Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / You Don’t Have to Do This Alone: Faith, Discipline & Becoming 1% Better Daily | Rhino & the Bat

Transcript

You Don’t Have to Do This Alone: Faith, Discipline & Becoming 1% Better Daily | Rhino & the Bat · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey Faithful, welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast. In a moment,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: my dad, Coach Alex Van Houten, will help you honor
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: God by making the most out of the body God's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: given you. Today you can expect truth from the Bible,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tools from science, and guidance for everyday life. So listen
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: close and get ready. Let's get 1% better today.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: What's up Faithful? Coach Alex here. Grace and peace to you.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Before we get into today's conversation, I need to give
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: you some coach's notes, because this episode was a little different.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: This interview was originally recorded for the Rhino and the
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Bat podcast, and I wanted to bring it over here
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: because I think it represents something that I want Faithful
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Fitness to keep doing more of. I want to have
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: conversations in the fitness world that put more faith in
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: fitness and remove some of the confusion, vanity, fear, and
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: self-obsession that have come to dominate that fitness industry. And
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: that means I'm not only interested in talking to people
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: who already agree with me. You'll hear in this conversation
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: that Rhino and I come from very different faith backgrounds.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: At one point, he even shares that he is Hindu
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: and I'm Christian. I believe Jesus Christ is Lord. I
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: believe our bodies were created by God. They belong to
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: God and ultimately exist for his glory. So when I
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  Speaker 3: talk about fitness, I'm not talking about building a better
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: body simply because I want to admire myself in the mirror.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about stewardship. I'm talking about taking what God
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  Speaker 3: has entrusted to me, my strength, my health, my limitations,
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  Speaker 3: my time, my ability, and asking, how do I become
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: more faithful with what I've been given? And I think
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  Speaker 3: Christians need to understand something here. Our stewardship should be visible.
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  Speaker 3: Not performative, not prideful, not vain.
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  Speaker 2: But visible.
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  Speaker 3: The way we care for ourselves ought to testify to
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  Speaker 3: what we believe about the one who made us and
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  Speaker 3: the one who saved us. If we say that our
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  Speaker 3: body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that our
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: lives belong to Jesus Christ, and that everything we have
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  Speaker 3: has been entrusted to us by God, then eventually those
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  Speaker 3: convictions should become embodied. They should affect the way we
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  Speaker 3: eat and the way we move and the way we sleep,
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  Speaker 3: the way we handle discomfort, The way we practice discipline.
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  Speaker 2: The way we age.
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  Speaker 3: As Paul said, whatever you do, do it all for
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  Speaker 3: the glory of God. And it should affect the way
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  Speaker 3: we respond when the body we're given is difficult to
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  Speaker 3: live in. Because Christians don't need another version of secular
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  Speaker 3: fitness with a Bible verse printed across the top of it.
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  Speaker 3: The world already has plenty of obsession with appearance, comparison, performance, optimization,
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  Speaker 3: and self-improvement. We as Christians need to be offering something different.
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  Speaker 3: We need to be demonstrating what it looks like to
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  Speaker 3: become strong without becoming prideful. To become disciplined without becoming obsessive.
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  Speaker 3: To become healthy without making health an idol. To be
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  Speaker 3: grateful for the body without worshiping the body. And to
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  Speaker 3: be willing to care for what God has given us
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  Speaker 3: because we understand that our lives are not our own.
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  Speaker 3: We've been bought with a price. That kind of stewardship
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  Speaker 3: becomes a testimony. And that's one reason I want to
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  Speaker 3: keep stepping into conversations just like this one. I want
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  Speaker 3: people who may never listen to a Christian fitness podcast,
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  Speaker 3: walk into a church, or open a Bible on their own,
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  Speaker 3: to encounter a different explanation for why their body matters.
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  Speaker 3: Not because their body gives them value, or because being
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: lean makes them worthy, and not because fitness saves them,
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  Speaker 3: but because there is a creator. And if there's a creator,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: then creation has meaning. And if your body has been
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  Speaker 3: entrusted to you by God, the question changes from, how
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  Speaker 3: do I make this body impressive? To, how do I
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  Speaker 3: become faithful with what I've been given? That's a very
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  Speaker 3: different fitness journey. And for those of you listening who
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  Speaker 3: already follow Christ, I want to challenge you on the
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  Speaker 3: other side.
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  Speaker 2: Of this conversation. Don't merely agree with the theology.
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  Speaker 1: Live it.
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  Speaker 3: The Christian community ought to be producing men and women
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  Speaker 3: whose lives increasingly display the fruits of the Spirit and
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  Speaker 3: self-control and endurance and gratitude and strength and humility and stewardship.
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  Speaker 3: Not perfect bodies, but faithful ones. Because somebody is watching
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  Speaker 3: the way you live. Your children are watching. Your spouse
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  Speaker 3: is watching. Your friends are watching. Your co-workers are watching.
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  Speaker 3: And a culture drowning in indulgence, distraction, vanity, and confusion
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  Speaker 3: desperately needs to see what ordered, grateful stewardship looks like.
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  Speaker 3: So as you listen today, I want you to keep
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  Speaker 3: a few questions in the back of your mind. What
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  Speaker 3: has God entrusted to me? Where have I confused fitness
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: with vanity or neglected stewardship altogether? What would faithfulness with
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  Speaker 3: my body actually look like right now? And perhaps most importantly,
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  Speaker 3: if someone watched the way that I care for my body,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: would it tell them anything true about the God that
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: I claim to serve? Now, if that question exposes an
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: area where you know you need to grow, that's exactly
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: why we created the Faithful Fitness Assessment. Take the assessment
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: and get an honest picture of where you are right now.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: From there, you can reserve your spot for our Faithful
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: Fitness Next Steps Seminar, which we hold on the first
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Wednesday of every month. We'll help you understand what your
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: assessment is showing you and identify the next faithful step forward.
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  Speaker 3: Because wherever you're starting, there is something you can do
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  Speaker 3: with what God has entrusted to you. And you don't
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  Speaker 3: have to do it alone. You can find the link
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: in the show notes or you can go to faithfulfitness.co
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: slash assessment. All right, without further ado, here's my conversation
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  Speaker 3: with Rhino and the Bat.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: What's up, YouTube? It's your boy again. Come back to
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: another video on this channel. As always, I'm the Rhino,
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: and today we have a special guest, Alex Van Houten.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: I think I said your name correctly there.
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  Speaker 2: Close. Van Houten.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Houten. Sorry. I apologize.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: No worries, brother.
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  Speaker 4: So, Coach Alex has a personal journey in wrestling with
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: a painful genetic disorder called L-hydrodylo. Again, I think I
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: totally butchered that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: That's a tough one. Ehlers-Danlos.
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  Speaker 4: Helios Daniels taught him the discipline is 1% better daily
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  Speaker 4: and gave him the passion to help others to do
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: the same. Coach Alex completed his undergrad at Vanderbilt University
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: in 2010, focusing on chemistry and psychology. In the years since,
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  Speaker 4: he has earned a certification in personal training, corrective exercise,
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: performance enhancement, and behavior change through the National Academy of
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Sports Science, also known as NASH. He's also written multiple
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: peer-reviewed articles for the International Sports Science Association, say that
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: 10 times fast, and published over 500 star episodes. Hopefully
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: we can be the 500th first. He's also a certified nutritionist,
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. otherwise known
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: as IIN, and has professionally coached in a personal trainer
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: since 2005. I think I covered everything.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of gravy for one potato, man.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Let's binge that potato. Welcome to the show.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Hey, man. Thanks so much for having me. I'm looking
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: forward to this conversation.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, sir. So for those of us who don't know
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  Speaker 4: what Again, I want to totally butch this. Elhiderdianlose syndrome
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: is what is that?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ehlers-Danlos. It's a genetic disorder.
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  Speaker 3: And it's a very strange disorder in that it affects
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  Speaker 3: so many different systems in the body, but it has
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: one very small cause. And that is it's a genetic
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: disorder that makes my body really bad at bringing collagen
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: into connective tissues. So a very simple way of saying
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: it is I should have tissues, hopefully like you, the rhino,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: that are put together like Kevlar, lots of good connections
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: in the tissues. But instead, my skin, my ligaments, my tendons,
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  Speaker 3: even my digestive tissues, they're missing some connections.
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  Speaker 2: They're missing some junctions of collagen. And so that makes
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  Speaker 2: them very stretchy.
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  Speaker 3: And they're very prone to injury, very prone to being
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  Speaker 3: displaced and stretched beyond what they should be. And that
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: causes all sorts of things from pain and difficulty doing
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  Speaker 3: just normal everyday things to digestive issues and immune system
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: problems trying to repair the damage.
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  Speaker 2: And so it's a very rough disorder. Right.
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  Speaker 4: And as previously mentioned, you wrestle. What kind of wrestling?
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  Speaker 3: Well, that's just the way I love to wrestle, by
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  Speaker 3: the way. Jiu-Jitsu is part of my background.
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  Speaker 4: That's what I wanted to go towards, too.
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  Speaker 3: That's the way I would describe what it's like. And
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  Speaker 3: it's not just Ehlers-Danlos. There's probably somebody listening who wrestles
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  Speaker 3: with their own chronic issues. We're all our own snowflakes, right?
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  Speaker 3: But that's what it's like to wake up every day
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  Speaker 3: with a body that doesn't feel like it's working right.
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  Speaker 3: It feels like you're wrestling through how to make the
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  Speaker 3: most out of your day. And so when I say
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  Speaker 3: I've wrestled with this genetic disorder, I mean that I'm, I'm.
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  Speaker 2: Dealing with it every day. Although I love martial arts.
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  Speaker 3: And part of the reason that Ehlers-Danlos was really hard
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  Speaker 3: on me growing up was doing martial arts, but getting
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  Speaker 3: injured all the time.
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  Speaker 2: That was a really hard thing to work around.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that feeling. I'm also a martial artist.
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  Speaker 4: And like you, I'm also a Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Very cool. Very cool.
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't give myself enough credit to say that I'm
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  Speaker 3: a practitioner.
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  Speaker 2: I just love to roll when people will roll with me.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, same here. Same here. That's it.
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  Speaker 3: My personal study was more in American kickboxing. Aikido and
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  Speaker 3: Kung Fu. But then when you get in the floor
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  Speaker 3: with somebody, all that kind of goes out the window
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  Speaker 3: when you're trying not to get submitted.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah. My background is in kickboxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: and I have a blue belt in Krav Maga.
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  Speaker 2: That's it. Oh, fantastic. What a brutal way to fight.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. And funny enough is that I started my martial
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  Speaker 4: arts career a year after my second knee surgery.
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  Speaker 3: It's not a bad way to rehabilitate things. I know
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: it sounds weird, but if you don't use it, you
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: lose it, man.
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  Speaker 4: Exactly. Kind of moving on, with your personal journey that
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: started with Helo's Daniel Syndrome, what was the moment you
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  Speaker 4: realized your life wasn't going to follow the quote-unquote normal path?
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, so I didn't know I had it until
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: the middle of my 20s. So up until that point,
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  Speaker 3: I just wrestled with so many injuries, you know, and
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: not even doing anything stupid. I wish I could say
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: it would be like, man, I wish I could tell
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: you that I fought a bear. And that's why I'm
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: walking around in crutches right now. But I just stepped
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: funny off the sidewalk. That's where we're at.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: You know, that was kind of growing up with it.
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  Speaker 3: But the moment that I realized that things were different
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: for me, that this wasn't just like, hey, you know,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: stupid injuries here, stupid injuries there, you.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Know, track practice hurt me, that sort of stuff.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Was in the middle of my 20s, I was training
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: for the American Ninja Warrior. So I wanted to be
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: on the show. It was a bucket list item that
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I was training for. And so I fell off a
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: climbing wall and I landed funny on my foot and
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: I dislocated my ankle. So I looked down and my
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: foot is not facing the correct direction, right? Well, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the pain hadn't hit me yet and I have a
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: pretty high pain tolerance. I'd wrestled with it most of
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: my life. So when I looked down and I saw
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: my foot wasn't pointing the right direction, I'm like, that's
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: not good. So I reached down and I grabbed it
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and I snapped it back in place. And my friend
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: who was with me, he threw up. He was not
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: helpful at all.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And so I'm like, dude, I need you to go get.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: The front desk person. Like you clean yourself up. I'm
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: about to go into shock. So anyway, he, you know,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: we do this stuff and I'm poor mid twenties. Don't
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: have my, I don't even have medical insurance and stuff.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm not going to the doctor.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I can walk. It just hurts. So, you know, I
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: start hopping around. And I make an appointment for.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: The next day to go see somebody and get an
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: x-ray because I'm like, man, if I've got a broken bone,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: I need to, maybe I might not need to have surgery.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: It was just a mess.
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  Speaker 3: So I go in, I get on the table, I
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: jump in on one foot and I sit down and
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: they're like, why are you here today?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: And so I tell them the story.
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  Speaker 3: Doctor comes in after my x-ray and he says, Alex,
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  Speaker 3: I've never seen this before.
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  Speaker 2: And I was like, what's that?
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  Speaker 3: And he said, He said, do you have Ehlers-Danlos?
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  Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know. What's, what's Ehlers-Danlos?
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Like, I'm again, I'm thinking like, this is going to
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: cost me like 300 bucks.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I've got work to do. I just need you to
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: tell me if it's broken.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: He said, I've never seen a dislocation that didn't result
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: in some sort of break in your ankle and you
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: have no breaks. So you must have extremely stretchy tendons
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: and ligaments that allowed your foot to do this without
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: snapping a bone. And so he did the, he did the,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: it's called the Brighton scale, which is a mobility assessment.
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  Speaker 3: And from there, there was a process to confirm and
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: come to find out my mom was actually in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: process of being tested as well. And so it was
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: confirmed that this runs in my family. And from there
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: on out, both of my sisters have been diagnosed with
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: it as well. And so it was that point that
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: put something in me that said, hmm, your body, there's
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: nothing wrong with you in the sense that you can
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: do things. But something's different about.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: The way you you need to take care of you from,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: you know, the general population. And from there on out.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: I started wrestling with this psychological idea. There's that word
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: wrestling again, because it's important. Hey, I have this thing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: It changes the way my body does things. And what
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: am I going to do with that?
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: And so that was the moment that I realized something
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: was going to be different about how I had to
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: live my life.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: Okay. On a slightly different note, did you make it
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: onto American Ninja Warrior or no?
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: Man twice i got to the executive round of selection
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: so a lot of people don't know this about american
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: ninja warrior it's a it's a tv show right like
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: you like you see it on tv you don't realize
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: that they're casting they're saying like can you act is
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: your story compelling enough does this mesh with the audience
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: do you fit the right demographic all those things right
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: so uh both of the years that i applied i
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: got to the executive round i was i was in
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: the last pool of people to get picked And I
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: just didn't.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Make the final cut. So nope, I haven't gotten to compete.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: And if I were to walk on, apparently that's like
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: a 36-hour endeavor standing in line. And ain't nobody got
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: time for that, or at least I don't.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So maybe someday. Yeah.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: You often talk about becoming 1% better daily. Where did
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: that philosophy come from? And why 1% instead of 90%
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: or 50% or something massive like that?
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've been in the fitness industry for over
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: 20 years, right? And what I've noticed when I work
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: with people is that we can picture complete transformation for ourselves.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Like we could see, like I'm working with a lady
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: this morning who she saw the Terminator movies back when
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: she was like 20. And Sarah Connors, in her mind,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: was like the way a woman should look.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: I agree.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, she's in her late 40s now.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: And when I'm like, hey, what are we working to accomplish?
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: What do you want to see for yourself? She's like,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you know what? I would really like to look like
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Sarah Connors from the first Terminator, right? And so we
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: can picture that, right? We can picture this intense transformation
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: for ourselves. But that's actually one of the things that's
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: wrong with the fitness industry. Because you can find somebody
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: who will sell you that. And they'll say, yes, you're
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: going to be Sarah Connors. All you got to do
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: is take this supplement, eat this food, do these workouts,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: do all this stuff, and you can do it. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: so you're like, okay, great. And so you get the
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: program and you're like, I'm going to start tomorrow. But, well,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: are you going to stick with it?
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Probably not. Because that's not the way we're wired.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: When we're talking about health and fitness, we're talking about
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: the daily habits that we become over time, and our.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: Body adapts to those things.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: And so what I've found, and this is related in
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: the psychological literature and in things like the study of
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: the biggest loser, if you're interested in talking through that
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: study together, what we've found is human beings are not
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: capable of transforming everything in their life all at once,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: and it sticks.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: It doesn't work that way.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: What actually changes us over time, and this is true
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: of get rich quick schemes, right? How many millionaires do
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: you know? They didn't get there overnight, most of them.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: The average millionaire that exists in the Western world got
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: there by putting a little bit of money away every
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: day and riding compounding interest. And the same thing happens
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: with your body. When you make very small changes on
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: a regular basis, either things you need to be doing
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: that you're not already doing, so let's start, or Or
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: things you are doing that you need to stop doing.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: They're not good for you. They're not helping you.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Whether we're adding things that are good or taking away
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: things that aren't good. When you actually do that every day,
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: then that compounds over time. And that's actually something that
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: people can do. Like we can actually make those changes.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: That's the 1%. It's not perfect measure, but it's a
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: small amount, right?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: It's a small change. And it compounds over time so
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: that when you actually make shifts and changes and stick
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: with that, that actually adapts you, mind and body. And
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: that's something you can build on and grow from.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: That makes sense. This kind of reminds me of the
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Japanese philosophy, Kaizen. I think it's pretty much the same
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: philosophy you're holding as well.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right. The Kaizen, I was introduced to that
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: through martial arts. But but same idea. It's the same
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: exact idea. It's like what did Bruce Lee say? I
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: don't fear the man who practices a thousand kicks. I
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: fear the man who's practiced one kick a thousand times
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: because like kind of monster is going to do his
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: ten thousand roundhouse kicks like that guy's going to take
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: your chin out.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: And that's that's the same idea in your life. When
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: you take the things that matter and make a difference
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: and you actually start practicing them consistently, you grow. And
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: that's both neurologically true and how we adapt, but it's
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: also physiologically true and how our tissues and our cells
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: adapt to things.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Okay. That makes a lot of sense to me. Kind
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: of looking back on your health issues with the genetic
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: disorders and stuff, looking back on your life thus far
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: with all the stuff you struggle with health wise not
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: wise would you say your genetic disorder became one of
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: your greatest gifts in your life or no.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I would say that my children and my wife would
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: be would be paramount gifts if I'm comparing things right
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: yeah so I but I would say it has been
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a gift to me there's a there's a very deep faith-based,
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: but also philosophical idea, that humility is a basis for
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: admiration and strength. There's actually a line from the New
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Testament where the Apostle Paul is saying, like, I'm so
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: bad at everything.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: I'm weak all the time.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: But it's through my weakness that God shows himself strong.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: And similarly, I would say, you know, If I deadlift
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: 400 pounds, I'm 165 pounds.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not a huge guy.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: But if I deadlift 400 pounds, that's not like a
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: feat of Olympic strength. Nobody's going to, it's not breaking
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: any world records. It's not unimpressive, but it's not a
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: feat of strength, right? But if you know that there
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: have been times in my life that I can't put
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: my shoes on because I'm in so much pain that
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: leaning over is impossible, right? And if you know that
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I've struggled with migraines and getting out of bed at
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: one point in time was just terrible and difficult for me.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: If you knew those things about me, then seeing me
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: deadlift 400 pounds is like, wow, that's admirable. That guy
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: has taken what's gone on in his body and worked
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: to make the most of it. And the same could
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: be said of my clients. I have so many clients
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I've worked with over the years that if you just
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: knew their story, The fact that they got up and
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: went for a walk today and can do that is
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: just mind-blowing and admirable. So I would say that Ehlers-Danlos
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: has been a very humbling thing for me. And that humility,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: but also that, I hesitate to call it a handicap,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: but that having the hand stacked against you sometimes is
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: actually its own gift, lest you become prideful or rely
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: on your own strength on a regular basis.
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: That's a really nice way of putting all that stuff.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't have been able to say it better. With
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: that being said, what advice would you give someone or
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: some people who felt like life dealt them a bad
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: hand or they keep getting kicked in the butt or
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: whatever else you want to call that?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Right, right. Yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: You know, my grandfather, he passed several years ago, but
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: he taught me to play poker. You know, poker, like
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: five-card draw was one of his favorites.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say I'm a great poker player, but yeah.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Me neither.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: My lessons ended at age 12. But you get your cards, right?
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: You get five cards. And then you look at your
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: hand and you're like, well, I mean... Sometimes you get
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: a good hand, sometimes you get a bad hand. You
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: discard a few cards and you get some more and
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: then you play the game.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: You don't get to say, oh, no, pause, everybody. My
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: hand sucks. Redo.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: You don't get to do that. He would say, you
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: have to play the best game you can with the
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: hand you've been dealt. And we have to do the
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: same thing with our body.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: This is your life. This is the one body you get.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And whether.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: you have a genetic predisposition to look like a Greek
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: god without trying, or you have the genetic predisposition toward
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: obesity and diabetes and.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Pain in your joints or whatever. Whatever hand you were dealt,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: this is your life.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And what's really cool is you're not stuck on either
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: end of that spectrum. You can actually, the body has
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: adaptive powers in it.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: It's called epigenetic adaptation.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I can pick up some weights and I can train
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: my muscles to be stronger to support my joints when
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: my tendons and ligaments are failing them.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: I can do that. I have the capacity to do that.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: It's not easy.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: It's not always fun, but I can do that. The
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: same thing is true of any body wrestling with Something that, well,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, you didn't choose the hand you were dealt,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: but you have the opportunity to make the most of that.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: You have the opportunity to take the things that are
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: in your control, like the food that you feed yourself
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: or the rest you do or don't get or how
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: you move and whether or not that's good for you
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: over time. And you actually do have the capacity to.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: to make changes on those fronts. And that's the other
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: thing I like about 1% Better Daily. I've never found
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: a single person, regardless of their fitness level, where I say,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: all right, are you perfect?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Is everything in your body perfect?
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: And they're like, no. Okay, could you improve a little?
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: Could you make things a little better? And everybody, every
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: single time, always says, yeah, I could. Like, you know it.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: You know there's something you can improve. And it's hard
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: sometimes to make yourself do the thing. And it's hard
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: sometimes to know where to start. But you do know
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: things could get better. And so what I would say
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: to that person is, if you're still breathing, God's not
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: done with you yet. You still have a job to
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: do here, and you still have a life that you
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: can live if you would choose to do it.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: Okay, that makes sense, actually. And kind of moving forward
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: on a parallel note to more of the psychological and
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: behavioral change, I know you're, or at least I heard
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: you're pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology. what have you
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: learned about the human behavior that surprised you the most
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: and surprised you the least?
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: The thing that's least surprising to me is that we're
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: really bad at doing what we say we want to do.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: And the psychological literature bears this out. When somebody says
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: something as simple as, I have diabetes, so I need
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: to cut sugar out of my life.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's, that's a one for one.
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: If I have diabetes, that means my body is not
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: regulating blood sugar very well. And it's not just like, Oh,
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: you might hurt sometimes. It's like, you could go blind.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: You can lose a foot. You can go into a
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: diabetic coma.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. And yet cheesecake is so tasty. Right. And,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and soda and, and all the stuff. Yeah. Right. Right. And,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: and so, and so somebody could literally have their life
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: on the line.
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: And yet still struggle to do the thing that would
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: do well there. Now, the thing that I found most
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: surprising is the other side of that coin, which is
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: why don't we do that?
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Why would we not do that?
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So there was an interesting study done on individuals who
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: have to take a medication to keep their body from
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: rejecting their organ implant.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: So let's say I get a kidney.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I heard about like anti-rejection medication.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I get a kidney and all I have to do
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: every day is take a pill to make sure that
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: my immune system doesn't reject the kidney that I got.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: Correct.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: And so there's a study that tracks adherence to this.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: It's literally a pill.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: For my health. One pill every day for my health. Yeah.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: And adherence to this is less than 50%. Right? So
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: like I get an organ.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: All I have to do is take a pill and
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: make sure that I don't reject said organ. Adherence to
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: this behavior is less than 50%. But this is the kicker.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: In the psychological study where you take your pet to
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: the veterinarian.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: And they need to take a pill every day for
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: their health.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Adherence to that is over 90%. Okay.
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: And so you have to ask, and this is the
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: surprising thing, why in the hell, and I mean that literally,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: do I love my dog more than I love myself?
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: I was about to ask that same question.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Why would I care for something other than myself greater
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: than I would care for myself?
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: And that's the thing I would say that I've learned
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: that's most surprising is that from a psychological perspective, we
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: are very bad at taking good care of ourselves, but
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: it's not because we're incapable and general. It's because we
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: don't see ourselves as valuable as we see other things
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: that we love.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And that's very interesting.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: Right. So, kind of offshooting on that, how does one
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: change that kind of mindset?
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, personally, I believe this is a faith question.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: Not everybody comes to the same conclusion, but for me, personally,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: it becomes a faith question because it's really the question
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: of where do I derive my value?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: What makes me valuable, right?
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: And so from a faith perspective, my answer to that
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: and the answer that's biblical is because God made you.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: He doesn't make mistakes. If he did, you wouldn't be here.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: You'd be like, oh, dang it. No, no, go back
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: to the drawing board with this one, right? And so
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: if you believe that, If you believe that you are
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: valuable because you exist, like your existence is the proof
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: that there's value to you, then it follows, okay, what
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: do you do with that? Did you choose to exist?
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Did you choose your genetic heritage? Did you choose to
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: be born to the parents you were born? No, you
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: didn't choose any of those things. So what's the correct
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: disposition toward that? And so in my book, I wrote
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: a 40-day devotional to help people square the circle between
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: their faith and their fitness. The correct disposition is, I'm
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: going to make the most out of what I've been given.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Whatever that means.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: Whether I've been given a little or a lot, I'm
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: going to make the most out of what I've been given.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: I believe that's the answer to the question. Why wouldn't
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: I take my pill to keep my kidney from being rejected?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Because I don't believe that I'm valuable. I don't believe
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: that I'm worth caring for. And so the question becomes,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: why am I valuable? And what am I willing to
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: do about that?
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so I'm a Hindu, to be absolutely honest.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: In Hinduism, you hear something similar to what you express
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: in the Christian Bible. So we can kind of relate
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: in that sense.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you don't have that, then, I mean,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: why would you take the pill every day? Why not
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: take care of your dog?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: And many people, their health and fitness, they would say
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: they're valuable. But the way they treat themselves shows that
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: they're not.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Right. Kind of going back to a point you made earlier,
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: why do intelligent or at least smarter people often know
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: what they want exactly, but they tend to fail doing it?
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: Or kind of opposite to that question is like, Sometimes
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: we see, at least I have seen people who are
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: not as smart or less smart than I am, I'm
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: not sure how to exactly say that, get promoted faster
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: and go up the corporate ladder than someone who's actually
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: intelligent doing the work.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, intelligence doesn't necessarily translate to action. And that's
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: one of the difficult things about measuring intelligence. This is
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: true psychologically. When I measure intelligence in the traditional sense,
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: What that means is I'm measuring how quickly my brain
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: can find patterns and solve problems, right? So I can
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: know everything there is to know about how a squat
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: is good for my legs, right? I can know that
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: the glutes are the primary mover and that the core
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: activates two and a half times more in a squat
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: than it does in a crunch. I can know that
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: if I do 10 repetitions under a heavy load, I'm
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: taxing the mitochondrial density of my cells and my body
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: is going to respond by increasing how much sarcoplasm I have, right?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: And I'm speaking in higher exercise science terms to make
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: a point. I can know all of those things, but
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: I still haven't done a squat. Right. And until I
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: do the squat, none of those benefits come to me, right?
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: I can't think myself into the adaptation that changes me, right?
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: So knowing.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: in doing are not the same thing. And so this
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: is really important. In the exercise world, there's all kinds
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: of information about how to do things. And we get dopamine,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: we humans get dopamine when we gather knowledge. The dopamine says, hey,
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: you've done something important here, right? So we get the satisfaction,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: we get the pleasure of accomplishment, but we still haven't
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: put any of the knowledge into practice. And so we've
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: foraged information But we haven't practiced the information. And so
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons that very smart people really struggle
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: with this is that they know something needs to change.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: But what they do is they gather more information rather
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: than actually moving on what they already know. And it
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: feels like you're accomplishing something. But the result is I've
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: just learned more facts, not I have achieved the adaptations
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: that I know I can achieve if I put these
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: things into action. So like the first thing I recommend
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: people do who aren't exercising currently is literally do anything.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you do.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Just go do it. Like go for a 15 minute walk.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: You know, go go do some squats. Go try to
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: do a push up.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Right. And like how many sets, how many reps? No,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: don't ask stupid questions. Just do it. Just do it.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: Just spend 15 minutes doing it. Spend 30 minutes doing it.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: And once you have some data, then you can start
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: applying the intelligence to the process. But nothing is going
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: to replace the process of actually doing it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: Okay, that makes sense. Okay, I'm moving forward a little bit.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: How much of success comes from motivations versus systems?
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Motivation is overhyped, right? Motivation applies to that dopamine process.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: When motivation instead of action creates new systems, then we're
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: going to win. So here's an example. I was working
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: with this young guy recently. He just became a dad.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: He's wrestling with sleep deprivation. He's newly married, you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden he got really motivated because
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: of a health scare to get in shape. And he said, hey, Alex,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: I do this all the time.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I get really motivated.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: I start hitting the gym and I eat well, and
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: it lasts like two weeks. So how do I keep
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: it from only lasting two weeks? Because like, I really
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: do want this to be the way I do things.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: And so what I said is, hey, while you're really motivated,
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: I need you to find an event to train for
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: and sign up, register for it and put it on
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: the calendar. So he looked around, he found a 5k
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: local and was like, okay, he's never run a 5k before.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Like he doesn't even run. He was just like, I'm
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: going to do a 5k.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: And so he put it on the calendar and it was,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: it was like four months in the future. And I
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: was like, all right, here's the deal. Like that's on
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: the calendar, hell or high water, you're doing it. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: now every week, whether you're motivated or not, you're going
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: to go train for it. You have something to train for.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: And so what I told him, and this is true
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: in the martial arts world, you have a tournament coming up.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: You don't miss class because, because you don't want to
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: go get choked in the tournament in the first.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: Round, you know, like, Again, why does it sound familiar?
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: And so motivation is very powerful when you're motivated. And
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: that's a great time to create a new system or
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: to develop a new level of accountability or to connect
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: with a program that's going to keep you honest and
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: moving forward when you're not motivated, right? But motivation fades.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: And so as long as you understand that, hey, I'm
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: motivated right now. I don't need to go pour that
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: into a hardcore workout.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I want you to work out.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: But I need to pour that into something that's going
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: to make sure I'm still working out four months from now.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: That's where motivation can be really valuable is implementing a
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: new system or putting something on the calendar that's going
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: to create accountability.
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: Right. So, yeah, that's actually true for me because like
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: I know When I was doing my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: tournament many years ago, I kept training like crazy, improving
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: my cardio, lifting weights. And I'm like, I'm just doing
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: this just for the tournament. I'm not doing this for
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: anything else. I'm like, what?
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And that's valuable because you know what you
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: felt like. You know what you did.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: And so now you have a schema in your life
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: for when I'm really serious, I can do this. When
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I'm really serious, I can eat this way. When I'm
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: really serious, I can carve the time out. And then
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: it becomes a struggle to figure out, okay, how do
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: I stay serious about this? What is inspiring, not motivating,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: inspiring to me that would keep me serious about this thing?
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: And you kind of hinted at this next question already,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: which is why are habits so difficult to change even
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: though we know they're hurting us?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, habits, if you strip away the language–
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: And we just talk about the physiology of a habit.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: A habit is a very strongly.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Ingrained neurological pattern that doesn't require your consciousness in order
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: to execute. So let's take a simple example, good, bad,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: or indifferent. When you sit down in your car, I'm old,
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: some people are younger, and so they have this little
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: button they push and the car starts.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: But I'm old enough to remember.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: Where the only way to get a car to start
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: is stick the dang key in the ignition and turn.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: It on, right?
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: One of us might be in that group too.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough. So that's a habit.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Like I sit down in my car, I put
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: the key ignition, I turn to start and I don't
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: even think about it.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: There's no thought process like, oh, where's the key go?
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Here it is. And that's neurologically, that's not just a
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: thought pattern.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: It's a neurological structure in my brain where all of
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: these neurons are connected. sit in car, reach for keys,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: put key in ignition, turn, don't hold, right? And I
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: didn't even realize that this is a habit or a
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: neurological pattern until I started trying to teach my oldest
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: son how to start the car for me. So he's like,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: he's got the key and it's like, you put it
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: in the thing and he's like, he's really trying to
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: find the spot. I don't even have to think about it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: I don't have to look, but he's really having a
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: hard time with it, right? And then when he turns,
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: it's like... you know, cause he's turned it too far and, uh,
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: and like, bro, chill out. Like you just, you just
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: turn it and you, and then you let it run.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: Same thing is true of bad habits.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: True.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: So when we do something that's not good for us,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: but it's reinforced again and again and again, then, uh, I'll,
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: I'll pick on, uh, people who drink energy drinks after lunchtime.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: How about that? So I'm, I'm a little tired and,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: It's 3 p.m.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: How do you know what was in my flask? Oh,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: got it.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: So I didn't mean to pick on you. And I
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: get it.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: You know, at 3 p.m., you get a lull in
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: your energy. It's been a long day. Maybe you didn't
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: get enough sleep. Maybe you didn't drink enough water. Maybe
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: you haven't eaten anything. Maybe you didn't exercise. Maybe everything's good.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: You just got tired.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: And so you get used to reaching for something that
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: gives you a buzz. A little bit of caffeine, a
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: little bit of dopamine, a little bit of sugar, whatever,
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: B vitamins, all this stuff.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: And I wouldn't begrudge anybody some of that earlier in
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: the day.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: But here's something that happens. My circadian rhythm should be
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: starting to shut down as the day goes on. Correct.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: That allows me, it's mitigated by something called the pineal gland,
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: that allows me to produce melatonin. It allows me to
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: get into deep stages of recovery for sleep, right? Right.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: And all I have to do is start drinking energy
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: drinks before I create an entire neurological robust system of
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: dependence on stimulants to get through the afternoon.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: And then that messes up my sleep.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: True.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: And the next day it gets easier to do that.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: And the next day it gets easier to do that.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Fast forward for two years and you say, all right,
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: maybe because I had this conversation with coach Alex, I'm
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: going to stop drinking energy drinks at 3 PM.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: And then you go to do that. Well, what you'll
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: notice is, let's say you've been driving to the gas
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: station to do it. You'll end up in the parking
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: lot and be like, how did I get here? Oh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: it's the habit of driving there. Or you bought them
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: at the grocery store.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you have a case of it in your car.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: You set it in the cart and you're like, wait, no,
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing that right now. Why?
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: Well, all of these things have added up over time
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: to create a habit. And getting rid of that habit
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: is not just making the decision, I'm not drinking energy drinks.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Getting rid of that habit is also rewiring all of
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: those things that lead to the energy drink thing. And
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: we're talking about sleep habits. And we're talking about hydration.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: And we're talking about not buying it.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: At the store.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: And we're talking about maybe you just like to drink
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: something at 3 p.m. It doesn't need to be an
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: energy drink. So what are you going to replace it with, right?
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: And so there's all this stuff. When people say, I
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: want to change a bad habit, they don't know that
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: there's all this slow-moving train momentum that hinges on this
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: habit that has to be 1% bettered backwards.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: And that's not an easy thing to do.
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: Correct. And it seems like the same can be true
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: for coffee or caffeine products as well.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And foods. I have a chip problem. I like chips.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Chips are easy to eat and they're very tasty, right?
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: And my problem is once I open a bag of chips,
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: I don't stop eating them. I can eat the entire bag.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Like a serving is one bag. And I'm not talking
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: about the kid size, sir. I'm talking about the big bag, right?
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: So the way that I make sure that this habit
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: isn't a problem is I don't buy chips at the
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: grocery store.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Problem solved.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: But if I have chips in my pantry, bro... Coach
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Alex does not have whatever bone in his body disciplines
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: the serving size of chips.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I don't have it, man.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: Chips go to my pantry to die a very quick
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: and painless death. And so that's important to know about yourself.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: It doesn't just have to be stimulants and caffeine and stuff.
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: It can be food products. It can be a lack
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: of exercise. It could be over-exercising. You could get in
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: the habit of every time I try to exercise, I
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: overdo it and I hurt myself, right?
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: You could be that guy. Oh, says the rhino. Yeah. Headstrong.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I love it. And so just recognizing that.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: When these things that aren't serving us, when they're normal
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: and going, okay, why is that normal? How do I
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: change that so that normal is better for me?
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: And that's definitely a process.
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense. And you mentioned discipline earlier in
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: the conversation. So what's the biggest misconception about discipline and
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: what is the biggest item that people use as discipline?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I think one of the things we need to understand
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: about discipline is it grows in practice over time. When
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: people want to discipline themselves, when people want to say.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to get
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: good at it. Right.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Then they don't understand that in the same way that like,
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: if you're going to start squatting, you got to start
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: light and you got to teach all these muscles to
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: work together as a unit and you got to use
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: the right muscles and you got to be nice to
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: your back and you need a few days of recovery
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: and that sort of thing. Discipline is born out of
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: The anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for asserting your will
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: over all the other things that don't generally answer to you.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: So as an example, you and I probably have food
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: moving in our digestive tract right now. That's called peristalsis.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: We're not telling it to happen right now.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not.
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Maybe you are, but I'm not. I'm not like, hey,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: move that past the small intestine.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: It's time. It just happens. It's an unconscious process in
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: the mind.
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: Like breathing. Exactly.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: And neuropsychologists believe that about 98% to 99% of the
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: things that happen in our brain are not conscious.
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: They are happening in the background. They are just running
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: the system. Breathing can be like that. You can take
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: control of your breathing, but if you're not thinking about it,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: you're probably still breathing. And the same thing is said
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: about all sorts of things in the body. The anterior
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: cingulate cortex exists between the conscious cognitive process of the
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: frontal lobes and the automatic processes that are happening, we say,
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: in the back of the brain, but in things like
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: the cerebellum and things like your emotional centers of the brain,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: the amygdala. And the anterior cingulate cortex can get denser,
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: more cells, more power in the brain, the more you
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: use it. And so what we're finding in the neuropsychological
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: literature is individuals who do hard things that they don't
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: feel like doing get better at doing things that are hard,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: whether they feel like doing it or not.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: And hard is suspect, right?
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Because hard for me might be going for a walk today,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: or hard for me might be.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Running a marathon. Who knows what hard for me is?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: It's subjective. It depends.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: But the process that overcomes hard things is not subjective.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: It's specific to you. And whether or not you have
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: more cells in that area or not, you're able to
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: exert more discipline. You're able to exert more control over yourself.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: So what I would say earlier, I was talking about humility,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: that Ehlers-Danlos has humbled me. Many times in fitness journeys,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: we just need to be a little more humble. And say, hey,
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: I'm working with, I don't know what it is. I'm
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: working with three cells in my anterior cingulate cord. Like
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: I have zero discipline. So I got to start small.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Small things are hard for me.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: And that's okay. Like it's okay.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: But you're never going to get better at doing hard
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: things unless you can be faithful in the small things.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: You can handle the small things. And if you're humble
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: and honest enough to say, okay, look, I'm basically useless
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: at discipline. But there's this thing, and I'm pretty sure
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: I can do it. I just got to stick with it.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: If you do that thing, your anterior cingulate cortex gets
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: more dense. You get more cells populated in that area.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: And then you can actually become more disciplined in things
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: that were completely out of your ability before. And so
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: I would say that the biggest misconception about discipline is
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: that you can just wake up tomorrow and do it.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Most people can't.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: Most people haven't developed that part of them.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: And so it's just like a muscle. You have to
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: develop it over time.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: You will get more and more disciplined if you can
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: find the thing that you're willing to do. It's not
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: easy for you, but you can. And as you exercise
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: that over time, you'll get better and better at being
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: disciplined in larger things.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: That's kind of what, and I know you may make
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: fun of me for this, but this is kind of
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: what David Goggins always says, that you have to get
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: hard and keep yourself doing the hard things and all
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: that stuff. So it's kind of What you just explained
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: to me was kind of reminding me of what he says.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the same process. Goggins isn't wrong.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: The hard part for Goggins is many people will look
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: at him and go.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: You're crazy.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: I hear you, Goggins, but I can't run for 24
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: hours straight without stopping. And therefore, that person will feel
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: as though they can't. But remember, the hard is subjective.
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: Maybe hard for you is.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Going for a walk today. Fine.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Whatever that is. Do the hard thing. The hard thing
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: for you. Not the hard thing for somebody else. Not
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: the hard thing for Goggins.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Good luck. But do the hard thing for you. Exactly.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: And once you do the hard thing for you, you
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: can actually grow in your capacity for what hard means.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: And in a sense, you can reinvent yourself that way,
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: I guess, is another way of taking that.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: The way.
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: like science teaches us this, everything in you is going
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: to change in the next three years.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Everything. So I'm holding my finger right now.
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Right. The good finger. I'm not flipping out. So I'm
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: holding my finger right now.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: The way my body works and the way your body
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: works is that every cell in this finger will be
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: new three years from now. So every molecule, everything that
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: makes up this finger, all the matter in it, is
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: going to be new. It's not going to be the
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: same old stuff. Those cells die off, they get flushed out,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: all the stuff. And the material is the food that
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: I eat. So I'm literally becoming what I eat over time.
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: And so what happens is I become what.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: I habitually do. The way I've changed my finger over
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: time and what I've eaten to build it out of,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I become that thing. And so, yeah, it's not just.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: rebuilding yourself it's effectively reconstituting you and that's happening all
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: the time in both directions either bad like i'm degenerating
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: over time or i'm growing i'm i'm changing for the
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: better over time.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah that makes sense If someone wants to reinvent herself, themselves,
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: himself over the next, let's say, six months, a year,
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: two years, whatever, where should they start and how should
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: they start?
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: It's a great question.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Whether you're in great shape or not great shape, we
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: partner with Everyday Spy to build a 10-day, and this
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: is a good start, 10 days is not a.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Long time, but it's not nothing either.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: We partnered to make a 10 day challenge and it's
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: free to anybody who wants to check it out. The
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: link should be in your show notes for people to
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: check out, but it's.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: Called Operation PowerFit.
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: And the reason it matters, whether you're completely out of
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: shape and don't know where to start, or maybe you're
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: an athlete and you're really good at all things physical
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: and you feed your body like a boss and all that.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: The Operation PowerFit is about your mitochondrial health. Every single
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: one of the cells in your body have mitochondria and
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: organelle in it that creates ATP.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: From the food that you eat.
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: And so ultimately, if those aren't healthy, those aren't putting
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: out good energy molecules, if you don't have as many
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: of them as you should, that sort of thing, then
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: what happens to you over time is you feel fatigued.
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: You're going to have less energy to do things. It
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: actually affects your immune system over time. And so I
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: would say start there. If you don't know where to start,
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: you need to start there. Get your body energetic and healthy.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: And there's nothing we're asking you to do in those
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: 10 days that's impossible. It's kind of like that idea
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: of building the the discipline one small piece at a time, right?
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: But if you can get your mitochondria healthy, you can
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: do a lot of things and you'll feel a lot better.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Which means that you'll feel healthy enough to actually do
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: some things that were outside of your purview before.
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: Right. And when you were going through mitochondria on ATP
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: a little while ago, all of a sudden I had
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: flashbacks to freshman year biology. I'm just like, yes, no, no, no,
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: not back there. Not back there. Let's go forward. That's
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: why you saw me like start to freak out a
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: little bit when you started saying that's like, wait, no.
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: That's one of those things where you don't need to
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: know it, just do it. I don't need the knowledge.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: I'll just do it and be healthy. How's that sound?
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: Exactly.
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: And kind of going more into the health and fitness now,
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: you've obviously coached multiple clients over your 20 plus years,
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: 25 plus years.
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: What's the biggest mistake that people have made when trying
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: to get healthy? And what was the biggest surprise when
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: people are trying to get healthy?
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: The the biggest mistake people make in their health often
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: is just they try to do too much too fast
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: okay and so let's say you saw an instagram post
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: or read some research or heard on the news i
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: don't care where where you got this information but you
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: you hear that high intensity interval training helps people drop
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: fat faster than low intensity cardiovascular fitness and so you're.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Like oh Great.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: All I got to do is go really hard for
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds and do that five times.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: And then just do that three days a week. What's
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: like 15 minutes. Sweet.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: And so you go to do that and great. Like
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: that's the studies bear that out in eight weeks. If
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: you do high intensity interval training, you will lose more
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: fat than the person who doesn't do high intensity interval training,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: regardless of your fitness level, whether you're really fit or not.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: Here's the issue though. And this is the thing. An
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: eight-week study does not tell you about how those participants continued.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: And our bodies adapt in a hierarchy. Our nerves adapt
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: really fast. Our muscles adapt second fastest.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: Our tendons and ligaments adapt third fastest. And our bones
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: adapt the slowest. So my nerves and my muscles can
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: adapt in eight weeks. Right.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: To doing high-intensity interval training. They can.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: But my tendons and ligaments, they take much longer. The
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: cellular density is way lower. And this is true whether
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: you have Ehlers-Danlos or not. Tendons and ligaments take longer
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: to adapt. And so if somebody hears, okay, I need
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: to do high-intensity interval training. I'm going to lose fat.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: They do that, and for eight weeks, they're seeing great results.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: And then their knee starts to hurt.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: And they go, oh, man.
• 53:53
  Speaker 3: Then they feel as though They cannot continue their fitness program.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: And so they stop.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: That's a problem because whatever fat you lost is coming
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: back when you stop.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: And so here's what I see.
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: Individuals will do things kind of like the motivation we
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: were talking about earlier. They'll go hard for a period
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: of time. And I mean, it's very admirable. I think
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: that's great. Except they'll do the things that will adapt
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: the tissues that adapt really quickly. at the cost of
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: the tissues that don't adapt very quickly. And so without
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: any patients, you end up with tendonitis, you end up
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: with tendinosis, you end up with stress fractures, you end
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: up with movement imbalances, with pain, right? And so you
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: would say, I tried the fitness thing. It didn't work
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: No, you didn't.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: You tried high intensity interval training and you tried it
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: too fast. And what you needed to do was build
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: a firm foundation first. that you could actually grow from.
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: And so I would say that's the biggest mistake in
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: fitness is trying to do too much too fast and
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: the nerves and the muscles adapt and you start seeing
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: results and it feels great.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: And then you get injured.
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: And then once you're injured, you feel like, Oh, I've
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: tried the fitness thing and it doesn't work for me.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: And really at the end of the day, you just
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: didn't adapt your tendons and ligaments first.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: Exactly. Okay. That makes sense. And you kind of mentioned
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: social media a little while ago. So my question is with,
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: the world and social media full of contradicting slash changing
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: fitness advice. How does one, let's just say starting their
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: fitness career in the middle of their fitness career and
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: towards the end of their fitness career, know what actually
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: works and doesn't work.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: Your body is your best knowledge base, right? So people
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: can say all sorts of things, right? Your body will
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: or won't adapt.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: So at the end of the day, that Instagram influencer,
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: that scientist, that friend of yours who has an opinion,
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: they don't have to live with your body. They don't like,
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: you know, they can tell you to take this thing
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: or tell you to do this thing or whatever, but
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: you have a unique genetic makeup and only your body
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: will tell you if what you're doing is good for
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: you or not.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Now there's, It doesn't always feel great. All right.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Like if you do a great weight training workout and
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: it was good for you, but you're really sore the
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: next day, you're gonna be like, man, this is terrible.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: Or you're like me, you're a masochist. You're like, you're
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: everything's so sore. And you're like, that was awesome. Like, Oh,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: I love this soreness. I know I did something right.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like with your martial arts background, you're probably
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: in the same boat.
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: I was actually, we were doing, I was doing a
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: fitness class yesterday and I told my partner, I only
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: start counting after it starts hurting. That's right.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right.
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: I could do 12 or 20. It doesn't matter until
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: it hurts. And then I start counting.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: So to that point, when you are effectively engaged in
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: your fitness journey, when you're actually exercising, you're actually doing
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: the work and seeing the results, that tells you for
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: you what works for you.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Right?
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: Outside of that, there's some things that are probably outside
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: of your knowledge base that you don't know yet.
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: That's fine. Find a professional you trust.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: And even better, if there's a community involved where you
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: can ask questions and you can pursue your fitness with
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: a bunch of other people who have similar goals. And
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: in our social media spheres today, this is something that
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: Jesus said, you will know them by their fruits, meaning
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: what kind of results does this teaching get you over time?
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: And you'll know them by their fruits.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: If you are getting advice from a 23-year-old Instagram influencer
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: who you've never met and who could care less whether
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: or not you achieve your results, then you're likely going
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: to wrestle with the school of hard knocks. Maybe not,
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: no offense to 23-year-old fitness influencers, but you're likely going
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: to have to learn things the hard way for yourself, right?
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: But if you're working with a professional who's been doing
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: this for 20 years and who has a community of
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: people who have testimonials and actually are moving forward and it's,
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: you know, you actually get to talk to them and
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: ask questions and that sort of thing, then you find
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: that the fruit of what they're teaching people to do
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: is good for them. and can be good for you too.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: So I would say that in our world today, there's
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: a lot of flashy marketing and stuff. And so it's
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: easy to be led astray by different fads and whatnot.
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: At the end of the day, did your body respond
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: well or not? If it didn't, that's not right for you.
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: And if you're looking for the right professional or community
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: to be a part of, then experiencing that and exercising
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: that and seeing the long-term change is the only way you're.
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: Going to know. Right.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: That makes sense, actually, and kind of running on a
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: parallel note to what we've just discussed. What's one piece
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: of advice that almost everybody, if not everybody, gets wrong
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: about health and fitness?
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: I think it's a community project. People think it's an
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: individual thing.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: It's just me.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: And that's because you have to live with you. Again,
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: you are your own snowflake, genetically speaking. and you have
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: to figure that out, right? But if you think of
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: this as a lone wolf project, if you think of
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: this as like, I'm going to get myself in shape,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: I'm going to grow, I'm going to eat well, I'm
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: going to do this stuff, I'm going to be the
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Krav Maga master of the world, whatever. You are sorely mistaken.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: You have mistaken your own personal prowess, and you have
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: also decided.
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: You're going to have a very long learning curve.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: So I believe fitness is a communal project that you
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: have some personal issues that you'll have to wrestle through,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: but it's best practiced together.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: I work out by myself all the time.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: But I also report to.
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: My community on a regular basis, and I mentor and
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: I encourage and grow people.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: I have people in my life who push me and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: help me to grow. Right. And so so I think
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: I think the fitness fitness industry.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: Really gets that wrong, that if you just bought the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: perfect program and then.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Executed it, you'd be fine. It's like, no, I think
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: we need to be.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: Plugged more into people we trust and communities of practice.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: And it sounds like whether you'd articulate it that way
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: or not in the martial arts world.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: That's actually something martial.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: Arts gets really well is that you don't practice by yourself.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: You might do a few things by yourself. Maybe you stretch,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: maybe you do some techniques, you, you get that idea.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: But you still go to class and you still, you
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: still have to fight with somebody. You still have to,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: you still have to hold the bag. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: So in the fitness world, I think that if it's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: going to be long-term, if it's going to be healthy,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: if it's actually going to be sustainable, it's got to
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: be a community project.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: So like you rightfully said, my martial arts background does
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: provide me a little why it takes a village to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: build up somebody. For those of us in the audience
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: who are listening or watching who aren't in martial arts
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: and go to the gym or about to go to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 4: the gym, can you please expand on that?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a huge proponent of things like group classes
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: or having a workout partner, that sort of thing.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: I think that's very powerful.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: Obviously, as a personal trainer of over 20 years, I
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: think personal training can be very powerful on that front.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: But I also realize that resources can be limited and
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: you can also be pretty isolated. You know, maybe you
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: don't get along with everybody in your gym. There's a
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: lot of weird people in the gym. And so what
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: I did for myself, and it's not the only thing
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: that exists in the world, but what I did for
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: myself and for our community is I started an app
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: called Faithful Fitness. And the idea being like, hey, this
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: is a place where you can practice what you need
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: to do in your fitness journey. And you can report
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: to community. You can be a part of challenges. You
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: can get the information you need. You can ask questions,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 3: that sort of stuff without the social media algorithm and politics.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: And so regardless of whether you connect in person, which
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: would be best, that's the most compelling is to be
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: connected in community where you are. But if you can't,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: you know, growing up, I was the weird fitness guy.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: So people thought I was strange. Yeah, they're giving me
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: a hard time about the breakfast I was eating and
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: why I wasn't drinking soda and stuff.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: Fine.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: But you can connect virtually with the community that gets it.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: And that's important.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Right. So kind of going back to your community and your,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: I guess you can say clients, how do you help
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: your clients or clients in general stay consistent when obviously
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: life gets tough? busy and you get pulled into 2000
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: meetings you have to do in like eight hours. Like,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: how do you manage that?
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: Uh, so, so one of the things is, uh, uh,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: Jesus said this in the new Testament, he said, where
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: And so when, when I first started in my business,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: I wanted to help people and I was also, you know,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: dealing with, uh, going to market. And so I gave
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: away a lot of free fitness programs. Like, hey, just
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: let me know what your goals are. I'll create a
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: program for you. You can execute it, right? And so
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: actually I ran this experiment in my business when I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: first started. I gave away almost 100 free programs. And
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: out of those 100 programs, two people actually did it.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: And it was the same personalized process. It wasn't the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: same program. It was the same personalized process I did
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: for everybody. And then when I got more widely known
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: from a virtual training perspective, I sold the same package
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: for $ 199. It was a seven day process. We'll do
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: a health history. We'll program you. It was the same
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: exact thing that I had given for free.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: Okay. So out of a hundred, two people did it. Right.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: So it's a 2% success rate.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: I was, I was counting.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: So selling for $ 199, 10 people purchased, nine people completed
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: the entire package and five continued coaching with me afterward.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: Now you're like, well, Alex, this is a sales funnel.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: No, I want you to understand something about coaching and accountability.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: If I invest my value as a person, I invest
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: what's money represent, time, energy, resources, something that I could
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: have bought with it instead, but I put my money here, right?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: I'll actually do that thing. I'll actually execute that thing, right?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: And so- And so one of the ways that I
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: help my clients is it is an investment. It's a
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: thing you have to put money into in order to
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: continue going. I'm sure as an adherent of your martial
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: arts studio, you have to.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Pay a monthly membership.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: And sometimes you only go this week because you're already
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: paid for it.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: Dang it. I'm paying for this.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: I'm going to show up. I don't want to pay
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: for a class. that I'm not going to, right? And
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: so I would say that one of the things we
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: do for our clients is investment. But the other thing
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: is personal connection because we're learning this in the world
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 3: of AI. Right now, you and I are having a conversation.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: We're real people. AI can't yet act as though you
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: and I are here, but we're not, right?
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: Not yet, not yet.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: Not yet, not yet. And good luck, because I'm a
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: weird dude. It's going to have a real hard time
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: mapping me. I assume the same for you.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: You and me both.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: So that's important. This is a personal connection.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: And the audience who's listening in on this, they, for
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: whatever reason, have a personal connection with us too.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: The thing that's interesting, going back to that example of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: us giving the dog the medication that we wouldn't give ourselves,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: is that personal connection can drive us to do things
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: we wouldn't do otherwise. And so when we talk about coaching,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: many times my clients will do what I'm asking them
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: to do. One, because they know it's good for them. Two,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: because it's in alignment with their goals. But even if
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: they don't feel like it, they don't want to let
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: their coach down.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: And if you've ever had that in a martial arts setting,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: it's I don't want to let my sensei down. He
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: said I could do this. He taught me this thing.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: He's standing over me right now going, what the heck's
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: wrong with you? That's not what I told you to do.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: Do it right. And you're like, yes, sir. And so
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: you do it, right? And that personal connection is very powerful.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: I've had clients tell me after we've worked together for
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: a while, I didn't think I could do that.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: But you said I could. Yeah. And I remember that.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: It sticks with me.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to do that thing. And eventually they
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: do it. I have a guy I'm working with right now.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: He couldn't walk down my driveway 50 yards without severe pain.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: We had to bring a chair down the driveway so
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: he could sit at the end of the driveway. And
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: just a week ago, he finished a 5K, 3.1 miles
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: with no help, unassisted, complete, like all the way through.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: And he would have told you, he's in his late 60s,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: he would have told you I had given up I
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: didn't know that I could do anything more than what
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: I was already doing. I was in too much pain.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: And I told him, hey, you and I are going
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: to hike one day. So I need you to hang
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: with me. I know your body's capable of it. And
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: it's going to suck getting there. But when we're there,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: you're going to be like, whoa, that was cool. And
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: so I think that's the second thing is there's an investment,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: but there's also personal connection. And personal connection will make
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: us do things we wouldn't do by ourselves.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm getting a bunch of text messages from people.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: I apologize for that.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: That's okay. Those are personal connections, I hope.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, personal connections. That's why I wanted to say that.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: So one last question about physical health before we move
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: on to more of the mental health, which you kind
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: of hinted at earlier in my first question for that.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: What's more important, exercise or nutrition? I said we knew
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: this was coming.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's a dumb question.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: Not because you're dumb, but because when we asked that question,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: we're basically saying, well, if I had to.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Do one or the other, which one do I really
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: need to do? Yeah. And so I'll explain it this way.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: I have a son. He's 11 years old and he's
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: a cool kid. If I said to him, hey, Gabriel,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I need you to go out in the backyard and
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: build a tree house. Here's a hammer. Right. So he
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: would go. He's a good kid.
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: He'd go out in the backyard and he'd be like
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: wandering around for a while because he's a little ADD
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: like his dad. And he'd wander around for a while
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: and he'd probably come back within 20, 30 minutes and say, dad,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: where's the wood? Like, what do you want me to
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: build a tree house out of? Where's the wood I'm
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: supposed to use?
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: Right. That's what happens in our body.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: Right. When we exercise with poor nutrition, we are asking
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: our body to adapt to a stressor that we're not supplying.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: It with the material necessary to adapt.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: Whether it's proteins or whether it's vitamins and minerals. When
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: we talk about exercise and nutrition. exercise depends on nutrition
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: for adaptation however in my experience it's actually easier for
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: most people to exercise before they change their nutrition habits
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: Because exercise is actually something I can do. It's something
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: I can check off the list. It's something I can say,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: I wasn't walking and now I am. I didn't lift
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: weights before and now I do. And I can actually
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: see myself getting better at.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: It, right?
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 3: And so exercise, for many of the individuals I work with,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: exercise precedes nutrition change because it's something I can actually do.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: I can sink my teeth into, I can see progress, right?
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: And there's not as much baggage. Whereas nutrition, man, just
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: getting somebody to eat the right breakfast sometimes, there's all
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: this baggage. Oh, my kids are eating this, and I'm
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: supposed to eat that. And oh, I forgot to go
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: grocery shopping. And oh, I don't even like that. And
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: so there's all this stuff, right? So what I would
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: say is they are inseparably important. However, if you don't
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: have good habits in either direction, start with exercise, light.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: And let that drive nutrition change. So I would say
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: you can't separate them as more or less important. And
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: the people who argue, oh, there's a study that says
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: I lose 80% more weight from nutrition than exercise. We
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: can tear that to shreds if you care to. But
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: it's not a very useful construct for people.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: Right. As promised, now we're going to more of the
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 4: mental health side. Which is, this first question you kind
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 4: of hinted at earlier. which is how closely is physical
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: and mental health connected?
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: They're the same thing. I think that's something we've done.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: We've tried to separate the two, even the fact that
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: we have two terms, physical health and mental health, right?
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: Mental health, meaning like depression, anxiety, ADHD, Alzheimer's disease, all
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: the stuff, right? That's just describing the symptoms of bad
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: health as they occur in the brain. But this physiological
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: body of mine is what supplies oxygen and blood and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: nutrients and all that to the brain. So if the
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: mitochondria in my quads are unhealthy, guess what the mitochondria
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: in my anterior cingulate cortex are doing right now?
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: They're also unhealthy.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: They're also oxidized and broken and not outputting good energy, right?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: So they're deeply connected. And for anybody who's interested in
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: the very robust... interesting science around this, I would recommend
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: a book by a guy named Dr. John Rady, who
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: wrote a book called Spark, The Revolutionary New Science of
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: Exercise in the Brain.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: It's a mouthful.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: It was 20 years ago, but very, very, very powerful work.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: And it's the psychiatrist himself showing how you can use
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: exercise to treat mental disorders, not apart from medications and
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: cognitive behavioral therapy, but that it actually is in conjunction with,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: and he spends a lot of good time bearing out
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: the research.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: Right. And kind of going off of that topic, do
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: you think mental health, like anxiety, depression, ADD or whatever,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 4: I'm going to name a few, has become more and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: more common or are we just simply talking about it more?
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: I believe it's more common. I believe it's more common.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: Strangely, we have therapies from a medical perspective that help.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: To prolong our life. like antibiotics.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: There's no exercise that gets you away from streptococcus aureus, right?
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: If you get a strep infection, you can try to deadlift,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: but it's not going to fix your infection, right?
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: Antibiotics are very powerful for that sort of thing.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: Or we have certain medications that, despite cardiovascular disease, can
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: actually help you live longer with cardiovascular disease. And none
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: of those things are bad. So we have this very
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: strange phenomenon where technologically... We.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: Have medically prolonged our life, which is great.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with that. But we also have this
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: strange phenomenon where in our world of abundance, like you
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: and I get to sit down and have this conversation
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: via computer, and we don't have to go work on
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: the railroad.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: Or in the coal mines or somewhere else.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: Or in the coal mines, right? Physically speaking, this is
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: not very demanding.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: Correct.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: What that means for us is in our world of abundance,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: our physical bodies... are getting less and less resilient over time.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: And that lack of resilience is showing up in what
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: we call mental health. It's showing up in depression. It's
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: showing up in anxiety. It's showing up in ADHD. It's
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: showing up in.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: A lot of ways. The research actually bears this out.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: If I wrestle with depression, I am 300% more likely
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: to wrestle with cardiovascular disease.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Seriously?
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: So if I'm in the kind of cardiovascular shape where
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: I don't wrestle with cardiovascular disease, I have significantly less
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: incidence of depression in my life. And so you'd say, oh,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? It's actually
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: the same problem. The lack of fitness in my brain
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: makes me more prone to depression. And the lack of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: fitness is also in my body, which makes me more.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: Prone to cardiovascular disease. An increased level of fitness.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: improves both my incidence of cardiovascular disease and my incidence
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: of depression. It doesn't mean it heals them or fixes
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: them or changes them or whatever. It just means I
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: have less robust of a probability of seeing those things
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: in my day. And so when we talk about mental
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: and physical health, our level of fitness from a nutrition
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: and exercise perspective affect both the mind and the body.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: You can't separate the two.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 4: Okay. I never realized there was a connection between depression
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: and cardiovascular health.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: Anxiety is the same way. Anxiety and diabetes.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: You can see the incidence of those together.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: And you're like, what? Does anxiety cause diabetes or does
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: diabetes cause anxiety?
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 5: No.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: It's a lack of metabolic fitness that is underlying both issues.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: It just takes time for the symptoms to show up.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: Okay. That's interesting. Again, I didn't realize there was A
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: strong correlation between mental health issues and physical issues. That's interesting.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: Thank you for teaching me that. I appreciate it.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got it.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: With that kind of being said, what daily habits or habit,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: I guess you could say, would have the greatest impact
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 4: on emotional resilience since we're kind of on that subject?
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say cardiovascular fitness. I know it sounds weird.
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: But cardiovascular fitness is the single greatest affective measure that
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: you can actually change that makes a difference over time.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: So if you take somebody who's wrestling with low mood,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: let's say, or seasonal affective disorder, we're headed into winter,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: the days get shorter, people who are prone to depression
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 3: at a certain time of year, this is picking up.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: If you can get that person to do three days
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: a week of 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise, I don't
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: care if it's Zumba class, swimming, hiking, jumping jacks, running,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: whatever gets your heart rate up and actually challenges the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: cardiovascular system. If you can get that person to do that,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: what you'll see is a significant decrease in mood-related symptoms
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: and a subjective increase in how fulfilled and satisfied they
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: feel like their life is today. And so it takes
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: about eight weeks to take root. But cardiovascular fitness is,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: I would say, the primary thing somebody can change that
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: would be personally good for their mental health.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: Interesting. And running on a parallel note, does gratitude play
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: a role in the psychology of being well? And if so, how?
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, gratitude is a strange thing. We're still trying to
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: study this thing. Gratitude is hard to study, actually. But
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: in the studies we do have with regard to gratitude,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: then gratitude it's, we think of it as a mental exercise, right?
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: You're like, Hey, journal three things that you're grateful for today.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: And the more specific, the better, right? Not I'm thankful
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: for my house.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's I'm, I'm.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: Thankful for my two room air conditioned pantry stocked, soft carpeted,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: comfortable bedded house home.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: That I get to exist in and have whatever. I
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: don't know what your living situation is.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: But the more specific I can be with gratitude, the
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: greater the impact I have in my memory.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Like I remember, right? But it actually goes deeper than that.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: Because if I'm practicing gratitude, I can notice the things
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 3: in my life that I take for granted.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: And it kind of goes back to that habit idea.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: The Christian version is how blessed are you? Are you
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: blessed more than you deserve?
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: Well, that first presupposes that you understand that there are
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: good things in your life.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And you can look around at them and go, hmm, yeah.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: But as you start counting, as you start noticing, you
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: start going from like, oh, I'm so thankful that I
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: got to talk to my mom today. I'm so thankful
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: my friend texted me on my birthday. Like you go
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: from those things to know, you know what? I'm grateful
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: to live in a country where I can have this conversation.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful the roads don't have giant holes in them
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: in front of my yard, right? I'm grateful that it's
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: not raining today. Or if it is raining, I'm grateful
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: my garden got watered and I didn't have to go
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: do that, right? What you'll notice is you have an
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: infinite list of things to be grateful for if you'll
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: notice them. And I think that's where fitness and this
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: cognitive health idea and gratitude kind of intersect, is that
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: once you start, I hate to use the cliche, but
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: once you take the attitude of gratitude, it automatically moves
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: you in a positive direction from an emotion perspective. Because
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 3: if I'm in the positive framework, anger becomes... become something motivational.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: If I'm mad about something, anger can be malicious and painful.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: That's not any fun.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: But anger can also be ridiculously motivating. So whether I'm
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: in a positive framework or a negative framework, anger can
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 3: pull me in either direction.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: Sadness.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: Have you ever been sad in a good way? You
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: missed somebody? I'm so thankful they exist. Or maybe been
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 3: moved to tears because something was beautiful. That is a
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 3: positive sadness, whereas there's a negative sadness in the emotion wheel.
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 3: And a negative sadness is something more like, well, depression
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: might be on that list.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: There's no way out of this.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: It's never going to get better and everything sucks, right?
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: So gratitude has a very interesting way of shifting our
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: emotional framework into a positive direction.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: And I personally, I love this from a fitness perspective
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: because no matter how I feel today or what's in
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: pain or whatever, I can move.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: I guess unless I'm paralyzed, maybe I can wink, who knows.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: But then I can actually have gratitude regardless of how
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: I feel or regardless of what I'm capable of. I
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: can actually have gratitude because of the fitness practice that
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: I undertake today. And so I believe it's central and
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: useful and from a scientific perspective, well-studied to take our
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: emotional framework and make it positive regardless of the emotion
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 3: we're actually feeling.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 4: Right. With that being said, kind of two different questions here.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: When talking about sadness and other mental health issues like
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 4: depression or anxiety, when is it, when, how can someone notice, Hey,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 4: I need to get professional help versus I'm just going
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 4: to tank this and, be sound, just push through it
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 4: or whatever, however else you want to call it. And
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 4: kind of on the other end of that, um, for those,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 4: for the people who take, who are considered, I guess
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 4: you can say high performer, depressive or anxiety, have high
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: performance anxiety, what separates them from someone who just says
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 4: F this I'm done. I'm quitting.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Fair, fair question.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: Um, So the first, and I think it's a very
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: important question, when do you know you need to get help?
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: If you're trying and you're not seeing progress, you need help.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: That's really all there is to it. When you have
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: tried and you haven't seen progress, that's when you need help.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: And a mental health professional, especially a.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: Good practicing clinical professional, can help you to see and
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: do things that you wouldn't have thought to do yourself.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: And that's not easy. It's not easy to ask for help. Yeah.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: Humility has been a theme through this entire conversation. It
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: requires some humility to say, I can't do this myself.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: I need some help.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 3: And, and also don't be discouraged at the first professional
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: you connect with is not the right one.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: It's okay.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, it's, it's worth the process of finding
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: the right help. I feel like I'm a very good trainer,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: but I'm not the right trainer for every person.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: Right. And, and in the same way, there are very.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: Good mental health professionals who do this for a They
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 3: might be a great fit for you.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: They might not be. It's worth finding the right help.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 3: What separates somebody from that spectrum?
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: It's hard to speculate.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: I think we all have that it, that thing that
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: makes us special and important in the universe. But I
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: do think that what we talked about earlier, that anterior
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: cingulate cortex density, when the individuals who you'd say, oh, wow,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: you didn't give up and you kept going.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: Why'd you do that? How'd you do that? What you
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: would find is that wasn't a moment.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: That was a series of decisions that compounded over time.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: And if you actually heard this person's story, there'd probably
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 3: be multiple times within that story that they did want
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: to throw in the towel or maybe even did for
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 3: a time before overcoming it. So maybe they got some
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: help to overcome that hump.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: And so I think that's useful to know.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: There is a lot going on in that tiny little
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: part of the brain that gets stronger every time we
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: do the thing we don't want to do.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: Exactly. And kind of going along with that, what's one
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 4: habit that everyone should adopt?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 3: I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: think it's really important to notice the thing in your
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: life you don't want to do that you know you
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: need to do and just go do that thing.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: Right. I had a feeling you were going to say that, but.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 3: I've adopted that habit in my life. It serves me
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: extremely well. It teaches me a lot of things. And
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: I think that's a very useful and important thing for
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 3: people to test out for themselves.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 4: Right. Last question on this chapter. Over the last 10
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 4: plus years, what's something you've changed your mind about?
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 3: I've changed my mind on hormone replacement therapy. This is
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: more medical from a conversational perspective, but There was a time,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: and part of that has to do with the development
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: of new technologies, but also part of that has to
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: do with working with more and more individuals. Once upon
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: a time, hormone replacement therapy was a thing that young
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 3: men did who didn't need to so they could get
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: more jacked.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: As soon as you said that, Vitor Belfort just popped
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: in my mind. I don't know why.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, 23, 24-year-old dudes pumping themselves full of steroids
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 3: and stuff and just getting huge, you know. And I
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: don't think that's healthy or good. However, that whole way
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: of doing things has also evolved into a medical practice
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 3: that can be really useful for individuals who are wrestling
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: with several different types of issues. And so I would
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: say in the same way as finding a medical professional
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: you trust from a mental health perspective, There are some therapies,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: especially for menopausal and paramenopausal females. You don't get extra
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: credit for suffering unduly in that pursuit. And so, so
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 3: I'd say in the last 10 years, I've shifted my
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: position on that. There was a time where I'd say, Hey,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: do literally everything you can physically with exercise and nutrition
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: before you start messing with hormone replacement therapy. And 10
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: years later, I would say that I think it's important
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 3: to make exercise and nutrition changes. That's well within your control. However,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 3: Doing so, if you suspect there are some hormonal issues
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 3: that are underlying or undercurrent, having some help, even if
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 3: it's not forever, having some help with some of those
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 3: symptoms can be very important.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: Right. Now moving more on to the entrepreneur side of life.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 4: I know you own your own business. I own two
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: businesses myself. And I also know, as previously mentioned, you're
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: pursuing a PhD in clinical psychology. So how, first of all?
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 4: Do you balance not only running a business, which is
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: a pain in the butt from my own experience, a
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 4: personal life, again, which is a pain in the butt,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: and on top of that, getting a PhD on top
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 4: of not sleeping for three or four days at a time?
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: Well, I generally sleep well now that my children are
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: slightly grown, okay? So make no mistake there. I get
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: up early, but I tend to sleep well now. You know,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: the most important thing that I've done is know when
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 3: to say no to things. So I'm very active, you know, personally,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: I'm active for my body. In my family, I prioritize
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: my time with my children and time with my wife.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: I'm active in my community. I spend time volunteering in
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 3: our church and doing different things from a community perspective
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 3: and obviously running a business.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: So I think of those as concentric circles, right?
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: Anything that I say yes to. Anything. Even this podcast conversation.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 3: Anything that I say yes to is a no to
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 3: something else, whether I know it or not. I have
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: to be careful about opportunities, what I say yes to,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 3: and I have to be very judicious about being able
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: to say no. Even business opportunities. There's so many good
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 3: things to be a part of. It's not whether or
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 3: not I'm choosing good or bad. It's good, but not
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 3: in alignment with what I need to be up to,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: not in alignment with my purpose, my calling, the thing
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: that I need to be up to today, right?
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: And so a very, very clear vision of what I'm doing.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 3: And then ruthless judgment against anything that's not on that list.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 3: And that's not easy. And it ruffles feathers in my community,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 3: sometimes even with my poor wife. She'll say, we're going
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 3: to do this.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 2: I'm like, no, we're not. We're not doing that. At
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: least not right now. We're not.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: And she doesn't always like that, but that's part of,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 3: part of us wrestling through how to establish our household well.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 4: Right. With that being said, how do you know when
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: to say no? Because like, I know that's kind of a, again,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: subjective question, but like how do you know when to
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 4: say no to an opportunity when to say yes?
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: Again, it's, it's that, it's that central, like, what am
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: I up to? Right.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: Thankfully I, I know what I'm up to. Some people don't,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: some people don't know what they're doing. Some people don't
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: know where they're headed and that's hard. And if you
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 3: find yourself in a bunch of different directions all at once,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: Freaking slow down, maybe fast and pray and decide what
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: your mission is.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: What do you need to be up to?
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: If you don't have that, you don't have, you can't
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: make a judgment call on what your.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: Yes needs to be and what your no needs to be.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 3: So what I would say is knowing what I'm up to,
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: knowing what my 10 year, five year, one year.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 2: Where I'm headed.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know everything, but I know in general what
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: my mission is.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: Right. Makes sense.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: And I measure everything against that. Right.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 3: And then I probably add another element to that that
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: not a lot of people do. And that's about the
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: health of the thing. Is this healthy for me? Is
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: this healthy for my family? Is this healthy for my business?
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: Is this healthy for my community? And if it's not,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 3: it doesn't need to be a part of things. And healthy,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 3: you can define that a bunch of different ways. What
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 3: I think of it as long term, does this allow
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: this to continue? Because health-wise for me, if I run
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: myself into the ground while building my business.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: And die young, it's not very useful, right?
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: And similarly for the community, is this healthy for my community?
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 3: Is this going to help my community continue.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: Forward over time?
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 3: Or is this going to degrade my community over time
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: or be negative to it? And so evaluating the health
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: of something is very useful in that too.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 4: Right. As an entrepreneur, what's the hardest lesson you learned?
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: The buck stops with me, man.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: As an entrepreneur, the bills come due, the taxes are due,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: and there's nobody behind you, man. There's no other line
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: of people.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: You're it. So I would say that's the most difficult.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: It's very powerful. It's very useful. But the buck stops
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 3: with you. That's the hardest lesson to learn.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: Do you think passion or discipline matters more when building
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 4: a business? That's a tough question. It seems like.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: Well, it's, it's hard. It's hard because, you know, passion
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: allows it to be good.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: You know, like you can be disciplined about something that sucks.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: Nobody wants to be a part of, including you, you know,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 3: like you can, you can be disciplined and build something
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 3: that isn't worth building.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: But you can also be passionate with no discipline and like,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: it's not going to last.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: So, so, uh, I don't mean to waffle here, man,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: but I think, I think you, you can't build something
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: worth being a part of without both of those things.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 3: I will say that without, you can have passion and
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: become disciplined. It's hard to passion yourself into something you
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: were disciplined about.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 3: So maybe I would say passion is more important, but
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 3: it can't live without discipline for long.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 4: Makes sense. Mind if we do a quick rabbit fire questions?
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 4: Cool. First question. Morning person or night owl?
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: I'm a morning person.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 4: Coffee or tea?
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: Coffee.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 4: Favorite book?
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, outside of the Bible, I would probably say
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 4: One habit everyone should start tomorrow?
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 3: Do the hard thing you don't want to do right now.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: One habit everyone should stop immediately.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 3: Everybody has so many weird bad habits. Stop sacrificing your
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: sleep for stupid things.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 4: Best purchase under $ 100.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: A fishing rod.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: The biggest myth about fitness.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: That it's all by yourself.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 4: Same question about psychology.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: Biggest myth in psychology?
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 4: About psychology.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, that if you'll learn it, you'll understand yourself so
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: well you can make yourself do anything.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: Favorite quote.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: It's a long one, so I'll just preview it.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: But it's not the critic who counts, not the man
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: who sits in the stands and tells whether the doer
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: of deeds could have done better or worse. But it's
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 3: the man who's in the arena, whose face is marred
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: with sweat and blood. who knows the great highs and
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: the great lows, but has never said that he can
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: live among the timid souls who never knew victory or defeat.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: I think that's Roosevelt. Nice.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 4: That's a good quote. Alive or dead, who would you
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 4: have dinner with?
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 3: Lately, I've been studying the life of Elijah. I think
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 3: it'd be really cool to sit down with that guy.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 4: What's something people are surprised to learn about you?
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 3: Well, you took the Ehlers-Danlos thing. They're like, oh, the
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: fitness guy with a genetic disorder. That doesn't make any sense.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 4: Why do you think I planned it out that way?
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: They might be surprised to learn that I love sardines
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 3: and I think everybody should learn to love them.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: Okay. I disagree about that.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 2: Do hard things, Rhino. Do hard things.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 4: Favorite exercise?
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: I really like the Turkish getup.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 4: Another discussion we have to have later. Least favorite exercise?
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 2: They're good for me, but I hate, hate, hate squats.
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 4: Cardio or strength training?
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: I'm a weightlifter who runs.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: Protein shakes or real food?
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: Real food.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 4: You can't say sardines for this one, but what's one
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 4: food you think everyone should eat more of?
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: That's the answer, though. Since I can't say that one,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: I'd say berries.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 4: Berries. What's one food people should stop fearing?
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: Should stop fearing?
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: Potatoes.
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 4: Interesting. Biggest fitness myth in one sentence.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: All that matters is how many calories you eat versus
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 3: how many calories you burn.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 4: Right. Most underrated recovery tool.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: Potatoes.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: It's a really good pillow sleep.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 4: Right. Similar note, morning or afternoon workout or evening?
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: I like mid-morning. 9 a.m. is my favorite.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 4: Stretching or foam rolling?
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: So I have Ehlers-Danlos. Right. I'm too flexible. So foam rolling.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 4: Okay. So that ends the rapid fire questions. We're going
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 4: to move into more of the closing arguments again. Why sardines?
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 2: Why sardines?
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 4: Nasty little salt pills.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: So many, so many reasons. So many reasons. So I'll
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: just give you a few. Right. And maybe I can
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: convince you to try them.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: The first thing you need to know about sardines is
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: if you don't like them, you've probably.
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: Eaten the wrong kind.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: Sardines are kind of like wine in that they have
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: a very different taste profile depending on the species of
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 3: fish you eat.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: And where it came from in the world. So so
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: some of them are.
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 3: Really like deep, earthy, fishy flavored. And a lot of
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: people have a hard time with that. And then some
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: of them are extremely mild, just as mild as just
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: about any whitefish and not particularly intense taste wise. And
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: so what I would say is if you hear the
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: word sardine, you're like, you know, I'm good.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 3: You probably tried one that didn't sit well with you.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 3: So there's a taste profile that that you could mess
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: with there. But as far as the benefits are concerned,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: they're one of the very few sustainable foods in the
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 3: world that are really, really good for you.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: So we have an abundance of them. They exist. They're everywhere.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: So you can get them. But it's a whole fish, man.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 4: It's everything you need.
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: It's magnesium. It's phosphorus. It's calcium. It's protein. It's a
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: really good protein to fat ratio. They're relatively cheap.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 3: They're also extremely, extremely low on the food chain, which
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: means very, very low mercury. You're never going to mercury
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 3: poison yourself by eating too many sardines. And then finally,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 3: one of the things that's lacking in the Western diet
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 3: is an omega-3 fatty acid to non-omega-3 fatty acid abundance.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 3: And so many people aren't getting enough omega-3 fatty acids
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 3: in their diet.
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: They're trying to supplement them and all that stuff. You
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: know where they're getting the fish oil? Sardines.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: And so if you just If you just ate the sardine,
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: it would actually save you money, and you would get.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: Protein at the same time.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: Two for one special.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: Two for one, baby.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: And then you might be interested to know this as well.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: Men who added three sardine servings per week to their
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: diet improved their– they completely reversed prediabetes, like no other changes.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: Completely reversed prediabetes, yep. and increase their testosterone 12%. Wow,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: that's a lot. That's a whole heck of a lot.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 3: And that's not even a sample size where people are
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 3: lifting weights and stuff.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: So in my mind, it's like, no brainer, bro. Eat sardines.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: Elevate your testosterone. Get better heart health. Save money on
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: your fish oil supplement. Don't get mercury poisoning. Increase your
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: vitamin intake.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: Easy peasy.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 4: But it convinced me at least. Going back to the
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 4: beginning of this conversation, If someone like a Jane Doe
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: or a John Doe is listening to this episode or
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 4: watching this episode and feel stuck in their lives what's
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: the first step this person should take tomorrow morning.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna point them right back to the link man
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 3: you need to do the 10-day challenge like stop thinking
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 3: you're doing this by yourself get some good instruction be
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 3: a part of a community that will help you move
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 3: forward that's what you need to do.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 4: Right uh what does living a better life mean to
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: you specifically Yeah.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: For me, it's in our world of abundance.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: I'm working really hard to change the pursuit of pleasure
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: to the pleasure of pursuit. We have dopamine connections in
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 3: our brain. And right now, so many of the things
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: we do in our lives are hijacking our dopamine process.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 3: And so we're chasing the next hit. We're chasing the
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: new novel thing. We're chasing the next Instagram.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 4: I said chasing the hype.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. That's the pursuit of pleasure. Right.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 3: For me, better looks like getting increasingly pleasurable results in
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 3: the pursuit.
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: Enjoying the journey. Not so worried about where you're going,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 3: but how you're getting there. I want to be a
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 3: good dad to my kids.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: But I need to enjoy my kids today. Right. They're
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: never going to be this age again. Right. And, you know,
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: as they grow. the days are.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 3: Coming where my time with them will be shorter and
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 3: shorter and then nonexistent. So I would say that that
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 3: better means the pleasure of pursuit.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: Right. Last two questions, I promise. If one person remembers
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 4: one thing from this entire conversation, what would you hope
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 4: it was?
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 3: I would hope that no matter where you're starting, there's
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 3: actually something you can do about where you're at and
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 3: that you don't have to be alone in that.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 4: And final question, I promise. Where can people find you?
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can find me with my work through
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 3: Everyday Spy. That's the link I keep pointing you guys to.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 3: And then if you're interested more in understanding this intersection
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: of faith and fitness, you can find all my work
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 3: at faithfulfitness.co.
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 4: And if you're listening to this or watching this on YouTube,
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 4: links will be in the description box down below. With
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 4: that being said, Coach Alex, thank you for being on
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 4: the show. I really enjoyed our conversation today. As always,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 4: have a good one. See you in the next episode. Peace.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: What's up, faithful?
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: This episode helped you. Share it with someone who needs
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: to hear it. And don't forget to subscribe and leave
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: a review so more people can find Faithful Fitness. My
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: dad's devotional, Faithful Fitness, is available now. And you can
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: join our Faithful Fitness community. by clicking the links in
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: the show notes. We all have a cross to carry,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: but it's lighter when we do it together. See you later, alligator.
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: But until then, train hard and pray even harder.