Getting ADDICTED to Training is Easy, Actually

When working with my clients, I have two 16-year-old clients and I have two 80-something-year-old clients and every 10-year gap in between. And every single one of them, I'm always asking them, how do you feel? How hard was that last set? And are we doing more on the next? I'm always pushing for progression. Another rep, 5 more pounds, heck, 2.5 pounds. I'm always looking for progression. That's how you get stronger and that's how you build muscle. And for longevity, strength training has more bang for the buck than any other exercise that you can do because your muscles are your engines. I mean, that's one of the things that older people struggle with is falling, because most people haven't been doing strength training their adult life. And on average, starting about 30, if you're not doing strength training, you lose about 5 pounds of muscle mass every 10 years. Your typical 80-year-old has not been lifting weights all their life, and they tend to be kind of small— not from a body fat standpoint, but just from a muscle standpoint. Well, as those muscles go away, their ability to support and stabilize their body goes away. And so strength training is just huge for your longevity.

Believe Nation, I have a very special guest with me, Coach Kelly. He's in my Entrepreneur Mastermind program, and we're going to talk about health today. He is the health expert. I'm hoping to learn a few things as well. We're answering some of your questions, and if you have questions for us, future episodes, you can go to evancarmichael.biz and there'll be links to be able to ask us questions. Kelly, before we dive into the first question, why don't you tell our audience a little bit about you?

Thank you so much for this morning. I can't even believe we're doing this. I'm— to say that I'm excited is just an understatement. But outside of devotion to faith and family, my passion for fitness has been the dominant in my life since I was 15 years old. And I just turned 55. So that's 40 years of doing this. This is a second career for me. I was in sales for most of my adult life, and a little over 5 years ago, I made the decision that it's time to pursue my passion. And that was the best decision that I have ever made. I receive blessings and confirmation every day from my environment, from my clients and beyond, that I'm doing the right thing. And so, and then in finding you last fall, my goal in the very beginning, or from the very beginning, was just to expand my reach. I've been writing a blog since 2015, and one of my members said, and/or clients, he said, you should consider a podcast. Well, I jumped straight past podcast into video. So here we are. And that's, that's why I sought you out, because I want to magnify, multiply my message and, and reach more people, help more people.

Amazing. Well, it's amazing having you on Movie Makers. It's great having you in the Mastermind. Let's get to some audience questions. So the first one that came in is, what is your health routine? So why don't you start and then I'll, I'll inject mine as well. What is your health routine, Kelly?

Evan, I'm going to preface this with one statement. In the last certification that I went through a little over a year ago, it was on sleep, stress management, and overall recovery. And I can tell you from all the nutrition and/or just consultations that I do, recovery is an element that a lot of people do not consider. And one of the statements that they made at the very beginning of that course is that a workout program is only as good as your body's ability to recover from it. And as soon as they said that, I took a step back and thought, you know, everything that we do in life over the course of a week, it's only as beneficial as your body's ability, your body, your mind to recover from it. And so in going through that certification, it changed my mindset about how I structure my training. I used to train 6 days a week. I mean, I would lift weights on average 5 to 6 days a week. I have cut that back now out of 7 days, and it's partially built around my work schedule. I only lift 4 days a week. I do 1 day of what I call active recovery, but it's, it's a walk in the park compared to my 4 primary days. And that's, that's largely strength training. And then on day 5, and I say the last 2 days of the week, in the spirit of Evan Carmichael, I take a long walk. I love walking in my neighborhood, neighborhood in the early mornings. I think, I pray, I reflect as I think of things. I have my phone with me. I have— I use email as my, my notes list and I'll send myself to-dos, you know, just things that pop in my mind that I would never have considered during the hustle bustle, you know, pace of an ordinary day. but just to unplug from the world and to get out in nature and just let my mind and body rest. It's amazing some of the things that I've come up with. And so my overall weekly schedule is 4 days of training, kind of an active recovery day, and then 2 rest days because taking a walk is not— I mean, it's, it's rest.

I love it. Okay, so that's good. As you were sharing yours, like, I hope Kelly doesn't judge mine and see, we'll see how, see how the expert thinks about my routine. I like that you added recovery. I wasn't initially going to go there, but, but, uh, it's definitely an important part. So I would break it down to, you know, fitness, working out, uh, diet, nutrition, and then I like adding recovery or sleep as, um, as a third component. So for me, in terms of working out, the first is 3 hours outside every day. That's been a new addition to my life. It's been an amazing new addition to my life. I try to work in chunks of 10 a.m. to noon is focused work. We're filming this actually here at 10 a.m. Eastern my time. So this is part of my focus work block. Obviously I'm inside and then 12 to 3 is outdoor and I'm in Canada, Toronto, Canada. So it's— that's the hottest point. You know, we don't get like super crazy hot. So I want to get vitamin D. We don't get as much here in Toronto as other places. So 12 to 3 is outside and I try to do work. This is a big adjustment for me is how do I do work when I'm outside? Because I don't just have 3 hours to go on walks every day. So I do all of my phone work and I've been especially happy with voice-to-text. So I'll speak a lot of things because typing on the phone is just too slow compared to doing it here in my office. And so I'll do my DMs, I'll do my text messages, I'll do my social media, I'll do calls with people, anything that I can do. I'll do all my emails when I'm walking and it's all just me talking into my phone. And that's been a huge game changer for me. I'm used to standing up, so I'm on a trampoline right now. I mean, I'm bouncing on my trampoline. That was a big game changer for me earlier on in my career. But getting outside, getting sunshine, getting the activity is pretty low impact, right? It's just walking. I'm not coming back with like my heart beating. I'm not sweating like crazy. But it's shocking how just walking every day can have a big impact on how you feel, on your health, et cetera. So I think most people just aren't getting the bare basics of activity in You don't have to go and prepare to do a triathlon or something like just walk every day. It doesn't even have— doesn't have to be 3 hours. That may be a little extreme, but like 20 minutes of walking every day can change your life. So start with that, right? Then in terms of fitness, I will go to the gym 4 times a week. So I like that we're, we're, we're the same there. Good for you. And we'll do 2 types of workouts. So like Monday and Thursday will be one workout and Tuesday and Friday will be a different workout. And then Wednesday and Sunday will be a run. The run is however long I feel like going. So it's a couple of times around a very big block. And as I, you know, get better, I, I get more endurance and just keep going. And so ultimately that becomes 6 days a week. Now there's exceptions. I travel sometimes and I'm not in the gym. Etc. But I'd say I hit that 85% of the time. I don't think anybody's 100% always on their routine, but 85% of the time that's basically what I'm doing. So 4 times in the gym, 2 times running. Every day will be a 25-minute sauna when I'm home, followed by a cold plunge or cold shower.

You can keep that.

You can keep that. The cold shower, the sauna, or both?

No, the cold part. I don't do cold.

It takes a while to get used to, um, but I find especially if you come out of something really hot— so do— I'll do hot sauna into hot shower, and then I'm so hot, like, oh my gosh, I just need to cool down. And then getting into the cold is actually a relief. Um, that's a lot easier than just going straight cold, at least for me. And I'm in Canada, so like, we're used to cold. But I just believe in the the science around cold plunging as well as sauna. I think from a health and fitness, that's, that's mostly what I do. And then when I'm home, I'm on my trampoline. We try to do walks, my wife and I after dinner. So after dinner, there'll be our biggest meal of the day, and then we'll go for a 20-minute walk with the dogs around the park just to lower the blood glucose after our big meal. And that's basically what I do fitness-wise. For nutrition, I have one, usually a breakfast when I wake up, and then I mostly don't eat lunch unless something happened and I'm really hungry for whatever reason. It's typically if I lack protein. So if I don't eat 100 grams of protein in the morning, then I'll get hungry throughout the day. If I eat, like this morning I had turkey and some cauliflower rice, and I am full, you know, like 100 grams of protein from turkey. And I'm like, I'm good. And so I have one day that's a fat day and then one day that is a light carb day. And carb is not like bread and pasta, but more fruits. So the fat day would be, you know, red meat, eggs, etc., but really low on the carbs. But, you know, cooking oil and that kind of stuff, but not the crazy seed oil. And then the, the carb day would be low fat, still protein. So turkey, that's today, chicken, etc. and then fruits for the day and just basically trying to train my body to be flexible between burning fat and burning carbs. Right now I'm not doing any sugar, any pasta, any breads, any, any packaged foods, right? Like Doritos or any, you know, any of that other stuff. And that's my training right now on the nutrition side. And then recovery, just trying to keep to a routine as much as possible. I try to be in bed by 11. I'll start getting ready for bed at 10. I'll be in bed by 11. And I wake up when I wake up. So no alarm. The first thing that I do, the first meeting of any, of any day is 10 o'clock. So technically my day doesn't start till 10 o'clock. So this is the first thing that I'm doing. We started this at 10 o'clock Eastern today, but I woke up at 6-something today. We started DMing already. You were up for a couple hours already, excited for this. I got up at 6-something, but I don't set an alarm. I haven't set an alarm for, I mean, years unless I have a morning flight. That's typically the only thing I try not to speak first thing in the morning if I'm doing an event. I try not to travel first thing in the morning if I can avoid it at all costs. And I try not to commit myself because if I knew, similar to you, if I, if I knew something was happening in the morning, I wouldn't sleep because I'd be, I'd be stressed out that what if I don't wake up on time even though I set the alarm? Like, what if the alarm doesn't go off? And then I have just the worst night's sleep. So I try to plan nothing before 10 AM as much as possible. And then I wake up whenever I wake up and I never wake up at 10. Like, that's, you know, if I'm going to bed, I'm in bed by 11. I'm never waking up past— what's the latest? I mean, usually 8 as the latest, but I think I'm typically up 6:37. But if my body needs extra rest, my body needs extra rest. So there you go. I think if we're taking people through my workout routine, my food regimen right now, and then rest and recovery, What, what do you think, Kelly? Coach Kelly, is it Coach Kelly approved? Am I idiot somewhere? What do you got for me?

I was actually surprised how you, how early you were up this morning. I was just warming up at the gym when I got your first message. But Evan, my, my one question is, how's your body responding to what you're doing? Everything that you just shared with me sounds really good. What are you trying to accomplish and is your body responding favorably towards that?

So I think I'm trying to accomplish different things with the rest. It's, it's just trying to be alert the next day. One day of no sleep or poor sleep I can manage. It's when it hits 2 to 3 days in a row that I would, that I start to really feel the effects. And that usually happens if I'm at a conference or an event and I need to be saved by myself, like from myself. So I'll either have Nina, my wife, with me or team who's like, Evan, you need to go to bed. It's 2:00 and you're still in the lobby talking to entrepreneurs because I get lost. I'll just, I'll just help and serve and then not realize that it's 2 a.m. and I haven't eaten or gone to the bathroom and I'm running a fever. So the rest and recovery is super important for me. So it's just how do I feel the next day? For the diet and nutrition, it's, it's a combination of weight management. I don't need to lose a ton of weight. I'm not like massively overweight or something. And then also just longevity. I just, right, believe in the science of, hey, if I do these things, I will live longer. And, and I want to live longer to go after my mission. It's a lot harder to feel some of these things on a day-to-day basis. You know, does having a sauna give me extra energy the next day? I— no, like, I can't say that It doesn't take away energy, but I can't say it is adding energy. Does going to the gym and working on my Zottman curls, you know, have a huge impact the next day? No. I mean, I feel it. My muscles are sore, but it's hard for me to gain a ton of weight. And I'm also slow to put on muscle. So I don't see big gains and I don't feel any different really. I'm also coming in at a pretty high level, I think, in that I'm not eating processed food, I'm not having sugar all the time. And so I'm going for the final stages of optimization as opposed to like, how do I get started and doing a lot of the basics.

For you to be doing strength training 4 days a week is awesome. I mean, that's just like gold. You get a gold star for that. You really don't need—

Gold star from Coach Kelly. Let's go.

You really don't need more than that. But when working with my clients, I mean, whether I have two 16-year-old clients and I have two 80-something-year-old clients, and every 10-year gap in between. And every single one of them, I'm always asking them, how do you feel? How hard was that last set? And are we doing more on the next? I'm always pushing for progression. Another rep, 5 more pounds, heck, 2.5 pounds. I'm always looking for progression. And again, it's with all of my clients because there's, there's always room to do more. And that's, that's how you get stronger and that's how you build muscle. And for longevity, strength training has more bang for the buck than any other exercise that you can do because your muscles are your engines. I mean, that's one of the things that older people struggle with is, well, one of the dangers of getting older risk factors is falling because most people haven't been doing strength training their adult life. And on average, starting about 30, if you're not doing strength training, you lose about 5 pounds of muscle mass every 10 years. So you think about going from 30 to 80, your typical 80-year-old has not been lifting weights all their life and they tend to be kind of small, not from a body fat standpoint, but just from a muscle standpoint. Well, as those muscles go away, their ability to support and stabilize their body goes away. And so strength training is just huge for your, for your longevity. I mean, I applaud you for what you're doing.

Yeah, I think ultimately as I get older, I mean, I'm 43 right now, so I'm not super worried about this yet, but flexibility then also becomes a thing as well. You talk about falls, it's the strength training to make sure that you hopefully don't fall in the first place because your muscles are, are strong. But then if you do fall, the, the flexibility so that the risk of injury is a lot lower, that something's not breaking, it's bending because you've been doing the flexibility training. So I'm sure at some point that's on my radar. It's not an immediate priority, but it's something on the radar as I, as I continue to age.

Evan, consider this, and it's very much a use-it-or-lose-it philosophy. You do strength training for the obvious. You do cardio, and that's not to say that you can get a very strong cardio effect from, from a properly planned strength training workout, but you do strength training for strength. You do cardio for cardio. Mobility work— you can be the strongest dude in the world, but that doesn't mean that you've got to be mobile. You have to specifically work on mobility. Mobility, flexibility, the words are semantics, but you have to work on that. But then there's tissue work as well. And if you can't afford a massage therapist on a regular basis, there's all type foam rollers and different modalities that you can use. The quality of your muscle tissue, that is a separate area of emphasis. I mean, that's why massage therapists are in business. I mean, there's, there's something to be said for maintaining your muscle tissue quality. It helps you with your overall movement better, you know, for the long term.

So getting into the fascia.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Let's get to our next question. So the next question coming in was, how do you bounce back after health complications slow you down?

So I'll tell you a quick story. In September of '14, I tore my left bicep. To my horror, I was doing dumbbell curls, you know, seeing myself in the mirror, and that left arm ripped. And I had just started a new job and I did not have— I was 3 weeks in, didn't have insurance. I rolled the dice. I didn't pay for COBRA and I was screwed because I didn't have the money to pay for surgery. And so I rehabbed the best that I could. And once my insurance kicked in, say 3 months later, I went to a sports medicine doc and he said 50/50 odds that I could even find the loose end of your bicep to reattach it. He said if it were me, based on how well you've recovered without, I'd just not get it fixed. That's the worst advice ever. I wish I would have at least given it a shot because my left arm to this day— you're— God gave us a bicep for a reason. That's two muscles there, not just one. But fast forward to 2016, I had the same kind of pain in my shoulder that I had in the left before that bicep tore. I learned my lesson. So I went to the doctor, did an MRI. He said, You have 4 tears in your rotator cuff, but your bicep tendon is fraying like a rope. And he said, if you don't let me fix it, it's going to do what your left arm did. So we did rotator cuff surgery and then bicep reattachment. That was in March of '16. That was on a Friday. I had to wait till my parents went home before I could do this, but the next Friday, I was back in the gym. Now my arm was in a sling. I could not use my right arm for 14 weeks of physical therapy, but my left arm and my legs worked just fine and I never missed a workout. I worked around that injury. I was in PT for 14 weeks. Doctor finally released me from PT and it was just a mobility thing. I had to reach certain mobility standards with that right arm. And at that point he released me to start lifting essentially pink dumbbells. I mean, I could lift just— I had no strength in my right arm. It took me another 14 months to get back to full strength. But Evan, I never skipped a beat. I worked in— there was a number of rehab exercises that my therapist taught me in PT that she encouraged me to continue, and it's all about mobility. So I work those in my rotation as I'm working the rest of my body. But I mean, for months I was just doing all my upper body. I felt like an idiot at first, but I thought, this is better than nothing. The bottom line answer is it has to do with mindset. I made the decision a month before surgery that I was not going to let it be any more impactful than possible. I knew that my left arm was still going to work, that my legs would be fine. There was no reason to change my nutrition, and I didn't. And it ended up being, I mean, I wrote, I wrote several blogs on it and I just, I claimed before I ever did the surgery that I was going to be a blessing to other people by the example that I set. I claimed it and then it happened in the gym. I would have different people come up to me over that period of time as I was recovering and basically just applaud me on my efforts. And I just, I felt good about the example that I was setting. So overcoming an injury, it's all mindset. It is all mindset. You can choose to make the most of it, or you can choose to let it whip you. And I just refuse to let it whip me.

Yeah, I love it. That's a great story, man. And I mean, I resonate. In 2019, I broke my neck. I was on tour doing 90 days, 23 cities across America. And in Denver, I broke my neck. I fainted, hit my head on the wall. Had a just giant cut on my forehead and then concussion from that, and then broke my neck in two spots because I slid down and my neck hit the baseboard and just cracked my neck in two spots. Uh, never really had a broken bone in my life, never had a concussion at all, and then all of a sudden rushed to the ER and had to wear a neck brace for 60 days. And he said 50% chance that I had to have spinal surgery Uh, which is scary when you're talking spinal surgery. Lots can go wrong. So like, okay, well, I'm gonna be in that 50% that doesn't need it, right? It's like mindset right away, I'm going to be in that 50%. And I wore a neck brace for 60 days and I continued on my tour. So the default was, okay, well, I guess you're going to cancel the tour. My agent's like, okay, go home to Toronto, rest. Like, well, I mean, I might have to cancel my tour, but why not just try one city at a time and see what happens. Because for me, I felt like the healing would come by being around entrepreneurs and doing the work that I love, as opposed to me just being at home lying on a couch. I told my, my doctor, uh, we canceled that night in Denver because that was supposed to be my speaking gig. And I said, well, if I get out of here tomorrow, can I just have people come over to my Airbnb? Because we had this house and I'll just lie on the couch and just help people and they can come into the Airbnb and like, whatever, keep going. And the doctor's like, no, you can't do that. You have a concussion. Like, you got to rest your brain a little bit. That's not good. The concussion was worse than the neck pain. I mean, the pain was strong, but I could deal with physical pain. It was the mental fogginess, not able to think, not able to look at a screen, not even look at lights that really messed me up. And thankfully the concussion didn't last as long as the, the, you know, the neck injury. But I think the key to bouncing back is just recognizing that you, you need to do the best with what you've got, that you're not where you were yesterday, right? Like me, I was not where I was the day before because now I broke my neck, and I just did the best that I could with what I had. And so some of that was really tough, you know. I remember leaving the hotel, leaving the hospital And we had this giant Suburban at the time for the trip, and I couldn't get into the Suburban. So one, I couldn't drive, obviously, now, right? My neck's broken, I can't move my neck at all, so I'm not driving. So now my Nina, my little wife, is driving the Suburban, and we're checking out the hospital, and I'm trying to get into the passenger side of, of the car, and I can't get in. I get one foot in and then it hurts. My whole spine is just on fire, and I can't get into the car, but I also can't get out of the car. Any movement now was just massive pain. And I started to cry, like, in the parking lot of this hospital because I'm in so much pain and also so frustrated that I don't know what to do. I can't go forward, I can't go back. I'm just stuck here. Uh, and then eventually Nina just pushed me in. We made it. Like, oh my gosh. And I got into the car. And then that night I needed to go to the bathroom at 3 in the morning, and the nurse had taught me at the hospital how to, how to get myself up from a lying position to a seated position so it wouldn't hurt my, my body too much. And I could get— I got up 3 in the morning, I'm sitting on the edge of my bed, it's pure dark in our, in our Airbnb, and I feel like I'm getting a little dizzy, and I don't want to wake up my wife to go to the bathroom. It feels like it's the most helpless thing, like waking up her— she's had a rough day, rough week, and now I need help to take me to the bathroom. You know, all the things, like I can't just go to the bathroom by myself. Uh, but then I didn't want to get up and faint again and fall over and then rush back to the hospital. So I, I woke her up and she helped me go to the bathroom, and then I, I went back to bed. It's just recognizing that you're doing the best you can with what you got. And so I continued on the tour. I sat at the front with ice packs and pillows, and I wasn't as good on stage as I was at the beginning of my tour when I was walking around. But people said they even liked it better. To your point of you going to the gym and it inspired people, people saw me sitting at the front of an event talking for 4 hours with a broken neck, and they're like, what's my excuse for not chasing down my goals again? Uh, I just had a rough night or something, right? And so people saw that it wasn't really my intention, but people saw that as an inspiration. And so it's being a little more gentle on yourself to recognize that you had a real issue. And, and that could be a physical, uh, issue, that could be a mental issue, it could be a family issue. Um, but it's a real issue. And the key thing is just to not stop the momentum. You know, you still went back to the gym and you were not doing what you were doing the day before. And you're lifting pink weights, you know, like, but lifting a 2-pound weight when you're used to 50 or whatever, you know, the exchanges, uh, feels like it's a giant step back. And this is where people stop because they're not where they used to be, and so they want to quit. But, but like, a 2-pound weight might even be heavier for you than the 50-pound was the day before because of how much your muscles are now kind of getting used to each other again. And so it's just rewarding yourself for taking the best effort as opposed to just looking at the results of what you're doing. And so chances are, whoever your heroes are, you know, they've had a lot of setbacks too. And the thing that set them apart was they just kept going. They found a way to keep going. And so you do the best you can with what you got to keep the momentum happening.

Amen.

Next question. Let's move on. Okay. How to improve your mental health? Ooh, what do you got for that one, Kelly?

Evan, there's so many different directions that you can go. That is such a broad topic. So I'm just going to boil it down to one thing. The world's message is largely negative, and it will beat a path to your door every single day via social media, via news, via just— it's just— that's just the way it is. First of all, I think that you have to fortify and protect yourself from the negative message that you're going to be bombarded with every day. I don't watch the news. The first thing that I do in the morning is wake up, turn on the coffee maker, turn on my computer, and I start the day in Bible study. I don't see what's happening in the world until I get to the gym. We have TVs across the front part of the gym and I'll glance at as I'm walking by and there's a couple of news station stations and Also always been the philosophy that if it's bad enough, I'm going to hear about it. But I mean, just the general news about who just shot who, I don't need to know that. That doesn't make me a better son, coach to my clients, brother, friend, any of the roles that I play in my life. Negative news does not make me do any better in those roles. But so there's the fortify side. And then there's the putting in the positive. And I love the great late Zig Ziglar. He said, it's kind of like taking a bath. You take a bath every day because if you don't, you're going to stink. The wit and wit of Zig. He said, it's the same thing with your attitude and your mindset. You have to work on that every single day. It wears off. It is a daily discipline. Evan, I listen to largely audio, but I'm going to read as well. But on a daily basis, I spend on average 2 to 3 hours of putting positive content in my head, in my head, in my head. And it's a daily deal. And I've been doing that for years and years and years and years and years. And all I can say is it makes a difference. I mean, it makes a difference. You have to fortify and protect, and then you have to put in the good. And that little cycle I've been doing for a lot of years, and it's made all the difference in the world to me.

Yeah, I'm right there with you, Kelly. I think the environment really, really, really matters. And so if you're in a really negative environment, you got people telling you you can't do things, you got family members, friends, people at school, people at work. I understand most people hate their lives. Most people are not out living their best life. And so it's not even that they're negative or toxic people. I don't, I don't think people— I don't, I don't believe in haters or people are bad. They're just people who are in a lot of pain. And when you're in a lot of pain, you do, you do stupid things. Like when, when you and I were in pain, we might have been rude to somebody. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. You're just dealing with a lot of pain. And if you look at most people, they're dealing with a lot of pain in their lives. And so you would, you'd expect somebody in pain to lash out. And so if you're around all these people all the time though, that starts to seep into you. Uh, and so I love the idea of, of, of protect. Um, my version of that is, hey, like, just sub out the one— like, who's the most negative person in your life, or news source, or media source, or whatever— and just sub that person out, or limit access. Because maybe that's your mom and you don't want to sub her out of your life, but, but limit access, or limit some of the things that you talk about. I didn't sub in positivity. And maybe that's a human that you actually know. Like, think about who of your friends or people in your circle makes you feel better after you leave, right? Like, a lot of times we hang out with people, then we feel drained afterwards. Well, like, stop hanging around with people who make you feel drained. After this session, I'm gonna— I have more energy leaving today than coming in because of Kelly. Like, it's the 1 1 14. Of us being together instead of 1 1 equals 2 or, or 0 because it's drained us, right? I can imagine more energy leaving than coming in. And so when you find those people, try to spend more time with them. Try to— you take the initiative of asking them to go for coffee because it may be somebody who is not a close friend yet, but it's just in your circle. Somebody you've met at an event or you met at school or you met at work. It just— find a way to spend more time with them. Because if you sub out one negative person and sub in one positive person, So many things can change. And then I would supplement that with content, which is why I do what I do with all the videos that I make every day. It's like there's, there's a new video every single day on multiple channels that will inject positivity and hope and belief and optimism into your brain. And I need it. I still need it for myself. It's, I mean, Kelly is looking at 2 hours a day of learning. I need it myself too. I need, I want Oprah in my ear every day and Steve Jobs in my ear every day and Elon Musk in my ear every day. And people who've done amazing things, because it makes me want to play a bigger game as well. And so people say that social media is negative and toxic. Um, not for me. You know, like, you get the— my, my YouTube is beautiful. My Instagram is awesome. I go there, I'm seeing, I'm seeing a new video from Kelly coming out. It's great. Like, you get to control it. So stop looking at the negative stuff. Unfollow the people who make you feel worse about yourself. That, that doomscrolling, unfollow all those people, stop interacting with their content and sub in the people who make you feel inspired and hopeful and motivated. Because if you are around those people both in your life and virtually consistently, that's going to change your life. They will naturally just pull you up. If you're around Kelly every day, you're going to have a growth mindset. You're going to start working out more. You're going to— it might start with just a walk around the block every day. But if you're looking at his content every day, you're going to start picking up new habits. If you, if you watch Zig Ziglar every day, the legend, you're going to start dreaming bigger. You're going to start believing in yourself more. You're going to start having more action taken and less thinking about doing things because you've engineered that person into your life. And so you don't even have to know them. That's the power of the internet. Like, Zig Ziglar, well, has passed, but Zig Ziglar's past. Kelly may not come and hang out with you every day, but you can hang out with his content every day, and that can make a dramatic shift forward. So sub out one person who's negative, sub in one person who's positive, and then carefully curate the people you follow to make sure that they're making you a better version of you. What habits do you do every single day without fail that makes the biggest difference for you? Ooh, what do you got, Kelly?

This is in the spirit of Zig. And it's also to honor my grandfather and my pastor, because Zig would be disappointed if I didn't say what I'm about to say. And, uh, so my mom told me one time that my grandfather— and he passed away back in '03— he was a Baptist preacher when I was just a baby, so I had no recollection of that. But she told me this just a few years ago. She said, you know, your grandfather used to say that 90% with God is better than 100% on your own. And I just like, okay, I mean, I knew what she was talking about. And then son of a gun, my pastor for the last 20 years, I go to Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Dr. Jack Graham, and he's been there for over 25 years now. He said the exact same thing from pulpit a couple of years ago. I thought, my two Jacks. But how that statement resonates with me is very simple. And it's, it's makes all the difference in my life. So 90% with God instead of 100% on your own. The first day of the week for me is Sunday. I honor God by giving my time, by going to church. Fridays are when I get paid. And so every— I love Friday mornings. I get up, coffee, computer before I jump in my Bible study because it's kind of part of it. I see what my check is from Lifetime and I give based on my personal commitment. and then I move, I do my investing, I move some money into, I have a couple of IRAs, and then whatever my current credit card bill is, I pay it every week. I never pay interest on my credit card. And that's just that, that's my little Friday deal, but I still honoring God with giving him that part that I've committed to. And then on Evan, on a day-to-day basis, I give God the first part of every day. It's coffee and Bible study carved in stone, no exceptions whatsoever. Even when I had that shoulder surgery, I can go back and show you in my journal because that first weekend my arm was in this big honking cast. I couldn't use my hand or anything. I did my Bible study journal notes with my left hand. It was ugly, but I did it. I mean, I did not keep that from doing my Bible study in the morning. And so that for me, my faith is the foundation. I guess fitness and personal development is second, but faith is first and foremost the foundation of my life. And I'll never change. I mean, it's made— I mean, let me say this one thing. One of my best clients, actually, I just trained him this morning. He was before this session with you. He and I were talking finances one day and it came up about investing and so forth. And I mentioned that, you know, that I tithe every week. And he said, you mean you give that much money to your church? And I said, yes. He said, imagine how much you would have if you didn't do that. Now, he's one of my very best clients. He's a dear, dear friend. And so I said it very respectfully, but I countered back. I said, Omar, I see it completely opposite. I see all that I have, all the blessings that I've received as a result of being faithful with, you know, my tithes. And that, that was a perspective shifter for him, for me to put it that way. But anyway, that is the habit I've been doing that morning, that whole, those three things now since probably the early 2000s consistently. And that's something that I'll do for, you know, indefinitely.

I see this question, I can answer it in two ways, either, you know, the spirit of the question or the actual question, because it says every single day without fail. And I don't know that I've done anything every single day with intention without fail. I mean, to the spirit of the question, I think I do the most consistently would be injecting optimism into my life, whether it's a video, whether it's a book, whether it's something that I, you know, I'm reading on the airplane or a film that I'm watching, a documentary. Injecting positivity is probably consistently over the past 20 years the most consistent thing that I've done. Now, I'm very disciplined and I have a lot of habits, and most of my habits I'm hitting 85 to 95% of the time. The health, you know, routine that we talked about earlier, you know, but if I'm traveling from here to Japan, uh, I'm probably not hitting my sauna for the day, you know. They're like just some things that are not practical, or it's more detrimental to do it than not to do it in some cases. Like, it's better to go and sleep than to go and do that thing, or it's better to serve because this is a big opportunity than to go do that thing. So when it says, you know, do this daily without fail, I think the most consistent thing is just injecting optimism into my life. And I'm okay with hitting 85 to 95% consistency on, on my habits, as long as you're proud. For me, as long as I'm proud of the reason why I'm not doing it, right? So even making videos, the only time in the past decade plus that I have not made videos— I made videos when I broke my neck. I made videos when I went on tour. I made videos through everything. The only time I did not make videos is when my dog died. My dog passed away on, on video day, and I was just— this family dog for, you know, 13, 14 years, and I just, I was destroyed and I could not make videos. And I could have forced myself and like made videos and cried through everything. It just, I felt like I needed to honor Toby. And so that's what I did. Thankfully, both my parents are still alive, but if they have a major health issue or something else happens in my family, I might be a total wreck. I don't know. Like, I may not— if my mom dies at some point, maybe I don't make videos for a week or a month. I don't know. You know, maybe I don't even consume any optimistic content. I have no idea how I'm gonna react. It's gonna destroy my world. And I'm okay with that. You know, it's like, it's, you are what you consistently do, not necessarily what you do every single, every single day. But to answer the question of what, what's the habit I do every single day without fail, if I had to pick one besides the optimism, it's probably checking in with Nina. I don't know that there's been a day in the past decade that I have not checked in with Nina. Obviously, I mean, we live together, so, you know, we're married, etc. So that's easy on the daily. But when I'm traveling, I don't think I've ever done a day without at least saying, hi, how are you? I love you. Thinking of you. Like even a quick text or message.

And that's how it should be.

Well, I, you know, I wouldn't— I also wouldn't judge myself if I didn't. If I was like, no, no access to internet, I'm in the middle of a jungle or something, I can't get on internet. It's not, it's not the end of the world, right? It's like, oh my gosh, my identity is destroyed now that I, that I missed. But I think of, of, you know, priorities. Um, that quick, even 18-second check-in, um, is hopefully meaningful for her because it's meaningful for me just to let her know what I'm thinking about her. I think I've probably done that every single day without fail for the past decade plus. So there you go. Final answer.

I was just going to say on— I meant to include the second part of that morning Bible study. It is absolutely switch over to positive input, positive mindset. And you've been pretty much top of the playlist now since last fall. Well, seriously, just because of the content. I mean, I'd never heard of Tom Bilyeu. I knew kind of about Grant Cardone. But, but just you introduced me to a lot of new people that I'd never heard before. And it's been just— it's awesome. And now I've got— I've got a file of your stuff saved that just goes forever and ever and ever. So there's, there's lots of content to dig into on a daily basis.

You'll, you'll probably run out of hours before I run out of content. There's, there's a lot to go through with the past 14 years of making videos.

Yes, there is. Well, Evan, thank you so much. This has been amazing.

Thank you for the awesome answers, Kelly. Thank you for being a part of the mastermind, the Movie Makers. For people watching, if they want to learn more about you, connect with you, where is the best place for them to go?

I work at Lifetime Fitness North Dallas. The easiest way is my email is kellyamadon@gmail.com to reach out and/or Evan Carmichael. Can I give my cell number if you want people calling you? Well, that would be a call or text. I mean, I'm open. 469-499-6986. I'm here to serve the world and I have the capability here of doing that, so I'm open.

And you do, you know, coaching and nutrition and training, and you can, you can serve anybody with the information and knowledge you've got?

I do. I do personal training. I do nutrition coaching. I do, uh, I help people with their sleep. I can work with people obviously in our gym, but I can— we have the capabilities. I can work with anyone across the country. We have the, we have the ability to do that. So I can serve anywhere as long as there's an internet connection where we can connect.

I love it. Well, thank you for being you, Kelly, and sharing your wisdom here today.

Thank you, Evan. I look forward to speaking with you again soon.

Much love. To see my last Mastermind Q&A with Mindset Mary, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe and I'll see you there. Get an idea and go do something about it. Like, expect it to suck. Expect it to have a million mistakes. Don't judge yourself for how well you the thing does, but just— you just start because you came up with the idea. And so trust in your ideas.