Inspired by Dave Asprey’s new book on fasting, I recorded a few thoughts on the topic of “Doing Hard Things.” Whether it’s fasting, using the Neubie, doing breathing exercises, getting up early, taking a cold shower, or something else, doing hard things can build up our will power over time. Though it is a finite resource, this will power can give us the foundational strength necessary to do better in business, with our families, and in any other meaningful pursuit. It can enable us to power through difficult times, have the courage to engage in tough conversations, and learn to take responsibility when things go off course. Please let us know your favorite example of “doing hard things” and how it’s helped you in your life!
Garrett salpeter] 0:00
There are times, certainly in my practice, when we’re working with patients and clients where we turn up the newbie, to a point where Edward purposefully intentionally pushes somebody outside of their comfort zone. And at that moment, I know I’ve had the experience, I’ve my brain is telling me to stop to run away to turn down the machine to scream and yell at somebody, to do something just to try to make it stop. And when I’m able to breathe through that move through that, I build that doing hard things muscle just a little bit, and I learned that I can silence that voice or I can work through that voice of my brain. It’s a fear response, and it’s telling me to panic or stop it quickly. I’m Garrett Salpeter. And I believe that the most powerful and transformative way to help people recover from pain and injury, heal from trauma, and reach their highest levels of fitness and performance is to focus on the nervous system. In this podcast, we’ll share knowledge from the front tears of neuroscience and inspirational stories of how applying that knowledge have empowered people from all walks of life to heal, adapt, and grow. Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the undercurrent Podcast.
[Garrett salpeter] 1:05
Today, I was inspired to come on and talk with you about a topic that I find very important and interesting. And I hope you do too. And I call it doing hard things very simple. I was inspired to come on and share, these thoughts with you. Because I’ve been reading Dave Asprey, his new book called fast this way, it’s about fasting. And he describes a lot of the health benefits of fasting, he also describes a lot of the psychological and spiritual benefits of fasting. And it’s this really interesting scenario, this common theme that I see in a lot of other really valuable activities, that involves being able to quiet that voice inside of us or being able to push through when that voice inside you know, and fasting tells us to eat. And we power through it, we override, we build that doing hard things muscle is also known as willpower.
[Garrett salpeter] 2:01
But it’s really important because cultivating that ability to work through temporary discomfort to achieve a larger long-term goal is just really important. And reading the book, reminded me of a few other practices that I’ve had in my routine at various times. And I just really wanted to share those with you and share some of the ways that they’ve helped me and some of the insights I had when reflecting on this. And I hope it’s helpful. Before we dive into some of those actual strategies, I just want to give a little bit of context. So first, neuroscience wise the brain, we know the brain, its number one priority is to protect us, our brain limits us our brain, you know, make sure we don’t move too fast or stretch too far. So don’t get injured, because if we’re injured, then we’re vulnerable to being attacked by a predator, our brain triggers a sensation of pain to get us to not load certain areas of the body if they’re injured, or even to get us to change our behavior, or change something if the source of pain is psychological, or something that you know, quote, unquote, should not hurt.
[Garrett salpeter] 3:02
And a lot of this is based on the fear that the brain causes us to experience fear as a protective mechanism. So we don’t go too far. And the issue is that sometimes that protective mechanism is set conservatively. Like it’s useful for us to not, you know, jump off of a building from 20. stories, if we feel fear, like a fear of heights around that’s useful, that’s protective, but feeling fear of like starting a new business, or putting out a book or a podcast or something like that. Sometimes that’s a fear of failure, or maybe a fear of success, the fear of like, you know, if I’m successful, I think we understand the fear of failure. And you know, but the fear of success is like, you know if I’m successful,
[Garrett salpeter] 3:43
Will I be able to keep it up? Or are people going to ask more of me? Can I do it, you know, so there are legitimate fears of success as well? And so, you know, fear and brain function are some of the underlying themes here in terms of neuroscience and then in terms of the strategies, fasting is one. Another one that that I like for building this doing hard things muscle is using the newbie. And there are times, certainly in my practice, when we’re working with patients and clients where we turn up the newbie, to a point where it purposefully intentionally pushes somebody outside of their comfort zone.
[Garrett salpeter] 4:22
And at that moment, I know I’ve had the experience, I’ve my brain is telling me to stop to run away to turn down the machine to scream and yell at somebody, to you know, to do something just to try to make it stop. And when I’m able to breathe through that move through that I build that doing hard things muscle just a little bit and I learned that I can silence that voice or I can work through that voice of my brain. It’s a fear response and it tells me to panic or to stop or to quit. Also, you know if we’re holding squat or lunge or push-up positions for minutes at a time that same voice comes back you got to quit you got to stop.
[Garrett salpeter] 4:58
This is dangerous. You can We get hurt, and be able to push through that to achieve that time goal or to just push beyond whatever, whatever our brain currently is telling us we can or should do, you know, there’s a, there’s a lot of value in that. Also, swimming in cold water in the winter, you know, here in Austin, we’re in the season right now where it’s starting to warm up. So the pool is 52 degrees this morning, I went in there and did it. But you know, there were a couple of months where it’s done in the low 40s. And
[Garrett salpeter] 5:28
Initially, you know, when I started going in, I was getting, I was getting anxious before going in, and it was hard to even do it. And then when I got in, I would, I would panic. And my brain would tell me to get out, get out or panic breathe, and just being able to call my breath and be able to do it consistently, has also built up that muscle. And then also some of the breathing practices, I’m reminded the same, the same voice of wanting to quit is the same type of responses. It’s so interesting in some of the breathing practices that I’ve been doing. So if you can, if you’re watching the video, you can see I have this relaxation here, it’s a device that looks like a pacifier, if you’re listening, just take my word for it looks like a little pacifier that goes in the mouth.
[Garrett salpeter] 6:05
So I’ll do this, sometimes while I’m driving. And don’t necessarily recommend this, you know, for safety reasons. But I’ve done it. So I’ll share it with you. So I’ll be driving, and I’ll breathe normally through my nose, and then I’ll be breathing out through this device, and it has a very narrow opening. So it dramatically slows down the rate at which I’m able to breathe out. And so it reduces breathing volume and helps me build up higher co2 levels. And when co2 levels reach a certain point, that’s what triggers us to breathe.
[Garrett salpeter] 6:33
And so as they go beyond that, that’s where the brain starts to feel panic, like if you’re holding your breath, and your brain is telling you to breathe, breathe, and breathe deeply. And so being able to go to that point where my brain starts to sound, the alarm bells and it’s so interesting it like the car will start to feel like it’s getting smaller, I feel claustrophobic and my clothes feel like you’re fitting tight. You know, as I’m holding my breath these extra few seconds and I start to feel warm, I feel like I need to open the window, I feel like I need to gasp for air. And, you know, I go through that a few seconds and then take my next breath. And then all go when I feel a little bit euphoric even. And so it’s being able to push through that has many, many health benefits, but then also builds that doing hard things muscle. And these strategies are really like, and I found that they’ve helped me and just to kind of tie it into well, you know, what’s the point, you know, upon reflection, I’ve seen ways where, where these have helped me in other areas of my life.
[Garrett salpeter] 7:33
And a couple that came to mind that I thought was interesting. One is that when we first came on the scene as a newbie, some more established medical device companies were threatened by us and tried to bully us. One tried to file a bullshit pardon for my language but a lawsuit against us. And we had to fight. And I had to spend a lot of time and money and effort and aggravation to fight that. But it was you know, it was one of those things where I was able to kind of fall back on some of these other experiences I had as an athlete and some of these other practices. And I was able to convince myself and say, with conviction, okay, this is an example of temporary discomfort that I have to go through. And it’s worth it for the long term.
[Garrett salpeter] 8:20
You know what, because on the other side of this, there’s the long-term opportunity to make a tremendous impact on the world to do all the things that we’re doing with a new fit and the newbie, and you know what I can I can tough it out, I can make it through this. And so to be able to have those experiences gave me the conviction to make it through that. Other times, generally, you know, both in our clinic with COVID. And historically and things, you know, when sales numbers are down, and other challenges have occurred. When when we failed, and of course, as a leader, I take responsibility for that, for that failure or us not hitting our targets. You know, those moments suck, then I have to figure out and then you know, it’s not just me with the answers, right? It’s our team as well, but have to figure out okay, what can we do to get through it.
[Garrett salpeter] 9:07
And we have to know that going through these tough times. Will we have the faith we had that we can get through it because we’ve done it before? It’s that same type of dynamic another example. This is one it’s almost tough for me to admit, but I had a team member who was I mean, actually come to find out trying to like subvert me. And you know, he was the more I didn’t know that until the end, or maybe I should have but you know, I just had this kind of a thorn in my side. And it took me a while to cultivate the strength to be able to end the relationship and do the right thing. And being able to rely on or kind of reflect on the experience of some of these practices helped give me the strength to do it. Not only the strength to do it but also the
[Garrett salpeter] 10:00
The like, understanding that I am important to our businesses and that it was important that was worth fighting for. And all of that, you know, it took a lot to kind of rally the gumption to make that decision. And again, pushing through the temporary pain of doing that now, I see how much better everything is going just validates 100% It was the right decision. And I just, that stands out to me, times was kind of referring to myself earlier as well, another example of launching a podcast, my book, those are examples where I had some fear, but I was able to identify it and work through it, and, and do these things, in large part because of these previous experiences of knowing that, you know, if you know if people don’t like it, if I’m criticized, if whatever, like knowing I can get through those hard times and know that there’s something, something better on the other end. So I hope that this resonated with you in some way, you know, can help you on your journey in some way.
[Garrett salpeter] 11:04
Two quick points I want to mention. One is I recognize that some people have a lot of hard things in their lives, you know, single parents working two jobs to support their children, you know, if they’re already doing hard things, and I want to just acknowledge that, you know, talking about going and swimming in the backyard pool is, you know, is hard, yes. But you know, can be a little artificial for people who have much harder circumstances and just want to share, acknowledge and share a lot of respect and admiration for people who are working through those types of circumstances and just know that you are, you’re flexing that muscle every day. I also want to one other note that willpower is a finite resource.
[Garrett salpeter] 11:44
So just like muscles get fatigued, willpower gets fatigued. So if you’re fasting training hard, and doing a lot of cold exposure, you may not have as much willpower or, or mental capacity for other things, you might have a short fuse with fewer patients, and you might make poor decisions not perform as well in other areas. So those are just something to be aware of, you know, you got to balance out those stressors. And if any of this resonates with you, I would encourage you to whether it’s fasting and just a quick review, you know, whether it’s fasting, whether it’s cold water exposure, whether it’s various breathing exercises, like air hunger drills, or you know, teaching training yourself to hold your breath for longer, whether something a newbie, or are pushing yourself a little harder on your own in your training. I encourage you to pick one of these things this week, and try to intentionally push yourself outside your comfort zone and train you’re doing hard things muscle. Lots of love. Thanks for tuning in. Goodbye for now.
Ad Break 12:40
If you’re ready to supercharge your practice, listen to this. Garrett and Team New fit. I’ve just released a new online course entitled Introduction to the new fit method. In this detailed eight-hour course you’ll gain mastery of the fundamental techniques in our practice, including muscle testing and activations of nerve glides joint articulations you’ll also get introduced to our patented direct current stimulation device that newbie, an incredible machine that’s empowered professionals just like you to help their patients heal, adapt and grow faster than they ever thought possible. To learn more, go to www. nu dot fit slash learn.
[Garrett salpeter] 13:12
Thank you so much for listening to the undercurrent podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date as we release future episodes.
