Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 463 - Short Cuts That Actually Work

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

You hear it again and again, "there's no such thing as a short cut. It takes hard work", etc, but what if you hired a coach? Seems like a short cut no one can argue with. That is the type of "short cut" we're focusing on today. Subscribe to the NEW Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

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I know some people, when they hike, they like to go off the trail. And I'm like, what are you fucking crazy? What are you doing? This is how bad shit happens. I know the Baileys when they first went to montana they went on like a hike and it started snowing and they were like oh we'll just we'll kind of just keep going this way well they hiked for a while i think they went for like an hour and it was snowing pretty good and by the time they kind of like went to like turn around their footprints were covered up oh gosh and they were like uh that's terrifying they're like okay there's a tree and that tree

looks like that tree and that's like we don't recognize anything you know rob said it got bad they got fortunate that they just got they got were able to get back but he was like he's like my heart just went right into my stomach dude i was thinking that the next time i go on a hike and if it's only like three people and we're going kind of far i need to bring like a taser with me or something because dude what happened was we were walking um and we were like alone for most of it then i turn around and there's this guy just in black walking close behind us and i was like just like it's a big ass open area and he just came out of nowhere and he's just on our trail so i started just like walking like this and just you know looking back acting like i was looking

around god i wonder what it feels like to to carry a gun like it must it must like if you are trained in it and stuff and you know and you know what you're doing with i wonder what that must feel like because when i go on a hike i'm kind of thinking the same thing like i'm not too worried about people necessarily um although something stupid could happen with something like that but animals and stuff like i don't really know people are like oh well that you know bobcat like that won't bother anybody it's too small or this bear it's gonna mind its own business like yeah right i don't know yeah i don't know that that bear's gonna kick my ass you saw that video with that like i don't know if it was a bobcat or it was a little the cat that was chasing the guy and he was

running back where he's like no no stay and he kept running backwards because you're not supposed to turn your back to it so it was just chasing him and then it tired out and ran away yeah it was chasing him for a cool two minutes right right he was he had a little battle with it for a couple minutes right yeah yep that's fucking crazy yeah i think i would have turned turn around and try to run and then i would have died dude i've been i'm pretty scared of animals too yeah if a bird flew so i was just gonna say that fuck out like i wouldn't know what to do absolutely yeah i was i was camping and we went like on a short hike like nothing serious but there was a bird that just kept going after one guy just like fucking nose diving to peck him in the head and he's just like i don't know what to do just run away dude i don't know like it was

like scary because it's like what what the hell do you do? Like this, this bird just keeps coming in. He's, you know, even if he does like, like slap at him, he's like, you're going to get a beak through your hand or something. Slice the fuck out of you. Yeah. It was crazy. That's a ballsy ass bird.

They usually don't go after. Birds are assholes. Wow. Birds are mean. Especially if you're around geese, like in Elk Grove Park. Oh, dude, those little, they're not even little. Wow. Birds are mean. Especially if you're around geese like in Elk Grove Park. They're not even little. That's a scary thing. They're little dinosaurs.

Yeah. Imagine if you're on a walk and you saw one of those Komodo dragons. You ever see those fucking things? No. Not outside of like a glass thing. Those things are fucking. I mean, it's like a lizard that's like the size of this fucking table. Wait, really? I thought Komodo dragons were like this big. When they're in glass, yeah. They're small. I mean it's a It's a Like a lizard That's like the size Of this fucking table

Wait really I thought Kool and Dragons Were like this big And it When they're in glass Yeah They're small Walks like a

Power lifter Yeah walks all Walks all sideways And slow and shit But it could It could See if you can bring up A picture of one of those things

I think they could be A few hundred pounds Have you seen it out in Oh my god No no Not like here in the United States. It's like on like specific like islands and shit. I'm just saying like, or what about in Florida?

They have those, they got gators everywhere. Nah, see, that's why you don't fuck with Florida. Floridians are different types of people, especially the ones that live near those things. They're just, they're savages. What the fuck? No, that's not real. Yeah, fuck? No, that's not real. Yeah, it is real. That's not real.

That's too big, bro. Isn't that fucking wild? Oh my God. I want to know why. They're supposedly insanely strong, and their tongue is really, I guess, venomous or some shit. That shit, that's just a dinosaur, man. Yeah, I know. That's just a dinosaur.

Yeah. What the just a dinosaur. That's, yeah. What the fuck? Definitely. I know people always talk about, like, aliens and they're fascinated by aliens, but I'm pretty fascinated by the shit that's in the sea. Yeah. The shit that's in the ocean. You guys seen any trailers for that, like, movie where the guy, like, falls in love with

an octopus? You guys seen any of that? No. Is this new? There's a show or a movie, I think it is maybe on netflix or amazon is that what they call hentai or is that something else oh tentacle stuff oh yeah yeah guys people tentacles or testicles tentacles touching the test okay yeah why are people into the tentacle yeah I don't know what is it furries or something

what's that called yeah that's a whole nother dressed up like a bear or something I don't know I think it's more like cats but they don't take the suit off because it's no longer a suit at that point apologies to anybody if I get that wrong let's just be honest

like if our ladies if they were like hey you need to put on this bear costume you'd be like that sounds like a little bit of a weird request but yeah fuck it why not i'll give it a try okay so i'm dressed as a cat what's the big deal i can deal with having whiskers for a little while whatever way you gotta make it happen right but matt falls in love with her octopus yeah i haven't seen the movie but i just saw like a trailer for it and the guy is uh he's he's fascinated by uh the sea and he he like dives and shit and he goes to this one same spot every day and visits this octopus but then it i mean it doesn't really

get it doesn't get weird necessarily except for the guy like when he's talking about the octopus he's like he's it's a one-way street you can tell the octopus like doesn't care that much but he's like he's he's he's way into it but uh i guess the octopus has so much uh intelligence that um there's certain I believe that they can't be worked on without like anesthesia or something like that because they're smart

and they can feel pain and all this stuff I don't know it's just called my octopus teacher yeah there you go and he learns a bunch of shit from this octopus and he hangs out with it every day okay I'd like to hear how i don't know if he ever got a piece or whatever but you know that's what he was working towards

i think you know i mean that that seems odd but like people get upset at like young people for like getting stuck in video games this is yeah this is the polar opposite well and people love people love on their dogs and stuff right and then yeah you know this guy he wasn't he wasn't getting too weird with it but it was like it did seem like him and the octopus were like buddies yeah okay strange if they're buddies yeah that's that's all right yeah i uh there's this guy i wish i could find him he looked so weird he was like this uh he had red hair and a red beard and he took care of donkeys and small horses.

Oh no. And in one video, he was like talking about how much he loved his horse and he said, she's just the right height. No bucket required. Wow. Do you guys want to try to understand what that means? I think I know. Get it?

Yeah. Just the right height. Yeah, he doesn't have to stand on anything. He doesn't have to stand on anything. Wow. That was just so disgusting. We had some discussion at the end of 2020 about how we were going to work on making this show better.

Oh, God. We really regressed. Which I didn't think. I mean, I didn't think it was possible, but we're we continue this backward trend. We're in the realm of bestiality now. Things are getting worse. I think there's aliens in the ocean, man. Look at these fucking things.

That thing's an alien. But I've heard people say, like, if if if that like landed here and it was in some ship you'd be like oh my god yeah or if like one of those uh like land or not land rovers that went to the moon or or whatever wherever they are yeah if that if they pulled up footage of an octopus or something out of our own ocean we're like oh my god aliens look crazy and it's like for us here it's like nah let's i don't know kill all the dolphins we don't care it's like for us here, it's like, nah, let's kill all the dolphins. We don't care. It's like, you fucking assholes. Yeah. Now there's some, there's some scary stuff down there.

If you've seen pictures like the weird stuff, really deep that we've gotten pictures of. They're just, are you guys okay with the ocean? Are you guys a little bit like, eh, I won't go deep. Yeah. I'm, I'm pretty like, I go in the ocean a little bit. Yeah. That's just about waist deep. I'm not like going to really like, I go in the ocean a little bit. Yeah. Just about waist deep. I'm not, like, going to really, like, go swimming around in the ocean.

It's been a long time, but, like, definitely catching, like, waves on, like, a boogie board is pretty fun. And then sometimes you don't realize, like, oh, shit, like, I'm pretty far out here now. Like, just to try to catch a stupid wave. Or when it lands on you and you can't, like, get it. And even though it's only like three feet of water. Does it make sense to even go in an ocean knowing that there's like sharks in there? No, no, no. Like imagine if you guys came over my house and I was like, hey, we're going to get in the pool. And we hop in the pool and you guys are like, what the fuck?

There's a shark in there. And you hop out. I'm like, no, but it's on the other side, though. It's not. It won't really come over this way. It has no in you it's it's on the other side of the pool it's like fuck that i mean i realize the ocean's massive but damn that's kind of what it seems like i remember somebody on rogan was saying like if we knew exactly how many sharks were in the water like per person or like per uh like i don't know area we would never get in the water oh and they show you have just taken

away my lifetime of going into the ocean fuck that i'm just like hanging out next to the water that's always good but i would with like a trained instructor i would go diving that makes a big difference having somebody that knows what's going on. Somebody that knows how to beat the fuck out of a shark. Yeah, but that might be one of those situations where you're like, dude, there's a big ass something right there. Now you're fine. Don't worry. Like, I don't know. He's looking this way.

Like, that's a fucking shark. You just try to make me scared of everything. Like, you try to discourage me from it. No, no, no. I'm trying to get a freaking husky. And you're telling me, get anything but a husky. They're looking at all dogs. Like looking at why?

Just any luck with that, by the way? No, somebody got him. Yeah, that sucks. I was like, somebody got him right before our appointment. Yeah. Are you guys fascinated by some of those shows? Like when there's like talking about like a shark or a whale or I don't know, grizzly bear or polar bear like i used to watch

those shows a lot my dad is huge into it and a lot of times like i even now sometimes i'll call him and say hey you know put on discovery channel he's like i'm watching it already i used i used to find that stuff really fascinating i don't watch it as much as i used to but i just always thought like it's something about like a kangaroo or something animals have such crazy features to them. Yeah. I'll sometimes put that stuff on here and there when I'm not doing anything. Just leave it on.

Those Planet Earth documentaries are sick. On Netflix. I like watching those. Yeah. Those are amazing. Makes me want to do psychedelics and watch them. See what happens. Psychedelics and watch animal videos.

Yeah. What do we got for today, Andrew? Well, with the new year, you know, people might be having their new year's resolutions set in stone. And, you know, people start looking into supplements. They start looking into ways to help get them to reach their goal a little bit quicker. And then you hear the same thing over and over. You can't replace anything with hard work. It takes time and you know, this and that.

But you know, like, like I, like I told you guys a little while ago, like if I didn't hire a mentor, I wouldn't have been able to progress with my photography as quick as I did or as good as I did. I feel like if in hiring somebody to help coach me through certain things, it was a bit of a shortcut, but yet, uh, shortcuts, there's no such thing. And, you know, dah, dah, dah. So what I wanted to ask you guys today was basically, you know, did you experience any like actual shortcuts that to help get you to the, you know, the physique that you wanted, uh, financial

status that you have, or just in general, like anything that you guys can remember to help get you to where you are, that would be considered a shortcut. Yeah. I think we're talking a lot about like leverage and just advantages. And I think if each person is to think about, um, the people that they know or the people that they can have an opportunity to know. Then they could probably fast track their progress and do exactly what you're talking about. So if you're in jujitsu, the wisest thing to do would be to A, look for a dojo or B, go to an event where there's jujitsu athletes. Same thing with powerlifting, bodybuilding, try to find a gym.

Maybe you already know somebody. Maybe you have a cousin. Maybe you have an uncle. Maybe you have someone in your family that has already done powerlifting. And you can say, hey, what's this about? You know, how do I, I'm really interested in learning more about this. And I think that people don't think that way that often. I think that for myself, I think that that's a huge strength of mine is to not only take

advantage for myself, but try to link other people up as well and say, hey, I think you guys would work really well together. I've done it many, many times, but I think that that is a good place to start. If you're trying to think about how can I gain an advantage or how can I fast track this? Why not talk to somebody who's already done it? Why not talk to somebody who's already maybe been a little bit of a success in that particular area? Yeah, absolutely. Especially like I'll talk bodybuilding for a second. When I

first got into bodybuilding, I think I did my first show at 21 or 22, something like that. But it was because of a trainer named Paul Urciaga. And Paul is the, he owned this gym called Forever Fit. Um, and that's actually the first gym that I privately trained people in. And he was like, and see my, you should do bodybuilding. You should get into bodybuilding. You should do a show. I was like, okay, well, I don't know the first thing about doing a fricking show. So, okay. Yeah. I'll get you ready for one. I learned a lot in that first experience. Um, and then I also, after that worked with Alberto Nunez and I learned even more in that experience. And I use that opportunity when working with Alberto to just

ask him a lot of questions. I was asking him, okay, what books did you read to learn this, this, and this in terms of tracking or what resources did you have? Like I wasn't asking him specifically, how do you do this more? So I was just asking him for his resources because I knew that if I could know where he learned what he learned, then I could do what he did. And that's exactly what happened. Um, and that makes a very, very, very big difference because like when I'm looking at like a guy like Paul, who was, I think maybe 40 something at the time, and he was doing bodybuilding for 20 years at that point, right? That's 20 years of experience that I get to ask and understand and learn what works and what doesn't work. Same thing with Alberto. That's

again, maybe at that point, maybe it was 15 years of training experience and coaching experience where I was able to learn about what he did and what he looked at and what he paid attention to. And, you know, I think that's huge. But another thing that I think that I really like to do and I think all of us here do is, I mean, I listen to a lot of other podcasts because I feel like podcasts are getting bigger and bigger. podcasts, because I feel like, um, podcasts are getting bigger and bigger. And like a lot of people that know just a lot of stuff are putting out free content, hours and hours of free content on specific topics. So I'll go to somebody I like, I'll just go through their episode list and see if there's something that piques my interest or peak something that I'm into. And I'll go listen to that because there's usually going to be a few nuggets in there that'll lead me into the right direction of what I'm trying to figure out so i think that's an amazing free resource that everybody

can and should be using or even you know like an audiobook right yeah like i want to read whatever this book but the uh the shorter quicker way for me to do it is through an audiobook now there's i think a couple people have mentioned that like there's studies or whatever that show that you retain the same amount of information as, or you're some, something like that. That's cool. Yeah. So I'm like, okay, does, I don't know, do I get extra credit if I read the paper, you

know, the paperback or is it the same? You know, like for me, yeah, it's going to take me a year to read a book on paperback, but the audio book, that's like a couple of commutes to and from super training. Yeah, absolutely. I think kind of on that same note, when you think about if you're going to start to listen to a podcast or you're going to start to try to learn from a particular person, I think it's a great idea to pick one person and to do that for a little while. So an example of that would be, let's say that you're watching TV and Elon Musk, you know,

comes on TV and you're like, shit, I want to, this guy's wild. I want to learn more about what's going on with him. And I stole this from Josh Settlegate. He said that he'll study like one person and he'll do it like one person per month. So that way you're looking up information about one person for the month and

you're not skipping around and blending ideas together because it might not be great as you're learning about one person who has these specific ideals and principles to kind of mix that with somebody else that might be quite different than that. Another thing on that same topic is try to learn for yourself when you feel you learn the best and don't stuff stuff down your throat when you're not really ready for it. ready for it. So if you, if you're not really much of a morning person and you know, maybe your morning drive isn't listening to, uh, you know, the world's greatest physicist or something, because maybe that's a little fucking heavy for you in the morning. Well, in the morning, just do your normal shit and just listen to music and just chill and relax. If, if this, this is the way that you operate, because I think sometimes I've fallen in this trap before where I just I want to I want to listen to a lot of information. I want to continue to learn and grow, but I might do it too much.

And it's just you're not getting anything from it. Then you have to listen to it like 12 times. There's a lot of research talking about how you can condition your body. talking about how you can condition your body. So a really simple example is if you normally eat lunch at like noon, you'll probably be hungry at noon every day. You know, with or without food, you'll probably start to get a little hungry around noon every day without even really looking at the clock. When it comes to learning, when it comes to even lifting, they say that you should try to lift at a similar time each day. You should try to go to sleep at a similar time each day. I mean, you don't have to be a maniac about any of it really, but it can make a big difference. So if you're trying to learn and trying to really

absorb, try to do it around the same time each day, how long you do it for, that's kind of up to you because if you're interested enough in it and you don't mind listening to something for an hour then that's fine but i noticed for myself that i i learned well in like 20 minute bursts or so and then in addition to that i learned the best i learned the best with the least amount of distractions so i can be on a walk and i can listen to something because sometimes I'll still write, which slows down my walk quite a bit, but I can write on my phone. I can take notes. I can sometimes just record something quick when I hear an idea that gives me an idea. And that can be really helpful.

But really, I think, you know, in this section of what we're talking about for today, I think you want to really try to optimize how you learn. And if you're trying to optimize how you learn, you might even want to look into somebody that speaks about that often. And that would be somebody like Tim Ferriss. I mean, he's talked about it for years. He's kind of moved on to some other topics now, but that's like his main fascination is how do we absorb stuff in a really short period of time? So we don't have to, you know, he, he'll talk about like speed reading and, and, uh, shorthand, you know, taking notes and all these different things where you're like, fuck man, imagine if you knew at least a little bit about all those things, how quickly you can learn and

progress. You know, there's this great app called Blinkist and it goes into a 10 minute books, 10 minute books. Um, and, and some, some of them are longer, but what Blinkist will do, and I, I like doing this outside of it too, but it'll take the big ideas of each chapter of a book that you're trying to get into and it'll summarize the big ideas of each chapter of that book. It'll summarize everything. And you could listen to a book or the big ideas from a book. Um, and like,

yeah, 10, 15 minutes, awesome. Any book that you're into, but at this, on the same vein of that that's what i kind of like that's what i did when i learned when i was learning how to do things in terms of training um i i saw that like in the nasm certification that i ended up getting like there was a lot of fluff a lot of just unnecessary bs that i wasn't going to use with anybody that i worked with so instead i tried to look up stuff that I could literally apply to my clients. Like just what, what, what are the things that work? What are the things that important and fuck everything else.

That's how, that's how. And then after I got the hang of that, then, okay, I could learn all this other fluff stuff, but it wasn't really necessary. That's how I approached jujitsu too. Like I think of, okay, what are the big submissions that tend to work? What are the big techniques that, you know, tend to work a lot in tournaments? And can I get the hang of that? And can I vein out from there?

But I try to I think it's really important if you're trying to learn any type of new skill or you're trying to get better at something in the gym or your nutrition, try to learn the big concepts of what are the important things that you can do. And then after a while, you can narrow down on those smaller intricate ideas if you want to. But I think that's a way to get good or learn something fairly quickly. Focus on the big ideas that really matter. Another huge aspect of all this would be recovery, you know, trying to recover from what it is you're learning or what it is you're doing. One way to fast track some of your training, if you feel like you've been stuck for a while, is to probably train a little bit less. Or maybe not necessarily less.

Maybe just maybe try to find a way to be a little bit more efficient. The way that you train, I think, is a great example of that. You're squatting, benching, deadlifting, um, and doing, um, uh, like bent over rows and pull-ups and things like that, that are, those are, those are money in the bank exercises. Those are exercises that have been around forever that people use all the time. And I think if you're to think about the overall amount of repetitions that we do in a given week. If you're doing, you know, rows and pull-ups and pull-downs and every back exercise you can think of, because you're so excited to train all the time. T-bar rows, hammer strength.

On top of that, you're doing curls and tricep extensions on many different variations. On top of that, you're bench pressing and doing many bench press variations. On top of that, you're bench pressing and doing many bench press variations. On top of that, you're squatting and doing squat variations and you're deadlifting and doing deadlifting variations. What's going to limit your progress with that is probably going to be your tendons, your ligaments, your joints.

We're only as strong as our weakest link. These things are going to wear down if we have hundreds and hundreds of reps, most likely, maybe not for everybody, but most likely you're going to start to feel the effects of that. Well, what's a way to make sure that you're not feeling the effects of that? Maybe you can figure out a way. Hey,

once I get warmed up, I'm going to hit, you know, maybe about two good sets and I'm going to move on to the next thing. And I'm going to do about three to five exercises. And just, I just want to do that for a five exercises. And just, I just want to do that for a while and make that commitment, make that commitment to that. And then on top of

that, you want to really try to recover from the workouts. You're going to have to sleep and you're going to have to, you're going to have to sleep and you're going to have to eat. And sleep is just so massively tied into everything that it's just completely insane. I think they've done studies where they've shown people getting more rest and hitting free throws better. I mean, there's all kinds of scenarios. They play out over and over and over again referencing sleep. And it doesn't mean you just roll up and hang out in bed all day. But figure out ways of getting your sleep. And it doesn't mean you just, you know, roll up and hang out in bed all day, but figure out ways of, of,

of getting your sleep. I know, um, Michael trend, he trains super early in the morning. And, once he's done with his training session, he hits up trend and then he gets some sleep,

but you know, he, he might, he might sleep for seven hours or six hours, but then he gets like a, you know, two hour nap when he's done training and still gets enough sleep. Stan Effering talks about sleep all the time.

So there's so many things that when we're trying to look to make a shortcut, I think it's probably more about doing some of the stuff that's not that sexy that you really don't want to do. Almost like just not falling for like doing too much or not falling for the thing that feels good or feels the best because it might not be right for you at the moment. It's a funny thing. When I work with people, sometimes people like, oh, this looks so easy or all of this stuff is so easy. And then after they do it for a while, they're like, wow, like I'm actually progressing. I'm making, I'm consistent because that's the thing that you just mentioned, like typically, and it's, it's within our nature and it's, I've done the same thing, especially when I got excited about powerlifting and stuff in the past, you do too

much. You beat yourself into the dirt. You feel that that's going to help you progress, but instead it's actually moving you backwards because now you're not recovering. Now you're potentially getting injured. It's, it's, you're not moving forward. You're just staying at the same place, but feeling like you're doing something substantial. But most of the, especially when it comes to lifting and especially if you're excited, typically you kind of have to back off a little bit, you know, leave a little bit in the tank and at the end of each session so that you can continue to be consistent and move forward um it's a it's a funny paradox it's like you want to work really really hard and you feel like you are but that's actually something that's maybe pushing you back a little

bit how does all this carry over straight into like diet and it's like because losing weight you know again back to the you know new year new me um how can somebody shortcut that but without like pitfalls of like, oh, I'm going to take these fat burners and all this stuff? It's got to be slow. It's got to be slow, steady progress because you can't do more when you're taking in less. Your body just doesn't want to. It might be okay for a week or two. You know, you might be fine for even a month. I've seen people lose tremendous amounts of weight in two, three month timeframe, but

then they fall back into their habits. They're just so hungry at that point. They're just fucking can't take it anymore. Or something happens. They roll their ankle jogging or something like that. And all that exercise they were doing before slows down. And now they're really, you know,

in a compromised position and maybe they didn't learn the exact correct habits when it came to their, when it came to their food. But your, your, uh, your nutrition has to be, you have to really try to play the slow game.

And, and like, what are things that are going to, what are, what are like three things that you can do every day to ensure that you're going to lose some body fat? You know, one would be to exercise. Another one would be to lift, lifting and exercising, or just, I mean, maybe some cardiovascular training we could say, and some sort of lifting and then making sure your diet's on point and then there's so many other things right there's sleep and hydration and the list kind of goes on

and on but is it gonna is it gonna help or is it gonna hurt for you to do 20 minutes of cardio every day maybe maybe you can make an argument that it will hurt because it's too time consuming but would 10 minutes hurt or 15 like you can do there's probably a time that you can make an argument that it will hurt because it's too time consuming, but would 10 minutes hurt or 15? Like you can do, there's probably a time that you can associate with it, with you being in the gym, whether it's 60 minutes or 90 minutes, probably a little different for each person, uh, make a commitment to that and try to, you know, do it day in and day out. The 20 minutes of cardio, it's not going to negatively impact your strength.

If you start to lose a bunch of weight over a period of time, start to lose 10, 20 pounds, that can negatively impact your strength at some point. But you're trying to be less fat. So let's focus. Let's hone in on that for this particular thing. Just like, yeah, like what can you do each day to ensure progress in a certain direction? That's a shortcut.

Not taking any missteps. You know, if you look at, you know, George Foreman years ago, he came back and fought and I think he won a title again. I can't really remember. I know he made a really good run. But he was probably like 45 years old or something. And he was,

I mean, in compared the way he was built as, as he, as a youngster, he was like a big fat guy, you know? Um, but he had no wasted movement and he's in there fighting Evander Holyfield. Who's in his prime and knocking the shit out of him.

And he's doing it because he has no wasted movements. He's not like sitting there doing all this little dancing and trying to move around and fake the other guy out. He had a strategy where he was able to really take a lot of big shots. He had massive forearms. And so he just like put both his arms up and you really couldn't hit him. But he just knew how to be in the right place at the right time. And what is that from? That's from years and years and years of sparring years of training years of knowledge, taking

that knowledge and applying it, which is wisdom. He's taken that wisdom and, uh, applying it on the highest level against some of the best fighters in the world. And yeah, he did win a world title. He knocked out Michael Moore. I remember that. I remember seeing that. It was pretty wild. He knocked the best fighters in the world. And yeah, he did win a world title. He knocked out Michael Moore. I remember that. I remember seeing that. It was pretty wild.

He knocked the crap out of that guy, man. Foreman could fricking, he could fricking punch. But I think, you know, when we're looking for a shortcut, it sounds counterintuitive,

but the way to, you know, the fastest, the way to your destination is a straight line. So how do we, how do we just figure out how to go in a straight line? Well, if you are trying things that you're not prepared for, you're going to fucking zigzag, you know? And so, so it's gotta be this kind of slow, steady progress over a period of time.

You know, it's, it's, I think it's really cool that you, uh, said that because there's a trainer that I worked with. I don't know if I heard from, it was either Sean or Paul. I was like, wow, that's really cool that you said that because there's a trainer that I worked with. I don't know if I heard from it was either Sean or Paul. I was like, wow, that's really cool. They were talking to a client and he was in your white guy voice. Yeah, it's really that's really it's really juicy. It's really swell. They were swell.

Anyway, he was telling a client that, you know, it took you 20 years to get this big. How can you not expect it to take maybe a few years for you to lose all that weight? Right. And I think that's one thing that a lot of people forget. If you've been overweight for so many years of your life, how do you expect a 12 week or six month challenge to get you to where you need to be? And it'll hopefully push you in the right direction. But expect your transformation to take a decent amount of time. And that's one thing I think a shortcut and it's, it, it doesn't sound good, but a shortcut

is being patient because if you're allowing yourself to be patient with your progress, that means you're probably also being fairly consistent with your action. And if you can do that for long enough, you'll definitely get there. But if you're not being patient and you're trying to do so many things and work out super hard and do all these things to get there, but it's not something that you can sustain, you're ultimately going to get in a bad position where you'll probably quit because a lot of those people end up quitting for a little bit of time. Then they hop back on the horse a few months or years later. Or you'll just, you know, you'll just get out and you won't try again.

But that's the thing. It's like you need to do something that you can do over time and keep with it so you can actually get there rather than going all in because a lot of people have that all in mentality. And it's, I think in a lot of things, it is good to go all in and engulf yourself in whatever it is. But especially when it comes to training and fitness, when people go all in, they typically, when they have that hiccup, cause there's going to be a hiccup, there's going to be something that makes you fall back a little bit. There's going to be something that gets in the way that ultimately turns into you feeling that you failed and then you quitting and nobody likes that. Were you able to switch into doing competitive bodybuilding fairly easy?

And were you like, like as soon as a coach or somebody said, Hey, like I want you to prep for this show. Were you able just to turn and switch and be, you know, a 10 out of 10 every day with what you were supposed to do? I know there's a lot of cheating.

There's a lot of cheating consistently. Peanut butter, um, binges here and there, even, even in my later shows, like when, when I was like supposed to be really on point, there were a few days where I was just like, ah, fuck it. Like, yeah. But that's the thing that, that will inevitably happen. But it's not like because I do that, I quit. I know it's going to happen and it happens. I'm just like, OK, we'll get back on it. What was the difference between when you started and when you got towards the end? Because I believe you got a pro card, right? In my first season, in my first season, I got a pro card in the NBA.

But in my second season, I competed with the WNBF, got my pro card, and then competed in Worlds that same year. Was it like a mindset? Did you get a little stronger with, like, alright, dude, let's try to minimize the peanut butter.

Maybe there's still peanut butter in there. On my third season, I got better at dealing with cravings. i had tactics to deal with that at that point i got better just because of experience like i'd eat more fiber i'd eat more protein if i was actually wanting to binge i'd eat so much protein it was disgusting because it'd make me feel full but that was over time of learning those things i didn't understand that my first season right so my first season's like i i did a water cut it was i looked okay but it wasn't like the last season that i competed so it just again it's time it's learning a lot of tricks learning a lot of things to

help you get there in an easier fashion although my dick still didn't work in my last season the last four months of getting ready for show i had no libido um it was still okay it was still okay you know i think uh a huge difference for a lot of people would be you know the mental capacity the mental side of it but then also you mentioned another key component to these shortcuts uh mental mental capacity being huge, because if you can just tell yourself to stop being a bitch, that's really helpful. If you can stop listening to that kind of inner voice

that kind of talks you out of doing, we all have such great intuition, and it's just like sitting right there all the time. But then there's the other side of you saying, well, I don't know. It's always like double guessing and analyzing or overanalyzing. But the other side of that is, is just, is knowledge is like, like learning the process and, and, and the knowledge is such a huge part of it. So for, for today and talking

about these shortcuts, I want people to really, truly understand how massively important the knowledge part of it is. And that's why kind of the first thing we started off with was like, Hey, ask somebody else has done it already. That's like the ultimate cheat code. Like, all right, well, I'll talk to Stan, you know, I'll talk to this guy. I'll talk to that guy. And I think sometimes people don't think they may have access to people because they're like, well, you know, I don't know. Don't have a big social media following. You'd be shocked. You know, reach out to people.

Reach out. It doesn't have to be a celebrity. Doesn't have to be a celebrity in fitness. It could just be somebody that you aspire to look like. You can be like, fuck, that person looks awesome. I would love to learn how to do that. fuck, that person looks awesome. I would love to learn how to do that.

Most people that are in good shape like that and most people that are like wealthy, whatever the goal is that you have and you're trying to learn from them, whether it's someone who's a chef or a hunter or whatever the hell hobby it is that you want to get into, if they're really good at it, they usually want to talk about it. They usually talk about it all day long.

Some of them do it professionally. So you might, you know, have to, you know, pay attention to how you use your words when you're asking for help. Put together something nice that makes it look like you're dedicated to it. Like, don't just write to someone and say, hey, man, I need you to improve my bench. You know, like try to put some thought into it and say, Hey, I recognize that you do this for a living and I want to increase my bench press. Here's what I currently lift and any help or advice or someone you can point me to, that would be amazing.

Yeah. Some people aren't going to get a chance to read that, but if you send it to a few of them, somebody is going to read that and somebody is going to respond to it. And I think like a big thing there, and I know we mentioned this earlier in the show but a big thing that I did and I like to do is I like to figure out where they got the bulk or I guess a big part of what they know like are there you know in terms of your mindset is there anything there any good books that you've read that you really think helped you develop this mindset? Or is there any, yeah, just whatever they think is one of their biggest things in their repertoire that's allowed them to do what they do.

Because some people, there's something that they read that triggered something for them. And that might be the same thing that triggers something for you in your mindset. So I've never been a fan of asking. Like there is merit in asking a very specific question, but when you ask a very, like, especially when it comes to lifting, when you ask a very specific question, okay, you'll get a specific answer, but there's always going to be another problem that comes up, but if they can lead you in the direction of a resource or information to learn from that resource and information could potentially be the thing that answers so many different questions for you that

you can figure out the puzzle yourself. So, yeah, I think that's huge. And if you think about some of the best guests that we've been around, some of the best people that we've been around or people that we admired the most, you got like,

you know, guys like Ron Penna, Stone Cold, Steve Austin, Jay Cutler. I'm sure there's a lot of other people that I can't think of at the moment, but these are people that ask a lot of questions. You know, Jay Cutler's asking people about, you know,

how they built up their arms or something. And you're like, what the fuck's he asking anybody about how they built up their arms, you know? But he's acquiring more information. Maybe, you know, maybe he's just pretending to be interested in people, which is nice. Right. But I think that he genuinely is like, you know, searching for more answers. And Ron, you know, when, when you hang out with Ron, you kind of feel like you're in

a class the whole time. He, he asked a ton of questions, which it's funny because he asked a ton of questions that he already knows the answer to. And even if you have a different answer, he won't accept that answer. His answer is the right answer. But anyway, you know, people are kind of expediting their expertise by doing this, by asking questions. And one of the mottos from Sean Provost, who owns a bunch of Dutch Brothers coffees and owns a provost motor sports. Shout out to him.

Sean is, is amazing with asking questions. And one of his mottos is to ask good questions. They share that all. They share that as a shared sense of purpose at, at Dutch bros. And it's something that obviously it's working well. The company continues to grow. The company continues to expand.

They continue to kick ass despite everything else that's going on. And so it's working well the company continues to grow the company continues to expand they continue to kick ass despite everything else that's going on and so it's like man it seems like that works really well is to ask questions and i think sometimes people are concerned that they're going to like slow something down or they're taking up too much of your time but if you're if you're thinking about your questions and you're asking things that are, you know, decent, then I think you're good to go. Everyone started out as a newbie at some point. We all started out, you know, not even really knowing how to warm up in the gym, you know, not knowing to look at food labels or not knowing that cereal had carbs or something.

I mean, you don't know something until somebody's got to like tell it to you. Somebody's got to say it to you. I've had many people I've worked with in the past. They're like, I didn't know milk had carbs. Like they just, I don't know. They just never thought of it. No one ever told them. You only know stuff if someone has told you or if you have some sort of experience yourself where you heard what a carb is.

And then you went to the grocery store and you started looking at food labels and you're like, oh, yeah, it does have carbs in it. Otherwise, how the fuck do you know? Do you guys think it's a healthy practice to kind of always seek out some of these shortcuts or hacks? Or do you think sometimes you kind of have to eat shit for a while before you realize like, oh, wait, I should be doing it this way? eat shit for a while before you realize like oh wait i should be doing it this way i think that mistakes are part or making mistakes are a big part of like getting somewhere fast using jujitsu as an example you know there are times that you know an individual or even myself you'd be too careful when sparring to try something right so you'd be like i don't want to lose so i'm not going to try this but the thing thing is, is like, if you tried, it doesn't work or, you know, it doesn't work, then try something else. So if you make mistakes fast and often,

fast and often, you're probably going to get to the right answer quicker. But if you don't allow yourself to make any mistakes, you don't allow yourself to fail pretty much or, or, or have any blunders, then you're going to be stuck where you are with what you've got, because what you've got. It's just it it doesn't hurt. It doesn't you know, it's not a risk. Yeah. So I think that especially in the whole diet thing, too, you know, when you learn that milk is a carb and you've been using milk like, oh, OK, cool. All right. Then then you learn from milk is a carb and you've been using milk like, Oh, okay, cool. All right.

Then, then you learn from that, right? So there, there are going to be a lot of mistakes that people make when they're dieting, but you know, when they figure out,

Oh, this is one of the things that's not helping me. Boom. They can move to the next thing. I think that's such a cool concept. Like failing fast is actually a shortcut. So like screwing up is actually going to help get you to your answer a little bit quicker.

Oh, for sure. Like when you have four ounces of heavy whipping cream in a protein shake. I had no idea. It was like, I don't know, like a thousand calories. And I couldn't stop pooping for like four days. There you go. Yeah.

Stuff will add up quick, man. Oh, yeah. Somebody might not know or maybe they are just miscalculating or something like maybe they maybe they're not measuring out when they use sugar in their oatmeal. And maybe it turns out they're having 30 grams of sugar in their oatmeal instead of like five or something. You know, these things happen when you're new. You don't know. Somebody tells you to use salt on your food and maybe you're overdoing it, you know, or whatever the case may be.

Someone says, oh yeah, it's fine to have, you know, a little bit of dress. It's fine to have dressing on your salad. And there you are, you know, just turning the bottle upside down. I've helped many people with it in the past and I've helped them kind of recognize it's like, hey, you know, you're having about 50 grams of fat from the salad that you're having. And I don't think that's the intent of the salad. Like, let's go over why you're eating a salad.

You're trying to use vegetables because they don't have much energy in them, meaning calories, right? They're low energy. They're even low nutrient foods. They shouldn't really exist but anyway you know vegetables they're going to take up some bulk in your stomach and they're going to help you feel full yeah and most of the time when people are eating them a they're eating them because they have some preconceived notions about how healthy they can be but b they're also eating them because they feel that it's going to help create a caloric deficit, which would be great.

But a lot of times people dump a lot of dressing on there and not only defeat the purpose, but end up eating excess amount of calories. And then whatever like cheese or bacon or avocado, whatever else is in there, you know, you got to factor in all those calories as well. And now we end up with a meal that you are really well-meaning. I mean, you were really, you know, you were trying to do the best you could. You thought that was a great decision. And here it is, you know, a 950 calorie thing in the middle of the day that that maybe you just didn't think about.

But, you know, you probably only wanted it to be like 300 calories or something like that, you know? Yeah. And what really like is frustrating when you're on the outside looking in or watching somebody do something. Like the commenter on YouTube saying, like, I can't lose weight on carnivore. It's like, well, what are you eating? Like ground beef and a stick of butter. It's like, oh, man, like he's trying, right? Like he's putting in the effort. He's doing what Mark says.

And it's like, oh, but a little bit of a miscommunication or misunderstanding of like how much butter you could be eating or should be eating so yeah i think that that's where it gets tough when you're trying to advise people and then they have a bad experience but instead of looking at it as a failure just like you said and seem to like fail fast and learn from it yeah mark since like when you look at your experience of going from 320 down to 240 to got down to 220 at a point. What do you think were some of the, the, what were the big concepts in terms of your diet that you're like,

nah, if you do this like that, that makes things a lot easier. The main thing was trying to just abstain from carbs. So even though it, it wasn't easy, I want people to think about this a little bit more for themselves and see if they can relate. So it doesn't really matter what the food is for me. If I eat something, it kind of makes me hungrier in a way.

If I eat something small, right? So any sort of snack type thing, it really doesn't serve its purpose. It's really a trick on me. Like even now, I eat some like jello and stuff like that. And it just it has hardly any calories. You know, it has like 10 calories. But really, if I eat jello after I after I eat dinner, it just makes me want to eat more food. And then it makes me think about the legendary Pop-Tarts that I have in the in the pantry. And it makes me think about the legendary pop tarts that I have in the, uh, uh, in the pantry. And it makes me think about, you know, all these different things. And then if I was to eat one of those things, then it gets me even more excited. And once I want to eat even

more, so none of those things really fill me up, uh, or really do much for me. And so the main concept that I had to really try to pound into my head was to try to not eat snacks or just not eat snacks. And the other part of it was to not eat carbs. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't eat any carbs at all. They'd still sneak in there here and there through vegetables, and I'd still cheat here and there, of course. But the longer duration that I stayed on point with the nutrition, uh, the easier it was to stay on top of the nutrition. It got harder.

Every time I would like derail, I would, I would screw up. And then three days later, I'd screw up again. And then two days later, I'd screw up again. And then one day later, I'd screw up again. And then I'd try to find my footing. I would gain some traction again. And I go, you know, three days, good, five days, good, seven days, good, one day, bad two days, you know, two days in a row, bad and

so forth, you know, and then I'll just fuck it. I'll just, you know, it's the 15th of this month. I'll just wait until next month to like really dial it back or what, you know, and you kind of lie to yourself about all these different things you're going to do. Luckily for me, I was so fat that, that any of it was a huge, was huge progress for me and had me heading in the right direction. But I also, I think this was really important for me is that I lost weight in stages and I don't think people take enough time with their weight loss. I think if you need to lose like, let's just say 50 pounds, if you feel like you really need to lose like 50 pounds you know

take it five to ten pounds at a time and then stay at a particular body weight go another five or ten stay at a particular body weight go another five or ten like it's really hard to do that because you're going to kind of if you're not losing weight you're going to feel like you're failing and if you gain any weight you're going to feel like you're really failing and you don't want to beat yourself up over it. But in the long run, I think it's the most effective way. Just simply going from eating a little bit less food,

eating more food, eating less food, eating a little bit more food. Um, but yeah, those are some of the kind of the key things. Main, main thing that made everything easier for me was to stay away from

carbohydrates. And the thing that I had to do, uh, so that I didn't feel like shit was to make sure I had enough electrolytes was a huge part of it, which I didn't know. It took, took me a long time to learn that.

And the other part of it was, uh, keeping the fat calories up. And I think that's a, one of the big things that you said that I hope people get something from is that you lost your weight in stages. I think when people are trying to lose a hundred pounds, 150 pounds, they just want it to be this, this is downward trend over a long period of time where they can get from

350 to 250 and consistently, but losing the weight and staying at a certain weight for a while. That's, that makes a big difference because the only way for you to continue losing consistently is just to potentially keep doing more work or keep eating less. If you, if you're, if you're just trying to go straight down, but that that's not a long-term deal. Like you can't start at what, maybe let's say you're eating 3000 calories. You can't eat a thousand calories at a certain like that. You can't do that. And some people will really try to do that because they're like, Oh, I'm not losing weight. Okay. I'm gonna lower my calories, lower my calories. You just can't do that. Like sticking at certain points helps you to be able to do it for a longer period of time.

So that's pretty massive. Yeah. And I think, you know, maybe, maybe there's some, uh, metabolism type things coming into effect. I don't really know. You know, I've heard people say like, you know, you got to speed up your metabolism again. I never tried to really look at it that way. Cause I think for somebody with problems with their eating,

I think that could be really problematic. Cause they can be like, Oh, this is good for me. It's like overeat like this. But the honest truth is I do think that overeating has some benefit, like just like under eating for periods of time. Fasting has some benefit. I think really engorging yourself with food and feeling really, really full does a lot of things like the hormones in your body.

But are we supposed to be like that all the time? You know, every day, every every morning, every afternoon and every night like probably probably not it's probably uh too much yeah i actually went nuts on chaffles this weekend oh yeah those are great they're so i've heard of them and i had an idea of what i thought they bless you what they would taste like and they way outweighed my expectations but i did exactly that because i i had some and then anytime i go low carb i have this like weird sick hungry feeling it's hard to explain it's not sick it's just like when you get really really hungry and you kind of wait too long to eat that's the best way i can put

it when you're on a kind of a crappy diet so instead i'm like you know i'm just gonna make a big old batch and i'm just not gonna to stop till I basically can't eat anymore. Yeah. I didn't get that sick, hungry feeling after that. That's good. It was good. And I'm noticing that removing carbs, I'm definitely not craving anything else right now, which is really good. A lot of that has to do with the motivation of like kind of hopping on board with World Carnivore Month.

Yeah. But I really do feel like it's because i'm not having the carbs that are seeking out other carbs right now i still had syrup with the chaffles you know i did treat them like actual like waffles yeah but i mean in comparison to like having actual waffles that would have been terrible yeah chaffles is a great shortcut by the way i need to make some of those yeah they're great they're so good i made a uh chaffle bacon cheeseburger saw that really really yeah yeah i need to make some of those up maybe tonight yeah and then um i had asked on instagram a bunch of people had gave me some tips on how to make them more crunchy a lot of people said it was just

mainly just adding a little bit more cheese instead of egg just to get like that extra crunch or oh maybe those little like a little bit pork grind pork rinds is another one yeah that works as well um but i think just adding a little bit more cheese probably would be the easiest way to go about it but yeah uh blending up some pork rinds and then adding that to your like batter is is another way to get it crunchy. I have pork rinds that are just from Amazon. They're just already like bread crumbed out or whatever you want to say. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, those are really, really easy. I used them yesterday.

We made some, they're kind of like buffalo wings, but it's really just buffalo thighs. I just find those to like taste pretty much just as good without all the skin and everything. We made that with butter, red hot sauce, and some of those pork rind things. It was freaking awesome. Just threw it in the oven. You cook it first, and then you just dip it in the sauce

afterwards. Trying to cook it with the sauce on there just doesn't work quite as good, but it works great with chicken thighs. Give it a try. Yeah, that looks great with bacon. I had bacon for the first time in a really long time this weekend too. Why? Why was it the first

time in a long time though? Just because of the fat content. Okay. You know, I've been on that high carb anabolic diet lifestyle. I had an omelet the other day. Damn. Dude, eggs are amazing. So fucking good. I haven't had like a regular omelet in other day. Damn. Dude, eggs are amazing. So fucking good. I haven't had like a regular omelet in a while. That was delicious.

Yeah. Andrew, I know you mentioned this earlier in the podcast, but you mentioned that getting, I don't know if you said you got a mentor in photography. So how did that work for you? Like, what was your process for doing that? And how do you think it sped things up for you? It was, it was actually really easy. you think it sped things up for you uh it was it was actually really easy um so like yeah i had been just like youtubing everything just like grinding doing whatever i could to try to get better not not necessarily like banging my head against the brick wall and not getting anywhere

i was progressing but it just wasn't like uh there were some holes in my game as far as like getting my name out there um making like legit money off of it. Yeah. I one day stumbled upon this guy named Scott Robert Lim. He's a Sony artisan. Really funny, dude. Really, really cool. It was funny.

He actually texted me the other day because he was he's like, is this you in this video? And it was a high tower video when he was working on Chris Bell. And so I'm like, that's this is funny. Yeah. Yeah, that was me but uh anyway um i think i just reached out on like twitter or something and he was like yeah i have a mentorship program it's like no way and actually even before that when i discovered him uh he had a creative live course because i used to watch everything on creative live where it was uh learn how to be a 10 000k photographer i'm like oh shit like yeah i would love to make ten thousand dollars

at a wedding so i went to the person that had the information that i was seeking most which was how to make more money off of it at that time um reached out and he's like yeah i have this program and i'm like okay sign me up whatever it costs like i figure it out. And he worked with me on that as well. He's like, you know, it costs this much, but if it's too much, like we can do like PayPal payments, like it's not that big of a deal. And then just what was amazing was it just, like I said, I felt like I got a straight shortcut to the front of the line. When I had these questions that I couldn't answer, he had every answer for me.

He probably even answered questions. He didn't know you. Absolutely. Like he, he was the first one to tell me to like, like you should probably look into events. Cause he could tell that I was still very timid. He's like, get your feet wet doing that. He's like, and then you'll start talking to people. You start getting your name out there. You'll start just kind of feeling more natural being out in the wilderness.

Totally freaking accurate, which I didn't get any, nobody told me that before him. And then we just, we kept in touch and then, yeah, the rest is history. But like, it was just, like I said, it really felt like it put me in front of the line when there was like, you know, every like two feet you run into another photographer. And I was just like, dude, this is sick.

Like it was really like a shortcut to you know just get ahead it was sick that's awesome dude yeah getting around great people you know it's huge you know that's part of the why the gym is free trying to you know attract people that want to get strong that are into it um like-minded people you know people that everybody here like wants to get stronger. Um, when you're at like 24 hour fitness or something, it's, you know, it's divided, you know, there's people that are trying to lose weight. There's people that are trying to gain weight. There's people that are there for more health purposes. There's people that are just

told they have to go because their doctor said they got to go, you know, there's a lot, there's a wide variety of, and so those things, they all pull against each other. Really. They're not really driving everything forward. And even all the equipment and stuff is, is scattered. You know, it's a bunch of scattered thoughts. You know, you got like the cardio section over here, the weights, you have an aerobics room and they're all just different. Not that there's anything wrong with having, you know,

an environment that has, you know, includes everything for fitness under one roof it's actually a great thing it's just that there's not a shared sense of purpose so it's different if you had a gym where everyone in there was uh trying to get stronger or everybody in there was trying to be a bodybuilder just imagine you know like first of all you might have some competitive stuff that happens here and there that could be negative, right? But for the most part, it should be pretty, it should be pretty positive. You know, I'd imagine that Casio's, I imagine for the most part, like 99.9% of stuff is, is positive. And you guys might kid each other and mess with each other that way.

But for the most part, uh, you're not like, i want to see this guy do worse now you know like oh here comes so and so i hate his guts i hope he does worse today even if you didn't really like the person even if you never really talked to him or didn't care about him that much if you're like hey can you show me that arm bar that you were doing the other day you'd be like yeah man sure right i mean it's because you're trying to move everyone along and you're not there only for yourself. If somebody asks you a question out of respect for the owner, out of respect for your sensei, you're like, yeah, man, I'll take a minute to show you. That way he doesn't have, you know, your instructor doesn't have to take his time to do it. But that's the way that shit works. You get around like-minded people that want to do better.

They want to be better. I sometimes will hear people say, like, i don't got anybody around that's like that well i i think that maybe you honestly didn't really look hard enough yet you're gonna have to put yourself out there like andrew was saying you're gonna have to start working like my son's playing the guitar right now if he just always plays the guitar inside of our home he'll be limited on how good he can get. He could maybe get really good, but imagine if he goes out and plays in front of some people.

Maybe somebody wants to learn from him, or maybe he wants to learn from somebody else, or maybe somebody says, hey, you ever use this guitar? You ever try this song? You ever try this this way? And boom, you're off to the races. It happens so quick, and then you're hungry for it you're like man i need to get around other people this is going to be this is going to be

awesome and it gets to the point where bodybuilders will search out certain gyms will drive 45 minutes to a gym because it's got a certain angled leg press that they love they're like i need to go to that spot and i would say the same thing with jujitsu you got different people different weight classes maybe one gym is known to have smaller athletes. The other place is known to have bigger athletes. Maybe for a while you want to roll with people that are quicker. Maybe for a while you want to roll with people that are stronger. You're like, I need this.

I need to get my ass kicked in this way. This would be great for me to learn better. So I think that that's a huge aspect of everything too. Yeah. And a super easy way to kind of do something like that is like seminars. So I think that that's to the front of the line or get you there a little bit quicker. And there's a lot of virtual webinars and seminars right now. That's the same thing. I mean, every single one of those has a chat room.

You can easily, not easily, but there's a good chance that you'll find somebody that's, you know, into it just as far as you are or as interested. Even on this live stream right now, there's people going back and forth about carnivore diet. Like, oh, there's nobody around me. It's like, shit, pop into a live stream. You're going to find somebody, some like-minded people. Mark, let me ask you this, because I don't know the intricate aspects of how your business is done year over year, but from the outside looking in, it just looks like things have every single year continued to progress in a forward motion.

Like, it doesn't feel like you've ever had a year where things really went back, including 2020. So with that being said, you were talking about the shared sense of purpose and obviously everyone at Slingshot that works here can, you can tell they have a shared sense of purpose. So that was obviously something you put into your hiring practices here, but what are some big things as far as I guess the way that you do things, the way that you guys do business that you would maybe deem as shortcuts because you have a lot of experience. So maybe, you know, this is actually a shortcut or this is just an aspect of business. But from what you've done, what are things that have really leaped you forward year after year in terms of what you do and what you know? And there's a lot that goes into some of that. Like, um,

I think number one is to try to give people freedom, give each person, uh, their own position that they are the expert in where me as the boss or my wife, we, uh, we trust in you.

We, we hired you to do a certain job, a certain, you know, we hired you to do a certain job a certain you know we hired you to do a certain job and we don't we don't pretend to know more about that job than you do we actually hope and would love for you to know way more about that topic than we could ever imagine to know. Having said that, I have to understand and also believe that my employees are going to do a better job than I could if I was sitting in their same position because they are material experts in that space. But I think giving people freedom and having them be like autonomous and not having a lot of rules is really important because if I tell Andrew that he has to be here every day from nine to five,

like he has to be here. Well, what happens? You know, he's every once in a while is here at nine and 15 and every once in a while, he's every once in a while, he's leaving at four 30, you know, every once in a while, he's like making all these excuses and I'm trying to figure out why. And I'm arguing with him. Now he's frustrated with me. He's got like all this other stress going on. He's trying to get projects done. Now he doesn't really care that much about the projects and so forth.

And so I see a big mistake that a lot of people use in parenting and in running a business is they try to use coercion. Like if you don't do this, this is going to happen. There's going to be recourse. You know, this thing is going to happen to you if you don't do this. And I never really liked that because I'd rather have Andrew want to be here. And so if that means that, you know, sometimes that might mean that, you you know one week he's here for 45 hours and another week maybe he's here for 35 hours like it might mean that i gotta give a little leeway he might be here more often he might be here less often here and there but if i just let

him be here when he wants to be here then he's gonna put in a fucking awesome effort and i don't have to worry about it i don't have to police him i'm here, then he's going to put in a fucking awesome effort and I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to police him. I'm not getting stressed. He's not getting stressed. Um, trying to force people to do stuff,

even when you pay him, doesn't work very well. Um, I actually have found that forcing people to do stuff for free is easier than forcing people to do stuff for pay. It's weird. Like not forcing, but like really just, you know, asking, Hey, could you do this? Like when someone does it for free, I think they don't mind because it's like a period

of time where they're like, I want to kind of show this person, you know, what I can do. But if they really didn't like it or love it, and then once they start doing it for pay, then you might, you might see a huge, you might see a huge drop off. for pay, then you might, you might see a huge, you might see a huge drop off. So I'd say like, number one is, uh, letting people kind of do their own thing. And then also just understanding that it's a team effort. And, uh, I don't really get as many opportunities to talk to the team as I used to, but the way that I look at all this stuff is, is, um, is like sport, you know, it's like, it's

like football. You know, I remember when I played football and if you're on defense, you know, somebody would be like, oh, well, that guy wasn't my assignment. You know, the wide receiver that ran untouched right down the, right down the field that they threw a bomb to like, you know, that, that was the, the cornerback was supposed to have him cause he was right or top of him. It's man to man coverage. He's supposed to be on them.

And, you know, I'm defensive end and the free safety should have seen him break free too. So both of those guys, but who is the six points against, you know, who, who scored the points?

The other team scored the points. We, we failed, you know? So I kind of look at this business as like, let's just fucking tackle the guy with the ball like you know let's not worry about whose job it is you know and maybe maybe we can all figure out how to because maybe the guy run the balls maybe he's pretty strong maybe we all have to

gang up on him all 11 of us have to gang up on him and and try to bring him down so that's kind of the way i i try to i try to view it and what helps with that is that if I talk to Andrew and said, Hey man, we need to move this bench in the gym. He's not going to like give me like a dirty look. You know what I mean? He's not going to be like, I do photography and I fucking do the, he also knows that if he, he also knows that if he said, Hey man, you know, I throw out my back and I, I'll help with whatever I can help with,

but I'm, you know, I'm kind of fucked up. He also knows I'm not going to yell at him. I'm not going to disrespect him. I'm not going to, or if he just said he just felt sick and just didn't want to mess with it or whatever.

Yeah. I'd go in and I grabbed Ryan and I grabbed other people. Everybody in here knows that it's a team effort. Everyone knows that they're going to have to do stuff here and there that they maybe, maybe don't always love to do. But everyone is required to do those things. And so therefore everybody does it and everybody comes together.

And I think during 2020, I think we saw probably the best example of that. And I think a lot of the lessons from 2020 were great for Andy and I, because it's like, well, who really fucking cares if they're in the office or not. Yeah. As long as they're getting the work done,

whatever everyone's comfortable with, as far as COVID is concerned. And we'll just let people, you know, kind of do their own thing. But again, you know, to the,

to the thing about the shortcuts is that I think what we're talking about here is talking about like stacking up things that are successful in order to propel you forward as fast as you possibly can. And anything that's not going to be really helpful, you want to try to disregard. And that's not to say that you're not trying to make mistakes so we talked earlier about how the error correction is a huge part of it um that is where almost that is where all knowledge comes from i think we always think that knowledge comes from experience but it doesn't really always come from there i think that that is a a false notion is that it's just because most things aren't as repetitive as we as we believe in to be. So I think that most of the things that we see are just correcting errors.

And the other side of that is which we could use more of in this company is just kind of like poking holes and stuff, you know, saying like, Hey, is that really the best way to do that? You know, Hey, well, I know we've been doing this for a while and that seems really cool.

And I liked that, but I had a different idea. What if we tried this, you know? Um, Hey, like, what if we just like,

you just say something fucking out there. Like, what if we made slingshots free for a week? I'd be like, what? You know? but then if you had an idea surrounding it i'd be like all right cool like i mean we need we need that kind of stuff we need disruptive um trying to think of the exact uh word for it but um it'll hit me at some point but yeah we need uh some disruptive stuff like that and it's hard for us to think that way because each person's so preoccupied with what they do that their head is down and they can't really think much like in something like jujitsu where you had uh donna her

some of these guys come in who came from a different background and like hey let me show you guys this shit flipped everything on its head flipped everything on its head and how come the Gracie's couldn't think of that because they're fucking knee deep and Gracie Jiu Jitsu that they couldn't they were creative in their own way they made up their own shit and dominated and were amazing

but now there's guys that were doing something else and maybe you know something else will probably come from something else down the road that shows everybody else another new way you know yeah yeah that aspect of poking holes that's uh no you're right especially when you yeah when you're focused on one thing you tend not to think about much else you know you tend not to look at things differently when you're so engulfed in it it's hard for you to take a step back and actually look yeah that's a funny thing because it's like uh i told you guys this before i feel like sometimes

whenever i make like maybe the biggest leaps in jujitsu is when i'm when i haven't done jujitsu in like a week and a half or two weeks because i just haven't been able to so my mind's doing other things but when i come back it's like new things are there yeah um so back to like the business shortcuts mark and this one comes again from i mean this makes sense but from sean provost uh what he said is hire beef slow to hire fast to fire or something like that that might upset a lot of people but like what does he mean by that um you want to be you want to be uh yeah slow to hire and fast to fire so slow to hire is that you know um i andrew wants to be a photographer and i say hey you know we got this other guy here

sandro be great if you could meet with him you know on monday and uh you know see how he does some stuff i mean right away i could start to get a read on Andrew being receptive to me having somebody already because, you know, what if Andrew's like, oh, you know, I don't really need anybody else's help. Like, boom, right away I'm like, that guy's not for us because, like, he's not going to be able to work with the photographer that's already been here for a while. Like, that sounds fucked right off the bat. Or he's not going to be able to work with other people that are here. He's not receptive to, the word I was looking for is criticism criticism we need criticism of our

culture oh you know criticism is huge interesting again you know using jujitsu as an example you go to your classes and you say like maybe you're the guy that says it like cassio like dude you know he's warm with your bullshit that's why i always show up that's why oh no that's why i always show that's why oh no that's why i always show late cassio he thinks they're bullshit so let's say that someone pokes some criticism into it and you find a different way right or you find a better way cassio he's got lots of plans for your facility just just ask him he's ready to go oh man i just got in sema's couple. That's not true, man. The Warhols are awesome. I'm just... The criticism is important that people can

handle criticism. So if I met with Andrew and said I have somebody here, he's going to show you some shots that we do and stuff. I can get a read on Andrew that day a little bit on how he is with that, if he's pretty receptive to it. We meet and stuff. I can get a read on Andrew that day a little bit on how he is with that. If he's pretty receptive to it, we meet on Monday.

I show him around the gym. I show him, you know, some of the, some of the stuff that we have. If he doesn't mention anything about him working out or he doesn't mention anything about fitness or like, those are kind of red flags. Like, you know, he, okay, well, he doesn't know anything about our business. And, but maybe he's a good photographer. I don't know. Give him a shot. I show him a bunch of red flags. Like, you know, he, okay, well, he doesn't know anything about our business and, but maybe he's a good photographer. I don't know. Give him a shot.

I show him a bunch of different stuff. Some tests that I do with people, I sometimes show people the tank and I'm like, oh, you know, if you push this thing, you know, it does this, it gives you resistance. And if they don't push it or touch it, like I kind of gives me an idea of like who they are. And cause most people will be like, oh, that looks kind of cool. It looks kind of fun. Then they just, they at least shove it like halfway down the fucking thing you're not trying to sprint

with it or anything but oh that looks interesting you know they try stuff out people that are interested they're fascinated by certain things show them around the warehouse introduce them to casey's tell them how casey was my neighbor and how everything got started and so on and they don't say anything to Casey. They don't, you know, they're not responding to anything. You know,

you kind of just like, all right, well, this guy, like, you know, maybe he's super shy. We'll see how he does with photography.

Then you set him up with a shoot. He does a shoot. Shoot goes pretty well. Turns out the pictures are pretty good. All right, cool. Andrew, can you meet me here,

you know, this Friday, you know, coming up and, uh, we'll do another appointment. So you do several, uh, meetings. Some, can you meet me here, you know, this Friday, you know, coming up and we'll do another appointment. So you do several meetings. Some places will say, hey, you know, meet with someone eight to 10 times before you hire them. And for us, if you look at how many people we have, we don't have that many people.

So we can take that time if we need to. Why not? Right. And so we just kind of keep going along. and it turns out each time he shows up, he gets a little bit better. And then, uh, boom, you know, it turns out that he's part of it. But, um, something I've heard other people say is like, you know, you're trying to hire a group of Eagles, you know, because Eagles only Eagles are the only bird that soar as high as they do. And you want other people to be able to reach those heights as well um and you don't want any donkeys in your office but what happens sometimes is sometimes you hire someone a little bit too quick and every once in a while you hear everyone so well and you're like oh shit all right and

that's why you have to be fast to fire because you you can't have you can't have the donkey meddling around with the uh with the eagles it just doesn't work out very well yeah uh nah you know i think a great example of that i was talking in the other day because it's pretty crazy ryan soper here uh so ryan he he owned a gym in the past but he came here and started working in media and the rate at which like he learned everything was just fucking ridiculous like it's it's it's crazy because, again, as a person that didn't really do that type of stuff in the past on the job, learned everything. And now he's like he's had a brush and he's killing it. Like so. So it's, you know, I think being willing to just like learn what you need to learn for the job and like you know

put in the time and learn it quickly that's huge because ryan did that so quick it's still freaking crazy so quick and and i think a lot of that is also be what mark had said kind of just leaving him alone to do his own thing you know nobody told ryan like hey you got to learn um shit premiere for sure but the uh i see it's been a while since i've messed with it but another program to do 3d graphics and all that stuff like nobody said hey like if you want to get ahead you got to do this like no we just kind of blinked and one day we looked he was like oh i'm checking out this youtube video how to do this we uh we also we my wife and i we don't ever, we never, ever poke around people's business. And we never ask unless, like, unless we are, unless we're sort of forced to, I will never ask about another employee through another employee.

Like, I'm not going to go to Carlos and be like, hey, man, like, what do you think of Soper? Like, is he doing his shit like is he getting here on time you know we don't do that if somebody has a complaint and somebody's saying hey like so and so uh they were pretty disrespectful the other day well okay now i gotta investigate i have to like start to talk to other people and say hey man have you ever found this to be true what's like i'm hoping it's not true, but I need, I need, I need you to be honest with me, even though you might feel like you're ratting somebody out because we just

can't, there's no, I don't have a tolerance for that. You know, we can't, we can't have that. And maybe it was isolated incident. And maybe something wasn't a big deal or whatever, but sometimes you have, you do have to kind of like get to the bottom of shit. But for the most part, you know, we don't ever, we don't ever do any of that because we're the ones that hired you. Like we're confident that you're going to do a good job. So,

um, why would we be, you know, always trying to like spy on you and stuff? It just doesn't, to me, it doesn't make any sense. I think some owners and some people get,

uh, they get obsessed about that. Like, am I, am I getting the most, you know, I'm paying this guy this amount. Am I getting get, uh, they get obsessed about that. Like, am I, am I getting the most, you know, I'm paying this guy this amount. Am I getting every, you know, am I getting every, getting every penny from, from them that I can? I think that's how a lot of people look at it. They're trying to really squeeze, uh, squeeze out that, uh, that dollar amount that they're paying.

But I think ultimately if you back off, you'll get way more, uh, than you probably ever, But I think ultimately, if you back off, you'll get way more than you probably ever, ever thought was possible. Yeah. Taking it back to kind of like because you had said something about cardio and, you know, like, oh, just get the 20 minutes in. I think a really good shortcut or maybe even hack would be just to make things fun. So, yeah, your 10 minute walks is easy. I'm going to get deep vr coming up here and i the first time i turned that i put that thing on really andrew yep absolutely uh i was buying i see andrew for a while yep he weighs like 30 pounds less in a few weeks and it's just gonna be that

south park meme when he's next to a computer. No, but when I put that thing on, I, during Christmas Eve, I got in a solid cardio session. Yeah. You know, doing boxing and stuff. And then, Seema, you say jujitsu, right? Like, I mean, is that a chore to do cardio when you're? No, not at all. It doesn't even feel like cardio. It's fun.

Yeah. So I think in a way, combining two things, you know, Mark never does one thing at once is an awesome shortcut for anybody to way combining two things, you know, Mark never does one thing at once is an awesome shortcut for anybody to accomplish whatever it is. You know? Um, I know it kind of, we took a little left turn there, but I think for the new year's resolution, you know, people are always, whatever, everybody, that's something to also consider is just like combining the stuff that you

don't want to do with something that you do want to do to make it all something you want to do you know like i enjoy going on the treadmill watching youtube videos hopefully now i can figure out how to do the vr headset so like i'm walking like on the beach somewhere maybe that might be pretty sick yeah no i think you bring up a really good point um the 10 minute walks have been huge for me because I find that I can almost always walk, you know, if I'm listening to something or if I'm talking to someone on the phone, um, every once in a while, like it might be like too windy outside to be able to hear somebody else or something, or for them to hear me clearly. So if it's like a business conversation, it might not be appropriate. Or if I'm in a weird area where I might lose them or whatever.

So I got to just pay attention a little bit to that but for the most part you can always walk i mean how many hours of joe rogan are you listening to he's he talks for like three hours each time our show is long um you know there's you gotta just remember your fucking phone and your earbuds and everything else are portable and just, you know, hit up a walk. And I've heard people say before, hey, walking is not that effective for cardio. But I disagree because if you do a lot of it, it can be really effective. Yes, it can. It's it's slow.

You know, it's slow and it's steady. But like, I don't know, what if you walked 30 minutes every day for the whole for the whole year? Like how many hours of walking is that? That's a good amount. And yes, you could say, hey, look, walking only represents a quarter of what you would get if you did real cardio. That's fine.

But still, at the end of the year, those hours are still going to be quite a bit if you were walking a half hour almost every day. So I think walking can be a huge hack cause it's something that you can, you can text, you can read emails, you can do other things. Same with any cardio piece that you want to get on.

As long as you're not, you know, trying to get in a real, uh, tough, uh, cardio session. I don't see any reason why you can't,

you know, be doing two things at once. Um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, a lot of hacks too, like in terms of like food, like just learn how to cook, maybe get a, an air fryer, maybe get a ninja, a ninja foodie, you know, look at some of these things and try to make things either easier or more fun. Like I have a Ninja blender and like just throwing shit at Ninja blender, just fricking, you know, just blends everything up and it comes out really good.

And it's, it's better than me just using a shaker cup. Yeah. Shaker cup works great. But if I have something that works a little bit better, if I can get a little bit more flavor from, I'm going to be more likely to be excited about it, more likely to use it. So try to just, you know, learn how to cook. You know, really just buy a

fucking cookbook. You know, learn how to cook. Learn a bit about spices. Like, is there anybody in your family that knows anything about cooking? Probably. You know, you probably ask somebody, say, hey, what do you do? You know, you make some really good steak, and you make some really good this or that. How do you do that?

And they're like, oh, I use a thermometer and I check the middle of temperature and it always comes out. They'll have some tip where you're like, OK, cool. Yeah. Especially if you say, man, how do you make your, you know, whatever the dish is and they're going to get fired up to tell you. Now, you might not necessarily want to add everything because it might be that stick of butter, which makes everything taste amazing. But you can adapt and make it your own. Yeah. Now, in terms of walking, I think walking is one of those things that has a lot of downstream effects. And, you know, especially when you're coming from a place where you're sedentary a lot or you don't do a lot of walking.

When you start walking, your body does feel better over time maybe not that day but maybe two days later you're like oh my hips feel pretty good and then you are now like instead of feeling kind of crappy after work and you don't want to work out your hips are feeling kind of loose and juicy so you want to go get a workout in because that like that that legit happens there have been periods where maybe i'm not walking as much because i'm working at the computer and when i I roll, I don't feel as good. But when I get back into taking some walks, I feel really damn good. My roles are better.

My workouts are better. Everything's just better. It has that downstream effect on your body. So that that makes a big difference. Same thing with learning how to frickin cook. You'll save so much money. I spend so much money out because my cooking was trash. Downstream effect. I like that. No out because my cooking was trash. Downstream effect.

I like that. No, it's true. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. There's a, I mean, there's so many different things to talk about when it comes to these kinds of things. When it comes to your lifting, you're going to want to try to, you know, keep, uh, keep

in mind, like what feels right for you when you, you know, when you do your warmups. I know for me, I always like to, I personally always like to utilize really, really low reps in my warmup. And that felt like a way for me to cheat my main set sort of, or shortcut my main sets. If I got my body warm through some other means, like through doing some like lateral raises and some pull downs or something like that, then i could go right over the bench and i can go one plate two plates three plates very easily and not have anything hurt or everything felt really good so that was a way for me to like save time but also because i was um only doing like like one rep of each

i was conserving a lot of energy now the tough part is like, as you get closer to your working sets, now you have some decisions to make on what kind of weights you're going to select. And if you don't select the right weights, you'll actually be weaker for the workout. So you have to be careful because you're trying to, you won't be like exponentially a ton weaker and you won't exponentially be a ton stronger by getting it right. But I've seen people miss weights before they're getting ready to, you know, bench 405 for the day. And they do one plate, two plate, three plate, and they try to go right to

that, that 400 pound weight right there. Well, the problem with that is, is now you're, you're at the higher end of your percentages of the weight that you can lift. And so you need to prime your body. So you probably need to do, you know, three, 45 and three 80 or something before you do that 400. And we do the 400. It'll be easier. We've had people in the gym miss weights before we rewarm them up and they made them like right in front of me. I've seen it happen a bunch of times and they make them and they make them kind of easy.

You're like, holy shit. So there is, there is some proof of this. There is some, uh, there's some actual research to it as well. So when you're trying to, you know, find something for your workouts to shortcut, try to find what feels best for you. Other people might want to warm up slightly differently than what I was using, but I always found it to be real effective. And then when I, when I train with O'Hearn, he does that a lot.

So even if you're going to do like a five by five, you still, during some of your warm up sets, you might want to use really low repetition. It doesn't mean you have to use singles, because that's what O'Hearn would do. He would use singles all the way up. You know, maybe with one plate, you do 10 reps just to actually get warm. Maybe with two plates, you do like five reps. Maybe as three plates gets on there, you do one rep or three reps. And then make sure that you're prepped for those main sets.

But that is something that can be really effective is just nailing those warmups just right. And you'll be able to kind of shortcut your way into getting to the heavier weights faster getting your whole entire workout done in a much more efficient time if what if you get through your five by five 15 or 20 minutes earlier than normal you know and you and you you made all your reps you made all your sets everything was really good well now you're going to have more energy probably to dump into the rest of your workout yeah you know an know, an aspect of like warming up before working out, I used to do really extensive warmups before working out. And I know that we've had a lot of people that have come on to the podcast and been like, oh, static stretching isn't useful, blah, blah, blah.

But I'm just be real, like by doing that pretty much close to every day, whether it's 10 minutes or whatever. You stretch at home and then come here usually? Yeah. Yeah. I stretch at home to every day whether it's 10 minutes or whatever you stretch at home and then come here usually yeah yeah i stretch at home usually every day either if it's in the morning or the afternoon or evening but i'll get in a session um i just feel like my body just feels good all the time like i can go into the gym and just start working out without doing any types of movements before i'm not saying you should do that i I'm just saying like, I don't need to warm up my body extensively anymore. My body's like always ready to move.

And that's, that literally is linked to. It could be from two different things. Could be one from the actual stretching that's done that day or the night before, or it could just be the prolonged amount of time that you've been stretching for helping making your ligaments and tendons and joints healthier. Oh, yeah. And also like, I think I think the main thing personally, I think the main thing that stretching does is it helps you recover and repair the way that you're supposed to from your workout.

So, you know, a lot of times our muscles are going to be kind of, I guess, like mangled, kind of torn up and beat up. And now they're all tight and tense. And now they're going to start to work on repairing. But I think when they repair, sometimes they kind of stay closed up and they stay real tight. No, I totally agree. And it's just like, I think that's one of the things where I just, I may disagree with

a lot of professionals on because it's like, Hey, I've, I've never felt like this before and I can literally link it to something. They're not doing it. Yeah, they're not. They're not doing it. Yeah, they're not. They're not doing it. So I don't, I just don't think they know, you know? Yeah. I think they just, it's weird.

Sometimes some of the, some of the science that we have is really, you were mentioning that Peter idea podcast earlier before we got on the air. I find it fascinating that sometimes we have studies that are like counterproductive to people like exercising like like like uh sometimes they'll still say that like cardio at a certain extent like it just diminishes and doesn't really have that much impact on burning fat and it just raises your cortisol or raises your estrogen you're like it raises your cortisol and estrogen that much to where like it makes, it keeps you just like really fat.

That doesn't really make, you know, like that doesn't really make a lot of sense. Like, like, like only in America, right. When we have a study that shows how cardio can make you fatter. Yeah. Oh man. I totally agree. A lot of, I mean, a lot of those studies are useful but like that's why i'm really interested in this one episode because you know you've heard a lot about

nutritional like studies and epidemiology about how a lot of it is just kind of bs right but it's a lot of studies that people we we link things to like oh you know so it's it's interesting but at the end of the day i think you just you just gotta like we mentioned earlier you just gotta try shit try shit and make mistakes if if you stretch and you just don't like the way you feel and it doesn't work for you just don't do it right but give this a shot and and uh give it an honest shot too you know don't just try thing something once and be like oh i went to you know, you know, deadlift after I stretch and my hammy locked up on me or whatever.

Like try it a few times, you know, try something a couple of times. And even I think, you know, I think there's other ways of like cheating the system too. Like if you don't love traditional stretching, maybe you figure out ways of just stretching with the weight. Like maybe when you get to the gym, maybe you're set to do some sumo deads and maybe you do some stiff leg deads with some dumbbells. Maybe you do some, maybe do some goblet squats and you do a bunch of stuff to kind of open up, try to open up your shoulders a little bit.

Maybe you do a couch stretch for a few minutes or even like a Bulgarian split squat. you do a couch stretch for a few minutes um or even like a bulgarian split squat you try to open up those hips and warm up the legs and and get to it and i think i mean there's just so many different ways of doing some of these things but it's great to be able to try to incorporate them all as one chunk so you can get it all get it all done yeah do you listen to stuff when you uh stretch or do you try to like meditate or? Usually I'm just stretching. Like it's, and that's not, yeah, usually I'm just stretching just cause like, I usually like to do things for a certain amount of time. So I'll have the clock on. Sometimes there'll be music on, not meditating when I'm stretching or whatever, but I just, yeah, again, like it could be some days maybe only have 10 minutes. So I'll do something in that 10 minute

period. Some days there usually be once or twice a week when I'll, I'll get in for like 45 minutes or 50 minutes just cause I like those. So yeah, it's a point where it's such a habit to where you're like, Oh fuck, I didn't stretch today. And then boom, you just kind of end up doing it.

Yeah, pretty much. Um, the funny thing is, and I don't like to reference like, Oh, this person does it. so you should too. But I just do find it very interesting that David Goggins stretches like two, like something ridiculous, like an hour and a half to two hours a day.

And he's like, he's. It does feel good. I mean, I don't think anyone can deny that some like passive stretching feel like if you're trying to stretch, stretch, sometimes you're like, Oh shit. Yeah. But I think, you know, stretching yourself,

if someone else stretches you, sometimes that can kill. Yeah. But stretching yourself, like it is, it feels pretty good. It can definitely be overdone too. I'm not saying that it can,

it can definitely be overdone, but like, I don't know. I just, I think that the hate it gets is just unnecessary, but it is what it is. Yeah. Any tips?

So Aaron's asking if you have any tips on stretching when you're sore. It says he feels like he's walking on stilts. Do you take any precautions if you feel like a certain area is a little tender or do you just kind of go through the same thing and maybe just a little bit? Just go to the range that your body's comfortable. Like if you're trying to do a hamstring stretch, don't continue trying to get deeper and deeper. If it's starting to hurt, go to where you're comfortable and hold there for a little bit. And then the next time you'll probably be able to go a little bit deeper.

You know, that's all there is to it. I'll never go to a range that I'm just like, oh, things are starting to feel a little bit unsafe. Because that's where you could fuck yourself up. That's what Sturette would say. Sturette would talk about, like, if something's iffy, it's iffy. You know, he left it at that. Like, if something doesn't feel right, it's probably not going right. So, yeah, don't overdo it.

When you're sore, it can be really difficult. It's like, man, like, you want to get that soreness out of there and you think a way to get it out of there is to stretch it. I know people that have torn stuff before and they're like, oh think i need to like go and stretch it and you're like you just tore something dude like that's gonna be like that's kind of how it got hurt in the first place it like it overstretched it went like in a direction that it's not uh designed to go in any longer you know i'll definitely say since we're on this topic like if you're a power lifter don't do any deep stretching right before you work out if you want to do that before you work out do it like a few hours before or maybe afterwards but if you're going to do a heavy squat session don't do some deep stretching right before that's just like yeah don't do that so

yeah dope what else you got andrew uh dude i'm i didn't think i was gonna hop on world carnivore month but it's been pretty cool i just uh so the last non-carnivore thing i had was the uh the legendary foods pop tart which was on air actually um and then right after that i just said you're like yeah let's let's see what today feels like let's see what tomorrow feels like yeah and now i have my mini fridge here full of hamburger patties that i'm gonna eat cold uh some um some pete monti steak i think it's flank steak stink it's hard to say that flake stink uh and if it's cool man it feels good um i made truffles for my wife she's pregnant and she's like these taste just like you know like eggo waffles like what the heck you know couldn't couldn't really figure it out but i did put a little bit of uh zero

calorie sweetener inside of it they might make some chaffles yeah dude they're great um i'm surprised i'm feeling good i haven't had a crazy blowout but i i haven't been low carb in like two years so wow yeah i know i was thinking about it. I'm like, shit, when was, or maybe a little bit less, but whenever you started the, uh,

get less fatterest, that was the last time I did anything where like, I just mimicked everything you did. Right. And speaking of shortcuts, but that was the last time I did low carb and yeah, dude, so it's been a while,

but I feel, feel pretty good. Um, like I said, the biggest, um, indicator is, and this could be again because of the motivation of being on a diet or yeah dude so it's been a while but i feel feel pretty good um like i said the biggest um indicator is and this could be again because of the motivation of being on a diet or following

the carnivore diet is there's no pull towards sweets or anything the uh weirdest thing i've had was not even weird but just like had a protein shake before bed last night so i was like i'm kind of hungry it's like i don't really want make anything, but let me just have a protein shake. So I had that. Um, it's too, too early to tell whether it's going to have, or whether it's having an effect on energy levels,

but I would assume that it's going to be noticeable by the end of this week where I'm going to feel like, Oh, like this is, this is going to be fun. Yeah. So that's, what's new with me.

Anybody's got the, got cravings going on you know a try to get creative with the food i think that's always always a good one which it can be hard when you're on a carnivore diet but there's a website called ruled.me oh yes that has a lot of great recipes on it fathead pizza rule r-u-l--L-E? R-U-L-E-D. Oh, ruled.me. Yeah, ruled.me. Great resource. Yeah, great resource. I don't know if necessarily it has a lot of carnivore recipes, but I remember it had a lot of keto recipes.

But try to knock back your cravings with something really savory. Like, try to make an omelet, you know, that has a lot of cheese and a lot of like, just go for it, man. Like if you, if you're sitting there and you're really craving something like just overeat, like overeat, like a motherfucker,

chop up some steak and throw some cheese and bacon on it or something, you know, just do something, do something, do something a little different than what you're used to. Just, just to, just to see how it will help.

I, I, I've found it to be really useful and to kind of take that restriction off of worrying about overeating i think it's nice to do you know again you're not you're not trying to do this every night but it's nice to do that here and there um i i know that there's like people have their favorite foods that are like all they can think about is junk food. When I say, what's your favorite food? But think about your favorite foods that are still part of the plan.

I can mix them together and have at it and go for it. I got to ask you, how do you feel about, um, how do you feel about diet sodas? Yeah, I think they're okay. Yeah. I think they can, I think diet soda and things like that can sometimes elicit a response in some people that makes them still crave sweeter stuff. I think if possible, for the fatties out there, you know who you are. Yeah. Try to stay on that savory side as much as you can, meaning like fatty, salty type stuff rather than sweet anything.

fatty, salty type stuff rather than sweet, rather than sweet anything. See if you can try that for just for just a bit until you can kind of recalibrate your taste buds and then you can kind of work your way into getting some Coke zeros and things like that. But I noticed for myself, those things kind of kick up a bunch of because it's like, ah, you got a little bit of it, you know, like you kind of got it, but, you know, it's almost like giving you blue balls or something. Yes, that's that's a that's a really funny way to put it but yeah i'm i didn't so i didn't know that they make the way there they make a zero calorie mountain dew um yeah they make a calorie ginger ale that's my jam. Yeah. I mean, watch out. Ginger ale. What?

You and Raisin Bran and ginger ale. Ginger ale is great. Zevia makes a good one. Yeah, they do make a good one. But that's one of those things where I'm like, man, I've been, you know, preaching how soda is so bad. Like just the idea of soda. Right. Especially with my daughter.

You know, I'm like, yeah, no, we don't drink soda. We drink sparkling water, which is, you know, I'm like, yeah, no, we don't drink soda. We drink sparkling water, which is, you know, flavorless soda basically. And I saw that and I'm like, well, I mean, if it's zero calorie, I could definitely,

you know, fit it in my macros. Cause it's nothing like, but I don't know if I want to invite that into my house. This is the same thing. I get the same type of Reese, like, well,

it doesn't do the same thing, but if I have like electrolytes, it gives me that taste. So I'm like, I'm like, okay, cool. Right. And I'm like, I'll also have like elements really good. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It is really good. Uh, have you ever tried it with sparkling water? I have. You gotta be careful. Yeah. Cause it'll explode. Yeah.

It's like a science experiment. Yeah. Yeah. It just got to do it slowly. But yeah, that it's, it, it, it hits that spot for me. Oh God. No, you're okay. Shit.

You're fine. Okay. You're fine. Okay. You're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Cause anyways, I think from a, from a perspective of like trying to change the way that you look,

I don't think there's any issue at all with diet drinks. Um, I think from a mental side of things for some people that are, that have always struggled with their nutrition. Yeah. I think, uh, it could be something that's like a little bit of a gateway or it's

just, it's just, um, it's like making you feel like more unsatisfied than you should, you know? So try to stick on the side of that savory stuff if you can for as long as you can. Fair. Absolutely. I think that's it. Want to take us on out of here? Yeah, I will.

Actually, last thing you mentioned copying. And that's a huge part. I mean, we did mention like talking to other people who've done it. But I mean, literally, you don't even have to talk to them. You can just fucking copy them. Like, what do you think The Rock does every day? I can follow that. I don't know.

I think he does. I think he does cardio and he lifts before 5 a.m. He's already done cardio and lifted, at least from some of the videos that we've seen from him. So I don't know. Maybe you find something that's reasonable that you can actually do. But maybe you try to follow something like that for a while. Maybe you see that someone online has released their workout program. Or you've seen an old workout program from Arnold or something like that.

I mean, Arnold looked like he was built pretty good. Why not follow some of that for a little while and just flat out just mimic it. And when you hear from people that are a success in business or bodybuilding or powerlifting or whatever the hell it is they're doing, maybe you just try to mimic a lot of those same things that they did. Maybe, maybe you keep hearing over and over again that people say, Hey man, you know,

you got to read a lot of books or you got to listen to podcasts or like wake up, you know, and let's start, start implementing some of these things and start doing some of these things. There's, there's a lot of great resources online,

a lot of great people to follow and to mimic. And even if you do mimic someone for a while, you'll find out right away whether it's too much for you or whether it's not enough for you or it's not right for you. You want to fail fast, figure it out as quickly as possible, and you're going to get to better answers all the time. Heck yeah. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for checking out today's episode. Everybody on the live stream. Really awesome to see all the interaction, you know, people talking to each other. Like, like we just said, getting around like-minded people right now, it's kind of weird that you can't in certain areas.

So you guys did today. So you took advantage of the advice before you even heard it. It is world carnivore month. So in our opinion, the best way to go about that is with Piedmontese beef. Check the links down in the description, wherever you're listening or watching a promo code power project, we'll get you 25% off your order. And if your order is $99 or more,

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