How to Be a Genius

00:00.44 mikebledsoe I'm gonna try oh welcome to the max Mike or them. Oh no, no no oh I Totally screwed it up already do over do over. Okay, welcome to yeah I'll edit it. Yeah well. 00:03.90 Max Shank That's how it works when you try. Okay, we got to do it over. We got to do it over just start start over fuck that wait wait wait. We're still recording though the whole time. Yo no, you won't just start the whole thing over. 00:19.65 mikebledsoe I had it every time. Yeah. 00:20.97 Max Shank Really oh, that's cool. 00:27.30 mikebledsoe Ah, welcome to Mondays with mike and Max or if max is saying it. It's max and mike and today we're gonna be talking about learning. We want to teach you how to be a genius and you know. I would say that max and I are both geniuses at certain things I wouldn't say across the board but we have gotten really good at a few things apiece and ah and and things that we were not good at as children. So it's not 1 of those things where we just became good at it. Because you know our dad did it or anything like that. So we have both put a lot of attention into learning how to learn and that has taken us pretty far I would say most people would say that we're happier and more successful than the average guy. 01:20.13 Max Shank Sound really happy right now. No I Guess we're probably just happier than the average person. That's good. 01:21.90 mikebledsoe Our age Do I do I fuck I didn't think so. 01:30.80 mikebledsoe Um, well I'm happier than I'm happier than ah I used to be I can say that. So um, um. 01:35.84 Max Shank Happiness is a state of mind folks. 01:40.34 mikebledsoe Ah, maybe um, but you can also learn to be happy. So yeah, holding a perspective and being able to stabilize that state. Yeah well. 01:45.13 Max Shank Oh yeah, meditation is a state of mind too. Meditation is a state of mind you can practice that as well hundred percent. 01:58.13 mikebledsoe 1 thing that was brought to my attention when it comes to learning is there's a difference between accumulating facts and being able to regurgitate them or to be able to know how to do a certain thing and there's another. It's another thing to hold us. Ah. Hold a perspective so wholly that the knowledge that's necessary to make things happen or to have a conversation just comes with a lot of ease and it's more of ah, being able to stabilize that perspective but people who are into. Ah. Obtaining a lot of knowledge what they'll do is they'll they'll they'll tap into that perspective for a moment and then they'll slide back into their current perspective and then over time you accumulate enough Data Points. You can you can solidify that and then the conversation becomes very very easy when. 02:56.36 Max Shank I Call it Toolbelt knowledge I say if you can access it immediately and you use it with some regularity then it's in the tool belt and then you have something That's maybe like toolbox knowledge. Where for example I speak. 02:56.37 mikebledsoe Discussing a certain topic. 03:14.96 Max Shank Ah, fluent Spanish but there are some words that I wouldn't be able to think of out of the blue. But if someone said it to me I would understand what they were saying and so I think that's more like in the tool like I I can't like you I don't use it all the time and there's been some deterioration. 03:25.16 mikebledsoe What. 03:34.10 Max Shank But I would understand it like I would know what you're talking about and so I just think of it like you have tool belt knowledge which is readily available and more importantly, you use it with some regularity because there's ah, there's a half -life or there's a shelf life I guess on. Information and if you don't use it. You lose it. That's a big thing for learn for learning. 03:54.66 mikebledsoe Yeah I guess similar to the perspective conversation is if if it's it's looking through a specific lens and if you're looking through that lens regularly you're it's in use in it and it stabilizes if you're not looking through it regularly. It gets dirty. 04:13.95 Max Shank Perspective is a huge thing. Um, it's hard to even say where to begin with something as important as perspective because perspective is a locale.. It's like are you zoomed in. Are you zoomed out. Are you looking into the past. Are you looking into the Future. What's the the tint on the lens you know that saying ah seeing the world with rose-colored glasses or through rose colored glasses and some people see the world as a ah, very dark and mean and nasty place and they see themselves. As ah, unlucky. For example, but that's just a matter of what you focus on and that whole comparison syndrome that we get into is really the only thing that colors how lucky we feel or don't feel. So. It's all what you compare it to because you can't define something in isolation you have to compare it to something else same with distance same with mass same with ah the way you live anything it all is what you compare it to. 05:23.80 mikebledsoe Yeah, was they say the ah comparison is a thief of all joy I find it to be a bit easier to learn things when I'm happy um and can learn more than them. Ah, there's I remember looking at a study at 1 point that said that. 05:27.86 Max Shank Um, I've heard that. 05:43.24 mikebledsoe If you add play into what you're learning then you can learn up to 20 times faster. So. 05:50.62 Max Shank Well play is 2 things you said recently play is the first form of training which is practicing which is learning. That's what animals do like big cats. Small cats too other predators they play. As their first form of killing. Basically so um, play is the first form of practice or training or learning if you want to call it that and then the other thing you were saying about being happy is for true learning to occur. 06:11.39 mikebledsoe Um. 06:28.49 Max Shank You need to be interested so you need to be curious and you need to be motivated. Um, you can learn something but you won't truly like learn it and own it if you're doing it just because you must like. For example, school and we could do a whole podcast. About how school is the most colossal misuse of time and abuse of children that I can think of but we'll skip that for another time my point is I mean look it's it's bad but we don't need to belabor the point. Ah yeah. 07:05.42 mikebledsoe I'm in agreement by the way I'm not so the the listeners if I'm laughing because I I know where max is coming from not because I think he's ridiculous. 07:07.41 Max Shank I'm not gonna change. 07:13.60 Max Shank I mean I've taught people stuff in ah in a three day seminar that actually increase their income and their physical health. There's 3 days like that's not long and in 12 years they like don't remember what Sacajawea did they just know that that's a word fuck that shit. 07:20.71 mikebledsoe Right? 3 days that. 07:30.63 mikebledsoe And they're probably they're less healthy in no better position to make money. 07:31.45 Max Shank Ridiculous. 07:35.16 Max Shank Yeah, you sit in a desk for a really long time. You're like looking straight down. It's horrifically bad anyway, all all that. Ah, ah, torture of children aside the reason that people don't remember it is because a it's not in the tool belt because they're not using it. And b they're being coerced into doing it like you must remember this or you will fail and be Bad. It's like okay like I'll do it but I'm not going to not going to do as good a job I'm not going to be as excited and enthusiasm about it and enthusiasm. Comes from ah the root for being possessed by spirit possessed by the Muse. So enthusiasm is really the the energy. That's why you can see people who have very little knowledge actually. Be extremely successful because they're very enthusiastic about the little that they know. 08:34.94 mikebledsoe Yeah I've been talking to my girlfriend about that a bit is she? ah. 08:49.37 mikebledsoe Ah, Max is red with laughter. Ah now I've been talking about ah but well I noticed that there's a lot of people who make a lot of money in real estate. So we've been talking about getting more aggressive about. 08:52.81 Max Shank Ah, ah. 09:06.81 mikebledsoe Investing in real estate and I and it's ah it's a new I know a bit she knows a bit we need to get deeper into it if we want to be good at it. But I go I look at it I go I know a lot of people who invest in real estate or and have been very successful and they don't ah. Occur to me to be the most intelligent people on the planet. They're not.. They're not some type of Genius They they're they Found. They are some type of Genius They found a way to do something and they just repeat it and because that's what works in real estate you find. 09:27.28 Max Shank And. They are some type of genius. 09:43.37 mikebledsoe Find someone who's really successful in real estate and you'll you'll find that they they do 1 or 2 things and they just do it over and over and over and over again. It's it's a bit redundant, but it's also very exciting to watch your your personal wealth climb. 09:58.28 Max Shank Yeah, and you can also lose your shirt in real estate. You can get totally burned by buying a property at the wrong time and not really predicting or preparing for an income decrease I'll just. 10:03.73 mikebledsoe Here. 10:17.45 Max Shank Just remember seeing this house in del mar near where I live and it was ah sold for 18 million a couple years later they put it on the market for 21 million and then I watched them progressively lower the price all the way down to 6 million. 10:36.24 mikebledsoe Whoa. 10:37.16 Max Shank So the value went from 18 million to 6 million and you know there were like all kinds of crashes and stuff going on but this was like on the bluffs like right by the beach in del mar probably that because there are 3 rules in real estate right? location location location this was a. 10:53.43 mikebledsoe E. 10:57.13 Max Shank Primo like Crown Jewel of real estate. It was massive had tennis court. Its right on the beach was ridiculous but they they got taken to the cleaners because they bought it the wrong time and they couldn't survive through the liquidity crisis. Basically like there's that saying that markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent which is kind of a good thing to keep in mind. 11:23.87 mikebledsoe Yeah, Well I think ah great. That's a great point is that that's not likely an intelligence issue as much as it is um, ah, people in what I've seen with people who do make mistakes in investing is. They let their emotions take over and they're afraid that they have a fear of loss and then that's why or they're a fear of missing out or a fear of loss and which a fear of missing out is just fear of future loss and or potential loss and and. 11:59.32 Max Shank Yeah I think go ahead. 12:03.54 mikebledsoe And people they break their own rules like they have this rule around how to invest in real estate or they have a rule that they that's been passed down and if you follow those rules it 99 percent of time you probably can be fine. But then you see a spike in the market or you see a dip in the market and then you you freak out and you react or you you break your own rules or you break the rules of the people who taught you and that because of an emotional experience and that's when people that's what I see when people lose their shirt. 12:35.70 Max Shank Well, it's risk reward right? if you concentrate your bet into 1 thing like let's say you put all of your money on Alibaba 15 years ago, you'd be like really really happy and if you put all your money in blockbuster Video. You'd be really really sad and if you diversified you wouldn't have returned as much as if you had concentrated all of your money into 1 big bet. But you're also limiting how much you can lose. So. I think with life and with investing the thing you want to understand is that it's usually pretty ah clear risk reward ratio and you want to try to aim for things that where you have 2 ways to win and no way to lose pretty much and there's another saying I like which is. 13:27.13 mikebledsoe Yeah. 13:31.91 Max Shank Why risk what you need for what you don't need and that's why you know you hear a story about someone you know, buying some unknown cryptocurrency and they like 10 X their money and then you're like feeling greedy yourself, you're feeling that fear of missing out. So you might catch it at the very top and then and then catch the falling knife as it goes down whereas they caught all the upside. So We we try to use the past to predict the future but it doesn't always go that Way. So if you. 13:55.77 mikebledsoe Yep. 14:11.80 Max Shank Plan for the fact that you will sometimes be wrong it. It works out. Okay. 14:19.70 mikebledsoe Yeah, that's that's the point of anti- fragile the book by is it Nicholas taleeb nasim he he wrote black swan anti-fragile. There's a new 1 that came out that I want to on a read next. And yeah. 14:22.65 Max Shank Um, yeah. 14:37.87 mikebledsoe The whole concept. He's ah he's a great investor himself. Ah and his perspective on strategies for investing is pretty much saying you know shit will go wrong. So how are you set up for that whereas most people like. 14:51.59 Max Shank Well. 14:56.10 mikebledsoe You know they're watching the crypto markets right now and I mean I mean this applies to the learning conversation we get because if. 15:01.23 Max Shank Yeah, you don't have to be smart to do well in investing like um isaac Newton famously said something along the lines of he could predict the movement of celestial bodies but not the madness of crowds and he like lost all of his money. Investing in the East india trading company he like got taken to the cleaners lost every I mean obviously a very intelligent fellow. 15:20.51 mikebledsoe Oh yeah, so. 15:26.90 mikebledsoe Yeah, well well let's just take bitcoin for instance I've been paying attention to crypto markets since 20138 years which is over half the amount of time they've been in existence. So. 15:34.44 Max Shank The. 15:44.18 mikebledsoe I've been through some booms and buss already and what I know because I've been in it long enough is I go Yeah, just you buy a bunch and then you hold it and then you watch everything go up and down and watch everyone else freak out and then you just keep on holding it and you keep on holding it and you keep on holding it and you take some off here and there. Um, there is a strategy for for when to take some out and but most people aren't playing that game. Well, that's the thing It is simple. It is very very simple. Ah, but when the people who who suffer and I've got many close friends who. 16:06.70 Max Shank Make it sound so simple. You make it sound so simple. 16:23.40 mikebledsoe The market starts going up and they start dumping money in or the market starts going down and they start pulling money out and I'm I'm going Whoa Whoa Whoa Just just chill the fuck out just consistently put money in consistently pull money Out. Don't you know. You're not going to.. You're not going to see the wave coming if because if you can see it then everyone else can see it and sometimes that does drive the market up a bit but again long term strategy I've had I've had really big returns from that that simplicity just. 16:55.86 Max Shank So what you're saying is you are an investing genius. 17:01.39 mikebledsoe Um, well are we gonna be playing comparison here. Ah you know what I'm in the 1 percent I'm in the 1 percent for crypto I'll say this I'm in the 1 percent of crypto trading. Ah when it comes to investing in general. No. 17:11.15 Max Shank Um, okay oh that's good. 17:20.10 mikebledsoe I'm I'm not I The crypto thing is huh How does what differ I Oh crypto trading versus investing versus. 17:20.98 Max Shank How do they differ. How do they differ. Ah well I mean it's they're both and they're they're both investing I think the big mistake people make with investing Probably the biggest mistake is they invest money. That they might need soon. 17:41.00 mikebledsoe Well,, there's that 1 and then they invest money in speculation versus Value. So 1 of my rules in investing is what value is being generated in the world by this product or by this service and So. Do I Find what they're creating to be valuable Tesla For instance, do I do I think that those cars hold out. Absolutely they're creating something valuable some of these cryptocurrencies that are you know a 2 page white paper and you know they just. 18:02.43 Max Shank Ah. 18:18.76 mikebledsoe Fleece everybody and they don't have any specific when I when I read about what the purpose of that cryptocurrency is and it doesn't make sense to me and it doesn't seem valuable to me I don't touch it. So. 18:30.82 Max Shank Maybe that's lesson 2 of investing is invest in things that you understand. 18:35.35 mikebledsoe Invest in things you understand, but ah I think invest in things you find valuable and Beyond beyond the dollar. 18:40.48 Max Shank Well, that's not necessarily. Yeah I mean that's not I disagree because if you invest in something that's valuable at a price that is unreasonable then you still lose money on your investment. 18:56.13 mikebledsoe Yeah, it's got to be worth the value that it's demanding. 18:59.64 Max Shank And that's really hard to determine. You know you have price-to earnarings ratios you have identifying trends and there are all these ways that we try to get clear on what something will be worth later. Will it be worth more later and there are all kinds of things like. 19:13.19 mikebledsoe You know. 19:17.89 Max Shank There was a 20 year period where coca -cola returned a zero percent return to its investors and you'd think like man coca -cola is valuable. Their brand is worth billions by itself. But it it all depends on what you pay for and that's the same thing with real estate. Um, unless you are holding real estate for 50 years the profit is in the buying. Yeah. 19:40.61 mikebledsoe Yeah, the deals made and or the the value is in. It's in the buying it's when you make the purchase. Um that that's for sure and that's ah, that's a big reason why and I haven't tried to touch anything in the last year is everything's so hot it is cooling off a bit. The markets are cooling off a bit but it's been so hot that and people are like you could better get in I'm going get into what I'm gonna get in at the peak. So I can come crash with the rest of you now. 20:07.53 Max Shank The the Fomo the Fomo hard to know if it's the peak. That's the tricky thing about investing I mean there are a lot of ah big institutions buying lots of real estate right now and it's um. 20:17.98 mikebledsoe M. 20:26.21 Max Shank Apparently this is now an investing podcast. So if you're tuning in this is investing tips with max and Mike ah. 20:33.71 mikebledsoe I Always try to stay away from investing tips too because. 20:36.89 Max Shank Yeah, it's the worst like this is not a recommendation I think everyone listening should just go by tulip bulbs as many tulip bulbs as possible fill your garage with Tulip bulbs. That's the tricky thing about times like ah. Like what we're seeing right now is some things just go absolutely meteoric they go insanely high so fast and if you are investing in something more steady. Let's say like real estate perhaps usually more steady. Ah, you're getting blown out of the water by some kid who bought dog coins so in the short term. You're just getting absolutely murdered if you're really looking at value which is. 21:17.17 mikebledsoe Yeah. 21:27.27 Max Shank About Theio ah about the Price-to-arings ratio like what's the prospect. But also what's the priceturnings ratio Anyway, the whole point is if you are not going to take a lot of time to make investing your career. You probably are better off just buying the market overall and minimizing. 21:47.14 mikebledsoe Yeah, which did really well this last year but I mean if we adjust for inflation and a few other things probably just did okay. 21:47.20 Max Shank The risk like just by the S and P five hundred. Yeah, yeah. 22:04.50 Max Shank It's a tricky thing because it all comes back to opportunity cost and I use these analogies for exercise quite a lot.. It's like our you know our heavy squats. Good. It's like well maybe. A for who and B can I do something better with that Energy. You know what? I'm saying so the same thing is true with investing. It's not is this good. It's is this better than the other stuff I could own and that's that's why it's so tricky because. You know you look. There are a lot of good companies that you can own that create value that are profitable. There are a lot of companies that you can own that are not profitable and so it's purely based on a prediction that they will create more and more value in the future. 22:46.33 mikebledsoe Yeah, um. 22:55.54 Max Shank Above and Beyond what is already priced. It's very tricky stuff. Anyway, if you you're not going to make it tool belt knowledge. You shouldn't ah fuck around with that. 22:57.25 mikebledsoe Yeah. 23:04.38 mikebledsoe Yeah. Back to learning. 23:14.59 Max Shank You'll learn your lesson really fast if you invest money that you shouldn't a fool and his money are soon parted. 23:20.46 mikebledsoe Yeah, well the 1 thing I notice I'll say one last thing on investing. Ah when you're you're talking about opportunity costs I I watch people try to invest money when they're in credit card debt. So they. 23:35.82 Max Shank Don't do that paid pay down the debt that's stupid. You get the interest tax free. They don't understand money. Yeah, exactly. 23:39.50 mikebledsoe Yeah, the the amount of people that tell that tells me that someone doesn't understand how the numbers work. Yeah, you just don't understand money because your best investment is to not have credit card debt if you have credit card debt. Nothing nothing's going to be that 10 to twenty percent interest you're paying on that. 23:55.15 Max Shank Crazy. Yeah, that's ridiculous I would say pay down the credit card debt and then after that invest in your income you know invest in building a customer list building a product setting up your service-based business more effectively because you can get. 24:03.69 mikebledsoe Yeah. 24:14.74 Max Shank Hundred percent 2 hundred percent thousand percent returns by investing in yourself. But if you get a fifteen percent return year over year in the market. You'd be like Yay. So. 24:23.32 mikebledsoe Well, there's something about money going in your bank account that you didn't have to do shit for I get I got some cheap thrills out of that. 24:28.99 Max Shank Totally yeah, but if you set up ah an online library of products that'll that'll bring in money without any extra effort to plus you plus you own your customer list. 24:44.34 mikebledsoe That's true. That's true. 24:48.74 Max Shank And that's huge I mean you see right now. Some people are are losing their instagrams and facebooks and Youtube accounts for saying things that they I I suppose shouldn't have said because Papa Papa Youtube Said. Ah. Wasn't okay to say those things and you know if you are dependent on another entity entity to store all of your customers for you. They can go away so you got to have your own you got to own your customer list. 25:23.60 mikebledsoe Just made a post about that the other day email is not dead so many who are focused on social media when ah, that's right again if you're looking investing that's ah. 25:24.97 Max Shank That's so important you got to own that customer list. No it works it works until it doesn't. 25:42.30 mikebledsoe That's 1 that's got a ah a black swan event. Ah as a possibility and and that is black swans occur when you're least expecting them and the event that does occur that brings a downturn is not something you ever imagined would happen. 25:44.53 Max Shank Ah. 26:00.42 Max Shank And. 26:01.83 mikebledsoe Just 1 day you wake up and shit hit the fan and so that can happen if Facebook youtube instagram decides or google decides to to stop featuring your stuff you know shadow banning is 1 1 way where it's not. Overt you didn't see you get blocked but all of a sudden your traffic goes to nil and and I've got several friends that's happened to not just in the last couple years but over the last 3 4 years there's ah there's a very clear. 26:20.82 Max Shank Um, wild. 26:38.69 mikebledsoe Ah I Guess attack I don't know I hate using the word attack in this sense. But there's a clear diversion of attention away from things and people that are actually helpful towards big corporate desires and. And wanting people to adopt more main you know Mainstream corporate services and products. 26:59.75 Max Shank Well. Um, hey man ah censorship is an admission of guilt if you ask me? Yeah, yeah, So as long as we're on the learning subject. 27:09.46 mikebledsoe I like that I like that censorship is an admission of guilt. 27:23.97 Max Shank We can we we um problem maybe ah what is rewarded is repeated. That's ah, that's a big thing about learning. So there's. 27:25.75 mikebledsoe I think we've talked about learning for 5 out of twenty five minutes so far. 27:40.30 Max Shank Conscious learning where you're like oh I'm going to learn to play the piano or I'm going to learn how to speak german and then there's unconscious learning it could be conscious also but where you adapt to certain patterns. You know your phone. May notice that you prefer watching animal videos at night. But you prefer watching news videos in the morning I know that was that was what I noticed interestingly enough when I was just still logging in. To youtube instead of using a separate browser and not being logged in and just searching for what I want and it would give me like you know would give me like John stossel and all these different guys who I actually trust and then at night it would show me more like. Animal videos like learn about the peacock spider and things like that so you will um basically be guided throughout your day by algorithms that are digital or otherwise. And you develop these patterns that are repeated over and over again. So it's very difficult to get out of those patterns once you're in and that's why having a pattern break is so valuable. 29:02.35 mikebledsoe Yeah, well, it's Interesting. You come out the unconscious learning and I read this book called Spiritual enlightenment. The damnedest thing by Jed Mckenna have you read that 1 okay. I Think you really enjoy it total. Yeah yeah. 29:20.99 Max Shank I've only read like 4 or 5 books in my life total. Yeah, that includes Dr. seuss books. The loax was good. 29:31.70 mikebledsoe Ah, so in that book he talks about how the mind is built and he says that people like to visualize the mind like it's this beautiful web and I've got this thought over here this belief or this idea and it's over here and then ah and. String goes across and it connects over here and this is beautiful intricate web that just it's infinite in Nature. That's how I used to think about the mind and the fact that he outlines that in the book tells me that other people think about the mind similarly and. He talks about how how ah language is laid out when as we as we get older and the order in which we learn words impacts how our mind works and what those words mean to us at that age and how that impacts the mind and. But he what he finally gets to in this explanation is that people think that mine is this beautiful integrated web and it's really just a rat's nest. It's just all jumbled up you and I could be born at the same time same place same parents in our interpretation of. The world is gonna be different and and you only need 1 interpretation early on kind of like the butterfly effect right? He's like you've got this butterfly over here that causes a hurricane on the other side of the world. Ah, there's 1 1 instance where you interpret something your mom or dad did at the age of 2 that shape your personality in a way that the impact the lens that you look through for the rest of your life and so you completely neglect certain pieces of information and you collect the evidence to support your your lens. 31:25.90 Max Shank Is confirmation Bias right. 31:25.63 mikebledsoe Over here, right? and nobody is nobody is safe from that confirmation Bias we we all do it and so that's 1 thing that when we if we're talking about learning needs to be acknowledged is that. Much of what we we believe to be true just is not true and it's good to question those be able to question those thoughts and and do some unlearning because learning something new I I found to be a lot easier to learn new things. When I look at what must be unlearned and that's not necessarily an easy task. So the way I look at it is ah it's easier to to write on a if we're thinking about a. Ah, a hard drive I want an empty hard drive and I want to be able just put things on top of that or what may be better is up. Yeah, or or you got a page you're you're writing you're writing your thoughts on a page with a pencil and. 32:30.10 Max Shank Empty your cup like that ah martial arts example. 32:42.41 mikebledsoe Ah, you're just having to rewrite So you've got these thoughts that you believe to be true and you're trying to overwrite them So you're just trying to make the words on top of those other words darker and thinking that you're going to be able to change those thoughts and at some point those darker words may overshadow. 32:51.17 Max Shank The. 33:01.11 mikebledsoe Words that were previously on the page. But why don't you just use an eraser first using erase or era words then write. It'll be much more clear it. So it it may take a little more effort in the beginning but long run it's way easier or if you start with a blank page instead of a. 33:06.78 Max Shank A. 33:19.59 mikebledsoe Page that already has writing on it. These are the things that this is how I think about the mind and when I'm learning something new I ask myself? what do I need to unlearn before I learn this. 33:31.89 Max Shank I think part of the reason it's hard for people to let go or erase or burn ego death is because they identify so much with it whether it's ah good or bad or neutral. It's familiar and we gain a lot of our sense of stability through our self-im image and so if you have a self image that is maybe harmful to you. You know some people are ah shoot all kinds of things anorexic. Self-loathing whatever there are all these manifest obese. Um, you know to protect yourself. So for example, a lot of people are really overweight just because they never want to have a chance to be rejected in the first place but if so if they're just this big fat person. No 1 that'll never even happen. So you get so identified with this identity that it blocks out any potential for change and that's why any kind of change requires some sort of removal of material like you have to chip away. At the ego in order to make room for something new and different. 34:51.53 mikebledsoe You know. 34:57.42 mikebledsoe So aside from chipping away the ego and unlearning First what are some? What are some things that you put into a place I'm a big fan of your your five minute strategy. 34:57.74 Max Shank The. 35:11.97 Max Shank Um, yeah, yeah, there's sort of a quantum effect of 5 minute blocks because it feels easier to start psychologically and it's it's so easy for me to. 35:13.44 mikebledsoe For learning new things. Can you explain that 1 35:31.81 Max Shank Just jump around from thing to thing and put stuff off. So if you do like usually five minutes the word just comes right before it. Oh it's just five minutes but ten minutes feels too long and with my mobility program I did five minute flow I get. So many versions of the same message which is hilarious which is you know I started doing five minute flows. But now I can't keep them under ten minutes I can't keep them under fifteen minutes and yeah 36:05.94 mikebledsoe I've got a problem. How do we fix this? ah. 36:08.90 Max Shank Right? Exactly? No, That's that's exactly the thing. It's a scam and I tricked. You guys. So haha I tricked you into getting started which is where the inertia is and once you start moving then it's really easy to keep going with regard to learning you don't. Want to practice a skill poorly. You're better off to take a break and come back and do it Again. Probably the biggest fallacy with this is within like the fitness thing. It's like you're pushing through. The the pain or pushing through the struggle or like you know, but you wouldn't do that if you were practicing shooting baskets or hitting golf balls. You would try to stay as fresh as possible and that's really 1 of the key elements for optimal learning. Is you. 37:03.39 mikebledsoe I think. 37:06.39 Max Shank Go in you do the thing total focus and then you pull away from it and then you go back in total focus and then you pull away from it and if you've ever done something where it requires total focus like tennis or fencing or fighting. Um, or even like ah a video game where you have to constantly either like move left or right let's say to avoid obstacles the ability to focus and not break that focus for a long period of time is something that you can practice as well. But you will. Improve that ability better if you take some small breaks. 37:48.26 mikebledsoe Yeah, the the increasing the capacity for focus the way that I like to approach that is I can tell when I'm losing focus. So. Um, working on I like to work on 1 task at a time I think that's important if people are trying to multitask they're they're so unfocused the whole time. They don't even realize when their their capacity for focus is going down because they just are starting so low already and what I like to do is set up a timer. And so I know that I can work if it's before noon I can do a ninety minute work session completely focused I use brain fm I use a bi neural beats type of thing to help me focus and my phone's on a timer. So the music will stop. When I'm supposed to stop my work and so most the time if it's before noon and I can work in ninety minute sprint I don't move out of my seat I'm in front of my computer and I am I am knocking out whatever needs to get knocked out and then the afternoons I noticed that. I don't have the same amount of juice might be seventy five minutes as the day goes on my my amount my periods of time of work separated by a break becomes shorter now. 39:12.53 Max Shank So that's wisdom is knowing yourself and acting accordingly. 39:16.92 mikebledsoe Yeah, and what what got me there was I got into ah started getting into deep work zones which can take twenty thirty minutes to get into the the space of deep work the the amount of. Focus that you have is basically what I'm describing and that that level of focus can be achieved a lot sooner I can achieve that focus a lot sooner now because I've done it so many times I've gotten into that really deep work zones. So frequently that my my brain knows how it goes it says oh this is what we're doing now shut everything else out focus on this 1 thing and so when you get into this deep work zone enough. You can tell when your mind is starting to leave it. So. 40:08.77 Max Shank Free. 40:10.99 mikebledsoe when I when I'm reading something and I read the same paragraph 3 times you know I have to reread the email that I am going through or I you know I basically just start making mistakes mistakes or needing to repeat things to try to remember or whatever it is. Ah. I can so I'm watching my mind begin to drift and so what I've done is is instead of working through that empowering through that. What I've done is I go oh I gotta take a break I go for a walk I go check my mail which is you know quarter mile away I go. Take a nap I ah you know, go play with someone's dog. Whatever so. Ah, match gave me a good look. Ah so I I know when to take a break because the mind works very much so like muscles in the body and and you know in the fitness industry. It is very interesting that people have this tendency to. Push through the pain and basically practice shitty movement they practice moving poorly and they practice getting injured is what they're doing and so ah I think ah I think a large part of. That reason is because there are certain benefits to pushing to that point of failure but they are overemphasized in the fitness industry and then in addition to that people people just don't understand. What poor movement is and what good movement is and they don't understand they're they're practicing to get injured and then of course if you throw in something like Crossfit now you have this competitive competition component that is going to drive people to do things that they don't really they don't really have the capacity 42:07.66 Max Shank Well, we've we've learned a false image of fitness I think so that's something really interesting about the things that you learn is you may very well have learned a false premise. So even if you do everything. 42:08.40 mikebledsoe To do so. 42:15.37 mikebledsoe Yeah. 42:27.29 Max Shank Allegedly, correct if the entire if it's built on a false Premise. You're totally Screwed. You have like no chance of optimizing the amount of effort that you put in so with fitness For example. If Your athletic capacity is not increasing from your health and fitness practice or your movement practice. Whatever you're probably wasting your time I mean a lot of people use fitness as a way to burn Energy. With no rhyme or reason it's like putting too much gasoline on your in your car like overeating and then putting your car up on blocks and just running the engine. So It doesn't overflow. That's like 1 of the worst things you can do um because just like with investing. What you're sacrificing for doing that Bs is the chance to do something that could improve your overall capacity your ability to fight your ability to run your ability to play I mean Ah, that's the tricky thing about opportunity cost is you're sacrificing. Everything else you could be doing to do this. So If you're not enthusiastic about it. It's like dude, why? why bother there are plenty of good options and you know getting stuck into the whole thing about aesthetics is ah is another tricky thing. That's just based on. 43:49.84 mikebledsoe Go. 44:02.99 Max Shank What we've learned you know like I always joke about the aztec aesthetic which is like a big fat guy at the top of a temple watching the heads roll down like he was the best thing you could be a big fat guy and then you know over time sexy lady. Has changed from fat lady to thin victorian era plump and then we went through like the Ninety s or something where the supermodels weighed like 85 pounds and now we're kind of coming round to like thick is good again. So it's all. 44:39.33 mikebledsoe Yeah. 44:42.50 Max Shank It's all a matter of that individual perspective and that's why you can think of your focus like a lantern or a laser.. That's what I usually tell people is you can soften it like a lantern and that's for a martial artist may have heard the term soft eyes before. Like sometimes I'll practice while I'm juggling and I won't look at the balls I'll juggle but I'll be trying to take in as much other stuff as Possible. So I can focus right in your eyes right now or I can step back and I can be as aware as possible of everything else in the room. 45:09.17 mikebledsoe Ah. 45:20.51 Max Shank And it's a really big difference in terms of how you focus so being able to cycle between those is extremely valuable because you don't want to always be laserfocused sometimes you want to have that wider perspective. Of what's going on and that's usually where joy and gratitude can come from is when you see the big picture rather than like oh my god my my life sucks compared to that guy over there and I hate that guy. He's got a nice, whatever and you know you get stuck. 45:59.36 mikebledsoe Yeah. 45:59.65 Max Shank Ah, tunnel vision right? So being able to zoom in and zoom out and realizing that your concepts of good and bad good and evil are are learned. You know, ah lions don't worry about that. Lions don't have a concept of good and evil they have a concept of danger from like other lions and they have a concept of hunger and that's it they don't have a concept of good and evil it's ridiculous. It's like totally a human invention I mean there are a lot of. Old stories that talk about that. What's that the wasn't that where eve ate the Apple wasn't it. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that the whole thing is just having this awakening that's crazy uncomfortable that. 46:41.45 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah. 46:53.50 Max Shank Your whole idea of this is good and this is bad is just implanted from from the last guy 46:59.48 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, are yeah I mean anything that's conceptual in nature that is that that we can't point at physically is usually passed down from from somebody else and. 47:14.59 Max Shank Yeah, so if you focus on things that are intrinsically enjoyable then you will find the things that will make you the most enthusiastic you will naturally put more time into learning you'll. 47:17.61 mikebledsoe Very interesting. 47:33.24 Max Shank Be interested in learning the finer details. You know I sometimes I say it's not exactly true. But I think the sentiment is right? The only difficult thing is something you don't want to do if you want to do it then it doesn't matter. 47:47.39 mikebledsoe E. 47:52.80 Max Shank Like you you would just want to do it and if you don't want to do it then it's probably going to be more difficult. So. 47:53.43 mikebledsoe Right. 47:59.67 mikebledsoe It's why people look at people doing a crossfi workout and go I can't I don't know understand how you do it? How do you push through whatever not realizing that that person is doing that workout loves doing that workout for whatever reason or they've at least learned to love the workout. 48:11.80 Max Shank Um, yeah, um, well and sometimes you can sacrifice the temporary feeling for a bigger picture win like I actually never um, enjoyed lifting weights that much as weird as that might sound. Just did it because I wanted to be the most Alpha guy Possible. So now that I'm in a place where I'm a lot more honest with myself about what I'm doing just to get a result or what I'm enjoying I do a lot of weird stuff at the like I enjoy like explosive things like heavy lifting is like okay. Do some but I can play tennis for like 2 hours and I'm dying to play more tennis because it's so Fun. It's so engaging I'm using all these different skills. So That's intrinsically enjoyable to me but you know the idea of doing like a Crossfit workout. 48:56.40 mikebledsoe Yeah. 49:09.73 Max Shank I Don't even see the point of it for example so you change over time. 49:11.51 mikebledsoe Yeah I Want to go 1 thing I Want to ah point out I mean you said a lot of really good stuff. There 1 is how you how you use your focus and how you can go from laser focus to that soft focus and I think about that as contraction and expansion. And if you spend too much time in contraction then you won't be able to expand very much if you if you spend too much time in that expansion. It's gonna be difficult to to concentrate that that attention. But um, being able to cycle between the 2 is gonna give you more capacity for each. So. The same way then analogy with um, you know somebody who's really athletic their muscle needs to be able to contract incredibly fast but also be able to relax incredibly fast so you got to be able to snap that muscle and it's got to be able to snap back into. 50:01.41 Max Shank Her. 50:08.33 mikebledsoe And to just relaxation and those are the people who are the most athletic have the most endurance all these things um and the same thing with with attention. Can you play? Can you go that soft focus. Can you go that that laser focus and I think about it just like breathing. You got an inhale and you've got an exhale. Got to spend time in either. So I do want to hit that and then the other thing you talked about is the false premise and it's very interesting because that's 1 of the things that I I see creates a lot of disagreement in the world is well 1 is. Which we talk about regularly which is semantics people just are they don't even realize that they're in disagreement about the meaning of words and so they think the word that someone else is using means something than what they intended it to be so um, it's that that's number 1 I think number 2 is and what we've witnessed over the last couple years is the premise in which people are coming from are different and they're arguing about stuff that's at the surface or they're focused on what's on the surface and not looking at the premise in which everything else is based. So. Ah, it's what's that's a term in Mathematics. Ah for for assumptions I forget what it is maybe it'll come to me but basically it's it's ah the premise that you know 2 plus because 2 plus 2 equals four then. All this other things and mathematics must be true because 1 plus 1 equals 2 that then means and so what I've what I've witnessed especially in like say so the scientific world and is ah. 51:45.39 Max Shank Um, right? or. 52:00.53 mikebledsoe We see these big shifts in how science is viewed when someone comes out and questions the validity of the premise in which we've been operating from and so ah, there's. 52:14.57 Max Shank Often Those guys get burned at the stake historically speaking. 52:18.95 mikebledsoe Yeah, they get historically speaking it. You do not be want to be the 1 that that ah challenges consensus. Yeah yeah, well, ah well that that's the other thing too is be be aware of of ah. 52:25.51 Max Shank Um, don't kill the messenger I think we've heard before. 52:38.25 mikebledsoe Consensus group think and anytime anyone uses the word is it Ah, who was it. Ah, the guy who wrote Jurassic Part Michael Crichton I you. 52:46.69 Max Shank That guy is an animal I recommend anybody go listen to some of his talks Michael criton is a fucking animal. That's a genius. 52:55.65 mikebledsoe Yeah, he you you sent me a video of his and I is an hour long talk and I ate it up. It was so good but he talks about how Consensus science is not science. It's. 53:05.67 Max Shank Yo, ah. 53:12.84 mikebledsoe Anyone who starts using the word Consensus science is actually anti. It's an anti-science concept. You can't state of fear is talk. Yeah, so you know just throwing that out. There is a warning anytime anyone starts using consensus science. Ah. 53:17.75 Max Shank Um, it's called State of fear. That's the name of the talk I think I think so yeah. 53:32.56 mikebledsoe That's that's when you know you should turn around and run. 53:33.61 Max Shank Well, you got to consider the source. He also introduced me to a concept called gelmon amnesia which is where like you're an expert in fitness so you open up the paper and you read a fitness article and you're like this is totally false. This is ridiculous. But then. You forget that that was totally false so you read the rest of the paper as if it's true. It's like wait a second like fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me. 53:56.45 mikebledsoe Ah. 54:02.42 mikebledsoe Yeah, yeah, but we have we have a whole world of people running around with false premise theyre running around with um that this is I'm not going to say that I know how all this works but there's 1 thing that I've noticed. 54:09.61 Max Shank Right. 54:21.90 mikebledsoe But you know I listen to people who are healthy so people who are healthy and have spent a lot of time thinking about these things long before the pandemic those are the people who I like to talk to and think about what they say but 1 1 premise would be germ theory versus Terrain Theory. And ah germ theory is a false premise because it's not even being considered a it's considered to be a fact versus the way it's being treated is it's not being treated as a theory. Ah, and that's 1 thing I'm noticing in society as a whole is that people are treating theories as if they're facts I was just I was just ah and this is how far I'll take it is I was watching a ah. My girlfriend was watching like an animals show is basically like Discovery Channel you know, looking at these cats and it starts off with eleven million years ago this predator descended into this region of the world and I go. Are they fucking serious. They just state that that like it was a fact I'm going I'm going No fucking wonder adults are running around the world acting like things are facts that are theories or that are just ideas presented by other people. Yeah, you may have a lot of evidence to suggest that but it's still a theory and so what we're experiencing right now is we have this mass adoption because because traditional or I'll say conventional medicine in the United States is based on germ theory When. Ah, the when if you were to just look through this pandemic through the lens of of terrain theory Everything that's being advised for people to do sounds insane. But. 56:26.81 Max Shank Yeah, of course you got to be careful who your mentors are like with kind of bringing it back to learning like who do you trust? what's hilarious is that so many more people trust Joe Rogan than they trust any of the other people allegedly reporting on what's going on. 56:29.76 mikebledsoe But if you. 56:43.89 mikebledsoe M. 56:46.27 Max Shank And there are so many premises that we've been talking about here's ah okay, like obesity for example, obesity rates are like through the roof so you could argue that most people kill themselves because obesity is like the easiest way to die quicker. From all causes whether it's diabetes, Heart disease etc like all that stuff. Um, if you're weak and fat. You die Faster. There's no question about that. But I think the biggest false premise is that we should run people through the same filter. That's exactly 1 of the reasons why school is so catastrophically bad like I don't think ah ah like about some things I'm like really dumb but about ah like I almost got held back in school like that's crazy when you think about it like I'm not like too dumb you know what? I'm saying. 57:34.22 mikebledsoe M. 57:41.46 mikebledsoe You're 1 of the smartest people I know so that. 57:41.77 Max Shank So the whole nah I mean but I've only like read a few books isn't that all that matters. No I think smart is about how efficiently you can live the way you want to live like if you're living the way you want without expending a lot of energy then you're smart. Most people just want to. Ah, peer Smart I don't frankly give a flying fuck how I appear to people as long as I can live in an efficient and effortless way as long as I can move in efficient and effortless way and I think that's why people like fighting that's why I like it because it's very honest, you got a winner and you got a loser. You know I like playing tennis because it's honest I can't be like ah that ball was in no it was fucking out you missed bitch like try again. Ah so the the whole the whole premise that we should be run through the same filter is ridiculous. The whole premise of health is ridiculous. The whole idea that we should just blindly follow what a few people say we should is ridiculous like there's like a list that goes on and on I don't have it right in front of me but I wrote a bunch of the stuff that I thought was wrong about it down. But. I mean it's it's the same um as anything else. There are so many false premises out there that will lead you down a path because you can have a valid thought process and those are the 2 pillars of truth right? You have a true premise or false premise and you have a valid thought process. Or an invalid thought process. So a lot of the time you have a false premise with a valid thought process so it looks good. You're like yeah that that does like make like the logic make sense but because the premise is false everything else just goes completely out the window and that's. Kind of where I tie it back into where you put your faith or where you put authority into because when it comes to learning 1 of the quickest ways 1 of the best ways to learn is through a good teacher. But if you choose the wrong teacher. That is also a sure-fire way to fuck you up, you are going to inherit all of his ego bullshit I mean look have you ever seen youth sports probably like the parents and the coaches. 59:54.20 mikebledsoe Here. 01:00:03.44 mikebledsoe Oh yeah. 01:00:10.84 Max Shank Are doing a lot of harm to those little fuckers especially if they're trying to live out their dreams or like how about how about like a beauty Pageant Mom I mean when it comes to learning you got to really consider who you try to emulate like there are people out there who seem very healthy, Very joyful. 01:00:11.35 mikebledsoe Oh yeah. 01:00:30.39 Max Shank And loving relationships and maybe they're not behind the facade so you got to you got to do some digging to really see like do I want to try to emulate. Do I want a monkey see Monkey do that person's life. It's a big deal. 01:00:44.10 mikebledsoe Yeah, that is a big deal. Ah so I I sat down on an airplane on Saturday and this really old indian guy that's down next to me. 01:01:01.65 Max Shank Dot or feather. 01:01:03.48 mikebledsoe And dot and ah he sits a real indian he sits down next to me like from India ah, he had the accent and everything you know he he spent some time India and pakistan and. 01:01:11.84 Max Shank Yeah I get it. No, you're right. 01:01:20.77 mikebledsoe Sits down he starts talking I mean he was referencing something things that were happening in the sixty s so this is how old this guy is and do you have to go? Oh maybe it was on my hand. Ah I think late. Anyways. 01:01:28.30 Max Shank That wasn't on my end. 01:01:40.32 mikebledsoe Um, I sit down. We start talking and I come to find out. He's a ah substitute teacher and in Florida and I was asking him all these questions about does he enjoy it. So um, by the way this guy had a stroke the month before so he was he was being a He was a little slow so I actually spent the flight helping him do things like open up his his chips and getting him to the bathroom and all these things but he sat there and just taught me shit the whole time. So. Ah, my girlfriend was blown away. She's like why did you like that guy I was like he was teaching me the whole time. Ah so 1 of the things he says is he goes you know what the problem with kids these days is I say don't know how to think they only know what they know and he says ah that. They believe that 2 plus 2 equals four which is true but they think that that's the only thing that equals four they don't realize that 3 plus 1 equal 4 this is the analogy he was using. You know they don't realize that 4 times 1 equals four. They only know that 2 plus 2 equals four. He says. 01:02:50.40 Max Shank It's kind of. 01:02:52.63 mikebledsoe They only know what they know they don't know how they got there and and and. 01:02:56.58 Max Shank I Know exactly what you're talking about.. It's like a reflexive fear-based reaction to like hey don't worry I know don't worry I know they're like regurgitating stuff that they learned but they don't have like any kind of logical. Thought process that can help them discover something different or New. They don't have a set of tactics that can help them learn something better. 01:03:23.95 mikebledsoe Right? So he said that and I go Wow. That's such a really simple way of explaining critical thinking versus whatever, whatever, not critical thinking would be but being a dumbass. Ah, is and so ah, yeah, if anyone been. 01:03:47.61 Max Shank What's more important. What's more important you own a business I own a business. What's more important if you're going to hire somebody that they already know a bunch of things or that they have the ability to learn new things. 01:03:54.80 mikebledsoe What. 01:04:01.22 mikebledsoe Oh definitely the ability to learn new things. Um, well, there's there's 2 different types of employees. You got the people that that Mcdonald's is shopping for which is we just want people to be able to follow the steps. Yeah, we want robots. 01:04:10.45 Max Shank Ah. 01:04:17.62 Max Shank Automatons. Yeah. 01:04:20.35 mikebledsoe Um, and then you have you know Google executives Those people are hired because they're not going to. You know they're going to create the rules they're going to think of new things right. 01:04:27.94 Max Shank They can see the big picture they can. They can think of what to do. It's like the difference between being a ah Master chef and a soou chef where you're just preparing the diced vegetables. 01:04:40.20 mikebledsoe Yeah, and the the problem is is we're we're closing out 2021 here in the next couple months and ah, all those jobs can be that don't require creativity are going away. They're being replaced by robots. Ah, those amazon jobs won't be around much longer truck truckers won't be around in 1015 years that won't be a thing and that makes a but lot of people that's a lot of employment so you know that we're 60000. 01:05:16.63 Max Shank We'll probably go to more service business. 01:05:18.99 mikebledsoe You know we're now 60000 ah truck drivers short in the United states as part of the you know? yeah I read. 01:05:23.57 Max Shank I I didn't know that I met a guy who I thought was really dumb but he was actually really smart because he was like a pretty young kid when I was doing Moyai and he owned like 5 semi trucks by the time he was twenty 2 Did n't graduate high school and he started driving a truck and then he bought another truck and then he bought another truck and he just he was like retired he was like 25 years old is like it was great but he sounded dumb and about a lot of no, he really did. 01:05:51.19 mikebledsoe Wow brilliant. 01:06:00.36 mikebledsoe Well, he found his strategy. 01:06:02.16 Max Shank Ah, nice guy exactly That's what I mean like you you don't want to compare everybody with the same measuring stick because however you measure yourself That's also going to be the same stick that you beat yourself with basically well which if you're into that I mean that's fine. But. 01:06:08.13 mikebledsoe Right. 01:06:19.37 mikebledsoe I've always thought of myself as quite the masochist so works out. 01:06:25.54 Max Shank That's why we get along so well I'm a little more sadistic and you're a little more masochistic. 01:06:27.42 mikebledsoe Am Yeah, you're the dom fits. 01:06:31.64 Max Shank I Think everybody knew that already. 01:06:38.24 Max Shank Ah. 01:06:38.28 mikebledsoe Ah, alright, let's wrap this bad boy up any any closing thoughts. Yeah. 01:06:43.66 Max Shank On learning. Ah when it comes to learning the most important thing is that it's important to you that you use it and that you continue to use it and. When it comes to learning movement. Probably the thing that people miss the most is going super slow like even a super slow walk across the room. Super slow walk across the room with your eyes closed take the normal movements you do close your eyes try to do it as slow as possible. Try to do it as fast as possible. Try to change the angle a little bit and deliberately go outside of that normal range and there are a lot of other ways but I'll just keep it brief I would say maybe changing the speeds is like 1 of the most powerful ways. Especially really slowing down and. Consciously moving through the entire movement and then just be careful who you choose as a mentor for overall learning. 01:07:44.74 mikebledsoe Yeah, love it. Yeah, stop listening to our show. Um, now you so. My my final thoughts are what what are your be intentional. So the best way to learn is to be intentional with each moment that goes by and that's something that's practicing itself but ask yourself why you're doing something so as max was talking about. Um, learning a new skill. Why am I why am I squatting today you know am I doing it fast am I doing it slow. Why always be in the why why you're doing something and the more time you spend in the intention and understanding the why. But when you're doing anything. Probably find yourself take more time take more care and the quality of that go up I think that quality is definitely the result of learning so that's all I got Appreciate. Conversation today max where can people find you. 01:08:58.41 Max Shank Thank you brother I can be found at Maxshank Dot Com or at macshank everywhere you can Also Google me, there's also there's a ton of stuff out there. 01:09:06.35 mikebledsoe Whatever you do don't get google my name. Ah it'll be you get a mixed bag of things you find me find me on Instagram at mike underscore blood. So and. 01:09:15.46 Max Shank Don't really. If there was ever way to make people want to Google you that was it. 01:09:25.00 mikebledsoe Ah Shh telling him my secret later yall love me max. 01:09:31.43 Max Shank Love you buddy.