OoM 052： Leveling Up Your Life By Embracing Your Inner Nerd with Steve Kamb
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Summary
Steve Kam, founder of Nerd Fitness, shares how his love for video games and movies help us overcome distractions, procrastination, and excuses. He is also the founder of the recently released book, "level up your life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story."
Transcript
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Life is hard. We all know that. We have things we want to accomplish in our lives, deeper
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relationships, better fitness, starting a new business, on and on and on. But what makes it
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hard is that there are so many distractions and so many excuses, and our goals just never seem
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to become a reality. My guest today, Steve Kam, founder of Nerd Fitness, shares how his love for
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video games and movies help us overcome distractions, procrastination, excuses, and
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helps us become the hero of our own journey. 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, you get back
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up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged, resilient, strong.
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This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,
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and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Men, how are you today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the founder of Order of Men. Now, if you're
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new to the show, we talk about leadership, relationships, eliminating excuses, health,
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wealth, and so much more. In other words, this is your one-stop hub for all things manly.
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Now, today, we're going to be talking with a man who I've been quietly stalking in the
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background, Mr. Steve Kam with Nerd Fitness, about how we can use behavioral psychology to
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our advantage when it comes to reaching our goals. But before I get into that, let me share
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something real quick with you. By now, I'm sure you've heard of our elite mastermind,
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the Iron Council. And rather than tell you today how great it is, let me share with you
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something one of our members shared with me last week. He had this to say,
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I know it's only been about a week, but I can honestly say, seeing all of your posts,
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having a couple chats with my battle brother, and even having the agogi to look forward to,
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everything in my life seems to have purpose again. And I'm feeling like I'm heading down
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that path I was meant to make. I'm looking forward to becoming more involved and having more
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in-depth conversations and learning from all of you. Thanks for making this possible.
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I appreciate it. And all of you have a great Sunday brothers. Now this week we're talking
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about daily rituals and habits, and we want you to be one of the first 100 members. We in the group
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call them centurions. So if you're interested, head to orderofman.com slash iron council and get
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all the details and join us there. Now let's get into the show. Remember as always, you can find all
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the links, the resources, and all of that information at orderofman.com slash 052. And as always,
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join in the conversation we're having with over 2,500 men on our Facebook group at
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facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. Men, please let me introduce you to my guest
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today, Steve Cam, the founder of nerdfitness.com. Steve has built an amazing community over 350,000
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men and women across the planet, and he teaches them how to level up in every single area of their
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lives. He combines his unique perspective on life with his love for video games and TV and movies to
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help average Joes like you and me improve our lives. He is also the founder of the recently
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released book, Level Up Your Life, How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your
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Own Story. And I found this on a side note, he also one day hopes to become Captain America.
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Steve, what's going on? Glad you're here today, man.
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So I've been a follower of your work for some time, and I saw your book coming out, and I thought,
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man, I got to get this guy on the show because I've really enjoyed what you're doing. So tell me
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the premise behind Level Up Your Life. Well, first of all, thank you. I'm glad to hear that
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you've been reading and enjoying it and appreciate the kind words about the site and everything like
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that. The book Level Up Your Life is this concept, this idea that what if we are the hero in our own
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story or, you know, what if we are the character in our own video game? I spent my early 20s in a job
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that I strongly disliked and was ill-equipped to deal with. And the majority of my spare time went
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into escaping into games and books and movies and just kind of drifting. And eventually, I got to a
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point where I was so unhappy that I came to this realization that, you know, man, life is meant to
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be lived. And if you're spending all of your spare time trying to forget the rest of your time, that's,
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you know, that's a pretty rough way to go through the next 40, 50 years of your life.
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So I know I talked to a lot of guys about living for the weekend where they're, you know, hump day
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in terms like that. I'm like, man, you just aren't living a great life if you're living for the two
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days out of seven. Yeah. And man, I know people, you know, I related so closely to the movie Office
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Space that, believe it or not, actually quoted it in my high school graduation speech. Oh, is that
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right? Yeah. The guy, you know, in the movie, the guy says, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just
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don't care. And I was thinking back to my job, you know, and I did really well in school. And I
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joined every club imaginable and tried to stay active in student government and did all these
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things. And then here I was after college, just six months removed from school. And, you know,
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I was a salesman in construction equipment. Like, what am I doing here? But I was so bad at it. And I
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was so miserable that I would like drive from job site to job site and get rejected. And then I would
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sit in my car and I would read Harry Potter novels to like escape for like five minutes at a time
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until I could get out of real life. Right. And eventually it got to the point where I'm like,
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if I'm, you know, geez, if I'm, if I'm supposed to do this for the rest of my life, I, something has
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to change. You know, that's when I kind of started to have this realization like, well, if you're
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addicted to these video games and you love escaping into these stories, what is it about them that make
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them so intriguing or enthralling or addicting to you? And I realized it came down like a few key
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concepts. One, it was this idea that I loved the idea of the hero's journey. It's this concept that
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every great story in history follows a similar story arc. There's this character, he's a, he or she is a
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fish out of water, feels like they don't belong, kind of drifting. Then there's some sort of call to
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action. They meet a mentor, they enter this extraordinary world and they, you know, recruit allies and fight bad
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guys and save the day, save the princess, save the prince, save themselves, find buried treasure,
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whatever it may be. And they return home a changed person. And I thought to myself like, geez, if,
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if Star Wars follows this path and Harry Potter and the Matrix and, and Lord of the Rings and
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Hunger Games and every story that I love follows these paths. What if I started looking at my own
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life as if I was a hero and I could recognize these similar steps in my own journey? And I thought
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like, man, what about all these games I'm addicted to? Like, what are the kind of like, almost like the
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behavioral psychology reasons behind why I'm so hooked on these games? And can I apply those same
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mechanics to my own life to get me addicted to improving myself as a person? And, you know, since kind of
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coming to this realization, my life has drastically turned around. Now I help people get healthy. I run a
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community called Nerd Fitness where we meet hundreds of thousands of members all over the world. I've
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visited six continents, 20 plus countries. I've learned to play different musical instruments. I
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speak two languages. I volunteer my time when I'm available. And my life has really turned into that
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adventure that I had so desperately wanted. And it's been a pretty fun journey. So this book is kind
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of the culmination of how I did it, how members of my community have done it, and then provides a
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blueprint to help other people do it. That's amazing. Yeah. I've seen your, I think you call
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it a quest list, I think is what it's called, but I've actually seen yours. Yeah, that's what it is.
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Yeah. And I, and I got to tell you, like, I'm inspired when I see that. I'm like, man, he's done
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all these things. These are things I want to do. So I'm really excited to get into this. Why do you
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think people in general tend to live maybe vicariously through some of these other heroes or the stories?
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Is it just because it's easier or is it easy to get lost? Why is it that we're doing that and not
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becoming the hero of our own journey? Sure. Well, I think real life is,
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you know, it's funny when we're little kids, we're told to believe anything and, and use our
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imaginations and you can become whatever you want to be. Right. And, and then you grow up and everybody
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tells you you're supposed to be realistic and you have to, you know, if you think or want to do
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things differently, everybody's like, what's wrong with you? You know, be, grow up, um, get,
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get in line, follow form, whatever it may be. So these games and stories that we fall in love
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with, I mean, if you're spending all day at a job, you hate, but then you get to go home and
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sit down at your computer and you were like this flame sword wielding dragon slaying badass. You're
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like, it sounds way better. Yeah. Life becomes like the, the, the inconvenient part in between
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when you get to hop online or dive back into the next book. Uh, so if you're spending all of your time
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doing things that you don't like and, and, and desperately try to get away from that, I think
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the obvious answer is like, what do you escape into? For, for myself, it was games and movies
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for many other people might be drugs and alcohol for others. It might be an unhealthy relationship
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that they stay in far too long, whatever it is. Like if, if there are parts of your life that are
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out of balance, uh, I think those games and movies, which I love as entertainment, uh, can eventually
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start to almost become a crutch and become too much of an escape and, and make it difficult to get out
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of. Yeah. And I think probably correct me if I'm wrong, but just recognizing that you're living life
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in mediocrity or that you're stuck or you're in a rut probably is the first step. But what would you
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suggest if there's somebody out there, if there's a man listening to this podcast and knows that this
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is him and he needs to escape real life or change his life, what's the first step to do that?
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You know, I think the first thing is proving to yourself that you can make a change.
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And, you know, I, I don't subscribe to the whole like, Oh, just build your dream vision board and,
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and think it really hard. And then you'll have your Ferrari and your private island. Like that's
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although that would be nice. That would be great. I mean, we're, we, we currently haven't figured out
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the, you know, tele, teleportation, uh, creation of objects with our mind stuff quite yet. So
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in the meantime, I think it starts by kind of making an adjustment and, and, you know, me being a guy
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that runs a health and fitness site, I encourage people to start by changing the one thing that
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they have a hundred percent control over and that is their personal, personal health. And to do that,
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I tell people to go for a walk, go for like a five minute walk every morning and build a habit over
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30 days and prove to yourself like, look, I can do something. I am in control and I can make a change.
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You know, it's funny in, in the movies, Lord of the Rings, you know, they say one does not simply
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walk into Mordor and that's literally what Frodo did. Like he walked one foot in front of the other.
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So I figured if a hobbit can walk from, uh, you know, walk from the Shire all the way to,
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to Mordor and back, we can go for a five minute walk every morning. So I encourage people to take
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five, 10 minutes and go for a walk. Um, and like I said, you know, the, the biggest element I think
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that caused me to stay addicted to video games is this idea of the progress principle that we love
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to see ourselves progressing in a concrete, visible or audible way. So in a game that's
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very simple, it's like, Oh, I'm at level five and I need to kill 10 more bad guys. And then I get to
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level six, right there. I get to go to level seven where I get a new sword that lets me get to level
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eight and kill the, you know, the wolf. And then when I kill the wolf, I get a new, whatever, blah,
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blah, blah. I try to incorporate those, that element of leveling up as much as I can in my
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own life. So I pick a goal that I'm working on. I break it into teeny tiny steps. I assign experience
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point values to each of the steps on that quest. And then as I cross those things off, I actually
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start to level up. So I take that game mechanic, apply it to my life and find a way to put one foot
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in front of the other and actually start making progress on something specific and concrete to
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kind of shift that self-limiting belief in my head to something new that says like, look,
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I'm changing, I'm making an improvement. And, uh, I'm now one step closer to this, you know,
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kind of level 50 epic life I'm trying to figure out for myself than I was yesterday. And you just do
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that every day, a little bit each day. And, uh, eventually you'd be surprised where you can end
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up. I mean, I, I still can't believe where I am today compared to where I was a few years ago.
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You know, I know a lot of guys will listen to this and they'll, they'll write it off because it's so
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simple, right? And, and we don't want to confuse that with easy, but they'll look at it and they'll
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think to themselves, Oh, that's too simple. That can't be the key. And they're looking for this
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magic answer when in all reality, they haven't earned the right to be at level 10 yet. They've
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got a complete level one for absolutely. I'm, I'm really curious. How long does this process
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take? Because I listened to that and I think, okay, you're assigning point values and you're creating
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these levels and you're telling us to do that in every area of our lives. What does that process
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look like? Cause that could be very time consuming. Could it not be? Yeah. Although I
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think from my experience, I actually really enjoyed the process. And I think for anybody
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that gets potentially overwhelmed at this idea, like, Whoa, you know, when you're playing the
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Legend of Zelda or any other game, you don't worry about what happens at level 40. You don't
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worry about what happens at the end of the game. You just worry about how to get to the
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next dungeon or how to get to the next level. So I think breaking it down to those elements
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is really important. And I cover a lot of this in the book, but you can actually go
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to a level up your life.com and create a character and start tracking your quest there and assign
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experience point values on them. And then actually level up a character as you are moving through
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life. So I think you can get as complex or as simple or as detailed as you want. Um, I think
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the most important thing is to pick a goal, break it down and start working on it. Just like
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any movie, there's always going to be a plot twist. Uh, you know, you might be set out to,
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to find buried treasure, but then the person you're with, it gets kidnapped and you have to
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rescue them, whatever it may be. Life is going to take paths or paths and twists and turns and things
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like that. So the most important step for anybody is really to get started. I think far too many people
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spend too much time in the planning, researching, Oh, I could never do that phase. When in reality,
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like if they just put a foot in front of the other and then said like, how did that go? Oh,
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pretty good. Okay. Then I'll do this again. Or, Hey, that was that again. Yeah, exactly.
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I think, uh, people will just have a lack of ability to take action. We get this paralysis
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by analysis analysis, and we think that everything has to be perfect and exact. And sometimes I also
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think that men believe that they, if they make a decision that they're pigeonholing themselves
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into that decision, that they have to now follow that path for the rest of their lives.
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And what I try to teach guys is that your next decision isn't your last decision. It's just
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moving you one step closer. And like you said, there might be that plot twist there.
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Sure. Well, I think an interesting thing about what you just said there, there's a part in the
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book I discuss, um, somebody had written a book called the top five regrets of the dying.
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And it was just somebody that worked at, I think it was a hospice house and they had conversations
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where people were literally on their deathbeds, uh, days away from, from passing away from all walks
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of life, all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, et cetera. And they asked these people, if you could
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do life over again, what would you do? And the number one most common response was, I wish I'd
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lived a life true to myself and not what I thought others expected of me. And I found that to be so
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powerful. The reason I got into sales after college is because both of my parents were in sales. My
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college degree was in economics because I was like, well, business, economics, sales, why not?
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And my parents never once said, Hey, you should get a job in sales for, are you going to do this
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or that? But I just felt this internal pressure and thought, well, if I don't know what I'm going
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to do, at least doing this will make them happy. Eventually I came to realize like they didn't care
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what I did as long as I was happy. And because I was very unhappy with what I was doing, when I
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started to talk to them about this idea of nerd fitness and helping people get fit, they could see
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my excitement and energy. And they were like, you know, how else can we support you? And they've been
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just very supportive, um, emotionally, uh, you know, mentally, et cetera, in which has been very
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helpful for me. But I think for anybody else that, you know, grew up with two parents that were
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mechanics or doctors or lawyers, or their parent, their brother went to a certain school or their
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sister went somewhere else and their friends are doing this or they're in a job that they took. And
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now they've been in it for 10 years. You can change like right, right now. I'm not telling you to
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quit your job today and say, Steve told me to, but what I'm saying is, yeah, that might be a lawsuit
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or something on your hands. What I'm saying is instead, like take a minute, sit down and truly
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prioritize what's, what's important to you. And for me, it was adventure and living a life I was
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proud of. So I had to kind of reverse engineer how I made my money around that. I spent weeks or
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months living on, uh, living, living very cheaply. I've crashed on people's couches. I picked up odd jobs
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here and there to make ends meet. So if you're going to try to do something different, yeah,
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it might mean downsizing your house or moving to a new city that's way cheaper, getting, getting rid
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of your car. That pales in comparison to that feeling you get of just pure dread on a Monday
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morning, which is what most people feel. I think they go to something they don't love to make money
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and spend it on things they don't need or can't afford to impress people they don't really want to
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hang out with. It's like, this is, it's a broken system. Like you have to like Neo breaking free of
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the matrix. I think we all kind of have to not, not do everything the way that it's expected of us
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and say like, well, why can't I choose to do things differently? Like, yes, it's going to be
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contrarian. Yes. People are going to tell me I'm crazy. Yes. People are going to say, oh, you should
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be thankful to have the job you do in this economy and blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, do you
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wake up excited and do you go to bed proud? And if you can answer yes to both of those questions,
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you keep doing what you're doing. If it's not, yes, then maybe it's time to reevaluate some stuff.
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Yeah. So I think guys will hear this. I hear this and I've been in the situation where just
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like you described, I woke up Monday morning. I didn't want to go into the work and the work or
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the office and life was miserable. But I think most people know what they need to do. Like they
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know what the next step is, but for some reason they're not taking that step. And you talk a lot
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about, I think in the book procrastination. Yeah. And so I want to talk about, because one of the
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underlying themes of the message that I share is to eliminate excuses from your life. And so I want
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to have a conversation with you about why people procrastinate, why they make excuses and why they
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don't do the things they know deep down in their heart they should be doing. Oh God, I can talk about
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this all day. Um, but I'll try to keep it short. Yeah, this might go in part two or something like
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that. Yeah. Uh, the way I explained it in the book is pulling from the absolutely ridiculous TV show
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South Park. There's an episode in South Park where the characters of the show, uh, there there's a
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group of characters called underpants gnomes and these gnomes sneak into the people's houses of South
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Park and steal their underwear. So the kids track the under the gnomes back to their lair and they go
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down, they see just a giant pile of underpants and they look at these pile and they say to the
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gnomes like, what, what are you guys doing? Why are you stealing my underwear? And the gnomes say like,
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oh, this is part of our big business plan. Like, what do you mean? Phase one, collect underpants.
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Phase two is a giant question mark that nobody knows what they're supposed to do. And phase three
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is profit because they have no idea what phase two is. They're spending all of their time on phase one
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collecting underpants. Sure. I promise this makes sense. So the way I, I'm waiting for it. The way,
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the way I equate this or what I equate this to is every time you listen to a podcast or read a book
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or watch a YouTube video that's inspiring or go to work, take a class in something,
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you are collecting underpants. Phase three is this life that you're hoping to live or that you know
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you need to live. Phase two, if you're, if you're just stuck collecting more information and saying,
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oh, when I eventually I get there and I'll do more and I'll, oh, when the timing's right and,
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oh, I need to learn more. I need to be more confident in this thing. And what, what if this goes
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wrong or that, whatever, you're stuck collecting more and more underpants. Phase two is taking
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action. Phase two is figuring out what to do with those underpants to get you to that goal that
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you're trying to reach for. So from my experience, everybody spends 99% of their time collecting more
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and more information when in reality they should spend 10% of their time collecting information and
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90% of their time trying, doing, building, failing, uh, whatever it may be. You know, there's,
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there's a cool story in the book from a guy named Jonathan Fields. He wanted to build a guitar.
00:20:06.720
And for years he was like, I need to read another book on building a guitar and blah,
00:20:10.060
blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. He interviews the creator or the, the founder of, I think it was
00:20:15.620
Gibson or Taylor guitars. Sure. Right. Right. And he says, Hey, you know, do you have a book you'd
00:20:19.840
recommend or a class you'd like to take, you'd recommend I take, you know, I'm really interested
00:20:23.120
in building my first guitar. And the guy says, Nope, you need to go build a crappy guitar and you
00:20:28.120
need to build it right now. Yeah. The next one you build after that is going to be a little less
00:20:32.920
crappy and a little less crappy after that. So whatever it is you're trying to do, be a better
00:20:38.000
dad, uh, be a better husband, be a better, um, boyfriend, be, uh, get started with martial arts,
00:20:45.520
dancing, uh, starting a blog, a business, whatever it may be. Stop collecting more underpants and start
00:20:51.400
taking action. You're going to suck at it and you're going to suck at it for a long time. So the sooner
00:20:56.640
you can start sucking, the faster you can get through that period and eventually get to the
00:21:01.040
point where you get to say, Hey, I'm not that bad. And, uh, those, I think that's when things
00:21:05.700
start to get pretty powerful and enjoyable. So for anybody that's listening and, and it was like,
00:21:10.040
well, I can't do this for this reason, or I don't have the whatever. Yeah, you do. You know what you
00:21:14.560
need to do? Take a step today, learn from it, and then take another step tomorrow and adjust as you
00:21:21.420
go along. That's if anybody tells you to have it, I'll figure it out. They're lying. I write every day.
00:21:26.080
I'm still like, I don't, I don't know what I'm doing more often than not, but I've learned by
00:21:30.180
trying and failing and falling down and picking myself back up. So I think anybody's action,
00:21:35.500
action is the most powerful thing that you can do. And it start, start yesterday. And until we
00:21:40.800
figured out how to do time travel, uh, today is the next best option. Just wanted to take a quick
00:21:46.980
minute to give you an amazingly valuable resource you need to tap into. They are my friends and sponsors
00:21:51.800
for this show, the guys over at the art of charm. Now I had the opportunity to connect with a few
00:21:56.280
of the guys from the art of charm this week at men's style con. And if you don't already know
00:22:00.780
this, let me tell you, these guys are the real deal. They talked with me a lot about social capital,
00:22:05.140
which is the ability to leverage our influence in a way that serves you and others well. But in
00:22:09.620
addition to that, Jordan and Jason cover a ton on the podcast about networking, negotiation strategies,
00:22:15.080
navigating the corporate world, and basically taking your life to the next level,
00:22:19.120
which is the topic of this show. Anyways, the best thing is that they do it in a way that's
00:22:23.800
meaningful. It's educational. It's entertaining. There's no stuffy conversations from college
00:22:28.840
professors over here. So go check them out after you listen to the show at the art of charm.com
00:22:34.080
slash podcast, or you can find them in iTunes or stitcher, wherever you get your fix a podcast.
00:22:38.640
This is a show about leveling up your life, relationships, your wealth, your fitness, your business.
00:22:42.940
You'll walk away with a ton of great information that you can actually start using today. You deserve an
00:22:48.720
extraordinary life. Go to the art of charm.com slash podcast, or again, find the art of charm
00:22:52.980
in iTunes or stitcher and start taking your life to the next level. We really enjoy this show and we
00:22:58.320
think you will as well. Now let's get back to my interview with Steve. Sure. Yeah, no, we actually
00:23:04.660
talk a lot about earning it. So I think a lot of people out there, and this is becoming more and more
00:23:08.440
prevalent in society that people feel like they deserve something. I deserve wealth. I deserve to be
00:23:13.380
happy. I deserve this. I deserve that. And if you truly deserved it, then you'd already have it
00:23:18.940
because you would have done the things necessary to earn whatever it is that you want to have.
00:23:24.560
Let's, uh, let's move on. Cause another concept you talk about is creating an alter ego. And I want
00:23:28.860
to, I want to cover that. And I want to discuss what you mean when you say create an alter ego with
00:23:33.860
his own superpowers. Sure. Well, I think this is very relevant, especially for people that are
00:23:41.560
currently in a job that they need to be in cause they have to pay bills. They have a family,
00:23:45.160
whatever it may be. All of my favorite heroes from, you know, those games and books and movies
00:23:51.140
I love, uh, have alter egos. You know, Superman works at a newspaper. Um, Indiana Jones is a
00:23:58.660
archeology professor by day when he's not out traveling the world. You know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
00:24:03.660
was a Sunnydale high school cheerleader. All these great stories and all these superheroes that we love
00:24:09.460
all have daily responsibilities that they need to take care of. But the other half of themselves,
00:24:15.860
the half they don't get to talk about, they don't talk about that's the half that's out there fighting
00:24:19.540
crime, saving the world, making, making a difference. So I think for us humans that have,
00:24:26.660
you know, in, in this, in this real life we live in, we have responsibilities. I have bills to pay as
00:24:30.980
well. I have to do my laundry. Uh, you know, I have, uh, friends to hang out with. If, if you're married
00:24:37.220
and you have kids, you have kids, you have kids, right? Absolutely. So there's no reason why you
00:24:43.200
can't have that part of your life that gets, takes, takes care of, or that, that gets taken
00:24:47.360
care of and does the daily responsibilities that need to get taken care of. There's a reason why
00:24:52.680
you can't create a second version of yourself, a fun alter ego version of you that does those things
00:24:57.800
that you've always said you wanted to do or that you've been putting off, uh, and get to determine
00:25:02.280
what that looks like for you. There's a guy in the book whose story I share. His name is, um,
00:25:07.220
Thomas. Thomas is a construction foreman, but he spends his spare time, you know, he's a single dad.
00:25:12.940
He spends his spare time, uh, going on quests and missions with his son. They train in,
00:25:20.500
believe it's Taekwondo, but that's, that's how they bond together. Like he, he read this great
00:25:25.440
Japanese comic called, I think it's Lone Wolf and Cub. He's like, Oh, here's a, here's a great comic
00:25:30.240
of a single dad with his son that have missions to complete. I'm a single dad. Why don't we have
00:25:35.720
missions to complete? So by day, he's a construction foreman by night. He is a martial arts master
00:25:40.560
training with his son to, to save the world. You know, I just thought that was so cool. And to,
00:25:45.260
that is cool to just, it's a different, it's a mental model. You know, it's like you can kind of
00:25:49.600
compartmentalize. Yeah. You might be stuck working at a desk job that you don't love,
00:25:54.140
but you can start to build this second version of yourself after, after work. You know, there's
00:26:00.280
another guy that in the book who, um, he works at a, he's just got a regular desk job, but he
00:26:06.100
spends his afternoon, he volunteers at a suicide prevention hotline. He trains out in the woods
00:26:10.820
doing a move net, move net slash parkour stuff. And, uh, just landed a role in like the local
00:26:16.660
production of the musical rent. It's like, how cool is that? You know, everybody else is like,
00:26:20.780
well, I go to work and then I'm pretty tired. So I come home and watch Netflix and drink half a case
00:26:26.240
of beer. And then, you know, then I get to wake up and drink a pot of coffee and blah, blah. It's
00:26:31.460
like what you're, what else, what, what makes you interesting? What, what is exciting to you? And
00:26:36.400
how do you incorporate that into your life? So for these superheroes, it's like, what kind of
00:26:40.960
superhero do you want to be? Do you want to be a world traveling, swashbuckling adventure person?
00:26:45.820
Do you want to become a rockstar? Like it doesn't mean you have to go stand on stage in front of
00:26:50.540
40,000 people, but it means you can jam with your friends and get better at a musical instrument.
00:26:55.580
Can you learn a language in your spare time? Can you become a carpenter and learn how to build
00:27:00.440
things with your hands or whatever it may be? You still have the things you got to take care of,
00:27:04.500
but you can create the superhero alter ego version of yourself that has these other things that you're
00:27:09.240
interested in that you prioritize with your spare time and get addicted to improving in those things
00:27:14.440
instead of just getting addicted to the next, uh, next season of, you know, whatever, uh,
00:27:19.760
walking dead or, uh, right. Whatever show, which I'll watch as well, but only after I've done
00:27:24.100
everything else I need to do. Well, and as long as you're deliberate, I mean, you're not saying
00:27:27.560
don't take a break. You're just saying, but be deliberate about it and work important stuff into
00:27:31.740
your schedule. And then you can, yeah, you can have some of that free time as well. If you need it.
00:27:35.660
So how do you stay motivated? Cause I think somebody is going to listen to this or even maybe read your
00:27:39.880
book and be really excited for a little while and make a couple of changes initially. And then how
00:27:44.900
do you maintain consistency and continuing to do it? Is that part of the quote unquote gamification
00:27:49.760
model that you're talking about? Or is there something else to it? No, that's it. You know,
00:27:53.280
if, if I only relied on motive or if I only exercise when I was motivated to exercise or I only worked on
00:27:59.380
this book when I was motivated to work on this book, uh, it never would have gotten written.
00:28:03.500
In fact, I was given about 10 months to write the book, I think. And after four months I had written
00:28:09.200
exactly zero words because I was so afraid to start. And I was like, well, I'm not motivated
00:28:13.620
yet. And I need inspiration to strike such. Yeah. I was like feeding myself these lines and we all
00:28:19.300
have them that we tell ourselves. We do can't do all the time. And it wasn't until I came across
00:28:23.400
something that said, you know, somebody's like, Oh, I'd love to learn how to play an instrument,
00:28:26.860
but, um, just, you know, how do you stay motivated to, to do it? And the response came back in and said
00:28:32.060
essentially something like screw motivation, cultivate discipline. And I thought that was so powerful.
00:28:38.580
in that, uh, then find another quote where a guy was like, I only write when I'm motivated to,
00:28:44.840
fortunately I'm motivated to write every morning at 8am. You know, I thought that was so clever.
00:28:49.100
It's like, so what I did was I set up my schedule and I hacked my environment around me and put
00:28:56.900
systems in place so that my only option every morning was to write. I blocked every time wasting
00:29:02.300
website. I had the only thing open on my computer screen was a word processing program.
00:29:07.900
Uh, I had a plugin installed that told me exactly how many words I needed to write every day in
00:29:13.260
order to reach my word count for the book. So instead of having to write a 90,000 word book,
00:29:17.980
I only had to write 500 words a day. It's like, no, it's not that dangerous. That's not that scary.
00:29:22.700
I can do that. And more, more often than not, there were mornings when I didn't want to write
00:29:27.540
their mornings when I don't want to practice music. There are mornings when I don't want to go to the
00:29:31.100
gym, but because I've put systems in place where, you know, if I, every time I wrote 500 words,
00:29:37.160
I saw this little experience bar filled up. And as soon as I hit my 500th word, it was this really
00:29:42.180
satisfying ding noise that from a gamer's perspective that grew up listening to that
00:29:47.760
ding noise every time my character in a game leveled up, like it triggered this Pavlovian response
00:29:52.180
in me to want to hear that noise again and again and again. Sure enough, even though I wasn't motivated
00:29:58.300
to, I ended up writing 20,000 more words than I was supposed to a full month in advance of when it
00:30:03.840
was due because I told myself and put a system in place where like, like I said, every time wasting
00:30:09.600
website was blocked for hours every morning. I told my team not to bother me. I, I canceled my cable.
00:30:15.360
I uninstalled every app on my phone that was not absolutely necessary. I turn off every notification
00:30:21.640
on my phone. I put it in your plane. Yeah, that's a big deal. I, in the book, I, in the book and on
00:30:26.340
Nerd Fitness, I call it kind of hacking your bat cave, but it's reducing the number of steps between
00:30:32.100
you and the goal that you're trying to build or the habit you're trying to work on and increasing
00:30:35.900
the number of steps between you and the bad habit that you're trying to break. So for me, it was
00:30:40.360
writing and exercise. So I introduced these environmental changes to keep me on task. I then
00:30:46.860
introduced some rewards and accountability, very much like a video game to keep me on task as well.
00:30:52.560
So for exercise, if I could train four days a week for two months straight, it might earn me
00:30:59.280
a pass to a powerlifting seminar. Or if I wrote every day for three weeks, I might earn me,
00:31:08.360
uh, you know, a new ticket to, um, go visiting somebody that was also an author or something like
00:31:14.380
I try to reward myself with things that push me even further down this path. And then to even hammer
00:31:20.200
the point home even further, uh, I introduced accountability in that for any morning that I
00:31:26.520
didn't write or anytime I was late turning in a blog post, a member of my team would donate some
00:31:31.500
of my hard earned money to a cause that I strongly despised.
00:31:37.420
Yeah. And sure enough, I never made a single cent donation to those people because I was like,
00:31:42.660
there's no way I can in good conscience allow my money to go to that cause. I should probably
00:31:47.180
just do the thing that I need to do that is going to make my life better in the longterm.
00:31:53.140
So I, you know, it's introducing game mechanics, understanding behavioral psychology and hacking
00:31:58.060
your environment so that the default activity becomes growth, progress, improvement. And those
00:32:04.640
things are momentum building and they are habit forming. And if you can get addicted to the idea of
00:32:10.120
improving yourself rather than addicted to the next game, another, another bottle of beer,
00:32:14.520
another, whatever it may be, you're setting yourself up to succeed every single day, a little
00:32:21.740
Right. I really liked that idea of hacking your environment. One of the things that I've thought
00:32:25.720
about as I started my own fitness journey several years ago was it was very difficult for me to get
00:32:30.940
out of bed in the morning, but I found that if I set my shoes and my clothes out and I had them right
00:32:36.000
there, just that process alone made it so much easier because I knew that there was a lower barrier to
00:32:42.600
entry for me actually getting up and going to the gym. So I can see how hacking your environment
00:32:47.580
Oh, a hundred percent. So just another example, I wanted to prove that the concepts in the book
00:32:52.000
work outside of just health and fitness. So while writing the book, I decided I wanted to learn how
00:32:56.580
to play the fiddle. I had no idea how to play, but it looked like a fun instrument. And I watched
00:33:00.800
people that play Irish music, jumping and dancing and spinning. I'm like, that looks awesome. I want to do
00:33:05.100
that. It might take me a few years, but let's, let's see if I can make these concepts work.
00:33:09.920
So I found, I rented a cheap violin and found somebody that could give instruction in the
00:33:15.840
city that I lived in. And for two months I would go to practice and I'd come home and put the violin
00:33:20.620
down and keep it in its case. So it would stay safe. And every week went by and I'd come back
00:33:25.400
to the teacher and say, sorry, I didn't have time to practice. I'm so busy, blah, blah, blah, yada,
00:33:28.900
yada, yada. Because to me, the idea of having to open the case, tune the violin, rosin the bow,
00:33:34.580
open up the sheet music, set it up, get it all set up. I was like, that's going to take me.
00:33:38.520
And then I want to practice. That's going to take me 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I don't have 30
00:33:42.560
minutes now. So I'll do it later when I'm ready. Right. Sure enough, no practice happened. So what
00:33:47.620
I did was I hacked my environment. I hopped on Amazon.com. I spent $10 on a violin stand and
00:33:54.180
another 10 bucks on a violin sheet music stand. And I put the violin stand directly in the middle
00:34:00.220
of my living room. And right now it's actually sitting, I'm looking at it right now. It's actually
00:34:03.800
sitting right next to me by desk within arm's reach. And every week I would come home from my
00:34:08.500
lesson. And the first thing I did was open the case because I already knew it was tuned,
00:34:12.560
open the case, put the violin on the stand and open the sheet music to the song I was practicing.
00:34:17.100
That one tiny change that took 30 seconds and $10 resulted in me practicing probably five to seven
00:34:25.480
hours a week instead of zero hours a week. And I made more progress in three weeks after doing that
00:34:32.100
than I had made in the previous six months. So I 100% believe that we are so strongly influenced
00:34:40.620
by the things that surround us. And if you can make just a few environmental changes,
00:34:44.940
decreasing steps between you and that thing you're trying to do and increasing steps between
00:34:48.880
you and the thing you're trying to break, one change can be legitimately the difference between
00:34:56.320
Let's move to this quest list that you had talked about because like I said, I saw your
00:35:00.700
list. I was amazed and actually quite inspired by what you put on there. How does somebody
00:35:04.380
come up with their own quest list and how do you suggest somebody do that so that they can
00:35:07.320
have some of this enthusiasm and excitement and inspiration about moving forward in their
00:35:12.480
Sure. Well, I tried to break it down into different segments based on things that were important
00:35:18.380
to me. So as I said, I learned to play the violin. So I have a section specifically just
00:35:22.600
for music. I have a section for travel, specific locations I want to go to. And, you know,
00:35:29.340
I think there's a difference between this quest list and a bucket list. I think there's a difference
00:35:33.900
between this quest list and New Year's resolutions. Everybody makes a list of New Year's resolutions
00:35:38.340
every year. And it's like, oh, I'm going to lose weight and I'm going to run more, you know,
00:35:42.460
and like these vague, random, not unspecific goals with no timeline attached to them.
00:35:47.380
And sure enough, like December 31st rolls around and you're like, oh, I forgot about that stuff.
00:35:54.320
And I guess I didn't really make any progress on any of those things. So instead, I encourage
00:36:01.580
people to get very specific with a list of things that you're interested in. It's okay
00:36:05.360
if they change. You know, my list now is way different than it was when I made it five years
00:36:09.000
ago. But I listed the countries I wanted to go to, the specific experiences I wanted to
00:36:13.900
have, the skills I wanted to develop, the impact I wanted to have on my community or on my friends
00:36:20.800
or family or whatever it may be. You know, my most recent quest crossed off was become a published
00:36:25.780
author. Like I wanted to write a book and I had that on the list for so long. And I did. And another
00:36:31.780
one on my list is deadlift 405 pounds, which is four big plates on either side of the bar.
00:36:38.700
And I've been working towards that for years. But because I had it specifically as a goal,
00:36:43.420
it wasn't like I want to get strong. It was I'm going to deadlift 405 pounds or I'm going to hold
00:36:47.540
a freestanding handstand for 60 seconds. Or I'm going to live like James Bond for a weekend in
00:36:53.380
Monaco. Or I am going to take a hiking or a camping trip with my kids to the whatever it may be.
00:37:00.220
Come up with that list of things that you're looking and looking to do. Get very, very,
00:37:03.900
very specific with them. And potentially, if possible, introduce some sort of time element
00:37:10.880
to it as well. For me with the violin, I have to sit in an Irish pub at the end of the year
00:37:16.740
and play with local musicians in going to Dublin. I have a friend that really you have a friend
00:37:22.940
that's getting married in Dublin and he asked me to be in the wedding. So now I have a very specific
00:37:27.700
timetable. I need to get good enough at the violin between now and then where when local
00:37:32.080
musicians bring their instruments into the neighborhood pub to sit down and play traditional
00:37:36.100
Irish music, I'd love to be able to sit down with them in my violin and play along with them.
00:37:41.400
So I'm always working on at least two of them. One's physical because I run Nerd Fitness. Another
00:37:49.020
one is probably mental in some capacity. Learning an instrument, learning a language,
00:37:56.200
So yeah, there's a tremendous number of free examples at levelupyourlife.com. Like if you go
00:38:03.640
through creating a character, you can see my quest list. In the book, there are 100 plus sample
00:38:09.700
quests categorized into like 10 different categories. Like do you want to volunteer? Do you want to raise
00:38:14.200
money for a cause? Do you want to visit a specific location? Do a specific activity? Whatever it may be,
00:38:20.020
just start. Start writing. Start writing things down and then pick one. And then tomorrow get a
00:38:25.760
little bit closer to completing that task or activity than you were the day before. And repeat
00:38:31.180
that process. And then as you knock them off the list, you can level up your life.
00:38:35.180
Steve, I really appreciate your insights. We're winding down on time. I could talk about this
00:38:38.660
stuff with you all day, but we're going to make guys buy the book to get the rest of the information.
00:38:42.040
I'm really proud of it, honestly. I've put everything I could into this book and I'm really proud of how it
00:38:46.620
turned out. Well, I can tell. I mean, obviously this has been a long journey for you and I can
00:38:50.540
tell that you're passionate about it and excited about it and you've got a lot to share. So
00:38:53.380
Steve, a couple of questions as we wind down the first one and I prepared you for this, but what
00:38:57.240
does it mean to be a man? So you prepared me for this, but I had my answer within half a second
00:39:03.200
because this is so important to me. I think being a man or being a better man is accepting 100%
00:39:12.140
personal responsibility for where you are in life. It doesn't mean it's your fault. You might
00:39:19.420
have been raised by terrible parents or you might have lost your job due to the economy, whatever it
00:39:23.360
is, but is 100% your personal responsibility to take yourself from where you are to where you're
00:39:30.260
going? I think far too many people these days are entitled and wait for things to be handed out to
00:39:35.000
them or they have expectations of things that they have not earned, as you said earlier. I think it's those
00:39:39.740
that accept personal responsibility for where they are. And as soon as they accept that, they realize,
00:39:44.420
hey, if it's my personal responsibility, I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to take action
00:39:50.300
to improve myself. And I think that's the most important thing that somebody can do to be a man,
00:39:55.180
being responsible for yourself, taking care of your family, taking care of yourself physically,
00:39:59.740
healthily, emotionally, spiritually, whatever that means to you, but taking personal responsibility for
00:40:04.160
it. You and I are in similar wavelengths. That is almost the same exact language that I use for
00:40:10.060
what does it mean to be a man? So we're on the same page. That's really great to hear. Yes, yes.
00:40:14.560
Well, hey, so if somebody wants to connect with you, learn about more what you're doing with
00:40:17.880
with Nerd Fitness or with the book Level Up Your Life, how do we connect with you? Where would you
00:40:21.560
suggest we go? You can go to nerdfitness.com. It's a community of about 300,000 people all over the
00:40:28.680
world that we provide health and fitness advice, two free articles every week. It's a really great
00:40:33.600
community. And then you can learn more about the book, read the first chapter, create your own
00:40:37.500
character for free at levelupyourlife.com. Steve, I appreciate you and taking your time
00:40:42.980
to share with us. This is going to be valuable information. And thank you for joining us on
00:40:46.520
the show today. Thanks so much for the opportunity, Ryan. There you have it, guys. Mr. Steve Cam with
00:40:51.040
Nerd Fitness on what it takes to level up your life. Now, a quick reminder to head over to
00:40:55.220
orderman.com slash ironcouncil so you can get all the details on our elite mastermind. You will want to
00:40:59.920
be part of that if you're really ready to step up in every single area of your life. You're going to
00:41:04.480
build some solid relationships with other men and you're finally going to have some accountability
00:41:07.820
and some help. Again, all the details of the show can be found at orderman.com slash 052. And again,
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also you can join the conversation we're having about masculinity on our Facebook group at
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facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. Guys, I look forward to talking to you next week,
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but until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.
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Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
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and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.