Transcription
For you guys who have been following the channel for a while, you know that I have mentioned Life 1.0 and Life 2.0 a couple of times. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms, I'll give you a quick definition. Life 1.0 is the algorithm that we are all following at the beginning of our lives. It's like a road map that leads us from one accomplishment to another, starting with, you know, even elementary school, high school, college, for some careers, for others, eventually landing in careers, meeting a spouse, buying a house, um, having kids—all in some order. It doesn't even really matter the order; they all just get checked off; they're just like, like a check-off list that we all need to accomplish. Life 1.0 is characterized by a certain level of predetermination and motivation. In doing so, you've got these things you need to accomplish, so you need to be motivated to do it, and you're going to need to do a lot of stuff. It is a time of, um, accomplishment, and it requires an enormous amount of effort.
Life 2.0 is different. Life 2.0 is a much more authentic time; in fact, I would say that your true authenticity begins to emerge in Life 2.0, and it is marked, rather than by doing more, as a state of being. And rather than motivation, you'll find that inspiration is your primary engine that drives you through Life 2.0. It's a much better version of life—no question about it—but the transition from Life 1.0 to Life 2.0 is hard; there's no question about it. I could only call it an Awakening because it does require that you, um, change everything that you've ever been taught or believed about yourself and reinvent it. And that process is kind of like being reborn; that's the only way I can even, even quite, you know, describe it. But once you go through it, you start to understand what life was always meant to be. It is not meant to be an endless struggle.
And today, I want to talk to you a little bit about that transition: The Awakening from Life 1.0 into Life 2.0—how it happens, when it happens, and what to do when it does. Because, um, it can be very disorienting as these changes start to occur to you. And quite honestly, you know, changes in, divor-your marriage status, you like divorce, that sort of thing, are often times associated with this change. So, so let's talk about it. So, as we were filming this, we just walked right into the middle of a herd of deer eating—hilarious. So I just took that shot anyway.
I think most people's experience is similar to my own, where Life 1.0: you reach it, you, you reach the conclusion, you get to the end of the map, you finish the entire algorithm, and you think you're going to experience some benefit, some fulfillment, some level of insight—something is going to happen—and you're going to suddenly realize that it was all worth it. And that doesn't happen. And so a lot of guys end up with what's called the midlife crisis. And this midlife crisis, I think, happens because when you reach that spot where you've achieved a certain amount of stuff in your life, you've got a couple things happening: one is the existential threat that you may be about to die because you're getting older, um, and the other is this emptiness, this complete lack of, of fulfillment in your life. And that can be very, very disorienting for people. And so, since we have grown up in a, you know, a late capitalist society, of course, the right thing you're going to do is you're going to go out and buy a car or get a young girlfriend or do something else with your life to make you see if you found that, um, you can find that, uh, that fulfillment that you missed along the way. And, of course, the truth of the matter is it's not there; you're not going to find it there. But you don't realize that until you do it—till you buy the cars, you go on the trips, you get a girlfriend, whatever it is you need to do to scratch that, that itch—you're not going to find it. You're kind of going back in time to when you were younger, and you're thinking, well, maybe I missed it on the way, like maybe something was supposed to happen when I was 25 and I just wasn't paying attention, so I'll go back and pretend that I'm 25 and see if I can find it there. And it's not there. Yeah, so you just spend more money, waste more time, and you're left with that same empty lack of fulfillment feeling that you have in your, in your gut. And you know that you've done the things that people told you to do; you, you checked all the boxes, and now you're halfway through your life and you're not feeling it. It's like there's a little bit of panic that sets in with a lot of people. And I knew that I felt a little bit of that. I don't know that I recognized it in the moment for what it was—'cause you know, you're just busy living; you've got your job, you've got your family, you've got responsibilities that you need to deal with—but there is that little emptiness you feel in your gut, and you go, damn, maybe I need to have more sex, maybe I need to start going back and smoking pot again, maybe I should start drinking. I mean, maybe I'm missing it somewhere. And you're just not—it's not there to be found.
The problem is, um, much more profound than that; it's much more significant, and it starts at a much younger age. We just come to the awareness of it in midlife, but the problem actually began in childhood. So you can think about your mind or your brain on two channels—just keep it real simple. You've got your current moment, which is your conscious mind, constantly aware of what's going on around you, what you're doing, filling your head with miscellaneous thoughts about things that you did in the past, things you want to do in the future, taking you here and there. And every once in a while you'll be present on what you're doing, especially if the task is intense enough. But it basically keeps you standing upright; it keeps you, you know, on track, achieving goals, having relationships, having conversations—all that stuff. But then, channel two is your subconscious mind, and on that subconscious channel, it's like a vacuum cleaner; it just sucks up all the information. So on channel one, you can only focus on so much—like there's only so much data that can get into Channel One—um, so you're only processing a fraction of the information that's going on around you on channel one. On Channel 2 is picking up everything—everything that's happening all the time. Now you don't have access to all that information; you can get it sometimes; you'll develop an awareness for it; sometimes something will happen; it'll jog some kind of a weird memory for you, um, but as we get older, we develop filters for this information, so we have a way of interpreting the world that we learned from a very young age. The problem is is that when we are very young, we don't have that filter, and we don't have that ability to interpret the world in a way that makes sense. So the opportunity for things to affect us in ways that are—I hate to use the word trauma because that's so overused in our society—but it has a traumatic impact on your life. Trauma isn't just about an event, 'cause lots of people can experience similar events and not have the same outcome. Trauma is about the way you process an event. So whether an event has a negative impact on you or not depends on your ability to process it while it's happening or thereafter. So if you don't process it or you don't have the ability to process it, that event can shape your experience from that point forward. And I think a lot of us—probably all of us—have lots of events that have occurred in our lives—some of them small, some of them large, some of them huge, some of them devastating—um, that have shaped our personality in ways that we don't completely understand. And it comes up in comical ways sometimes. I mean, if you've ever been a parent and you find yourself in a real stressful situation with your kids, and next thing you know you sound just like your mother or just like your father, and you go, I never wanted to be that guy; I didn't want to be sound like that. And it's like, where did that even come from? I swore I would never say that; I swore I would never do that. And yeah, it's there; it's in there; it's in there somewhere. And when it rears this ugly head, when it pops up, you realize it; you go, stop, can't do that anymore; like that's, that's not who I am; that's not the kind of guy I'm going to be; that's not the kind of parent I'm going to be. But that's just an example of how this, um, subconscious programming gets into us, and we don't even realize it's there until something triggers it. And it happens. Well, this plays a big role in our level of dissatisfaction and the, um, confusion and disorientation we have in midlife that a lot of people call a crisis. And working through that helps get you through to Life 2.0.
You will know you've hit that crisis point when you feel completely dissatisfied with your life, and you're bored, and you have no sense of fulfillment, even though you've done all the things that you thought you needed to do in order to reach a state of fulfillment. Once you hit that point, like I said earlier, it's very likely you're going to, you know, reach the, reach for the credit card and go buy yourself something, or you're going to go try to find a girlfriend or something else to try to make you feel like you're young again. And again, it's not about being young again; it's about trying to find that sense of fulfillment because at least when you were young, you seemed happy; you had pleasure; you had, you know, activities; you had friends; you had things that you were doing; you were driving forward; felt like you were in a state of, um, some level of happiness. But really, you were just doing; you were just in an active state of doing.
So the way to approach the transition is just to first of all become aware that that's what's happening—that you, you've hit a, a, a state of, of dissatisfaction, and you've realized that everything that you've done so far is not going to take you to where you need to be. Like the horse that you rode in on will not carry you through the gates of the, of the place where you want to be. And in order to cross that—say, let's use a metaphor, let's use the river—so the horse won't cross the river. So in order to get across that river to where you want to be, you're going to have to get off the horse of Life 1.0. And that means a lot of stuff that you have accomplished and a lot of the things that you have—you're going to have to release. And it's going to be hard because those things do not give you happiness; they will not give you fulfillment. And you need to start doing some inventory and figure out what in your life you've accomplished and accumulated that you thought was going to give you some level of fulfillment or joy and just doesn't. And you're going to have to start removing those things. And that's where the pain starts; that's where the real difficulty starts because you're going to have to do some real hardcore self-analysis: look at your job, look at your, you know, your career path, your, um, your relationships, including your, your spouse, your wife, um, your lifestyle—are these the things that you really, really aspire to? And before you take any action, because it's really easy to go back to doing, um, because that's what you've been—that's the horse you rode in on was the horse of Life 1.0—and it's all about doing—you got to do a lot of reflection at this point. You got to just sit back and relax and wait until you start to experience the currency of Life 2.0, which is inspiration. Inspiration will come when you allow Life 1.0 to fall into the background, where you realize that you've gone as far down this path as you can go and that you need to find another path forward. It might take a year; it might take a couple of years, but this is the time when you kind of have to start doing some reflection—maybe reading some books, maybe, you know, watching videos on, you know, midlife crises and psychology and, and that sort of stuff—but you got to be able to figure out where you are. And, you know, I mentioned in a video a week or two ago about how you can use a pencil and paper to do some free associative writing and just start writing your thoughts out—just start writing them down—don't even judge them—release judgment—and, um, and then interpret it—go back and read over it and see where those sentences, where those words, where those phrases lead you. You know, what does it tell you about what's inside you? Do that practice over and over and over again until it really starts to get drilled down to a path forward. And here's the thing is that most of you—most of you know what that path forward is. The vast majority of people have an instinct about what they need to do and where they need to go and what they need to do, but they're afraid to do it. That's the truth; you're afraid to do it because it's going into that unknown country; you're crossing the river into the unknown country. I'm taking the whole metaphor; I'm standing right here by the river, and I'm on the banks of the river for you, man. All you got to do is get off that horse of 1.0 and cross over. It's slippery; it's wet; and sometimes it can be deep, but, uh, you can do it; you just got to get off that horse and look at those inspirational thoughts that come to you when you imagine what your life is going to be like in the second half, and look that fear in the face because that fear is the only thing that's holding you back.
Once you come to the place in your head where you realize that what got you here isn't going to take you further, and the things that you have now may not be the things that you have on the next part of this journey—like the, the stuff that you brought to this spot, you may not be taking them; in fact, there's very likely you will not be taking them to the second half of this journey. So in past videos, I've talked a little bit about that internal locus of control, and I've talked about some of the tools that you can use to help you, um, shape your, your world in terms of, you know, acceptance, appreciation, um, attachments, forgiveness. And there's one that we haven't talked about a lot, and one of them is Judgment. So when you waste a lot of time judging others or judging yourself, you're just burning energy unnecessarily because it means nothing, and you're, you're bringing an issue into your conscious mind that doesn't matter, um, and if you're judging yourself, then you're just holding yourself back. I mean, so many people spent so, so much time beating themselves up for things that they've done or said or wish they had done or whatever, and it's just a waste of your time and energy. So you just got to let go, um, forgive yourself if you need to, if you did something stupid or you didn't do something smart, whatever, but you got to let go of the Judgment. Judgment is just, um, toxic—straight up toxic—and I don't care what you're judging. You even just driving down the road and saying, then you—that guy's ugly—whatever, you know, I hear—I, I get some judgment in the comments from you guys; I appreciate that, but anyway, um, you got to let go of the judgment, and you got to start shaping that internal locus of control, and you got to start thinking in terms of what does the end look like, you know. So you're, you want to get to a place where you experience a lightness, a sense of fulfillment, an experience of life that is effortless, and you flow—it's like flowing down the stream is so much easier than trying to go up the stream. You know, there's that old, uh, nursery rhyme, you know, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream—not up the stream. So find a place where you can start to feel that like there's this current behind you, and energy is just moving you in the direction that you want to go. That's when you start to notice that you're moving into Life 2.0 when everything gets just a little bit easier.
Now, before you get there, you're going to have to go through releasing Life 1.0, and that means you're going to have to, um, like I mentioned earlier, look at all those things that you've accumulated and decide what's got to go and what's going to stay because things that, um, you're draging—dragging along from Life 1.0 are only going to hold you back unless they have some positive energy and power to, in, you know, to, um, lighten your load in the future, to make Life 2.0 better and easier. So like I said earlier, Life 2.0 is marked by inspiration—that's sort of like the energy that pushes you forward—and being rather than doing. So inspiration instead of motivation, and being instead of doing. What does it mean to be? Be means you understand that the energy that runs the, the world can only be given; it cannot be taken. And so when you're giving of yourself to those people that you care about and just giving to the world in general, you will be able to observe your impact on the world in a positive way. And you're giving not for the sake of receiving but for the sake of giving itself.
So when I first started doing personal training, you know, seven or eight years ago, of course I needed to make money, but what I noticed shortly after I started was my ability to, um, understand what other people were feeling—like a sense of empathy—while they were lifting and the way they felt because of their bodies being out of shape and, um, you know, the diseases that they may be facing. And I could, through conversation, really get a sense for their inner, their inner hell that they had created for themselves. And of course, it's really hard to come to terms with the fact that you created your own mess, and quite frankly, that's what most of us do is we create our own mess. I mean, the, the world will on us from time to time, but we on ourselves better than anybody. I mean, we truly are our, our own worst enemies. But being able to empathize with those people and understand what they were feeling, even just through the process of a set of an exercise, and know what the stresses feel like and know how the muscles are, are, are, um, pushing against the resistance and understand the level of effort that's necessary for them to complete the set, it put me in this terrific place where I was able to fully comprehend the impact of my presence in this person's life and how important it was for them in order to achieve their goals. And even more than that, just as a, as a, a companion, as a friend, as a confidant, as someone that they could talk to about whatever was going on with them—being able to be in that place for them and to help them push through this issue that they were having, um, it helped me appreciate how valuable I was to them, and it created a sense of, a bigger purpose to my, to my activity. It felt much bigger than just me helping them lose a few pounds, do you know what I mean? It was a lot bigger than that. And once you can get to that place where you see the contributions that you're making in the world are part of a bigger picture and that they are more meaningful than the actual act itself—that the ripples that flow out from that act are so much greater than what you could expect—that, um, well, it gives you that fulfillment that you were looking for in Life 1.0. That's the thing right there is when you see yourself making that contribution and it playing a bigger role in the universe than what you can fully understand, but you know it's more significant—that's, that's when you know that you're, um, that's when you feel that those sensations of fulfillment, um, and it also makes whatever it is you're doing not feel like work because now, even though you're getting paid to do it, it feels like, um, it's almost like a charity, you know, you know, because you're giving so deeply from within to others; it's an act of Love or charity or something along those lines. And it
Does provide that level of fulfillment? Now, that's just the way it worked for me. Um, and I'm sure that there are other guys out there that have had similar experiences. But I'm sure you can find it in lots of other things, you know. Um, I'm sure that fulfillment—I can only imagine the artists probably get that all the time, you know, when they create some wonderful piece of art, or they're a dancer or an actor or whatever, and they realize that whatever it is they put out there in the world is having an impact on other people. Well, that gives a great sense of fulfillment.
Making these videos, I see, you know, some of the really nice, um, feedback I get from guys who are seeing some of my videos, um, and how impactful it's been for them. It's all downhill; it's all—it's all downstream, you know. It feels so, uh, fulfilling to know that I can do something that I enjoy that provides a benefit to so many other people and has such a far-reaching impact on the world as a whole. That the ripples from this go out and out and out, and they impact not only the men that watch these videos, the people that watch these videos, but then the people in their lives, and then the people in their lives, and the people in their lives. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. And, um, that's what Life 2.0 is about.
When you can find yourself in that place where you are living your most authentic self and you are able to give to the world in a way that, um, is fulfilling and is, um, enriching to the world as a whole, then it's almost like, yeah, it's like going downstream, you know. Everything just seems to fall into place, um, and, uh, and life just becomes easy. It's just—you're—you're playing life on easy mode suddenly. And then you look back at your life and you think, God, why did I waste so much time struggling? Why did I go upstream for so long? Why was I paddling so damn hard? All I needed to do was turn that canoe around, and I'd have been just fine the whole time.
The other thing about this transition into Life 2.0 that is really important is time, and as part of that, your mortality. Time is your greatest asset. You can't control or stop it from flowing, but you can control the flow. And I mean, you can slow time down. Think about it: when you were a kid, summer felt like a year. You know, Christmas Day was a long, wonderful day. There are ways that, as an adult, you can use those characteristics to change the way time flows in your life.
The first thing you have to do, if you haven't done it yet, is you should spend some time at your own funeral in your head. Just imagine what that experience is going to be like. CU, you're going to die. We will all die. The sooner you get that reality into your daily experience and you understand that you only have so many days left on this planet, the sooner you will start to cherish each day just a little bit more and decide how you want to spend your time with just a little more discretion. Time flies when you're doing the same thing over and over and over again. So if you find yourself wondering what happened to the week, or what happened to the month, or why is it time is flying by so quickly, chances are you're not having a lot of original thoughts; you're just experiencing the same stuff, different day. And when that happens for long enough, enough time just slips away super fast. It feels like it's out of control, like—like it's just going by so quickly, and there's nothing you can do about it. And it's a common complaint of adults and just in general that time just seems to be flying by, and we don't have any control over it.
Well, when you start to live your life more focused on the present moment and thinking about how you can give of your—your time to others and how you can be of service to other people, um, and you start learning new things and you start, um, changing your life and taking control of it and being your authentic self, time slows down. That's the secret. So these years, say for me between, you know, 55 and, you know, whatever at the end—um, I want to relish that. You know, I'm 59 now, so I'm—I'm four years into this Life 2.0, um, but every single moment is, uh, a decision about whether I'm going to let this time slip by without paying it much attention or whether I'm going to give it my full time and attention. And then I'm going to prioritize those things that really, really matter, and I'm going to ignore those things that don't. That means I miss some football games, you know. It means I don't—I don't sit in front of the TV all day every day, you know. That means that I, uh, I learn new things and I go places and do things that are fulfilling, and I spend time with people who, um, appreciate me and need my presence. Um, that's how you slow time down. That's how you, uh, you squeeze the juice out of every single second. That's the awakening; that's the awakening that you get sometime between 40 and 60. It's going to happen; just prepare yourself. It's going to be a—because you're going to go through the darkness before you get to the light. You got to cross the river; you can't ride your horse. Oh, these are some good metaphors, man. I need to write a book. But, uh, yeah, you've got to—to get off Life 1.0. You're going to have to do some evaluating. You don't have to let loose a lot of stuff, um, a lot of stuff that you might have—a lot of attachments to. You got to let go of the judgments; you got to find your path forward; you got to go inward to find that path. You got to sort through all that subconscious that you probably picked up when you were a kid, see where that's holding you back, figure out if there's any trauma back there—probably is—and, uh, and see how it's impacting your life. See if you can find patterns that, uh, that indicate that maybe something happened that's not accounted for, that maybe is in your subconscious somewhere. And then just cross—you know, just make the move. Don't rush it; just let it happen.
For me, it started, I think, in 2015 when I became really aware that I was done with my old career, and that was after, um, 26 years at that job. And then in 2016, I left it, um, and then in 2017, I started my business and sold my house in 2018. Um, got the business actually going, making enough money to at least pay half my bills. And 2019, my wife left me, and, uh, in 2020, that business really started to grow bigger and bigger, started to make some real money. Um, in 2021, I bought a new house—not quite as big as my old—old house, but so much cooler, such a nice house. I love it, you know. It's got all the room it needs for all the people that I want to have there. I—I've got like four bedrooms and a finished basement and big yard for the dogs. It's—it's great. And it's got access to these wonderful, you know, trails in the woods, in the stream, and, um, yeah. And it's just built from there. And it was not a fast process, you know. You look up from 2015 all the way through 2021—that journey actually—maybe it was actually 2022 when I bought the house. So yeah, seven years from the time that I actually had the idea that something needed to change and not knowing what it was, took me seven years to get through. And then really it was just last year that I started this video stuff, and I struggled with it for a long time. I did this for three months in 2023 and then just quit because it was driving me crazy. And I started this year, in 2024, and did it for, um, starting in May, and then by, uh, by August it was taking off; it was starting to actually, um, grow at a significant rate. So you just have to keep doing it, you know, keep persisting, and, um, just know that you're—once you've made that decision that you're on the right path, that there is something in it for you. And I did have to struggle a little bit—bit to get this going, but it was kind of a labor of love, quite honestly. I mean, I was learning something new; I was figuring it out. I expected it was going to take a while for me to figure it out, and I was just patient and allowed it to unfold, and—and it did.
Anyway, you guys, I'm rambling now, so I'm going to let you go. Um, let me know what you think in the comments. You know, if you guys ever want to, you know, have a talk with me, I've got a, um, a website at johnsg.com. You know, if you're going through these kinds of transitions, you just want to bounce some ideas or just to get some validation that you know you're—you're heading in the right direction, I'm happy to talk to you. Um, but in the meantime, you know, like and subscribe. Stay healthy, and if you can, stay single.