I spent years getting introduced at parties as the Navy SEAL instead of as Jon. Then an 11-time world champion told me to let the title go.
For a long stretch after I got out, I’d walk into a room and someone would say, “This is my friend, the Navy SEAL.” Not “my friend Jon.” The title did the introducing. And I leaned into it, because after 24 years it was the truest thing I knew how to say about myself.
So when David Meyer came on the show, I figured he’d be the last guy on earth to tell me to loosen my grip on a title. He’s one of the first Americans to earn a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, an 11-time world champion, a coral belt, which is the kind of belt they only hand out after decades. The man has a wall of medals behind him on camera and told us there are more in a drawer.
He said the title is a trap. The clinging is what traps you, never the achievement itself. And then he spent an hour showing me a better way to carry it.
There is no losing, there’s only learning
David is about to turn 64 and still rolls every day with guys half his age. He loses a lot. On purpose. His whole case is that the only way to get better at anything is to spend your time around people who are better than you, which means getting beaten over and over. “If you want to win all the time,” he said, “just go train with people who are terrible.” Nobody actually wants that, because losing to good people is the entire engine of improvement.
That lands differently coming from a champion than from a motivational poster. He’s not romanticizing losing. He pointed out the paradox and sat in it: the way to raise your odds of winning is to care less about winning, so you stop choking on your own nerves. The medals, which he calls trinkets, are a cherry on top of a thing that was already worth doing.
Here’s my version of the exact opposite of that wisdom. A while back one of my kids challenged me to a footrace, maybe 75 yards. I’m a retired runner, I had no business treating it like the Olympics, and I put everything I had into it so a child would learn that Dad does not simply lose. I won by about 2 feet. My hamstrings sent me the invoice the next morning and I paid it for 3 days. That was ego wearing running shoes. David would have jogged it, lost on purpose, and laughed.
Who do you want to be today
This next part is the one that reorganized how I think about getting older. David doesn’t think you have to kill the ego or bury the old identity. He thinks you expand it. You were the SEAL. You’ll always be the person who did that, and you’ll carry it to the day you die. The question he kept returning to is just the next one. Given the body you have today, given the hours you actually have, who do you want to be today?
He’s careful about this because he lives it. He could introduce himself as the current world champion in his division, and some days the thought of giving that up stings. He named the sting out loud instead of pretending he’s above it. His reframe for guys like me, whose identity got built around being tough, is that a tough person today is someone who can admit he’s not as good as he used to be and still go be the best he can be with what he’s got. That is a harder kind of tough than the one I used to sell.
David already did the bigger version of this move. He built the largest pet adoption site in the world, sold it to Mars, and walked away from the thing that made his name to go fight factory farming, because there were more animals to help there. He traded a title he’d earned for work he believed in more. He didn’t lose the old identity. He outgrew it.
The mountains are laughing
David has a line he uses whenever he catches himself getting wound up. The mountains are laughing. He looks out his window in Northern California at Mount Tam, something immense and old that will outlast him by a wide margin and sees every one of his problems in the span of the whole earth, and he lets it shrink them. I’ve got mountains out my own window and I still forget to look at them. Will reminded us Jon has mountains in the backyard, and David laughed that he’s got them too.
He has a smaller, sharper version of the same tool for the daily stuff. When something gets under his skin, he asks whether it’ll matter in a year. Then whether it’ll matter on his deathbed. The honest answer is almost always no, so he lets it go faster. And the closer he gave us for any man who thinks his best days are behind him was this. The best hug you’ll ever get is the one happening right now, because it’s the only one that’s real. The rest is memory, and memory is unreliable anyway.
I still introduce myself by the title some days. The work now is remembering the mountains are laughing while I do it...
What to do about it
Run the deathbed test on your next flare-up. When something gets under your skin this week, before you react, ask David’s two questions. Will this matter in a year? Will it matter on my deathbed? When the answer is no, which it usually is, let it go faster than you normally would.
Go lose on purpose. Pick one thing where you are not the best person in the room, a jiu-jitsu mat, a beginner’s language class, and train there anyway. David’s whole longevity is built on being the worst guy in good company. Losing to better people is how you get better. Winning against worse ones is how you stall.
Name the title you’re gripping, then pick today’s. Write down the identity you introduce yourself by. The job, the rank, the old number on the bar. Then answer David’s question in one line: given the body and the hours you have now, who do you want to be today? Not sure what’s actually running you? Start with our free Awareness Self-Assessment, about 5 minutes: focusnowtraining.com/assessment-page. Reply and tell me the title you’re ready to expand.
Find your mountain. David has Mount Tam. Pick the big, old, outlasts-you thing you can actually see from where you live, a peak, or a river, or whatever’s nearest you, and go look at it when you’re wound up. Perspective is a practice, not a personality trait.
Do one thing today worthy of being your best day. David’s closer is that your best days can still be ahead of you, and that it’s on you to make today one. Give one real hug, or take the first step on the bucket-list thing you keep putting off. Reply with the one thing you’re doing today, and I’ll build a follow-up from what comes back.
This week on Men Talking Mindfulness
David Meyer is one of the first Americans to earn a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, an 11-time world champion, and a coral belt, which is roughly the 7th degree. He founded Adopt-a-Pet.com, the largest pet adoption site in the world, sold it to Mars, and now runs Food System Innovations and Humane America, working on a more humane food system. He hosts the Ageless Warrior Lab podcast, has eaten plant-based for over 35 years, and is about to turn 64 while still training daily with people half his age. Dan Millman, who just turned 80 and celebrated with a 2-minute handstand, introduced us. Will and I both took this one, on ego, losing, identity, and why your best days might still be in front of you.
Watch on YouTube | Listen here
One more thing before the paywall…
Awareness to Action is our 12-week self-mastery course and community. It’s a room full of men training the exact thing David talked about, getting better by being around other people doing the work, instead of staying the biggest fish in a small, comfortable pond. Text A2A to 33777 or go to FocusNowTraining.com/A2A-course. On the fence? Reply with the word A2A and I’ll tell you straight whether it’s for you.
Until next time,
Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider
Focus Now Training and Men Talking Mindfulness
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