Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 64. Don Saladino, Celebrity Trainer & Owner Drive 495
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, hurdlers, You're listening to episode sixty four of Hurdle,
- 0:06Speaker 1: a podcast that talks to everyone from entrepreneurs to top
- 0:09Speaker 1: CEOs and athletes about how they've gotten through tough times
- 0:13Speaker 1: hurdles of sorts by leaning into wellness. My name's Emily Abodi.
- 0:19Speaker 1: I'm having a good week. I'm not gonna lie. I'm
- 0:22Speaker 1: really excited right now. I'm gonna be heading out to
- 0:24Speaker 1: Los Angeles this coming Friday for a full week, gonna
- 0:29Speaker 1: be running around recording a lot of hurdles. So I've
- 0:33Speaker 1: put this on on social media already, but if you
- 0:35Speaker 1: or someone you know feel as though I should know
- 0:38Speaker 1: someone that's out there that should be on Hurdle, make
- 0:41Speaker 1: sure to hit me up.
- 0:42Speaker 2: You know how to find me.
- 0:43Speaker 1: It's at Emily Abodi at Hurdle Podcasts and over email
- 0:47Speaker 1: at Emily at Hurdle dot us LA. I can't wait
- 0:51Speaker 1: to be back anyway, Before I get into today's episode
- 0:55Speaker 1: with my guest Don Saladino, he is a trainer to
- 0:58Speaker 1: the stars and owner of New York City gym Drive
- 1:02Speaker 1: four nine to five. Quick shout out to my sponsor
- 1:05Speaker 1: Athletic Greens with twelve servings of fruits and vegetables. Athletic
- 1:09Speaker 1: Greens gives me the boost I need to start every
- 1:12Speaker 1: single day off right. Plus it tastes pretty great. They're
- 1:16Speaker 1: offering Hurdle listeners a special deal. It's twenty travel packs
- 1:20Speaker 1: a seventy nine dollars value, absolutely free with your first purchase.
- 1:24Speaker 1: Just head on over to athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle again.
- 1:28Speaker 1: That's Athleticgreens dot Com slash Hurdle to grab yours today.
- 1:33Speaker 1: When you go over there, they'll see a nice, friendly,
- 1:36Speaker 1: familiar pace. All right, now, let's talk about Don. Let
- 1:39Speaker 1: me tell you, when Don walked into the studio, it
- 1:43Speaker 1: felt as though I had known him forever.
- 1:45Speaker 2: And maybe that's just the fact that both of us
- 1:48Speaker 2: have family and Long Island. He lives on Long Island
- 1:50Speaker 2: right now.
- 1:51Speaker 1: But he's just one of those people that is super
- 1:54Speaker 1: friendly and he's also really good at what he does,
- 1:57Speaker 1: which is no wonder why big name celebrity's like Hugh
- 2:00Speaker 1: Jackman and Bryan Reynolds and Scarlett Johansson go to him
- 2:04Speaker 1: when they want to be instellar shape for big roles.
- 2:08Speaker 1: Like I said, he owns a gym downtown in New
- 2:11Speaker 1: York City called Drive four nine to five, and he's
- 2:13Speaker 1: also currently on the cover of a men's health magazine
- 2:17Speaker 1: special edition. But things haven't always been absolutely crazy, big
- 2:23Speaker 1: name celebrities and high traffic for salad, you know. In
- 2:27Speaker 1: today's episode, we chat about how he got his start
- 2:30Speaker 1: fresh out of college, putting himself out there walking into
- 2:32Speaker 1: big box gyms and asking for a job. We also
- 2:35Speaker 1: talk about the tons of hurdle moments he's face. We
- 2:39Speaker 1: talk about the financial crisis and how that caused him
- 2:42Speaker 1: to completely pivot his business.
- 2:44Speaker 2: Back in around two thousand and eight.
- 2:46Speaker 1: We talk about him and his family losing their apartment
- 2:48Speaker 1: to Hurricane Sandy in twenty twelve and how he managed
- 2:52Speaker 1: to go back from that.
- 2:53Speaker 2: We also talk about the intense attention to detail of
- 2:56Speaker 2: this guy.
- 2:56Speaker 1: Pays attention to his diet, what it's like to have
- 3:00Speaker 1: a number one best selling app in the app store,
- 3:03Speaker 1: and he also tells me the crazy story of how
- 3:06Speaker 1: he got one of his good friends quote unquote upper abs.
- 3:10Speaker 2: In less than a month. He's something special.
- 3:12Speaker 1: You're gonna love his energy and I think you're gonna
- 3:15Speaker 1: get a lot of great takeaways from our conversations today.
- 3:18Speaker 1: I wanted to take a quick moment to shout out
- 3:20Speaker 1: my listener Becca for sending me the sweetest, sweetest message
- 3:24Speaker 1: this morning.
- 3:24Speaker 2: Feel free to always.
- 3:26Speaker 1: Shoot me a note and I like to share these
- 3:28Speaker 1: on the pod every now and again.
- 3:30Speaker 2: She says to me.
- 3:30Speaker 1: A friend recommended Hurdle to me a couple of months back,
- 3:33Speaker 1: and now, whenever I feel down or unmotivated, I listen
- 3:36Speaker 1: to one of your episodes.
- 3:37Speaker 2: I love them. They have such a positive message behind
- 3:40Speaker 2: each and everyone.
- 3:41Speaker 1: So thank you for being a positive voice in my life.
- 3:44Speaker 1: I'm telling you, these are the kind of things that
- 3:46Speaker 1: keep me going. And that's all for now. With that,
- 3:50Speaker 1: let's get to hurdling.
- 3:57Speaker 2: Today. I'm sitting down with Don Saladino. Don, how would
- 4:00Speaker 2: you like me to introduce you today?
- 4:03Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 4:04Speaker 2: Isn't that fun when you get you choose your own adventure?
- 4:06Speaker 3: You know, it's funny people call me celebrity trainer, which
- 4:09Speaker 3: I hate, but you just kind of roll with it.
- 4:11Speaker 3: But you know, I'm a I'm a business owner, I'm
- 4:13Speaker 3: a fitness entrepreneur, I'm a I'm a I'm a coach,
- 4:16Speaker 3: I'm a dad, a husband. It's like, you know, we're
- 4:19Speaker 3: many hats, so many hats. I don't even know you
- 4:21Speaker 3: could just you know, don sal you know, fitness person.
- 4:28Speaker 3: It doesn't sound will Avenge been twenty years. We'll eventually
- 4:31Speaker 3: figure out what we're going to call me.
- 4:32Speaker 2: I don't think it's terrible. I think it just means
- 4:34Speaker 2: that you have expanded your horizons.
- 4:37Speaker 3: I have. And it's funny, like a lot of people
- 4:38Speaker 3: refer to me as like a fitness expert, and I'm like,
- 4:40Speaker 3: you know, I appreciate it, but I've been I've been
- 4:44Speaker 3: studying and ed and educating myself for the last i
- 4:47Speaker 3: mean professionally twenty years, twenty five years on this stuff.
- 4:50Speaker 3: And I still don't consider myself an expert. I consider
- 4:53Speaker 3: myself a professional. I consider myself someone who's continuing to
- 4:56Speaker 3: learn and kind of up his game every single day.
- 4:59Speaker 3: So I've been humbled by this industry.
- 5:02Speaker 2: Where are you from done Long Island, New York. I
- 5:04Speaker 2: couldn't tell that at all.
- 5:06Speaker 3: Do I have that? Do I have that Long Island act?
- 5:08Speaker 3: You have a little bit well there, SouthShore, north Shore,
- 5:10Speaker 3: and I'm kind of north shore, so it's a little
- 5:13Speaker 3: I think some people say that they can't tell, but
- 5:16Speaker 3: one of my best friends is from the south Shore,
- 5:17Speaker 3: and you could definitely tell he's from Long Island.
- 5:19Speaker 2: Yeah, my family is from Long Island.
- 5:22Speaker 1: Grandmother lives in River Hut now present has a house
- 5:25Speaker 1: in Hampton Bays, but started it out in plain View.
- 5:29Speaker 3: One of my closest friends lives in plain View, and
- 5:32Speaker 3: I'm I'm probably fifteen twenty minutes.
- 5:34Speaker 2: From plain View, got it?
- 5:35Speaker 3: Yes?
- 5:35Speaker 2: Okay, But during the day, most days you're in the city.
- 5:40Speaker 2: Is that correct?
- 5:40Speaker 3: Yes? So I live in a town called Lloyd Harbor,
- 5:42Speaker 3: but commute into the city four days a week. I've
- 5:45Speaker 3: been working in the city for twenty years. I lived
- 5:46Speaker 3: in the city for thirteen at one point, you know,
- 5:49Speaker 3: seven days a week. But now I do a lot digitally,
- 5:51Speaker 3: and I can do a lot in front of the computer.
- 5:53Speaker 3: So I try and break up my commute because you
- 5:56Speaker 3: can get a little you can get a little taxing.
- 5:57Speaker 3: But you know, I actually enjoy the commute. I just
- 6:00Speaker 3: wouldn't enjoy doing it five six days a week gets
- 6:02Speaker 3: nice to four days.
- 6:03Speaker 2: Yeah, it's nice to break it up.
- 6:04Speaker 1: So let's remind it back a little bit and talk
- 6:07Speaker 1: about growing up on Long Island.
- 6:08Speaker 2: Were you always into fitness? Were you a guy that
- 6:11Speaker 2: like bought the Men's Health magazine growing up.
- 6:13Speaker 3: It's funny. I mean, I don't even remember men's health
- 6:15Speaker 3: at that age, but I do remember, you know, I
- 6:18Speaker 3: went through a pretty bad hearing problem and speech problem.
- 6:21Speaker 3: I had a pretty heavy stutter. I'm actually speaking at
- 6:25Speaker 3: Emily Blunt's event on the eleventh and just kind of
- 6:30Speaker 3: addressing a group. I'm like dealing with it, coping with it, etc.
- 6:33Speaker 3: Because it was something that was really difficult for me
- 6:35Speaker 3: at a young age. But now I like almost laugh
- 6:38Speaker 3: at myself with it. It's like I would never want
- 6:40Speaker 3: to change it. You probably can't even tell I have
- 6:41Speaker 3: it at times, but I'll definitely get locked up at times.
- 6:44Speaker 3: You know, I went through a tough thing in second grade.
- 6:46Speaker 3: I was coming home, couldn't really find my place, couldn't
- 6:49Speaker 3: really fit in, was in a learning disability class because
- 6:51Speaker 3: I had surgery. And you know, I remember going home
- 6:53Speaker 3: and starting to practice baseball at my father and really
- 6:56Speaker 3: just fell in love with the game and came into
- 6:57Speaker 3: school and there was like a pickup baseball game at recess,
- 7:00Speaker 3: and I remember just cleaning house and coming home and
- 7:02Speaker 3: being like, Mom, I'm good at something. She's like, She's like,
- 7:05Speaker 3: you're gonna be good at a lot of things, but
- 7:06Speaker 3: I think that's when when it took off for me.
- 7:08Speaker 3: And I remember watching The Incredible Hulk. I remember seeing
- 7:11Speaker 3: rufe Ignow, and I remember just kind of being in
- 7:13Speaker 3: like a very weird way, like almost attracted to the character,
- 7:16Speaker 3: like I'm sitting there looking at him, and just something
- 7:18Speaker 3: resonated home. And then Donald Schwarzenegger, and then Michael Hearn,
- 7:21Speaker 3: who I became friends with, you know, was a few
- 7:23Speaker 3: years older than me, and I saw him on the
- 7:24Speaker 3: cover of Iron Man. I remember looking at these guys
- 7:26Speaker 3: and saying, wait, I could be big and strong and
- 7:28Speaker 3: play baseball. This is going to go a long way. So, yes,
- 7:30Speaker 3: it really started for me out of I say it
- 7:32Speaker 3: started for me in the second grade. I mean I
- 7:34Speaker 3: wasn't eating, you know the way that I now, and
- 7:36Speaker 3: I wasn't going to the gym. But I think that's
- 7:38Speaker 3: when that chip was ingrained in my head, and that's
- 7:40Speaker 3: when I realized that this was a direction that was
- 7:42Speaker 3: going to kind of mold my life.
- 7:44Speaker 2: I usually hold off on these kind of questions until
- 7:46Speaker 2: later on, but you referenced like what I eat now,
- 7:49Speaker 2: So I'm just a little curious about what you are
- 7:51Speaker 2: eating now because I mean, it would be probably pretty
- 7:55Speaker 2: funny if a guy in second grade.
- 7:57Speaker 3: Was yeah, it was like weighing his meals and not
- 8:00Speaker 3: even saying that that's stuff that people have to do.
- 8:02Speaker 3: But it's not a job for me. It's something. Nutrition
- 8:04Speaker 3: for me is a hobby. It's enjoyable. I like it.
- 8:07Speaker 3: I like how I feel. On the other hand, I
- 8:09Speaker 3: do like going out and having some beers here and there,
- 8:11Speaker 3: and I do like eating pizza or pasta, chicken, fingers
- 8:14Speaker 3: and fry. So there's so there is a nice balance there.
- 8:16Speaker 3: But I'd say ninety to ninety five percent of my year,
- 8:19Speaker 3: I'm I'm you know, it's organic and I'm packing my meals.
- 8:22Speaker 3: And for the simple fact do I have to know?
- 8:24Speaker 3: I want to it's it's it's part of my life
- 8:27Speaker 3: and it's part of what I enjoy and I like
- 8:28Speaker 3: being optimal.
- 8:29Speaker 2: So give me a snippet.
- 8:31Speaker 3: Snippet, So breakfast was six ounces of grass fed meat,
- 8:37Speaker 3: it was two cups of broccoli, and it was eight
- 8:40Speaker 3: ounces of sweet potato.
- 8:41Speaker 2: That was breakfast.
- 8:42Speaker 3: Well that was the first meal. There's really no breakfast, lunch,
- 8:44Speaker 3: and dinner. It's just meals. It's like meal, one meal.
- 8:46Speaker 3: I don't know why even said breakfast, I ever say breakfast,
- 8:48Speaker 3: but I guess, yeah, it was my first it was
- 8:50Speaker 3: my first meal with they. So my meals will look
- 8:52Speaker 3: like that and it will work at the end of
- 8:54Speaker 3: the day, which should total roughly a specific macro nutrient profile.
- 8:59Speaker 3: So before, like I was on the cover of Muscle
- 9:01Speaker 3: and Fitness last year, and I think a week before
- 9:04Speaker 3: it was time to start prep because I found out
- 9:07Speaker 3: in December twentieth and I had till January tenth to prep.
- 9:10Speaker 3: So I never get any prep time, even like I'm
- 9:11Speaker 3: on the cover of Men's Health, one of men's health magazines,
- 9:14Speaker 3: I think July third this year, and my prep time
- 9:19Speaker 3: is usually like two to four weeks. Like they'll call
- 9:21Speaker 3: me and they'll be like, you gotta get ready for this,
- 9:22Speaker 3: and I'm like, well, I'm kind of ready. I just
- 9:24Speaker 3: eliminate any little alcohol that I drank, and I eliminate
- 9:27Speaker 3: any cheat meals I might have, and I might lose
- 9:29Speaker 3: like five to seven pounds of water, and like every
- 9:31Speaker 3: day I wake up and I'm like, oh my god,
- 9:32Speaker 3: I'm gett vinear, I'm getting more vasculars. Just it's kind
- 9:35Speaker 3: of the world that I live in. And I enjoyed.
- 9:38Speaker 3: So the meals look like that. But before the musclim
- 9:40Speaker 3: fitness shoot, it was four hundred and fifty grams of
- 9:43Speaker 3: carbs every day. I was consuming two hundred and fifty
- 9:45Speaker 3: grams of protein and about one hundred and twenty five
- 9:48Speaker 3: grams of fat. And then when it was prep time,
- 9:50Speaker 3: people were like, did you go into a deficit? I'm like,
- 9:52Speaker 3: maybe a little. I dropped to three hundred grams of carbs.
- 9:54Speaker 3: I kept my protein the same, and I dropped my
- 9:56Speaker 3: fat from one twenty five to ninety and it was
- 9:57Speaker 3: just it was like spot on.
- 9:59Speaker 1: So and I think it's so important just to reiterate
- 10:01Speaker 1: to the people listening that don lives like a very
- 10:03Speaker 1: specific type of life, so like not everyone is going
- 10:06Speaker 1: to like wake up and be able to or have
- 10:09Speaker 1: the desire to.
- 10:10Speaker 2: I don't want to do it every now, but yeah.
- 10:11Speaker 3: You understand that. Also, I have no clients none, I mean,
- 10:14Speaker 3: and I work with every almost every big name celebrity.
- 10:18Speaker 3: I tell I don't want them. They don't need to.
- 10:20Speaker 3: Like I said, this is enjoyable for me. It's a
- 10:22Speaker 3: hobby for me. I'm always trying to find out ways
- 10:24Speaker 3: to make things a little bit better. And sometimes that's
- 10:26Speaker 3: just taking the week off and dude, what do you
- 10:29Speaker 3: want to eat? And yeah, going to have some drinks
- 10:30Speaker 3: with your wife. And I know my wife and I
- 10:32Speaker 3: Saturday night we went out and we were just like,
- 10:33Speaker 3: let's go get dinner and we have like a couple
- 10:35Speaker 3: of sapporos And the next thing, I'm like, I want
- 10:37Speaker 3: to go bar hop and She's like, yeah, I do.
- 10:39Speaker 3: Next to no, We're drinking margerite is and we're like
- 10:41Speaker 3: six different places. Then we're eating ice cream, we're eating pizza,
- 10:43Speaker 3: and then we're home by eleven o'clock because we're lightweight.
- 10:45Speaker 3: So but I mean, it's it's for me, that's really,
- 10:48Speaker 3: it's fun. That's that's that's what makes me tick. The
- 10:51Speaker 3: people I work with, you know, the Ryans, the Jakes,
- 10:54Speaker 3: the John Krazinski's there, you know, I just I tell
- 10:56Speaker 3: them food quality and I tell them to make sure
- 10:59Speaker 3: that we're getting enough food in our diet. Which is
- 11:00Speaker 3: the biggest mistake that most people out there are making
- 11:02Speaker 3: is they just start restricting calories and they just start
- 11:05Speaker 3: shutting down their body and they just you know, food
- 11:07Speaker 3: is medicine. You've got to feed your body, and it's
- 11:09Speaker 3: like putting wood on the fire. You want that fire
- 11:11Speaker 3: to burn hotter, you got to put one on it.
- 11:13Speaker 3: You start removing wood from it, that flame is going
- 11:15Speaker 3: to burn lighter and lighter. And that's probably why the
- 11:17Speaker 3: majority of society really struggles with you know, body image,
- 11:22Speaker 3: body composition called what you want?
- 11:23Speaker 2: Yeah, totally okay.
- 11:24Speaker 1: So you are realizing you are good at baseball when
- 11:28Speaker 1: you are young, yes, and a.
- 11:30Speaker 2: Little flame starts to grow in you that maybe I
- 11:33Speaker 2: like athletics.
- 11:34Speaker 3: Yeah, so I end up loving athletics, and I, you know,
- 11:37Speaker 3: started playing ice hockey really young. I started becoming a
- 11:40Speaker 3: competitive swimmer and soccer, which I was you know, I
- 11:42Speaker 3: was mediocre at soccer just wasn't my focus. It was
- 11:45Speaker 3: more of like a thing doing in that season. And
- 11:48Speaker 3: I wanted to go play Division on baseball at a
- 11:50Speaker 3: young age. I was like, I'm going to go play
- 11:51Speaker 3: the Division on baseball. And I played Division on baseball
- 11:54Speaker 3: and then I was like, all right, I want to
- 11:56Speaker 3: play professional baseball. I just didn't work out for whatever
- 11:59Speaker 3: reason it is, you know, say what you want, I
- 12:02Speaker 3: wasn't good enough. Luck, whatever it was. It's kind of
- 12:04Speaker 3: kind of be relevant. But I think that whole time,
- 12:06Speaker 3: even when I was at these tryouts with the Mets
- 12:09Speaker 3: and the Mariners and I was a couple of independent leagues,
- 12:12Speaker 3: and I remember being there just saying like I wonder
- 12:15Speaker 3: what their weight rooms. Like It's like I wonder what.
- 12:18Speaker 3: So in the back of my head, like looking at
- 12:20Speaker 3: it now, I was like, oh my God, like, yeah,
- 12:22Speaker 3: I would have done it if I was asked to
- 12:23Speaker 3: do it, but my focus was really going off on
- 12:27Speaker 3: this path. And that's why I think, you know, I say,
- 12:30Speaker 3: I said to someone the other day, like, this is
- 12:31Speaker 3: not my job, this is my calling. This is just
- 12:34Speaker 3: something that is me. And it's like, if you weren't
- 12:37Speaker 3: doing this, what would you be doing I'd be I'd
- 12:38Speaker 3: be six feet under, I'd probably be dead. Like this
- 12:40Speaker 3: is just this is me. This is what I was
- 12:42Speaker 3: putting to do.
- 12:43Speaker 2: Totally.
- 12:43Speaker 1: So okay, the baseball stuff doesn't work out, And where
- 12:46Speaker 1: do you deviate from there?
- 12:47Speaker 2: I mean, you did you go to college.
- 12:49Speaker 3: I did go to college. I graduated with a degree
- 12:51Speaker 3: in business from Sacred Heart University, Oh Fair of Connecticut.
- 12:54Speaker 2: I'm from Trumbull. All right, let's just keep doing the
- 12:57Speaker 2: geography tumble all. One thing that everybody says about Trouble
- 13:01Speaker 2: Connecticut is Oh, I used to go to the trumble
- 13:03Speaker 2: Mall the Trouble. It has improved? Has it since you
- 13:06Speaker 2: went to Sacred Heart?
- 13:07Speaker 3: I thought it was fun when we used to go there.
- 13:08Speaker 2: I remember it's not bad.
- 13:09Speaker 3: There was this junkie panda express and oh yeah express,
- 13:13Speaker 3: where did you get the orange chicken?
- 13:15Speaker 2: Who does not get who does not get orange chicken?
- 13:19Speaker 3: My friend johnre and dads that we used to go
- 13:20Speaker 3: every weekend and get orange chicken?
- 13:21Speaker 2: Amazing, It was amazing. Yeah. So you went to Sacred Heart,
- 13:25Speaker 2: majored in business, major in business.
- 13:26Speaker 3: And I left school and kind of blacked out for
- 13:29Speaker 3: about six months, started working for a friend. Uh, just
- 13:35Speaker 3: trying to figure it out. And I remember sitting with
- 13:37Speaker 3: my mom and she's like, you know, I'm hearing about
- 13:39Speaker 3: these trainers. I'm like, yeah, but they don't make any money,
- 13:42Speaker 3: Like I don't, I don't know. She's like, why are
- 13:44Speaker 3: you worried about money? Like you've been good at everything
- 13:46Speaker 3: you've ever done, Like it'll lead to something like go
- 13:48Speaker 3: do this, go figure this out. You're gonna be really
- 13:50Speaker 3: good at And I was like, you're right, I will
- 13:52Speaker 3: be really good at it. And I literally like, woke
- 13:53Speaker 3: up the next day, had a resume, already threw a
- 13:55Speaker 3: suit on. I remember driving through the Midtown Tunnel and
- 13:58Speaker 3: looking up and seeing the Empire State Building. I've been
- 14:00Speaker 3: to the city so many times, but it was normally
- 14:02Speaker 3: like with my parents or riding with someone in and
- 14:05Speaker 3: I really didn't know my geography well. So I remember
- 14:08Speaker 3: just I think, making a right up Third Avenue and
- 14:11Speaker 3: just driving and seeing a gym and being like, oh,
- 14:13Speaker 3: all right, and pulled off in the lot. And I
- 14:14Speaker 3: probably paid for, you know, two hundred dollars in parking
- 14:17Speaker 3: that day. And I literally just just kept popping around
- 14:20Speaker 3: and walking to places and be like, I'm here for
- 14:21Speaker 3: a job. I had no idea, Like I remember stopping
- 14:23Speaker 3: at New York Sport Club. I think I stopped at Crunch.
- 14:25Speaker 3: I remember stopping at Equinox, and there was they were
- 14:27Speaker 3: opening a sports club LA up on sixty seventh Street
- 14:30Speaker 3: on the West Side. Walked into all of them and
- 14:33Speaker 3: eventually got hired at probably all of them, and then
- 14:34Speaker 3: I went and worked for one of them.
- 14:36Speaker 2: And did you have a personal training certification when you
- 14:38Speaker 2: walked in?
- 14:39Speaker 3: I did have? I did. I forgot the certification at
- 14:43Speaker 3: the time. It was actually a really good course and
- 14:45Speaker 3: I don't really remember it, but it was a several
- 14:47Speaker 3: month course. Yeah, and then I got it. I went
- 14:49Speaker 3: in but I needed that it wasn't a national certification,
- 14:51Speaker 3: so I needed a national certification. So I went through
- 14:53Speaker 3: the the EFTI, which is equinox this thing back then,
- 14:55Speaker 3: I don't know what it is now maybe it might
- 14:57Speaker 3: be and you know, and then I went I got
- 15:00Speaker 3: a national certification, which is kind of like it's kind
- 15:03Speaker 3: of like a BS Like people ask me what search
- 15:05Speaker 3: you get? I'm like, the CERT's kind of irrelevant, Like
- 15:07Speaker 3: it's just really where your thought process is and who
- 15:09Speaker 3: you're learning.
- 15:10Speaker 2: From, and you feel like it's a jumping off point.
- 15:12Speaker 3: It's kind of BS to be like, well what search
- 15:13Speaker 3: should I go get? I'm like, you know, I get
- 15:15Speaker 3: one of these three and yeah, it doesn't but it
- 15:17Speaker 3: doesn't stop there. I've probably taken in twenty years. I
- 15:20Speaker 3: mean I had to have taken well over two hundred courses. Yeah,
- 15:23Speaker 3: you just it's something that even when you get the
- 15:24Speaker 3: cert it's not like, oh, I'm certified until it's time
- 15:27Speaker 3: to recertify, like I'm done, Like, no, you have to
- 15:29Speaker 3: go take courses you have to go learn different techniques
- 15:33Speaker 3: and methodologies and see different teachers, good people, terrible people
- 15:36Speaker 3: like you. I'm even a believer. Like if you're walking
- 15:38Speaker 3: into a seminar and you're like, and you hear, this
- 15:40Speaker 3: guy's terrible and he has five hundred people in the room,
- 15:42Speaker 3: like go listen to them, Like there's a reason why
- 15:43Speaker 3: they have five hundred people in the room. So you know,
- 15:45Speaker 3: it's really becoming a sponge after you, after you decide
- 15:48Speaker 3: to go down that path.
- 15:49Speaker 2: And I think that's true for any career. Right, It's like,
- 15:52Speaker 2: once you get into your career, when you're interested in
- 15:54Speaker 2: your craft, you need to keep learning your craft.
- 15:56Speaker 3: Right, the ones you sit here and get like so
- 15:59Speaker 3: upset sess over the dollar amount, it's no different than
- 16:03Speaker 3: I think someone who's like, oh my god, I gotta
- 16:05Speaker 3: lose twenty pounds. I'm like, all right, well, if I
- 16:07Speaker 3: told you can be the same weight and look the
- 16:09Speaker 3: way you want to look, would you rather do that
- 16:11Speaker 3: or do you want to lose twenty pounds and probably
- 16:13Speaker 3: look like crap? And they're like a lot of them
- 16:15Speaker 3: have turned me and say lose twenty pounds and look
- 16:16Speaker 3: like crap, and like it makes no sense to me,
- 16:18Speaker 3: like don't. But a lot of these people who dive
- 16:20Speaker 3: into this because you know, they're so obsessed with like
- 16:24Speaker 3: a number, they're the ones who never hit their goals.
- 16:26Speaker 3: But fitness is like business, Like you start at the finish,
- 16:28Speaker 3: like set your goal, figure out what you have to
- 16:30Speaker 3: do day in and day out to obtain that goal.
- 16:32Speaker 3: And then today it's Wednesday, what do you have to
- 16:35Speaker 3: do today? Wednesday? What you got tomorrow? Fine, you'll start
- 16:38Speaker 3: preparing for tonight when the day's over, but today, focus
- 16:41Speaker 3: on today. Be awesome today. And if you fall short,
- 16:43Speaker 3: you fall short. It's not about being perfect. It's about
- 16:46Speaker 3: just putting in that effort. If you fall a little short,
- 16:49Speaker 3: you come back the next day. If you follow short,
- 16:51Speaker 3: you come back. But then you start minimizing all these
- 16:53Speaker 3: mistakes and all these misses, and then by the end
- 16:55Speaker 3: of the year, you're like, Wow, three hundred and sixty
- 16:56Speaker 3: five days went by this year, and I might have
- 16:58Speaker 3: drank only forty daysast year. I drank two hundred days.
- 17:02Speaker 3: That's a big improvement. So that's that's my thing. It's like,
- 17:04Speaker 3: let's get everyone to improve a little bit.
- 17:06Speaker 2: Now I'm like, I'm so big on the small winds.
- 17:08Speaker 1: I'd be interested to know what has been a large
- 17:11Speaker 1: goal that you have set for yourself that you've worked
- 17:13Speaker 1: back from, not necessarily related to I know you talked
- 17:16Speaker 1: about the like the cover shoots and stuff like that,
- 17:19Speaker 1: but something else.
- 17:20Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the cover stuff. The cover stuff's nice,
- 17:22Speaker 3: but it's really that's not my goal. That's that's like
- 17:25Speaker 3: the sprinkles on the on the ice cream. It's just like,
- 17:28Speaker 3: all right, let's it's added and it helps a little bit.
- 17:30Speaker 3: My goal has been really very business driven, and I
- 17:35Speaker 3: enjoy having being a part of businesses, helping businesses grow,
- 17:41Speaker 3: you know, everything, all the all the above on that stuff.
- 17:43Speaker 3: So you know, when I when I do TV, it
- 17:45Speaker 3: helps drive to my business when I'm sitting there having
- 17:47Speaker 3: staff meetings. I love that my digital platform, I love
- 17:50Speaker 3: that it all kind of feeds the same pot So
- 17:52Speaker 3: being entrepreneurial, getting out there and just you know, kind
- 17:56Speaker 3: of that grind is something that I really enjoy. And yeah,
- 17:58Speaker 3: I've aspirations. There's definitely and exit strategy in mind, which
- 18:01Speaker 3: has changed a lot over the last fifteen years because
- 18:04Speaker 3: of all these opportunities. But I almost have I don't
- 18:06Speaker 3: even want to say it's a plan, a play, and
- 18:07Speaker 3: b it's like, all right, I got one thing going
- 18:09Speaker 3: on right now. If that hits great and if not,
- 18:12Speaker 3: I'm going to continue on this path. And that's fantastic.
- 18:14Speaker 3: And that's kind of how I have to deal with
- 18:15Speaker 3: things because there's so many there's so much opportunity and
- 18:18Speaker 3: so many things that pop up at me every week.
- 18:21Speaker 3: Fortunately I'm very lucky.
- 18:22Speaker 1: Yeah, business opportunity right now that you're working on that
- 18:25Speaker 1: makes you really amped up.
- 18:27Speaker 3: Not going into detail, but I've had my club for
- 18:29Speaker 3: fourteen years and there's a client of mine that we
- 18:33Speaker 3: have been discussing right sizing my facility size because it's
- 18:37Speaker 3: pretty it's a pretty big side. We got about fifteen thousands.
- 18:40Speaker 3: I have fifteen thousand square feet. So I think repositioning
- 18:43Speaker 3: that to where it's a very repeatable model and leveraging
- 18:47Speaker 3: some of the relationships I'm in bed with and tying
- 18:50Speaker 3: in a lot of my digital platform to that and
- 18:52Speaker 3: just very simple. Like I think that's a big problem
- 18:55Speaker 3: also is you start having these aspirations of all right,
- 18:58Speaker 3: we're going to do this and it's going to go
- 19:00Speaker 3: to this and that and that and that. You start
- 19:02Speaker 3: like laying out this whole wishless and you can't even
- 19:04Speaker 3: get the first thing right. So right now in the
- 19:05Speaker 3: back and I wish I could talk about it. I can't.
- 19:07Speaker 3: But you know, it's focusing on this one thing and
- 19:10Speaker 3: when that gets nailed, you know, adding this thing in.
- 19:12Speaker 3: But you got to be you got to keep things simple.
- 19:14Speaker 3: We just confused things too much.
- 19:15Speaker 2: Totally. Okay, So you are driving through New York, you start,
- 19:19Speaker 2: you sign on with the Equinox, you go through Equinox'
- 19:22Speaker 2: training program. Is that process like everything that you would
- 19:25Speaker 2: hoped it to be.
- 19:25Speaker 3: Yeah, it really was. I think out of the gate
- 19:27Speaker 3: it was fantastic because I met about forty five coaches
- 19:30Speaker 3: and they were all really I mean it's amazing. I
- 19:32Speaker 3: don't mean I'm not Equinox, but it's completely like it's
- 19:35Speaker 3: it's changed. It really has. I mean, when you become
- 19:37Speaker 3: a corporation that's that big. Yeah, you can't. I mean
- 19:39Speaker 3: we're sitting on the floor with like you know, uh
- 19:43Speaker 3: PhDs and x NFL football players and you know, people
- 19:46Speaker 3: who are just like young and enthusiastic and like passionate
- 19:50Speaker 3: about all this stuff, and you know, everyone was learning
- 19:52Speaker 3: from each other. Was fun and it was a great
- 19:53Speaker 3: lesson for me because I think at like month six,
- 19:55Speaker 3: the Erico family sold and they got uh they went corporate,
- 19:59Speaker 3: and like that next day, I remember a GM coming
- 20:03Speaker 3: in and just looking at all of us. It was
- 20:04Speaker 3: forty five of us on the floor, and they just went,
- 20:05Speaker 3: she went, You're all expendable. And I was like, wow,
- 20:08Speaker 3: it was one of those scary things that you hear.
- 20:10Speaker 3: It was one of the best lessons I've ever learned.
- 20:12Speaker 3: It was a terrible way to deliver it, but she
- 20:15Speaker 3: was right. It was like, you know, don't think you're
- 20:18Speaker 3: you know what, don't stink and and you know, you're
- 20:20Speaker 3: all expendable. Not really the way I would have addressed
- 20:22Speaker 3: a staff that I'm just meeting, but I think at
- 20:24Speaker 3: that point I saw the mom and pop mentality go
- 20:27Speaker 3: corporate and I and I really gained a quick understanding.
- 20:30Speaker 3: So I was there for about a year, broke off,
- 20:33Speaker 3: started my own training business, kind of lived there for
- 20:36Speaker 3: about four to five years, going home to home in
- 20:38Speaker 3: the city, training about forty to fifty maybe even more,
- 20:41Speaker 3: one hour sessions a week. Young kid, you know, making
- 20:44Speaker 3: pretty good money at twenty two, twenty three years old,
- 20:46Speaker 3: traveling when I wanted living on my own. It was
- 20:49Speaker 3: It was living in the city on my own for
- 20:50Speaker 3: five years. It was fun. Yeah, and then got financing
- 20:54Speaker 3: open Drive four ninety five and so it was a
- 20:56Speaker 3: golf fitness training facility and my brother and I went
- 20:58Speaker 3: in on that project and that's kind of when how
- 21:00Speaker 3: that all started.
- 21:00Speaker 1: So give me a little bit more intuble on a
- 21:03Speaker 1: where the name Drive comes from and then b I mean,
- 21:07Speaker 1: so that was your first brick.
- 21:08Speaker 2: And mortar, that was my first spot. Okay, because we
- 21:11Speaker 2: haven't we actually haven't even touched on it yet, right,
- 21:13Speaker 2: we haven't even mentioned mar jumping around too much. No, no, no,
- 21:15Speaker 2: we're doing that.
- 21:16Speaker 3: Drive. So Drive was us for about a year as
- 21:19Speaker 3: where construction completely confused. So it was a golf fitness
- 21:23Speaker 3: training facility. So we went after the Titles Performance Institute
- 21:27Speaker 3: in Oceanside, California, and we saw this golf training facility
- 21:30Speaker 3: which is fantastic like outdoor driving range, gym, you know,
- 21:34Speaker 3: workouts curated for the golf swing, kinematic sequencing, all this
- 21:38Speaker 3: cool stuff.
- 21:39Speaker 2: This is the first time you're mentioning golf. Were you
- 21:40Speaker 2: into golf?
- 21:41Speaker 3: So my brother was a pro got it, so he
- 21:43Speaker 3: was a pro. I've always been a golfer. I still played.
- 21:45Speaker 3: I'm playing tomorrow night. So you know, I've always been into.
- 21:48Speaker 2: Golf, but people play golf in night.
- 21:50Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm in a league on Thursday nights. It's a
- 21:52Speaker 3: nine whole league. It's like six to seven thirty.
- 21:54Speaker 2: I guess that's been light enough. Still, that's interesting, Okay,
- 21:57Speaker 2: it's fantastic.
- 21:57Speaker 3: So we were like, all right, well, I think finally
- 22:00Speaker 3: it just came down to, you know, in life and fitness,
- 22:04Speaker 3: you have drive, you're driving a golf ball. It was
- 22:06Speaker 3: kind of like synonymous to each other. They kind of
- 22:08Speaker 3: like weaved in nicely and we're like, let's call Drive
- 22:11Speaker 3: and the addresses four ninety five Broadway, so let's just
- 22:14Speaker 3: Drive four ninety five, and then when we open Drive
- 22:16Speaker 3: four fourth three, it'll become Drive four four three or
- 22:18Speaker 3: Drive three eighty or whatever the address actually is. So
- 22:20Speaker 3: that's what ended up happening. And then when we opened
- 22:22Speaker 3: our next location, it was Drive four four three, which
- 22:26Speaker 3: was definitely a step down. It didn't have any golf.
- 22:28Speaker 3: It was mainly kind of the semi private one to
- 22:31Speaker 3: four coaching model, and it was a nice place, but
- 22:34Speaker 3: it was just it was just a step down it wasn't.
- 22:36Speaker 3: It wasn't as grand, It wasn't it just wasn't as good.
- 22:40Speaker 3: And I think we realized after a couple of years
- 22:43Speaker 3: when we got into a good spot, it just wasn't
- 22:45Speaker 3: really worth our time. And it was that was that
- 22:48Speaker 3: was a great lesson because that lesson there is know
- 22:51Speaker 3: what you're great at, like just this is your model.
- 22:53Speaker 3: And sometimes when you find a model that actually works
- 22:56Speaker 3: and you get too creative and you start branching off
- 22:59Speaker 3: on one do things, I've seen plenty of people crash
- 23:01Speaker 3: and burn there, and that's that's a tragedy. It's like, yeah,
- 23:04Speaker 3: you've got one concept that works, don't try and be everything.
- 23:07Speaker 3: You're lucky if you have one, one great idea in life.
- 23:09Speaker 3: You know.
- 23:09Speaker 1: I also feel like it's important to like own your
- 23:12Speaker 1: weaknesses just as much as you own your strengths. When
- 23:14Speaker 1: you realize and I've used this analogy before on the podcast,
- 23:18Speaker 1: but and during my days, I write and I edit content,
- 23:21Speaker 1: and I would say that I'm a better writer than
- 23:23Speaker 1: I am an editor, and that's okay. And it took me,
- 23:26Speaker 1: you know, when I had that realization of what I
- 23:28Speaker 1: liked to do more than the other. It was like,
- 23:31Speaker 1: should I feel concerned that I don't feel as though
- 23:34Speaker 1: I am as good of an editor?
- 23:36Speaker 2: Not really, Like I'm just owning that I like to
- 23:38Speaker 2: write more.
- 23:39Speaker 3: I think it's that's an incredible quality of you. And
- 23:41Speaker 3: probably my best quality is one knowing what I'm not
- 23:44Speaker 3: good at. Two, relying on people that are better than
- 23:48Speaker 3: me and smarter than me in other areas, and just
- 23:50Speaker 3: establishing a team. You know, I believe in teams. It's
- 23:54Speaker 3: I don't. I don't when you see one person that's
- 23:55Speaker 3: trying to be the jack of all traits. That's normally
- 23:57Speaker 3: when you dilute everything and you're just it's not as powerful,
- 24:00Speaker 3: it's not as impactful. So I built my whole career
- 24:02Speaker 3: on that, and I built my whole career on pivots
- 24:04Speaker 3: and recognizing when something's not working and having like I
- 24:07Speaker 3: had to change my whole business model in two thousand
- 24:09Speaker 3: and seven, in two thousand and eight, like it just
- 24:10Speaker 3: it wasn't working anymore. And yeah, we were losing a lot.
- 24:13Speaker 3: We were losing kind of anywhere from seventy to one
- 24:16Speaker 3: hundred grand a month. We started losing at one point
- 24:18Speaker 3: because my corporate events went away. You know, I had
- 24:20Speaker 3: to refinance my apartment. My brother had a refinance's apartment.
- 24:24Speaker 3: Like we were just literally were pissing money into this thing.
- 24:26Speaker 3: And but the entire time, you believe, you believe, you believe,
- 24:29Speaker 3: and you know, there was some dark. There was some dark.
- 24:32Speaker 3: There were some dark years. I can't even say dark nights.
- 24:34Speaker 3: It was like darky. I remember going to breaking up
- 24:36Speaker 3: some nights at two three in the morning and just
- 24:37Speaker 3: being out of breath, being like you know, but my workouts,
- 24:40Speaker 3: my fitness, my nutrition, That's what got me through everything,
- 24:43Speaker 3: because going to the bar after and drinking my sorrows away.
- 24:46Speaker 3: I worked the other way. This is my fitness, My
- 24:50Speaker 3: training is part of my survival. So going in I
- 24:52Speaker 3: could be stressed. I need that one hour, one hour,
- 24:54Speaker 3: fifteen minutes a day. If I don't have that, then
- 24:56Speaker 3: I'm in.
- 24:56Speaker 2: A bad spot for sure.
- 24:58Speaker 1: So talk to me a little bit about So you
- 25:00Speaker 1: had open drive the first location, and then you opened
- 25:03Speaker 1: the second location.
- 25:04Speaker 3: Well in between that, I started a digital media company
- 25:07Speaker 3: called Driven and we came up with this idea right
- 25:11Speaker 3: or around when when when apps started to kind of explode.
- 25:15Speaker 3: You know, this this whole app world, probably eight nine
- 25:17Speaker 3: years ago started to really take off, so I leave
- 25:21Speaker 3: on my contacts and we decided to open I'm sorry,
- 25:24Speaker 3: Curate apps with a couple of professional athletes. One of
- 25:27Speaker 3: them Dwyane Wade, the other one Adrian Peterson, and the
- 25:30Speaker 3: third one was Ernielle. So we created like a house
- 25:32Speaker 3: app for our gym, and then we went to the
- 25:35Speaker 3: agencies and we pitched this concept and you know, I
- 25:37Speaker 3: had to going out to raise about a million three
- 25:39Speaker 3: and you know, we had to take that money, and
- 25:41Speaker 3: we decided to curate these apps, developed these apps, and
- 25:45Speaker 3: I mean out of the gate, it was like it
- 25:46Speaker 3: was it was explosive, like just to be a part
- 25:48Speaker 3: of something like that where you know, you're you're looking
- 25:51Speaker 3: at the back end and you're seeing like your app
- 25:53Speaker 3: go from like fifteen in the world to thirty in
- 25:55Speaker 3: the world, to twenty in the world to ten to five,
- 25:57Speaker 3: and then you're at number one for a few weeks
- 25:59Speaker 3: and cash is rolling in. You're like, oh my god,
- 26:01Speaker 3: like this is this is incredible, and then out of nowhere.
- 26:03Speaker 3: It's like the best way to describe it I like
- 26:06Speaker 3: to talk about it is like it's like hitting the
- 26:07Speaker 3: peak at that roller coaster. Yeah, you know, when you're
- 26:09Speaker 3: riding up it. You're riding up, but it's going slow,
- 26:11Speaker 3: and then out of nowhere you just kind of cross
- 26:13Speaker 3: that top and then that's when you just take off.
- 26:16Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 26:17Speaker 3: That at that point it was just this screaming roller
- 26:19Speaker 3: coaster that was like you're holding on, You're out of control.
- 26:22Speaker 3: You're like, holy shit, this thing is going to hell?
- 26:25Speaker 3: How do we keep this thing up? And I learned
- 26:27Speaker 3: more about the digital business in that you know, six
- 26:31Speaker 3: to twelve month span whatever it was got. I mean again,
- 26:36Speaker 3: looking back on it, you say, well, you wish it worked,
- 26:39Speaker 3: but another part of me is like, wow, I'm not
- 26:42Speaker 3: happy it didn't. My investors wouldn't want to hear that.
- 26:44Speaker 3: But there were so many good takeaways from that, and
- 26:47Speaker 3: there are so many things that I learned now to
- 26:49Speaker 3: do what I'm doing now.
- 26:50Speaker 2: I mean, we talk about that all the time on Hurdle.
- 26:52Speaker 2: It's like identifying the things that could be viewed as failures,
- 26:55Speaker 2: but they're really just things that make us stronger.
- 26:58Speaker 3: Correct you know?
- 27:00Speaker 1: Okay, so you you have this whole digital project and
- 27:03Speaker 1: then you have the second location, So what give me
- 27:06Speaker 1: a timeline here?
- 27:08Speaker 3: Oh god, It's like everything seems like between two thousand
- 27:12Speaker 3: and nine and two, two thousand.
- 27:16Speaker 2: And fifteen, fifteen, Okay, right now that's.
- 27:20Speaker 3: With like four four three, that's what my other location
- 27:22Speaker 3: and my digital platform and the entire time I had
- 27:25Speaker 3: drive I still have drivet on Vty five now, right,
- 27:28Speaker 3: And you got all these other garden of life, like
- 27:30Speaker 3: I went and I started a sport line product with them,
- 27:32Speaker 3: which did really really well, but then they got off
- 27:34Speaker 3: by Nestle and you know, we all got canned. So
- 27:37Speaker 3: you know, but again that was even to this day,
- 27:39Speaker 3: I'm grateful for the opportunity they gave me. And I
- 27:42Speaker 3: made a lot of money off that deal, and it
- 27:43Speaker 3: was it was, it was just great. So you know,
- 27:45Speaker 3: things work out, things don't work out. It's like, you know,
- 27:48Speaker 3: it all kind of works out in my in my opinion,
- 27:50Speaker 3: like we're all still here. It's I'm in a better
- 27:52Speaker 3: situation now in twenty nineteen than I've ever been in
- 27:55Speaker 3: my life. And I don't want to go back and
- 27:57Speaker 3: do anything over. I'm not even like, oh wow, if
- 27:59Speaker 3: I can go do it again, Like I don't even
- 28:01Speaker 3: say that, like no, no, no, I'm glad that happened because
- 28:02Speaker 3: then I wouldn't be doing this or wouldn't that put
- 28:04Speaker 3: me in this situation? Or you know, even getting on
- 28:07Speaker 3: a social media I remember when when I first got
- 28:09Speaker 3: onto it, I was like, I don't want to get
- 28:10Speaker 3: onto it, and a friend of mine convinced me and I
- 28:12Speaker 3: got on it, and I was like, Okay, this makes sense,
- 28:14Speaker 3: you know. So everything happens very reason.
- 28:15Speaker 2: Everything happens very reason. So you mentioned a business pivot.
- 28:19Speaker 1: When does Drive go from the original model integrating golf
- 28:24Speaker 1: to not so much golf?
- 28:26Speaker 3: Oh seven o eight right around when Lehman Brothers and
- 28:29Speaker 3: bear Stearns tent. So what happened was when we open.
- 28:33Speaker 3: I come from a catering background, so I grew up
- 28:35Speaker 3: working in catering halls. It's my family's business.
- 28:37Speaker 2: So I really very long island A yet very long
- 28:38Speaker 2: island me.
- 28:39Speaker 3: So you know, but it was it was a great
- 28:41Speaker 3: business because you know, I worked everywhere from maintenance to prefabing,
- 28:44Speaker 3: to waitering, to lifeguarding to me on and on and
- 28:48Speaker 3: on and on bartending. We were doing a lot of
- 28:51Speaker 3: corporate events, and we were hosting events for like Barkley's
- 28:54Speaker 3: and Lehman Brothers and all these different companies and Goldman
- 28:57Speaker 3: Sachs and their spending was very loose at the time,
- 29:00Speaker 3: great like they would just coming and be like, oh,
- 29:01Speaker 3: this is a great night, We're going to book the event.
- 29:02Speaker 3: And we all know, you know, years years ago, you
- 29:06Speaker 3: didn't have to go through all these like you know,
- 29:10Speaker 3: governing bodies at these firms, and they would just book
- 29:13Speaker 3: events client entertaining, and I don't know, I remember one
- 29:16Speaker 3: day it was probably one of the best decisions I
- 29:17Speaker 3: remember making. I remember seeing the process change. I remember
- 29:20Speaker 3: we had to go through like six hurdles, hurdles. We
- 29:23Speaker 3: had to go through six hurdles to be able to
- 29:25Speaker 3: book this one event, and they're spending dropped, and I
- 29:28Speaker 3: was like, all right, this is a nightmare, Like this
- 29:30Speaker 3: is going to be really difficult. Our margins just diminished,
- 29:34Speaker 3: like drastically, and I think this portion of our business
- 29:37Speaker 3: is going to disappear. And it did. So we just
- 29:40Speaker 3: we said, listen, we originally got in here to focus
- 29:41Speaker 3: on performance. It was golf performance in the beginning, so
- 29:45Speaker 3: let's just fitness performance. And right around that same time,
- 29:47Speaker 3: this was two thousand and nine, twenty ten, I got
- 29:49Speaker 3: a client by the name of Hugh Jackman and he
- 29:52Speaker 3: came with a buddy of his and who was this
- 29:54Speaker 3: trainer at the time and decided to asked if they
- 29:59Speaker 3: can work out at the gym, and I said, sure,
- 30:00Speaker 3: you're You know at the time, I was like, you're
- 30:01Speaker 3: Hugh Jackman, come on in?
- 30:03Speaker 2: And he does anyone not say you're who Jackman? Come
- 30:05Speaker 2: on in? Like he wants to go to Starbucks? Are
- 30:09Speaker 2: people going to make him wait?
- 30:10Speaker 3: In life? You know what? He said? Any and he
- 30:12Speaker 3: would wait online. That's it. That's what type of person
- 30:14Speaker 3: he is. But you know, I definitely owe a big
- 30:16Speaker 3: portion of my career to him. I saw him for
- 30:19Speaker 3: the first time over I think December January. I was
- 30:22Speaker 3: at a group We all had dinner together at this restaurant.
- 30:24Speaker 3: It was a client's birthday and we all kind of
- 30:25Speaker 3: sat together and we were bsing and it was cool
- 30:28Speaker 3: to kind of hear what was going on in his life.
- 30:30Speaker 3: But I owe a lot of it to him because
- 30:33Speaker 3: I focused on him for about nine months. We just trained.
- 30:35Speaker 3: There was really no social media going on. And I
- 30:37Speaker 3: even remember one time He's like, you know, how can
- 30:40Speaker 3: I help? How can I help? And I'm like, you're helping,
- 30:42Speaker 3: Like you're like you're in here, You're you're improving, Like
- 30:46Speaker 3: let's just keep focusing on that. And I was never
- 30:47Speaker 3: really into exposing the client. I think they really love that.
- 30:51Speaker 3: And out of nowhere, it just became like this domino effect.
- 30:53Speaker 3: It's like every week I was getting another phone call,
- 30:56Speaker 3: like I have scrolled jo hands and I'm like, oh,
- 30:58Speaker 3: I've heard of you. How are you nice to meet you?
- 30:59Speaker 3: And how can I help you? And she's like, I
- 31:00Speaker 3: want to train. And then she's like, you know, my
- 31:03Speaker 3: boyfriend is Ryan Reynolds, like you should meet him. I
- 31:06Speaker 3: was like great, and then out of nowhere, it just
- 31:08Speaker 3: it was it was it was incredible. It's just this
- 31:10Speaker 3: domino effector every week, even to this day, every week
- 31:12Speaker 3: I feel like I'm getting a call from someone a
- 31:14Speaker 3: professional athlete, like I want to come in, I want
- 31:15Speaker 3: to train, I want to work, and you know, and
- 31:17Speaker 3: now you just can't do it all on your own.
- 31:19Speaker 3: You've got to start trusting and relying on a team,
- 31:21Speaker 3: which sometimes can burn you. You know, when you're putting
- 31:24Speaker 3: people of that caliber in front of coaches. I mean,
- 31:28Speaker 3: ninety nine percent of the time, I've been really fortunate
- 31:31Speaker 3: and lucky, but you know, about one percent of the time,
- 31:33Speaker 3: someone's gonna try and steal someone or stabby in the back,
- 31:35Speaker 3: or not be grateful or do something that's hurtful, but
- 31:37Speaker 3: you just got to cough it up and just say
- 31:39Speaker 3: that's part of you know, being in this position and
- 31:41Speaker 3: sitting I always say, sitting in the chair, you know,
- 31:43Speaker 3: just yeah, kind of owning that warning that job.
- 31:51Speaker 1: Quick break from today's episode to give my sponsor, Athletic
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- 32:13Speaker 1: he's never been a green juice kind of guy. Now
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- 33:07Speaker 1: Let's get back to it. Okay, So you start training
- 33:17Speaker 1: bigger name celebrities, some athletes, et cetera.
- 33:20Speaker 2: And obviously with that, the.
- 33:23Speaker 1: Golf mentality goes away and you're just focusing on more
- 33:26Speaker 1: functional training.
- 33:27Speaker 3: It's still there, Yeah, the the golf is still there.
- 33:30Speaker 3: We're just not showcasing it, which became a little confusing
- 33:33Speaker 3: at a certain point. You would have actors come in
- 33:35Speaker 3: and be like, wait a second, you finish your golf,
- 33:37Speaker 3: and I'm like, no, the golf's upstairs. So finally we
- 33:39Speaker 3: just kind of it's just it's two different businesses. We
- 33:42Speaker 3: kind of sell it as it's like one one's upstairs,
- 33:44Speaker 3: the other's downstairs. It's tied into one club, and now
- 33:48Speaker 3: we're almost that capacity, so we don't really have to
- 33:50Speaker 3: worry so much about members It's it's more about just,
- 33:53Speaker 3: you know, continuing to supply the membership with what they
- 33:55Speaker 3: need and continuing to add value and and and and
- 33:59Speaker 3: do right for them and optimize every every category. But yeah,
- 34:02Speaker 3: I mean per performance, that was something I we always
- 34:04Speaker 3: focused on. I mean, training a golfer is really no
- 34:07Speaker 3: different than training a football player. That's what most people,
- 34:09Speaker 3: I mean the beginning, we wanted to sell that differently.
- 34:11Speaker 3: But anyone who's telling you that it's it's different, they're
- 34:14Speaker 3: a fraud. You're you're you're creating a better athlete. You've
- 34:17Speaker 3: got to you know what, John over here, I'm just
- 34:19Speaker 3: giving an example here. If I have John and Jim
- 34:21Speaker 3: standing next to each other, their bodies move differently, I'm
- 34:23Speaker 3: going to train them differently if they both play the
- 34:26Speaker 3: sport of baseball. So it's really just creating a better
- 34:28Speaker 3: athlete for that individual.
- 34:30Speaker 2: You mentioned sleepless nights and waking up and being scared
- 34:33Speaker 2: and being scared about money. So that was all during
- 34:36Speaker 2: the financial crash. Yeah, so everything happens then and after.
- 34:40Speaker 3: I mean it was it was it was a few
- 34:41Speaker 3: years of like band aids. Yeah, just putting like like
- 34:45Speaker 3: it's I look at it this way, like God forbid.
- 34:48Speaker 3: You know, you hear stories about people getting shot multiple
- 34:51Speaker 3: gun wounds. You're going to go in and you're going
- 34:53Speaker 3: to address the biggest gun wound in the beginning, you know,
- 34:55Speaker 3: and then you're once that's taken care of, you've got
- 34:57Speaker 3: to start addressing other ones. And then you know, then
- 35:00Speaker 3: an affection happens in that main gun wound and you
- 35:02Speaker 3: got to go back to it. That's kind of how
- 35:03Speaker 3: my business was for years. And then we just and
- 35:05Speaker 3: then we just nailed it. Then we just figured it out.
- 35:07Speaker 2: Do you remember like anything super specific that in retrospect
- 35:11Speaker 2: was kind of comical about trying to patch up one
- 35:13Speaker 2: of these quote unquote gun wounds.
- 35:16Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean some of them were just out of
- 35:18Speaker 3: our control. It was the you know, least that we signed.
- 35:21Speaker 3: It was the contractor that we brought in the beginning
- 35:24Speaker 3: to do the construction on the place. I mean, you know,
- 35:26Speaker 3: to this air conditioning problems the other day, it cost
- 35:29Speaker 3: me like eight grand, like one day out of page.
- 35:30Speaker 3: It's just to get one thing fixed that happens in
- 35:33Speaker 3: that space probably every you know, four to five months.
- 35:36Speaker 3: So we've spent like hundreds of thousands of dollars over
- 35:38Speaker 3: the years on the air conditioning. And you're just like,
- 35:41Speaker 3: it is what it is. You know, there's there's a
- 35:42Speaker 3: flood right now going on in Levi's and you know,
- 35:45Speaker 3: the building's like, it's your fault, and I'm We're like,
- 35:47Speaker 3: it's not our fault, and you're just and you're sitting
- 35:49Speaker 3: there and you laugh at it because there's just nothing
- 35:51Speaker 3: you can do that. You can't go home and cry.
- 35:52Speaker 3: You just you open the floor up, you look at
- 35:54Speaker 3: the pipes. You're like, no, look that's not us, and
- 35:56Speaker 3: you move on from it. And it's just you can't
- 35:58Speaker 3: see what's I don't want to say. It's frustrating for me.
- 36:01Speaker 3: But what I don't really understand is you have a
- 36:03Speaker 3: lot of these people, see so called entrepreneurs that want
- 36:07Speaker 3: to get involved and they want to be in business
- 36:09Speaker 3: and they want their own thing. But the second something happens,
- 36:12Speaker 3: they want to run for the hills, and I'm like, no,
- 36:14Speaker 3: you've got to go into this stuff with a miscellaneous category,
- 36:18Speaker 3: like there's a reasonabhy on spreadsheets. You have things blow up,
- 36:21Speaker 3: their conditioners blow up, Floods happen, fires happen, it's just
- 36:26Speaker 3: life in general. Equipment breaks down, and if you don't
- 36:29Speaker 3: have the stomach for that, well, I mean it's maybe
- 36:31Speaker 3: a bad way to put it, but you know, God
- 36:33Speaker 3: created chiefs and Indians. Maybe it was just not chief
- 36:35Speaker 3: Oh no, seriously, I mean it sounds tough, but you
- 36:38Speaker 3: got to be able to you got to be able
- 36:40Speaker 3: to take your punches in this business.
- 36:41Speaker 2: Totally. Okay. So soon after the financial crisis, then we
- 36:47Speaker 2: get Hurricane Sandy, which I know you had mentioned to
- 36:49Speaker 2: me was a little bit tough on your family.
- 36:51Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I was living downtown. I bought an apartment
- 36:54Speaker 3: at eighty eight Grantach and we came out to Long
- 36:57Speaker 3: Island and we're hanging out out there for the weekend
- 36:59Speaker 3: where my parents house, and we hear the hurricanes coming in.
- 37:02Speaker 3: So your first response is like, go back to the
- 37:04Speaker 3: city because the city is the safest spot. Like you're
- 37:06Speaker 3: just you know, you're in the city. There's you know,
- 37:08Speaker 3: there's not power lines and there's no trees and We're like,
- 37:11Speaker 3: you know, my parents, let's hang with them, Let's make
- 37:13Speaker 3: sure they are right. You know, I don't know how
- 37:15Speaker 3: bad it's going to happen. And we're the house is safe,
- 37:18Speaker 3: et cetera. And we get a phone call the next
- 37:19Speaker 3: day and it's like, your your building has been shut down,
- 37:24Speaker 3: it's been evacuated. There's this was what was in October November.
- 37:27Speaker 3: We're not allowed back in until March April. So suddenly
- 37:30Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, well, what are we going to do,
- 37:32Speaker 3: Like we're going to move back into the city. And
- 37:34Speaker 3: my wife and I just said, let's moving with my parents.
- 37:36Speaker 3: And they had a little like barn guest house in
- 37:39Speaker 3: the back fortunately, and we just moved in there and
- 37:41Speaker 3: within a week the kids were going to elementary school
- 37:45Speaker 3: out there out in Long Island and then and they
- 37:46Speaker 3: loved it. It was like it was exciting, it was fun.
- 37:48Speaker 3: They were probably they're eleven and twelve now, it was
- 37:51Speaker 3: what four and five, five and six, I forget, but yeah,
- 37:55Speaker 3: So we so we held the apartment for a year.
- 37:57Speaker 3: You couldn't sell it there. There was the elevators were
- 38:00Speaker 3: and even working the deep the transformers were were downstairs
- 38:04Speaker 3: in the basement, and the basement was dirty, feet under underwater.
- 38:07Speaker 2: What about all your stuff?
- 38:09Speaker 3: We're fine because our building, our apartment was on the
- 38:11Speaker 3: sixth floor. So my wife's machine. She literally came into
- 38:14Speaker 3: the city one day and like the dark and literally
- 38:16Speaker 3: like moved things out with like she got two movers
- 38:18Speaker 3: and they couldn't even use elevators or carrying beds down
- 38:19Speaker 3: the stairs. And I was I was at work and
- 38:21Speaker 3: I couldn't even leave, and she's like, I gotta don'
- 38:23Speaker 3: worry about it, like you handle what you get a handle,
- 38:25Speaker 3: and I'll handle this. And she literally moved the whole
- 38:26Speaker 3: family as she moved everything out like a day, and
- 38:30Speaker 3: that was it. That was our that was our move
- 38:31Speaker 3: out of the city. I mean, if that didn't happen,
- 38:33Speaker 3: we were thinking about moving out of the city. I
- 38:34Speaker 3: just don't know if we would have. You're you're so comfortable, Yeah,
- 38:37Speaker 3: you know, it's everything so easy. My commute every day
- 38:39Speaker 3: was seven minutes.
- 38:40Speaker 1: So oh you know, I I've never had a seven
- 38:44Speaker 1: minute commute myself. Wouldn't that be pretty sweet?
- 38:47Speaker 3: Pretty nice?
- 38:47Speaker 2: Okay, So you move out to Long Island and things
- 38:50Speaker 2: are doing really great with drive and it seems like
- 38:53Speaker 2: you know we're on the ups here, Yeah.
- 38:55Speaker 3: Starting to pick up. I mean it was you know,
- 38:58Speaker 3: it wasn't dislike, oh, we just decided to transition and
- 39:02Speaker 3: there it was like you know at that point, you know,
- 39:04Speaker 3: you took out loans, your borrowed money. Now it's like,
- 39:08Speaker 3: all right, the bleeding stopping and you got to pay
- 39:10Speaker 3: this stuff down. You got to pay this debt down.
- 39:12Speaker 3: And that took several years for that to happen. And
- 39:17Speaker 3: you know, along the way, a lot a lot of
- 39:18Speaker 3: bumps and bruises. But you know, like I said, that's
- 39:22Speaker 3: part of sitting in that seat. You gotta be you
- 39:24Speaker 3: gotta expect to take that.
- 39:25Speaker 2: Was it weird when you started to be referred to
- 39:29Speaker 2: as a celebrity trainer? I mean, you're talking that more
- 39:31Speaker 2: and more of these A listers are coming into your space,
- 39:34Speaker 2: So I feel like it's almost inevitable that you're going
- 39:36Speaker 2: to get a little bit of what I love to
- 39:38Speaker 2: affectionately call imposter syndrome.
- 39:40Speaker 3: You know it was. I was on the Muslim Fitness
- 39:44Speaker 3: podcast the other day with a friend of mine named
- 39:45Speaker 3: Mark Fisher, you owns Mark Fisher Fitness, and he paid
- 39:47Speaker 3: me the ultimate coup compliment He's like, Don was the
- 39:49Speaker 3: one to take celebrity training and actually make it legitimate.
- 39:53Speaker 3: And that's not saying that all the celebrity trainers out
- 39:55Speaker 3: there are bad, but what he was trying to say
- 39:57Speaker 3: was there there has been a lot of bad there,
- 40:00Speaker 3: and there's been a lot of coaches that just it's
- 40:02Speaker 3: about giving someone an ass kicking and you know, not
- 40:06Speaker 3: taking into consideration what's going on hormonally in their body
- 40:09Speaker 3: or how their body works, actually paying attention. It's just
- 40:11Speaker 3: been more abaud effort, and I think that's a big
- 40:13Speaker 3: reason why there's been so many people becoming unsuccessful. Every
- 40:19Speaker 3: single person has to take the approach differently, you know,
- 40:22Speaker 3: like Ryan Reynolds is going to approach things a lot
- 40:23Speaker 3: differently than say the woman sitting over there having coffee.
- 40:27Speaker 3: It's just whether it's better or whether it's worse. So
- 40:31Speaker 3: it was an ultimate compliment for me to get that.
- 40:33Speaker 3: But in the beginning, yeah, celebrity trainer, it was you know,
- 40:36Speaker 3: it's not something you really want to be to refer
- 40:38Speaker 3: to as. But you know, just after a while you
- 40:40Speaker 3: just stop caring and just like listen, that's how they're
- 40:42Speaker 3: gonna refer to you. That's what they're gonna refer to you,
- 40:44Speaker 3: and you know, if it's what brings you know, recognition
- 40:47Speaker 3: to the brand, and if it's what gets people excited
- 40:49Speaker 3: and enables you to help more people on scale, then
- 40:52Speaker 3: you just do it. It's just a title.
- 40:54Speaker 1: During all of this, you mentioned that you yourself when
- 40:56Speaker 1: times get tough, you really do lean into your own training,
- 40:59Speaker 1: your own fitness, your own mindfulness and health to get
- 41:03Speaker 1: through some of this tough stuff. How are you making
- 41:06Speaker 1: time for all of this in combination with running your business,
- 41:10Speaker 1: in combination with caring for your family, And I mean,
- 41:12Speaker 1: obviously there's just a lot of stuff going on.
- 41:14Speaker 3: It's gonna sound incredibly selfish, but I got to clean
- 41:17Speaker 3: my side of the street, So I have to become
- 41:19Speaker 3: a little selfish with this stuff. And almost I'm not
- 41:22Speaker 3: saying putting working out in front of my kids. But
- 41:24Speaker 3: you know, my wife and I have an understanding. She
- 41:27Speaker 3: knows when I have to get a work out, I
- 41:28Speaker 3: get to work out. It like there's there's there's no like, oh,
- 41:31Speaker 3: you can't get a work I need. You know, it's
- 41:33Speaker 3: this is what I need to survive. If I in
- 41:35Speaker 3: the past, I've taken less clients to just get my
- 41:37Speaker 3: work out in. I'm never someone who's saying, oh, I
- 41:39Speaker 3: have ten people today, in which I won't even do.
- 41:42Speaker 3: I train two to three people a day now max.
- 41:45Speaker 3: It's not even a lot. But no matter what, the
- 41:48Speaker 3: person who handles my schedule, Kim, she knows I need
- 41:52Speaker 3: roughly seventy five minutes just in my schedule blocked off
- 41:55Speaker 3: for me. And if I can't get that, you got
- 41:58Speaker 3: to find a place in the data do that. If
- 42:00Speaker 3: it's five in the morning, if it's great, you know,
- 42:02Speaker 3: I normally have to get it done early. Worst case scenario,
- 42:05Speaker 3: it's late in the day. I very rarely like to
- 42:06Speaker 3: train then. But on certain circumstances, when you have specific
- 42:09Speaker 3: opportunities that get thrown at you, you got to you
- 42:12Speaker 3: gotta jump on it. So yeah, no, I don't make
- 42:14Speaker 3: excuses with that stuff. That's like, I mean, that's literally
- 42:16Speaker 3: me like waking up, brushing my teeth and taking a
- 42:18Speaker 3: shower every day. It's just part of my day.
- 42:19Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people what they struggle
- 42:21Speaker 1: with is just this idea of making it as important
- 42:24Speaker 1: as the other things that they deem important in their life. Right,
- 42:27Speaker 1: and especially when you're starting out, it's like you said,
- 42:29Speaker 1: it's second nature, next to brushing my teeth and rolling
- 42:32Speaker 1: out of bed. Getting to the place where it is
- 42:35Speaker 1: second nature for so many it just feels like the
- 42:38Speaker 1: biggest turnal right.
- 42:40Speaker 3: I think also, I think the perception out there of
- 42:42Speaker 3: what needs to be done is just it's just awful.
- 42:45Speaker 3: It's i mean, one of my favorite all time movies.
- 42:47Speaker 3: I think Set's like one of the worst examples ever.
- 42:49Speaker 3: And that's Rocky. You know. It's like, all right, well,
- 42:52Speaker 3: it's this is training montage and this guy like climbing
- 42:55Speaker 3: a mountain and heeds like literally falling down and he's dying.
- 42:58Speaker 3: And I'm like, no, you don't need that. You just
- 43:00Speaker 3: need to be more consistent. Like I like going hard.
- 43:03Speaker 3: I like training hard. I like trying to be optimal.
- 43:05Speaker 3: I like looking at heart rate variability and doing all
- 43:07Speaker 3: these things that are going to help me become optimal.
- 43:10Speaker 3: But most people out there don't need that. It's like,
- 43:12Speaker 3: all right, get seven an, I I was sleep a night,
- 43:13Speaker 3: drink half your body renounces of water, eat good quality foods,
- 43:18Speaker 3: break a sweat every day for ten to twenty minutes,
- 43:20Speaker 3: and you're going to be fine. Like it's not, it's
- 43:23Speaker 3: not a huge formula. Yet we always think it's like, oh,
- 43:25Speaker 3: p ninety x sixteen to ninety minutes a day, six
- 43:28Speaker 3: days a week. I'm like that you take anyone's sententary
- 43:29Speaker 3: and you put them in that environment, and yeah, something's
- 43:31Speaker 3: going to happen. But do they keep up with it afterwards?
- 43:34Speaker 3: That's my question.
- 43:35Speaker 1: I think what happens for a lot of people is
- 43:37Speaker 1: that they go into this decision fatigue.
- 43:39Speaker 2: Right.
- 43:39Speaker 1: It's like you're making all of these decisions and you're
- 43:41Speaker 1: feeling like, Wow, I'm doing so well, and you're seeing
- 43:43Speaker 1: the benefits. But after a while, after making constant good
- 43:46Speaker 1: decision after good decision after good decision, you're like.
- 43:49Speaker 2: Wow, I just need to stop.
- 43:51Speaker 3: I need a break.
- 43:51Speaker 2: I need a break.
- 43:52Speaker 3: Yeah, But that's that's part of the whole. That's the
- 43:54Speaker 3: problem with resolutions, like New Year's resolutions. Everyone's like, oh,
- 43:57Speaker 3: I'm gonna go like two weeks without having a drink,
- 44:00Speaker 3: and I'm just like, okay, if you're coming to me
- 44:02Speaker 3: and you're like, I have to be on the cover
- 44:03Speaker 3: of this magazine by this time, or I'm in this
- 44:06Speaker 3: movie and there's a movie and there's a scene with
- 44:08Speaker 3: me with my shirt off and I'm on a horse,
- 44:09Speaker 3: and you're like, all right, this.
- 44:10Speaker 2: Is a little dramatic, but everyone has this.
- 44:13Speaker 3: Val if you're one of these, if you're one of
- 44:15Speaker 3: these individuals, and yeah, if you're a physic competitor and
- 44:18Speaker 3: you're getting on the stage, yes you have to take
- 44:19Speaker 3: a much different approach. But the majority of the people
- 44:21Speaker 3: out there, I mean most of the people you're around,
- 44:23Speaker 3: they want to look at themselves negan and feel good
- 44:25Speaker 3: about themselves. They want to have optimal energy levels, and
- 44:28Speaker 3: they want to be strong. And strong means like being
- 44:31Speaker 3: able to move and wake up and feeling empowered, and
- 44:33Speaker 3: those are really the goals and to get there you
- 44:35Speaker 3: don't need a lot.
- 44:36Speaker 2: Can we talk about energy levels?
- 44:38Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting thing that I actually we
- 44:40Speaker 1: don't talk about enough, is that there are other goals
- 44:43Speaker 1: that people have when they're working out. And I would
- 44:45Speaker 1: say for me, energy is definitely important, but also lately
- 44:49Speaker 1: I've been trying to figure out different ways to fine
- 44:51Speaker 1: tune getting better sleep.
- 44:54Speaker 2: But let's start with energy levels. So what would you
- 44:57Speaker 2: suggest for.
- 44:57Speaker 1: Someone who's just saying that maybe often in the middle
- 45:00Speaker 1: of the day they're feeling lethargic, or they have a
- 45:02Speaker 1: hard time getting out of bed in the morning.
- 45:04Speaker 3: Listen, this all comes back to rest and stimulants, and
- 45:09Speaker 3: I mean even diving into digestion. I mean I would
- 45:12Speaker 3: start first with rest. How much sleep are you getting
- 45:14Speaker 3: and what quality of sleep is that. If you're someone
- 45:17Speaker 3: getting five hours of sleep and you start, you know,
- 45:19Speaker 3: overdoing the coffee early in the day, then you're going
- 45:21Speaker 3: to start getting into some sort of a call what
- 45:23Speaker 3: you want hormonal fatigue. You know, I've no problem with stimulants,
- 45:28Speaker 3: granted you're getting enough rest. Which is almost like a
- 45:30Speaker 3: catch twenty two because people are like, well I drink
- 45:31Speaker 3: coffee because I'm tired. I'm like, well, that's bad. Like
- 45:34Speaker 3: I drink coffee because it gives me somewhat of a
- 45:36Speaker 3: thermal effect, and I like going to the workout, I
- 45:38Speaker 3: have a little bit more awareness, a little bit more energy. Great,
- 45:41Speaker 3: But once I start getting to the point where I
- 45:42Speaker 3: become so dependent on caffeine that I need it, it's
- 45:45Speaker 3: time to kill it. It's time to take a break.
- 45:47Speaker 3: So yeah, so I think one, it's looking at sleep
- 45:50Speaker 3: and sleep quality. Start looking at things in the evening, like,
- 45:54Speaker 3: you know, are you on your tablet too long? What
- 45:57Speaker 3: type of light are you exposed to? How late in
- 45:59Speaker 3: the day are you drinking caffeine? Are you drinking in
- 46:01Speaker 3: past one o'clock? Are you maybe eating too late at
- 46:04Speaker 3: night where it's affecting your sleep? But I know someone
- 46:06Speaker 3: like me could eat late and I can eat before
- 46:08Speaker 3: bed and it doesn't affect my sleep. So it really
- 46:10Speaker 3: is like when people are like, oh I don't need
- 46:11Speaker 3: past six, I'm like, well, what time you go to bed?
- 46:13Speaker 3: Like how do you do? Maybe that's hurting you? Like
- 46:15Speaker 3: that could be hurting you. So I think a lot
- 46:17Speaker 3: of times we take this one size fits all approach
- 46:19Speaker 3: and it really is individualistic. But the first few things
- 46:21Speaker 3: I would focus on is just you know, improving sleep quality,
- 46:24Speaker 3: sleep and sleep quality and looking at caffeine. You know,
- 46:28Speaker 3: when you start overdoing that one area and neglecting those
- 46:31Speaker 3: other two areas, it's like it's coming. It's like right
- 46:34Speaker 3: left hooks coming from you in both angles. It's just
- 46:36Speaker 3: it's a really vicious effect.
- 46:38Speaker 1: You mentioned something else before that I think is also critical,
- 46:40Speaker 1: which is half of your body weight and ounces in
- 46:42Speaker 1: water every day?
- 46:43Speaker 2: Is that the golden rule of them?
- 46:45Speaker 3: Yeah? That is Actually that's something that now I'm working
- 46:48Speaker 3: with a woman lore some I can mention her name
- 46:50Speaker 3: Laura Summers. I met her she was eight hundred and
- 46:52Speaker 3: seventy two pounds and she's down to three hundred and
- 46:56Speaker 3: seventy five pounds now. So I don't have her drinking
- 46:58Speaker 3: half her bodyweight ounces of water because that would be
- 47:00Speaker 3: you know, a lot, that would be almost impossible. It's impossible,
- 47:04Speaker 3: be that'd be a lot. So what I do is
- 47:06Speaker 3: just an improvement. It's just getting her to drink a
- 47:08Speaker 3: little bit more monitoring as she waking up late at
- 47:10Speaker 3: night to use the bathroom too many times. If it's once,
- 47:13Speaker 3: we're okay. So yeah, certainly some really unusual circumstances like
- 47:18Speaker 3: that you have to coach accordingly. But all in all, yeah,
- 47:22Speaker 3: fifty fifty ounces have your body Rightno ounces?
- 47:25Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean?
- 47:26Speaker 1: And overall, I feel like in the summer, hydration can
- 47:28Speaker 1: be something that a lot of people don't put as
- 47:30Speaker 1: much stress on as they should. And then I personally
- 47:32Speaker 1: get a lot of questions from listeners about working out
- 47:36Speaker 1: and drinking water.
- 47:37Speaker 2: So I know there is.
- 47:38Speaker 1: No necessary golden rule of thumb for what you should
- 47:40Speaker 1: be doing, but I think people get confused about when
- 47:42Speaker 1: they should be reaching toward like a hydration beverage versus
- 47:45Speaker 1: reaching toward regular water, and how long do I need
- 47:48Speaker 1: to be working out when I choose one or the other.
- 47:50Speaker 3: It was so funny, it was for years I hated
- 47:52Speaker 3: hydration beverages. I would I would do something. I would
- 47:55Speaker 3: add Celtic sea salt or pink Camiley and salt in
- 47:58Speaker 3: my water, and I think I thought it was one
- 47:59Speaker 3: of the best ways to rehydrate because of the trace minerals.
- 48:02Speaker 3: And then I found this product call Halo that I
- 48:03Speaker 3: started using, which is probably the only thing that I
- 48:05Speaker 3: ever drink besides water and maybe the occasional alcohol. And
- 48:08Speaker 3: that's been that's been a nice change for me because
- 48:11Speaker 3: I'm getting lemon I'm getting which is great for digestion.
- 48:14Speaker 3: I'm getting the salt, I'm getting magnesium which helped gets
- 48:17Speaker 3: the body pair sympathetic and recover. And it's got electrolytes
- 48:21Speaker 3: and potassium and all the stuff my body needs with
- 48:23Speaker 3: like less than two grams of sugar.
- 48:24Speaker 2: So and that's just a regular drink.
- 48:26Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just a regular It's just a regular drink.
- 48:28Speaker 3: I think they just came to market several months ago,
- 48:31Speaker 3: and it's something that I do carry in my club now,
- 48:33Speaker 3: But otherwise that what else when I drink like, yeah,
- 48:37Speaker 3: my occasional beers or tequila whatever it really is. But
- 48:39Speaker 3: all in all, it's water.
- 48:40Speaker 2: And Halo got it, Okay, So when it comes to
- 48:43Speaker 2: that rehydration period post workard, it's obviously going to be
- 48:45Speaker 2: very different if you're doing like a thirty minute hit
- 48:48Speaker 2: workout versus if you're about to do what I'm going
- 48:51Speaker 2: to do and like going on long training runs on
- 48:53Speaker 2: the weekend.
- 48:53Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm always I'm always rehydrating, so I
- 48:56Speaker 3: would never, like the goal for me is never to
- 48:58Speaker 3: get dehydrated where I'd need to rehide, right, So I'm
- 49:00Speaker 3: always like throughout that process, I'm always trying to feed
- 49:03Speaker 3: my body what it needs. And you know, I've gotten
- 49:05Speaker 3: to a good point where I could tell if I start,
- 49:07Speaker 3: you know, I'm if I'm thirsty, then that's like, all right,
- 49:10Speaker 3: well it's already a little too late. It's time to
- 49:12Speaker 3: dive into it. But you know, you just do the
- 49:13Speaker 3: best you can. And I do know even from a
- 49:16Speaker 3: I mean, Halo is probably one of my favorite hangover
- 49:18Speaker 3: things too. It's like you drink that before better when
- 49:20Speaker 3: you wake up in the morning and then that salt
- 49:22Speaker 3: does help, that sea salt does help with rehydration. So
- 49:25Speaker 3: I think my goal for everyone is just to make
- 49:28Speaker 3: sure that you're not putting that water bottle down for like,
- 49:31Speaker 3: you know, a half hour or an hour when you're understanding
- 49:33Speaker 3: your's activity, because then, yeah, that can really hinder performance
- 49:36Speaker 3: and water too. It's like most things. I mean, this
- 49:39Speaker 3: is what purifies the body, this is what helps get
- 49:41Speaker 3: waist out of the body, and the cleaner the body
- 49:43Speaker 3: is and hormonally, the better off we are, the more
- 49:46Speaker 3: of a fat burning machine our body's going to turn into.
- 49:48Speaker 1: So yeah, I've been trying to keep my water bottle
- 49:51Speaker 1: on my desk as like a reminder.
- 49:52Speaker 2: It's sitting in front of it right now in the
- 49:54Speaker 2: studio and everyone has it.
- 49:57Speaker 1: And now they even make they make like light that
- 50:00Speaker 1: can go on your water bottle all that it'll start
- 50:01Speaker 1: blinking at you every forty minutes if you haven't had
- 50:04Speaker 1: a sip of it.
- 50:04Speaker 3: That's really cool, as I'm reaching for my water right
- 50:07Speaker 3: right now. But yeah, I mean sometimes people, I mean
- 50:09Speaker 3: I have people do this when they sit I have
- 50:11Speaker 3: them set timers.
- 50:12Speaker 2: A water timer. That's not about there's definitely apps for that.
- 50:15Speaker 3: No, a water timer or like like a sitting timer.
- 50:18Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, to get up every once in a while.
- 50:20Speaker 3: I never want anyone sitting more than like thirty minutes,
- 50:22Speaker 3: So I always tell them like every thirty minutes, like
- 50:24Speaker 3: how long t I stand for them? Like anything's in improvement? Yeah,
- 50:27Speaker 3: if you could like sit for thirty stand for thirty,
- 50:29Speaker 3: that would be pretty awesome. But you know, stand for
- 50:31Speaker 3: five to ten, move around, like take all your calls
- 50:33Speaker 3: with a headset on and stand up and yeah, and
- 50:35Speaker 3: don't get out of this position that I'm in right now.
- 50:38Speaker 1: I mean, Okay, so we've talked water, We've talked about now,
- 50:40Speaker 1: we've talked sitting and standing. Give me another easy to
- 50:42Speaker 1: implement strategy that someone can do on the regular to
- 50:45Speaker 1: just like tweak up that health factor, you know a
- 50:47Speaker 1: little bit.
- 50:47Speaker 3: Digestion is something that's incredibly overlooked when you have I
- 50:52Speaker 3: think the best way to put is you hear this
- 50:54Speaker 3: terminology leaky gut, and when you're consuming non organic foods
- 50:58Speaker 3: or toxins or alcohol or stress, you start developing. I
- 51:03Speaker 3: mean the easiest way I like talking about this is
- 51:06Speaker 3: almost like slashes on your stomach, lining and then a
- 51:09Speaker 3: lot of these talks start secreting in the bloodstream. So
- 51:12Speaker 3: the thing that I love implementing in is like a probiotic.
- 51:15Speaker 3: So I think before bed or when you're someone on
- 51:19Speaker 3: an empty stomach. I used to do in the morning,
- 51:21Speaker 3: but I would have it and then I'm eating within
- 51:22Speaker 3: five ten minutes. So I like the probiotic before bed
- 51:24Speaker 3: because then you're going hopefully seven to nine hours with
- 51:27Speaker 3: that probiotic just working.
- 51:29Speaker 1: I was going to say, tell the hurdlers what a
- 51:31Speaker 1: probiotic does for you, because this is actually another question
- 51:34Speaker 1: I get constantly, and.
- 51:36Speaker 3: I went through this breakdown a thousand times with the
- 51:40Speaker 3: people with the nutritus over a garden of life. So
- 51:42Speaker 3: you have good bacteria in your body and you have
- 51:44Speaker 3: bad bacteria. And that's why antibiotics are bad because it
- 51:48Speaker 3: goes off. Yes, it not only kills the bad bacteria,
- 51:50Speaker 3: but killing the good bacteria which your body needs. And
- 51:53Speaker 3: what happens is a probiotic now will go your into
- 51:56Speaker 3: your stomach and it almost starts acting like pac Man
- 51:58Speaker 3: as I'm doing like the pac Man. It starts acting
- 52:01Speaker 3: as pac Man, and it starts gobbling up the bad
- 52:03Speaker 3: bacteria and then it starts sticking to your stomach lining,
- 52:05Speaker 3: it starts healing your stomach lining, which is, you know,
- 52:08Speaker 3: we want we want a healthy digestion. We don't want
- 52:10Speaker 3: to have a leaky gut. So you can be consuming
- 52:12Speaker 3: the most healthy food on the planet, and if you
- 52:16Speaker 3: are not, if the bioavailability of that food isn't there,
- 52:19Speaker 3: if you're not able to utilize the vitamins, the minerals,
- 52:22Speaker 3: the fiber, the protein, the carbohydrates, then you're like in
- 52:25Speaker 3: a way, like not utilizing the food you're consuming. So
- 52:29Speaker 3: that can become a huge problem. So digestion is one
- 52:31Speaker 3: of that's probably the easiest way to break it down.
- 52:34Speaker 3: You know, I think that's something that it's low hanging fruit.
- 52:36Speaker 3: It's something that's really easy. And that's also why you
- 52:39Speaker 3: really want to focus on an organic diet. When you
- 52:42Speaker 3: start consuming fried foods or foods with like partially hydrogenated oils,
- 52:46Speaker 3: like this stuff becomes canola oil, it becomes rancid in
- 52:49Speaker 3: your stomach lining and in your body, it starts having
- 52:52Speaker 3: to work really hard to reject you know, all that
- 52:55Speaker 3: bad nutrition. Like take alcohol for instance, when someone's like,
- 52:58Speaker 3: do you drink alcohol, and I'm like sure, I drink
- 53:00Speaker 3: alcohol once once in a while, Well, what do you drink?
- 53:02Speaker 3: Likes wine better than vodka. I'm like, listen, alcohol is alcohol.
- 53:06Speaker 3: It's toxic. It's it's it's a toxic element that you're
- 53:10Speaker 3: putting into your body when I go drink. I like
- 53:12Speaker 3: to drink beer because I don't get his banged up.
- 53:14Speaker 3: I start drinking tequilas and we're at like some day
- 53:16Speaker 3: party at two pm. Then I'm going to be in
- 53:17Speaker 3: a field position by by five pm. I love that.
- 53:19Speaker 2: Your example is like if I'm at a day party,
- 53:22Speaker 2: I know.
- 53:22Speaker 3: But anything better than day There's nothing better than day drinking.
- 53:26Speaker 3: And admit this if anyone out there is like no,
- 53:29Speaker 3: I like drinking at night better than going to like
- 53:30Speaker 3: a barbecue.
- 53:31Speaker 2: Because you're going to bet at like nine pm.
- 53:34Speaker 3: It's amazing, and you're not the best. It's like after
- 53:36Speaker 3: one two in the morning, things are getting a little
- 53:38Speaker 3: weird and you're.
- 53:38Speaker 2: Speaking my language. I'm going to visit my brother this weekend.
- 53:41Speaker 1: He just moved to Miami, and he uh, he asked
- 53:44Speaker 1: me on Friday if I wanted to go out, and
- 53:46Speaker 1: he had already told me he was going to get
- 53:48Speaker 1: us bar crawl.
- 53:50Speaker 2: I used that I don't really know what this means.
- 53:52Speaker 1: Tickets for Saturday, and I was like, oh, that sounds great,
- 53:56Speaker 1: and he's like, so what do you want to do
- 53:56Speaker 1: on Friday?
- 53:57Speaker 2: I was like, can we just chill on Friday? Like
- 53:59Speaker 2: I don't do nights that.
- 54:00Speaker 3: No, I'm the same, I'm the same exact way. So
- 54:03Speaker 3: I don't even know where I'm talking about probiotics. Yeah,
- 54:07Speaker 3: but you know, so the the alcohol and jumping back
- 54:11Speaker 3: to alcohol, alcohol, I'm more concerned with what it's doing
- 54:15Speaker 3: to your body hormonally. Someone's not going to get fat
- 54:18Speaker 3: by turning around on a Friday and like crushing a
- 54:20Speaker 3: pizza and drinking ten beers. You're not going to get
- 54:23Speaker 3: fat from doing one day of that. You're gonna get fat.
- 54:25Speaker 3: You're gonna put on body fat from doing that multiple days,
- 54:28Speaker 3: weekend and week out, and you're just taking poor care
- 54:31Speaker 3: of yourself. But what's going to happen is this when
- 54:33Speaker 3: you consume that poor nutrition. Your body right now is saying, WHOAOA,
- 54:37Speaker 3: we don't we don't need this. There's a food. Food
- 54:39Speaker 3: is medicine approach. I want food that's like medicine for
- 54:42Speaker 3: the body. I want food that's going to help heal
- 54:44Speaker 3: my hormones. I want to get rid of this now,
- 54:46Speaker 3: and then you start spending all this energy detoxifying the body.
- 54:50Speaker 3: That's why these cleanses drive me nuts. Like the best
- 54:52Speaker 3: way to detox a body see organic nutrition, organic fruits,
- 54:56Speaker 3: organic vegetables, organic proteins, organic carbohydrates. You know then that
- 55:00Speaker 3: when you get that clean stuff in your body, that's
- 55:03Speaker 3: the best way to the talks. Not not turning around
- 55:05Speaker 3: drinking juice, drinking lemon water for the next like five
- 55:08Speaker 3: days after going to Las Vegas and you know, being
- 55:11Speaker 3: in a coma for three days on alcohol and who
- 55:13Speaker 3: knows what else. It's like, no, you your body needs nutrition.
- 55:16Speaker 3: Now you're going to starve your body and you're gonna
- 55:19Speaker 3: put your body in a really bad state after it's
- 55:22Speaker 3: been deprived for three days. That's why people get sick. So,
- 55:24Speaker 3: you know, I think the I think the whole outlook
- 55:26Speaker 3: on you know, even partying and nutrition and alcohol, it's
- 55:30Speaker 3: it's just it's just poor. It's just the wrong approach.
- 55:32Speaker 2: Do you remember when you made all of these positive
- 55:36Speaker 2: changes in your life and your diet, how that felt
- 55:38Speaker 2: for you at the time.
- 55:39Speaker 3: It was wild. I mean I remember graduating my senior
- 55:42Speaker 3: year in high school and just diving into the weaver.
- 55:46Speaker 3: I was just I became like I became just a menace.
- 55:48Speaker 3: And I was playing in this travel team for the
- 55:51Speaker 3: long Al Tigers. We're traveling all over the country, but
- 55:52Speaker 3: I'm still working a job. We're doing a lot of
- 55:55Speaker 3: our traveling on the weekends. And I remember it was
- 55:57Speaker 3: like every day there was something new. Like at the time,
- 56:00Speaker 3: I was eating egg whites. I don't eat egg whites anymore,
- 56:02Speaker 3: that's another story, but at the time, it's like, oh,
- 56:04Speaker 3: I gotta start eat egg whites. I'll start removing the
- 56:06Speaker 3: oaks from eggs. And I removed the oaks from eggs
- 56:08Speaker 3: to find out, you know, ten years later, that the
- 56:09Speaker 3: oaks are actually great. But I remember like going to
- 56:12Speaker 3: a pizza place and not eating pizza because I'm like,
- 56:14Speaker 3: I need my protein and carbs, so I'm eating meatballs
- 56:16Speaker 3: and pasta, and then finding out later on like, all right,
- 56:18Speaker 3: that's not good. And just like overnight making all these changes.
- 56:22Speaker 3: So I would say, from the age of seventeen to
- 56:27Speaker 3: the age of about twenty one, I really like I
- 56:31Speaker 3: locked everything in and then after that it was just
- 56:34Speaker 3: it was just fine tuning it became more than so
- 56:36Speaker 3: twenty one is like nineteen ninety nine from yeah, nineteen
- 56:40Speaker 3: ninety nine. For me, that's when I started paying attention
- 56:42Speaker 3: to like food quality and organic farming. And I'm reading
- 56:46Speaker 3: articles about how like you want to buy from here
- 56:49Speaker 3: because they don't use tractors and the wheel actually destroys
- 56:52Speaker 3: the stoil rather than the the hoof on the on
- 56:55Speaker 3: the horse's foot. You start reading all this stuff and
- 56:57Speaker 3: you're like, that makes sense, that makes sense. Oh, that's
- 56:59Speaker 3: really easy to change. It's not a big deal for me.
- 57:01Speaker 3: I could just buy my food here and that's one
- 57:04Speaker 3: check off the box. Or like the deodor and I'm
- 57:06Speaker 3: using like most of them are most of the healthy
- 57:08Speaker 3: stuff's discussing, but this one has aluminum and I like
- 57:10Speaker 3: this one, so let me just use that. Let me
- 57:11Speaker 3: use a water filter in my shower because I'm gonna
- 57:13Speaker 3: get all the toxins out of that, and let me
- 57:15Speaker 3: use like a better toothpaste. And you start like then
- 57:17Speaker 3: you realize like, oh, well that's disgusting, because then I'm
- 57:19Speaker 3: starting to smell that when I go out like weird,
- 57:21Speaker 3: just weird things. You just start figuring out and you
- 57:23Speaker 3: just start fine tuning, and you try and correct the
- 57:26Speaker 3: things in your life that are just really easy to manage. Yeah,
- 57:28Speaker 3: and you leave the mistakes up for when you want
- 57:30Speaker 3: to just go out with your wife or a husband
- 57:33Speaker 3: on a Saturday night and barkrawl for once, like and
- 57:35Speaker 3: just be a human being and have a good time.
- 57:37Speaker 3: And for me, that's what it's about. I'm not one
- 57:39Speaker 3: of these people who are saying that for three hundred
- 57:40Speaker 3: and sixty five days, I'm perfect with all my stuff.
- 57:43Speaker 3: I could definitely let my hair down, and I definitely
- 57:45Speaker 3: know how to recover from that. And I definitely know
- 57:47Speaker 3: what needs to happen and how you can have your
- 57:49Speaker 3: cake you need it to, but live by some rules
- 57:51Speaker 3: and some laws. And I think if you follow kind
- 57:53Speaker 3: of what I'm doing, you can really I think develop
- 57:56Speaker 3: the energy, the vitality, the physique that you want, but
- 57:59Speaker 3: still not have to give up all those other things
- 58:01Speaker 3: as well.
- 58:02Speaker 1: You mentioned I have a few follow up questions now.
- 58:04Speaker 1: First of all, you don't need egg whites anymore, no,
- 58:06Speaker 1: it stopped.
- 58:06Speaker 3: Oh my god. When you remove the yolk, you're removing
- 58:09Speaker 3: one of the most essential parts of the egg, and
- 58:10Speaker 3: that's a lot of the amino acids and for years
- 58:13Speaker 3: everyone's been relating cholesterol with a negative, negative negative. I
- 58:17Speaker 3: don't want the cholesterol, like my cholesterol is great, And
- 58:20Speaker 3: you know, a lot of times I think the increase
- 58:22Speaker 3: in cholesterol on specific people's diets are coming from other things.
- 58:26Speaker 3: And cholesterol has also been shown to really improve hormones
- 58:30Speaker 3: in the body. So I think it's really on a
- 58:31Speaker 3: case by case basis. But you know, if you're going
- 58:34Speaker 3: to have a few eggs in the morning and you're
- 58:36Speaker 3: a little freaked out about it, like mix a yokre too,
- 58:37Speaker 3: you could throw it in there for flavor, you're still
- 58:39Speaker 3: going to get some really good, high quality amino acids.
- 58:42Speaker 3: I mean, with like a like a large an extra
- 58:43Speaker 3: large brown egg, you're consuming about six grams of protein.
- 58:46Speaker 3: So when you remove that yoke, you're removing a lot
- 58:48Speaker 3: of that protein, a lot of those amino acids that
- 58:50Speaker 3: the body needs to rebuild, Like those muscles. When you're training,
- 58:53Speaker 3: you're tearing microscopic fibers in those muscles, and how do
- 58:57Speaker 3: we repair that. How do we enable someone in a
- 58:59Speaker 3: stressful ironment to be able to come back day in
- 59:01Speaker 3: and day out. So when you start removing a lot
- 59:03Speaker 3: of that nutrition you know, the body is just not benefiting.
- 59:06Speaker 3: It's just not it's not becoming optimal, and you're not
- 59:08Speaker 3: living the way that you potentially could live.
- 59:10Speaker 1: My second follow up note from before would be that
- 59:13Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest hurdles to people making
- 59:15Speaker 1: some of the switches that you say are pretty easy,
- 59:19Speaker 1: which they are in theory, is ultimately cost Yeah.
- 59:22Speaker 3: I could have guessed that word. I could have pulled it.
- 59:25Speaker 3: You got to ask yourself what do you want in life? Yea?
- 59:27Speaker 3: And the same people complaining about costs are the ones
- 59:30Speaker 3: you know. You hear these college kids who just graduated
- 59:33Speaker 3: and they're going to Brother Jimmy Street nights a week,
- 59:35Speaker 3: and they're and they're buying pictures like if you I
- 59:37Speaker 3: don't look at you know, an organic apple call and
- 59:40Speaker 3: it caused costing X and a non organic apple costing y.
- 59:45Speaker 3: I look at the differential. So if you're going to
- 59:47Speaker 3: spend a couple extra bucks on buying something organic, all right, man,
- 59:50Speaker 3: Like cut back on one night of drinking, which you
- 59:52Speaker 3: should be doing anyway, and cut back on one night
- 59:54Speaker 3: of partying and you could still be social. But like,
- 59:57Speaker 3: don't come and complain if you don't want to I'm
- 59:59Speaker 3: all in on. It's like, no, you're not like someone
- 1:00:01Speaker 3: who's all in on. This is going to take a
- 1:00:03Speaker 3: much different approach if you're turning. A woman messaged me
- 1:00:05Speaker 3: the other day and she says, is drinking two bottles
- 1:00:08Speaker 3: of wine a week gonna hurt my fitness outcome? And
- 1:00:14Speaker 3: I said, yeah, it is if you're looking to improve
- 1:00:18Speaker 3: from where you are now, which I don't even know
- 1:00:19Speaker 3: where that is. But if you've been plateauing what you're
- 1:00:22Speaker 3: saying to me you are, and you're having two bottles
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: of wine a week, which is eight glasses of one
- 1:00:27Speaker 3: a week, is that going to hurt your fitness improvement?
- 1:00:30Speaker 3: The answer is yes, And it was like a very
- 1:00:31Speaker 3: clean answer. And she writes back to me really like
- 1:00:34Speaker 3: she didn't want to hear it. I'm like, don't ask
- 1:00:36Speaker 3: me if you don't want to hear it, right, you know,
- 1:00:37Speaker 3: just like this is yes. It is like you'd be surprised,
- 1:00:40Speaker 3: like if you start removing things. When I have a
- 1:00:42Speaker 3: prep and I remove the little alcohol I drink, which
- 1:00:45Speaker 3: might be two to three drinks a week, and I
- 1:00:47Speaker 3: remove that for four weeks, like I've lost seventy pounds before, Right,
- 1:00:51Speaker 3: That's how much water you pull into the body. Like
- 1:00:54Speaker 3: that shows a lot on someone walking around with six
- 1:00:56Speaker 3: five six percent body fat all year long. You look
- 1:00:58Speaker 3: substantially different. So for the average show out there that's
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: going out there and having drinks three four nights a
- 1:01:03Speaker 3: week and they're having two three cocktails, Yeah, you're affecting
- 1:01:05Speaker 3: your sleep quality. Your energy level is going to crap.
- 1:01:08Speaker 3: Your quartersol levels are getting thrown off, your growth throw
- 1:01:10Speaker 3: mone levels, your testops roone levels are all getting thrown
- 1:01:12Speaker 3: out of whack. And this will affect the fat burning process,
- 1:01:16Speaker 3: This will affect vitality in general. But not everyone wants that.
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: Like if you should be able to go out and
- 1:01:22Speaker 3: have a couple of glasses of wine, you should be
- 1:01:23Speaker 3: able to go out and eat what you want once
- 1:01:24Speaker 3: a week. Like, that's the goal here. I don't want
- 1:01:26Speaker 3: people to live like, you know, the way I'm living.
- 1:01:28Speaker 3: I enjoy that. I want people to find what's going
- 1:01:31Speaker 3: to make them happy. That's been what I that's what
- 1:01:33Speaker 3: I do. It's like, all right, what works for you.
- 1:01:37Speaker 3: So one of my actually really really quick because I
- 1:01:40Speaker 3: don't want to keep rambling on, but one of my
- 1:01:41Speaker 3: buddies a few weeks ago comes to me, and he says,
- 1:01:44Speaker 3: I want to see just it was the weirdest thing ever.
- 1:01:46Speaker 3: He takes his shirt off. He's in his forty he's
- 1:01:48Speaker 3: like forty five, and he looks he looks pretty good.
- 1:01:51Speaker 3: He's like, I just want to see the top two apps,
- 1:01:53Speaker 3: Like the top two apps? Where the hell did you
- 1:01:55Speaker 3: get that from? Like that's bizarre, because no, I just
- 1:01:56Speaker 3: want to get to the point where like they're visible.
- 1:02:00Speaker 3: Care about the Boto too, it's just the top two.
- 1:02:01Speaker 3: What do I have to do? I'm like, we'll go
- 1:02:03Speaker 3: through you go through your diet. I'm like, how often
- 1:02:04Speaker 3: do you eat dessert? He's like, you know, I have
- 1:02:06Speaker 3: I have a little dessert like four times a week.
- 1:02:08Speaker 3: How off are you having a drink? I have a
- 1:02:09Speaker 3: drink like once a night. And we kind of went
- 1:02:11Speaker 3: through some stuff like all right, just cut everything in half.
- 1:02:14Speaker 3: He's like, what do you mean, like you want me
- 1:02:15Speaker 3: to eliminate. I'm like, no, no, just just just cut it
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: in half. Like let's get your like have two drinks
- 1:02:20Speaker 3: a week now and do dessert Like he'said, well, I
- 1:02:22Speaker 3: can do desserts like once a week. I'm like, so
- 1:02:23Speaker 3: go do desserts once a week. I want it easy.
- 1:02:26Speaker 3: Let's take two weeks, Let's see if your body makes
- 1:02:28Speaker 3: any change, and keep training the way that you're training,
- 1:02:32Speaker 3: and then let's make an adjustment from there. And he
- 1:02:34Speaker 3: literally came back in two weeks later. He took a
- 1:02:35Speaker 3: shirt off and like his top two aves are becoming visible,
- 1:02:38Speaker 3: and I'm like, see that. But I'm like, sometimes you
- 1:02:40Speaker 3: don't have to come in with this like chicken and rice,
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: like approach with broccoli, and you don't have to dive
- 1:02:45Speaker 3: all in. Like sometimes it's just minimalistic approaches. Remove a
- 1:02:48Speaker 3: little bit, take two weeks. I always like to say
- 1:02:50Speaker 3: two weeks because I could see some change in two
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: weeks and I could see if we're going on a
- 1:02:54Speaker 3: good trend or not. And if you know, you lose
- 1:02:57Speaker 3: a pound or two and your energy levels still great,
- 1:02:59Speaker 3: then great, we can push a little bit more. Maybe
- 1:03:00Speaker 3: we don't need any change. So that was the approach
- 1:03:03Speaker 3: I took with him. And he was like, all right,
- 1:03:04Speaker 3: well now what I'm like, well, what do you mean now? What?
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: You just hit your goal. He's like, well, let's do
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: a little bit more. And then we removed a little
- 1:03:09Speaker 3: bit more. But that's the approach rather me turning him
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: and say, all right, I want you to weigh out
- 1:03:13Speaker 3: tomorrow like eight ounces of this and four ounces of that,
- 1:03:15Speaker 3: blah blah blah blah. And the next thing you know,
- 1:03:17Speaker 3: he's like, I'm discouraging. I don't want to do that,
- 1:03:18Speaker 3: and that's that's a big problem.
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of crazy that you're this guy that
- 1:03:22Speaker 1: can help people get into such strategic, specific shape for
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: all of these different roles or life goals or whatever
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: the case may be.
- 1:03:30Speaker 2: I feel like that's got to be a little overwhelming.
- 1:03:32Speaker 3: No, it's actually it's fun. Yeah, it really is fun,
- 1:03:36Speaker 3: and it becomes like a puzzle. Fortunately, most of the
- 1:03:39Speaker 3: time you end up nailing it and you figure it out.
- 1:03:41Speaker 3: And I think it's because you and your client or
- 1:03:44Speaker 3: the individual that you're helping can can establish an expectation
- 1:03:47Speaker 3: early on. I had some guy, actually I had I
- 1:03:51Speaker 3: work with like two online people. This this guy reaches
- 1:03:54Speaker 3: out to me today and he just started and he's like,
- 1:03:56Speaker 3: oh my god, this last six seven days. I feel amazing.
- 1:03:58Speaker 3: I'm like great, eating is great, trains great. We're kind
- 1:04:01Speaker 3: of doing a little rehab with his injury as well.
- 1:04:03Speaker 3: We got him with a PT so this I'm like
- 1:04:05Speaker 3: he's like, I feel great. I feel great. Oh my god,
- 1:04:07Speaker 3: I'm in such a good headspace. I'm not depressed any more. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
- 1:04:10Speaker 3: It's been like six seven days. I'm like, great, We're
- 1:04:11Speaker 3: on a great try. He's like, but I'm getting frustrated.
- 1:04:14Speaker 3: I'm not seeing the scale move. I'm like, listen, man,
- 1:04:16Speaker 3: I'm like, if you're gonna, I'm telling you, if you're
- 1:04:18Speaker 3: gonna live like this, if you're gonna give me that
- 1:04:19Speaker 3: type of response and save save your money. Yeah, I'm like, like,
- 1:04:22Speaker 3: I'm not the guy for you because I'm in the
- 1:04:24Speaker 3: long term investments here. You want to come to me
- 1:04:26Speaker 3: and you're like, all right, I got two weeks to
- 1:04:29Speaker 3: lose because of a movie thing. It's like, all right,
- 1:04:30Speaker 3: we'll do the best that we can. But like, I'm
- 1:04:32Speaker 3: not a miracle worker here. I'm about making change in
- 1:04:35Speaker 3: individuals and making sure that they're able to hold on
- 1:04:37Speaker 3: and sustain those change for a lifetime, a lifetime of happiness.
- 1:04:40Speaker 3: So when they decide to go off the rails a
- 1:04:41Speaker 3: little bit or get back on, or maybe they never
- 1:04:44Speaker 3: do anymore, who knows, but they understand and they have
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: that ability to be able to take themselves back and
- 1:04:49Speaker 3: that's living, and that's living.
- 1:04:51Speaker 1: You, as you're saying, have the opportunity to give a
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: lot of people advice a lot of the time, what
- 1:04:56Speaker 1: would you say has been one of the best pieces
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: of advice that you have received?
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: Eved building your business in your career.
- 1:05:02Speaker 3: I think everything comes down to patients. You just can't rush,
- 1:05:07Speaker 3: you know. I mean, whether you're building a business, I mean,
- 1:05:09Speaker 3: you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know
- 1:05:11Speaker 3: how the economy is going to go, you don't know
- 1:05:13Speaker 3: if you're going to be on hold to for the
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: first show or whatever. It is, Like, you just have
- 1:05:19Speaker 3: to go in with it. You got to be yourself.
- 1:05:20Speaker 3: You got to go in with the best effort possible,
- 1:05:23Speaker 3: and you got to just it sounds so corny, but
- 1:05:25Speaker 3: you gotta just sit back and like have some faith
- 1:05:27Speaker 3: and just just leave it in the air and just
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: go about your day. And if you get that call
- 1:05:31Speaker 3: or if something great happens from it, awesome, and if not,
- 1:05:34Speaker 3: just understand that you did your best and you can't
- 1:05:36Speaker 3: control every situation. So I think it really comes down
- 1:05:38Speaker 3: to patients. And you know, besides patients, like I said,
- 1:05:41Speaker 3: surround yourself with a great team, be a great person,
- 1:05:44Speaker 3: just be great to other people. And that's kind of
- 1:05:47Speaker 3: the rules rules I've always.
- 1:05:48Speaker 1: Looked by as we wind down here, The question that
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: I ask at the end of every hurdle is if
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: you had an opportunity right now to offer yourself one
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: piece of advice, maybe it's when you're making that little
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: bit of a pivot at your gym, or you know,
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: through all some of the other challenges that you had,
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: those hurdle moments that you had, you have the opportunity
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: to give yourself one piece of advice right.
- 1:06:05Speaker 2: Now, looking back on it, what do you tell yourself?
- 1:06:08Speaker 3: He laughs, I laugh, It's it's all gonna be okay. Yeah,
- 1:06:13Speaker 3: you know, and it sounds it's just sounds. It sounds ridiculous.
- 1:06:16Speaker 3: But you know, everyone, I mean people, I'm sure people
- 1:06:19Speaker 3: you've had on this podcast at a specific time have
- 1:06:23Speaker 3: thought that they're in the worst situation and like, oh god,
- 1:06:27Speaker 3: like it's like no, like there's some people going through
- 1:06:30Speaker 3: some rough stuff out there. And if we're sitting on
- 1:06:34Speaker 3: or if you're listening to this podcast right now, like
- 1:06:37Speaker 3: I'm sure you've hit some bad hurdles, but you're gonna
- 1:06:40Speaker 3: be okay because you've got the ability to actually sit
- 1:06:43Speaker 3: here and absorb some information, You've got time in the day,
- 1:06:45Speaker 3: and you've got your health where you can actually absorb
- 1:06:47Speaker 3: this stuff and listen, like just relax, it's gonna be
- 1:06:50Speaker 3: all right. Like like you know, unfortunately for you and I, like,
- 1:06:52Speaker 3: you've got about fifty sixty years if we're lucky. You know,
- 1:06:55Speaker 3: it's it. But that's what I'm saying. It's it's like,
- 1:06:58Speaker 3: how do you like we just do the best that.
- 1:06:59Speaker 2: We Yeah, do the best you can with what you have. Don,
- 1:07:05Speaker 2: thanks so much for hanging out with me.
- 1:07:06Speaker 3: It's great. I love it.
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: We're here at the Smile to go inside the Free
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: Hand Hotel. Please rate and review the podcast by clicking
- 1:07:13Speaker 1: the link with the description to this episode. We all
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear about yours.
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: Reach out to me at Emily at hurdle dot us.
- 1:07:20Speaker 1: Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcasts.
- 1:07:25Speaker 2: Don, where do they find you? Where do they find drive?
- 1:07:27Speaker 2: Give me the lowdown?
- 1:07:28Speaker 3: Cool? So I'm on Instagram and I pretty much respond
- 1:07:31Speaker 3: to almost everyone. So it's just Don Saladino d O
- 1:07:35Speaker 3: N s A. L A, D I N O. Obviously
- 1:07:37Speaker 3: at Don Saladino. All my social handles are that same
- 1:07:41Speaker 3: and Dry four ninety five is my gym down and soho.
- 1:07:44Speaker 3: If you got any questions or you want to come by,
- 1:07:46Speaker 3: check out the club reception at drive clubs dot com.
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: Love it, I am at Emily Abodi. Another hurdle conquered.
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: Catch you guys next time