Moment 32 - Ant Middleton on How To Build A Bulletproof Mindset

one of the questions i really wanted to ask you because of what's going on in the world this whole pandemic and covid is i was thinking as i was like brushing my teeth away this morning i was thinking there's a ton if my audience could ask you one thing probably would be around the fact that the world changed this year a lot of people's lives were uprooted they lost their businesses their jobs whatever and i thought you know ants probably well for sure have been in situations where you felt like whether it's on the battlefield whatever that this was a fight that where the odds were against you and in those moments there's winners and losers and you know you always talk about mindset what is the mindset that people need in these moments where the odds don't look like they're very much in their favor from that you've seen from the battlefield where you've emerged victorious because you know you didn't you didn't indulge in victimhood or whatever and you yeah does that make sense um for me it hasn't it's about embracing change you know majority of people they live their life on autopilot or they live in the void i call it um where everything around them is changing you know the world is constantly changing everything around us is constantly changing whether it's you know climate control whether it's you know in the way that we think the way that we're evolving the way that the world is going the way that animals are evolving the way that the sea is is encroaching or you know decreasing whatever it may be everything is changing around us and we are designed to change with it so what we're actually doing is we're actually going against the grain when we become complacent when we get comfortable when we get to one sort of situation and we stay in that situation it's going we're working in the opposite way that the world should be evolving we should be constantly changing we should be constantly evolving we should be constantly moving forward you know look at my career i've gone from the army to the marines to the special forces to the media to to books to authors to literacy to business it's like i'm constantly i love love change i love being put in a situation where i'm literally chucked in the deep end with dry boots on and i have to tread water i love that because it's so challenging and it's so so stimulating that you're forced to change you're forced to think something different you're forced to do something differently you're forced to change the way that you you approach something because you've been put in a situation where it's been forced upon you but when it's not forced upon you when it's not forced upon you um which the world does it forces upon us but when it's not forced upon you when you when you get comfortable then you get you fall into this void you fall into this complacency you fall into it's not moving along with the world but those are your demons again because i'm thinking the reason why i love to be chucked into the water with the dive boots on is because you relish challenge and this is coming to the victim and the general problem in culture and society where people like comfort cotton wool yeah a lot of people have been brought up now with cotton wool we're not designed to be not designed to be comfortable we're not designed to have cotton wool strapped around us it's society it's the restraints and the shackles of society that's forcing us to be like this it's not who we are look how far we've come you know look at just through history how far we've come and i feel like we're actually devolving now i actually feel that we've got to a point where we're going backwards where you know you see some other things yeah you know just walk in front of your cave you don't need to survive you know you should be you know the top of the food chain um you know it's we're not designed to be comfortable we're not designed to be wrapped up in cotton wool we're not designed to be shackled down and that's why there's so many problems in the world right now it's because of these shackles it's because of these chains it's because of the restraints that society is putting on us it's forcing us into into mental illness it's forcing us to act in ways that we're not designed to act in it's forcing us to switch off to the most powerful tool that the universe that's in the universe your minds we're forced to just put it on dormant it's going against the grain of what we're supposed to do of who we're supposed to act and how is it supposed to evolve so when you've got this going around like this and then this stops is there's a synchronicity that's not working in in partnership with each other you know without us on this planet this planet wouldn't be as evolved as it was without the planet we wouldn't be evolved as it was you know and what's actually happening is you've got this this these two forces that are grinding against each other rather than working together with each other in synchronicity i i was reading this crazy thing the other day and i think i've talked about it maybe once before but it shows that um the life expectancy in the uk in the u.s fell for two years in a row in the last year before ever for the first time ever and they look at the numbers as to why the life expectancy has fallen for the first time ever and it's because of like the opioid crisis people who are getting addicted to drugs and they say because they're lacking meaning in their life and when people like meaning the science is showing where you do animals you take away their meaning i talked about the last podcast i hate to repeat myself okay about these rats and i think because i'm so fascinated by it they put a rat in a cage and take everything from it and they give you the option of drinking heron water and normal water it becomes a dragonix they then introduce a partner some stimulations and running wheels some other things and they give heron water or normal water and it doesn't choose heron water it doesn't become a dragonix just by inserting meaning into its life it avoids the heron and then you think okay so what's going on in society well people are lacking challenge and meaning because we're trying to create a culture maybe where challenge and meaning are a bad thing and that's actually having an adverse effect because as you say very eloquently like that's not who we are you know i love how you just put that steve because you've just put my thoughts into a scientific sort of into a scientific form and because again i'm not an intellect i'm not a book where you know it's like i have psychiatrists come up to me and go where did you study and i'm like no no this is all every single ounce of me is through life experience i come from the university of life now what i've just said there it's strange that and that's why i love talking to people like yourself because i put that as in how i'm thinking