Ronaldo, Phelps & The Other Greats All Have This In Common - Will Ahmed

Who else are some of the athletes that you've got to spend time with and you just think, "Holy [ __ ] this person's uh mindset, their approach to the game is a different level." There's a lot of common themes amongst the world's best athletes. Uh, so you know, Michael Phelps and Cristiano Ronaldo and Patrick Mahomes and Rory and like like I've spent a lot of time around these guys and there's a certain intensity that burns inside them that is uh hard to fake. Like you can kind of feel it even when you're chilling. Ronaldo is probably the most exaggerated example of that that I've ever felt. How so? Just you can feel a drive like you can feel a certain energy and you know people all everyone kind of gives off an energy and and depending on how healthy you are in a given day or how good you're feeling maybe your energy is stronger or less strong but like um his the energy that he gives off is one of of real drive and there's like an intensity burning there that you can't fake. like you can just feel it. And uh and I think for a lot of these guys, there's a cost that comes with that that we the fans don't see. Like you don't see the the cost of having to be the first person at the practice facility every single day and cold plunging for hours afterwards and and the time away from the family and the sacrifices in all these other areas of life. I mean, it is very inspiring when you really get a close-up look at it and you realize just like what a grind it is. Like, it is such a grind. You see the goals and you see the the master's jacket, but you don't you don't see the grind and the pain and the injuries and like the the time that they're not on camera. And there's something about it that's both inspiring and also you're like, "Yeah, maybe I wouldn't want to do that." Intimidating. Yeah. I mean this is you've activated one of my trap cards and um the question of what is the price that people pay to be someone that you admire has been it's a good question one of the most compelling ever since I started since I grew out of being an adult infant um started to be a little bit more of a grown-up I guess intellectually uh it's one of the the questions I've been fascinated with to look Good. What's it like to be that person? You want to be that person? You want to be Rory Mroy, do you? Okay, let me explain all of the prices that he's had to pay to be Rory M. You like the look of Patrick Mahomes or Michael Jordan, perfect example. [ __ ] the, you know, uh, The Last Dance. Um, still now at what is he probably 50? Something like that. I don't know how old he is. Sorry if he's in his 40s, but yeah, like 50s. Doesn't look happy. a man who is tormented by drive and perfection and obsession. He's the greatest. Okay, but that's the that's the price that you need to pay. Elon was asked on Lex's show 3 years ago. Said, uh, he says something like, "How are you doing?" Uh, he takes a little moment. He goes, "Most people think they would want to be me. They don't want to be me. They don't know. They don't understand. My mind is a storm." This is the richest guy on the planet. sending rockets to space. He's building world changing cars. He's on on stage in Japan doing robot dances and shed fathering a million children. He's actually easier to compare to some professional athletes than any other business leader. How so? In just that it's clear that he's he's got a drive that he's tormented by and he's willing to sacrifice everything else for it. And you see that with the world's best athletes. Well, the the thing with at least the problem with looking at anybody through the lens of a narrow pursuit like their success in business or the success in the sport is that you only see the one vector that they've channeled their outputs into and you don't see any of the other fissures that their costs leaked out of. Right? Well, what what if this guy hasn't had sex with his wife in like two years? What if the the the drugging themselves to go to sleep and stimulating themselves to wake up in the morning? What if their relationship with their father or their mother is just non-existent? What if they hate themselves? What if they can't bear to look at their body in the mirror? You know, all of these things happen and you go, "Okay, but they're the great the greatest. They're the best." Yeah. Would you want that? Is that what you want? Because you don't, as you said earlier on, it's kind of stupid to just look at one element either of a business or of a person and say, I want I really want Rory Mroyy's masters thing. The not being able to sleep on a nighttime because he's obsessing about that shot he missed. I I don't really like the idea of that so much. But the green jacket that sounds great. It's like you don't get to piece this person together. Someone is a hole, right? that his level of obsession, I'm totally like just throwing shade at Rory's like mental state, but I imagine his level of obsession, inability to let go of things and and you know, is the reason that he's got to there. It's not some weird bug on a on the side of the code that makes him Rory Mroy. It's a feature that is a part of his performance. M and yeah, this this question of what is the price people pay to be someone that you admire is [ __ ] endlessly interesting to me. Yeah. And I think athletes have gotten more uh introspective like I I actually Rory's extremely uh thoughtful and he's gone through phases of reading books on the stoics and meditating and all sorts of things. I think a lot of a lot of athletes end up being more introspective because they get into visualization which becomes sort of the gateway to uh meditation, intuition, these sorts of different um levels of of of self-discovery. And then I think there's there's plenty of really capable athletes who don't actually go that deep inwards and they don't really analyze the how it works as much as know that it works and they just go I had who was I talking to this I can't remember who it was uh cultivated stupidity we called it uh that Matt Fraser good example of this I think actually um So Matt in Ben Bjron's book Chasing Excellence, he tells this story about Matt was an engineering student I think and he would make himself wrote memorize entire textbooks word for word and he would then sort of play them back in his head or maybe he was writing them out. If he missed one word he would just make himself go back to the start. This guy was very very smart and very very driven and very very obsessed. But there is a kind of boneheadedness and almost simplicity that you need to turn up and do 90 minutes of zone 2 work because you there's got to be a better way. I go I just need to sit on the rowing machine for 90 minutes zone 2. I'm not going to go that hard. You just want me at 135 BPM. Really? That's where you That's That's what I'm supposed to Yeah, it is. You need to go in and have this. Just follow the plan. Don't overthink it. Don't spend too much time ruminating. Uh, can you chill out? What's your recovery like? Are you able to sit on the couch and play Xbox after a big training session? And uh, yeah, we often celebrate a really good work ethic and very rarely celebrate a good rest ethic. And it both of those are a skill. The rest thing was kind of the unlock for getting into all these pro athletes and building those relationships was this idea that you can now measure recovery. And one thing that I was really surprised by, but now makes sense kind of knowing the cast of characters is like amongst the very best athletes, they're actually willing to experiment a lot. Like they're kind of always looking for what is that additional way I can get a little edge. And and that's one of the things that separates, I think, the very best from from just like a great professional athlete is this like drive towards experimentation. And it's part of the reason that in the early days of building this company, like someone like LeBron James or Michael Phelps was willing to wear Whoop. Traveling should be about the journey, not the chaos of packing, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Nomatic. This backpack has genuinely made the process of traveling so much more enjoyable. They've got compartments for everything. Your laptop, your shoes, your sunglasses. So well organized that even your toothbrush will feel important. It's the Marie Condo of luggage. Everything's got its place. And if you're on the fence, the products will last you literally a lifetime with a lifetime guarantee. So, this is the final backpack that you'll ever need to buy. 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