Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1582: 15 Surprising Reasons You Don’t Feel Well

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover 15 reasons why you may not feel well and what to do about it. 15 Surprising Reasons You Don’t Feel Well. (1:38) #1 – Not drinking enough water. (2:33) #2 ...– Following the wrong diet for your body. (5:47) #3 – Not consuming enough sodium. (9:27) #4 – You may be having too much caffeine. (12:25) #5 – You might be taking too many supplements. (19:35) #6 – You are working out too much. (23:41) #7 – You are not changing your workouts. (27:12) #8 – Your sleep quality sucks! (30:58) #9 – You may be indoors too much. (36:46) #10 – Wasting time on social media. (40:48) #11 – You may be surrounding yourself with bad people. (43:56) #12 – Having no purpose. (47:57) #13 – You do not take any responsibility. (50:43) #14 – Maybe you are lacking focus. (54:56) #15 – You need to lighten up a little. (57:18) Related Links/Products Mentioned June Promotion: MAPS Prime, Prime Pro, and the Prime Bundle 50% off!  **Promo code “JUNEPRIME” at checkout** Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The Breakdown Recovery Trap, Why You Aren’t Progressing – Mind Pump Blog How Phasing Your Workouts Leads to Consistent Plateau Free Workouts – Mind Pump Blog Why You Need to Mix Rep Ranges After Periods of Training – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1345: 6 Ways To Optimize Sleep For Faster Muscle Gain And Fat Loss Visit ChiliPad for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! The health benefits of strong relationships Mind Pump #1415: 7 Ways To Find Purpose Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? The Alchemist The Accountability Ladder - Talent Strategy Group Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Arthur Brooks (@arthurcbrooks)  Instagram

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pup Right in today's episode. We talk about the 15 surprising reasons that you might not be feeling well. So these are things that you might not be considering that can definitely negatively impact your well-being.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Paleo Valley. They make some of the best health supplements and foods around that are paleo friendly. Now our favorite product from them is their grass-fed beef sticks. These are incredibly delicious, very, very delicious. They're not dry like beef jerky.
Starting point is 00:00:47 They're actually juicy, they taste good, and of course they're healthy because it's grass-fed beef. Another product they have that's really good is their organ complex. These are organ meat complex in capsule forms. You get all the nutrients of organ meats without having to eat liver, heart, and kidneys. Anyhow, go check them out, and of course, you get a discount
Starting point is 00:01:06 because you're a mind-pump listener. Head over to paleovali.com. That's P-A-L-E-O, valley.com-for-th-l-mine-pump. Use the code, mind-pump15. That's mind-pump15 for 15% off your first order. Also, we're running a sale on Maps Prime, Maps Prime Pro, and our Maps Prime Bundle. All of them are 50% off. Go check them out, head over to mapsfitinistproducts.com, and use the code June Prime with no space for the discount. So, I wanted to do a podcast on things that, or
Starting point is 00:01:41 reasons why people tend to not feel well that are not obvious, you know, things that, or reasons why people tend to not feel well that are not obvious, you know, things that we identify and clients often where people are like, I'm not just not feeling good. And you do the usual checklist of things and everything looks okay. And then it ends up turning out to be something
Starting point is 00:01:57 that's not, that's surprising, you know, that's not conventional. So I wanna talk about some of the things that we've noticed that have caused people, or even ourselves, to not feel so good, that are just not typically not so obvious. And once we say them, I think they're obvious sometimes, but we don't often go to them. Oh, no, they sound obvious.
Starting point is 00:02:18 Actually, what I think kicked this conversation off, I really like this was fun to sit down and kind of all three of us rack our brains of, you know, trying to recall the clients that we had in like the AHA moments. And the very first one that we'll talk about of the 15 is the one that I mentioned recently on the podcast that I actually heard Justin was giving this tip. So I had already been a manager. So I was leading trainers five years in or so. And I have Justin and he'd already been working with me for a while. been a manager, so I was leading trainers five years in or so.
Starting point is 00:02:47 And I have Justin, and he'd already been working with me for a while, and I overheard him talking to this client about, because she was complaining of fatigue and not feeling well or what that. And he was talking about water. And up into that point, that wasn't on my list. It wasn't on my top, check asking them questions and I thought, because you just think it is so basic and simple that, oh, everyone knows.
Starting point is 00:03:11 Everybody's already drinking water. Yeah, everyone knows that you're supposed to drink water, so I just didn't think to ask that. And when I saw him do that, and then I began to kind of apply that with my clients going forward, I found that more often than not that actually solved a lot of problems for clients. It's kind of funny because that was one of those things that seemed super obvious, but
Starting point is 00:03:32 unless you're intentionally constructing your day and making sure that you're seeking out water, a lot of times you fall behind and then that carries over into the day after that. And for me, it was really, you know, eye opening because I had, I don't know if I'll clamped you guys. You need some water. Yes, you need some water. I had headaches a lot and this was something that I didn't ever attribute that to drinking water and being dehydrated and also was experiencing fatigue and started to really be intentional
Starting point is 00:04:05 about drinking water and it made a massive difference. And then also, as I was conveying this over to my clients, finding out that this was a rare thing. Like, more than not, they were eating, they were drinking a very low volume of water and it was also affecting things like joint pain and all kinds of other things. That's a big one.
Starting point is 00:04:24 I noticed with my clients with pain and inflammation, they would come to me and be like, oh, this is stiff, I feel tight. And we would do correctional exercise. We do all the tools that I had in my tool belt to help them. And it would help, but sometimes it would kind of linger. And I remember hearing this from another trainer that worked with me in my studio
Starting point is 00:04:43 was to drink more water. And so I said, you know, why don't you try drinking, you know, half a gallon of water a day or a gallon of water a day depending on the size of the person. And they would do it and they'd come back and be like, my joint pain's gone. Yeah. And I couldn't believe that water would do that. Now, for me, I pieced this together for something that is I didn't even consider, which was the pump.
Starting point is 00:05:01 Oh. I had no idea that the, and now obviously this is a huge part of the process. This is obvious now because you think about the pump and it's fluid in the pump. I had no idea that, and now obviously, this is a huge part of the process. This is obvious now because you think about the pump and it's fluid in the muscle, but if I drink, if I don't drink enough water, can I work out first thing in the morning?
Starting point is 00:05:14 If I don't wake up and have a couple glasses of water, my pump is severely reduced. If I wake up, have a couple glasses of water before I work out, makes a huge difference. So now I like to tell people to try to aim for about a half a gallon till gallon of water dates. It's a nice, rough estimate.
Starting point is 00:05:29 And it makes a huge difference. Suppress us, people's appetite, that's another big one that I noticed. People would have less cravings as a result, less headaches, less inflammation. And then the other one is more energy, which is strange, because you don't think water gives you energy, but not having enough water
Starting point is 00:05:44 saps you of energy. The next one, this one's another big one, and this reminds me actually of DMs that I get quite often from people. So, I'll give you an example of a DM, right? Someone will send me a message and they'll say, you know, Sal, I've been following this ketogenic diet, and I've been doing it now for three months, but I still suffer from constipation and I'm not feeling so good. How long do I need to stick to it before I feel good?
Starting point is 00:06:10 I'm sorry, kids. Yeah, or what's that you? Yeah, it's not working for, right? Yeah, and this is basically people following the wrong diet for their body. There's a pretty wide individual variance with how people feel eating particular ways. I've had clients who thrive on a diet
Starting point is 00:06:28 that's much higher in carbohydrate, lower in protein, and I've had clients to do much better on a higher protein, higher fat diet. I've had clients where eating plant-based made them feel the best. I've had clients on the other than the spectrum where they mostly meet and they feel best. This one really has to do with listening to your body.
Starting point is 00:06:45 And sometimes we stick to a diet because we read about it and we see the studies and we see the articles and we say, this is what I'm supposed to do. But we ignore the fact that maybe that diet is just not working for our body. I actually think this is more common than not. And a lot of times it's because everybody has that friend who follow the adkins or follow the ketogenic diet
Starting point is 00:07:04 or follow the zone diet or followed the ketogenic diet or followed the zone diet or does intermittent fat. They do something and they go, oh my God, like, sushi transformed right in front of your eyes. Right, they transform, they look amazing and like, you're sold. That's it, I don't need to read no studies. I know my friend Suzy, she did this in a changed her life.
Starting point is 00:07:20 I've known Suzy, she's been fat her whole life. Now she looks amazing, so I'm sold. And then they do it and they stick to it just because it had success for Susie. And they come to me and they're just trying to figure out why is this not working for me? And they're trying to force it and you're trying to force a, you know, square peg and a round hole.
Starting point is 00:07:36 It's like your body's trying to tell you, it's not for you. And so I think this happens more often than you would, you would think because people hear about something or see something work for somebody else, assume that it must be great for them too. Yeah, now in our space, we see this often with people who eat a lot of protein, because we're told a high protein diet is good for satiety,
Starting point is 00:07:59 it's good for muscle building and recovery, which is true, but there's definitely cases where it affects someone's digestion wrong or in a way that's negative or it makes them feel sluggish, but yet they doggedly stick to it because that's what the article says. That's what literature says. The literature says I need to eat a lot of protein.
Starting point is 00:08:18 And it's like, no man, you might not be feeling good, even though you're eating, you know, quote unquote, healthy foods and you're following the diet to a T, it might not be the good, even though you're eating quote unquote healthy foods and you're following the diet to a T, it might not be the right diet for you. Well, another aspect to consider with this, something that Doug actually brought up was food intolerances. And so, you know, so that's something, too, that makes a massive impact on individual variances based off of, if this
Starting point is 00:08:41 diet that you're following and you have foods included in there that may actually be causing you inflammation or you have some kind of reaction to it without going through an elimination process and figuring that out, that could be a component there as well. I had a lady who suffered from psoriasis and we were trying to isolate what could possibly be contributing to this. And it turned out to be bananas. Bananas were triggering autoimmune issue or response and she would get psoriasis. And her response to me was,
Starting point is 00:09:14 but I eat bananas every morning. I've been eating bananas for years. I'm like, how long have you had psoriasis for? You know, it's not working for your body. So you got to pay attention to these things and listen to your body. All right, this next one is a bit controversial. And I love talking about this because we've been pushed so hard in one direction, not realizing
Starting point is 00:09:35 that in many cases, especially with athletes or especially with people that eat a whole food-based diet, people that work out a lot. Oftentimes, they don't feel good or don't have a lot of energy because they're not eating enough sodium. This is a big one. Now, if your diet's very high in heavily processed foods, you're probably fine.
Starting point is 00:09:56 Heavily processed foods are super, super high in sodium. But whole natural foods, even if you salt them, even if you add salt to your steak and your baked potato and your rice and all your whole natural foods, even if you add salt oftentimes it's too low for someone who's active, for someone who has a lot of muscle or someone who sweats a lot. Adding sodium can dramatically improve your energy,
Starting point is 00:10:19 improve your pump, improve your sense of well-being. I think this is even more common with our audience, because a lot of people that are listening to this podcast are obviously health conscious, they are working out, they're trying to better themselves. And many times they're coming from the opposite side of not eating very well, not exercising, not doing those things.
Starting point is 00:10:41 And also when you make this switch, I'm going to increase activity and exercise, and I'm also going to cut out all the fast food and garbage. So you take somebody who's used to eating thousands, tens of thousands of milligrams of sodium to all of a sudden reducing that dramatically because just by simply cutting out fast food and switching over to better choices that are whole foods,
Starting point is 00:11:02 you cut your sodium like more than in half, like it becomes like a tenth of what your body was used to vent taking. And then in addition to that, you introduce exercise, which is also the body's going to want more sodium for that. So I actually think our audience benefits from things like this more than the average person even. Yeah. When we were first introduced to, this is just a product now that we work with.
Starting point is 00:11:24 When we were introduced to element, I thought I saw an electrolyte powder, big deal. Like there's so many of them. It's not that big of a deal. Then, you know, Monica, just like two months later, I took a closer look and I said, oh shit, they put a thousand milligrams per serving in this. They're actually doing it the right way because most electrolyte powders, remember, they're targeting athletes, they're targeting people who eat either low carb diet. By the way, when you eat low carb diet, you need morsodium.
Starting point is 00:11:49 Low carb diets, your body loses lots of water, you need morsodium. You actually lose lots of sodium with a low carb diet or if you do a whole natural food diet, again like we said earlier, your sodium is very low. Now, I remember when we all tried it, the pumps improved, the energy improved, because it had a decent amount of sodium along with, of course, the potassium in magnesium. So if you're that person who's active and fit and you eat whole natural foods and you're still like, ah, man, my energy's not super good. Like, what's going on? Try increasing your sodium. You might just trip yourself out at how big of an impact it has.
Starting point is 00:12:23 All right. This next one, this one's near and dear, I think, especially to you guys, and I'd say probably just an even more so. Yes it is. You might be having too much caffeine. You know, caffeine is an incredible chemical. It's, of course, it's naturally occurring. It's one of the most effective,
Starting point is 00:12:41 if not the most effective. It's a godsend. Yeah, athletic performance enhancing compound. It reduces risk of dementia. It can improve health of the brain. It can improve mental function. It's beautiful. It's wonderful.
Starting point is 00:12:55 We've been consuming it for thousands of years. However, it comes along with side effects, which include fatigue. By the way, caffeine can produce fatigue at two higher levels. You'll actually find that you'll crash hard and be more tired than you were before. It contributes to anxiety, heart palpitations, hormone imbalances. I find this often with women where their cortisol is very high and estrogen and progesterone levels are off balance. And that's because with caffeine, there's a sweet spot. And taking more caffeine
Starting point is 00:13:26 just results in more of the negative side effects and very little or none of those positive effects. So you just may maybe take, especially if you have coffee and a pre workout, like a lot of people do this, they have coffee every morning, then they throw a pre workout before they're workout, they never take a day off off and they're not realizing the caffeine that they're taking in is just too much. It's just, a lot of times it's the glue that's like barely holding everything together too.
Starting point is 00:13:51 A lot of uses, and myself included, have used caffeine to really just keep me going, keep me productive throughout the day, and really mask over a lot of the symptoms, like my body's trying to tell me, like in terms of not getting enough quality sleep, being not drinking enough water, a lot of these other things that I should be doing, I tend to then overcompensate with caffeine because now I can get this sort of false energy at least for an extended amount of time, but then that inevitably adds up
Starting point is 00:14:22 to up in your dose and then this causes, you know, interrupts your sleep later on in the day and all kinds of things, you know, spirals out from there. So I actually don't think this was that big of a deal when we first started as trainers. I've seen this increase dramatically in the last decade. Yes. The first 10 years or even first five years for sure that we were trained, I mean, that Starbucks was like still on that wasn't even on the scene yet. So when Starbucks hit the scene.
Starting point is 00:14:52 Only people that drink coffee were like old people. Yes, hardcore truckers. Journalists, like teachers. You didn't see fitness people drinking coffee after that. It became something that became normalized after the introduction of Starbucks. And then after that, you started to see, because up to that point, too, it was an old person
Starting point is 00:15:09 thing. It was like, I didn't taste very good. Not very many people I knew drank it. Then it became like this ritual that everybody stopped and had their Starbucks coffee. Then came all the positive studies that would start to come out because before that, too, it was like, oh, it's just like any other drug. You get addicted to. It's not ideal for everybody.
Starting point is 00:15:25 And so we didn't really normalize it yet. Then Starbucks everybody's doing it. And then we found to connect, make all these great connections to help beneficial caffeine is. And now we've swung the complete opposite direction where you see kids in Starbucks. Now you see the, they've, they've made drinks now that attract these little kids. Yeah, milkshakes with it. So it has become very normal for people to, and then you see the pre workout market also come out
Starting point is 00:15:48 of nowhere during. That didn't exist. That didn't exist either during our time. So the beginning of our career, this was not a conversation at all. No. Midway I start to realize, wow, how much this is growing, it's not until not that long ago, do I start to piece together?
Starting point is 00:16:02 Oh, wow, this is starting to become a problem, because it's becoming so normalized. Everybody is drinking multiple cups a day and then now this pre-workout market is exploding and now the race on the pre-workout market is to stay ahead of everybody's addiction. So the original 150 to 200 milligram. That was the original dose.
Starting point is 00:16:19 100 milligrams. Yeah, 150 to 200 was like a big deal originally and that became not a big deal anymore and then it became 250, then 300, then you see some of these pushing 4, 450 milligrams of caffeine in a pre-workout on top of them probably having a cup of coffee. Yeah, and it's immense the idea that you need
Starting point is 00:16:35 that before every workout, which is not true. And in a lot of times, I've noticed some people like they won't even work out unless they have the pre-workout ahead of time, which is a problem problem because then that dependency is really something that you have to work. The biggest negative effect that I see from it is how much it disrupts people's sleep when they don't even realize it disrupts their sleep. Because you don't think sometimes when you have this pre-workout at two or three o'clock in the afternoon before you go get your workout in, that how's that, how's that have anything to do with me
Starting point is 00:17:07 at night at nine, 30 or 10 o'clock in bed, tossing and turning and you don't connect the two, unless you've paid attention long enough and you tease it out to measure it, which I have done, and it blows my mind what a difference it makes when I have either limited or no caffeine on how much better sleep I get. But do you know that studies show
Starting point is 00:17:27 that almost always caffeine effect sleep? Almost always. Even if you have it in the morning, now there's a degree, there's of course degrees to how much it affects your sleep. But in fact, if you go to a sleep expert and you have issues with sleep, the first thing you'll do is have you reduce
Starting point is 00:17:42 or eliminate your caffeine. You know, you didn't even cover the energy drink market. I remember, okay, I don't know if you guys remember this. When we were kids, there was one drink that advertised itself as having a lot of caffeine, Jolkola. Remember that? You know how much caffeine, Jolkola has? Like 50.
Starting point is 00:17:57 It was like 60 or 70, you know. It was in a can. It's called cup of coffee. Yeah, and you drink it and be like, oh my God, it's so energized. You know, then Red Bull comes out and now you've got rock stars and all these other drinks that are just packed full of caffeine. There's also this huge individual variance
Starting point is 00:18:12 when it comes to caffeine tolerance. You know, I know if you read the studies, they say, up to 300 milligrams a day or three cups a day is perfectly fine. That's so bullshit. It's not true for a lot of people. For some people, it's true. For other people, anything over 100 milligrams
Starting point is 00:18:28 causes more negative than positive effects. You have to figure this out kind of for yourself. I have in comparison to my co-hosts at low tolerance, but I know people who haven't even lower tolerance. In fact, I was working out with a friend of mine the other day and he said, if he just has a green tea, which is like 50 milligrams or less, he feels negative. He totally stays away from caffeine completely.
Starting point is 00:18:49 So he's on the other end of the spectrum, but you need to notice for yourself, caffeine in high doses because it causes a stress response in the body. It makes you hyped. Can really negatively affect your hormones as well. So keep this in mind. If you have hormone issues, you can't figure out what's going on. It just might be the excess. And it's a vicious cycle because you start to do it. It throws off the sleep. You're miserable the next day. You need more, you need more just to get you up again. And it's
Starting point is 00:19:14 like, you can't imagine going a few days without it. And so, yeah, this has been one of those things that early on in my career, I never thought to ask it where now it becomes one of the first 15 things that I was, I'm going to ask it where now it becomes one of the first 15 things that I'm going through the list of, have we done your water? Have we checked your caffeine? Have you tried to go a week without caffeine and pay attention to your sleep? Totally. Now, this next one I feel like is targeting me a little bit, but it's true. And this is that you might just be... That was it, me hard last one. You might just be taking too many supplements. There's a couple reasons why this is a problem.
Starting point is 00:19:45 One, you don't know what's doing what. If you're taking four different supplements or five different supplements, you don't know which one is making you feel good, which one is making you not feel good, which one is causing gut issues, or none of that stuff. You have no idea because there's just so many products and supplements that you're taking. By the way, some supplements that are supposed to make people feel great actually can make other people feel really bad.
Starting point is 00:20:11 I'll give you guys an example, right? If you look up the studies on Rodeola, Rodeola is a supplement that's an herb or plant. It's been around forever, it's been used for hundreds of years. It's a tonic, it strengthens your immune system. It's an adaptive genic, meaning it allows your body
Starting point is 00:20:28 to adapt to stress better. It improves athletic performance and energy and alertness. All the studies show this, okay. All the studies show this. It's very, very, it's pretty conclusive. It does all these wonderful things. It makes me feel like shit.
Starting point is 00:20:42 If I take Rodeola and I take anything other than the smallest dose of all time, like if I take a normal dose of your Rhodiola, I literally feel bogged down and feverish. I don't feel good. Now, if I'm taking five different supplements or ten different supplements, or I'm taking one supplement with ten different ingredients, one of them is Rhodiola, like I don't know if it's the Rhodiola or is it the cordioseps in there? What the hell is going on that's making me feel real terrible? You just might be taking too many supplements. Yeah, no, I knew and I had the same way when it comes to that.
Starting point is 00:21:11 I didn't piece this together until I started to notice I had clients that were like you and like myself. I think we're all a little bit this. I definitely as a kid, tried every supplement under the sun. And a lot of people are searching for that. Even if they don't realize they are subconsciously, they're always asking, what's the best pill for this or what's the best for that? Or I heard about this or what do you know about that supplement because
Starting point is 00:21:33 they've been marketed to or a friend told them about it. And then when you find out what they're taking, they've got seven different pills that they're taking to try and help them burn fat build muscle, sleep better, wake up better, like all these things. And sometimes a lot of them are conflicting with each other. So you're taking one upper with a downer and you're doing all these things that you're in pursuit of this better physique or more energy and what you don't realize is it's just, they're counteracting with each other
Starting point is 00:21:58 or just a combinational of them is upsetting you. And so that becomes a now on my list. Well, I think in general too, because it's in the health category a lot of times You're going to the store and these are all Vitamins and Supplements you need to assume like more is always better
Starting point is 00:22:16 Obviously if I'm obviously if I'm not getting it in my food It's gonna benefit me and it's a lot of times. Yeah get into that sort of mode of, I need vitamin C, I need vitamin D, I need fish, I need this, I need that. And not really even associating a lot of those things with what your current diet is providing. That's a really good point too. This was something I found out later on was, especially if you do a lot of like shakes and bars
Starting point is 00:22:42 and things that have. They're all fortified. That's right, they're all fortified. And many of them will give you the total RDA of like one nutrient that you need for the entire day. And so did the other thing, and then so did the other thing. So you got three things that are giving you your complete RDA for the day, and you're overdoing it.
Starting point is 00:23:01 And there's a lot of things that are not better than more you do. No, fat soluble vitamins, like okay, so vitamin D deficiency is quite common. But if you're somebody that it and there's a lot of things that are not better than more. No, fat soluble vitamins. Okay, so vitamin D deficiency is quite common. But if you're somebody that's got high levels of vitamin D at the upper limit and you supplement with vitamin D, you can cause yourself some big problems because you're taking a supplement that your body specifically doesn't need. You brought up an excellent point, Adam.
Starting point is 00:23:21 Look at your pre-workout, look at your protein shakes, look at all your products, and see how many of them contain the same stuff. Not realizing that you're overdoing a few key nutrients that could be building up your body. There's fat soluble vitamins and minerals, they get stored in the body. So you got to be very, very careful with that kind of stuff. Here's another one. This one's very common, especially in the fitness space, which is you're working out too much. In fact, we just answered a live question the other day on our live Q&A episode. And this young lady is talking about all her exercise and workouts,
Starting point is 00:23:54 and she wants to know why she can't push her body to get to the next level. And it became very obvious to me that she was overdoing it. You know, there's a big difference between how much workload your body can tolerate and how much workload is ideal to get your body to adapt and feel good and get stronger. There's a very big difference. They're not the same. Like, there's a certain amount of volume, sets, and reps that'll optimize my performance, will build muscle, will make me feel good. And then there's an amount that's much higher than that that is pushing the limit in terms of how much I can tolerate. But by because I pushed it
Starting point is 00:24:27 to that point where I can barely tolerate it, I've slowed down my progress, I'm tapping into too much energy, and my body is always kind of tiptoeing that line between overtraining and the right amount, which means you don't feel good. You don't feel very good when you're constantly pushing how much exercise you can tolerate versus what's optimal for adaptation. Well, I think, so this has made it number six on our list and they're not necessarily in any particular order because I would actually rank this up even higher
Starting point is 00:24:55 because I found, and this is true with myself. I mean, and this is where the whole saying of, my goal is to do as little as possible to elicit the most amount of change and that's a mantra that I continually tell myself. Because you have to. Yeah. Because we tend to overreach. And that's talking for sure to the fitness fanatic.
Starting point is 00:25:14 But even the person who is not a fitness fanatic, but is just motivated to get started on their journey. They're fired up. They're tired. That's right. I want to do as much as I can because you assume that the more you do, the more results you get, and it doesn't work that way. So I actually think this is one of the top reasons why someone's not progressing or not
Starting point is 00:25:34 feeling well is they are just hammering their body. They're giving it too much at once. Many times they're doing that also in a coloric deficit. So they're on a diet. So they're restricting their body of some of these things we're talking about water, sodium, calories. And then on top of that, you're also pushing it way more than you need to. And then wondering why I'm not getting the results. Yeah, a lot of times it's the last thing people even consider because what's promoted so much in general in the general population in the public view
Starting point is 00:26:06 is that you need to be exercising more and you're never doing enough. And so for somebody that has been actively motivated and pushing their body to its limits, it has to be good for me. And so that wouldn't have been even something that they would have thought. If I reduce this, it's gonna make my body feel better
Starting point is 00:26:23 and I'm actually gonna progress more towards the direction that I want. Yeah, the dose has to be perfect for your body, and that considers your lifestyle, your sleep, your goals, your fitness level. The right dose will get you there faster. More than that will get you there slower. A lot more than that will get you to go backwards.
Starting point is 00:26:39 Always remember that. I can't tell you how many times I had clients hire me, and I got their bodies to progress rapidly by cutting their volume down by a third. Like that's all I would do. I'd look at their work and be like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do a third less work
Starting point is 00:26:51 and they would always argue with me. And I'd say, look, here's a deal. You're paying me and you'd trust me. Let's do this for a few weeks. I promise you, if you trust me this one time, I'll never have to ask for your trust again as one of my favorite lines. And they would listen, I'm like, okay,
Starting point is 00:27:02 oh my God, I'm getting stronger. What's going on? I'm doing less work. You were doing too much before. It was too much. Your body couldn't adapt. It was only worried about healing. All right, here's another one.
Starting point is 00:27:12 That's a big one. This one you see, I used to see in gyms all the time. Remember, we managed big box gyms for years. That's how we all kind of started our career. And when you're in a gym and you're running it, you're there a lot, right? So especially as a general manager, I would be there from 9 AM, typically till 9 PM. And you start to see the same people.
Starting point is 00:27:31 There's certain percentage of your members that are real consistent. And you see them come in and you see them work out. And then after a while I'd notice, these people do the exact same thing every single time they came in. I mean, there's one guy, remember, who come in literally always exactly the same thing. And not only the exact same thing every single time they came in. I mean, there's one guy, remember, he would come in literally always exactly the same thing
Starting point is 00:27:47 and not only the exact same thing, the exact same piece of equipment. So I'd have a row of stairmasters. Nope, you would get on the third stairmaster, 15 minutes, the same favorite one. They need to go over to this chest press machine. They need to do this row machine. And it was always the same way.
Starting point is 00:28:01 It was used the same way. And I would watch this guy do this all the time. And I remember talking to him, and we got in this conversation, like, hey man, you're real consistent. I see you coming in, every day at 3 p.m. doing your workout. Do you have any questions or anything?
Starting point is 00:28:15 He's like, well, you know, it's really fun, but my body's plateau. Like I don't, but just stopped responding. Like, well, I watch you workout. You know you do the exact same thing every single time you come in. Well, yeah, I got a good routine. Well, yeah, but your body got used to it. Let's change it up and watch what happens.
Starting point is 00:28:32 And of course, he did and he got results. This is actually quite common with people where they do the same stuff all the time. Maybe not the same like the guy I just talked about, but they do the same rep ranges. Or they always do the same exercises or the same kind of body parts split, or they're always body building, and they never try powerlifting, or they never try functional exercise. If you're always doing the same thing, you're always pressing the same weaknesses, you can cause joint issues, you tend to cause imbalances in your body because you're not working in different planes.
Starting point is 00:28:59 This can cause problems if you never change up your workouts. Yeah, or they're the kind of person that has always done a specific type of plan, but they've taken a few years off, and now they're jumping right back into that kind of plan that worked for them years ago. So they didn't change it. So they didn't change anything, but they try and apply it,
Starting point is 00:29:17 and it doesn't have the same type of success and progress that they had before, because their bodies different now, and they haven't accounted for that, And they haven't really gradually brought themself back into shape, even to meet and face that type of demand on their body. So it's the creature habit. It's the something that's the familiar.
Starting point is 00:29:36 Like we're all guilty of sort of being drawn back into what's familiar to us and what we know we can do. I really think this is the difference between people that exercise and people that train. So movement, any kind of movement can be exercise. Zumba class is exercise. You can do the same exercise forever. And your heart rate elevates.
Starting point is 00:29:56 It's better than nothing. It's right, it's not bad for you. It's just movement, really. It's right, it's not bad for you. But many times this is confused with training. And training is a goal. I have a goal in mind. I come to this gym and I am trying to either get stronger,
Starting point is 00:30:10 get faster, lose body fat, build muscle. I have a goal in mind and therefore the work that I'm doing, the intent is that I am bettering myself towards that, where if you're just going to exercise to exercise, that's fine. I mean, if you want to do the four machine-style, talk to about the guy and then you're happy with it. I bet you guys know what I'm talking about. I do not manage the same gym.
Starting point is 00:30:30 Yes, yes. You guys know exactly what I'm saying. Yes, I'm an extermaster. I know who he is, for sure. So, you know, that's fine. But if you tell me you're wanting to make change or you don't feel good or you don't like what's happening, and this is how you approach it, it's like you got to change your routine up. And it's hard because we do.
Starting point is 00:30:48 We get stuck in the things that we like in our habits. And you know, but if you have a goal or you want to change, the idea is that you're training and not just exercise. Now the next one, this one people are always like, oh, yeah, I know that. Yeah, I do that, but do you really? And that's sleep quality. Your sleep quality sucks. Now, I do that, but do you really? And that's sleep quality. Your sleep quality sucks.
Starting point is 00:31:07 Now, I've talked to many people about sleep, many clients, and oftentimes I'll hear, but I get eight hours every single night. I'm not talking about how long you think you sleep, or when you go to bed and when you get out of bed, but rather the quality of sleep within. Now, I'm gonna use an extreme example, just to kind of illustrate my point.
Starting point is 00:31:23 I remember I had a client who was dealing with fatigue and inflammation and just couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Finally, we narrowed it down and they went and saw, did a sleep study. I don't know if you guys know what a sleep study is, but you go and you actually sleep in a lab, they watch you and they figure out what's going on.
Starting point is 00:31:41 And they found that this person had sleep apnea and that they were actually waking up several times in the night, and they weren't aware of it, but they were waking up several times a night. So this person got one of those CPAP machines, put it on, and it was life, I'll never forget, the day after they wore it, they walked into my gym and they're like, if I knew this years ago, I would have done this,
Starting point is 00:32:02 like I am a different person because of last night. I had no idea that my sleep quality was that bad. So although they went to bed and woke up, you know, had eight hours, the reality is they got like five hours of quality. Say, well, every night they were sleep deprived. Now that's an extreme example. But if you're waking up in the middle of night
Starting point is 00:32:19 to go to the bathroom or you wake up because you're uncomfortable or because you're sweating or because the sheets are, and this is common for you. Your sleep quality probably isn't great and you need to focus on things that improve sleep quality. Like turning off electronics an hour before bed
Starting point is 00:32:34 or wearing blue light blocking glasses, making sure your room is really cool, 66, 67 degrees, maybe wearing minimal clothing in bed, not eating too close to bed time. Like those are just a few common things, but they make a huge difference. And you'll go to the bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, but the quality within.
Starting point is 00:32:54 Having a plan and preparing for sleep. Yes. I just think that that's still a common thing that a lot of people don't consider. They just want to, okay, now it's time for bed and whether or not you're watching TV or you're on your phone, answer in your last email and then you set your phone down
Starting point is 00:33:12 and now it's just close my eyes and it's magically gonna happen and I'm gonna sleep and all of a sudden it's gonna be great. Meanwhile, your brain is still completely active and you haven't been able to really shift over into that different mindset. And so to create that is going to take a lot of intent going into that. So the hour proceeding that to really be conscious of how much blue light
Starting point is 00:33:34 you're introducing yourself to and making sure you actually have a ritual leading up into taking, you know, going to sleep is going to be a huge difference. I can't remember who it was that I first heard that from, but I remember that was probably some of the best advice I'd ever heard. And up into this point, I was somebody who just, oh, I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping, I'm dead and sleep is over. That's so great.
Starting point is 00:33:58 Yeah, I was definitely that asshole for a very long time. And it wasn't until later did I start to really appreciate quality sleep and then it wasn't until later did I start to really appreciate quality sleep and then it wasn't until I heard this and I wish I remember who said this first but it was kind of like an aha moment for even somebody like me who's a trainer and who should know better is that,
Starting point is 00:34:16 we put all of this effort into starting our day off, so we have such a great day and that you're productive throughout the day and you have this, everyone has a morning routine. Whether you think you do or not, you do. Whatever you do, every single morning is your routine. And most people at the bare minimum have the go-to-the-bathroom, brush your teeth, shower, you know, get your-
Starting point is 00:34:35 We're not talking about that. Yeah, I have a cup of coffee. I mean, but you have a routine that you do every single morning to set the tone for your day. And some people even more extensive. And then you ask the majority of people, what does your night look like? And most people, well, you know, sometimes this,
Starting point is 00:34:49 sometimes that around this or. I mean, I just close my eyes, try to go to sleep. Yeah, there is no effort put towards maybe some of the most important time of the day. When you talk about recovery and energy and building muscle, longevity, overall health, mood, all the things that sleep impacts, you can make the case that eight hours right there is probably the most important eight hours day yet.
Starting point is 00:35:15 There's no effort whatsoever that's put around that. So a great place to start somebody and what I began doing with clients is just asking that, like, what is your sleep routine? Nine times at a that attend getting a, don't really have one. Well, let's build one. And then that's kind of how you start with this. And you know, it can start off very basic
Starting point is 00:35:32 to get in some good habits that you both alluded to the television and phone. I think that's the easiest thing that I'd always tell clients to do first is like, okay, let before I build this huge routine for you, let's first just get rid of what I think are some of the worst habits, which is laying in your bed,
Starting point is 00:35:47 staring at a screen because you're basically telling the brain it's daytime when it's 11 o'clock at night in your bed. So let's agree that one hour before you lay down, there's no more screen time, no television, and start there, and then you start to build, and what you find is the more healthy habits that you build around the evening to help you get better sleep, the better sleep you get, and then the better all those other things are.
Starting point is 00:36:11 And so this is something took me a long time, but then has become probably one of the top five staple ones that I address when talking about. Yeah, and figuring out things like you'd mentioned in terms of being like overheated and sweating in that wake, and you have like, there's beautiful technology out there now that exists to be able to cool you and keep your temperature
Starting point is 00:36:29 pretty much controlled at night. And these are products that are game changing for a lot of people, just like finding out, you have sleep apnea. So to go through that process and figure out what it is that's really like preventing you from quality sleep. So a dire importance. Yeah, so this next one I noticed quite a bit, especially with my kids since they were not able to go to school during the pandemic, because they did their school at home on their
Starting point is 00:36:56 computers. Therefore they stayed in their rooms all day long until I got home. And I noticed that they were just starting to look more and more like the walking dead. Like I'd come in and I'd see my kid and I'd be like, man, you look like Neo from the matrix before he wakes up, you know, that real pale. And so I started just, every day I would come home and like, we're going for one hour walk no matter what going outside and they would him and hot. I don't want to. And we go outside and within 20, 30 minutes, their moods would totally change. So one of the problems might be that you're just indoors too much
Starting point is 00:37:27 You just never outside going outside makes a huge it was so much energy you get just from the sunlight Or just from being outside and getting fresh air we notice it here We're in a studio when we're recording the podcast But and there's many times where in between podcasts we're like like, we need to go for a walk, even if it's only 20 minutes to squat outside. Man, we come back inside and we're invigorated. It's total different energy. Well, I would say that this is, for sure, one of the ones that we all are hard on ourselves about or we would agree that if there's of these 15 we're going through, where do we slip
Starting point is 00:38:00 up the most, I would say here because we do have this job that we're in this cave where we work. And so it's very easy that we can get stuck in here all day long. And so this is one that I'm always having to remind myself to get out there and get out. And I always notice, I know it's a different immediately. That's why this one's easy for me to show clients the difference. It's pretty obvious if you're somebody who sits
Starting point is 00:38:25 in a desk under fluorescent lights all day long, take that same person and give them a day at the beach for a day and then ask them how the hell they feel a day. It's like you night and day different. So you can feel it immediately. It's just you have to be conscious of the fact that you may not be getting it on a real or basis and then you have to make that effort.
Starting point is 00:38:44 Otherwise you could string, I mean, I could string weeks together. Without seeing the sun. Yeah, without almost seeing the sun getting to work so early, it's barely coming up and you're in your car and then you go straight to a building and then you stay here all night and then before you know, you go like, oh, shit, it's been like a week since I actually speaking to the beach. I mean, just going there and getting that kind of sun exposure and how your body just, it just absorbs and craves that type of stimulus.
Starting point is 00:39:09 And what that does, too, later on for the night, like some of the best sleep I have ever had is after I've been able to kind of introduce more sun, again, when I've been deprived of sun. It's really interesting. Yeah, you know, it's funny, evolutionarily speaking, if you spent as much time indoors for most of human history as we tend to do now, it's because you were sick. Humans never spent this much.
Starting point is 00:39:33 We, if you were in a cave, 90% of the time, it's because you were sick and you were away from the rest of the tribe because you had some weird disease or you're about to die. So our bodies almost read it the same way. I'm inside all day long, no sun exposure, no fresh air, and my body's receiving the signal that's almost like,
Starting point is 00:39:49 I'm sick, I guess I'm not well, and you feel that. Well, there's a healing aspect to it, and this is something I talked to Courtney about. She's a nurse and with sick kids would make a point to take them outside and move them outside and get them some sun. It was like really important for their recovery process. Well, have you ever felt that loop before that you're describing?
Starting point is 00:40:09 I mean, I was just sick not that long ago and I felt this, right? Where you feel terrible. So you lay in bed all day and it's dark and you just feel worse and worse and worse. And then I know I got to get out and so I'll drag my ass out to my back yard, sit in there and just absorb something like instantly feel better. I know. So it's like this the sun and like instantly feel better. I know. I know. So it's like this loop that you don't feel good. You tell yourself you're not feeling good.
Starting point is 00:40:29 All the signs you're around in this dark room, it's just telling you not you're not getting better anytime soon, but simply dragging your ass outside and getting the sun immediately. You can feel it. Oh, yeah. And if you work on a computer, take your laptop outside. That's all right. You can look and work outside and get some of the benefits of being outdoors without having to stop what you're doing. Alright, so this next one is really interesting because over the last year, my wife has almost eliminated social media. So she's taken herself off of social media for the most part, and the improvement of her in terms of her health, her mental health. She tells me she's way less stress, way less anxious, it's been tremendous.
Starting point is 00:41:08 Social media, although it's a valuable tool, and a way you can communicate to people. Man, if you spend a lot of time on social media, you're gonna feel like shit, because you're either A, comparing yourself to everybody's highlight reel, or B, you're getting targeted with trigger type articles that are guaranteed to do that. You're arguing all day long. or B, you're getting targeted with trigger type articles that are guaranteed to do the arguing.
Starting point is 00:41:25 All day long for no reason with somebody that may not even be a real person, but they've obviously got you, you got it under your skin, got you going and you're very much like engage and that follows you throughout the rest of your day which affects your mood and the way you interact with other people.
Starting point is 00:41:42 I mean, it's definitely something you need to check. So go on social media with intention. So tell yourself, I'm gonna go on for 30 minutes to just, you know, scroll, or I'm going on for 30 minutes to learn something, or to write something, and that's it. The whole like wasting time on social media makes you feel like shit, in fact,
Starting point is 00:41:58 I know psychologists today, a lot of them now, are recommending to people, reduce their time on social media, to reduce people's anxiety. Yeah. I think this is a conversation that I was not used to having as a trainer and I had it more now as a podcaster than I ever. It wasn't a thing. Yeah, it wasn't a thing at all.
Starting point is 00:42:15 And I do see how important it is to have, if you're a coach and a trainer today and you help clients out, I think this should be in your top three for sure because I think almost everybody is on social media. And what happens with clients when they set these goals, and I don't know, client, I'm sure you guys have heard people that are signing up with training today, almost all of them will reference like an Instagram person is like what they want to look like.
Starting point is 00:42:42 Like when I look at my niece and I look at, they have goals, when they want to look like. Like when I look at my niece and I look at, they have goals. They, when they talk to me about their goals, they refer to another person on Instagram or on Facebook. Like, oh, I want to look like her. I want, and that is such a terrible place to start. I mean, you shouldn't even, you shouldn't ever go there. You definitely shouldn't start there.
Starting point is 00:43:00 It's like, oh, I have this goal in mind. And you're already comparing yourself to this other person who, again, like Sal oh, I have this goal in mind and you're already comparing yourself to this other person who again, like Sal said, presenting a highlight reel of their life. Like, one, who knows if it's even real, two, that's a terrible place, psychologically, to be, to be constantly comparing yourself to other people. So I feel like if you're feeling down, you don't feel good or you have your anxious or whatever, one of the first things that I would tell someone today would be to, I would go ahead and go through their Instagram
Starting point is 00:43:28 and say, let's get rid of all this bullshit you're following. Yeah, I think definitely that, the comparison part of that, but also like, what is your input? Like, what are you taking in and consuming and reading and allowing within your day? And so like social media, like you're gonna get a lot in a short amount of time in terms of your feed and what kind of people are you following? Are they positive? Is
Starting point is 00:43:48 it all negative doom and gloom? Like what are you bringing in psychologically that you're gonna carry with you throughout the rest of the day? Yeah, here's another one. You just might be surrounded by shitty people or your friends, your friends might just suck. I remember reading, remember, it was like three years ago that I brought up the study that blew all of our minds. It was a Stanford study, and it showed that having bad relationships in your life was as bad for you as smoking, I think,
Starting point is 00:44:14 a packet cigarette's every single day. There was a lot, I think it was even more known. Yeah, that's how bad it is for your health. Now, you might be thinking, well, what do you mean? How do I know that my friends suck? Or a lot of people don't know that. Or they're the sucky friend. Yeah, well, maybe you.
Starting point is 00:44:28 You're, no. Here's a litmus test. Good friends celebrate your victories. They're more excited about good things that happen to you than you are, and they also mourn your losses. So if you have friends that you bring like good news, oh my God, I just got promoted, and they kind of come off a little negative or a little bit critical
Starting point is 00:44:47 Like well, yeah, probably not a good friend or if you have something bad happen to you and your friend kind of doesn't care or doesn't really come to Your to help you or show that they're sad along with you That's probably not a good friend and this mean, and I've done this in my life, actually several times, that you need to prune certain people off your life. There may be some friends that you just slowly start to ghost and start over and find better people because you tend to become kind of the average
Starting point is 00:45:16 of the people you surround yourself with. Are your friends growth-minded? Are they doing things that you aspire to do? Are they motivating things that you aspire to do? Are they motivating and showing you, how to live a certain way that you really admire? And just those things, you wanna be able to surround yourself with people that elevate you,
Starting point is 00:45:35 but also our examples of different aspects of life that you can incorporate within yourself. And so to find different groups of friends really hard because it's comfortable to be around the ones that have sort of stayed the same and it's very predictable and obvious. But is that going to be good for you long term? Something you have to kind of deal with and really address. Well, I don't know who coined the, you're the average of the five people you hang out the most with.
Starting point is 00:46:04 I believe that. And I think it was referring originally to like financial health, right? Like you know, if you took what your four best friends' incomes are like you typically into blending an average of those four What do I thought they say and I think that's where the origin of it? I think but I really do believe that it applies to all aspects like you're just your average if they're of their They're how positive they are, how growth-minded they are, how physically fit they are, you know, you really are like an average of your five. Because that's your circle who you compare yourself to,
Starting point is 00:46:33 whether you believe you are or not, you're doing that. And that means if you change them, your average changes. Yes. How many times have you done that? And how many times have you noticed you wanna improve something your life, look at the, you know, maybe there's a few friends that you have, you're like, man, they do not support.
Starting point is 00:46:47 Like, maybe your friends like to drink a lot and you're thinking, I want to improve my health. And so you say, you know, we only really connect over alcohol, I'm going to kind of stop hanging around with them and I'm going to start hanging out with maybe more health oriented people. And then that changes your average and brings you up to a completely different one.
Starting point is 00:47:02 Well, and a lot of times, that's, who's the client that I get that's guilty of this, they're the best one of the five, and the other four are bringing them down. And there's a part of us that get attracted to that. It feels good. It feels good to look at your peers and go, oh, I'm kind of winning.
Starting point is 00:47:16 You know what I'm saying? Sal doesn't have a job, Justin's really fat. You know, I feel like I'm doing things. You know, I'm killing it. I have a job, I'm not so fat. You know what I'm saying? I feel pretty good about myself. But put yourself in a room.
Starting point is 00:47:29 Adam's a hoarder. Yeah, that's crazy. Put yourself in a room where now you're the bottom of that five and what it will naturally do is bring your average up. And so this is definitely, especially when I'm talking to younger kids or my nieces or nephews that are in their 20s, like this, I think this was some of the best advice that was given to me. Took me a long time to be comfortable with letting go
Starting point is 00:47:50 or moving on with relationships that I was attached to for a long time, but 100% elevated my game. Yeah, this next one is actually becoming a bigger deal these days, and that's that you feel like you have no purpose. You know what this reminds me of? Fight Club, remember the movie Fight Club? Where not Brad Pitt, who's the other guy? What's his name?
Starting point is 00:48:09 That actually were Norton. Edward Norton, remember his character initially? He'd get up, go to work, do the same thing. And he was taking care of himself. He was earning a living. But obviously, you could tell, he felt like he had no purpose. Like he was just floating along. This is much more common these days
Starting point is 00:48:26 because of all the distractions that we have. There's so much entertainment. There's so many things that we can do. We're very comfortable. Luckily, societies become quite wealthy. So for the most part, people got kind of what they need. And they feel like something's missing. I have no purpose.
Starting point is 00:48:41 And by the way, purpose tends to come with challenge. This is a no. I've had friends no joke and this is You know shout out to people in the military I've had friends who felt like this so strongly in high school that they went and enjoying the military because they felt like it Would give them purpose and many of them it did many of them they came back and they said it was life-changing because it gave them a Sense of purpose and of course there's many different ways to do this. But if you lack purpose in your life, you can have all the stuff that you need, but you feel like you're just floating around in the wind.
Starting point is 00:49:13 And that doesn't feel good. And I think that community is a big piece to that. It's a big component. And I think that people might think that they're part of a community based off of who they interact with occasionally or they have communities online where they might have this type of communication between other people, but really to find that community that you feel like you're part of something that's greater than yourself and you're giving a lot of yourself to it is something to really
Starting point is 00:49:40 consider and really find that opportunity to serve and to do something outside of just your own needs. I think if people could work more in that direction, a lot of times purpose reveals itself. Yeah, volunteer work is a great way to do that. Yeah, I'm not going to try and because I think this is a hard one. It's a hard one to tell somebody, right? So I know that it's important. I know that a lot of people lack this and I feel like it's growing, how many people lack this. But I also know there's important. I know that a lot of people lack this, and I feel like it's growing. How many people lack this. But I also know there's such a huge individual variance with this looks like.
Starting point is 00:50:11 I will give you some books though that I think that are really good. The ones that come to mind right away are start with why, the purpose-driven life, and then the alchemist. I think those three books, if you are somebody right now who's listening and you're like, oh, this is me, I just don't really have the drive or feel like I have any purpose and I'm kind of waffling around, like what should I do?
Starting point is 00:50:32 Like read those books. I mean, I think that will help, it can help maybe guide you in the direction that what your purpose looks like because it is very different for every person and you have to figure that out for yourself. The next one is connected to it, which is you don't take any responsibility.
Starting point is 00:50:47 You don't take any responsibility for the circumstances of your life. It's easy to sit down and say, wow, life sucks because all these uncontrollable circumstances I only had one parent or I grew up poor or this terrible thing happened to me. There was this accident that happened that I was at, you know, I didn't control. And although all those things probably impacted, or had very strong impacts on where you're at, because you can't control them,
Starting point is 00:51:15 you're just, you're leaving yourself to the whims of the uncontrollable, rather than taking responsibility and saying, what am I responsible for? And what can I do about those particular things that I'm responsible for? It's also just not taking responsibility in life. You know, years ago I had this kid that I trained.
Starting point is 00:51:32 I trained this couple, and then they brought me their son, and he was a bit of a troubled youth. They were quite wealthy, successful. He was a smart kid, but he was starting to have some trouble with drugs and he, you know, some certain issues. So they signed them up for one of those like camps for troubled youth and what the camp did with this kid is they actually put They actually made him a squad leader and he was responsible for all these other kids and getting their you know Breakfast set up and make sure they set up camp the fact that he had responsibility over these other kids made him rise to the occasion.
Starting point is 00:52:06 In fact, when he came back from this, what he told me said, you know, the changing, the thing that really made a big difference for me was I actually had a responsibility. And it made me rise to the occasion. So oftentimes, and Arthur Brooks talks about this, it's a key to happiness. You have to be responsible for stuff.
Starting point is 00:52:20 You have to take responsibility. Yeah, this reminds me of an image. You know, used to be in one of the offices that I worked in. I don't remember which one. Just remember seeing the image. And you talking about this right now made me Google it real quick. And that was an accountability ladder. I don't know if you've ever seen the image of that.
Starting point is 00:52:35 Not a long time, see. Yeah, so it's an eight step ladder. And the first four steps represent victim behaviors and basically being powerless. And then the top four, when you start moving your way up, up the ladder is where accountability, behaviors, and powerful becomes. And so the very first wrong, the very bottom of it
Starting point is 00:52:52 is unaware and unconscious. It's like you've no clue that you have no clue, right? And then the very first step up from there is you blame others. Okay, you're aware of shit's going wrong and it's all bad, but you point the finger and blame others. And then the second one is you make personal excuses. I'll tell everybody else this fault and it's like, oh, life is so hard for me. The third one is I can't.
Starting point is 00:53:10 I just can't do it. It's as impossible for me to do this. And then the last one on the victim is the the wait and hope. Like, okay, I recognize I have things that are hard, but it's going to get better. I'll just wait for it. I'll have faith. I'll have faith that it'll end up working out down the road. It's not until you get to the next wrong where you start to move into accountability
Starting point is 00:53:27 That's acknowledging reality like this is waking the fuck up the owning your situation And second one that the next wrong up is embracing it realizing like okay. I'm in this situation. What do I do here? Next one is finding that solution and then the last one is making it happen. So I still love that That's a great. I haven't seen that a long time. It's so good. Right, so powerful. And I think we, a lot of people tend to find themselves in that lower portion where they're powerless.
Starting point is 00:53:53 Totally. And they, they're really not gonna see much advancement or feeling better in life until they sort to make their way at that. Yeah, it's hard to face adversity a lot of, a lot of times like that. And realize like you're a big component in that. And you know, to be able to acknowledge it, I think,
Starting point is 00:54:08 is a major step in the right direction. You know, this is the key to health and fitness success. This is the absolute key. In fact, what you'll find, this is one of the things I love most about fitness is if you stick to it long enough, it makes you feel empowered because, in order to get fit and to stay fit, you have to take responsibility.
Starting point is 00:54:26 You can't say it's my genetics. It's the way I was brought up. It's my bone structure. You know, my parents were overweight. My parents are an athlete. At some point you stick to a long enough, you say, okay, all those things are true. So what? This is what I can do about it. Here's what I can do about it. I can work out this way. I can eat this way. I can be consistent. It Now what? Here's what I can do about it. I can work out this way. I can eat this way. I can be consistent. It's a part of fitness success is taking responsibility, owning what you can own and forgetting the stuff that you can't own.
Starting point is 00:54:55 The next one, this is one for people who, when they get in a kind of a motivated state, they tend to wanna do like 15 things at one time and that's that they lack focus, right? Maybe you lack focus. Maybe you think you want to make yourself feel better so you do 85 different things all at once. You often times I would see this in fitness
Starting point is 00:55:12 where a new client would hire me. This is someone who doesn't eat right, doesn't sleep good, doesn't work out. And they come to me like, I want to hire you, I want to work out six days a week, I want to meal plan so I can eat perfectly every single day. And when I do like 15 different things, it never works because it's not sustainable.
Starting point is 00:55:27 Focus on one thing, do it really, really well until it becomes a habit. Then you can move on to the next one. Or you can advance that client to listen to you, right? And everything is going really well. And we've reduced a lot of the activities and a lot of the things that they used to be a part of. But, you know, inevitably,, the results aren't enough. It just seems like they're drawn back into
Starting point is 00:55:48 bringing in some more of those chaotic components. And I've found a lot of battles between clients where it's like, okay, but I also wanna do plows and I also wanna do the yoga class and I also wanna go running on the weekend. And I wanna do this. And look, everything is working right now. Let's not mess this up.
Starting point is 00:56:05 And you know, and this is something I have found myself guilty of doing as well. Like when things are going so well, but we also are just like drawn to like adding these chaotic components back in. This is a common one in business, by the way, where you have a business and it starts to succeed and you have one thing that you do good.
Starting point is 00:56:20 And so then you end up wanting to do 25 different things. Yeah, instead of that one thing, it's a big problem. I think Mark Randolph, in fact, he touched on it in our recent interview with him. Yeah, you got to, you got to trust the process. And this reminds me to the, the quote, you know, how you do anything is how you do everything. And it reminds me of people that can't stick to one thing very long. They're always wanting to try something new and, and lack that ability to just follow through on something
Starting point is 00:56:45 and just trust the entire process. They're always trying to add more or do more. Very tough to measure. What are you doing that has success when you're constantly throwing the whole kitchen sink at it? Many times with clients, I'd have to have this conversation of, okay, listen, this is all we're focusing on. I know you want to do this.
Starting point is 00:57:02 You want to do that. You want to do all those things. Let's hit this out the park. Let's be consistent with it. Then we'll build upon this. So a lot of times the people that are not feeling well, it's because it's just you're throwing too much at the body at one time and you're not focusing on one or two things that will really move the knee. Yes. Now here's the last one and I feel like this one is a big one of these days. And that's that you probably need to lighten up a little bit. Humor, laughter, they probably exist in humans. And the reason why we laugh audibly, probably exist in humans,
Starting point is 00:57:32 precisely to break tension and relieve stress and to let others or people around you feel that break intention and that break and stress. I can think of many situations that I've been in that were very stressful and very terrible and what allowed me to kind of get through was a little bit of humor, that little bit of laughter. And now it doesn't change the situation, but it definitely changes how I feel for a second and it makes a big difference.
Starting point is 00:57:56 It's funny because you guys know on my Instagram I've been reported a few times on my memes because people get offended or whatever. And this would have happened 20 years ago. People would have either liked it or just not watched. But nowadays people seem to be not just easily offended, but ready to be offended. What can I possibly be offended by?
Starting point is 00:58:14 And it's because they're just not, they need to lighten up a little bit, like okay, it's okay, like don't take things so damn seriously. Because serious is good when you wanna be focused and accomplish certain things, but being serious all the time, that's stressful. That doesn't feel good. You need to lighten up and relax about things sometimes, you know? Yeah, this has been one of those go-to's for me when I'm in a really challenging situation.
Starting point is 00:58:38 I mean, even physically challenging where I've been under the most extreme stress or like football camp or something where I just, I feel overwhelmed and I have to really just turn that mindset and have fun, have fun with it and work my way through it and it helps so much. The mentality of that will carry you so much further. And like there's studies right with the POWs about they've been able to get through like insanely grueling situations where they pretty much, if their mentality was basically like any different, they would have died
Starting point is 00:59:18 a long time ago, but just because that they were stayed positive and that kept their mind in that direction, they were able to make it through. Part of what comes to mind for me when I think of lighten up or have joy or laughter is also learned to be present, because part of what causes us to be tense and have anxiety, you're stuck in the future of the past aren't you? Exactly. You're constantly in the future or you're constantly in the past. You're constantly thinking about all the bad things that have happened to you or you're constantly stressing about what may come versus literally being in the moment,
Starting point is 00:59:50 being happy with the breath that you have right now, the day that you have, the freedom that you have, and like being content and happy with your current situation. It doesn't mean you can't have goals that you're pursuing, it doesn't mean you can't have things that you aspire to be or whatever. You can still do that, but also make sure you take those moments to become present and where you're currently at today.
Starting point is 01:00:12 That's what comes in mind when I think of light enough. Somebody who was tensed up, stressed, angry, frustrated, not feeling well, all those things you want, many times they're not in the moment. They're worried about what's to come, or they're still hurting from what happened in the past. Yeah, I can't help but think of the example you brought up with people trying to change the world and like so serious and so intense about that.
Starting point is 01:00:33 But that same intensity towards acknowledging like all the good things that are going on in life and around them and to have these affirmations and be like frequently addressing that and bringing that up, their mentality, I just, it would do wonders for that individual, and it would actually then spawn off to more positive things around them.
Starting point is 01:00:55 Yeah, you know, studies show that laughter, and joking, and fun, speeds up healing, you know that? They actually, they'll do this in hospitals oftentimes, or they'll bring in people to have entertainment or to make jokes, especially in children's hospitals. Why? Because it shows, studies show that it speeds up the recovery process.
Starting point is 01:01:15 Like, this is a very important part of health. And if you find yourself taking everything so damn seriously all the time, that might just be why you're not feeling so good. You know, lighten up a little bit and have some fun. Look, if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com, check out our free stuff. We've got lots of free stuff for our viewers that are exclusive just for you. Again, it's MindPumpFree.com. You can also find all of us on Instagram, so you can find Justin at MindPump, Justin, me at MindPump, Sal and Adam at MindPump. Adam.
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