Hey folks, the audio you're about to hear is a bonus, very atypical show, but I wanted to pour my heart out to you for about 15 minutes.

So take it for what it's worth, no commercials, no interruptions. Here we go.

Lately, I've been thinking quite a bit about life. I've been engaged in some deep introspection and self-inspection, which I think is healthy for everyone to do on a regular basis.

In my case, I was forced into it and into a state of extreme humbleness and ego dissolution when I failed to complete one of my recent competitions, the Trained to Hunt National Championships in Colorado.

I came down with an extremely high heart rate, dizziness, extreme fatigue and an inability to simply put one foot in front of the other during that event, likely a combination of just pushing myself too hard lately and jet lag and altitude and a cluster of factors that basically left me lying in my bed for about 12 hours, barely able to sleep, staring at the ceiling and thinking about life.

Now, one thing that you need to understand is that I'm a fan of personality tests. It's something that we, of course, are very big on it, at key on everyone takes an anyogram.

And my anyogram puts me in a very, very high category of what's called a one and a three, a perfectionist and also an achiever.

That is a pretty dang dangerous combination because as you can imagine, this causes me to expect a lot of myself in every task that I attempt to perform while simultaneously taking on a lot of tasks all at once.

That's an exhausting combination that in many people can lead to burnout into spinning too many plates at once into trying to do everything that you're doing, which is often too many things perfectly, which means that you do them perfectly but have zero time leftover for relaxation for hobbies for family or for self care or be projects begin to decline in quality.

And those plates crash to the ground and eventually you crash to the ground as well.

In addition to that, the achiever personality type on the anyogram dictates that one tends to try to be who others expect them to be, or at least who they think that others expect them to be.

As a matter of fact, the direct quote from the anyogram is that in the headlong rush to achieve whatever they believe will make them that more valuable achievers can become so alienated from themselves that they no longer know what they truly want or what their real feelings or interests are.

Thus the deeper problem is that their search for a way to be of value increasingly takes them further away from their own essential self with its core of real value.

Step by step their own inner core their hearts desire is left behind until they no longer recognize it.

Now that combined with the perfectionist mentality creates a person who tries very, very hard to seek the approval of others to be perfect, to try to be someone they're not and to neglect what makes them truly happy.

And I feel like I have begun to slip into that myself. That's not to say it's wrong to want to achieve excellence in things.

It's not to say it's wrong to want to achieve great things in life when steered in the right direction in a state of true authenticity and also a state that enables one to accept the fact that they cannot be perfect.

One can go on to achieve great things as an achiever and as a perfectionist.

But in my case what I've done to myself is I've built constant 24-7 pressure to do many things.

For example, to be fit as a fiddle for the next event.

I have told others I think an error that in order to drive you to be motivated to be fit you must always be signed up for something that slightly scares you, something that challenges you and while this can be healthy.

In some cases it can backfire meaning that I'm finding myself no longer able to travel to spend time with my family to sit in a movie to enjoy life without simply thinking about whether or not I'll be ready to represent and be that perfect person who inspires others to greatness or whatever excuse I want to give myself at the next event that I'm signed up for, whether it's a triathlon or an obstacle.

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