 Welcome to the 21 convention podcast. My name is Steve Maeda and I am your host for today's episode and today we have Fitness expert 21 convention alumni speaker Skyler Tanner You can find out more about Skyler at Skyler Tanner comm or at efficient exercise comm now Skyler is also going to be at the Tampa 2014 event. That is October 24th through 26th get your tickets now if you want to find out more about the event and see who the other speakers are find out what the Heroes dinner is and really what this movement of The 21 convention becoming the ideal man and really owning your purpose in this world is all about Go to the 21 convention comm slash event and see what we got going on for you Now what we talk about in this podcast is pretty amazing now Skyler is a fitness expert An amazing mind and you'll see that and you always see that in every conversation you have with them come through However, what we talk about is something very important very Deering and very enriching to every man's life that we need to hear about and that is fatherhood You know, what happens? What changes when we move on to that next story that next page in the book of our life And really how amazing it can be now It's so awesome about this podcast this Skyler and I both recently had kids and Well him about a year ago myself a little bit sooner and we both went through a process in Austin, Texas totally separately independent of each other of natural childbirth and what's so awesome about this unique discussion that we have is That we rarely hear about this and this is really getting back to the true nature of how human beings Interacted how human beings passed on life and how human beings grew together Definitely plug yourself in on this conversation and I'll tell you this if you like what you hear if you're interested and intrigued in any way Come to Tampa We're gonna all be sitting there talking discussing growing as a group of men together with one singular purpose and That is to be the best Version of ourself find out more at the 21 convention comm slash event and let's get into This podcast with Skyler Tanner Steve mighta here with Skyler Tanner You are a 21 convention alumni and scheduled to speak at the Tampa event Which you know, I know you as and actually I've worked out with you guys you you're from a fish and exercise and Excellent excellent and as I told you I said hey, can we put off this podcast a little bit because it's a difference Yeah, I didn't have my full setup Nick sparks who also lives in Austin. He's a 21 convention guy Was barring some of my equipment. I was like man It's the difference between dumbbells and the ARX. I'll tell you this I work out with dumbbells But I worked out with the ARX And it's so much more efficient and just how you guys do I can't say enough good things about what you guys do at Efficient exercise. It's a truly revolutionary place but We have something really in common other than the 21 convention other than both speaking in Austin at the 2012 21 convention and the one coming up here in Tampa, but we well You became a father a little over a year ago, and I became a father again actually 10 weeks ago and We both went all natural with it and We're trying to do things, you know really You know all natural and and and writes and with all this new information But this is actually what you're gonna talk about, you know at the convention, you know the changes of being a father in this modern society and You know, we just talked in a flurry about five minutes ago But what inspired you to to do this to get involved with you know Hey being a good father and the awareness and knowledge that comes in with that Sure, sure. So, um, I mean so so if you if you backtrack I had a great father I still have a great father in fact He lives here in Austin although he's about he's about to move right now He was always there for me always as a provider and my father was very much a street smart not book smart kind of individual You know grease monkey bill cusp and he had his own hot rod shop, you know Very much a provider And but he was never good about giving me descriptions kind of leading up to Some of the some of the things I was more interested in about Kind of the the pregnancy process the from conception to birth So I'm jokingly calling it, you know, but beyond like being eight years old and getting the sex talk My dad was sort of he'd give short versions not not because he didn't want to or he was uncomfortable with it But my mom was always very good about being that type of person and I was more like my mother I wanted the longer descriptions. I wanted the funnier descriptions. I wanted that sort of stuff and there's never my dad's bag And that's fine, right? So so for example Talking about I was originally going to call it fatherhood the first year and really it should be like fatherhood the first 21 months because Here's a here's one of the pro tips. I'm going to give you all if you pregnancy If mother's day should fall during the nine month pregnancy process She gets a card and she gets a gift because she's a mother you don't necessarily get a card and a gift on father's day But don't make the mistake. I did which means like the baby's not Oh, I know I know Oh, I know and you better believe that this past year it was it was made up for in right and in duplicate Yeah, yeah, you know, you're just sort of thinking like the kid's not here. It's no. No, she's a mother She's she's a mother at that point. There is there's a carrying on Um For so things like that things like that things like what actually active labor looks like Yeah Because you know if you watch the movies it's sort of like there's nothing's happening. They're shopping There's window shopping all of a sudden the water breaks which looks like Someone pulled it for the 32 ounces of water just in like one big splash And then they're screaming and then the baby's out When reality the the most painful miserable part of of of that process is the labor ring Which is why they call it labor guys at home Laboring just sitting and waiting for the space to open up to pass the kid's head through And that can take a long time. It can take a short time. Sometimes it can happen very quickly like that But you know, there's pre labor and there's actual labor And I'm gonna talk about that in my experience what that looked like and some cues because being that fitness guys You talk about like I want to hear like oh it sounded like this which I knew from my training experience Which was kind of a funny thing where in the moment it's happening going like This sounds like like right after a workout Man And the midwives can't explain that they're the sort of like, oh, you know, right, you know, you you'll know it and sarah did You'll know it. Yeah, exactly. I know whereas I'm on the sidelines going Why do I step in now right because? My marginal utility In the the child's life increases with age, right? That's another like understanding sort of like the first three plus months You're gonna kind of just be pulling you're gonna be running support for mom Like he's not gonna be about you at all dad and and you're gonna be okay with that and your feelings might be hurt Um things like that. I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna cover stuff that you know I think a lot of guys, especially, you know talking about having a natural childbirth You sort of are like How's the sex gonna be when it's done you start worrying about things like that and yeah I'm talking to that as well man Look, you know, this is something that I went through and I've watched two cesarean section births And um, you know an intense thing intense Makes you As soon as you start talking to midwives and people, you know, get all crazy with this or whatever they get all When I brought up with that we were going through a midwife like people got in my face and it was like, man This isn't your decision, man. And um, you know, I've I've had to I've been there for two hospital births And they were horrible. I mean they were horrible horrible experiences Um, you know the the children came out fine and all that sort of stuff but You know, I just remember being there and the doctor Saying, okay, well, you know, let's do this, you know, they induce labor. You don't know what's going on You have no clue You don't want to you know, this is the birth of your child or maybe it's somebody else's child or whatever But they're they're telling you what to do And they basically say, okay progesterone epidural, you know, let's go. Okay. You're only six centimeters dilated Um, you know, we gotta we got to do something about this and then you're like, well wait You know, you go like, wait, I saw this movie. I read this book. I read this blog article and they say, hey Look, we're doctors. We do this every day and you are putting you you are putting somebody in danger So you need to make a decision within this half an hour. Take your time It's all good and then you're pressured and then you do it, you know, and It uh, you know, it's cool. You know, it's it's it's an amazing thing I mean if you ever see a c-section it is one of the most brutal thing I mean, it's crazy, man And it's amazing to see what happens to the the uterus when it uh, and the baby comes out it immediately starts to Go, you know get smaller and in in pulsate. It's it's just it's phenomenal And then they put that thing in there like like you're shoving a football. I mean, it's brutal, right? It's it's crazy, but when you see natural childbirth Totally totally different experience, man, and it's uh It's amazing and the whole process is amazing and the moment we walked into the midwives Offices, you know, I went to central texas birthing center. You went to austin austin area birthing center And um, you know just the moment that that happens. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah, we do this We take care of everything and well, here's the information Here's the stats on it and even yet one in ten births, you know It does have to go to the hospital. There are complications and yada yada yada and here's what happens But Jesus man, let me tell you I have never been so impressed by women by maria who is you know, my partner in Like It's insane. I mean, it's freaking nuts, right? It is one of the craziest things that uh That I've seen and I can go I mean We could talk about the swap, but yeah the impression it leaves on you is sort of like You know, you have so much more respect for your wife your partner your girlfriend wherever you're at in your relationship Or based on your beliefs because you know, whatever that's gonna end up looking like is is all on you But you walk away with man This is one tough lady Yeah, you know top of that the backtracking just a little bit because I remember I think it was Doug my good friend Doug McGuff at uh at the 21 convention in Orlando like four years ago I want to say where he was talking about he has this great line talking about you know And some granola head decides they're gonna have their baby on their living room floor And it comes out with the cord wrapped around their neck and it gets dropped in my lap That's a it is a concern and it's important to know like these midwives have like graduate training in mid bifery like it's um, it's not if you Now I don't know how it was where you were but if you were looking around like first of all It's like hotel suites like giant bathtubs and like gorgeous wonderful beds But if you look along the wall, they had these little hooks and places where if they needed to hang a sailing drip or Or like hang a device for like administering oxygen They could do that and they could do up to a certain number of medical procedures or give a certain number of shots based on the circumstances and then um My where we had the baby was like a mile It's like a mile and a half from the north austin medical center, which is one of the st David's there up on on mopak nobody else will know what we're talking about but kind of north of the domain Well, pretty much any good midwifery will have a hospital very close You know any birthing center Exactly and so you're seeing a lot of uh now the A lot of hospitals as well will have a birthing center within the hospital where they do all that and if something goes wrong It's like across the hall or down the hall, but it's the domain It was up until that point and it's it's kind of a it's a so what scenario it's saying like well What if something goes wrong and it's beyond the scope of what they're trained to do? Well, you go to someone who then is it has the training it's sort of like saying It's sort of like saying well, what if you need brain surgery and you're meeting with your family practice doctor Well, then they refer you to a brain surgeon like I mean It's not a thing it's outside the scope of their practice and then they just refer you to the person Who's that is the scope of their practice? But as clearly we both had good experiences and it wasn't it was much more medically Sound than I think people think them they think their wives and this idea of you know the grass hut and a field and the kind of guns and nothing like that at all. It's just really comfortable Safe and competent and the best to my wife's mind and you know, we're insured. It's not like we're Yeah, I mean I'm gainfully employed. It's not like we we have problems But she to her mind. It's the best medical care. She's ever had Yeah emphasis on care just being in touch with what's going on and taking time to listen and the scope of the connection Yeah, this is this is actually a little bit of some personal information But I'm a pretty personal guy, but it also deals with Maria, but we she had gotten pregnant Before this pregnancy and you know, we were like And then it was like fuck. Yeah, we do want this and then that's when we decided to go full-fledged the second Time but the first time she had a miscarriage. So she was a little bit Which is which is another I mean guys I mean to guys guys deal with that in different ways, but you know You might be in women deal with it in different ways, but man, I mean, it's a pretty intense moment and for me You know, I was like, okay. Well, you know, this happens, you know, this is your first pregnancy You know, it I didn't get the magnitude of it. This is crazy. So she miscarried and then my friend passed away Um A couple weeks later a really good friend of mine, you know training partner all the stuff, you know, we were like brothers and and um Uh, you know, I was really upset about it and she was like you are more upset about this than you know our baby that we lost and I was like You know, he was alive and I didn't yeah, of course I've and This is the conversation that you don't want to have the way that I had it, right? Um, But you know what's so Interesting about that is she was afraid of the midwife experience and we had a friend of ours going uh to a midwife and so we went to both went to a doctor and a midwife and you know It first it was really cool because the doctor's doing all the right things and you know All the blood work and with a big office and a great staff and did a good job You know doctors are not bad. They're they're great. They're my dad's a doctor And he was actually all for the midwife thing Which is odd because he's not really into all the all natural stuff, but Basically Man, this is so nuts when she miscarried. That's when you really saw the difference You know, the midwives were like, hey look, you know, it wasn't your fault This is what you're going through this what you're thinking you can call me anytime You know and every midwife has a different practice But you know, they were there all the time the doctors forgot her name We went in there to get a uh Uh an ultrasound and basically they said so how far along are you and it was just like No, I just miscarried. I'm here to see yeah, oh man It was just such a this heartening thing, you know So it's like take my conversation that I'm having that may be a little bit unaware about stuff But I'm still there emotionally but then a doctor who is supposed to go through this great experience That's defining for both the man and the woman But really man massively for the woman just being so impersonal about it And uh, just the staff screwing up all over the place makes all the difference in the world Man, let me ask you this. What was the most? Moving part for you about that birth So so let me backtrack just slightly We went through the same thing actually we were We were set to have a child So so jack was born my son was born October 2nd of last year of 2013, but right Scheduled to have a child in like April late April early May But then Sarah miscarried like we had a miscarriage and it's the weirdest thing because then I talked to all my female clients and Total aside is the joke I have is I charm women between the ages of 45 and 75 on a daily basis Because that's like my demographic for whatever reason is I tend to get a lot of women that way and they're all like Oh, yeah, we I think almost every single one of them had a miscarriage at some point And I think for us the problem with the powerful medical technology is we can know So early Even to see this little pulsing You know fetus but the thing but it might not be viable and the body is going to take care of it and Miscary and but we can we can know so soon And instead of just being a missed period like oh, you know something happened We have this image and we have all these hopes and dreams wrapped up in something that's That's not all the way there yet. So we so I was actually driving my dad out. It was his 60th birthday We were going out to uh, marfo and I was almost all the way out to Fort Stockton Yeah, and this call from my wife. It's a long drive guys. It's a long drive A long drive I grew up in arizona. So to me like six hours I could be in san diego and six hours you You're not out of Texas You're not even unless you drive north and you're in Oklahoma city by then but again, you're not anywhere You want to be but going west is not going west you're still you're still in the middle of nowhere And so I get the call like That we had had a miscarry, you know, I throw the car around all the way back You know and and then procedure the next day and it was a hugely intense experience And I mean we even had like We had a it seems kind of funny a client of mine who lost the child Much later. I mean, but he still lost the child. He he gave me one of those like I'm not trying to be culturally insensitive I don't know if it's Asian or if it's Chinese or Japanese at those lamps that you light them and they fill up the paper And then they float away. So we had this little ceremony in our backyard and it was You know, it's it's I mean, it's still tugging at my heartstrings just a little bit to think about it But the awful side of the coin is you don't get to meet the child you have unless you go through that right like we think about like I I can't imagine my life without this kid and I mean, that's another thing side to side that term. I can't imagine life without this kid You remember life without the kid and you remember how great it was and the goods and the bads and the ups and the downs And you're not kind of saying like my life is only for my child now But they there's such an intangibility to the existence of this child There's there's the hopes and the dreams and the wanting to provide and being a really good In being a really good father and all of those things, but then you're sort of like you get to You can kind of occasionally have compare and contrast and and the headaches because there are gonna be headaches. There's father There's no manual. There's no There's no perfect manual and that's the other thing too that I want to key in on is like Caring about trying to do the best you can matters more than being perfect in your decision making That came out of Freakonomics like the free the original Freakonomics books and say what you will if you if you're around numbers about Economists venturing to social sciences and things of that nature But their point was it's not about like the baby genius books and it's not about Getting the perfect school is about being the type of parent that would care about something like that for your child That leads to the better outcomes. It's not the thing. It's the it's the underlying desire to find the right thing You know, what's interesting about the guy that wrote Freakonomics? I forget which one of them because there are two of them Stephen said the other guy. Yeah, let's say kind of child died at like one and a half It's it's in the book. It's totally. Yeah. No that that guy's story is a parent is really phenomenal because You know, I read that before I had kids and was you know, just wow, you know It's like a it's a horrible experience But then when you build a relationship with your your child your children, whatever it may be Can you imagine? I mean that and then coming through and having to wear with all of Because a lot of the stuff in those books or in the series of books that they have, you know Has to do with parenting has to do with being a better person But what you said is so interesting and this has to do with failure And all the tragedies that come in your life and actually I believe one of the Is actually these great parenting classes in Austin that give you a manual. It's they're pretty freaking awesome And they're free Um, yeah, I'll tell you about them. I want to interview the guy who teaches them There's a couple people who teaches them but the guy's a genius but he says that one of the greatest gifts of That you can give your your child is responsibility and the ability to be responsible And you have to lead that and he goes into so many different details of scenarios The guy's just got a tremendous amount of life experience with this great knowledge as well but You would said, you know in order to have the relationship or to have the child that you have Sometimes you have to go through this crazy stuff. Yeah, you know, and you know, the whether it's a miscarriage or whether it's You know something in your personal life, whether it was a breakup with the person you knew you were gonna love You know, I mean that's that's right and men don't talk about this You know, how do we become the ideal man to the better man the best expression of yourself? You know, you do that in fitness and everybody I know that works at efficient exercise You know, that's a part of it. You know, I have major knee problems I have different different body types than you different You know genetic makeups all that sort of stuff, but how do we get to the best version of ourselves? And a lot of times we mess up, you know, I mean I think there's an interesting point of view It's I hate to say a men are from mars women are from venus But if you've ever been married or in a long-term relationship, you know that there is a point of communication that is inherently Different and you have to learn to speak your spouse's language And it's not and you could even be from a same cultural background But there's something inherent in that individual that you're you're with That you need to to learn how to how to say things in a way that's going to get it across and make it understood And also you're trusting that individual your life partner to be able to call you on your shit in a way that is constructive And not just not just either annoying or hurtful um, I think that it It's I'm not the only one who who is kind of on board with this. It's the the notion that There was a there was a Ted talk talking about like Anthony had listed it at some point where someone in the comments was like, why would guys even need a conference and it's like That's right. Yeah, it's like look look. I understand like white male is the lowest difficulty setting in society Like I understand that like if it was a video game, it would be the easy mode I I get that but that doesn't mean It's a bit like the notion of um You know how how when when maybe maybe your parents did this um, I can vaguely remember my my parents doing the notion of like Making comparisons to your lot where it's like, oh, you're you're feeling bad, but hey kids in Africa have it worse It's like, okay, maybe that's true But we don't do the opposite. We don't say like yeah, you're having a good time But bill gates has made another million dollars in the past 10 minutes So you shouldn't feel good about what you're feeling good about like right your ups and downs are yours and yours alone your highs your lows and We don't need to trivialize them. In fact, if you're going through a rough time Even if it is compared to someone else's situation, not a rough time We still need to be able to help facilitate solutions amongst one another Be it with conferences or be it with tools that one might learn out of a conference or books the parenting manual as you put it because I'm sure some, you know Sarah my wife she spent a year abroad in Ecuador and she was with post family and she always laughs about like You know daisy The the wife is long zone daisy. She she would laugh at some of the things that we need To do what we do in our life and and that may be true that she would laugh at that But our situation is different, right? So It we don't want to trivialize it like yeah, they're you know, there's certainly a number of individuals Women still have it hard in a number in many many ways and it's not to trivialize Any other group to say that yeah guys need help too And if you want better men in a better society, you have to train them to be better men in better society if you have an open forum to which to discuss And to make faux pas and to learn them because that's the only way you know You and I both being dudes It's like you can't tell a guy that you know, it's hard and that your head won't crack concrete You have to go and do it yourself and learn that I actually I can't crack concrete with my head Or that the pan is hot. You have to touch the pan and go. Oh, yeah, that hurts, you know, you can't be told um, and that's uh That is something that to be in an environment that facilitates that To allow each other to make better decisions with that's a little yeah You're gonna feel like a numbskull like oh god I can't believe I used to believe that the motherhood or the the mother's day situation that I was talking about earlier Yeah, I still feel dumb that I that that happened that I didn't know better But fortunately, you know, my wife's not holding it over me for ages and ages and in a way that is You know harmful for the relationship. She'll give me a nudge every now and again Like hey remember that time you forgot mother's day because I was pregnant. I'm like, yes, I know, you know But I'm free to make that mistake and grow from it. Um, everybody needs a space for that to be better Better individuals because it's not a it's not a linear path Nothing and nothing we do in life is a linear path to whatever our best is You will have ups and you will have downs anybody who says it's a nice linear path has something to sell you And then not support it. Yeah Man and even let's talk about something make your parallel to fitness because this is something you're an expert in There's something I'm a fan of you know that I've always tried to improve on and why I actually love doing these interviews Is that if you man, if at all you think that That you're not gonna mess up, you know that you're not going to totally I mean Look, I've been working out for six years. I was at the worst shape of my life Well, probably when I was 30 and that you know, I'm 37 now and somewhere in between 30 and 31 I started working out right and I never found the right mix forever You know, I worked out with with you guys at uh efficient exercise Man, it was amazing gotten physically strong to the point where I've never you know been able to replicate that I mean, it's just it's crazy. It's crazy. I remember doing jujitsu And just after working on the ARX machines just pressing somebody at a constant pace, you know, wait because normally we go And I could just you know move like it was just it was insane But then I learned about diet, which you guys were all telling me about but I wasn't ready to hear that message So, you know doing more 21 conventions seeing guys coming back from the conventions and getting you know Losing weight and getting and saying that they were you know doing all this different stuff I started focusing on that but it's just this You know, there were times where I could even say I damaged myself or I got hurt or I did the wrong thing, right? if I blame The the information for that if I blame, you know, and you know, maybe some people gave me bad information But if I don't expect a response or take responsibility For that action I get nowhere And I am making You know, I don't want to make it about man and boy, but there's certain things that kids do You know when you're a kid and you're supposed to do But we're doing them as adults And the boy sits there and blames doesn't progress and doesn't take responsibility And the the fact of the matter is here's the reality of your situation with the mother's day thing is it's probably cute now You know, your face gets red or whatever. I like you it's it's an endearing thing Because it's the thing that you needed to do to be the husband that you're becoming and Guys don't one have a venue to talk about that and two guys aren't willing to admit that You know, I have a great relationship now because every relationship I had before it didn't work Whether it's bad or good, but it didn't work, you know There's a great, uh, ted talk that touches on this a little bit. I forget the title of it but the guy's point was you need to If you allow kids to do dangerous things within a relatively in some amount of bounce control They will they will feel not only the confidence of being able to learn to do these things without hurting them But they will respect the their actions as as having a cause and effect Right, like if I do this, um, I can remember growing up like my dad would let me sit on his lap and like steer the car Wow, good old days Right the good old days But that was as points like if you let your well now would probably be you know Just find a large parking lot and do that So it's it's within parameters, but you can still as a kid all of a sudden learn like oh, there's there's some consequences to what I'm doing here Um, and another one was like working with power tools like a six-year-old learning how to like, you know work a drill and you know Cool dad, man Well, you know, I mean, I it was just that was a press drill But you know, he he would show me like scars on his fingers like hey look at you know I want to come my finger off doing this so You know Or to demonstrate like put the put this in this way Now imagine if that's your finger, you know, like so You respected it a little bit more But then you were left to kind of kind of go to work and do that and I you know, fortunately, too I had a whole Giant cause and effect. I grew up in arizona and our house backed up to a native american reservation We'd hop the fence and we'd go for miles. You know heat All sorts of cactus, you know, you you learned pretty quickly about About what it was that you had some amount of blame As to where you were And you also knew what to ask for help like learn how to do that and what was It's about being dangerous and learning to take responsibility within parameters again You made the point about having a parenting handbook And and that's cool. Uh in fact that is cool and it's it probably is best practices But it's not 100 applicable, right? So totally gives you directional accuracy You're like I can riff on this and learn from it and you were telling me how you know You haven't been haven't been training this and how you know, you're doing some other things now And it's like but you still can take some of what you're talking about like applying what you're doing on the ariax and jiu-jitsu They're two totally different domains, but yeah, but you can apply some of that elsewhere And I think that that idea of responsibility for one's actions is There's a great I think it's a bit of the the gen X. You know, I I think you're the tail end of the gen X And then me depending on which sociographer you talk to i'm either also the tail end or i'm the tip of the millennial spear i'm 31 years old and so um So it is kind of funny because with the social media that we have and the facebook that we have this notion of Cultivation of an image when really everybody's got the you know, there's a great talk If it's on a website called, uh, yes, but why which is a great question you should Yeah, that's a great title But why and it called it like, uh, uh Well, they didn't call them, uh Gypsy they call it gypsies, which is like gen y yuppies And there's it's it's an acronym But but talks about how our parents have given us this notion that the world is our oyster It was sort of like yeah, I could be president But that would be settling like you could somehow you know Continue to do other things above and beyond because they grew up during the time of the perhaps the greatest economic prosperity The world has ever seen so their input especially coming from the expectations of their depression era parents, right? Which was like get a stable job save your money And that's a good life like because you won't be eating out of a garbage can like we did But their input yielded much more in the way of an output than their parents did So they tell us like oh, it's not enough to have a stable career. You you're gonna change the world Hey, that's great because you know, I think uh, I think it was Isaac Newton who like invented calculus on a dare at the age of 26 You know like you got to be young and and dumb and willing to take that big risk in order to create some big rewards Um, but the point that they're making is like you you have to have that wide-eyed Idea, but if you start making comparisons to other people who are all cultivating this image That is just the good stuff. That's not the rest of their life. You're always going to feel like Uh, you've been handed a bad lot because the comparison is not a real comparison. You're comparing against a fictional Uh of other individuals. We all have tough stuff in our lives That we're going through and working through we always present our best face But if the only thing we present is the best face and people are going to find ways to Make excuses for hard work because they're not as good as the other guy When the other guy isn't as good as what the other guy is showing either That's a bit long-winded. I'll try and bring it back together which is Taking responsibility for your actions also means that your you can only compare against yourself You can only get better against yourself And where you are in your life and that making comparisons to others You can use others as motivations for guidance for wisdom But you only know if you're getting compared to where you are in your life and where you're going in your life Yeah, I think it's uh when when you when we have discussions like this It's like man the difference between knowledge and experience If you have one without the other it's it you know, it's kind of pointless But when the two can mix you know when the two when you get that mix of like, oh, okay Well knowledge eating this way working out this way being a father this way Letting your letting your kids experiment, you know, and that's something that I really believe in because how else are you going to learn responsibility you know Of course be careful, you know, don't do something which is ultra dangerous But you you need to learn to take risks and dare that's one of the greatest human qualities is us learning that balance Pressing too far and staying alive and every living thing on earth actually has a great Instinctual, you know balance of that our world is moving fast though, but you know if a child can learn that that's great, but if we Learn all that stuff without the experience man, you know it We we get nothing, you know And if we experience without knowledge because that can happen too, you know with certain things in my life I like to just go go go You know, I don't want to sit down and study it or chart something out And um If I do that, you know, I end up going in circles So it's this interesting balance that we learn and even in our emotional developments and uh, you know and how we become You know the greatest expressions of of who we are Yeah, um that all being said you know what his Fatherhood being you know a great topic of yours. What is one of the greatest things that it's it's taught you so far? That is a tricky question because every day is like the lines up to be a nice new lesson or something gets just whittled and honed into a into coming into awareness um One of the things I think is I said to you know sort of before we started which was uh Parenthood is one of the greatest cures for narcissism there is And not that I think I was particularly narcissistic, but I think that fatherhood can give you perspective about the very in very short order the um Very quick feedback based on your actions, especially with the child right is what you're doing helpful to hurtful is what you're doing getting a result uh second thing is actually by the nature of you know, talking about fast fast fast in society and the world we live in Having kids and especially I mean it started from it started from birth, right? If you're if you're having a home birth or not home birth or if you're having a midwife and yeah Birth it takes time. You can't like plan to be like, all right I'm gonna get the c-section at three o'clock in the afternoon because I've got gala to be at at eight Or something, you know sort of ridiculous like that. Let me squeeze my kids birth in on this Saturday um You are at the mercy of of a time of a temporal experience that doesn't care about your Needs, right? You know sort of like it's gonna happen when it happens and you have to be okay with that It's gonna take as long as it's gonna take you have to be okay with that and then raising a kid is sort of like you have to slow down because You know the child doesn't have any uh, there's there's not like a rational component The kid isn't crying because it wants to annoy you because it's the only way it communicates, right? You know that's uh, he's not Yeah, you know the kid's not giving you a hard time This is like the great saying I picked up somewhere along the way when a kid's crying He's not giving he or she is not giving you a hard time They're having a hard time and they have no other way to express themselves Uh, especially within the first year and so that understanding of like uh Sort of learning this whole new form of communication and then you're forced to slow down because the kid is not Going to be hurried doesn't have the dexterity to be hurried so eating takes longer You're having these little experiences with the child and your days the days are long as a result of that But the months and the years become very short. It's a very interesting time paradox where we have these full full days Uh raising a kid and spending time with your kid the days are long with both ups and downs always down for a nap Oh, thank goodness now. I've got a few minutes to like read something. I've been trying to read Always he's awake. I you know, you're you become more flexible With uh, your plans are not nearly as concrete The world will go on without you And you kind of it's the strangest form of like meditation you can have like that you can you can bounce off of the Demands of the world to go go go of the world and realize you'll be okay. Your finances will be okay Your relationships will be okay You'll savor them a little bit more when you have them Because now you don't have all the time in the world. You didn't realize how time rich you were until you had a kid Yeah, you didn't realize just how much time you were just kind of wasting on facebook or whatever And if you enjoyed it, it wasn't a waste, but all of a sudden now you sort of different perspective You savor it in a way that was just good. I imagine like a starving man savoring, you know Savoring a simple meal, you know, we went to the movies last night and that doesn't happen That was last time you did that. Yeah. Oh man. We uh, sarah and I on on saturday went to a black star beer co-op You know, and because my mother-in-law was available and it was like Totally right we're sitting there. We're like, we're gonna have a beer and i'm gonna have you know At a steak and we're just it's it's such a simple All of a sudden you're like this is incredible In fact, there's a there's this funny book that we have where it's like, uh, let's play the movie game Now that you have a kid Look at the you could tell it was written back when people read newspapers for the movie listings on a regular basis Like look at find the movies you want to see in the newspaper Crumble it up and throw it in the trash because you're never going to the movies again. Right, right Plus that movie night means something. It's not just like a time. It's a pastime It's actually an event where you and your significant other can get together and and reconnect with one another um Strangely enough watching a movie which man, I you know Look, I know we're limited for time But I want to there's two things that I want to really like talk about especially with this like process of birthing or whatever You want to call the the whole natural thing is number one man What what did you take from that? I mean like I took a lot from it What you can talk about the experience without you know, divulging too much or whatever But like what what was that process of the labor? Yeah, because that was like some crazy craziness for me man craziness craziness So so uh, I'll walk I'll walk everybody through the full version At the event because like I think it's hilarious. I mean, I it's incredible at the same time But number one the thing is is like your spouse significant other is Way tougher than you might ever give or give her credit for Um, also tougher than anything that I I mean, I've experienced I mean, I had my knee wrapped around Like completely dislocated worse pain in my life. Nothing compared to Well, my my wife's from five versus six marathons and so she was she was slightly cocky, you know, not not entirely She's like I was there with mine I've experienced pain and then she comes to like nothing like that and it's so funny because you know my wife Most you know labored in silence, but it was just so so funny because these they come in waves, right? The pain comes in wave your your wife compensates in some way or your girlfriend spouse, whatever They compensate in some way and then they go back to whatever it is that's giving them comfort in that and and then the contractions come closer and closer together and My so number one my wife is super super tough And number two that the the female body is such an amazing if you're gonna if you're gonna help propagate our species along over These millions of years It's funny because within like 15 minutes after after jack's born and he immediately starts breastfeeding Which is yeah kind of funny kind of funny things like insane You just drop it near the nipple nipple is like I got it. I'm good and you're like 30 seconds of life I've got it down I've got it And so like 15 minutes later my wife's like let's have another one like all that oxytocin just washed That discomfort of the experience like Immediately and and so so with the the physiology background I have and it's like man hormones are powerful things They could be like yes Yeah, just went through that but it may as well have been 10 years ago because I'm gonna let it determine Did you feel the oxytocin like because we could all feel it in the room? Oh, yeah Oh, it was so strange like the mood of the room because uh, it's crazy Like so so first of my wife labors for like she went into active labor Probably somewhere around nine o'clock at night and then jack was born Uh in the three o'clock hour in the morning. So it was like six hours of active labor man She was having like the pre labor from like she smacks me like five o'clock in the morning of the day of and it's like Yeah before like I mean labor this is happening, you know, so we're all day. We're hurry up and wait when's this gonna happen, isn't it? um, so You know, but but as the as you know, the night progresses and you're you're tired and it's it becomes the oxytocin Like yeah, you're tired, but all of a sudden there's this huge relational quality where it's like It's the soft glow It's the the the tactile sensations of touch with not only with your Not only with the mother of your child and with your child that relational component just You know, all of a sudden you put your kid on your chest for the first time for that kind of skin to skin contact And it feels like they sink into you and become a part of you and this really like a it's the highest definition touch I've ever had Yeah, just the sensations of it. It's very very weird and then and then on top of that like it's just Yeah, just everything kind of takes on this very Almost slow motion kind of feeling even though in my mind if I think about the whole experience You know, it's like that if I pause and I think about the feelings of Time the experience just seemed to just stretch on and and everything was cool with it The oxytocin in the air was definitely a big part of that. It's a trip because you know in my life's history I've done a lot of different drugs narcotics whatever and um Had a lot of experiences and there's nothing like that Because in the in the room in the midwives will tell you about it. They're like, man, we just we're It's crazy, you know, we feed off of it and you know, I'm like, okay Yeah, I can't wait to experience it but really it's it's an amazing experience But then also it's like the woman the the freaking body the what that is going through like when you watch an athlete Do something or like, you know, you watch Somebody who's fighting or whatever, you know pushing himself pushing himself to the point of excellence where it's like that You know those few times where you you see that that superb moment, right And but that happens naturally with women through childbirth. It's like that's happened that It's built to do that like I mean I The female Women are built to birth kits like that's part of the whole if if I take a very impersonal evolutionary view of things, right? We're dna vessels Dar jobs to get it on the next and I'm no longer I'm a rented vehicle. My dna is off, right? So my Darwinian fitness is now less that I've had kids I might be healthier and I might be more fit from a functional perspective from a Darwinian perspective I'm now I'm starting to go down the tail end of my of my value Um, and then there's a whole discussion about grandparents and kind of in the Darwinian fitness component as well But it's just so incredible to to watch Someone Yeah, it's the weirdest slowest build-up in this like perpetual focus Because you know there there were a couple times where my wife was almost like I can't do it anymore Absolutely, and you know the way it was instructed us is like that's when that's when you're getting close Like like when you're about ready to throw in the towel is when Is when you're almost ready to start pushing So my wife built this huge period of time six plus hours and then right on the verge of like her most like Frantic like I can't do it anymore. There's no way I can do it We bring our midwife in and it's funny because she's East German like she is the best life God You can do it Like kind of the kind of thing and oh so awesome because she talked about she'd be like, you know She was she had to talk this girl off a ledge She wanted a special parking pass at ut so she could park as close to her class as possible And she was like too much pregnant, right? And she's like You're not getting that you're pregnant. You're not sick, you know like nice That's the other thing too. We have this idea that someone is pregnant Now there are certain circumstances where you are going to be required We have some friends. They just she had twins and she needed to be on bed rest for basically the last Yeah Three months of the pregnancy because otherwise she they were going to push into early labor It was what kept it kept on verging on early labor verging on early labor So she needed to have bed rest but But assuming there's no sort of extraneous circumstance You're just pregnant. You're not sick. You're not possibly And so um Yeah, I think I think that's important. It sounds like both of us had excellent births, right? Maria was working out. She was lifting weights Up to the week, you know and basically she would have that week, but we had the baby, you know And she was working out once or twice every week. Yeah, and surely Sometimes you can't do that stuff and maybe in the next pregnancy that might happen, you know, but But uh, it's like what you're saying is so important, you know that God, you know when I think women's so the 21 convention all about guys, right? And uh, you know, we talk a lot about like, uh, well feminism this or you know Women saying that or like even men going on the extreme sides and like how that gets all out of whack But the reality of it the nature of it Here's here's what I saw in my experience, which is just my experience It's not the whole world's experience. But what I got was that man Women have been going through this Since our species has been around and maybe for the past less than 100 of 100 years You know, there's been this other technology taking over and uh God It is such an important part to the identity Of you and actually what you said even if the birth does go wrong, which nobody wants that, you know, of course prevent that But I think what made us as mammals and species and or as a species having the empathy that we have in the development of emotion Is that that sadness that pain that comes into play Also helped us exactly what you said in the beginning of this podcast to live the life that we have now I think it's a Go ahead. I think it's important to remind people that it's a bit like the the pharmaceutical component We could poo poo pharmaceuticals where it's certainly not poo pooing medical technology Because these were not like industries without a product It wasn't like somebody sit down one day. It was like, you know We call ourselves the pharmaceutical industry, but we don't have anything to sell We should get people drug It's like like there's a progression of like, you know, sort of talk, you know, sort of home remedies I mean, that aspirin's a good example Like willow bark was chewed on by the ancient greeks and it turns out it's got aspirin in it That's why it relieved pain and and progress and then became distilled and became our chemistry became better isolating component Um, and you know, it's one of those things where you don't know something Has gone perhaps a little too far until Until it has gone too far and you can look back and go actually we probably we probably use maybe 60% of this and include some more of this Stuff which we thought was problematic and germs is a good example recently, right? Like like part of the reason why Uh, there's a huge rise in hay fever and asthma and a variety of other things because the houses have been too clean We've been killing too many germs right and so now there's a whole issue to try and get the you know, whether it's a It reestablishing the gut biome Because we're only as human beings we're more We have more bacterial cells in our gut than we do human cells in our body. It's like nine to one So we're more bacteria than we are human which is always a fun thing to say Rather it's doing things like that or you have people who have like nasty gnarly Collitis type syndromes. I think that's right. We have to get like fecal transplants They actually have to have feces from a healthy gut transplanted back into their colon to make things okay Or to to progress it in a safe way Um, man, I want to know the first person who actually did that I like like you know, like I Talked into that Wait a second. It's got all this bacteria that you need and you're healthy And this is colonists herbal There's there's actually a great write-up on it on in the new york times This woman talks about like being a donor and the whole weird process Oh, it sounds like high comedy and it is but at the same because you know You can't talk about that stuff without kind of having a little tongue in cheek Like we're talking about a poop transplant Like, you know at the end of the day, we're talking about transporting feces from one person and getting into the colon and the other and how that goes You know, but but you you don't know something's gone too far until until it does go too far and and there's life-saving technology life-saving Drugs and these and these things that can sometimes be overused in a in a general kind of population um And sometimes there are changes that are made at a legislative level like you asked me at the 21 convention in austin about your blood pressure Yeah, and then I wasn't able to give you a good answer. I said ask dug well as it turns out like Up until about uh, I think it was 2002 Having a systolic blood pressure of 140 was like normal It was like the like now it's 120 over 80 is considered normal blood pressure Yeah, I think it was like 140 over 140 over 85 or 140 over 90 and then a change was made recently So it's like a matter of 10 years ago. That's normal blood pressure, right? That's an on treatment required blood pressure. So You have to then go look at why that might happen And then as a physician a physician as your dad will tell you has to treat the person in front of them And this is why you have a lot of physicians moving away from just taking shotguns of medicine Or I'm sorry shotguns of blood and then attempting to extrapolate out a story Um, there's actually a great company that they've they've managed to come out I'm going to kind of do this with my finger a way to get just about any blood tests from about that much blood of vial just off the tip of your finger Um for very inexpensive So if you have multiple blood tests in a short period of time and you would because they're cheap and it's coming from your finger Rather than from your arm You can start to tell if your blood test was noisy if if it was just an anomaly or if there's actually something going on Um, it's coming called there. No, so I'm having any interest in them But I just think it's really amazing that they've managed to make blood tests. So Yeah, that's so cheap and usable because otherwise it's like me showing you the scene from a movie until asking you to tell me about the plot Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah the movie I got to see last night Tell me tell me about that. Yeah, it would have it would have been would have been terrible to just tell you the plot You just have to see it right. I just hold up a scene and go all right. Tell me all about it You can't I I agree with you on the whole doctor thing because uh, doctors are great You need you absolutely need it and actually that's why I love Doug McGuff being such a strong presence, but I also love talking to people who work directly with with people At the 21 convention when I was asking you I was asking you because I have so much experience with this and blood pressure. I mean at that point You know, that was like what four years of just doing everything I could health wise I mean being at that point actually in 2012 I was In amazing cardio shape amazing strength shape um Diet was awesome And um, you know the blood pressure still wasn't there Um And I did then I did what Doug told me he said cut out all sugar and see what happens and that didn't work And then there was more experimentation, right? But you got to build a relationship with it and I don't want to be somebody that's dependent upon medication And at one point I did have to go back on the medication Um and still actually on a very small dosage But I think I can be off at this point, but it's just a relationship that I have My body is different. You know, there there might be something on my genetics But I truly believe and this is what I get from talking to guys like you Is that my body was meant to work? Yeah, you know, and there's things that you can do to help it work Now it shouldn't be have to be so extreme or you know Because sometimes I was doing stuff with my diet and exercise was just absurd, right? But uh But man, you know building that relationship is a good thing and then in in that like I said, you know I did what Doug told me to do. I did what many other people told me to do and that didn't work And then you come back and you say, hey, you know, what can we do? I got to take responsibility for that. That's right Yeah, that's me But you are I mean the fact is that you were you were asking people who might know something that you didn't You were applying you were applying it and then when it didn't work you didn't blame the advice Yeah And I'm talking about what I appreciate is that you weren't uh what I jokingly call an ass coal Which is someone who solicits advice and then does something Like like genuinely looks for advice not just like discussion all like past the time, but like prescribe me something person of who's in a in a position of expertise Um, and then you do something totally opposite of that or something totally different You know, that's that's really irritating because if someone's taking the time to care and try and help facilitate a solution And you've lobbied for that and then you do something totally different It's kind of like why did you waste all of our time? You know, yeah And but most people it's kind of a shiny object thing, right? Like I'm going to try everything. Well, then how do you know if something worked? I I as a coach I Totally get you there man. Let me tell you actually after ask that question for you. I mean I researched more stuff I started even more with the the lifting that you were talking about Um, because I did it with Keith at a fish and exercise But then I started to do it more and uh, you know Then I went to melburn and met marco tobre and and he told me his fitness thing and we experimented that More with that with different supplementation yada yada yada eating real foods, you know, kind of like very similar paleo type stuff, but basically Doug told me he's like the only way you're really going to know if this is affecting you because he's like the numbers Just like you said, you know, they're all they they come from so much You know research that's been rehab and he could explain much better and he did in a quick five minute blurb of doctor Craziness, but he said man get an echocardiogram, which is not something that is easy to do But I did that in my heart walls worth thicker, you know, this was affecting me very very slightly You know it was kind of like right on the higher end, but nonetheless, you know, that's happening so it's like if we're, you know In talking to people who are experts You know, and I know we got to wrap this up and I should turn this into a question especially that You're an expert in which is life and fitness, but um You know when talking to experts You got to respect it and sometimes the you know, like you guys were always telling me with diet You know and I didn't listen to you guys or I was like, uh, well, you know I could kind of 80 20 it and I wasn't really fully ready to go a hundred percent, but um You know, you've got to respect that so that being said You know, I know we're talking a lot about fatherhood and birth and life and all that sort of stuff And you are a fitness expert. We didn't get into that. I mean you're at a very high level An extremely high level But that being said what is the Best advice you could give to somebody Man with their their body their mind their spirit their presence What can a guy do right now to be the best Man he can be judging from what you've experienced with teaching people in your own life So so the trickiest, uh, that's a that's a That's a Wonderful little chewy cookie that i'm not sure I can bake up for you here in just a a couple seconds, but I can I can try So with the thing that I I go back to what I kind of conveyed at that 21 convention previously it was like understand that You shouldn't treat Your activity patterns like they're an intervention that they're only going to be done for a short period of time Unless you're experimenting and learning kind of the things that work best for you. That's fine But most people don't do that They'll they'll work out a little bit and they'll do nothing and then they'll work out a little bit for an event And then they'll do nothing and they'll do the same thing with diet They'll sort of crank the diet widget and then they'll lose 20 pounds and then they'll not learn anything from it Uh, and then they you know, and then they gain the weight back and then some and then it goes on again So I think moving closer to A more whole foods diet is key. I don't think most people have to go as far as being strict paleo or I think for a short period of time like my buddy Dallas Hartwig He and his wife Melissa they have the whole 30, which is 30 days of squeaky clean paleo But their whole point is not like that that's the magic It's that you pay attention to the way in which your body starts to actually react And pay attention to how food makes you feel without that awareness of anything you do diet Exercise lifestyle changes without the awareness of the feedback that you're getting Um, it's a fool's errand you might you might reach a goal But you don't know how to sustain that goal because you didn't pay attention along the way So that's my biggest uh, if there's anything be mindful of the feedback that you're getting in process Because that's the real lesson. Yes, you might reach the goal and that's great No, nothing wrong with goals, but you're you're not going to have one goal in your life, right? There's not a punch card like up you get one goal your goals are going to change And so if you're simpler or goals from when you were younger allow you to Kind of learn a framework with which to pick up and work on something new later because you paid attention to those small things Um, you're going to have a whole lot more of these peak experiences of feeling pretty good at learning something new So that would be my advice is actually pay attention be mindful of the feedback you're getting from your body And then you can start to apply another areas of your life Like you said with jiu jitsu But you know the hard work that you get from resistance training Dilutes the difficult the compared difficulty in some other areas of your life And then with that in mind you might be like, oh, yeah, I could work on this a little bit more This wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be because of x experience Um, that's that's just maintaining a mindfulness because you're going to do this the rest of your life You're going to do this until you die and so being open to Finding the things that uh, it seems so to find what works best for you There are a few things that only actually work like you're not going to build bone density unless you do some resistance training period full stop um You're not going to increase your strength unless you attempt to voluntarily do that past a certain point after puberty full stop Right, but there are like you said you're not training the way we used to train anymore And that's fine. I just care that people resistance train like at the end of the day that is Support help I currently I'm doing a lot of hand balancing like working on hand stands and like press hand stands and hand stand push-ups and things of that nature So I'm not training the way we train directly But I all the lessons I learned from the way I teach people apply in this new endeavor For example, and then I can reciprocate I can take what I learned some of the lessons from that Learning how to do this new stuff and help my clients be even better So yeah, you do like rock climbing stuff and I mean you I definitely you know, I used to think Erwan Lacour was just a great the move net Erwan Lacour is just a crazy french hippie And he may still very well be and I think you'd probably take that as a compliment but um But there is an element of most of the activity in your life should not be done from a place of shame Like I don't like my body. Therefore I have to work out It should be from a place of look at all the cool stuff I can do with my body. Wow man, uh We're we're at 1205 You have to get going. I don't I don't have to go anywhere. You gotta I gotta run. Okay You gotta run But if you want one more small question, I can man. Well, you say this, okay This is coming from the dysfunction. This happens in everything This is why I love talking to experts and let me just say this because when you talk to an expert You being an expert and many things probably more than just fitness But in health and fitness, I clearly know you is that myself dating relationships all that sort of stuff But when you become an expert and you achieve that level of whether of its advice life experience yadda yadda You Can find all these lessons within that that apply to everywhere in your life and you know it You don't just know it as knowledge. You know it as knowledge and experience You are saying coming from the point of dysfunction And getting into fitness, you know Or or improving your body be out of shame just like improving your dating life out of shame is I know the wrong way to go How do we get into that success? How do we get into that function? In say it in fitness, you know or whatever it is So so so don't discount the low hanging fruit Right take the little victories and build on that. I I'm sure you see it in your life too So so there's two things there's a domain dependence, right? We we will learn how to do something in a similar kind of pattern of development Yes area of our life and then when we go into a new area of life We do not apply the same kind of stair step approach or looking for That's what I said when I'm cranking the diet widget I think most people I give the example of like if you're hungry and you're standing at the base of an apple tree What do you do? You grab the apple that's right there in front of you, but most people If if they were if they had a fitness mindset They would try to climb to the damn top of the tree to get that apple, right? They were going to pick the most difficult thing rather than making rather than building the The confidence building easy wins earlier that actually make a difference in the short term and then I mean it builds their self-efficacy Here's the thing You are going to do something more often if you feel like you can do that thing And the only way you can feel like you're going to do something more often is by doing the thing Right? It's this it's this wonderful little circular thing So you feel good about doing something you're going to do it more often when you do it more often You're going to feel good about doing it When you feel good about doing it, it's just this wonderful cycle and so but you don't start nobody starts off as an expert And even then when you're an expert all you do is you've got really good at asking better questions Totally totally really better about being like, okay Yeah, I might know a few things and it'll help people along but you get better at asking questions And so I think as a society we have it that we have to work out or else when I point out that all the longest-lived cultures on earth They don't have a they don't have a secret. They don't have they have a food culture that they've maintained throughout their entire life um and generally had A terrain that facilitates lots of inconvenient movement Right like the sardinian men who live longer than women, which is a really unusual. It's not all sardinia small portion of sardinia They they thought it was the diet. They thought it might be the right and the diet doesn't harm anybody because of your diet Once you get everything kind of right like uh, you get enough nutrients. You're not micronutrient Depleted you're having enough calories to support your energy expenditure super nutrition beyond that Most of the time doesn't do anything, you know And if it and if you over if you eat too much of a certain nutrient you get headaches, maybe some diarrhea Whereas too little, you know, like too little protein in you or too little vitamin C and you've got You've got scurvy too little vitamin D. You've got rickets like the too little was much worse than too much Um, but the thing that the only thing that they found that correlated with these individuals longevity was the grade of the hills in which they lived on The amount of physical activity through inconvenience because if they were going to go out and walk and move they had to go up and down These hills that was the only thing that correlated with the longevity significantly was was the inconvenience of the terrain um And so I think that uh, so so my point was there's no magic. There's no secret There's good enough consistently And the only way you're gonna do it consistently is if you feel good about what you're doing If you don't feel like I have to do this because I'm if I don't I'm a terrible human being You feel like I want to do this because I feel good doing it. Yes. Where do you want? That's where you want to be that is Similarly you talk about dating there's this great article I think it was on salon or something where this woman she's like I'm fat 40 and getting laid more than I ever have in my life It's a fantastic article. That's an old article. Actually. I I remember uh, it's like two years old But it's it's great because she's sort of like like she talks about sleeping with this guy who was like way out of her league Right. Yeah, and and she was sort of like well, you know, just just bed talk after they after it's screwed He's sort of like confidence is sexy You know and and that I think is if when you're when you're in a good place in your life You become much more attractive to individuals when you are in a good place with your body You are you are doing with it all these wonderful things because it feels good to do with it all those wonderful things That's why it's on my clients That's like train with me once a week build a nice foundation of strength and then go out and enjoy all the strength Yes, you know, it's kind of a you can't take it with you thing like use it to enjoy it Build it to enjoy it. Don't just build it to hoard it You know, it's like the the road to your greatest personal expression This is what I got from really doing a lot of stuff with you guys is that oh this is my body I don't need to be anybody else anymore But the road to absolute confidence your greatest self expression, you know is is five Small wins a day, you know, if I could get five small wins a day They're easy to do the low low hanging fruit and not make it about the big deals I build a lot of mental clarity. Uh, my physical expression is better in my emotional output is is uh You know has the real confidence behind it Anyway, how can guys find out more about you and find out who you are other than of course the 21 convention 21 convention either But no, seriously, it's going to be a lot of fun the speaker lineup this year Anthony's revamped kind of the structure in a way that I man awesome It's it's it's really going to be great. Um, and as far as getting ahold of me You can find me at skylarthanner.com And you can also find me. Uh, I blog weekly so I kind of skylarthanner.com is a longer form blog if I have sort of Ideas that are have been percolating that I want to see in writing Whereas I I write also at a fish and exercise dot com where I'm one of the partners in the business And so I have a blog that's a little bit more functional ground level talking about I I talk a whole lot about small wins there And doing things that improve self-efficacy So you're more likely to maintain these things throughout your lifespan rather than just a small window of intervention followed by a whole lot of The stuff you you've always been doing and hoping would somehow lead to a different result Yeah, awesome cool great stuff And um, man can't wait to see it. Well, hopefully in austin, but can't wait to see you in tampa It'll be a good time. Like you said the speakers are it's it's a totally different I don't want to say a totally different convention, but it is so it is superlative Well, you know, we're all a little older and I think Anthony is in a different place in his life, too And I think that if you you have to you obviously there's to be able to appeal to as many individuals at different levels as possible And to facilitate some amount of like Mentor wisdom up and down learning is uh Top-down bottom up is both directions is really kind of what we've got now, which is really really cool Yeah, great stuff, man. Awesome. Thanks so much. Yeah, man