The bulls.
Yo, what's your boy?
Comp nasty alongside his co host Taylor Lewan. Obviously you're listening to an intro right now, so you know the boy's.
Not here next to me. I'm out here and be beautiful.
Aulume to California after another big win against the Cincinnati Bengals Raiders. The boys man six and four right now, sitting pretty h Gotta keep it going, Gotta keep the momentum rolling, Gotta keep that big dick energy out here in the black hole, dude, speaking of the black hole, You guys, it's a fuck. It's a fucking blast playing in front of the black hole. It's like all it's like a Halloween party every weekend, and I love it.
But yeah, man, shoot, the boy's been three and oh since being out of here, so I'm having a great time. It's always fun when you're winning, obviously, Uh, but it's been a blast.
Man.
These boys are rolling, and I had no clue how young our team was. We have like, uh shit, who knows, like ten starters that are like rookies, and uh had.
Some to them.
Man, this is the time that this is the time of the year where they talk about the whole rookie Wall and these dudes, man just have their middle finger up to this fucking rookie.
Wall and I love it. Man.
We're uh, they're leading the charge out here, and you know, obviously hats off to them. But yeah, I had no clue. Man, I'm like, I'm like tired. For second oldest on the team, he got Richie and Cognito, who's thirty six. Benjamin Button still doing it out there, clanging and banging for the Boys, playing at a high level. Uh, he's thirty six. And then after that there's a few of us at thirty years old. Man, we got a we got a young squad man, and it's awesome to see. There's a lot
of good energy right now. So you know, we have to keep that going. You know, it's heading to this back half of November, going into December back you know, now in football matters most.
But yeah, shout out.
The Boys, man, and shout out Joseph Martinez. No, he's not a player. He's our first winner of the ticket giveaway for busting with the Boys. Joseph Martinez brought his awesome father. They had a great Father's Day yesterday. They flew in from San Antonio, Texas. His dad had to take a red eye because he drove five hours to get to the San Antonio Airport. Very last minute, drop of the hat, freaking we shot them out as the
Winter as Joseph Martinez as the winner. He couldn't believe it by plane tickets last minute, had no idea they weren't in California. I figured they were already around here. But they're so committed in for the fucking boys and Raider Nation and obviously busting with the boys that they bought last minute plane tickets. Drove His dad drove five
hours to get the San Antonio Airport. They fly all day yesterday Earth, they fly all day the day before the game on Saturday to make it to watch the game together on Sunday.
Awesome.
People got to meet him in the parking lot after the game. Hope you guys had a hell of a time. It's awesome taking pictures of meeting you guys and talking with you and Alic fucking.
That's awesome, man, that's cool to see. It's awesome that you took your dad.
He wanted to take his dad because his dad taught him how to be a Raider fan growing up back in the day, so he wanted to treat his dad to one of the last home games in the black Hole. So shout out to him. Man, Yeah, before we get into much more huge special, shout out Hunter Briley and the Regal Realty Group. They're out based out of Nashville. The MVP of the podcast, MVP The Little He's a secret wheelingd dealer out there in Nashville. Man, anything residential
commercial investment opportunity. Hit up Hunter Briley. He will have you taken care of. Tell him the boys sent you his personal six one five six three zero ninety seven three five. Their website is Regal rg dot com. But shout out Hunter Brierley and the Regal Realty Group for you know, providing the boys with He hooked it up. The bus is getting fixed right now, finding a home for the bus. The tailgates. If you see a Hunter, give him a big thank you in a big up
for us. Speaking of tailgates, I assume there's gonna be another one this weekend. Keep up to date with us at Busting WTB and again free free drank, free food.
With that drank, shout out Anheuser, Busch and Ajax Turner, the local distributor for Anheuser Busch, providing the boys with everything under that beautiful Anheuser Bush Umbrella, Budweiser, bud Light, natural Light, but most importantly those natural light Seltzers, those Catalina line mixers and the low Hot Beaches six percent alcohol. Get where you're going faster, drink responsibly, be smart, and always do with that.
Don't give attitude? What I mean by that, don't give attitude?
Dude? People are gonna judge you because you drink Seltzer's, But who gives this shit?
Dude? We absolutely don't give a.
Take pictures with your don't give a mentality, hashtag don't give a and tag us so we can share on our stories on Twitter on our YouTube channel like we've been doing every week for our fans, so we can have a great time engaging with you guys. Also, this weekend is the Jaguars play at Tennessee. The reason that is of importance is because the Neely family is going to get honored as the twelfth Man. And if you're new with us, Matt Neely was somebody who's a very important part of this podcast.
He was one of the boys.
He was one of the few that was that's been with us the entire time, and Matt was our first hire. Matt passed away a little over a month ago, and you know, very it was a very tough time for Bustle of the Boys. Obviously his family and friends. He was known as the Titans, the greatest Titans fan around. And obviously you can see that because the Titans are now honoring him and his family by allowing them to be the twelfth Man of the Game.
So if you're around Nashville, I encourage you to get to the game.
Wear you're Matt Neely for the Boys shirts, show your support.
Man. I wish I could be there, I really do. But Matt would love it.
You know, he's looking down and he's for the Boys always in forever man, And we miss you, Maddie. But please, you know, if you're around Nashville, get to that game, all right. Onto this week's episode, we sat down with Jim Henzel. He's a mental performance coach. He is the mental coach for Michael Chandler, the Unreal MMA Fighter. He's the mental coach for Rich froning Uh, the greatest crossfitter of all time, and plenty of guys out there on that CrossFit ranch that frowning has out there.
But uh, it was very insightful podcast.
I think you guys are really gonna get a lot out of it. It was just me that sat down with him, myself and Michael Chandler. There was no Taylor on this episode. Really good stuff though, similar to that Ben Newman podcast, you know, we could we like to switch it up. We like to have some fun, We like to talk sports on some we like to do just me and Taylor, and this one we get a little deeper. We peel some layers back and have a great podcast with Jim Hensel. I think you're really gonna
love it. But again, guys, if you're near the podcast, you can find us on all podcast platforms Busting with the Boys.
You can find us on YouTube Busting with the Boys.
Subscribe, rate five stars, leave reviews, lead fun reviews.
Man, we were, we appreciate it.
We're We're not shit without you guys, and uh, you guys have allowed us to kind of make this thing a little more successful. But hey, we love it. Were for the boys or for the boys. Keep doing God's work and being for the fucking boys again. Shot us out and have a hell of a week man, enjoy this episode and as always, go be a fucking wolf.
We solid. So you asked me if I was a whiskey guy. Yeah, you a whiskey guy, I am. What do you like?
Are you a bourbon American whiskey Scotch rye?
So, so here's the here's the trouble. So my father in law. I love my father in law. One of the smartest guys I've ever met. He's been was athletic director at Tennessee Tech for a ten of years. And he's been working there for like forty six years, okay, And and he he drinks KG Kentucky gentlemen, just bottom shelf stuff. And I'm like, you know, and Papa Dave's he's like got some money now, he's worked hard. He can do what he wants to do. And and he said, so,
I'm gonna give you two pieces of advice. The first one is, don't get used to the expensive stuff. You know that's the top shelves. Be careful, yeah, because they're gonna spend a bunch of money there every time. And I said, what's the second thing, Papa Dave? And he said, never drink more whiskey than you can wake up from.
That's good.
That's those are the two things. So my problem is, I like expensive whiskey. I don't like cheap whiskey.
What expensive whiskey do you go with? I like I'm learning, I'm still learning.
Go ahead. I like Woodfords, you know.
Basil Hayden's Basil had it greatest, not had it?
Yeah? So yeah, I like, you know, some some good whiskey on the rocks, nice and mellow.
I'm a rye guy, right, I like the rye dude. Have you guys been a whiskey kitchen?
No? Yes, down and it's by saying.
In Najo's and m Street restat Yeah.
Yeah.
But they have like a plethora, solid word comp pilethora of whiskey, right, and there's you can get flights and everything like that. And I sat down and I was like, Okay, this is the day where I'm gonna figure out which kind of whiskey I like, because everybody like seems to know what their whiskey is. So I'm like, I'm gonna figure it out right here, right now. And it was rye dude, it was a right whiskey. I felt like
it went down the smoothest Woodford Reserve. Rye has been my go to because people have gotten it for me for like my birthday events or something like that.
Yeah, and it was solid. So that's how I figured out that like Rye the most. So so let's started talking about wisdom here. Let's whiskey to wisdom. Let's go like that. No, but let's let's let's talk whiskey wisdom. Have you broken the two rules? Oh? God, you know, because I for sure have.
Well, you know, I mean I like that we all woke up.
I like the high brow stuff, and I barely woke up.
Broke we broke all the sorry sorry Papa day dang it.
Yeah, dude, sometimes I like, I like to consume a little too much, so that way it's that much more.
Challenging the next day. Dude, are you hearing this? You guys hearing this train out here?
All?
Yeah?
Actually I thought somebody actually just derailed itself and got back on the track somehow.
If you're not accustomed to Bust with the boys, Literally, every time we have an episode, there's always a train going by, always a train, So you gotta shout out the trains that go by.
Shout out the trains that go by a busting with the boys. But but dude, Jim, I don't know.
You said you've watched a couple of our episodes. Are been aware of a couple of our things?
You like to mix it up. We like to have fun, yeah, to raise a little hell, we like to get serious. And we did one with Mike. A couple with Mike over here, he was on the Brenton Show.
One he's on this, one, the boys on this one shot at the boy, and one on his own that's gonna be that's probably out.
Who knows.
We we we backlogger episodes and kind of drop them. So we have a good mixture of enter you know, fun, entertaining, YadA, YadA, YadA, and then serious.
Sure. And then Mike over here is like, Hey, I really want to get.
My mental performance coach on sure, and I'm all about that kind of stuff.
Sure, So I was. I was looking at your stuff.
You work with Rich Frohning, you work with Mike Chandler over here, who else? Who else is in your client tele talk to me about who you work with, kind of.
What you do as a little bit of background. Sure, everything that we'll talk about today was something that I created out of necessity. In my life goes all the way back to you know, I got how old are you?
Thirty thirty? So I've got I've got a twenty seven year old daughter and a twenty five year old daughter, and it goes all the way back to the hardest time in my life, which is years ago, and my wife leaves and I'm face down depressed and I don't know what direction to go next in my life, and I'm klawn and I'm reaching for whatever is truth in my life. And what I realized in that tough time was that I didn't own any of that that was more my dad's or somebody else's stuff.
So you're saying you were kind of finger pointing or not fingerpoint but you're finding a reason why you are where you are, And how.
Do I get up and move forward? Yeah? What's what is worth living for? You know? And I had these two little girls at that point three and five, and I knew I needed to be a good dad and I wanted to be a good father for them, and so I'm I'm struggling like crazy just to kind of know what to do next. And for sure, at that point, clinically depressed, like struggling to get up off the floor. There were two big things. My wife left me and I didn't become a professional football player, all things that
I thought were going to happen in my life. And so I'm just reaching for identity and I'm reaching for purpose and value in my life. And and as I reached for that, and I tried to figure out that really, really I just had emotion and momentum and that's not sustainable. So literally, this is back in the vh VHS days. I'm fifty one years old, so I'm older, but you're fifty one fifty one, so boy looks solid. We're still hang out with which running and it'll work out. You'll
be fine. So I literally put the girls to sleep one night, came up and popped in the movie Gladiator. And most guys have seen Gladiator. I just want to take my mind off my problems. And it happens to be at the scene in the movie where Maximus is squared off with comedists and he's fighting as this anonymous gladiator and he turns around to walk away from comtists and commonist says, hey, you know, gladiator, turn around, how do you turn your back on me, and he wants
to know his name. Maximus turns around. You know what I'm talking about. The scene flips off his helmet. My name is Maximus Arelius, decimiss General the Felish Legions. And he goes to this process of defining himself. I'm sitting on a couch in my house, love on Colorado, depressed out of my brain, and I don't know where to go next. And I say to myself, I'm a writer, I'm a journalism guy. Well, this is a movie. I
get it. But in his darkest hour, he just he just said this is who I am, this is what's purpose in my life, and this is what I'm going to do. And I thought, well, I'm going to do that. I don't know what else to do, but I'm going to do that. In that moment, in that moment when something started to click for you, that's the revelation to me. I don't own any of these beliefs. I don't really know who the hell I am. I'm stuck in a ton of emotion. What I'm twenty three, I'm twenty four,
twenty four, twenty five? So when when? When did when did football end? For you football in my senior year in college? Where'd you go to college? I went to the University of Northern Colorado. The later half of my career. I started at Colorado, got suspended, kicked out of school, went to jail the end of more on, and then I transferred to the University of Northern Colorado, and then I played there.
And you still thought you were going to continue to play ball after college.
That was realistic. Either that or played baseball. That was an opportunity that I would have. And are you Are you married in college? Yeah? I'm married all the way through college, all the.
Way through college. And then when you're done, you're when you're done at college. Are you're twenty two? Are you twenty now?
I'm a little older. I'm twenty thirty. So you were twenty three when college ended.
Yeah, and then your wife left you as you were still in college or right.
A year later, a year and a half later. So I'm twenty four, probably twenty five if I tracked it back. I'd been working for a couple of years, been out in the real world. I tore my knee right before halftime of my senior year, so I'm just backside I'm a cornerback. I'm just backside, you know, and that guy cuts me, and so all of that Hope's dreams, all of that just goes out the window, and.
You're struggling in that year to kind of what you were saying, finding your identity. So you were struggling with that transition that first year out of college.
What am I gonna do? Get a sales job? What am I gonna do? I've been thinking about being a professional football player since all I can remember. Yeah, and if I don't play football, I'm gonna play baseball. Right now, We're gonna go do something. And then just the real realization of knowing what and there were I wasn't mentally tough enough to be that guy looking back now through a lot of things that I wasn't good enough. I
was athletically capable enough, but not in my mind. I wasn't and didn't really understand who I was and couldn't just be present in a lot of things that happened. So just all of that crashing down in that moment, and then this realization that I don't really know who I am and this idea of identity I've got to figure out what's real about who I am? Before I try to work at what to do. Let's not aim at what to do next. Let's just take a stop a moment and let's figure out, well, what is generally
believe in? Yeah, regardless of whatddy, But anybody else on the planet thinks? What do I believe in? And what am I willing to get up and move forward based on? Does that make sense? Yeah? Oh yeah, I think.
I think that's what happens with a lot of guys in sports. And I only say sports because I play.
I play.
I've played a sport my whole life. Yeah, work, first grade?
Is how old? Like eight years old or six, seven, eight years old? Whatever?
You grow all guessing here, but you play a sport from a very early age.
So like for me, for instance.
You start at seven eight years old and you train basically to I was an older guy too, till twenty three, right, twenty three minus eight?
What is that fifteen years?
You train fifteen years to go after one goal or one dream, right, being an NFL player, And when the reality sets in that the average career in the NFL is three years, you train fifteen years of your entire life for a career that lasts on average three years.
I've been very fortunate to I'm in my seventh right now on kind of the quote unquote back end of my career, not knowing when it all land, and fortunately it's always kind of sunk in with me that I got to find a transition point, because when it's taken away from you, you do go through this transitional period of what in the you know, what do I do next? And if you don't pivot yeah and know and are
strong and kind of your identity with something. That's where guys can slip into, like clinical depression or something that they don't know, like what am I going to be a sales guy? Because we think as athletes we're going to either pinnacle or oh what am I going to be a sales guy? There's nothing that you're You're all
in on this one goal that you live. Knock on wood, hopefully we all live to like ninety, right, we haven't even lived one third of our life, and this goal we've trained for for fifteen years is going to be gone whenever we get out of college. And a lot of guys struggle when that happens, or in the NFL when a lot of guys. You see guys that go bankrupt within five years because they struggle figuring out their identity.
And it's interesting to me that you were in that period for a year where you didn't make it.
To the league.
And I'm just assuming, like Jim and I just met like twenty minutes ago, just assuming that that stuff kind of played a role into.
Your wife leaving the question question.
And then you're sitting there in your darkest time and some damn movie sits and clicks with you at some point. I think that's like I always get very interested with guys, man, because the mentality is what matters in those periods of time, because yeah, I'm a football player now, but when that's done, am I capable?
That's why guys have to dabble in what might.
Interest him, because now they're going to slip into something that is not good.
If you if at a certain point your athletic career will end, yeah, at a certain to be certain point, and it does for everybody, whether it's fifteen years or yeah or two you're going to retire either in high school. We know the tire in college, right, we know that that's happening. This is this is where I never I never taught Rich Phoning one thing about CrossFit. He was a he's a multiple games champion. Had that dialed in? Where where Rich had any time? Right? Yeah, total between
the individual and team. I mean, when it comes to that world, that's the guy. What was valuable working through the Mayhem mindset process what we call the Mayhem mindset process now, was well, CrossFit is not his identity, it's what he does. And so I know that at a certain point that's going to end. So what am I aiming at after that? And I need to start to create that thought process and plan for that in the future.
And if professional football is all you are, you're in trouble because it's going to come to an end at certain point. And so that that was the space that I found myself in. And then what I really realized was that I had to separate this idea of identity from what I do, and in the culture we live in, that gets really blurred. So I call it, you know I want to. I don't. I'm not a traditional mindset
rah rah, motivational guy as not at all. What I do my responsible is to Really, because of what I went through, I created a process for somebody to sit down and really decide who they were and what they believed in.
What made you start creating that process? And now I know the Gladdy that moment you decided, Okay, I got to get my shit together and I'm immediately taking accountability for literally everything that's happened in my life.
How do you start to figure out a process? Right?
And then from that process that we'll get into how you started to put together a formula to help other people.
Here's what I heard Maximus say. He stated what his purpose was, so I heard it. He was clear about who he was and what his purpose was on the planet. Then he talked about what he believed in, which was values or beliefs or however you want to call it, first principles, and then he said, this is what I'm going to do. Yeah, so it's who I am, this is what I believe in, either in this life or the next life. I'm going to have my revenge. You know,
That's kind of how he phrased it. So I said, okay, wait a second, let me figure out what purpose is. Let's let's let's create a list of authentic beliefs in my life that I really believe in that are mine. And then I'm gonna hold myself accountable by writing myself a mission statement, now what I call your I Am, which is a purpose statement, your I believe, which is this idea of whatever it is you believe in, and then and then what you're gonna do to hold yourself accountable?
And so I went through six months worth of just beginning to write, all right, well, why in the hell am I on this planet? Because it sure isn't play football, because that ain't happen. So that's that's something that I that I thought I was going to do. But that's not the same as really what I believe in. I need to separate that out and it's not the same as what I feel. Whatever these things are that I'm
supposed to believe in have to be big rocks. They have to be immovable in my life regardless of how I feel. There are things I'm supposed to anchor to. So, so if I believe in family, well what what is the real definition of that? You know? What do I? And so? And so I went through a process of really reaching out and defining this idea of values that represented my strengths, my weaknesses, and then my goals.
If you don't mind sharing, could you give examples that you were writing in this initial period that you were going to kind of go after Yeah, I guess until you got to the point it's where it's like, hey, I found this system that you have an experience label with you now to kind of attract people to.
Want to, you know, follow your stuff. Yeh. When I started out what is now kind of eleven challenges in a process. I don't tell anybody what to believe. That's not my job. You believe whatever it is you want to believe. But I but I am asking you to be able to defend it to yourself. If it's not in language, it's not a tool, right. Think about it. On the football field, you could say a bunch right,
and you could call it coverage. And if you don't know what that is that language specifically, you can't do it. You can't crossfits the same way you know what an am rap is, You're in trouble. So if you don't have language for your beliefs and it's not something that you can really actively communicate, it's not really real. Man. Your choices and decisions are going to be based mostly on momentum or emotion. There's nothing wrong with momentum, and
there's nothing wrong with emotion. That's a fire starter, but it's not sustainable fuel. We're gonna find ourselves in places where our emotions betray us absolutely, and that happens to everybody. So and that's the way we're designed by the way we feel first, that's the first part of our brain that kicks in, and then we think second. So understanding that acknowledging it. So I went through a process of
separating my emotions from what I believed. And so now I call it your B capital b E, Values, Talents and Purpose. I want you to be able to have some sort of idea about what that means and then be able to say it so that it's authentic, don't bs me.
And then I make yourself accountable by making the invisible like heard and divisible.
I wrote a code for my life. Literally. I called it the Strengthen Honor Code, after what Maximus said. I had a tattoo artist draw me a cress. I tattooed it on my arm, and every decision was filtered from that point on through the Strengthen Honor Code. It was not for anybody, and I could quote it. My name is, this is who I am, This is what I believe, This is what I believe in fight, work, hope, faith, team, family, excellence, purpose, responsibility, love,
and freedom, all clearly defined. I said it fast, and it doesn't mean anything to you, but it's very profound in my life. Yeah. And then an I will statement or a mission statement that represented me. And then it was boiled down to something on my arm so I could look down and say, Jim, is there any strength and honor in that? Meaning? What I believe is purpose, what I believe in my values, and what I'm said
I'm going to do. That was very well thought out and in language, but it gave me a fighting chance now to move my life forward. Instead of momentum and emotion, I knew who the hell I was and I could apply it if I wanted to. So instead of being a guy who who was kind of foggy and wasn't real clear about what I believed, I was a dude who really knew and was accountable. So my challenge now was a little bit different than a lot of people's.
It was would I and will I live the way I said I would believe instead of staying in the state of confusion, right, staying in that state of emotions.
And that's what I realized too.
I thought before we started working together, I thought I was a pretty defined guy.
You know, I know what I believe in. I know what my values are.
I know, and I thought, which most of us do as confident, you know, confident people who I try to do the right things. I think I know a lot about life than a lot of people do. Until I started going into this process and started to realize, just like I lift weights and I flex these muscles with every single rep, now I'm flexing my mental muscles and my identity. You know, because you know when you when you guys are talking about okay, ball is over, that's
your darkest hour. That's when you realize, that's when you realize, okay, that's that this is the darkest hour.
Who am I? Am I enough?
Because that's what we always talked about the you know, the first time we sat down, we pretty much talked in essence, this process is your greatest moment of opportunity or your darkest hour?
Am I enough? And for me as an athlete still.
Continuing to compete, I am just as much focused on at my greatest moment of opportunity, because I I haven't had a lot of horrible things happen to me. I haven't been down. And we're not talking clinical depression in my case. We're talking, you know, I want to get better, and we're talking about winning multiple world titles. We're talking about going down as one of the greatest of all time.
I want to.
I want to be able to. I want to be able to pull. I want to be able to pull that out of me.
And I realize after going through this process, the hurdles I've had to go through, this small mind, the small thinking that I've had to go through, the things that are that have been holding me back as well as the things that are to propel me forward. So at the greatest, your greatest moment of opportunity, you can say, yes, I am enough, Let's go get that, Let's go take that.
Yeah.
Yeah, you guys are talking about like being very clear in who you believe and how you're defining these characteristics of yourself. Now when you were doing this right, it sounds awesome. And I'm talking from a point of people listening right now that are like, Okay, it's going to be as simple as being very clear and writing shit down.
Which you should. You should write shit down.
You're when you make the invisible visible, it's a lot more powerful because you're putting it out in the universe.
Creative power in writing.
Right now, you're doing this from step one, the beginning. Right now, you're fifty one, you're proven, you've got these clients, but in the beginning, you're writing this shit out right Like me, I've said this before on another podcast, like Okay, you want to write I want to be I am a Pro Bowl linebacker? Or what does a pro linebacker do on a daily basis? And I'm writing pro linebacker? Or when I was undrafted it's like be a starter
on the Washington Redskins. You're getting clear, but you have doubt at the same time.
So here's the key. Here's the key in what we're doing here. And this is what happened to me, And this is very fundamental to this being something that matters and works. Right, I'm not talking about what you're going to do, the task or the emotion. I want to separate that out. Be a Pro Bowl linebacker is that goal that you're aiming at and it's valid. Prior to thinking about that, I really want to take you back
to really understanding identity. What is it inside you that gives you the ability and or the right to be that pro bowl? Right? Gotcha? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? And I want to go all the way back to what's purpose in your life? And I want to I want to I want to define that in a word, got you? And then I want to talk about values. I want to I want to create a platform of strength to operate from, so that whatever it is you decide to do, you're bringing identity to it, right, not just the goal.
There's nothing wrong with the goal. We got to have them, yes, and we got to put that in language that's really important. But so many people chase the do in our culture. Right, let me try this. All that didn't work? Well, let me try this, I didn't work. Let me try this, Well that didn't work. Hold on, right.
I want you to explain the vulnerable, kind of scary side when you do write these big ass goals in mind. Right, and then it's like, okay, Jim, in the very beginning, Now you're writing this huge goal and you're trying to carry it out, and you still have some vulnerability thinking am I worth telling this to people?
Did you?
You presumably had some kind of doubt when you're writing this in real like I'm gonna be one of the best to do it, right, There's still something in you when you are writing the purpose and the characteristics and all this stuff that's like, why do you deserve that? You're still have a little anxiety to talk about it out loud because you know you're doing it because you need to, but telling it to other people and talking about it front other people do it in a way it is where it's like.
Man, are they doubting me? You know what I mean? Sure you have that stuff in the beginning.
Now now it's like we're proven dudes, right right, and you can kind of talk about it easier. But in the beginning you're gonna have doubt in thinking what makes me deserve this?
In mind? Right? So what Michael said, this whole the whole idea in my heart started from the question what I wanted to do is I wanted to strip myself all the way of everything. I wanted to put myself in Maximus's position. If you if you watch the movie right, everything had been taken to him. He was a general,
had been taken from him, his wife was killed. He's in this spot where he's a slave, and the only reason why he's fighting is for what he believed in, not that it felt good, not that he was respected. He wasn't any of those things, right, It was just only about who he was as a man. One of the goat movies, right for sure. And so I wanted to put myself in that spot. And what I realized was, well, what was the what was the one question that kept coming from my heart? Well, the one question was am
I enough? Am I just an f and loser? Now? Yeah, that happens. It happens for It's important for people to know that that happens. It happens to everybody, and and it happens all the time. That's to be human emotional.
And if it hasn't happened, it is the inevitable if.
You are not clearly defined as as because I was, so, we haven't really talked about fighting goals. We haven't talked about all big goals. Honestly, I just want to figure out who I am.
Right.
I'm a kid from high Ridge, Missouri, you know, And and now I've gotten this this platform to be able to be who I am and i'm but I still am trying to figure it out preemptively as a precaution because when fighting ends, I want to mitigate the risk of that darkestyle. I want to mitigate the risk of if I lose my next three fights and I'm done, who am I? Where am I going?
What am I doing?
You're going to struggle for a minute, man, what you're doing should have zero bearing on identity, exactly right. It shouldn't. In your greatest moment of opportunity or in the darkest hour, You're still the same dude. You still believe the same things. Let me take everything away from you that you have. You know, and I don't know anything about you personally. I'm just saying, let's take your money, let's take your wife, let's take your job, Let's put you in that spot.
And then you then tell me, are the things that you believe in? Horseshit at that point? Or is it real? Right? Tell me what that is? And so here I am face down, depressed, and I'm like, man, if I'm going to get up and come forward, it's got to be real or what's at worth? And so the point of the process is to put you, at least mentally in a space where we separate the do. I don't care about your job. I don't care about your goals and ishit.
I don't want to know about any of that. Really, what I want you to do is just tell me who you are and what you believe, and let's come up with that idea first. It's just like the fundament what position line linebackers read your keys, man, I need you to do is read your keys for your life. Right, That's what I want you to be able to do before the snap of the ball. How intelligent you are before the do Are you intelligent and well versed and have language for your life?
And when you say have language you're talking about you're talking. This is where writing stuff down comes into play, because I truly like, I love this stuff and I want I want people to have takeaways. Right, everybody listening, like when he's explaining this stuff, try and think about.
Some shit in your own life.
And when he's talking about language and saying all these questions like maybe you're sitting in the car right now or listening to this pot or watching it at home. I don't know, but like, if you want to take this stuff away. I'm trying to ask all these questions so we can give.
To you guys think about Let's think about your strongest beliefs. Let's just do it right here, right now, Michael Chandler, name three core values in your life.
Core values, strongest beliefs, fight family, authenticity.
Now, when I go into a classrooms at a university, or I'm I talked in front of three hundred doctors the other day, and I challenge them, name a core value in your life, because we don't have this conversation this way in our culture. Mostly we're talking about motivation and we're looking at guys to motivate us, which is cool, there's nothing wrong with it, but we can you waste motivation if you don't know who you are. Motivation is a fantastic tool if you can apply it to who
you are as a human being. But so many people are chasing motivation. I want to know who he is. Quiet still, outside of all to do, I go into a classroom and I'll ask, you know, a somebody name a core value, and it gets super quiet. They don't really know what I'm talking about. So I gotta try to describe it a couple of different ways.
Because people are probably processing, like shit, what for sure, I'm sitting here talking, I'm like, man, sure I got to be able to name three If you ask me here in a second, you know what I mean.
And it's that you're trying to I mean.
And we've we've worked so hard of the last couple weeks with these definitions, and I've changed the definitions fifteen different times and a lot of times. And that's why you talk about he went fight tape tape all of his things. His definition is different. My definition of fight is probably different than you think it is. My definition of authenticity is probably similar to what you think it
might be. But the reasoning behind the definition all has to go back to my shortcomings mentally and emotionally, from the scars of my past, from the from the things that have held me back. Authenticity isn't just so I can put my best foot forward and be my best self. My being authentic in my mind is overcoming the mental hurdles of the small minded thinking of my past. Therefore, when I step into a room, I will have the courage and to be authentic, authentic in front of people.
And it all comes back to the shortcomings that I've had.
There's what I believe in our design. There's all kinds of things talent wise that are under design. And then there's nurture in nature, how you were raised, you know, and and and what all that means. So we all arrive at this space with different kinds of environments being put through different things, and so it's important to make sure that those words, whatever they are, whatever those belief systems are in your life, they're yours and you own them.
These core values, right, whatever the core values are, okay, you know whatever that is you say, and I don't care what it is. They need to represent your strengths. They need to represent the emotional weaknesses in your life because we all got them. And then they need to represent goals or ideals in your life. So they're living and breathing and you can use them. So many times I go into a space where people they've never thought about it, so they don't know what they are, so
it's not really a tool. Or I go into a environment where they got these mission statements on the walls and they got all these core values, but it's all horseshit and nobody really lives them. And especially in a lot of corporate environments. You can go into a locker room and there'll be some mission statement on the wall and nobody knows what it is or cares. It's not actual, real philosophy. What we're more concerned about is the process
with the x's and o's, which is important. We need to be excellent at that, but we need to come from some sort of philosophical base if we're going to be one hundred percent of who we're creater to be want. If I want the most out of you as an athlete, I need to care about who you are at the heart level and as a man, and as your beliefs, and then I need that connected to process. And if I have that connected to process, then I got eleven dudes flying into the ball understanding who they are and
what they believe. And then there's some sort of if you know who you are and he knows who he is, and everybody knows who they are, then we can find that space where our values overlap and that's where strength is. Or if a coach wants to wants to know whether he wants you around, that's a nice question to start with because there's a lot of x's and o's guys who are physically capable, but they don't belong in the culture, you know what I mean, They're just not going to fit.
I don't care how good you are, it doesn't really make You're not my guy. So understanding that about your life, not just football or what you're doing, is important. How you're going to respond to your girlfriend, how you can respond to.
Your wife, that filter.
Having a filter, you know, I think that's one of the biggest things too, Having a filter to live every single every single scenario that you come into, every single interaction, every single relationship, there's a there is a inherent filter that you now have through the practicing of being able to filter all of these every single scenario through these coret through your core value, your core.
Values, because when these bad things happen, it's like what do they say, like or eving.
Good things five seconds everything happens.
Yeah, there's like a there's like a moment your brain has that's going to make a decision. Yeah, And you're trying to create these things to where that's what you default to in these times of either success or I guess failure. So you write these core values and then what's next. So you you're with me and Mike and we're figuring out our core values. The next time we meet with you. What comes after these defined core values when we talk.
About So the whole entire process is one most importantly to get you to write. Why write? It's not in language, it's not a tool. Love it. So I've got to get you to put who you are and what you believe on paper. If you're not disciplined enough to do some writing, it's not right for you. R I g HD. The process is not right for you. So we need to be able to do that. We want to talk about negative emotions, negative themes, negative stories, and so we
don't start by writing about core values. That comes at the very end of the process. Okay, What I want to do is put you through challenges one week at a time that cause you to gain some new perspective about your life. That's the idea of the goal. No different than getting in the gym and working the different muscles and changing up how you're doing that to strengthen your body. So that's an example of something you put
them through. Each Each one of the challenges requires you to be able to go out into your week and keep this idea front of mind, all right, So one of them I call the matrix, and I teach I teach something called the system, feel, filter, think, flow. It's pretty simple. It's how our bodies work. Olympic brain fires, filter. I don't know if you've got one. That's this idea of building the system, core value system, then being able to think really clearly. Can I get you to be
a critical thinker? Or are you just running all over the place. We all know that person, right, Every choice and decisions made based on emotion. So I want you to go out into your week and really recognize if you're making some choices and decisions based on values or if you're mostly over there in emotion. And each one
of the challenges has a component like that. And the idea is after eleven weeks, and if I can get you a little bit off balance, and I can get you to write a little bit about who you are and what you believe, then we've got this thread that goes all the way through the challenges and some writing. Or we can go back into it and we can begin to discover what it is you really believe based on what you've written.
So you're having Craig me if I'm wrong, You're having them write about these experiences that are happening, whether good or bad.
You're there, you're just kind of jotting down your kind of journaling.
Yeah, those and those and those first couple of weeks two were very eye opening, Like that was the first was the first week, Uh, the power of be the three, be in spite of what other people think, be in
spite of emotion, and be present. That that first week for me, the amount of times I wrote down the how I was not present or how I knew the week before I was not being present compared to the next week with my son, with my wife, with conversations, being present here in this podcast, or even being being in spite of emotions or being in spite of what
other people think. I caught myself almost taking taking more leaps of faith to do things outside of what I would have normally did because I wasn't worried about what people were thinking as much, or I wasn't worried about, you know, what people were thinking, what the negative emotions might have been, or how emotion was driving me rather than just being me.
Because you're kind of like writing this accountability and you're like, yeah, shit, I'm not. It's like something as simple as like, okay, you think you're healthy, will for the next week literally write down everything you eat and this something simple and you I've done this before, and you realize like, shit, I'm not really sticking to the things I've talked about doing because you see all these small little slip ups along the way because you're journaling, and you're like shit.
Like yeah, you can mark them up, yeah, and then you kind of give them back to them and you're kind of like wanting to erase something.
So you know, if we said doesn't want to see it, if we sat down. This process is not for somebody. And I don't say this in any sort of way to be negative. I'm a I'm not a therapist. I'm not a licensed counselor, I'm not any of those kind of guys. Yeah, this and the process is not some for somebody who needs that. It needs to be somebody who has some awareness about who they are and really is trying to get next level self awareness to trying to stretch yourself a little bit and get detailed about
your life. That's what's in Sharpen we want to sharpen things, and so the three b's, Like Michael just explained, well, if we sat down and we could in two hours, we could have created a list of really authentic values
that really meant something to him. But if we don't create some tools and we don't look for the spaces to how to use them number one, and we don't look for the spaces where there are challenges or opportunities, then it's not worth anything in the end, and it ends up just being something you wrote on a wall. We end up in the space where lots of people are in the culture where they say this is what
they believe, but it's not really practical. So we want to create mindset tools, actual tools, so that you can put who you are and what you believe in motion. Your value system should be a force multiplier in your life. It shouldn't. It shouldn't be a safety net.
You should.
I'm interested in dudes who can play offense. Not that there's nothing wrong defense, but you know what I mean to you, You know what I mean, And we want to be able to carry the weight for the people that we love. I want to stand in the gap for the people that I'm committed to being there for I want to make that sacrifice, but I also want to stay on track regarding my emotions and the things that I know that will easily distract me. If I don't
have this, Jim Henzel's I'm gonna screw up. I guarantee you.
And you said when you say spaces, you mean like these hurdles that come along throughout your week.
Sure, Like, is that what you mean by spaces?
If we don't find the spaces to implement these core values that we're going to defaul to, are those the things.
You're talking about, We've got to make them working tools, Gotcha. It's got to be language, and it's got to be something that we know how to put into action. I'm just something we write on when those moments are happening. Yeah, let me let me give you an example. In the very beginning, after I went through all that that that emotion and struggle and my wife leaves, I made a commitment. Now listen, people, this is not about what you believe,
or you believe or anybody else leaves. I'm talking about what I believe and how I applied it to my life, sure, and how I wanted to own it so people can judge me, however, and they judge me, and I don't care, don't care. I want that for you too. In my greatest moment of opportunity, darkest hour, I need to know who the hell I am, so in that space back in the day, I decided I wasn't gonna have sex
with single moms based on my code. Whether you believe that or not, that's just why I decided I'm gonna be I'm single right now, and I'm gonna I'm gonna come home and take care of these little girls because that's what I'm supposed to do, and I'm gonna have to get this right because my mindset is gonna get me into space where you know, I'm gonna be paying attention to chasing tail instead of coming home and taking
care of these kids. That was really real for me in that space at that point in my life as a bachelor, you know, late twenties, early thirties, and so I decided, based on my code, that's not what I was gonna do. If it's a single mom and I could take advantage of that, I'm not gonna That's not
what I'm going to do. And so that was a rule I set for myself based on my code so many many times during those years, and I got myself, and I won't tell the whole story, but I got myself in all kinds of spots where you know, like, man, you can't be here, bro, Like that's against the code. There is no strength and honor in what you're saying. You're not gonna take advantage of that right now. That's
not somebody according to your code that you believed. I don't want that done to me as a single dad out there trying to take care of kids, fighting and battling for that, and that's not what I'm going to do as a man. That's just not a choice. Even though my emotions say let's get into this, my values say hey, no, no, no, let's not take advantage of that right now. And it kept me on a track,
especially relationship wise, early in those days. That you know, allowed me to stay on course and make choices and decisions that were based on my values, not just my emotions. That's very a simple place that I used at early and now twenty years later, it's grown and developed and means other things. But that's where I started, and that's where I am. Now, that's how practical it was to me in that day. Is there any strengthened honor in that gym? Well, obviously my value system says no, but
my emotions say, hell yeah, get into that. Well, what are you gonna do? You're gonna be the man who said you'd live by what you believed? Or are you're going to allow that motion and that momentum to put you in a space. At least what I had at that moment was a fighting chance because I had some language in my life. I wasn't gonna I wasn't going to get into it the next day and be like, man,
I really wish I wouldn't have done that. And I found myself in positions where it really could have destroyed my life if I would allowed my emotions to run away in those moments. So we want to vulnerable like that? Well, I mean it's part of the story, right of the story. Strong, I'm in a space where I really don't I really don't care. I want and I want you to be in that space. I want you to care. I want it to be important to you, yes, but I also want you to be in a space where you know
who you are regardless confident you are. Your choices and decisions are locked in to who you are and what you believe, and then the important people around you. Those values overlap and you can make choices and decisions together. My wife and I can come together and who she is and who she be in my game, values, talents, and purpose are a little bit different than mine, but our values overlap. And in that space, man, we do good work dirty, right.
And those people who you don't necessarily align with, you're so confident in who you are. It's like you might explain it once, but you don't feel like you have to explain yourself.
Like okay, man, Like no, and I'm not offended, right. Everybody gets to kind of believe who they are. That's the beautiful thing about who we are and where we're at as free individuals. Yeah, everybody gets to do that, and I want everybody to to be able to use that freedom.
It's important the But I think the interesting thing to note here is that you want to You want everybody to express what they who they be and stand up for what they believe in.
But so many people, especially stay and age.
Are not at all clearly defined in what they truly believe, And that's why it is the age old quote of believe in something or your fault or anything, right, So you know exactly what you believe in, what your strength and honor code is, what exactly who you be, so that you can filter all of that in everything that you do. And I think that's where that's where the process has helped me so much. I mean, like I said,
I felt like I was more defined than most. And that's why you said, it's not this is not for somebody who's one thousand percent completely lost.
Necessarily you can be you can have it all together.
I feel like I have had it all together ish right, but I want to take it to the next level. I want to go even more on the offense. And I don't, by any means have it all together. But I was not in a dark, dark space. But I also was so far away from what God has designed me to be, so far away from from the values, the talents and the purpose that God that has designed
in my heart and all my life. And I feel like I'm starting to scratch that service even more and now I can see it more than I ever had in my entire life.
Hopefully I didn't say it wrong. I want to be clear. There's nothing wrong with counseling. There's nothing wrong with the psychologists. There's nothing wrong with any of that, and that's important and it's important part of our culture and people people should utilize that as they as they need it. This doesn't replace that, Okay, you know what I mean? Yes, absolutely, I need I need somebody who has some self awareness and is actually really to do some hard work because
it's hard. It's hard work, so you don't want to help yourself.
It's gonna it's just gonna be hard as shit to you know, work with somebody like you or have somebody there that wants to hold you accountable. But if you truly can't figure out how to hold yourself accountable right and there, you're not gonna you can't be worked on that. Well.
Yet, something I really I really admire about Michael is that he's a he's a faith guy. That's an important it's an important part of his life. It's it's key, and it's foundational and who he is and what he believes. Okay, all right, So if that is true, then can you really clearly define that and connect that to something that's very real and it's something that you're actively, actively, practically
using in your life, or is it oversimplified ideology? Because I was a faith guy back in the day who was just spouting off words that meant nothing to me, and I don't really live it out. I didn't know how to live it out. And it was because somebody else said it, but I didn't own any of it. So it really kind of made me more of a hypocrite and it certainly wasn't a force multiplier.
I've had some verses like memorize again, I recall on and talk about right.
So when we're when we addressed this idea, I didn't tell him the faith was important. He just said it was, Okay, now define that. What does that really mean in your life? And is it something that you're actually using in your life? And then past that, what are the other values in your life? You know, what are the other things that if you're telling me and Mike Michael would say that face a foundational strength value in his life. Okay, that's the case. Then what are the other things in your
life that make that meaningful? Right? What are the other values and how does that How does this idea of faith in your life how do you use it in the weaknesses in your life? And then how does it affect your future? Or are you just going to quote some scripture at me it doesn't really mean a whole lot, right, and then you're just going to roll out of here and that I'm not down with you know, Yeah, go ahead, Yeah, I was gonna say.
Now you have all of this stuff clearly defined, you have it in language.
People, you start to figure out, you're starting to learn a lot more about yourself.
Right, and now, when you have all these tools and you have all this kind of standard created, do you repetitively constantly measure it week in and week out?
Right? Or when you go through a fight.
Or whoever you're working with like or rich like a workouts, or if you're trying to hit these measurables, are you looking at that? Are you looking at results a lot from this language that you've written down, or no matter what the result is, you're still always trying to live in those in this code that you've written in the language and being clear you know what I mean. So an example, say you don't hit something, or say you lose a title fight, what's the next mentoring session look like?
Yeah, that's a great question. The goal in the end is to spend all this time going through these mental challenges and creating the language, and then arriving at the last part of this process where you condense it down to single words that mean all of that, that mean everything that you've just written your code. Write your own code gotch you so that you know what it is, the Strength and Honor code meaning my purpose statement. My name is James Dean Hensel. I'm a son of God.
I'm a challenger, exhorder and an encourager. I will run to the battle for in the battle I find peace. I'm the father of Taylor and Brittany, daughters of Promise. That means something. I'm the husband of Christen Hensel. FG. That really means something. There's this statement that I can say quickly that is extremely impactful in my life. And then I can go through the core values. If you get me started talking about the core values, we'll be
here for two days. Those are that's language that I know about me and how to use it in my life. And then when you bring them to a few words and you bring him down, well, bring it down to fight fights in my fights in my core values. It's in his too. He just defines it different. Okay, he just defines it different, and what it means to him is a little bit different than what it means to me.
So we bring it all the way back to a core value with authentic language that means something, not the dictionary, not what your dad said, or your pastors said, or any of those people, but what you believe. And then a mission statement I culture, I will I can do it in thirty seconds, just like Maximus did in my greatest moment of opportunity, darkest hour. I sure tell know who I am that no one can ever take away from me. So you want to put it into that
format so that you can quickly. I mean, if I literally said to you right now, will define yourself, tell me purpose, tell me values, and then tell me how you you know, tell me in language what you're gonna do with it. Could you do it in thirty seconds or less? I know that's not fair because you haven't.
But these are what your clients, These are what your people you work with. This is the this is what this is the goal to get to.
That's the goal.
Now. Once you have that goal, right now, how do you use it, and how do you how do you uh act, you know, how do you grow to work? Yeah?
How do you put it to work? And how do you grow it? Values should be breathing and growing at all times. What what it meant? Family? My definition of family meant one thing prior to being married, it meant one thing after being divorced, it meant the next thing after being a father, and now I'm looking at grandkids here in the future probably, And it's been living, breathing, and growing in my life at least once a year.
I'm coming back to redefining and updating and deciding what's valuable about the things I believe in.
Now when you say you're redefining and updating, all right, I know you can talk about your core values and stuff like that.
Are you also alluding to goals and big big stuff that's kind of for sure? That makes you uncomfortable, for sure. So in the value system, we have what we call strength values. These are big rocks, okay, big things that I know probably don't change very much other than updating. I've got this idea of weakness values. These are values that address my limitations, the stories in my life that
are negative. So that's important for me. I was a worrier and the word hope is extremely meaningful to me in the way that I've defined it, So that's a big deal to me. I worked hard to go from being a warrier who was left, who didn't do what he thought he would do in life to being a very hopeful person. And it took fighting for it. Yes, the next kind of an ideal or value I call an ideal value, and those are more connected to goals, and those change for me every year. Right this year,
I talked about freedom in a big way. I took this whole entire year to define what freedom means to me, something I've been reading about, studying about connecting to my life, so that when this year ends, I'm going to have a really good idea about what freedom means to me. Do you are you? It is October? Now? How are you feeling about freedom? Right now? It's huge. I mean, I've thought about it from what it means as a country,
what I believe as well. The first thing is I think we have a freedom problem and that people don't know how to be free, okay, and that freedom destroys us. We're just we don't know how to operate and live inside of that. I see people who have been given this right to make choices and decisions, and a lot of people do really well with it, and a lot of people don't. So for me, how do I stay
connected inside of freedom? How do I maximize freedom? I've thought about it at a government level and what I believe about that, and a lot of people go there immediately. I've thought about what it means in my finances so I can get ahead and be where I want to be and what I want to do. I've thought about it as it relates to my relationships, and then I walked it all the way down to in the morning when I get out of bed. Your process well, actually,
actually even deeper. Am I being influenced immediately? Or am I an influencer if I put my feet on the floor. What I realized was as soon as I went to social media, soon as I went to email. That's not nefarious, it's not bad. But all of a sudden, I am
now following that influence. Instead of having some space for me to be free, for my feet to hit the ground and be free, I'm going to go outside and I'm going to shoot my bow for thirty minutes and just be quiet and be okay in the quiet, so that when I connect to my day and the things that I think are valuable and purposeful, I'm doing it as an influencer. I'm taking it in the way that
I want to take it. And I think here's a huge mistake inside of freedom that most of us, and many of us would say, if we're honest, Holy smokes, there's no space to really really be influencing and free. So that's how deep I've thought about it. I like that, what is something that you've written down? What is it called idea? Idea goal or idea? Yeah? Ideal values, ideal values? What what's like a goal you've written down?
Wait, an ideal value?
Yeah? I could go when he.
Told wanness or I want value?
I think for me?
See see what the the beautiful thing about this is say a word that I'm about to say right now might seem different, but because of the shortcomings of my past, like because I want a want value for me, I think was because we're at the process right now where I think I have right now he's actuel and I'm and and yesterday we went through a couple of different definitions.
I have three different definitions of the.
Word reliability or stability, you know. For for me, the biggest the biggest deterrent in my life has been other people's expectations or not believing in myself enough or playing small, you know.
So, so the.
Ideas of my want value of being author authentic, the want value of being free.
And just for me, just being being free.
To know that that there was a There was an almighty God that created me in his image. And since I was born, I have not been living free. I have not been there's There has been numerous times in my life where I've seen glimpses of it and glimmers of it, and those are some of the greatest moments
of my life. A couple of fights ago against Gothyamuchi, which you guys didn't see the fight, but in that moment I felt the most free I had ever been inside of that cage, within my purpose, within my do and being close to one hundred percent of who God designed me to be. But it only comes out in glimpses, you know, so, being able to be defined and be able to give that important trade outs of the world.
But what is what is a one like what does that look like in a in a result form?
And don't you guys might not even talk about a result form.
No, really, well for sure, but we don't. We don't have a lot of goals.
Hey by the end, you know in twenty twenty, I'm gonna do this and no, I honestly, it's all about me.
Who is Michael Chandler going to be?
Who is It's all about well, it's I.
It's identity.
And one of the greatest things that you said too, is is you know, because we talked about because one of my biggest fears and one of the things that has helped me back is sometimes and not that which this is the cool thing about our process. We don't do quotes, and we don't do scripture, right, cute.
Faith guy, Christian.
But I was not going to do this process based upon this scripture or that scripture or this quote loves zig Ziglar.
I love Tony Rabbins love.
But I'm I'm not going to use these different quotes right because I'm that's where I always default to.
So we had to we had to.
Put the kabash on that just for this process, just for the game. Then when we get done, then we can continue to move into that. But for me, playing small, you know you, playing small doesn't do anybody a favor. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people don't
feel insecure around you. And my whole entire life I was I have been afraid to be the best at something for the fear of how it may affect you negatively, or how it may affect you negatively, or how you might not feel great about yourself because of how dominant I just was. Sounds a little bit crazy because I've been in hand hand combat since I was fourteen years old, and my goal is to go out there and break somebody and hurt somebody now in a cage in front
of millions of people. So for me, that was always that has always been one of my things is not coming off to cocky. And one of the most profound things that you said to me in this he said, well, the antidote to cockiness is being defined. There's nothing wrong
with being defined. Even though when you sit there and you say I am James Dean Hensel, I am this, this, this, and if there was one hundred people sitting here, they'll be like, man, that's a little bit weird this guy because because confidence breeds insecurity, like right, we are sometimes afraid to be around somebody who is that confident, you know, And.
I think that's a problem with society these days. We look at these people who are who are.
So defined and they're so confident in themselves that we shrink. And I believe the human spirit was created for so much more, that we were all designed to be put on this earth to be over overwhelmingly being able to achieve abundantly and overwhelmingly.
More than we ever could have thought or imagine.
And that's always been kind of one of one of my things is being afraid to be too successful around people for fear of what it may make them feel like because of the way you were raised.
Because honestly, of some of those things, goals come next. Goals are important. What we're working out here is identity, correct.
Correct, I'm saying we have identity taken care of. When do goals come in next?
So now we want to take whatever it is that you say you want to do. Yes, whatever it is that you're the task, task, job, emotion, whatever that is that you want to make happen in your life. What I care about is that you formulate did this platform of strength so that we can connect to that in an authentic way.
Right, And now I want I'm asking the question, what are these goals that have happened for what are these goals in twenty nineteen, like for me, for any example from me a goal with busting with the boys, not even busting with the boys. But somebody looked at in my journal was that I was going to be one of the first players slash coaches because at this point in time, I knew my transition point was when I'm
done with football get into coaching. But when I was looking back in my journal, it was be one of the first player slash coach to have a podcast with a million all time downloads. Right, So now I start with the end in mind and kind of backtrack on what that looks like in a formulated process for who I'm surrounding myself with what we believe, like what I believe, how we're gonna get there taking those steps, but starting with the end in mind, what are some of those
result ends in mind? Now that you've built a strong foundation, because I love I love how you're putting that, because you're giving me a whole perspective on being intentional with who you're defining yourself as us. Now we've we're learning to define ourselves based on this conversation.
Now, what can people do to.
Have these goals that you're going to look at be kind of scared to go after, but how you stay intention on that process to get there?
Let's talk about two ways. First, let's talk I want because I want to speak specifically about you, and I want to talk about Michael real quick. All the things that he's doing as a fighter, training, eating right people, he surrounds himself, all that super important. Let's let's narrow it all the way to the moment and we've all seen it on pay per view when he's walking from the tunnel, the music's playing and he's stepping in the cage, and in the culture that we live in, there's no
bigger moment. Correct one percent, it's man versus man. Heart starts beating a little more, somebody's somebody's going down in that moment. So those two men or women for that matter, have put this in a position where, foreshore in front of the world, someone's going to be embarrassed, or someone's at least going to be seen as the loser, and lots of people in our culture want to avoid that. He doesn't want to avoid that. In his design. There's this idea of tenacious is the word he used, or
competitor that kind of pours out of him. And so he was really kind of born to be in that space. And that's not everybody, man, it's just yea factor. He's in a what is it? I don't know what's the percentage half a percent of the people on the planet that will go into a cage and do that. Probably it's not me, not a lot. He has smaller than that.
It's so we have eleven guys on a team, right, and it's like there's a one percent I don't know, a weird number, but it's even smaller with.
The UFC dudes. I sorry not UFC MMA, right, disrespect. So so he's he's been He has that innate ability insigned him and inside him mentally, and it's actually a talent he's been given it. It's it's something that he didn't really work. He's worked to cultivate it and craft it and get better at it, creating some mindset tools. But it's actually in him who want to discover that we call that purpose. You know, I want to know what that is. Purpose in your life, you've experienced it.
You're a limited group of people who can be on the field in the NFL and make that happen. And you don't really have to try. I'm not saying you haven't worked hard at the X and Z and o's and you haven't worked at mindset skills, but it kind of pours out of you. You're either a competitor and you can get off the block and you can make the tackle, or you can't and they'll find somebody who
can if you can't. So this is the understanding. What I care about is that when he goes to train every day, he remembers his identity, whatever his goals is for the day, if he's wrestling, if he's doing jiu jitsu that day, whatever he's got going on that day, that he brings the authentic version of who he is and his belief system into that space so that he's
operating from that position of strength. And what I really care about is whatever's going through his mind, Because there's something going through his mind when he goes from the tunnel to the cage that that's way connected to his identity because I don't know whether he's gonna win or lose, right, yeah, for sure, that's not written for sure. But what we want to be in opportunity and adversity is.
Authentic, and you make sure you're somebody who makes sure he stays that authentic self in those moments from the walk from the tunnel to the cage and when he's in the cage.
That's what you are there for.
Most Now, I'm asking you what are your what's your individual goal as a fighter to allow him to say, hey, these are things I'm also one thing as we're working on being intentional in these moments. Right, He's not there to be a raw ray remember three time world, three time defending champ, right or all these chasing world titles.
He's not raw raw And hey, remember these are the goals.
These are the goals. He's talking about being intentional in these moments. But what are some Michael Chandler goals that you're laying in bed at night and thinking, this is what I want to accomplish either this week, this month or in fighting.
I mean, I actually, I mean, don't don't mistake this process. This process is not about the goals, right, no, yes, okay for me, for me, okay, yeah for me.
Honestly, mine has all been I've never lost to a man inside of the cage.
I've only lost to myself. I've never I've never I've never lost a world title. That wasn't my doing.
You know, if you always thought that way though your first fights, your first loss, you truly felt, I didn't lose this fight like there was back then.
You're saying there wasn't an eagle party.
That's no back, no back then, because back then, when I when I lost my first fight, I went, I went into a bad spot. I went, I lost three fights in a row, when six and eighty eight days without winning, I lost to Eddie Albarez, remember, you know, And then that's when I went from I went from the number three guy in the entire world. Michael Chandler is unstoppable. He needs to go fight Benson. He orson in the UFC.
We think he's the best lightweight in the entire world.
To lose an Eddie Alvarez and then buying into all the media, buying into we knew he wasn't as good as he thought he was, or in my mind, the little guy inside me who was kind of been whispering the whole time.
Hey, you're not as.
Good, You're not this good.
Yeah, it's only a matter of time. See what these people are saying, Like that's truly you.
You're just a little guy from a little town.
He should be working at Dobb's Tires right now, Like that's where you should be.
With with with stuff on your shirt.
Am I? Enough's enough?
And that's so.
Back then, it was man, I lost to this guy. I need to go get this back. How am I going to beat this guy? How am I going to gain planning and to be able to cut the cut off the cage? How am I going to be able to have my hands up more? And I'm gonna be able to do this?
This?
This this when really.
The real battle was inside inside my soul, inside my mind, inside me.
It was it was me. It was my shortcomings and my self defeating prophecy of eventually you're going to lose because.
You're not that good, you know, and that Yeah, So for me, it's always outperforming my previous self.
Obviously I have not fought.
Since Jim and I have worked together, but I would the way that I would see it is just for me to wake up every single morning. When you talk about freedom, when you're talking about having a clear definition, when I talk about just being able to walk around more confident knowing that I know exactly who I be, so in every single interaction, I can do whatever I feel at liberty to do.
We could walk it back to yesterday and we're right in this spot in the process for him. And we talked about three words yesterday at Starbucks in cook Built, Tennessee. And these aren't value words. Another part of the process is purpose words. Okay, and and and two things that were identifying in Michael's life is and they are the opposite sides of this spectrum and who he is. It's not just a personality trait. It's it's more of what pours out of him no matter where he is or
what he's doing. One side of it was joy and the and the have fun, enjoy, get crazy love. I loved that side of life, which if you're not that guy, it's robbing authenticity from you. And the other side was this tenacious competitive piece of who you are. And what was the word in the middle we talked about, which is discipline. It's more goal oriented how do you go from having a great time and that's your wife loves that part about you, your friends love that part about you.
And if you're not doing that, you're not really authentic. And that's and that's what sets me apart from other riders as well. And that's and that's what we've you know, because I talked about over the last two years, how this I've had the last two years have been the hardest two years of my life, and it has stolen my joy. And I've also been the most undisciplined in my entire life because I've had so much to do
that it was impossible to get it all done. Therefore, a I'm a failure every single day because I have eighty six things to check off a listen, It's going to be impossible. So therefore I stopped being disciplined in all the small things.
I stopped being I was disciplined in the big things.
I kept my diet good, I kept my training good. But it was the small things that continue to add up and add up and add up, and it may be a less effective human being. And it's the joy aspect.
I think my ability, my ability to be a leader and make a dent in the culture of men lies in my ability to mesh joy with my tenacity when when I can beat the crap out of somebody inside of a cage and then the next day somebody meets me and like and they think, Wow, I didn't expect you to be this nice, this loving, this humble, this this happy because you just got done beating somebody helping in a cage.
And I can't test to that too.
First time I met Michael Chandler, I'm thinking, like the same thing, Like this dude is super nice for being like a savage in the after Well.
He has the same thing too, Yeah, I did, And it means everything because if if you're not authentic in the cage or at home with your wife and your son, son doesn't really care about tenacity. No, that's not the peace right now at his age that connects you or the authentic piece of you that's really needed there. The joy piece is the piece that you've got to make sure so that you're operating inside of and that's really truly who you are. How we connect it to goals,
is this idea of discipline in his life? All right? So as a fighter, as a businessman, as a husband, as a football player, what's the what's the force multiplier idea in your life that connects you to goals in an authentic way. We're going to bring the joy and we're going to bring the tenacity or this he's a competitor man.
Into these areas and goals in each part of your life.
So that it's authentic and so that it's really connected to your.
Truth and so that the and so that the goals, whether they are written down, which they should be written down, whether they are written down, or whether they are just a byproduct of you knowing exactly who you are, You're going to be closer to the idea of that goal, that benchmark, that accomplishment.
Because you know exactly who you are and all this.
Okay, you get it. Yeah, No, I'm totally goodding, I'm I'm I'm truly.
I'm trying to simplify as much as possible for people listening, because I know people are going to be.
Fired up about this stuff. How much time are we at? An hour? Ten? Oh? Fuck, we've been rolling, boys, we've been rolling. So Jim, we're working.
You're we got we are we have defined who we are as people in our values, in our authenticity and just we're confident in who we are.
And I have this written down on paper.
What are the areas that you have written goals? So, for example, I I've I work with Ben Newman. He's been a performance coach of mind that I've worked on, you know Ben, And.
It's like personal, professional.
I'm just not thinking right now, like it's there's like three different areas, right, and you're writing.
Goals of what it looks like. So my rookie year I always allude to that.
For instance, it was a professional it was make an impact on the on the Redskins roster be a starting linebacker for the Washington Redskins as a rookie. Failed at that goal, right, and you're gonna fail, You're gonna constantly fail.
And personal it was reading.
Reading my one year Bible every day. And I don't know if it's it's like service and service. It was have five speaking engagements to schools, giving back and I truly feared speaking in front of people, but it was giving back through having a football camp. We'll come to the football camp, shout out to the boys, and having five speaking engagements, right, based on these.
Values that we've defined on who we are.
Now we take them to these goals are what are these areas that you have me and Mike right down to where hey, we're gonna have goals in these areas. And then when you get to these benchmarks, whether you whether you fail or get them, do you go to another goal in a benchmark?
Right sure?
Or is it constantly living in who you are in these moments. And it's more up to him to define what goals he wants in his.
Life or in our life. So that's a great question. And what I think is when you authentically know who you are the do the task, the goal, the job, you do a better job of picking the right one, gotcha? And that right one. We want to make sure that whatever Michael's doing, whatever that goal is, that job is, that task is actually connected to in purpose, which is joy and tenacity, and then this list of core values.
For me, it's whatever I'm going to do, whatever my job is, whatever my task is, it's got to be connected to challenge, exhort, encourage, because that's what pours out of me. It doesn't matter what I do. I'm coaching somebody, fight, work, hope, faith, team, family, excellence, purpose, responsibility, love, and freedom. That's my filter. Here's how I feel about it,
this is what I believe about it. Now, here's what I'm going to do, so that every time I aim at that nest task or next goal, whether it's at fifty to fifty one years old, what I'm trying to do physically, and I have those goals, and then what am I trying to do in business? And I have those goals and the kind of parent that I want to be and the husband want to be. I have
those goals that all of that stays on track. It becomes the guard rails that keeps me from either letting momentum in life get me in the space that's not connected to my purpose or my values or emotion that gets me off track. Gotcha, it's a It's an entire filter. So that whatever he's doing in jiu jitsu that day, whatever he's doing in wrestling that day, or whatever he's doing in striking that day, whatever he wants to do I don't know contractually moving forward in your career, those
are all the goals things that he's looking at. We just know for sure that's authentic and it's it's just like your base right when when you're when you're you're lined up before the snap, where's that first foot going. It's got to go the right way. It has to happen, or you're behind, you're slow getting to where you're supposed to be. It's that kind of perspective. I just want you to know what identity is so that when you make that move, you're headed in the right direction and
you're headed there. I want you to be one hundred percent of the person you were created to be when you arrive at the goal or whatever that is inside you want.
And I think that's my only goal right now.
I have I have not thought about goals or looked at goals, or written down goals or written.
Down anything anything tangible.
There's there's nothing I've written down that says I want to get this, accomplish that have this number, have that If I can just be one hundred percent of who I was created to be and designed to be, then those goals are going to take care of themselves and and when we get through this process, which we're.
Pretty soon we get being done.
But I would imagine as well, like you said, they're living, they're breathing, We're going to continue to tweak.
We're going to continue to move.
Next fight I win, they might be different than if next fight I lose. Contract is up in a couple of fights.
Where we going what are we doing? And then we can figure out what's next after that?
And are you are you?
Are you reciting and reviewing and seeing these things on a daily basis to keep you.
Into I'm pretty I'm pretty excited.
I mean, we have we have a one hundred and two hundred page book that we've written and we've looked at and and there's an online course that there's there's a well, there's a video of you and rich and Ellie work.
Is it out there? Can you find it right now? Yeah? Mayh ma ma mindset dot com.
And then and then there's a listening portion where in every single challenge, every single week, there's a video and then there's audio, and then there's a lot of writing.
There's still in the workbook.
It's it really does which I did not like school, not like school. Most of us didn't.
But it takes you kind of back to Okay, we're going to you're going to put yourself on task and you're going to learn, and then you're going to look in deep. How How is how is this different for you? And you and the next thousand people?
How is this? How is this personal to me?
And my my goals, my life, my shortcomings, my insecurities and really pulling that stuff out.
And I've learned so much just by writing.
And you're one of those moments where you're writing something and something ends up on paper that you didn't really cognitively think about. It just happened, and then you then you read it and realize, Wow, that literally poured out of the essence of who I am, but it poured out of the essence of my heart.
There it is, there's the key to what we need to fix, right, Yeah.
Vince Lombardie. And I'm not a big quote guy. I kind of try to avoid quotes because.
I kind of like that one quote with the thing that's like while sitting there like like I'm like it's getting onto like you and you said it too. I don't get caught up in the tangible things I'm trying to get to and I'm sitting there processing because me, I like, I gotta know what I'm going to achieve. Maybe I get too caught up. You can get too caught up in that fundamentally sometimes because you're you're losing sight of who you are at the core, and that's
where some stuff comes in. It's like reciting and reviewing who the definition of you is and making sure that that's what's pouring in and getting that thing.
Yeah, And I think and I think that's the beautiful thing too, because we're sitting here talking about writing down goals and I'm almost saying, well, don't.
Worry about the goals, worry about who you are.
And then but there's that beautiful mixture between both. And like you said, when those things line up, you know exactly who you be, then you can do.
Exactly what you want to do.
And think about how really cool David Goggins or been Yeah, what what they offer, How how much easier it is for them to coach you when you show up in control of your emotions or knowing how to control your emotions and knowing who you are in identity now their motivation, how to write things down, how to set stuff up, you know, how to get done, what you're gonna do during the day is really powerful and you're off to the races if you show up requiring him to motivate
you just to get you on your feet, to get you moving, dude. That's why I said motivation is so wasted in our culture. In many ways, our lives do this. They roll a coaster instead of really, I kind of show up and I know who I am and I can hold myself to to that. And now this motivation piece and education piece, proper goal setting, proper time management, get nutrition, all those things become force multipliers and we
move ahead intentionally at a higher speed. I was going to say this, Ben Sombardi said, individual commitment to a group effort. That's what makes team and society and our country move. And we have a crisis of identity in our world right now. People don't really know how they fit. And I don't mean this. I'm not. I'm not I'm not down on anybody. I'm not I'm not trying to be bad. Just from from sexuality to people. People are super concerned or don't know who they are, and we're
fighting for that. And I think in order for us to be able to take advantage of the freedom that we've been given, we got to know. You got to know who the hell you are. You've got to be able to respond in identity or I'm sorry, inopportunity or adversity, and you need to know what that is so that
you know how you fit to the team. You know where you make a difference in your family, what your role is there, how, how that is on a team, how that is in our culture, so that we're all moving together and each one of us as individuals can make a contribution that's valuable.
Yeah, man, And if you're listening like that, those are the areas.
That's the stuff right there.
Like if you're when when you're feeling moved by this conversations, you got to put pen the paper man and take actions, because that's how If not again, it's it's if you live by your feeling all the time, your feelings are
gonna fail you. We've talked about standard over feelings, right or writing out a standard, like you map out your entire standard written in language, and you have to recite and see this standard you've written for yourself and being intentional whatever all this definition means for yourself.
If you don't look at it.
Every day, you know, day fifty Will Compton is gonna feel a lot different than day one.
Will content on one me and you walk away from a meeting.
If I don't carry out what you're teaching me, and I don't write down and I'm not intentional with who I've defined myself as, and I forget about it, and I'm hype on day one. If I just go by feelings day fifty like, you're gonna, you're gonna sleep in low you you you start to feel bad for yourself, right like, oh, I can get away with this and
get away with that. But if you're looking at your ship every day and getting you know, reciting what you've written for yourself or whether you have a mentor in your life or a coach, or you're doing it alone. If you're not reciting to yourself what you wrote on day one, you're gonna you're gonna succumb to.
Your feelings for sure. And I love this man, even me.
Sitting here, you know, for for people listening right now, just just today, tomorrow, next, tomorrow morning, whatever.
Wake up, wake up a little bit early.
Write down five of the key you know, we've talked about them. We call them your values, you call call them whatever you want. Strength words, things I want to live by.
Who am I? And write down five words and just write your own definition of them.
You most of us listening probably right now, say if I said, what are the three things you stand for? They could say it, They could they could come up with something in the next ten seconds, say I stand for these three things. But now put a colon and now put an actual definition with it, put actual words in language with it, because, like I said, my definition of faith is different than yours, and yours and yours, even though they're very similar, they're going to be they're
gonna be somewhat similar, they're going to be different. They're going to be put in a different language. And if it's not a language, just not a tool. And then and then even just read those over this next seven days, read those three read those definitions of those three things once or.
Twice or three times a day.
Put it in your wallet, put in your phone, in your notes, and just realize how it kind of changes your perspective on things, and how those three words are five words or those some a mixture of those definitions somewhat comes up and comes in the back of your mind when you're in your next interaction, when you're in your next meeting, when you're in your next quiet time, when you're in your because you've now taken these words and you've put a definition with them, and now they
are a language, and now they are a tool, and they become in the forefront of your mind. Now you move a little somewhat defined. You you have somewhat defined because everything else is just subjective and subconscious, and we can't unless you're doing a ton of work every single day.
You can't trust your subconscious because everything we see on social media, see on YouTube, listen to on podcasts, all that stuff is being downloaded into our minds and our brains and it's it all gets jumbled up and it's not actually clearly defined.
Yeah, it makes you move differently. I want to sharpen that, just to tad absolutely. Three value to finish. Three values. A strength value, big rock you know right now in your life, Yeah, something like that, a weakness value. So I want you to I want you to take decide what is what is the negative emotion that gets the best of you. It's a anger, worry, whatever that is. And I want you to create a value that's the
opposite of that. For me, it was worry and I and I worked at hope, so hope was the value, and then an idea of value that's a value that that it's something that you see in the culture that you're aiming at that you want to be a part of your life. So that the values encompass your strengths,
your weaknesses, and your desires for the future. Those are the three values from the Mayhem Mindset process that I want someone to really look at and then move out into your day and make sure that that that's something that you're thinking about front of mind and you're using it. I love that, dude. Where can that? Where can everybody find you? Mayhem mindset dot com. There's a there's a course there and a bunch of stuff and I'm at
Jimmy Underscore Hencil on Instagram. I'm gonna follow you, dude, right on.
Follow me Mayhem mindset dot com and people can on like a course and just see all about you.
Yeah, there's an online course there people can get into. We send you a workbook. There's audio and video on the whole thing that goes that you can work through it on your own or if if you want to spend some time with me, there's options to get involved with me so I can coach you one on one that's awesome. And Mike, everybody knows where to find you. Go ahead say it again.
I'll be here on the bus if you guys need it. Yeah at Mike Chandler, Ramee on Instagram, Twitter.
All that stuff. That's how I connect with people.
Dude. I appreciate it, guys. It's appreciate it for the boys, for the boys. Boys. Yeah, all right, fellas