Discipline, Motivation & The Champion’s Mindset - Chris Bumstead - #851

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
This is going out the day after the Olympia. What do you hope happened yesterday?

**Chris Bumstead** (0:06)
Well, I certainly hope I won, definitely. Easiest answer to give. This year is just very important to me to really want to bring my best package. It sounds cheesy to say, but I've been working hard, going through a lot of adversities and challenges over the years, and every year's had something kind of like get in my way, and felt like it was holding me back. This year's had a few earlier on in the year, but at this point, I'm feeling pretty good, feeling pretty set. So I just want to be able to stride into this one. I want to be able to enjoy it. I want to be able to get off stage, kiss my wife, hold my baby, know that I became the best in the world and maintained a beautiful relationship through it.

**Chris Williamson** (0:46)
How important is it to share the success with somebody else as opposed to just doing it for yourself?

**Chris Bumstead** (0:54)
It's hard to say how important it is because I haven't had the success without her, but I can't imagine it in any other way. I think in the meaning we find in life, it's beautiful to do hard things and to accomplish things, but if you were to do it alone, it's just not the same as being able to share it with someone. I think there's a level of codependence and regulation that can be healthy and can help you push through, be more present, not have to shut off and numb so much. I think a lot of people who are going through hard things, trying to accomplish really big levels of success, numb a lot to get there. I think being able to have a partner in which you can regulate yourself with and share and communicate and lean on prevents you from having to numb brings you closer together, which is its own experience as well as the experience of whatever you're working toward. So it's like double the amount of joy that you get to feel.

**Chris Williamson** (1:39)
Growing in two ways at once.

**Chris Bumstead** (1:40)
Exactly, yeah. And who doesn't want a big hug after you accomplish something, you know?

**Chris Williamson** (1:43)
Yeah, that's cool. What will you be talking about in your speech, hopefully?

**Chris Bumstead** (1:49)
My speech, hopefully? That's a good question.
I would say, just talking about this year, I've been thinking a lot about the sacrifices that come with success. You know, like nothing comes for free. And I've reflected a lot over the years of how much of my mental peace I've had to sacrifice to accomplish what I've accomplished. And it's just been a lot of like waking up at 5 a.m. going through the day, wake up, weigh myself, weigh my food, do my check-ins in the mirror, like go to the gym, work out. What's wrong with everything? It's like, am I good enough? Am I being enough? Am I doing enough to win the Olympia right now? It's all just compared to being Mr. Olympia, to that level of success. And people talk about what you sacrifice to be great at things. And they're normally like, you don't get to go hang out with your friends. You don't get to go party, go do these things. But I think for me, the biggest sacrifice has just been my mental peace. So the goal this year has been trying to find that, maintain it, have the mental peace while also thriving at a high level and seeing how I can do that as efficiently as possible. And I'd like to be able to say I did so successfully.

**Chris Williamson** (2:52)
Talk to me about the tension of being as high of a performer, the best in the world at what you do, whilst also not having that neurotic drive, that sort of ambient anxiety that you can never switch off. Cause it seems like that anxiety is precisely what creates the perfectionism approach that allows you to cover all of those bases. Is it possible to have one without the other?

**Chris Bumstead** (3:19)
I'm not sure. I still have a level of neuroticism in me, even though I've been succeeding for like five, six years now. And it's definitely gotten better. You know, I don't focus on perfection. I focus on just being doing the best I can. But even within that, I have that voice in my head that will look at myself every now and then and be like, it's not that I'm a shitty person, but if I'm trying to be Mr. Olympia, you're like, you're not fucking doing enough. And it creates like an impeding anxiety upon myself, like I'm not doing enough. And that's not like an overwhelming thing all the time. It's a drive for me to keep being better and keep pushing more and more, but it's a lot. So I think being able to manage that is one of the most challenging things of maintaining success for an extended period of time. There's two different mindsets when you win something. There's, oh, I won, I did it, I'm done. And then there's, oh shit, like I better, I got to do better than this. I won, now I have to maintain this, not only maintain this, but this is the bare minimum of what's expected of me. And I got to do better now. So, there's the balance of all that. And I think over the last couple of years, I've been able to really be able to fix my perspective on just being grateful for the privilege of it. You know, there's been times where I thought I was going to stop competing because the pressure felt so high. And then when I started to step away from it, I was like, fuck, I would really miss this pressure. Like, there's something I love about it. There's something I love about being put back against the corner, like knowing that there's a lot of work I have to do, feeling like I can't accomplish my goal and you're going to have to do it. There's something so like simple and beautiful in the meaning of just doing something that difficult under that level of pressure that you're choosing to do. You know, people say you find meaning in suffering. And I think if you put yourself into like a meaningless suffering, it's kind of just, it's dumb. There's no point. You're just hurting yourself for no reason. But if you can find your meaning in just doing hard things that are as close as possible to suffering, that you're still benefiting from and you still enjoy, I think it's beautiful.