The Art of Manliness - How to Keep Your Edge as You Get Older

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. It's a common

00:00:11.140 life trajectory for men. Graduate college, get married, get a nine to five job, have some kids

00:00:16.280 settled down in the suburbs. And somewhere along that way, they started to get a little soft and

00:00:20.880 stagnant. They let themselves go, becoming less active and more sedentary. They've got more

00:00:24.780 material possessions, but fewer hobbies and interests. They just lose their edge. My guest

00:00:29.480 has spent his life battling against this loss. It has more than five decades on earth. He's

00:00:33.100 served in the French Navy, trained soldiers in close quarter combat, skydiving, long range

00:00:36.820 weapon shooting, first aid and explosives. He also set a deep water scuba diving record

00:00:40.720 and studied multiple martial arts. And he currently owns a gym, teaches as a MoveNet master instructor

00:00:45.280 and coaches men over 40 in how to live better, stronger and more vibrant lives. His name

00:00:49.780 is Vic Verdier. And today on the show, he shares his advice on how a man can stay fit and engaged

00:00:53.840 with life as he gets older. We first discussed Vic's background before getting into why it's

00:00:57.520 important for men to seek physical achievement and become physical polymaths and the role

00:01:01.880 strength training, cardio and balance work in that pursuit. Vic then shares his advice

00:01:06.160 on keeping the pounds down, your testosterone up as you age and why he thinks training and

00:01:10.080 combatives is important on both a practical and psychological level. We talk about the importance

00:01:14.120 of maintaining a connection to nature and keeping your possessions minimal before ending our

00:01:17.480 conversation with why it's important to stay comfortable with being uncomfortable and how

00:01:21.160 men continue to seek adventure and exploration, even when they live in the suburbs.

00:01:25.000 After the show is over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash edge.

00:01:38.120 Vic Verdier, welcome to the show.

00:01:41.040 Thank you. Thank you, Brett. Thank you for having me.

00:01:44.100 So you're kind of like the most interesting man in the world. So we're going to start this

00:01:47.380 conversation talking about your background. You're a MoveNet instructor. I think a lot of our

00:01:52.260 listeners are familiar with MoveNet. We've had Erwan LaCour on the podcast a few times. We've written

00:01:57.540 about MoveNet on the site several times. But you were first introduced to the philosophy that's

00:02:03.280 behind MoveNet, developed by this guy named Georges Herbert, physical fitness philosophy,

00:02:08.820 by your grandfather. We'll start there. So tell us about your grandfather and Georges Herbert's

00:02:13.940 philosophy and then how that led you to joining the French Navy.

00:02:17.640 Okay. Thank you for the nice word. So obviously I'm French. You can tell by my accent. And as a

00:02:27.200 teenager, I wanted to become a musician. So I spent hours and hours sitting in front of a piano

00:02:33.680 or keyboard or synthesizers and playing rocks and jazz rock and so on. And my grandfather at that time

00:02:42.880 was a PT instructor in the military. And he didn't like to see me having this kind of lifestyle.

00:02:49.840 So every weekend he would take me out and we'd do some, any kind of sport or any kind of adventures

00:02:58.000 in nature, going to the woods, running, climbing, things like that. And when I realized a few years later

00:03:06.920 that music was not really an option in France, the music industry is very small. So I decided to join

00:03:15.000 the Navy. So I became an officer in the French Navy and I was mainly training officers from foreign armies.

00:03:24.120 So that's where I started to learn about Georges Herbert, because most of the training at that time was

00:03:30.960 based on his philosophy. I also learned skydiving, scuba diving. I learned to use firearms to teach

00:03:39.280 hand-to-hand combat. But one of the things that I really, really enjoyed was the obstacle courses

00:03:45.120 we had. In French, obstacle course is parkour d'obstacle. And it's probably the origin of the word

00:03:54.200 parkour, the sport, you know, the urban sport. And I was practicing over and over again. And I,

00:04:01.240 that was one of my favorite things to do in the Navy. When I left the Navy, I started to teach scuba

00:04:09.160 diving. I was very interested in, in deep diving, deep shipwrecks, deep caves, using rebreathers,

00:04:17.560 mixed gas diving, what I like to call the 3D, deep, dark and dangerous. And I was really into that.

00:04:25.480 So I wrote many books. I was traveling a lot, teaching that. And at some point I moved to Thailand

00:04:30.720 and my lifestyle started to go down the, down the drain a bit, started to put some weight on. I was

00:04:39.960 45 pounds overweight. And one day, unfortunately, I had a diving accident. It's called decompression

00:04:48.120 sickness. And it's when you have tiny, tiny bubbles, nitrogen and helium bubbles in your bloodstream.

00:04:56.520 And some of them got stuck in my spinal cord. And for several weeks I was really paralyzed from the

00:05:04.120 waist down. So I had to relearn to walk, relearn to move. And that's when I, I remembered all I

00:05:14.360 learned from, from George Hébert, meaning the different ways to crawl, the different ways to

00:05:20.600 walk and run and, and move. I got better. I started to enjoy tag boxing, Muay Thai. I started to teach it.

00:05:31.000 And, uh, about 12 years ago, I met, uh, Erwan, Erwan LeCour from, uh, MoveNAT. It was, uh, at the

00:05:38.520 beginning of, uh, MoveNAT and we came along, came along very well. And I started to travel and teach

00:05:45.960 for, for, for MoveNAT. Now, 12 years later, I still teaching for MoveNAT, but I also go on a gym in

00:05:53.880 Seattle named Kettability. And I also do some online coaching for, for men. And that's

00:06:00.840 pretty much it in a nutshell. Well, that's quite a life. I mean, that's great. So you started off

00:06:05.960 musician, you did, uh, you trained French commandos, foreign commandos as well. Your shipwreck career is

00:06:11.960 really interesting. You actually set a record for the deepest shipwreck for, with a mixed breather, 0.92

00:06:15.960 correct? At one point? Yes. At one point. Yeah. Since then, uh, the record doesn't hold anymore,

00:06:21.800 but yes, at some point, yes. And that's, I mean, I don't think people realize how dangerous that

00:06:25.960 shipwreck diving is. It's really, cause if you get stuck, you're, you're hosed basically.

00:06:32.440 I actually think that, uh, cave diving is even more dangerous because you're always very far from

00:06:37.960 the exit. So there's no way to come back to the surface when you get lost. Uh, and now you're,

00:06:44.040 you're, you're coaching MoveNAT. So, and again, you're going back to that philosophy that your

00:06:47.080 grandfather embraced and the French Navy embraced a physical fitness, the natural method,

00:06:51.320 which is all about crawling, climbing, running, walking, fighting, swimming, just those basic

00:06:57.720 movements that make us human. So you mentioned you do some coaching for men. A lot of your focus

00:07:04.360 is on men who are over 40 because, you know, not only helping them become more fit, but also just get

00:07:10.920 better in life, become more virile, manlier. So let's talk about that because there's something

00:07:16.840 I've noticed that a lot of men, when they hit about their mid thirties, early forties,

00:07:22.680 they develop what I call, I've been calling it soft suburban dad syndrome. So this is basically,

00:07:27.640 you know, it's a guy, he gets out of college, gets married, has kids, moves to the suburbs,

00:07:33.240 you know, just settles down, which is a fine trajectory in life, right? You know,

00:07:36.440 it's kind of what we're all aiming for. But in the process of that, they sort of let themselves go.

00:07:41.720 I mean, they get softer, like physically and emotionally, they lose their interest. They're

00:07:47.880 not very engaged with life. It's just like work, back to the house, watch TV, go to work the next

00:07:53.480 day. So these kind of lose their edge. So you have a lot of ideas on helping men get their edge back.

00:08:00.600 And the foundation of that is physical fitness. We'll talk about different exercises you talk about,

00:08:05.000 specific exercises. But in general, you start off helping men just rediscover the value

00:08:11.560 of moving. Can you talk a little bit about that?

00:08:14.280 Yeah. So first of all, I really like the name, the soft suburban dad syndrome. I think it's a great

00:08:19.800 name. And I hope you not mind, but I will use it again.

00:08:23.800 Oh, sure. Go ahead.

00:08:26.520 I think it's important for everyone to have a sense of achievement. And on an evolutionary standpoint,

00:08:34.920 for men, this sense of achievement was mainly based on mastering skills and having a role in the tribe.

00:08:44.120 So I think men are physical by nature. You know, we identify with our ability to do things,

00:08:53.080 to be strong, to be able to move. And unfortunately, when we age and we have a more sedentary lifestyle,

00:09:02.280 we lose this kind of drive, this kind of self-esteem. And it's a vicious cycle, if you want.

00:09:08.360 You have less drive, so you move less. And if you have less movement, you develop more limitations, maybe some pain.

00:09:19.720 Then you become afraid of moving. And because you are afraid of moving, you reach a state of resignation.

00:09:27.560 Something like, yeah, it's not for me anymore. I'm too old for that.

00:09:31.320 And of course, if you have less drive, then you move even less, and so on and so forth.

00:09:38.520 So I think it's important for men, for aging men, to keep strength and mobility on a physical standpoint,

00:09:48.440 but also on a mental standpoint, to keep having fun and to keep this social aspect of moving,

00:09:56.120 of doing something physical. So yes, I'm coaching more mature men.

00:10:03.800 And the solution, most of the time, is to help those men to move every day.

00:10:11.320 But not only to move every day, but if possible also, to move with other people.

00:10:16.440 This kind of cooperation, kind of social aspect of movement and of physical activities.

00:10:23.160 And so what are some movements that, you know, that guys who, you know, they work in an office job all day,

00:10:29.080 they live in the suburbs, like what kind of movements do you, are they often neglecting and you encourage them to do?

00:10:36.360 Yeah, lifting is one of them, if we want to keep some strength.

00:10:41.020 But simple movements like squatting, or like spending time on the ground, are in my opinion, very important.

00:10:48.640 Okay, we lose mobility, we have some limitations, and we start to get a bit shy on moving.

00:10:57.920 Squatting is something we can do pretty much anywhere.

00:11:01.600 We can squat when we watch TV, instead of sitting on a couch.

00:11:07.840 We can spend time on the ground, even if you're working on your computer.

00:11:12.360 Right now, I'm sitting on the floor in my room.

00:11:15.500 You can have a standing desk and move all day long.

00:11:20.760 And as soon as you can, walking outside or playing sport is something essential.

00:11:28.280 And you encourage men to become physical polymaths.

00:11:31.060 What do you mean by that?

00:11:32.780 It means that the more things you do, the more movement you learn and you practice,

00:11:40.400 the more you expand your way of movement.

00:11:43.940 Meaning when you want to learn something new, it's always easier if you start with movements you already know.

00:11:53.420 So the more things you learn, the more physical activities you practice,

00:11:58.920 the better it is for your development as an athlete.

00:12:03.440 And when I say athlete, it means anyone.

00:12:05.900 Anyone is an athlete somehow.

00:12:07.180 Yeah, I definitely think adults get in a rut.

00:12:09.260 You're doing the same exercises, the same movement every day, every workout, over and over.

00:12:14.920 But when's the last time you climbed a tree?

00:12:16.920 When's the last time you swam across something?

00:12:19.280 When's the last time you carried a load for a distance?

00:12:21.820 I mean, do you know how to jump down from something, from height and roll to break your fall?

00:12:26.600 And then there are tons of variations of everything.

00:12:29.160 There are different kinds of crawls you can learn.

00:12:31.200 There's different ways you can swim and different ways you can swing across something.

00:12:35.080 And you would say you shouldn't be afraid to get outside of your comfort zone and do that kind of stuff,

00:12:39.400 even if you're a 40-year-old guy.

00:12:41.240 Yes, of course.

00:12:42.680 The thing is, we tend to be very specialized.

00:12:47.800 The reason for that is we like to be good at what we're doing.

00:12:53.240 And therefore, we tend to work on the strong points and neglect weak points.

00:13:01.260 I think it's important to be good at pretty much everything.

00:13:05.060 Not necessarily extremely good at everything, but at least good at everything.

00:13:10.520 And that way, it's easier to move.

00:13:12.940 It's easier to learn new skills.

00:13:15.220 And we feel better.

00:13:16.660 We have less pain, less limitations.

00:13:19.660 In other words, we get better, better at living.

00:13:24.100 So you mentioned one of the things you encourage the men you coach to do is to get some strength training in.

00:13:29.180 And that's because as you get older, that's one of the first things that start going.

00:13:32.540 If you don't continue strength training, you lose muscle mass, you lose strength.

00:13:36.900 What kinds of strength training methods do you recommend for your clients?

00:13:40.760 First of all, I think it's a bit, you know, if you read in the dictionary, the definition of sarcopenia, you will read that it's a loss of muscle tissue as a natural part of the aging process.

00:13:56.400 And I don't like the natural part of the aging process.

00:14:01.460 I think it's not natural at all.

00:14:04.380 We were not like that a few generations ago.

00:14:08.560 And if you go back in time, you have great examples of much older athletes who were able to do, I mean, impressive feats of strength.

00:14:22.200 Okay.

00:14:22.760 One of my favorite examples is Leonidas, the king of Sparta.

00:14:28.300 We all know about the movie 300 and the Battle of Thermopylae.

00:14:32.600 When he died during this battle, he was 60 and he was in front of his men.

00:14:38.900 So I think the sarcopenia, the loss of strength as we age, is kind of a myth.

00:14:46.160 We can really fight that.

00:14:48.240 And the best way to fight that is to move and to lift.

00:14:52.680 If we can lift heavy objects every day, it's good for our muscles, it's good for our bone density.

00:15:00.720 And we can do that in different ways.

00:15:02.600 We can do that through manual labor or we can go to the gym and lift heavy stuff.

00:15:10.180 And you like kettlebells.

00:15:11.140 I mean, that's something that you've spent a lot of time with your coaching.

00:15:13.760 Why do you like kettlebells?

00:15:14.660 What's the benefit of those?

00:15:15.620 So, as I said, I own a fitness studio in Seattle and we mostly do Russian kettlebell and powerlifting, barbell training.

00:15:28.820 So the reason kettlebell is a great tool, it's because it's a good way to train explosiveness.

00:15:38.360 It's a good way to train ballistic movements.

00:15:41.180 Explosiveness is something that we often neglect.

00:15:46.120 It's our ability to quickly generate power.

00:15:49.200 And that's something we use in daily life.

00:15:52.540 That's something we use in martial arts. 0.62

00:15:55.520 That's something we use when we play any kind of team sport.

00:16:00.080 We need to be explosive.

00:16:02.160 We can do that with our body weight.

00:16:05.220 We can jump and sprint, for example.

00:16:07.840 But we can also do that with weights, through kettlebell or Olympic lifting.

00:16:14.080 And kettlebell, for me, is a very convenient way to train explosiveness without too much of training, without years and years of practice.

00:16:25.380 What are your favorite kettlebell movements?

00:16:26.660 I think the staple is definitely the kettlebell swing.

00:16:31.680 That's the one that everybody can safely learn and practice on a daily basis and see great progress.

00:16:40.460 Yeah, I like that.

00:16:40.900 I use the kettlebell swing as part of my high intensity, like my conditioning.

00:16:45.120 So after I do my regular barbell training, I'll end with a couple of rounds of kettlebell swings.

00:16:49.760 It feels great.

00:16:50.980 So what I love about the kettlebell, not only it's that strength, but it also gets your heart rate going as well.

00:16:55.340 Oh, definitely, yes, yes.

00:16:58.060 And what's your take on cardio?

00:17:00.020 What are your favorite cardio exercises for men you coach?

00:17:03.320 For many years, or at least the last decades, we put a lot of emphasis on cardio, okay?

00:17:10.320 And cardio, the last few decades, was mainly on treadmill, for example.

00:17:16.640 Try to explain to your ancestors that you go to a special place indoor, and you have a special machine that will simulate the way you walk or you run.

00:17:29.820 I think cardio is a bit overrated, and I unfortunately see a lot of people in gyms spending hours and hours walking or running on a treadmill.

00:17:41.460 Running is useful.

00:17:43.680 Walking is even more useful.

00:17:45.180 As we became more sedentary, we lost this ability to walk over a long distance.

00:17:52.240 And I think just going outside and walk, explore the city, explore nature, is probably an easy and convenient way to improve your cardio as well.

00:18:05.140 And that's something you also can do with friends.

00:18:07.240 It's a very social activity.

00:18:08.560 Go for a ruck.

00:18:09.480 And that's a very social activity.

00:18:11.000 Yeah, hike, ruck, whatever.

00:18:12.380 So focus your cardio on walking.

00:18:14.980 Don't overdo the cardio.

00:18:16.360 Yes, it's important for metabolic health, heart health, but you don't need to make it the only thing you do.

00:18:21.900 Make sure you get some explosive training in there, strength training as well, and find cardio you enjoy doing.

00:18:27.140 We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

00:18:33.300 And now back to the show.

00:18:35.280 So let's get to the MoveNap part of what you do.

00:18:38.400 One thing you talk about a lot is being able to balance.

00:18:42.560 Why is this important as we age?

00:18:45.660 And what are some ways to practice balancing?

00:18:48.620 I mean, it's important for everybody.

00:18:50.600 We're always in a state of balancing somehow.

00:18:54.520 Unless you're lying on your bed, you're always balancing.

00:18:57.880 The problem is not balancing.

00:18:59.860 The problem is falling.

00:19:01.200 And we start falling mainly because we don't challenge our sense of balance enough.

00:19:08.460 As we age, the consequences of falling become even more critical.

00:19:14.560 There's easy ways to challenge your balance.

00:19:17.240 You can go barefoot or with minimal shoes.

00:19:20.340 And there's a lot of receptors on the sole of your foot and the ankle that will stimulate your brain and help you to get better at balancing.

00:19:31.840 Because we always walk on the asphalt or flat surface with shoes on, we tend to stop challenging our balance somehow.

00:19:41.480 Okay, so being barefoot, being on unstable surfaces, being on uneven terrain, going hiking, uphill, downhill.

00:19:52.540 Or it's something also you can practice with your eyes closed.

00:19:55.660 That's also a good way to challenge your balance.

00:19:59.440 It can be eyes closed or just not looking down in the first place.

00:20:05.020 Okay, and that could be practiced anywhere.

00:20:06.940 When you climb stairs, when you walk in your apartment with the light off, or walking on stones, uneven terrain, there's so many opportunities to challenge your balance that there's no excuse not to do it.

00:20:25.660 And another easy thing, we've talked about this on the website before.

00:20:28.780 If you want to be more deliberate and intentional about your balance practice, get a two-by-four and put it in your living room and just walk on it.

00:20:36.940 Yes, that's something we practice a lot in MoveNAT during the certifications and with practitioners.

00:20:46.960 A two-by-four is an easy way.

00:20:49.060 It's kind of an entry point for anything that will be more challenging in the future.

00:20:57.700 The two-by-four is on the floor first, and we move around.

00:21:02.060 We move on it forward and backward.

00:21:04.760 We crawl on it.

00:21:06.480 And after a certain point, the idea is to bring this two-by-four a bit higher up and increase the challenge, the difficulty,

00:21:15.720 by introducing this fear factor of falling or potential falling.

00:21:22.660 All right, so we talked about movement.

00:21:24.440 We've talked about doing some strength training, working on explosiveness with maybe some Olympic lifts, with a barbell, kettlebell, moving every day, working on your balance.

00:21:33.220 Something a lot of men experience as they get older is that they start putting on the pounds.

00:21:38.620 What's your advice about how to eat and diet as you get older?

00:21:41.660 As we age, there's a drop in testosterone, and it means most of the time, the body fat will increase over the years.

00:21:51.040 There's a lot of different physiological mechanisms for that.

00:21:54.640 But I think keeping the weight down is not only a matter of diet.

00:21:59.540 It's probably even more a matter of lifestyle.

00:22:03.300 I use an acronym for that.

00:22:05.220 I like acronyms.

00:22:06.180 And for me, it's the SEEDS, S-E-E-D-S.

00:22:10.200 So the first S stands for sleep.

00:22:14.300 And usually the lack of sleep will create an hormonal cascade that will disrupt our ability to really process the food we eat in a very efficient way.

00:22:26.840 The E stands for exercise.

00:22:28.760 And obviously, the more active we are, the more we can fight this drop in testosterone.

00:22:34.520 The second E stands for environment.

00:22:38.200 And testosterone is closely linked to vitamin D.

00:22:42.100 And the more we are outside, the more we enjoy sunshine, the more vitamin D we'll get.

00:22:50.160 D stands for diet.

00:22:52.400 And it's not as much as the food we eat.

00:22:54.620 Because, honestly, diet is more like a religion for some people.

00:23:01.620 I think it's more about common sense.

00:23:05.220 As we age, we move less than when we were young.

00:23:09.640 And therefore, we should eat less.

00:23:11.880 That's one thing.

00:23:13.360 The second thing is, when do you eat?

00:23:17.140 And sometimes it's a good idea to fast a bit, because, again, on an evolutionary standpoint, that's what we did.

00:23:27.160 So our body is used to that.

00:23:29.780 And finally, the last S is for stress.

00:23:33.320 And it's something I really emphasize in my coaching, because nowadays, we live in a constant state of stress, okay?

00:23:45.120 Stress from work, stress from daily life.

00:23:49.200 And I think it's important to live a simple life, a life where we have time to meditate, maybe also time to do some journaling, time to spend some time in nature, time to listen to music, time to be more creative, in order to decrease this level of stress that is actually killing us somehow.

00:24:12.400 So as we age, we tend to get to add a bit of body fat to our body.

00:24:20.260 And I think that all those elements will definitely help any man who starts to experience this drop in testosterone.

00:24:28.360 So you're also an expert in combatives, and you encourage men to learn how to fight. 0.91

00:24:33.640 So, I mean, why do you think being a protector and knowing how to fight is important both on a practical level, like to know how to defend yourself and your family, but also on a psychological level?

00:24:42.400 Ah, that's an interesting topic.

00:24:45.580 That's something I really like.

00:24:47.500 I'm really passionate about combatives in general.

00:24:50.700 First of all, because men are, historically speaking, are protectors.

00:24:55.960 They protect their tribe.

00:24:57.260 They protect their family.

00:24:59.000 And for a very long time, all the jobs in the army, the police, the mercenaries, security, mostly men, okay?

00:25:08.100 So being able to fight is important for them, okay?

00:25:11.620 But for the rest of us, it's still important.

00:25:14.120 It's important to defend ourselves.

00:25:17.000 It's important to defend our family, the people we love.

00:25:20.520 And sometimes it's also important to be able to defend someone, even if it's a stranger in the street, someone who is in danger, okay?

00:25:29.100 For us, it creates this feeling of safety, but also of confidence.

00:25:36.620 So I think it's important for all of us to learn some combatives, some form of combatives, one way or the other.

00:25:44.600 I mean, what have you seen happen to like a man?

00:25:47.240 You know, maybe he's like 35, 40, and they take up some sort of combatives, whether that's Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

00:25:52.420 Like, what's the change you see that happens in them?

00:25:55.240 They definitely become more confident.

00:25:58.180 You can even see it in their posture, you know, the way they walk.

00:26:02.840 There was an interesting study a few years ago about how criminals will pick their victims.

00:26:11.560 And it's mostly about their posture and their gait.

00:26:16.840 And they will pinpoint which one of the persons they will see in the street will be a hard target or a soft target.

00:26:25.240 So I think it's important for anyone to have some form of training.

00:26:29.440 I personally like striking, Thai boxing, because I used to teach Thai boxing.

00:26:34.700 I still teach Krav Maga, but I think it's also important to do some grappling, some Brazilian jiu-jitsu, as you mentioned.

00:26:43.760 Also, to know how to use weapons.

00:26:46.740 So it could be improvised weapons, edge weapons, firearms.

00:26:50.780 And the nice thing about taking up a combatives practice is not only to get that, you learn how to defend yourself, you get that confidence boost.

00:26:57.060 It's also, you're moving your body.

00:26:58.920 So if you're looking for a way to exercise, you're killing two birds with one stone there.

00:27:03.200 It's usually a very good exercise, yes.

00:27:06.700 Yeah, it's good for your cardio, it's good for your strength.

00:27:09.220 When you have to move someone else's body around you, yeah, it develops some strength and some explosiveness.

00:27:17.000 So one thing you talk about, too, with your coaching is maintaining your connection with nature.

00:27:21.700 Why is that so important?

00:27:22.800 Like, what are the values or the benefits of getting out into nature?

00:27:26.000 Like, doing your exercise, for example, when you're out in nature.

00:27:28.500 If you think about it, we live in a very artificial environment.

00:27:33.960 We are conditioned to follow a path.

00:27:37.300 Okay.

00:27:37.760 And it happens for most of the population on this planet, either in the Western world, in Asia, worldwide.

00:27:45.000 We tend to live more and more often in cities.

00:27:47.600 And we are conditioned, brainwashed, to follow a path to go through pedestrian crossing, because otherwise it's not safe, to take the elevator, to follow the fences, because it's more comfortable, it's easier.

00:28:03.520 And I see three benefits of going in nature and training in nature.

00:28:09.420 The first one is you have less safety, because everything is challenging.

00:28:15.640 Everything is challenging for your body, but also for your brain.

00:28:19.280 Nothing is smooth, nothing is safe somehow.

00:28:23.100 Everything can break, everything can collapse.

00:28:27.400 Okay.

00:28:27.760 So it forces your body and your brain to assess the situation every single second.

00:28:34.640 The second benefit of training in nature for me, it's not easy.

00:28:41.400 You really have to pay attention.

00:28:43.220 You become more resilient.

00:28:44.980 You develop this mental toughness that we're all talking about.

00:28:51.180 You recently had a podcast about Sisu, the Finnish word for courage and greed and so on.

00:28:58.260 And I think being in nature forces you to develop that.

00:29:01.760 And the third benefit of training in nature is, I would say, the sense of creativity.

00:29:12.520 I know it sounds a bit weird, but being able to make your own path.

00:29:17.760 There's always, in nature, there's always multiple ways to go from point A to point B.

00:29:23.140 And you can choose many of them, many different ways, depending on your abilities, depending on your fitness on that specific day, depending on your mood, and so on.

00:29:35.760 So I think it's important to let your brain wander around and find opportunities to train in nature. 0.93

00:29:45.480 And this could mean you're going to look kind of silly.

00:29:47.120 I think a lot of people think, oh, I'm just going to go for a walk in nature, which is fine.

00:29:50.180 But you're actually encouraging guys, like, no, find a tree to climb, walk barefoot, pick up a log, climb under a log, like, look for ways to do that sort of stuff.

00:29:59.320 Yes, yes.

00:30:00.840 I know it's always a bit difficult for people to break this kind of convention somehow.

00:30:08.460 You know, there's a very French tradition of fighting conventions when it comes to movement.

00:30:19.480 I talked a bit about the parkour and Yamakasi, who a few decades ago started a new sport where you climb and jump in the streets.

00:30:31.760 And everybody's looking at you like you're kind of a gangster trying to escape the police.

00:30:39.820 There's a lot of examples in France, people like Philippe Petit, who was balancing between the Twin Towers or balancing on a wire over the Niagara Falls.

00:30:53.960 There's plenty of strange people like that who want to break the conventions of movement.

00:31:03.980 We don't have to go to the extremes, but it takes a bit of courage to go in a park and to look like a weirdo, to crawl, to climb on trees.

00:31:17.040 But somehow, I think there's a lot of benefits.

00:31:20.560 It builds your courage against peer pressure, but it also builds your courage facing the environment, the sun, the cold, the rain, the dirt, the insects, all the things that can scare some people.

00:31:34.660 All right, so don't worry about it.

00:31:35.920 A soft suburban dad would worry about looking like a weirdo.

00:31:39.340 Yes, you know, you start doing it, and if possible, you do it with other people, so the kind of social aspect of it.

00:31:48.740 You start doing it, and then it becomes more normal for you, and you don't pay attention to other people looking at you with a strange eye.

00:31:57.040 So, a part of soft suburban dad syndrome is you start accumulating too much stuff, and this stuff starts weighing you down.

00:32:05.280 And you talk about this with your coaching with men, is to keep stuff to a minimum.

00:32:10.560 So, how do you encourage the men you coach to stay out of that consumer mindset and keep their accumulation of stuff to a minimum?

00:32:21.440 For me, at the beginning, it was very easy because I was traveling a lot, and when you travel, you definitely have to downsize.

00:32:30.340 Even if I was traveling with diving equipment, dry suit, free breathers, it was still just a few bags.

00:32:37.740 Progressively, I downsized even more.

00:32:40.180 Now, everything I own fits in a small daffle bag, a weekender, because I travel on a motorcycle all the time.

00:32:49.220 And you realize that you don't really need anything else than, what, maybe a few shirts and a pair of pants, T-shirts, a couple of pair of shoes.

00:33:00.240 And everything else you need, you can rent it most of the time.

00:33:04.860 So, for many people, we buy stuff because it's comfortable, or it's useful at a specific moment, or it makes us feel good or look good at a specific time.

00:33:20.260 And then we store it somewhere, and we never use it again.

00:33:24.860 We have plenty of excuses for that.

00:33:27.720 Okay, it's cheaper than renting, or we might use it again later, or yeah, I know it's broken, but I can still fix it at some point, and so on.

00:33:40.040 So, we have plenty of excuses, but in reality, we don't need that much.

00:33:45.940 Of course, when you have a house and when you have kids, you need more things.

00:33:52.520 But very often, there's plenty of unnecessary and useless things that we accumulate.

00:33:58.900 You probably read, at some point, Gulliver's Travel by Jonathan Swift.

00:34:04.580 Of course.

00:34:05.020 And I don't know if you remember in the story, his ship sinks, and he ends up on the shore of Lilliput Island, and you have tiny people with tiny robes that try to keep him down.

00:34:20.680 Okay?

00:34:21.540 And every single rope is tiny, and he can easily break it.

00:34:27.200 But there's so many of them that after a while, he cannot even move anymore.

00:34:31.800 And for me, all the stuff we accumulate are a bit like those tiny ropes.

00:34:38.760 Single one is nothing.

00:34:40.700 But when we have too many of them, then we cannot travel.

00:34:44.460 We start to worry about someone breaking in our house, so we need to buy an alarm system.

00:34:50.600 We can't move.

00:34:51.880 We tend to carry too much stuff when we travel, and so on and so forth.

00:34:57.100 So, I think it's important for everyone to get rid of stuff.

00:35:00.580 And my rule is very simple.

00:35:02.460 If you don't use something for one year, you don't need it.

00:35:07.040 Right.

00:35:07.160 This is like getting rid of stuff or keeping your stuff to minimum.

00:35:11.060 This will help reduce the stress.

00:35:13.020 Yes, definitely.

00:35:13.940 Yeah.

00:35:14.320 Right.

00:35:14.580 You don't have to worry about your stuff anymore.

00:35:16.060 Worry about taking care of your stuff.

00:35:17.840 Also, stuff tends to break down.

00:35:19.700 You got to fix it, and that's annoying.

00:35:21.400 So, just keep your stuff to a minimum.

00:35:23.160 So, you also talk about men, as they get older, they get comfortable with being comfortable.

00:35:29.540 And so, you encourage older men to start doing hard things.

00:35:32.600 So, what kind of things do you encourage your men that you coach to cultivate intentional hardship?

00:35:37.360 I think everything around us became about comfort, being more comfortable.

00:35:43.520 When you're too cold, you have a heater.

00:35:45.380 When you're too hot, you have the AC.

00:35:47.540 When it rains, you have an umbrella.

00:35:49.220 When it's sunny, you have sunglasses.

00:35:51.440 So, we have a lot of things to help us to get more comfortable, to get things done more easily.

00:36:00.660 I don't know how you probably remember, but when I was a kid, all the cars I was using,

00:36:06.920 they had this handle to open and close the window.

00:36:11.800 You don't see that anymore.

00:36:13.040 Now, there's always automatic windows.

00:36:16.160 I don't really see the benefit of it.

00:36:18.440 Okay.

00:36:19.680 So, pushing our limit, making us more uncomfortable is something we need to do.

00:36:26.880 We need to walk more instead of driving.

00:36:29.500 We need to carry our bag instead of using a trolley or wheels.

00:36:33.800 We need to go outside even if the weather is bad.

00:36:38.100 So, I think it's important to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.

00:36:43.180 Yes.

00:36:43.640 Yeah.

00:36:44.100 And you also have cold showers.

00:36:45.380 You're a big fan of cold showers as well.

00:36:47.160 Yes, definitely.

00:36:48.180 Yeah.

00:36:48.440 So, there's simple things you can do.

00:36:50.860 Even if you live in the suburbs, you can do uncomfortable things.

00:36:54.720 Yes.

00:36:55.020 I think it's more a state of mind than anything else.

00:36:59.860 I'm a big fan of stoicism.

00:37:02.260 And one of Seneca's letter is all about experiencing poverty once in a while.

00:37:09.500 And a few years ago, I did a course where I spent three days in the street, sleeping on the beach, living out of whatever I could find.

00:37:18.840 And it opens your eyes on what homeless people actually experience every day.

00:37:24.380 Again, being comfortable with being comfortable with being comfortable with being able to live out of nothing is probably a great way to increase resilience.

00:37:35.860 I remember you had an article on the art of manliness about anti-fragile by Nassim Taleb.

00:37:45.860 And I think it's something we have to cultivate.

00:37:49.660 So, something you talk about with the men you coach is that they reach a certain point where they hit those goals that they had when they were young adults.

00:38:00.440 They graduate college, they get a job, they get married, they have kids, get a house.

00:38:06.060 And at that point, they kind of become stagnant.

00:38:08.600 And what's inspiring about you, I mean, how old are you, Vic?

00:38:12.120 57.

00:38:12.920 57, right.

00:38:13.620 So, Vic's 57, but you ride on a motorcycle everywhere, you own a gym, you've dived shipwrecks, you do combatives, you do firearms training.

00:38:23.100 How do you encourage, what's your advice to men who feel like they've just become stagnant to maintain that sort of spirit of risk and exploration?

00:38:30.800 Adventure.

00:38:31.860 Even when they have a job, you know, I don't think you encourage guys to like quit their job and move their family from their home.

00:38:39.040 No, no, no.

00:38:39.400 But I mean, how can men maintain that vitality even when they have those responsibilities they have at home?

00:38:47.000 I personally use two strategies, if you want.

00:38:52.680 The first one is very easy.

00:38:55.100 It's to read books.

00:38:56.920 Books and biographies, novels.

00:38:59.320 Books of adventures, books of people taking risks.

00:39:04.440 You know, I'm thinking Hemingway, Jack London, but also biographies of great leaders who took risks.

00:39:11.600 And thanks to you, Brett, I learned more about Theodore Roosevelt and the way he reinvented himself all the time, challenging himself.

00:39:23.340 And when you read those books, you don't really have anything to lose by trying new things all the time.

00:39:32.400 So that's my first strategy, getting some inspiration from reading.

00:39:38.460 The second strategy for me is to, on a weekly basis, to do some kind of self-assessment, meaning every week I'm thinking about my life and what I'm doing.

00:39:48.460 And when I start to settle down, I know it's time to do something different.

00:39:54.480 You remember this movie, Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray is repeating the same day over and over again?

00:40:02.240 Of course.

00:40:02.720 I think if I live twice the same day, somehow I wasted one day.

00:40:11.900 Okay.

00:40:12.100 So I try to have some diversity in my life.

00:40:16.540 And every time I think that I fall into some kind of routine,

00:40:21.540 I know I have to explore something else or go somewhere else or do, take another course or learn some new skills.

00:40:30.100 And you were talking about my motorcycle.

00:40:31.920 So one of my projects this summer is to do a cross-country trip in the US on my alley.

00:40:39.020 So from west to east coast and to teach workshop in every single state I will go through.

00:40:45.800 And camp and meet people and exploring new places.

00:40:49.560 And I know it's not something that everybody can do because you have some responsibilities, families, and so on.

00:40:57.180 I have the chance or I gave myself the chance to be able to do that.

00:41:02.140 But everyone can do something a bit similar, meaning every weekend we can have this kind of micro adventure

00:41:10.920 and do something we haven't done before or explore a place we haven't been before.

00:41:16.300 Right.

00:41:16.400 It doesn't have to be big.

00:41:17.200 I think a lot of guys, they think it has to be big.

00:41:19.880 For it to count.

00:41:20.900 But that's not true.

00:41:21.940 It can be, you could do it even something like on a weeknight, like sleep outside your backyard with your kids.

00:41:28.820 Yeah, it's a great thing to do.

00:41:30.300 Yes.

00:41:30.820 Super easy to do.

00:41:32.780 Well, Vic, this has been a great conversation.

00:41:34.280 Where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:41:37.240 You can go on my website, vicverdiecoaching.com or any other social media out there.

00:41:44.600 I usually have some posts on a regular basis.

00:41:48.400 All the social media are based on Vic Verdiere coaching.

00:41:51.360 So it's easy to find.

00:41:53.800 Fantastic.

00:41:54.240 Well, Vic, thanks for your time.

00:41:55.020 It's been a pleasure.

00:41:56.500 Thank you.

00:41:57.000 Thank you very much, Brett.

00:41:58.900 My guest is Vic Verdiere.

00:42:00.180 He is a men's coach, move night instructor, gym owner.

00:42:03.020 You can find out more information about his work at his gym website, ketability.com.

00:42:06.760 Also, check out his Instagram feed where he's posting a lot of the stuff that we talked about, Vic Verdiere Coaching.

00:42:12.120 And Verdiere is spelled V-E-R-D-I-E-R.

00:42:15.120 Vic Verdiere Coaching.

00:42:16.340 Check it out.

00:42:16.880 Also, make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is slash edge, where you can find links to resources, where you can delve deeper into this topic.

00:42:22.640 We'll see you next time.

00:42:52.640 If you haven't done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher.

00:42:56.220 It helps out a lot.

00:42:57.080 And if you've done that already, thank you.

00:42:58.520 Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out of it.

00:43:02.400 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:43:04.040 Until next time, this is Brett McKay.

00:43:05.420 Remind you not only listen to the OEM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - April 28, 2021

How to Keep Your Edge as You Get Older

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