Video summary
The speaker explains his routine of waking up at 4 AM for workouts as a deliberate strategy rooted in public accountability and consistency rather than mere discipline. Following spinal fusion surgery, he committed to daily exercise to rebuild his fitness and well-being, using the act of posting photos from his home gym as an "insurance policy" against skipping days. While others may not care if he misses a session, this external pressure creates internal momentum that turns difficult habits into second nature; once established, consistency becomes sacred because interrupting it is incredibly hard to reverse again.
Beyond physical exercise, the speaker transformed his morning ritual into a creative endeavor by challenging himself to take a different photograph of his digital clock each day before entering the gym. This constraint aligns with principles from David Epstein's *Inside the Box*, which argues that limitations often drive better creativity than unlimited resources allow. By focusing on light and composition rather than just working out, he turned a mundane task into an artistic practice similar to Julia Cameron's concept of "artist dates," resulting in improved photography skills and unexpected outcomes like plans for a future photo book.
The core message extends beyond personal fitness to address the broader issue of living intentionally versus reactively in today's distracted society. The speaker observes that many people, especially younger generations, are consumed by devices and consumerist impulses, leading them through life without conscious agency or purposeful goals. He encourages listeners to audit their time usage, noting that even busy individuals can reclaim hours lost to passive scrolling if they choose to invest those moments in meaningful activities like exercise or creation. The distinction lies not in the device itself but in how one uses it: either passively consuming content or actively creating value through tools and habits.
Ultimately, the speaker advocates for adopting a "tortoise mindset" over the frantic pace of the cultural "hare," emphasizing that life is an ultramarathon rather than a sprint. He shares the story of his friend Hank Wise, who spent decades practicing delayed gratification before breaking a world record at age 50, illustrating that significant achievements require thinking in terms of years and decades rather than months or weeks. The guiding mantra "mood follows action" reinforces that feelings often lag behind behavior; by taking small, sustainable actions like getting morning sunlight or doing five minutes of journaling, individuals can shift their emotional state and build self-esteem through esteemable acts. This approach fosters patience, persistence, and a steady forward motion toward becoming the best version of oneself without attachment to immediate outcomes or external validation.
Read the full video transcript
Hey everybody, welcome to another solo
episode of the podcast. It seems that
all of you are enjoying this. I'm
enjoying it, so we're going to do it
again. And we're going to kick this one
off with a question that I have been
getting a lot [music] of lately, which
is, "Rich,
what's the deal with you getting up so
early in the morning, 4:00 in the
morning, and sharing photos and videos
of you in your home gym? What's the
story [music] there?"
Well,
the story's pretty basic, actually. I
wake up early in the morning and I work
out in the morning, and as I shared in
the earlier solo episode, I have this
renewed commitment to my fitness and
well-being now that I am
basically somewhat recovered from my
spinal fusion surgery, and I've made
this commitment to myself that I'm going
to work out every single morning. And by
sharing photos and videos of that
experience on the daily, it basically
just creates a degree of public
accountability that makes it more likely
that I'm not going to flake out.
Now, do people really care if I skip a
day or I don't show photos? Of course
not. But I care. And so it's just that
little nudge uh
that gets me in there
uh when
I wake up on days when I don't feel like
doing it. It helps me create
consistency, consistency builds
momentum, and momentum is like this
incredible, beautiful, invisible
source of energy that turns hard things
into second nature. When you have
momentum, you want to do everything in
your power to protect it. Once it gets
interrupted, it's hard to recreate it.
And it is something that's sort of
sacred. And so by just committing to
sharing these photos and these videos
every single day, I am basically taking
an insurance policy out on insuring that
I am consistent in my workouts and that
I'm working towards building that
momentum. And now I have momentum and
it's easy for me to get up early and get
into the gym.
It's also been this really cool sort of
dual experience. On the one hand,
physical exercise, yes, but it's also
been a creative exercise. The commitment
that I made to myself was that I was
going to take a photograph of the
digital LED clock that I have in my
personal gym at home, which is in a
shipping container. And that every
single day that photo had to be
different than the day before. I
couldn't repeat the same photo. So that
created this sort of creative challenge
of how do I do that? Uh, a constraint,
if you will. I'm going to get to that in
a minute.
For now, let me just say
the 4:00 a.m. thing.
This is when I wake up early in the
morning. People are like, "Why so early?
Aren't you all about sleep hygiene?"
Yes, I am. I go to bed at like 8:00. So
most nights I'm getting about 7 to 8
hours of sleep. Uh, and I wake up
without an alarm. So when I get up,
I make some coffee and I go right into
the gym. What people don't know is that
plenty of times I actually wake up at
like 3:00 in the morning. I go in, I
make coffee, I take my supplements, I do
a load of laundry. There's like 45
minutes of like mishigas before I even
actually get into the gym. But it would
be insane or kind of too much maybe to
take a photograph of that clock when it
was still in the threes. So usually it's
in the fours, but I get up early,
I get in there right away, and then this
taking of the photograph aspect of it
has turned into something I didn't
expect.
Uh, which is almost like
a chapter out of Julia Cameron's book
The Artist's Way, where she advocates
for going on an artist date once a week.
This commitment to taking a photograph
of the clock
has
turned into this beautiful creative
exercise where I've gotten better as a
photographer as a result. And it's
almost like this artistic experience of
blending my fitness routine into like
this artist endeavor of like how to
create something cool visually out of
this experience that really isn't about
me. It's about like
finding the light and seeing how the
light bounces off the windows and the
headlights of my car and the moon and
all this sort of thing. Which is
almost like a page right out of David
Epstein's new book Inside the Box. In
that book
if you remember this podcast that I did
recently with David or you've had a
chance to read his book already
he argues that constraints drive
creativity. It's the limitations
that open the door to possibility. And
it's sort of counterintuitive. We like
to complain, "Oh, if I just had this
resource or if I had the opportunity to
access this person, etc., then I could
do X, Y, or Z." But in truth and as he
proves out through
talking to tons of people and
mining the social science research, it
turns out that when you have these
constraints, it actually pushes you to
find solutions that are
better than what you might have
previously imagined. And
I'm proof of this. If you've seen any of
these photos, they are starting to get
better. I thought I was going to run out
of options, but instead I just find new
and interesting ways to take these
photographs every day. And sharing them
has become a very fulfilling exercise
for me. And David, God bless him,
always sends me DMs or texts after I
post them, and he's like, "You should
put a book out. These are amazing
photographs." And so, I might do that. I
might self-publish a book of photographs
from this experience, which obviously
wasn't even
on my mind at all when I began this
exercise, you know, I don't know, a
handful of months ago. So, that's a
really cool byproduct of doing this.
But back to the accountability piece,
and what am I doing every day?
Essentially,
this is just
again, an added layer of accountability
to making sure that I live up to and
fulfill this commitment that I've made
to myself to honor my fitness. And even
on days when I'm very time-pressed, I'm
only in there for half an hour, at least
I did it, and I didn't shirk it off.
Again, nobody cares whether I post these
photos or not, but I care, and it's been
just a a little added layer of
motivation to make sure that I'm
honoring those commitments to myself.
Another reason why I've been sharing
these photographs and videos every
single day is because I am attempting to
model what living an intentional life
looks like, a life in which you are
committed to certain goals and
aspirations that you set for yourself.
Because I think that we are in this
late-stage capitalism consumerist
society that we're all living in, what
we're seeing, especially with younger
generations, is people who are living
their lives reactively. It's just too
easy to be distracted by our devices,
these highly addictive supercomputers
that we're we're carrying around in our
pockets. And so now this notion of
the human being as consumer is now at an
exponential level where
we're seeing people who are just
consuming all day long, consuming
content from their mobile devices,
spending all day on screens,
living their lives completely reactively
without any room or conscious awareness
or commitment to doing anything
intentional. Young people aren't reading
books. It's just too easy to tune out,
to, you know, use your device for
distraction, gambling, porn,
uh you know, crypto,
uh doom scrolling, you name it. And
this is not good, obviously. Now,
by dint of these devices, we have to
really go out of our way to live
intentionally. There's no more room for
boredom.
And checking out has just become a way
of life. So, me taking a picture of my
clock when it's 4:00 in the morning is
my way of saying,
"You guys, you got to be more
intentional about your life." Like, I'm
not expecting other people to commit at
that level, but hopefully it motivates
people to rethink the reactive way in
which they're living their lives because
we all have agency over our time. We're
all living life 24 hours a day. And even
the most time-crunched people
can find opportunities and moments
throughout the day to, whether it's
fitness or, you know, the pursuit of
some other meaningful, purpose-driven
goal in their life, to invest in those
things. I'm a very busy person. That's
one of the reasons why I get up so
early. I have the podcast, which I think
is a lot more work than people realize.
Uh I have a media company, Voicing
Change. I've got four kids. I'm married.
I travel a lot. I have commitments to
the brands that make this show possible.
I have a very big and busy life. And if
I'm going to honor this commitment to my
fitness, to repairing my body, to
getting fit again, then I'm going to
have to find the time for that. And for
me, that time is super early in the
morning. And if I'm willing to do that,
then hopefully that helps other people,
you, hopefully, rethink your
relationship with the 24 hours that you
have within a given day. And maybe go
into your settings in your phone and
look at how much time you're spending on
them every single day. It's quite
shocking when you realize the extent to
which you're face planting into your
device.
And let me point out a distinction with
these highly addictive devices. You can
use them to consume, which is how most
people use them, or you can use them to
create. You can
take photographs. You can use the notes
app to record ideas. You can edit video
on them. You can write a book on them.
So, it's about the quality and the
nature of that relationship with your
device. It can be this incredibly
powerful thing to help you actualize
your dreams and your ambitions and your
aspirations, or it can just suck the
life out of you.
You can watch, you know, an entire
season of Star Trek on the couch vaping
and ordering Postmates through your
phone, or you can get up at 4:00 in the
morning and work out and take amazing
photographs. It's up to you. So, that's
the idea behind that.
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One thing I see all the time in myself
and in the people I talk to is that
progress rarely falls apart because of
one big mistake. It's usually the small
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This taking the photograph of the clock
is also an illustration of this idea
that the little things are the big
things.
By committing to taking a single
photograph, which let's face it takes 5
seconds, I have then rooted myself in a
daily practice.
And I raise that only to say that all of
us can find 5 minutes, 10 minutes out of
our day to commit to something. A tiny
habit. It could be getting morning
sunlight in your eyes every morning. It
could be 5 minutes of journaling. It can
be a meditation practice. It could be
brushing your teeth if that's a foreign
concept to you. The point is
what is it that you can commit to every
single day that is a tiny little thing
that aggregated over an extended period
of time would translate into moving you
in a better direction in your life.
We all have 5 minutes. In fact, I would
argue that we all have probably hours in
our day that we're misallocating, that
we're wasting
on our devices or some other unfruitful
activity. So, I would encourage
everybody to actually begin by tracking
how you spend your time every single
day. That might be an initial great and
informative practice. Just write down
what you do every 15 minutes from the
moment you wake up until you go to bed.
Just do it one day.
I think you'll be shocked because it
will give you a very objective uh
perspective on how you're actually
spending your time versus how you think
you're spending your time. So, for
people who say I don't have time,
I get it. Like I said, I'm super busy.
You have two jobs and you're just trying
to make ends meet. Like I'm
compassionate towards that, but that is
still not an excuse to not objectively
assess areas in your life, periods of
the day that uh could be allocated
towards a more productive uh aspirant
activity. And again, start with 5
minutes. That's all it takes. This goes
back to the James Clear idea of Atomic
Habits. This notion that the little
things really are the big things, and
mastering just one tiny, very doable,
repeatable, sustainable task roots you
in a new practice that then engenders
over time an emotional connection to
that practice, and then that practice
expands.
Then you create consistency. Consistency
builds momentum, and before you know it,
your life is in a very different place
than it was even a few weeks ago, if not
a few months ago. And so, the mantra
that I always return to, especially on
those days when I really don't want to
do the thing that I committed to doing,
is mood follows action. If you've
listened to me or followed me for a
while, you've probably heard me say it
many times before, but let me take a few
minutes to just illustrate what that
mantra means and why it has been so
vital in my life and why I think it'll
be important or helpful to you in
mastering a new habit. Essentially, mood
follows action means that
instead of waiting to feel like doing
the thing, you do the thing and the
feeling that you were waiting for
happens as a consequence of actually
executing on the task. This is vetted by
neuroscience. Dr. Andrew Huberman
actually said that on my podcast.
Behavior first, feelings and emotions
follow. For some reason, we're hardwired
to think that we have to feel like doing
the thing in order to do it. Like, oh,
I'll go on that run when I feel like it
or I'll call that guy back when I'm in
the right mood.
That mood never arrives.
That call gets pushed back. That run
doesn't happen. But, nobody gets back
from a run wishing they hadn't gone and
they feel better, which illustrates the
point like mood follows action. So, when
you are in that situation where you
really don't want to do the thing, if
you can develop the reflex towards
action, turning the brain off and just
doing the thing, you will realize that
you feel better in the aftermath because
you've accomplished something and that
was the mood that you wanted to have in
order to do the thing, but that mood is
a product of doing the thing. So, mood
follows action. Say it out loud the next
time you wake up and you really don't
feel like doing the thing that you said
you were going to do and just do it
anyway and miraculously, magically, you
will feel better. You will inhabit that
mood that you were chasing as a
precondition for doing the thing,
realizing that it's actually a
consequence. I say all of this sensitive
to the fact that some people are
going through a lot emotionally. And if
you are completely disregulated
emotionally, it can be very difficult to
get out of that rut and take action.
I've been in that place before. I know
what it feels like. Um but I've also
come to understand that
emotions
are just emotions. Sometimes they feel
like they're going to kill you. They can
be paralyzing,
uh but they always change. If you can
develop the willingness to sit in that
discomfort, you will notice that they
will morph over time. And even if they
feel like they're going to kill you,
they're just feelings.
And feelings always always shift. And so
the question then becomes what can you
do in that state? You can go to therapy
and talk about your feelings. Sometimes
that just reinforces the rut. And I
found that if you can find one action
that you can take in the midst of having
that experience, you will feel an
emotional shift.
So ask yourself if you're in the midst
of such an experience like are you
getting enough sleep? Have you moved
your body at all? Have you nourished
your body with healthy foods or are you
eating junk food, staying up all night,
vaping, doom scrolling, whatever it is.
Like can you interrupt one of those
patterns and take some kind of positive
action that is esteemable
that will help to shift you out of that
state. It will help you claw your way
out of that rut because esteemable acts
are the foundation of building
self-esteem. So if part of your
emotional rut is not feeling good about
yourself, can you find something that
you can do that does value yourself and
that is an antagonist to the emotional
state that is paralyzing you and that
you are seeking to overcome. I should
also point out that A, I'm not a mental
health professional and B, I'm super pro
therapy. I've been in therapy for
decades. I'm still in therapy. I've
gotten a lot out of therapy. I got a
men's groups I go to Alcoholics
Anonymous. Like I am a super fan of all
kinds of mental health modalities.
The only point I'm trying to make is
that you have to pair that with some
kind of contrary action. So, what is it
that you are willing to do
differently than you were the day before
that can shift that energy and put
whatever your therapist is telling you
into some kind of tangible action.
And as for action, start with physical
movement. Go for a walk.
Do a quick breath practice.
Go outside and breathe fresh air and,
you know, look at the sun. Get your
morning sunlight in. I'm talking about
super super basic things that every
single person is capable of doing.
To the extent that some of you might
find what I'm sharing unrelatable,
Rich, you're this successful podcaster,
you have a media company, you've got a
book deal, you have a
healthy, happy family, you're super fit,
you have a home gym, you have all of
these resources that I don't have.
Allow me to transport you back to me in
my late 30s.
Fast food addicted, 50 lb overweight, in
a career that I loathed, completely
detached from
any sense of what I wanted out of my
life, very unhealthy, and really on the
precipice of an existential crisis about
what I was doing with my life.
Uh no relationship with physical
movement at the time, no understanding
of
healthy nutrition, no interest in that
whatsoever. If I was to transport myself
back
uh like a ghost of Christmas past to
talk to that version of myself, uh I
think that that version of me would have
said those same things. Like, who are
you? Like, I you're not living my life.
You don't understand the things that I'm
going through. You don't understand my
confusion. Uh my problems are unique to
me and go away. Uh and what I am saying
is that
if I was able to go from that guy into
this person that I've become, this
person who has
gone on and
done all kinds of feats in the ultra
endurance world, has published books,
has a successful podcast, has a healthy,
happy marriage, and is a fulfilled dad,
and has opportunities all over the
place, you know, I'm living a life
well beyond my wildest imagination.
But, it's only because I started doing
these tiny little things on a consistent
basis that moved the needle.
They don't translate on a day-to-day
basis into anything recognizable, but
over an extended period of time are
actually the essential ingredients for
change and transformation.
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[music]
So, it's not about what you could do or
should do. It's about what you can do.
What can you execute on today? Again,
the little things are the big things and
these small, tiny, imperceptible daily
commitments that we can make to
ourselves are actually the engine of
change and transformation. And this is a
really great segue into me talking a
little bit about my spirit animal.
What is my spirit animal? Well,
honestly, if I was to be reincarnated
into the animal kingdom, I think I might
opt for being a bottlenose porpoise.
I think that they're probably smarter
than humans. They seem to be having a
good time. I think they have life
figured out a little bit better than us.
That aside,
uh
that is not my spirit animal. My spirit
animal is actually the tortoise and I'm
going to make the case for why the
tortoise mindset is a mindset that we
would all be better off
adopting. But before we do that, Tyler,
can we queue the very energetic,
exciting montage of giant tortoises?
The reason why the tortoise is my spirit
animal and why the tortoise basically
rules is because the tortoise is playing
the long game, the long game of life.
And to illustrate this concept, I'd like
to take you back to 1987
and introduce you to my friend Hank
Wise.
Now, Hank was a teammate of mine on the
Stanford University swim team back in
the day.
And Hank was sort of a court jester
figure, kind of a Jeff Spicoli-esque
character who had a very large
personality.
And I can tell you that on countless
occasions, the team would be assembled
on the pool deck, particularly during
Christmas training when it was very cold
out. We're talking freezing
temperatures, like 31° F. Contemplating
the prospect of of jumping into this
swimming pool for another brutal, you
know,
10,000-m
session when we were exhausted because
we barely got enough sleep from the
evening workout the night before. Nobody
wants to jump in the pool at 5:00 in the
morning when it's dark out and cold. And
this would always be Hank's cue to burst
out into song. And the song that he
would sing in the voice of Morrissey,
his favorite lyricist, was pay now, love
it later. He would like dance on the
pool deck in his Speedo in in the
freezing dark cold and go, "Pay now,
love it later. Pay now, love it later."
And everybody would crack up. It would
break the tension. And suddenly, we
would be snapped out of our
uh daydream and everybody would jump in
the pool.
Pay now, love it later basically just
means we have to sacrifice instant
gratification for long-term satisfaction
because
long-term success depends upon
present-day
efforts.
We have to sublimate mood and develop
this reflex towards action.
We have to unclutch from our
expectations around outcomes and most
importantly, we have to completely
detach from our attachment to the
calendar. Because humans have a very
funny relationship with the calendar. We
tend to wildly overestimate what we can
accomplish in a month, a period of
months, or even a year, while
simultaneously completely
underestimating what we can achieve in a
decade. In my experience, I've never
been able to accomplish anything
significant in less than a 10-year
window.
But we're just not wired to think in
terms of decades. We see people
accomplishing things on social media, we
read about them, we watch documentaries,
we're inspired by people who are
successful out in the world in the
fields that we're interested in, and for
some reason we delude ourselves into
thinking they're either naturally gifted
or that this all unfolded naturally over
a very short period of time, but nothing
could be further from the case. We need
to start to acclimate our thinking
around decades. And this is where the
tortoise mindset comes in.
The tortoise,
which also happens to be a gold
medal-winning longevity decathlete, by
the way. So, for anybody interested in
longevity or health span extension, I
think it's wise to start thinking of
yourself as a tortoise. The tortoise has
this figured out. If and when we can
cast our gaze much further out over the
horizon, we begin to realize, see, and
understand that our attachment to
outcomes in the short and intermediate
term, over a period of months or or even
a year, this is why we abandon our goals
too soon. It's why we give up on our New
Year's resolutions. It's why we end up
beating ourselves up. It's why we have
such an unhealthy relationship with
failure and why
too many people end up abandoning their
aspirations too soon.
Because they opt out of the game before
the game has barely even begun.
Obviously, life is not a sprint. Life
isn't even a marathon. It's an
ultramarathon of the umpteenth degree.
And similarly, we should talk about our
goals and our aspirations in the same
context. Your goal should not be a
sprint. Your goal should not be a
marathon. Your goal really should be
thought of in the context of an
ultramarathon. Whether it's a goal, an
aspiration, a dream, or just your life,
these are ordeals of the ultra-endurance
variety. And when we think in this
context, we realize that slow is
actually fast and patience is paramount.
Patience is actually a superpower. And
this requires a little bit of
counter-programming because we live in a
culture in which we incentivize and
celebrate speed. But speed is not our
concern because as my coach, Chris
Haloth, used to always say to me, "The
prize doesn't go to the fastest person.
It goes to the person who slows down the
least."
Speed is irrelevant. It's
constant forward motion in which even
your pace
really isn't an important variable. The
key variable is
persistence,
patience,
and unrelenting commitment to constant,
persistent, forward motion. This, of
course, conjures Aesop's famous fable
about the tortoise and the hare.
I don't know if most people realize
this, but it's the tortoise that wins in
the fable.
Uh and what's beautiful about this is
the longer the game,
the more irrelevant what anyone else is
doing becomes. The tortoise is not
concerned with what the hare is doing.
The hare is bouncing around, rushing
here and there, reacting to the world,
almost like somebody from Gen Z looking
at their phone, like living their life
reactively, who's being prodded and
provoked to live their life in
accordance with somebody else's program,
chasing rather than
coming from a place of integrity. The
tortoise just does its thing, completely
unconcerned with what anyone else is
doing,
and just stays the course.
And when the game is long, it's this
capacity to endure that matters the
most. So, these small little habits
uh that you're doing every day become
critical
because they're sustainable.
When they're sustainable, that fuels the
endurance to persist and to endure over
a long period of time. So, in this game
of transformation over a long window,
speed is subservient to direction. What
matters the most is just staying the
course, and that is what the tortoise is
excellent at.
So, let's let the hare, which let's face
it, is basically the average harried
human. Imagine a young Gen X person,
imagine yourself, imagine somebody who
is just living reactively, anxiety
fueled, in our modern day world,
bouncing from one thing to the next.
Basically being impulsed by the news
cycle, or being overly caught up in what
somebody else is doing, or investing
themselves in some drama between other
people that has nothing to do with their
lives. That's the hare.
We are not the hare. We are the
tortoise. We are focused on our goal and
our ambition. It doesn't matter how long
it takes for us to get there, because we
have a direction, and we have this
series of very small daily habits that
we practice relentlessly, that are
propelling us forward, persistently,
undaunted,
in the direction of the better version
of ourself.
The tortoise is centered. The tortoise
is equanimous. The tortoise is not
riddled with anxiety or self-doubt.
The tortoise just takes one step, and
then another step, and just moves
forward inch by inch by inch.
The hare will mock the tortoise, making
fun of the tortoise, how slow the
tortoise is, how deliberate the tortoise
is in its motions.
The tortoise doesn't care, because the
tortoise knows exactly
who he or she is,
and
knows exactly where they're going. The
longer the game, the more certain it is
that the tortoise is going to emerge
victorious. So, the point I'm trying to
make is that we live in an incredibly
fast-paced culture.
And the incentive structure of our
culture is such that we are being
impulsed into
sprinting all the time from one thing to
the next by these addictive devices, by
the news cycle, by consumerist culture,
by the pressures of just trying to get
through the day in a capitalist society.
And that is leading to this
reactive reflex where we're not actually
exerting agency over our lives, but
we're very quick to come up with excuses
why we're too busy to be more
intentional, to be more focused, to be
more
plotting and values-based and
purpose-driven in our actions. So, the
message really is slow down,
take stock of your life, do an inventory
on what's working and what's not
working, and try to
escape the vicissitudes of our
fast-paced life, the daily ups and downs
that pull us in one direction or
another, recognizing that
we have responsibilities and there's
certain things that we have to do every
single day, acknowledging that, but then
being intentional about carving out time
for you to plot your tortoise course in
the direction of the person you would
like to become,
letting go of the timeline and just
practicing that inch by inch forward
motion
without being attached to outcomes,
without being captured by expectations
of what it'll look like or how other
people will perceive it, just being
steady in your course, understanding
that we're operating from a perspective
of decades, not days, not months, not
weeks.
This idea that we're headed in the
direction of a destination,
knowing at the same time that there also
is no finish lines. What matters is the
practice, your devotion to this practice
that is
in lockstep with the estimable
aspirations that you hold for yourself.
Don't worry about what anyone else is
doing. Be focused on your goals. Inch
yourself in the direction of them,
knowing
at the same time
that this is an adventure, a journey
without a destination.
This reminds me of something Scott
Harrison told me on the podcast many
years ago. Some of you may know that
Scott is the founder of charity water.
He was a former nightclub impresario who
realized that his life lacked meaning
and he took a very complete U-turn and
has now created uh this extraordinary
nonprofit organization that is committed
to solving the global clean water
crisis. And what he said to me is,
"Don't fear work that has no end."
So, while we can set goals and hold
aspirations for ourselves,
it's also not contradictory to
understand that this journey that we are
on towards greater self-actualization,
towards greater authenticity, towards
living a life of greater purpose and
meaning
is by definition a journey that lacks a
destination. But, that should never be
an excuse to not pursue it. Because what
gives it such richness and what makes
that journey so worthy is the fact that
it doesn't have a destination and that
we commit ourselves towards it anyway,
knowing that transformation is the prize
for those who move towards it
undeterred. All of which brings me back
to you, Hank Wise. You remember Hank?
What happened to Hank is 30 years later
this guy jumped into the ocean and swam
from Catalina to Los Angeles and broke
the record for the Catalina Channel
Swim, a record that had stood for 9
years by 10 minutes. He did it at age
50. So, this is a guy who thinks in
terms of decades, who understands and
practices his mantra of pay now, love it
later, who had no care for the
timelines, wasn't concerned about what
anyone else was doing, and actually
executed on an audacious dream, breaking
this long-standing record so many years
later, because he wasn't concerned about
short-term expectations. He just had his
eyes set, worked very hard for a very
long period of time, and it took a long
time,
but he achieved his goal.
So, what I'm saying is
just start,
keep moving forward,
and be undeterred.
Meanwhile, I'm going to keep getting up
at 4:00 in the morning, getting into my
home gym, and taking those photographs.
>> [music]