00:00:00.15 nextlevelguypodcast is there's no worries if you need to go to the toilet no bother if you need to redo an answer if you want to say for fuck's sake get to the point go for it you're the star i'm just the serial killer guy looking guy you know that's asking questions um have you got long today or what's the 00:00:17.24 Sam I got time. I'm good for an hour at least or or whatever. Yeah. If we go over, it's fun. 00:00:20.50 nextlevelguypodcast perfect Well, if you give me a shout as you're coming to your limit, and then the last two is always, what do you want people to take from this and how can we keep in touch? 00:00:21.52 Sam Yes. and 00:00:28.95 nextlevelguypodcast And, um, you can promote products, redo answers, take stuff out a year down the line. 00:00:30.12 Sam Well, 00:00:33.84 Sam that's the thing is I'm not promoting any products and I have nothing, nothing to promote. So I'm good at that. 00:00:38.65 nextlevelguypodcast yeah or Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. You have no idea how much of an honor this is. You've been on my bucket list guests for a long time now. But for those who don't recognize the star that is before me, how would you introduce yourself? 00:00:48.79 Sam That's amazing. 00:00:54.25 Sam Uh, I'm a writer, you know, that's, that's what I am. Um, you know, and, and, uh, if you want to know more, i have a book you can read or several, uh, yeah, I always, uh, I buckle a little bit. Uh, I'm good on paper. Like I look good on paper. Um, but I don't, uh, I don't have a lot of, uh, 00:01:14.94 Sam you know, patter about, you know, my backstory. I don't have it all. um But I'm just a writer. You know, I've been doing it for for a long time. i used to write nonfiction books and it was great to me. I had a great journey with with with martial arts and fighting and and then survival stuff. And and then I met my wife and I came to to Los Angeles and I like to joke it's like a coal mining town. Like you end up in the coal business like you just end up in the in the Hollywood business of It's like your dentist is like, hey, I got a script. You know, you're like, sure, man, I'll read your script. du That's cool. You know, send it over. And so I got and i got into a street screenwriting and TV writing. And the book business really changed in those. So I wrote for 15 years or so. And the book business really kind of changed on me. And I didn't, again, and also, you know, I wrote as good a book as I could write. 00:02:11.00 Sam And it didn't sell that well. so So for me, transitioning into TV and film was sort of a natural thing to do. And the money's a lot better. It's a weird, it's a whole weird, we can go down that rabbit hole, but it's um it is what it is. So anyway, yeah, I'm just a writer. um'm I'm really interested in the world. 00:02:31.38 Sam And i I love what I do. So there you go. 00:02:34.94 nextlevelguypodcast Because I was always keen have you on, not so much just because everybody talks about the fighting aspect of it and you know the the amazingly cool stuff you did, but I was always intrigued by how you didn't do but like hardship because it was noble. You did it like because it let you find the truth about yourself and about the world. You said there you know you had an interest in in the world. Did you see it like that, or is only when you've written your books you've kind of reflected? 00:03:01.90 Sam A little bit of both, i guess. You know, I think i think the interesting the interesting thing about writing a book is you take the money and you got to write the book. Like, it's like, because I spent it, you know, they gave me money and they're like... 00:03:13.59 Sam You got to write a book about it. You got to be about your set. You know, it's like you got to confess like you have to, you know, think it was Philip Ross said discretion is not for the writer. You know, you got to talk about yourself. You've got to get honest and and and dig into your own character and dig into your own, you know, your own path, your own arcs. 00:03:31.77 Sam um The short version is I think I i always was a little bit of like, you know i I don't like being afraid of things. And then I, so I think that the way to not be afraid of them is to do them. You know what i mean? Is to let go and sort of you know do it enough that it the the the the mystique of it fades, the fear of it fades away. 00:03:54.81 Sam you know Whether it was you know talking to girls or or or getting in a ring or whatever, you know there was there was always that, that vibe. And I think, um, the bigger version, actually there's you know, so when I was, think it was, it was after first book, it was in about 2004. Um, I got a tattoo that, that says the world is made of fire and it says other things, but it says the world is made of fire, which is a quote from a Mark Halpern book. Um, 00:04:27.96 Sam And basically the idea was, you you realize like you think you're being, you think you're protecting yourself by not taking risks and you're actually really risking everything. 00:04:34.91 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:04:39.87 Sam You're really risking, you know, you're overprotecting yourself is is a huge mistake and is corrosive and will make you, you'll end up hating your life. You know, you'll end up hating what what happened and... um So that was kind of my my take on it. um it's It's interesting because you're coming to me now. It's like, you know, I'm 51 what that's about has changed and what, you know, the risks I take and and those things, it's all changed. But anyway, i don't know if that answers that question, but little rambling. Yeah. 00:05:10.07 nextlevelguypodcast I know, because there seems to be this sort core theme through your books that, you know, like comfort gives opinions, but it doesn't ever give you the real understanding. You know, like you have give the experience to truly understand something. And the voluntary hardship, you know, strips away the illusion of what we think we are in the world. 00:05:28.63 nextlevelguypodcast Would you agree with that? Or is that just a bit kind of like, that's great for the book sales, but... 00:05:30.46 Sam Absolutely. No, no, absolutely. No, I think understanding is, you know, I think you're, you know, I'm an atheist, but I think you have a God given duty to try to understand the world, right? Like you're here for a reason to try to understand the world and you can't understand it unless you've done it, right? There's just no understanding. Right. 00:05:49.82 Sam you know, I listen, you know, watch sports and you hear commentators you're like, yeah, whatever. But when it's an ex athlete, you know, when it's the guy who did it, you're like, Oh, I'm interested in what this guy has to say. Even if he's not that well-spoken, I'm much more interested in what that person has to say about what's happening out there. 00:06:07.16 Sam So I think you just, you know, just trying to understand the world leads you down this path of, of doing, of, of getting into it, trying to do it. Um, And, you know, there's a, you know, it's like, there's also a you know, there's a little bit of, you know, there's a masochistic quality to some of it, which is, you know, why do you bang your head against the wall? Well, it feels great when I stop, right? You know, it feels amazing when I stop. So I love, you know, going camping and suffering because I like, you lose, you know, how great your shower is. Your shower's fucking awesome. But like you get, you know, you you obviously you do it every day. You don't care about it. But if you haven't done in a week, 00:06:45.14 Sam you know, it sort of recharges, you know, lets you look at these kind of blessings you have in a new way. 00:06:51.65 nextlevelguypodcast And do you think, is that like a big problem with today's society? 00:06:51.79 Sam There's both those. 00:06:55.54 nextlevelguypodcast We've become so, you know, you can order a date online, you can get a car to your door you can order food to your door. You never actually need to interact or really push and challenge yourselves. 00:07:07.26 Sam I mean, it's I think, listen, it's I get very wary of anybody who says the problem with today's society is X because you know, isn't like the oldest written words or like kids these days is like on Hammurabi's like, you know, pillars carved in stone. 00:07:24.41 Sam It's like, you know, Homer said men are shadows of what they were. 00:07:25.37 nextlevelguypodcast the complaint. 00:07:28.85 Sam Homer was like, men are today are pussies. You know what I mean? And like, so there's there's a kind of commonality of like, you know, when you were a kid, you thought men were tough and now you now you're a man, you realize they're all kind of hiding it or whatever. 00:07:43.99 Sam But I will say, yeah, no, I think you know even just living on the West Coast, you know, live in California and it's beautiful every day and everybody's in their car and you never are hungry or cold or tired, whereas at least you have to walk in the rain. Like you're in, you know, you have to go out and walk in the rain and like there's a little bit of adversity there and and here you don't have anything. 00:08:04.44 nextlevelguypodcast And do you think that's a problem with like today? i mean, people use like the masculinity problem, the loneliness, epi you know, they use these terms to try to justify behavior. Whereas is a lot of times we have no rites of passage and, you know, people lure towards like Andrew Tate for they want to blame somebody rather than just go, i can fix this because it's my own path. 00:08:27.29 Sam Yeah, no, definitely. I think, you know, this is something I used to be much more involved in. So my, my answers aren't as good as they used to be, but when I was doing these podcasts years ago, but, um, No, absolutely. Like the rite of passage, like you're saying, I think like what is a man is particularly in Western culture, you know, is is, is, is ever changing, right? It's always needs to be proved. You're never done. You're never there. Right. And it's also like, is it voting age? Is it drinking age? Is it, you know, you can get a car, you know, is it your, your father dies? What is the kind of marker of, of manhood? 00:09:01.37 Sam And certainly in in America and i probably probably in England as well, in Scotland is like this kind of, you know, you need to keep proving it, right? It's never proved. It's never settled that you're manhood. And that's that's part of the problem. Whereas in you know, some older cultures, you would, you would pass the rights of initiation. You would get the secret information and you're a man and you're good. Like you, you kind of know, okay, at least I'm a man at least whatever else happens that's done. 00:09:30.81 Sam So yeah, that's part of it. I mean, I think there's a lot of huge, you know, things about technology that are definitely fucking us up in terms of the loneliness epidemic. 00:09:43.11 Sam But it's hard to say, you know, that's a whole, you know, we can get lost in the weeds on that for sure. 00:09:47.41 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, those are podcasts on their own. And I think we're always going to have that of rather than just say to young guys, go and get involved and do things. 00:09:50.63 Sam Yeah. 00:09:55.59 nextlevelguypodcast We're going to say, oh, it's this, it's that. it's Here's a reason to blame. But if we look back and we you know we break before all the books, before Hollywood, before fatherhood, you know before the fighting, et cetera, who would you say Sam was? 00:10:09.86 nextlevelguypodcast who Like before you went on this voyage, 00:10:13.66 Sam I was a kid, I mean, I was just a nerd. I like loved reading. i was ah i was a kid who was made fun of for always having a book in his hand, you know, because I grew up without, actually without a television. My parents were you know were teachers and they got rid of it. 00:10:28.45 Sam So I read, you know, like I was breathing, you know, i sort of always, you know, at the dinner table or whatever. And I was writing early. You know, i started writing like terrible plagiarism as a little kid, you know, like The Hobbit Part Two or whatever, you know, you would always because you want to go back to these worlds, right? You want to go back and live. This is why there's endless sequels or or, you know, knockoffs of Harry Potter or or The Hobbit or whatever is because people miss that and want to stay in that world and want those characters back. 00:11:02.78 Sam Um, yeah, that's, I mean, I was just a fucking nerd. And then, you know, you, you, you also like, I think you, you want to be Conan, right? You want to be the hero. You want to be the, the, the bad, act you want to be Bruce Lee. You want to be a ninja. You know, it's like, you want to be a killer and a, and a tough guy and and a bad-ass. And so, 00:11:23.51 Sam you know, I had a rich fantasy life and I decided I needed to learn, you know, when I, I mean, I'll just say this, like then I, I, I had dabbled in martial arts, you know, as a kid and done a lot of karate and things like that. 00:11:35.00 Sam A lot of them, what they call, you know pajama party stuff. This is in the nineties or a lot of tatas and whatever. 00:11:40.11 nextlevelguypodcast card'toon sweaty man Yeah, 00:11:44.33 Sam And, um, and then I started boxing, you know, in, in college and, uh, I did love it. I mean, just loved it. It was so fun. Like, cause it was like, you get all the charge, you get all the charge of somebody's trying to kill you, you know? And then this guy's trying to kill me. 00:12:01.98 Sam And then like, you know, it doesn't hurt that much. It hurts a little, but it's not like that big a deal and you don't die. So that's what kind of sent me on my, my whole fighting journey. 00:12:12.06 nextlevelguypodcast i was that, mean, what had to break in you to get to that point, you think? 00:12:12.18 Sam Um, 00:12:16.58 nextlevelguypodcast Was it that suddenly you come out the books and then you realize somebody says, right, you're on your own now. You've got go and live and do these things by yourself. And we the fear of not the unknown, because i I'm still like, what the hell am I doing in my 40s? 00:12:29.74 nextlevelguypodcast You know, I'm still like, I have no ah clue. What broke in you at that point? 00:12:33.18 Sam You know, i started i started young. I think I started young going and doing stupid shit. Like, I think I think i wanted to live a life like ah that I read about. Like, you know, one of these guys you know that I was reading about. So I went into the Merchant Marine after high school. 00:12:50.01 Sam um And I, just for a year, because I already gotten into college. but i So I knew I had a safety valve, right? It wasn't like, oh, just rolling the dice. Like, when I went, you know, at 17 and... 00:13:00.95 Sam I took, you know, like there was an unmanned train station. I mean, it's like a Norman Rockwell painting. Like I you know was in the middle of the night I had my duffel and I like the train stops and I climb on and it's like going off to the merchant marine mom. Like, you know, nobody was there and my parents didn't come or whatever to see me off. 00:13:15.84 Sam But so I was kind of doing independent stuff. fairly young and and even you know younger than that, I was doing stuff. But, and my by the way, my son hilariously has like, he just cannot listen to me and is so independent. 00:13:29.64 Sam Like he just takes off all the time. Like he's ready to be on his own. It's like, I see it, man. 00:13:35.16 nextlevelguypodcast s so It's almost like he read certain books, you know, the... 00:13:35.58 Sam i can media He did read one of them. He read one of them at least, I think. I don't know. It's always weird. You're like, what did I say in there? Like, did I i talk about drugs in there? I'm like, oh shit. Like, what did I i confess to? 00:13:50.73 nextlevelguypodcast I do love the books because like in there you know you talk about like how you know you you take... You're not up in the clouds with the the guys you write about. you're taught you know You get them to talk about the the basic stuff. When you went to Thailand and coming in and nobody would really speak at the start because you were a foreigner and they thought foreigners didn't last. or You were talking about how... um like closed guard was like the missionary position, all the things that like people who are in those kind of worlds understand the hardships and you know the the real struggles. But you ended up going to Harvard. 00:14:26.04 nextlevelguypodcast You had the ah opportunity to live a lively life, you know and intellectually successful, comfortable, no struggles at all. And then you left. What was it in your head at that point? 00:14:37.95 Sam Well, I mean, again, so I went to Harvard, but I wasn't like a super wealthy kid. I wasn't like my parents were teachers. So it wasn't like there was like, you know, a trust fund that was going to take care of me or whatever. But, um but yeah, I mean, even but Harvard, I was like lucky to get through there. Right. I was, i mean, in terms of, I was painting, I was a, I was a painting major. 00:14:59.53 Sam I did three years and I did a year at the Slade School in London. ah you know, where I was just painting and just doing doing stuff. 00:15:10.74 Sam Yeah, I mean, i really wonder how much, you know, how much choice you actually have in your life. You know, sometimes you think, you know, really, what what what could you have done differently? 00:15:22.26 Sam i mean, I think I would have lost my fucking mind if I had tried to do, be a lawyer or whatever, you know, and or do, mean, even now in this in this business, like, you know, I'm in the the TV and film business and, 00:15:22.48 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:15:34.01 Sam you like negotiate hard for a contract. you're Like, yeah, I got paid. And you're like, man, if we were investment bankers, we would be fucking la like, that's not, that's not even my bonus. You know what I mean? You'd be just killing it. So, but I couldn't have done it. I don't think, I don't think I would have lasted. I mean, I went, I had, I had a a season where I tried to have a regular job in Boston and I was, uh, temping and, you know going to office. ah ah I was going to a law office with a coat and tie on and, um, 00:16:03.86 Sam you know i was I ran away to South Africa or something or got on a boat. you know i just i was i cracked up. 00:16:08.98 nextlevelguypodcast As you do. i mean, do you think that's a big part of this is that when we look at the books, when we look at Hollywood, it doesn't always give like an authentic kind of storytelling. You know, it's always like the hero's journey, that Campbell's hero journey, like led up to the extreme, up to 11. Whereas when suddenly we realize that life isn't like this, that we are not the hero in our own story as much. 00:16:37.53 Sam Yeah, maybe. I mean, I don't know. I think that's a big one. I mean, because again, I'm involved in screenwriting now and I think part of what you're doing is you're trying to work meaning into things that often don't get meaning. I mean, I think a lot of places Hollywood fails is that's a whole, we could talk for 10 million years. 00:17:01.11 Sam I could talk your ear off. But yeah, but There is something real about a character arc, which, which and even if it's not... um instantly accessible to you. It's like, yeah so so when I wrote the first book, I kind of had to find an arc for myself. And it's, some of it's, you know, it's it's sort of like, was it really like that? Well, yeah, but it is, you also have to kind of clarify an idea, right? Or else the book isn't that interesting, right? You have to kind of clarify. And there was an idea which was like, okay, i went to Thailand and the best fighters in the camp were the best Buddhists, right? Were the chillest guys. 00:17:41.08 Sam And why was that? Right. So like that kind of question is, like why were these guys who were so chill and the guys who were dicks and were had tons of ego were like the third tier guys or even maybe the second tier guys, but definitely not the top tier guys were were were super, super calm and super good Buddhist and um and nice to be around. 00:17:51.10 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:18:03.48 Sam So, yeah, I mean, I think there's like interesting truths that that you, just in terms of what storytelling now, like which is what you try to reflect in in a screenplay or a TV show or whatever. You try to find a truth and an anchor to character. And that's why, you know, you kind of get this over and over again, repeated hero's journey stuff. 00:18:23.54 Sam um Yeah, I mean, it's and it is not real. I mean, again, like I adapted this woman's book once, um, And I had to kind of turn her life into ah few weeks, you know what and I mean? Because this is you can't make, know, you have to make choices in terms of what you're gonna show on screen and what you're gonna do. And you kind of have to look for, okay, the essential truth of her life, which was she found out she was incredibly damaged and came from the worst thing you could imagine. Like she came out of incest and she came out of like, you know, murder, her her her father, or maybe. 00:19:02.14 Sam And then she found a way to be okay with it. Right. And that was her lifetime journey. But I kind of had to boil it into, okay like we're going to tell this in like, you know, a couple of months or whatever, you know I mean? 00:19:13.40 Sam So again, I'm running all over the place, but um it's a mixed bag, man. I mean, it's a mixed bag. What the, what the kind of character arc stuff is all about and and how it, how it applies to real life. I mean, there is, there is value in it. 00:19:26.64 Sam Um, But of course, yeah, life's messy, man. Life doesn't, i mean, you never see bat Batman go to the bathroom, right? Like they don't tell that part of the story, you know? 00:19:34.36 nextlevelguypodcast Ah, well, they don't give him a zipper, do they? You know, that's possibly a pet hate of every superhero at the minute. 00:19:39.70 Sam know yeah Well, the whole fucking thing's gotta come off, yeah. 00:19:43.45 nextlevelguypodcast So do you think, like, your central theme that you've kind of discovered through books were like that, the voluntary hardship, it builds capability in life. Capability builds identity, and identity changes your life. So you have to go on these voyages to find it. 00:19:58.78 nextlevelguypodcast Like, what does somebody lose if they don't go down and pick voluntary hardship and they've always taken the easy road out in life? 00:20:07.09 Sam Well, I think you're just, yeah, your're you're risk, you're not necessarily gonna lose everything, but you're risking it. you know I think you're risking your your sanity and your kind of, let's just say this meaning, right? 00:20:19.62 Sam Like meaning is, is you know there's I always talk about like, you know, policemen or or guys in the army or, you know I know a lot of guys who, special forces guys or whatever, they don't get paid a lot of money. 00:20:32.31 Sam There's no money in it, but there' they get paid in meaning, right? Like they're here, 00:20:34.77 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:20:37.56 Sam saving the world, right? They're keeping terrorists away or they're catching bad guys or, you know, if you're paramedic, you know, you don't get a lot of money and the hours suck, but you get paid. and You're saving lives like every day, right? 00:20:49.18 Sam So I think the risk you run and and I think this is important for for everyone. It's purpose and meaning, right? It's having something that you can believe in. um and justifies. I mean, that's why like, yeah, I bankers, you know, lawyers, whatever, like you're like, OK, I'm here for the money. Right. And that's that you're you're putting meaning there. 00:21:08.79 Sam And I think that ends up. It can be OK if you find other great places for meaning in your family and whatever your hobbies and your life. 00:21:16.71 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:21:17.79 Sam But um it can be corrosive, right? Because you can get just mean, you see it in these billionaires, right? These guys are all 00:21:25.77 Sam the process is warping them right in terms of it's turning. know Nobody ever tells them no. nobody They never hear and know they hear they're their genius. It's real corrosive to anybody you know to hear you're a genius every day, like nobody can handle that. You see it with I used to see it with fighters, you know like they have 50 yes guys around them. They all end up off their rocker. 00:21:46.87 Sam And you see it with all these billionaires, right? They sort of I mean, the they say the dumbest shit and you're like, what? How the fuck did you end up there? And it's like, well, he's been hearing how smart he is for the last 20 years. Nobody tells him and he, the world's rewarded him. And so that's what I'm, I think the danger is like, you know, when you don't have respect, when you don't have self-respect, 00:22:11.17 Sam And when you don't have meaning in your life, you're just, yeah, I think there's a huge amount of downstream problems and you can find it in lots of ways, right? Like there's a million ways to find meaning and there's a million ways to to do it in a super healthy way. 00:22:25.43 Sam Look, we're getting really self-help here. We're getting into it, but like, there's a lot of ways, know what I mean? 00:22:29.54 nextlevelguypodcast I mean, 00:22:30.84 Sam Like what's your purpose, right? Like find a good one, right? 00:22:34.49 nextlevelguypodcast But did you find that at the start, so like that, the flip side was that you were suddenly the the example that everybody looked to for a guy doing these voluntary hardships? Because I found that when I was listening to lot of interviews you did, it was almost like the host was was fighting you to kind of prove themselves, to prove they're tough and they've done cooler things. And did you find that at all? that it Like, what was what did the decisions cost you to go this route compared to the safer, 00:23:04.63 nextlevelguypodcast you know, go get a job and 2.4 kids. 00:23:07.83 Sam I don't think there it was, yeah, I don't know. i mean i I'm not going to say it was just in me. Cause I think that is a cop out. I mean, you can say it and it's fine. And for certain people, you know, who don't think critically, whatever it's like, that's what, that's what they say. 00:23:24.28 Sam Um, I mean, it is funny, you know, once you get into the fighting game at all, right? Everybody has a fighting story, like the amount of guys, every guy I meet has like, oh, I saw Tyson or oh, i you know, this boxing or my dad used to do this. 00:23:38.33 Sam And was funny because I have a friend who wrote a book about firearms and like classic fire. 00:23:38.75 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:23:43.56 Sam And he's like, man, i cannot get away from like anybody. oh I got this old gun. I got my dad had this, you know, so it's it's just that's men in general. there's a hilarious old boxing writer who was like, he takes his buddy to the fights for the first time. 00:24:01.27 Sam And his buddy's like, am I going to like it as well? You know? And then by round two, his buddy is screaming advice. Like everybody knows what the fighter should be doing. Right. It's like, you hit him with the thing. And you're like, nobody, nobody really knows. 00:24:13.85 Sam But, um, yeah. 00:24:16.25 nextlevelguypodcast It's like the saying into everybody's got a plan until they're hit in the face, and then it quickly goes out the window. 00:24:17.28 Sam Yeah. 00:24:21.98 Sam Or they say, what do they say? You're a black belt. And like, no okay, now you're a brown belt. And now you're blue. No, it's like every, you know, you stop thinking. um 00:24:32.12 Sam Yeah. I mean, again, I'm ah sorry. I've sort of lost it where you were going, but i in terms of me and what i was looking for or and risk. 00:24:44.95 Sam Yeah. You know what? I think it, I think it just was, i actually think it was probably almost accidental. which was i did some semi hard things as as a young young person and i enjoyed them enough. um Like I went on this this Noles camping trip to the Wind river Range in Wyoming, which is a sort of a famous like hardcore camping trip. And I was like 15 and everybody else was like 18 or 20. And I had a fucking blast. And it was, you know, i lost like 20 pounds and 00:25:17.37 Sam you know, my football coach, I came back and was like, what did you do? Because I was playing high school football. They're like, you need to eat. But. You know, you realize you you also have moments of beauty that you can't get another way. You know, you you couldn't have gotten here, right? Like there's a sunrise on a mountainside and you're 40 miles from a trailhead. 00:25:39.26 Sam Or, you know, i used to be a sailor. I was a professional sailor for years and I i would I worked on boats and and I was you'd end up. you know, you're, you have the night watch and you're watching dawn, and you're in the middle of the Pacific, you're 2000 miles in the, you know, from any land. 00:25:55.45 Sam And you're like, yeah, but you couldn't get here if you didn't, if all that shit, like all the decks I scrubbed and all the, you know, kind of horrible, you know, chemicals I was dealing with to clean rust, you wouldn't get, you yeah you got to do it to get here. Right. So I think appreciating those moments and, and, uh, 00:26:13.11 Sam And finding that beauty is probably something that happened to me early on. um But i think it's true. You know, I think i had a great time. had a blast. So it worked for me. 00:26:26.68 nextlevelguypodcast Because each chapter of your books are like a podcast on their own. But you know as soon as you say to somebody, have a read of that, the first thing they do is, right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go way out there and throw like go live in my car and drive up to like the Serengeta or what you know all these kind of things. 00:26:43.45 nextlevelguypodcast How do people distinguish between meaningful hardship from pointless suffering? But how do we actually avoid actually going into danger just for the sake of trying to bring hardship into our life? 00:26:56.47 Sam Yeah, totally. No, that's a good question. I mean, I think, um, I mean, the short answer is like, you got to write about it, right? You got to think about it. You got to kind of do bring some, bring some intention, ah intentionality to it. Bring some, what is it? Thoreau says that that unexamined life is not worth living or somebody said that, but like examine it, examine why you're doing it. And if you bring, you know, you bring a lens onto it, um, 00:27:22.30 Sam now it's worthwhile and it has meaning to it, right? Because like you're looking at your own, say your own struggles with depression or whatever, like now there's a bigger picture here and you found meaning. 00:27:32.79 Sam The luckiest thing that ever happened to me really? no there's a couple of things. when the Meeting my wife was the luckiest thing, but I, you know, I, mean 00:27:40.12 nextlevelguypodcast You're smart man saying that. 00:27:45.14 Sam it's true, but I met a guy who who helped me get published, you know? So I was, cause I was living, you know, I was, 30 or 29 or something and I was living on boats and I'd worked in Antarctica and I was fighting. 00:27:59.93 Sam I'd been a hotshot, like a wildland firefighter. And I was, you know, that's a very seasonal drifter kind of live in your car, you know, life. But I met a guy who kind of helped me tell a story and I was like, oh, you know, and it did, it really gave, first of all, just everybody relaxes, right? Like your parents, like, are like oh, he's a writer. Like, it's okay. He's not a, 00:28:23.74 Sam sketchy, semi homeless dude living in his friend's garage. He's a writer. It's fine. Like, you know, girls, you mean him like, oh, he's a writer. It's OK. He's not somebody that I can't go out with or whatever. But um 00:28:36.86 Sam Yeah, I guess that's that's probably it is just finding finding a reason is and it doesn't have to be the same as mine. Of course, there's a million ways and it's like people write. 00:28:47.61 Sam i used to get a lot of a lot of guys who like I want to go do MMA and write about it, you know, ah or do live in Thailand and write about it. And I was like, yeah, man, it's a big tent, dude. You know, like by all means, like have a great time. Like it's you're going to learn a lot. 00:29:03.10 Sam about yourself. I mean, one of my pat answers was, which is is also true, is that like fighting is about identity, right? Which is, you know, I'm going to lie to you. I'm going to try to deceive you, but I better know who I am. I better know what I'm what kind of fighter I am, right? Like Am I am I like, do I have a great hit? No, like, can I do have awesome defense? Like, no, you're a you're a guy, white guy with good endurance and reach like, you know, you're going to fight like we're right. You're going fight a certain way and you're going to. 00:29:35.90 Sam You know, we're going to we're going find out if I'm stronger than you or if I'm in better shape than you. So like, I might say I'm going to bully you. I'm going to get you in there. I'll bully him. It's like, well, we'll see. um So anyway, that's what that's what I think fighting is also. And by the way, Jiu Jitsu is amazing for that, right? It's like, I think Jiu Jitsu is, I had my son do it because I think it's anti-bullying, right? It's like you your your experience when you go in there is you get crushed by everyone, right? So you have to submit, you have to tap. 00:30:06.14 Sam And then eventually like, oh, a new guy comes in and now you can tap him. but you know you've just been getting crushed by everyone. So you're not a dick to the guy. You're like, hey man, it sucks. you know like Just just you know tap early and often and and we get through it. 00:30:17.89 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:30:18.62 Sam I think it's a not always, and there's plenty of assholes in jujitsu, but but um overall, I think it it kind of, you have to learn to submit, right? 00:30:28.74 Sam You have to learn to put your ego to the side. So I think it's valuable. 00:30:32.12 nextlevelguypodcast It's quite amazing, don't It's like you can be 20-odd stone, big brick shithouse, and the second you get tapped by the 150-pound girl who arm bars you like it's nine, and you're like, oh, your whole life just changes because you so you realize you're not this version of yourself who you thought. 00:30:50.65 nextlevelguypodcast But i mean, I did notice that in a lot of interviews, you know, you like referring to lot of books and, you know, you you kind of it helps your thinking and you've got a lot of quotes that you can sort of mention, etc. 00:30:52.90 Sam you 00:31:00.46 nextlevelguypodcast But you never seem satisfied about reading about it. You always seem to have to go and live it. Does this lead into this, the thing you were saying about identity and the experience of actually doing it as much as thinking it and reading it? 00:31:14.81 Sam Well, I think you you're going to understand it better. I mean, not obviously not everything can I go do anymore. I'm so i'm too old and like, you know, i' not going to be a fighter pilot, right? Like I got to read books about that. Like I tried to write a script about a fighter pilot. I got to read 50 books. 00:31:27.93 Sam I talked to a lot of guys and I try to put myself there and I try to think about it. But, you know obviously the best thing to do would be to really go do it. You know what I mean? 00:31:37.42 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:31:37.66 Sam And then you really, because I think, again, it goes back to fighting to me was that, that, that, that ah As a kid, you know, a little kid, you look at fighting and I think people look at it, how they look at sex before they've had sex, right? Which is like, it's mysterious, like something's goingnna happen, i don't know what, and there's a lot of anxiety and what's it gonna feel like? 00:32:00.70 Sam And then you do it and you're like, oh, right, okay. You know, it's not like a whole another universe opened up. It's like, yeah, you're still you, like you're still gonna make decisions in there. and You still gotta make moves and and think. 00:32:14.26 Sam And I don't know if I ever would have figured that out about fighting, or it was such a revelation to me about fighting by doing it. So I think you know learning that lesson, at least get as close as you can, right? Talk to as many people who have done it. 00:32:34.04 Sam you know i worked on ah work in in TV now, so I work on shows and and people will often, not want to talk to like, you know, like I had a friend do a police police show and I was like, oh, you're ride alongs, which means like you're going ride along in the backseat with detectives or or and you'll hear what they're talking about and kind of hang out with them for a couple weeks. 00:32:54.39 Sam And he was like, no, we're not doing that. Why? Why wouldn't you do that? Like what? But they don't want that like so they because they're doing a fantasy version of the whole thing. And I am trying to bring some I think it's just more interesting if it's the more the closer it gets to reality. To me, I think is the more authentic it feels and then the better story works, because. 00:33:16.41 Sam If you're buying that, this is a real cop, now you're the stakes are different, right? and Anyway, I'm going on a huge tangent there, but it just is this is my life now, which is me you know going. 00:33:27.54 Sam Hey, can we bring in a kidnapped for ransom guy? So KFR is like a, it's kidnapped for ransom. It's, it's, um, it's sort of like a mini industry and it's, you know, usually it's handled by insurance companies and whatever, but a lot of ex special forces guys do it. 00:33:44.63 Sam And we got this kidnapping plot line. I'm like, Hey, can we get a KFR guy in here just to talk to him? Like, how does this actually fucking work? And they're, okay, you know, and but we do it, you know, because I, they listen to me now, but yeah, it's a whole thing. Again, the closer you get, the better, the better, the better the whole thing works is all I'm going to say. 00:34:02.55 nextlevelguypodcast Do you think then that's why a lot of people don't want to do those things, like why actors pull away from that or why people can't hack jiu-jitsu, et cetera? Because they don't like being the beginner. They don't like being the the guy that's not the the star. they're not as They haven't got the confidence, the capabilities. So it's really hard for us to kind of say, okay, I need help. Can you show me how to do this? 00:34:26.97 nextlevelguypodcast It can't be the illusion I have in my head. 00:34:27.58 Sam Right. 00:34:30.49 Sam mean, some guys probably and so and some some people, i mean, I think it's always funny to get guys. I always joked that like women are pick up boxing a lot easier than men because men want to fucking murder the mitts and like hit shit really hard. And you're like, no, just get your feet right. Like get your feet moving the correct way. And like you can all of a sudden you're just look a lot. But like, you know, it's it's. 00:34:53.46 Sam You don't have that ego piece of it. So certainly some people, you know, get get get it all crossed up. And listen, I think there's you know, there's a billion reasons. I mean, I i don't roll anymore. You know, I mean, I know i probably should, but I don't and I haven't for years because I just kept getting hurt. 00:35:10.74 Sam had trouble kind of not going as hard as I could. You know, I would always like, let's roll light. And then, of course, like within, you know, 10 seconds, you're 00:35:21.50 nextlevelguypodcast oh yes it's like let's floor roll and that's almost like a full-on murder like oh 00:35:22.01 Sam fucking theyre trying to listen 00:35:27.07 Sam somebody goes for something and you're like what and you're like shit and then you're like oh now we're in it you know and it's and the same with sparring it's like you know it's far like yeah it's gonna last but uh yeah i mean i think it's it is mean why i'm there i wouldn't speculate why most people walk away from things i think Again, but I think you're risking it, right? Again, that goes back to that the world is made of fire. It's like if you're if you don't recognize that in some way, you really can just sort of... i mean, again, and just think about like... mean, I kill my... I'm like, God, if I'd only stuck with Jiu-Jitsu, I'd be so much better. 00:36:04.70 Sam It's like, yeah. So there you go You know what i mean? How many things do you... What regrets do you have? and And all that stuff. Try to work it through it. 00:36:12.28 nextlevelguypodcast But what characteristics did you notice? Because when you've interviewed and you've worked with a lot of like the greats, like Gable, Hoist, Gracie, all these kind of amazing people, but were there sure characteristics, and or philosophies? Because you've said before about being the the humble ones are the ones who go on to success. 00:36:34.14 nextlevelguypodcast Were there characteristics or personality traits that really stuck with you that ordering people could adopt? 00:36:42.30 Sam You know, that's that's a huge question. I think it's really interesting. I mean, so there's ah there's a saying that I wrote about once where a guy said, the right one is the right one, which means, you know, he was talking about dogs, but it's also true of boxing trainers because, you know, you put in two or four or five, six years with a guy and and he quits or hes you know he can't get there or he runs into his own limitations. And a lot of you know a lot of really talented athletes physically you know, don't have the the willingness to stick in and and there's a manic side to it. There's a there's You know, there's a downside to it, and it's by the way, it's not just humility. You also have to have ego, right? You have to have a ton of ego because you have to go when you're getting in there, you can't be have any doubt that you're the fucking shit. You're going to kill this guy. You know, like that's that's where your head has be. 00:37:36.18 Sam um But then you have to learn, right? You have to be able to, to like, we're talking about with jujitsu when you're, you have to have the beginner's mind. And i mean, I used to, whenever anybody would catch me in something, I would ask them to show me how, you know, what it was, you know, and they'd be flattered, but it was like, I want to see what they did. and I want to know, you know, particularly somebody who's like, you know, the idea somebody has a bread and butter move. It's like steal that shit, dude. You know, somebody got a great guillotine, like steal it. 00:38:04.99 Sam Um, 00:38:07.90 Sam So, yeah, I mean, the right one is the right one. It's really hard to know who the right balance of of what and what it's going to be. And there's something kind of unknowable about it just because the the the the training is such a long piece, right? It's like you have to commit for, you know, it's not just a year. It's it's years and years, 10 years your life to be successful at ah at a sport anyway. 00:38:35.32 Sam So yeah, I don't have a lot of help there, man. I'm sorry. 00:38:37.94 nextlevelguypodcast or 00:38:38.52 Sam Right. One is the right one. 00:38:39.00 nextlevelguypodcast kits Because that's what i I liked about your books is like they're not just about fighting for the sake of fighting. it's you know You're discovering yourself and other people and you know you're kind of explaining the hardships and their the life's journeys they're going through. But what did it teach you about fear? 00:38:57.17 nextlevelguypodcast Because you did the stuff in fighting that on other your other books that you were maybe not happy to do or that you're maybe scared to do. what did What did you learn about fear and 00:39:05.26 Sam Thank you. 00:39:09.09 nextlevelguypodcast approaching all aspects of something and not just the bits you're comfortable with. 00:39:15.73 Sam Well, it's interesting. So I wrote ah a survival book was, you know, the last one was more about fear because I you know you realize like fighting in a cage is you're not going to die. Right. Like, so there's a high level of fear, but you're not getting into condition black where you're where your brain is shutting off or you're having like serious cognitive issues because of the amount of adrenaline and norepinephrine running pumping in your system because your body is like you're going to die. 00:39:43.32 Sam So that was a really interesting journey with that book. But yeah, fear, I mean, again, it's, it's, it's, it's stuff, you know, already, which is the more you do it, the less fear there is, right? It's, it's, it's what, you know, from, from, from training any sport, right? It's like you have good repetitions, good repetitions in the bag. 00:40:04.21 Sam When you blindly go into the bag, which you'll do when, when you're under a lot of stress, you you'll get a good repetition out of it. And so, yeah, what they call stress inoculation, all that stuff. I mean, it doesn't always cross over. It's interesting. 00:40:20.41 Sam You know, there's guys who have a high, high stress tolerance and then you put them on a boat and they fucking lose their shit, right? Because they're like, we're going to die. 00:40:28.65 nextlevelguypodcast I suppose. 00:40:30.43 Sam We're not going to die. It's fine. It's just rough. You know, like water's coming in. Like we're actually in good shape here. But um so it doesn't always carry over. It can, it can be, it can be wildly different. And also, mean, fear is important, right? Fear saves your life. There was that story of a guy who was a army ranger and he went into the rapid somewhere and, uh, he was so stressed inoculated. He was like, I'm good. I'm good. And then he got, he drowned, you know? and So it's like he needed to be, is the fear actually let him down in that situation. Um, 00:41:02.68 Sam So yeah, fear is is is good. It's good for you. There's a lot of interesting stuff written about it. i mean, Gavin DeBecker wrote about the gift of fear, which is a you know kind of classic of the genre. 00:41:14.90 Sam Like, how do you distinguish fear from anxiety, right? Like, do you hate your job? And so you hate the city. And so you're afraid of the city or or is there something else happening? You know what I mean? 00:41:25.14 Sam And that those are interesting questions to get into. 00:41:25.14 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:41:27.66 Sam um Yeah, but I mean, i I think I was again drawn to it because I didn't like it, the feeling of fear. And so I would do things that I was afraid of. 00:41:39.03 Sam And I would do them until i wasn't scared of them. 00:41:42.24 nextlevelguypodcast I like that. I mean, because a big part of your books, you seem to invest in failure, invest in the fear, you know, like things like people couldn't handle the isolation of living on a boat for so long. 00:41:54.30 nextlevelguypodcast You know, people couldn't handle going away and being like the lowest fighter in the whole like camp of fighters and stuff like that. 00:42:00.24 Sam Right. 00:42:01.53 nextlevelguypodcast Whereas you seem to just throw yourself into that. Is that the biggest lie we tell ourselves about capability, about confidence? And we should be doing that instead. It's chasing fear until we're no longer scared of the thing in a controlled enough way. 00:42:16.28 Sam Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel like grit, you know, there's a lot of being written about grit, right? Or like determination or, and that's all I do is is stick with shit. I mean, it's it's, and I don't mind, you know, I think the big probably mistake people make is like that physical discomfort and and pain is ah is a big deal. 00:42:37.39 Sam It's just not that big a deal, right? It's but not to get all Buddhist on you. It's just it's just a feeling. It's just a sensation. Yeah. 00:42:43.36 nextlevelguypodcast No. 00:42:44.34 Sam And you can stand on your head for like, I always joke, you can stand on your head for six months, right? Like I just took a job, but I'm like, ah, I gotta drive. You know, i'm like, fuck. I got right in my office and now i gotta drive. 00:42:55.85 Sam It's like, yeah, you can, you can, draw you can, you can commute, buddy. It's it's it's okay. It's not that hard. um Yeah. I mean, I, I guess that's, that's what I would say. I think, I think, 00:43:09.21 Sam people mistake physical discomfort for for for something worse. You know and I mean? And it's it's it's not only is it not a big deal, it's good for you. It's good it's it's again, you want to appreciate your your bed and your shower. and it's like, well, spend a spend a couple of months sleeping on the ground, you know, you'll it'll be great. 00:43:29.72 Sam I mean, people always joke about they want to sail around the world. I'm like, okay, cool. Let's go sit in your car for the next two weeks. We're just going sit in your car. So let's do that first and see how that goes. 00:43:40.66 Sam yeah But it's it's great. By the way, like, you know, it's beautiful and you get to see shit you can't ever see in another way. get You get into places where you can't ever get, you know. I mean, I keep wanting to do it again. i don't know if I ever will, but... 00:43:55.26 Sam um 00:43:55.45 nextlevelguypodcast So then is competence an accumulation of evidence that you can do these things, that you don't need to run from them, that they're not as bad or they're not as scary or they're not as like destructive as you we have in our head? By actually doing it and collecting the evidence, you say, can actually do these things. 00:44:14.46 nextlevelguypodcast So you become confident. 00:44:15.26 Sam Yeah, I think that's right. That sounds right. I mean, it's, it's again, it's... Yeah, anything terrifying... the Again, leap when you want look 00:44:24.06 Sam when you learn to drive, right, you were... you were The first... you know that Your adrenaline was going crazy, right? You could... You know, trying to drive is... is The first couple times is scary get on the highway whatever, and now you do it without even being awake, basically. Your brain doesn't work. So, absolutely, you know, competence and repetition. 00:44:43.38 Sam You know, and again, it's just... You know, you think about the world and it's like, you know, there's that joke that like war or whatever, it's like ah an elephant, it's like three blind men describing an elephant and one guy's got the trunk and one guy's got the tail and one guy's got the foot and they're all describing it and they and they have wildly different descriptions. 00:45:00.76 nextlevelguypodcast Mm-hmm. 00:45:05.98 Sam and think that's true with just life, you know, it's like you want to open your eyes and kind of see what it is. You got to try to do it or get as close as you can or talk to a lot of people who did it. You're not going to be able everything, right? 00:45:16.60 Sam Like, I'm never going to prison, hopefully. Knock on wood. But I have a good friend who did 20-some years in Folsom and was totally exonerated. 00:45:28.37 Sam So he was innocent and won a big settlement. And there's two documentaries about him on Netflix, but... 00:45:36.54 Sam You know, interestingly, like, okay, what's you want to talk about a prison movie or a prison scene? Let's go talk to Frankie. Like, let's go find out what that, because, you know, there's so much bullshit out there. And certainly with fighting, right? Like, there's, it's what draw drew us all to it. It's like, um you see Bruce Lee fight 50 dudes. You're like, I could fight 50 dudes. 00:45:55.70 Sam But let's go actually find out what that's like. 00:45:56.75 nextlevelguypodcast Nah. 00:45:59.38 nextlevelguypodcast it You've said like that capability allows you to enjoy the world more. Does capability reduce the anxiety by your ability e to like interact with the world? 00:46:11.18 nextlevelguypodcast you know You reduce anxiety and it increases your ability to not shit the bed, so to speak, to actually survive these things. 00:46:17.91 Sam totally think And you can enjoy it. You can think about it. You can kind of enjoy this moment and, and take it in in a different way. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, again, this is like, you know, classic sports training, the more you do it, the better, the better it gets. 00:46:35.51 Sam And the easier it gets to a certain extent, and hopefully you can get into the zone and flow and, you know, writing about the fighter's mind was so interesting getting into like the, the idea of the flow and how, how hippie it is. It's like, you're in touch with the universe. you're like, what are you, what are you talking about But that's kind of, you know, something interesting about it is the more, you know, about something, the more you've done it, the more you can flow with it, right. 00:47:02.61 Sam And get into it. And, and, you know it doesn't happen all. You have to fall into it, right. It's this very Zen, Zen ideas. 00:47:08.15 nextlevelguypodcast because 00:47:09.73 Sam Uh, 00:47:11.38 nextlevelguypodcast that because 00:47:11.58 Sam And the fun part about it, I can't tell you about it. You have to learn it. 00:47:15.67 nextlevelguypodcast that reminds me of like the thing i learned about jiu-jitsu was if i went full and i'm gonna smash the fuck out i'm gonna i'm angry i'm gonna win this round i would lose but if i went super easy and kind of umm i'm having some fun and that i'd lose I seem to be between the mix between ego and aggression between, you know, and between those two and not caring the world, just having some fun. 00:47:33.11 Sam Right. 00:47:39.02 nextlevelguypodcast There seemed to be this vantage point. And it's like that kind of hippie mentality that you're mentioning there. Did you discover that about yourself that you had to walk between the two sides yourself? 00:47:51.61 Sam Well, I think maybe. I think there's, you know, first of all, I think, you know what what Dan Gable would talk about, which is that everybody's so different. So he would have, you know, he when he was wrestling, he had a dossier on each opponent. 00:48:04.25 Sam When he was coaching, he had a dossier on each of his students, right? so it's So some of them he would slap because they needed to get fucking fired up. And some of them we didn't need to. 00:48:11.73 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:48:12.69 Sam They were already fired up. And that slap would probably put them over the top. Like you're saying, now they're too rage-filled they're their own worst enemy So, you know, everybody is going to be, you know, an experiment of one in terms of like where your performance and where your stress levels are are really meshing with what's going on. I mean, I've just been talking to a lot of baseball players. I'm working on a baseball thing and I'd never liked I mean, I've sort of played it as a kid, never really liked it, but that's such a, you know, the the more you try, the worse you do. You know, if it's such a, it's such a hard thing to do to hit that, you know, I don't know, fastball whatever. 00:48:52.02 Sam So yeah, it's just, it's just, you know, it just depends. I mean, for me personally, you know, I'm just, uh, I was never that great on athlete, you know? So my only kind of ability was, mean, I'm a big guy and whatever, but, um, I can get in great shape. I can get in good shape. You know, I can get in deep, pretty good shape so I could wear guys out, you know, I could wear, wear you out and I could push you. And I was, I was good enough to, to hang kind of at the bottom end, uh, of the high level guys. 00:49:19.51 Sam But, um, But you know, you're like, yeah, you, my joke is like, you know, we, you're told all men are created equal, but you learn, you know, and you're in grammar school, you're third grade, you know, there's one kid who's the fastest and, and you know, that's it. 00:49:33.02 nextlevelguypodcast Yep, still hate them to this day. 00:49:33.56 Sam And exactly. And like, you're like, yeah, he's faster. And it's certainly true in fighting. Not all men are created equal. You know I mean? There's guys you can't hurt and they can hurt you. And there's guys, you know, it's like, 00:49:45.14 Sam I used to joke and be like you you fighting a 10 year old, you know what I mean? Is them fighting you because it's like, you know, if you get in a fight with a 10 year old right now, it's not a lot think they're going to do to you, right? It's like, yeah, they can do whatever they want and I'll still decide what I'll decide when this ends. I'll decide you're so much stronger. they can't really hurt you. And I think for high level pros that I would, you know, have the misfortune sparring with or whatever, you're like, oh, right. I can't even hurt this fucking guy. Right. Like. 00:50:12.90 Sam There's nothing, allll ah the the worst I can do is piss him off and then he's going to kill me, right? And so he's just trying to survive. 00:50:21.53 Sam So yeah, and then I'm like, I'm a writer. You know what and i mean? I'm not going to be champ. I'm not going to be, I'm not going be champ. I can, I can enjoy, and fighting was great to me, but I wasn't particularly good at it. I was, and I'm good at it compared to a guy who doesn't do it. 00:50:33.04 Sam Sure. But I like, 00:50:33.81 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:50:35.03 Sam not compared to guys who do it. You're like, okay, that's great. and then um But I was always nerd, man. I mean, I was always fucking bookish kid loved to read and, you know, I played Dungeons and Dragons, you know? 00:50:47.38 Sam I lived in a fantasy world as a kid. 00:50:50.37 nextlevelguypodcast Because that's the thing. 00:50:50.65 Sam And I'll defend it. 00:50:52.50 nextlevelguypodcast That's the thing, isn't it? It's like everybody else assumes that, oh, you don't know me, man. The red mist could just come down and I'll i'll smash everybody. And you realise it's like you put somebody who's brand new in a jiu-jitsu gym against somebody who's been there a couple of weeks, just any level of competency, and they look like a master compared to them. you know they They just understand it. And I think that's something that until you've done it, and it's like for me the strangest thing was breaking of personal space you know how you're told to like be respectful of each person's space and they'll get too close to women on the tube and all this kind of stuff as a man and you know that you could be it could be missing too misinterpreted by what you mean etc and then suddenly they're like lie on top of this person bend their arm behind their head and you know you're like what 00:51:37.16 Sam No, you're, it's like, it's like a one night stand, right? You're swapping fluids with this person, basically, you know what mean? When you're having a fight, that's what Randy Couture to say. No, it's, it's, yeah, there, there's a lot of huge, huge miles, like new, new shit to you when you start getting involved in this, just being intimate with people in this weird way. 00:51:56.45 Sam And, um, You know, Pat Militich always used to be like, I'm worried my guys will get in a bar fight and kill somebody because they're going to punch somebody who doesn't know how to take a punch. Right. And and people don't understand what what, you know, the difference, you know, that they never get hit in their life. Right. They've never gotten punched in the face. 00:52:16.09 Sam And, you know, it's it's a surprise. You know, it's a shock when the first time it happens. but ah But it doesn't have to be, you know, again, once you learn how to, by the way, this is what always the problem is with, know, police officers in the United States, they don't train enough, right? They don't get enough stress inoculation with, data they all should train jujitsu whatever. And, you know, so they overreact and they go to their weapon, right? And they go to, they go to taste somebody or they go to shoot somebody because now they're terrified when, you know, you you do jujitsu, you learn how to like live under somebody bigger than you 00:52:51.61 Sam You can protect yourself. You're like, okay, it's not that, you know, you don't panic. You don't fucking lose your shit. You got to kill them. It's like, okay, it's bad, but you can get out of it. You can, you can, or at least you can not get hurt, you know? 00:53:03.51 Sam So anyway, that's all stress inoculation is good stuff. 00:53:06.81 nextlevelguypodcast Did you understand the changes in yourself during these things, like living on the boat, fighting, the dog things, the dealing, working with the gangs, the the apocalypse, all the all the amazing stuff you've done, which is like a podcast on its own. 00:53:22.04 nextlevelguypodcast Did you understand that or did writing become that way of understanding yourself and understanding the change in yourself? 00:53:31.35 Sam Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I guess, i guess writing again, i'm you know, um I didn't, i don't think I noticed, you know, I wasn't noticing changes in myself. 00:53:45.85 Sam But i know there were, plenty I obviously there's, there's plenty of them. Um, 00:53:51.64 Sam I had friends who were like, ah you're you have some like they would say like it's a bad thing. Like, you're so confident now. You're like, OK, sorry. Like, know, don't know. This is just from sailing. Right. Sailing was fascinating because it's the first six months of professional sailing. 00:54:06.09 Sam It's like. there's a fucking vocabulary, right? Of like, it's like 10,000 new words you gotta to learn. You're like, the the what? 00:54:12.58 nextlevelguypodcast yep 00:54:13.46 Sam else The what am I doing? But it's great. I mean, it's fun. It's intense. And you learn a lot. And you, you know, again, you have to go through things to know what to do. So yeah, probably writing was, was again, trying to digest it, trying to process and trying to find meaning it, but it wasn't so much for me. 00:54:34.01 Sam I don't find myself very interesting. Um, And I had to learn to do that as a writer, because like I'm saying, like you can't you have to pick a character who arcs in this fucking story. and It's got to be you for a first person nonfiction book. 00:54:49.27 Sam um But yeah, you you try to process and you try to learn and you try to grow and you try to to just understand, you know, think is is all that I was interested in and all I've managed to do. 00:55:05.78 Sam I think I do understand a lot more than I than i did. 00:55:09.56 nextlevelguypodcast So you would you agree then that you weren't chasing adventure as such, that you were chasing the the version of yourself that these adventures would create in you? 00:55:21.75 Sam That's an interesting question. I mean, i always would joke I'm a guy who goes and doesn't have adventures because I feel like adventures is when you fuck up and like run out of water and almost die. Like I want to go do it and like not have it turn into life and death like, you know, 00:55:29.56 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:55:34.58 Sam not have it be a disaster. oh 00:55:40.63 Sam Yeah, I mean, I guess, I mean, i don't think I ever thought about it as ah as like, okay, i'm you know I did wanna, I guess there was a piece of me that was like, I wanna to have a ah life like ah like like the books I read, you know when I was a little kid, I wanna have a life like like like Conan, you know I'm reading Robert e Howard in fifth grade or whatever, fourth grade. 00:56:04.02 Sam um which I did not do. i don't have the hair for it. It didn't work out. but But ah yeah, I mean, it wasn't as intentional. It was more just, i think, because it sounded like a good idea at the time. 00:56:18.20 Sam I had the worst the worst publicity people. they they hooked me up They put me on Jon Stewart's Daily Show. for That was the first piece of press I ever did. And I had never done press before. 00:56:27.71 nextlevelguypodcast Bloody hell. 00:56:29.27 Sam And I didn't know what to do. And like, you can't, it's like brilliant lights. You can't see anything. And like, it's like, and I i think I said something like, you know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, which is not the answer that anybody wanted, but 00:56:43.86 Sam you have to be like a politician when you do press. i mean, you have to go, okay, no matter what they ask, I'm to say fighting is about identity, but whatever my book, whatever the book you're pushing is like, okay, just say that, right? Talk about the thing. What's the two things you want to say about the book you're saying? 00:56:57.53 Sam Who cares what they ask? I didn't know that. Um, But yeah, so i don't I don't, I still, I guess, don't see myself as as interesting. You know, again, like there's things I can talk about that I like and there's things that i I've done that are interesting, but those are things are interesting, not me. i'm just I'm just along for the ride, you know I'm just trying to, and even my job when I was a writer, i was like, I'm just trying obsess about something. 00:57:24.18 Sam And I obsess about it for years and I learn as much as I can. And I talk to professors and I talk to people who do it and I read 50 books and then I read another 50 books and then I digest it and I give it to you and you give me you know eight bucks or whatever, you know, and then we're good and you can take that or not take it. You know, it doesn't bother me. But um that's my that's who I am and in terms of how I see myself. 00:57:49.54 nextlevelguypodcast I like how that you know you've done all these things. You've had more versions of a life than most people will ever even get sniffed at. um But you're just like, I don't see myself as that interesting. But are there versions of yourself looking back now that you're like, I'm glad that version of Sam's not there? you know like how How can we get rid of the version that we don't like and become, you know chase this new version of ourselves? 00:58:13.30 nextlevelguypodcast Did you find a way to do this? 00:58:16.34 Sam Yeah, I never had anything. There was definitely like times when I i was... partying too hard and in college and and and doing a few too many drugs and things and and sort of dabbled with getting into actual health issues and stuff. um But I'm not a guy who's got a lot of self-help talk, but I would say just like, you know, you can change. 00:58:43.46 Sam you know what I mean? Like you definitely can change. You know, that's the thing i think people, and that's easy to say, right? I know that depression is is a whole fucking shit show of of, and also your brain is a chemistry set. 00:58:55.49 Sam I'll say that, dude, for sure. 00:58:55.56 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 00:58:56.93 Sam Your your brain is like, it's just there's stuff that's just chemical going on and it's not you and it's not the world. It's like you've got you can fix that with some or you you can help it maybe and you can change. And that's that's definitely definitely possible. So I guess that would be the only thing I would hold out. 00:59:18.20 nextlevelguypodcast So how then did becoming a father change you? you know Because you've done all these amazing things. You've gone and chased the ventures, well, you like versions of adventures. I know you don't like to call adventures, but you know there it was always stuff that you wanted to do and living and chasing your dreams, et cetera. But suddenly having a kid and being married, et cetera, it's no longer just your choices to make alone. 00:59:43.61 nextlevelguypodcast Did that change you? Did that grow you in a way? 00:59:45.95 Sam Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. i mean again, I think you're, you, you know, i wrote about this a little bit in disaster diaries, but it's like you, you've you're, you tie your lives together, right? You enmesh yourselves with people. And yeah, 01:00:01.40 Sam And even, you know, you're, you're, it's a part of, part of getting older and growing up and becoming a man is like, okay, you're putting somebody else's happiness before yours, right? You're, you're going, okay, don't, but I'm, that's, that's not that big a deal. It's like, okay, you know, am I ever that happy? than Like, whatever. Like, it's like, you still, you're prioritizing other people. 01:00:24.07 Sam You've shown, i think I wrote ah one of my favorite lines I ever wrote was, you've shown the universe you're replaceable, right? Like you've you've replaced yourself. um It's funny, was so my wife was, we had the baby and and he was maybe eight months old or something. 01:00:41.72 Sam And I went to the Amazon, like like I used to do, like kind of an old, like I was like, I had a buddy who, actually Tony DeSouza was going to meet me there. He's a fighter, and he couldn't make it. And so i was there myself and running around for like, don't know, two months or maybe six weeks. 01:00:58.33 Sam And I was like, oh, i can't do that. That's it, right? Like, the can't leave her alone. Like, she has fucking a nightmare. she's you know much of bit I don't know if you have any children or anything, but it's a lot of work. 01:01:07.06 nextlevelguypodcast Oh, no. 01:01:10.49 Sam When you start, it's a lot, little babies are a lot of work, right? And you need you need help and you're on a team now, you're on it, you're part of something. And yeah, and certainly like, you know, the way I travel and the way I do things, it's been a ah big change. Part of it's the career has changed, right? So I changed careers and moved away from this kind of adventure writing into, 01:01:31.70 Sam into film and TV, which is more of a fucking job, right? Like you like I go to an office and I i work on it, you know, sometimes. I mean, again, it's I bitch about it, but it's like, okay, it's like a couple of months, you a year or whatever. 01:01:44.15 Sam But I'm going to complain. You'll hear me complain. um 01:01:47.82 nextlevelguypodcast And how do you balance that version? Because you said before, you know, you didn't want to have the normal job. But now that you've kind of had all these adventures and then now you're certainly, you know, you've been kind of almost not forced, but you've taken on this job. 01:02:01.54 nextlevelguypodcast You've taken on the kind of like the marriage, the kids, et cetera, not going away to the Amazon with an MMA fighter or, you know, all these things. 01:02:08.47 Sam yeah know it's like i'm not going to argentina to live on a ranch for like three months just to go because i'm writing a book about ranching or whatever you know like that's all true i mean the fun part for me is now my son is almost going to college so i'm like oh i could you know and i'm not 50s not not too busted up well i mean there's like i have some some thoughts and like 01:02:08.84 nextlevelguypodcast Nah. 01:02:25.30 nextlevelguypodcast I could get another boot code this. 01:02:32.38 Sam You could start, you know, doing stuff again. And I think I will. I think I actually really miss it in certain ways. You know, my tolerance for misery is probably not what it was. um Certainly, I've gotten pretty soft in L.A. And I don't know if I would do, you know, I would probably do it. You know and i mean? I'd probably do it. You could probably talk mean about anything. But but there's things i would i would I would back off of, you know. I mean, maybe. 01:03:00.63 Sam But, you know, there's ah I still have a pretty good bucket list. A lot of things I still want to go check out. and But, you know, it's funny. I've got some money now, which has also changed. know, was always broke, right? So that's also a weird... 01:03:12.12 Sam I mean, the the weird thing about that is, I'll just say this in passing, is you think, like, all your problems are financial, and then you get some money, just some comfortable money, and you go, oh, fuck, like, 60-70% of my problems are financial. 01:03:23.47 nextlevelguypodcast Yeah. 01:03:26.36 Sam There's 30% that are still... 01:03:29.05 Sam Just you. They're just just. But it's comforting to go, oh, man, if I had money, this would be an issue. 01:03:37.03 nextlevelguypodcast Is that the thing that kind of scares you? 01:03:37.21 Sam Turns out that's not true. 01:03:40.47 nextlevelguypodcast It's like suddenly finding that the perceived issues are not the problem. You know, like suddenly, oh, if I had money, I'd be fine. oh I've got money. Nothing's changed. Oh, if when I want to have kids or married or have long-term partner, you know, it's suddenly when we remove that, we go, oh fuck. 01:03:56.95 nextlevelguypodcast You know, was there, were there failures or struggles that you're actually grateful now for looking back? 01:03:57.63 Sam What the fuck is that? 01:04:04.45 Sam Oh, yeah. I mean, it's all been a good... mean, I've sort failed at everything. I mean, i don't know. I go through phases. I just... Even this industry I'm in, you know, I have, you know, quote-unquote a successful career then... 01:04:22.22 Sam you know, things don't get made. know, I write things for an audience of a few people, right? Like some executives hire me to write a script from a book. And then, so they pay me and then they go, you know, we're not doing it or whatever. And you're like fuck man, I used to write a book and like, at least like 10,000 people would, would read it, you know, and now it's like seven people read this. Like what, you know and I made a lot more money, you know? um it's not getting made and like, Oh, well, I guess that all that work is just going to die. 01:04:54.52 Sam So that's, that's a hard kind of weird thing to deal with. 01:05:00.15 Sam But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, i mean, that's all, there's a lot of failure. You know, there's, there's so much failure in the last sort of 15 years of writing scripts. I mean, it just, you know, people make fun of Hollywood for all the award shows. So they're how many award shows you need? 01:05:17.48 Sam And you're like, okay, just think of this. Everybody up there has got 50 or 60 projects that are dead, that have died, that they've worked for five, three, two years on. 01:05:29.24 Sam So they get one that works and people like it, they're going to fucking party, right? you know what i mean They're going to crazy. I told my dad, I'm like, imagine if you built a house, you know, you're a builder and you've got one house that you've built with people living in it and the rest are all plans. 01:05:45.03 Sam You're I'm going to drive by the house people who live in. I'm going to just go check it out. I'm going to look at it because it's like, you know, this is what you're trying to do. And it's so rare that it ever works out. So I think that's, you know, one of the one of the misperceptions about the business. book 01:05:58.81 nextlevelguypodcast Does that scare you then that like the story's not been told? 01:05:59.54 Sam Yeah. 01:06:02.97 nextlevelguypodcast Because you were saying about the 50, 60 things, that not that's why you wanted to live these things, because you didn't want to just read about them. You wanted to put yourself as the main character in these stories and give them life and give them breath. 01:06:18.25 Sam It's just depressing. It's not like, it doesn't scare me. It just bums me out. You know, it's just like, fuck, man, I'll put a lot of work that. And again, it's, I love everything I ever worked on. You know, I'm like, that's that was a fucking good sport. But, you know, it is what it is. there's a lot of reasons that things don't work out. 01:06:34.89 Sam It's not scary. It's just depressing. 01:06:39.03 nextlevelguypodcast So if you took all these journeys, all the life, all the the versions of Sam, all the the hardships, the struggles, et cetera, what would you say to somebody who's listening and going, fuck, I want to do some of this stuff. This sounds amazing. this so you know He's the sort of guy that I would like to become. 01:06:55.77 nextlevelguypodcast you know If people today wanted to change their life, what hardship would they start? because you could easily say, go and live in your car for two weeks or But a hardship for them might be going outside and speaking to people. 01:07:07.58 nextlevelguypodcast Or it might be you know taking on that career or breaking up with a partner who's been like you know more controlling, et cetera. 01:07:13.76 Sam Oh God. 01:07:15.67 nextlevelguypodcast How can we find the voluntary hardship for ourselves at the level we're at? 01:07:21.08 Sam I would never tell anybody, you know, anything what to do, but I think, you know, again, it's, it's, it's possible and it's tiny, tiny steps. And, and, you know, those are all wildly different. 01:07:32.06 Sam I think for, for the stuff I was doing, like adventurous life or whatever, like, You can do it like you can you can, you know, save some money and you can you can go cheap and ah go live in Thailand, go or or even like the Internet's amazing. Right. Spend, spend an hour a day just looking at cool shit like go be a dive slave. You know, you know, if you like scuba diving. You can go work at a resort in wherever. 01:07:59.29 Sam You know, if you can get your nurse practitioner degree, like nurses can get a job anywhere. I almost got a nursing degree because I'm like, you can go work. You go work in Australia. You can go live in New Zealand. You can go live anywhere or the CPA or a nursing degree. 01:08:13.79 Sam Now, I mean, terms of getting out of stuff, I mean. All I would say is, I think you can do. Tiny things and start the process and and and maybe that's a way, I mean, 01:08:27.13 Sam I would never tell anybody you know what to do about depression, but I know that ah people who drink coffee are slightly less depressed than less prone to depression. 01:08:40.31 nextlevelguypodcast And 01:08:40.85 Sam And it's like just because you drink enough coffee and you're like, oh, he said, go for a walk, get to go outside. And like now you feel a little bit better. So there's there's tiny things you can do. to kind of start the process and maybe they can snowball into something that actually up being a big change. 01:08:57.75 Sam And I just think being open to change is probably it, you know, 01:09:02.65 nextlevelguypodcast but you say then that that's the the habit that you would want everybody that could potentially start changing their life for the next decades, et cetera, is to be just open to change no matter where they are at their starting point? 01:09:15.15 Sam I guess. Yeah. I mean, you said it. not me I mean, I don't i think again i' I'm not a guy who gives self-help advice. I think that's a complicated you know place to live and and there's no easy answers. But yeah, I guess I guess I would say. 01:09:34.17 Sam yeah being open to the idea that that things could could get better, you know, as opposed to to being in despair and then and then so like they say, like your habits, right? Like, you know, exercise a little bit, start walking, you know, and by the way, nobody gives a fuck at the gym. 01:09:50.90 Sam If you're fat or weak, nobody gives up. They're only looking at everybody at the gym only looks at people stronger than them. They don't give a shit about people. Like they could, people go to the gym and they're like, people, no, nobody's looking at you, dude. Like nobody, nobody cares. Like they're psyched you're here. Like quick view, go get on the treadmill. Like whatever. Nobody's judging you. Nobody's judging you. 01:10:09.11 Sam It's like, it's, they're all worried about who's fitter than them. You know what i mean? It's just, so, nothing think yeah, people are taking 01:10:14.55 nextlevelguypodcast And their own progress. And they take it as a compliment getting asked questions. Yeah. 01:10:19.96 Sam Yeah, no, it's 100%. Like, oh well how do you do that lift? Like, oh my God, you'll make somebody so happy. You'll make that weight lifter. Oh, he would love to tell you about his, what he's doing. Anybody who's in there like that. i mean, um yeah, I guess that's what I would say. I think there's, you know, just the tiniest things, the tiniest steps, you know anything you can do that's even as small as getting a cup of coffee and having caffeine help, you know? 01:10:48.89 nextlevelguypodcast And you did mention about your bucket list. If you had to write a story right now about one of your bucket list goals, which one would you pick? 01:10:59.51 Sam Oh, God. Well, you know, I just wanted, there's, so I just wrote a ah script about mountain climbing. I like, I like, I like to write about professions where people hold hands with death, you know these sort of interesting kind of super high stakes, like fighter pilots, these alpinists, right? Like who, 01:11:23.12 Sam are doing stuff and like, you know, a couple of their friends die here. By the way, I had a friend, the guy who was going to be my DP. he He passed away in an avalanche this year. 01:11:31.70 nextlevelguypodcast Sorry to hear that. 01:11:33.72 Sam I mean, again, he's putting himself out there. Yeah, it's it's terrible. It's tragic. And he's he's a guy who skied off Everest and, you know, did did stuff like that. It's like you put yourself in these situations and there's a you're rolling the dice. 01:11:47.93 Sam So I'd love to go. there's I'm not going to do anything that crazy, but there's a couple of treks I'd like to do and in in Nepal that are interesting in Tibet and maybe Bhutan. um And i'll I'll get to them. Luckily, I'm um you know still pretty healthy. Again, I've seen my parents. It's interesting where I'm at now. I mean, my parents are both in their 80s, and you see the change at 80. So you figure, okay, I got... 01:12:16.32 Sam 20, 25 years where you're still pretty, pretty active. And so, okay, like, let's, let's get down to business. Like, okay, I'm going to dive the Galapagos, never done that. You know, like few things like that. I got to, got to try to get to, um, 01:12:31.89 Sam Yeah, and again, um the books I want to write are are are very different and not not for money. you know So I'm not as interested in trying to write something that's going to sell well versus exploring something I'm really interested in, which ah I think to me, there's ah there's a book in my next, if I ever get around to it, which is just about, I think there's something under researched, which is about cruelty and why cruelty is sort of this part of human life. 01:13:06.01 Sam And I won't go any farther than that, but there's it's just ah something i'm I'm curious about. And I think there's a there's a there's a Sam Sheridan book about cruelty somewhere out there lurking. We'll see if we ever get to it, but maybe. 01:13:20.88 nextlevelguypodcast I do love about that, you know, when that and passion, that fire burns in your eyes again, when you, you know, the challenge, it's not you going, want to go out and like shake hands with the devil or or the death, et cetera. You're coming I'm interested in this. I want to go and find out about it. It's the curiosity that seems to drive you. 01:13:39.83 Sam Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that's, again, it's like, what what else are we doing here? You know, what else, what else do you got? Like, it's like, what's the point of being alive if you're not curious and, um, trying to figure it out? 01:13:51.86 nextlevelguypodcast Well, I'd love have you back on and do like, there's so many different rabbit holes. trying to avoid going down and kind of covering stuff and that, but I've used up so much your time already, but what would you want people to take from this? 01:13:56.53 Sam Sure. 01:14:01.75 Sam No, thank you. No, perfect. What's that? 01:14:04.54 nextlevelguypodcast What would you want people to take from this? What do you want them to remember? is If you had to sum up your books, life choice, you know, is it that we are more capable than we give ourselves to it? 01:14:15.22 Sam Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think that if you want to take something from it, I think you, you know definitely if you're willing to, to, to suffer a little bit, which is in suffering is is, is physical suffering is not a big deal. Like for the most part, I mean, I get it. There's people who are debilitating pain and there's always going to be exceptions to anything I say. 01:14:37.24 Sam But you can take a you can take a lot more than you think you can. And it's and you can you can handle a lot more than you think you can. um 01:14:47.35 Sam ah met i met a guy once who was he was an ultra marathoner and he was like, yeah, I ran a half marathon and then I ran a marathon at the same time. It's like, you just don't know how fast you are. Like, you don't know what you can do. And and I think people, 01:15:00.18 Sam people worry too much about, about discomfort or fear and not knowing and whatever. And, and it just, it's, it's less scary than, than you think. Um, once you get into it, uh, you know, it's like David Blaine once said like what one man can do, another man can do. 01:15:19.96 Sam i mean, to some extent, you know what I mean? 01:15:20.69 nextlevelguypodcast yep 01:15:21.85 Sam Like you can, you can, you can dig in and you can find out and, uh, and figure it out. Yeah. I don't know. does that help i don't know 01:15:31.26 nextlevelguypodcast and what How could people follow this journey then? do you know but Until we can get the new book out and all these amazing adventures you're going to go on to. 01:15:38.37 Sam Does that help? I don't know. The beauty of it is like I nothing for you. You can look at the old books. I have a website, which somebody keeps an eye on. I do not. Um, I'm not on Instagram. Uh, it's, it's, uh, yeah. If you want to find me, you can, you can, I'll respond eventually to emails. 01:15:54.80 Sam Um, But I got nothing. i mean, again, I'm making my money writing TV and film. And yeah, I got nothing I'm pushing. of so yeah But again, whatever, man. you know It's all good. Yeah, come find me. I'll i'll talk to you. you know If you got something you want to talk about. I mean, I help people with writing because people help me. you know So if you want to talk about writing, I'll talk about writing. 01:16:19.03 nextlevelguypodcast Well, I'll hit stop