Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 68: Jillian Michaels, Fitness Expert

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Episode 68: Jillian Michaels, Fitness Expert · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello Hurdlers.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Emily A body here bringing you episode sixty eight of Hurdle,
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: a podcast that talks to everyone from entrepreneurs to top
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: CEOs and athletes about how they've gotten through tough times
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: hurdles of sorts by leaning into wellness. Today, I seriously
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: can almost not believe I'm saying this.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I am bringing you my.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Conversation with the one, the only, Jillian Michaels. Before I
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: get into that, quick shout out to my sponsor, Athletic Greens.
• 0:32
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• 0:36
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• 0:40
  Speaker 2: whole food sourced ingredients to help support your body's nutritional needs.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Seventy five crazy. They are offering Hurdle listeners a special deal.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: It's twenty eight travel packs a seventy nine dollars value,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: absolutely free with your first purchase. Just head on over
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle again. That's Athleticgreens dot
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: com slash Hurdle to get yours today. All right, now,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: let's talk about Jillian Michaels. First of all, recording this
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: was absolutely surreal. I talk about that dream get list
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that I had right when I started the podcast at
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the very end of twenty seventeen, and Jillian was definitely
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: on that original list, and she literally welcomed me into
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: her Malibu home with open arms. We all watched her
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: for so many years on The Biggest Loser, and in
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: today's episode, what I think is really awesome is Jillian
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and I talk about what life was like long before
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: she made it to primetime on NBC. We really connected
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: on the fact that we both used to be overweight
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: as preteens and teenagers. Jillian weighed about one hundred and
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: seventy five pounds at age twelve, crazy, I know. And
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: she talks to me about how taking up Karate, of
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: all things, saved her life and helped her develop awesome confidence.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: We also talk about the roller coaster of emotions that
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: came along with coming out. We talk about her big
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: goal to be the best mom that she can be
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: to her two kids, and she also fills me in
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: on a lot of the fun projects that she's working
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: on now. She has a podcast, she has an app
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: you can check all of the things out that she
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: has going on over at Jillianmichaels dot com. You'll hear
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: her saying in the episode today, but everything is digital
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and she is jumping in on that trend. I just
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: think it's really awesome. I think that the conversation that
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I have with Jillian is one that she doesn't have
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: all the time, and so it's a really special that
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: I can bring that to you, guys, and I.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Hope that you enjoy it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: As always at Hurdle podcast, at Emilybody, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: all the things. If you have a hurdle moment of
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: your own to share, or you just want to say hi,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: you can reach out to me. It's Emily at hurdle
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: dot us over on email. Last, but not least, I
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: think there are some new hurdlers listening thanks to drum roll,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: a pretty surreal feature in the September issue of Shape magazine.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Shape September issue is all about women who run the world,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and God, I have no words for this. I am
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: one of the.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Fifteen ladies that they are highlighting, so huge thanks to Shape.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: I see my name next to other big, amazing strong
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: women like Naomi Watts and Busy Phillips and Nicky Reid
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: and my mind is blown.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: They call me a wellness amplifier.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I was drastically overweight as a teenager and unhappy and
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: felt so lost. And now I have this opportunity to
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: give back to you guys.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And I know that just by.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Helping one person, that all of this work, it's so
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: worth it. All right, I'm going to stop rambling before
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I get super sappy and emotional over here.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: It's time to get to Jillian. With that, Let's get
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: to hurdling today.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Jillian Michaels. I feel like this
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: woman needs no introduction.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Oh you're sweet. I do I do? Jillian Tealpa hurdlers,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: what do you do? What do we do? I am
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: a I'm a health and fitness expert. I never really
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: know what exactly to say to that at this point,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: but I was a trainer, and I think twenty five
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: years later, I'm really more of a businesswoman now. Yeah,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: in the business of fitness. In the business of fitness.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: But it's funny, you know, I'll start with some flattery.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Oh perfect, I'll take some flattery.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: When I started Hurtle over a year and a half ago,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I made like a list of like the top ten
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: people I wanted to speak with and you were in
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: the top.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: She's like, you were really close. So I'm super amped
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to be sitting here with you.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And also it's obviously like no matter how old you get,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: you still like call your parents when like something exciting happened.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: So I called my dad, and I think the first
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: question that he said, aside from being like, oh my god,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: this is so exciting, is so what's she doing now?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Oh god, so tell them what are you doing? I
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: mean digital stuff? It's all digital, yeah, So when it
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: comes to fitness, it's all streaming platforms and apps and
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: everything that you do and you create lives in that medium.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So we have one of the top fitness apps in
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the market, and thank you Apple. Were regularly featured by Apple,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: which has helped us get there tremendously. What's so cool
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: about the app is that you essentially can utilize technology
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in a way that allows for personalization. Right, somebody can
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: show up and tell me, hey, I'm a beginner, I
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: have thirty minutes. I want a total body workout, and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I have no equipment available, And there's over a thousand
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: different exercises that are all designed to say, okay, this
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: requires no equipment. This is a beginner. This falls into
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the total body category. And even after that, you can
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: say it was too hard. I want to swap this move.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I want to swap that move. All my DVDs from
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: previous years exists within the app. You can pick an
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: app program. I mean it basically allows me to be
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: your personal trainer. Yeah, same thing with meal plans, Like
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I can turn around and say, all right, I've got
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: vegan recipes, vegetarian recipes, pescatarian, omnivore, paleo, whatever you want,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and you can say I want to make it for ten,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I want to make it for one. I can't stand kale.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: And it's all personalized to you and your needs based
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: on your goals and the things you like the things
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: you don't. So you've just never been able to do
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that before. So with regard to fitness, I mean, that
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is the technology that I am focusing on and putting
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: all of my efforts into as a trainer, and I
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: am a certified nutritionist. But when it comes to business,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we're very focused, and I say we, my business partner
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: and I are very focused on growing other brands we
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: believe in. So it could be anything from Flywheel, Like
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: we invested in Flywheel sold. We did create on that one.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: We went some, we lose some, but we're in everything
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: from upline water with aquahydrate to organic nitro colbrew coffee
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: with Lucky Jack. It could be boutique fitness, it could
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: be food, it could be a personality we believe in,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: and so we strategically invest in these brands. Like Alia
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Naturals is a mom who started her own line of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: supplements because she was feeling literally she was feeling tired
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: after having her second kid and had some autoimmune issues.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Started her own line of supplements and grew the company
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: within six months to a million dollars in sales. And
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, I love her be her products
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: are like organic all whole foods. Love her brand story,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: love what she's doing, love the products. So we invested
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: in Alia Naturals. So it could be anything like that,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And to be truthful, that's more of what I do now.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So like Jillian Michaels has the Gillian Michaels app, you
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: want to train with me, everything is there. You want
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: me to tell you what to eat? Everything is there.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: There's the streaming platform where you could do you could
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: train with me and other trainers, but for me personally, like,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: what's the legacy is investing in other things now than
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: using what I've built up till now to grow those
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: other brands.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: And it's fun to do something different and so to speak,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: flex different muscles very much.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So exactly like you get, you have to evolve, right Like,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I still love what I do and I'm good at it.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Like I look at training and nutrition just like you
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: would look at let's say, medicine or law. People sub specialize,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: right Like if you came to me and said, oh,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I need you to make me a faster running back,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I'd be like that, now you need you need a
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: sports specific coach for that, Or hey, I'm playing a superhero,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: need to pack on twenty five pounds and three months
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: your girl. My specialty is weight loss. That's what I do.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: It's arguable that I am one of the best, if
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: not the best, at it, and would I would say
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I would challenge anyone to beat me at it. I
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: am excellent at it. I've been doing it for years
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: with the top registered diitations and the top end of chronologists,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and that is what I do. With that said, you're
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: like Okay, I'm really good at this now what I mean, like,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I love it, I do it. It's all there if
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you want to train with me. But that's the part
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: where you're thinking like, oh, that's a cool company or
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a cool brand, or that's going to be a really
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: fun trend or people love this, but how can we
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: do it in a way that's better for them, more accessible,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: more affordable. So whether it's coffee or alkaline water, or
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: boutique fitness or other trainers or supplementation, that stuff is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: kind of interesting to me to all the reasons you said, Yeah, yeah,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: flexing different muscles exactly. All right.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: So I mean, now you're an expert that helps people
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: lose weight. But let's dial it back to where you
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: come from. Kids, and kind of started from the beginning.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So where are you from originally? I mean we're sitting
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: right now in Malville. Yeah, beautiful looking out of the water.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Sweet. Yeah, life does not stuck. I'm very lucky. I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: actually grew up in the valley. Okay, So for anybody
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that is not from California, it's the Bridge and Tunnel
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. I'm from there. So I feel like
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I get to say that I was an overweight kid
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: going through typical kids stuff, right. I would say typical
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: because everybody's family is dysfunctional to a certain degree. And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: my parents were going through a divorce, and I'd been
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: very close with my grandmother and she had passed away
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: when I was ten, so I was twelve, probably like
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy pounds at twelve. Yeah, and I'm short, obviously,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and at that point it was shorter. So I'm five
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to three. I was ably five to one then maybe
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: five feet and I'm like one seventeen now, yeah, so
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: salot on me. Yeah. And I was also gay, but
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: didn't know it. I didn't. I didn't realize it at all,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but other kids picked up on it. And it definitely
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was not the era of you know, half man half
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: woman signs on bathroom doors. Everyone hated gays, Gays were gross.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I was homophobic for obvious reasons, and I just was
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a super troubled kid. And my mom, thank god, had
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the foresight to get me into martial arts, thinking like,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: hopefully this will empower her, it will give her an outlet,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you know, for all of her feelings, and it'll put
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: her in an environment where she's not bullied and she's
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: not picked on where people are supportive. And it did.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It did all of that and more, and it took
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: years for me to appreciate it as a means of
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: weight loss. I wasn't really thinking of it like that,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: but I began to understand over time that when you
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: feel strong physically, you feel a little stronger in every
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: facet of your life. And it taught me self respect right,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: And the more I began to respect myself, the less
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I went from loser to loner because I didn't relate anymore.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: But everyone stopped picking on me. And at that point,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, wait, why what happened? Like no one's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: calling you names in the hallway, no one's you know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: cornering me. And I realized that it was the way
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I carried myself because I was prepared for it and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: thought of myself differently and thought of myself as more
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: capable and able to handle it. And that's at a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: very young age when I began to appreciate the power
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that fitness, health wellness has across every area of our lives.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Follow Up question number one.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: When you were losing weight and you're so young at
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: this point, do you even kind of realize what's happening
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: to your body because I think when and so spoiler alert,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: I was also drastically overweight as a kid.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Oh crazy, I never see that.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: In college, I lost about seventy pounds wow. And so
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: at that age, you know, when you come to terms
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: with this idea that Okay, I really need to lose weight,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: you really understand like what needs to happen. But I
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: feel like when you're thirteen or fourteen years old, you
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: kind of probably realize the byproducts of that weight loss
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit sooner than you're realizing like, oh, I'm
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: just losing pounds here.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: It took me a minute to lose it. Yeah, I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: was three years okay. So I started to drop it
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: around fifteen, and I was because I was still eating
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: like crap. And then one day my martial arts instructor
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was just like I can't with you, like you're just
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: not getting it, Like it's not clicking until you are
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: gonna respect yourself and put more into this than I am,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: because this is not about me. This is your journey.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to waste my time with you.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I can help a million other people. So unless you're
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: gonna take this seriously, get out. And that was a
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: real kind of rock bottom moment, but in the best way,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: because it was my safe place. It was you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: it gave me confidence, and being thrown out of there,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I started thinking about what he said, and I started
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: taking it more seriously. Yeah, So I started at fifteen.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: By the time I was seventeen, I was I was
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: pretty fit, not in the healthiest ways, you know, I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: didn't I didn't know everything I do now, So it
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: was everything ridiculous, from Susan Potter telling you fat makes
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: you fat, eating nothing but process carbs, to artificial diet
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: foods like I didn't really understand it. But I was
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: actually eating less. So there's that, and I was moving more.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: But probably about seventeen is when I kind of had
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: my braces off, my skin had cleared of my I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: had my nose done when I was fifteen because it
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: looked like a softball sitting in the center of my face.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Holy Mother of God. I mean I'd lost like fifty
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: pounds at that point, so I'm probably seventeen, yeah, and
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, I get like that transformation.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: And I mean you mentioned this when you were talking
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: about like I didn't know that I was gay and
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: I was overweight, and then you like lost all this
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: weight during this weight loss transformation.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Is this kind of when you came to fruition and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: with your still not yet no, no, I still was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: like gays grows hate gays. Ew, I've never even known
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: anyone that was Do you date anyone? Were you dating anyone? Boys? Yeah?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: That's right exactly. Yeah I had an older boyfriend. Yeah, boys,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I just never but like I knew something was wrong,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know what.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Isn't that so sad that the word that you used
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: to describe that was wrong.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Wrong is in I mean, like you just knew something
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: was not I thought boys were cute, I wanted to
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: hang out with them. I loved their company. But then
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: when we get beyond that, just like panic totally, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I was like, what is wrong? Like literally, what is
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: wrong with me? Where is that? Like so into you
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: like totally turned on teenagers in the back of a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: car thing? Why is that not happening for me? And
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I couldn't And I remember thinking, like I'm frigid seventeen
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that I don't even know where I heard the word,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: but I was like I must be frigid, like something's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: wrong with me? What is wrong with me? I didn't
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: know what it was. And I remember at that time
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Madonna had come out with Justify My Love. You're so young.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it wouldn't ping for you. I don't even
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: know if you were alive. It was a thing. It
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: was a huge thing at the time because she was
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the biggest celebrity in the world, I mean other than
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe Michael Jackson. I have no idea
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Princess Diana, but I mean massive. Yeah, And she has
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this video and there's like women with women and guys
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: with guys in It's rumored she has this girlfriend named
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Ingrid Casarus and I worshiped her as a kid. So
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: here was this woman that I worshiped, like sleeping with
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: other women. And it was very confusing for me, right,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: but it softened my what's the word? I think? I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: just felt like gay was gross, period, end of story.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And seeing that and then basic instincts came out and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: again I'm like seventeen, Right, So there's Sharon Stone. Here's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: like this crazy hot billionaire bisexual happened to be a murderer.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: But you'll put that aside. And she made like being
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: bisexual cool at the time, So all the girls in
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: my little group were pretending to be bisexual, and it
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: allowed me to kind of that homophobia to go away,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: right because now it's trendy. And then I think when
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I was eighteen, a girl came on to me at
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a party and it kissed me, and that that moment
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you knew. I was like, oh no, I knew right away,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and I was not happy. But are you scared? I
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: was so just beside myself. Yeah, because it you know, again,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's a different time now again, I'm forty five,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I'm out, I have two children, like, but the reality
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: is it was a very different time, and it wasn't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: easy being gay in the public eye. Being gay in
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: general was not easy. I think it's a little easier now,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: of course, depending on where you live. But yeah, I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: just I remember thinking to myself, like, if there is
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a god, like this just can't be like please, no,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: just no. And then I had all the transition of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not gay, it's just you all of that, I'm bisexual,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: all of it, until one day I was like, are yeah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: this is it. And I think that happened when I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: was twenty one and I was dating someone for like
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: seven years, and I was like, I just that's it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: That yeah, twenty one to twenty seven, and you just
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it is what it is. And over time I came
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to terms with it. But to this day, I don't
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: know that I necessarily agree with. And everybody goes about
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: kind of living their life in different ways, right, and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you have different activists who treat the world differently, like
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Malcolm X was very different than Martin Luther King. You know,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: you have people that are like marching in the streets
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and like work care and we're proud. Like to me,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that helps us get our mission
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: across as much as just being relatable. So I think
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that's great and someone's got to do it, just like
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: someone had to be Malcolm X. But for me, I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: think there's also a lot of people have come up
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to me and said, you know, when my mom found
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: out you were gay, it was a lot easier for
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: me because their mom might have worked out with me.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: And it's like Jillian Michaels is gay, like in your
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: face in the streets, and both are necessary. But I
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: think I just felt like, look, you know what, why
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: do we need to be like, I'm gay, I'm not
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: proud of being gay?
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Why do we Yeah?
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly, I just said this article for runners.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: We're all about these four guys that are best friends,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: and they're all like really big guys, and they're pretty overweight,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: and they're all runners, and.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: It was really powerful.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: And one of them said to me when I was
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: sitting down with him, he said, why do I need
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: to be labeled as an overweight runner?
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Why can't people just look at me? Right? I'm just
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: that's exactly how I feel like. I'm not quite sure
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that the label or the labeling is helping us accomplish
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: a remission of integration. It's just like, you know what,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: why is this so different? Like a black mom, an
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Asian mom, a gay mom, a white like, Well, I
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: don't I don't know why we need all the labels.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Why can't you just be a mom? I have found
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: that just existing without labels been has made it more
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: manageable for people who are trying to understand what gay is.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to rewind a second back to the
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: weight loss thing. Right, Sorry, I have like a side question. No,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I love here, but I think it's also interesting and
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: all obviously like kind of interrelates with one another. Right,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: you were going through this huge transformation and like trying
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: to understand who you were and like embracing your body
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: and learning what it was like to be confident but
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: still feeling like something else was off.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Like, there's so many things that play into this.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you lost weight, you said that you did
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: realize that you became a little bit more confident. What
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I think was interesting for me was to see how
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: people then started to treat me a little bit different.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly did you go through that? I did? But
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: do you feel like you treated yourself differently? First? I
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: would like to think so.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Or I think that in developing exactly, like I developed
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: this confidence that I was able to handle myself in
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: a different way, So then maybe I was approaching situations
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: a little bit differently.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. Yeah, that's exactly it. It's like the way
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you carry yourself, the way you engage with people. So
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it's arguable that it's a chicken and an egg conversation,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: but to this day I still carry you know, you're
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: when you go through that as a kid, you definitely
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: relate more to the underdog. Oh yeah, you know. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it's interesting because like my girlfriend was like the most
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: popular girl in school and we just like, don't you
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: know she was in a sorority. And I'm like, I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: dropped out of college because I couldn't understand, like I
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: literally could not relate to like the Greek life. And
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you still carry that with you a little bit.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But I think it makes for me personally, it makes
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: me who I am, Like I relate more to the underdog,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and I will fight for the underdog, and that's who
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I am. That's the That's how I built my business,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: That's how I decided what I like without even realizing it.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: What I would specialize in when it comes to fitness
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: is like making people like lean mean, the most fit possible,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the best version of themselves. So I did notice that
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: people treated me differently, But I also think it's the
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: way I handled these engagements, of these interactions.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's also what makes you so
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: good at your specialty. It makes you so good at
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: what you do, is that you can truly relate to
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: where they're coming from. And I think it's funny. I mean,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: obviously people have watched you for years and years in
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: past the Biggest Loser, and they see what could be
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: seen as like this tough love, but the reality is,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: without knowing your story, they don't truly understand that that
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: tough love is coming from probably a place where you're like,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I wish I.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Said these things to myself. It's Biggest Loser was a
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: very different beast in that you had individuals that were
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: literally killing themselves with food. So you know, you're three
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: hundred pounds overweights. I mean, you're you're going to die
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: very early death, right, So you've got one chance of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: getting through to these people, and it could be a week,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: it could be six weeks, it could be, if you're lucky,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: a couple of months. But then they go home into
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the environment that created this dynamic for them in the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: first place. So I'm looking at it thinking, what are
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the three things I need to happen before they go
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: home for them to have any chance of keeping the
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: weight off. And people have crucified me and the show.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Oh they put all their weight back on, well, sixty
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: five percent of them did, thirty five percent of them didn't.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: And if you look at the statistics, five percent of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: people that lose weight keep it off. So but No
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: one knows that, right, They're just like, oh, let me
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: attack the show because it's trying. Need to attack it.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Losing weight is not cool right now, and it's politically
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: incorrect to talk about. And I love being one hundred
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: pounds overweight or whatever it might be. You know, the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: reality is being overweight is not healthy and for somebody
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to live their best life, you want them to have
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: good physical health. Disease is not fun in any way.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: So for me, I knew that Number one, they needed
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to have that rock bottom moment that I had, where
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: the pain of living the way you have been living
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: is worse than the work and the fear associated with
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the change. Number Two, you need them to take responsibility
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: because if they're so busy being like my mom my dad,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: my this my dad, Like, yes, in life, we've all
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: been victims at one point or another. However we continue
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: these patterns and we victimize ourselves. Right, It's actually called
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: a repetition compulsion where we play out the same abusive dynamic.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: If somebody cannot take responsibility for yeah, all this bad
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: shit happened to me, but I am choosing to go
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to that fridge and comfort myself with food or feel
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: like I'm in control with food or whatever it might be,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: whatever the food is affording them. If they can take
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: responsibility for it, they're fundamentally incapable of changing it. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: then the third thing is an accomplishment because the how
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: too of self worth, positive self image, believing in your
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: ability isn't words right, you can I can tell you
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: all day long, like oh no, no, no, trust me, you
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: can fly. You're like really because I've never experienced it,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: like until literally you experience that in one way, no
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: matter how small, right, even if it's like arguablieve you
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: could you know, you lift it up off the ground
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: one foot, then you'd be like, holy shit, I can fly,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Like what else can I do? So you've got to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: take somebody and say like, look you you can do
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a push up on your hands and feet, you can
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: run a mile, you you were able to complete this
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: workout or whatever it might be. Where you've shattered this
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: notion of who they think they are and subsequently what
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: they think they're capable of, and opened up an infinity
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of possible ability. And if those three things don't happen,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: there is no hope, non zero in that environment. Like
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a great therapist working with you for years and years. Yes,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: you've got a great shot, but we didn't have that.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately then I sure wish we did, because I think
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: our numbers would have been higher than thirty five percent success.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Right, quick break from today's episode to give my sponsor,
• 27:26
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• 27:31
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• 27:41
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• 27:43
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• 27:46
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• 28:01
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  Speaker 2: the gummy vitamins. Let's get back to it. I love
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: this idea of like you see that you're capable of
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: doing X, so then what you like you said, what
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: else can what else can you do? It's for me
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: after losing the weight. I part of it for me
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: was running and so once I ran a marathon, I
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: literally wow.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: In my mind.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Thought stemming from the weight loss as well, I'm literally
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: capable of doing anything I set my mind. So I
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: mean things like even like reaching out to your team
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: and being like, so, does Jillian want to sit down
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: with me?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Sometimes people are like how do you get these people
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: on the pod? And it's like I asked, man, like
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I just want And obviously.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a work that goes into it, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: you've got to build your base before you can You've
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: got to I don't know what's the there's some metaphor
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: for like putting taking off the training wheels before you
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: can like ride a motorcycle. I don't know, but I'm
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: just saying, like you have to like put in the
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: foundation to get to where you want to be and
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: to grow. But I just think it's like, I'm curious,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: once you realized what you were capable of after you
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: lost the weight, what was the first thing that one
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: of the first things that you thought, well, I did this,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: so I can do that.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: God, that's so interesting. I got to think about.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: That because it was like for me like once I,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: once I learned how to run a mile, I was like, well,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: then I can run a five k and shoot, like,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: am I crazy enough to run a half marathon? And
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I'm going run a marathon? Once I ran the marathon,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I was like, man, I can do anything. I set
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: my mind to marathon. Literally, I mean the guy that
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: ran the first one dropped dead.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: So anyone that doesn't gets mad respect for me. For years,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh hell no, I'm like on the sideline,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: have you done a half marathon? Oh my god, I'm
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: terrible runner? That's okay, Like I I keep the most
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I think I've ever come in my life and celebrated
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: for hours, was like five miles. WHOA, Like I suck
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: at running? I'm just ugh, do I give you like
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: mad props? Because that really is such a feat of discipline.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Think about the things that you're disciplined about on the regular.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: That's so many people you know struggle with Like for
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: me running, I mean some days it comes easy and
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: sometimes it feels like everest. But for me, it's something
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: that like it's my it's like how I chilled. I
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: get it, you know, And I'm sure you have things
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: like that as well.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, what would have been the thing? I would
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: tell you that probably my black belt. I went back
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: at twenty one because I stopped it around eighteen. And
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I also, I'm such a cliche, it's like embarrassing. But
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I had add and didn't realize it. I actually didn't
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: even same thing, like the same as being gay. It
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: just wasn't It wasn't common knowledge, so you don't have
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the skills to learn how to manage it right. But
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: when I was in to be passionate about something, I
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: could be hyper focused, which is how add it's. When
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you're extremely passionate about something, it changes your brain chemistry
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and allows you to kind of like telescope in on something.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: But in college, you know, you get all those general GEDs.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: You got to take all of this that whatever that
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't I couldn't get into. I could not
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in high school was the same every year summer school
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: math chemistry, math chemistry, every summer worse subject. Oh could
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: not just couldn't do it so that, and I think
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the culture that whole, like Greek culture and frat parties,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't relate to Where were you at Northridge? Okay?
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: At that point, I was training people during the day,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: and I was bartending illegally at nights with a fake ID,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and I was making a ton of cash, and I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: was really happy, and I just thought, you know what,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: this is not for me, Like I'll find a different way.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: But in college, isn't for everybody. If I could have
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: gone back, if I thought I could do it like
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I wish, I wish I would have. I regret not
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: having a degree tremendously. It's just sometimes it's just not
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: for everyone.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: This makes me think of I was listening to your podcast.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: We haven't even talked about that yet. I see it
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: all the time on the chart because I'm looking at
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: that top ten and I see your photo up there.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: On the podcast, you said something that was like there
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: is no what if, there's only what is? Yeah, And
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I thought that was so interesting because it's like it's
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: being mature and being like this is what it is now,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Like this doesn't feel like it's right for me, So
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: what can I do now that I've come to terms
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: That's my shrink. Actually, those are as I kind of
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: negotiate my way through life. What if I had done
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: this differently? I mean, there is no what if. There's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: what is, and that's what you're dealing with. So that's
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: what you deal with. And I just wasn't. I wasn't
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: a student. These are the decisions I made at the time,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: and that is what is. So that is what you
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: deal with.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: So when you get your black belt, is this what
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: really launches your like more deep interest in fitness.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I don't even like fitness. I am really good at it,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: but I really don't like it. Think of it like this,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: if I'm an architect, I don't love my pencil, but
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I do like creating like this incredible building or structure.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Right for me, I like helping people build better lives.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It gives me meaning on a selfish level. Right, I
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: get to play some small part in that journey, So
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I feel more powerful and a little less helpless in
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the world, because God, I hate that feeling, and I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: think we all do. So I get to make money
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: doing something that gives me meaning, makes me feel like
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I'm of use, and I love that fitness is just
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: a tool that I utilize to help people do it. Personally.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: You will never catch me in the gym being like, ugh,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I love this. I hate it. I hate it so much.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I literally cannot stand it. I never think to myself
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: like I cannot wait to go and squad one hundred
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: pounds today. No, I dread it, but I feel so
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: much better when it's done. I feel so much better
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: being fit, being strong, feeling powerful, being a role model
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: for my kids, all of those different things that come
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: along with being healthy. So I've learned how to master
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: fitness in order to get what I want.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's so interesting probably for the hurdlers to
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: hear as well, because so many of them can probably
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: relate to this idea that oh I hate working out.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like working out. I don't want to
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: go to the gym. But it's that after man.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing, by the way, with your career,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: right or your relationship. Like today I was like, oh
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: my god, Monday, and it's just like looking down the
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: barrel of all the crap that all the emails you've
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: got over the weekend, all this stuff you have to do.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: But I love what I do, but there's a reason
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: it's called working out or hard work. Anything worth having
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: is going to require work and sacrifice. And that's where
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: it comes down to that, Like what's your why, right,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: because it's the why that allows you to tolerate the how.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: What a snippet? So you don't love fitness, but you
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: still got into it.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so talk to me about like when you because
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: did you first become a certified trainer?
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: And then it went from there. I was training for
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: my black belt originally at seventeen and then ended up
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: like I don't know. I mean, I have a lot
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: of theories on why I sabotaged it, but whatever, I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: was training for it at seventeen. And then people would
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: see me in the gym because I graduated high school early,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: not because I'm brilliant, just clearly because my birthday fell
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: on like a weird date and they thought that I
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: was a trainer. So people come up to me, and
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: at the time, I think I was delivering I swear
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: to God, I think I was delivering pizza and barbecue
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: food to people for like eight dollars an hour, and
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: they would say like how much to charge? And of
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: course at the time I was like, for what, And
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I thought like, oh, it's like work to work you out,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: like sure, I don't know, fifteen bucks an hour. And
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: my mom, thank god, it was the voice of reason,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: and she's like, I think you need some sort of certification.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Don't you need like a girl scout badge? Like you
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: need something for this. I'm sure of it. And she
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: paid for me to get my first little certification. And
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I just started doing it at seventeen and a half
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and never thought anything of it, just did it for fun,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: without realizing, oh, I could actually make a living doing
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: this or maybe I should, and so do it during
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the day. And you know, by the time I was
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: in my twenties and I was charging like forty dollars
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: an hour and I was bartending at night, and just
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, I fell I fell into it
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and took it all for granted until the day that
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I decided I needed a real job, a responsible job,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I guess you would say I was. I was like
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: twenty three, and I ended up falling into the entertainment
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: industry thinking that that would be the responsible thing to
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: do it, kind of like David Geffen. My way through
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the training program at ICM, like faking diplomas and all
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: of that, and I actually became a motion picture packaging
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: agent by the time I was twenty seven, and it's
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: a very long story, but I hated it passionately and
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: made terrible money and ended up falling back into fitness
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: when I was twenty seven and a half.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: And you were remembering that you were making pretty good
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: money training people as one off.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I think I didn't realize at the time that I
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: could have made a good living in fitness because I
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was like, I need an adult job, Like what do
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: my guy can't do this forever, Like I have to
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: grow up. And I ended up getting caught in this
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: like political nightmare between these two huge agents and make
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a very long story short, I was kind of the
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: casualty of it and got fired and I didn't know
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: what the hell I was gonna do. I was like
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: dead ass, broke literally like scraping change out of the
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: sofa cushions to put gas in my car. I mean,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: just a mess, like twenty seven, thinking to myself, like
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: how did I end up here? It worked so hard
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: and I have nothing to show for it, And I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: ended up working in a sports medicine facility, putting like
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: the eastam and ice packs on patients that were in
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: physical therapy, and I was so embarrassed and just thinking
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: to myself like I was emotional picture packaging it very
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: la very young, very imature, very insecure. But to make
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a long story short, after several months, waking up happy
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: again for the first time in years, and at that
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: point I was like, all right, how can I do this?
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: This is what I love? How can I make a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: living at it? And then I ultimately opened my own
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: sports medicine facility by the time I was twenty nine,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: and by the time I was thirty, I was on
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: an NBC show and then the rest kind of became mystery.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy to think about the progression there
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: because you went there at first and you were so embarrassed,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: and it ended up eventually, months and months and months
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: later being something that you realize made you happy. And
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I think there's a really a big lesson in that.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: And that's so many times we start something and we
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: give up so quickly because it just doesn't feel right.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: It's like it's a bad day for your ego is
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: a good day for your soul? Yeah, And it's like
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I needed to have my ego put in check. I
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: needed to have kind of another yet another rock Bottom moment,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: and didn't j k Rowling. She was like, rock Bottom
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: is like the great plate. Is it excellent foundation to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: build your new life on top of? Yeah, but so
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: so basically Yeah, at twenty seven, I was just like,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I spent three and a half years grinding like crazy
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: to get here, and this is the part where I'm like,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to pay off, and now I'm fired and blacklisted,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: like literally could not get a job. So I had
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: no choice but to get back into fitness, and I
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, I've gone backwards. I can't
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: believe I'm backworky started, which is exactly where it should
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: have been to begin with.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's so interesting, especially now obviously how
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: many million you reach over like one hundred million people annually.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Through the different platforms. That's intense, that's weird. What's interesting
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: about it is that, yes, digital is of the moment
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: and everything's moving there. But there's a lot to be
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: said for all forms of media. So for us, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I say us again because it's like my business partner
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and the Gillian Michaels brand, which is so cheesy and gross,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: but it is what it is. Whether you're doing the
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: cover of Women's Health in the UK for January New Years,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: that's going to hit how many people right do a
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: podcast that hits a little group, or you write a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: book that hits a group, or you have your DVDs
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: that are old but people still use them, or your app.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: You can touch people in all forms of media, and
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's super important. It's totally
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: like your podcast. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I love to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: do it. I know exactly who's you're a kid and
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the like, I know who that kid is. He's great.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm only like dating myself unfortunately, but I mean, like,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: this is exactly the point. So it's it's being able
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to do something like this and then doing something like
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: GMA and then writing a blog for your website.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of how you aggregate an audience. Nowadays,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: they're all pieces to the buzz. It's interesting. So obviously
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: all of these one hundred million people, they see you,
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: and when you look in the mirror, what is it
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: that you see?
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's such a great question. It is it is
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: very different for sure. To me, I think like just
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: a mom, you know, struggling to kind of raise two
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: good humans by setting a decent example for them. A
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: business woman that makes a lot of mistakes, Oh my god,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: but it's you know, you fire enough arrows at the target,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: one of them is gonna hit. But I think to myself, like,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: if people had any idea, how many failures, how many
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: setbacks in order to get one win one, there's like
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a million a million lost battles along the way. I'm
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: also like a pretty big bleeding heart. I really am,
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like just because there's a part of me that was
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: that underdog. Right, So whether it's like all right, you know,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: today we're gonna rescue dogs, and tomorrow we're gonna try
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to do something about this problem and something about that problem,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: because fundamentally you feel helpless. I just I think I'm
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: more in touch with that feeling than most people, even
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: though we all do feel that way. And I struggle
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: with that a lot, and I think that's how I
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: fill up a lot of my day. It's trying to
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: feel lit a little less helpless in the world. I
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: love that. I know that's like a weird thing to love.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: About you. But that's really sweet. I think I need
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: to accept that I'm helpless, but I just refuse it.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: But it's good that you don't, because think of all
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: the good you're doing because you don't accept that some.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Of it, dude, but some of it, Like well, what
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: about like the hundred mile challenge. Okay, let's look at that.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Let's look at that. That is what that is. Okay,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: So it is a fundraiser that I'm doing for the UNHCR,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: which is the United Nations Refugee Agency. Right, Oh my god.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: So there's like the number is like seventy point eight
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: million people across five continents that are quote displaced. So
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: they have different labels, but basically all refugees in one
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: way or another. But some are called refugees, some aren't. Okay,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And you look at this global crisis and it is
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the largest humanitarian crisis in human history, and I think
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: it's really easy to just check out. And there are
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: days when I am so overwhelmed and think like this
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: is impossible. I think this is an impossible problem to solve,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: and I think we just kind of check out and
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: we focus on what we can focus on. So I thought,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: all right, what can I try to do? How can
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I try to help where you have this moral imperative,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: not that you think you can make a difference, but
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: you feel a moral imperative to try. And I ended
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: up taking a trip to the Congo this year, and
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I went to a refugee camp where the South Sudanese
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: who have been dealing with this insane civil war for
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: the past six years are running to the Congo. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: it's very complicated, but you know, you're looking at human
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: beings in front of you, children that want to go
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: to school. There's two schools that hold one hundred kids each.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: There's nine thousand people in this refugee settlement, taking in
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: hundreds a week, half of which are kids, and two
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: hundred of them can go to school. This one kid
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: looked at me. He's an orphan, and he's like, there
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: is no hope for me, Like I can't get an education.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I can't. You know, do this, do this, do this,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: do this, do this, do this. And I know you're thinking, like, oh,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: we'll go pay for that kid, which by the way,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: I would do, but you cannot because of the rules
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: in place right going and like hand select children. So
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I basically came home and he was one of I
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: don't know fifty stories I heard, and I was like,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: they need money. Like the UNHCR knows what they're doing.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: They need money. The budget for just Congo is two
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty million. They have nineteen million. They have
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: nine percent of their funding for that one crisis. And
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I just thought like, all right, we got to raise
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: awareness and educate people about what a refugee actually is.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, maybe we can at least
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: build like a secondary school for this kid. And in
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the process of trying to raise two hundred thousand dollars,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: which is nothing, right, a drop in the bucket. It's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: really hard because it's not a popular cost. But you know,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: you're like God, and it makes me feel like Jesus,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: really like it's that hard to raise two hundred thousand dollars,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: holy shit, And it makes you feel a little bit
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: like in adequate and a little bit helpless again. But
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, we're gonna get to two hundred thousand
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: dollars and it's gonna do. It's gonna buy one thing.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: In that place, if it's an ambulance or if it's
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: another health clinic or if it's one more school, like
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: it'll help one hundred more kids out of seventy million,
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: it's still one hundred kids.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: So then how does the walking play into it? So
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the idea is we're gonna walk a hundred miles, right,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: anybody who pledges to do it over the month of July,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: because refugees walk literally hundreds of millions of miles a
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: year to try to get to safety. So it's raising awareness, right,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: it's walking in solidarity, and then it's asking friends, it's saying,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk one hundred miles, will you sponsor me
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to do it? Right? In that don't pay for my
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: shoes or whatever, but like we donate money for the
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: cause and to support me in supporting them. But yes,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: at any point you could and you you literally would
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: go to Stepwithgillian dot org or Step with Refugees dot org.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: It's all part of the UNHCR's website to educate yourself.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: And I think everybody has a cause that's important to them.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: And you know a lot of people, why don't you
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: help people here? Why don't you do this? It's like
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I do I pick a card. It's like I've worked
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: with stand up to cancer. I've worked with the Alliance
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: for a Healthier Generation, I've competed to help animals. I
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: mean I do, And I think the point is you
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: either help people or you don't. So you have something
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: that's important to you, you focus on it. Yes, but
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I mean we can all do a little bit better.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: We can all not use plastic straws. Even if the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: ocean isn't our particular cause, right, we can all do something, Yeah,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: And I think also, I mean you're giving the audience
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: some advice on how they can give back. When you
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: think about advice that you've been offered, Yeah, in your career,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: does anything stand out?
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing in particular. I'll try to be really
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: quick with this, but number one is trust your gut.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Because every massive air I've made that has played it
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: has played a part right where you're like, well, they
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: know better. Are they're the producer, or they're the this
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: or there, whatever, They would know they're the expert even
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: though your gut's telling you it's not gonna work. So
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you might have played along. But if you had fought
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: for it and you had trusted your gut and it worked,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: they'd have to work with you. Again anyway, So that
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: one is massive, and the other one is you can't micromanage,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: but you also can't step out of something and think like, oh,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: this is the lawyer. They know better. Okay, sign on
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the line. Great, I'll sign. Uh. You got to know
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: everything that's in that contract and I've explained to you
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: because it's your business, be your own advocate. Yeah, a
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: huge massive those two things, huge mistakes, multi million dollar,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: potentially career ending disasters over the last two decades. Had
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I just like Jesus, known those two things and really focused.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: On them, all right, the last question, you have an
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: opportunity right now to offer the jillion that is overweight
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: and a teenager and feeling lost and unsure and like,
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: shit is weird.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one piece of advice going weird. It is weird.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: I would I would definitely tell her like all of
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: this is making you who you are, and that person
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: is going to be a good person that you can
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: be proud of. So you know, grind it out and
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: it's gonna pay off, just like just like who you've become,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: Like you'd never be the person you've become had you
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: not been through everything that you went through. We're lucky,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: aren't we? Yeah, very much so, thanks so much for
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: hanging out with me. Oh no, god, thanks for thanks
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: for talking to me. I'm glad I've read the list
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: you did.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: dot us. Connect to the podcast on Instagram and Twitter
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Jillian. Where are all the places that they can find you?
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I just like, go to Jillianmichaels dot com. Everything's there,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: So if you want the podcast on health and fitness,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: free advice, it's there, Books there, DVDs, there, app there,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: It's all Jillianmichaels dot com and at Jillianmichaels.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: That's it all right, another hurdle conquered. Catch you guys
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: next time.