Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Chris Duffin on Life Lessons Learned Going From Homeless to World-Class Powerlifter

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

Many people have had rough childhoods thanks to stuff like oppressive parents, grinding poverty, and mental and physical roadblocks, but few have experienced what Chris Duffin has. First, he grew up in the wilderness. Not metaphorically, but literally. As a child, Chris and his family were vagabonds who wandered the California countryside, essentially living off the land. As you can imagine, this didn’t exactly put Chris on the fast track to success, academic or otherwise, yet today, he’s an MBA with a successful career as a corporate executive as well as a top-tier powerlifter who has deadlifted 1,000 pounds . . . for reps. Chris also has also created a popular coaching and education brand called Kabuki Strength as well as innovative strength training equipment including the Transformer Bar, Duffalo Bar, Kadillac Bar, and Trap Bar HD. And as if all that weren’t enough, Chris recently released a book called The Eagle and the Dragon, and in this interview, we’re going to talk about all the aforementioned, including some of the key lessons Chris has learned about parenting, leadership, and reinventing yourself for a better life. 6:24 - What is your background story? 25:30 - How did your background affect who you are now? 33:41 - What values mean the most to you? 40:29 - What are some lessons you’ve learned from leadership? 59:36 - What fears are you chasing now? --- Mentioned on The Show: Chris's New Book (The Eagle And The Dragon) https://christopherduffin.com/ Chris's Website: https://kabukistrength.net/ Chris's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mad_scientist_duffin/ Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my bestselling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and outside of the gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores. Again, that's Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime,

like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning, more interesting, entertaining, and productive. meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audio books for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash Audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E, and sign up for your account. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Muscle for Life. I am Mike Matthews and many people have had rough childhoods thanks to stuff like oppressive parents, grinding poverty, mental and physical roadblocks, but few have experienced what Chris Duffin has. First, this is a dude who grew up in the wilderness. And I'm saying that literally, not metaphorically. As a child, Chris and his family

were vagabonds who were wandering the California countryside, essentially living off the land. As you can imagine, that didn't exactly put Chris on the fast track to success, academic or otherwise. Yet today, he's an MBA with a successful career as a corporate executive, as well as a top tier powerlifter who has deadlifted 1000 pounds for reps. Now, Chris has also created a popular coaching and strength education brand called Kabuki Strength, as well as innovative strength training equipment, including the Transformer Bar, Duffalo Bar, Cadillac Bar, and the Trap Bar HD. And as if all that were not enough, Chris has recently released a book called The Eagle and the Dragon, an autobiography of sorts. In this interview, we're going to talk about all of the aforementioned, including some of the key lessons that Chris has learned about parenting, leadership,

and reinventing yourself for a better life. Here's the interview. Mr. Duffin, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. Looking forward to it. Yeah, same. So I was just telling you before we jumped on here, I've been familiar with you and of course I've heard your name and heard your brand, but as anybody who has been following me for a bit knows, I generally just kind of sit in my corner, sit in my cave and just drone away at work and don't really take much time to get out. And this is the most social activity probably generally in my life is having podcast conversations. So it's fun though, when I get to talk to people like you,

because you're not just a health and fitness guy and that's fine. That only goes so far. And so often, I was just telling you, usually with interviews, I'm picking somebody because I want to talk to them about something specific and we just kind of get right into it. And I figure that a backstory is not really necessary or even interesting because oftentimes people's backstories are not that interesting. I went to school and I learned some things and then I did some things and I got good at some things and now I'm here. And like, yeah, we can just skip. We don't need 10 minutes.

We can just get to like, I'll explain in the intro. You have some bona fides. Let's listen to what you have to say. All right, now tell us some things. But in your case, your story is very unique and you have a book that just came out, which of course tells that story. unique. And you have a book that just came out, which of course tells that story, but then it ties into, and it leads up to what of course you've, you've accomplished with powerlifting and, and business and some of the more specific things that people listening would, I'm sure, love to hear about. So I thought it'd be a good idea to just start with like, what is your story?

Because it's pretty wild. Yeah. And you know, it actually is relevant because it touches on all things strength, but definitely goes outside of just the physical aspects and really kind of explains kind of the fundamental philosophy, not only behind how I operate, but the businesses that I own. And I think understanding that really helps people understand what the intent is. And then there's a better connection that can be made there. But yeah, everybody's got an interesting story to some level, you know, and my story is not better or worse than anybody else. But I've certainly, as I tell it, you'll realize that there's a significant scope that I've seen in my life. And it's allowed me to really have a different look at things and take

the time to reflect and really establish a philosophy that can be employed in a lot of ways. And so I'll just jump into it, try to give the briefest description possible. But this is covered in my book, The Eagle and the Dragon. And the book itself is, it's an autobiography, but it goes much more than that. Every chapter has themes to it that help you explore and ask some deeper questions of yourself. And really at the end, it starts pulling things together in practical manners that you can put together in your life without telling you how to do anything. But really, you know, from that, that internal aspect of understanding your values, how to establish goals and then realizing it. But I grew up homeless. So a lot of people say, oh, I grew up poor or whatever. And you see people that are poor today, but it's just, it's different. You see,

they've got, they still have their smartphone or their gaming console or whatever it is. Like I grew up in a tent or in a condemned home, no electricity, no running water. We're killing animals, foraging for food, learning different mushroom types, running down to the stream to fill up a gallon jug full of water to sit in the sun through the day so that you can dump over your head to bathe yourself kind of poor. It's like third world country poor. Yes. So, you know, like when I was six years old, we were, for example, we were living close to,

there was a bunch of, this is in Northern California wilderness. And we were living in an area where there was a bunch of rattlesnake dens around. So we literally took, you know, beams and tied them up in the trees so that we could put our bedding in the trees so that we wouldn't get bitten by rattlesnakes. And I was taught how to capture and handle live rattlesnakes at six years old. How did this come about? My parents, they weren't dumb people. They were actually highly intelligent. But my mother just never wanted to be a part of society. And she had some things happen to her when she was younger. I kind of touch on those in the book,

but there's some reasons that she would have trouble with authority and just not wanting, she wanted to create her own life outside the bounds of society and the rules. It was a choice. I mean, she had a full ride scholarship to go to school to be a chemical engineer and she chose this life. But a lot of it was, I mentioned Northern California. I mean, they were growing drugs for a living. We're talking living on like five, a family of seven living on $5,000 a year, basically. Not much in the way it means. But during the course of that upbringing, I had the experience of in those environments, you run into all sorts of people. So I dealt with murderers, obviously lots of drug addicts, drug abuse, drug running, dealt with a serial killer, human trafficking ring, just some really, really nasty stuff over the course of that upbringing.

And, you know, there are times we, you know, during the school year, sometimes we'd move closer to town and have a place that may have like electricity or running water or something like that. It was back and forth. So by the time I graduated high school, I had probably lived about half my life being homeless. We got a little bit stabilized when I was in high school. I had probably lived about half my life being homeless. We got a little bit stabilized when I was in high school. So we actually had a mobile home. It was later condemned and burned down by the fire department when we moved out because it was unlivable. But for us, it was fantastic. Like literally- At least there were no rattlesnakes in there, I guess. Exactly. There were sheets hung between all the doors and we had to throw up some plywood to mount a sink to, so we could have a kitchen, you know, but yeah. And it had

running water, had electricity. So it was a nice stable place while I went to high school for me. Anyway, I ended up getting a full ride scholarship myself, go to engineering school. I was also an athlete as well. I was supposed to go wrestle at Oregon State, but I ended up raising my three siblings, three younger sisters, while I finished my engineering degrees. Well, I was working full-time all through college as well because there's no fallback plan in my life. There's no couch to go home and crash on or nobody to call for money or anything like that. Continued to raise them while I got my MBA and pursued my career, which I was pretty successful at. So I worked in the industrial sector, manufacturing, and I did

that. It turned out, even though despite my growing up, I was not the most social person, like moving constantly, having dirty clothes and out of style clothes, maybe smelling bad, all these sorts of things. Let's just say kids are not very nice to each other. And so I didn't have a lot of friends, was a little awkward socially and things like that until I started getting older. So ended up, I was actually pretty skilled on the leadership front and ended up kind of advancing down the executive path to the point where I became known in our area for being able to come in and do a lot of cultural change in companies, be able to completely turn around a division or an entire company. I took an aerospace manufacturing company that was failing, turned them into a world-class performer and got them sold, saved everybody's jobs in the company.

So I worked in aerospace, high-tech, and automotive manufacturing. And so I was sought after for doing that turnaround type work. Over the course of this, I was an athlete, like I mentioned earlier. But I started lifting around 1988 when I was in middle school. I had a pretty physical upbringing anyway. You know, we were out in the mountains, you know, my dad was a lumberjack and I'd help out with that. And then later we got into mining and I would be hauling rocks up and down the sides of mountains and things like that all summer long. I have been training basically almost continuously since 1988. I took a couple year break during college. I ended up, I got into powerlifting around 2000 and then ended up opening my own home gym, I guess, you know, a few years later, because I just wanted everything to be perfect,

right equipment, right people around me. And then that ended up turning into a, on of my executive career, I ended up owning a 9,000 square foot training facility here in Portland with a partner as we just wanted to have an amazing place to train. I got to a point where I was reevaluating my life and decided I was really, I said leadership was kind of my talent. But really the piece that made me good about that is I really loved seeing people accomplish things beyond what they thought was possible. And I was getting really frustrated with what I saw out there in the physical culture world. And so I started just producing content, filming just short pieces in my gym about lectures I'd give to people on movement and training and started posting them on YouTube. About five years ago, I walked away from that high paying career so that I could really do what I feel my life's work is,

which is to help people express their full potential and the physical nature while getting out of pain, not having strength, pursuit of strength being something that was negative in somebody's life until my back was gone, until my knees, until this or that. So we've developed an incredibly unique line of products and educational systems to do that. And to develop that was a pretty unique experience. One of the things I learned in my executive career was making sure that you're not trying to be the smartest person in the room yourself and trying to find the right people. So there was a number of years there where I was basically doing continuing education kind of in the clinical space and networking and developing relationships.

And that's really where kind of our philosophies, principles around movement and our system, our principle-based education system came from. And you can see this. If you go to Kabuki Strength, click on our advisory board, you'll see people that are my friends that I developed during that period, which is like Dr. Stuart McGill, the leading spine biomechanist in the world. Dr. Kelly Starrett, one of the best physical therapists in the world. Sue Falzone, the very first female head strength coach in any professional sports, a couple of the head strength coaches from top professional teams. Gosh, Dr. Philip Snell, Dr. Craig Liebenson, who brought dynamic neuromuscular stabilization to the US, so on.

Like pulling and gelling all this stuff together to really create the content and approach that we have here, which was developed a little bit out of my approach to leadership, I guess, in some aspects. So I kind of rambled a whole bunch of different directions there for you. I'm going to remind you that you forgot to ramble about one thing. It's also what you've achieved yourself in terms of like, you're not just talking about, hey, theoretically, this could help you get strong. Yeah. Yeah. So I always forget this stuff. So yeah. So I'm a pretty known strength athlete. And like I said, you know, we coach with and work with professional and collegiate sports, like all over. We wouldn't believe the number of teams that we actually interact with and work

with. But for myself, yeah. I mean, that's interesting is when you take this stuff, because when I started learning it, it was definitely very clinical based and nobody was telling you how to put this in place. And it took me kind of years to go, okay, what does this really mean when I walk into the gym and what I'm going to do tomorrow? Like if I'm going to teach a seminar over the weekend, I want people to be able to walk in Monday morning, put this to use with themselves and with their clients and just a very simplified approach that makes sense. And I test and validate everything that I do. Every product that we have has been something that we've used for years on the side and so on. And so one of the things is, yeah, proven things work. And so I like to walk the path, walk the walk of what I preach.

And so, yeah, my personal performance, I was ranked number one in the world for like eight years straight as a power lifter, set multiple all-time world records. One of those being a 881-pound squat with only knee wraps in the 220-pound class. I currently hold the Guinness World Record for the sumo deadlift at 1,001 pounds. And I did that at about 265-pound body weight. So there are five other people that have deadlifted a thousand pounds. They use a different style of deadlifting, which for the really heavyweights counter to common knowledge is actually harder to do the sumo because, well, I'm the only person

that's ever done it, but they're all about 380 to 440 pounds. So I'm also the lightest person to have done it in the world by about 140 plus pounds and the only person that ever done it for reps. And then I do a lot of... I retired from power lifting around the same time I started Kabuki Strength. I switched to doing what I call exhibition lifting. So it's feats of strength tied with one of our core values for our company. One of our core tenants is giving back and charity. And so every time I do one of these, it's tied to a charity that we believe in and promoting that and using our platform for that.

I've squatted 800 pounds every single day for 30 days straight. What was that like? It can't be done. I'll tell you that. I know I did it, but there's no way I could go back and like, it's just, that's what we focus on is prehab, rehab, proper movement techniques, you know, all those sorts of things. We've got a soft tissue line of tools and got a website on corrective exercises. I like to call them more skill acquisition than corrective exercise, honestly. But there's no way, it's not just being strong. You can't go down the wrong path. You can't have some issue start developing and not take care of it instantly. Otherwise, the train's going to come crush you. I mean, you got 800 pounds that you're going to squat in a few hours, and then another 800 pounds that you're going to squat 24 hours after that. And it doesn't stop.

So it's a really, really cool thing to demonstrate putting all that stuff together. I did the same thing about a year and a half later with a 400 kilo, 881 pound deadlift I did for 17 days straight. And let me tell you, there is no one in the world that's ever come close to that. I know one of the best deadlifters ever, KK, whatever he calls him, he talks about, or he talked about, he's dead now, how his toughest training year ever was insane that he pulled over 400 kilos 20 times over the course of a year. And I'm like, I did that basically in a couple of weeks. So it gives you a little bit of context. It's close to a world record weight, like just over

and over and over again. And then just other training lifts people like love. Like I, one time I walked in the gym and did a 675 pound deadlift. This is, people often consider this like the best single deadlift set ever filmed. 675 pound deadlift for 20 reps in about 30 seconds. 20 reps in about 30 seconds. So it's just hilarious when you watch it because how much the bar is bending and how much power output is just, it's pretty cool to see. And then I turned right around. I did that sumo and then I did 10 more conventional right after it. I think I could have hit 20 conventional, but I had to go puke. So kind of slowed me down a little bit there. So that's insane. I don't even know. I like it. It puts my training in perspective. It's good. I'm going to remember that next time I'm like, you know, struggling with low 400s or something. And so that's kind of what I've known for it. I want to walk the walk. I get tired of the people that want to talk theory, but I've never actually put things in practice

themselves. And at some point, you know, there's a lot that you learn in the exploration of what the body's capable of and every one of those processes i learned so much over the course of those couple weeks or those couple months like you know in the final phases of chasing the thousand pound deadlift you learn just years maybe even a decade worth of experience. I'm like, how? Because everything is so on edge and you can make such vast differences by minor tweaks and changes. You have visibility of it and you can feel it. I don't know how else to explain it, but it's a dangerous activity pushing yourself that hard. And I have to deal with that. But for me, being able to show people what I'm teaching, that it works at a level that you would never expect.

And then also the learning process for me is absolutely huge. me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my best-selling health and fitness books. My most popular ones are Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical hands-on blueprint for personal transformation, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find them anywhere online where you can buy books like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes & Noble stores.

So again, that is Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and one other thing is you can get any one of those audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account. And that's a great way to make those pockets of downtime, like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning, more interesting, entertaining, and productive. Now, if you want to take Audible up on that offer

and get one of my audio books for free, just go to legionathletics.com slash Audible and sign up for your account. I'm sure your upbringing kind of primed you for being willing to push yourself further than you ever thought you could. You just were exposed to such extremes at a young age is just something that just occurs to me that like you've done a lot of things that most people they might consider in a moment of daydreaming, but would never actually try to do, even if it's just like go and camp where there are a bunch of rattlesnakes. I'm like, nah, I'll just stay home. Thanks. You're doing that when you're six years old. Yeah. It's certainly had an influence on me. Right. And my tolerance for risk

is definitely pretty high, but at the same time, I don't want people to think that you've got to have some crazy life or life experiences to do phenomenal things. And on the converse, it also means that some horrible experiences or other things don't necessarily define who you are. So we must separate environment from self. And this is a really key thing for people to understand. You know, obviously some Sunday afternoon, if you get hit, swiped, swiped by a car and your leg's broken, it's affected you, but that's not who you are. You're not, I'm the guy that got hit by a car with a broken leg. You're defined by

what actions and responses you have to that. Okay. That's what you have control over. And that is who you are. So just like having, you know, a difficult upbringing or, you know, things like you talk to some people and they're like, oh, I'm the person that has the alcoholic parents and that's affected where I am. And this is who I am going forward. It's like, well, yes, you had that, but how you live your life, the actions that you take as it is actually who you are. So for me, yes, I had that upbringing. And honestly, most of the people outside of my three siblings who I had an influence on by pretty close, but a lot of people around me are dead that I grew up with. My other family members, friends, or they're in prison, so on.

Actually, a couple of years ago, I was going through a divorce. I was seeing a psychologist at the time and I started talking about my background. He just looks at me. He's like, I don't understand. And I'm like, what don't you understand? He's like, I don't understand how you're not dead in jail or a drug addict, let alone how you've accomplished all the things that you've accomplished. So for me, it comes down to that. You have to separate yourself from your environment. They're two separate things. And so what that means is you could take it the other way. I could have been a hero 20 years ago and then something catastrophic happens in front of me and I don't respond the way a hero would respond because I've let myself get soft.

We oftentimes think about soft as like physically soft. Like I haven't been to the gym. What happens? The process of atrophy starts. but the same thing happens on a mental or emotional side of things. So we need to keep these challenges and things in our life. We need to take action. We need to continue to pursue being that best version of ourselves. And the only way that we can do that is by adapting to stress and continue to have that in our life to become productive, to stay on top of things. And so there's no, like I said, tying back to the question, how did those things influence me chasing that? Like I said, if we separate those, you don't need to have like this horrible past experience to rely on, to have confidence in yourself or to cue the emotional, like all you've got to do is go, you know, who am I today?

Am I this person that I expect that can pull this stuff off? And if I am, step up to the plate and do it. But there's a process to that. Like we need to, it's just like training. We know that, again, we adapt to stress. So we go into the gym, we lift weights, we come out, we rest. And guess what? We become a stronger, better version of ourselves.

With so much in life today, people are chasing comfort, to be entertained. It's on our devices in front of us. It's on, you know, connect to the TV, wherever it is. And people are not seeking the challenge, seeking those things that scare you in the other avenues. I know I'm in a little bit of a tangent here, but this is a valuable lesson that I think a lot of people miss is chasing that thing that scares you. Your boss comes to a group of people and says, hey, here's this challenge. Who wants to take it on? And you're like, God, I don't know

if I can pull that off. And your gut's turning in a little bit of a wrench and you're like, ah, that's a clear sign. You need to go after that. You're scared of going back to school. Go for it. Like anytime that we actually feel that thing in our gut churning and that's our sign for us to go down the avenue, find that thing and chase it. That's what it's telling you to do.

It's telling you that's the right path to go on because it has to scare you to some level, just like stepping up to a thousand pound barbell to squat it is going to scare you as well. You can't just walk up to a thousand pound barbell, just like you can't walk up to a huge opportunity and not be prepared with all the training that's gone on place to build you to that level. And that's a key point that whether it is squatting a thousand pounds or pulling a thousand pounds, or maybe it is a major business undertaking that entails a lot of risk or a lot of commitment. It's not that, and I think you would agree, I mean, I've never, I haven't done the former, I've done a bit of the latter. It's not that you're not afraid or you don't have doubts or second thoughts. It's just how you respond to them. It's just like what

you're saying, where you just accept that as a natural reaction to whatever it is that you're about to do. You just go and do it anyway. There's no reason to expect that it's ever going to become comfortable. It does become a little bit easier. Again, that's the acclimating to that side of it, but it's a natural thing. You should expect to feel that way. If you don't actually feel that way, that means it's time to move on to something new because it is no longer bringing that challenge for you or there's no excitement for you in chasing it because there needs to be a mixture of excitement and fear. And there is a cost to, like you were saying, mixture of excitement and fear. that and you just become very dissatisfied with whatever it is that we're talking about. If it's just in general in life, then you become very dissatisfied in your life. Or if it's, maybe if we're talking about training, I've been there, get kind of complacent in my training and

not pushing myself as hard as I once was. And then yeah, it just becomes naturally less satisfying, less rewarding. And so you can either pay the price upfront, which you do get an immediate reward though. That's the nice thing. Like if you do whatever it is that you are afraid of doing, or if you push through, even if it's just raw effort, it just takes grit and you just have to kind of grind through whatever it is that you need to get through. Then you come out the other end and there's an immediate reward, an emotional reward. And then depending on what it is, there might be also that reward might pay dividends for

some period of time. If it's, let's say in business, if it's getting out some new product or, you know, I've written a number of books, if it's finally finishing a book and getting it out there, there's the immediate of like, Hey, I did that. That's cool. And then who knows that book might go on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies. And so the reward keeps paying. Whereas on the other hand, you can choose the instant gratification of comfort, but then that's the highest it's going to get because it only goes downhill from there and you just become more and more dissatisfied. And it's not just, again, I can't tell people how to live and tell you what your values are.

But for me and the people that I speak to, trying to become a better version of yourself, continuing to challenge yourself is who I'm speaking to. And take that in mind because a lot of times we're talking to athletes and they get those concepts automatically. If I don't train, what's going to happen? I'm going to start the process of atrophy. If I continue, that is going to lead towards death. It's the opposite of living. The only way to live is to grow and adapt. That's how we stay vital. If we apply those same things to our emotional and mental health, we think about that. It's the

same thing. It's basically the process of dying if you're not challenging yourself. You're no longer growing and adapting. You're no longer living. I'm pushing that argument there a little bit, you know, maybe for me, I'm not. And that's where the book is kind of focused on is all those aspects of strength where Kabuki strength and the other things I'm involved with are all focused on the physical nature of strength. And so this is my chance to kind of dive into those other realms and apply that. It goes beyond just philosophy in the book, obviously. There's a lot of practical stuff in there and how to put that into place and affect. It ends up affecting all aspects of your life if you're dissatisfied. Think about the person that works the job Monday through Friday just to get through to the weekend, right?

And oftentimes that same person is disengaged with their significant other, with their kids, they're waiting until they're not living anymore. It's just like, what can I do to get by? Yeah. I mean, I tend to agree just because that's how I'm wired, I guess. In the book Principles by Ray Dalio, I think of something he said in there that basically you have some people who want to get out there and change the world and they want to achieve big things.

And you have other people who just kind of want to be in harmony and want to savor life. And neither one maybe then act accordingly because those, you can't have both. You can't have an easy, harmonious life that you can just savor and have great achievements and make a big difference. It just takes too much fucking work and too much time. And you have to do too many things that you don't want to do, but you do them anyway. Again, it's a matter of, I'm sure that'd be a true tangent, but I'm sure you could look at it in a more macro sense where society probably needs a balance. If everyone were strong type A, always wanting to remold the world in their own image or according to their will, it would be pretty chaotic. I think it would be like a G.I. Joe cartoon or something.

That'd be... So there's probably something to be like a GI Joe cartoon or something. That would be, so there's probably something to be said for that. It's not a matter of one type of person being better than the other, but it's what is really, I don't know what's calling you. If it is just like, and we've all known people that are totally the harmony and savor type of people. I have good friends that are just that way. Now, of course, they've worked and they've accomplished things. They didn't just sit around and collect welfare checks and jerk off to porn all day. But they never were all that driven to make much of a difference or make a bunch of money. They wanted to work and do a good job and be proud of their work, but make enough money to just provide for their family and live a nice life, but not so much that they couldn't live a nice life and they couldn't have a vibrant social life

and have hobbies that they enjoy. So, you know, I totally understand the allure of that. It's just, I know for me, at least right now, I would be bored. I actually just wouldn't enjoy it. And that's just how I am. And that's the thing that I see as the big gap today is a lot of people don't really come to terms with what their values are, how they want to live. And that's like, people see all the things I do, and then they'll come to me like, what's your time management? Oh my God, it must be amazing. What tools are you using? And I'm like, that's not where you start. Well, how about goal setting? I'm like, that's not where you start. You have to start with what are your values and how you want to live life. Fundamentally, you can't even start the process of like establishing goals. And like, we see this,

like people like, oh, what's your bucket list? What's your goal? You know, like, and it's like, well, that's three steps into the process. And because if you don't understand this and you start chasing a path, you could end up having a vastly different life that doesn't satisfy the goals or doesn't satisfy the way that you actually really want to live and elicit joy in life and how you want to impact the world, the people around you, whatever it is that is, again, your driver within your values. And what are your values? What are the things that mean the most to you? The things that mean the most to me, one is my family. So having the time to spend with them.

And this was one of the big drivers for me in making the shift. So a lot of entrepreneurs jump in and they're working a massive amount of hours. My goal up front was to create space and time in my life, to have the time to travel, to be with my family and my kids as they're getting, I've got three children, getting older, getting involved with sports, but to also provide an example to them, an example of that they can have the life that they want by me demonstrating it, by walking the walk of molding my life and living it exactly the way that I want to live. A lot of parents have become 100% dedicated to just providing for their kids. And they take

a step back from being themselves. And to me, that's doing your kids a disservice. You need to show them through example. And a lot of that, really what it results in is, what do they call it? Snowplow parenting, where they just end up trying to remove all the obstacles and all the struggle. We could spend hours talking about that. Yeah. To the point of savor versus strive, I think we both agree that one is not necessarily quote unquote better than the other, but, and this kind of ties into everything you've

been saying, being strong is better than being weak. No matter what you want to do, what kind of path you want to take in your life, there are going to be obstacles. There are going to be things that are going to require some grit. And so being stronger is always going to, even if it's going to maybe help you be an even better liver of a relaxed life, if you have that strength that you can tap into when you need it. And the only way to get there is struggle. So if you start at a young age and you're trying to make things as easy as possible for your kids, I think you're doing them a big disservice. Absolutely. A hundred percent on board with that. And that's exactly what I was trying to say. And that's why I use actually the terminology quite a bit, resilience to stress or resilience instead of strength, because that's what we're trying to

strength. Sometimes people think is like this overpowering thing or this very masculine energy where it's really our resilience against those things that could cause us damage in our life or to against stress. To be able to bounce back, kind of like the anti-fragile concept where you come back even stronger. I mean, just quite honestly, I want to leave a legacy and a mark in the world that makes the world better for me having been here. And for me, that's teaching the aspects, our principles around strength, creating the tools and things, getting people out of pain and having them realize their full physical potential

because it has a huge impact on all the other factors if you're not. Arguably, mental and emotional strength are much more powerful than physical. But if we're not expressing ourselves physically or that we're being held back from living in that physical life the way that we want because of pain or struggles, it's going to affect those other areas. And so I want to be able to teach and provide the tools to help people and to drive change in that manner. I want to leave the to teach and provide the tools to help people and to drive change in that manner. I want to leave the people that I interact with, the people that have been through the years. I went to an old company I used to manage. I went over there yesterday.

It's been about six years since I've been there. And I went with my engineering manager now. there. And I went with my engineering manager now and I walk in and like, everybody's just running over, shaking my hand, showing me pictures of their, you know, kids or this or that. And we walk out of there and he's like, man, he's like, either people didn't know you here because they heard afterwards or they just loved you. And I'm like, and it's not that they loved me, but I had an impact. You know, I was pushing them. I was doing things. And that to me, like, is huge when somebody reaches out to me and says, hey, I'm just so thankful that you pushed me. And I ended up going

back to school and I did this and I advanced my career. So having that impact on other people is just a huge, huge driver for me that I was able to help them in some fashion or another. They're the ones that had to execute, but some sort of inspiration, tools, pushing them, whatever that actually had an impact on the course of their life. Yeah, I totally agree. It's always rewarding. That's one of those, there aren't very many pleasurable things that you can just keep going back to without them losing their kick. Sex is one and stuff like this is one too. Every time I get someone writing me, usually it's via email or maybe it's an Instagram DM and saying, hey, maybe they read a book or read articles or listen to podcasts or whatever. And then went and did whatever it is that usually

it's revolving around just getting in shape. But then there are all the ripple effects of that. They just say, this was a year ago, for example, when I started this and here's where I'm at now. And I just want to say, thank you. That's cool. And I'm not, I'm actually not a sentimental person. I'm not prone to much tenderness. I just never have been, but that always, it always warms my slightly frosty heart whenever I get communications like that. Because, you know, part of it, just to clarify that is I look out in the world and there's so much to be cynical about, and there's so much to be pessimistic about, and there's so many things that are so fucking clownish, it blows my mind. And so sometimes it's nice to be reminded that not everyone is broken and tearing apart society. There are lots

of people out there who are good people, who are making their lives better, who are then making the lives of others better, who are a net positive to society. And it's nice to be able to meet a lot of those people via my work and know that by sitting at my computer for who knows how many hours and typing away, I was able to make a difference. It's pretty cool. It is. It's a huge thing.

And like I said, when you have that point where you change the course of someone's life or with the work that you do, that's a driver for me, without a doubt. Talk to me about leadership. What are some of the key lessons you learned as a leader that made you an effective leader? So, you know, some of the stuff that we've talked about so far is we can talk about application of that. So like the chasing fear piece, one thing, like, especially with like cultural change, getting people engaged. If you walk into an organization, a lot of times people just have a job, they're doing what they can do to get by, not get fired, especially in a, an environment that's not successful, right? At the end of the

day, most everybody wants to win as well. I found a lot of success in pushing people into taking on challenges, again, that are on the verge of what they think is possible, but it's a challenge. And having them succeed at that, or not even succeed at it, but the process of being in it returns this engagement, right? at it, but the process of being in it returns this engagement, right? So that is great for getting that individual one-on-one engagement in the business, the process, whatever it is, and also is going to lead to a huge reward on the upside for that individual. Yeah, that's a good point. I would add to that and being encouraging and helpful along the way too, and being understanding and letting people make mistakes and not coming down too hard on them. I'm just speaking personally. The only time where I get like, okay, what the fuck is if mistakes are made due to just negligence or not caring,

then that's different. But if somebody is really trying and really pushing and we all make mistakes, it is what it is. If you've got them engaged and you've got something challenging in front of them, if they've screwed up, you don't have to go do anything. They're beating themselves up so bad that anything that you do is just going to make it worse. Like I said, it's another side of the process there. The other is just like the huge pieces, like creating a vision. So this sounds freaking silly, but like I walk into so many places and this, this is, well, I used to walk into so many places. I was hired because it wasn't successful. Right. So there's

usually some outgoing, you know, executive who's been running around with their hair on fire, working 14 hour days, seven days a week. Right. Just wasn't getting the change that needed. And you go in and it's like, here's all the reports you've got to do. Here's all that. And it's just like this massive amount of busy work. Okay. And I literally, the first thing I do is not do anything. I'm going to circle back to this here in a little bit, the not doing anything part. But second piece is just typing in and understanding what the needs of the business are and then creating, what does that actually look like? What does that look like? What does it feel like? And then it's not the doing this report, doing that, like all the actual busy work. It's things that you can't even measure that drive huge change. And that is going and having conversations one-on-one, not a group meeting,

not getting up in front of the company and going rah, rah, rah, rah, rah that we've all been. And this was a big eye opener early in my career. Cause like I said, I was a little socially awkward, introverted, whatever you want to call it. I didn't see myself as a leader because that's what I saw a leader doing that big rah, rah coaching thing. That wasn't me, but I started seeing change. And that was because I had all these little conversations every day, one after another, going from one employee to the next and just painting the picture for them over and over of what does it look like? What does the company look like? How do we interact?

And then what are the things that are happening? What are the things that are happening in their area? How do they fit in? So this is the big thing is everybody has to understand where you're going, what does it look like, and then how do they fit into that puzzle? You just start this. And over time, you'll just develop this momentum that starts driving everything forward. It's huge as far as what that can accomplish. And it sounds gimmicky. It sounds like something you'll read in a book that you would disregard. But in practice, it's an incredible thing. Now, let's drive back to the not doing anything. Again, I find that a lot of people fill their lives or their work with things

that maybe make them feel like they're accomplishing things. So, you'll literally find or create work so that you're working all the time so that you feel that you've done something. Because sitting out there and, you know, again, having a small conversation here or doing these other things doesn't feel like work, right? But in those types of situations, that's what needs done. Now, the not doing anything is also a very specific process. So it basically is removing everything from a scope of work so that you can truly find out what has to be done. Okay. Because the things that have to get done will keep coming back to you. So you've already done the first step of the process, which is basically eliminate things that don't need to be done. Now things will start coming back in. You're like, oh, this has to get

done. My laundry has got to get done, right? You know, like those things you're not going to get away with not having them done. So the next step is, okay, how do I automate these processes? And this could be company-wide. It could be in your job, whatever it is. But having that and helping people with understanding that as well. Like I'm not paying you to sit here and press this button and enter this report every day. That needs done.

How can we just make it, you know, figure out a process where we just, you know, that happens automatically, right? And then if you can't get done, and this is more of a personal because not everybody can delegate in an organization, right? But then the last phase is, how do I delegate? So it's eliminate, automate, delegate is your process. But you literally have

to start by removing everything to truly understand what needs done and what doesn't need done. And the same thing can be applied to all aspects of your life. And you'll find that we just create this busy a lot of times. Oh, I've got to go do this. I've got to do, you know, like, busy a lot of times. Oh, I've got to go do this. I've got to do, you know, like, and you think you're swamped, but in reality, what are the things that are actually driving you forward? Again, if you don't have a vision and a vision is going to be created off of your values, you're not going to be able to get there. You're not going to be able to actually get things to align. I'm definitely on the leadership stuff here, but we're also kind of veering into a little bit of life philosophy pieces as well. And there's overlap there, right? So I think of like Peter Drucker's stuff, right? Like managing

yourself. I mean, where it starts, you need to be able to, and what I immediately think of is systems. And that's something that I've been big on in my businesses and working with the people who work with me is thinking of a job as a system. And initially it's a very simple system, but we want to be improving the system over time and want to be codifying this system over time so that it requires less and less. Maybe some of it can be automated, but if it can't be automated, you can get close to it with something like a checklist, for example. So if you have a checklist of the things that let's say daily actions, well, that actually frees up a little bit of your attention and your energy to not having to try to remember what things do every day. And so that'd be one example. Or if there's something

where there's, let's say if in the case of automation, right? So let's say there's like manual data entry that's occurring. Okay. Is there a way to automate this? Oh, there is great. Now I, my system just got a little bit more sophisticated and freed up more of my time to go again, work, at least have time to work on the system. And, you know, I've made this mistake. Probably anybody who's ever worked has made the mistake of where you get to a point where 100% of your time is just working in the job. And the job itself, though, the system that is driving it, you have no time to work on that.

And that leads to stagnation. And on a business level, it leads to stagnation. And also on a personal level, if we're talking about career, it leads to stagnation and also on a personal level. And if we're talking about career, at least stagnation, but it also, I'd say in your personal life or outside of work, it's very similar in that, like you said, I mean, it's very easy to fall into these set patterns and these set routines. And often these are paths of least resistance. Often we're faced with some little obstacle, some little problem we have to solve, and we don't think about it very much. We just take the first thing that kind of comes to mind that will work and we just run with it. But what we don't realize is maybe that's a very inefficient way of actually dealing with this issue or accomplishing whatever end we're working

toward. And yet we, then we never though, stop to think like, is there a more efficient way to, is there a better way to do this? Yeah. So, you know, that's something that for anybody listening that if that resonates with you, I recommend two books. One is the E-Myth by Michael Gerber. And it's all about the importance of building systems in a business and that you want a business that has extraordinary systems that can be run by ordinary people, not the other way around. You don't want to have a business with shit systems that requires extraordinary people. And then there's a book called Thinking in Systems that I recently did like a little book review thing on podcasts that I also recommend. But just having that, being able to look at work and I think life through that lens

of systems thinking at least has been very productive for me and has allowed me to keep things moving ahead at a decent rate, I feel, in my business and also other areas of my life. Yes, I agree 100%. And that's been a big focus when I was in that world was putting systems in place. And to tie back on the leadership stuff really quick is you've got to know where the business is going, what the needs are, paint that picture of what it looks like, show people how And to tie back on the leadership stuff really quick is you've got to know where the business is going, what the needs are, paint that picture of what it looks like, show people how they fit in, get them engaged in that process, which you can do through the, what I just said, or also the additional, like putting them in that gap, that place, that fear of

the unknown to get them engaged. And then we didn't dive into, but there's obviously a lot of things when it comes to mentoring people and how you interact in that manner. But those are some of the bigger picture things. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to ask on mentoring. I probably am not a good mentor. I probably am not because I'm the type of person who I don't really like having to manage people very much. I like doing my own work. That's just my personality.

I like sitting here and writing a book more than, even if they're productive meetings, and more than being a manager. Let's just put it that way. And so I'm curious as to your thoughts on, because I'm probably not terrible. Let's just put it that way. And so I'm curious as to your thoughts on, because I'm probably not a terrible, I'm not bad in the way of like where I treat people badly and make unrealistic demands of people and don't provide any help. But by my own estimation, I'm probably like a neutral, not positive or negative influence as far as mentorship goes, even my own businesses. So, you know, for me on mentorship, you know, there's a little bit of distinction between mentorship and managing, right? But this will fall a little bit more in

the management side of things. One thing that is, I found tremendous value in is definitely not ever wearing your emotions on your sleeve. You need to be a very consistent individual so that people, no matter what has happened, they know when they come to you, how you're going to respond. Okay. So if you're a hothead and they've got something that just popped up, they're afraid to come to you because they know you're going to blow up or like, Oh my God, I can't believe you did that. So just never allow anything within the business to affect your emotions so that you become volatile in any manner.

People know exactly how you respond in any situation. This makes it much easier for them to engage with you and comfortable in coming to you with issues. Then as you're dealing with the individual, there's a lot of work around setting expectations and things of that nature. as you're dealing with the individual, there's a lot of work around setting expectations and things of that nature. So be very clear and explicit with your expectations, but not relying on what you've necessarily told them to do. Like I tell you do, but actually working off of commitments. Okay. So getting to a point where you're asking them,

what are they able to do? It's not, I'm your boss, but you're committing to do this. You're giving me your word to saying that you're going to complete this task. And not out of like fear of reprisal or something. No, exactly. Like, so when you come back, you're not meeting the expectations of your job, which gets more into, you're going to have those conversations, but whenever possible, it's more of a person to person, even if it is a manager to employee piece of like, hey, you said that you were going to, it's managing off of the shared relationship that you've developed with them and then what, what they have committed to you.

And so you're queuing off of that. Next place you can go is to expectations, but instead, if you set expectations, you may push the commitment. Can you agree to this? Never, ever going into a space of, Hey, we need to do this because the company policy is this, we need to do this because the company policy is this, or HR says this. You must own everything personally, commitments, expectations, because that's where you get value is from managing from that relationship and that shared trust from that relationship that you have with that individual. If you defer authority anywhere else, you're handing that over, you're losing, like it's just a different thing. And you see people want to do this all the time. Well, you know, I really don't want to do this,

but policy says this, that's not leadership. So, you know, these things help build that relationship. Again, making sure that people are understanding where they're part of the system and stuff like that and working all this in concert, you're going to end up getting a lot better results. Yeah, I totally agree. Those are good points and things that I guess I've been checking those boxes. Maybe I've come across those points and stuff I've read over the years and internalized it, but I don't know. I mean, I've read a bit about leadership, but it has, again, I've just been, I feel like, oh, I've been so focused on just doing my own work, but I have been, I'm not a volatile person in general. So I guess that came pretty easy. I don't get overly emotional, but it takes a lot

to make me actually mad. Like sure, I can get annoyed, but to get me truly mad, you have to really go out of your way. There's probably only a few people who could even do it. Maybe my wife. And I call people closest to me, maybe. You want to have personality. You don't want to be a complete robot, but you need to show command of your emotions. And I feel like you also need to be able to stay upbeat. But authentic. So this is like where a lot of rah-rah managers fail. They're up there, they can give these amazing speeches, but it doesn't come off. When you're having these

one-on-one conversations with people, you need to be authentic with everything that you're doing. And this is why, hey, you want to tell somebody, Hey, when I want you to succeed, I believe that you can pull this project off. They need to believe that and know that you're doing that and know that you're not doing it from a standpoint of you're trying to set them up for getting written up or, you know, something like that, that authenticity. Also, you don't have to go very deep in the saying, saying, Hey, Rob, I'm disappointed that you were not able to meet this deadline and you didn't communicate to me until the last minute. And that literally can be all that's needed where somebody else would be doing a write up in like a disciplinary meeting

or something along that nature. If you develop that wording coming from a friend that you trust Develop that wording coming from a friend that you trust or a figure that you trust can really have a huge impact. So it's really important that you're also an incredibly authentic person that people can connect with. Because when they connect, again, and now we're talking about managing off of individual commitments and shared trust, right? All these things fit together to create that. It's not just this one thing or this one trick, right? Like all these things fit together to create, you know, that it's not just this one thing or this one trick, right? And then that authenticity, when you give a compliment,

I'm not known for giving compliments, you know, it's actually a kind of a failure. I wish I did give more, but people like they'll literally run around and tell everybody, Oh my God, Chris said that da da da da da. Like it da. Everybody knows that it's real. It's not something, and I'll be very, very specific when I do it. I'll tell somebody, hey, that was a good job. And they'll say, hey, thanks. And I said, no, I want you to listen to me. What you did here displayed this, this, and this. And I'm really appreciative. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Like just being really just drawing, like making a point to just draw them into the moment, not this thing in

passing. And all the research, I think it says you got to give like 10 or 11 compliments for every other one for it to be heard. But if you do it in this style, that I think changes that quite a bit. Yeah. I tend to be the same way. I'm just like, yeah, you're, you're speaking my language where I'm not one to give many explicit compliments. I'm also not one though, to give so much criticism that it's out of line or even to, you know, if I have something to say, I'll say it. I do keep it in mind when things stand out to me as like, hey, that was actually, that was, I'm happy with that. That was good. I make a point of saying it.

And maybe it's not as much as some people, and I've read a bit about, just about this. And I'm like, yeah, there's a point where I don't know if I'm that guy to like, just go walk around and give every person I see a compliment. Like, hey, I really like your dog. Hey, I really like your shoes. Hey, I really like your hat. Like, I really like your shoes. Hey, I really like your hat. Like, I just, I don't know. Again, let's get back to authenticity and that rah-rah manager that like looks the part,

but they're not getting the results. It's the same thing. That rah-rah person is running around like, oh, I read this. I got to give compliments all the time. And it doesn't come across as real and people aren't hearing them anymore. Totally.

I think there's also something to be said for setting an example yourself, because there are a few things that people despise more than hypocrites and liars. And so if you are in a leadership position and you are, for example, trying to tell people to do things that you're not willing to do, or if you're trying to get them, even if it's just a matter of working harder than you work, you have to be somebody worth following too. Absolutely. I don't even think about covering that one, but we think about my discussion earlier. I don't want to sell products or teach methods that I don't walk the path and show people what it does. That's a cornerstone of my approach is like being able to do and walk the path and everybody knows it. So it's a hundred percent,

like I agree with you. You've got to be that leader that people will follow for that reason, without a doubt. So my last question for you is what fears are you chasing? Where are you at now currently? So I am chasing a thousand pound squat that will make me the only person in history who's ever both squatted a thousand pounds and deadlifted a thousand pounds. Wow. Where are you at on that? I hit 900 for a triple a few weeks ago. I'm getting closer, but it's taking quite a toll on my body. I'm getting old, you know, so I'm worried if I can still pull it off before older. I'm not, we're all going to get old. We might as well just accept it. My business and training partner, he's 70 years old and he's a

freak with what he does, but he's always like, age is just a number. And I'm like, yes, it is. I get what you're saying, but in reality, there is a window on some things. So I'm working that and I've got a couple of different business ventures I'm involved with as well beyond Kabuki. So working on launching a shoe line of barefoot style shoes. We've had the design done for a while and just got some funding done for that. So there's obviously always risk, scarce, a little bit of a fear with chasing things like that. That's a very big market with a lot of big players. That'll be interesting. Why barefoot out of curiosity?

So from our principles of movement, we focus on the largest global impact first. So first thing that we look at is breathing, bracing, spinal mechanics. That's a whole lot of stuff. That's like two days worth of coursework. But that has the largest global impact. The second place of focus beyond that in our priorities is the foot and foot mechanics and the impact they have upstream throughout the entire body. You know that we have our traditional shoe in society today is very counterproductive to how the foot operates. And there's a lot of bones and muscles and everything in there that really don't get used and actually get deformed.

And we lose some immediate like changing footwear can immediately enhance performance through to increase in proprioception. But if we get the foot strong and controlled, we actually take care of a lot of, there's a lot of issues with shoes. That'd be interesting. I'd love to have you back on sometime just to talk all about that. So there's a specific attributes that we're trying to achieve that'll actually allow us to strengthen and control and use the foot appropriately, removing some of the passive modalities that we have in our shoes that actually cause problems throughout the body. So just as a brief primer, meta-analysis of the use of orthotics in shoes clearly demonstrates that there's no long-term impact from those to alleviate any issues. Even custom?

impact from those to alleviate any issues. Even custom? That's right. Actually pushing your body into position passively doesn't accomplish much. So other than the short term, it can remove pain in like a six to eight week period of time, but there is no long-term validity to the use of orthotics, which is a lot of how shoes are designed with arch supports and other stuff. We actually cover it really well on a podcast on our strength chat with Dr. Ray. He's a podiatrist that I work with that works in that market as well. Cool. And what's the name of that podcast for people? Strength chat. Okay. Strength chat. Okay, cool. Yeah. I didn't know if that's the name of it or just the colloquialism for it. Cool. And then, so of course, then there's also the book, which just recently came out again, for anybody who kind of jumped into the, or missed the mention of it.

Yep. So the Eagle and the Dragon, if you go to my website, my personal website, christopherduffin.com, you can get a free audio download of that book, or you can get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or wherever paperback hardcover audio as well. So whatever your choice there, it's a bestseller in five different categories. Read the reviews. It's a life-changing book for a lot of people. Awesome. And then lastly, where can people find you and all of your things?

What's the best place on the interwebs? So Kabuki Strength is the main company. K-A-B-U-K-I Strength. We do education and products that basically improve biomechanics under load, specialty barbells and equipment that are used throughout professional and collegiate and Olympic sports now. On social media, I primarily interact on Instagram and LinkedIn. So you can find me just typing in Chris Duffin, but my user handle is mad underscore scientist underscore Duffin on Instagram, but just type in Chris Duffin. I am on Facebook, but don't really use that medium for just my personal reasons. So we've got, the company has several different social media

accounts as well. My favorite to reference people is Kabuki underscore virtual coaching. Every single day we load free educational content on that platform. So definitely check that out. Awesome, man. Well, thanks a lot for taking the time again. This was a great discussion. And I look forward to hearing about the orthotic conspiracy. Well, actually, it'd be a great podcast to cover that and a lot of the other biomechanics stuff that we do based around hips and shoulders with the equipment that we've got. So we can dive into some very scientific discussions around those concepts. Awesome. Sounds great. I look forward to it. Hey, Mike here. And if you like what I'm doing on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help

me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider picking up one of my best selling health and fitness books, including Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for Men, Thinner, Leaner, Stronger for Women, my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef, and my 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for personal transformation inside and Outside of the Gym, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Now, these books have sold well over 1 million copies and have helped thousands of people build their best bodies ever. And you can find them on all major online retailers

like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as in select Barnes and Noble stores. Again, that's Bigger Leaner Stronger for Men, Thinner Leaner Stronger for Women, The Shredded Chef, and The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. Oh, and I should also mention that you can get any of the audiobooks 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which is the perfect way to make those pockets of downtime like commuting, meal prepping, and cleaning more interesting, entertaining, and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on that offer, and if you want to get one of my audiobooks for free, go to www.legionathletics.com slash audible. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics slash A-U-D-I-B-L-E and sign up for your account. All right. Well, that's it

for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from? Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen, and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something about the show,

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