Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - BONUS: Fitness + Finances

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

In this episode, Danny sits down to talk about how our financial health and bodily health are more connected than we think. We look at how some of the habits we have might potentially holding us back from not only our health and fitness goals but also our financial fitness! We also take a look at how our natural human behavior makes it more difficult to be fit and financially savvy in today’s world.---TIMESTAMPS:Why do we want to constantly eat and buy things? 3:07To be successful, you need to make decisions that result in BOTH short and long term pay off! 6:22The least sexy stuff does the best and in the long run! 10:47Be wary of misinformation and gimmicks! 14:08Going slow may be the best approach for you! 15:01There’s never going to be a great time to start. Just start! 18:24---RESOURCES/COACHING:I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE!Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE!Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Episode is Not LivePublish: Jun. 19, 2020 @ 5AM EditPublishAdd a TranscriptGet episode better indexed by search engines.Add Chapter MarkersListeners can tap through & see what’s coming up.Promote this EpisodeCreate a Video SoundbiteShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedInEmail Link to EpisodeDirect Link to MP3Embed this ONE EpisodeVieSupport the Show.

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. Today is a little bit different than episodes past where we primarily talked about fitness, physiology, and some of those underlying variables and factors that really can influence your health physically. But one of the areas of mental and emotional health that we don't talk about a lot, and it's unfortunate that we have to talk about it at all, but it is the way our society goes and the way the world seems to turn is how finances and financial health impacts your mental health, your sense of well-being, security, peace of mind, all things that impact your health. And unfortunately, we are in a super materialistic capitalist society here, at least in America, where money seems to make the world go round. And I believe we've taken

it too far to a certain extent. However, saying that money is the worst thing in the world go round. And I believe we've taken it too far to a certain extent. However, saying that money is the worst thing in the world, that it ruins everything, I think is also a stretch. But we have to look at the relationship that we have with money and how it has the ability to influence our health, contribute to our well-being, and how some of the habits that might be holding us back from our health and fitness goals might also be holding us back from our personal finance goals. Now, before we get too far into it, you might not want to take personal finance advice from somebody who's only 25 years old. And I'm not going to run over my portfolio, my investment strategies, how I've made the

money I've made, or anything like that. I want to talk about habits and how we can borrow from habits and the finance space and apply them to both the fitness and life space to help you live a fitter, healthier life that hopefully includes some habits surrounding your financial fitness as well. Because it's something that a lot of people don't like to talk about. Much like politics and religion, sometimes when money comes up, people just plain don't want to talk about it. In the same way people who might be sensitive to talking about their weight issue, they may be sensitive to talking about their debt. Or perhaps their inability to get a promotion or ask for a raise. inability to get a promotion or ask for a raise.

There's a lot of things that go around and seem to be really sensitized when it comes to talking about finances and fitness. There's also some habits that really go hand in hand. So let's talk about the connection here and put in place some strategies for you so that you can live a healthier life from a fitness and financial standpoint that will allow you to hopefully enjoy life, do more of what you want to do, feel the stress and burden of financial insecurity less, if not at all, and hopefully move us forward with some of the ways we can kind of draw conclusions about human behavior by taking a peer into the world of finance and fitness and seeing how it is they're so correlated

and they're so interwoven with natural human behavior. So the number one thing that I think these two have in common is our evolutionary biology and our current climate are not matching up with regards to fitness and finance. So here's what I mean by that. We spent 200,000 years as a species being collectors, hoarders. If you could get your hands on something, you got as much of it as you could because for a lot of our existence as a species, we had food insecurity and we had resource insecurity so when you came across a berry bush or a beehive you ate all of it you got as much of it as you could because you

had no idea when you were going to come across it again or you hoarded it you made an effort to hold on to it and keep it from others because it was important for your survival that you share it with you and your tribe interestingly enough enough, we still have some underlying neurological mechanisms that make us approach food and materialism the same way. For example, many of us have a hard time not eating hyperpalatable foods because that reptilian brain is still hardwired to want to eat more and more and more foods that taste good, that have multiple flavor profiles, that prior to traditional food technologies and food manufacturing that we're familiar with now, prior to, let's say, the 21st century, foods that tasted like that, you rarely

found. And if you did find them, they were nutritious and loaded with carbohydrate and loaded with sugars and loaded with salts and things that could potentially benefit us if food was hard to come by. So our reptilian brain designed these mechanisms to help us eat as much of this as we could. And that's part of the reason why our brain chemistry is so easily altered by these hyperpalatable foods, food manufacturers kind of know what they're working with. They've got about 200,000 years worth of human evolution that just hasn't quite caught up to processed food manufacturing. So they can kind of keep that brain wanting a little bit more. Well, and the same thing goes with materialism. For a long time, having things and projecting wealth meant you would eat meant you would more easily be able to find a mate, more easily be able to care for your tribe.

And we all kind of fall into these same traps today. And they're built into our fundamental neurology. And it kind of is a way in which we can look at our brain and say, well, you know, we've done quite a bit of evolution here over the last 200,000 years. You know, we've done quite a bit of evolution here over the last 200,000 years, but some of those habits that are really ingrained really don't lend themselves particularly well towards long-term financial and fitness health. However, being aware of them can certainly make a difference. That being said, let's take a look now at four things that financial health and fitness health have in common and how if you master these, I shouldn't say fitness health, let's just say financial health and fitness, and how mastering and coming to terms with some of these commonalities, I think will give you better habits with how you look at your fitness and also some better habits with how you look at your money and finance. So number one, both fitness and financial health have this in common, and that is that to be successful, you need to make decisions that have both short-term and long-term payoff. So with regards to fitness, you need to select exercise modalities that are enjoyable enough right now that you will do them, but not so deleterious to your body that it wears

you down to the point you can't train throughout your life. You need to select nutritional strategies and nutritional protocols that you enjoy enough to do, but that aren't loaded with so much of the wrong stuff that you pay for it down the road. So there has to be a short-term and a long-term payoff to see success. The same thing can be said for finance. And this is something I borrow from one of the mentors I've had in the financial space who's impacted me the most, Ramit Sethi. And one of Ramit's philosophies is what he calls living a rich life. And a rich life, by Ramit's teaching, is different for everybody. But it's a life that allows you to have financial freedom while still enjoying things that you love to do now. One of the things millennials and young people get told all the time is, stop spending so much money on coffee.

If you didn't go to Starbucks every day, that's several hundred dollars a month that you could add back to your bank account. And while I believe that there is some truth to that and that we shouldn't be frivolous and wasteful, if buying a coffee every day is an enjoyable part of your routine and it makes you happy, allocating a small amount of your income there isn't a bad thing and it doesn't make you a bad person. You need to have short-term ways in which you can spend and invest your money that will make life enjoyable, whether that's going on vacations, investing in a personal trainer, going to concerts and movies, things that bring you joy, but not so much so that you don't put any away for the future. So you have to have short-term and long-term decisions

as well. And a really interesting way to look at this, something that you can see in human behavior from a financial and a fitness perspective, is the similarity that overeating and going into debt have in common. So for example, when humans tend to overeat or consume too many calories, they often know the foods they're consuming are high in calories and that they should not overconsume them. But they often say, I'll work this some degree of equivocation as to say, I'll pay it off later, just like how human beings justify overly frivolous purchases. For example, well, I know I can't afford to go on this trip, but if I put it on my credit card, I'll pay it off later. It sounds an awful lot like, well, I know I shouldn't eat this. It has too many calories, but I'll burn them off later. And that's a trap to be aware of. It's something to

say, hey, I've seen this occur in multiple avenues of my life. This is not something exclusive to finance. It's not something exclusive to fitness. It's a human behavioral thing that we tend to do. This idea that we will can kind of constantly be playing catch up. And so the first thing you want to be aware of, and one of the most interesting commonalities there is, is that you have to make short-term and long-term decisions with your fitness and your finances that are congruent and don't fall into the all make up for it later trap. We tend to do that all the time. And it's why I believe there's no accident that debt and the average household debt constantly climbs as does America's weight problem. These I'll worry about it later philosophies just don't seem to pay off as well as we might think,

or I'll figure it out later philosophies. You're better off setting up some long-term strategies, whether that's with your nutrition in your training or your investing, and leaving a little wiggle room for you to enjoy the current moment. Don't be so reckless today that you screw yourself tomorrow, but don't live so much for tomorrow that listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Another thing that fitness and finance have in common is that tends to be the least sexy stuff does the best and will pay the most dividends in the long run.

So, for example, Barstool Sports, Barstool as a brand, their CEO, Dave Portnoy, has been all over social media. He's been day trading using various day trading apps, and he's had an extremely successful go of it. And there's a lot of people following along, so much so that Wall Street Journal actually published an article titled, Dave Portnoy Leads an Army of Day Traders, or Barstool Prez Leads Army of Day Traders. Prez leads army of day traders. People are really motivated. They're like, Hey, this is working for this guy. I'm going to do it. And this is exactly what people do with fitness. They see somebody getting incredible results. They see somebody getting massive returns and they just say, Hey, I am going to copy that and it's going to work for me. And it really hasn't been working as well for other people as it has for Dave. because when you start with a lot of money, you have a greater chance to make greater returns, and not to get too much into the stock game, but most people don't always make the right decisions. So following somebody else's lead

isn't always the best thing to do. So understand, what works for some does not work for all. But in general, the least sexy stuff tends to work the best for most people. With regards to fitness, a regular resistance training practice paired with a diet that's mostly whole foods, contains a considerable amount of protein, carbohydrate aligned with your exercise goals, healthy fats, that's going to work for most people. It's not sexy. It's not as sexy as saying, hey, I'm going to do keto, CrossFit, and intermittent fasting like this guy saw on the internet, but it's probably more likely to work. In the same way that while picking stocks is always a gamble,

and sometimes you'll be right, sometimes you'll be wrong, there are strategies and investment techniques that might be a little bit lower risk and might be a little more likely to pay off for you in the long run. For example, investing in index funds, target date funds, and even just your general Roth and 401k type funds tend to be a little bit more stable. They tend to have a better rate of return for most people, and they tend to be a lot easier, despite being admittedly less sexy than buying and trading day to day, where your returns may be better if you hit the nail on the head. But going back to human behavior, we know that not everybody is going to hit the nail on the head every time with regards to investing or with regards to fitness. So having strategies set up that may not be as sexy, but you're more likely to follow through with is really, really important. And then again, avoiding that trap of, hey, what works for everybody might not work for me. And so don't

let this get it twisted, right? We still want to make investments. We still want to invest in our fitness. It's just not always easy. So another thing that these two industries or spaces have in common is that there's a lot of people that prey on misinformation or they prey on lack of education. Some of your best fitness and finance marketers understand that the fitness space and the finance space tug at people's heartstrings. We want to look good. We want to be wealthy. We want to have longevity and we want to be wealthy, we want to have longevity, and we want to be attractive. And so they use this as a way to pull people into either

exercise routines, nutritional regimens, diets, or investing platforms that might not be what's best for them. And again, learning to be wary of those things is really important, and understanding that sometimes those less sexy, tried-and-true strategies are a little bit better than falling for the latest fitness or finance marketing gimmick. thing that they have in common is that oftentimes going slow and at a pace that works for your current lifestyle might be the best approach for almost everyone. And so what I mean by that is this. Picking a fitness routine and a nutritional protocol that's aligned with what you have to give right now is probably more likely to get you to your end goal than doing something you saw on the internet, something somebody else is doing, or something that you might think will be better if you just go balls to the wall. And when in fact, sometimes doing too much just leads to burnout, you end up not reaching your goals and feeling defeated as you kind of wallow in the fact that, hey, I took on

too much too fast and I just simply wasn't able to get it done. And that's a really normal thing that a lot of people run into with fitness. And the same thing can be said of investing or financial health. A lot of people try to make too many financial changes all at once. I'm going to stop eating out. I'm going to cancel all of these subscriptions. I'm going to do X, Y, Z. And while some of those things might be good, drastic change all at once is quite difficult. It's something that the human psyche struggles with, and many times it can end up with a rebounding effect, much in the same way you'll see it with fitness. After a prolonged, really rigid diet and training regimen, people will burn out and

have a binge or a blowout. The same thing can be said when following excessively restrictive financial protocols. People forget to live life and enjoy it and oftentimes end up lashing out and struggling. So when looking to add fitness or some type of financial practice or investment practice into your life, it's often best to just start out slow and start with what it is you can fully grasp and put into practice to the best of your abilities. So maybe it's often best to just start out slow and start with what it is you can fully grasp and put into practice to the best of your abilities. So maybe it's going to the gym three times a week and trying to eat mostly whole foods. Maybe you're more advanced and you're going to go five times

a week and you're going to track your macros. With investing, it could be as simple as putting away $100 of every paycheck into a savings account account all the way up to investing in something like a Roth IRA or picking some individual stocks when you feel the market has dipped and warrants doing so. That being said, one of the worst mistakes you can make is thinking that you know more than you know and looking to take on too much at once. You will definitely pay for this if you do this in the fitness space, trying to diet and trying to implement advanced exercise protocols that are perhaps beyond your ability to recover from or even beyond your understanding. But you will certainly pay for this if you do this in

the financial space, looking into some of the more advanced investment strategies that might just simply be a little bit beyond your current grasp. I've seen a lot of people make this mistake with cryptocurrency. And you know, there's just sometimes options that are a little bit easier to grasp that might be better than the more advanced, latest, sexiest one. So with regards to all this stuff, go slow, take it at your own pace, and look to learn, but only take on so much that you actually have the ability and opportunity to understand and implement at one time don't go all in work your way through it slowly and you'll probably see better results but i always found it incredibly interesting

that a lot of the reasons people struggle with starting a fitness routine, or they say, well, I'm just not ready to start investing, and they come to this phrase of, you know, I really need to get my ducks in a row first, or I need to wait till the time is right. And with regards to starting a long-term financial platform for yourself or a fitness program for yourself, there's never going to be a great time to start. But unfortunately, in today's society, having both physical and financial health is imperative for living a long, healthful, enjoyable life. I don't think anybody here would say I'd be happier making less money and having less money waiting for me in retirement. I just don't see that as being reasonable in the same way that nobody listening would say I'd be happier being

exponentially less healthy. So there's a balance and a chord to be struck here. How much you're willing to put into either of these two camps is probably going to be largely based on how much time you have, how much money you have, a variety of things. Don't get me wrong. Everybody's level of investment in these are going to be completely unique, but I think that's important to bring to the table and say, not everybody's going to be able to put in the same amount of effort, or it's not going to look the same way, but we should all be making some movement in advancement towards our personal finance and our fitness level. Just doing something is exponentially better than doing nothing. Don't fall into that trap of paralysis

by analysis and forgetting to start. Sometimes the best thing you can do is start simply and figure it out as you go slowly. But as is the case with almost everybody who's seen success in either of these fields, they did just that. They started. They did something. You maybe will learn from some mistakes you make along the way, but the biggest mistake you'll ever make is simply refusing to start because it's confusing or it's difficult. And so guys, there you have it. A quick little blurb on the connections between fitness and finance. Some of the bigger ones is, hey, to be successful in both, you have to make decisions and implement routines that will lead to both short-term enjoyment and long-term success. There's certainly a correlation in the human brain and our behavior, and it may be an interesting indirect link as to why we struggle so mightily culturally with things like debt and overconsumption.

We just love to buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume. And learning to navigate that better is a great way to navigate your long-term health and your financial fitness. A big one here is that the least sexy stuff seems to be the best for most people with regards to nutrition, exercise, and investing. And be careful out there because what works for everybody will not always work for you. And so take a realistic view of where you're at and look to simply start something. A long-term plan for your fitness and finances will probably make you a healthier person in the long run. I'd almost guarantee it. Guys, thanks so much for listening. Have a good one.

Do me a favor and share it if you enjoyed it. This is a quick blurb. Have a good day.