How To Transform Fear Into Strength - John Lovell

what does it mean to live free and die well sure so it's wrapped up in our whole Warrior poet ethos that's living for higher purpose being ready to sacrifice in the defense of others ultimately to live well in the present you have to really start with the end in mind uh lots of folks just go through life in an extremely reactionary manner things happen the Tyrant of the Urgent comes up and before you know it all of your waking hours and even you're kind of off hours are spent stressing about stuff though if you were given a death diagnosis you know you are terminally ill much of the stuff that we droll on with every single day would immediately sift to the edges of our attention as not important and what can happen in the tyranny of the Urgent is the most important stuff gets shuffled to the back being able to die well means that you live the life that was worthy of your calling so to speak and in so doing uh you're able to live well with uh kind of that end in mind and so in my estimation having faced death you know many different times it really allowed me to focus on what did I what I wanted to do in life and so it turns out that you'll die the exact same way that you live whether that's poorly or well I love the tyranny of the urgent I absolutely love that I think it's it's so accurate for how many people live their lives there was this meme that I saw floating around a while ago that said um adulthood is just one series of weeks after the next saying after this week it'll calm down and then you die oh it's such a trap you know folks think of like me and my my nine to five sucks and uh if I can just get through all the chores and the tasks and I fix up the house and I pay that off and I work and you know ultimately one day I'll have a nest egg big enough and then when I'm 65 years old I'm gonna really start living that's when it'll get really good and what you don't realize is that is overrated once you even get there uh you look back of like no no let's start living well right now all there is is today you're not promised tomorrow and so I don't want to delay living and having a meaningful impact on the world around me for hoping that one day I can start living right you mentioned that you've faced death uh you were in the armed forces for a long while you did a number of Tours and you were in some kinetic uh encounters I guess you could say what was the closest that you think you came to death I wasn't in I wasn't in a long while I did a I packed a whole bunch of combat into a shorter period time so I did five combat tours but I jumped around and did a whole bunch of stuff in my life closest I've gotten to death who knows I was in a near Ambush you're not supposed to live through those those are really really awful I got a far Ambush as well what's the difference between a near and a fire Ambush uh well proximity but a near Ambush is supposed to be 35 meters and in it's basically hand grenade range and so the idea is your movement you're moving whether it's on foot or through vehicle we happen to be um uh stripped down Humvee so we didn't have doors we didn't have ceilings or anything no armor so we were able to Rangers jump out and in a moment be ready to fight so we didn't like all the armor stuff it just ends up being just a a metal coffin to us but we got hit I was the lead driver it's kind of like a fire breathing team leader you want somebody who is going to react well under pressure and so that was kind of a nice position because I'm Target number one in something like a near Ambush if you take out the lead driver all the vehicles stop then you kill the the rear driver and then it's just a massacre kill box and so your job in an ambush is to punch out and that's what we did we're able to punch out at like a 50 cal ammo from up top came out of its uh K uh came out of its ammo box it's like hit me in the head and I'm supposed to drive but some RPG or IED blew out my front right tire and so it takes two arms to rip my steering wheel over and I'm going down this road which is really just this horrible dried up creek bed that just I mean you have to really plan your route to figure out how you're not going to high Center somewhere and so it's just a mess and this 50 cal Amos hit me in the helmet and I'm I'm wanting to get in the fight and shoot at the same time but I'm supposed to punch out and so man it was a mess it could have been that or it could have been uh you know that that sucked um you never know how many things where you were kind of in enemy crosshairs and nothing went wrong whether they could have shot you but you didn't so you don't really counting any of that stuff uh gun fights uh rating terrorist training camps or uh or um one of my very first uh and closest interactions that I ever got into it's like room on room gunfight and uh that was real close and after you know coming through a doorway and uh putting this Joker down uh we looked and right over my upper left shoulder were SKS uh bullet holes in the wall that that one that one's kind of that improved my prayer life so [ __ ] yeah I'm I've always been fascinated by this in scenarios like that what is the balance of fear or being scared compared with a more tense encounter where it's more protracted maybe it's at night maybe you're creeping up on an enemy location maybe you're moving from room to room I I'm always interested in this because I think when people think about that being scary I'm not sure if that's an accurate representation of the flood of hormones that your body's going to dump into you I would imagine that that's just kind of hectic and an intense but there will be more scary situations you get into that are less kinetic immediately great question I wish I could take fear and put it in this polished nice box where it's kind of like here it is but truth be told it's a lot of uh lunging forward and doing well and then all of a sudden being set back and you're kind of like I thought it was over this because even looking back I remember a couple different freezing points where the the terror was so Stark I just locked up I couldn't move and it could have happened that something had gone bad in that moment and I would have had to carry that my whole life thankfully you know those moments uh though I remember two different freezing points where it was just so horror horrifying I couldn't really handle it I think you know in my head it was like I was my legs were concrete for minutes at a time it was probably just a few seconds and I was able to kind of get out of that and press forward other times I've been able to just I should have been scared but I really wasn't sometimes I got just pissed like you try to kill me how yeah and you just go to work how dare you try to kill me I'm gonna kill you back and so sometimes it's rage other times and this is the best one is it's not horrible fear and it's not rage it's just calm cold mass and that that's where I really wanted to live and work and that was really the goal is though the world is on fire and falling apart around you and you're pretty sure you're about to eat it you're just gonna do the right thing and make the next right decision and calm Cool Waters on the surface and raging uh heart underneath and so I want cold hard math and that's really I think the most ideal goal would you mind telling us those stories that you said when you froze one is well let's see one is kind of stupid because it was a nothing mission for me and that there was hot stuff happen around like I had my buddy had his leg blown off and we were raiding a terrorist training camp and I was just coming to kind of the edge of this Ravine there was Tall Grass uh we had just come in on some birds and uh rotary Wing that it just dropped just like half a click out I mean hustled over and my night visions fogging up and whatnot and we're looking out and you know I'm doing pretty well but then somebody says hey they're uh they're climbing up the cliffs maybe someone said it maybe I imagined it but I realized as if just the way the terrain was if they kind of climbed up and popped up we'd be face to face you know just and I wouldn't be able to see them coming it was just too much noise and fire and smoke and guns and uh you just couldn't hear a lot you know I realized man I'm really blind here and if I am to sneak out a little bit farther so I have visibility down I'm gonna be perfect perfectly backlit because of the illumination and so I knew better tactics than to make that mistake very good Target yeah you'll be you'll be Skyline you'll be silhouetted and so you've got to be able to read lighting conditions even under nods night vision and so I knew enough to be like Manny if if you uh Skyline yourself right there in the Ravine anybody in there is going to see me and light me up like a Christmas tree and so I was just kind of stuck in an awkward place I'm like I hated my terrain I hated my position and we already got dudes screaming and we got a Medevac going over but it wasn't I should have been able to do better than that for so whatever reason it just freaked me out I just I couldn't handle it in the moment you know and I'd handled other stuff that was scarier before that and after that and so here here's a lesson I learned is no one ever Masters fear every single day you got to get up and their fear will manifest itself in a million different ways uh there it was kind of gun fighting and it's more sexy and glamorous to some of the viewers but I mean like hey man getting out and getting in small business that's scary confronting your you know friend about something or having an uncomfortable conversation or risking being canceled or losing your job there's all kinds of ways that fear can come up and get you but I've I've performed everywhere on the scale of absolute hero and absolute zero um and just because you have performed bravely in the past is no guarantee you will per um you will behave bravely in the future every day you got to keep earning it which sucks because I'd like to be like yep I have arrived I'm amazing and it's just not true it sucks yeah I think a lot of people who see guys like yourself with you know a heroic past serving the country would presume that well he's been in firefights he's been shot at there's been bullets a couple of inches above his shoulder and across from his head therefore the normal vicissitudes of Life they're just gonna it's gonna be water off a duck's back how much have you found The Bravery or your ability to overcome challenges and fear and freezing in those scenarios cross over to fears of being canceled you've got a huge huge YouTube channel that you're in risk of losing that if you say the wrong thing you've got the stresses of coordinating a team you've got concerns am I saying it right am I saying it right is this serving the audience in the right way just how different is that it's different and it's not fear management and being able to inoculate yourself against all the fear stuff that's all usable stuff but a lot of vets get out and they don't make the jump case in point I have a buddy at 19 or 20 combat tours I had five and that's a lot I did a lot he did 19 special forces it's like this guy's a hero a lot of guys are they know one thing very well and uh you know it's a terrifying and scary thing the most but it's familiar you know that this is what we do we go out and Hunt bad guys and they hunt us back and we see how it goes uh but they're very terrified to get out in the civilian World they don't know how to do just basic some basic life so there was this one guy um a special forces guy I'm talking about he would he got out in the civilian World he's finally done and uh he was wrestling with this contract and he couldn't do it and he listened like John I I can run toward gunfire but contracts freak me out that's a quote and so I mean fear just because you've done well in one sector doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be able to effectively and seamlessly pull that over into all other areas you know you have some grisly soldiers not afraid of al-Qaeda terrified to speak to girls and girls are scary in their defense you know how that's gonna go girls are scary so I'm not cast in shade I've been married 16 years I love my wife I lead my wife I'm in charge but she is uh she can be scary so yeah okay I think that's really important to remember that you have to earn it every single day you know there are new challenges that are going to face you and you can't rest on your laurels you know I've noticed periods in my life where I've started to take my foot off the gas and I'm starting it's not even put on the gas necessarily it's being less intentional I think that's the the main predeterminant that's the lead measure of what happens and the lagging measure is my sleep's off or I don't feel so good or I'm not eating well or my relationships are suffering or I'm not showing up on the show as well as I should do the lead measure is not being intentional and and a lot of the time that is born out of fear okay well what if this goes wrong what what if I look stupid what if I what if I whatever there was this um we recently hit a million Subs on the channel and I did this video um sort of reacting to it live and it was a little bit emotional but then I felt silly about it being emotional and I thought oh well well you know it's just a number on a screen this is lame getting emotional about you know hitting this subscriber Milestone even though it's been you know tens of thousands of hours over half a decade and started in my living room and now it's this you know this big thing and we get to travel all over the world and it's a dream life and I brought one of my best friends along with me and all this stuff but it still felt silly and I was like okay well that that's another opportunity to try and lean into fear it's not the same sort of fear of being shot at in a Humvee but it's it was [ __ ] terrifying you know to think oh I'm gonna put this video out and what if people are going to laugh at me what if people think that it's stupid um so yeah every single day there are different challenges and I I think you're right you can't just um rely on the momentum or the inertia of having previously been brave and presuming that that's going to carry you through things in future yeah well hey congratulations you turn a million that is a big accomplishment I think that is absolutely awesome and I I didn't know much about your channel now I'm a follower I am tuning in I like your style bro you're all right and so yeah I'll be tuning in bro got the seal of approval okay so uh why do you think the world is in need of Warriors at the moment not everybody needs to be in active duty we don't have anywhere near as many kinetic altercations across the planet you know unless you're Russian or Ukrainian America seems to be pretty peaceful at the moment why why do we even need Warriors right and so I know the military recruiting is 25 down off its Mark and so the military would say we need Warriors but I when I use the word Warrior I don't mean everybody needs to wear multi-cam and get nods sidebar multi-cam is really fun yay for guns get lots of that stuff and all right but really I think Warrior is has to do with more of the heart of a man and who he is I think men are made to be strong and we're supposed to be protectors and providers and those warrior-like attributes are absolutely critical to be successful as a man it's part of your calling I'm supposed to be able to be a leader and bold and fearless and courageous I'm supposed to have grit so that I can carry heavy burdens that's all the good warrior stuff and so even if you're not getting shot at by Charlie hiding in the bushes all the virtues uh and the strengths of a warrior are absolutely critical for men to succeed in what does a poet have that a warrior does not in that case all the important stuff so I like to liken it well so you know there's the first and second amendment and we'll use that as a metaphor for what I'm about to say the Second Amendment is the right to bear arms and it's absolutely critical because it is the big bodyguard of all the other amendments if you don't have the right to bear arms ultimately you're going to lose your first amendment which is packed full with all the good stuff that's uh you know freedom of press and religion and freedom of speech and due process all that stuff and so Second Amendment is the only thing that will ultimately keep tyrants at Bay now it may be way far in the future or maybe whatever but ultimately all laws are protected and sustained by force and so if all force is abdicated to a government even if the government is super swell and Sweetie Pies one day tyrants will take over that it's just the natural progression of all Nations over time and when that happened and the people will have no recourse and that's why our Founders put a second amendment in I am doing my second amendment activism thing I'm getting on a rabbit Trail I'm pulling back into frame here and second amendment safeguards the First Amendment but the First Amendment isn't a means to an end like the Second Amendment is it's a means in and of itself so there's the protection of freedom and there's the enjoyment of freedom and it is the free man's duty to both protect and enjoy and so all the stuff that matters most in life is packed in to the uh poet archetype and so that's uh loving my wife and raising my kids it's searching out truth in finding truth Having the courage to actually face facts and then be able to bring that in my heart and tell the truth boldly in daring and interesting beautiful ways now in this is philosophy and it's religion and it's all the stuff that that uh brings in of meaning and hope and morality all that stuff that's in the poet area and so Warrior and poet must be embodied in the same man or men are supposed to be both we're supposed to be lovers and Fighters not one of the other in every single one of our Brides or girlfriends wishes perhaps they don't have the words that we're using here but they want you to be bold and dare they want a leader they want your strength but they also want your heart they want to be able to be emotionally able to connect with you they want to be swept off their feet with strong arms that is romantic you know and so they want the romance too they want the whole thing and so it's not lover or fighter it's both it's lion and lamb Warrior and poet what are we missing more of at the moment because it seems to me you know the hard times soft men meme that kind of is being shared a lot at the moment I I'm not convinced that soft men are necessarily loving men I I would go as far as to say that there's some pretty big lacks on the loving and the Heart side from guys as well I think that a lot of men are floundering with regards to their position what is it that I'm supposed to do I I I'm scared of being seen as a tyrant if I try to enact anything that's too overbearing or masculine but without that if I try to do the polarity which is the the loving soft sort of cuddly side that makes me feel weak because I don't have anything to contrast that against so right what's your what's your uh conception of the Topography of current modern masculinity and manhood I think passive men are neither Warriors nor poets they're they're weak in both areas uh and so yeah it's not that oh we're too poet-esque if like no you're not in poet poet enough uh passive men are not active in pursuing their brides and dating them for Life they're not romantic they're not vulnerable they're not seeking out capital T truth they're sitting on a beanbag chair playing video games a eight hours a day they're just login time at work they would do anything to self-preserve and stab someone in the back if they need to they'll be nice guys you know maybe they're polite maybe they're real funny uh but they're not making a mark in any area of warrior or poet so um I think men today need to grow in both aspects however I do think men are predisposed to be one more of the other I'm naturally more uh lion I'm naturally more war Warrior I had to learn through a painstaking process how to save my marriage which was really rough for the couple years and first couple years and now it's it's really awesome I'm 16 years in bro and I can I wish I wish I could I wish I could just take what's in my head and heart and put it forth and say guys you have no idea how amazing a flourishing wife is and the power and passion and depth of that safe monogamy and it is incredible incredible uh but you got to fight your way into that and so I wouldn't change that for anything in the world um my faith as well of like it grows over time and so that right there has become the most important aspect of my life but uh passive men don't pursue those Endeavors and I had to really I mean it's like the heart stuff I feel like just a dumb idiot uh where I'm pretty good at taking a punch uh I'm pretty good at pushing through pain and limits and sucking it up I can do all that stuff when I need to Foster boldness and aggression I know how to flip those switches as well but being able to turn down the dial in be loving and affectionate and emotionally vulnerable and really know what in the world is going on with my heart in the first place you know it's like I'm the dumb I'm the last one to know my wife knows when I'm off way before I know when I'm off and so and then even when I'm off like you had mentioned before of like uh how do you get in that kind of fog and hey maybe I'm not performing well on camera and something's off with me and I don't know exactly what it is and perhaps it's fear or apathy apathy when I start getting apathetic about stuff I realize ah there may be fear under there there may be some type of tension I need to lean in and see what in the world's going on with me for the guys that are listening who think that sounds a lot like me the guy that is able to embody more masculine virtues maybe they're not a a fighter maybe they're not out there taking punches and kicking indoors but can lean into that more stoic resilient nose against the grindstone type of person tactically what did it look like or what were the most powerful practices or things that you did that allowed you to open up without feeling weak or fragile yeah and so I think there is a terrible misunderstanding about what strength really is of like when I think a strong man I don't think you got lats growing out of your ears down to your shoulder of like in your your deadlift is 700 pounds but if you do have a 700 pound deadlift bro I'm gonna buy you a beer that's amazing Bravo uh man there's all kinds of different areas where a man needs to be strong one is physical it's the least important unless you're fighting Vikings or something like that uh there's emotional strength you know like if somebody cuts you off in traffic and you lose your mind over that you're a pathetically weak dude you're angered too easily really that sets you off you can't even control your own stupid temper your weak man man you're weak and you need to grow in your emotional stability and faculties right I think uh your spiritual strength is more important than any of it and and from that uh your character your morality your your uh all your meaning and purpose is really going to flow from that I think mental strength pick up a book brother you got to be smart you can't just work really hard grind it out and expect your life to go really well of that life is a series of all kinds of different puzzles and you gotta be smart to be able to figure this out like for instance you don't talk to chicks the same way you talk to dudes and if you try to you're going to destroy your life you'll feel tough but you're an idiot you're going to destroy all your relationships because you're an idiot and so we need to get stronger in all those different areas I wrote a newsletter a couple of weeks ago that I think is very similar to this I'm going to read it to you now so I did a podcast episode with uh Chris Bumstead he is the Mr Elite Olympia classic physique Champion four years in a row this guy is he looks like he's carved out of stone uh he's the modern day Arnold Schwarzenegger people are making a lot of comparisons and during it we spoke a lot about vulnerability so quote never be vulnerable in front of your girlfriend is common manosphere advice the guy that I was talking to is more Alpha than pretty much every other human that's ever existed and yet he told me a story of how he sobbed on the bathroom floor in his girlfriend's arms when the pressure got too much for him then he got up dusted himself off and went to dominate his challenges and become a world champion here's the thing hiding your vulnerability from the world doesn't make you any less vulnerable it just makes you less honest you don't change the way you feel by hiding your feelings from the world limits on speech are just limits on sincerity if you believe that being vulnerable makes you a [ __ ] how do you arrive at the conclusion that feeling vulnerable and also not being able to open up about it somehow makes you less of a [ __ ] I love that I would probably uh I agree with it I love it uh however I'd probably replace vulnerability with something like humility humility would be something that would be better outward facing to the public of everybody watching the screen I let me model humility but I don't know you I'm not necessarily going to be vulnerable with you I may have enemies out there I'm not going to show you my soft underside of that's that would be a mistake uh You Know You're vulnerable with uh wolves in sheep's clothing at uh work and one day they're going to crush you for that and it'll be your own stupid Folly you shouldn't have done that you shouldn't have been vulnerable with those people but you should be humble with those uh people now the people you love love risks love allows uh somebody to be able to wound you you can't love and also Safeguard and protect yourself at the same time it opens up uh wide arms and and bears its soul to someone and so uh in the aspects of that I think you should be vulnerable to those who have your trust but that's kind of a sacred thing now I'll be vulnerable in some other more superficial ways and I don't mind doing that on the internet in some ways I'm being vulnerable right now just speaking about some of the stuff and so in some ways we can get into semantical traps but I do like the word humility uh just a little bit better yeah interesting I'm not familiar with with using humility in that way it's probably something that I should look at a little bit more when I think about humility I think about not being too big-headed reducing the ego um it seems like you're using a different conception of it I think humility is the very center of morality and pride is the very center of immorality interesting why well uh I I was one over to this way of thinking and there's a book called Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis ultimately it will conflate through the moral uh it's moral architecture it's ultimately morality is something that's authored by a moral law Giver if you don't have a moral law Giver then you don't have a real moral law other than something we just make up that means whether it's the individual that says this is what's moral or whether society that makes some type of social contract still Morality In this case would be something that we just make up because it's helpful but it's not transcendently real and the heat death of the universe in a million years from now and we're all just gone whatever moral musings will have now will be just washed away and it'll be meaningless in a Godless universe and so ultimately morality would start by a moral law giver and so if it's uh if God is there then everything is about God and not about us in which case Pride would say things are about me and humility would say no things aren't about me I should live a selfless life and humility then becomes this root that grows out into every single other virtue so that you can actually live selflessly in every single uh respect uh and so that's why I think people naturally intrinsically know this and that's why if you ever find somebody arrogant you hate them but if you find some you know your hero in some story is kind of like a humble suffering that against insuperable odds ends up winning the day ever people root for that Underdog it's because naturally pre-programmed in we recognize humility is praiseworthy and pride goes before a fall very good yes so why is it important going back to the warrior archetype why is it important important to be the most dangerous man in the room sure so really if you check out that chapter it looks like that chapter in my book is going to be about hey the most dangerous man in the room be the most dangerous man in the room and really the it unwinds this tale of when I thought I was the most dangerous man in the room and then I got my butt handed to me in a way that I still haven't recovered from Chris I'm still limping that one off can you tell us the story of the 20 yeah there was the girls soccer coach at my high school came in one day into our wrestling room he was going to be my sparring partner I was a very good wrestler I was the school's wrestler I had all kinds of Records some of them are probably still standing I was a good wrestler at this school and so um it didn't really matter if you were much bigger than me I would beat our heavyweight even though I was 130 uh and so um I say all that to say that when this middle-aged kind of portly dude uh came in I knew that he had some martial arts background he's he was put with me which I thought was really insulting of my coach to do and we're kind of going through some just different moves and warm-ups and this guy I'm like man he's got a little bit of a doe belly but this dude moves slick and he was and he was fast and we're just chatting while we're going and then we start pushing into more of like free wrestling and I mean at this point I'm starting to get a little frustrated and uh I'm going a hundred percent and the dude just took me apart uh and so he just while he was chatting with me too so it's like he didn't know I was in the fight of my life and so uh anyway I realized uh something about kind of pressing back into Pride goes before a fall I noticed that the most dangerous men on the planet who I've worked with whether they were uh Rangers or SEALS or Delta or you know three letter agency contractors SAS SBS I work with all kinds of really really dangerous dudes and at the very tippy top of those guys there are always these more humble unassuming guys and I'm like what is that what is that and you realize the Arrogant guy can only get so tough and it can only get so far uh but you have to be teachable and to be teachable well arrogance will only let you get so far in that respect and so I saw a lot of guys who were kind of PT studs they get into ranger battalion and then they'd wash out and then some other guy with less impressive physique but uh he's got a longer suffering grit and character under the hood he had deeper uh reservoirs and a soul to tap into that dude didn't quit and he went the distance and so that's really what more of the chapters uh aiming at is we find Incredible strength through humility and I do press in it's not all fluffy metaphorical stuff I go into some real brass tacks of like hey let's be tough guys in the uh more obvious and traditional sense as well yeah I what do you think it is about the guys that are the most dangerous being more unassuming which way do you think that Arrow of causality runs do you think it's because they're so dangerous that they choose to be unassuming or is it in the other direction you know I I am not sure but I I think humility uh opens up humility is a seed that will uh reap a harvest of uh I think blessing on the other end and so a really arrogant guy is very hard to teach anything to and so that's part of it so that could be really pragmatic that's his ability to progress to continue to grow I I think that that's that's definitely it too and I think God's against them yeah there's a one of the things that Chris that a bodybuilder guy that I spoke to said on the episode was he doesn't have the tyrannical self-belief that someone like Michael Jordan does so you know Michael Jordan is he he wouldn't even dream of losing if anybody slighted him there was this sort of Rage fire that was lit underneath him um but Chris's approach is very different he's like I think about losing all the time it's like I'm scared of losing I'm scared of losing to my opponent but his idea was that by because he has accepted the fact that he may lose he believes it's given him the potential to be able to put it all on the line in a way that someone who hadn't considered the possibility of losing wouldn't be able to do it yeah um I would be more like uh more like him in that and I really hate losing logically I have to entertain the idea and that and and through thinking through wargaming how how I might lose or or what would happen if that how I can there's all kinds of useful nuggets and then me that that can fuel my preparation and I can find some fuel in there for uh training and game planning War planning it also keeps me from uh not underestimating whatever I'm up against I just know at an early age especially on the wrestling man I hated hated losing and so I want to run the race uh to win so uh yeah but I'd also say um I don't want my identity wrapped up in that I hate to lose just because I'm competitive like that but uh I'll be quick to say I am not one that is chasing after the that golden carrot of greatness I think great is significantly overrated I would fall rather pursue goodness hmm yeah you talk about men being on a quest to achieve something Beyond Fame and Fortune what is that I think it's uh fool's gold man uh of that life of man if I get this much money and chicks are all about me and I got the dream job and the dream car a lot of folks if you really pay attention there's plenty of people that have that you can look in some of the most miserable people you know are extravagantly wealthy or in in dire poverty you know and so now I recognize also that people on their deathbed aren't calling for their stock market portfolios or looking at pictures of all their vehicles or something at the end I think it's Hollow I think what will happen is the CEO that checked out of his uh kids lives for decades hoping that you just earn enough and be enough realize that he missed the most important things all along and all he really cares about is is making things right with the kids that he's estranged from and he missed it he missed all the good stuff and I would far far rather downgrade my quantity of life so I can scale up my quality of life and so I would rather be a good man good man's good men can make a Rippling wonderful impacts on the world around them they have uh terrific legacies where people's lives were changed for the better that they weren't just out pursuing some gold medal or money in some you know some huge uh bank account and and I'm not against those things I'm like no I'm going after that stuff too I'm like I'm I'm gonna try to kill it at work and I'm not gonna have a loser mentality either I'm just recognizing as I go forward toward all those good Pursuits I'm going to keep the main thing the most important thing my relationship with God is more important than my bank account you'd know that if you looked at my bank account because you'd be like holy cow son of a gun John gives him away a lot and like yeah I do I think it's the most I think that's more important uh you would see that I spend a a lot of time pouring into my kids and I'm making memories with them all the time and me and my wife were doing fantastic as I said before then I've got deep relationships that are growing around me and I've got joy and I've got peace and all that stuff builds a wonderful Legacy and so that's what I'm after not writing my name in the sky going back to what we were talking about before that sort of fear of failure your acceptance of it even though you have a desire to win and sort of Chris's almost embodiment of his fear of failure I remember I played Cricket that was the sport that I played growing up very British and um I remember I was so afraid of disappointing my coaches or mum and dad or whatever um the way that Cricket gets played each different type of player is quite tactical and if the either game conditions or the weather doesn't suit it um a lot of the time certain types of players of which I was one can turn up and not contribute to the game massively so you just end up in field maybe you didn't bat because you were batting down the order and the weather wasn't appropriate so that you didn't end up bowling it's called a TFC a thanks for coming and um I remember each Monday I would have a call with the coach from the county that I was from and this is the equivalent of you know whatever playing for your MLB or a team um and I was on the youth setup for Durham which is the northernmost uh County setup in the UK where I'm from and I would have this call with my coach and he would say how did you get on over the weekend and there would almost be a degree of relief in me when I got to say oh man you know the pitch the the the the conditions that weren't right uh I I I you know I really wanted to bowl I really wanted to get myself out there but yeah the captain is just you know he's not playing me he's not putting me out there blah blah blah and there was a degree of um of relief I remember I know that there was a degree of relief in me and I realized looking back that that was me being scared it was me it was me being cowardly because I would have sooner assured my inability to fail through not being put onto the stadium floor rather than face the potential defeat Now isn't that interesting we waste so much time and energy and stress so much because we really just get the definitions of words wrong and we give so much we give so much ground in our lives to things like fear I tell my sons all the time I'm like boys it's okay to be afraid you're just not allowed to let fear stop you you know it's okay to cry we just cry about the right things you know like hey you stump your toe suck it up buttercup men don't cry when they're physically hurt we're going to be tough and that's what I teach my boys uh but uh if you cry because you're overcome with love for somebody or you know something that that's a your hardest move I'm like the toughest dude I've ever heard of absolutely is is the the one who split time into Jesus Christ uh tortured that doesn't cry out uh you know and just absolutely uh moral strength spiritual strength intellectual strength physical so you had the the absolute the whole package there and what was that where was I going to that I got distracted I talked about talking about children and crying yeah but geez that's right but Jesus wept I'm like the strongest dude weeps I'm like yeah yeah those are those are strong tears those are strong tears of like what you're overcome because you love someone so much so that you're crying like well that's not weakness that that's strength of like no no a guy who never cries that's really weak you must love very little how sad how weak and that's how I think about it now what about someone that resonates with that story they maybe they may fear that they do have an inner coward inside of them in fact I've got another story that I want to tell you um that I wrote in a newsletter a little a few weeks ago uh this is so good so um I recently got to speak with someone I've been curious about for a long time he went through a difficult period many years ago even though he's Beyond it now he came very close to losing everything financially reputationally psychologically I asked him how he had dealt with the darkest time he'd faced he told me that he'd had a concern in the back of his mind throughout his entire life he was always worried that deep down he might be a coward that secretly he might not be the strong capable person he thought he was that when the rubber met the road he wouldn't be able to stand up and face whatever the world threw at him see many of the challenges we face in life are largely under our control we choose jobs we apply for the house we try to afford the partner we tried to seduce the weight we even left these things can still be hard tough challenging so sometimes unbearably difficult but it was us who chose the flavor of that difficulty so what happens when absolutely everything comes crashing down the single worst possible scenario that you can imagine happens well you get to see what you're made of what you're genuinely made of when all of your forces are marshaled to a single Challenge and he said that he'd had faith in himself but he'd never been pushed hard enough to prove that his faith was justified and this is a quote from him he said I could always hear my best self clearing his throat in the room next door but when he never knew if his self was able to come in when it was needed it turns out that he did I love the quote and I love the story because I think many of us are uncertain about just how capable we are maybe a couple of times in your life all hell will break loose and your best self will have to stop his coughing and come to say hello well written Bravo it resonated immediately with him it's like he's there's the fear of the inner coward I'm like what yeah of course yes yes say it out loud yeah you gotta you got a coward inside you and so do I you know so do I and uh there is um okay I recognize where I'm at I recognize I had the propensity to cowardice in all kinds of areas of my life and just because you're a hero in one area doesn't mean that you're not cowardly in another area I want to be strong across the board you know if you're a castle you want every single door around the castle closed and if you don't do that then you risk being overwhelmed overcome and then you are just on the ropes of life you can be overthrown by life and so it's not good to just have three really strong doors and one weak one I'm like guess where the chain breaks at the weakest Lincoln so we want to be heroic in every single respect and so I think there's great stuff that you can do to grow um amidst the fact that hey we could be cowards I mean one is to just run at whatever makes you afraid just make yourself do it you're afraid of heights well guess what you're going bungee jumping OH Close spaces splunking brother I'm like but I'm scared I'm like yeah yeah but this is a great opportunity to kill fear run at it whatever you're afraid of that is where you're gonna have to grow go turn around and face it stop running and face it and that's one way we can do it another way and I think I find this very effective as well as there's a place in the book of First John uh and this is the Bible it says perfect love casts out all fear and it's absolutely true perfect love casts out all fear of like you draw you know your your kid goes overboard a five-year-old kid in a shark infested Water Mama Bear's gonna jump in you know it's like you're afraid of stuff like this man Mama bears are not afraid of anything is that that perfect love of to protect you know of oftentimes the soldier is ready to um fight and face death because they're desperately uh trying to protect their dudes their left and right it's about the the soldier that that loving camaraderie and so I I think if we're perfected and love and character and righteousness then you're not going to be afraid the righteous is bold as lions I want to I have a quick story because there is a gal I talk about her husband or um her late husband in the book um the warrior poet way um he'd become one of my first mentors in ranger battalion he was he was under the Jesus stuff before I was and so I didn't really understand much of that I'll I'll um Kevin died uh years after getting out of the military um in a motorcycle wreck and uh I was very close to him he was the one that officiated me and my wife's wedding so very very close uh to him uh and that was really hard and I remember getting the call it was real real early in the morning um like two in the morning and I remember his wife uh and she's just like John John and I knew something was wrong I'm like oh Kelly shouldn't be calling me so early um in the morning and she told me what would what was happening and she this girl so strong she was trying to take care of my upset the night that she learned um I I don't see Kelly very often but she's on her way flying to spend the weekend with us right now so um anyway she'll be in this room here in a couple hours I haven't seen her in a very long time uh but um I remember in the midst of that just Brokenness and we are both weeping we cannot keep this together at all uh loved Kevin deeply deeply I said Kelly what is God doing and uh she said I don't know but he's sovereign basically what that means if I don't know but he's in control it's going to be okay that's what she said uh to me that that's what that word sovereign meant uh to her and I'm like holy smokes talk about fear talk about Brokenness uh this girl was strong and brave in ways that I wasn't she's better than me she's stronger than me and I love Kelly for it uh but uh anyway and I noticed that her faith was what made her so strong so there you go you talk in the book about the importance of facing death before you die why so if you face death it will immediately push all the vain Pursuits to the left and right and all that you're left with in the middle is what matters if you face death if you realize uh what's Worth Dying For You know what what's worth living for what does facing death look like from a tactical perspective how what is a way that people can practice doing this oh gosh I mean I I'm understanding how you use the word tactical now because strategically operationally how do we get this to how can we get it to grow corn so I have some prescriptors some recommendations in the books I don't want to give everything uh away but I'll say of man yeah sure all right I I like you I like your audience so good I'll go ahead and give you this one I'll give you a juicy one there you go but guys I'm now you got to get it you got to go buy the book because Link in the show notes below brother there thanks brother uh so before I ever went off to combat uh one of the very first things I had to do when I got to ranger battalion is they packed me for war day one at range of baton they packed me for War uh so uh but uh then I immediately had to write a death letter and your death letter is your last words to family friends who whatever put it in an envelope you seal it and you hang it in your wall Locker so that if you never come back your buddies mail the letter and uh yeah they're like okay boom all right you write a death letter no big deal yeah right uh especially you shipping off for war you're like I may never come back these May really be my last words uh and I had um I had some blurry letters and words on that document where I wept over that and so I I had to um really do an audit of those relationships and and I told people what they meant to me and I tried to take any business that may be unfinished and make sure that it was finished so even after that letter of like I gotta make some calls I got to tell some people some stuff I gotta offload some junk that I've been dealing with I need to be completely Unshackled unfettered Ready To Die For A Cause And so um it was really remarkable and so in in the book I lead people to do just that and go through that exercise you can't be ready to die if you have unfinished business if you have unresolved conflict if you've withheld forgiveness for some people that you should have if you owe someone some apologies and you don't realize it and furthermore you're not ever ready to die if you haven't settled the hardest questions of life is there a God uh and if so if there's a God what does that God want from us now am I right with that God am I ready to am I ready to die am I ready to kill am I really really ready to kill over this if like if somebody goes to carjack you're ready to shoot him for it like the John Wick one movie had a real problem with I love John Wick movie by the way but he he murders like 130 dudes because they killed his dog he'd had for two weeks and they stole his car which is probably insured and they're like no no no you don't get it it he loved the dog and it was sentiment blah blah blah it's like 130 henchmen you killed some of those guys are just you know working a Beat Just like hey I got a new job today and then he got whacked you had no idea about the puppy killing situation thing you just whacked a whole bunch of people and now he gets to women Limitless rage wow this is quite a uh um quite a rabbit Trail but what is worth dying for what is worth killing for I don't care about my wallet here taking my wallet I'll have my credit cards canceled within the hour I'm not it's not worth killing you over I'd rather here here's my car keys I'm buying your life so I don't have to kill you for this and so settling all those most important philosophical and Theological questions must be done because if you ever do face your own demise and we never know when that's going to come let's say you have to act heroically you got to push through and do something you got to be brave you got to protect somebody your brain can be ambushed by those greater questions and unresolved conflicts and things in your life that are still in disarray and you'll find yourself distracted by those items and not able to keep your mind on the ball in the present in in effect you can get ambushed by all these questions and it can rob your ability to um to do what needs to be done does all that make sense it does I also imagine that the unresolved conflicts or the ungiven thanks and gratitude to the people who need it that have shaped you and helped you uh that just probably ambiently sits you know somewhere just in the back of your mind it just floats around behind you and it'll surface just a tiny little smidgen every week every couple of weeks every month and it'll just remind you and it's it's going to be slowly just eroding away your experience of life and on top of that as well you know you have the opportunity by reaching out to somebody who deserves it with an olive branch or with gratitude or with thanks or with whatever it is by doing that you get to live the the wonderful opportunity of bathing in the reflective glow of making somebody else feel good while you're both still alive that's good yeah I I love that if for me I can be so stupid and kind of in my heart of hearts that I may think something doesn't bother me I'm like oh no no I'm over that I'm over that and really I'm not I don't feel I'm not thinking about it but as you said it's kind of back here it's someplace sitting brooding and growing in my subconscious and my conscious brain just didn't know anything about it but I know that you know dysfunction maybe you got a dad that really did you wrong or something else like that you're not going to forgive him because he doesn't deserve it just understand that that root uh even if you're not thinking about it consciously that root grows and it becomes bitter and it infects and poisons all Air all kinds of different area uh uh parts of your life and so being able to forgive people even sometimes when they don't deserve it is good even from a self-preservation standpoint now forgiving someone isn't the same as trusting them you know they wronged you of like I forgive you I release that but I'm not going to trust you anymore trust is slowly earn and quickly lost I'm not going to trust you uh you know so anyway there's some thoughts John let's bring this one home mate I really appreciate you uh I love the fact that you're trying to marry these two worlds um I I really think that we could probably do with more Warriors and more poets and less of the passivity that we're seeing at the moment if people want to check out the book and all of the other stuff that you do and your courses why should they go the warrior poet way is the best place to find the book The Warrior poetway.com uh that's going to land you on our website too so you can kind of hunt around but our website is Warrior poetsociety.com from there you can find our YouTube stuff and our social media good luck they're gonna censor that like crazy sense so even if you click on the stuff who knows whether they'll serve it up to you they hate us because we tell the truth and so uh yeah party on man John I appreciate you thank you mate use well thanks brother if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe

Channel: Chris Williamson

Views: 525,251

Keywords: modern wisdom, podcast, chris williamson, Chris Williamson modern wisdom, modern wisdom podcast, chriswillx, Chris Williamson Modern Wisdom Podcast, John Lovell, Defeating Inner Coward, Williamson and Lovell Conversation, Conquering Self-Doubt, Chris and John Lovell Insights, Lovell on Courage, Defeating Limiting Beliefs, Empowering Conversations, John Lovell's Perspectives, Overcoming Challenges, Lovell's Tips for Courage, Williamson's Perspectives on Fear, Self-Empowerment

Id: RCodxQiL35M

Length: 55min 59sec (3359 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023