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“The moral of the story is, I chose a half measure when I should have gone all the way. I’ll never make that mistake again. No more half measures, Walter.”
–Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad)
Throughout my career as a fitness and strength coach I’ve had many people approach me in the hopes that I could help them to work in order to achieve a stronger and fitter body.
Now hearing that you may think that this isn’t such an unusual request, but the thing you have to understand is that the fitness industry at large has been heavily degraded in terms of quality coaching and advice across the board, much like our institutions have been degraded over the past several decades.
Nowadays, because the market has been saturated with bad coaching, most people want to look for the latest fads with things like hot yoga, how to get a beach body in time for the summer, etc. Fortunately for me this doesn’t involve my students.
In short, with the interest in the field the majority of it has become a mix of marketing fads that have ultimately resulted in the country still suffering from the highest obesity rate consisting of 40% of the population, along with a battery of other health problems that plague the nation.
When it comes to health in the current zeitgeist many people still want to ignore doing the work all while depending on some horrible medical procedure, or a so-called magical pill from big Pharma, for their desired results. This ultimately leads them back to the physical road to perdition inviting in even more problems than what they started with in the first place.
The reality is that the fitness industry has probably been propagandized worse than just about any other industry. These days it’s all about the fads and the fad coaches rather than measurable and sustainable lifelong results. In short, perception is not reality, but perception is sold as the reality in the fitness industry. The same thing can be said for every other industry as well.
The reality is that there are very few natural results to look at regarding the industry as a whole. Instead we get stuck with the artificial Instagram models that would rather pose as being the greatest online coaches who, in reality, are primarily aiming to push you into some sales funnel in order for you to buy their latest line of Chinese manufactured supplements rather than providing you with sound physical results.
The truth is that for the last several decades in our society there has been a real detachment with many people concerning their mind/body connection due to the lack of physical activity and physical jobs that used to dominate the landscape of the workforce.
Because of this most of the population are completely incapable of making any sound healthy decision for themselves. The sad reality is that a large segment of the population have become dependent on the latest fad, the internet, a coach, or some cheap low quality supplement to feel like they’re doing something worthwhile for their health.
Now don’t get me wrong I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with hiring a coach, or for doing some research. That’s not the point I’m making here at all. After all, I’m a coach myself and I do this for a living.
The point I’m making is simply about pointing out the reality that a lot of people in our society simply have zero ability to figure out some basic level of things for themselves. As a result of this it’s simply become difficult for many people to do what should come naturally in a lot of ways when it comes to making healthy decisions concerning their personal health and lifestyle goals.
Now having said all of that there’s something I want to touch on here today that I frequently communicate to new students that do seek me out in order to help them with their physical journey.
The thing I will communicate with those students that are truly serious about making a change in their lives in order to get fitter and stronger involves the significant decision of moving forward in the process of taking full measures.
Essentially a full measure enters into the equation when a student is willing to put into their lifestyle and training the full amount of effort both mentally and physically on a consistent basis in order to acquire optimal results for their physical, mental, and spiritual health.
Now to be fair not everyone is capable of doing this. In fact, most people aren’t capable of doing this, but for those that do engage in this on a consistent basis it involves a game-changing level of personal agency that is derived from a true exercise in one’s own personal discipline of action.
Because of this, the decision for one to act on a full measure is unto itself a feat of personal strength. Furthermore, this sort of mental fortitude is the exact attribute that is necessary for one to become a Zenith in this current day and age.
Now the reason I’m telling you this is that there’s a very powerful and deep psychological lesson to be learned from one deciding to take a full measure when it comes to pursuing a particular venture.
Psychological Compartmentalization
Now I want to take a moment to explain just how powerful the decision can be for you if you decide to take an unrelenting full measure, instead of a half measure, as it pertains to your psychological frame of mind when pursuing a particular goal in your life. I believe you will find this part of the discussion to be quite riveting.
To give this some proper context I want to share a little story with you here. I had a conversation years ago with a friend of mine Brad Mcleod who is a Navy SEAL and is the founder of the organization SEALGrinderPT. I had been a contributing writer to the SEALGrinderPT website as a coach and had developed a functional fitness and martial arts strength training program for the platform years ago as one of the few civilian coaches who did not serve in the military. It was an honor to work with Brad during this time.
Back then prior to one of the projects that we worked on together Brad and I grabbed some lunch one day to catch up. During this lunch Brad shared a very interesting story with me that really illustrated the willpower and psychological edge that is necessary for one to have when one finds themselves in the middle of a high stress situation.
As we were talking at lunch I wanted to inquire about his experience when he went through the most intense form of training on the planet in order to become a Navy SEAL. By the way, if you’re not aware of what that is, this high level training is what is known as BUD/S which is an acronym for Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training.
Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training is the selection process for Navy SEALs. This is the most grueling form of training on the entire planet.
Now when I say grueling you may be wondering, just how tough is BUD/S?
Given that this is one of the most, if not the most, intense programs on the planet it’s pretty well known that it has a 75-80% attrition rate. I believe some say that if you follow the entire process to chart the full path on what it takes in order to get to BUD/S that many may say that it gets even closer to a 90% attrition rate.
Regardless of the exact number the point is that this training selection is one of the toughest there is on the planet. With such a high attrition rate the elimination of candidates can be chalked up to being a breaking point that takes place either mentally, or physically concerning each candidate that fails to make the selection.
It should also be noted that the guys that make it to BUD/S are some of the best the military has to offer and more than likely they didn’t just stumble into this program by accident.
Now let me get back to the story. So as I was saying, as we were talking at lunch I wanted to inquire about his experience when he went through BUD/S.
I knew Brad was mentally and physically a very tough individual so I asked him what part of BUD/S he found to be the most challenging.
It was at this point that he started to differentiate between the mental and physical demands of the program and he said that there were obviously many things that were challenging, but for him personally he was very honest about how difficult it was to deal with the cold water.
It was at this point that he started telling me that even though he wasn’t the biggest, or the strongest, among the candidates in his class, that he never let that stop him. He said that as much as he didn’t like the cold water he could still grind it out sitting in the cold surf for a long period of time if the training demanded it. He pointed out that if he had to, he could exhibit the mental toughness to play that game all day long.
Now it was at this point that he shared with me a story about when he was in the cold surf during one of the training exercises and they were literally working at fighting off the reality of hypothermia.
He said that they were in an exercise where they were in the cold surf and that the cold was the most intense thing he had ever felt. In this situation he was saying that they were all required to have a swim buddy. As he was in a mental fight with himself against the biting cold he told me that he could see the struggle in the face of his swim buddy, but that he knew that he also looked as weary and miserable as his swim buddy because he was right there with him in the same cold water.
However, he said that after a while he knew that once he saw the medical staff arrive on the beach that they wouldn’t be out there in the cold water that much longer. Now in this moment for Brad this signaled a near to the end of this particular exercise and the reality was that his instincts would prove to be right.
According to his story they ended up being at the end of the exercise and because he read the situation ahead of time, in the midst of a high stress situation, it was a strong affirmation for him during this point of the training.
Now having said that, this was Brad’s interpretation of this particular scenario during a high stress situation. However, what he told me next was very interesting.
He pointed out that even though he had read the situation the way that he did, there might have been another pair of guys just a few feet away that may have interpreted that situation in a completely different way.
He said that in the same exact situation another guy somewhere might have been suffering from the cold, seen the medical staff, and thought that they were intentionally trying to freeze them to death in the process of training. As Brad explained this he was pointing out that this could have been the interpretation of another candidate and explained that this was the type of psychological warfare that goes on within oneself throughout the entire experience.
Now obviously these sorts of extreme conditions are intentionally used to push these individuals to their limits as the Navy is looking to get the very best that they can in order to be a part of the teams, but what other lesson can we learn from this example?
The thing that really stood out to me here in Brad’s story was the potential differences in psychological compartmentalization that goes on with how different people can interpret and deal with the same exact situation. In other words, if everyone in a particular group, or setting, is faced with the same difficult situation there’s going to be very different reactions to that same situation from person to person.
In addition to this, here Brad was able to exercise an effective level of psychological compartmentalization when the moment called for it. For clarity, psychological compartmentalization is a mental defense mechanism where an individual can separate certain thoughts, emotions, and experiences into various mental compartments in order to manage difficult feelings, stress, or trauma.
Now I’m no psychologist, but this ability for psychological compartmentalization to me seems like a healthy coping tool for certain moments such as this example involving the challenges of a high stress situation such as BUD/S. In certain momentary situations I think this is a full display of strength involving one being able to take control of their emotions and mental stress in order to get through a difficult circumstance.
However, some professionals say that even though psychological compartmentalization can be healthy in temporary situations involving high stress jobs and relationships, it can also be very damaging if it is done excessively and unconsciously on an ongoing basis. In circumstances involving someone doing this on an excessive and ongoing basis this could lead to someone falling into a trap of emotional avoidance, a fragmented identity, and an inability to process trauma altogether.
So why am I telling you this?
I wanted to use this story here with Brad to communicate the significance of what it takes for a strong individual to decide on taking a full measure when it comes to a particular life pursuit. In his case that full measure was doing what needed to be done to get through BUD/S and to eventually become a Navy SEAL.
Now at the same time, this scenario did not highlight avoiding reality. I’ll do my best here to elaborate on this a bit further as I see it. You see I believe that a strong individual like my friend Brad here can face a difficult situation and have the ability to control the framework of his mind and to switch it on and off for the function of psychological compartmentalization when the need for it arises. As a lasting vanguard of this current populist movement I’m sure you can relate.
At the same time, I believe there are a lot of people in society that have been so traumatized by abuse, corporate media, and even in their pursuit for further education that they have probably fallen into a state of perpetual psychological compartmentalization.
I will point out that I personally believe that this would explain a great deal of the radical behavior that we’ve been seeing on college campuses, roadside Tesla vandalisms, and overall emotional immaturity that can be seen on tens of thousands of social media videos that we’ve been able to view daily over the past ten years.
I believe this organized societal trauma is a real setback for many people as it has stripped them of their ability to control the psychological framework of their minds and keeps them in a state of ongoing compartmentalization. Unfortunately, I believe this has resulted in them remaining in a state of mind where they continually ignore reality, which is why they’re incapable of dealing with reality.
The Wrap Up
That quote I led off with at the beginning of this episode is from the hit TV series Breaking Bad.
If you haven’t seen this series I’ll warn you that it is quite gritty and can be a bit dark at times, but it is very well written and paints a picture of one of the most potentially realistic and creative transformations of a character that I’ve ever seen in any modern day storytelling.
Coincidentally it’s one of my favorite series because it is written with a deeply thought out storyline that will force you to think about what you just watched, along with making you aware of how bad choices can send your life flying sideways and off the rails if you allow it.
Anyways, the quote I referenced at the beginning comes from Season 3 Episode 12 of the series and the title of that particular episode is Half Measures. I thought that was fitting given the message of today’s episode.
Now in the scene that surrounds the quote I led off with, it involves a scenario surrounding the main character Walter White (Bryan Cranston) being given a warning by his employer’s fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). For some added context Walter’s business involves cooking meth for a kingpin named Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) that competes with the drug cartels.
Walter was literally a Nobel Prize winning chemist and earlier in his life he had taken a small buyout from a small company that he was previously a part of that literally went on to skyrocket to being worth billions of dollars. This decision ultimately led him down a path in life where he was filled with professional bitterness.
In case you haven’t seen the show this decision, combined with the piling on of several other life problems, led Walter down a path to cooking crystal meth for Gus. As it turns out Walter didn’t get to this point on his own.
He has a sidekick named Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) who worked on the dealing side of the business as Walter obviously used his dominant chemistry skills to work on the supply side of the business.
Ok now I’ll get back to the details surrounding the quote by Mike.
Without getting too much into the weeds of the storyline in this scene Mike comes to visit Walter one night at his house because he and Gus are looking at Jesse as being a bit of a liability. Out of respect for Walter, Mike comes to speak with Walter on the matter directly instead of taking any action towards Jesse without any sort of warning.
During his conversation with Walter, Mike starts telling him a story from his past when he was a beat cop. In this story Mike goes into detail about how he and his partner would consistently get a call to go out to the same residence on a frequent basis due to a domestic dispute.
According to Mike every single time they would show up to this particular residence it would always involve the same thing which was a case of spousal abuse. In this particular case Mike said it involved the husband who had a massive build, weighed close to 270 lbs., and would take out his frustration on his wife who had a very small body that was similar to a bird, according to Mike.
In this story Mike talks about how they would get call after call over a period of time. He would describe the frustrating cycle of how they would go out to the residence to pick up the husband to take him in only to have him sleep it off and to eventually be released to go back home again.
He said that they ended up doing this on what seemed to be a fairly regular basis because the woman would never press charges. She was too scared of him.
However, he said one night his partner was out sick when the call came in and he went out to the residence on his own. He said that he was driving the guy into town as usual on this particular night and during the drive the guy started humming a song in the back seat and Mike said it just rubbed him the wrong way.
So on this night instead of taking the usual left turn to head into town he took a right turn to head out into the middle of nowhere.
Mike said that once he got to a desolate spot that he took the guy out of the car and made him get on his knees. He pulled out his revolver and stuck the barrel of the gun in the guy’s mouth.
It was at this point that he told this guy that this was how it was going to end. According to Mike, the guy was begging for his life and Mike instructed him to get quiet so that he could think about what he had to do.
He said as he stood there with the gun to the guy’s head he went quiet, and then he got real quiet.
Obviously the guy was scared to death and had sat there crying, begging, and swearing that he would never lay another hand on the woman ever again. As the story goes Mike gave him a stern warning and ultimately let him go.
However, according to Mike the guy ended up brutally killing the woman just two weeks later. It was at this point that Mike said that the moral of the story was that he chose a half measure, when he should have gone all the way. Then he looked at Walter and said, “No more half measures, Walter.”
Now this is a deep dark story that this episode uses to communicate the driving motivation behind Mike’s process of decision making. Obviously this man’s constitution is serious and perhaps even unwavering at times, but it is obviously the reason he finds himself being able to work in the high risk position that he’s in, regardless of the moral implications of his position.
The reason this is significant is because to me Mike’s character is someone who operates by the law of the jungle. Despite the circumstances of his career choice Mike still understands the driving force behind human nature in his world involving survival, financial motive, and self-preservation.
Conversely, as I stated earlier I believe that many people throughout our society have been so demoralized by the media, our institutions, and culture that many have been stuck in a state of perpetual psychological compartmentalization. Unlike my friend Brad who has the ability to switch this on and off for the purpose of dealing with a high stress situation in a given moment, the demoralized portion of the population has been stuck in simply not dealing with the reality of the world whatsoever. I believe you can see this too.
Because of this it has rendered a significant portion of the population incapable of understanding human nature as it pertains to its role in the law of the jungle. Unlike our fictional character Mike Ehrmantraut, the demoralized communist left in our country are in total denial of reality as they refuse to deal with their internal cognitive dissonance and to face the reality of their actions. As a result they are incapable of acknowledging the laws of the jungle as it pertains to self-preservation, financial motive, and survival when it applies to their choices and the things that they support.
Of course, this lack of ability to address and resolve internal conflict directly results in the fragmentation of their identity, along with bringing on a serious lack of self-awareness. This lack of self-awareness is something I’ve noticed that accelerated throughout our society during the pandemic and seemingly had spread faster than the virus itself.
If you’ve ever dealt with anyone who lacks self-awareness then you understand just how serious this issue is and how much this attribute renders those people incapable of dealing with reality and recognizing the dangers in something that’s standing right in front of them. It’s a very destructive thing and in my view it’s something that has become more and more noticeable throughout society since the pandemic.
You know I have thought a lot about this condition lately because I’ve noticed several people in my life who seem to suffer from this. With the world seemingly spinning out of control, and with the coming age of AI, it got me thinking about the particular issue of people lacking in self-awareness which, by the way, strips away their ability for empathy.
If you haven’t read the Bible I’m sure you’ve still heard some of the stories of our past from the good book. One of those stories involves the fall of man which involved the disobedience of Adam and Eve and their loss of God’s grace in a perfect living world in the Garden of Eden due to the introduction of sin.
As a result of this fall we have since referred to our flaws and shortcomings involving our interactions with others as simply being human. Within this paradigm we could at least still have the opportunity to do what would be considered to be good in God’s eyes even though we now live in a fallen world that is infiltrated by sin. Thankfully we have God’s gift of grace through his mighty son Jesus.
However, now both you and I can perhaps consider that this paradigm of what it means to be human is shifting and changing once again. You can see this with the ever-growing desire and isolation for people to not interact and deal with one another altogether.
You clearly saw the negative impact of this on society during the pandemic and with the continuous spread of people throughout society that lack self-awareness and empathy this is laying the groundwork for a societal collapse unless people depend on something else to navigate this new world.
Alarmingly enough this growing isolation of people who lack self-awareness and empathy seems to be fertile ground for the coming age of AI. This could be what we will eventually refer to as the second fall of man in reference to following the first fall after Adam and Eve.
Now the way we thwart this is by optimizing ourselves with personal pursuits that lift up our own status in life so that we can then be more capable of lifting up others. We can do this by learning how to optimize our own mental, physical, and spiritual health as I stated at the beginning of this episode. This is where you and I can put our faith in God instead of placing our faith in man, or machine.
This is how you and I both can continue to upgrade our Zenith status and that starts by making sure we don’t take any half measures when doing so.
Have you noticed the steady increase in people who lack empathy and self-awareness?
Do you also believe that we can reverse this course by spending billions of dollars and effort on reaching others for the advancement of human performance rather than machine performance in order to avoid the second fall of man?
Please post your feedback here in the comments below.
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