Order of Man - OoM 052： Leveling Up Your Life By Embracing Your Inner Nerd with Steve Kamb

00:00:00.000 Life is hard. We all know that. We have things we want to accomplish in our lives, deeper

00:00:03.400 relationships, better fitness, starting a new business, on and on and on. But what makes it

00:00:07.100 hard is that there are so many distractions and so many excuses, and our goals just never seem

00:00:11.540 to become a reality. My guest today, Steve Kam, founder of Nerd Fitness, shares how his love for

00:00:16.300 video games and movies help us overcome distractions, procrastination, excuses, and

00:00:21.400 helps us become the hero of our own journey. You're a man of action. You live life to the

00:00:25.860 fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back

00:00:31.400 up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:38.980 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:00:44.380 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:49.160 Men, how are you today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the founder of Order of Men. Now, if you're

00:00:53.360 new to the show, we talk about leadership, relationships, eliminating excuses, health,

00:00:57.300 wealth, and so much more. In other words, this is your one-stop hub for all things manly.

00:01:03.240 Now, today, we're going to be talking with a man who I've been quietly stalking in the

00:01:06.420 background, Mr. Steve Kam with Nerd Fitness, about how we can use behavioral psychology to

00:01:12.300 our advantage when it comes to reaching our goals. But before I get into that, let me share

00:01:16.400 something real quick with you. By now, I'm sure you've heard of our elite mastermind,

00:01:19.740 the Iron Council. And rather than tell you today how great it is, let me share with you

00:01:24.240 something one of our members shared with me last week. He had this to say,

00:01:28.260 I know it's only been about a week, but I can honestly say, seeing all of your posts,

00:01:32.080 having a couple chats with my battle brother, and even having the agogi to look forward to,

00:01:36.520 everything in my life seems to have purpose again. And I'm feeling like I'm heading down

00:01:40.580 that path I was meant to make. I'm looking forward to becoming more involved and having more

00:01:44.760 in-depth conversations and learning from all of you. Thanks for making this possible.

00:01:48.500 I appreciate it. And all of you have a great Sunday brothers. Now this week we're talking

00:01:53.140 about daily rituals and habits, and we want you to be one of the first 100 members. We in the group

00:01:59.260 call them centurions. So if you're interested, head to orderofman.com slash iron council and get

00:02:04.240 all the details and join us there. Now let's get into the show. Remember as always, you can find all

00:02:08.900 the links, the resources, and all of that information at orderofman.com slash 052. And as always,

00:02:14.560 join in the conversation we're having with over 2,500 men on our Facebook group at

00:02:17.920 facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. Men, please let me introduce you to my guest

00:02:23.940 today, Steve Cam, the founder of nerdfitness.com. Steve has built an amazing community over 350,000

00:02:30.840 men and women across the planet, and he teaches them how to level up in every single area of their

00:02:35.280 lives. He combines his unique perspective on life with his love for video games and TV and movies to

00:02:41.840 help average Joes like you and me improve our lives. He is also the founder of the recently

00:02:48.240 released book, Level Up Your Life, How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your

00:02:52.940 Own Story. And I found this on a side note, he also one day hopes to become Captain America.

00:03:00.220 Steve, what's going on? Glad you're here today, man.

00:03:01.940 Ryan, what's up, dude? Thanks for having me.

00:03:03.500 So I've been a follower of your work for some time, and I saw your book coming out, and I thought,

00:03:07.540 man, I got to get this guy on the show because I've really enjoyed what you're doing. So tell me

00:03:11.060 the premise behind Level Up Your Life. Well, first of all, thank you. I'm glad to hear that

00:03:14.400 you've been reading and enjoying it and appreciate the kind words about the site and everything like

00:03:19.460 that. The book Level Up Your Life is this concept, this idea that what if we are the hero in our own

00:03:28.300 story or, you know, what if we are the character in our own video game? I spent my early 20s in a job

00:03:34.740 that I strongly disliked and was ill-equipped to deal with. And the majority of my spare time went

00:03:42.060 into escaping into games and books and movies and just kind of drifting. And eventually, I got to a

00:03:49.000 point where I was so unhappy that I came to this realization that, you know, man, life is meant to

00:03:53.220 be lived. And if you're spending all of your spare time trying to forget the rest of your time, that's,

00:03:58.600 you know, that's a pretty rough way to go through the next 40, 50 years of your life.

00:04:02.220 So I know I talked to a lot of guys about living for the weekend where they're, you know, hump day

00:04:06.880 in terms like that. I'm like, man, you just aren't living a great life if you're living for the two

00:04:10.820 days out of seven. Yeah. And man, I know people, you know, I related so closely to the movie Office

00:04:16.700 Space that, believe it or not, actually quoted it in my high school graduation speech. Oh, is that

00:04:21.940 right? Yeah. The guy, you know, in the movie, the guy says, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just

00:04:26.160 don't care. And I was thinking back to my job, you know, and I did really well in school. And I

00:04:31.960 joined every club imaginable and tried to stay active in student government and did all these

00:04:36.740 things. And then here I was after college, just six months removed from school. And, you know,

00:04:43.140 I was a salesman in construction equipment. Like, what am I doing here? But I was so bad at it. And I

00:04:49.340 was so miserable that I would like drive from job site to job site and get rejected. And then I would

00:04:53.500 sit in my car and I would read Harry Potter novels to like escape for like five minutes at a time

00:04:59.140 until I could get out of real life. Right. And eventually it got to the point where I'm like,

00:05:03.780 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

00:05:09.340 to change. You know, that's when I kind of started to have this realization like, well, if you're

00:05:13.660 addicted to these video games and you love escaping into these stories, what is it about them that make

00:05:19.760 them so intriguing or enthralling or addicting to you? And I realized it came down like a few key

00:05:25.100 concepts. One, it was this idea that I loved the idea of the hero's journey. It's this concept that

00:05:30.800 every great story in history follows a similar story arc. There's this character, he's a, he or she is a

00:05:36.160 fish out of water, feels like they don't belong, kind of drifting. Then there's some sort of call to

00:05:40.920 action. They meet a mentor, they enter this extraordinary world and they, you know, recruit allies and fight bad

00:05:48.620 guys and save the day, save the princess, save the prince, save themselves, find buried treasure,

00:05:55.120 whatever it may be. And they return home a changed person. And I thought to myself like, geez, if,

00:06:00.760 if Star Wars follows this path and Harry Potter and the Matrix and, and Lord of the Rings and

00:06:05.840 Hunger Games and every story that I love follows these paths. What if I started looking at my own

00:06:11.040 life as if I was a hero and I could recognize these similar steps in my own journey? And I thought

00:06:17.480 like, man, what about all these games I'm addicted to? Like, what are the kind of like, almost like the

00:06:22.040 behavioral psychology reasons behind why I'm so hooked on these games? And can I apply those same

00:06:27.760 mechanics to my own life to get me addicted to improving myself as a person? And, you know, since kind of

00:06:35.160 coming to this realization, my life has drastically turned around. Now I help people get healthy. I run a

00:06:42.320 community called Nerd Fitness where we meet hundreds of thousands of members all over the world. I've

00:06:46.660 visited six continents, 20 plus countries. I've learned to play different musical instruments. I

00:06:53.000 speak two languages. I volunteer my time when I'm available. And my life has really turned into that

00:06:58.960 adventure that I had so desperately wanted. And it's been a pretty fun journey. So this book is kind

00:07:04.460 of the culmination of how I did it, how members of my community have done it, and then provides a

00:07:08.880 blueprint to help other people do it. That's amazing. Yeah. I've seen your, I think you call

00:07:13.380 it a quest list, I think is what it's called, but I've actually seen yours. Yeah, that's what it is.

00:07:17.280 Yeah. And I, and I got to tell you, like, I'm inspired when I see that. I'm like, man, he's done

00:07:20.900 all these things. These are things I want to do. So I'm really excited to get into this. Why do you

00:07:25.740 think people in general tend to live maybe vicariously through some of these other heroes or the stories?

00:07:32.680 Is it just because it's easier or is it easy to get lost? Why is it that we're doing that and not

00:07:37.560 becoming the hero of our own journey? Sure. Well, I think real life is,

00:07:42.380 you know, it's funny when we're little kids, we're told to believe anything and, and use our

00:07:46.080 imaginations and you can become whatever you want to be. Right. And, and then you grow up and everybody

00:07:51.700 tells you you're supposed to be realistic and you have to, you know, if you think or want to do

00:07:55.880 things differently, everybody's like, what's wrong with you? You know, be, grow up, um, get,

00:08:00.680 get in line, follow form, whatever it may be. So these games and stories that we fall in love

00:08:07.100 with, I mean, if you're spending all day at a job, you hate, but then you get to go home and

00:08:12.020 sit down at your computer and you were like this flame sword wielding dragon slaying badass. You're

00:08:18.040 like, it sounds way better. Yeah. Life becomes like the, the, the inconvenient part in between

00:08:22.880 when you get to hop online or dive back into the next book. Uh, so if you're spending all of your time

00:08:28.460 doing things that you don't like and, and, and desperately try to get away from that, I think

00:08:34.440 the obvious answer is like, what do you escape into? For, for myself, it was games and movies

00:08:39.480 for many other people might be drugs and alcohol for others. It might be an unhealthy relationship

00:08:44.900 that they stay in far too long, whatever it is. Like if, if there are parts of your life that are

00:08:48.600 out of balance, uh, I think those games and movies, which I love as entertainment, uh, can eventually

00:08:53.920 start to almost become a crutch and become too much of an escape and, and make it difficult to get out

00:08:59.160 of. Yeah. And I think probably correct me if I'm wrong, but just recognizing that you're living life

00:09:04.640 in mediocrity or that you're stuck or you're in a rut probably is the first step. But what would you

00:09:09.160 suggest if there's somebody out there, if there's a man listening to this podcast and knows that this

00:09:14.120 is him and he needs to escape real life or change his life, what's the first step to do that?

00:09:19.120 You know, I think the first thing is proving to yourself that you can make a change.

00:09:22.640 And, you know, I, I don't subscribe to the whole like, Oh, just build your dream vision board and,

00:09:28.580 and think it really hard. And then you'll have your Ferrari and your private island. Like that's

00:09:33.940 although that would be nice. That would be great. I mean, we're, we, we currently haven't figured out

00:09:37.760 the, you know, tele, teleportation, uh, creation of objects with our mind stuff quite yet. So

00:09:43.480 in the meantime, I think it starts by kind of making an adjustment and, and, you know, me being a guy

00:09:49.220 that runs a health and fitness site, I encourage people to start by changing the one thing that

00:09:53.520 they have a hundred percent control over and that is their personal, personal health. And to do that,

00:09:59.520 I tell people to go for a walk, go for like a five minute walk every morning and build a habit over

00:10:04.520 30 days and prove to yourself like, look, I can do something. I am in control and I can make a change.

00:10:09.020 You know, it's funny in, in the movies, Lord of the Rings, you know, they say one does not simply

00:10:13.300 walk into Mordor and that's literally what Frodo did. Like he walked one foot in front of the other.

00:10:18.560 So I figured if a hobbit can walk from, uh, you know, walk from the Shire all the way to, 1.00

00:10:23.720 to Mordor and back, we can go for a five minute walk every morning. So I encourage people to take

00:10:29.220 five, 10 minutes and go for a walk. Um, and like I said, you know, the, the biggest element I think

00:10:35.580 that caused me to stay addicted to video games is this idea of the progress principle that we love

00:10:41.480 to see ourselves progressing in a concrete, visible or audible way. So in a game that's

00:10:48.080 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

00:10:51.920 level six, right there. I get to go to level seven where I get a new sword that lets me get to level

00:10:56.420 eight and kill the, you know, the wolf. And then when I kill the wolf, I get a new, whatever, blah,

00:11:01.260 blah, blah. I try to incorporate those, that element of leveling up as much as I can in my

00:11:07.200 own life. So I pick a goal that I'm working on. I break it into teeny tiny steps. I assign experience

00:11:12.580 point values to each of the steps on that quest. And then as I cross those things off, I actually

00:11:17.820 start to level up. So I take that game mechanic, apply it to my life and find a way to put one foot

00:11:23.220 in front of the other and actually start making progress on something specific and concrete to

00:11:28.120 kind of shift that self-limiting belief in my head to something new that says like, look,

00:11:32.240 I'm changing, I'm making an improvement. And, uh, I'm now one step closer to this, you know,

00:11:37.460 kind of level 50 epic life I'm trying to figure out for myself than I was yesterday. And you just do

00:11:42.660 that every day, a little bit each day. And, uh, eventually you'd be surprised where you can end

00:11:47.760 up. I mean, I, I still can't believe where I am today compared to where I was a few years ago.

00:11:51.840 You know, I know a lot of guys will listen to this and they'll, they'll write it off because it's so

00:11:56.540 simple, right? And, and we don't want to confuse that with easy, but they'll look at it and they'll

00:12:00.340 think to themselves, Oh, that's too simple. That can't be the key. And they're looking for this

00:12:03.780 magic answer when in all reality, they haven't earned the right to be at level 10 yet. They've

00:12:09.140 got a complete level one for absolutely. I'm, I'm really curious. How long does this process

00:12:15.020 take? Because I listened to that and I think, okay, you're assigning point values and you're creating

00:12:19.100 these levels and you're telling us to do that in every area of our lives. What does that process

00:12:24.280 look like? Cause that could be very time consuming. Could it not be? Yeah. Although I

00:12:28.060 think from my experience, I actually really enjoyed the process. And I think for anybody

00:12:32.840 that gets potentially overwhelmed at this idea, like, Whoa, you know, when you're playing the

00:12:37.660 Legend of Zelda or any other game, you don't worry about what happens at level 40. You don't

00:12:42.900 worry about what happens at the end of the game. You just worry about how to get to the

00:12:46.760 next dungeon or how to get to the next level. So I think breaking it down to those elements

00:12:50.920 is really important. And I cover a lot of this in the book, but you can actually go

00:12:53.880 to a level up your life.com and create a character and start tracking your quest there and assign

00:13:00.740 experience point values on them. And then actually level up a character as you are moving through

00:13:06.240 life. So I think you can get as complex or as simple or as detailed as you want. Um, I think

00:13:13.720 the most important thing is to pick a goal, break it down and start working on it. Just like

00:13:18.520 any movie, there's always going to be a plot twist. Uh, you know, you might be set out to,

00:13:22.480 to find buried treasure, but then the person you're with, it gets kidnapped and you have to

00:13:27.660 rescue them, whatever it may be. Life is going to take paths or paths and twists and turns and things

00:13:33.140 like that. So the most important step for anybody is really to get started. I think far too many people

00:13:38.920 spend too much time in the planning, researching, Oh, I could never do that phase. When in reality,

00:13:43.340 like if they just put a foot in front of the other and then said like, how did that go? Oh,

00:13:47.840 pretty good. Okay. Then I'll do this again. Or, Hey, that was that again. Yeah, exactly.

00:13:52.600 I think, uh, people will just have a lack of ability to take action. We get this paralysis

00:13:56.480 by analysis analysis, and we think that everything has to be perfect and exact. And sometimes I also

00:14:01.780 think that men believe that they, if they make a decision that they're pigeonholing themselves

00:14:05.960 into that decision, that they have to now follow that path for the rest of their lives.

00:14:11.460 And what I try to teach guys is that your next decision isn't your last decision. It's just

00:14:16.060 moving you one step closer. And like you said, there might be that plot twist there.

00:14:20.260 Sure. Well, I think an interesting thing about what you just said there, there's a part in the

00:14:23.520 book I discuss, um, somebody had written a book called the top five regrets of the dying.

00:14:29.080 And it was just somebody that worked at, I think it was a hospice house and they had conversations

00:14:33.840 where people were literally on their deathbeds, uh, days away from, from passing away from all walks

00:14:39.980 of life, all ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, et cetera. And they asked these people, if you could

00:14:45.280 do life over again, what would you do? And the number one most common response was, I wish I'd

00:14:50.260 lived a life true to myself and not what I thought others expected of me. And I found that to be so

00:14:55.780 powerful. The reason I got into sales after college is because both of my parents were in sales. My

00:15:01.780 college degree was in economics because I was like, well, business, economics, sales, why not?

00:15:06.640 And my parents never once said, Hey, you should get a job in sales for, are you going to do this

00:15:12.100 or that? But I just felt this internal pressure and thought, well, if I don't know what I'm going

00:15:16.140 to do, at least doing this will make them happy. Eventually I came to realize like they didn't care

00:15:20.300 what I did as long as I was happy. And because I was very unhappy with what I was doing, when I

00:15:24.800 started to talk to them about this idea of nerd fitness and helping people get fit, they could see

00:15:29.740 my excitement and energy. And they were like, you know, how else can we support you? And they've been

00:15:33.740 just very supportive, um, emotionally, uh, you know, mentally, et cetera, in which has been very

00:15:39.640 helpful for me. But I think for anybody else that, you know, grew up with two parents that were

00:15:43.540 mechanics or doctors or lawyers, or their parent, their brother went to a certain school or their

00:15:48.520 sister went somewhere else and their friends are doing this or they're in a job that they took. And

00:15:53.800 now they've been in it for 10 years. You can change like right, right now. I'm not telling you to

00:16:00.620 quit your job today and say, Steve told me to, but what I'm saying is, yeah, that might be a lawsuit

00:16:05.120 or something on your hands. What I'm saying is instead, like take a minute, sit down and truly

00:16:09.940 prioritize what's, what's important to you. And for me, it was adventure and living a life I was

00:16:15.980 proud of. So I had to kind of reverse engineer how I made my money around that. I spent weeks or

00:16:21.200 months living on, uh, living, living very cheaply. I've crashed on people's couches. I picked up odd jobs

00:16:26.020 here and there to make ends meet. So if you're going to try to do something different, yeah,

00:16:31.040 it might mean downsizing your house or moving to a new city that's way cheaper, getting, getting rid

00:16:35.440 of your car. That pales in comparison to that feeling you get of just pure dread on a Monday

00:16:40.760 morning, which is what most people feel. I think they go to something they don't love to make money

00:16:45.980 and spend it on things they don't need or can't afford to impress people they don't really want to

00:16:50.060 hang out with. It's like, this is, it's a broken system. Like you have to like Neo breaking free of

00:16:55.040 the matrix. I think we all kind of have to not, not do everything the way that it's expected of us

00:17:00.600 and say like, well, why can't I choose to do things differently? Like, yes, it's going to be

00:17:04.840 contrarian. Yes. People are going to tell me I'm crazy. Yes. People are going to say, oh, you should

00:17:08.320 be thankful to have the job you do in this economy and blah, blah, blah. At the end of the day, do you

00:17:13.080 wake up excited and do you go to bed proud? And if you can answer yes to both of those questions,

00:17:17.400 you keep doing what you're doing. If it's not, yes, then maybe it's time to reevaluate some stuff.

00:17:21.580 Yeah. So I think guys will hear this. I hear this and I've been in the situation where just

00:17:27.180 like you described, I woke up Monday morning. I didn't want to go into the work and the work or

00:17:30.620 the office and life was miserable. But I think most people know what they need to do. Like they

00:17:38.360 know what the next step is, but for some reason they're not taking that step. And you talk a lot

00:17:43.260 about, I think in the book procrastination. Yeah. And so I want to talk about, because one of the

00:17:48.040 underlying themes of the message that I share is to eliminate excuses from your life. And so I want

00:17:53.180 to have a conversation with you about why people procrastinate, why they make excuses and why they

00:17:58.260 don't do the things they know deep down in their heart they should be doing. Oh God, I can talk about

00:18:03.120 this all day. Um, but I'll try to keep it short. Yeah, this might go in part two or something like

00:18:06.980 that. Yeah. Uh, the way I explained it in the book is pulling from the absolutely ridiculous TV show

00:18:14.320 South Park. There's an episode in South Park where the characters of the show, uh, there there's a

00:18:19.560 group of characters called underpants gnomes and these gnomes sneak into the people's houses of South

00:18:25.260 Park and steal their underwear. So the kids track the under the gnomes back to their lair and they go

00:18:30.860 down, they see just a giant pile of underpants and they look at these pile and they say to the

00:18:35.960 gnomes like, what, what are you guys doing? Why are you stealing my underwear? And the gnomes say like,

00:18:40.500 oh, this is part of our big business plan. Like, what do you mean? Phase one, collect underpants.

00:18:46.860 Phase two is a giant question mark that nobody knows what they're supposed to do. And phase three

00:18:51.200 is profit because they have no idea what phase two is. They're spending all of their time on phase one

00:18:56.340 collecting underpants. Sure. I promise this makes sense. So the way I, I'm waiting for it. The way,

00:19:01.980 the way I equate this or what I equate this to is every time you listen to a podcast or read a book

00:19:08.700 or watch a YouTube video that's inspiring or go to work, take a class in something,

00:19:15.200 you are collecting underpants. Phase three is this life that you're hoping to live or that you know

00:19:21.380 you need to live. Phase two, if you're, if you're just stuck collecting more information and saying,

00:19:25.800 oh, when I eventually I get there and I'll do more and I'll, oh, when the timing's right and,

00:19:30.040 oh, I need to learn more. I need to be more confident in this thing. And what, what if this goes

00:19:33.960 wrong or that, whatever, you're stuck collecting more and more underpants. Phase two is taking

00:19:39.480 action. Phase two is figuring out what to do with those underpants to get you to that goal that

00:19:43.520 you're trying to reach for. So from my experience, everybody spends 99% of their time collecting more

00:19:49.520 and more information when in reality they should spend 10% of their time collecting information and

00:19:54.940 90% of their time trying, doing, building, failing, uh, whatever it may be. You know, there's,

00:20:01.160 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 1.00

00:20:56.640 you can start sucking, the faster you can get through that period and eventually get to the 0.98

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 0.71

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 0.99

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.

00:31:35.980 Ah, yes, I've heard of this.

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.

00:31:53.000 Right.

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

00:32:19.440 bit better than you were the day before.

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

00:32:46.460 would be really, really valuable.

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

00:34:54.200 you doing it and you not doing it.

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

00:35:12.220 life?

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.

00:36:38.060 Sure. Yeah.

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,

00:37:54.680 something along those lines.

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,

00:41:13.200 also you can join the conversation we're having about masculinity on our Facebook group at

00:41:18.160 facebook.com slash groups slash order of man. Guys, I look forward to talking to you next week,

00:41:22.940 but until then, take action and become the man you were meant to be.

00:41:26.320 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:41:31.880 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - March 15, 2016

OoM 052： Leveling Up Your Life By Embracing Your Inner Nerd with Steve Kamb

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