I cannot allow thoughts that
00:20:12.920
I don't want in my brain to creep in my brain. Like that's a choice for me. And he, he's a real
00:20:17.620
master at that. He exemplifies it better than anybody I know. But it was really interesting to,
00:20:21.940
you know, because we just accept things like, Oh, a song stuck in my head. Well, whose head is it?
00:20:25.800
You know, whose mind is it? It's yours. You know, and another example I give is, is a example when I
00:20:31.820
was at this charity dinner and, um, the speaker came up and the speaker had a really challenging
00:20:37.200
nerve condition that caused him to be addicted to opiates. And he goes and he, and he talks out to
00:20:42.720
the crowd and he goes, you guys want to know the secret to quitting opiates? He's like, let me tell
00:20:47.860
you what I did. I put that bottle on my kitchen counter and I didn't take another damn pill.
00:20:53.420
And it was like this mic drop moment. Yeah. Yeah. And I heard some psychologists,
00:20:59.000
psychiatrists grumbling like, Oh, of course, how could he say that? Of course. But you know,
00:21:02.700
the truth of the matter is, is that we all do have that choice. Like we control the arm and the hand
00:21:07.380
that would reach for the bottle and unscrew the cap and put the pill in our hand. Like we do have that
00:21:12.960
choice. It can be incredibly challenging, but if we train the ability to choose this, this ability I
00:21:18.400
call mental override, the ability to force yourself to do something, it's so applicable.
00:21:23.420
It's talking to that girl you're shy about. It's asking for your promotion at work. It's
00:21:28.140
pushing through some, some trivial fear that's preventing you from enjoying something,
00:21:33.400
something great in life. Let's say you're afraid of heights. So you don't want to climb the Eiffel
00:21:36.720
Tower or whatever it is that mental override, allowing yourself to push past things that you
00:21:42.940
feel is challenging. I mean, that's an absolutely essential skill and something that 100%
00:21:51.920
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Now let's get back to my interview with Aubrey. What does that actually look like when you talk
00:22:52.000
about exercising that muscle or their practical skills or things that we can implement in our
00:22:55.580
lives to do that? So for me, it's, for me, one of the best ways I like to do that is you find a
00:22:59.940
trivial fear, a fear that is not linked to danger. So for me, that trivial fear was handling crickets
00:23:07.240
or cockroaches in my, really? Yeah. I mean, I don't mind. Like if I see them, I'm not going to jump
00:23:12.200
like, okay, here you are. But I really don't want to touch them. Like that's something,
00:23:16.760
even though there's like, there's like zero danger to touching either of those things.
00:23:20.380
But so, so one of the ways that I train choice is to try and go as calmly as possible if they're
00:23:26.800
in my house. So I'm not just harassing random, random insects, but if they're in my house and
00:23:31.840
I want to get them out instead of grabbing a cup or a sheet or whatever, like I would normally
00:23:36.020
do, I'll go up and I'll grab them with my hand. And it's a real mental battle for me, you know,
00:23:42.480
but it really, it really trains that muscle of mental override and, uh, and allows me the ability
00:23:48.700
to, you know, if I can do that, then, well, I can do this other thing and I, and you just do it.
00:23:54.000
And I've found myself as that skill has, has grown, you know, I find myself in many other situations,
00:23:59.720
networking situations where actually, to be quite honest, I'm a little bit shy. If, if I'm in a room,
00:24:04.660
like a networking room and I don't know anybody and I'm not, you know, introduced and, you know,
00:24:11.220
I really would rather not talk to anybody. That's something that, you know, as I've been
00:24:16.460
training this skill, I'll see somebody, I'm like, I should go talk to that person. And when before
00:24:20.880
normally I wouldn't do it, you know, I'll just have that idea like, all right, mental override,
00:24:25.120
here we go. The feet are going to walk and the mouth is going to open. That's all I know,
00:24:29.840
you know, and, and you just force yourself to do that. And it's been, been really beneficial,
00:24:33.880
but, but you train it by, you know, attacking these little trivial fears, things that can't hurt
00:24:38.760
you. Um, but you can, you can use as the grindstone to sharpen your sword. Yeah. I like that. I mean,
00:24:45.560
we talk about this all the time. Basically at the end of the day, do something that's a little bit
00:24:48.780
hard. Do something that scares you, push yourself outside of your comfort zone and realize that it's
00:24:52.260
not going to kill you. It's just going to make you that much stronger as you move forward with that.
00:24:56.160
Yeah. Makes sense. So talk to me about overcoming resistance. I don't know if this is a reference to
00:25:01.580
like Steven Pressfield's war of art, if this is something different or if, or if this is along
00:25:05.400
the same line, but talk to me about that. It is a reference. You know, I think that's the way that
00:25:09.440
this video game of life is set up. You know, I mean, if you think about a video game, imagine a video
00:25:13.840
game without monsters, like without any challenge, that game would suck. Right. Yeah. You wouldn't,
00:25:18.860
you wouldn't do it very long. No, you wouldn't do it very long at all. Like if the very first moment
00:25:22.440
you got the game, you put in the cheat code so that you couldn't be killed, you get bored of that
00:25:26.300
game. You get bored of that game immediately. And the game of life is set up that way. I mean,
00:25:30.640
I think there is resistance equal to almost our very best effort, you know, like just only our
00:25:37.300
very best effort can overcome it. And the reason that it's, it's metered out perfectly that way is
00:25:41.820
that resistance comes from within. And yeah, it comes from, from the outside world as well, but
00:25:46.160
the strongest resistance often comes from within ourselves. And so you have to have strategies to
00:25:52.340
deal with that. And, um, you know, that resistance wears many masks, you know, fear, attachment, um,
00:25:59.160
you know, apathy, uh, delusion, ignorance, all of these different masks that, that resistance can
00:26:06.260
wear, you know, you have to have strategies to be able to deal with that. What does the resistance
00:26:10.940
look like in your life? How does that manifest itself? You know, I'm someone who really tries
00:26:16.540
to put myself in positions that are incredibly challenging, whether that's through the plant
00:26:21.860
medicine journeys that I've been on or, you know, exploring open relationship or, you know,
00:26:27.420
the business endeavors that I have and the amount of things that I'm cumulatively trying to do,
00:26:31.840
the, the things that I'm asking from my body. So resistance comes in, in many, many different
00:26:36.780
forms. It can come from resistance, self-doubt and come from thinking, not seeing through certain
00:26:42.760
illusions. And, and I've really, you know, you deal with resistance on a, on really pretty much a
00:26:48.240
daily basis. And the only encouraging thing is, is that, you know, as you get more skilled,
00:26:53.340
those things that used to bother you before, you'll find no longer bother you. And it takes
00:26:57.580
greater and greater challenges in order to really shake your core and, and really trigger
00:27:02.600
a genuine challenge. So you, so you're able to start pushing and trying to achieve greater and
00:27:08.100
greater things because you're able to overcome the small resistance that would stop you for the
00:27:12.300
small tasks. And now it's only the big resistance that causes you pause and gives you an opportunity
00:27:17.780
to overcome. I mean, ultimately, you know, pressure makes the diamond dragons, make the heroes,
00:27:22.920
demons, make the angels, like we need this resistance. And so it's a, it's a practice
00:27:27.720
and appreciation for, for the opportunity to hone our skills and become better.
00:27:33.520
How are you so thoughtful? I mean, I, I listen truly like, I know it sounds funny, but I listened
00:27:37.800
to you and you're, and it sounds like all day long, you're thinking about how is this affecting
00:27:42.100
me? How is this impacting me? What's the resistance? Is this something that you've always
00:27:46.760
been good at, or is this something that you've developed over time? What does this look
00:27:50.240
like for you? Yeah. It's really just a survival mechanism for someone who's really constantly
00:27:55.020
pushing towards their fears and towards their resistance points. This is, this is just me trying
00:28:00.640
to not get, get crushed. So these are, these are skills that I've honed from battle. You know,
00:28:07.840
you talk to any seasoned, if you talk about a warrior in a classical sense, someone like Tim
00:28:12.580
Kennedy, for example, you, you talk to him about battle or you're in a, in a battle situation with
00:28:17.640
him, he's going to sound incredibly thoughtful and incredibly, you know, very much probably
00:28:21.740
like you're describing me for some of life's challenges. And, and it's just that he's put
00:28:25.720
himself in disadvantageous positions so often that he's really speaking from experience.
00:28:30.660
And, and really for me, it's that way. And, you know, I think a lot of people will look
00:28:34.660
at my life and say, how could there be challenged? And I think that's a, that's a big myth. I mean,
00:28:39.020
we all have opportunity for immense challenge, no matter how rich or poor or whatever,
00:28:42.860
you know, I mean, I built this company all on my own without any help from external money,
00:28:48.600
other than a little bit of investor money that I found from some, some contacts and built it up
00:28:54.180
from scratch. But that doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter what, what you started with or
00:28:58.800
where you come from, or there's always going to be resistance, you know, and it's also, and I think
00:29:04.700
that's just one of the myths that we have is that if you start with something that's, you know,
00:29:09.180
that, that the world says is good, that you got an easy life. Well, clearly that doesn't play out
00:29:13.340
because if you look at a lot of the wealthy individuals, they're miserable, you know,
00:29:17.360
addicted to pills and drugs and committing suicide and unhappy. And, you know, I've walked in the slums
00:29:23.220
in Africa and seen some of the poorest people in the world and for sure they're happier than a lot of
00:29:29.720
the people I've seen in Greenwich, Connecticut, you know, or the Hamptons, you know, it's challenge
00:29:35.240
really comes from within. And, and as long as you have the warrior spirit to go find those challenges
00:29:40.920
and overcome them, um, you'll be a warrior, you'll be a warrior in your own life. And from there you'll
00:29:46.320
gain experience, but it's important to just, you know, stay humble with that too. Remember that you're
00:29:50.940
always a student, no matter how many campaigns you've won, no matter how many victories you have
00:29:56.160
under your belt, remember, there's always more, you know, you're not, uh, you're not invincible and,
00:30:01.360
and, you know, you just keep learning and keep smiling when the universe deals another curve ball
00:30:06.680
that knocks you flat on your butt and just, you know, keep after it. Yeah. I found for myself,
00:30:11.880
like you can either learn voluntarily or involuntarily. And so voluntarily is usually the
00:30:16.880
better route to go. Yeah. And inevitably you're going to learn both ways. Of course. Yeah, for sure.
00:30:22.060
That's just the, it's just the way it works. So what separates the guy who faces resistance and he
00:30:27.480
crumbles versus the guy that, that looks at it and says, this is an opportunity for me to grow.
00:30:31.360
Cause I've, I've seen both. Yeah. I mean, uh, that's, that's something that's interesting.
00:30:36.280
I think you gotta go out and start facing challenges, you know, on the regular basis,
00:30:41.220
you gotta go find these challenges, hunt them down on their own turf, you know, go seek them out
00:30:46.480
and have that attitude where you're leaning into them and appreciating them for what they are.
00:30:50.860
And then just being humble, like being recognizing when you're getting your ass kicked,
00:30:54.840
not pretending that you're not, you know, I think people run into a lot of trouble. The reason why you
00:30:58.960
crumble is, you know, you're not just reckons recognizing, like when you talk about somebody
00:31:04.040
crumbling, like let's say something is really hard. And the minute that person says, man,
00:31:09.360
this is super hard. It is driving me to my last, to the last of what I have. But I appreciate that
00:31:16.140
thing. You know, at the end of the day, I'm going to be stronger for it. That's just very simple move
00:31:20.380
to make, but it's a move that a lot of people won't do. They crumble because they're,
00:31:24.500
they're frantic that they're going to lose. They're frantic that they're getting their butt
00:31:27.960
kicked. They can't, they don't understand what's happening. And so they, they overpress and they
00:31:32.880
try to overcorrect and they try to do too much. And, you know, it's, it's really kind of this,
00:31:38.240
this frantic scramble that based upon their ego, not, not willing to admit that, you know,
00:31:43.520
that things aren't going well. Like I think some of, some of it's that, and some of it's just,
00:31:47.980
you know, you got to practice with small battles. You got to practice with small things and get a few
00:31:52.080
victories under your belt and then, and recognize that you aren't going to win every campaign, but
00:31:56.280
you know, overall you can win the war as long as you keep that, keep that warrior spirit where
00:32:01.020
you're willing to keep going after these resistances and appreciating them as an opportunity to get
00:32:06.140
better. Is this where that you referenced this earlier, but that silence thing that you're talking
00:32:10.700
about, the meditation, the other nine principles or avenues of doing this, is this where this comes
00:32:15.060
into play for you? Yeah, totally. I mean, cause there's a, there's a point at which there's a point at
00:32:19.060
which you have to be still and kind of surrender. First of all, being still allows you a different
00:32:24.000
vantage point. It'll allow you to see whatever opposition you're facing in a different way,
00:32:29.300
you know? So you don't have to keep smashing your head against the wall. Maybe you realize,
00:32:33.280
oh, I can sidestep that wall or I can scale that wall or I can do it. You know, there's another
00:32:38.360
strategy that I can take, you know, or I can figure out how to get strong enough to just blast right
00:32:43.820
through it or bring in the right resources or whatever else. Yeah. Get help from your friends
00:32:48.340
or however that is. So, so being still is definitely important. And then it also teaches
00:32:52.560
you another skill, which is, you know, the skill of acceptance, you know? And I think that's an
00:32:57.580
important, that's an important thing to do. You know, it's, it's this combination of toughness
00:33:02.700
and acceptance. And sometimes you just have to accept like, all right, this is what's going
00:33:07.880
on now. I'm sick. You know, I need to take some time. I'm going to relax. I'm going to,
00:33:13.420
you know, drink some juice. I'm going to take the pressure off. I'm going to recover. And then
00:33:17.880
three days from now, I'm going to get back to kicking ass. You know what I mean? And this is,
00:33:22.340
there's a certain acceptance factor that, that you have to realize. And, um, and I think that's
00:33:27.540
also something you learn from a practice like yoga or the plant medicines or flotation, you know,
00:33:33.380
this kind of surrender to what is recognizing that you may not have the resources available,
00:33:39.040
but you will, you'll get them. And when you do, you'll be a force to be reckoned with.
00:33:44.320
I want to talk with you about one of the things that I've heard you talk about. And I know you
00:33:48.160
cover in your course is that belief is the most powerful tool. Um, and the thing that I want to
00:33:53.180
maybe challenge a little bit or ask from a different perspective is how do you have belief in
00:33:58.980
something that maybe you haven't done yet? You don't, you don't actually have belief.
00:34:03.800
Well, so there's two, there's two aspects of that. You know, obviously there's a certain
00:34:08.940
amount of belief in yourself that you can have, you know, but you have to have practiced at least
00:34:14.420
something similar or practice something in that genre, you know what I mean? And, and know at least
00:34:20.880
that you can handle that amount of pressure in order to genuinely have belief. Like you're not
00:34:25.420
going to be able to have belief. You know, I talk about it in fighting terms. You know, I think
00:34:29.260
belief is one of the most important things for any fighter, but if you haven't trained,
00:34:33.960
you're not going to believe that truly believe that you're going to be your opponent.
00:34:37.300
You believe that you're going to, you're delusional and that's not a good thing either.
00:34:40.620
Right. But that's, that's not real belief. That's just, that's just delusion. It's not
00:34:44.500
all the way reconciled, congruent to the core. You know, that's just a part of your mind that
00:34:49.620
believes it, but your spirit doesn't believe it. Your, your whole self doesn't believe it when
00:34:53.220
you're under delusion, you know, to truly believe something, you believe it because you've put in
00:34:57.880
the work, you believe it because you know how you've handled certain situations, you know, and,
00:35:02.560
and that's, that's what allows you the belief to, to go and accomplish and forge new territory. It's,
00:35:09.400
it's not that you've done that specific thing, but you've done things with similar amounts of
00:35:14.140
pressure and seen how you've responded. You know, you know, you're tough, you know, you can choose,
00:35:18.740
you know, all of these things that you've learned about yourself. And so when that new
00:35:23.200
challenge comes, you know, you're ready to meet that challenge with, with belief in yourself.
00:35:28.580
And, and what belief provides, it just provides that flexibility and fluidity, that split second
00:35:33.560
chance, you know, that, that moment opportunity that can be the difference between success and not
00:35:39.440
success, or perhaps that, that little extra staying power when everything else, you know,
00:35:44.640
normally would want to tell you to quit and to retreat. You know, when you have that belief,
00:35:48.600
if you can really push through, um, it's, you know, genuinely, I think the most important thing
00:35:54.340
that we can cultivate. No, it sounds like your, your concept of the resistance and doing the
00:35:58.920
difficult things, putting yourself in difficult situations helps with that element of belief
00:36:02.720
because it crosses, you know, lines. If you're doing something difficult within your relationship
00:36:06.560
or your, or your physical fitness, for example, that's going to translate over into the way that
00:36:10.160
you run your business or your career as well. So I can see how that'd be the case.
00:36:13.780
Awesome. Well, Aubrey, we're scratching the surface. We are winding down on time. I want to give
00:36:17.120
guys some resources that, uh, they can connect with you as well as, uh, the course go for your
00:36:21.500
win. But, uh, before I get to that, I want to ask you a question that I prepared you a little bit
00:36:25.040
for, and that is what does it mean to be a man? You know, I think that's a really important question
00:36:30.360
because I think society has a lot of things that they talk about, talk about what it means to be a
00:36:35.520
man. And I think that's only one aspect of the coin, you know, and, and if you're talking about it
00:36:40.820
in the philosophical sense, yes, there's the very masculine aspects of what it means to be a man.
00:36:45.920
You know, I think being able to be tough, being able to, you know, to, to care for those that you
00:36:51.820
love, to care for the weak, to shield the weak from the strong, you know, I think some of the
00:36:55.680
classic warrior archetypes are important, but to be balanced, we must also cultivate the other aspects,
00:37:02.420
you know, and, and be able to, to be sensitive, to be grounded, to be, you know, to find, find the
00:37:08.820
stillness within ourselves, to be good listeners, to be quiet, to, to really be the balanced warrior poet,
00:37:15.500
you know, so that you're able to chart, you know, the idea that the ancient Greeks had or the samurai
00:37:20.420
had to be able to charge out in battle and then go home and write a poem, you know, about it to
00:37:25.700
really cultivate the full spectrum of what it means to be a man. It's not just one side. It's not just
00:37:31.220
being, you know, the wolf of wall street, you know, that's an incredibly balanced aspect of
00:37:36.900
masculinity and the polarity. You know, you want to be a complete human, whether you're a male or
00:37:41.980
female. And that, that means being in touch with the full spectrum and really reconciling all of
00:37:47.740
these forces within yourself, knowing truly who you are, you know, and not being, not trying to be
00:37:54.020
something that you're not knowing that if you're a little bit sensitive, knowing that, you know,
00:37:58.860
knowing your sexuality, knowing everything about yourself and being okay with that, you know,
00:38:03.160
forgiving all elements of yourself, not trying to put on more than you need to put on, just being truly
00:38:09.200
at peace with who you are, I think is probably the most significant part of being a man.
00:38:16.040
Is this your description of a warrior poet? I know you consider yourself to be a warrior poet.
00:38:22.440
Yeah. Warrior poet is someone who seeks to expand the spectrum of possibilities as wide as possible.
00:38:28.840
You know, I'm someone who enjoys standing on top of a speaker in a nightclub and soaking in the
00:38:34.760
energy of that kind of visceral pleasure, you know, or going into a, you know, going into a
00:38:41.560
combat sport and really pushing and snarling into the wind as you smash against another person who's
00:38:48.640
trying to do the same. Like, I appreciate that aspect and I want to know what that is,
00:38:53.460
but I also want to know what it's like to meditate on a silent hilltop, you know, and, and, and go out
00:38:59.400
on a vision quest and, you know, and write quietly, you know, poetry in a journal and, you know, all of
00:39:05.880
the other elements that, that I think are available to us. And, and I think that's, you know, that's
00:39:11.520
really important. And I think it's something that we've lost is that, um, because there's pleasure on
00:39:17.380
both sides of the spectrum. And I think it's our birthright to really experience as much as we can.
00:39:23.040
Love it, man. Well, Aubrey, I appreciate you being on the show. Uh, how do we connect with you? If we want
00:39:26.620
to learn more about what you're doing, if we want to learn more about the course, go for your win,
00:39:30.320
how do we connect with you and find out about this? Yeah, the course is at go for your win.com
00:39:34.540
and, uh, my social, everything is at Aubrey Marcus. Got a really active Facebook page. Um,
00:39:40.760
you should check out Instagram as more about my personal life and Twitter is just kind of the
00:39:45.680
finger that's pointing at different things. Also my blog, Aubrey Marcus.com always putting stuff up
00:39:50.440
there as well. Uh, but yeah, definitely check out the course. You know, it's, um, it's real easy.
00:39:54.900
You can get your money back anytime you can do the whole course and then get your money back
00:39:58.660
afterwards. I don't care. You know, I just want to get this information out there. I'm really
00:40:01.940
looking forward. I'm teaching it personally. So I'm looking forward to meeting everybody. We'll
00:40:05.180
have a mastermind Facebook group. Um, it's going to be a lot of fun. And then afterwards we'll have
00:40:09.620
a little graduation in Austin for anybody who wants to come out and, uh, actually, you know,
00:40:14.380
shake some hands and put some real people behind the, behind the, the digital avatars. So looking
00:40:19.800
forward to it. Yeah. Right on, man. Well, Hey, I appreciate you being on the show. I appreciate you. Uh,
00:40:24.160
I've been following again, what you've been doing for a long time now. The idea of total human
00:40:27.960
optimization is something that I'm, I'm full bore with as well. That's really helped me over the
00:40:31.840
past several years as I've been on my own mission. So I've got to let you know, man, I appreciate you.
00:40:35.740
We'll make sure we link everything up for the, for the guys that are listening that want to connect
00:40:38.740
with you. And again, thanks for being on the show, man. Absolutely. Appreciate you, my friend.
00:40:43.460
Man, there you have it. Aubrey Marcus talks with us about how to go for your win. I want to
00:40:47.920
encourage you to go check out this course. I think you're going to see that it's got some
00:40:50.500
amazing information that will help you get pointed in the right direction. Now, also I did not mention
00:40:54.820
this in the show today, but you need to check out the iron council. There's a lot of you who have
00:40:58.460
heard about it, who haven't taken action on it yet. And this week I want to invite you to take
00:41:02.300
action. This is a perfect time to do it. It's our mastermind. And while I could talk a ton about what
00:41:07.500
all includes the bottom line is this, we are going to help you guys identify four key objectives that you
00:41:13.640
want to tackle before year's end. We're going to help you determine what tactics that you actually
00:41:17.860
need to implement to get there. And last, we're going to help you be accountable to getting those
00:41:22.480
things done. So go to orderofman.com slash iron council to get registered. After that, I'll shoot
00:41:27.120
you an email with the next steps and I will get you introduced to the other 170 members inside of
00:41:31.900
the council. Guys, I look forward to talking with you on Friday for our Friday field notes, but until
00:41:35.540
then take action and become the man you were meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man
00:41:40.880
podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
00:41:45.640
We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.