 Oh boy, today's episode we talk to one of the best personal trainers out there, Jordan Sight. This guy, first off, incredibly strong for his size, actually remarkably, strangely strong for his size, but also a very successful personal trainer. I mean, he's built a successful business, so he talks about how to do that, but he's also successful because his clients get incredible, long-lasting, sustainable results. Really, when it comes to fitness, he revolutionized my entire thinking around this. The insight that he gives is exceptional. Personal trainers, as you know, are the lifeblood of the fitness industry and great personal trainers. They're the wise people. These are the people you want to listen to, and Jordan Sight is among the best, so we know you're going to love this episode. Now, we're running a sale right now on some workout programs before we get going. Map symmetry is half off, and the RGB bundle is half off. You can find both if you click on the link at the top of description below. So if you want to be able to win those programs for free, leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop it, subscribe to this channel, and turn on notifications, and then we will let the winner know that they won in the comment section. All right. Here comes the show. Jordan, so it's been a long time since we saw you. I didn't realize it was almost four years. Yeah, it's like four years. All right. Catch us up. What's happened since then? What's happened with your business, personal life? Oh, man. Well, I'll say this. I was going to say, it's great to be back. Awesome. This studio looks amazing. I also want to say a huge thank you to all of you because I've seen a number of times you guys shout me out pretty frequently, and you always have really nice things to say, and it means the world to me, and I appreciate you very much. I really, from the bottom of my heart, so thank you for having me out again. Thank you for all the kind words. Thank you. You've got great content, man. Thank you. You're always doing a good job. One of our goals is, it was to always has been, and still is, is to try to highlight the good voices in the space, because there's so much bad stuff. The only way to beat it is with people who've got great information, who communicate it well. You're one of those people. So anytime we get the opportunity, we'll make sure we make sure for sure. I get people messaging me like, hey, you got a shout out on my pump today, and it means a lot. Very cool. I think you guys are amazing. You're the best in the industry for a reason, so. We got to slow it down, or else people are going to think it's paid or something. All right. Thanks. Hang on. Did you say that all the time? No, really. We really like it. But you're just a content machine though. I mean, you're constantly putting out. I mean, I know like you've got the Gary V model early, even before a lot of people in the fitness space. So you've been pumping out good content for a long time. I'm tired, man. You do seem like you slowed down, though, ever since the kid you slowed down. Yes, a lot. Yeah. It's one of those things where it's just, it's not as important anymore. It's like, it's way more important to have lunch with my daughter and my wife, like, where instead of just sitting down and making a piece of content, like, I want to sit there and see if she's going to eat avocado. You know, like can I watch her face as like she doesn't like avocado right now. So she has a scrunchy face. Like it's the priorities change and it's those little moments where it's like, I would rather sit down with them than make content. So yeah. Have any of your approaches or opinions or ideas changed around fitness and health and nutrition since having a child? Has that changed anything for you? Because I did for me for a few different things. Um, you know, my own personal approach for sure, especially from the perspective of just, I don't have as much time, right? Like before I had all the time in the world to train. And I only have one kid, never mind people who have multiple kids and I can work from home. And so never mind multiple kids and you're working out. You got to commute to work. So for me personally, my approach has just been like getting it in spurts throughout the day. Oftentimes, like sometimes if I grease the groove approach in some ways with my strength, um, with my, with my cardio, it's also a grease the groove in the perspective of it's not just at one point in time. Like I'll intersperse it throughout the day. Um, so my own personal approach has just been, I don't need to have one long session. But otherwise like it's not that I ever didn't agree with that. It's just I didn't need to do that before. So my own schedule has changed. Yeah. Have you, do you, cause I remember this when I had kids, it's like I became hyper aware of how I knew this before, but not, I wasn't nearly as aware as I was after I became a father of that. Uh, the default, if you just live a normal life, the default is such poor health. And I became super aware of it because now I've got these people that I'm so. Yeah. You know, I love so much and I care about so much. How do you approach that? She's only, your daughter's what one. She just turned one. Yeah. So are you thinking about that? Like how do I prepare this person for this world where if she doesn't live in a strange different way, she's going to be unhealthy. I think about it constantly, probably to a fault. Like it's nonstop in my head. Um, I think about it from the perspective of I want to live as long as I can to be here for her and make sure that she's prepared. So I mean, I think about it from the perspective of like, we're getting jujitsu mats in our house so that like she can defend herself and like from like, I, it's, it's one of those things. Like when I started jujitsu, there's a girl at the academy. I train at she's 16. Her name is Vanessa. If, and I'm, I'm not saying this. Like I have 10 year wrestling background, high level powerlifter, like strong guy. I've done jujitsu now for like four years. I'm not making this up that this girl, if her and I actually got into a combat situation, she would fucking destroy me. That's awesome. And it's, it's one of those things where it's like it's, and she's never lifted weight in her life. And so for me, it's, yes, I want my daughter's strength train. I don't want her to be healthy. And there's so many things to balance there, but it's also thinking from the perspective of I want her to be able to defend herself, which is like so many other aspects come into play there. So I think about it all the time from nutrition perspective, from like a mental health perspective. And I'm sort of all over the place with it. Like I'm like constantly trying to figure things out, watching her, how am I speaking about this food? How am I speaking about exercise? She's just, I've, my wife and I, like within the last 72 hours have realized that she's watching us and she's only one. Like she's doing for, this is what happened. She picked up the TV. She can't walk yet. So like she can crawl and she can like cruise, like holding onto things. She picked up the TV remote and pointed it at the TV. I was like, that is wild to me. I was like, that she knows that's what we do. We take the remote. She doesn't know we push the button. She just picked it up and pointed at it. And I was like, that's crazy. So with the fact that she's already watching and understanding like being aware of what am I putting in my mouth? What food am I eating? Is she watching me exercise? Is she watching me get up early and going to walk? Like she's watching. So just that has changed my entire idea of my daily habits matter a lot. It's funny you say that because one of the most common questions I get asked is, you know, for advice for new parents. And the thing that I say the most consistently is you have to become hyper aware that they are downloading everything that you do. Do not think for a minute that because that kid can't speak to you and articulate the one. In fact, I have this belief that because they can't talk that all their other senses are heightened. So they are just processing all this stuff that they're trying to figure it out and they, and they can't communicate. And so they listen, they see really what they, and they're just downloading and sucking up all that information. So, you know, when you're talking to your wife, you know, be aware of how you talk and communicate in front of her. Be, be aware of the habits that you do in front like they are like little sponges and you are already starting to, you know, create that foundation and that main frame of how they're going to operate. You don't know how intuitive you are. The data that they show now is because so children, their job is to be hyper aware of the environment, the mood and everything about their parents because you're the caretaker. So that's literally what they do better than anything. Everything. Even if they can't verbalize it and process it, their bodies react and their brains mold themselves around it. I know. So crazy. Katrina and I had a situation when, when Max was around one year, one years old where, and we were, you know, with that point, we were talking about like how, how blessed we are that he was this good behaving kid and he doesn't act out, he doesn't throw things and do stuff with that. And we were actually talking, she works for the company. So we're talking about the business one day. Like after dinner, and he's kind of sitting down doing something. And she is, her and I are talking, and we're like, we're disagreeing about something with work. And I'm like, no, no, I want it this way. We're not even like, we're not yelling, but we are like going back and forth. Like, and that is the only time he had, that was the first time at that point that he had ever experienced anything like that. And I actually watched him go to the coffee table and swipe the stuff off. And that was like the first time he had ever done something. Wow. What was so great though was that it got both of our, we both turned and looked and then we looked at each other and he goes, Oh, wow. He thinks like we're fighting right now. And so then we went right over to him to play with him so that, but it just made us aware. Like, I'm like, wow, how often does that happen to a couple, especially when they're really fighting? It was luckily we're just talking business. It was very easy for us to stop that moment and realize like, wow, that's how, how much that can affect him and his behavior is he doesn't recognize what's going on behind between mom and dad. They've never communicated this way before and he acts out and it's like, whoa, like, how often does that happen in households where you're so into this argument or fight with your spouse and your kid is an earshot away and he's trying to get your attention and you just ignore it because of course you're in the middle of his fight. Like that was a big moment for us to be like, damn, they're way more aware than I think people realize. Yeah. Yeah. Especially, especially like how you speak to your partner because you're essentially showing them like what to expect in their own partner in the future and their friends and all of that. Jordan Peterson had a great, a great bit that I saw. Basically, he was answering the question of, is it okay to argue in front of your children? He was like, it's not the question of is it okay to argue? The question is number one, like how you speak to each other but also did you reconcile? That's it. It's the, it's the, and I, I think it's equally important in terms of how you're arguing but also if you show that you can reconcile after an argument, it's such an important thing because so many, so many relationships end, so many people have explosions just because they can't reconcile. So it's like, I think it's, it's so important especially even before they can talk. Like you said, it's super interesting. Well, they're getting ready for the world. So they're going to go through that and it's like, oh, this is how it is. You reconcile afterwards. You repair. Not like, I'm done, fight out of here type of deal. So yeah, it's crazy stuff. What about your, how's your business changed? It's definitely grown. I mean, you're constantly grown. You're doing a great job. What's happened over the last few years that's changed with that. So thank God it's going really well. So I, last time I was here, I had my inner circle, which is like my membership for fitness. I've also created a membership for coaches with my buddy Mike Vikanti. Oh, cool. So he's actually coaching Gary. He, he's Gary's coach. But we have a basically bombarded with ads from all these gurus, like six figure businesses. Like high ticket. And we're just like, fuck this. Like it's so annoying. So we basically made another affordable office. And we're just like, yeah, we're just like, yeah, we're just like, yeah, we're just like, yeah, we're just another affordable option for coaches to learn how to, you know, be good coaches. It's not just about, we don't talk about ads. We don't talk about any of that stuff. It's literally like, how do you program design? How do you do nutrition coaching? How do you understand behavior change? We have bits on like social media and all that. But the majority of it is how to be a good coach. Do you think, so I just think about this the other day because it wasn't like this before. I didn't, I never saw, I've been doing this for a long time. I never saw ads for companies that advertise coaching or training as a way to make a lot of money that didn't exist before. Yeah. And most trainers that I know who got into the business back then or coaches, they didn't do it because they want to make a lot of money. They did it because of the passion. Exactly. For helping people. In fact, when I was a general manager, one of the hardest things I ever did was to teach them that, yeah, you have to learn how to sell. I don't want to sell. I just want to help people. Well, you're not going to be able to help people. You've got to survive. You can't sell. You've got to make this push now. Well, this is how you can make a lot of money. You're starting to bring in coaches and trainers who might not have the same passion because they look at it and they're like, oh, I like to work out and it's a great way to make money. Absolutely that. I think what's happened is, and there's so many different facets, but I think when I first got into online coaching, so I started online, like my online business in 2011 and before I knew an online business was possible. I was just doing it because I saw Eric Cressy and Dan John and Joel Jamison and Mike Roberts and all these people making content. I was like, okay, I'll open my gym one day, but they have a website, so I'll do the same thing. And I think now online coaching is it's very common. It's super common. And I think people are hiring an online coach and they're getting results. They're like, I can do that. And so they're like, they see that they worked with an online coach. They got their macros. They got their workout. They're like, oh, I can do this. And then they don't know about program design. They don't know about individuality. They don't know about any of this stuff. And so I remember I had one woman reach out and she was like, she was 22. She was like, I'm getting really bored of writing programs. I was like, you're 22. You're getting bored of writing programs. And I asked, I was like, how many books on program design have you read? And she goes books. And I was like, yeah, books on program design, not like Instagram reels or like how many books have you read on it? She was like, none. So I gave her a big lesson on credit. She's crushed it and she's doing great now. But I think a lot of people are coming into it because they got coached once or twice and then think, oh, this will be a great business for me. Not because they love coaching, but because they got results and they think it's going to be easy to do the same thing. You know, this reminds me of in the late 90s, early 2000s, a franchise moved into the gym space called Curves. Yeah. And they became the number one franchise very quickly. And what it was for people who don't know is like a circle of pneumatic equipment, very small studio. It was advertised just to women. They exploded because they were tapping into a segment of the market that the gyms weren't able to tap into. But then what happened was people saw that they made a lot of money very quickly. Members in particular who followed Curves for six months. Oh my gosh, great. I'm going to open one myself. Yes. And you had this explosion and then this crash because fitness in my opinion has to be led by people with a deep passion for fitness. Otherwise it won't work. Do you think the coaching space is going to go through that where you're having this huge influx of people? And a lot of them are going to be like, oh wait, this isn't working because I just want to do this for money. And it's actually a lot harder than I thought. Yeah. I think it's happening. We're just not acutely aware of it. Like I can't begin to tell you that there have been so many people who've started and then stopped. I've seen it over and over and over again. I'm going to start a business and then stop. And I think there's just the ease of access is it's easier now than ever before. So there's always new people coming in. We don't see the drop like we would in curves because it's not in person. It's not like a brick and mortar business. They sort of have those numbers. Like they had franchise numbers. Exactly. I think here it's just people are joining Instagram or people are starting their fitness page and they post for two days and they don't get a client and then they stop and then they start it like, I don't know why I didn't get a client. I look at their pages like, well, you post a picture of your pickup truck. Of course you didn't get a fucking client and you don't see it happening all the time. So the churn rate is huge. We're not going to see it as in like one big spike and then one big drop. I just think it's happening all the time. Do you think it's possible to be a good coach and go directly into online coaching first or do you think that it requires in person first? What's your thought on that? It's going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think if you haven't coach people in person at all then you can't be the best coach. That's exactly what we preach at forever. Yeah, I don't understand. There's too much nuance that you learn through the process of because you could take, this is the part that's so unique is that you could take literally 10 people, same age, same goal, same issue, same everything. And yet the programming, the diet, everything could be completely different. Yes. And then even then break it down even further to still two of the cues. Exactly. For the exercises. Yes. All 10 will be unique on how you have to communicate all three of those major parts of being successful. That's really hard to kind of figure out just getting dropped into the internet world where you don't get to practice that and figure that in person. I've always seen a deficit for real like movement coaches too. It's always been like it kind of made sense for me from an aesthetic perspective to like, you know, you do your pictures, you do macros and you're able to kind of coach them nutritionally, but actually like good coaching and being able to see a lot of those nuances in their movement. It's really difficult to do via video. One thing I know too, like from a lot of these people too, I think might be part of the problem is that they get in this transformation and they look great and they post about it. They get so much attention. Everybody's like hitting them up. They're like, can you tell me what you did? Can you coach me on this? Are you finding that is like a commonality that you see with new coaches in the space coming in is that they were just asked to do it. All the time. It's like, oh, you look really good. Like people ask me like, I'm doing a cut right now. And people are like, what are your calories? What are you eating? It matters, right? I'm like, that is irrelevant. Yeah. Like I'm talking about the principles of what you need to do. Stop asking like, and people like, can you do it? Oh, what I eat in a day? Never. Yeah. That's our toll. I fucking hate that content. You know, that's, you know, it's crazy though. And I thought you had the same experience. That gets the most. If I post my food for the day and I tell people and it's just like, but you guys don't understand like it doesn't matter what I'm doing. It doesn't matter. Even if you have the same goal and you built the same workout. It's not going to necessarily work for you, you know. And even if it does, it doesn't mean you have the answer. And when I post something like if I'm going to have something and I post it, if I post something, people are like, but why? I'm like, because I fucking want it. Like it doesn't need like everything doesn't need like, okay, well the free radicals are going to be like, like it's just, I don't know. There's protein and carbs and like there's fiber. That's really what I wanted in this meal. And there are a million different options. You've been doing this a long time like us. Do you feel like we have made it more difficult and over complicated it for the average person? Yes, it's so much, so much. Yeah, unfortunately. And I think it's, when I was coming up, it was very difficult to get information. And I say very as in quotes because before me, it was even more difficult. Like there were barriers. There were barriers. Like you had to go to the library and you had to take out a book. And if you wanted access to peer reviewed papers, like you had to either be at a university or pay for it. Or now it's like, I go on Instagram and there's nonstop information. And people will send me screen recordings or screenshots of like me saying, it's okay to have an apple. And then the next video down is some other fucker being like, don't have an apple. And both people are giving scientific reasoning for it. So it's very confusing. And now it's the excess information that is making it more over complicated. Yeah. Well, okay. So there's two points I want to make is the first one is personal training or coaching in person is one of those few jobs where it's like baseball where if you bat 300, you're doing a good job. Like if 30% of your clients achieve permanent success, you're crushing it as a trainer. Now you want to coach people online and never meet them in person and work with them. You've just, it's exponentially more challenging to do so. Yep. So we've always said if you want to be a good online coach, you got to do it in person because you're only making it that much more challenging. You haven't figured it out in person. You're not going to be able to figure it out online. Yeah. And that's, that's most important. The second comment I want to make is you said there's too much information. Here's a big problem I see and I would love your commentary on this is that our space gets so caught up in the who's more right tribalism. The study said this, no, but my experience says this. No, but for bodybuilding it's this. No, but strength athletes and coaches do this. And no, it's that the average person isn't hearing the basics that they need to apply. What they hear is all this insanity. And they're like, okay, well, he said coffee's good. But then they said my adrenals aren't good. And then fasting in this study showed it was great, but they said it's not good for my cortisol. And then this guy says eat, you know, this guy brought up studies is connected to I'm not doing anything. Yeah, I'm not doing anything at all. I feel like we're two scattered and we're not all working together. Yes. You feel okay. And, you know, it's so funny. The studies thing is very interesting to me because before the only people who had access to studies were people who like had some semblance of knowledge and some new how to find studies. Even then, though, you were still able to cherry pick. I've been playing the chat GPT and I can go on. I'd be like, hey, is there a study showing X, Y or Z? Yes. And I'm like, yes. You can find a study to prove me to that study and it will send me the PubMed link. On both sides. On both sides. So now anybody can say, well, here's a study saying this and it's like, now you have to actually go in and you have to actually read the study and explain the issues, but they're not going to fucking listen. It's yeah, it's people are it's and there are some really great never eat, never eat fruits or vegetables. And they're like, they're about to eat an apple. And then they're like, all right, we'll throw the apple away. It's like, they go through like five things in the day that they end up eating ice cubes. Exactly. Yeah. It's like, it's, it's true. It's, because no matter what, there's going to be someone who you should never have this. You should never have that. It's, yeah. It's one of the things that actually really pisses me off that people do actually kind of get after somebody who does this is it's, it's like, that we communicate differently. And I hate when someone will take like a piece of your content, DM me and be like, Oh, what do you think about this because it's just like, you are looking at the wrong thing. Yeah. There's, what he's saying is right, but you, you're focusing on like one aspect of how we're both communicating it. And he's communicating them totally different for a different situation. And so are we. It's like, both people are right or both people are wrong. However you want to look at it. I'm going to give you a great example. one. Yeah. It was about like a hundred years. Yeah. I was like, had a live a long time. It's actually really good. It's really good, right? So what they're doing is they're going through the world's blue zones, which by the way, there's some controversy around that even, but whatever they, they definitely people definitely do live longer in a lot of these areas. Like Greece, Japan. Yeah. It's like Sardinia, Okinawa, you know, Loma Linda, the seventh day I've been tense and he's going through and he's highlighting the way that these people live in each area and what may be playing a role and why they live so long. But even the way they communicate is confusing. For example, in Sardinia, this is an island off the coast of Italy, they found the highest concentration of centarians was strongly related to the altitude of the town that they lived in. And so people are going to get confused about that. Reality, what it is, is people are walking up a lot of stairs. Yeah. Exactly. Every day to go home and to go to the grocery store. We got to move. Right. Then they were showing other stuff and they're like, oh, they eat this food and it's very high in antioxidants. Oh, but in Okinawa, they eat this other thing that's really got all these fights for radicals and it's got all this fiber and all that stuff. But the commonality, here's what they're not communicating. They all don't eat processed food. Yeah. That's pretty much kind of what it boils down to. What are some of the most important basic things you like to communicate to people to kind of simplify the whole damn thing? Yeah. I mean, so walk, movement is number one. Sleep is number two. Strength training. I know this is all crazy shit. I actually tell people now more than ever. I'm like, stop watching the news. Yeah. I think it's one of the most important things right now. That's actually a really cool one to keep in the top five of like, this is like for health. For mental health. Yeah. And it's not even just mental. So I like tracking my blood pressure. It's been a big thing for me. You're doing that thing right now. That's actually really cool. And so I've tested on myself weeks where I watch the news and weeks where I don't. And my blood pressure is significantly higher on weeks when I watch the news versus when I don't. Which is like, that's no joke. Wow. You're chronically elevated blood pressure versus chronically healthy blood pressure just from the only change, not my diet, not exercise, not sleep, just news. Wow. It's like, I have no doubt that people who are just sit down watching CNN, Fox, whatever it is all day, their blood pressure is higher and they're more likely to have a hard text or any of that stuff. Here's the question. It obviously makes people feel crappy. I think people know that. Like right now people listening are like, yeah, totally. I can't understand. Why do we do it? Why do people keep doing it? It's, there's, that's a great question. I've, the, the number one, this pissing me off so much. The number one issue that people have when I say that, and it's not common, I'd say like maybe 3% of people will say it, like it's a very privileged thing for you to say. Meanwhile, I'm like, all right. Well, you're saying, my go-to comment is like, well, you're replying on your smartphone that like I have a very privileged point of view is very privileged of you. And then I'll be like, do you see how that doesn't help the situation? Just saying something is privileged doesn't actually accomplish anything. It's like, if you're in a situation where you have a smartphone and you can talk to me through the internet, you're also very privileged, but doesn't accomplish any like help us get to the bottom of the point to the thing we're trying to discuss. So I think people will do it because they feel like either if they don't watch it, then they're going to, they're going to be like getting hurt, there's going to be a serious issue if they don't watch it, or they feel, and I this, I haven't voiced this, but I think they feel some level of virtuousness from watching it. Are you informed? I'm informed. Exactly. And Denzil Washington's amazing quote, like if you don't watch the news, you're uninformed, but if you do watch the news, you're misinformed. It's just like, it's super smart. And I think they feel like, okay, well, I'm informed on these issues, so I feel better about myself. It's like, but what are you doing about it? You know what it is, what we're fighting. I think this is a general statement that covers a lot. What we're fighting is primitive, for lack of a better term, behaviors and the way we evolved in an environment that completely doesn't match. So in other words, if you're in a tribe, which we were for hundreds of thousands of years, just recently we moved out of that, right? In terms of the time modern humans have been on earth, if you're in a tribe, you are going to be attracted to bad news because you have to. It's like, it would be like bad news you got from your neighbors. Like your neighbors come to you like, hey dude, there's a bear in the neighborhood. There's a guy breaking into houses. Yeah, you have to know. Right. So you're attracted to it. The problem is that has expanded to the world and there's always crazy shit happening in the world because it's billions of people. This is a numbers game. Yes. Just like, you know, how we're, we've made life easy for us physically because that used to be bad for us. We used to get hurt. It was back breaking labor. It really did damage us because it just was horrible. And then we went so far in the other direction now where we, you have to schedule movement. Otherwise you're going to die. Same thing with food also. So it's literally like we have to navigate what we've done to the world in a way that benefits our, you have to be aware basically of our behaviors. That's why I think we're attracted. One of the reasons why we're attracted to bad news is we've evolved to watch and listen to bad news. It's addictive too. I'll notice myself just being like continue the death scroll on social media. I'm like, what am I doing? I don't need to know about this awful thing that happened like seven countries. Like I don't need to know this, like that one family. Like it sucks, but I keep seeing all these terrible things pop up and it's addictive to get sucked into it and then you feel terrible, makes your day worse. Like it's, it's bad. How was that transition for you? Like that was another thing that changed for me once I became a father was I became hyper aware of my own patterns on the phone and stuff like that because now I know this kid is watching me and just like you said will emulate what I'm doing already even at one. Like have you noticed a difference in your own behavior? Are there things that you've put in as far as practices to like I don't want to, I don't want her to see me on the phone or are you doing anything different than you were before? Yeah. So it's not that I don't want her to see me on the phone because like that number one that's impossible and number two like she's going to use a phone for me it's more just when I'm with her I am not looking at my phone while I'm with her in terms of like if I'm having a conversation with her like as much as we can or if we're playing I'm not also on my phone. It's I'm with you and you matter in this conversation or this moment is between us not us and then also me interacting with other people. That for me is the number one thing where for what I would do one thing I didn't like when I was a kid is is uh if my dad was on the phone when we were in the car like we'd get in the car immediately he'd call a friend and so like there wasn't much communication. So that will be something for me is when we're in the car we'll use that as time to talk. I don't want to get one of those cars with the TVs in the back of this in the seats because like I want to have a conversation so with the phone especially it's not that I can't use it when she shouldn't see me it's just when I'm talking with you it's just you and and that's it. Yeah I had an experience like that where my son was playing and like always playing over there I'll be on my phone and then I looked up and I noticed that every once a while he'd look up to check oh crush me yeah so now I'm trying to be you know I try to be more aware you know what's interesting when we talk about all these different issues I mean look for all intents and purposes chronic health issues seem to be getting worse. Yes people are the obesity has gone up yeah you know cancer rates although we figured out how to work with cancers to an extent once we get them we still getting them at higher rates dementia and Alzheimer's going up mental illness has exploded basically all chronic health issues have gotten worse and we figured out how to band-aid them or maybe treat some of them a little better with modern medicine but if they're still getting worse meanwhile the fitness industry simultaneously has grown has made more money has sold more products more people are aware of I guess exercise and diet than ever what are we doing wrong what the hell why are we failing because I think for I think of all markets we have the answers we actually do if you scoward every market the one that actually has the best answers for all these problems is our space where are we going wrong why are people getting worse while we continue to grow. Man it's a great question there's like so many different things going through my mind I'll talk about something that stuck out to me so I have family in Israel we go to Israel at least a couple times a year and one thing about whenever I go to another country whether it's Israel or somewhere in the UK whatever it is it's never as convenient as the United States is and the United States is it's amazing it's incredible partly because it's so convenient there's so much innovation but you can get anything delivered to your door immediately you don't really have to get out like it and when we go to Israel there's so much more of a focus on family there's a focus on movement there's a focus on like there are things now where you can order it and deliver directly to your door but most people they value getting up moving going somewhere spending the day at the beach it's much more about about living as opposed to trying to reduce the time spent doing something else so you can sit on your couch more and so I think if if I'm really thinking about from a lifestyle perspective I just think things have gotten so easy for us that it's like people always want like what what I want to do less I want to do less I want to do less I think it's more of a mindset and there are some really amazing coaches we're putting out I mean look at the the popularization of David Goggins like just go hard be like this is I think we're craving it but so many people are just are stuck and and feel stuck in that like they everything is convenient so that it's more difficult to move you just hit on my theory on why we've seen in the last decade OCR explode Spartan because I think deep down we crave that and we need that yes and we don't even because if you think about it for a second like how ridiculous that is that you pay money to a place to go crawl through mud get in freezing water you know I'm saying get burning hoops yes like you actually imagine being you know three hundred years ago somebody like go time traveling and coming in this way wait wait these people are all paying for this but it's like that's how we've gotten so far from that yeah move from that that there you know be interested because you make that point about other countries and I feel the same way like when you go to Europe like when you eat out it's like a four-hour process yes even the waiters and waitresses they don't like they don't even serve you the same way like if you're an American and you go somewhere like that like you have to learn to like be okay with like your waiter might not come by for another like yes exactly here they bring you the five hours yeah like they're trying to pump they're trying to pump you out to get to the next table I feel like they make the seats uncomfortable so you leave fast it's so like so it'd be interesting to see if that aligns with my my theory on the OCR if there's like a higher enrollment here in America because we're so far away from maybe a lower enrollment you guys are talking about is a culture and I agree with that how the hell do you change the culture you know I want to ask you because you communicate health and fitness appropriately and effectively that's a very tough combination it's hard to sell the right thing the right way and be effective because you're constantly countering the easier faster take this pill flashy type of message yeah how have you found success and the reason why I want you to answer this is because we have coaches and trainers listening right now yeah and I know they're tempted to build their business what appears to be the easy way yeah and what you are doing appears to be the hard way but yet here you are extremely successful like communicate that how did you do that selling these ideas the right way and why wouldn't you want to sell it the wrong way so there are many reasons why you don't want to sell the wrong way like your soul being one of them but like what I for me lately I like to look at comments that I get on whether it's Instagram YouTube whatever podcast and look for common trends and the most common trend that I've really enjoyed seeing in the last few years is I appreciate how real you are it's the word real and I think that it's more common now for people to be lied to and for people to to be sold something fake and and not even just a product but the personality who they are is fake yeah and I think by being like being just honest and saying and being who you are and being truthful you automatically stand out which is it's it's unique now it's bizarre nowadays like oh that person is actually telling me the truth in a very vulnerable honest authentic way and I the word authentic is so thrown around now it's it's become inauthentic now to use it but it I very much believe like one thing I've worked on very very hard is doing my absolute best to say just be honest just say the truth no matter what and Jordan Peterson has been a huge influence on me for this it's like if you can just be about how you feel what you're thinking what you're going through you automatically stand out I just just by telling the truth yeah I'm going to add a chair I'm going to add to that just to really nail it down if you if for you to be an effective coach forget all the information that you talk about that might be right or wrong forget about all your methods that's also important but before any of that has to happen the person has to trust you mm-hmm they don't trust you it doesn't matter you can be telling them everything properly and right and this is the white way to do it and they're just not going to believe you in fact you gave some tips earlier like move more lift some way right basic stuff now somebody who trusts you like yeah he's not telling us the real secrets he wants me to hire him right whatever you know you know whatever the deal is so they have to trust you first yep people trust people that seem real yeah okay what is real real is I don't know the answer sometimes real is wow here's how I messed up yes like that's real yes not uh you know posting pictures of yourself because you're crying which is not real look at my look at my skin rolls that really that's not no it's like yeah so it's literally saying hey I don't I remember that first learning that as a trainer where client asked me a question I said you know I don't know the answer to that but let me find out right I remember being scared to say that and I remember the impact I had on my client they're like oh my god they trust me now yes once they trust you can guide them they don't trust you you ain't going anywhere so that's you know just yeah no I'm glad you said that because that's because it's being able to admit you're wrong being able to make you miss make a mistake people will automatically trust you more just if you can say like oh I didn't know that or I made a mistake that's a hundred percent or even just making lists of here are the things that I was wrong about previously with you I I think it's Ben Shapiro who has like a big a whole website dedicated to things that he said that he was wrong and I might be your I might be incorrect but I think it's true because like a whole thing that's just like hey these are all things I said that were actually wrong or incorrect or things I don't believe now I guess one of the most amazing things you can do that's cool and all routine maybe like once every three to five months I'll make a post like here are things I used to think here's what I think now and this is why it's like I think it's really good to have that so what I'm hearing it from all of you right now is that to me it sounds like like true vulnerability like when you are when you're able to be honest about something when it may or when it may not support you or help you right yes like saying you're wrong was a good chance that's not going to help your business or you won't be able to profit from that it won't be a good pop or people might judge you because you say that with the irony he'll actually do better yeah that is that is the irony but it's like that's to me that's what I'm hearing is like being real is is being vulnerable in a situation when it may not serve you yeah yet still being yeah true to yourself it is him you're right he just pulled it up yes that's cool and I think I think another thing it's important to clarify it's number one is I think these are this is what I think we all wish politicians would do yeah yeah like you would right it's like we all crave that just just say you made a fucking mistake just say it but they don't they always blame it on the other side see it you know just a minute yeah and then and then the other thing I think is very important with this conversation because people be like okay so be vulnerable and the look at vulnerability is a tactic yeah vulnerability is not a tactic right the wonderful himself crying oh my god that's the worst picks up a phone that's one of my biggest dudes I that is the most nauseating thing when they're like okay I'm crying most narcissistic strange it's the war yeah it's not a tactic it's just the truth it's fucking weird it's yeah it's like what in your mind and you think that you're being vulnerable with your audience like no you literally thought about grabbing your phone to record when you're supposedly in a very emotional state like that is nothing authentic gross that's gross I hate that I think you guys point a phone on me while I'm crying I'm lapping that phone right here but even that even that is different yeah like me like seeing that and then recording you yeah but you do this yeah exactly it's like yeah it's not weird as fuck you know I wasn't asking this story because uh there's been a you know you've been doing this since 2011 I started my website in July of 2011 okay so you've been doing this now for over 10 years there has been this what seems to be huge and uh welcome shift in exercise or at least the mainstream view of exercise for a long time forever strength training was never considered a form of exercise for longevity or for health I used to have to convince women yeah to work out weights and not become huge don't look like Arnold the next day type of deal now I'm talking to organizations major organization organizations that own gems like a huge investment company so gems all over the world right but in the U.S. what they're saying is is that they're now devoting far less space to cardio equipment and far more space to strength training equipment obviously platforms now in gyms we see bumper plates in gyms yeah yeah I'm seeing more people now talk about strength training and its benefits I'm seeing scientists and doctors now talking about how this is like not just a great way to exercise for longevity but it might be the ultimate way like how do you feel about all because you're obviously we're a powerlifter your strength training how do you feel about all this I love it and it's I mean I remember I first started getting a strength training I was like 14 and I would go into public gyms and I would never see anyone lifting well it was it was doing stupid shit all the time I can't go into public gym now without seeing someone deadlifting really well without seeing someone squatting really well without seeing someone like doing great push-ups all the time it's amazing like every public gym I go to it's like there's at least one usually more people training very very effectively it's wild to me the change in 10 years and I think there are many different reasons why it's happened number one I know previously a lot of the research was done on endurance athletes it wasn't done on strength training yeah they didn't have any research they didn't have any so it was just like all right well it just must be endurance that's it and so now more research has come out through strength training which I think has the science was behind we all knew it but the science was behind and now the science is they are like oh this is actually really important I also think that you know people are like the the people especially like women wanting glutes now has like oh well how do you get these glutes it's like well you got to fucking lift right it's like so I think that has also like really pushed stuff forward so it's there are many different aspects of it culturally scientifically that have contributed to it but I think it's it's amazing yeah you know what we don't touch on that one a lot you're probably right that the the butt thing was probably I mean let's be honest as influential as someone like Kim Kardashian is like you know she could be responsible for all the deadlifting and squatting is that possible do we have to credit her for potentially like moving the market that much I mean she's that she's got that much influence doing that I mean she doesn't yeah I was gonna say but she's got a big butt and then I think if you if you were someone to hire a sure a coach and say I want to butt like Kim Kardashian what will we all say yeah we got a squat deadlift you know what you would say to her so she you know indirectly inadvertently yeah I could have actually inspired yeah inspire influence the market that much no it's cool to see that it's starting to kind of happen now the strength training which is pretty cool so I'm anticipating what's gonna follow on that is the the the awareness around workout programming because strength training unlike oh look at let's be honest cardio also needs to be applied properly there's still a technique to it and all that stuff but it's not like strength training strength training programming can it makes a huge difference in how you do it not just lift heavy things but like how and how you order them so I almost feel like hopefully in the next 10 years we're going to start to see people start to realize like oh beach body that's not really strength training yeah you know yeah it's cardio with weights and I think that this is more are you getting more are you noticing more interest in like correct programming or coaches from coach and people who want to be coaches from you know that for the people who just like they're not passionate about it's sort of like I don't know if I was if I needed a lawyer I wouldn't be that worried about like why this law came into place it just like can you just do the fucking job for me and like protect me whatever it is it's like the people who are really passionate about learning yeah like why this exercise why this money sets and reps like I think one thing we see right now especially I'm clearly not in the hypertrophy space very much but like up people talk about mechanical tension more why like why should be doing this why should be reaching this level of fatigue why should be training this hard what like let's talk about the total volume this is a huge debate right now like in the in the fitness industry like how much volume do you need like and talking about that how many days a week per muscle group so I think we're seeing a huge rise in that um some of it being going too far like all right like really do you need to really worry about that fucking line of pull precisely exactly just fucking train just lift and like go hard and I don't care if it's eight reps or 10 reps or 12 reps maybe you should just lift until like you can't really do many more and you're good but um I think overall program design is becoming it's at the very least it's it's slowly increasing in popularity and understanding that hey this is really important we can't just say like hey do whatever work that you see on Instagram reels and expect to see massive progress you need to have a uh a legitimate periodized periodized program do you get asked a lot about uh companies like f45 and orange theory constantly what's your thoughts on that how do you communicate that to people that ask about it I always say I say listen something's better than nothing and I think like at least they have you moving and you're you're training and like it's it's going to be good for your health yeah is this the ideal program for maximizing your potential of course not no but like it's I would rather you do this than nothing at all so and I think there are some great f45 coaches I think there are some great orange theory coaches I don't personally enjoy the system me as an individual my wife goes to f45 and she loves it and like she also does like my workouts as well so she gets the best of both worlds but like it's I think if I were looking at from a population as a whole I would rather more people did f45 than sit at home on on the couch watching eating nachos all day but like in terms of actual really good program design like no it's it's not fantastic yeah I've been doing this long enough to remember when nobody uh squatted and deadlifted in gyms yeah to lots of people doing it to now I'm starting to see the backlash again yeah how do you feel about that like the people like deadlifting it's not a great back exercise squats there's you can get way better results if you just did this that the other or it's not as functional as a split that's getting back to the science stupid stuff that we do in space I feel like let's talk about those two exercises right there how do you feel about I know your power lifter yeah you also coach lots of people yeah most of them probably not power lifters correct how do you feel about those two exercises in particular and how do you feel about the backlash on I love them I think the backlash is just people looking for content yeah or they don't really understand it or maybe they were just super weak and they're like right they suck at it there's gotta be an alternative hey that's yeah you know the truth about that I mean and we I admit that on the show is like um you know my first five six years as a coach and trainer I didn't teach squatting or deadlifting because I sucked at it that's real I was bad at it I was bad at it I was weak at it it's like I've said I figured out how to do things without it and so I literally taught people that it wasn't until I got good at those and then realized the benefits that came with that yeah and I think that's what made me so I think it's hard about men you got and if you can't squat or deadlift our goal should be to get to that point yeah right that's how much value is in that and I get really annoyed by the coaches that try and break it down scientifically on tension that oh we can get that kind of tension on this hack squad or this leg press machine so there if you have a client why should you be teaching that squat I just don't I don't like that message yeah and it's there's a difference between hating on a movement pattern and hating on uh an effort or an intensity right it's like hating on a deadlift is just stupid it's just a hip hinge yeah whereas should I have like a I don't know a 73 year old dude like who like just wants to move better should be going for a one rep max that's stupid but every single person I work with is going to hip hinge and deadlift in some capacity every single one is going to squat in some capacity like I might not have everyone doing front squats because I don't know maybe they don't have the risk mobility for or some type of thoracic mobility for or maybe they just don't like the pain that the bar has on their neck I don't know but they're going to squat and they're going to deadlift they're going to do these things actually the the one that I don't necessarily have everyone do is bench press yeah yeah like isn't that funny that's the least like and that's the one that we grew up like that's the one yeah that's how much you bet it's like I was literally just because I make my own home gym I was like do I even need a bench press like I've got the squat rack I've got like a bench do I need a separate bench press I don't even think I'm going to order one I mean you if you can overhead press well it's far better for you yeah health wise strength wise functionality wise I mean I'd say when I think back to my clients I used to train like that was probably one of the most glaring things that I noticed in advanced age clients was the inability to even get their hands yes above their head like I don't need them to bench press anymore but if I could get them to actually be able to press over the head that'd be a huge accomplishment yeah I don't want to teach everyday people like all right let's lock your scaps back and just shove them down and then just like we're just gonna bench all like I would much rather teach you how to move your scaps properly and get you overhead pressing or single arm overhead pressing something like yeah what are the most important things you communicate to the coaches that you work with to help them be more effective oh man that's a great question I mean the number the number one thing is first you have to study like you have to learn like you have to read books you have to educate yourself Instagram tick tock doesn't count as education like it just it doesn't um I I've always said and I've experienced it is that the I think the best fitness businesses are built on word of mouth and you can't fake being a great coach if your business is built on word of mouth that's true like I think if if you're really paying attention your clients and you're you're learning and you're studying and you're giving them great programs then your business is going to grow if you are a shitty coach and like you're going to churn out and it's not going to do well so study number one coach people in person like we spoke about earlier I think coaching people in person will make you better online coach being an online coach will not make you better in person coach so coaching people in person and then uh I like it's I love that advice around word of mouth because we did so many things wrong in internet marketing world building this business and we only survive because the information the program the things that we provided were so good and what we did really well was take care of the people that did the handful of people that were coming through our community got so much said such good results that they went and told so many people and we have slowly grown yeah for eight years consistently we did terrible we are we never did funnels yeah we made the mistake of thinking that email was dead we need to capture emails for the first like three years huge mistake don't do that okay okay don't do that if you're building online business we didn't get on youtube we thought so we thought it was ridiculous I mean we did so many things wrong yeah but the one thing that we did right was really take care of our people really give them great results really help them like and add value and like because of that we survived all the things we did shitty yeah and I think that's such good advice for a new coach and trainer because you know what there's there is a lot of stuff that you can do with funnels and email marketing and stuff to you know bait and switch and you could probably make some quick money and be a pretty shitty coach at first yeah but eventually that dies exactly eventually enough people go through stuff and aren't impressed didn't see results get hurt or what about that and then they go in detail people and then that stuff runs out and so maybe you make a little bit of money for a little while but you're not going to have a business that continues to grow and that's the only thing we did right I really believe we did a lot of the things wrong a hundred percent advice one one of the things that you learn very quickly in business is that the person who is most likely to buy from you is someone who's already bought from you and if you've fucked that person over or if you did not do a good job and they're definitely not going to buy from you again and so I think just number one being a great coach which is like what is a great coach like it's not it starts with knowledge it doesn't start with charm like there are a lot of really shitty coaches who are super charming and great listeners and everyone but if you like a great coach starts with knowledge then from there being a great listener and also being able to communicate and being able to to change things on the fly cybernetic puritization whatever it is like we could always talk about the the different cues that you're going to use like this stuff can help contribute to being a great coach but I think that the number one thing it starts with knowledge and making sure that the people who are with you in person or the small group of community that you have knows that you're there for them 100 percent here's where some people will get challenged with that I agree with you but you're going to get trainers this is a big challenge I hear from a lot of new coaches is that they feel like an imposter mm-hmm they're like okay I learned these things I did all you know I've done all this reading I've got these certifications you know I've trained a few people you know who am I to help this person how can I charge a hundred dollars an hour or I feel like an imposter like what do you say to coaches that come to you and say like I don't know am I am I worthy of doing this or why are people asking me this and I don't feel like I'm good enough yeah I'm welcome to being human we all feel that way in some capacity like at all at all points in life it's it's not a justification not to do it right it's like you're welcome to feel that way that's okay I felt like that too but like that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it and then if they don't go if they don't work with you they're gonna work with someone and like do you feel like you can provide a safer program for them than someone else if the answer is yes then like take them on and you don't have to charge a hundred an hour you could one thing I used to do when I first started was like I'm gonna coach you for free for the first x number of weeks totally and then they'd be like why like well I'll tell you why number one is because I'm learning I'm still getting my chops in it's like I don't feel comfortable taking your money yet number two is if you like the results then after four eight twelve weeks then you can start paying me but first we're gonna do it for free and then it would be great and then they got great results and then I felt more empowered like okay cool I helped this person get results now I feel more comfortable charging and I would start with like twenty dollars for twelve weeks and it's like okay now I'll bump it to forty dollars for twelve weeks and like that's how I started and I was a teenager it's like I didn't start by taking money at first have you heard multiple clients and and it's all these practices of like gaining knowledge and experience and and you know that's what you build off of and that's you have to build up that confidence to be a good coach yes from what I understand a hundred percent have you have you heard Brett Contreras' story do you know how he built his business I did not find this that when we've met him multiple times he was on the show again for a second time and Sal asked him a question this time that we had never asked him I did not know do you know how he like no do you know that he doesn't charge anybody for his training I did not know that that's awesome yes still to this day he does not charge people for all the people you see on instagram he'd be coaching and training with that he obviously gets something out of it too but yeah that's awesome I know so I thought I love that too someone of that that much talent that much education intelligence like yeah had the same kind of philosophy is just like I'm just and he the way he positioned it on the podcast was funny because he's like you know if I do that then you know if I'm five minutes late then I you know what I'm saying if I don't I love that yeah his attitude was like I didn't want that response little bit of expectation to help these people I was passionate about doing that and so and then you know everybody's so excited because I'm not charging them and he goes and then I can do in groups and they can all learn from me and so that's how he grew his business that's so smart help and then eventually obviously attracted some of these big name bikini girls right huge followings and then let the results speak for himself yeah yeah I think that's so how do you communicate to people who because this is gonna happen who come to you and say carnivore really works well for me I feel so good I don't have any more of these issues or yeah but you know I go vegan and I feel phenomenal or you know I do this other thing and it just I think it's really working for me like how do you communicate to those people I it's funny like when I was younger I would go off on a tangent now I'm like good that's awesome and I basically say that and like how's your like if we want to go in deeper like well what do you think if they start to ask me what do I think about it then I'll be like well here's the thing like are you getting your blood work done are you checking these levels are you making sure you're okay health wise like are you going to the doctor if that's all good like I'm not going to tell them not to do it because the easiest way to make them want to do it more is for me to say like you shouldn't do that it's like that's a bad idea they're gonna be like fuck you like I'll do what I want but I feel great yeah but exactly so it's like if you feel great go for it and then I'll like I could have conversations like do you like is this something you can continue for the rest of your life and they're like oh no no way I can only do it I'm I'm really struggling I'm like okay well that goes against everything you just fucking said so let's talk about how we can maybe make this more sustainable but if someone just comes to me is like oh man I'm I'm really loving this I'm like I'm so happy for you yeah good for you so what's up with someone maybe hearing right now when we're talking is they're like okay so what you guys are saying is I gotta figure it out for myself what the hell like okay that's I'm even more confused are there general guidelines and things that you can communicate around nutrition yeah that tend to okay so what would those be I mean number one I mean this is gonna be the most like it's so funny now that like everyone knows I'm about to say protein yeah protein is super important but like 10 years ago that was not like no so like protein is obviously like I think number one no why is that oh man yeah because we have a lot of data to support this now yeah I mean we can talk about number one in terms of if we look at overall health issues like we're fatter than ever and which contributes to like the most amount of health issues like protein is the number one is going to keep you the most full it's going to help you with your body composition it's going to be able to help you build muscles like there's no question protein is that the most impactful from that has the highest thermic effect so like protein is just from a body composition perspective alone is going to be the most important it's from there like after protein I would then go to fiber and I would I often put those like side by side I think protein and fiber like and when I'm talking to people who they don't want to track calories they don't want to track macros overall I'm like let's just protein fiber I think that that is for me what I would say is the most important both they both keep you full generally for focusing on protein and fiber it's hard to eat like shit like it's really difficult to eat like an asshole if you're focusing on protein and fiber it's like okay so I'll have like fish and vegetables or like I don't know like chicken and also have an apple it's like eggs and oatmeal it's like these are all amazing meals unless you're like getting like the fiber one bars and like that's and then like I don't know like you know like shit that way but if you're it's protein fiber whole minimally processed foods if you're doing that like you really can't go wrong I'm going to add to this you're so correct and I'm going to add to this for someone listening here's why the number one enemy to the average person when it comes to obesity or should I say the number one thing they should search for is satiety period end of story if we if you feel a sense of satiety it's not perfect because people eat for lots of different reasons but you're way more likely to not overeat you're way less likely to impulsively eat your it's it just makes things a lot easier and that's for anybody listening right now if you're hungry you have lots of cravings good luck trying to live with that all the time and eat healthy or make good choices so those are those two things you named are the most satiety producing foods or or components of food and the second part which I love that you said is it's really hard to eat lots of heavily processed garbage and also eat a lot of protein and a lot of fiber even the heavily processed stuff that has a lot of protein and fiber doesn't taste as good at all as the stuff that does and it doesn't fill you up as much that's right so what you just said is so on the money with nutrition I wish people would just kind of understand one of my favorite things that you do talking about this this subject is actually you do a really good job though of going back and forth on the nuances of that which is something that we are always having because like I think all of us in this room don't do this where we say you know avoid processed foods as much as possible go for whole foods but I'm not demonizing exactly processed foods at the same time I'm not and I'm not saying you that processed foods don't make it in my diet I'm talking to the masses of like listen you're gonna indulge in those things be aware of the way it's going to make you feel and how it make me want you to eat more if you stick to whole foods you might have an easier time staying to your core balance but at the same time I can show you that I can eat stuff from a wrapper and eat processed foods and still stay fit so it's not like it's the devil and it's going to make you technically fat just makes it harder it makes it more difficult so recognize I think that what we did about in the in the in the fitness spaces like it's like you're either or it's like you either got to be the you know protein bar shake all processed food type of person if I am or you have to be this hippie crunchy whole foods though you gotta you can't eat any of those those are all cancerous foods it's like listen there's there's a balance here there's nuance here and it's that it's not that those foods are necessarily quote-unquote bad foods it's that oh you if you eat a lot of processed foods it's very difficult yes to stay within your core balance if you focus on whole foods it's much easier but it doesn't mean you're you're bad if like you have a busy day and you have to have beef jerky or protein bar or something on the go so I think you do a really good job of communicating that do you get a lot of people that because you talk like I know you did a kick a while back where you like we're eating like bad food and you show that you lose weight like I'm today is day 29 I'm spiking my blood sugar every day still losing weight and people are losing their fucking shit but but to go off of what you just said I think this is really important so you said it earlier you noticed that my my content has dropped a little bit in terms of frequency because I have a kid right it's like before my business got to where it was I had to be making a lot of content and now I've earned the right and the ability I should say not the right the ability to produce less and still be okay I think that this is also with nutrition with nutrition it's you need to have a flexible diet I think it's important but someone who who is already relatively lean and worked years to build muscle and maintain a good body composition will be able to have more flexibility without it negatively impacting their health whereas someone who is maybe a higher body fat percentage hasn't built as much muscle doesn't have as good conditioning isn't as healthy maybe they need to be a little bit more rigid for a little bit and doesn't mean they can't enjoy any of these foods ever but it means like you might be better being like 90 92 and a half percent consistent as opposed to trying to be 80 percent consistent right now or 70 percent might be better I'm not saying for everyone but I think in order to be like to to earn the ability to be more flexible and still make progress you might have to get to a certain level first and that's something to be aware of yeah they haven't formed and strengthened those behaviors yes exactly and they have to learn how to actually like apply that consistently and yes you know be able to duplicate that yeah here's it here's an uncomfortable truth and this is definitely oversimplifying things so everybody relax but it's a truth that if you consume less than you burn all the negative effects associated with sugar and certain fats and all these other things you negate a lot of it if not most of it yeah right so in other words you can eat McDonald's yeah every day and of course make sure you don't have nutrient deficiencies stuff like that if you're not overeating yeah you're probably you're going to be almost fine yeah I want to say fine but almost fine now with that the reason why it's an oversimplification is because eating just McDonald's or whatever it's going to give you more cravings correct you're going to have ups and downs with your mood or behaviors which then lead to the fact that it's going to be much more challenging but I think people need to understand that that first part yes now what you said I want to get to which is the muscle part yeah what gives you more of that flexibility muscle you spike your blood sugar yeah guess where that blood sugar gets to go correct right in the muscle if there's a there's another myth which is that obese people carry more muscle but in fact they suffer from higher rates of sarcopenia yep okay muscle low muscle and muscle loss then the average person so insulin spikes to somebody with a little bit of muscle not a good idea you got big quads and a strong back and all that stuff like that sugar is going somewhere it's going to be stored especially if they're overeating and they're that's that's the main issue that's right so you want that flexibility well let's get your metabolism to boost a little bit and you know what does that you gotta build that muscle yeah share the share what you're doing right now for the audience that isn't following or doesn't know what you're doing right now and I love when you do these kicks for like the 30-day thing just to prove a to educate basically is what you're doing man so what exactly is the protocol for what you're doing right now and what what made you do it so the thing that made me do it is I've heard doctors say like you really need to watch the carrots because they're high in sugar it's like you fucking idiot like like watch the carrots or watch the watermelon because the high glycemic index like really we're talking about the glycemic index and why would they point to carrots and watermelon right it's like it's not the pizza or the french fries or the ice cream but yeah it's like for fuck's sake yeah and I get these all the time in my dm's and p and clients and members like my doctor said this or my friends said this I'm like I don't care what carol said like you're welcome to have fucking watermelon it's fine so basically right now a huge viral trend is everyone wearing these continuous glucose markers which like I think they can be good for diabetics who need them and they're an interesting form of data but people are like one of the most viral things right now in social media is look I ate this look at my blood sugar and look at my blood sugar I'm like wow that's incredible that's a normal healthy response to eating that food and so I was like fuck it so I have a continuous glucose monitor on right now I've had one on for a little over a month and I was like I'm going to deliberately spike my blood sugar once a day and whether it's a donut or yesterday at the airport I had pink berry with gummy bears and I made sure to get gummy bears and raspberries so I get the fructose and the sucrose and would you get criticism for that oh but you didn't have the the fructose not yeah exactly the gummy bears are okay with this people find anything to criticize so I've done everything and but I've also done things that have been really interesting like okay one day I'll have oatmeal which oatmeal spikes it like fucking crazy so there's a lot of people hating on oatmeal recently I love oatmeal then I did oatmeal and I also did it with the next day I did oatmeal and protein just to see the difference because it's interesting to see these differences but basically the glucose spikes or bad crowd has lost their fucking mind because I'm down as of this morning 10.4 pounds in 29 days which is a very aggressive deficit but I was like I'm just doing this to make a point because if I only and that's in quotes if I only lost like three pounds they'd be like it's a water fluctuation like no mother fucker poop yeah so so I every single day spike my blood sugar deliberately usually with something not considered healthy but watermelon and oatmeal spike it more than anything like watermelon oatmeal are the things that spike it more than absolutely anything which is just funny because for me like I'll eat pounds of watermelon a day on a cut because it's just it's so filling it's delicious like I love watermelon yeah and so yeah people are freaking out but it's just like again it's keeping control of my calories those spikes matter when they're supposed to matter like you said diabetic pre-diabetic correct they also matter if you can connect them to changes in behavior yes we work with a company that has that uses cgms but they work with a coach so you wear it yeah the coach contacts you yep and then they say okay we notice these spikes and whatever at this time did you get an energy drop did you feel irritable yep if the answer is yes your cravings kick up yeah okay now I'm aware oh crap when I eat that oatmeal or whatever it does make me have cravings later but if you don't connect is there anything it's completely yes it's completely worthless and that's been actually really cool for me to look at is in terms of okay cool like it's funny I've seen forever since I was a teenager like blood sugar spikes are bad because then you're gonna have a crash and you're gonna get hungry and I've always sort of just taken it at face value but it's been cool for me to look at different foods so watermelon and oatmeal for example spike my blood sugar like crazy I also have huge drops I become hypoglycemic soon after oatmeal like within a couple of hours but I'm full for a long time with oatmeal whereas a donut didn't spike my blood sugar nearly as high and it didn't go hypoglycemic but I was starving which just goes to show like all right well what's more nutrient dense what has more fiber is like and so it is cool to say like well which foods affect you more not only based on blood sugar but on I'm so glad I actually think this you know we're talking about this I think this is one of the things that someone DM me about where because they've obviously heard us talk about nutrients before and I think they shared a clip of someone I'm using nutrients and I think yeah and I think I was this yeah no what he's saying is absolutely correct like it's not conflicting with what we communicate like it's you have to connect it to how you feel and you can feel very different from one thing to the next there's also an individual variance which is very huge huge here's what's weird that people don't that people just now are starting to realize you could have and they might call it an intolerance or let's say IgG antibodies whatever to a particular food that might have zero sugar and carbs could be an avocado or macadamia nuts but for whatever reason I don't know maybe you had leaky gut or whatever you've now developed an immune a low level immune reaction to it what does that do your liver is going to dump out sugar yes so why are macadamia nuts making my blood sugar spike yes you would never know that had you not worn this and worked with a coach that's the important so are you are you could you potentially want to work with cgms with clients or are you you're so in tune with your clients though I doubt you even need that kind of data I'm sort of conflicted mainly there are a number of reasons I'm conflicted I think the data is I love data I enjoy it I think it's fun I also know that there are a lot of people who are like they see there's so much information they're going to get even more worried oh my god like I'm says I'm hypoglycemic should I call the ER like should the fuck I like relax it's fine but the other thing and this is something this has been every time I do a challenge there's something I learned that I didn't expect I would learn that's cool and in this one I've spoken to a lot of diabetics and specifically parents of type one diabetics and this is what's been a huge eye-opener for me is it's hard enough to be a diabetic especially a type one diabetic I couldn't imagine how difficult it is to be a parent of like an infant or a young child who's a type one diabetic and you essentially have to function as their pancreas you have to constantly track their blood sugar levels you have to constantly track their insulin levels you have to make sure every like when they're out of friends house like are they getting what they need like it's and the CGMs at least here in the U.S. I know it's different whether it's in Canada or Australia UK because things are subsidized but I didn't realize like there's there's actually an often a shortage of them and people are struggling to afford them and people to get them for people to actually need them so what the conf the conflicts I have one of the conflicts I have is I'm seeing a lot of people using them who don't need them which is essentially putting the demand for them up much higher which is then rising the price for them which is making it very difficult for people who need them to get them yeah so I want to I want to let me touch on that that yes but here's what that'll lead to if the demand remains high innovation and lower cost yes correct so so it's a shitty situation this is how all markets work you'll see demand rise temporary shortages and prices because demand goes up correct only so much supply price tends to go up but we're already seeing innovation with CGMs and we're already starting to see more companies try to provide because they're like oh the demand's there right exactly so what this may lead to which is probably what's going to happen is over the counter CGMs that are inexpensive because there's also regulation that make it a pain in the ass dude yeah because it's considered there's a tiny for people that know the CGM has like literally it's the size of a hair and it's super super small and it goes inside your arm I don't even feel it when I put it in no it's not I literally don't feel it's not a needle it's literally like a hair yeah like a mosquito yeah okay and because of that the regulation says it has to go through this process of whatever so what I think is going to happen if the demand remains high is you know hold on everybody we're about to have really really really innovative cheap CGMs maybe Apple watches will offer it or who knows yeah yeah yeah but if we pull the demand back because of guilt or whatever I hadn't thought about that yeah then it could I hadn't thought about that it's a really good point yeah that aligns with what I believe but I hadn't taken it that far I hadn't gotten that logical step yeah so that makes total sense yeah you know the part that's most important about it is the part that you like because we all like the data so I thought is that you are connecting how you know regardless of where the blood sugar goes up or down is how you feel and how that changes your cravings and behaviors which is the most important piece right I think that's the biggest takeaway from any and I mean I feel the same way about testing body fat I feel the same way about entering your food into a macro counter yeah all those things it's like none of that data really matters unless what you see changes your behaviors around that yes if it doesn't change your behaviors or negatively impacts your behaviors then it's all like I remember when Doug uh first started wearing the aura ring yeah and they the aura sent us all all free rings and so we're all we're all wearing mine I like it he's like I noticed I got shitty or sleep yeah because I was so competitive with my score getting a better score but it stressed me out before I went to bed so I got worse because I do better with sleep then it's just like that's a perfect example of like how this could be a tool for somebody and help educate inform and help you make better decisions and then another person it could be totally negative you have to as a consumer be able to decide that for yourself is like what kind of person am I am I going to be able to take this information not get freaked out because it goes up or down or with that but go like oh sort of connected dots of oh when I have these foods yeah I do notice this happens and I do notice that these things or it keeps me fuller longer you brought up too you brought up body fat testing and macros there were clients I trained where body fat testing and macros sent them in the wrong direction yeah literally would make it stressful for them anxious or right contribute to like dysfunctional eating right we never test the body fat we would never count a macro and I just had to find yeah different ways around it I want to ask you this as a father because I know you're thinking about your daughter's only one correct but you're a very self-aware man you're obviously very involved with your family you're probably thinking at some point education yeah how's my kid going to learn things or whatever now as a coach and trainer you're a you're a teacher and you've learned that you got to coach people and train people differently right and there's an effective way to do it and there's an ineffective way to do it and if your client is not doing great you probably ask yourself what am I doing wrong yep not what are they doing and what why is it their fault but rather okay what am I doing right thinking about that looking forward with your kid how do you feel about education with your kid how do you feel about the whole process and looking at that and how am I going to get my daughter what kind of education am I going to put her in what she how is she going to learn and is the system really the best way that we currently use or are there different ways like have you had these conversations with your wife in terms of like the school system school and any education yeah yeah so my entire mom's side of the family are educators superintendents principals professors my cousin's a professor of Native American history at GW everyone's professor except my mom she was a lawyer so like everyone's in that world and I was terrible in that world like we were talking before we started recording I was in special education I was the black sheep of the family I was I was just terrible in school the irony you probably make the most money in your family just kind of point that out I think that's kind of cool right that's kind of cool and my mom still no matter what to this day she'll be like you know it's not too late to go back to school oh she does not say that she does not say that she does not say that she does not say that never really swear to God like maybe I'll buy a school mom actually what if you put that all towards becoming a doctor you're going to go to a science school for the ABD and yeah she was literally just a town the other week so you could always go back but um oh it's funny mom he's rich and he's successful he's great that's so funny you're malone mom I uh I obviously have a strong bias but I do not like the way that the current education system is set up and at least like from what I've seen especially like I just I don't like it um so we were talking about homeschooling it is something that we're definitely considering um I just I need to learn more about it the thing for me is I know everyone learns differently and what wasn't good for me might be good for someone else my thing especially with with my daughter and God willing future kids is I just want them to know that what grades they get and how they perform in school in my opinion means literally nothing in regard to what their future success will be like it means absolutely nothing I care more about the effort that they're putting into things I care more about how kind they are are they a good listener can they speak are they well-rounded like I care more about that than I do about their grades than I do about fucking do you know what a rhombus is like I don't know what a fucking rhombus is like I don't care so um there's a lot for me to consider and I'm not sure to be I just don't have the answer yet but there are many different things we're trying to figure out and discuss and we have a few years but um I don't know what route we're going to go but it is something that I'm not going to make a light decision with yeah you know it's interesting you're you're you're actually I didn't learn this till much later unfortunately after I was a dad and everything and this came this occurred to me later on it's like I know what this should look like because this is how I train people it's really not that different I'm training people they're my students and I'm really trying to help them and everybody's different I have to appreciate that and what may be challenging for one person is easy for someone else and then I gotta figure out how to make that challenging thing not so challenging yeah they just don't do that in the school system unfortunately yeah don't look at it that way so well you have to understand the origin of it right I brought this up on the show the other day like I mean I remember first learning about like this was like the Rockefellers and they're like they all came to government said like how do we make more workers yeah how do we make more workers yeah we created the current public system with that intended so true so to think to not if you don't understand that and to think that like that is the best okay yeah that is the best way if we wanted a bunch of factory workers if that was the desired outcome if we were you know a bunch of people that owed massive companies and we want all these people to work for us then this is how we should do this school system but and if that's what I guess you want for your kid you want your kid to go work for some faculty yeah then okay then maybe it is for you otherwise it's definitely not the most ideal way for us to educate whatsoever yeah what do you because obviously when you when you communicate you do communicate things like weight loss and strength and looking better but you also communicate a lot about health yeah health longevity enjoyment you know it's like you know you want to live not just be a live type of deal I've heard you talk about that when you look at health you obviously no nutrition you know exercise I'm sure sleep was something you started to learn a little later I think all of us started to figure that out a little later like why sleep matters yeah why does that matter why is it important that wasn't something I thought about early on at all are you have you looked at or the data behind things that give us purpose like spirituality religion yes those kind of practices yeah yes that was actually to be so I started in college with exercise science and I dropped out from that degree within the first two and a half months and I moved to health and behavior science like behavior psychology and that for me was I think it was a great change in terms of communication with clients but also for me learning about like what brings people happiness like what what is joy what makes them enjoy life what makes them feel good in life so yeah in terms of in terms of actually looking at not just people who are successful in terms of money but people who are happy that to me is is very intriguing and so I I love looking at that research so how do you communicate that coming I know you have a spiritual background I know you probably talk to a lot of people that aren't how do you communicate the importance of that to a bunch of people who are you know that don't have faith or don't believe and or don't have a religion or anything like that how do you how do you communicate that to the masses yeah so that's a great question it's I always go back to number one I'm not going to tell someone what they need to believe because as soon as you tell them what they need to do they're going to be like fuck you right so so for me it's been less about like hey you need to distance and people will often ask me like well you seem very happy you seem very fulfilled and I'll talk about what's fulfilled me and I'll talk about my relationship with God and and usually when we talk about God they'll ask like well so you believe in God and I'll be like well yeah of course I believe in God and and I'll be like what do you think God is and we'll go down these philosophical type discussions and and oftentimes their view of what God is it's it's something that maybe they were taught when they were in first grade and it's just like they've never expanded their view of what God is or what spirituality is so we'll have these conversations I think through that and through watching then they can learn how to incorporate more into life and be more open minded to it and understand that like I don't think it's a coincidence that generally speaking people who believe in God and who have faith and and have more spirituality are happier, healthier and live longer like you can't really argue with that based on the research so I think just having these conversations with them and and then just hanging out and and being part of my community whether or not they they are like I'm Jewish I don't need you to convert to Judaism but like like for example I I've done Bible study classes with friends of mine who are Christian literally like my buddy Sean and my buddy Esteban John you know Sean Lowe from The Bachelor so he's a great friend of mine we're reading more than a carpenter right now which is like it's obviously it's about Jesus like I'm not Christian but like I like to learn about this stuff and I like to have conversations with people about this stuff because I think learning about other religions and other people's faith will improve your own and it give you more insight into how to view God and how to have your I think for me the number one thing that's helped me is understanding that God wants our relationship with me God wants me to talk with him God wants our relationship with me and through that and through communicating this with people I think they okay like I can have these conversations I can I can try and develop a relationship with God and whatever capacity that means to them but through I think it's easier to not have a relationship with God than it is to have a relationship with God it's very difficult to continuously strive to have a relationship with God and and I think now people are starting to really okay I'm craving this relationship I'm crazy this effort to put into it and so I'll try and talk about it from that perspective and and it sometimes it works well sometimes people are like you're out of your fucking mind it's like it's okay like the good news is like I don't need you to do it like I'm just explaining why I do it and how it has contributed to my life do you you know I found interesting is that I've said this before that the pursuit of health let's say through fitness that if you pursue it long enough you start to ask these questions because health encompasses all these things and you said it earlier the data totally shows this do you think health and fitness or fitness in particular is just a great personal growth vehicle if you just pursue it long enough oh yeah I mean I'm just like health and fitness of course I think it'd be if you actually truly pursue it I don't think you could not get better as a result of it right and there's an argument to be made that like if you're actively pursuing anything like you're going to get better in some capacity like if you're truly not like half-assing and not like saying you are but like if you're truly pursuing something then I think you're going to be getting better in some capacity and I think health and fitness is one of those amazing things where when you actively pursue it it's not just you getting better it's everyone around you getting better as a result of it people are watching you people are seeing you you're able to provide more you're able to do more it's it's so much more than just yourself with health and fitness when you actively pursue it I think the same thing with religion I think the same thing with building a business like if I'm actively pursuing my business I'm definitively helping more people I'm definitively impacting more people and that process of going through it and dealing with the road bumps dealing with the blocks dealing with all the obstacles along the way like you can't not get better from that I also think it inevitably will lead to the spiritual question yeah because once you check all the other boxes like okay I got the sleep thing down oh I got the water the nutrition the strength training and then eventually it leads you to like there's something else there that I could do to improve my life and because of all the research that supports somebody that is that has some sort of religious or faith belief and how how much healthier they are because of that whether that be through community or whatever it is I think it eventually at least leads you to start asking those questions yeah and then those people that I have found that are in denial of that say oh no I'm super healthy and I'm and I'm atheist and this and that like they have found some other way to kind of try and fill that void of spirituality through that whether that be through you know claiming it's the universe and spiritual and crystals and all this other stuff it's like sooner or later you find something to try and fill that void because it's in everybody I feel like well don't you think it's it's somewhat back to your original point of of us trying to make everything so much more convenient and like our whole society's moving in that direction of everything needs to be ease of access and we need to sort of relinquish ourselves from hard things yeah when in fact the hard things are usually where you find the most purpose right and so then I could see where the spirituality it's hard you know having a relationship with somebody for a long time just one person that's really hard you know and being a good example continuously and doing the right thing that's hard and so I don't know for me like it just seems like a lot of this it's awkward for people to talk about and how does this relate to fitness how does this relate to overall health but don't you see that's it's all encompasses like who you are as a human being yeah yeah I completely agree if you well I'll give me here's a deal like you could you could do the fitness and diet and sleep perfectly shit's gonna happen yeah that what's gonna get you through it yeah you got to have some kind of purpose and drive to get through the shit because it's gonna happen no matter what now being fit healthy and strong means you're more resilient yeah and you'll go through less avoidable shit but it's gonna happen you know no matter what there's there's something where not to belabor the point if you want to skip this topic I'm more like like yeah but we all go through ups and downs all of us right we all go through shit I think a lot of people when they're in a really good point in their life they're like I'm the best they're like yeah like I'm I got it it's the ego coming in yeah but then when shit hits the fan and they're like well what happened I'm not the best anymore it's like well the person at the top of their totem pole was them and now it's like well now you're at the bottom of the totem who do you look up to now and it's like I think to have God is like the constant no matter what it's like no matter what you're going through good times bad times it's like you're not above you're like you are not the top of the totem pole at all and so for me it's like it's I think it's easy I think for people in bad times to go to God it's harder in good times to go to God and that's arguably the most important time because it always keeps you in check yeah well you you were born and raised in it has it evolved and changed for you like your beliefs your faith like yeah childhood and like did you go through because I grew up in it too so I was born and then I in it and then I went through a phase in my teenage years where I was like totally like not following anything didn't care and then I came back around later on in life and just had a different outlook on on my faith have you have you gone through a similar journey have you been consistent with the like what your parents taught you this is how I believe like how's that journey been for you yeah so so I was born and raised Jewish my mom was brought up in like a very like conservatively Jewish house my father was not at all and like he hated religion oh interesting so it was a huge debate in my house like any time it was the Jewish holidays they would always get in fights my dad would leave like it was always like a time of like it was very tumultuous in the house during those Jewish holidays I also went to I went to regular school and I also went to Hebrew school and I loved it like I loved going to Hebrew school I there's never been a point where I doubted God there's just my relationship has evolved throughout the years and I ended up I went to Israel after high school I took a year off I lived in Israel for a year and then I came back and I went to school and I went back to Israel for several years and Israel for me is where it's just like things just made so much more sense where it's just like this is there's no question in my mind and so I sort of look at it similar to fitness which is funny because we're going back to it where it's like I've always been very involved in fitness I loved health and fitness I love strength training I love working out whether it was wrestling whether it was powerlifting whether it's jujitsu whether it's whatever it is like the the methodologies and the actual things would change but I was always fitness oriented my relationship with fitness has changed throughout the years same thing with my religion and with God where it's like sometimes I was more into it sometimes I was less into it sometimes I was in this aspect sometimes I was in that aspect but like I think now as I've gotten older and I have a family I've become far more far more in touch with how I really want to have a constant relationship with God and when I was younger it was like okay there are times to pray there are times to talk to God and now it's like you could do it all day you could do it anytime you want you don't have to be in a house of prayer you don't need to you can talk with God anytime you want and you can have these conversations and that for me I think is one of the biggest changes and probably in the last year since my daughter was born is I try and have these conversations all throughout the day you know what's interesting is this is what I like about fitness so much is it's such a simple basic microcosm of a lot of different things to be successful with fitness you need to have practices you need to develop some kind of disciplines we would call that in religious practices tradition one thing that that Jewish people do very well is they have there's a lot of culture and tradition around what they do so and that's a good thing because you're there you're practicing you're connecting it to lots of other people and like fitness eventually you can get to the point like I can get to the point and I've been doing this for so long I don't necessarily need a schedule yeah I don't necessarily need a planned workout but it tends to look that way because I've done it for so long and I see the value I think that's true with any practice with any practice it's like while I'm starting this practice oh I can do this whenever I want and well you probably need to schedule it yes make a structure make a discipline because that's really the only way you can get better at something is by doing that I think you you know your culture does that very well and I would say it's probably why you could see the kids of families tend to continue it because you grew up yeah following these practices yeah you know I got something that you'll you'll like because I know you like Jordan Peterson we he came here to San Jose we went and saw him live and my favorite part of it even though I enjoy listening to him go on his like lectures my favorite part was the very end where people got to ask like they had this thing where you text and he'd just pick a live question and then answer it and one of the first questions was you know if he could go back and do something different with the way he raised his kids what would he do different you know what his answer was no take my kids to church every Sunday and then he and then he went on to say that you know the part that he says he's really I think we did a really good job with our kids he goes but I think it's very arrogant of us sometimes to think like you know just because we don't believe in a certain religion or believe in God that we are just going to completely ignore the values of teaching them a moral foundation like that and he's like so if you're going to be that confident about not taking your kids to that what are you doing on Sunday at 10 o'clock in the morning for your kids every week every single week as far as teaching them those values that they are going to get by going to a Sunday or Saturday service like that and he go and I like really that really opened my eyes on because I kind of as I've gotten all my journey moved away from like the church setting or whatever like that just because I'm not a big fan of a lot of the hypocrisy that happens in those type of communities but now I recognize too like well I better step up then and organize something for my kid to be learning every single week whether you like it or not they're going to be religious it'll be either the environment or this cause or this political party they're going to become religious so well that's what I took from that was they're and you know you don't have to say religious somebody is going to indoctrinate them in their beliefs right so would I rather my public school system or even private school system to be the ones that teach them those more values or would I rather it be a church that I believe in the values faith in or myself and it's like so if I'm going to be arrogant enough to say I'm going to ignore and not do that then I best step the fuck up and be doing it every single week or else somebody else is going to you know it's so funny the people they love to hate on religion and they'll often say oh you're all hypocrites but it's like are you perfect have you never been hypocritical at any point in time like it's I think people are so quick to be like well I don't do that because like you're all liars like listen they're good people and bad people and every walk of life they're also human they're all humans right and I feel like just because some people in that group have made mistakes or some people like and that's putting it lightly like some people have made like terrible like awful like some of the worst things you could ever imagine but it doesn't mean there's nothing you can take from other people in that group and that doesn't mean it's not going to make you better as a whole and I just think that one of my favorite quotes is we often judge our and I didn't make this quote up but we judge ourselves by our intent and other people by their actions and it's that has been very helpful for me in terms of casting judgment in terms of writing people off very quickly it's like have I never lied before have I like have I never like we've all done stuff so it's like all right how about we just like take a minute and focus on let's focus on the things that will make us individually better and as a community better and like for me I haven't found many places like on for Jews on Saturday so you go like better than go to synagogue and let's listen to something really great let's take a full circle this is what people do to trainers and coaches oh you preach about cheese or oh you're missing your workouts what are you talking about you know Tabby I'm not going to listen to you it's the same thing yeah it's the same damn thing it's like well that doesn't take away from what we're talking about and that there's accuracy here and listen you know I'm in fitness does that mean I don't struggle with yeah not wanting to work out in the morning or wanting to be lazy or you know eating whatever of course I struggle with that everybody does do you know who said that quote I love that I don't know who said I I should look at I don't I love that because you know oftentimes I get asked about like people that I'll either listen to or be friend and many times people will look at those people and say things like they did this or they do that and like how could you like that person it's like but the way I can get through that is I choose to believe believe that this person has good intentions yes yeah even if they have this past they did this they did that it's like I choose not to focus on that yeah I prefer to focus on the part that I want to believe is a good character which allows me then to build relationships yes Stephen Covey said that oh got it okay yeah we got that for you that's uh seven habits that's right right yeah that's a great book there's uh that's been a big like political talking point in recent years where people say things like intent doesn't matter like it absolutely matters like intent I think is off is equally if not more important way more important it's because it's we've all said things and phrased things in a way that maybe we didn't mean it in that way maybe we didn't have the the the action we took didn't best represent our intent but what you actually meant to do is incredibly important this is not this is not a debate the law even recognizes it if you accidentally kill someone terrible travesty horrible travesty you are not treated the same by the law as a good point as if you intended on killing someone in fact you could intend on killing someone and fail yeah and you'll probably go to jail yeah just because of the intent so that's a silly it's a great point yeah it's a silly debate that yet we judge people differently though yeah us as people right in society I think that's so funny what have been your biggest challenges recently for yourself maybe over the last let's say five years personally or maybe even your business were some of the biggest challenges you've had to overcome oh man so my greatest fear so I didn't grow up with money at all at all did not have money we had money like I was able to survive and have a roof over my head but it did not come from a wealthy family at all and it was always like that was that and like religion were big issues in my house so one of my deep-seated fears is always around losing everything and so I don't even like to look at my bank account I don't like to look at it's like it's scary for me my assistant will be like hey like this is the month and I'm like don't tell me like I hate hearing it like I hate it and that is something where as I've achieved more not in terms of success but in terms of income it's been a huge fear of mine and a huge anxiety of mine because the greater it gets the more I have to lose oh interesting and so so that's been a huge I could use the word battle it's just been a huge point that I'm trying to work on and improve and it's always whenever there was a point in my career which I fortunately haven't had this many years but early on when I would try to make more money my anxiety would go up and my business would do more poorly whereas when I focus less on money and more just on telling the truth helping people things tend to go the right direction but I also recognize that the anxiety that's there I don't want it there so I'm trying to face it more head on I'm trying to be more aware of it I'm trying to to have discussions around it more and not just ignore it because it's like the worst thing you can do because you build up a bigger monster but that that is something that I I've struggled with over the last few years that's really interesting okay so what do you what's funny is that what do you what do you do because of that right so are there things that I mean do you are you like super tight with your money because you are like that way yeah so I hang on to it and you're less likely to like let's say you know you're with some family or friends and you know you easily could afford a $500 dinner if you wanted to but that's like oh my god why would I do that are you like that is that so so I've saved to a fault thank god it's been very good like but I've never like I don't have an issue on spending money on experiences or people like whether it's my mom or going out to dinner with people but like I never really buy anything for myself um but what what I've done is I've tried to educate my more myself more on money I've tried to learn about money whether it's reading like Thomas Owl or like why she just helped me tremendously learning more about finance learning more about markets it's helped me become more logical with it do you have a tough time investing because of fear of losing like are you like super because like no I'd rather save it oh no I invest like and that's but but it's been helpful like I've I've I invest every month in a considerable portion of my income every month and not to go back to religion but like a huge part of Judaism is is making sure you have money but also then charity so a huge portion of my income every month goes to investing and also charity and then saving it's more it's more just like that the fear of like I could lose it at all so we just bought land we just bought some land we're going to build a house that is fucking petrifying that is like I I have never been not never like the amount of stress that I have now with buying the land and building the house I'm like holy shit like I'm it's it's tough so like I literally and I'll just be fully honest I called the architect a week ago and I was like we're cutting the budget in half I was like 50% he's like what you like they have the whole house already made up I was like 50% cut it he's like what so we're talking about it he's like maybe this is an emotional reaction so like we're talking about it eat something yeah let's have it let's take a breather but like yeah it's it's very stressful on that front so that that is the biggest amount of money and biggest investment I've ever made in my life what I'm very excited about but also scared shitless over how similar or different are you than your wife in that situation so my wife is like very even keel like she doesn't really get stressed at about really much at all so she's my balance on that she'll be like she's she's she's much just like all right well let's just talk about it and it's fine like she if we like were the same it would be bad it would be like a volcanic eruption I'm much more like oh my god and she's like okay let's just talk and then we'll we'll she's so calm my wife is just very very calm and she's very go with the flow she's like very zen like so it's it helps a lot yeah so she's like either way like oh we could spend a bunch of money on that or we can't yeah exact yeah she's not like we need this do you said this that she's like okay well we know I'll be happy even if we just rent whatever like it's like okay cool let's just you know what's super interesting about this is that somebody who has fears around money could go in like three different directions I know he's isn't his story like totally you have a very similar story all right the opposite okay I obsess about money I not a day goes by I don't look at all my counts what we made everything yeah I obsess over it it's a movement yeah yeah and so and I have the exact same like religious money or even the time of the fighting all that stuff is the same like we grew up a lot of like we married a woman very very similar so but yeah I'm the opposite I obsess over it that's so funny yeah yeah I also know people I also know people who grew up that way who spend it real fast when they get it because they're afraid and they're like get it out by whatever and they don't have isn't that interesting how different we can all react to different you know situations and stressors do you think about that with raising because I think a lot about that too with like like so one of my fears yeah of raising a kid because I grew up the complete opposite like my my son will be very much so in a privileged yeah you know lifestyle and so my biggest fear of it is him being overprivileged right I know that the things that made me successful was part of that adversity was not having working towards so my fear is like I don't want him to be spoiled I don't want him to think that we can just buy whatever we want so like I think a lot about that and like how I'll educate him in the future with money like do you think about that already all the time okay even before she was born I was thinking about it all the time and I was asking friends and mentors of mine how is it like I don't want them to be spoiled and da da da da and one of the greatest lines that I heard I forget who it was but my buddy told it to me he was like well yeah there's like if you're if your daughter or your kid says like hey I want money it's like you're like if your daughter is like hey I'm rich it's like no you're not rich I'm rich I'm rich and I forget that should kill you who said that is that should kill it's that Shaq said that line when it's when he's to do his kids like no no no no you're not rich I'm rich I mean I think there's I think what my my mom did out of necessity is a lot of what I'll adopt in terms of like I remember a lot of kids got allowance I didn't get an allowance and I remember like there was one kid his name was Tucker and for however old he was that's how much money he got a week so he got like when he was seven he got seven dollars when he was eight he got eight dollars and like when he was 15 he got 15 and I was just like and I was told my mom I was like well he gets money and she was like well what does he do and she's like well he cleans the dishes or I'll take the trash out and I was like and I do that and I don't get money she's like well yeah because you live under my fucking roof it's like and so that's going to be the same thing like it's like I'm taking care of your food I'm taking like I'm driving you whatever it is it's uh so I think a lot of that will be how I raise my daughter and again God willing future kids but there's also I think the very real understanding of you can't fabricate the fear that maybe we had growing up because the fear was built out of arguments the fear was built out of real issues the fear was like why don't we go on vacations the lights really didn't come on or exactly exactly like that really happened it's like you can't fabricate those things so inherently there will be more comfort there will be but I so I mean I don't know if that fear was a good thing for me maybe it was I mean I I actually do think there are a lot of great things that come from fear I think a lot of I know a lot of people who've lost a hundred pounds because they were fearful a lot of people who've done amazing things because they're fearful so I do think that fear is an important aspect in behavior change but I also think there's a huge importance in understanding that they're not entitled to and just because you have money doesn't mean they're going to feel entitled to it that's entitlement comes from giving not earning right right you have to be also worried about like overcompensating going the other way so let's do it exactly I also did accumulate all this so my kids could have a good life I think that's the hard part where we're at just to make it unbalanced make everybody feel better here because we're all dad if you look at the data if you if your kid feels loved and there's some structure which provides security yeah that's like 95 percent yeah it's like with fitness right like oh you eat whole natural foods you lift weights sometimes you walk yeah yeah that's like 95 percent of it that's what the data shows like you know you could have a lot of things that you mess up on but if they feel loved yeah and secure you're doing a a damn good job the fact that you think about it alone means you're doing a good job I like what I like what Patrick by David does with his kids I think it's really neat like he'll like so if they want like obviously he's like uber rich is this the books thing so yeah well yeah yeah so he'll put like so the kid will want like a you know $500 star wars Lego thing and he'll actually put it like super high in the house yeah like elevated based off of like how and it represents amount of pages I love that and so like you'll get it right away yeah it's like it sits in that house and they don't get to play with it or have to read all those books until they read a certain amount of books that equal whatever that so smart I saw a a clip of that and the comment section was wild I know people are like this is abuse I'm like you don't know what abuse is like that's abuse you're like you are so dull like it's what an amazing tool it's like hey well yeah number one if you want that you're gonna have to work for it and like let's get you to work for it by learning educating yourself like understanding that it's not just enough like cleaning the dishes yeah that's great that's a form of putting in work and helping the community but you can also do that in 10, 15, 20 minutes let's like have you read an entire book yeah and then have a discussion around the book and so we understand like not everything even if you do it you still don't get it super quickly let's make sure like maybe it's take you two months to get that yeah worth it yeah I love I love that what's your your big your big goal with your business besides the personal goals like what do you what is the big picture for you what are you trying to do with what you're doing with the fitness space yeah I mean the goal has remained the same so ever since 2012 of every six months I make a big list of goals and I always have like the the number one goal at the top like what's like the you could call it the mission statement I never call it the mission statement like what's like the main goal and ever since 2012 it's just help as many people as possible there have been different types of goals whether it's like number of people in the membership or like number of downloads or whatever it was but the number one goal has always just been like help as many people as possible and so that's the for me been that's the main goal so building the inner circle continue to build the online fitness business mentorship and then I'm I'm just about to I'm barking on a new fitness or business where I'm actually creating something for Jiu Jitsu competitors or Jiu Jitsu athletes because it's that space is very far behind in strength and conditioning yeah forever that the the martial arts world especially the Jiu Jitsu world has been based on you don't need strength it's just technique and technique is the most important but you have two people of equal technique the stronger one wins every time so the that world in strength and conditioning is probably behind by 20 years and so I'm in the process of making something for Jiu Jitsu competitors right now what are some important strength training parameters or techniques or exercises or movements that you see being valuable to Jiu Jitsu or grapplers in general the there's a lot but I would say isometric ability isometric strength is just like it's it's the most overlooked from the perspective of have you ever trained Jiu Jitsu have you done I did I did for about six years oh you should probably have it for a long time I mean yeah dude just got my purple belt like six months ago thank you it's like the the thing for me that was very surprising is and I wrestled but wrestling especially there's no gi yeah so it's so much more explosive more explosive whereas Jiu Jitsu especially in the gi is like it's more time on her tension you're holding on you need more control inherently in order to get the submission so it takes more time and isometric contraction so even something is like I would have someone an arm bar but like one of the main keys of an arm bar is squeezing your legs together yeah it's like if you don't have your legs squeezed together then they can move their shoulder is more open to be able to like rotate so that it's not necessarily going to break their elbow so it's like sometimes you got to squeeze your legs together for like 30 seconds straight or like if you're holding someone down you got to hold them it's like you're using your biceps you're using your back you're using your lats and like if you gas out if you don't have the isometric strength then like you're done so I think the ability to create force sustained over a long period of time isometrically or slowly eccentrically is super important so whether that's like simple med ball squeezes I like doing inverted rows but like we'll do like a set of 10 followed by like a max effort how long can you hold in that isometric position at the top I do actually I'll do if I'm doing hamstring curls I'll put like a med ball or a foam roller in between my legs to get the isometric contraction with the adductors while I'm doing the hamstring curl so the isometric work I think is something that is is super helpful for performance have you looked into because we just wrote a program and it was based off of the bronze era of strength training and they were isometric isometrics was a big part of strength training and there's great studies from the Soviet Union on the benefits of isometrics I mean it builds in a short period of time more strength than any other form of exercise so have you looked into some of those practices and because I mean there's some stuff that we learned that I looked at I'm like oh wow this is really interesting yeah it's like what specifically oh like overhead carries offset loaded you know positions and that kind of stuff their hands were involved on almost everything they did because they didn't even have a bench back then with barbell and dumbbells I love the mace work I love the club work Bulgarian bag work like I like that stuff a lot for me that's I've never been a bodybuilding guy as you can see like I'm not like a big dude I've that was never been fun for me I started wrestling when I was eight years old so kettlebells maces clubs Bulgarian bags I love that stuff I love the movement I love the explosion I love like for me I think one of I think the best exercises for a jujitsu athlete is a kettlebell snatch or really like any type of kettlebell circuit but a kettlebell snatch it's very difficult to train explosiveness and endurance and grip all at once and with jujitsu especially sometimes you're grabbing on really tight and sometimes you're loose tight loose tight loose and the kettlebell snatch you have to learn all right well I'm going to be loose throughout this and I'm going to be tight and I'm going to hold onto it make sure it doesn't fly out of my hands like it's the kettlebell snatch is one of the things where you can just go for five minutes straight and it's I think it's one of the best exercises you can do and so overhead work for sure but all these different these uh I think Dan John calls them armor building it's it's so smart and that for me is where I have the most fun you know you know what I did is I took um an old gi yeah and I cut the sleeves off and I create I would wrap them around so I do all my pulling work yeah with gi sleeves yeah that made a huge difference that your fingers got so strong they got really strong from doing I mean you look at old gi two fighters and you see their fingers are like their knuckles are yeah they developed just crazy grip strength but that made a big difference pull ups like that rows like that holding anything like that yeah big difference Jordan I want to get into a little more detail about your business because I don't know if you've heard me say this I've definitely said it many times if I didn't have these three other brilliant guys with me and I had to build this business by myself and I had to start all over that I would probably build it similar to how you've structured your business and so for the coaches and trainers that are listening to this podcast I'd like to if you feel comfortable with doing a little bit deeper dive like I'd love to know like what has been the most profitable for you not just financially but also like takes at least time and effort maybe with the most return for you what are maybe some things that you've done or still do that actually like you thought we're going to be very profitable that weren't very profitable like talk a little bit about how your business is structured right now and what is most profitable for you and maybe some of the mistakes that you made building it yeah I mean so I'll whatever you want to know I will tell you like fourth rate 100% I will say at the very beginning what I do now is not what I would recommend for most people okay and I and a large part of it is based on my audience size and I think like what I have now is then the main thing is my membership the inner circle membership I think a lot of people want that number one they think it's relatively easy and like oh it's scalable it's like good fucking luck if you think this is easy it's a ton of work it's also has an inherently higher turn rate and people think oh well if I could do a lower cost thing then I'm going to get more people signing up it's like that's a it's a stupid way to look at it it's just if someone was if someone was on the street selling I don't know Pokemon cars and you don't like Pokemon cars it doesn't matter if that Pokemon card is 10 cents or $10 or $100 you're not going to buy it anyway because you don't fucking like it the hardest part is just getting someone to like pay for it period so early on from 2011 to 2015 it was just one-on-one online coaching that was it I didn't have a membership it was and at that point it was between $300 to $400 a month and I get at the peak and this was way too much was about 80 clients online and that was when I was like I need to start something more scalable because I have I can't give 80 people a great service it's taking up 16 hours a day of email so that's when I was like all right now I'm going to start making something scalable that's when I decided to make the inner circle but I think from a income perspective and a work-life balance perspective and not needing a large audience perspective you can easily have 30 to 50 one-on-one online coaching clients make an incredible living and also have amazing work-life balance I think that like that that amount of clientele you don't need a huge audience if you have a couple hundred Instagram followers you have a couple hundred people listening like you could easily do that for sure so I think from ease of access actually working with real people and creating a sustainable business that supports you your family and helps people I think one-on-one coaching is the best option if you build a larger audience and if you and that takes a lot of work takes a lot of work to build your like more than people realize more than people have it even if you there are people especially the way the algorithm works now where you can go viral and have like a big audience with one video but it doesn't mean you have their attention all the time so if you have a large audience of people who are really invested in you then the idea of scaling something can make sense but I would I would start like it goes in-person coaching number one then one-on-one online coaching then if you decide and you have the ability then you can have something more scalable which is what I have now but I think the vast majority of people would be better off just doing one-on-one online coaching with maybe with a mix of in-person coaching as well a little bit of a hybrid do you think that that has a lot to do with like because we get asked a lot why we didn't do an app or have this monthly thing and one of the reasons why I mean I hate that model because I think it's the commitment yes to having to be because the turn rate is so high yep and it commits you to having to constantly be every month every month creating more and more content to convince those people to keep paying that monthly every month and yet I think that's the go-to model that so many coaches and trainers yeah think so looking back do you think that do you think you price yourself too low in that or do you think that like because here's where where I'm going like inevitably I would want to scale beyond just the private like if you just wanted to make a good living like you said you could be totally good like I if I have aspirations of being a multi-millionaire I want to scale and go better obviously that's you got to go beyond that so let's say that's if you were to go over do it again you know you're going to go on that trajectory again you're going to outgrow coaching you have 80 clients what are some steps that you would have probably done different knowing what you know now still going for for like trying to have a bigger bit of business yeah you've outgrown you got 80 clients you're on your way to make you more money you're getting bigger like what what would you done differently about the way you went yeah so this and this is advice I got from Eric Cresty when I was younger and I didn't listen to it is I wouldn't have put my name on the business I wouldn't have had my name on it wouldn't be my face it's hard to give it's hard to have someone else help you yeah yeah it's very difficult everybody wants you everyone wants me I'm the one it's like when they get an email it's like but what does Jordan say or like when like even on social media I think there's so one thing that you guys do very well and we spoke about is you build other people up and I think you could have a business that builds other coaches up that is more of a community as opposed to necessarily being your name and the if you really want to get into like making money that I that I haven't made but I've seen people do is like it's building these businesses having equity in these businesses and then being able to sell them off something like that and I see this with apps and that's actually to be candid and forthright this jujitsu app will not have my name and will not have my face it has nothing to do with me so when I first launch it obviously I'll use my current audience to to launch towards it so they'll know it's me but within like two to five years I would love it if no one knew that I was the one behind it yeah that's that's the direction I'm going with that where it's like it's not my name not my face it's I just want to have really great workouts and nutrition advice if I can get other strength coaches involved other jujitsu competitors involved amazing but it will not be my name and face you know where I learned that when I was 23 22 is when I got promoted to become a fitness manager so I was a trainer from 20 to 21 and a half for 22 range so for a year or two years and then and that time you're just figuring it out and you're selling people on personal training with you then I get promoted to be a fitness manager where now I'm responsible for 15 trainers underneath me I still am selling personal training but now my trainers are going to train and I had such a difficult time in that first like year of you know I was so good at like presenting myself and then people will be like okay well when do we start I'm going oh no well Jordan's going to take me and they'd be like oh well no well then I don't want to buy and they'd be like oh fuck what do I do right so that was a real hard transition once I figured out that I would sell the program sell everything else that we do or already be talking about how great these the trainer that's going to take them is they're better than I am like that that took a skill to be able to do that I learned that in my early 20s so and so did these guys so I knew when we built this even when we had nobody even paying attention to us we had the foresight to go like hey like at one point if we do a good job we will be at that transition when we know like we want to be able to hand the keys over to somebody else to be able to carry it on if we've done a good job of selling the philosophy or the programming and so that it's not us yes but I had to go through that that's why we didn't mean with the atom podcast yeah he was really pushing for it we've done really well at the gates though that way yeah I'm going to crash you're having a crash okay just so okay so okay we make you learn that part your inner circle is the inner circle the most profitable part for you by far okay by far and then have you like are you taking did you take on any sponsors or partnerships like so you don't no never so talk why and would you do that differently like no I wouldn't do that differently okay not so the thing is and I it's not that I think it's bad for everybody it's just for me I never wanted my income to be in the hands of someone else so for example if I say something that a sponsor doesn't like I don't want them to pull pull funding yeah like I never wanted to be like okay so well I don't want to not say this because they're gonna want to have a self-censor ever it's like for me the number one thing is just I have to say what I believe to be true and so I felt like if I started doing sponsors number one inherently I would become more biased like there's sort of no way around it like there you have that financial incentive even if you're like no but I'm gonna tell the truth it's like you have that in the back of your head I didn't want that I didn't want the hesitation I didn't want the thought it's like I only want people to pay me because I have something that they can be that can be helpful to them so that was really it I was like if I do sponsors I'm setting myself up for potential issues Jordan can I can I add something to that you love how we did it there okay so yeah so you're right 100% that's what that was our fear with working with sponsors but here's what we learned well we learned this a long time ago we brought this into the business because we did other things before is if we show them the numbers we can say what we really want and so we've literally had sponsors email us and go Adam said our product tastes like shit on the podcast and he literally did like but Sal said it's effective and then they'd say but you can't say that and we'd say look at your numbers and then they'd be like never mind you're the sole owner of the product or we say or we say you can't work with us yeah I mean now we waited early on we we denied sponsorship because early on some people looked at us to take advantage of the platform we had built and we weren't interested in that so we waited waited waited waited until it got to a point where it's like listen there's products and things that we all like and use like let's go pursue them so we would pursue companies that we already love products or things they use and said hey here's the deal we have this audience we do this and a lot of times I had to offer sponsorships and I would just like you would with training clients for free or low I'd say listen let us show you hey if we talk about it you'll see the results from it and that's how we would present it we were going to talk about the products anyways we like when we use it they would see the huge numbers from it then they come back and be like okay let's do something then when we sign the contract it'd be like well here's the deal we're not going to do reads we're going to talk about it the way we want to talk about it there's no length on how we're going to talk about it like and we're going to be honest about how we feel about it and we want nothing affiliate related meaning I don't want any ties to the performance to our deal here's the contract you pay us this much yep that's the flat I don't care if it goes up or down or what that it's like because we do not I don't want to be motivated by performance I don't want to feel like oh we're underperforming so we got to really sell it on the next episode and so we just and it it took longer to do it that way we didn't make a lot of money at first but eventually it did all the partners you want to work with the performance you know what it is well and then so the irony is the health and fitness space has been lying for so long yeah that when you're honest people trust you and then they follow your advice right so when we say you know this is a it's a you know it actually works but tastes like crap people are like oh he's being honest right because we are yes and they end up buying and we'll still and I'll still talk about something even if we're not paid for it it's just like hey I use this product they don't pay us hey we talk about you all the time you don't pay us yeah yeah yeah major part of the the business the the advertisers is like does that contribute a lot it is significant now but it's not the majority got it even caught up but yeah was originally yeah the the maps programs has always been a bulk of the the revenue it's what built the business but all the boltons now and that and that's closest so that of all the revenue streams advertising and sponsorship is is second oh is it oh yeah maps is number one yeah got it yeah that's awesome so it's and it's and what is best about that actually the most is here we are going into or not even there yet but next year before this year is over advertising for the entire year will be paid wow so talk about the relief and stress and pressure of running a team right right pay bills like and the amount of money that covers all everything wow so all overhead all expenses everything is all completely covered from the sponsorship side so we know going in the next year the like I'm not so if the business is going up or down or programs aren't selling as much there's no stress because we have that base from our our partnership so as long as we get on this these mics and communicate talk the business will stay afloat and there's that less pressure so that's probably the part I think I appreciate the most yeah is having that security for the people I mean I think the most stressful thing for us now is just like the amount of employees and stuff that we have like I mean they probably don't realize it but how much that's what keeps me up at yeah of the you know ebb and flow of the of the business how many employees you guys have what are we up to like 20 or so yeah give or take yeah that's scary that are full-time employees and then a lot of contractors that are working for us too that's amazing yeah so as a as a leader in the space and we consider you definitely one of the one of the leaders in the space what would you say are the biggest roadblocks for us to really make an impact to help people figure this out like what are the biggest right now what do you think are the biggest struggles that were or challenges that we have to overcome for like people with an audience or people who are yeah content oh yeah yeah yeah I mean I think misinformation is the biggest one I mean I just every day I'm sent posts like but this person says this this and like they're a doctor and they have this it's like is the misinformation is is I think the biggest one I also think that like we spoke about is the cultural lifestyle that people are having like overcoming that and like you said earlier mental health is at an all-time low isn't that crazy at all-time low and like after everything we've been through over the last few years it's like the least surprising thing it's like it's it's crazy but it's I'm not surprised you know and I think when mental health is at an all-time low it gets increasingly more difficult to get people to believe in themselves to make them believe that it's worth it that they can actually accomplish it I think so many people are just stuck in a place of like I don't think I can do it I don't think it's worth it like I'm stuck I can't do it and so not only we're fighting misinformation not only are fighting like a cultural lifestyle but we're also fighting their own demons in their head being like I don't think I can do it and we've got to absolutely can one of my favorite conversations around individual responsibility but it's very difficult for people to feel like they can take responsibility if they don't feel like they can do anything at all if they feel disempowered yeah I think the one thing that the fitness space communicates they should communicate better that we don't enough focus and I understand why the market values how you look they value you know when you lose weight what you look like and how great you look but we do not communicate the mental health benefits of fitness at all well enough correct and the data is clear however much of a positive impact fitness makes on your physical health it's actually more impactful on your mental health it's the most impactful thing you can do for anxiety depression mm-hmm um you know any type of negative mental state nothing shows the positive impact that fitness shows in its short period of time and then in a long period of time there's no loss of effects or down regulation receptors or I need to use a new medication it keeps working better for your mental health we don't talk about this enough at all and it's the story that comes to my mind is when I was I think I must have been 21 I was coaching at a gym and I would one of the reasons I would love having people deadlift is because whenever I told them how much weight they lifted they would freak out and I'll never forget there was one woman who came in and she had a lot of weight to lose and she was very self-conscious and it was her first session and when we were going to be deadlifting I told her I was like how much do you think you can lift she was like I don't know like 20 pounds I was like by the end of today you're going to lift over 100 pounds and she was like no she's absolutely not there's no way and so we had like that the beast kettlebell like we big big big kettlebells and so she wasn't lifting the barbell it looked really intimidating to her and at the end of it like she had deadlifted over 100 pounds I didn't tell her how much weight it was I was like all right just lift this one just lift this one all right cool now lift this one and she put it down I was like guess how much weight that was and she was like I was like 105 she started crying it wasn't because the physical there was like the physical benefit was like oh my god now she's so much physically healthier she was crying the mental like the confidence she made a Facebook post when she got home oh my god this has improved like one day and she lifted over 100 pounds it's like that is the type of mental health benefits that we see that that will make her more consistent for years to come because of that confidence that came from it there's no she was like there's no way I'm gonna be able to do that well now she believes in herself and so they these are the mental health benefits that people can get and that starts with things like that Jordan when you were you were talking earlier and you mentioned this on the podcast too that you know school didn't come easy to you you you were in some special ed classes because of ADD and attention issues and that kind of stuff and that was very challenging to you especially coming from an academic family if you didn't have fitness what do you think you'd be through all that I think about that all the time I I have no idea and it wouldn't be good that is for sure I I wouldn't be able to function in a cubicle I don't think I'd be able to function in an office I was never good with taking orders from people like you have to do this like it's like I was I was not good with that and I was never really good with numbers I was never good with the organization any of that so I don't know where I would be but it would be bad I very much believe it because I don't think I'd be able to function in what we consider normal today a normal job a usual job what people would call a safe job I don't think I would be able to function in that so I know that after high school when I went to Israel I was very close to joining these really defense forces it was something that I wanted to do and the only reason I didn't I didn't is because my mom said she'd fucking kill me so but like could have been a military background like I I very much wanted to join the IDF and that's something in the future I'd like to do is I would like to be able to provide military with with good strength and conditioning for free that would be something that I'd love to do in the future but without fitness I have I have no idea no clue but it wouldn't be good what were the what are the some of the benefits you got through fitness that have nothing to do with your physical body I mean the community around it has been amazing and and this is something I've been talking a lot about and it obviously like not watching the news but the other thing is community and people will talk to me all the time about like what can I do for my health I'm like go hang out with real people in real life and so that's like even now like I always try and like I'll coach people for free in person sometimes and like it's one of the reasons I love jujitsu is like you have to do it in person you have to and then you can go out after jujitsu and you go get some go to beer whatever it is like hang out go on a walk but I think the community for me has been the most amazing part yeah it's just like connecting with people speaking with people people who have different views on so many different things but it's like we're together we're hanging out that was the in the blue zone that's the number one thing that's the most common thing amongst all the blue zones is the is the community aspect you know what's so frustrating for me recently is I keep seeing these articles talking about how um the toxicity of gyms how gyms are not welcoming or inclusive how they fat shame for those of us who've been working out for years it's it's so frustrating to read that because let me ask you can you name a more inclusive place than a hardcore gym no it's like the nicest most incredible like encouraging if you if if you want to see like one of the most amazing experience go to a power ups in competition yeah and watch everybody even people competing against each other you've got this like everyone's yelling like you've got you can do this like people who've never been to a competition before teaching them how to warm up properly it's the most amazing place I think people look at them and they actually end up judging them based on how they look they're big they have they have beers they're tattooed they're judging me it's like you're judging them based on how they look like I bet if like if you got close to them they'd be hey let me help you with this let me help you with that it's like the most encouraging most supportive community these hardcore gyms like the the power like when someone walks in they're like yeah it's another one another one like you got them like let's let's help like it's the nicest place ever I know I actually even felt that in the in the bodybuilding world which I would have never thought because that's such yeah because it's a superficial type of world you are judged on the way you look but I was surprised by the how accepting welcoming and supportive that community was I remember being backstage not knowing anybody and you know everybody I think it has something to do with we all know what the other person went through right like there's like this we all respect the struggle yeah like if you got there I don't care if you were the the worst physique at everybody or you were the weakest person on that stage of day you know that that person what they went through just to get to that point yes and there's something about that you want to support that and encourage that it's not this like putting down or like laughing at or point of view you don't get any of that at all it's like I think I really enjoyed that was one of my favorite things of the the few things I think I really liked about bodybuilding was I did like that you know there was that community feel even in a sport where you're competing I'll tell you something right now if you go to if you're listening right now and you go to a hardcore gym do not ridicule anybody and act like you will get kicked out faster yeah then you can you can even realize because that's the environment that you're in so when I read those articles I just go God this is terror it's not even slightly true it's so opposite of and again I can I have a friend he's a he's a priest and he lifts weights right his father Steve great guy and him and I have talked about this and he goes you know the church should learn a lot from gyms he goes the gym is the most inclusive place I've ever been yeah you go in and if you're working out they love you and they're supporting you and that's that yeah you clean up your equipment you don't stand in front of the dumbbell rack when you're doing yeah it's like you're fine like everyone loves you I know it's pretty amazing but Jordan it's always fun talking to you bro likewise honestly thank you all so much like for you for the whole team for everyone it's uh it's always a pleasure coming out and um I really appreciate you guys I appreciate the honesty I appreciate the conversation I appreciate what you do for the space so thank you for having me out yeah well you keep doing what you're doing man you're doing a damn good job and uh I hope you create more people like you because we could use it for sure thank you very much appreciate you man you got it bro