RV - 9 Ways Pain & Suffering Makes You A High Value Man
[0:00:00] So, have you ever heard of kintsugi?
So, kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery.
Now, that may sound pretty common, but what makes this unique is that the glue the lacquer
that they use to bring it together is dusted and mixed with powder gold, silver, or platinum.
Now, to me there are three obvious things that make this really interesting.
First up, you can see the history of the breakage, you realized that this is an imperfect item.
Next, because of the precious metals used oftentimes in an item that was relatively
plain to begin with, you have something that is now more valuable than it was before it
was actually broken.
And this last one I think is the most important is that the item after it has been repaired
is oftentimes stronger than the original was to begin with.
So, what does this have to do with you and how pain and suffering can make you a better
man?
Well, I see it, gents, as the perfect analogy of how challenges, setbacks, pain in our life
can actually help us get ahead.
Now, when it comes to pain and suffering, there’s both mental and physical anguish
that a person can go through.
And I’m going to be talking about both in this video.
So, first up on this list, a moderate amount of pain and suffering can make you anti-fragile.
Now, I’m stealing this term from the writer, Nicholas Taleb.
And he defines anti-fragile as something slightly different than being resilient.
Resilient, you just resist shocks, but if you’re anti-fragile, whenever you are shocked
whenever you go through something tough, you actually get better, you get stronger.
And I want to be clear, I did say the word, moderate pain and suffering, because too much
or too little won’t have the intended effect.
And there’s a whole study that backs this up.
They took a group of people and they had a list of thirty seven negative life events.
Those that just answered a couple or those that answered almost all of them had a low
tolerance of pain and weren’t able to deal with stress very well.
But, there was a sweet spot, people that have gone through some pain and suffering and this
right here made them more resilient to pain and they were able to better deal with stress.
Next up, let’s talk about how pain and suffering builds resilience.
So, I just finished David Goggins’ latest book, Never Finished.
It was a gift from my son.
It was amazing.
Now, in that book there was one story that really stood out to me.
It was actually this horrible experiment they did on rats years ago in which they dropped
one into the cylinder with water and again and again they would die and they would drown
after 15 minutes.
But, they changed things up.
Right before one of the rats drowned, they would pull them out, dry them off, feed them,
and then put them back in.
Guess how long they would last?
20 minutes?
60 minutes?
120 minutes?
81 hours.
Yeah, what’s that?
A multiple of 320 and what was the difference?
Hope, the knowledge that, hey, there is a possible out, I can possibly survive this.
And, guys, when you go through some really tough things and you’re able to make it
through, this just makes you more resilient.
It makes you being able to deal with more things coming your way because you’ve survived
worse.
Next benefit of a little pain and suffering is you build up your strength.
A great example of this is what was happening in biosphere two.
Basically, you had a bunch of scientists locked into a building.
They were trying to replicate, you know, living on Mars.
But, what’s interesting here is all these trees that were in there, they were dying
way before their time.
They kept falling over.
Now, the scientists were totally dumbfounded by this until they figured out what was missing
was wind.
You see, these trees had never had any resistance, they never had anything push on them, so they
didn’t have any strength.
Specifically, it’s called stress wood.
And what they found is that without it, the tree wasn’t able to maintain its core integrity
and strength and its roots as well were not able to strengthen.
Now, I know for me, personally pushing my body in the gym, out running, exercising,
staying active, this is how I build my core strength.
That being said, I’ll admit, a few years back when I lost my trainer, I got into a
rut.
I kept going to the gym and repeating the same exercises.
Now, I read a few books on fitness and I tried putting a few workouts together, but, guys,
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The next way the pain and suffering makes you a better man, gentlemen, empathy.
This one is huge.
When you have lost an animal, when you’ve lost a family member to suicide, whenever
you have gone through a debilitating injury – I’ll tell you my son, he has been having
back issues and I just feel so bad for him because the guy puts in the effort, he puts
in the work and all of a sudden, he’s sidelined.
And I know though that this has actually made him much more empathetic and compassionate
to other people that have suffered – suffering injuries.
I see him actually work with his grandmother to get back into shape and to build a little
bit of muscle because he knows the pain.
Maybe not exactly what she’s going through, but he’s felt pain.
Anyone that’s lost anyone, anyone that’s lost a child, anyone that’s lost a parent,
you know what it’s like.
All of a sudden, I found it just made me a better boss, it’s made me a better co-worker,
it has made me a better husband because you start to just realize that life is tough and
it is hard.
And people don’t always express the pain they’re going through.
But, you know if somebody has lost somebody that’s close to them, they’re not saying
anything, just talking to them, making sure that you’re taking care of them, giving
them time off because you have gone through that heartache.
You have, you know, just had your heart stepped on by that – by that woman that you love.
And, when you’ve gone through a divorce, you have this deep empathy for other men that
have suffered and can’t even see their kids.
You know what this is like and this right here makes you a better person because you
start to understand the human experience and you can bond and create friendships with these
people that other people just can’t understand them, you can.
Now, with that empathy comes a lot of humility.
All of a sudden, you realized just how fragile life is, just how fragile, you know, you see
people driving around, young people they think they’re indestructible on that motorcycle
and you pull the guy over and you say, “You know what?
I used to love – I had a bike just like this.”
You’re talking to the guy for a couple of minutes, then you say, “You know what?
How come you’re not wearing a helmet?
I just not that I want to tell you what to do, but I lost a nephew and I saw the aftermath.”
And you’re a little bit detailed.
And those type of stories you’re not going to tell this kid what to do because only he
can make the choice for himself, but you are a humble man and you know that you’re looking
out for his best interest.
You want him to enjoy love that bike, go pull the wheelies and stuff, but wear proper equipment.
Do what you can to take care of yourself.
You start just be humble about, you know, your health, you realize that, hey, maybe
it’s worth the company I own giving my employees a bit of money, so that they can take care
of their mental health, so that they can take and just give it as a bonus.
Just say, you know what?
If you want to go to the gym, I’d cover that up to 500 bucks a month, you know, the
first month, maybe after that couple of hundred.
You know, you don’t – what you’re pushing here is that you care about your people and
you realized that our body is limited in its capability and you understand this and it
just makes you a better person.
It’s safe to say that we could put perspective on this list.
Pain and suffering just gives you a viewpoint that you didn’t have before because you
can read a book on pain and suffering, on what it’s like to lose somebody close, but
until you experience, it’s all just been theory.
Once you go through that pain and you realized that losing somebody close to you especially
someone maybe that depended on you is one of the worst feelings anybody can go through.
And it doesn’t seem like it’s even natural.
I know people that have lost, you know, you guys have animals and you’ve, you know,
and you were supposed to be watching the dog and it ran out, you let him out and he gets
hit by a car.
It makes you more human.
And that’s another – I’ll throw this on with pain and suffering, it brings you
into the human experience that we’ve all gone through.
Maybe it connects you more with your father, with your grandfather.
You start to look back on some of these guys that seem to hide their feelings.
Maybe your mother, you don’t have a great relationship with, but you realized I know
with my mom she lost, you know, lost one of my sisters.
I wasn’t born yet, she was 3.
I can’t even imagine that now.
And it’s I give my mom – she’s lost two of her daughters actually.
And here I am, I’ve got five kids, I’ve got seven in the house, my two nephews and
I can’t I just got so much more empathy and I realized, you know, my mom, I don’t
always have the best relationship with her, but I respect the woman for the pain and suffering
that she’s gone through and how she’s been able to keep it together and you realized
how brave.
So many people are around you, that 15-year old that has gone through three abusive homes.
You know, yeah, you know his grade suck and who knows what his future is, but I do know
that that kid has gone through so much pain and suffering.
[0:10:02] And anyone that’s gone through this, you
know, you can connect with them, what you see that they’re climbing out of a hole.
Not everyone starts, you know, on even ground.
A lot of people are they start way down low and they’re just crawling their way out.
And that’s the human experience.
So many of us start way behind.
When you see that, you just have this deeper appreciation for what we’re capable of.
And sometimes going through that pain and suffering, you realized that so much of this
is self-imposed.
You get fixated on a woman, on a girl.
I know, I did once in high school, a few times in high school.
And I remember back in college, there was a girl that turned me down and I wasted an
entire weekend listening to Dwight Yoakam, George Strait.
Ah, probably not a waste.
But, just drinking and my buddy was really worried about me and for good reason.
Why was I taking this so bad?
Why was I so wrapped around that?
I created so much pain and suffering.
I think it’s Buddhism that the Buddha talked about this.
The life is pain and suffering and to be able to separate yourself from those emotions.
Now, you don’t always want to do this because with that on that flipside of the pain and
suffering is love is that great feeling that you develop for another person that you develop
for, you know, people around you, your family.
But, it is something that you realize they are just unhealthy times and you’re building
up these expectations and then, when it all falls versus actually learning in life to,
you know, not have a whole lot of expectations, to kind of just go with the flow.
Of course, there are ones you can’t avoid.
But, I find for me, I don’t really like with all with my business, I’m experimenting
and trying so many things.
I look at them as experiments.
I don’t look at them as I’ve got to make it.
Only, you know, three out of ten if they make it, then we’re doing great.
Two out of ten, we’ll survive.
One out of ten, it will be tough.
But, I view these as experiments and when I hit like six out of ten for some reason
in a year, that’s awesome.
I mean, that was way above average.
Now, gents, if you’re enjoying today’s video, I’d really appreciate a like.
I know a topic like this is kind of hard for some people to talk about.
I think that this is really an important topic, so, yeah, I really appreciate the like.
It lets the YouTube gods know that, hey, this video is worth watching.
Pain and suffering also gives you gratitude.
So, my son, again, this is him in the morning jumping into this ice bath.
I can tell you, he enjoys that hot shower that he takes right after this.
You know, my coffee in the morning after my hour long grueling workout, I can tell you
it just tastes better.
Anybody that’s been out for a two-mile hard run, maybe 20-mile run and you sit down and
you drink that glass of water, yeah, it tastes amazing.
That’s the power of pain and suffering, gents, it makes the mundane the simple things
in life so much better.
You’re just grateful for what you’ve got and it’s a great perspective to carry through
especially when you know more those tough times more those hard – hard times are coming
at you.
And that takes me to a respect for reality, because pain and suffering, it teaches you,
you know, I talk about the human condition, but we live in a western culture that somehow
seems to want to mitigate it.
When people are going through pain, oh, take an Advil, take an aspirin.
Can you, you know, can we medicate it?
Can you ignore it?
Can you move on?
Can you look at the happy?
Happiness is great, satisfaction in my opinion is even better.
And understanding that pain is a natural part of life is actually just facing reality.
There are times that people get an illness and they don’t recover from them.
But, when you realized, okay, this is part of the way it’s always been human condition,
you learn to accept it.
And with that acceptance, I think comes the satisfaction especially if you put forth your
best effort.
The satisfaction of knowing you’ve left everything on the field.
Now, at this point, you may be saying, okay, Antonio, this sounds interesting, but do I
really want pain and suffering?
I mean, can I just avoid this?
Here’s the thing.
You avoid pain and suffering, you are going to miss out on some of the deepest relationships
that you can form with other people and especially other men.
When I look at my time in the Marine Corps, it was going through OCS, it was going through
TBS OCS’s officer candidate school.
TBS is The Basic School.
But, basically, all of these sucked, it was training.
I mean, but I realized I was going through this suck with a bunch of other motivated
amazing people and I made friendships that still to this day, I can call up a lot of
those guys and they’ve got my back.
And I would love to hear some examples down in the comments of today’s video, what are
examples of the bonding situations, especially I love it with other men that you have found
where you guys are going through something painful and at the end of it, this deep relationship
has crystallized and it’s going to follow you be with you for the rest of your life.
In fact, I would argue that pain and suffering are critical to the most important things
in our life.
You look at your relationships, maybe at your marriage, maybe it’s with your kids, maybe
it’s with your parents.
You look at anything that you’ve accomplished in your life.
I know for me, building up businesses, but maybe it’s getting your engineering degree,
maybe it’s making your way through law school and getting that firm off the ground after
your uncle told you you would never succeed.
Here’s the thing is that think of all that pain, all that suffering.
But, when you reached that summit, you reached that point, you realized, it was the journey
that made it, you know, you love it.
And then, you – what are you doing?
You’re looking for the next summit to go after.
[0:15:02] You realized it’s not about just accomplishing.
That’s nice, but you are already moving on to your next challenge.
It’s these challenges, it’s that suffering, it’s that bit of pain that gives the flavor
to life.
All right, gents.
So, what video to watch next?
How about the brutal truths that every guy needs to know?
Seriously, if you are under the age of 30, if you’re older than 30, you definitely
want to watch this video.
I lay out brutal truths that every guy needs to know because if you don’t, yeah, then
it’s going to hold you back.
Guys, check out this video, it’s a good one.
[0:15:32] End of audio