Ashton Levarek: 0:00

So that's what I'm saying. So if you can be conscious about what you're priming your mind with, and this just goes back to what do you want, I want to be happy. I want to be wealthy. I want to feel good. I want to have love, you're gonna find that you're gonna find that in the people. You're gonna walk through a crowd of negative people and only find the good one happy person.

Philip Pape: 0:17

Welcome to the Wits& Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits& Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights Podcast. Today we're diving into the power of leaning into the future, embracing your future self and becoming an alpha in order to win in life with my guest, Ashton love Eric Ashton will reveal the importance of reframing our memories and interpretations using positive visualization, and how we can measure progress toward becoming our ideal selves. We'll also explore the concept of being an alpha and the impact it can have on our lives and those around us. So if you're feeling stuck in the past, if you're ready to far exceed what you thought possible into the future, get ready to challenge your thinking and take action. Ashton is a retired Air Force Special Warfare pair rescue jumper with over 14 combat deployments and has a bachelor's degree in sports Health and Science. Along with his brother Ashton is a fund manager with over 90 million in real estate under management is managing partner for Valkyrie investment group. As well as the host of The Art of winning podcast, which I had the honor of being on recently, from serving in combat to surfing around the world from traveling with his family to helping others reach their full potential. Ashton is passionate about living his best life, as well as helping others do the same. Thus, he is a strong believer and building that financial platform that allows people the freedom to pursue their true passions and to explore our full potential. Ashton, man, welcome to the show.

Ashton Levarek: 2:07

Thank you so much. That was awesome intro. I appreciate it.

Philip Pape: 2:11

Well deserved, man. Yeah, we want to set you up for the audience. They know who you are. And kind of digging into that a little bit. Combat in the Air Force, entrepreneurship, podcasting, you've definitely had your share of high pressure, maybe high stress situations. And ironically, we're gonna get into how our past potentially holds us back. But how has your past your experience in the military and beyond shaped your approach to winning in life?

Ashton Levarek: 2:37

Yeah, um, you know, I've always been that kind of that guy that wanted to be challenged. I always look for the challenge. I was the first guy that anytime we were snowboarding, I was the first guy to jump anytime, you know, off the cliff or whatever, we're when we're swimming, same thing. Like, I was always, I don't I'm not sure why that happened. Maybe it was because I had, I was the firstborn. And I'm very competitive. And I always trying to get back in the spotlight. That's what child psychology tells you, right?

Philip Pape: 3:08

Never know why we do these things. It wasn't jumping out of parachutes. And I was the firstborn. So who knows?

Ashton Levarek: 3:13

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's what I've heard. But anyway, that's, that's kind of how it started. And I was just never into school. When I was in school, and it was kind of like a, you know, what's the next adventure because I know, I'm not gonna go to college. This is not, it's just not working. I barely, it wasn't that I was bad at school wasn't that I was not smart. It was just, I was not motivated to go continue classes. And I wanted to be challenged. And so going in the Air Force, the military. It kind of just seemed natural for me, right. And so that's how I went into that. And then, you know, you kind of get into you build up that momentum in your life, right. And I think that's important too. Because there's that saying, you know, be careful where you're headed, you're likely to end up where you're going. And if you see, you know, these these things come up over and over and you don't like it, man, that's your sign. And you change your mind, change your body, change your lifestyle, whatever to get what you want out of life. And I actually really enjoyed where I was going. And so it made sense to me. I just kept pushing on and you know, I don't know if you want, like, I'm not trying to get metaphysical but things happened. And it just kept leading me on this bigger and bigger adventure, both into business as well as in the military.

Philip Pape: 4:29

So yeah, man, we can nerd out on metaphysics on philosophy, whatever you want here. I love it all. And I always tell people I self select my audience, they don't like it. They tune out if they do they keep following so I mean, you said something interesting there that Be careful where you're headed, right? You might not like when you're going and oh, man, there's a lot there. Right because it also implies that there's a lot of people probably just sitting on their ass complacent with life. And they if they really just took a moment to think about it, they would know where this is going or maybe not go going anywhere, let's be honest. Yeah. And what would you say to that person or our what kind of exercise to kind of, you know, give you that spark so that you can make that change?

Ashton Levarek: 5:11

I heard a quote once and I think it's great. I'm gonna butcher it, but it's like, if nothing could go wrong. What would you like your life to be? You know, where would you like to end up? There's another one I heard Joe Rogan. This one's even even better, I think is if your life was a movie, and you were the main character in that movie, you were the hero of that movie. What would your hero do? Right, go do that. Right. And I tell people all the time, when we have these conversations, I'm just like, check us on here.

Philip Pape: 5:41

You go for it. I'll check them explicit box. I'll go.

Ashton Levarek: 5:45

I like, here's and I like to cuss because I think it adds drama to it. Like, what the fuck do you want out of life? Like, what do you really want? Right? As Jordan Peterson says, like, this life is gonna kill you. One way or another? It's gonna get you. So what are you waiting for? Go after it. You know? For sure.

Philip Pape: 6:03

Yeah, yeah, we were we were talking about my friend Carl. offline. And he's he he also says something similar that you know what you're not doing? Like, what is it? You're not doing that? You know, you need to do? It's kind of related to that. Yeah. So okay, so we had this conversation by email about, and also you covered it in the podcast episode that came out the day we're recording this. So this is May 12. So folks, check out Ashton's podcast and go look at that episode, how living in the past can hold us back, right? How can hold us back from making progress in life, that we often say our current cells are the culmination of our experiences. But here's, here's what you said in the email to me, quote, these experiences that we rely on to tell us who we are. And what we are capable, capable of only exists as memories in our mind, we can see that our present selves is limited by our interpretation of our memories of the past. If we got amnesia today and could not remember our past, would we no longer be scared of spiders apprehensive when it comes to making huge financial decisions, joining the gym, etc. So let's dig into that a bit. Why is this a problem? Like why why don't we want that context of the past? Or is it really just the asymmetrical part of living in the past? The negatives of the past?

Ashton Levarek: 7:14

Yeah, I think it is your interpretation, right? Because the past and the future, both just exist in your mind, I don't care where you are in your life. But for some reason, we give a lot more weight to what happened to us in the past than we do to what could happen in the future. Right. And we make decisions off that, oh, I can never do that. I can never do that. I'm not like that guy. Well, you could be like that, right? You could, I could never make that much money, I could never lose that much weight, I can never, you know, get that job. Like we have the subconscious. It's the script. For our mind, it's the script for our life even. And we don't even know it. Because we, for some reason, we slip out of we talk to ourselves, in our mind, but we don't even consciously we're not even conscious of that at times, and it becomes so repetitive. That you just take it as a fact. But as wise people have often said like a belief is just a thought you keep thinking and you can change beliefs, these can be changed. And so what I'm kind of what I was alluding to, in that that email when when I was discussing that, and then of course on the podcast, who is just like, Well, for one, why do we wait, you know, give so much weight to what happened in the past, when there's so much more potential in the future, you may not be able to change the past, but you can change your interpretation. So they say there's two types of mindsets, right? There's a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. A growth mindset says I can learn from this. The fixed mindset says this is that's all it'll ever be. You can you see those people? They tell you their story over and over? Oh, yeah, it was terrible. I lost all my money. And that's why I would never do that. Like I'm in real estate invest in real estate. So I hear that all the time. Like, oh, yeah, 2008 was terrible. I would never buy real estate. Like, you know, how many millionaires were created in 2008? Because they bought when everybody else was selling. So like, it's how you interpret the information. But the easiest way to get past that is to look into the future. What do you want the future to hold? And give more weight to that? Obviously, you can, if you really wanted to go to you know, like, this is how psychologists work, right? You go to a psychologist and they analyze your past all everything that's happened, you can help you reinterpret it. You can do that yourself too. But you could also just look into the future. What do I want out of life? And if others have done it, why can't I?

Philip Pape: 9:38

Yeah, and it seems that that looking into that. So if you are kind of stuck in that pattern, that mental pattern of the past, we know that some changing how you think can be can be a step, a larger step for someone than it could be for others potentially, from what they've gone through and taking a step into the future and building that momentum then could lead to your reentry. reputation of the past. I mean, do you agree with that statement? Cuz I that's what I'm thinking. When I think for example, a skill like public speaking that I would have labeled myself in the past as an introvert, like that is the memory of what I was back then. Right? Yeah. And I it, it didn't matter because it was holding me back. But then when I said, Okay, I need to get those skills, I need to join Toastmasters, I need to put myself out there with all the things that I'm afraid of, and do them. In hindsight, I realized that I needed that, you know, understanding of who I was to push me into action to the future. So I don't know where I'm going with this from a question to ask because we said we'd get metaphysical but like, where are we on all that continuum? And maybe practically, somebody listening? Who's mired in those thoughts? What's one thing they can do right now to move that needle forward?

Ashton Levarek: 10:46

Oh, yeah, no, I love that. Okay. So here's, here's something that I love this, I wish I had a whiteboard or something, but it's like you have where you are right now you have your potential for people that are watching us, it looks like a box. So you have what you think you are what you think you can do, that's one corner. And then according to what you think you can do, where you are in life, all that what you deserve, even like, because a lot of times that is part of that we don't think we are capable of or deserve that job. So we don't go after it or that person or whatever, right? Anyway, so you're in that corner, and then you take action, which leads you to the opposite corner, right? And that in that corner, you take action. And then you get the feedback. So if you drop down, you can look at a circle or a box, I like a box, because the every corner is a point, you come down to the bottom corner, it's like you take action, you learn from that action. And as you learn, you change your potential and it just keeps going around, right you change the idea of what you're capable of. You take action with that, you learn from that you adjust what you think your potential you're capable of, and it just keeps going around and around. And so where I'm going with that is when people let's say you live this life where you're actually I don't even know I don't want to, like, maybe you're in this, you're in a box right now. And you feel like there's nowhere else to go. Right? One of the coolest methods I've found is physical. Because if you take action, it changes your paradigm, right? Go to the gym, lift a couple of ways. Go for a run like these things, getting the body moving in doing something you've never done before, right? Or something harder than you've ever done before. Or more challenging in some way or another. It could be mentally it could be physically it could be emotionally, like all of a sudden you're changing your paradigm, which is that top corner we started in, that's your paradigm, right? That's your, your framework for which you approach life. And when you change that, your potential changes and you're able to take more action learn from that actually keeps going and going. I'll tell you a quick story. This was really interesting to me, my mom, a very strong lady entrepreneur, you know, when she was a flight attendant started her own business very strong. My dad and her split and she took it really hard. And something happened where she's like, Screw it, I'm just gonna go to Tahiti, her my my little brother, they went to Tahiti. And next thing you know, she's that was the first step. And then she's got her scuba diver license. Now she's diving with sharks. Now she's living this, this, I don't know, Eat, Pray, Love kind of lifestyle. We're traveling and doing these amazing things that not that her marriage was holding her back from any of that. But it shifted her mindset, like, Divorce isn't a terrible thing. And now she's living this free, amazing life where she's doing a lot of this stuff, but it was a paradigm shift of what she's capable of, you know, and, and a lot of that had to do with it. She had to take that physical step first, obviously, which opened up that door to so much more and learning and growing as a person, right.

Philip Pape: 14:28

Yeah, I mean that this is ostensibly a health and fitness podcast, I liked that you went there, right? Because I just interviewed someone who talked about upward spiraling and how the science is showing us the physiological link between taking some physical action, usually about 20 minutes a day of like, medium intensity movement of some kind, in affecting your neurotransmitters, right and your nervous system. And actually then spiralling other things, improving your mood, improving energy. So like, just to link it to science a little bit. There's, there's a reality to this, but the way you framed it. So here's the way I always I always thought of it as a feedback loop. Where you get the feedback, you improve, and you keep you go to the next step. But you just amplify that with the idea that the person you are and your potential and your paradigm shifts, it gets bigger moves. And that actually makes it easier to move forward to the next thing. And when you look in the mirror like wow, I've come a long way since I started. That's awesome, man. I mean, just taking that radical action or not even radical action, a simple action that's different to get you out. Yeah.

Ashton Levarek: 15:29

Yeah. And I don't even know the first step that led my mom to think I should go to ged either could have been something even small. It's just going for a hike or something. I don't know. But you know what I think is yeah, what I think is interesting though, if you look at children, children are are some of the best. You know, they give us some of the best lessons if you really watch. They don't have any apprehensions. They just see other people around them doing it, right. Because in their first few years of life, it's just grown up. And they're like these guys are walking. Which imagine the paradigm shift. Yeah, that's like a thing hanging out with birds and be like, Man, they're flying. And I should do that. Yeah. And they, the kids do that, right? Like, they're hanging out with these adults. And it's just like, oh, wow, he's standing on his two feet. And I'm going to do that and they crawl around. And then eventually, they're walking. And but as we get older, we get this baggage like, oh, yeah, in high school, I wasn't good at the mile run. So I can't go run and you know, like, Don't and dumb stuff. And we hold on to it for some reason. And that, that becomes our framework for life as we move forward. So,

Philip Pape: 16:36

yeah, and then that that action, you know, the phrase messy action we sometimes talk about, I think even on today's show, you mentioned the difference between being impulsive and irresponsible, like with some big financial decision, where you just take some random risk without understanding the The facts are the consequences, and actually just moving forward and not holding yourself back. So I think that's the side we're living on here, where I see this all the time. Ashran, where you take action in one area, that's easy, and you don't think much about it. But because you did that it opens up some door to take an action somewhere else and somewhere else or somewhere else. So just doing more things, and being more involved, not to the point where you're stressed out, but you know, being out there and doing stuff. Like that's the way I look at it. It's a spiral.

Ashton Levarek: 17:20

Yeah, I think it's a, you know, if you can adopt that mindset that there is no such thing as failure, there's only lessons, then it becomes even easier to shift paradigm mean faster. Yeah, there's a really cool study with entrepreneurs. And I got really into this because I'm, you know, I'm in the entrepreneur space, I'm in business. But it was like 90% of all first year entrepreneurs will fail or will fail in the first year. Right. And of those, a huge majority will not try again, they'll not start another business, which is sad, but of the ones that do. It was like 90 something percent are wildly successful.

Philip Pape: 17:58

Because they learned from that first experience. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. In that.

Ashton Levarek: 18:02

So So then it begs the question, right? And I love this one. How many failures? Are you away from massive success from your first million from your first 10 million? You know, how many failures? Are you away from that ideal lifestyle, that body that that relationship that? Whatever you're seeking, whatever you think you want in life? Like how many failures? Are you away from it? It could be one, it could be two could be 10.

Philip Pape: 18:27

But it's just the Thomas Edison thinking. Yeah, right.

Ashton Levarek: 18:31

What you I bet if you even if you knew it was 100, you might be pretty excited to get your first failure. He's like, I'm on my way.

Philip Pape: 18:37

Yeah, you're on your way. It's a step on the way. Yeah. Yeah, I had someone on my show recently, Adrian Moreno talking about when he was trying to learn to sell and making sales calls and had like, 27 nose in a row. And 2728 was a yes. And he's like, if I had, if I just given up at 25 or 23, or whatever, you know, you wouldn't have seen that. I mean, it's a great message to just keep going and put in the reps. Also, while learning from that, right? Yeah, just doing the same thing over and over. If you don't learn it is a failure. Yeah, I mean, podcasts, things like that, right? You can you can relate to this, where you hear the data on podcasters, just to get in the top 10% You just have to keep going pretty much like, it doesn't even have to be a good podcast, just keep making it and you're gonna be the top 10% That's how many people give up. And then you know, the next 5% It's like, you know, you sit, sit around with more listeners, and then you start to the Challenge gets higher and higher, but your paradigm has shifted where like, Okay, I got this now I'm gonna go to the next level. Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned you also mentioned Arnold Schwarzenegger in your email, which I always love referencing him just cool guy. His autobiography is great, all his movies, he's still making them. And Earth Heroes is a fun guy. And one of my favorite quotes of his is, for me, life has continuously been hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist to survive, but to move ahead to go up to achieve to conquer. Right, and I guess that's aligned with the idea of identifying with your future self. You were talking about how high performers and successful individuals cultivate that mindset. Do you have examples that you'd like to share about that stories of, of high performers?

Ashton Levarek: 20:18

Yeah, so you know, being in I'll tell you right now being in special operations, you get to work with a lot of cool people. We're talking people that are super motivated, super capable. But they also bring in a lot of different trainers and athletic performer you know, athletes and stuff to get their experience and help the it's become your essentially we used to joke Talk about it. We're we're professional athletes and special operations. It's just a little bit different. We're going overseas instead. Because you do you get a lot of that training, the psychological, the mental. And of course, the physical nowadays, he didn't used to be like that. But it is now and it's pretty cool. But, you know, we had some Olympic psychologists like Pete guys, that coach Olympians, and one of the things they were huge on was visualizations, which I thought was really interesting. And so they would have us do visualization reps. So for example, when we go to the range, you're you're training for every contingency when you're at the range shooting, right? So shooting with by yourself shooting with your team, maybe you have a malfunction, you pull your pistol, all that stuff. So you'd have guys do that. And then they would have us visualize it, some guys visualize it, and some guys just do it and you know, the speed at which you learn and adapt and, and become that person you're trying to become that very fast, very smooth. shooter was almost the same with the visualization and the the people that physically trained to write,

Philip Pape: 21:53

Oh, okay. Okay. You're saying without having actually physically trained it, you've now gotten yourself to that level.

Ashton Levarek: 21:59

And so that's what you're doing. You're projecting yourself into the future. You're, you're, you're visualizing what it would look like if you did it perfectly. Right. And, and they even man, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger, because he talks about this. The funny thing is, he used to think he used to imagine his muscles growing. Right? Which,

Philip Pape: 22:18

from a pretty young age to which Yeah,

Ashton Levarek: 22:21

and it's interesting, because you're starting to see the science back this up, right? Yeah, they did a study, it was like, they did just hand strength. They did. And I can't, I wish I could quote the guys, but they did hand strength. It was like just finger strength. So they had these, like, half the group, your finger exercise, and the other half just visualize doing finger exercises. And it was almost exactly the same in finger strength growth.

Philip Pape: 22:46

That's insane, man. Yeah, that is insane.

Ashton Levarek: 22:48

It is insane. Because, like how,

Philip Pape: 22:50

how many? How often can I go to the gym and lift weights in my brain, you know?

Ashton Levarek: 22:54

Well, so I don't know if you've listened to or have ever heard of Joe Dispenza. But I'm a huge fan of his stuff. He talks a lot about this stuff. how the body responds to thinking it's response to words, there's lots, there's some amazing studies that back this up. spontaneous remission, people are getting healed without, you know, when they should be dying. And then other people other things like the study where they took the water and they wrote bad words on it, and then good words on different water and like what the molecular structure looked like when they did that, like, word carries vibration, vibration, is what you are made up of every electron, a neutron proton in your body is a vibrating molecule, right? It's a vibrating energy. And sound and thought are energy. And so what when you think in a certain way, when you talk in a certain way, you are arranging your vibration in some some way, shape or form, right. And I think the more emotion that he says, the more that motion is with that, and goes with those words that goes with those thoughts, the faster the manifestation in the body. And so whether it's sickness, or happiness, or healing, or growth, or whatever that may be, right. So, I mean, the there, you want to talk metaphysical, like quantum physics is finding that our physical world responds to thought. I mean, that's as simple as it can get. And you are a lot more powerful than you think you are.

Philip Pape: 24:27

Yeah, I'm open minded to this stuff, in the sense that I'm very rational and scientific about things. But I also understand there, maybe 95% of phenomena in existence, we don't understand and can't explain yet. And one day, in my mind, rational mind, we wouldn't be able to explain it. That's kind of the way I think of it, as opposed to just an unexplainable thing. If you think about lifting strength training, we know a lot. We know a lot about the body and its adaptation to stress on it, right. But we still don't quite know how, like, we really don't know, we, we can say this happens. And this happens. And this happens, right? Yeah. But, but we can't, you know, if we knew exactly how it worked, we would know to tell everybody exactly to do this. And we don't we just know, everybody's tried these things. This subset of those things has worked. So do those things. And there's some variants. And when you're talking about thought, I'm like, okay, when you when you adapt, and you get bigger muscles, for example, it's happening during your sleep, it's happening after the fact with your body responding to who knows, you know, chemicals, neural signals, muscle fibers, everything been activated, because you put the load on your back, but then that's happening independent of that. So like if you could think or do something to instigate all those things now There might be 50 things going on that I don't know of a mental exercise anybody's found yet that could like make you jacked without lifting weights. Yeah, but maybe one day. So that's Joe Dispenza. Is he? Is that that like the resource for practically learning how to try some of these things?

Ashton Levarek: 25:57

Yes, some really amazing videos. He's got some really good books, the first book that comes to mind is you are the placebo. Okay. And he just talks about, a lot of that is about the placebo effect and how, I mean, I was a medic in the military and placebos work 60 to 80% of the time, which is as much if not more than most drugs, which is insane, right. And as you were talking, I just remembered another study. This one was cool, just correlating to health, nutrition. They gave I was like 100 participants, 50 of them got. Everybody got the same milkshake, but they didn't know that they told 50 of them that this was a very nutritious milkshake. And they were over there on the one side, and they told the other 50 that it was, you know, just an ice cream milkshake? Right?

Philip Pape: 26:41

What they call it a slurry, don't they?

Ashton Levarek: 26:44

Yeah. But the point is like, yeah, their bloods blood sugar spiked, and the people that thought it was just as a slurry or an ice cream sundae or whatever. Right? Whereas the other ones, they didn't have as much a dramatic effect. What's that about? You know?

Philip Pape: 27:00

Yeah, you're right. Is that Is that the one where they tested like caught pre workout or into workout carbs? Or it's probably similar to that.

Ashton Levarek: 27:06

Similar man. Definitely sounds similar. This one I heard. The one I understood was it was a shake, but

Philip Pape: 27:11

okay. Yeah, no, there's a lot of weird. You're right. Placebo Effect. Of course, that's what a lot of what we're talking about is called and I'm going off on like, this complex way to describe it. But no, you're right. There's like studies where just tasting a sugar or a car. But even if you don't ingest any of it causes the effects of, you know, increased glycogen usage when your expression when you're lifting, whatever. So good stuff, man.

Unknown: 27:36

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Philip Pape: 28:20

What are we going next on this? So I was thinking about the how we interpret memories, because that's one thing you mentioned. And then we give them that significance with our present self. And he talked about reframing. So how do we reframe them?

Ashton Levarek: 28:34

How do we reframe our memories? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I think it's important to well, you have to be clear about what you want, right? What do you want out of life? You want to be happier? Do you want more money? Do you want a healthier body? I would also, and I said it, I gave it away. But the first thing, if you if you were to whittle down everything you want out of life, and why you want it, you will find like 99% of the time you want that thing because you think it's going to make you happier. Right? So can we focus on that first, right? And then the journey just becomes a fucking joy? Excuse my language, but it becomes a joy. Like, it's the whole process, right? So if you're looking at your memories, oh, my dad beat me. Alright. I'm gonna, I'll tell you like, that's a real thing. For me. That was something I grew up with. But I look at that now. And I'm like, Man, when I went to boot camp, I was, they were yelling in my face, it did nothing to me, because of how my father was so disciplinary. And I was it had no effect on me. So for me, that's a positive thing, right? Because I choose to interpret as a positive thing. Because I choose That's happiness, right? You want to be happy? So if you believe let's be let's have fun here for a second. If you believe Einstein said, you have to ask yourself, do you think the universe is friendly? Or it's unfriendly? Right? And that's really what it is. Right? Does the universe want the best for you? And I would argue it does. Because you let's say you get a cut in your arm. It heals on its own. Yeah, you know, science is going to explain all this. And I get that and I get how it works. What it does heal it on its own. But when you are depressed, and there's high stress, it doesn't it's slower, right? You get sick faster, like so. It does start in the mind. It starts with how you interpret the scenario, right? And it's and so whatever happened in the past, how you interpret that's going to affect everything, obviously, but also how you how you are presently how you choose to interpret that past can change. Because, again, the past only exists in your head. And so I think it's very important to get clear about what you want, I want to be happy, I want to be healthy, I want to be a monster in the gym, I want to be a fucking millionaire, like, these are the things I want, you know. And so as you lean into that what you want, the universe will provide the answers. universe God, Spirit source, whatever you want to call it, I don't care. Because we can talk about like the I love this topic to the reticulating activating system in the brain, you know, essentially, whatever you're looking for, whatever, whatever you're looking for in life, your eyes will find and your ears will hear, you know, you'll be in a crowd. And if you're focused on making more money, you will find you will hear somebody talking about making money and you'll automatically gravitate to them. Or if you're someone who's very depressed, and in, you know, wherever you are, you're going to find something to be depressed about. So it really comes with that intention. What do I want out of life? Right? Do I want it to be easy to I want it to be hard to like, do I want to be challenged? Do I want to have fun? Do I want this to be fun? Because once you do that you will find the path? You know, I looked for challenges in my life when I was young, and I went down that road, you know, like you, you will run into it.

Philip Pape: 32:04

Yeah. And do you? Do you find that? When you do that enough? You start to not really ever interpret things negative not not ever enough. Nothing's never but it elevates your whole persona just in exists, you know, on this plane of existence, period, because now you're just always, because you've reinforced the fact that when you look for things, you find them, you're gonna be always looking for those positive things. Things will happen to you. But still, yeah,

Ashton Levarek: 32:32

yeah. And I think when you listen to some of these, when I started focused on making money, like when I started, I started focusing on that I joined a couple these masterminds, which I forgot to mention, like, that's another way to shift your paradigm. You want to be something else go be around people that are doing Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah, yes, you won't be the smallest fish in the pond, and you will learn very fast, that'll shift you. You're like, man, these guys are buying islands, like some of these guys, like they're trying to buy and sell islands. And I'm like, that's insane. I'm coming from a blue collar background military, you know, but like, it shifts your paradigm of what's possible. I didn't know you could finance an island. You know what I mean? So, so like that. It's a paradigm shift, right? But I'm kind of getting off track. Shoot, where was I going with that?

Philip Pape: 33:21

No, it's all good. We can we can play with that. Because the other thing that comes to mind there is how do you know? How do you know what what the right thing to chase is? When you're in that mindset? So somebody listening is like, Alright, I'm gonna take control of my health. You know, I've got to be there for my kids. For my family. I want to live long life, blah, blah, blah. And it could be the deepest purpose ever. And they've been fed so much misinformation for years and haven't you know, like, if they just went out and took action, they'd stumble into another program that's not gonna stumble with another huckster. You know what I mean? So where are you? How do you deal with that?

Ashton Levarek: 33:56

Yeah, that's, that is a good question. And you know, what I think it is, you know, it goes back to that. I will find what I'm seeking, you may run into a wall a couple of times, but you're gonna find it, you know, when you listen to like, these highly successful people, like, let's say Oprah, or Walt Disney, or Steve Jobs, or Henry Ford, or like they did, they ran into door into wall after wall after wall. But they were so intense, so focused on where they wanted to go what they wanted to do, that it worked out, right. Yeah. Like, Oprah Winfrey was like, fired. They said she could never be on TV. Look at her now, you know, like, but she needed to be fired to learn to become Oprah Winfrey, she is today, right?

Philip Pape: 34:41

Yeah, yeah. No, that no, you're hitting it on the head. Because when I think of clients who, you know, I work, mostly people who are over 30. So they've had a lot of women who've died many times they've done many things. And I'm really thrilled when they find me, because I know I'm going to help them and do it the right way. And they don't quite know that yet. Right. This is just another attempt. Like you said, it's another attempt along the way of your counter failures, hoping that this won't be the failure. But because you've done it so many times you have all this experience and education of what didn't work in the past, which goes back to like the past is important from that perspective, but it's framing. So yeah, that's a great point that and here's the other thing from personal experience when I finally figured stuff out back in around 2020. Like for my health journey, it was because I had time during the pandemic to pour everything into learning and joining groups and listening to podcasts and reading and it was because of the just sheer exposure that I finally could find things that made sense. And that's again, reps and quantity just getting out there and doing it. Do you agree or what do you think about that? Yeah,

Ashton Levarek: 35:43

no, I absolutely agree. And you know, what I think is interesting, the more you think, and it's kind of go back goes back to Einstein's theory or question he asked about the universe. It also goes back to Nikola Tesla, he says the same thing. You know, if you think the universe is friendly, then you must have faith in it being friendly, right? And you will find what, and when you have that faith, it's all of a sudden, it's like, okay, well, I'm here for a reason. Like, I brought myself here, but that it because I wanted something. And this is part of my journey. And it's almost like, when you go to sleep, when you have a meal, you don't go, oh, man, I hope I digest this food. You know, most of us don't, right? Like you just trust in your body, which is a really cool thing. It's really cool. We trust that our heart is going to be that our lungs are going to absorb oxygen, that we're going to metabolize the nutrients, right. There's this trust. But imagine, I mean, if the placebo effect is as as powerful as you think, what if all of a sudden you started to distrust your body? You know, like, I don't know what would happen. I don't know what would happen. But I think when you start to trust the process of your life, and I'm not saying you need to believe in God, I'm not saying I'm saying you're actually more powerful than you think I'm just That's all I'm saying. When you believe in it, I think it unfolds the way you ask, right? But a lot of us, we get in this weird hamster wheel where we like, yeah, I want to end up over there. But I don't know how it's gonna happen. And because you don't know how it's gonna happen, you don't believe in it. So it happens a lot slower and stuff. Yeah. Right. And that's even proof to you. That it's not working. But I think it does. We do. And it's the same. You go to the gym, right? You have faith, like, okay, these guys said, If I do you know, this much cardio, this was weightlifting, if I eat this way, if I get this much sleep, they trust you because you're an authority, and that that's where their trust come from, for sometimes it has to start there. But imagine like, if you were a kid, if you just had faith? Well, they're all doing it. I can do it.

Philip Pape: 37:46

And then yeah, yeah. And what I want to separate for people in what you just said is, like the gym example. There are people who they go and they there's, there's two sides of this, they they take a philosophy or program or idea, they go apply it, but then they're not consistent than they don't get results and in blame, whatever it was, even if it might have worked, then there's people who take something that's not effective, apply it consistently, and it doesn't work. And I think there's where a lot of the value is, right? Because they, they put in the reps, they took the steps, and then it didn't work. So now you've got that feedback. Okay, cross that off the list and move to the next thing. Whereas the people over here, you can't suss out, which were the problem is, I mean, you can once you realize they're not being consistent. Yeah, you know, I mean, again, we're getting philosophical, because I'm thinking of all these things, as well as your your thought about trusting in the world. And, like you, I'm very rational, but I have seen it time and again, where just believe that that people are good by nature, right? Because I think 99.9% People are good by nature. That's what I've seen. And I and I know social media can like really sour that perception of humanity. But then you got to you got to hang out in the right places, you know, you have to stay away from things. I mean, it's your choice, you can stay away from where the poison people are, and focus elsewhere. You know, like, my Facebook community is like that. I don't moderate it. I don't, you know, I just trust that everybody's gonna be good. And if you had a bad apple, it comes up fine. But yeah, it's very positive man, skits stuff,

Ashton Levarek: 39:18

you know, what I think is cool, too. I've considered this couple times. So if everything is okay, well, I'm not gonna go that way just yet. But social media, the algorithms that they designed social media with, or how they use them, or whatever, are exactly the way your brain works. Like you, when you see something terrible, you tend to notice more terrible things. Right? Whatever you're conscious of, you tend to see more of right. So if you shift what you're conscious of, if you make it like if you feel I'm depressed, I'm down. I don't feel like going to the gym. This is a you know, fitness podcast. So I don't feel like going to the gym. And all you do is sit around the house, you will not feel like but if you were to, I don't know, get on social media and look at all these amazing people having these amazing physiques doing these amazing things with their body. All of a sudden, you're there's it's going to shift things for you, right? And you're going to feel that that's a feeling like oh, yeah, I could do that. I should do that. And I'll tell you right now, I've been working out my whole life. I've been in sports my whole life. And I'll still like sometimes I'll put on I like CrossFit because I think they're amazing athletes, and I'll just watch like a competition. Like, I'm going to the gym. I gotta get

Philip Pape: 40:34

psyched up, right? Yeah, it's strong, man. You're like, Man, I'm a weekend

Ashton Levarek: 40:39

out there. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's absolutely it works. And I mean, I think that it goes holds true for anything if you're trying to build a business, but whatever. But you can use that reticulating activating system in your mind, you have to be conscious, you have to constantly, this is what I'm looking for. And let me just explain. So the reticular activating system is just you conscious, you can consciously comprehend, I think it was like, I can't remember exactly was like 100 images per second, right? pixels per second, or something like that is what they figured out. But your subconscious processes processes over 1000. And they found if you prime your mind, your or 100,000, if you prime your mind, it will pick out the things you are primed to pick out. So when they did these tests with these people, they said, okay, they had all these images showing up on a screen, and they asked them which ones the people remembered, right? And they would prime them with stuff like, Okay, before, just when they went in this is I have a feeling this is how a lot of magicians do stuff, too. But honestly, how they read your mind. Yeah, so they they prime the people with like, talking about, I don't know, doctors, nurses, hospitals, stuff like that. And then in the 100,000 images that they watch, there's a few of those. And that's the only thing that people remember. Okay. And so, so that's what I'm saying. So if you can be conscious about what you're priming your mind with, and this just goes back to what do you want, I want to be happy, I want to be wealthy, I want to feel good. I want to have love, you're going to find that. You're going to find that and the people, you're going to walk through a crowd of negative people and only find a good one happy person. That's amazing.

Philip Pape: 42:15

It is yeah, it is amazing. And it gets you hyper focus, I think, yeah, right. Like you get, I think of the things that I'm really passionate about now that I may not have been in the past. And it sucks, like just kept thinking about them going after learning, learning, learning, to the point where you just, it's just your brain is like carrying you that direction. Yeah, you know, and I see it with clients, too, who have struggled their whole life. And all of a sudden, they start lifting weights and getting PRs, PRs, PRs, and they're just like, I need to learn about form, I need to learn about movement and learn about programming this and that, and it's just like cycles on itself. So

Ashton Levarek: 42:45

it's a positive reinforcement loop, but it goes the other way, too. So you do have to be intentional. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 42:51

So then what about you, Ashton? How do you personally do this? And how do you talk to your future self? Like, because that's one concept we talked about is like reaching out to your future self talking to him getting getting yourself to go forward? I mean, do you invite him on an imaginary podcast episode, you know, with yourself?

Ashton Levarek: 43:10

I mean, that is one way. Yes. I mean, you could think of it like that. That's not recorded. I actually, I mean, I do record my the ones where I do solo is me, a lot of them. It's right before that I'm journaling or free, free thinking. But, so I got this a long time ago, and I can't remember where I got it. And then somebody put this into a book and the book is called the morning. Miracle Morning, all about your morning routine. How something right? How Elrod Oh, there you go. And so it's really an intentional way of building a habit to prime your mind to prime your body, your mind all that stuff, right. And there's, it's he calls them he uses an acronym is called savers. And I was actually doing this long before, not all of them, but a lot of them before he made the book. And I find it very effective. So it's, the first one is silence, Affirmations, Visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. So savers, sav e Rs. And essentially, what you're doing is you're you're priming your mind. So the first one is silence, you want to silence It's the first thing you're doing. When you get up in the morning, when you go to the bathroom, take a leak, drink some water, I like to drink some water because I know I get dehydrated overnight. And I sit in silence and I want to silence my mind because I know my mind. Like in Zen, they call it your monkey mind. It'll just run off with thoughts. And then and then there's nothing intentional. You're you're reacting and you're not. You're reactive to everything in your life instead of proactive and I want to be proactive. I'm trying to create a lifestyle. I'm trying to create a life A Journey. I'm trying to create that. And so I don't want my monkey mind to control my, my, the beginning of my day because that's that's, that's your primer, you know? So do silence and then the affirmation is when you after you come out of silence the affirmations is what you're talking about the podcast so you have a conversation with yourself and we don't know we're a lot of times we're not conscious that we're doing this throughout the day. But we're always having a conversation I'm hungry I'm full. I don't like this I do like that that tree looks amazing. You're thinking these things in our in your brain, right? But the affirmations piece is a huge thing. It just goes back to telling yourself having a conversation with of yourself with yourself. What you want your day to be like what you want your life to be like what do I want? Who am I? Right? Because a lot of what you do in life boils down to who you think you are and so if you want to change who you are you think you are. You can tell yourself these things. Man I'm getting you don't have to lie don't lie to yourself either because Right. Don't know when you're lying. You're like, I'm Mr. Olympia. Like, everybody's gonna You're no, you know you're not. But you can say things like, I'm on my way. I'm on my way. And it feels good to be making changes in my life. And I'm getting better at this every day. Right? Those, and that feels really good. And then the visualization, I like the visualization, one, because, yeah, you bring the actual, you bring it. And you can do vision boards. I think vision boards are really good. I think in my journal, I have the first two pages are like, my ideal house where I love surfing like all these different meals and things that represent things to me. And so when I flip on my journal, which is one of them scribing like writing, and I'm a very big fan of writing, because you get your thoughts out on paper, and now you can analyze your thoughts and put in organize them. And I'll tell you, one of my biggest problems early on was I didn't organize my thoughts. So a lot of times talking in public was very unnerving, because I would say, just come out.

Philip Pape: 46:36

But anyway, thanks. Yeah. But then

Ashton Levarek: 46:39

also, like, you can read inspiring stuff like these, you're priming your day. And that's the whole point, right? You're priming yourself. For what to pick up on what to focus on throughout the day, what you want to feel what you want to do have be whatever. And so yeah, I think sabers is a great way to start. You don't have to do all of them. Pick a couple that work for you. I know there's a huge craze for like cold therapy. And you know, which, again, what works for you works for you use that. And I some of these things have a lot of science backing them up.

Philip Pape: 47:09

But no, no, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Do it works for you. I agree. Because yeah, people will hear this and say, All right, I'm going to do all those things starting tomorrow. And by the way, you mentioned something about cold ones, I'm gonna do that too. You know, and it's like, even with the gym, or fitness or whatever you want, there's difference in optimal and just workable, just get it done. Like if you're not doing anything right now that that's going to be 80% of the way toward where you want to be just doing something. Yeah, but these are all great. And you can pick and choose actually read that book years ago, and remember getting up at 4am to do stuff. I don't do anymore, because I know the value of sleep, and I have to kind of work it out. But it's good stuff. So if you're listening to this, check out Miracle Morning and silence Affirmations, Visualization, exercise, reading and scribing. Do some of them, do all of them, whatever works for you. All right. So I know you've accomplished a lot in life. But I sent your hunger I sent your hunger to achieve more, you know, you talked about your vision board, you want to spiral that out to I'm sure your family, your tribe, I know you've talked about the tribe, right? Customers and so on with everything you do. So what is for you the biggest gap right now between your present and future self? And what are you doing about it?

Ashton Levarek: 48:19

I don't think I'll ever close that gap. So, but that's my inspiration, right? Maybe someday I'll meet that guy when I die. Which you know, and I hope I do. And that guy's like, Hey, man, good job. You did it. Yeah, I would. I would hate to get to the end and be like it and he's just like, what happened? So now I, um, how do I close that gap? I think I think that guy will always be out there developing. It's kind of like that. It's kind of like that. You want to be I want to be my biggest hero. Right. I think it's good to idolize other people. Sure. I get it. You know, but for me, it's always been about what is my potential? And I think that's there's a quote that I absolutely love by Nelson Mandela. I'm big quote, guy. I read a lot. But Nelson Mandela said, all shoot, I'm gonna butcher it. Yeah, it's basically there's no, there's no joy to be found in living a life less than the one you're capable of. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's something of that nature. But that's what it is. It's like, you have this potential. And it's kind of like that feedback loop. You You do, right. We have this potential. But we think it's limited until we take action until we learn from that and then reframes and just keeps going like that. But if you're not doing that you're not growing. Right. And one of the things I think is interesting is, you know, people talk about it like Tony Robbins, he's big motivational speaker and coach, and he says, if you're not growing, you're dying. I think he's right. You know, think about it. You look or listen to Viktor Frankl if you ever read his book on Man's Search for Meaning, when people had no longer had purpose, they died very quickly. He lived and he was in the concentration camps, obviously. So it's very accelerated. But the reason he he would give or the reason he found that people actually lived through those is because they had a purpose on the other end. So you know, I'm going to see my wife, I'm going to have another life I'm it's going to be over but when people give up on their purpose, they die very quickly. Now, that's the extreme opposite, but what I'm saying is, you know, you're alive you feel the most alive when you are growing when you're being challenged when there's slight risks, not terrible. risk. But when there's risk when there's, you know, you remember when you went to vote you the first time you saw your high school crush, and maybe they looked at you and you're about to say something like, there was that? That's

Philip Pape: 50:54

your life. Exactly.

Ashton Levarek: 50:55

But it's also what in my mind, is you're expanding your potential, right? And that's you growing. And that's, and that's what happens. Every time you take action, you get that feedback, you change your frame, like you're growing. And I think we have an and we you kind of put this in the intro. And I know we're getting late on time, but so I kind of like throw this in there in the last minute here. I think it's every person's duty to explore their potential. The problem I see though, is most people I mean, I can't remember the statistic is like, over 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Which means if you were to look at like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, over 60% of Americans are living in the bottom half there, they're fending for their family, they're trying to feed them, clothe them, and put a roof over their head. And that's it. And so they never get to explore their physical and maybe even their mental potential. Now, I'm not saying money is the answer, but it sure does help. Right? And so that's what that's what I think about sometimes like how do you what prevents humans from reaching their potential and exploring their potential like writing that best seller song, writing that book that changes millions of lives running for governor so you can change your econ your your social economy or your your government? Right? Like, those things are what move the needle in the advancement of humans. And so I think it's very important that people explore their potential. Making money is one of the keys to that. But

Philip Pape: 52:32

I agree. Well, it's funny that you bring up money because I know that your industry and I used to be a big iron Rand fan. Not not I like her books, but I'm not gonna say I follow her philosophy, like, idealistic. Well, in I think it's her big her big Opus, right, Atlas Shrugged. The character, what's his name? DiFrancesco are the guy he makes us Who is it, he makes a whole speech about money, just Google it look up the money speech on random money speech from a look it up. And the whole thing is about money being in exchange for value, and we give it so much. We give it so much human pneus that it doesn't deserve because it's just an exchange for value. In our, in our society. We use it for that. So I'm totally on board. Of course, being an entrepreneur and everything else trying to take care of my family, I get that. So you're coming from the place of let's help more people also get that and be able to exchange more of their own value to then elevate their lives and those of others. Yeah, that's, that's the way I interpret it. So you got an ally there in that regard? Okay. All right. So, I mean, I guess, well, I was going to talk about being an alpha and all that, I think you kind of covered that a little bit. Unless there's a specific, you know, aspect to that you wanted to add?

Ashton Levarek: 53:46

Um, yeah, for me, I think that's what it is, you know, as, as the leader of your family, even as a young man or young woman growing up, like, an alpha is somebody that is protecting and helping other people's grow l helping other people grow. And it's only because they're exploring their full potential. And you see this, like, we see this in the animal kingdom, like the alphas make sure that the pack is being led, being fed being cared for, right. And that's what you're doing when you become a leader in your society. When, if you're just a father, a mother, that's the alpha, right? It's gotten a bad rap over the years. Because we say alpha males are toxic, and this and that, whatever. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about being a natural leader and, and ensuring the growth of humanity. I mean, imagine, look at let's take Elon Musk for, for example. Right? I would say that he's an alpha, he's not complete alpha because of certain things. But the way he's moving the needle in the advancement of technology in, in the world. I think it's in a good, it's good, we're moving in that direction. Whether you think it's good or bad, it doesn't matter. Like it's people are going to learn from it, and it's gonna get better and better. And, yeah, and that's what it is. And, and that's how humanity progresses. That's how, you know, that's how so many kids can eat in America now, because we've learned how to produce food and energy and, you know, becoming an alpha should be everybody's goal, in my opinion.

Philip Pape: 55:12

I agree, man, I agree. And again, going back to just tying in what I'm familiar with, with my clients, a lot of times the goal is to they want to provide more for their family and they want to set a good example for their family and they feel themselves down with their health. And as you see that shift, you see it go out to their family, and you see all these winds that have nothing to do with them anymore. And it's like, my daughter saw me lifting now she's lifting with me and my son is now like, picking protein like when we go to the grocery store like little thing But it's going to have an impact on their tribe on their family. So yeah, that definition of alpha makes complete sense to me. All right, man. So you've got the art of winning podcast. Oh, there's one last question I like to ask guests. And that is, what one question Did you wish I had asked? And what is your answer?

Ashton Levarek: 55:58

Dane, that is a good. We talked about so much stuff. What is the one question I wish you asked. I don't know. How maybe how can someone reach their full potential? And I think, yeah, I think the answer to that it's going to be, keep moving forward. It's going to be clarity and focus. And, you know, I'm not a big Oprah fan. Honestly, the second time I talked about what she said. She said something and I, it's absolutely true. It's like most people don't get what they want out of life, because they don't explore what they want out of life. Right. And there are certain things that are inherent in you in your life, whatever, that drive you in a certain direction. And you have, if you don't explore that, like, if you say, I want to become a pilot, but you never pursue that. You're you're leaving so much on the table. That was part of your potential, you know?

Philip Pape: 56:57

Yeah. Yeah. Don't just think about it exploring.

Ashton Levarek: 57:00

Yeah. Are we going to do it? Are we going to be about it? Are we just going to talk about it, you know, like, we're here. We're in a physical realm. Let's take it and make

Philip Pape: 57:08

it. Find somebody but get a book. Go, go go to get some training, talk to people who know about this stuff. listen to a podcast, anything. People listening right now there's, there's easy things you can do to move that needle forward. So

Ashton Levarek: 57:18

yeah, taking action can be very small, but it gets bigger and bigger, because all of a sudden, yeah, that is because your

Philip Pape: 57:24

paradigm shifts, your potential gets bigger. There you go. All right, man. This is awesome. So where can listeners find out more about you and your work?

Ashton Levarek: 57:31

So yeah, I have the the art of winning podcast. And we have guests on and I also do solo episodes talking about a lot of this stuff, as well as entrepreneurship. But it's focused on health, wealth and happiness. But we also have our website, and it's more for real estate investing, but it's called a Valkyrie investment group. And that's www.vl KER ie group.com Valkyrie group.com.

Philip Pape: 57:57

All right, you got it, the art of winning podcast, definitely follow it. If you're listening right now. It's super easy to do that. Just go on your app, look it up, click follow, and check it out. And then the website I'll put in the show notes, man, Ashton has a lot of fun, really cool topics that we dove deep into and I enjoyed it. So thanks for coming on.

Ashton Levarek: 58:13

I appreciate you for having me. Thank you so much.

Philip Pape: 58:17

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.