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Scot: Today we are talking man mantras, or "man-tras," I guess, because there's a man right in mantras, M-A-N-T-R-A-S. If I spelled it right anyway.

Mantras are those little short sayings that we have in our heads that keep us moving, that keep us focused. Maybe they just help keep us a little bit more sane. They're rules that we live by. And we're going to talk about those. We're going to find out what John Smith and Mitch Sears's man-tras are, or their mantras.

But before we get into it, quick question. Without telling us what it is, one of yours, think where it came from. Can you think of the origin story of one of yours? Where did it come from? John?

Dr. Smith: I don't even know the origin story. I should probably look that up. I probably haven't thought that much into it, to be quite fair.

Scot: Well, I think these things come into our lives and sometimes we don't realize where they came from. It could be loads of experience. It could be something that we consumed or saw that we're like, "Hey, that's good. I like that."

What about you, Mitch?

Mitch: Mine actually came from my mental health journey. So the therapist I was working with, he was like, "Hey, let's teach you some tools for managing stress, for motivating yourself, keeping your energy high or positivity." And so he would give me general tips and strategies, and then I turned them into something a little more Mitch. So it was me.

Scot: Okay. The mantra wasn't from the professional. It was information and then you did . . .

Mitch: Yes.

Scot: Okay, that's cool. Mine are from Instagram Reels.

Dr. Smith: I like that.

Scot: Well, we'll see how they measure up, I guess.

This is "Who Cares About Men's Health," with information, inspiration, and a different interpretation of men's health. My name is Scot. I bring the BS. The MD to my BS is Dr. John Smith.

Dr. Smith: Good morning, afternoon, evening, fellas.

Scot: And of course, Producer Mitch, he's the "Who Cares About Men's Health" convert. When he first started this podcast, it was just a job. Now it's a lifestyle. Welcome to the show, Mitch.

Mitch: Hey, there.

Scot: All right. So here's the idea. We all have these little one-liners or they might be a little bit more than a one-liner, but we carry them around. Maybe a coach drilled it into you. Maybe that's where it came from. Maybe it came from your dad. Maybe you're like Mitch, you figured it out the hard way. But wherever they come from, they shape what we do.

So today we're putting our mantras or man-tras on the table, where they came from, why they stuck, and how we actually use them. So let's go ahead and get right into it, shall we?

My first one is "What's your min? What's your max?" And I actually picked this one up from an Instagram Reel. I was going to go back through my history and see if I could try to find it, but I couldn't. Anyway, what's your min/max? And this is how I use it.

Before I start something, I decide the floor and I decide the ceiling. And the minimum is the least I can do that still counts as a win. And the maximum is what it looks like if everything goes perfectly.

So, for example, for my workouts, my minimum might be, "I have to do 15 minutes with the kettlebells here at home." My maximum is a full workout at the gym, a strength training workout, that whole deal. My minimum is to get out and walk for 10 minutes. My maximum is I'd love a good 45-minute, 60-minute walk.

So either way, I feel as though I've accomplished stuff. And more importantly, it helps me keep the momentum going, because it can be easy for me to go, "Well, I just don't have the time to get that workout in today." When I say "that workout," I'm talking about probably the max, right?

But if I set a min where I'm like, "All right. All I have to do is get a 15-minute walk in and 15 minutes with the kettlebells," I can do that, right? I can get that done, I feel good about it, and I move on with my day, and maybe the next time I get to hit the max. And sometimes it could define what's in the middle.

So it's a win. It keeps you moving. I'm defining my floor and my ceiling for what it means to win that thing that day. And I apply it across all different sorts of my health philosophies, from my sleep to my diet, the whole deal. What's your min/max?

Mitch: I like it. I like it a lot. It reminds me of one I've heard that was, "Even the bronze medalist is still one of the best in the world." We always are trying to be like, "I have to be the absolute best." And it's like, "Can you still do something today?"

Scot: Sometimes a min is showing up, right? The min is just starting something for five minutes. Maybe that's all you got in you that day. A lot of things can impact that min/max. Your schedule is packed or your mental energy or your physical energy. And that way, you don't feel defeated. If you can't do your max, you get your min in and you just smile about it and you go, "Well, tomorrow is another day."

Let's go ahead and go to Mitch first. What's your first Mitch man-tra?

Mitch: So my mantras . . . Again, this is something that was given to me. I was given the tools and then I twisted it into something that worked best for me. And it is "Don't trust future Mitch." That is the mantra.

Dr. Smith: I like that a lot.

Mitch: I've done a lot of work with my ADHD, a lot of work with my mental health. And there's this idea that you will always, always, always have the perfect memory. You will always have the perfect amount of motivation. It's like, "Oh, I won't do this now because later that guy can take care of it." And so by saying, "No, don't trust future Mitch," you can start to do things like preventing . . . While you have the energy, do what you need to do.

It also starts to create things like you prepare yourself for the future, right? So don't just assume that future Mitch will remember this thing. Put it in the calendar. Don't assume that future Mitch will figure out dinner plans, etc. Let's make sure we have a salad kit in the fridge so we can make a healthy choice when that happens.

So it's this mantra where it gives myself enough of . . . Because I want to take care of future Mitch, right? But he's going to make mistakes. He's going to not be as motivated as me right in this moment, etc.

And so framing it that way really helps me with some of the struggles that I have, not only on my day-to-day living with ADHD, but also a lot of my fitness goals, like leaving my shoes and my running clothes out the night before. So it's like, "Oh, I don't even have to look for these. I just put them on," rather than assuming I'll be just fine in the morning.

Scot: I wanted to say with "Don't trust future Mitch," there are a lot of different variations you can play with. And obviously, you picked the one that worked for you, but I like to think of future Scot as a good friend. What are some things that could make future Scot's life a little bit easier?

I have to flush my hot water heater, and I've only done it on this particular tankless model once. I took really copious notes last time, so future Scot now doesn't have to go through the process of trying to figure it all out again. He's got a note that he can look at, and it tells him exactly what he needs to do, and exactly what needs to go down.

So it's whatever angle works for you. "Don't trust future Mitch," or "Don't unload it on future Mitch. Future Mitch is going to have issues of his own. He's going to have his own things to do," or "Treat future Mitch or future Scot like a good friend." And what would you do? How would you set up a good friend to succeed in the future? Sometimes that means getting off your butt and doing the thing you don't want to do so your future self doesn't need to.

Cool. I like it. John, did you have any thoughts on that?

Dr. Smith: I like that a lot. That made me think of when I was a kid, we grew up in a fun place. And my mom used to put stuff on the back of the bathroom door. There were literally 35 quotes on the back of the bathroom door.

Some of them were stories. Some of them were just quotes. One that comes to mind is, "As a man thinketh, so is he." Things like that that my mom would put on the back. And there were stories of . . . Some of them were spiritual. Some of them were just overall things.

And so I grew up with my mom having these all there because her thought was . . . Well, this was before you had cell phones you could take to the bathroom, right? So the only thing you had to do while you were in the bathroom taking care of your business was you could stare at that back wall, and so she had all these motivational quotes that were on the back of the bathroom door.

And I bet if you ask each of my siblings, we would all be able to tell you three or four of those that were on the back of that bathroom door at any given time.

Eventually, they would fall off the bathroom door because the steam from the shower would kill the tape.

But yeah, I grew up with some of those things being there and it's a fun thing to think of these mantras, these one-liners, or the things that keep you going.

I think I've mentioned one of these before. In my mind, I always just keep in mind . . . I'm very simple. I'm not a deep thinker on a lot of levels. And you know the Nike mantra of "just do it" or "get it done"? When I was in residency, I said I was part of the GSD club because when I showed up to work, I was there to just "get stuff done." But it wasn't "stuff" necessarily. And so that's one of the things.

Scot: Yeah, it stood for something else. I'm sorry. I'm a little slow. Keep going.

Dr. Smith: Yeah. The "something else" is a different podcast.

Scot: Yeah, another word.

Dr. Smith: But yeah, that's always been something that I've had. When I'm getting into something that's difficult, I just say, "Get it done." Just get it done.

Scot: GSD.

Dr. Smith: Yeah, just GSD. And that's one of the things that I always am willing to do when I get in tough situations or when I'm doing something where I'm like, "I don't want to get out of bed." I'm like, "Dude, just get it done." If you get it done, it's done, and then you don't have to think about it anymore. I'm very simple in that way. And so that's one of the ones that probably guides majority of my life.

And I've tailored that to my kids. I'll say, "Hey, if it takes less than five minutes to do it, you do it right now." I'm trying to get them to instill that "just get it done," where if it's going to take you a short amount of time, just do it. Just get it done, right?

Scot: I like it.

Dr. Smith: So that's mine that probably comes up the most often in my life, is "just get it done." You know you don't want to do 90% of the crap you've got to do. Just get it done, right? Because none of it is that hard. It's just, "Oh, crap, there are 15 of them." Just get it done.

Scot: I saw an Instagram Reel just the other night where it was, "Don't feel like working out? Just do it." Well, it wasn't "just do it." "Just do it anyway," I think, was actually the verbiage they used. Do it anyway. "Don't feel like doing this task? Do it anyway."

I like yours. I would modify yours a little bit. And just even thinking about Mitch's, I would modify mine, I think, to be part of the get stuff done crew. Just be part of the GSD crew, right? In-house, taking care of business. I like it.

All right. Man-tra or mantra. I'm having a hard time just full out saying man-tra. I don't know why. I should just do it. Man-tra number two. We're putting the man in mantra. "Your next choice is the hour you're about to live."

Mitch: Oh. Where did that come from?

Scot: "Your next choice is the hour you're about to live." I first heard that in a YouTube video. I don't remember where, I don't remember what it was, but that idea stuck with me.

And it basically comes down to the next thing you choose to do is going to dictate the next half hour to hour of your life. So it could set the tone for the whole block of time. If I pick up my phone and start scrolling social, what am I going to probably be doing 20, 30 minutes later?

Mitch: Oh, sure.

Scot: If I open the project I need to work on, what am I going to probably be doing for the next 30 minutes to an hour?

So that next decision is an inflection point, and I treat it as such. I have come to terms that if I open my phone, I'm like, "All right. I'm coming to terms with this is my next half hour. I guess I've made that decision." Or I can go, "I don't want this to be my next half hour."

If I grab the chips and sit on the couch at the end of the day, well, there's the next hour. I'm into a show. But if I put on my shoes and go outside, walk the dog, go to the gym, there's my next hour.

So "your next choice is the hour you're about to live" has dictated, especially at that first inflection point, a lot of my decisions. And it makes them obvious to me, because sometimes we mindlessly do these things and a half hour later, we're like, "Wow. How did I end up here?" But with this tool, I don't end up there.

Mitch, what is your next one?

Mitch: So this second one is also from social media. I got it from Carter Good, who's this influencer who lost a bunch of weight. And he's really fun. He's a good follow. I like his attitude. But it says, "No two in a row."

So it's basically this idea that, "Hey, you can have a cheat meal or you can skip a workout. You can miss. But you can't miss twice in a row." You can't do two meals in a row that are not healthy. So if I had lunch with a friend and I got something fun, like a big juicy burger or something like that, I'm going to do something lighter, a salad or something, in the evening.

So it gives me the freedom to enjoy life, give myself some flexibility if I'm not in the mood for something. But at the same time, it helps me to stay consistent.

Nine times out of 10, I'm going to try to do the good thing whenever I possibly can, but on those days that it doesn't quite work, rather than it turning into a whole, "Woe is me. I've screwed everything up. I've failed the plan. Let's just eat all of the taquitos today and start smoking again," we just ignore that. We just say, "You had a slip-up. That's okay. We'll do better again this very next time."

Scot: And maybe not even a slip-up, it's a conscientious choice again. It's like, "I'm going to vary it up a little bit because I want to enjoy this thing that I normally don't allow, and then next time I have to . . ." And it's a momentum deal as well. I feel like it's very much a momentum thing like mine was.

That's good. I like that. Can't miss twice in a row.

John, what do you have for your second mantra?

Dr. Smith: My second one is something that I . . . I say a lot of things to my kids over and over again, and I have two of them that go hand in hand. I'll tell my kid, "You play stupid games, you're going to win stupid prizes."

Scot: That's one of my favorite things you say, by the way.

Dr. Smith: I say that to my kids when they're doing something. And that sticks with me a little bit. But the one that originally started that off was, "You get to make your choices, but you don't get to pick your consequences." Kind of in the same vein as these other things that we've brought up of "your choice now is the next hour," if we make those choices that put us in a good situation, we usually will end up with the good consequences, right?

And so to me, that's something that I always try to think about. If I'm in a situation where I'm doing something, what is this going to yield me in the end? Kind of like that hour that you're giving up, Scot.

Again, I think that stuck with me because that's something that my mom used to say. And there were a lot of those things that are there, but that's one that I think hits home for me of just, "Hey, watch what you're doing because that's how you're going to get to the end of the road."

Scot: I suppose I can see where that's useful with kids too, right?

Mitch: Oh, yeah.

Dr. Smith: And I think to me, that's where I use it more, but growing up, I heard it a lot. My mom used to just hit us with that or she would also hit us with, "A job worth doing is worth doing well," to drive home that same point.

Scot: Slow down. You're getting out of control here. You're just throwing them out left and right, man.

Dr. Smith: That back of the bathroom door is coming home to roost right now.

Scot: You've been preparing your whole life. This is the moment you've waited for.

Dr. Smith: You guys didn't know what you were getting today, man. I'm going to start with some parables and some other things that were there, the stories of the kid that can sleep with the wind blows. I'm going to bring it home today.

Scot: I like it. The other thing, Mitch, I think future Mitch might enjoy some notes on the bathroom door.

Mitch: Oh, yeah.

Scot: Yeah, some little motivational things. I think future Mitch might enjoy that.

Mitch: I like that a lot.

Scot: Number three man-tras. It's three words, my third one, "pride, ego, selfishness."

Mitch: What?

Scot: Pride, ego, selfishness. This one came from the husband of a close friend. He's no longer with us, unfortunately, but he said this and it's really stuck with me.

So what I do is if something happens that triggers me, like I get angry about it or I get pissed or I want to strike out, before I react, I think to myself, "Is this as a result of pride, ego, or selfishness?"

Dr. Smith: I love that.

Scot: Pride is defensive, like when somebody says something that stings and you want to snap back. That's one of the aspects of pride. Ego is performative, when I want to prove that I'm right or look smarter than I am. And selfishness can be very self-serving, putting what I want ahead of what's best of somebody else.

If my reaction is coming from one of those three places . . . And sometimes I have to take some time to suss out, "Is this pride, ego, or selfishness?" I'll take a couple of days and think about it. Then I know I need to pause.

And that pause usually keeps me from making a bad situation worse or framing somebody that's done something that has impacted my pride, ego, and selfishness in a different way and think, "Are they really trying to do that, or was that me reacting to what they were saying? Am I being triggered?"

So if my reaction comes from pride, ego, or selfishness, I pause before I act and I usually try to suss out afterwards, "Was that where it was from?" and think about it and try to deal with whatever underlying issue I have that's caused my reaction.

Mitch: We've talked before about sometimes emotions, feelings, responses, we just jump straight to the reaction, right? And slowing it down and even just doing that self-check-in, that's awesome.

As someone who, in a moment, I will talk about my own defiance and how I handle it, but I love this idea of, "Let's identify where." Which of these three things is happening? And if so, what do I need to do to make sure I make my better decision moving forward?

Scot: Mitch, man-tra number three for Mitch Sears. What is it?

Mitch: All right. So this is a little strange because it's not directly a mantra, but there are ways that I can phrase it. So this goes back to my therapist. And the idea was, "Mitch, you have a whole lot of defiance. When someone tells you to do something, you are like, 'No, I'm not going to do it,' or you try to prove them wrong. So how can we turn this into something that's motivating or helpful for you?"

And as much as I hate to say it, he suggested, "Well, have you ever tried a toddler's 'prove me wrong' reverse psychology?" "Bet you can't do this. Bet you can't do that in 10 minutes. Bet you can't stay quiet. Bet you can't whatever."

Scot: So this is your internal dialogue to yourself to get things done?

Mitch: A thousand percent. And as stupid as it sounds . . . Even as he's telling it to me, I'm like, "I'm not 4 years old. Screw you." But it is oddly helpful for me, especially when I'm stuck, when I can't get motivated to do something.

The secret is to keep it playful, not punitive. It's like, "I bet you can't do that. No, you totally couldn't do that," or whatever. And it's so strange. It activates that defiant part of me and I'm like, "I'll show you, voice in my brain. I'm going to go do that thing." And 9 times out of 10, it works and it's so frustrating.

But for me, there's something about changing that internal dialogue into something playful and supportive and something that works with you rather than in the past where I would say things like, "Of course, you're not running today. Of course, that's going to be happening. That's who you are. You're a failure," or whatever. It's like, "No, screw that voice too." So it's this "prove me wrong," this defiance as fuel.

Scot: And you're using this powerful voice that's already inside your head anyway that's probably a big part of your personality, it's something that you're familiar with, to really drive your wanting to get stuff done. I love that.

John, man-tra number three from Dr. John Smith. Let's go to the back of that bathroom door. What do you have?

Dr. Smith: Mantra number three. This one doesn't come from the bathroom door. This one is the one when you talk about the thing that makes you stop and think about what you're doing.

My wife, she will say this to me. She started saying this . . . I think we'd been married a couple of years and she just looked at me, and she said, "Can you stop being you for just a minute?"

Scot: Now, I'm thinking how I would react to that and I'm running it through my filter of pride, ego, selfish at this point.

Dr. Smith: And again, this is where your mantra comes in, Scot, where I've got to go, "Which one is it? Selfishness? Ego? What am I doing here?"

When I'm doing something that I know is ridiculous or whatever, she'll say that to me if I'm doing something. She'll go, "Can you just stop being you for a minute?" And that'll echo in my head when I sense myself doing something. I'm like, "This is probably not the best idea I've ever had."

And so, to me, that's one of those things where it makes me stop and go, "Okay. If she's saying this, obviously something is going on where I need to check myself," whether it's just being too childish with the kids or whatever it is.

And she never says it mean or grumpy. It's always in a playful setting of, "Can you just stop being you for a minute? Whatever you're doing is next-level annoying and you need to stop right now."

And so it's been adopted into my brain because it's been said to me on a handful of occasions, or more than a handful. You can make your own determination on that. But yeah, that's my mantra of "stop and take stock of where I'm at."

Scot: So have you ever had her say that to you and you truly consider it and you're like, "No, this is fine. Being me right now is totally okay, actually"?

Dr. Smith: I think the first few times she said it I did that. But usually, she's got a good enough bead on me now where she's like, "Hey, buddy."

Scot: Yeah, you trust her on this.

Dr. Smith: "I'm telling you this because you're about to win a stupid prize right now."

Scot: The other thing I love about this is it's a playful way of one partner being able to communicate to another partner, "Hey, let's just pause for a second," without nagging. It's not, "Why are you doing this with the kids so rough right now?" It turns it into a fun, playful moment. It's almost like code. It's your safe word in a way that's, hopefully, not going to trigger you and you can reflect for a second and just pause.

Do you have something you say to her along those lines?

Dr. Smith: No. I think I've used that on her a few times.

Scot: How'd that play out?

Dr. Smith: It was fine. She felt the playfulness, but I think in the relationship, there's a need for that to be said to me a lot more than there's a need to be said for her.

Scot: I like it. And you're able to put your ego aside because that's the routine that you've all built. It'd be easy to throw that ego out, like, "What do you mean? I'm awesome. Why would I want to stop being this? Look at all this, honey."

Dr. Smith: "Yeah, you're welcome."

Scot: All right, gentlemen. That was super good. I have a fourth one that I'm dying to tell you, so we might have to do another episode.

Dr. Smith: Well, why don't you hit us now? Are we on time?

Scot: Yeah. You know what? I'm going to save it for another episode.

Dr. Smith: Oh, man.

Scot: I know John can come with more because he's told us he's . . .

Mitch: He's got a whole door worth.

Scot: He's got a whole lifetime on the back of the bathroom door.

Dr. Smith: Got a few.

Scot: Mitch, you got more for a future episode?

Mitch: Yeah, I think so. There's enough in there.

Scot: All right. Let's reflect. Mitch, you said a couple things I really like. I like this idea of the defiance challenge. I don't know that that works for me. I might try it. But I like the idea of playful not punitive. Making it a challenge. So, yeah, I like that.

And I also really like the future Mitch idea that you helped inspire in me, future Scot. I'll go above and beyond for friends and try to make things good for them or try to be really thoughtful. Well, why don't I do that for myself? That's tapping into something I enjoy doing anyway. It's just I'm doing it for me now. So I'm going to think about how I can help future Scot.

John, did you have anything that you'd like to put a bow on at the end of this man-tras episode?

Dr. Smith: I think we're all doing things very similarly. It's just we've said them differently in a lot of ways. We have the thing that helps us put ourselves in check, the thing that motivates us, and those types of things. We have all those things at our disposal, and I think it's just awesome to hear other people's.

The future Mitch, I'm probably going to adopt that and go, "If I do it now, future John doesn't have to go, 'Damn it, I've got to go do that right now.'"

And so I think a lot of those things are great. I just loved hearing the things you guys have. Even if they came from Instagram, Scot, I still loved it.

Scot: I mean, you can get some good stuff there, right? That's why sometimes I'm like, "All right. I'll take a half hour and do Instagram." You have to go through a lot of crap, but you do find some good stuff.

Dr. Smith: Yeah, you'll find some good ones.

Scot: I'm also going to say I love that observation you made that these all are similar in a way. They have similar reasons for existing. I like how you categorized it like that.

And I think there's some learning to be done there as to what it is that we as men struggle with: controlling ourselves sometimes, our reactions, getting stuff done. We all have a hard time getting stuff done. And there might be other themes in there as well.

Mitch, did you catch any other themes? And if not, what do you want to say to wrap this up?

Mitch: So one of the themes that really was interesting to me was just this idea that everyone had these positive frameworks and mantras, right? It's not "no pain, no gain," which can sometimes be a negative thing depending on the situation, your feelings, etc., those kinds of punitive or not very . . .

Scot: Kind of toxic in a way.

Mitch: Yeah, these toxic mantras that we're taught all the time from media or things that we've seen before. I really appreciate that they all weren't. They were playful. They weren't woo-wee-woo or whatever. It was like "stupid prizes," right? It was funny. And that kind of thing is what I find successful.

And so it just goes back to my ongoing thing of why I'm a convert to this type of stuff. You've got to find what works for you. Sometimes those "be a super strong man," "get mad at yourself if you're not doing whatever," that doesn't work for everyone, and it doesn't work for me. So it's so cool to hear other guys that are also staying positive, and I might take on some of these mantras. I liked them.

Scot: I'm going to add one last thing. So the one last thing is to maybe examine the mantras you have, and are they serving you or are they not serving you?

I think you bring up a good point, Mitch. Sometimes these mantras we have aren't necessarily all that super helpful, or they take us in a direction that maybe we don't want to go if we sit and think about it. But we were programmed at a young age from our family, the media, all of it, schoolyard friends. So maybe examine those, because those are the programs that run the human brain, these little sayings that we have. So perhaps examine that.

And if you have a moment and you want to send us an email and tell us what your mantra is, or maybe you caught a category we didn't that you think is pretty important to bring up that, as guys, we should realize that this is something we have to pay attention to and maybe a good mantra would help us do so, you can reach out to us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Guys, thanks for sharing, thanks for listening, and thanks for caring about men's health.