Speaker 0 1 of the 1 of the hallmarks of my existence has always been, you know, just a an insane amount of anger and rage. It it's it's been there as long as I've known, so I don't have a conscious memory of not having rage, Right? So earliest memories of life when I'm 5 years old, I have rage like you can't believe. And it's it's a problem all my life. So as a teenager, if I go more than 2 weeks without punching a hole in the wall of our house, it's a miracle.
Speaker 0 I mean, I am so good at drywall. You can't believe how good I am for all the stuff I have to repair around our house. Like, I'm breaking windows. I'm breaking. It just doesn't like, I just...
Speaker 0 And so and in a way, and and and, of course, I rationalize how much boxing saved my life because I had this amazing outlet for my rage. Right? If you... I got to basically exercise 6 hours a day. I'm hitting punching bags and people all day long.
Speaker 0 And it's just a beautiful outlet that keeps me out of jail. And a big part of that rage was inward, Right? So it's it's not rocket science to understand that a person who has that much hatred for everyone. As an enormous amount for themselves. And so 1 of the things I didn't realize was happening.
Speaker 0 Was what my inner monologue was because as you can appreciate, your inner monologue is so frequent and ubiquitous and present that it's easy to almost forget that it's there. I mean, that's the that's that's the sort of dangerous part about it. Right? Is kind of the, you know, the David Foster wallace This is water thing. The fish are swimming through water.
Speaker 0 The water's is everywhere they even realize they're in water. You don't unreal, you don't realize the subconscious stream of thoughts that constantly flow. But eventually, I became aware of just what that self talk was. And it is it was, no longer the case. It was the an, the most violent self talk you can imagine.
Speaker 0 I mean, it was like There is no mistake that I could make that was anything other than my perfect perfect standard that didn't result in what I would call my inner bobby night going ballistic. So it just didn't matter. Like, it it's it's it sounds silly under. It didn't matter. If I didn't perfectly cook a steak.
Speaker 0 If I didn't perfectly nail something I was doing. If if if I didn't do anything that was... Perfect at what I described is match grade perfect. I mean, I would want to beat myself to a pulp. And I would scream it myself.
Speaker 0 I mean, it just... It's it's again, it's hard to describe, and I I hope that most people listening to this don't understand what that feels like. Well, it became very clear that that had to change. Because when you were when you were that When you hate yourself that much, by definition, you are going to be an inseparable prick to everybody else. Like because you're you're just...
Speaker 0 That's gonna spill into how you interact with the world. So I... You know, was working with a therapist who was 1 of the people who was sending me to this place in Arizona. And basically, it became clear that you know, they they they they they they proposed that I could shed this trait. If I was willing to do, certain amount of work.
Speaker 0 And I was like, there's no chance. Like, I'm 47 years old. This is the only way I've ever interacted with myself. How in the world could this be undone? It would take another 40 years to undo this?
Speaker 0 And they're like, no, No. Here's this exercise you're gonna do? Oh So the exercise was, every single time I did something where I would have that self talk. I would have to immediately stop myself and pretend that it wasn't me that just did that, but it was 1 of my closest friends. And instead, I would audibly speak to that person.
Speaker 0 There's was nobody else there, but speak to that person as though they are the 1 that made the mistake, and I were... I to record that on my phone So I'm out there shooting my bow and arrow and I don't get a bull's eye instead of screaming it myself, I have to say, oh, imagine it's my buddy jr r. Who just missed that shot. What would I say to him? Pick up the phone or, you know, pull up the phone and say, of course, something different.
Speaker 0 And of course, what I would say in that situation was much kinder. I mean, infinitely kinder. It's like, from saying it to my... Closest friend. I'm gonna say it in a very kind way.
Speaker 0 And I had to take a copy of that audio and text it to my therapist. Oh, wow. Yeah. Talk about Can you
Speaker 1 I was all on board this practice until you mentioned that at which point and and I trust my therapist. To a very deep level, but I... Wow. That that's a that's a mountain.
Speaker 0 Well, this... You know, this poor person got a lot of text message. A lot lot of audio files. But here's the part that just blows my mind. It only took I don't know.
Speaker 0 I I can't remember exactly. I have to go back to look at my journals. I only took about 4 months to get rid of Bobby Knight. Like you know, again, we we had kind of a mental model for what this looked like, which was Bobby Knight was the Chairman of the board. He sat in the boardroom and nobody else got to talk.
Speaker 1 For those who don't know, Bobby Knight had a terrible temper. Yeah. Yeah. The worst. Right.
Speaker 0 This is the guy that was throwing chairs across the basketball court. Level 11. Yep. Out of 10. And and all of a sudden, like we got to the point where Bobby Knight is not even in the boardroom anymore.
Speaker 0 In fact, I as I say this today, like, I don't really remember what he sounded like. I mean, it's amazing to me. And and I've had some really amazing opportunities to bring him back. Like it's not like I'm making fewer mistakes. Right?
Speaker 0 It's not like I'm better today than I was 3 years ago at all the things that I do. I'm. I'm actually probably worse in many regards. But the difference is you know, I can communicate with myself. I I think I can say this.
Speaker 0 I think I can say lovingly. Right? And and maybe not as lovingly as some people can. I I still think I'm probably maybe just a little higher standard with myself than maybe I need to be at times, but but I'm just not beating myself up like I used to. And I think by extension, I'm beating other people up a lot less.
Speaker 1 Well, I don't know the extent to which your internal narrative reflects the narrative that others have about you, but First of all I wanna thank you for sharing what you just shared. I think as a practical step, it it... First of all it's 1 I've never. Heard of before. But certainly represents this incredible phenomena of of neuro because 4 months sounds like a bit of time and yet it were 47
Speaker 0 years old.
Speaker 1