Figuring Out Your True Goals vs. Society’s Success Metrics | Mike Bledsoe | Better Man Podcast Ep. 056

Dean Pohlman: Hey, guys. I’ve seen Welcome to the Better Man podcast. Today I am joined by Mike Bledsoe. He is the former founder of Barbell Shrugged. He left Barbell Shrug back in 2018 when he realized it was no longer in alignment with his life goals. And he is now a marketing consultant in the health and wellness space. He has had a few quiet conversations with me about Mantle yoga.

Dean Pohlman: He is a pretty inspirational person to me and I’m really excited to have him on the show. So Mike, thanks for joining us for the conversation.

Mike Bledsoe: Thanks for having me.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. So talk a little bit before we got started here today and I had a, you know, an hour long conversation with you a few months ago. And I first met you at a health and wellness conference. You were this was back in your kind of, I think, the heyday of barbell shrug or you might have even been transitioning out at this point.

Dean Pohlman: But I saw you up on the stage 20 feet above everybody else, and I was like, That guy looks really, really cool sitting up there doing podcast stuff. It was, yeah, clearly. I mean, even just from the. Just, just looking at it, I was like, This man is powerful and knowledgeable and I must learn from him. The the just being that hi apparently has some effect.

Dean Pohlman: But anyways, so that’s how I met Mike and he has made some pretty significant transitions since then. So, you know, you had a pretty significant injury with weight training in 2015. And that all got kind of, from what I understand, got the ball started on this whole transformational process of you realizing that you were doing things that weren’t really that important to you, and now you’re in the space where you’re doing things that seem a lot more in alignment with what you do.

Dean Pohlman: I’m wondering if you can just tell us about your background with weight training and just let us know, like how big of a part of your life that was and then you know, what happened and how did you start to, you know, transition?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, I started weight training and at 15 years old, it was on my 15th birthday. And the reason I started my 15th birthday and not previous to that is because my parents wouldn’t let me go to the weight room until I was 15 years old. So I would have been in a team earlier like I was. I was like from like 13 to 15, I was studying and doing calisthenics at home.

Mike Bledsoe: I was a real nerd about I think it was reading too many Batman comic books. You know, I thought that I.

Dean Pohlman: Hear that I used I used to read a bunch of like, fantasy novels and, you know, all the books that I read where there’s a hero, he’s got some special ability, is meant to take down the world. And like, I took that into my workouts. Like, I need to be Superman.

Mike Bledsoe: Exactly. Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: So I get that. That makes sense.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah. So, yeah, I’m a at heart, I’m a nerd. I’m a big nerd. Like in comic books and computers and stuff. In high school, I’m 41, so I was back before it was super common. But you know, I started around 15. I was primarily self-taught. For the first few years, I went to the Navy, trained a lot there, kind of did a mix of like bodybuilding and triathlon type training, and then got to University of Memphis after the Navy and got an exercise sports science program where I discovered the sport of weightlifting, the Olympic style, and fell in love with that.

Mike Bledsoe: So I’d been weight training for nine years, and then I got into Olympic style lifting and I did that. And with a mix of CrossFit from 2006 until 2015.

Dean Pohlman: And so what’s the difference between Olympic lifting and weightlifting?

Mike Bledsoe: Well, a lot of times when people talk about weight lifting or weight training, they’re talking about, you know, bench press and they might be using a packed deck or doing some squat or just any weight training at all. A lot of times is what they’re referring to. But Olympic style is specifically training for snatch and clean and jerk.

Mike Bledsoe: So in that sport, you you have three attempts to put the biggest snatch up and the biggest cleaning jerk that combined those numbers and not your score. So I competed in that sport for a number of years. I guess it was about eight years and so that sport’s all about just trying to get as strong as possible between two lifts.

Mike Bledsoe: Specifically, in that time, I competed in as I could be in Strongman, I was in the under 200 class and Strongman actually went to nationals during that time. I also competed in powerlifting. And so just anything that involved lifting heavy things, I, I signed up for it. I’ve been sumo wrestled for a very short period of time.

Dean Pohlman: Oh, yeah. That’s pretty cool. You don’t hear that a lot. No, like, just. Just like, give us some ideas of, like, numbers in terms of, like, how big were you? Like, how tall are you? How much you know, how big were you? And like, what are some of the weights that you were that you were?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, at my peak. So I’m five eight, my peak, I was around between 195 and £200. I was deadlifting over £500, four reps, squatting over £500 I could snatch around. I think it was. What was the numbers on that? Close to £300 on snatch. So just taking the bar from the ground straight over had no stopping. I could £300 with that clean and jerk.

Mike Bledsoe: I was clean cleaning, jerking man. What was I, high three hundreds. So I was pretty strong. I was, I was, I was nationally ranked four in the sport of weightlifting and, and yeah, like, I was able to deadlift the back end of a car and strongman competitions. So I was. That’s right. That’s pretty cool. Yeah. My body weight, I was pretty strong.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. I mean, like I’m 510 and like, I struggled to get up. I struggled hard to get up to like 185 the like I can only and I’m not like, I’m not a competitive weightlifter. But like, just to give you an idea of, like, how difficult it is to build that much muscle at five eight, like, it’s, it’s, it’s really hard to get up to like, yeah, 195.

Mike Bledsoe: When I’m naturally small, I come from a family of smaller frame people. So it was it was a lot of grit to get there. I was not natural. I wasn’t one of those guys that like, walked in. I was like, Oh, I’m pretty strong right off the bat. No, I have that. I just struggle my way to strength.

Dean Pohlman: Mm. Wow. Okay, so that’s a pretty significant background with, with, with weight training. So what was the you know, you’re 15, you’re a well, you’re, you’re, you’re 15, so you’re doing calisthenics, you’re getting ready to do weight lifting. What was the driving and what was a big reason why you want to do weightlifting? Do you remember, like what the motivation was?

Mike Bledsoe: I mean, really, it was just looking at, you know, the guys who were getting all the girls, the guys like I was like, oh, the football players, right? I got chicks. And, you know, like when I’m around, those guys are talking about what they bench press and what they were able to squat and all this stuff. I was like, yeah, I, I, I think that I’ll get girls if I can’t get girls if I’m scrawny, you know?

Mike Bledsoe: And that was also a part of me that just wanted yeah, I just wanted to be loved at the end of the day, not, not even just girls. It’s like I wanted to be loved. I wanted to. You know, being a strong man was something that was instilled as like, something that would make you valuable. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in construction, so I was there was just a lot of like, I was roofing houses when I was 12 and stuff.

Mike Bledsoe: And so being around a bunch of immature men who were talking shit about, you know, being weak and it really installed like, Oh, I can’t like if I’m weak, then, you know, I won’t be valued.

Dean Pohlman: You’re not worthy. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, but, you know, when you’re when you’re 15, you don’t equate this desire to be strong with the desire to be loved. Like, and ultimately, like, if you get down to the base of, like, all of the things, all the goals that you have there is this at the very root, there is this desire to be loved.

Dean Pohlman: So that makes sense. That makes sense to me. I’m I’m also just wondering so like from maybe this is something that you can relate to, but I was a very late bloomer like it took I think I was I was the smallest kid in my grade, Like every grade that I was in, I was the fastest. Like I was I was fast, but I was small.

Dean Pohlman: I was wiry, but I was not like I wasn’t big. So like, I was the guy I remember like being in middle school. I bought some dumbbells. I like doing bicep curls up in my bedroom with these £8 dumbbells and like, got all this exercise, like, I’m going to get big. And I was doing them with like this goal behind it.

Dean Pohlman: Like, I’m not going to be bullied. Like, no one’s going to mess with me. Like, I’m not I’m not I’m not big. Like, I’m going to get strong. People aren’t going to mess with me. And so, like, for me, weightlifting, I think there’s still a chip on my shoulder or like, like I grew up like a small person.

Dean Pohlman: So like, now that I’m like a bit bigger and, you know, people look at me and they see like, Oh, you’re kind of built like an athlete. Like I have been an athlete my whole life, but I haven’t like always been big ish. So like, that’s a big that was a big motivation. Was that that’s something for you, would you say like where you are, you’re shorter?

Mike Bledsoe: Okay, Yeah, I was small. I considered myself to be smaller, you know, definitely shorter than a lot of others. I did grow up with a lot of fighting in my neighborhood. So there was a there was I.

Dean Pohlman: Would you grow up in.

Mike Bledsoe: Memphis, Tennessee? Yeah. It’s it’s pretty hood right. And yeah, there was definitely I do remember one day I got sucker punched I was I was totally caught by surprise and knocked out. So I grabbed my hair and and dropped a bomb right on my face. And I went down like a sack of potatoes. And my brother and my friend had to pull the guy off of me who was pounding the back of my head.

Mike Bledsoe: And I got up from that and I was like, I’d been in some fight at that point, but I had never been demolished before. And even though it was a surprise attack, I still was like, Oh, there was a I’m actually yeah, there’s like my mortality in a way, and my, my vulnerable, like my vulnerability as a human being really popped up in that moment.

Mike Bledsoe: I go, Wow, I need to step up my game. I do need to like train, I do. You know, I got into martial arts at that time as well.

Dean Pohlman: And how old were you when that happened?

Mike Bledsoe: I think I was at that time I was maybe 13. 14. Okay, Yeah, Yeah. Carried a black half My face was black and blue for like two weeks. So nice little reminder every day. It sank in pretty deep.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I’ve had a couple of those once. Then I got punched at one time. I got punched like outside a bar that I worked in. And then another time I got a fight in my roommate. They’re not. They’re not. They’re not pretty. They’re not a no, you know, black guys are not fun, so. Yeah. Yeah. Know so. All right.

Dean Pohlman: So he’s got the motivation for weightlifting. You kept it up. And then in 2015, you had a pretty significant injury.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, Yeah, I. Three or four years, everything hurt. In fact, I. I remember going into the gym and I had been there was a point in time where I was training for the sport of weightlifting, for the sport of CrossFit and for the sport. In May I was training about 5 hours a day. It was way too much.

Dean Pohlman: Wow. And what like when you’re feeling like that, though, and you’re like, doing that much? Like, what was that just like, was it normalized? Was it like, Oh, this is just part of it and this is what it’s supposed to be? Or like, why did you keep doing it?

Mike Bledsoe: I you know, I so I was homeschooled as a kid all the way through. And so I’ve had this whole I think most people are like always comparing themselves to other people. But I, I never like I did all my schoolwork and three or 4 hours in a day, and I know all my friends were at school for like 8 hours a day.

Mike Bledsoe: And so from the very beginning, my life was was structured very differently than the average person. So I never really compare myself to other people. I’m like, Well, other people do it like this. I go, Well, I’m not I’m not really like other people. I don’t I don’t I don’t like to follow the structures. If they’re only training 2 hours a day like that doesn’t mean anything to me.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m going to do it. What I think is better and, you know, at the time, more was better. And I did have in my head that’s one of the things that attracted me to CrossFit. In fact, I did want to be really good at multiple things, and the idea of only being good at one thing was just seemed ridiculous.

Mike Bledsoe: I didn’t want to be just good at one thing. I wanted to just I wanted to be really well-rounded. I wanted not only to be well-rounded, but I wanted to excel and in a well-rounded way. It’s like I want I wanted people to think about Myke Bledsoe and go, Oh, he’s good at anything and everything he puts his mind to.

Mike Bledsoe: So that was, you know, I kind of normalized I normalized it for myself, but I was not living in a culture where, you know, I wasn’t hanging around other guys that were doing the same thing.

Dean Pohlman: Okay, Got it. So a lot of your identity was based on, you know, this guy works out 5 hours a day, super strong and that kind of Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah. And I was totally overtrained. Ah, and, and so that was one point in my life when I got injured, I had already dropped me and already dropped CrossFit. I was only competing in weightlifting, but I was still putting in three hour training sessions six days a week. I my, my body was talking back, all my joints hurt and I was I was preparing to go to nationals and I one day I look in the mirror and I see like my body talking really hard to one side.

Mike Bledsoe: When I got out of bed in the morning and I go, Mm, that’s not good. I remember, I remember looking and registering and going, This is not good. And I was going to physical therapy three days a week for them to work on my shoulder so that I could just keep throwing weight around. And I, and I remember I went and spoke out of conference and I’m on stage and 45 minutes into my my hour long talk, I couldn’t stand anymore.

Mike Bledsoe: I had to take a seat. They had to pull a chair up on stage and to finish my talk while sitting. And there was a lot of people in exercise science at this conference and I remember Dr. Romanoff, the guy who he he invented a pose running method is this Russian sports scientist. He goes, Let me look at you.

Mike Bledsoe: And so I lay down. He’s like, Oh, you got a hernia, bro. And I go, Oh, okay. So I find I was I was nomadic at the time, So I found the best hernia surgeon I could find, which was in San Jose. And I went up there, he checks now he goes, Dude, you don’t have one hernia, you have two hernias.

Mike Bledsoe: I was like, okay, all right. Well, you know, to hernias, one surgery, Let’s go. Go and do the surgery. A few days later. And I come out and he goes, Dude, you had three hernias. We went in there and we found a third one. You were like, bursting at the seams. And I go.

Dean Pohlman: How did you how did you not know? Like, did you feel that pain in your lower back? And you’re like, This is just like part of it. Or like.

Mike Bledsoe: I my, my whole body was in pain. I had a lot of inflammation from overtraining, eating a lot of foods. I mean, I was drinking way proteins and a lot of dairy and ah.

Dean Pohlman: You know, I can only imagine how much food you had to eat to sustain.

Mike Bledsoe: Oh I was eating about 5000 calories a day.

Dean Pohlman: Okay.

Mike Bledsoe: And so it’s a lot of food, it’s a lot of which.

Dean Pohlman: Is less fun than it sounds, by the way. Like it’s fun to overeat sometimes. But like when you have to do it, like constantly throughout the day, like if you’re hungry and you feel bad because you’re hungry because you’re eating right now.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, I, I really enjoy not eating now. But the yeah, I was stuffed the whole time. I was I there were times that, you know, my partner wanted to have sex and I couldn’t have sex too. I just was so bloated from and I was just I got to eat all this food. So, yeah, like, everything hurt all the time.

Mike Bledsoe: So feeling more pain in one area than another didn’t really didn’t really register. And so he, you know, he goes, I got three. I’m like, okay. So in my head I’m thinking, all right, it’s going to take me two or three months. I you know, I’m I’m an athlete. I fucking bounce back. I can do this.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe: And I did. I mean, a couple of months later, I did some I was in Sweden at a conference, a sports conference, and I was hanging out with the people from L.A. and, you know, I pulled some clean, some body weight, cleans off the floor and everything. I was okay. But like, I knew, like I did not feel as strong as I did.

Mike Bledsoe: And it wasn’t just from not training. So this was the post-surgery. This was really the longest amount of time that I didn’t I actually didn’t train at all because every even if you’re just working upper body, this is creating that intra abdominal pressure which you want to avoid when you’re healing from something like a hernia surgery. I had had surgeries on my lower body where I was able to keep doing upper body and vice versa before.

Mike Bledsoe: So I never stopped training. And then and then I enter this phase where I get two months into my healing process. I haven’t trained. I’ve been in reflection. I talked to my friend Jill Miller, who is just an anatomy and physiology nerd in the world of yoga, and she is really big on breathing mechanics. And I go, Hey, I fucked myself up over here.

Mike Bledsoe: What do I need to do? And she goes, Well, you need to learn how to breathe properly again. And gave me a bunch of exercises. I went and saw her in L.A. She helped me out, and as I started doing the breathing exercises, I realized how jacked up I was. I go, Oh, wow. This is. I started realizing, Oh, my low back pain, my shoulder pain, Everything’s out of whack because my breathing patterns are out of whack.

Mike Bledsoe: So I’ve got to like, I can’t lift weights again. I can’t train again until I get my breathing patterns and my core squared away. And so I was like, All right, well, I’m on a mission to do that. And it just took so long. And I was so I was actually a little timid about it. I was like, fuck, you know, I don’t want to like, push it too early and and then get sent backwards, you know, in my, my progression.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah. And during that time I attended, I was invited to some retreats and I discovered through some introspection, journaling some coaching sessions where people were working with me on like, some like deep subconscious programing. And I realized that everything that was driving my behavior and in, in sports and athletics was just this deep insecurity of of wanting people to respect me, wanting to be accepted and and loved by other people.

Mike Bledsoe: So, you know, I’ll be happy when I get on the podium. You know, everyone look at me. I’m great. And I also had, you know, I was running the podcast and YouTube channel Barbell Shrug, where I was looked at as the as an expert in sports performance. And I, I had this belief that I actually needed to be one of the best athletes on the planet for people to be to love me and see me as credible.

Mike Bledsoe: I look back on, I go, people saw me as credible and I didn’t have to compete at all. You know, it was a great a credibility through my connections and through my words and and knowledge.

Dean Pohlman: And so what was some of that deep work that you were doing? Like, can you describe that stuff that you were doing, the retreats?

Mike Bledsoe: Sure. Yeah. The first the first piece of work I did that that caught me by I would say this the first time the stone got turned over is I went to this. I had been playing around with psychedelics a bit for a couple of years before this point, and I had found using things like mushrooms were incredibly useful in my ability to be a better person, to be a better listener to the people around, made me a better leader to see where I was wrong and how I could make things right.

Mike Bledsoe: So I’d been playing around these things and I tend to be a bit intense and so I’ll go all the way down. So I made friends with all the people who are who are using these things for healing. And I was invited to a a retreat where they weren’t necessarily using any of those things, but there were coaches there that worked on subconscious programing and trauma.

Mike Bledsoe: And I remember I just had a 20 minute coaching session with a friend, a guy who’s a friend of mine now, Daniel Rafael and and 20 minutes. Like the problem I thought I had is that I saw that my team members in my company were working too hard. They were like working too many hours and they were burning themselves.

Mike Bledsoe: And I was like, how do I how do I teach these people not to do that to themselves? And he takes me through this meditation in front of 20 people, and by the end of the meditation, I’m weeping, I’m crying, and I’m realizing, Oh shit, like I’m leading by example. If I’m going to drive myself into the ground, my team is also going to like I’m setting the culture of just work harder, work more hours and I got that from my dad.

Mike Bledsoe: You know, my dad, I had this. He would he would talk poorly about people who were begging for money on the street. He was a huge advocate for work hard. He was at work from sunup to sundown and beyond. And so he really demonstrated that to me as like, oh, if you want to be loved, if you want to be successful, then you that’s that’s you got to work hard.

Mike Bledsoe: And the working smart thing never really was taught much to me. So the there that was like the first thing that ever came up and I came away crying. And you’ve probably had this experience where like there’s, there’s this internal transformation. The whole world looks different. After that moment, I go, Oh, wow, I, I could take better care of myself.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m not, I haven’t been loving myself. I’ve been looking for love outside from these external people and experiences. And really, I just get to give it to myself. Oh, I’ve been punishing my body with exercise. I’ve been punishing my body by overfeeding it. Like I. I knew I was smart enough to know that training like that and eating like that was going to shorten my life span.

Mike Bledsoe: And not only that, I was training so much that I really couldn’t even be that effective with my work because I was always so tired from eating. Because if you eat all the time, you’re you’re foggy, especially eating watered carbs, which you’ve got to do if you’re training three or four or 5 hours a day. So I, I really just went back and I go, Wow, I’m going to eat super high quality food.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m not going to worry about what I weigh. I’m not going to worry about what I lift. I’m only going to I’m going to really train in ways I start doing a lot of body weight. I started doing like a lot of flow work. I had met John Woolf at this point who taught me a lot of rotation.

Mike Bledsoe: He shows up at my house and Encinitas, California, and like brings a set of clubs and bases and teaches me how to do rotational strength movement, which I was totally unaccustomed to.

Dean Pohlman: I saw him at a Costco.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Like, Oh, okay, you’re just off. You’re just at Costco. He’s like, Yeah. I’m like, Oh, okay.

Mike Bledsoe: That’s the guy. He’s he’s great. Yeah, he is.

Dean Pohlman: She is. She’s super nice.

Mike Bledsoe: He’s super nice. He’s a sweet guy. And he you put on weight in front of him, he’ll toss it around.

Dean Pohlman: But I, I wonder if you could talk more about like I think it’s amazing the, the realizations that you came to as a result of just, just like this 120 minute session. What? Like, what can you go deeper into that? Like, what was he asking you? What was he guiding you through? Do you remember?

Mike Bledsoe: I don’t know. It was it was a it was just like.

Dean Pohlman: He came out of it. Like my whole life has been shattered.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, it was one of those things where, yeah, it was a fairly hypnotic state, you know, what’s funny is I’ve actually gone through the training that by some of his mentors, so I can I’ve got a good idea of how that process works. But it’s, it’s all about taking. Yeah, it’s so well there’s multiple process. Something about Daniel Rafael and myself too.

Mike Bledsoe: It’s just like we can’t stick with one modality. It’s like, okay, I’ve got these ten different coaching modalities. I’ll blend them together and, and all. I’ll be able to give you something. But so basically identifying, you know, what’s the biggest problem in your life right now? What’s the thing that’s bothering you the most and going, okay, well, tell me about it and go, okay, well, you know, start talking.

Mike Bledsoe: And then the conversation goes, So what you do is you have someone slow down their breath, close their eyes, get into more of a meditative state, really slowing it down and then taking that story and breaking it down and saying, okay, you were talking about this, but how do you how do you do that? Same thing? And there’s very specific I mean, I’d have to really show you how it’s done.

Mike Bledsoe: I have to give you an example. Or like you would tell me a problem. I go, okay, we break this down, but basically saying, okay, how are you projecting your experience on to other people? Okay, how do we turn that projection into a reflection? Right. Where are you focusing on what’s not happening versus what is happening? Because what is not happening is an illusion.

Mike Bledsoe: What is happening is the truth. And you find that when someone’s telling a story about a problem, most people, at least 70% of the stories about what didn’t happen, what isn’t happening or what can’t, or what they think won’t happen, and you can pick it up in their language. And so it in that in those sessions, it’s all about creating more accuracy and a more accurate reporting of reality of what’s happening for that person.

Mike Bledsoe: And through that process of saying, Oh, this is where you’re projecting your experience onto the world, let’s reflect it back. And you go, Oh, I’m the one that needs to change. You know, I’m looking for all of this to change outside of myself in order for me to be happy or feel loved or whatever it is. But yeah, I don’t know if I answer your question like you did.

Dean Pohlman: Okay, You did that. So that’s like, that’s a that’s, that’s awesome. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Two things strike me is like this idea of external projection versus like internal, you know, like internally what’s really going on. And I think I think most people know that like if you are I don’t know how to explain it really succinctly because I’m still running on minimal sleep because my night, my newborn daughter is waking up a couple of times a night and thinking is hard.

Dean Pohlman: But like this idea of internal or external and you projecting things on other people when really the problem is like inside of you, that’s something that is like that’s a that’s a huge that overall concept is something that I know is like really important to this whole idea of improving our mental emotional wellness and the second thing is like developing clarity around things, right?

Dean Pohlman: Getting really clear instead of just saying something vague, but actually getting really clear on whatever it is and how it pertains to you personally rather than kind of a more general, you know, thing. Yeah. So I now I’m, I mean, I’m bookmarking this for later so that I go out and I find some subconscious programing and I don’t think I’m ready to publish that on a podcast publicly, but I would love to go through it myself and yeah, yeah.

Dean Pohlman: At the same time, I’m terrified of like, what will come about. You know what? It’s going to, like, shatter my life somehow.

Mike Bledsoe: You know? So I’ve done a lot of life shattering experiences. Like I, there’s like a period of time where I was like, addicted to having those shifts in a way or is like, Oh, and it wasn’t like the next shift will get me where I want to be. It was just so it’s like writing a roller coaster. It’s like, Oh, I’m scared.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m scared. I don’t want to let go of this belief. I don’t want to let go of this identity that I have inside of me. But I know that when I let go, it’s going to be the most exhilarating thing ever. And then it’s like you let go and then you’re like, flying down the roller coaster and you got your hands in the air and you’re screaming.

Mike Bledsoe: The the trouble is. And so this is where is where like a good coach or therapist operates well, and this is where, like, I see a lot of coaches who get a hold of some of these really powerful tools. And I’m like, But the only way to really get good at it is to have the like, experience taking people through it.

Mike Bledsoe: And so it’s kind of like, you know, you know, I’ll work with somebody who’s new because I can translate what’s going on and I can, I can I’ve got a little more control over my own consciousness at this point than I did a decade ago. But it can be very it can be very disruptive. So what can happen is, you finally turn the flashlight from the outside to the inside and you see the thing, and then you have some type of healing experience or you let go of some type of insecurity.

Mike Bledsoe: And one of the things that are that people are afraid of letting go of certain insecurities is because that insecurity came was a survival strategy and so it’s like, oh, like one of my survival strategies was I studied all the time because there’s two beliefs I had is I had to be smart and I had to be strong.

Mike Bledsoe: And so the ego will basically have this story of like, if I lose the insecurity of of, of thinking that people are going to perceive me as stupid, then I actually will become stupid. And so the the ego really does get afraid and go, Oh, I don’t want to let that go. And so that’s one of the things that protects people from actually having transformation, is they believe that they’re going to lose the benefits they got from using that survival strategy.

Mike Bledsoe: But the survival strategies were installed at the ages of like between the ages of zero and seven, primarily. And so these are installed.

Dean Pohlman: And I mean, yeah, we’re all trying to undo the we’re all trying to do that. Whatever stuff happened to us when we were kids as we’re adults, right.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, that’s, yeah, like everybody. But the strategy that the five year olds set isn’t going to serve the 35 year old anymore. It got the 35 year old to where he or she needed to be, and it got them there. And so it’s easy for the mind to look back and go, But I have all this evidence for why being like this works.

Mike Bledsoe: And yeah, and so the one of the subconscious beliefs that it will operate is saying, Hey, if I stop being insecure about this, then I’ll also lose all the benefits of that insecurity. And so when the truth is, is if you’ve been practicing, have you been operating a certain way for 20 years out of that one insecurity, there’s no way you can lose those benefits like you’re you’re so well practiced at it that you can call on those.

Mike Bledsoe: Those are now strengths. So you can lose the insecurity which will allow you to find more peace and then also maintain the benefit. Now, what can happen, a lot of times there’s two things that happen is one is sometimes people stop caring about the benefit, and that is that they if they make too dramatic of a shift too fast, then they can find themselves in a place of just being like, if I don’t care.

Mike Bledsoe: And and there’s like people, people find fault, find themselves in like this hippie stage where it’s like, oh, money doesn’t matter anymore. Ah, that’s, you know, how I look to other people shouldn’t matter. And, and, you know, that’s their responsibility. You know, I’ve got my own responsibilities and yeah, almost, almost could end up in like a nihilistic place as well.

Mike Bledsoe: So that’s one, one, one danger of like making very dramatic changes really fast is it becomes disruptive to your current lifestyle and and when you change one thing internally, when you change one subconscious program, it impacts everything else. And there’s no way to predict else it’s going to impact. You just don’t know. And so it’s like you got to be ready.

Mike Bledsoe: So. So if you want to go super deep and go super hard and maybe with somebody who’s got less experience than and or somebody their coaches out there that they have this, they still are working on their own self-worth and value. So they feel like they got to like, hit you hard with a big bomb to make you feel like something happened.

Mike Bledsoe: So they feel valuable. And so what ends up happening is it becomes very disruptive to areas of someone’s life in which they weren’t trying to work on. The other thing, as is when you experience a big internal transformation, you become a different person. You actually shift how your being and your behavior starts to change. And everybody in your life coworkers, wife, husband, parents, brothers, sisters, they you have been fulfilling a very specific role in their movie your entire life like year.

Mike Bledsoe: You have become predictable when when Dean when Dean is put in this position is the kind of thing he does. And then if you change now, you break their expectation and and then that can be disruptive to relationships as well.

Dean Pohlman: So yeah, you went through some pretty dramatic changes and internal belief systems. And for me, like that’s terrifying. Like the idea of me going through some sort of shifts that could potentially make a significant change in my life, maybe a change that I don’t want to experience. Like me, you know, being married. I have two kids. I have people who depend on me.

Dean Pohlman: I have team members who depend on me. Like, that’s scary. Like, I don’t I’m curious for you, like, how did you deal with those? The shifts that resulted, you know, as a result of of those that deep work that you were doing?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, I definitely went through shifts and some people around me were it made them uncomfortable. They weren’t always, you know, they were a lot of people have depended on me in the past. And what’s interesting is I set these relationships up in a way. I’m the oldest of five kids as well, and so I always been the leader of whatever company I’m in or I own.

Mike Bledsoe: And the I almost set up dependencies on me so that I can ensure my position. And so one of the things that I had to learn how to do was and the only way I knew how to do it was to actually step away from all the relationships where there was a lot of dependency on me and then come back and and start my relationships again.

Mike Bledsoe: And sometimes it can be done with the same people, but just shift the relationship and sometimes, you know, it it transitions the relationship to something. You know, also, some people might say it ends, but it’s a much healthier way of there being recognizing other people’s responsibility and your own responsibility and how you work together. So moving from a codependent nature of a relationship into more of a interdependent, ah, it’s, you know, I’m not doing things out of obligation anymore.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m doing things out of love and inspiration. And it doesn’t mean I don’t do hard things like the relationship I’m in now with my fiancee. There’s a lot of times where I would, you know, love to just walk away. I’m like, this is, you know, screw this. This is hard. Like, if I wanted to be selfish, I could just walk away or whatever.

Mike Bledsoe: And I got to know because I part of part of like the expanding of consciousness is being able to consider more time. So time and space, it’s like, Oh, I know in this moment right now, I don’t feel like I want to walk away, but I know that in five years from now, I’m going to be so stoked that I didn’t walk away and that I’m here and I put in.

Mike Bledsoe: That causes me right now to put my put everything I got into this relationship to make it as good as possible because I love myself in five years and I love her and five years to most people can’t see past next week, you know, because they’re also thinking about like, you know, how am I going to get paid this month if you if you’re worried about how much money you’re gonna make this month, then it’s probably hard for you to consider the quality of your relationship in five years.

Dean Pohlman: So you’re saying this this more long term sense of things is and you mentioned kind of this expanded sense of consciousness, is that that’s what you said?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, Yeah. So I think about consciousness is kind of like our own perspective and our own experience of the world when we look at consciousness is is made up by defining space and time. So before there was language, all we had was there was no yesterday, there was no tomorrow. There was just right now before language and there was no coconut and there was no me before language.

Mike Bledsoe: And so the the naming of oh, that’s coconut or earth, you know, came in right. Like, oh I was there. It was like, oh, I met these two people standing here just said, that’s coconut and have a sound for coconut. And that creates a separation between self and something else in the world. It’s like, Oh, well, what’s your name?

Mike Bledsoe: Oh, now I’m experiencing more separation. I’m experiencing more distinction, more definition. We’re defining things. We’re taking what’s infinite the all and we’re we’re making it finite. And so because of this, we’re able to consider more So before, without language, you can only consider it. You’re you’re you’re experiencing this very moment and nothing else. And so Helen Keller talked about this is, you know, she was she was born deaf, mute and blind or mute because she didn’t learn how to talk, but she finally was able to learn how to communicate.

Mike Bledsoe: And she had lived in the darkness for so long that one of the things one of her famous quotes is before there were words, there was no world and so this this distinction is this defining of the world and me and you and then saying, oh, remember yesterday, oh, let’s make plans for tomorrow. And so and then also the use of a of a projectile in order to kill an animal for food, for instance, this idea, this this ability of the human mind to project into the future, this animal’s over here right now.

Mike Bledsoe: I project that it’s going to be 20 feet over here, and I’m going to release Spear and in time, you know, in a in a in a second, I can project this. And now we we see the evolution of consciousness through the ages. And it’s been primarily built on language. And so now we have projections for what’s happening in ten years.

Mike Bledsoe: You know, it’s all started with throwing a club or a spear, and now I’m projecting ten years into the future. And so the the creating greater and greater definition and distinction within language in the world. And then being able to consider more of it, my ability to consider more time and to consider more space is one of the ways in which I see an expansion of consciousness.

Mike Bledsoe: I believe the expansion of consciousness is much it’s a much bigger conversation than those just those two things. But I like to point this out and get very practical with it, because a lot of people, when people start talking about expanding consciousness, they just go, Okay, this sounds kind of crazy. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I go, Look, what is your ability to consider more time and space?

Mike Bledsoe: If somebody has a very constricted consciousness, they can only consider what’s happening today. And now you are like, Oh, I want to love myself more. You know, screw everybody else. You’re actually not thinking about yourself long term. And so the same thing with training, you know, people who train for short. Well, you’ve probably seen that someone who trains for something in the next 12 weeks is like, I got this competition in 12 weeks.

Mike Bledsoe: I got to train for that. And they’re always doing a competition every 12 weeks. What happens to that person? I’m injured. Yeah, they’ll burn out, they get injured. But if I go, look, I’m training to be 100 years old and still be able to wipe my ass. That’s going to change how I approach my deadlifting and my training today.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m probably going to go a little bit easier on myself. I’m not rushing, so that’s an expansion of consciousness over time. And so when So if you have a family and what we have to ensure is you we have to make sure that before you go through any transformational experiences, I want you to be incredibly well resourced. So a lot of people don’t have the resources necessary to really make the most out of a transformational experience.

Mike Bledsoe: So how do we make you more well resourced? We got to make sure that you’re physically resourced. We need to make sure that you’re you’re psychologically and emotionally resourced. I want you to be relationally resourced so instead of plucking you out of your environment altogether, putting you through a ten day transformational experience and then just plugging you back in to where you came from, instead of doing that as let’s let’s do some type of transformational activity 30 minutes a day journaling exercises, maybe once a week, meet with a coach for an hour, all these things, and then knowing that is a good coach will have you weave everything that’s happening with you, with your environment,

Mike Bledsoe: with the relationships that you currently have. So you’re bringing you become the leader. If you’re going through a transformational experience and you want to have your entire life transformed with you and not just leave it behind is you have to step by step, make sure that you’re leading the relationships, you’re leading your environment, you’re leading your own mind.

Mike Bledsoe: You’re you’re becoming the leader for yourself and for those around you. And you’re all moving into the direction in which you’re moving. And so if I pluck you out and do ten days at a time and then now that’s and you don’t have a not resourced enough, then you’re going to crumble and your world, your world can, can turn into a little bit of a shit show or we can do small little bites and then you can go talk with your wife.

Mike Bledsoe: You can go practice this thing with your kids, come back next week, let’s just do bit by bit and we’re consistently bringing those around us with us. So yeah, that’s, that’s why I do some of the stuff that I do now. I do some personal development coaching as well, and I it’s not like it’s not that big, huge.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m not doing a Tony Robbins. I’m not doing like I’m going to like Heal your deepest trauma in the next, you know, 5 minutes. I don’t do that, that kind of stuff I’ve been a part of I’ve experienced that, but I don’t think it’s the practical way of getting the most use out of it for for most people, just the crazy people.

Dean Pohlman: I mean, I think that was a really good I’m glad you said all that. I wasn’t initially sure where I was going and then it all came together. I was like, okay, that’s cool. Because, you know, I think as humans, we really like dramatic. We like dramatic transformations. So I think you painting the picture of like, hey, there’s also a more manageable and maybe more practical way of doing this where you don’t, like, go out in the forest for a week and then come back and forsake all your possessions.

Dean Pohlman: But like, you know, integrate it with your life totally as, as, as you know, you know, as, as often as many of us may have the idea of, you know what, I’m just going to blow all this up and I’m going to go do something else. Maybe integrating like, you know, things would be a better way of doing it.

Mike Bledsoe: So I think so I have a.

Dean Pohlman: I have a few questions that come from that. So like, so first off, you know, I, I would love it if you could go through you made some really big shifts, you know, as a result of that. You know, you and I kind of talked about this before. I don’t know if you’ve mentioned it yet, but, you know, your your relationship came to, you know, humorous, that your most important relationships came to a I don’t know if an end or a transition is like the what?

Dean Pohlman: Right. Describe it. You also moved away from Barbell Shrugged and started doing something else. And, you know, I guess I can start with the you know, if you want to talk about those two things. But like for me, you know, what I’m thinking of is you’re a competitive guy and usually when you’re competitive, there is a you know, there is a level of success that you’re working towards in your career, which means you you’re trying to make more money and stepping away from that and then stepping away from that, making this conscious decision like I’m not going to be trying to make as much money as possible in this current way.

Dean Pohlman: And now I’m going to lower my expectation of how much money I need. To me, that seems like a really big because I was always raised in this idea of. I was always raised in success is really important. Like that was my you know, if I had to pin down like a value couple of values from my household, my upbringing, like success was really important.

Mike Bledsoe: And financial success.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, financial success. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was like the unspoken, right? Like, yeah, career success. But like, I felt like financial success was like the unspoken part of that. So, like, I don’t know, like, was that something that you went through and what was that process like? And again, also the, the relationship.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah. So we’ll talk about business first in the business, I, I stepped away because I realized that ah, for so long I had sacrificed my own happiness and well-being for the purpose of financial and success. And I was also really well known. You know, I also had this whole identity wrapped up in being, you know, Mike Bledsoe. Barbell shrugged.

Mike Bledsoe: Shrug. You know, I go to a CrossFit competition. People want me to sign their shoes. You know, it’s it’s weird. And the there was like going through these processes allowed me to see I go, Oh, I’ve sacrificed my health, my well-being, my, my happiness for the purpose of making more dollars. And I looked at it. I go, Wow, I built a company that’s doing multiple millions of dollars a year.

Mike Bledsoe: And I personally didn’t benefit from it in the ways that I first like when I thought that when I made $3 million that my life would look like X, Y, Z, but it didn’t. And I go and that was a consistent thing in businesses. Every time I hit a new benchmark, it was never as sweet as I thought it was going to be.

Mike Bledsoe: And going through all these processes, I was actually able to step out and see that trend and, you know, oh, no matter how much money I make, I’m not going to be any happier. In fact, when I make more money, sometimes I’m even more stressed out, right? I go, What’s the fucking point of making all this money if I can’t even enjoy it?

Mike Bledsoe: And so so I had that moment. I go, I, I don’t even trust myself to I don’t even trust myself to do anything work related without my ego getting in the way and doing something dumb. And so I said, you know what? I’m going to leave the company. And I actually was ready to shut the company down or sell it or whatever.

Mike Bledsoe: I was just wanted out. And my business partner at the time talked me into he’s like, Hey, just stick around for at least one year or we’ll let you do your sabbatical thing. You just take some time off. You come back, you know, no big deal. I still wanted to be a part of it. I was like, okay, you know, there’s now just don’t expect anything from me.

Mike Bledsoe: And I was like, I’m not going to do it. I’m not working. So I made a commitment to not work for a year. Well, my commitment wasn’t not to work. It was to not build anything. I didn’t want like there was. There was. I wasn’t. I was committed to acting from a place of inspiration instead of desperation. So I was always checking in with myself as am I doing this out of inspiration or desperation?

Mike Bledsoe: And every project I took on and anything I created was out of inspiration. And there was no thought about how much money can this make at some point in the future. There was no thought of that. And so I was I told myself, I’m not going to do anything for one year. I’m not going to try to build a company for a year.

Mike Bledsoe: In fact, in a year and a little conversation with God, I go, You know what? If I’m not supposed to be the CEO of a company and I’m not supposed to be, you know, the head honcho running things, I’m totally cool with that. If you want me flipping burgers at McDonald’s, I’ll do it. Like I’ll eat whatever I surrender.

Mike Bledsoe: Right? And so I get to this place where I go, I surrender, and then I, I, I go nomadic and I pack up with my ex wife. We get down to two bags and we give up our house. It was like we had a house at the beach and Encinitas, California. It was like, it’s just the best house ever and we fucking leave and we start traveling and I go, Wow, there’s.

Mike Bledsoe: I realize I’d only been traveling. I travel the world, but I’d only done it for business. There’s always a podcast involved. There’s always a video to shoot. There was always a seminar to run and I got to see the world. But as always, through the lens of like, work, I go, You know what? I’m going to go see all the people who I said I want to hang out with and I’m not going to work.

Mike Bledsoe: So I would I would just start flying all over the place. And I went to Europe and South America and East Coast, West Coast, and I just hung out with people and had a good time. That lasted for six months and then six months and again, I was actually here in Austin, Texas. I was visiting a great couple, Michael, on a date, cause you and I hopped in a float tank at Zero Gravity, the door open anymore, and again, the float tank and the idea for a business comes in are all I got.

Mike Bledsoe: I want to go create a business. Now, I’m not thinking about making money. I was like, I’m just going to put this together because I see and I see that no one’s doing what I’m doing, what I want to do in the market. So I do that. And then someone else asked me for help on their business, so I partner with them on their business, which is like an emotional development program.

Mike Bledsoe: And there’s another friend who’s got a mindset training business. I go, Oh, I help you with that too. I ended up I ended up spending six weeks in Palm Springs working on scripts and building out curriculum like I worked a lot, but it was all just fun. I was just having a good time and we just like I just all my projects were just I had no idea about like I didn’t want it to make money.

Mike Bledsoe: I didn’t care. I just inspired action. And I started this. Three companies ended up leaving two of them and maintaining one. And I made more money personally I’d ever made in that six months than I had any previous year. Wow. And it was because the first six months I didn’t make anything. It was from January to July. There was no income.

Mike Bledsoe: And then I mean, and then, you know, I was like, Oh, I’ll launch this program. Oh, some money came in. Cool. And then fast forward to like the next April. I’m looking at my my profit loss and I go, Oh shit, I just made more money. I made more money. And like, I was, you know, looking at taxes and shit, I go, Oh, I made more money last year and I had made and ever before, and I didn’t even try and wow, it was it’s one of those things where like people on the outside were thinking, Mike has lost his damn mind.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe: He’s lost his damn mind. And so, you know, I spent five years kind of in that in that space of take, you know, making it easy inspired action. But one of the things that happened was I had there’s always places to grow. So like, I haven’t had a business partnership in five years because I associated that with like, I don’t get to do what I want to do.

Mike Bledsoe: And just in the last few months, I’ve been working with a coach and I it’s been revealed to me. I go, Oh, it’s not business partnerships I don’t like. I just need to find a business partnership where I get to behave in a way from inspired action. And a lot of that just comes from being a better leader.

Mike Bledsoe: There’s leadership skills I still get to develop, I get to improve on, and also setting very clear expectations about my contribution that’s going to look like these are things that that I didn’t have in my previous business. It was just like me taking on a lot of things and and expectations not being met and so like going in and going, okay, these are the expectations that I want you to have for me, This is what I want to do this.

Mike Bledsoe: And I know myself at this point well enough to where I go, Oh, these are the three things that I do better than anybody else. As long as someone else is taking care of all these things. And then I can I can just go nuts there. But I would have never gotten to a place where I know exactly what that’s like until without going through this whole process.

Dean Pohlman: Hmm. Wow. That’s awesome. I mean, that’s like. Right. That’s. That’s what. That’s that. That’s the dream that you hear about. Like, I was. I was making X amount of money doing something I didn’t like. And then I stopped caring about the money, and then I made more money. Yeah, but.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, and.

Dean Pohlman: That’s how that.

Mike Bledsoe: Works. And then anytime I have a dip is usually when I care the most about making money so something happens or I’m like, Oh, let’s like, let’s make even more. Next thing I know, everything gets hard. I’m like, Come on, stop being silly. Just make it easy. Just make easy, have a good time.

Dean Pohlman: So, you know, and then the other and then the other shift that that you talked about was, you know, 20, 2019, you’re you’re divorced, right? So like, yeah, it sounded like she was I mean, she came she went with you on that trip. She sold the house with you. She became nomadic with you. So, like, it seems like she was on board.

Dean Pohlman: Like, I mean, what would happen? Yeah.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, we it’s one of us one of those things where I really. I was deep in that coaching relationship at that point where I was meeting with this guy every two weeks, and I had been existing in a polyamorous relationship with my ex wife for a few years, and I can look back on it now and I go, Oh, we we opened up the relationship because I was like, It was not working right.

Mike Bledsoe: The relationship wasn’t working. We opened it up and I was operating from the belief that no single woman could satisfy enough of my needs in order for me to, like, be happy. And my coach one day challenged me on, you know, like out of the 7 billion people on this planet, there’s not a single woman that would be able to check enough boxes for you.

Mike Bledsoe: I go, Huh? And I left. Like I that was near the beginning of the coaching session. And by the time I left, I because he was questioning, would you a good coach or do you know, is this is this really what’s going on or is it something else? And I laughed. I actually had a hard time being in that coaching session.

Mike Bledsoe: I was nodding off even though I just drink a cup of coffee and it was 8 a.m.. That was that was me bumping up against my subconscious and and that was like a protective mechanism to like, don’t go there because I’ve been protecting it for so long. Yeah. And, and I woke up the next day, I went to, I went home, I kind of shoved it away, woke up the next day.

Mike Bledsoe: I was like, Oh I’ve been unhappy in this relationship from the beginning. And I would I recognize her and I had been through so much. She had done a lot that the same stuff I had done for personal growth. I was like the thing that had us get married and got us together. We were both really hurt and traumatized people when we got together and we because we were married in 2010 and we said, we’ve been married for nine years, it was like the thing that had us bond together so much.

Mike Bledsoe: We’d healed all that trauma and we really are just completely missing each other. And there’s just like that. There was nothing there anymore and it really felt like, oh, we just we just get to go our separate ways at this point. And so that was and at the core of it is the things that I wanted support on.

Mike Bledsoe: I just wasn’t getting it. And there were conversations for a couple of years of really like wanting the by stating like what I needed and wanted and just not being, not having that experience. And so yeah, there was just a point where we were like, you know, I put myself in like a bit of a people. People would regularly hit me up on Instagram and stuff asking me about my relationship and asking me for relationship advice.

Mike Bledsoe: So the idea of saying, Oh, by the way, that whole thing that everyone idolized is is going away. That was a bit about that was really tough to come out and say. But it was it was one of those things where it’s like, yeah, this this relationship is is incredibly complete. And I, I can see very clearly then make it Easy is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.

Mike Bledsoe: There are a lot of hard things, but going through a divorce was incredibly sad and transformative as well.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I mean, so you’ve gone through all these you go all of these changes and they’re all based on, you know, these realizations that you came to where you started to better understand a subconscious belief, realized that, okay, this is not I don’t need this belief anymore. And for me, the big question is and then you you came to some sort of a logical understanding of, oh, this is why I believe that now I’m going to believe this instead.

Dean Pohlman: And for me, the question is, and this is something that I struggle with, is how do you start to internalize all I think the term that you use is integrate. How do you integrate these revised beliefs? What’s the process for doing that? Because you can understand, you can understand something all you want, but you can go to therapy and you can your therapist will say, Hey, you’re messed up because of this.

Dean Pohlman: You’re like, Cool, Are we done? No. Right. Is that like, what’s how do you integrate that?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, every every really and impactful, transformative experience I’ve had. It was it was more of an emotional thing before. It was a cognitive thing. It was it was the emotional and, and the feeling of it that there was something that that shifted so deep that had no words, that shifted how I was thinking. So the, the story I have about the realization because that’s really all that is is there was the internal shift first, which then led to the cognitive because no coach sat there and told me the way it was it was all a good coach will lead you through on a path to self-discovery if they’re in the transformational space.

Mike Bledsoe: And so most of what the the really impactful stuff was much more somatic in nature and way less cognitive. The cognitive followed the somatic. And so it I think for I personally am very good at integrating those experiences better than most people. I’ve actually had to learn. Like most people can’t just have that shift and then put it into practice because.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, that’s, that’s me. I’m like logical. Like if you go to, if you try to emotionally motivate me, I’m like, Yeah, but why give me a five page essay on like why I should do this? You know, like, like emotion doesn’t sway me at all. So, you know, so how do I put emotion is how you change ultimately like that?

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, well, you’re unaware you’re unaware of the. I’ll just, you know, come at you with a chocolate out or an invitation and like, like people, the people who are incredibly cognitive and I’m a very cognitive guy. I mean, if you, if you’re listening to me talk, you can tell I’ve thought about things. And so I come from a where the cognitive is there was a belief that being more important.

Mike Bledsoe: And so I really over develop that area. But the people who are most cognitive are usually the most controlled by their emotions because they’re they’re so in the cognitive space, they’re so in they’re had they’re unaware of what’s happening in the body and don’t realize that thoughts and emotions co rise. And if you’re unfamiliar with one of these landscapes, it’s going to dictate what’s happening in the other.

Mike Bledsoe: These are, these are all working together all the time. And so I have witnessed incredibly intellectual people who are some of the smartest people I know get completely emotionally controlled by other people, narratives, all these types of things because they there’s something emotional and comes up, but then it blocks them from even being able to consider certain information.

Mike Bledsoe: So does that make sense?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I guess. I mean, what I’m thinking of and I don’t know if this is the same thing that you’re saying, but people who are overly logical are using logic. Are they using logic to protect themselves from their emotions in a way.

Mike Bledsoe: That’s part of it. But also they’re actually not as logical as they think they are because they are memory is stored in the body and is access through emotion. And if you are limited on your emotional expression, then you’re actually limiting the intellectual expression because you don’t.

Dean Pohlman: So we think we’re being logical. So we think we’re doing logical, but really we are using logic to justify whatever emotion is or whatever lack of emotion is is happening or range of emotions that is available.

Mike Bledsoe: But your people are hyper, they’re very logical, but they’re logical with limited data because so much of the data is in the emotion. So you don’t have act. It’s like it’s like, here, solve this problem. Use your logic. By the way, you only get half the equation and you’ll be okay. It may feel very satisfying. You really feel like you got there, but you don’t.

Mike Bledsoe: But you don’t even know that you only have half. I only gave you half the numbers. So you’re going to give me an answer. It’s going to feel right, But it’s. It’s not everything.

Dean Pohlman: Okay, Got it. So we brought this up to talk about your strategies for integrating beliefs. Mm hmm.

Dean Pohlman: Did we answer that? I don’t know the answer that.

Mike Bledsoe: Integrating my beliefs. Well, I. I try not to believe anything to be. To be honest. It’s like there’s belief is like faith in something that you can’t prove. There’s just. I really try to focus on what is it I know. And then really there’s information. There’s that like when I say I believe them, I don’t believe them to be true.

Mike Bledsoe: But I I’ll, I try to come from a place of like there’s there’s a lot of evidence to suggest this might be true, but I’m not going to stake a lot on that. I’m only going to I try to operate operate only from what I know. And there’s still a lot of subconscious beliefs that I’m unaware of that are running in the background.

Mike Bledsoe: But usually in order to find these beliefs that are running around the background and wreaking havoc, my process is getting a third party involved. So having a coach come in and help me dismantle them. So I’m working with a coach now and the questions that she asked me is like, Holy shit, there’s this. I go back and listen to the recording.

Mike Bledsoe: I go, Oh, there’s a she pointed out a very subconscious belief. So like the the beliefs, if you were to say, what are the beliefs that you think true right now consciously, I’m not going to be able to find them because I’m over here. And so there’s a bit a when I find a belief that’s not serving me and I, I go, Wow, I need to really explore this to see if this is true or not.

Mike Bledsoe: A lot of it’s somatic experiencing. There’s things to be done that, you know, it’s a mixture of like Qigong mantras, somatic release, where you’re actually going deep into the emotion of that belief. It’s hard to describe all the techniques because some of them are either take 60 to 90 minutes of dialog and meditation and visualization, or it or there’s like a physical expression that needs to happen.

Dean Pohlman: What would this practice be like? What’s the name for this practice? We’re like, if we wanted to learn more about it, like, what would we look up?

Mike Bledsoe: What I put together is I call it the sovereignty codes. So there I just took all the practices I picked up over the last decade and I pumped them into a 90 day program and you can check it out. It’s sovereignty codes. And yeah, I mean, I’ve worked with a lot different people. I worked with different coaches. Like what I put together is something that says, okay, let’s look at what’s happening cycle emotionally.

Mike Bledsoe: Let’s looking at let’s look at what’s happening physically. Let’s look at what’s happening in relationships and what’s happening in your environment and how do we very systematically and methodically and in small, digestible steps, make a shift in each one where we’re working in a spiral, where we’re slowly spiraling and speeding up the evolution of where we want to be and it’s it’s harder.

Mike Bledsoe: It’s hard to say, oh, there’s this one method or whatever. But yeah, and that’s why it’s it’s like every single day is different for 90 days. There’s a lot there, but we do it in small bits.

Dean Pohlman: Okay, cool. All right. I’m excited, but trepidation as well. It sounds awesome. All right. I am. I’m just I’m going back to my notes and I think I think I think I’m ready to move on to part two and give you my you know, give me my rapid fire questions. I think we went through I think we went through a ton of information and that that that first part you know, the first part and that’s 80 minutes and yeah, that’s that’s part one of but there’s a lot in there I think a lot that’s really helpful for people.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. All right. So part two, my rapid fire questions. What do you think is one, habits, a belief or a mindset that has helped you the most in terms of your overall happiness?

Mike Bledsoe: Um, I, I don’t touch my phone the first 2 hours of the day, so no electronics. The first 2 hours of the day. I get in a little bit of movement. I have a journaling, I have a journal that’s just there for my morning journaling. Mm hmm. I study, like, right now I study something that I want to get better at.

Mike Bledsoe: So right now it’s Spanish. And so there’s all these things before I check email, before I check social media, before I touch anything. First 2 hours of the day is, mine. And then a lot of times that even bleeds into I don’t touch it for three or 4 hours because now I want to crack open my laptop and work on some creative project for a couple of hours while I’m still in the zone.

Mike Bledsoe: Because I know that when I get into when I open up email or social media or see who texted me, it’s going to derail my agenda like what I want to accomplish.

Dean Pohlman: Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that’s a really good habit. Yeah, I think that’s like what everyone should do if they can’t do 2 hours at least, like some time.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: What is one thing that you do for your health that you think is overlooked or undervalued by others?

Mike Bledsoe: Ah, water quality. I drink, I drink spring water. So bring water. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know, tap. I don’t even really like reverse osmosis that much. I will drink it. But spring water, that’s, that’s what’s in my jar.

Dean Pohlman: From A from a glass bottle.

Mike Bledsoe: Or. Yeah I get it from bottles, I get, I get mine delivered from Mountain Mountain Valley, Arkansas. Oh yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Okay cool. What is the most important activity that you regularly do for your overall stress management?

Mike Bledsoe: Um, I I’ll name to one is I do 30 minutes of stream of consciousness journaling every day. And then the other thing I do is, I called Plunge 3 to 4 days a week. I get an ice bath between those two nights. I’m pretty Zen.

Dean Pohlman: I’m a cold puncher. I have my my backyard cold plunge thing. What do you what do you put the temperature up?

Mike Bledsoe: 34.

Dean Pohlman: 34. Oh, man, you’re hardcore. I’m like at 50 right now. I’m working my way down my. My toes get cold, man. I don’t. I don’t. I think I would. I’m more scared of, like, what would happen. Like, I think I could stay in bed, like I’m scared of what would happen, like, in the minutes following, Like I.

Mike Bledsoe: Your body will learn how to warm itself up really quick. Okay. I mean, I would start with like 30 seconds, then a minute work your way up. But I can be in there for three or four or 5 minutes and then within 5 minutes, you know, I just do a little bit of movement and I’m cooking.

Dean Pohlman: It’s impressive.

Mike Bledsoe: I yeah.

Dean Pohlman: I took notes on it and I wrote Stream of Cold Plunge instead of stream of consciousness.

Mike Bledsoe: So I like that.

Dean Pohlman: Yeah. Figure out that. Figure out what that is. What’s the most important activity that you regular. Oh, I really ask that. What’s the most stressful part of your day to day life?

Mike Bledsoe: Right now it’s it’s probably like joining my finances with my fiancee’s finances. We’re getting married and sometimes whole, like, you know what’s mine, What’s yours? It’s actually ours. Like just navigating these waters of because we both have our stuff, you know, we were 20 and we got together and we’re like, Oh, we both have nothing now. It’s like, Oh, you’ve got your investments.

Mike Bledsoe: I got investments, and that’s not what you do. And I’m like, The more time that goes on, it’s more of, you know, it’s just all of ours, You know, we can, we can do the, you know, put the right paperwork in place or whatever. But it’s just that, like, those conversations seem to be the most stressful right now.

Mike Bledsoe: And that’s something that’s almost daily at this point. But it’s progress. There’s progress happening. It’s not it’s not a stalemate or anything.

Dean Pohlman: It seems incredibly stressful. I can, you know, my wife and I argue about like I’m like, did you really need this $20 from Amazon? I can’t imagine, like actually having conversations about, you know, things more significant. So in my last big question here is what do you think is the biggest challenge facing men and their well-being right now?

Mike Bledsoe: Um, I think that the biggest challenge is it’s not popular to be a very masculine man right now and to really express your masculinity. Yeah, you know, era, if you’re cisgendered male, you’re, you’re the most unpopular person now. And I think that those of us that are need need to train other men to help teach other men to like not up.

Mike Bledsoe: I think there’s been a lot of a lot of without getting too into the weeds but there’s just been a lot of programing in our culture around being masculine man or something that’s not cool to be. And there’s definitely unhealthy expressions of masculinity that are a problem. But there’s unhealthy expressions of femininity too. So there’s just unhealthy there being human, like let’s be good people.

Mike Bledsoe: But I think that I’m I’m really engaged with and interested in helping men be solid men, their families, and setting a good example in society as well. Like what’s it mean to be healthy and successful?

Dean Pohlman: Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think that I think that the idea of toxic masculinity has put out like a lot of has like brought out a lot of, oh, this is like an unacceptable way behavior. We didn’t realize what this was doing. We didn’t really call attention to it. And now it’s good that we are bringing attention to some of these behaviors and saying, no, this is wrong.

Dean Pohlman: But when that has become a label for everything that you don’t like and say, oh, this is this is like this is toxic masculinity. Like, no, we can’t. We can’t we can’t just call everything toxic masculinity. If you don’t like it, like that’s, that’s, that’s yeah. You know where we’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. So I think that’s a, I think that’s, it’s a potentially unpopular thing to say, but like I think it’s like, I think it’s something that’s worth saying.

Dean Pohlman: So I’m glad you did.

Mike Bledsoe: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks.

Dean Pohlman: All right, cool. Well, I think that wraps up our conversation that was a really enlightening conversation. I have many more questions, but is weightlifting worth it. Like, that’s one thing I wrote down and then like, because I wanted to ask that is weightlifting worth it? What would you do differently? You know, knowing I mean, I.

Mike Bledsoe: Strength right now. I lift weights all three days a week. I hit it hard. Yeah.

Dean Pohlman: Okay.

Mike Bledsoe: I totally do. There’s nothing I love being strong. Kind of like going back to I had to take a break because didn’t know how to be strong without my insecurity driving it. Now I’m strong because I love myself. I love my body, I love myself, and I want to be capable. And so whether I, you know, I’m way less likely to get in any physical altercations these days than I ever had before.

Mike Bledsoe: But it’s good to know I can handle my shit, you know? Yeah. And when I have kids, I want to be able to show them what it’s like to be strong themselves. This is being strong is a good thing. It is good to be strong. Nothing bad can happen from being strong.

Dean Pohlman: Mm hmm. Yeah. Like all practical. Yeah. Practical reasons aside, like, being strong is probably the healthiest thing that you can can do for yourself. Physically. Having muscle is, like, the best thing. One of the best things you can do for yourself. So that. Really. All right, cool. Well, yeah. Thanks again for for joining me. I’m looking forward to our coffee together whenever that does happen.

Dean Pohlman: You being here at Austin and. Yeah. What’s what are some things you mentioned? Sorry code, but sorry codes. But what are what are some other things that ways that people can follow you and see what you’re doing.

Mike Bledsoe: You can check me out on Instagram. I’m on and off active their mic underscore Bledsoe and I have a podcast. I do it my buddy Max every week you can find it at. If you just do a search on Spotify for the Bledsoe show. So just my last name show, we dig into some philosophical stuff every week and yeah, if you want more of that, I got a newsletter around somewhere you can.

Mike Bledsoe: If you stumble around my Instagram and check out bios and stuff, you probably bump into my newsletter. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t make things incredibly easy to find.

Dean Pohlman: So I’m exclusive. I don’t want people to find me.

Mike Bledsoe: I’m not the best for, you know, bottom line. But I do end up having just the best clients ever.

Dean Pohlman: So that’s that’s good. That’s fewer headaches for sure. For sure. Cool. Well, thank you again, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope it inspires you to be a better man and look forward to seeing you on another episode soon. Thanks again, Mike.

Mike Bledsoe: Thanks, Dean.