Podbit · Modern Wisdom
Ben Askren says that nearly dying didn't reveal that his priorities were wrong — they were already good. What it did was amplify the right things: more patience, more gratitude, deeper faith, and a sharper filter for what deserves his time. He now asks of every opportunity: is this worth time away from my family?
Where this was said
At 26:48 · chapter starts 26:40
One of the most revealing moments of the episode comes when Ben reflects on what he thought about when he was closest to death — had he lived a good life? His honest answer is yes. He was proud of the life he had been living: coaching young wrestlers, running his academies with his brother, loving his wife and children. He didn't need to nearly die to discover that his priorities were misguided, because they weren't. What the experience did do was amplify the things that were already right. [1] — Ben Askren "Ben Askren says that nearly dying didn't reveal that his priorities were wrong — they were already good. What it did was amplify the right …" 26:48 He became more patient. He felt gratitude more acutely. After 16 years of attending church without it fully clicking, he became — in his words — a Christian, not just 'Christian adjacent'. And he began divesting from business investments that required his time but didn't generate real passion, asking every prospective commitment the same question: is this worth time away from my family? Chris draws a parallel with a line from Peaky Blinders: 'Everything after that was extra.' Ben agrees: the extra is what he plans to spend as fully as possible.
The median life expectancy after a double lung transplant is just 6.5 years. Ben Askren rejects this as his benchmark — pointing out that most transplant recipients are elderly and unwell, not ex-professional athletes who were in peak health when disaster struck. His goal is 39 years.
The median life expectancy after a double lung transplant is only 6.5 years, though Ben believes this statistic does not apply to him given his prior health.
The longest living person post double lung transplant has survived 38 years, and Ben Askren has set a goal of surpassing 39 years.
Ben Askren and his brother run 9 wrestling academies across the state of Wisconsin through Aspen Wrestling Academy.
The longest surviving double lung transplant patient lived 38 years. Ben Askren's goal is 39 — which would make him 80. And if stem cell technology for growing personalised organs matures in the next 15–20 years, he's already told his doctor he'll volunteer to be first in line for a second transplant.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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