The Art of Manliness - Episode #40： Undefeated Mind with Alex Lickerman

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. So yeah,

00:00:20.420 we've been on hiatus with the podcast for almost a year. I stopped doing it because we just got

00:00:25.380 too busy with other projects and other things. But I've had a lot of people email me, tweet me,

00:00:32.700 Facebook me asking, hey, when are you gonna bring the podcast back? So we're doing it now.

00:00:37.360 And I'm really excited about our guest that we have on today. His name is Dr. Alex Lickerman.

00:00:44.240 He is a physician, a practicing physician, but he's also the author of a book that just came out

00:00:50.040 last November. It's called The Undefeated Mind on the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self.

00:00:56.580 It's all about building your resilience, something we've talked about on the site before. And he goes

00:01:02.540 into depth, brings in a lot of scientific studies that talk about how you can become more resilient,

00:01:07.320 how you can strengthen your, I guess, your mental fortitude to handle whatever challenges that come

00:01:14.800 your way. Well, Alex, welcome to the show. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy

00:01:19.240 schedule to talk to us. Thanks so much for having me. So Undefeated Mind, that's what the title of

00:01:24.860 your book is called. How would you describe a person with an undefeated mind? And why is it so

00:01:31.100 important that we try to develop this undefeated mind that you talk about? So I think about an

00:01:37.400 undefeated mind as basically a mind that is resilient. And by resilient, I mean two things.

00:01:43.860 And there's sort of two sides of one coin. The first side is that when bad things happen,

00:01:48.460 when adversity strikes, when tragedy lands on you, that you are able to not just survive it,

00:01:54.740 but actually thrive in the face of it. So that may mean you go through it maintaining,

00:01:59.640 you know, your poise and your confidence, or maybe you go through it and you're horribly

00:02:05.140 discouraged and even depressed and anxious, but then at the end of it, you come out of it sort of

00:02:09.680 not just back to where you were, but even stronger in some way. The other side of that coin,

00:02:14.920 you know, is that when you are striving to achieve something, you have a goal that you

00:02:19.300 don't know how you, don't know if you can do it, that when the obstacles arise, that invariably

00:02:25.060 arise whenever people try to achieve something great, when those arise, that even if you become

00:02:31.760 discouraged, that doesn't stop you, that you continue on no matter what, that you don't give

00:02:36.100 up when everything is telling you to give up and you feel like you need to give up or that

00:02:40.060 it's hopeless, but you go on and then, uh, even if you don't achieve your goal, the reason

00:02:44.000 you don't achieve it isn't because you quit, but just because it didn't work out.

00:02:47.800 So resilience and hardyhood is how you describe someone with the undefeated mind.

00:02:51.920 Yeah, that's basically it. Personality, hardiness.

00:02:54.540 Yeah. So what experiences in your life, um, led you to discovering the principles and practices

00:03:01.860 that you talk about in your book? Um, I found that very fascinating. You talk about some of

00:03:06.080 your experience. What were some of those, uh, principles and, or some of those experiences

00:03:09.120 that led to the book?

00:03:10.240 Yeah. So I, um, as I talk about in the book, I'm a Buddhist and I started practicing Buddhism,

00:03:16.240 uh, my first year of medical school. And frankly, up until that point, um, I hadn't really encountered,

00:03:22.060 uh, any obstacles or tragedy in my life out of the ordinary. Uh, and then, uh, the woman who

00:03:27.720 introduced me to Buddhism, uh, in my first year of medical school was a woman I then began dating.

00:03:32.860 She was the first great love of my life. And when we broke up, I was just absolutely devastated.

00:03:37.760 I was, I was, uh, in retrospect now, uh, absolutely politically depressed, but since it was only

00:03:43.160 my first year of medical school, I hadn't yet learned to diagnose that. So I didn't know

00:03:46.660 I was depressed. Uh, and I was just, um, completely shattered by it. And, um, the practice of Buddhism

00:03:52.740 involves chanting. It's a little bit foreign to many of those of us raised in the West, uh, but it's

00:03:58.080 sort of a, uh, a form of meditation. And it was actually while doing that and chanting about the

00:04:03.720 fact that I was just suffering far out of proportion to what I thought I should be just

00:04:08.140 because I had, uh, broken up with my girlfriend. And I had a, uh, a, uh, great insight at Epiphany

00:04:14.420 that the reason I was suffering, uh, really had nothing to do with the fact that she and I had

00:04:19.600 broken up, but what I believed that meant. And what I believed that meant, I was surprised to

00:04:24.900 discover at that moment was that I could never be happy that without this woman to love me, I,

00:04:28.860 my, my chance at happiness was gone. And I, um, was stunned to discover this. And from that

00:04:36.200 insight, I realized that the key to being happy, you know, how can we be happy when so many terrible

00:04:43.460 things happen to us? There's no way any of us get to live a life without having trauma and tragedy

00:04:48.500 happen in our lives. It just doesn't happen. You live long enough, something's going to happen. So

00:04:52.300 how can we be happy when those things happen? And the answer is we have to become so strong

00:04:57.500 that no matter what happens to us, we feel we have some power, some ability to overcome whatever

00:05:04.780 it is that's happened. Uh, even if it's not overcoming in a way we want to overcome it,

00:05:09.120 but still in some way achieve some kind of victory so that we can say we're done with this. We,

00:05:15.040 we got through it, we overcame it and we're moving on and, and maintain our ability to be happy.

00:05:19.240 It really, the bottom line is it comes down to happiness is strength.

00:05:22.940 Yeah. And what I found fascinating was, um, your, your practice of Buddhism and what you,

00:05:29.100 you, you practice a particular kind of Buddhism that I never heard of. What's it called again?

00:05:33.200 It's called Nichiren Buddhism. Okay. And it's, uh, the practice is chanting a phrase,

00:05:38.880 which is Nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo. And, um, the idea, the Buddhists will tell you that 0.94

00:05:44.660 the reason chanting Nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo has the power it does is because you're tapping in

00:05:48.660 to a mystic life principle. Um, I don't actually believe that I have to say, uh, but I have still

00:05:55.340 found that chanting that phrase over and over again with, uh, it's not like meditation where

00:06:00.480 you are trying to, uh, focus on the moment and clear your mind of thoughts. It's actually,

00:06:05.520 um, in a sense, it's a war cry. It is a, you are making determinations when you are chanting

00:06:11.800 that you're going to solve your problems. Because a lot of times problems occur to us

00:06:15.840 or happen in our lives and we think we know how to solve them and we try those things and they

00:06:19.920 don't work. And we, then we try something else and it doesn't work. And when we exhaust those

00:06:23.740 possibilities, typically what we do is go back and start trying things we tried the first time,

00:06:27.660 even though it didn't work the first time because we're out of ideas. What I've learned

00:06:30.960 through the practice of Buddhism is that there often are answers buried within me somewhere that,

00:06:36.500 uh, either haven't occurred to me or they have, but I haven't truly opened my mind to

00:06:41.340 the possibility of trying to employ some of those answers because they're either too fearful,

00:06:45.960 I'm too fearful, or they seem to risk too much. What I have learned is that, um, when I, when I

00:06:52.400 chant with a, uh, uh, focused determination to overcome a particular problem, answers will often

00:06:56.960 come to me and it just sort of pop up just the way thoughts do that are surprising, that are not

00:07:01.500 things I would have thought of on my own, but that end up often being the very things I need to do.

00:07:05.820 And sometimes, uh, things I don't want to do, but if I could only muster the courage to do them,

00:07:10.740 they end up being the things that enable me to solve the problem.

00:07:14.800 What I found fascinating was, uh, the insights you gained, um, from Buddhism, you know,

00:07:20.140 an ancient philosophy. What I found fascinating throughout the book, you show how cognitive

00:07:24.380 science is actually confirming the insights that these, you know, ancient philosophers had

00:07:29.960 thousands of years ago.

00:07:31.780 Um, that's what actually sparked my interest in writing the book was that, that, you know,

00:07:35.980 in studying Buddhism for all these years I've done, uh, and being a physician and taking care

00:07:41.140 of patients, I'm very much, uh, evidence-based. I need, I need something proven to me to really

00:07:45.840 believe it. And, uh, I started looking into a lot of research that ended up sort of supporting

00:07:51.080 a lot of these 2,500 year old ideas. And, you know, we finally applied modern scientific

00:07:55.680 methods to answer, asking these questions and the answers end up being what the Buddhism has

00:08:02.100 been talking about all along. So it's kind of a neat synergy.

00:08:05.200 Yeah. So going back to what you talked about, your experience with, uh, you know, breaking

00:08:09.440 up with the first love of your life. And you said that thing that really, I guess the epiphany

00:08:14.680 you had was your change of perception, right? You had this perception change and it seems

00:08:18.580 like that was a main thread throughout your book. That's a main principle. When I, what

00:08:22.640 I found, um, uh, interesting, I'm not very familiar with Buddhism, but one, one philosophy

00:08:27.960 that I am familiar with is Stoicism, uh, of the ancient Romans, you know, Seneca and Marcus

00:08:33.400 Aurelius. And that's something they talk about too, that, um, are the pain that we experience

00:08:38.180 in life often isn't, you know, caused by the, you know, a tragedy. It's our perception of

00:08:44.200 that tragedy. Um, and that's, that's kind of a hard, I guess, a hard concept for us moderns

00:08:49.820 to, to swallow this idea that our perception is what causes us pain.

00:08:54.660 It is, uh, but Buddhism and Stoicism are very similar that way. The, the idea is that,

00:09:00.340 um, it really isn't what happens to us, it's how we think about what happens to us that affects

00:09:05.260 the way we feel about it. And, uh, this is not too hard a concept to really grasp. If

00:09:09.560 you pause for a few minutes and examine just your own reactions to things, you know, in

00:09:13.320 your own life, when something bad happens or something difficult arises in your path, you

00:09:18.840 know, when you're trying to reach a goal, if you feel that you can manage it, it may be

00:09:23.860 uncomfortable and it may, uh, you know, be, uh, depressing to imagine, but you're not defeated

00:09:29.440 by it. If you feel confident to be able to solve that problem, if you're thinking about

00:09:32.660 it in such a way that you can solve the problem. On the other hand, if something happens where

00:09:35.920 you think, I don't know what to do, the next thought that most of us have, the automatic

00:09:40.040 thought is, therefore, there is nothing that we can do. Uh, and therefore that's when depression

00:09:45.280 can set in. And so it really is our thoughts about things that govern our emotional responses.

00:09:50.860 It's our emotional responses that matter. You know, are we suffering over this or are

00:09:54.160 we not? And there's this thing, this really is, uh, reflected in modern psychology and

00:10:00.780 cognitive neuroscience. There's this notion of the self-explanatory style that we all bring

00:10:05.340 to our lives. So when things happen, we typically explain them to ourselves. Why did I fill that

00:10:11.700 test? Or why did that girl turn me down for a date? And we come up with our explanations

00:10:16.820 that we don't notice this, but we, we quickly settle on them as true. We, without often any

00:10:22.580 evidence whatsoever, our first thought often is what we decide. This is the reason. The girl turned

00:10:26.940 me down because, uh, I'm not good looking enough or, uh, because she's snobby or I failed that test 0.81

00:10:32.960 because I'm just not a good test taker. What we don't realize is that these ideas are just that

00:10:37.920 they're just ideas. You know, they may be right, but more often than not, they're wrong.

00:10:42.300 And yet we completely believe them without any question, the moment we think the most of the

00:10:47.980 time. And that governs number, not only how we think about what happened and therefore how we

00:10:52.960 feel about what happened, but also what we're going to do. You know, so if a test taker, someone

00:10:57.060 fails a test, they say, I'm just not a good test taker. I failed that test because I stink at taking

00:11:01.120 tests. They're, they're far more likely, uh, to not study for a makeup test and fail it again.

00:11:06.420 But if instead they tell themselves when they fail a test, you know, I, I failed that test because I

00:11:10.440 just didn't study hard enough. I got to study harder. Well, then they're much more likely to

00:11:14.200 study harder the next time, therefore more likely to pass the test. So it's not even just how you

00:11:18.580 feel about what happens to you that is determined by your perception, but what you do about it and

00:11:22.080 what you're able to do about it. Yeah. So do you think, as I read this book, um, I started thinking

00:11:27.540 about, uh, I have ancestors, right? That crossed the plains in covered wagons. And, you know, you read

00:11:33.740 journal entries that they face so many, so much adversity, uh, children died. And I just, and yet,

00:11:40.260 despite that, uh, they're, they're able to continue. They're able to thrive. Um, and I, I look at my

00:11:46.420 life, I think I couldn't do that. I mean, I can't believe what they were able to do. Do you think

00:11:51.720 modern society in some ways has made us less resilient in some ways?

00:11:56.700 No, no, I don't. I think that your estimation, what you're able to handle is wrong. You can handle

00:12:02.900 far more than you think you can. It's interesting because they've done studies, uh, on people's

00:12:07.800 expectations for how they will be affected by trauma in the future. And, uh, reliably people

00:12:13.040 far overestimate how devastated they will be by imagined traumas, uh, and, and don't actually

00:12:18.640 predict how well they'll be happy in the future either. So you look back, back at your ancestors who

00:12:24.040 went through some of those trials, you say to yourself, I could, I could never have done this.

00:12:27.680 But in fact, were you confronted with it? The answer might be very different. And you don't

00:12:31.160 really know how strong you are, how resilient you are until you are facing a trial that forces you to

00:12:36.120 be resilient. You know, in a sense, you know, strength only appears when you are forced to

00:12:41.080 lift a heavy weight. That's when you know how strong you are. So I, I suspect that, um, in general,

00:12:46.560 the, the population, uh, alive now modern people are actually as resilient as our ancestors. We just

00:12:52.020 haven't had to face the same things for which, you know, we're all very grateful. But, um,

00:12:56.400 if we were to, I think we would surprise ourselves. Yeah. So I guess the, the takeaway

00:13:01.020 there is whenever you go, whenever you do face a really, I don't know, life-changing adversity

00:13:06.200 or life-changing challenge, uh, I guess the, uh, takeaway is realize you're going to be able

00:13:10.620 to get through it and that you're stronger than you think you are. Absolutely right. And interestingly,

00:13:14.700 um, when you look at, you look at studies of people who've actually gone through horrible

00:13:18.140 things that most people don't go through and you, you look and see over time, how they do

00:13:22.260 most of the time, most people not only get through those things, they come right back to the certain,

00:13:27.580 their, their previous level of happiness, whatever that was eventually. But what's interesting is when

00:13:33.060 you tell people that, and you say, you know, there really are great studies that show as awful as it

00:13:37.480 seems today, you will eventually be happy again. Knowing that even when people believe it does not by

00:13:42.360 itself make going through that thing easier. It's not enough just to know it, but, um, sometimes it

00:13:48.240 is. Sometimes people will have that thought and they think I will be happy again. And when they

00:13:51.340 believe it, that can sort of get them through this. But, but again, that's why I wrote the book to sort

00:13:55.860 of hand people techniques they can do to sort of maintain their confidence in their resilience when

00:14:00.760 they're going through those really difficult times. We're going to take a quick break for your

00:14:03.740 word from our sponsors. And now back to the show. Definitely. So another one of my favorite

00:14:09.700 concepts in your book, uh, is this idea of turning poison into medicine. And, uh, can you explain what

00:14:16.620 you mean by this and maybe give an example of turning poison into medicine? Sure. So that it's

00:14:23.320 a Buddhist idea. And the notion is that, um, it seems to be inherent within the human mind and the human

00:14:29.500 heart that when, um, tragedy or trauma adversity strikes, and we are so quick to judge the final value of

00:14:37.700 those events as all bad. Um, that in fact, we have within us the capability of transforming

00:14:44.320 events that appear to be all bad at once into something that creates value for us.

00:14:49.520 Now, this does not mean that you can reverse necessarily the bad thing that's happened to you.

00:14:54.000 You know, if, if some, you know, your, your son dies, some horrible thing, it doesn't mean that

00:14:58.620 you're going to bring that son back to life by any means. Um, nor does it mean necessarily you're going

00:15:03.780 to be as happy as you were, or that you're going to ever stop hurting or missing, you know, your son.

00:15:08.920 But what it means is that there is nothing that could happen to you, no matter how awful you can

00:15:13.460 imagine it, from which you cannot create value, some value. And in fact, in that really the most

00:15:18.480 extreme circumstance, you talk about parents losing children, studies have actually shown that,

00:15:23.000 um, parents actually do get unsurprising benefits from that as, as almost kind of perverse

00:15:28.940 that sounds, uh, that they become closer to their surviving children, that they, uh, become more

00:15:35.440 courageous in general. I'm not for a minute suggesting that those benefits make up for

00:15:39.480 such a loss, but a lot of times in more mundane, uh, uh, more common losses and, and, uh, traumas that

00:15:48.180 we may suffer, you actually can come out actually ahead. It, it, you just can't predict the future. So,

00:15:53.320 you know, um, the, uh, the example that I would give, which I think I write about in the book as

00:15:58.580 well is, um, my, when I was a second year medical student, uh, right after my girlfriend's first

00:16:04.920 love we talked about and I broke up, I became so depressed. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't

00:16:08.580 study. And I failed part one of the national board exam. And I thought my life was over. I thought I,

00:16:14.180 you know, if you, if you don't pass part one, you can't graduate medical school. Uh, I was already

00:16:17.840 in debt and I thought I'm not going to become a doctor. I don't know what to do because I didn't have time

00:16:21.780 to study for it. You're supposed to launch into the third year, which is where you do all your work

00:16:26.300 with patients, uh, a year that is renowned for swallowing, um, days, uh, at a time of a person's

00:16:33.200 time. So, um, you know, I thought this is the worst possible thing that could have happened to me,

00:16:37.720 but, um, so rather than give up, I, I just decided, okay, so my choice is to, to drop out of medical

00:16:44.240 school or I'm going to find some way to start this test, take it again and pass it. And I, I decided

00:16:48.040 that's what I was going to try to do. I ultimately did it, um, you know, by completely eliminating any

00:16:53.360 free time, any social time whatsoever for a year, uh, and, um, got through it and, um, scored actually

00:17:00.220 above the mean, which I had never done in any test prior to medical, in medical school. Uh, and then,

00:17:05.740 uh, so I thought, okay, I got through that. I graduated, uh, got a great residency and ended up,

00:17:10.580 uh, as a teaching attending at the University of Chicago. Um, and then one day, uh, a student had come

00:17:17.420 to see me, uh, who had failed her third year internal medicine clerkship, her rotation up on

00:17:21.940 the wards. Again, you can imagine just devastated. And, uh, I found myself telling her the story of

00:17:27.180 how I had almost completely flunked out of medical school, but I persevered and, and was able to, to

00:17:32.680 succeed and, and eventually, um, uh, uh, pass the test. And I told her, you know, I realized that

00:17:38.380 being forced to go back and study all that material made me a better doctor that I, as a result of

00:17:43.440 having to learn that material again, I learned it and could sort of manipulate it and think about

00:17:47.760 medicine and science in a way that I was looking around and seeing my peers really weren't doing.

00:17:51.140 And in many instances, it was leading me to make diagnoses. I really didn't think I otherwise would

00:17:55.980 have made, but then the real benefit, the real medicine of that poisonous experience was then

00:18:01.560 suddenly I had this story to tell her. And in telling her, I could see, I literally was watching

00:18:07.500 her hearing my story and her face changing, thinking, I know what she was thinking. She was

00:18:12.440 thinking if he could do it, then I could do it. And I think, you know, even if we can't find some

00:18:17.880 benefit in horrible tragedy or trauma that's happened to us, and we don't, you know, actually

00:18:21.940 turn it into some real, uh, victory that, that we feel in some way we won, we can always use those

00:18:28.700 experiences to encourage other people. And in that way, create a value that can be surprising to us

00:18:34.900 and really actually enable us to one day say, I'm almost glad that happened to me because I've been

00:18:39.160 able to encourage so many people with that story. And I have with that story.

00:18:43.720 That's fantastic. So what, um, do you think is one of the more counterintuitive

00:18:49.160 principles or practices that you talk about in the book that, uh, that if someone applied,

00:18:55.800 they would become more resilient, uh, more hardy, but if you told them that, Hey, you need to do this,

00:19:02.020 they would think, nah, that, that wouldn't work. And I'm not going to do that. Are there any,

00:19:05.840 are there any counterintuitive principles or practices like that? So one of them that I

00:19:10.360 consider counterintuitive, at least it was to me when I sort of stumbled across it, um, is the

00:19:14.500 notion of accepting pain. Um, you know, people who, uh, like to lift weights really hard, they get

00:19:21.000 this already. They understand that pain is gain, but when you apply that sort of to your life,

00:19:25.320 it becomes a little less obvious how that can be beneficial, but it basically works like this.

00:19:29.400 So it turns out that a lot of suffering that people experience in life is not as a result of

00:19:35.200 bad things happening to them, but it's as a result of them trying to run away from the bad feelings

00:19:39.820 that bad things happening causes. So people turn to drugs and alcohol because they're, uh, they're,

00:19:46.480 uh, anxious about things and end up destroying their lives when, you know, really just trying

00:19:52.000 to avoid the feeling of anxiety or men will try to sabotage relationships with women to prevent the

00:19:59.400 women from breaking up with them because they have such a fear of rejection. And so they, they, 0.99

00:20:02.660 they ruin perfectly healthy and happy relationships because of their fear. They're trying to avoid

00:20:07.680 something that feels bad. And so, you know, the idea that there is legitimate pain for us to feel

00:20:14.400 and that when we feel it, we should allow ourselves to feel it, um, can be very powerful because

00:20:20.080 we all have goals in life and it is often our own, um, uncomfortable feelings that prevent us from

00:20:26.220 achieving them. So for example, if, if a man wants to ask a woman out or maybe go to parties to meet

00:20:32.360 women, but has horrible social anxiety, just really has a hard time doing that, it's actually 1.00

00:20:37.600 the, I think the feeling anxiety that they, they want to avoid. And so they learn to avoid it by

00:20:42.800 avoiding the circumstances that trigger it, meaning, you know, asking women out and going to parties.

00:20:47.100 On the other hand, they have this goal of wanting to meet somebody. So what do they do? Well, this,

00:20:52.880 there's this new therapy, uh, called acceptance and commitment therapy that basically talks about

00:20:57.720 this notion of acceptance, which is that you say to yourself, uh, my goal is not to stop feeling

00:21:02.080 anxiety. I'm going to allow myself to feel anxiety and I'm going to actually take the action that's

00:21:06.800 going to get me towards my goal. Even if it makes me feel anxious, I'm just going to, I'm going to

00:21:11.340 accept, I'm going to feel anxious. Just that mental, um, 180 where you, you stop reflexively trying

00:21:19.280 to avoid those painful feelings and allow yourself to feel them is incredibly empowering and adds to

00:21:24.860 resilience. And, and interestingly, paradoxically, what studies have shown is that when people

00:21:28.740 actually approach, say, anxiety that way, it actually reduces anxiety, which importantly is

00:21:35.640 not the goal. It's not the goal. The goal is to actually become more comfortable feeling it and

00:21:39.980 not allowing it to stop you from doing what you need to do to accomplish the goals that you have.

00:21:45.660 Um, and so I've actually, you know, done this work, introduced this principle to many patients of

00:21:50.480 mine who have told me anecdotally, it really does work. When you suddenly transform yourself from

00:21:55.680 someone who does everything they can to avoid whatever pain you're feeling, you know, it can be

00:21:59.980 even physical pain, uh, to someone who sort of bucks up and says, yeah, I can withstand this.

00:22:04.100 It's really awful. It's really uncomfortable, but I'm just going to suck it up. Suddenly you become

00:22:08.100 really powerful and the things you are able to do will surprise you.

00:22:12.220 Seems like, yeah, by taking away the uncertainty of pain, except, yeah, just no, you're no longer uncertain

00:22:18.100 that there'll be pain, that anxiety clears up. Yes. I mean, you, you accept the fact and you

00:22:24.280 actually, in a sense, almost embrace it. You know, the way a weightlifter embraces the pain of,

00:22:28.000 of lifting weights, because he understands it's that pain that represents hard work and therefore

00:22:34.060 growth. And so the experience of feeling even physical pain, when you understand that it does

00:22:39.520 not mean harm, that it's okay to feel it, uh, it's much less emotionally aversive. It's interesting.

00:22:47.160 They've actually studied when, when people experience pain that is caused intentionally by

00:22:52.260 someone, it actually hurts more than when pain is caused by someone accidentally. The way we think

00:22:57.460 about it has a profound effect on our subjective experience of it. That's really interesting.

00:23:02.740 Well, here's the last question. Um, as I read this book, uh, I just, I kind of perceived that, uh,

00:23:09.800 developing an under undefeated mind is a lifelong process. It's not something that's going to happen

00:23:14.380 overnight. Um, so my question is, how do you maintain the motivation to develop an undefeated

00:23:21.340 mind or a more resilient personality when you face setbacks in the process? Cause I've, I've had

00:23:26.620 this challenge. I I'm trying to work on becoming more hardy and more resilient and I'll do good,

00:23:31.280 uh, for a few weeks. And then I'll have this, something happens where I just, I, I, uh, I break

00:23:36.020 down and I kind of have this breakdown in my resilience. Um, and you get, and so you kind of,

00:23:41.520 I begin this like cycle where I get discouraged about my inability to be resilient and I get

00:23:46.960 sort of this horrible cycle where I just, uh, sort of renumerate about things. Um, so yeah,

00:23:52.780 how, what's your advice on someone who wants to develop a more resilient attitude, a more

00:23:57.000 undefeated mind? Uh, how do they maintain that motivation to do that?

00:24:01.260 So if I use what you just said as an example, um, you would, you would, uh, think about it like a

00:24:07.260 dieter. Somebody's trying to lose weight. So what, what dooms people who are trying to lose weight

00:24:11.740 is not when they, when they cheat on one day and, and thank God, you know, they blown it. That's,

00:24:17.300 it turns out that, uh, caloric intake, um, on a daily basis does not correlate to long-term weight

00:24:22.500 gain or weight loss, which means if you, if one day out of the week you eat terribly, um, but they

00:24:28.440 immediately go back to eat to following your diet. It's as if that one day didn't happen.

00:24:32.840 What dooms people who are dieting is when that one day happens, when, when they give into temptation

00:24:37.360 and they, they blow their diet, then they say to themselves, well, I've blown it. And they,

00:24:41.860 they call themselves all types of names. And then they, they say, well, I might as well give up

00:24:45.140 because I've blown it already. It's too late. And then it is the subsequent days that actually

00:24:49.740 ruin them. So if, for example, you know, when you're trying to become a resilient person,

00:24:54.360 you're doing really well. And then something happens, you get knocked off the horse and then you,

00:24:57.460 you say, ah, I blew it again. And I just, I can't do this. First thing is you don't judge yourself

00:25:01.540 because being resilient does not mean you don't get knocked off your horse. It means you get back

00:25:05.640 up on it. And so, um, it's really hard to practice the things I talk in the, about in the book, uh,

00:25:13.340 to develop yourself into a more resilient person when you're not facing something that makes you

00:25:17.280 need to be resilient. And of course, if you're not facing that at the moment, it's okay. You don't

00:25:21.600 need to sort of practice these things other than to sort of be prepared. So when something does

00:25:25.940 happen, you can reflexively go to them. But I, I view like when things hit you as an opportunity

00:25:31.440 for you to train yourself to be more resilient, sort of like, you know, when you, when you lift

00:25:35.400 weights, uh, you're not going to feel your strength, experience your strength, or actually

00:25:40.040 increase your strength unless you're actually lifting them. There's got to be some obstacle

00:25:44.160 for you to push again. So in fact, it's those very moments when you feel most discouraged

00:25:47.440 that you have the greatest opportunity to actually become resilient. But even, even I,

00:25:51.440 you know, I've been this Buddhist for 20 plus years and I wrote this book when, when bad

00:25:57.100 things happen, often my first reflexive response is, Oh no. And what am I going to do? And I

00:26:03.020 can't survive this. Uh, and then you start to have to, you have to reflexively get in the

00:26:09.160 habit of examining your negative self-talk and recognize that this is just another voice in

00:26:13.180 your head and, and say, remind yourself, I do have the tools to become resilient. I just

00:26:17.760 have to grab ahold and pick them up. Um, sometimes that takes longer. You know, you don't

00:26:21.420 do it right away. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes longer, but at some point you do have

00:26:25.320 to say to yourself, okay, I have to own the situation. I have to figure out what I can do

00:26:28.660 and, um, take care of myself and buff up or buck up my inner self so that I can actually

00:26:34.120 manage the situation. So once you suddenly start having those thoughts and then you remember,

00:26:38.380 Oh yeah, there are these things I can do. I've learned to do that actually will lead me to

00:26:42.200 success and help to buoy my, my life condition, um, while I'm going through this. So it is like

00:26:48.920 anything else. It takes continual practice and say, which means sometimes you'll be better at it.

00:26:52.660 Sometimes not as good. Be very gentle with yourself. If you don't meet your expectations

00:26:57.000 today, that's fine. That's okay. As long as you try again tomorrow, you are being resilient.

00:27:02.220 Very good. Well, that's actually really helpful for me. Well, uh, Alex, thank you so much for

00:27:06.640 taking the time to speak to with us. Uh, the book is the undefeated mind on the science of constructing

00:27:11.540 an indestructible self. And you can find that on Amazon. Alex, thanks again for being with us.

00:27:16.560 Oh, thanks so much. I really enjoyed talking.

00:27:21.220 Well, that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:27:26.340 make sure to check out the art of manliness podcast at artofmanliness.com. And until next time, stay manly.

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The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #40： Undefeated Mind with Alex Lickerman

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