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Unlocking Resilience: Embracing Uncomfortable Choices for Growth · Do Hard Things™ with Siegfried Tiegs

• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Sweet, how's your 28 going?
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It's going really good.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yesterday was a challenge.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I had some appointments and I had some commitments that I had that I needed to fulfill.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It really kind of hamstrung me on time.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: However, with 28, a lot of these tasks that do require time I treat them as big rocks, so there's just got to work everything around those big rocks, because the big rocks still need to happen.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was my saving grace I I love police.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: I love policing up trash.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It is one of my sick passions.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I see trash, I pick it up.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: I recorded a video about two weeks ago and I recorded the video out in the middle of nowhere.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: In the I saw an apis bag and a couple of pieces of litter that were just sitting there and even though I just parked my truck to record a video, I had trash like right there and it even gave me a bag to put it into.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So it's impossible not to pick it up.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I picked up that trash and then I like to spread.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I like to spread the word of doing good things, like picking up trash.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: So I picked up the trash when I was done with my video and I drove back to my old company, uh, to go visit the commander.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: She was the only one there at the time and I parked my truck outside the company and I saw it was a windy day.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So with wind comes trash.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I picked up like eight different pieces of debris just floating around, trash floating around in front of my old company.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: So I picked that all up, I threw it away inside the office, I said hello, wished her a merry Christmas and all that good stuff, because you know it is the season and let her know that outside of the building has been policed up workout cigar that I'll smoke and they got a little picnic table outside the gym and and I'll drop my gym bag there I'll take my pre-workout and while my pre-workout's kicking in, uh, I'll smoke my cigar and I'll walk around and I'll pick up trash around the gym.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: And.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: I just love picking up trash, I saw not to get too far into the weeds.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: This was last winter.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Um, no, it was last, last fall, not this, this fall of 24, but there's like 23.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: So it was.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: It was about a year and a half ago and I was meeting my my wife for her lunch break.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: So I went and picked my wife up from her work, took her out to lunch.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: We were sitting in the parking lot next to the Casey's in town, not too far from Colton's, and we were sitting in the parking lot and she's eating her lunch.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I'm fasted, of course, so I'm just hanging out chilling with her, you know, in a fasted state, while she's mauling down on what she needs for sustenance and I saw someone walking through the parking lot and everything turned slow motion.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I saw him packing his cigarettes and then he played with his pack of cigarettes and with the shimmer of light it hit the cellophane just perfectly to where.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I saw him pull off the top of the cellophane from the cigarettes and just let the wind take it and my door was open.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: My wife was like two seconds too slow.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: She knew what I was doing.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: She knew what I was doing.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: She said don't you dare.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: But I was already, I dismounted and I started like moving straight for him and with my best mustard, like NCO voice, I said hey, you stop.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: And this guy froze, froze in his tracks.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: He was probably in his mid-20s, frozen his tracks, wearing civilian clothes, he was a civilian.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: And uh, he froze like he didn't know what the hell was happening.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, you did you just litter.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And his eyes got biggest saucers and uh, and I started moving towards him now and he's, he's, uh, he's quite, quite, he's got, he's got a little bit of fear in his eyes, you know.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: And and I'm moving towards him and I'm like what did I say?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Did you just litter?
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: He's like I'll pick it up, sir.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I was like, damn damn right, you will.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And he goes, he picks up his cellophane and I'm not done with him.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So I walk up to him, I'm like, listen, and I'm being respectful, I'm not name calling or anything like that, but I'm very firm on this concept.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I've been all over the world, I've been to some beautiful places in the world and I've been to some really, really, really awful places and there's nothing more sad than seeing trash and debris just all over the place, like people don't care about where they live in their environment.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: So I made that a point.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I was like listen, are you from here?
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Do you live here?
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He's like no, sir.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, all right, well, guess what?
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I do live here.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I'm having lunch with my wife, my children go to school here.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: This is my home.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Who are you to just come into my home, where my children live and play, and throw trash in my home?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: And he's like I never I didn't look at it like that.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, I didn't think anything of it.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I was like you need to think about these things because, like I said, this is where my children go to school, this is where my children play, this is this is our home and we don't treat our home like this.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: We take care of our home, we love it here and we've got to take care of it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And then we parted ways, but I feel like I imparted a little bit of wisdom on this kid to maybe get things a little bit better, like that.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: He'll probably second guess it next time.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: he's aware bit better like that, you know.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Just, I'll probably second guess it next time.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: He's aware.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, no, I will, I will.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: I'll be on my motorcycle.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: I'll drop kickstand and approach people at traffic lights if I see them throw trash out their cars.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it'll catch up to me one of these days with a gun in my face.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: But uh, it'll be, oh it's awesome.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Well, need people to step up and call people out when they're when they're out of line.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: That's having the courage to do that, and cowardice.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: I think that if you know what right is and you see, other people aren't adhering to it.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's all right to approach them and say listen, you're messed up, right now and you should probably fix this.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the snow Anyhow, where I got off way off track.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I love policing up trash, but the snow is killing me because the trash is covered yeah, all the trash is covered.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's so hard to find, but if you look hard oh, it's out there, I'm sure you'll find it.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: People throwing shit out the windows or driving by absolutely, yeah, harder to find.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: But the yeah, uh, yeah, well, no, I uh, I think it's a great, great random act of kindness and I'm assuming you probably do it all the time anyway without the challenge.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: So there you go, that's awesome, well, no, I wanted to kind of pick your brain about your experience with fasting, and you know we just recently did the challenge as a community, but you do fasts on a regular basis, and so I just wanted to know, like, what motivates you to fast and what has your journey been with fasting?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: So my journey with fasting it started a long time ago.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: It started long before I even fasted.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I've been on a personal journey of doing things the hard way, just doing hard things, those things that are uncommon, that a lot of people try to sway away from.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I feel like comfort is the absolute poison to society, and I don't mean to sound tinfoil hat-wise, all tinfoil hat-ish, but I think people who seek comfort nothing against those people it's natural to want to be comfortable.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: However, that's where the decay starts, everything from that instance of the guy just taking a cellophane and letting the wind capture it.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I mean it would have been a little bit uncomfortable to carry the cellophane in his hand or put it in his pocket, maybe throw it away when he comes to a dumpster or a trash can.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Then he has to think about it a little bit more and that's uncomfortable for that guy and sometimes avoiding comfort is definitely the best way.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: I moved out of my home when I was 16 years old and I lived with a friend for a little while.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Save my butt, because being on your own is very expensive.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: But uh I remember my first apartment.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: It was a a one room studio apartment, straight up, straight up.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Uh, oh, I forget the name of that movie.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Uh, the Boondocks with Boondock Saints, boondock Saints, yeah, yeah.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Remember their little apartment in their studio apartment, where they had little two beds set up and they had like a sink and the shower and it was all in the same room.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: That was essentially like my first apartment, my first studio apartment apartment.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: My first studio apartment I had had my bathroom, sink, toilet and and a shower, all just in the same room as where I slept on the floor.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I had no furniture and it was uncomfortable.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And then I moved out of there and I moved into an efficiency apartment which was essentially like a motel.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I was converted into apartments and I finished high school in an efficiency hotel and I felt blessed because now I had a bed.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: I still didn't have much of anything else and at one time in the winter in Ohio we lost heat for a number of days in the efficiency apartment and I remember just laying in bed, falling asleep to seeing my own breath.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It was so cold in the apartment and I was okay with that.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I knew that it wasn't going to kill me and it would only afford me tools to know and build my confidence that I can be all right being uncomfortable.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I used to smoke when I was younger.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I've dipped and I've dipped for years.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I was a wrestler in high school, junior high in high school and dipping is just part of the culture and I genuinely love Copenhagen.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: But I remember when I, a long time ago, when I quit smoking cigarettes, I made sure, when I quit, I quit cold turkey.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: And I didn't say, all right, this is my last pack of cigarettes.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: And then I quit smoking cigarettes.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I made sure, when I quit, I quit cold turkey.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And I didn't say, all right, this is my last pack of cigarettes.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And then I quit.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: No, I had a full pack of cigarettes and I set it there, right, right in my, in my living room, and it was always just there and available to me and it was my choice to not take a cigarette and smoke it.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: When I met my wife back in 2015, I think I was still dipping and, like I said, I love Copenhagen, I love dipping.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: And our first night that we met, I had a spittoon sitting on the table and she was like what's that?
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: And I said that's a spittoon.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: She said again what's that?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: What's a spittoon?
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, that?
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And I said that's, that's a spittoon.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: She said again what's this?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: What's a spittoon?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I was like, well, I dip and then I spit into this.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: She said that's gross and I ignored it, I didn't think anything of it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Um, and I actually I called her back the next morning, told her, told her I was sitting in a waffle house, told her I was sitting in a waffle house.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I remember it, I was sitting in a waffle house, it was 10 o'clock in the morning and I was there with a friend and I was Googling how long to wait for you Call a girl back, you know, and I I completely ignored everything that was recommended and I actually hit her up that morning from the Waffle House and I asked her out for a second date and she accepted and I went Friday to go on.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: That Friday night I went to pick her up at her house and she was still getting ready.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: So I was waiting for her in the living room and I'm sitting in her living room while she's getting all dolled up and my spittoon was sitting right there on her coffee table and she walked out looking just gorgeous, breathtakingly gorgeous, and she didn't like smile and greet me all friendly, like.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: She immediately focused on that spittoon and she said what's that?
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: I told her I was like honey, we talked about this the other night.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: That's my spittoon, I I spit into it, which she again said that's gross and uh, and then followed that up with so is this going to be a thing?
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and I, I took my dip out and I threw my spittoon away and I still had a full can of dip in my in my pocket and I kept, I hung, I hung on to it and that was the last dip when she said, so is this going to be a thing?
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: That was my last step because I chose that, that she was more important than having it, as much as I loved it.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: She was more important.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: And really that's.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: That's kind of my, my way of looking at fasting.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: So much like dipping or smoking, and you can get some enjoyment from eating.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: There's actually a lot of dopamine and a lot of that cheap dopamine that's out there by satisfying your hunger.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Every time you get hungry, you go grab something.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Most of the time the way our food is in this country.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: It's so processed they add sugar to everything just to make it addictive and like to bread.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Bread has sugar in it and it's crazy.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: They add the sugar to the bread.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: They add sugar to cereal because cereal without sugar is awful.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: They add sugar to everything.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And then we get into the refined, refined, highly processed grains and and and all that, all that nonsense, the seed oils, everything they put into the food.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: It's just to make it taste better.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: It's not to keep us healthy.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: The way that they do food in this country.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with keeping people healthy and just has to do with keeping people addicted.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you could feel good by smoking.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: You could feel good by putting a tip in.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: You can feel good by getting a cheeseburger at McDonald's with fries that are loaded with salt and sugar, right.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: But if you can push past that feeling that you get when you have it and understand that if you don't have it or you're not using it in excess, there are so many health benefits.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: There are health benefits to not smoking.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: There are health benefits tremendous ones for not dipping.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: There's tremendous health benefits in fasting, especially when you couple that with a healthy diet.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: So that's really how I got started on fasting.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Obviously, I'm not getting any younger.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: I'm 44 years old right now and I pride myself on my health.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: I look at my health as like a pyramid, right Like my life is a pyramid and the base of that pyramid you need to weigh what is most important to hold the rest of it up.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: And I look at my health, fitness, my diet.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: You know it all feeds into my physicality and my general health and I feel that if you can focus the base of your pyramid on on health and and and a good diet, then all the other crap that you pile on.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: It's got that solid foundation and really fasting.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: It just has so many different benefits out there.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Uhagy autophagy is.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: It's the fountain of youth and a lot of people have figured it out and cracked the code.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Some people haven't figured it out yet because they're just so addicted to eating whenever they're hungry, and then they eat the simple things, the easy things they overeat.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I think I think I heard someone say it the other day on a video and it's like how do I tee this up?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: The uh, this is my breakthrough with.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Food is like food is is fuel.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And once you've got to stop looking at food like a toddler and just eating whatever you want because it tastes good, because, to your point, these big food companies are deliberately putting sugar in the food it's cost savings and it's addicting and they're making money off of your health and once you realize that and decide that you know what, I'm not going to participate in that anymore.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: And decide that you know what I'm not going to participate in that anymore.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And realize that, yes, it may cost more to purchase good food and the cards are stacked against you when you're just surrounded by just horrible food addicted food, packed with sugar, designed to addict you but you're going to pay for that on the back end of your health and wellness and medical costs and everything else.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: There is a cost, there's a price to pay for not doing that and I think people need to make that mental shift.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It took me a long time to figure that out personally, and I love helping people do that for themselves, right?
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I think the power of fasting for me personally has been like I have control over my body and food and then all the health benefits that go along with it.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But yeah, those are my thoughts as you bring that up.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Like, stop eating like a toddler, look at food as fuel and don't participate in what is actually happening right now.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It's killing us it's killing us.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, even even if you eat healthy.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: Um, it's important to to really understand what your activity level is and and you need to base your, your, your macros, the amount of protein, fats and and carbohydrates that you're putting into your body, the overall calories, and you need to be healthy, you need to have a good balance.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So if you just feel that you need to eat all these calories, that's fine, you know, but you need to then adjust your activity level.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Be more active, get outside, get some sunlight, you know.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Get get out there.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Go for a walk.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: If you don't have a dog, get a dog.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: Dogs are great motivators for taking them on walks uh, yes but yeah, as simple as just going on a walk, going in the gym, maybe sitting in a sauna a couple times a week.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Um, there are just so many tremendous health benefits from being able to balance the calories that you're putting in with with your activity levels.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: You know you don't have to live in a caloric deficit, but you need to understand that if you want to lose fat, lose weight, you know it's important to maybe exercise in a fasted state and then also live in a caloric deficit.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: And you know understanding what your your basal metabolic rate.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: You know requirements are.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I know I know my body just to operate, just to operate its systems.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: You know, for the 18 hours you know that I'm awake every day, it's going to cost 18, 16 to 18 hours.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: It's going to cost me around 2,100 calories just to operate Simple day-to-day tasks.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: You know brain function.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: You know moving around a little bit.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: And then that's great.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: That means that if I want to maintain where I'm at health wise, I need to be at right around 2,100 calories and understand that if I overshoot that and have a 2500 calorie day, I'm going to be storing those extra calories and store them in fat.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Opposite side.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: If you're interested in losing weight and shedding some fat, you you also need to know if, if it costs you 2100 calories a day just to operate, that doesn't mean you need to necessarily shoot for like 1200 calories a day or or thousand calories a day, because you still need need brain to function correctly and you still need sustenance.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: So there's you need the brain to function correctly and you still need sustenance.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: You need the energy level to be able to continue to move.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: You just need to be in that Don't get the deficit too low.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so back in the olden days and get some good dietary advice.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Today we live in the information age.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: We literally have $1,000 smartphones in all of our pockets where we have access to every piece of information available.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Help chat to pt.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: You can, you can, you can have it.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: You say, hey, act as a sports medicine and and nutrition specialist.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: You specialize in nutrition and in creating nutrition programs for performance athletes.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: You can train it to act like that and it will give you the best answers, the greatest answers that are available.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: You don't even have to have a subscription.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: They have 1-800-CHAT-GPT.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Now I teach personal finance to initial entry soldiers on the fort and these kids ask some really ridiculous questions which I don't mind answering.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I always started out with letting them know when I get a really ridiculous question, and someone will even start it like that, like hey, this is a stupid question.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: I let them know there's no such thing as a stupid question, just inquisitive idiots.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: And uh, that's my or that I had to.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: But I tell them, like, listen, like, this is 1986.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: We are, we are in 2025 now.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: All right, if you have, all you have to do is pull that little smartphone out and ask it a question and you will have your answer.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: And it's laziness not to do that and and it's a cope, you know, to not do that.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: They just it feeds into their their bad habits of just being comfortable.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: The whole ignorance is bliss yeah just being comfortable.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole ignorance is bliss.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 1986 I remember the uh, the encyclopedia, encyclopedia, britannica salesman would come door to door and my parents bought it and that was like mine, that was my google right, I think to your point when it comes to a big breakthrough that I've had is you've got to keep a food journal.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be complicated, you just got to track your macros, the calories, so total, you know it's the unit of measurement for your fuel, protein, fat and carb.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: Figure out what you need for your goals.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: And pearson's law crow peels.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Pearson was a mathematician.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: You know when performance is measured, performance improves.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: When performance is measured, performance improves.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: When performance is measured and reported back to someone accountability, the rate of improvement accelerates.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And I know for my life, you know when I have been out of sync with my nutrition and overweight.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I am not tracking anything, I'm just grazing like a cow, eat like a toddler.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: When I rein it in and I track it and I measure it, my performance, my physical performance, improves immensely.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And what I've realized is I used to think of diet and, like I'm, I'm having to abstain and I'm calorie deficit is uncomfortable and you just have to.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: You just have to trial and error.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: There are amazing delicious foods that you can eat that are packed with nutrition, and you should not go hungry.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: If you're doing that, you're doing it wrong.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, 100%.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: So the 28 day challenge I love it and and one of the one of the cool parts of the 28 day challenge and it's something that's been.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: It's been amazing for me because I don't normally track my macros on a day to day.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: I just cause I I mean it's it's easy, cause I do OMAD, so I only once a day anyhow.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Um, I've modified it here recently to where now I supplement with protein throughout the day also.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: But the nice thing about that 28 day challenge I'm tracking my macros, I can see my calories and and what I've done.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And I know you've seen a couple of my posts where I'll post my daily totals.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: So I have a nutritionist programmed in into a GPT.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: So I have a nutritionist programmed into a GPT.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: So each evening before dinner, so I'll be able to get a better picture of what I'm about to pull the trigger on.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I will report all of my protein intake and it's so easy because I, just like I said, I've got it trained already.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: So I've got the GPT programmed.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: I just take a picture of the nutrition labels of my protein powders.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: So I'm taking one of three protein powders.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: I've got one that focuses on good gut health.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I've got a thermogenic one that I'll take as my second one prior to working out, one that I'll take as my second one prior to working out, and then I'll go back to the gut health one after my workout.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: And then I finished the night off with uh, with slow digesting protein.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I just it already knows what those are because I've already.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Just I just take a picture and I upload it into the GPT.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: It knows what they are and each evening before dinner I know what I'm having for dinner.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So, I just go on to my GPT and I say, hey, I had two servings of the gut health in the morning I had two servings of the other, you know, in the afternoon.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Then I had two more servings of this, you know, at night servings of this, you know, at night.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: Plus I'm having 10 ounces of steak and a cup of a cup of I don't know sauerkraut I've had sauerkraut the last two nights.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: It's been.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I love sauerkraut, but uh, I'll just tell it that and then I'll ask it hey, go ahead and total up my macros and my calories and let me know, and it just calculates it all right there.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: And if it doesn't look like eating enough, or if it doesn't look like I, maybe it looks like I'm eating too much, I'm able then to adjust my dinner meal.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: You know the portion.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: So maybe instead of 10 ounces of steak, I eat 14 ounces of steak.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Instead of, instead of a cup of uh of sauerkraut, maybe I only need half of a cup of sauerkraut and maybe I only need half of a cup of sauerkraut, and that's been working really well for me.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really cool.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I love the 28-day challenge.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: It forces you to do those things that are a little bit uncommon, because not everybody measures their macros and there's really no negative downfalls from doing it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: You can only just better control your health.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: You bring up the supplementation too.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I think people are quick to go to supplements because they just perceive like I need this.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: But if you're not tracking your macros, your supplementation is supposed to take where you're currently at and fill in the gap.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: But people are just randomly taking supplements without the data and knowledge.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: You might not be needing to spend.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Supplements are not cheap and you may not need it, but if you don't know because you're not tracking, then you might be.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It might be wasted effort and it might be wasted money to supplement because it's supposed to bridge the gap of where you want to be.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: So, on that note again and I don't want to get into a rabbit hole on this, but I can't I can't help but to like just kind of kind of give kudos to my GPT that I have built so um, it also understands my workout schedule, my workout routine, so it will let me know how much protein, based off of my activity level and types of workouts that I'm doing.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: It'll let me know how much protein I should be taking for whichever results that I'm looking for.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: And it'll also tell you.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: You know timing.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: It knows I only eat once a day, so it lets me know.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, what time, what window of time in the mornings, late mornings, early afternoon and evening.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: I should be supplementing with and and.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: It's so cool because, like I said before, in 1986 or 1996 or 2006, you know for the longest time, uh, if you couldn't find it inside the encyclopedia britannica, you had to go to an actual dietician and nutritionist office and have a sit down and a consult, and, and and you know, ah, lee, that's, that's a whole racket right there yeah, I mean to your point.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: there's literally and I know some people still haven't even used ChatGPT yet but there's what a powerful, amazing tool that can be used for good.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: There's just simply no excuses.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: The knowledge is there.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of do you want it bad enough, do you want to figure it out?
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Do you have a fixed mindset where I can't learn, or do you have a growth mindset where you're wanting to learn and try to solve the puzzle?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: And yes, it comes with some level of discomfort, learning Sometimes it can be a challenge, right, but if you really want, radical change requires radical change and you have to do the work if you want, if you want change.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And it really starts with tracking, asking the questions and implementing and experimenting with what works until you get it dialed in.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And, yeah, trial and error.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: So you bring a good point up.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Also.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It really is about wanting to improve and and wanting to be somewhere where you're in the best position.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: My daughter, she works at scooters.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I love scooters.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: My daughter, she works at Scooters.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love Scooters.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she works at Scooters.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: She's the assistant store manager at her Scooters and she was out there getting after it this morning.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: And I won't name any names because I don't have any names, but I don't want to throw anybody under the bus here.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: But she deals with people all day long and she just she just got back from work, uh, right before this call, and we had a little conversation and obviously the Midwest had more snow dumped on it uh, in the last 24 hours quite a bit of snow and she was working at the coffee shop this morning and there's this customer, a soldier, a soldier that came through and he comes through all the time and this soldier's just kind of a bummer like.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: He's a miserable person who has nothing but like crap that he nitpicks at.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: And today he was upset because he took his crappy little car through the drive-thru, got stuck in the drive-thru for one hour, held up the entire business for one hour as he was stuck in the drive-thru waiting for a tow truck to come and the tow truck.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: It had to go up through the grass and by the rain sign to be able to pull him out.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Just angle wise right.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: And the guy had the audacity to ask so can I get my stuff for free?
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: and I'm gonna send you an invoice for the hour of customers lost yeah, so he's a regular at this place and uh, and I asked my daughter because I, because he's a soldier- and I and I don't want to sound like a jerk here when I say this, but I ask because he's always miserable.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: he's the person who asks for an ice coffee.
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: He wants 10 ice cubes in the iced coffee and he will sit there and count the ice cubes and then complain that they put 11 ice cubes in there instead of just 10.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: He's that guy, and the first thing that.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: I thought to myself.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I was like I asked my daughter is he overweight?
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: And that's the first thing I went to Is he overweight?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And that's the first thing I went to is he overweight?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: And she's like, oh yeah, no, he is, he is grossly overweight and this is a soldier.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: You know that they should have.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: You know they do have standards that maybe aren't being enforced very well, but that's not the point.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: The point is because he goes in there and he orders his unhealthy stuff, like he'll get cinnamons or whatever they're called.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: He gets all this other garbage from there.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Um, and I don't mean to any discouraging stuff towards scooters, my bad.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: But like, let's be honest, these places don't sell healthy options unless you roll through and get a black coffee.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: That's the reality of it.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: Unless you ask for a water or a black coffee, what you're going to be getting out of there is just like these coffees that they prepare at all the coffee places.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: They're just glorified desserts.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, and they're expensive, like expensive glorified desserts, oh yeah, and they're expensive, like expensive glorified liquid desserts.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: And and and their food options are the same thing, like cinnamon twists.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Those aren't healthy.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: You know cinnamon rolls not how.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: None of that crap's healthy, it's all.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: It's all really bad for you, um, but again it gives you that cheap dopamine hit where it makes you feel good for a little period of time while destroying yourself.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I asked her if he was overweight, because he just sounds like a miserable person and I'm a firm believer there are two paths in life.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: All right, One path.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: They're clearly defined.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: There is a clearly defined fork in the road for every single person and one path.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: It is going to take them down a road of cheap dopamine, whether it's video games, junk food, porn addiction, any of these things.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: It's going to give them cheap dopamine hits and it's going to feel good in that moment, but it's going to transform you into a miserable person Like you won't be happy.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: And then the other path, that that is an option.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: That is maybe the road less traveled.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: It's full of deliberate decisions, uh, delayed gratification, um, and just doing hard things, challenging yourself, maybe, maybe doing something that isn't going to just immediately satisfy you.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Going to the gym every day.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: You're not going to see results, not initially.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I think, today's the 10th of January.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Quitter's Day I think, yeah, National Quitter's Day is the code.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: It's National Quitter's Day and those people who make that resolution like, hey, I'm going to work out in 2025.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go to the gym and 10 days into January they are not seeing results, so they quit.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: It's a thing and you got to understand.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: When you take that second option, that road that's traveled, you have to understand some of these choices that you're making.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: You're not going to see the result immediately.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: It's going to take a little bit of time.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: But I tell you, if people don't quit today, on the 10th of January, on National Quitters Day, if they stay at it and they're consistent this time next year, they'll look like a different person.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: But you've got to have that discipline to do that and they'll be happy.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I feel happy every day.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I feel happy.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: I feel I feel like I'm in my twenties again.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: But I also wear size 30 inch waist.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: I went from size 38 at my at my most poorest condition.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I was miserable.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I was seeking I was talking to behavioral- hell Is that when I saw you when I'm, when we were working together.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: That was that part of it, yeah.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I was not healthy, because I know I mean I've seen a huge transformation in you over the past, like year or two, and Toward my career.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: We were co-located together and I saw you and you're like.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: You look remarkably different now so many ways.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Well, the beard included, right.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I got tired of not feeling good about myself.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't like that.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: It wasn't who I was.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I do hard things.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: That's what I've always done.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: That's what I've always done.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: That's what I'll continue to do and why I didn't take complete control over my physicality and my diet when I knew I should have been doing.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: That's what led me to size 38 inch waist.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: I have a size 29 inch waist in the closet.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: I wear 29s and 30s right now.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I was in junior high and I wrestled.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: I was fit.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: I was fit.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: I wrestled.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I took care of myself In junior high.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: I was 15 years old.
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: Maybe that's a freshman in high school, it's not important.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I was 15 years old and I wore a size in high school.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: It's not important.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I was.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: I was 15 years old and I wore size 30 inch waist when I was 15.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I'm 44 years old today and I've went from size 38 and 216 pounds down to down to size 30 inch waist, size 29 inch waist, wranglers and, yeah, 165 pounds, 160, 165 pounds now and I feel great.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And I love that I'm.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I'm the opposite of miserable, which, again, that's why I asked my daughter was he fat?
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Is that to me like living an unhealthy lifestyle?
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: It leads to someone just being miserable.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: They're not happy with themselves.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: It's tragic and it's absolutely changeable.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: But you've got to take control and that's why I love fasting so much.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, I truly believe autophagy keeps me young.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Uh, I have, even though I have, like this big gray in the beard, you know, white streaks or whatever.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, even though I got this great big bushy beard, I still have people ask me all the time there's no way you're 44 years old Before I had the beard.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: People would even question you're not that old.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: You look just like you looked when you were in high school and that's a good feeling.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: It feels good.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: yeah, that feeling is the opposite of feeling miserable yeah, and you got to take care of yourself to do that.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, I get that compliment from time to time when people ask me my age and a lot of it's how you act too, and just when you're uh, just happy-go-lucky, you have a lot of energy.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: You know it's youthfulness, right?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I don't feel the chronological number that I'm currently in like I don't.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: It's hard to believe because I remember growing up people had over the hill parties and I'm like approaching, I'm in that, I'm in that time zone and chronologically I'm like there is no freaking, that is not.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: That would be like.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: If someone threw me a surprise over the hill party, I would be like what?
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't even compute.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: My over the hill party will be when I turn 60.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'll just barely be over the hill.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: So I sat in the sauna the other day.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I broke the record.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: I saw that time I was like when you said that, I was like, okay, that's a new goal, because I think I go maybe 30 minutes, probably my max ever.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I've never tried to sit in there.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the health parameters are, but you said what an hour and how long 20?
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: .
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: I did an hour and 45 minutes straight.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: What temperature you said, what an hour and how long 20?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: .
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I did an hour and 45 minutes straight no water.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: What temperature it was like at 170.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, 170 for an hour.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: An hour and 45.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: So I've done an hour and a half before.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: But even when I did an hour and a half, I did 30 minutes and then I went and I did a cold shower, yeah, and then I went back in for 30 minutes and then I went out, took another cold shower.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: I'll get hot cold water and then a cold shower.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: And it was funny I actually I drove home, I Drew and I had water during that time also so I was also drinking water while I was sonning, and I went home and I made it, made it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: I went home and I made it made it to the house.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: I made it to the bed I was already showered, though, but I made it to the bedroom and I was changing into some new, new house clothes instead of gym gym attire and all I remember was waking up on the floor and my wife and daughter were standing over me trying to like revive me.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I, I blacked out, I passed out.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: It was too much stress on my body.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: I blacked out.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And they said that I was out for like three minutes straight and and I promised, I promised them that I would never do an hour and a half again.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: So I didn't break that promise.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I did an hour and 45 but my body, but my body handled it so well.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: So I keep track of my heart rate and normally I will.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: I will get out of the sauna when, when my heart rates between 145 and one 55 is your, your heart rate increases as your body temperature increases as less is put on your body.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And uh, I was nervous, I did.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: I made it to an hour and I was only at like 103 beats per minute, like 103 beats per minute, and it took me that extra 45 minutes to get my heart rate up to like 145, 145, 146.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: But again, it's just a testament.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Uh, we're in the middle of uh the the do hard things 28 challenge and with as much control over my diet, over my activity, over over mindset and gratitude and and and all these other things, meditation, doing active meditations Uh, yeah, it's gotta, it's gotta play into that.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Um the fact that my body's able to handle so much more stress today than it was a month ago.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Um, I think that's a testament to the whole challenge, which is pretty awesome.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it works out pretty good.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: And then you get the time management aspect of it as well.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: So I spent a lot of time like really kind of being kind of meticulous about what do I want to put in here and why, comparing it to some other challenges out there to make it.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And I think, to be honest, kick it off with a 72 hour fast ahead of time.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: Uh, just made it a.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Uh, I wanted something that would challenge anyone, um, in any level of fitness, and, and what I love about it, it's kind of like a choose your own adventure, but you really get to understand yourself, like it's got pearson's law in it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: You get to track and measure everything.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: You get to really look at how you spend your day, and I mean the I think probably the uh, the most interesting thing has been the sleep and how people that have gone through this challenge because we usually take shortcuts on sleep you know we, being in the military, we would pride ourselves on how sleep deprived we are all the time and how awesome we are because we did staff duty, then PT, then worked all day.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: We'd be like, yeah, you know I'm a badass because I just I don't sleep, you know, or being in the field, you know, and, um, science has it's conclusive like you've got to sleep and what is cool about this is like I find myself waking up, you know, to get three points.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: You gotta, you gotta be in bed for eight hours, no screens, and I've like this morning I was laying there for 20 minutes, you know, I'm like, okay, I can't get out of bed yet I can't grab my phone.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like resisting the urge to grab my phone and I'm like, okay, I'm just going to do my gratitude practice now, I'm going to do my new, maybe just meditate, you know, and uh, but it's been an eyeopening experience setting up bedtime and like sticking to it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I haven't done that since my parents were like you got to go to bed and so it kind of forces a bedtime, if you want the points you know.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: So it's a.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It's been that and for some people it's like it's been.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: It's it's made them focus more on their sleep and made it a habit, um, that otherwise they probably would have sustained this bad habit of not getting enough sleep, and they're feeling better, which is super cool, yeah no, that was the part of the challenge that I was most worried about.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Not not all the other, not maintaining my activity levels, not gratitude I do daily gratitude journaling every day.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Anyhow.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: The thing I was most concerned with was being able to get hours of consecutive sleep, and I might actually post that tonight, my sleep numbers.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: But I'm pretty sure I slept nine and a half hours last night.
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I slept nine hours the night before and then nine and a half hours the night before.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: That.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: For the first time ever, I'm getting very good sleep and again, I think it just plays into how you're taking all these different aspects, uh, that are within the challenge, and combining them all together and it's just, it's this super, it's like this super combination that just all just locks a person in and just makes, makes things better.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Not easier, but better, definitely better.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Because people, people shouldn't focus on what's easy.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Don't focus on the easy things.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Focus on the improvement.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: What value are you going to get out of something?
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about how easy is this going to be, uh, the, the being easy is not important.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: What is important is what is the value that I'm going to be able to take back out of this at the end of the month, at the end of the day?
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: I will tell you, being able to sleep for nine hours a night seems a little excessive.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: I would still be happy with just eight hours a night, but hey, excessive.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: Um, I would still be happy with just eight hours a night, but hey, nine hours, nine and a half hours, I'll take it, because sleep is an awesome mechanism for your body's healing and recovery processes.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: That's when you get the most recovery done is while you're sleeping that's why I tell my runners here that I train like rest and recovery protocol is it's training.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: Your rest and recovery is a critical part of your training.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Your rest and recovery is training.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: It's not like I'm I'm shortcutting If you're, if you're skipping the gym to sleep, I mean you gotta do what you gotta do.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm trying to say is people will cut their sleep to do other things, and it's a critical component to your health and wellness because that's where your body repairs and replenishes itself and gives you the energy to be in a better mood.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Also, sleep is where you process your emotions as well, getting into that good REM.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: So if you want to people that are hat like, if you, if you're having emotional uh, just negative emotions, your REM cycles enables you to process that, and if you're not spending the time getting into that REM cycle to process your emotions, then you're going to be in a bad mood and, like when you're tired, you're in a bad mood.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: So it's one of those things that we've got to pay more attention to.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: And I didn't realize how, how poor my sleep habits were, and when I put this in the challenge, I was reluctant because I had to face my own, had to face my own challenges with it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I even I didn't think I initially I had it like five, six and seven hours but I'm like, no, I need to put the aid on there and we'll see.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: We tested it out and like everyone was feeling so much better just from that extra cause.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: You're getting that extra REM cycle by by doing that and forcing it, so you're laying in bed and you're not doing much, just like just resting, like just just deliberate rest.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: You're going to improve yeah.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, yeah, it takes discipline to do it Like to your point.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: It is training, it's part of the training, yeah, and it takes discipline to adhere to a bedtime or a good sleep hygiene protocol.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: That takes discipline, yes, um, it was funny.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: You mentioned, like you know, the military culture of, you know, pushing and and sleeping very, very little.
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: I remember my my last deployment in afghanistan, back in back in 2012, I was in the brigade engineer cell and our engineer cell was broken into two different offices in two different, completely different buildings and we had about seven or eight of us within the engineer cell, and it was.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: There were crazy things that we talked about.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: Obviously, Rippets are a big part of those energy drink.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Rippets.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: It's a big part of the energy drink.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Rippets it's a big part of the deployment culture and there were conversations about you know what.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: I bet I could drink a case an entire 24 pack of Rippets and my heart won't explode.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: People were having crazy conversations like that.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: We would pride ourselves like it was a badge of victory for the day if you were the one who sent the last email in the day.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: And by the last email in the day we're talking, our day starts at seven o'clock in the morning.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: And if you were that guy who sent an email at 4.30 in the morning or 5 o'clock in the morning before you left the office, you won the day.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: And it's insane to think about, but that's just how we operated.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: If you were working, and you were working, we worked a lot, especially with round-the-clock operations.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: There were quite a few days that I won because I was the one that sent that 4 am or 4 30 email just to, like you know, buzz out and then come back two hours later, three hours later, and be right back into the grind again and that's.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: That's as unhealthy as it gets it's amazing the human body can do this, but you are are robbing Peter to pay Paul from your future health in doing so.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: And I know that yeah, and so just a culture of I mean as much as I, I love the army, right, it's just part of who I am.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: But wow, some horrible habits and combined with the competitive spirit of how can I beat you at this, you know, and looking back it's like whew, the accelerated wear and tear on the body and just, I mean I walked out of that.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: You know just the emotional toll it took, the physical toll, the spiritual toll that it took to, uh, to serve, like, as much as I love it, like I'm, I'm realizing now, like man, there's some things I've got to deprogram because there's some habits that I've developed over the years that, um, they're, they're not good.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I, I want to run a marathon with my grandkids.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: That's what I, that's what it's like one of my life goals.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: And to be able to do that like I've got to, I got to make my health and wellness more of a priority and my life is infinitely better and I feel better, um, now than even when I was in the military, you know, because I just didn't realize how you can.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: You can, actually, you can do PT every day and exercise.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: You know, that's not, that's not, that's one little component of health and wellness, but when you're, I mean scarfing down food or not sleeping well, caffeine, monster energy, surviving off of all those things.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: The amount of stress that we carry on a day-to-day basis like it took a toll.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: And I realized that when I got out of the service, like wow, like okay, I need to, I do got to do some self repair and I got to change my habits because this just isn't working.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: So I would actually I've been saying this for years and years and years I'd always, always referred to deployment time, very much like dog years.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: So I remember being 34, 36, 38 years old and my body hurt, I was run down, I was beaten, I felt just beaten up by life and people would be like listen, you're so young, you're, you're only 34 years old.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Like no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: I've got these many deployments, you know, and all these deployments, like every every six months deployed.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: That's equivalent to like four years of life, and uh, of life, and uh, and and I'm actually like I'm actually like well, in my 50s, right now, brother and I, I just equated those deployment, that deployment time, to dog years like equivalent and and really the way that those bad habits that are necessary for survival, oftentimes on a deployment, those bad habits translate into into dog years and you're you're really abusing your body.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: And the cool thing is our bodies are so resilient, the way we evolved Like we are so resilient that I've now discovered you can reverse those years like a dog and I wish you could reverse dog years.
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: I do, I love I, I I love my dogs.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: I love them to death.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: I.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: I'm waiting for that scientific, you know, breakthrough to where you now clone your dog or reverse your dog's age, but you can't.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: It's interesting.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: You bring up the dogs.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: I was watching something the other day they're talking about, like you know.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, an average lifespan of a dog now is like 10 to 12 years-ish.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: Dogs used to live in their 20s.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: It's got to do with the dog.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Food that they're eating is not healthy 100%.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: It's halving their life.
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Dogs are dying, not of old age, but they're dying from human diseases.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Dogs are dying from cancer.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: They're dying, you know.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: They end up with like arthritis, glaucoma.
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: They start just uncontrolled, like bladders, like all these things that you see happening in a human late stage of life.
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: They're all now affecting our dogs.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's because the factory that processes dog food is a cookie cutter like factory that processes a lot of the people food, like food that we're eating.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Um, sanitary standards are just a little bit different.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: But outside of that, uh, I've worked.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: I've worked in animal nutrition and and really there's not a lot of difference between you know processing, you know the way that we process dog food versus human food.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: It's kind of sad like we've made our problems, uh, pretty big and then handed them down to man's best friend, which is a shame but sad.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: but the cool thing is about the human body like we can reverse those years.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: You could take years of wear and tear on your body.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: You could cure diabetes.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: If you're a type two diabetic because of the choices that you made in life or the things that you've been through, you can reverse that to where you can live a life with a healthy A1C, not needing diabetes medication.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is a seemingly uncurable disease and all it takes is discipline and a little bit of willpower to want to be healthier and a better, less miserable life, and you could reverse things like that now yeah yeah, and again, it just goes right back into your diet and your physical activity levels that you're doing and and then just being aware of all of that and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: understanding the benefits of delayed gratification rather than those cheap dopamine hits my, my greatest fear is to die of some disease, laying in bed at the end of life.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Like I want to die a glorious death.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: I die this notion of like.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I want to die with my friends and family around me.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I don't want that.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Like I and I think throughout humankind like, especially like, just with the warrior mindset, you know, like that I want to die a glorious death, full of energy and zest, and I'm fearful that I'm going to die in some hospital bed with some disease.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: I don't want that.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: I've got a lot of warriors in my family and I believe it was around 2014, 2015 I lost my grandmother on my mom's side and she she was I want to say she was like 87, 88, 89 and she was in her upper 80s, her upper 80s and we lost her because she was out doing pt and she ended up tripping on the sidewalk, she fell down, broke her hip and, or, yeah, she broke her hip.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: And when you're in your upper 80s and you break a hip, it's kind of a really big deal and that ended up doing her in, but she was out there getting after it doing pt, my other grandmother on my father's side, so my dad's mom, uh, she's 96 or 97 right now.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: I think she may have just had a day not too long ago.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: She might be 97.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: She just, in the last six months, broke her hip and I'm telling you it's, it's weird, it's like the cadence, you know, my grandma does better than you.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: My grandma on my father's side broke her hip.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: She fractured her hip while doing et.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: She was doing like flutter kicks and doing like hip mobility drills inside her living room and she's like the energizer bunny.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: This woman is amazing.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: She could run circles around some of the young soldiers nowadays but, this day in particular, she was doing PT in her living room, fractured her hip.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: She's recovered.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: She went to the hospital.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: She was in the hospital for about a month.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: Um, now she's got to go through a rehabilitative therapy to get back to where she was and her greatest upset was the fact that it's going to take six to nine months for her recovery process.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: Like that's all she's upset about.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: She's like I'm out to fight for six, nine months.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: That's BS.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to get back after it now.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that speaks to the mindset.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: That mindset and that willpower makes you incredibly resilient.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's powerful.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: That's awesome PT Granny, right there.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: I've got big shoes to fill 86, 87, 97.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: Hopefully I'll have some grandkids talk about grandpa doing PT better than them.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Well, it's all about how you take care of yourself.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Now, right, and we've got some undoing to do from some of the bad habits of our years in the military.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, this notion of retirement like I kind of wrestle with that, like I'm not retired, you have to tire first to retire.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: I think I have, I've completed one chapter of my life, but I this notion of like just retirement kind of I don't know, it's a weird concept.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: I think people like they're like they literally put their feet up and they just like they need to have the over the hill party cause they are done, they're checked out, like it's all about the comfort life.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I just don't want to participate in that.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: I just that's not the right mindset to have, but that's just me.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: Once you slow down, I mean, that's, that's it.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: You got to maintain everything in life.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: It's about momentum, it's all about momentum.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Momentum is so powerful.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: So once you build up that momentum, just because you retire from this, this profession, doesn't mean that you need to retire from life.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Uh and that was one of my bigger struggles when I retired from the military.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: I think I went through a pretty dark three week window where I no longer like I went from from being the first sergeant of a 315 person company the largest engineer company in the entire regiment like it was awesome and and every day there was purpose in my day.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: And then and I retired and I was only responsible now for myself and I didn't.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: I didn't really know what to do with myself, what my new purpose was going to be.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: I think I went almost 10 days where I just didn't even leave my bedroom and I was miserable.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: It was, it was pretty, pretty dark.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: And then one day I was like you know what I'm going to do today, I'm going to the gym.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: And then I went to the gym and I never returned to my bed bedroom in that capacity ever again.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: I went to the gym one day and then I went the next day and then I went a third day.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: And now I'm trying to figure out all right, I'm working out and I'm working out a lot.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: I had a lot of free time, so I would spend two, three, four hours a day in the gym.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Now I'm trying to figure out.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: When am I going to recover?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: What's a good recovery schedule look like for me?
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: How am I going to do these muscle group splits and then after messing around and tinkering with that for a little while, I think about a month down the road I realized I don't need split.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: I don't need to split my workouts out with recovery days.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: I could do active recovery.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: So I'll do these major muscle groups day one, two and three.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Day four, I'll do a full body workout or I'll go swimming or I'll do this or I'll do that.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: I hate running, so maybe day four I go for a jog and I go running.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: And then I go right back into it again and I really found myself through that and it definitely impacted my health, impacted my lifestyle.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: It gave me a little bit of purpose and then from there it was so much easier to find additional purpose in life.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's interesting you bring up purpose, because with this 28-day challenge, we're doing four sessions and that's one of the topics we're going to talk about.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: Is purpose, so that's pretty cool.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the topics we're going to talk about is purpose, so that's pretty cool.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I am kind of up against the clock here because I've got a variety of activities to get to to get through my challenge and in other things.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: But I didn't intend for this.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: I kind of meant for this to be like just a call to talk about a podcast.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: But as we've been talking, I think we've just created a podcast because everything I've been listening to our conversation the whole time.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: So, if you're cool with this, I'll cut the the audio from this and make this a podcast session, if you're up for that.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, 100 percent.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: This was awesome.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Like this was unintended, I was going to ask you about scheduling a podcast.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: I think we need to to do it again because I'd like to.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: I have other questions, but everything we talked about today was pretty awesome.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: So, on the podcast topic um, I know I threw a couple ideas your direction.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: I would love more than anything to maybe, maybe, talk about a work-life balance concept.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: Um, my, my one hour and 45 minute session in the sauna.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: I made some friends.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: I met one gentleman.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: He was 76 years old, he did an entire hour in the sauna and he had so many great stories On the flip side.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: I met this gentleman in his mid to early 20s.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: He's in captain's career course right now in the MP school and we talked a little bit about work-life balance and I was gonna do.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I thought about doing a video lecture on work-life balance.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Previously and after talking to this guy and working through some of his experiences that he's seen with some of his commanders that he's had, and and then reflecting on myself, uh, it really opened my eyes to a different, a different perspective but it did not.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, let's do it.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I love that topic, I love the idea of of this and I think it's something that people get out of balance.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I actually have recently created like a framework to help people, like we can talk about some of the uh, the the time zones, uh, or activities.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: I've got a framework for do hard things, and doing is like about the actions that you take and it's supposed to help you find that work life.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: So definitely, let's do that.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: That'd be cool.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to be a what do they call it?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: A pro protagonist in this.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I don't believe.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I still don't believe that there's such a thing as a work-life balance.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Not, but there is, but not if you want to achieve mastery in any realm, if you want to be the best father, the best husband or wife or whatever possible, you're not going to find a work-life balance.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: If you want to be the best at your profession, if you want to achieve mastery within your realm, at work, you're not going to have a work-life balance.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: It's the difference between just being a master of something versus a jack of all trades, but master of none concept.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: So you could be a good dad, you could be a good husband, you could be a good employee at work, but you're not going to achieve mastery unless you realize that work-life balance is kind of BS.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I suspect we're going to be on the same sheet of music, because people will talk about time management and I don't call it time management, I call it life management.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: And your planning system is a life management system, not just your work tasks, because oftentimes when I'm working with people, show me your calendar full of work, stuff full of work no, no boundaries to it.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Like so, when you show me your planning system and you it's full of work, that's full of work no, no boundaries to it.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Like so, when you show me your planning system and you it's full of work, that's your, that you've just identified your number one priority and um and so, yeah, so I'm I'm eager to jump into that topic for sure, so we'll get into that.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: That'll be a fun, fun conversation.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess we'll wrap it up for this episode of the hard things podcast.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: I'll cut in an intro because I wasn't planning on recording that today, but I think what we talked about.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: You're such a great storyteller.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: By the way, I was just like captivated with little stories from the, from the scooters to the.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: You know how you met your wife, which is totally awesome.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate you taking the time to have this great conversation and the willingness to share it with others, because I think they're going to get a kick out of this.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: No, sir, thank you for your time and I appreciate everything that the two hard things 28, has already offered my 2025.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: We're only into day five of this thing, I think right Day five, Well, plus 72.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Plus 72.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: Of this thing, I think, right day five.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: Well, plus 72, plus 72, these, these first couple of days of january, I feel, I feel like some of us in in this organ, in this group, some of us in this group, in this network of the do too hard things 28, I believe that we will have achieved more in the month of january than most people will achieve all year.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I believe that it's like a slingshot we just let it go and it's super accelerator right out the gate.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: It's like Mario Kart you hit the little arrows?
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we are, and I'm sensing that with the energy that everyone's putting into the group, so it's awesome.