 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode, this welcome back episode. Hey, we were off for a minute. We're here. Well, mind pump, we actually took like a week off, so this is our- Where would you go, Reno, Hawaii, or Alaska? Yeah, we're shaking off. We shook off the- I feel like a loser. The podcast dust with this episode. So for the first 24 minutes- Little mic rust. Yeah, for the first 24 minutes there, we had some good warm-up conversation. I don't know, I felt like riding a bike. Yeah. A unicycle. Justin went to Reno, the worst place of all the time. I fucking need to hype this up a little bit. I went to Kauai, the beautiful island of Kauai, and Adam went to Alaska. We all had some interesting adventures. I hiked a bunch of awesome stuff. Adam saw some incredible wilderness, and Justin had too much weed to stay weed legally. Stay away from the food on the cruises. There's like cafeteria foods. Live off your green juice. That's right. Adam had to use a lot of his Organifi green juice because he wasn't even have access to lots of vegetables. By the way, if you wanna try out Organifi's green juice, go to organifyshop.com, enter the code mind pump for a discount. Then we get into the fitness questions. The first question was, how do you differentiate between hunger, that is real hunger, or just like a craving or emotional hunger? We talk a little bit about that. Then we answer the question on advice for long distance relationships. I know you think you're listening to a fitness podcast, but we're actually experts on everything. So we talk about relationships there. Then someone asks us a question, do we think it's legitimate that in order to be great at a sport, we need to start at a very young age? Is that true? Or can you be great if you start much later on? For example, I'm gonna start playing football now, and I'm gonna prove this wrong by becoming- You have no chance. Great at throwing the football. Then the final- Like a dart. Exactly. Then the final question is, how do you deal with performance anxiety? We all have a lot of advice on that. And we talk about all kinds of performance anxiety, not just the filthy type that you're thinking right now. Also, it's close out. Two days left. There's only two days left for what's turning out to be our biggest promotion yet. We're giving access to our private forum for free if you enroll in any maps program or in any of our bundles. Right now, one of our more popular bundles is our sexy athlete bundle. I've actually seen quite a few of those come up. The sexy athlete bundle is taking maps aesthetic and melding it with maps performance, with a mod that teaches you how to combine the two. And what it's doing is it's teaching you to be extremely functional while training for aesthetics as well. So if you're kind of like a bodybuilder, physique competitor, bikini type person, but you also like that functional type of stuff, this is for you, or if you're that functional person, if you love doing the CrossFit stuff, you love doing hiking, mountain climbing, sports, but you also want the aesthetics. This is also for you. So if you enroll in that or enroll in any of our other programs, you'll get access to our forum. If you wanna look like Bo Jackson. For free, what? Cause I do. Also, the price for the forum is going up in two days as well. So not only are you getting free access, but it's gonna go up in price anyway. So seriously, take advantage of this promotion. You can find it at mindpumpmedia.com. And it's t-shirt time. T-shirt time. We like to bribe people. Do we have a record reviews this week, Doug? Yeah, we had 46, I believe. Holy shit. Last week, last week. Oh, this is last week. This week, not quite so good. Oh, really? How many is it? We had nine. How do we go from 43 to nine? I'll tell you exactly what. Why? Tell me. You guys went on vacation. When you guys go on vacation, they miss us. They miss us. They miss us. Come back to us. We're back. Let me remind people real quick how to leave a review. And again, you win a free t-shirt if you leave a five-star review and we pick your review if we like it. Can we break the 43 records out? I don't know. 46 or 43? 43, 46, I don't remember. All right, doesn't matter. What? Here's what you do. Even if you're subscribed to us, you gotta do this in order to leave a review. Click on your icon for your podcast. You go to the search function, type in Mind Pump. Mind Pump comes up. Click on the icon. Then you'll see a little thing that says review. Click on review. Then leave a five-star review so that you can win one of these limited edition Mind Pump t-shirts. You two can win. All right, Doug, who's the winners? All right, we're gonna give out three shirts this week. We have Okiebum23, ChrisH262, enough 187. All of you are winners. Send the name I just read to iTunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Your shirt size. Your shipping address. And we'll get that right out to ya. We are on fire. When I... In Fuego. I'm gonna share some personal stuff here. Oh, I can't wait. When I left. When I left for my little trip. Did you see the photos that I posted from Alaska? I did, dude. Epic. They were beautiful. Postcards. Absolutely beautiful. Posting postcards. Well, I was gonna say is, because I wanna talk all about these shirts. Yeah, I did go to Reno actually. I had a lot of fun. Did you see our boy Ryan? Yep, he hooked it up, man. I went to, you know, the fight and everything. Got to just watch Connor and... Downstairs in the bottom room where they do the big screen and everything and they set it up down like that? Up in the ballroom, yeah. How was it? Oh, it was cool. Food, drink. Food, drink. We sat in the very front. There's three screens going. Packed crowd. Crazy, dude. Connor came to fight, man. That was a good fight. Very, very surprised. Were you gonna say so? Mayweather should be embarrassed. Yeah. I think so. Because I expected him to fully dominate hard. And he didn't really do that until... He wanted to claim that that was all part of his game plan, right? Yeah, did you, you know, I go back and forth on, did he intentionally kinda do that, right? He didn't even throw a punch for the first round, I think. First round, he like literally did not throw a punch. I think he didn't throw a punch till the very, very end of the... He was trying to wear him out for sure. Which, and then Connor got exhausted. And that's when he lost. Yeah, you'd think that Connor would have picked up on that though more. He's just waiting for him to just waste all his energy. I think, I'll tell you what... The ducking and all that shit, though. He was turtling away from him. That was pissing me off. There was a, was it? No, is this true? Because someone told me that there was a press conference where Connor said, this is before the fight, the rematch will be in the cage and Mayweather's like, you got it. That ain't happening. I highly doubt it. Yeah, no, no, it's not. But you don't think they would do it for another fucking massive payday? I don't think Mayweather would do that. Mayweather would never do that. Yeah, he would never do that. For 100 million? Not even for 100 million. I mean, I think that, I mean, he made like 300 million on this fight. Oh my God. 300 million dollars. It's insane. It's insane. It's fucking insane. For one, I told Katrina, I'll fight anybody. You guys hear that? Anybody. I will fight the scariest, most deadliest motherfucker on this earth for 300 million dollars. Dude, for 300 million dollars, I'll fight a shark in the water. I was gonna say, put me in the ring with a fucking polar bear, dude. I will fight. In the water. That's ridiculous, dude. You know what I'm saying? You got kind of a chance, right? With what? Like poking in the eye or something. Yeah, exactly. Son of a bitch. Oh, it sucked. You could buy a whole new body for that. You could. You could buy a lot of bodies. So would I, my bad. So what I was gonna say, what I was gonna say. That was sex trafficker. Justin, did you go to, you went to arena with your best friends? Yeah, yeah, from high school. Yeah. I mean, probably longer than that. It was just you and a bunch of dudes? Just me and two dudes. We broed out. That was all we did. We broed out the whole weekend. So I was up there for like four days. Did you have any cannabis? We did. Was it, is it legal there now? It is. Because it's legal. It's recreational. I didn't even know that. Did you overdo it? Yeah, maybe. I'm not used to this whole, like, you go in for a car and you get like real stuff. You know what I mean? Like, oh my God. And so yeah, I was out in public and it was, I had to, I was like telling them, I was like losing my train of thought. I like couldn't talk. I couldn't order a drink. I was like, we gotta go back to the casino, dude. This is getting ugly. And I wasn't alone too. Like, I was looking and we were just, everything was moving super slow, dude. And so anyway, yeah. That was one of those things you're just like, I'm a rookie in this department. I not know what I'm doing. I'm surprised that that even happened. You're considering how many times you've hung out with me and Adam. True. If I would figure you, your tolerance would be that, would be that. That was all I can handle. Like I had a really good chocolate. It was like, had like espresso in it. So it was like perfect. Cause it like a little bit of a stimulant there. And then yeah. So that was, that was money, dude. Fuck. I missed you guys. I did miss you guys too. That's what I was gonna say earlier when Adam interrupted me. I know. It was a touching thing I was gonna say. Keep going though. You gotta power through it. Well, when I left. No, did you go over my church feet? See, this contact keeps you in the shoes. Come on, Sally. You gotta power through it, dude. I told Justin when you were in the bathroom, I said, Sally's gonna be so excited to tell a story. Every time he tries to tell a story. I figured that would happen. Oh my God. I figured that would happen. Go ahead, bro. I had fun. I got what I had to say out. So that was my feelings I heard though. It's very nice thing what I was gonna say. Wow. That was a very nice thing. You forgot. You guys go. No, sorry. When I left, I thought of like all the people I would miss, like my kids, you know, my family. And I missed you guys the most. More than anybody else. You know what I mean? Yeah. More than I miss my kids. I felt the same. I actually missed work. Yeah. I think that's the first time probably in my life where, and I've had times before we're in the middle of building a business or excited about something that's happening at work that I was thinking about it still when I was on vacation. But normally I get into vacation and I'm enjoying myself and I'm not worried about home. And I wasn't worried at all about what's going on back here. But man, it was only a couple of days in and I was already felt like, okay, I've rested plenty. I'm fully rested. Get me back to work. There's so many things that I wanna work on and I wanna do right now that it took a lot out of me to try and reset completely and detach from everything back here. How about you guys? So I went to Kauai and the intention was not to go to a resort and just relax in the sun. I wasn't looking to do that. I wanted to go do some challenging hikes, some climbs, go see some stuff, really just kind of challenge myself and enjoy the natural beauty of the island, which is what I did. And it was really only when I was doing those things that I was able to detach. Once I was back and just kind of relaxing because we'd get back to the resort about like 3 p.m. Then I was thinking a lot about what we could do, work wise, I was missing. But we went, we did, let's see, we did the, we did Wamea Canyon, which they call the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. Hiked that, did some challenging hikes there. The views were just spectacular. Then the next day, we did a hike on, what is that, Kalalao Trail? Were you, which is, nobody told me this, it was fucking challenging, dude. Oh, it did. Like you're gonna die, like if you fuck up. You gotta watch every single step, it's gnarly. Yeah, you're gonna die if you fuck up. Like you're literally, I'm climbing. On a cliff. I'm going uphill, stepping on different rocks. It's wet because it rains there all the time. Some parts of the trail are about this narrow. So on the left of me is the mountain. On the right of me is you fall to your death. Yeah, wow. So you're hiking that. And no rails or no safety? No, no, no, no, nothing. And you cross several streams and there's no bridge or anything. You cross the stream, you have to hop on rocks. So we do this whole thing, not the whole trail, which is 11 miles, I wasn't gonna do that because if you do the 11 mile trail, if you finish it, then you should camp at the end of it and then come back. There's no way you do the whole thing in one day. So all we did was like five or six miles, which took us like three and a half hours. That's how challenging the trail was. It took us that long just to do that many miles. But we crossed these streams and then finally at the very end, I'm like, oh shit, we're almost there. This is awesome. Fucking stream was like full of water. And I'm like, how are we gonna get across? Like what are we gonna do? I saw the video of Jessica falling down. That was great. My girl's like, we're just gonna walk through. And I'm like, I don't wanna walk through fucking stream. Like it's a fucking dreading ladder. Like walk through? Yeah, I don't wanna do that. But I did, I walked through and then there was a speech. But I'll tell you something. This is how big of a pussy I am with that kind of stuff. I've never really challenged myself that way. Is there were kids on the trail too. Like people were hiking with their kids and that would really giving me like a gut check. Like every time I was like, whoa, stop being a pussy. Yeah, like I'm- The seven year old is getting through this. Yeah, I'm scared. I don't know if I wanna keep going. There's like a kid doing it, you know? Skits right by you. Oh, but it's such a gorgeous, just a beautiful island. I mean- Where did you guys stay? We stayed at the Sheraton on Poipu Beach and we rented a car. So we would wake up every morning at like 6 a.m. And then we would be in the car at 7 a.m. Going to wherever we're gonna go. And then we did Luau's. I don't know if you guys ever been to a Luau. I went there last time. We did the Smith family one, which is like this real traditional Luau. Okay. Great performances. Great food. I'm definitely gonna go back and I'm gonna go backpacking in Kauai next time. I'm gonna do it like legit. Did you do that one? Was it the inner tubing? Where you go through those rivers? Like you go underneath? No. Yeah. That's so much stuff to do. Plantation fields and all that. That's what I was asking him about if he did that. That was a cool one. You've got to book that like months in advance now. Really? Oh, it's booked out for- Oh, shit. Yeah, we looked into that. When we were out in Maui, we were gonna take a plane over there just to do that. And why we didn't was we couldn't get in. It was a month before and we still couldn't get in. Oh yeah, that was one of my favorite things I did there. That and the hiking of course. Well, there's this kayak thing that you can do that is along the North Shore or whatever where you can kayak three days in a row to different campsites and it's like hardcore. So I'm thinking about doing something like that next time. Ruff it and Kauai. Yeah, God. That doesn't sound like my vacation. But it's the lushness of the plants there. It's like so dense. You're like in a rainforest on the North Shore. It is. Super, super dense. Tons of vegetation. Fruit growing everywhere. Chickens and pigs everywhere. You literally, you could be. Yeah, they ran all over the place. Bro, you could like never have to buy food again. I think they allocate like one pig per person per day if you hunt them. And I don't know if you can hunt the chickens and kill them. I don't see why not. And then there's fruit growing everywhere. Like you could live there on the beach and eat like a king forever. Yeah. You know? Yeah, you got everything you need. Speaking of living there like that, we drove, or we drove by, right? You'd say drive by. We floated by. We floated by where, have you guys ever seen the show Alone? Are you familiar with that? Alone is the show where they drop off. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They drop off 10 contestants on this peninsula off of Alaska. So it's just above, it's just north the border of Canada and it's right at the bottom part of Alaska. And I forget the name of the island, but we drove right by there. And that's where they drop them off. And it's, so the idea of this show, it's a reality show where you, they drop 10 contestants off. They're all like 15, 20 miles apart from each other. So they don't ever find each other. And the idea is who can survive the longest and you get nothing. You get no food. This is a really wet part of up there, like in Alaska. I mean, honestly everywhere is really wet up there. Yeah, it's constant. I think they, I think they say like every day of winter is like rain. And then even in summer, it rains a lot. So it's, it's pretty wet and cold. I mean, it was, I was, I had packed accordingly, but still it could have packed warmer and more clothes. I didn't realize how wet and cold that it really was. And I should have. I mean, we're going up to a fucking glacier and stuff like duh. But I, for some reason, I thought that like there would be other areas of Alaska that would be like warmer. And did you see any grizzly bears or anything crazy? We didn't see, we didn't see any grizzly bears up close. We saw some from far, but I mean, it was, it wasn't like, it's the same thing with the whales. Like I saw some whales from far. I had one come up close to the boat, but a bunch of dolphins. So the, and a bunch of bald eagles. So the wildlife was okay. I wanted it to, you know, I had heard from other people like how amazing it was. And so one of the trips that we did because of weather got canceled. So the one I was most excited about, which is kind of a bummer, my first stop was in Juneau, Alaska. And we were to get in a helicopter and fly to a glacier, land on the glacier, and then go dog sledding. Oh shit. And because the weather was so fucked up, they actually canceled our trip. So I was really bummed about that because of all the things that we had set up. Yeah, that sounds epic. Yeah, cause we set up like we did ATV drive in one day back in these old mining logging or logging roads. We hiked a couple of different places that we were at to a glacier and a waterfall. And so every day that we dropped into a port, we did something cool. But the one I was most excited about was the landing on the glacier. How long would you guys stay in a port? A day. So most of the ports you get in there like first thing in the morning. So you'd hit about seven o'clock or eight o'clock in the morning. And then you have basically all day till 10 o'clock at night to be on the, whatever town it was. And most of these towns are, I mean, they are tiny. If it wasn't, they get cruises, cruise ships every single day for six months. And they have four to five cruise ships come in. Each cruise ship has like 3,000 people. So this town sees 15,000 people or so from the cruises every single day for six months of the year. Then the other six months, it's like a fucking ghost town. Like I talked to like a lot of the store owners and they were telling me like, you could literally light yourself on fire and run up down the street naked in three months. And there's nobody here. Like nobody would know you're on fire. Like there's just nobody around. But it was packed when I was there. So when I travel, I like to notice the, or pay attention to the culture of the area. Did you notice anything about like the culture, like the people, the... It, okay, a little bit because it was hard because literally majority of what I saw was from the cruise. Like so most people were very tourist but it was neat because some of the tour guides and places that we were at would actually tell you like how to spot a local, like base off of how they were dressed. And so, you know, most of the locals were always wearing like these tall rubber boots, which just gives you an idea of like what the weather probably looks like year around there. If like every day you put on a pair and I think they call them Alaska slippers. I think that was the... So Alaska slippers are these like fucking rain boots that go up to your knees because the weather is just so unpredictable there. Yeah, when I got back, I went on the freeway and I was driving like 55 miles an hour because I didn't realize I had acclimated to the speed that they drive on Kauai. Like everybody drives a hell of a fucking slow. So slow. It's like the most chill, relaxed. And no hurry, right? Everyone's flip flops and fucking, oh, come on in, come on in. I'm totally different than driving. I had the same shock when I got back here and Katrina was just, Katrina and I were talking about because you're there. So talking about the cold like that. So you do notice that you just, everybody is, when you live in California, the States period, but California, I think at most, like California and New York, I would think is like this too, the fast pace. Like we're in such a hurry here to get places. And so when you go somewhere like Hawaii and Alaska, life is so different. Like the hustle and bustle that get from point A to point B is nowhere near what it's like for us here. So it's a bit of a culture shock when you're, and I have to like be patient because there's times where I catch myself when you irritate it because people will be in line like to buy something and they'd be having great conversation and you're going like, motherfucker, like I'm standing here waiting in line. But I'm like, wow, this is just how everybody is. You stop and you talk and you're friendly. And if I'm waiting in line, then I wait longer. You know what I'm saying? And just kind of how everybody is. Like there's no, there isn't this pressure to hurry up everywhere. Yeah, I could totally see myself living in a place like that for a short period of time. Oh, I was gonna say that. For a short, I could see it for a little while. I could see doing something like that, but then wanting to leave after like a couple years. Yeah, I couldn't do it. I don't really. Yeah, it's just like, it's too slow. It's too slow. I mean, I enjoy it to like as a change of pace, but I mean, I like to be challenged and I like to like be driven. So, you know, I need to be in that environment. I've thought of that too, like, you know, like staying, even like two weeks for me is like too long, you know. Oh, seven days was like, ah, I was ready to get off the boat for sure. I mean, I'm on that boat too. So there's a difference there, I guess a little bit, but just being away from, I love that. I mean, How was the food and stuff on your boat? The boat food is fucking horrible. It's like cafeteria food, but I only ate that twice. So only two times that I actually, so you have, the way that these cruises work, right, is you pay like this all-inclusive fee. So you have all the food is free on the boat. But they have special areas, like it's fucking pizza and nuggets and like hamburgers and hot, it's like fucking garbage food. It's horrible. And then they have like cafeteria, like, I mean, like a buffet style breakfast, horrible. Everything's horrible. But then they have like these really fine dining, like, you know, five course, six course meal or restaurants throughout the boat, right? I think there was one, two, there was five, I think. Five on there. And they're all different. Like one was called the salty dog and it was like American grill burgers, things like that that were really good. Then there was another one that was like a crab shack. It was all like crab legs and lobster, things like that, really good. Then we had another one that was kind of like a French style. There was duck and things like that served. So there's, but then you got to pay extra for that. So, but, and for us, we were, and a lot of people I know, they go on these cruises and they're trying to save money. And so they, you know, you've paid for your all-inclusive, so you could technically stay on that boat and not really spend any more money and just live off the food that they're giving you. But I can't, it just, it was horrible. It got, I tried the first day and I looked at Katrina and I couldn't even finish my plate. I'm like, no, fuck this. There's no way I can't do this. And so I live, I literally lived off of our green juice. Like I brought, thank God that she brought, she brought some bars and then a box of our green juice from Organifi and that became my staple breakfast. Like I just, I woke up, I had a cup of coffee and then I had my green juice and that pretty much sustained me till we got to a port and then we get to a port. Now the food on whenever we got somewhere, amazing. Well, I'm sure the fish was probably, Oh my God, the best crab, I had the best caught like an hour ago. Oh, bro, the best crab and lobster. It's a different game, right? It's, yeah, it's a whole another, like the best fish I've ever had here, which I think, I mean, we're close to San Francisco and the Bay. So we've got good seafood, it's just different though. Yeah, it's, it's another level of good there. The halibut and the, Yes, because that's where they catch it all. Yeah, the Alaskan cod, the halibut and the, King crab. The king, yeah. And they have king crab here. So we normally eat, when you eat crab here, we normally eat dungeonous crab. King crab is there. So these crabs are this big, like, yeah, we had a leg, you know, I get a leg this big, literally a $40 leg. Like so it's, yeah, $40 per leg. So we went to one place where you roll up and you order by the leg and we'd all get all, we had to pile like like $300 worth of legs. So we're all digging it, but so good, dude. Oh, so good. Were you able to get your hands on any vegetables over there? Cause I would assume the vegetables probably would suck, right? Cause they don't grow much of it. Very tough to get vegetable. That's why I literally lived off our green juice. I went through a full box of our green juice. Sometimes I had it twice in a day because of that exact reason. I pretty much what I would do was I would eat as much seafood as I could when we hit the port. So I would buy, I would eat huge, huge meal. And then I would buy to bring back onto the boat for me to have later on again. So I would, you know, do that. And then in the morning time, I was eating or drinking the green juices. And that's pretty much how I survived through the trip. Only got in, I got in two workouts in the gym, but the rest of the time we were really active. Oh, you worked out. Yeah, actually. I didn't do a single. Dude, I worked out at the South Reno Athletic Club. Remember the one we went to? Oh, yeah. I went there twice, dude. Oh, it was awesome. Yeah, I showed my friends at gym. We powered it out. It was like, it's like a playground, dude, for, you know, it's got everything. We played basketball, you know, and then we like threw the ball around and shit on the grass. That's gotta be one of the best gyms I've ever been at. Yeah, for sure. No, I didn't work out. We didn't work out at all. We did lots of hiking, but what we would do with nutrition-wise is our schedule with, we would go out real early, whether we're gonna do a hike or whatever. We did ATV one day. Then when we'd get back at about three, we would eat something and then we'd have dinner. And the seafood in Hawaii is just incredible too, but it's all the local stuff that they catch. So you'll get the fish of the day. So, and then a fish tacos at some place that was supposed to be like one of the best, but it was just like a little shack. But the fish tacos were fucking incredible. That's how these, a lot of these places, you get off onto the port and you go find, the restaurants aren't really restaurants. Most of them are like these little trailers with a thing over, which that's how it's in Hawaii, like the same thing too. A lot of them are just these little trailers with a little canopy over the top of them and they are just- Some of those burger joints there. Oh man, they are just serving up some of the best. Now you, this was crazy to me because these towns in Alaska are super small. We didn't hit any of the big ones. We hit like a lot of the small. Juno, Ketchikan, Skagway, these are all like these really small, like only boat or plane you can get to these places. Dude, you ran into some mine pump. At every fucking place. This blew my mind. That's crazy. I was so surprised. You would think that we're a little used to it now when we go places, but not here. I'm thinking Alaska, like who the fuck is listening? I didn't even see a gym anywhere. Like so I didn't even think it existed. And shout out to the guys over and they were in, let's see here, Ketchikan, Skagway, Skagway, Skagway. We stopped there. They were the first ones that actually caught me before I got off the boat and messaged me and said, hey, come by our store, 907 clothing in Skagway and hooked it up. Just said, hey, pick anything you wanted there. Huge fan of the show. I thought that was so awesome. Like obviously I bought something for Katrina too. I couldn't just take something for free like that and felt didn't feel right. No, I got recognized at a Luau. There was some kid there who comes up. He's like, oh, listen to mine pump. And I was smashed. Oh, you were? Yeah, dude, they had, because at the Luau it included like drink as many of the Mai ties as you want. And I mean, Mai ties, like that's come I kind of drink, you know what I mean? It tastes fucking sweet. The fruitier the better. Yeah, so I'm just pounding them and I'm a lightweight anyway. So I'm hammered and this kid comes up to me and he's like, yeah. And I'm like, oh, what's up there? What's mine pump? What are you guys talking about? But no, it was good. But I'm glad to be back, man. I missed you guys. I had a great workout when I got back. I could tell my body felt good, maybe needed some time off. So I'm actually working. I'm surprised you didn't lift. I'm proud of you. Not even once. It's tough for you, I think. It used to be, not really anymore. I think if it was just a relaxed, like not do anything trip, then I probably would. But we did so much fucking hiking and moving. By the time I got back, man, I was just so tired. I felt the same way too. I was a snorkeler. Did you do any of that? I didn't do anything in the water. What? No, it was all in the mountains and hills and all that stuff. Yeah, but nothing else. Doug, bring on the bird. It's a vacation bird. It's so lazy. This clause brought to you by OrganiFi. For those days you fall short on getting your organic veggies or whole food nutrition, OrganiFi fills the gap with laboratory-tested certified organic superfoods to help give your health and performance the added edge. Try OrganiFi, totally risk-free for 60 days by going to OrganiFi.com. That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com and use a coupon code MINEPOMP for 20% off at checkout. All right, our first question is from Prime and Glory. When we feel hunger, what is the difference between thinking you're hungry and your body actually needing something? It's actually a good question. It is. And I think there's levels of needing something, right? I think most people are their perception of what our body needs and what it actually truly needs is really off. I'll say a controversial statement, but I'll defend it. I think most people in Western developed nations probably have never really felt hunger. Like pushing the boundaries of hunger. Yeah, we're like, it's power bar. I'm gonna die. Where your body actually needs it, right? Yeah, I don't think we've ever really felt that. And here's another answer to this. Whether or not you think you feel hunger or you actually do, it doesn't matter. Both of them are perceived as feeling hungry. The difference is being able to separate if you're expecting to eat and if you actually need to eat because I know for myself, when I used to eat six or seven small meals throughout the day, if I missed one of them, I'd be starving. I need to have food, I need to eat, I don't feel right. I'd feel lightheaded or I used to think, oh, I need to eat. No blood sugar and all that. But the reality is I expected to eat and then I missed a meal that I expected to have. The first time I fasted where I knew I was gonna fast and I'm like, okay, I know I'm not gonna eat until tonight. I actually didn't feel anything at all. So I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. You know what I'm saying? I could go to a movie and sit in a movie theater and crave and think I want popcorn but there's that association that's going on. Yeah, you've conditioned yourself. Yeah. And so like you said, your expectation for eating is really like, that's like what you're feeling. Like you're more than not. Like I doubt that you've been away from food long enough to really experience what hunger hunger is. We're so disconnected from the actual signals that our body sends us that we think we're hungry when we're not, we may just be thirsty. We may just be bored. Just have a craving. If I'm at home and I have nothing to do which really ever happens, but let's say I have a day off and I'm at home, I'll eat more just because I have nothing else to do. I'm kind of bored and I recognize that. So it's a good question, but I'll tell you this. We also have to define what need means because do we mean our body actually needs it because we've ran out of glucose? Is that what we mean by need? And so we're now, but we know what happens when that happens, right? When we tap out of that, our body now starts to use, yeah, right, ketones and fat as a source for fuel which that's not a bad thing whatsoever. And in fact, we should probably be trying to put ourselves in that position more often than not. So what do we mean by need? Now, if you're somebody who has a goal of bulking and building muscle and that's your primary goal, well, and you completely deplete and you become catabolic, it's not advantageous for somebody who's trying to build muscle. So that person, those signs of hunger is probably a good sign to tell you that, hey, you need some more fuel and more food because you're probably running low but that's because your goal is to build and you wanna be in a surplus more often than not. But if you're the average person who's looking for health or is trying to lose body fat, I mean, we're probably trying to flirt with this feeling of hunger more times than not. You are and real physical hunger doesn't come on suddenly. It's kind of a gradual build. And so the reason why I'm explaining this is because a lot of times you'll eat breakfast or you'll eat lunch and then a few hours later, like, oh my God, I'm starving. That's not real hunger. That's probably more of an emotional type of hunger where emotional hunger comes on very sudden. It's more of a craving. You can also ask yourself this question, oh my God, I'm so hungry, I'm starving, I wanna eat this burger, I wanna eat this whatever. Would you have that same feeling if I put a bunch of carrots or celery in front of you or something that's not necessarily palatable? If you still feel that same, that feeling, then you know that it's real hunger and not just a craving for something because we've all been in that situation where we just ate a meal, someone put something sweet in front of us and now we feel like, oh, I'm hungry for that ice cream or I'm hungry for that dessert, which is again, more of that emotional connection. I recommend this, if you're healthy, if you're healthy and you get cleared by your doctor and everything's okay, I would say go on a prolonged fast. That will reset how you connect to some of these signals. Big time, if you could do a good 24 to 48 hour fast, then you can start to really identify what real hunger is and what actual, what just cravings are. That was so eye-opening for me because even just getting into workouts and not fueling myself before workouts, I had to literally go through a 24 hour fast to understand that I can power through this and I'm gonna be fine. Just to experience, just to step out of your ritual that you're so hardwired in the way that you eat for so long, it's like your body expects, okay, well, I expect a meal here and I expect a meal here and to interrupt that, it's really liberating. I think a lot of where this question stems from too is the old myth of if I'm starving like this, will my body start to metabolize muscle and will that start falling off my body, right? Because even if this person wants to lean out, they probably wanna lean out, but hold on to as much lean body mass as they possibly can. And quite frankly, if you're a hungry and you're not pushing and exercising or doing any strenuous exercise, your body is not gonna utilize muscle to get you through the rest of the day, not at all, especially if you're not. It takes a while before that happens. Not only does it take a while, but then it also takes you pushing the body, right? Because you're not really doing anything before to want to utilize it. It says muscle is an expensive tissue. It's not a place it wants to go. I think an old school myth is that, oh, if you don't eat and the body goes into starvation mode, and then it starts to eat away at your muscle. I mean, I remember giving that terrible advice because I thought that's how it worked and it's not how it works at all. And then you sold them bars. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly, right? And then you would tell them, hey, when you start to get hungry, have a small snack or a bar to make sure that doesn't happen. Well, that's all a bunch of bullshit. And honestly, there's more health benefits from you probably finding this place of hunger every once in a while, pushing through that. And then realizing like, oh, it wasn't that bad for me to do that. Which is why we advocate fasting intermittently. I was just gonna say, I mean, for the most part humans forever, for almost all the time we've been on earth, because it's a very short period of time that we've been on earth. We've had all this food available to us. We went, on average, we would go a day, two days, three days, a week, two weeks without food all the time. This wasn't, and this is something that people have, people who are born in modern times who live in these modern wealthy societies probably have never gone longer than 24 hours without food. And if they did, it was because they were sick or something like that. Like most people, if you go up to someone, you ask them, hey, have you ever gone, send me two hours without food? They'll say, no, most people, no one's ever experienced that. I remember the first time I did a prolonged fast. I felt hungry initially, but it wasn't real hunger. Looking back, it was more like, oh my God, I need to eat. Once I got past that, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't have hunger. Like after 48 hours, I'm like, whoa, I feel like I could go another 48 hours. And I made myself eat because I had only planned on doing a 72 hour fast. But I felt like I could go much longer. I didn't experience this starving feeling at all. The other thing you wanna consider too is you may be associating the feeling of being stuffed with being satisfied. And what I mean by that is I can't tell you how many times I would have a client eat or even I experienced this myself where you'd eat a meal and be like, ooh, I'm not full yet. I think I need to eat more food. And the problem with that is that I had associated this stuffed feeling with being satisfied. At the end of my meal, I need to feel stuffed. That's been one of the hardest things for me to break to this day. I still catch myself. That's a hard habit to break. And I think more people than we realize have this same issue and they don't even realize it is we tend to do this is where we eat until you feel that like your body telling you like, okay, that's too much. Okay, that's enough. Learning for me to manage my portion controls, this is also again, and I know that there's two sides to this, right? Where we talk about weighing and measuring food and portion control that people can get crazy with that and that can become unhealthy also. But it did teach me a lot about what I actually, my body actually needed and what I should be consuming versus my old way of consuming food, which is eat until my body says, okay, that's enough and like finishing your plate when I probably could have ate three ounces less of that, two ounces less of that and that ended up adding up to be four or 500 extra calories. It's interesting like being overfed, like the same thing, I've struggled with that like to where you want to feed yourself to where you feel like, okay, I'm full. Like I've eaten all that. And then carrying that around, like I've just recently the last two, three years realized that like, okay, if I've eaten a substantial meal, like I don't need, I don't even need to eat the next meal, even. Like there's parts where like, I understand when I'm over saturated, like that's really where the problems start to come out with the heartburn and with like the, all this extra stuff that's going on with my body trying to process this. It's like, it's like stressing it out, you know, internally. And so like, just messing with that alone has really helped. So how many times has someone said to you when you're eating over their house or whatever like, do you still have any room? Do you still want to, you know, can you eat more? Would you like some more? And you think to yourself like, I think I can fit a little more in. Like it's a thing, like you need to stuff yourself. Do you know something that's helped me out with that? And we recently discussed this, remember when you and I got into the whole water debate on here, right? And again, I'm always one who likes to, you know, push myself out of my comfort zone or challenge my own way of thinking, listen to that. And so, you know, something I've never really tried to do is eat my meals with no fluid. And man, that is, it really forces you to chew the fuck out of each bite. Makes a big difference. Yeah, you cannot just shovel the food down because the only way I could do that, and I realize this now, because of course I've had some days where I go back to having fluid with it, but I've done it enough now to be very aware of the difference. And there's a major difference when I've got a drink and I'm eating, it's crazy. You just have this habit of you take a couple bites and then you end up, you find yourself washing it down. Bro, you're taking it like pills. Like you're literally biting it into something you could swallow with water. Like you're taking it like supplements with your food. When in reality, you're liquefying it with what you're supposed to do, that is literally, that is a big part of digestion is in your mouth when you're chewing your food. And so, if you don't fully chew your food, you're cutting out a big part of digestion. And I challenge somebody to over consume without water or something to wash it, some sort of a fluid wash, it's fucking hard. It's amazing how hard it's been. I find myself like, fuck, I don't want to eat anymore. My mouth is so dry, I want some fluid. I'm like, no, no, I'm gonna- It's a choke all the time, dude. It has a big problem, it's just like, you know, I'm just eating it big and fast. And that's a part of this whole, what I keep talking about where the signals have been so, we have skewed and fucked up our signals so much that we don't even know how to read them. Like that's one of them. One of them is, if you're eating food without water readily handy right next to you or soda or whatever and you having to chew the hell out of it like you're supposed to and then swallow it so that you don't choke or whatever, like that is also helping your body's signals be more accurate as well because it's gonna tell you, okay, you've eaten enough, you know, you don't need to eat more. But if you're washing it down, dude, when I used to stuff my face, that's why I learned to eat that way, by the way. I learned to eat with a big glass of water next to me. Yeah, because you had to shovel it down. Because I was always trying to gain weight. And it was literally like, I could eat way more, I can eat 12 ounces of dry chicken breast if I just wash it down with water than if I sit here and have to chew on it. And so again, that's just one of those signals. So yeah, I would say slow down, try fasting, start to really become in tune with your body. Eat until you're about 50 to 60% full with your meal. Think of it that way. I used to, I had to do that for a little while to where I ate and I said, okay, I'm about 60% full, I'm gonna stop eating. And then you start to become more connected to these signals and it becomes easier to know when you're actually hungry versus when you're just having an emotional, you know, when you're emotionally hungry, which is something totally different. Quick commercial break, you guys. We keep getting asked all the time, how can I support the Mind Pump family? Here's one of the best ways you guys can. You guys love that Chimera coffee that we have. Chimera coffee with a K, you go to chimeracoffee.com put in the discount code Mind Pump for 10% at the checkout. If you guys have not tried Ben Greenfield's new bars out there, fantastic. If you want some, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com forward slash nature bite, put in the code Mind Pump and get 10% off. Go check it out. All right, our next question is from Eat Sweat, Sleep and Repeat. Advice for long distance relationships. Oh wow. We got some in the wizard. Fuck. Welcome back the wizard. There you go, you ready for it? Don't have them. Yeah. Waste of time. Man, I tell you what, I feel like my advice on this probably would have, has changed over time, like what I would think. I had my first like high school sweetheart. She went off to Cal Poly, where I stayed back home and went to junior college. So for about a year and a half there, we were in a long distance relationship and a lot of gas money went to driving down there on weekends and speeding tickets of getting there. So about a three and a half, four hour drive. So it was the same thing. It's crazy. So it wasn't like super long distance. That's, I mean, long enough to where we don't see each other every night and I'd be driving down there every weekend that I could. That was probably one of the most stressful relationships I've ever been in my life, for sure. Most challenging on so many levels. Now mind you, I was only about 20 years old, I think around that time, 20, 21, somewhere around there. Maybe even a little bit younger, 19 actually. And I think that I would have totally handled that differently. She was a beautiful girl going to go off to college in a sorority and I was hanging on to her and wanting to keep her as close as possible. And she was probably going through that phase in her life where she was wanting to spread her wings a bit and freedom and she was moved out from her parents. Spread those wings. Right, for first, he would go there. Sorry. Maybe a little bit back. And you guys weren't having sex either, right? Yeah, no, I was a virgin at this time. Oh, fuck. So she went away. Yeah, yeah. To college, hot girl. Whoa, it's a tension. Not having sex. Yes. That was it. Oh, I mean, I have stories of us being on a phone, being on the phone on like a Thursday night at like midnight, you know, talking. Back when you remember when you were that old, you talked on the phone with your girlfriend for like an hour, like you can't get me on the phone period much less for fucking five minutes, much less an hour. I know you think about all this, what did you talk about? Oh, I mean, that's just stupid, right? Stupid. So I mean, talking on the phone for an hour, what about that? And, you know, be like midnight and like, and she lived in the dorms the first year. So. What do they do now? I was like, FaceTime? Is that what the kids do? Probably. Yeah. Snatch. Snatch. Snatch chat. Snatch chat. Yeah, so. Okay. So we'd be on the phone and like somebody would, dudes would bust through her door and you'd hear him like jump on her bed, tickling her and stuff. I'm like. Get the fuck out of here. I swear to God, he's swear to God. I swear to God too. Imagine I'm on the phone. Who cares? I'll see you at the kager. Literally, like literally just like that. I'd be on the phone, you know, whispering to like, oh, I miss you so much. I got some jail shots for you. I can't wait to see you. Hang up with your dorky boyfriend. And you hear this, ah! Phone drops, you giggling and shit like that. I'm like sitting on the other side waiting for you. Mark, stop tickling me. Oh, totally. Totally like that, bro. And then she gets back on the phone and I'm like, what was that? Who the fuck was that guy? Oh, that's just Steven and Richard from down the hall. He's my study buddy. Totally, totally that stuff, man. And so I was just like pulling my hair out as a kid, you know? It's probably why I'm losing my hair now, right? I had the same exact shit. So, you know, all this stuff, I mean, obviously, you know, it grew me into the man. How'd you guys break up? Did she end up cheating on you or something? Kind of, kind of like, yeah, kind of like that. So the short version I'll give you is obviously we had, that was just one small example of what I was going through all the time. And it finally got to the point where she obviously wanted to move on, but then we had so much history together, she couldn't, she didn't have like the guts to like break it completely off. And I should have been, I'm a young man, not smart, the older, wiser dude. Boy, you're in love, dude. Right, right, right. So yeah, exactly. So I don't want to let go. And I remember her coming back one time to visit me and we went to dinner. And I think I've told you guys this story. I don't know if I showed this on Mind Pump before, but she left me that night to go to her friend's house and she was like, I'll call you later and we'll meet up. You know, it was back in the days too when you're like, you know, you got to sneak around to see your girlfriend and she like that so you could fool around in the car or some shit. So, you know, she's like, I'll call you when I get to my girlfriend's house and spend the night there. Well, I fell asleep with the phone to my ear, never heard from her or my pager right then I think it's what we had. And I get- I feel so bad for you, dude. At like two o'clock in the morning, no, it's okay, this is totally a good story. So at two o'clock in the morning, the phone rings and I answer it and it's her mom and her mom's like, hey, where's Emily? And I'm like, I don't know. And she's- And you're a good kid so you're like, she's hurt, I need to find her. Well, so I go, well, you know, she went to Kyra's house and she's like, well, no, I called Kyra, she's not there. And so then I freak out and I'm like, oh my God, well, that's where she was supposed to be, she's not there. So I tell her mom like, I'm coming over now. So I get in the car, I race over, I go pick her mom up and then at that moment, it dawns on me that there was, I knew there was like an upperclassman party that was in town. And I'm like, and I knew like, she was like the hot girl in school. So all the older guys liked her and shit. So that was something I dealt with even too, back then when we were in school, like all the college guys liked her when she was still in high school. And now there was this party in town. And I'm like, fuck, I bet you she's over there. So we roll up there, sure as shit, her car is there and only her car is there, nobody else's, lights are all out in the house. And so I like let her mom out and her mom, I followed her mom- I'm here for the gang bang? Yeah, totally dude. And so her mom, she bangs on the door forever. Mom trying to wait, finally, she calls her mom and her mom goes back and picks her up or whatever and takes her home. And that was pretty much the end of our relationship because then after that we fucking broke up, of course, right? So it was- She was like, I was so drunk and he was so nice to let me in and just sleep. And those guys were so nice. Did you see, do you know what she looks like now? Absolutely, yeah, no, I'm still attached to her on, I see her on my Instagram too. Does she look good still or does she look all, is she fat now? Well, she's- I'm trying to, this is important. Yeah, we need like, I wanna feel good right now. No, no, she's pretty, she's always been into working out so she's kept herself in pretty good shape. She's also on kid number three, I believe right now. So yeah, she's been the guy who she, after we broke up, she got with this guy and was with the same guy ever since then. Oh yeah, they've been together forever and now have three kids. And I remained in contact with her for many years afterwards, we still, even though that was a bad breakup, we still stayed, you know, somewhat friends. Let's go there, it's over. But yeah, so the long distance thing, honestly, and I don't know- I feel like there's pluses and minuses too, right? Well, I think it really depends on where you're at in your life and with this relationship because if you're somebody who, like looking back now, that was the stupidest thing I could ever done. As a young kid, you should be wise, you're not wise enough then, but I should have been talking to my younger self, I would have told myself like, let her go, you know, let her go. If you really love her, there's, and I know it's cliche to say this, but they say, you know, if you love something, set it free and if it returns, it's meant to be, right? I really believe that, I believe that people really kill relationships by hanging on to things. Like if you really love each other, like distance isn't gonna stop that you guys' connection to each other, what is gonna happen though is the stress of not seeing each other, where you at last night, who were you with, all that stuff, takes an incredible relationship and it destroys it because of all the insecurities and really when you have to learn to look at yourself when you have these situations, like, you know, I'm sure the guys coming in and tickling her on the phone, everybody's like, oh, we could blame her all day, but you know, shame on me, who cares? She's in college, she's a freshman in college, like why would I ever wanna get in the way of her having the most amazing experience and if that means letting guys come in your room at midnight and tickle you, then fucking who am I to say otherwise? How does that have an effect on our love? And then you reflected on that though, I had the same experience and it was like, I actually decided, no, I'm just gonna leave and I gotta figure myself out and that was the best thing ever because that relationship was the same thing, I was like holding onto it so hard, like, oh, this is like my comfort space and it's like, once you get away from that, every relationship since was like, I said this piece about it, like you can do your thing, you'd be with me if you want or not, let's establish that right away and have communication with it. I feel like there's pluses and minuses, right? I think the minuses is what you guys are talking about and then the pluses, maybe if you're older, both people have jobs and mature, I don't know. I feel like there may be some positives to it as well because it could allow you the time to be super independent at the same time, you know what I'm saying? If you were to do it, I'm trying to look at the positive. Well, I have two, I have a client, I have one client who is 50, she's, oh my God, I don't wanna fuck up her age. We're just gonna say she's 50 because I don't wanna go to 49. Right, yes, she's 49. I have two clients in their late 40s, early 50s that both are in a long distance relationship, not really long, the guy lives over in Oakland and the other one lives over in San Francisco and they both live here and they've been together for like seven years and they don't see each other during the week, they see each other on the weekends. Now, they are extremely independent women. One of them owns nine McDonald's, the other one is successful in real estate, flies and travels all over the place. Yeah, see, that's where I could see something. So they have, and we talk about all the time, I always asked them, like, you know, if they, oh, do you guys wish you see it? She's like, you know what? Honestly, we've done these days where we're together during the week and I could totally relate to this because I'm very much so this guy. She's like, you know what? When we're together on a weekday, he's so consumed by work that I'm not getting any one-on-one attention from him anyways and I'm doing my thing anyways. So it's like, it's not that big of a deal. And then when we get to see each other, we miss each other so much from the week that we spend all the time with each other and we're not distracted. That's what I'm saying. I feel like, I feel like you could have, if you do it right and you're mature enough and that's what I mean by that. Like I could never do this as a kid. I could never do this as a young kid. Right, way too many insecurities. Now, now obviously now with my girl now it'd be difficult because we live together but let's just say, you know, I was single. I got my kids, we got the business. I could see how there could be some benefits, right? Because you could focus on, you know, it could be independent and then like you said on the weekends, now you get to have your time. Well, Katrina would be great when I talk to you because I'm actually her first boyfriend that has ever been local. For 30-something years, she has always dated men. She's very business and motivated. Right, out of state and or at least out of city where she's, that's how she's always dated guys. She's never wanted to be around somebody that often where she's like, and that was for those reasons. They would always just be in her business. She has, she's too independent to have somebody in her shit all the time and she really enjoyed the long distance relationships until I came along, so before that. So I think there can be great stuff to long distance. I really, to me it depends on your age, depends on where you're at with that current relationship. I think there's a lot to be said about having the confidence of not allowing the distance to cause all the stuff that it's inevitable will come. Like you will have. You have to be pretty secure. Yes, you're going to have moments of insecurity. I don't care how old you are. There will be moments where because you're so far away from each other, you know, where were you at last night? Why didn't you call me back of this? Or you know, I feel like you don't want to come see me because you've been so busy with work and what's going on and who's the new guy that you're working with now? I mean, there's so many things that are going to happen. And if you find yourself, you know, becoming this jealous guy or girl because of all these situations, to me that's where this long distance relationship becomes unhealthy. And at that point, if you really love this person, you're probably better off stepping away from it because really if you're that connected, you love each other that much. If you move away from each other and allow each other to go their separate ways, you'll eventually find each other again, I guarantee it. It's just most people don't have the Cajonas to do that to where they're too insecure. They're too afraid that if you walked away from this, you're going to lose it forever. And if you're in that kind of a relationship, it's probably- Probably not good anyway. Yeah, you're probably not good at your- It's a matter of your time. You're not in a healthy situation if that's how you feel anyway. So that's my shitty advice there. I think so too. I think so too. Experts at- Just go for it, love! Everything! Bet on love! Next up is Ashley Farias. Do you think it is legitimate that to be great at a sport, you need to start at a young age? What do you mean by great? Probably at a professional level? That must be, yeah. You must be talking about specialization. Definitely no because there is tons of stories, Michael Jordan. When did he start playing basketball? Not till high school, dude. Well, that's still- That is not- Bro, when people say young, okay- They're talking about like five, six years old. Tiger Woods was playing golf at three. Well, there's this epidemic of parents getting fucking crazy with this. Right, there's a- Specializing. There's a trophy kid. Yes, Mark Bell and Chris Bell and him did one called Trophy Kids. Great documentary on this exact getting extreme, like going way overboard because parents turn into these, trying to live vicariously through their kid. It's like, it's the same that you see with those pageants. You know, the moms with the pageant girls. How unhealthy that can become. How can you become unhealthy when parents start to put their kids in sports because they want them to be successful versus the kid really wanting to- And then it gets weird because it's like your identity through your kids. It's like, you know, whatever they did, like it should amount to what you did, you know, and your experience like with the sports and all that kind of stuff. So I, yeah, this has been one of those things for me like I always think about because I am totally like, I can identify like those signs like way ahead of time and like, oh my God, I'm getting into this. I want like this for them and I want them to experience it the way I did. And like this, and so I've been very cautious to like embed myself into their process with this versus like really observe, really observe. And then, you know, interject myself where I feel, you know, they're looking for advice or looking for help. They're looking to play catch with me. You know, they're seeking these things from me and it's just starting to happen. You know, I think the reason why this happens is I think people or parents believe that this plays a bigger role in their child being great at sport than it actually does. It will, okay. You know what I'm saying? So it'll, here's where it will matter, okay? It's there, it's not. So if you have a seven year old kid and you get him or her into their sport right away, right? And you're getting, so my uncle's an example of this. Like, so he's had my cousins, you know, training with the quarterbacks who fucking trained Steve Young and like he was paying out all this money to have like the best of the best coaches around them. They were in all the leagues year round. And, you know, one of them ended up playing just through high school. The other one went off to college, went off to a D one school and played all four years in college. And then nothing after that. Now I think that getting them involved at that young age helped them excel at the, like youth football, right? But genetically, nothing that my uncle could do is going to take my cousin to the professional level of football. And there, there is that, and that's where you, when you get to the, when you talk about pros. I don't understand what those levels mean. Right, there, you, not only do you, not only do you have to have the work ethic, not only did you start probably years before, but you also have the genetics. Like you had, then that's, this is where the genetic component comes in so much. And I talk about this a lot. I throw out the whole swimming thing with me, right? Like I've never been taught or trained how to swim properly, but yet I have this gift to get in a pool and I can swim pretty damn well for someone who doesn't know how to do it. And so it had I been trained at an early age, I probably could be at a higher level. Now I probably could never have got to the Olympic level or crazy because maybe I just don't have it genetically there. Maybe I have a little bit more of a genetic advantage than Justin or Sal at swimming in a pool, but not quite enough to be Michael Phelps status, right? So they both play a role, but when you talk about getting a kid into that you're trying to hope that one day they play a pro, genetics are gonna play the largest role. Yep, and you know what you find more often than not? When people, parents put their kids in sports with the idea that my kids gonna be a great football player one day or a great baseball player one day is more often than not you see kids who grow up to hate what they used to do. Absolutely. I had clients like this. I had clients who their parents put them in swimming or gymnastics or something else at an early age and it was like this, we're gonna make you great type of thing. And once these kids grew up and graduated from high school or college, they never wanted a fucking step foot in it again. I have a friend. Well, not only that, it takes over their identity. That's what I'm saying. I have a friend who competed in synchronized swimming at a very high level. In fact, she was an Olympic alternate, okay? She now has daughters and her daughters take to the water like fish and she's like, fuck man, I hope they don't wanna do, she hates it so much and she hopes her kids don't wanna do synchronized swimming because she was forced to do it so much as a kid and that's what you see more often than not. Now, here's, you gotta also look at the payback or whatever potential dividends you may get. Let's say you take your kids and you put them in sports at a young age and you're thinking you're gonna make them great. The odds of them getting a lot of benefit from that are actually pretty small. They're definitely gonna get good at their sport better than most kids because they're at a young age. The odds of them actually making a living of doing it are still tiny. Now, if you took that same effort and had your kids learn something like other language, other language, whatever. It's a good point. Again, they may not be a Steve Jobs or some tech wizard, but they're gonna get a lot more out of it. We could debate this a little bit because I could check, but then again, you're putting them in academics so then I think that's a very good recommendation, right? Because you, there's all kinds of stats to show kids that play sports. Oh, those benefit for sure. I'm just saying. They get higher, they get higher grades. They stay out of trouble. Yeah, they stay out of trouble. They're less likely to do drugs. There's all these great stats to show how positive it is. They work well for the people. Right, yes, right. There's lots of great benefits to starting a kid in sports at a very young age. As a parent, you have to have a healthy relationship with that and them and understanding that. So I think that, I wish my parents got me. I didn't start basketball until I think I was in seventh or eighth grade. I wish I was playing at five because I think I would have been a better high school player had I done that. Now, do I think that would have taken me to the collegiate level or even pros? Definitely not, just because I don't have it. I could have been that much better in high school, but I don't think I would have been better enough to go to the elite level. So you're really helping your kid out with that. Like he's probably gonna be better at the high school level, maybe college level because you started him at a very early age, or her at a very early age, but the likelihood of you making the difference of them going pro or not, they got it or they don't got it. I think too, like, I mean, there's an argument too for, you know, as you specialize like completely, like how you're just destined for all these imbalances like even like earlier on set. Oh my God, you're right. So, you know, versus. We were talking about this with Kelly Starrer, right? That's what I was gonna bring up. Yeah, he was even mentioning like what coaches are now seeking, you know, like more players that have more of a diverse background with like different sports and unique skills because, you know, all that stuff helps to provide, you know, the joints will move better and operate more efficiently longer, longer term. So like, you know, like careers are very short lived for people that specialized. You know what? So my uncle, who I keep referring to also coaches, a little league football, and I used to love to go watch him coach these little guys and he would coach sixth, seventh and eighth graders. And, you know, at that level, he used to just whoop the shit out of all the other coaches too. And my uncle just loves, he's super competitive. And, you know, his magic, he would say, is really in the simplicity. He says, you know, I teach these kids all season long, three or four fucking plays. And they know those. This is De La Salle sort of method. Totally. And he's a huge fan of De La Salle and he drills this home. And then it is, it's like, and I remember I'd come, like I just watched last year and I came watch his season and he always points out like who the kids are. You know, he's like, watch 17, watch five, watch three. And they're just going to, and they're just going to run the same place. And then you see these kids that, you know, they're not doing anything like super smart on the field, like knowing the field really well. It's just they're athletically gifted. They're just, they're a step faster than every other child. And he could put them at quarterback. He can put them at running back. He can put them at cornerback. He can put them at safety. He can put them in any position in the field and they separate themselves. And that's not because those kids... It's mindless. Yeah, they're just, they have a step on everybody. And that's the genetic component that... Yeah, as a coach, you can argue at that level, at the high school level, that's going to win you the most games, right? Because, you know, like, and that's what I experienced too, going from high school and then to college. It's like, you know, I only had to know, like basically maybe like four or five people's positions on the field, what they're responsible for. And like, you know, the zones and all that kind of stuff and like what was happening in the play versus college. You have to know every single person, what everybody's doing, every single play. And then like everybody in the huddle, we have to know what everybody's doing so that way everything runs efficiently. And it's like way more complex, way more filmed to break down, way more, like it's so much more sophisticated, but you know, there's something to that simplicity, you know, in that level it works. So I feel like when you say something like that, what goes through my head and answering a question like this, I think, so if you have a kid who naturally takes to a sport and they love it, I think the best thing that you can do is to encourage the repetitions and the practice and the running the plays and like, that's probably what's going to get them to excel or be better than anything else. If they've got the talent, they have the gift and they love to do it, is to then guiding them in the direction. Trying to force a kid into a sport because you want them to be good at that sport or you think that they could be good at that sport. And in reality, it's not a matter of you getting them started a year or two earlier. It's really them finding what their thing that they love, their thing that they're passionate about, they enjoy and they have some talent, which for kids, it's normally the thing they're good at, right? Like if they want to do it, yeah, like help them out with that and let them like sharpen their skill with that. There's nothing wrong with that, but yeah, just like make sure that they're getting you know, exposure to all these different things. It's a balancing act as a parent. You have to balance like when you kind of push and when you don't, because there's definitely times when, you know, you have to set structures and you have to, you know, there's definitely times when you tell your kid, no, when you tell them, yes, you gotta do this and you know, I'm gonna push you a little bit, but I think when you, I've seen a lot of parents like this where they go, I've trained these kids. I've trained kids whose parents were like this and I kind of cringe sometimes because I'd see these kids and like, this kid is not happy being forced to do these things. They may be good. They may be doing it. It's just not gonna last. It's not gonna last. They don't like it. They're developing a poor relationship with this sport or with, you know, being forced to do this. And the second they have the freedom to say no when they become an adult, that's the first thing they're gonna run away from. And so, you know, you kind of gotta be careful with a little bit, but as far as starting at a real young age, you know, someone like Tiger Woods who started so young, whose dad coached him, he also fucking wanted to do it. Like he loved it. Serena Williams and her sister, you know, the same thing. He's also a bit of a degenerate now too. That's true. That's true. That's a good point. That's a very, very good point, you know? Yeah, it's interesting. I just remember like a statistic. Somebody's telling me like the, like lacrosse, like how that sport just blew up here in the States because parents didn't know the game. They didn't understand it. So guess what? They can't fucking coach their kids how to do it. And their kids loved it. And that was interesting. And they just had fun doing it. Yeah, they just had fun. I had a, so I have a friend. This is a sad story. And this is kind of related to the question whose parents were extremely strict and rigid. Both parents advanced degrees, very intelligent. He was a smart kid too. I mean, the kid always got straight A's, hardworking kid, but his parents were always on him, pushing him harder and harder to perform academically. And he was valedictorian, got into a, you know, private college, you know, great SAT scores, you know, ended up getting a PhD, got a job, got laid off, was unemployed for four months, trying to find work and killed himself, committed suicide. Actually wrote a suicide note and blamed it all on, and I felt so bad for his parents, but blamed it all on the environment that he grew up in where he could not go out as a kid. He couldn't do anything. He would get straight A's. It still wasn't good enough. They pushed him and pushed him and pushed him. And he did perform at an extremely high level, but it cracked him, you know, he broke. And I know that's an extreme example of that, but it was very, very sad. I remember hearing all this, and it was just like, oh man, I felt so bad for his parents who have to now live with the fact that they... Jesus, bro, now no fucking parents are available. Holy shit. Well, okay, son, we're not signing you up for Pop Warner this year. Fucking Sal says you're gonna kill yourself. It just reminded me of, you know, of this conversation. But it was, I know. We need to press everybody. We'll be a long, Doug. Damn it. Hey, kids, play video games all day. I just heard Sal tell a story. Get in there and read. Quick commercial break. Hey, people ask us all the time how they can support Mind Pump. Here's what you can do. You can go to www.brain.fm forward slash mind pump and get 20% off brain FM for meditation or focus. You can also go to audibletrial.com forward slash mind pump and get a 30-day trial plus one free audio book. Lastly, you can go to getnatureblend.com forward slash mind pump and you will get a discount on Ben Greenfield's CBD product. Next up is Shrelly W. How do you guys deal with performance anxiety? Like in the bed? Yeah, like... I don't know. I yell at it. I'm like, you perform. Or maybe they do it. Maybe they mean by like the show, like getting in front of camera, doing all that. Any performance. All performance anxiety, I think is the same, right? It's all anxiety over your own expectations of what you think you need to do or whatever you think other people think. Okay, that's what you should be able to do, right? Okay, you can drive. Yeah, I know I'm having the visual of looking down at your dick, talking to it right now, like freaking out, like, oh my God, come on, man. One, two, three, go. Yeah, why aren't you working? So this is different from person to person. For me... Yeah, let's go around here. I mean, I think... To me, I think I was joking about the... I don't think anybody in here has performance anxiety in the bedroom, but I'm sure we've all... I didn't know. Maybe, maybe not. Yeah, exactly. If you are, go ahead and share. But maybe I'm sure we've all gone through this. I know we've kind of talked off air before about what it was like the first time that we stood up in front of an audience of people and talked the first time we got on these microphones, first time we had to do YouTube. Like, and there was some of this performance anxiety, I think. You could classify it. Yeah, we started out by drinking a lot to deal with it. Right, right. We did. That's our answer. That was it. No, it was. And you know, what's funny is I remember feeling that we had to do that to settle down. And I really feel like it's the numbing part of that, right? You're trying to settle the mind down. And so you're trying to numb it, whether it be through cannabis or having a couple of drinks, whatever. That's what we used to do before our show, before we got on the mics. But then it got to a point where we had done it enough that there was no longer anxiety, but then we still had the habits of doing that. And I realized that I liked the show much better when we were 100% sober, so that we made the transition the other direction, right? And then the occasional now. But I never really felt, I think the YouTube was probably the hardest for me. YouTube is, and still to this day, YouTube is weird. Yeah. It's still. It's kind of awkward. YouTube and Instastory for me is still awkward as fuck. And I try not to feel awkward when I do it, so it doesn't come off that way. And it's just weird to me talking to a phone by myself or having like Doug just like videoing us and like talking like you're talking to potentially tens of thousands or even million people on YouTube. And it just feels weird. You know, I felt like standing up in front of it, like when we go to like a seminar, or I did that for a- You could see their eyes and get feed. Yeah, and I did that for when we worked at 24. I mean, that was something that was a very regular thing that I had to do where I had to do whole these seminars. So I got really comfortable with standing in front of an audience and talking to people. Plus I've always been an outgoing person and you know, I've never been uncomfortable in situations like that. When I'm getting feedback from people, immediate feedback, like their facial expressions like you're saying, Justin, and like laughter or like, huh, or like any, that stuff helps me communicate. Cause then you tweak and alter your message. And this is why I think I struggle with Instastory and YouTube so much is there's no immediate feedback. And so as I'm talking and whatever message I'm delivering, it just, it feels weird because I don't know if it's getting through, I'm running on, whatever. You know what I'm saying? Where you get that when you're in a live audience. I learned a big lesson with this a long time ago. Competing in, I did a few competitions in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I would get really, really hyped. That's right. You did say you should get on. And then I'd get anxious and you know, before the match and then I'd be exhausted when I'd have the match. And it was all, and I wasn't fit. I was in shape. I had prepared probably better than most people because I was a fitness professional as well. So I knew what to do on that level but I'd get so hyped and pumped and you know, for a week before the fricking match or matches that then I would get exhausted my first match. And I had this shift where I realized that I should really focus my energy on bringing everything down because I was already so amped that if I brought myself down through things that were relaxing like massage and going to bed early and quiet music or even meditation that I would perform a lot better. So I think you have to identify what your anxiety feels like. If you feel like you're not confident and you feel scared then you might need a pump up. You might need a confidence boost where you do a power pose or someone slaps you in the face or you have some coffee to give you a little bit of motivation. If you're so amped that you end up like you're too much energy where you feel shaky or you feel like you're gonna start talking too fast then you might need to do the opposite and bring yourself down. So I think you have to identify what kind of anxiety you have. And what Adam's talking about when it comes to practice, I mean frequent exposure will definitely reduce your anxiety. This is a very classic technique where if you have a fear of something the more you do it the less you're gonna be anxious. So if you are gonna speak in front of a crowd practice your speech in front of people over and over and over and over and over again until you just like you know it like the back of your hand that will do a lot to reduce your anxiety unless you're like me where I get too hyped in which case practicing over and over and over again only gets me more and more and more amped to the point where then again it's too much for me. So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll forget. I'll purposely not think about what I'm about to do and then when I get on then I'm on. I think you said something really key that actually hit home for me listening to you is understanding where and what you're getting the anxiety from. I remember what caused that anxiety for me was the fear of saying something stupid, right? And I think once I accepted that I'm going to say something stupid and that's totally okay and what's the worst thing that's gonna happen is someone's gonna make fun of me, right? The worst thing's gonna happen I'm gonna say something completely stupid and not come out right and everybody's gonna make fun of me. And so once you get comfortable with the worst case scenario then it's not a big deal anymore. Like I just go in like fuck yeah I'm probably gonna say something totally inappropriate something totally stupid. I'm gonna misspell something. I'm gonna make up a word. I'm gonna say something that's someone and then people are gonna totally make fun of me for that. So, so what? Like so the fuck what? What does that mean? Is that I mean I think that's what you have to decide what or figure out what is it that is causing the anxiety and then just be okay with it. Like you talk about like going into a judo match or going into a fight with somebody like what is the absolute worst thing to happen? You get beat, you lose, right? You get beat, so what? Because you know what? If you get beat you're gonna be better the next time, right? Because you're gonna learn from that mistake. The same thing I approach the same thing with our presenting or talking or getting on YouTube or doing these weird things is I'm probably gonna say something stupid someone's gonna make fun of me that's great because I'm gonna get that out of the way and then I won't do that again. I'm gonna do it, you know what I'm saying? And so when you start to embrace the worst thing that could potentially happen in this scenario that you're heading into and accept it and anticipate it then I think you get more comfortable with it. Yeah, which is funny, because some people will kind of think about those things like worst case scenario, but then they just dwell on those worst case scenarios, right? But that's so bad. Like they can't back out of that and like realize that that's worst case scenario. That's not necessarily a given, you know? And so you just have to put yourself out there and be okay with it. And even if it does, who cares? Who cares? You're gonna run, whatever. Like you're gonna survive. Like everything's gonna be fine. And I mean, obviously like this has been like an uncomfortable thing, but this has been the MO as the exposure, you know? It's the more times you do things, you know, then it all kind of comes together. You get more comfortable with it. You don't have those same feelings anymore. Like you literally can numb those feelings. And I remember the most anxious I think I've been was mainly when I would get on stage and I was gonna play music because like I think it was like you're saying, I got so, I was so overly amped. And it was just like, ah, finally I get to like, you know, play this cool thing in front of these people and all these people. And I would actually get to the point where my fingers would like lose strength and I would like lose the pick all the time and then just be like making horrible noises. No, it's happening again. And I had to like start like just breathing and really work on that because it would mess me up like my performance would drop out there. I think the whole accepting that you're gonna fuck up deal and it's going to eventually get bad sometimes is and being okay with that because that's what makes success and nailing it so more awesome because you failed before and you fucked up and you've been nervous and you've been scared and people made fun of you and this and that. So when you do nail it and when you do win and then there's so much more if all you ever do is win and every time you do something you'll say all the right things and you're so perfect about everything you do it loses its luster, right? So there's beauty in the fuck up. There's beauty in the failing. There's beauty in all that because when you succeed it makes it that much better. Well, that's what's so interesting to me to watch like Connor McGregor just the way that he carries himself with so much confidence and like having the vision already established and like seeing all the steps it takes to get to this point, get to this point but putting himself out to fail. And then literally rebounding or just like enjoying the process of it and being like, well, I'll put myself now in this situation and I'm going to tackle it. It doesn't matter if I win or lose he's not going to talk about losing. Obviously he's like very focused on prevailing but at the same time he's doing it. He's in there where everybody else won't do it because they can't take the failure part. I'll tell you what's fascinating is, now we're doing some of these vlogs and stuff on YouTube and we've done a few of them and Justin totally shines. You totally shine when you're being funny and you're by yourself on camera. It's a completely another fucking level of Justin that I've never seen. That's the only place I've ever felt comfortable. It's weird. And it comes out like there's that one vlog. I think we aired it, right? Where he was doing the funny things at the table and he's hiding and all that stuff. And I'm just like, this is a whole fucking level of Justin that I've never seen where you're just like your pure, I guess your talent comes out. I'm not comfortable being, for me being funny on camera, I feel, that's when I feel anxious. If I'm informing, I'm like on fire. I have no problem. Or if I'm debating, I'm on fire, no problem. Tell me to be funny. Like, okay, Sal, you need to be funny right now. I'm not going to be funny. And I can be funny, but it's usually on accident. It's not trying to be. When you do your thing on camera, it's like, what is the difference between that and other stuff where you feel? Yeah, I don't know. Like it, I don't know. I think it's, that's been with me ever since childhood. You know, it's like when I'm around like a group of guys or, you know, just a group in general, I feel like this need to entertain and do something to kind of shake it up and be funny or do something crazy. Like I will like put myself on blast for some reason. Like that to me feels rewarding, you know? And so I like, I've definitely always tried working on that, like unintentionally, but like I've noticed that that's like my go-to. Like I wanna like, you know, I wanna establish that. So it's like, that's something that I can do. You know, I can add this. See, it seems to me that we take for granted that they're all skills and we tend to think that, you know, I'm just good at this one and I'm not good at that one, you know what I'm saying? But I think like if I could take the confidence that I have, because I don't have anxiety. If you have me, if you tell me to inform or debate on a subject or whatever discuss or even if I'm leading and I'm telling, you know, I have a crew and I'm doing a meeting like that, I have zero fears or anxiety. It's all fire. It's all awesome. Again, if you tell me to be funny or perform or do improv or something like that, all of a sudden I'm this nervous, you know, anxious, not confident individual. But I think there is a way where I could take how I feel about one thing and transfer to the other because I know if I felt the same way, I'd probably be good, you know what I'm saying? So it's kind of, it's interesting that we're talking about this because I'm kind of having a little bit of an epiphany about it where I know I feel good doing this but not this and why? What's the big fucking deal? I can't have that same feeling. Well, why is this any different than the last question where we talked about kids and the genetics that they have, right? This is the same idea here, right? You have kids where the genetic component is always gonna play a big role but it doesn't mean you can't start early or practice and practice and practice to get better, right? Like, so if you don't have the natural ability to, you know, get in front of the camera and be funny, then it's not, you just genetically aren't built that way, you're better at informing. It's a natural gift, which we all knew. The minute you turn the camera on, you had a knack for the green screen and you could just get on there and you could talk and be very, very informative. You talk with a lot of empathy. That's a talent of yours that you have. Plus you've continued to, you know, work at it and get better and better so you really excel at it. But then you have this other side where you've never really had, you've never gave two shits about being funny or being a comedic, you know, on the show or, you know, in front of cameras so you haven't really practiced that. But I bet you if you approach that, you practice it, you could get pretty damn good. That's why, who were we just talking to? Oh, it was Jay when we went down and record with him. He said one of the best things he ever did was doing the enrolling in the improv class. He says that has taken it. Doug has said that several times. Yeah. I said that would be a smart thing for us too. Yeah, and you know, and it's, and we talk about it, Godfuck, I wish we had more time because it's something that we for sure I think would do. You know, we can have someone come in here, dude. And do it here. Yeah, we've talked about that. I think that, you know, those type of things, right? So, you know, this going back to the original question of performance anxiety, I think it does matter what we're talking about here. I think we joked about it sexually. I'm assuming this person's talking more about sports and getting on the mic and doing things like that. To me, it's like, you know, embracing the failures. Well, hey, even sexually, even sexually, like. Right, right. You're way more likely to have anxiety the first few times you have sex with someone than after you've been with them for. Right. You know, I had buddies who, actually, one of my, I'm not gonna say who this person is because if I say how I'm related to them, whatever, they'll know in time out. But they were in a long relationship. Then they got out of a relationship. Young dude, healthy, whatever, met up with this girl, super attracted to her. They liked each other, goes to, you know, they go to have sex. And for the first time in his entire life, at the time he was probably 27 or 28, so he's young. He's like, I couldn't, he goes south. He goes, I've never, like, not being able to get like a full on boner. He's like, that's never happened to me. He goes, am I testosterone low? It's happened like two times in a row. And it's just because he was fucking nervous. He's like three quarter. He was, he was. I don't know what he was working with here. He was fucking nervous. And afterwards he's like, yeah, man, once I got comfortable like I was okay. So it's the same thing. It's the same thing, like practice, practice, practice. And eventually. Sometimes pregame. And eventually you'll get a boner. There it is. There's your advice. Start warming it up. Hey, check it out. Go to YouTube, Mind Pump TV. It's our channel on YouTube. A new video every single day. We mix them up. We have informational videos. And we've got some blogs that are going up now, too, where you can kind of see what's happening behind the scenes here at Mind Pump Media Studios. Also, if you want to ask us a question that we answer on an episode like this one, the place to do it is Instagram. The page to do it on is Mind Pump Media. We also have personal pages. Mine is Mind Pump Sal. Adam is Mind Pump Adam. And Justin is Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths Aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is Mind Pump.