Is “Being Comfortable Being Uncomfortable” BS? | Elite Performance Podcast #73

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:18:04
Itamar Marani
I think effective mindset is to just say I can accept discomfort, except that it's the price of admission to growth. If I accept that a lot of life is suffering, that when I do suffer a little bit, I don't freak out. It's not about embracing comfort. It's about embracing the grind, it's accepting it's going to be a grind.

00:00:18:04 - 00:00:33:08
Itamar Marani
It's going to feel nasty sometimes, but it's fine. It's supposed to be that way. Welcome to today's episode, everyone. Today, we're going to try to torch the myth that you're supposed to be comfortable being uncomfortable and all that kind of nonsense. So first off, welcome to the pod.

00:00:33:10 - 00:00:35:17
Alex De Fina
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

00:00:35:18 - 00:00:57:20
Itamar Marani
Of course. So here's how I want to open up. One of my coaching clients, actually, not one. This is a common theme amongst many of them, but specific came up with one new guy, very successful individual, very driven individual, multiple nine figure company and about a month into coaching, we have this tracker where we figure out what are the most effective actions he needs to be taking in order to achieve the goals he wants for the business.

00:00:57:22 - 00:01:15:16
Itamar Marani
And he was getting really, really high scores on the tracker. And as we went over it, I could sense that he was a bit kind of almost a bit frustrated. I was like, What's going on? And he said, You know what? I know I'm doing the thing, but I'm still not comfortable being uncomfortable. And I could tell that it was kind of stopping his energy.

00:01:15:18 - 00:01:39:16
Itamar Marani
And I said, okay, why is that a problem? And she just kind of looked at me and I looked back at him because I thought, that's kind of the point of it, to be able to be comfortable doing uncomfortable things. And it's something I wanted to bring up on the pod because I think so many people waste so much energy on this nonsense when all this stuff is actually a non-issue.

00:01:39:18 - 00:01:45:13
Itamar Marani
So before we really get into it, Alex, anything you want to ask or add on to?

00:01:45:15 - 00:02:06:10
Alex De Fina
Yeah, My first question would be how would you define that issue? Would you say it's a fallacy? It's an ideal that he's unnecessarily sort of implanted into his mind. How would I sort of put a ribbon around what you've identified in psychology?

00:02:06:12 - 00:02:24:16
Itamar Marani
I think it's a fantasy. It's like the fantasy of a live performance that I see with so many people that I want to feel fully confident. I want this to always feel like I'm the kind of person who could do anything. I'll never feel afraid. It's dismissed as fantasy, illusion, whatever you want to call it, that is actually harmful.

00:02:24:18 - 00:02:42:21
Itamar Marani
We kind of talked about in previous episodes about people wanting effortless flow, like, Oh, I just want things to feel effortlessly flowing. And then when inevitably you try something new or try to grow the company or go outside of your comfort zone and it doesn't just flow effortlessly, you get frustrated because your life is something wrong? Am I not doing this right?

00:02:42:23 - 00:03:05:09
Itamar Marani
Instead of accepting this is just a situation when I'm in growth, it's not going to effortlessly flow or when I'm doing something new, which will exact what we were doing with him. We figure out these new actions that were super important, super effective. They're not going to feel comfortable. Pretty much anything that you do that is new and causes growth feels uncomfortable.

00:03:05:09 - 00:03:35:02
Itamar Marani
Like if you're outside of your comfort zone, it's going to feel, you guessed it, uncomfortable. And that's the euro zone. It's I think it's just an illusion. And some illusions, honestly are a non-issue. They don't matter. But this illusion, it causes a lot of frustration with so many people and they're getting frustrated and then it's draining their energy, it's starting their drive, and it makes them feel like they're taking a loss like him instead of feeling like, Wow, I'm in such a winning streak right now.

00:03:35:02 - 00:03:59:07
Itamar Marani
I'm doing great and getting the energy that that kind of, let's call it positive effect, positive mindset has. It was going the other way. It was thinking, I'm still not doing good though, man. This is frustrating. He's wasting his energy and he so many people doing it. Does that answer the question? In a bit of a roundabout way it does.

00:03:59:09 - 00:04:47:17
Alex De Fina
What's visually coming to mind is I'm trying to understand, is this a capabilities gap in that what I'm what I need to resolve in my business or the the demands placed upon me are perceived to be greater than my capabilities and therefore I'm uncomfortable in this moment? Or is it a disconnection with reality in that as we tend to grow in business, we tend to take big events, place big responsibilities on ourselves, and that's why perhaps that discomfort or that gap remains over time, because we're actually taking bigger, bigger steps as we as we grow hopefully an act capabilities gap ideally should be that forever.

00:04:47:17 - 00:04:52:01
Alex De Fina
If we continue to uplift.

00:04:52:03 - 00:04:57:21
Itamar Marani
So to make sure I understand you correctly, you're asking like what's the source of this discomfort?

00:04:57:23 - 00:05:16:06
Alex De Fina
Yeah, a fitness analogy would be much easier for me to I should have started with that. So if you went to the gym for the first time ever and you did any kind of a workout, you're probably going to be sort of broken, sore, uncomfortable for a while. In your mind, you might think one day I can be like the other people that go to the gym and do this more regularly and not feel broken.

00:05:16:08 - 00:05:17:01
Itamar Marani
Yeah.

00:05:17:03 - 00:05:34:15
Alex De Fina
But after training for 20 years, you might still feel all those same consequences of your workout because what you actually did your workout was, was much, much, much more advanced level. I wonder if there's an analogy that business. Yes.

00:05:34:17 - 00:05:58:08
Itamar Marani
So before we go into analogy of business, let's think about it from a different way. Let's say the actual workout, whether you're a beginner or you're an advanced, whatever you do that's pushing yourself, that creates two units of fatigue just because you're actually doing the thing and it's challenging. Now what if you're also working out and then you get tired and you get frustrated at yourself?

00:05:58:09 - 00:06:22:20
Itamar Marani
Like, why am I tired, man? Why are my muscles sore? What's going on here? Something not wrong with me. Why am I not able to just not be sore ever after I work out really hard? Just that contemplation and that frustration is going to add another two units of fatigue that were completely unnecessary. Mm hmm. I think that's the main point.

00:06:22:22 - 00:06:41:22
Itamar Marani
There's this illusion that, oh, if I work out, I'll never. I shouldn't get sore. That sounds like nonsense. So people don't do that. But in business, sometimes I go, Why am I not fully comfortable? Being uncomfortable is because it's uncomfortable. That's the whole point of it. And it's like getting frustrated of like, why am I not comfortable being uncomfortable?

00:06:42:00 - 00:07:00:01
Itamar Marani
It just creates unnecessary emotional tax. A drains you like when you're doing something hard. Why is it hard? Because it's supposed to be hard. And the interesting thing with this client way, with such a good case that I want to bring up is because we have a tracker says what are the exact actions that are the most impactful?

00:07:00:03 - 00:07:19:12
Itamar Marani
And he was doing that. So he was actually doing the thing. It wasn't like he wasn't doing the thing and then getting frustrated and there was a validity in that frustration because then we can figure out, why are you doing it? He was doing the thing and on top of it he was just getting frustrated at himself for not thinking This is supposed to feel super easy.

00:07:19:14 - 00:07:37:12
Itamar Marani
And the main thing that we kind of talked about and how we reframed it for him is that it's not about being comfortable, being uncomfortable. It's about just accepting that discomfort. And I think to your Jim analogy, it's like you accept that, okay, if I'm going to do a heavy leg day the next day, it's I'm going to walk a little bit funny.

00:07:37:14 - 00:07:52:15
Itamar Marani
I might be even a bit tired overall just from the systemic fatigue of it. And it's not comfortable, but just accept it. It's part of it. That's okay. And just that acceptance create a lot of psychological release and just a lot more energy.

00:07:52:17 - 00:08:18:02
Alex De Fina
That's helpful. Well, the first thing I took away from that was, yeah, it's a clunky use of words because saying comfortable being uncomfortable is kind of like saying being hot when you're cold or cold when you're hot is technically not possible. And just accepting the discomfort is probably a better way to think about it. And secondly, that the distress is going to compound over time.

00:08:18:02 - 00:08:45:10
Alex De Fina
And so for an entrepreneur, perhaps what caused the discomfort in the early days was building a website, hiring your first person, your first attempt, self-promotion, whatever that was. And ten years later, maybe the fallacy was at some point in the future, nothing will cause me any kind of discomfort. But if you're tracking towards IPO and you're dealing with it, I'm the number of legal issues, etcetera, and you're still feeling discomfort.

00:08:45:10 - 00:09:01:15
Alex De Fina
It's just recognizing that the arena that you're in at that stage is a different arena and feeling discomfort is normal and the emotional stress that you are causing yourself by over analyzing that discomfort is optional or potentially unnecessary.

00:09:01:17 - 00:09:23:14
Itamar Marani
Yeah, and this happens honestly often when people take on, let's say that there could be something that I see a lot because usually when I start working with people, they really want to make a jump and all of a sudden they push themselves. I help them, but they push themselves to a new level of, let's say, accountability or a new level of goals.

00:09:23:16 - 00:09:43:01
Itamar Marani
And with that, all of a sudden comes to more challenging things. And there were, you say, like two months ago, things felt a lot more easy and now it feels a bit more challenging. So wait, there's something wrong with me. Mm hmm. And so saying, you know, no, this is because you have bigger goals. It's like I'm in jiu jitsu, I'm a black cop.

00:09:43:03 - 00:09:57:02
Itamar Marani
If I roll with a blue belt in my whole life, I only roll with blue belts. From now on, all of a sudden, it's going to feel pretty easy. And then when I meet another high level black belt, I'm like, Whoa, whoa, what's wrong with me? If I can just accept the rolling with other high level black belts is hard.

00:09:57:07 - 00:10:30:10
Itamar Marani
It's supposed to be hard. It's just a challenge. Me Then I be okay. It's challenging, but I don't have any of that wasted energy of what's going on. Why is this hard targeting supposed to be hard? And then it's a big part of the whole being. There's this, you know, saying that be comfortable being uncomfortable and it creates this false narrative for people that they think, if I'm not comfortable being uncomfortable, what's wrong with me or what am I not doing right and what I want to do this podcast to say there is nothing wrong if you're doing something, I'm comfortable.

00:10:30:10 - 00:10:59:02
Itamar Marani
It's supposed to be uncomfortable and that's okay. And that's point one to kind of go also into what you said. I don't remember exactly how you worded it, but I wanted to bring up the point that the desire to to say like, I'm going to be comfortable being uncomfortable, like all this positive thinking stuff. It's dangerous because when reality hits and you're not just comfortable being uncomfortable, which doesn't happen, then something breaks.

00:10:59:02 - 00:11:23:08
Itamar Marani
You're like, Wait, what's wrong? Why am I not comfortable being uncomfortable? And I think a much more effective mindset is to just say, I can accept discomfort. I accept it. It's the price of admission to growth and I'm okay with it. So therefore, when I meet that discomfort, instead of freaking out or being bombed, bummed by myself about like, why am I not uncomfortable?

00:11:23:10 - 00:11:34:00
Itamar Marani
Oh, okay, this was supposed to be here. It's okay. I don't need to feel comfortable. I just accept that this, like, optimism is nice, but grit, I just think it's more empowerment is more powerful.

00:11:34:01 - 00:11:59:17
Alex De Fina
Wrong. So that frame shift to me getting a little bit esoteric here in the same way that Buddhism is a philosophy at the foundational layer is life is suffering so that it allows you to have more gratitude in the day to day because maybe today you didn't suffer as opposed to viewing every inconvenient setback or challenge that life gives you as some.

00:11:59:18 - 00:12:34:18
Alex De Fina
Yeah, personal penalty, you must pay that reframing. Maybe a better way to think about it is I'm comfortable being comfortable. If you're comfortable in your business right now, you should be uncomfortable because that's a sign that you're not growing. You're not taking a bigger steps. Do you think that there's a way for us to reframe that whole comfortable being uncomfortable in a way that makes it easier to understand that comfort is probably a sign of stagnation?

00:12:34:20 - 00:12:56:08
Itamar Marani
Yes. The only caveat I would add then is like, this is this is something that each person has to figure out for their own. Like I wouldn't say to somebody you shouldn't feel comfortable in your business, period, without knowing their context. If you're saying you want to grow your business, then yes, if you're comfortable, it probably means you're not growing it at a pace or able to.

00:12:56:10 - 00:13:15:13
Itamar Marani
Sure. If you're saying I have a lot of stuff going on elsewhere in life, like family issues, personal issues, other challenges that I want to take on, whatever it may be. And I'm okay having this vertical of my life be a little bit more comfortable right now while I handle all the things that are more that are currently more important to me.

00:13:15:15 - 00:13:28:17
Itamar Marani
That's fine. Just if you want to grow and this is a big bonus if you want to grow and that's what you're seeking, if you're fully comfortable, then yeah, it probably is a sign that something is a little bit off, that you're not stretching yourself as much as you could be.

00:13:28:19 - 00:13:47:09
Alex De Fina
Right? And it's not that in that. Sorry, sorry, but you go for it. Is that an accurate summary of that specific client? So obviously achieving big things within his business, is he now operating at a higher level and that's why he's uncomfortable.

00:13:47:11 - 00:14:11:12
Itamar Marani
Yeah, but again, the paradox was that when we had our initial conversation, I said, you know, this is going to be a bit uncomfortable, right? And he was like, Yep, I'm in it for the great. Now we had agreed the third level, let's have this comfort. And he took the actions that are uncomfortable and are effective. Now, in an ideal world that we've been would have been the level of, let's say like two units of discomfort that he felt.

00:14:11:13 - 00:14:33:19
Itamar Marani
And that would have been something that he was very much able to take on and be. Alright, cool. This is what I signed up for. Happy Days. Let's keep charging forward. The reward is worth it. The challenge was that on top of those two units of discomfort, he was adding on more unnecessary emotional weight by thinking Why is this comfortable?

00:14:33:21 - 00:14:55:14
Itamar Marani
And then getting bogged down by that? And that was what? Creating just an overload where all of a sudden instead of seeing a week where he had yet some giant wins in the week instead of being part this hour, let's go for next week, I'm ready. He was like, Oh, why am I not doing? And that little bit of added discomfort that was made up because he had an expectation that it's supposed to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

00:14:55:14 - 00:15:19:20
Itamar Marani
And why can he do that? It just hurt his performance, which is what it's all about, just drained his energy and hurt his performance. And that's the shame. And all this stuff. Now, I also want to go back to what you were saying about suffering and how you were saying basically that if on a good day, correct me if I'm wrong what you said, but on a good day, if I don't suffer, then I can be really grateful for right.

00:15:19:22 - 00:15:52:06
Itamar Marani
I think that's the nice to have. But the really big thing is that if I accept that a lot of life is suffering, that when I do suffer a little bit, then I don't freak out. I'm like, Oh, okay, this is supposed to be here. Like, for example, in Special Forces training, if I had the illusion that this was supposed to be comfortable and fun all the time, and then I'm supposed to just be like enjoying this discomfort and this suck that would snap pretty quickly if I accepted.

00:15:52:06 - 00:16:08:04
Itamar Marani
Like, you're not. This is going to suck. There's going to be a lot of suck in this, but I'm happy with the rewards and the outcomes that will come from overcoming it. And just like persevering through the suck loss from an external level, internal level and so on, then when you meet that suck, you're like, Oh, okay, this is supposed to be here.

00:16:08:04 - 00:16:28:08
Itamar Marani
I accept that this price of admission. So and again, it's like it's not about being comfortable, being uncomfortable. It's I know it sounds nice, you know, it has a nice ring to it. It has the word comfortable there a couple of times, but it doesn't make any sense and it just actually causes damage. I think it's like some people aspire to that anything's going to help their performance.

00:16:28:08 - 00:16:38:13
Itamar Marani
From what I've seen, it actually hurts people performance because it creates that unrealistic expectation that doesn't get met and then drains your energy.

00:16:38:15 - 00:17:13:18
Alex De Fina
I think I've encountered that a few times, that have been times in my business career where I've felt peak discomfort and thought I'm not worthy of what I'm trying to do right now. I don't have the skills required, etc. It's only being able through self work to identify a play. I'm playing a very different game to what it was five years ago, ten years ago, etc. The circumstances, the states, the complexity has changed and that discomfort is just a recognition of a different environment, not necessarily the fact that somehow my skills capabilities have gone backwards.

00:17:13:19 - 00:17:21:11
Itamar Marani
Yeah. So what has helped you kind of snap out of it at times.

00:17:21:12 - 00:17:48:08
Alex De Fina
Being self aware, trying to separate my feelings, my internal emotional state from reality of this. Often, often when I'm feeling some kind of negative emotion, it's I'm in friction with reality and I'm trying to work out why.

00:17:48:10 - 00:18:08:21
Itamar Marani
Let me ask. And it is definitely this flex. So what I've seen, for example, I remember when I was at BlueBell, I was training in Brazil and I was training with a bunch of guys that were Brown belt or Black girl, like at least a medal at the World championship. Really, really high level guys. And I remember after a while I was like, Am I not getting any better?

00:18:08:21 - 00:18:30:09
Itamar Marani
I stopped getting smashed. I really felt almost 0.001 progress. Instead of getting smashed in 5 seconds, I was able to get smashed in 7 seconds. That was my progress. And there was going on. And then all of a sudden, when I entered a local competition, the Rio de Janeiro State Championship. And I did really, really well. I was like, Huh.

00:18:30:11 - 00:18:51:21
Itamar Marani
So when I'm actually using this external mark of other blue belts, I've progressed a lot and I've done really well. And I think sometimes having that like we feel like we're not doing well because we're constantly just feeling the challenge, but having some kind of objective external marker, which was for him that tracker that we made him said, These are the actions, are you actually doing it?

00:18:51:23 - 00:19:09:22
Itamar Marani
And it wasn't like I'm trying to be more brave. It was like I'm specifically doing one, two and three every day. And he did those things objectively like that can be argued and therefore you say, okay, like, regardless of how I feel about it, I'm doing it. And internally feel comfortable doing it doesn't matter if I'm uncomfortable doing it, I did it.

00:19:09:22 - 00:19:27:03
Itamar Marani
And that's what matters. And I can take pride in that. I don't need to feel like, Oh, I can be proud of myself and comfortable doing these things for you. Is that what you were saying? Like looking at reality, When I look at things a bit more objectively, what was going on? Am I succeeding or not? I was and I was like, okay, this actually is working.

00:19:27:05 - 00:19:52:12
Alex De Fina
You know, I've found that my ability to define my emotional state is usually very difficult. I find it very difficult because I'm usually in a very subjective, subjective amygdala thinking and I can't actually communicate it through my soul, through sort of hard data and trying to coach myself through that. Usually I'll have to look at all the variables.

00:19:52:12 - 00:20:04:04
Alex De Fina
And I realized that actually the discomfort is just the equivalent of going from scoring your body weight to scoring 100 kilograms or whatever. It's like, this should feel heavy because this, this new stress plot.

00:20:04:06 - 00:20:27:14
Itamar Marani
Yeah. And I think kind of listening to you what I'm taking away, I see for myself, for my clients in the future and for everyone. I think it's really important to proactively set these expectations that, hey, you're going to do this, it's going to feel uncomfortable, It's okay, that's perfectly fine. That's great. It's going to feel uncomfortable. This is why it's going to feel uncomfortable because you're stretching yourself.

00:20:27:14 - 00:20:43:00
Itamar Marani
So anticipate that and don't expect that all of a sudden it'll feel magical and flowing and like, Oh my God, I'm an elite performer. Everything is easy. It's it's like if you were coaching someone in the gym, you'd be like, Hey, you're about to, like, go for your personal record in this lift. So expect that it's going to feel really, really hard.

00:20:43:01 - 00:20:57:02
Itamar Marani
You are going to shake and probably afterwards you're going to feel a bit messed up. And so then when they feel a bit messed up and they shake also, like when they shake during the lift, they're not going to say, Oh my God, maybe this is wrong. Maybe I don't have it. But I go, okay, this is supposed to be a part of it.

00:20:57:04 - 00:21:16:04
Itamar Marani
I can just focus on actually doing the thing right. And that's kind of, I guess, what I was trying to say the whole time, instead of focusing on why am I not comfortable being uncomfortable, you can't get that out of your head and just actually do the actions that are required to see success. The most effective was without worrying about this because you shouldn't be worrying about It's a non-issue.

00:21:16:06 - 00:21:19:10
Itamar Marani
It's nonsense.

00:21:19:12 - 00:21:35:21
Alex De Fina
Have you seen any situations where someone has inverted those and is seeking the emotional discomfort in a way which is not practical or positive to their business?

00:21:35:23 - 00:22:01:12
Itamar Marani
Yes. So this is something we talk a lot about actually in the book. We have the archetypes that we've broken down, like the go hardcore guy, the people pleaser guy, and prove something, go people with a chip on their shoulders. And a lot of times this can drive you. And to prove something behaviors. When you're not clear on what that discomfort actually serves, what is the end goal?

00:22:01:14 - 00:22:31:12
Itamar Marani
A lot of times you'll do things just to prove a point, whether it's to others or sometimes to yourself, Oh, I can embrace discomfort, whatever it may be. So I'll say it like this. Once you're in a calm state and very clearly locked into your goals and you're aware of like, what are the behaviors that I need somebody like me would need to take in order to achieve these goals, to lean into those behaviors.

00:22:31:12 - 00:22:54:17
Itamar Marani
And if that makes you uncomfortable, lean into leaning that hard. For example, one of the things that we have at this client was certain conversations with his top level executive who and for those things that lean into at heart, seek out that discomfort, because that's where the real gold is when that you get that pinch of discomfort in that specific specific area, that's a sign that you need to go, not to stop.

00:22:54:19 - 00:23:15:18
Itamar Marani
But in order to do that, you have to know exactly what that arena is. You have to be conscious about it. Otherwise you're going to go in various directions that don't actually make sense. You're just seeking this comfort for this comfort. Six And again, it kind of goes back to the whole preemptive stuff around really strategically saying what are the most effective actions somebody like me needs to take in order to get to where they need to go.

00:23:15:22 - 00:23:23:14
Itamar Marani
They want to go and then with that, accept that it's accepting that it's going to be uncomfortable. And this lean into that.

00:23:23:16 - 00:23:55:06
Alex De Fina
That's something I think you do brilliantly through your coaching is preparing your clients for, okay, this is the goal that I'm setting for my business, myself personally. These are the actions that we to take in order to get there, making it very pragmatic, but then also preemptively saying what will likely to be the costs of that emotionally so that you can brace yourself and not see those signals as being assigned to do something terribly wrong.

00:23:55:08 - 00:24:18:18
Itamar Marani
And I appreciate that. But also, actually, that wasn't always the case. It was something that we only added to the programs. I want to say after about maybe two or three years, because I just noticed that we were getting people like great results in the short term and then they would revert back to the old behaviors because they hadn't psychologically accepted the cost.

00:24:18:18 - 00:24:34:18
Itamar Marani
So when they got to that kind of fork in the road where they might have to pay that cost because they didn't psychologically accept that preemptively, they confuse it for being a warning sign that something was wrong. Instead is doing This is, of course, a bit of how we're to live like they thought they were shaking. So that means something's wrong.

00:24:34:18 - 00:24:52:15
Itamar Marani
I got to drop the weight, something. Oh, you know, this is supposed to be it. I thought about that. That was supposed to be fun. I like to stay with Jim analogy. One of my clients. We share the story of him working with a string coach and a string coach told him, All right, you're going to do this left.

00:24:52:17 - 00:25:10:04
Itamar Marani
It's going to be hard. It's supposed to be hard, but that's why you're here. And he's like, Oh, okay, I guess I could do that if that's why I'm here. And it just relieved a lot of that. And that's what I would love this podcast to be for a lot of guys out there that if you're feeling like, Man, why is this so hard?

00:25:10:06 - 00:25:30:09
Itamar Marani
Why am I not comfortable doing these hard things when I think some people out there are it's nonsense. They're not. They're just accepting the discomfort. So take that pressure off yourself. Have it stop producing so much of your energy because you're just wasting time thinking about and ruminating about it and just give yourself permission to say, this is uncomfortable.

00:25:30:15 - 00:25:37:04
Itamar Marani
It kind of sucks. It's hard. Cool. I can still do it anyway, and that's it.

00:25:37:06 - 00:26:00:18
Alex De Fina
I think this is a great arena to to think about this psychological category under because all fitness basically relates to like a stress response notation. You know, I run for longer, I improve my aerobic capacity and next time I can run a little bit further again or a little bit faster of getting stronger, building muscle there, all the same things.

00:26:00:20 - 00:26:27:02
Alex De Fina
And that's always been my approach to fitness. If I'm going into the gym to get stronger, I'm going to feel as does the greatest degree of discomfort possible because I know that that's what stimulates growth. So I think that fitness is just a much more compressed timeline that we can see. When I go to the gym and I take that bar off and it feels like every bone in my body is going to turn to chalk.

00:26:27:04 - 00:26:59:09
Alex De Fina
If I if it doesn't happen, I likely got stronger from that process. It's it's caveman science, but it's relatively effective because it's approaching it from a I'm intentionally trying to find the discomfort. The same thing with doing very high repetitions or whatever. That's just a compressed analogy, I think, to business in that fact that as we evolve ourselves as entrepreneurs, we're likely going to be in a different category, a different level, exposed to different things.

00:26:59:09 - 00:27:18:05
Alex De Fina
And approaching what we're doing with the understanding that discomfort is usually a signal of growth as long as we're not approaching it intentionally just to feel discomfort, where we start becoming now, you know, intentional risk takers or doing what stuff I think is a very, very helpful way to sort of reframe our emotional state to what was actually happening.

00:27:18:08 - 00:27:19:00
Alex De Fina
That's what it was.

00:27:19:03 - 00:27:43:02
Itamar Marani
Yeah, right. Great. So I kind of summarize it with this one of the big things that I've seen are kind of parallels of performance is how much pressure or how much energy we have and I think that puts a lot of pressure on people and then drains their energy. Is the belief that this is supposed to feel comfortable.

00:27:43:04 - 00:28:06:03
Itamar Marani
And if it's not, then something is wrong. And that tension, oh, something is wrong here, puts pressure on them and drains their energy and then hurts their performance. And what we're saying is, if you've preemptively thought about what would be the most effective actions someone needs to take and you're taking those actions, it doesn't matter how you feel about it, you don't need to worry about it.

00:28:06:08 - 00:28:22:08
Itamar Marani
You're doing the thing. And I honestly also, if it feels challenging, good on you, you're doing the right thing. You're in the arena, so to speak. So as long as you're doing these actions, just like let the other stuff go, focus on what to do. Stop worrying about this. It's a non-issue. You're not supposed to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

00:28:22:08 - 00:28:26:09
Itamar Marani
You're supposed to feel uncomfortable and accept that discomfort is a part of it. Just keep our.

00:28:26:11 - 00:28:53:21
Alex De Fina
Forward. I think one thing it's important to mention for listeners who are feeling that way right now is that it's natural to feel that way. You know, you're not working or aren't capable. And the fact that if you feel like you're living in an island unto yourself right now of discomfort, it might just be that you haven't had enough high level conversations with not enough people doing high level things to recognize that this is a human trait.

00:28:53:23 - 00:29:25:17
Alex De Fina
And that's where the benefit of joining your program. I think, really would assist those entrepreneurs if they are feeling a side of discomfort right now, to be able to be coached through understanding how to process that and work through it, to take on to the next highest level or if they're plateaued, how can they put a plan in place both pragmatically and emotionally, so that they can advance themselves in their business to the to the higher level?

00:29:25:19 - 00:29:55:03
Itamar Marani
Yeah, I appreciate that. In the meantime, I say it like a simple way to recognize what you guys see. A lot of times on social media or I don't know whatever else may be that people just make it look like it's effortless for them. There's always happy. It just it's not the truth. And eventually, from my time in the special ops or high level, like, you know, jiu jitsu, whatever it may be, it just isn't comfortable.

00:29:55:05 - 00:30:13:16
Itamar Marani
And it's not about embracing comfort, it's about embracing. The grind is accepted. It's going to be it's going to be a grind. It's going to feel nasty sometimes. It's going to feel like, good, it's fine, it's supposed to be that way. And I hope we can just break that myth of that being comfortable like that whole be comfortable, be uncomfortable is just complete bullshit.

00:30:13:18 - 00:30:26:20
Itamar Marani
And if you can accept that and that relieve some of the pressure and helps you have more energy and perform better, that's what we want to acknowledge from the podcast. I think on that note, we'll wrap it up for today. Thank you, Alex.

00:30:26:22 - 00:30:27:18
Alex De Fina
So thanks, Emma.