How to Build a Strong Body for Life | Jerzy Gregorek

I have to be totally honest with you. I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people from all walks of life, running countries, companies, Formula 1 teams, but this episode you're about to listen to, this is one of the most inspiring episodes I've ever done. This is with an incredible guy called Jerzy Gregorek. He escaped Poland under communist rule, moved to the US as a refugee. He's a 4-time world champion weightlifter. He's 72 and is absolutely ripped.. We're going to talk about his Happy Body program. He was recently on Tim Ferriss' show talking about it. This guy is next-level incredible, and he makes it possible for everyone to have a strong, stable body through their entire life. Trust me, if you get a chance to see what he looks like, Jersey Gregorek, look him up. He is ripped. I want to look like him. He's phenomenal. So, please enjoy the show. Jersey, a huge welcome to the Habits of High Performers podcast. I'm so excited that you're here, right? You're 72 years of age. For the person that's not looking on a camera and they're just listening, I want to describe what I'm seeing. I'm seeing a 72-year-old who looks like a 32-year-old. You are ripped, you are muscular, you look vibrant. I'm 40 and I want your body. So a huge welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here. I had, you know, great mentors before me, so that's why.

Well, today you are my mentor. You are the listener's mentor. We're so excited. I want to talk a bit about your history because it's quite interesting what communist Poland kind of you faced when you were a youngster. But before we get there, what's one habit that you look over the last 30 or 40 years, every single day, a very specific habit that's helped you be the version that you are today?

Focus on delivery. Hmm. Constant reaching for more every day.

So always wanting more, wanting better.

Yes, every day. So when you imagine 10,000 hours training, in every training you have to have that mindset to reach a little bit, like micro, micro, micro better. So you have to, uh, keep refining skills and reaching a little bit for more. You have to have that mob brain, otherwise, uh, you will never achieve. You'll never really deliver what you want to. It's not going to happen. You will get into the flat zone and keep exercising for 10 years and you'll never get better. Actually, you can even get worse.

Do you want to better that desire for growth, that commitment to 1% better every day?

Yeah, it's like making money, right? Or saving money or having compound interest. You think about constantly how to add and have a little bit more. And you need that mindset. And if you have that mindset, you can grow anything, right? You can get better in whatever you want. For me, every client is like that. I'm reaching constantly all the time for a little bit stronger, more flexible, faster, better posture, but on a daily basis and moment-to-moment basis.

That's beautiful. And look, you're a 4-time world champion weightlifter. You've done this at the highest levels. You've been in the arena. That mindset that you're talking about, some people might go, oh, but you're a world champion.

I don't have that.

Is mindset something that people can develop?

Sure. I, you know, I give you the example of me moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I live in Silicon Valley. And I've never really cared for money. And I never really had the mindset of saving money or growing money. I didn't care, really. I was earning money, putting money into the drawer, and I thought that life was supposed to be like that. But I had a lot of clients who really showed me respect to money, not really like gaining money or saving money for a wrong reason, but really respect like a business and respect money and money as a quality and a value. So, as soon as I learned that, I was able to hire certain people to help me to do something with my money so the compound interest could happen. So, that mindset I developed during the time when I was exposed to engineers and VCs, all those CEOs, all these people that really work with money. They, they gain money constantly, all the time, right? But they have this 30 years of mindset. Not today, right? In 5 years, in 10 years, this mindset I didn't have it. Today I have it. But that mindset, I had it in weightlifting. You see, that mindset I had with the body. I didn't have in this. And I had, you know, Nobel Prize winners in my house and they were telling me, well, I'm great everywhere else, but not in this. Well, so it means only one thing that we need to get great in different areas and we can be great in one area. And really horrible in the other area.

That's so interesting you say that. So I look back at my younger self, and I was a, a 7-time world champion drummer, and so played drums, very focused, you know, did very well in that arena. However, Jersey, I did not do well in the physical area. And I mean, I've never been really overweight, I've never had real major trouble with that, but I don't have the strength that you have. Now, a lot of my clients and friends are former athletes, rugby players, professionals, and they have all this strength physically. And so I have a mindset in certain parts of my life that are top-notch, but not in others. Is it easy to transfer your mindset? If you're really great in your career or great with your body, can you transfer it to other areas pretty easily? Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Caroline@jjloughlin.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

It depends on the area that you are great in. For example, in America, athletes are usually game players. And because they are game players, they have coaches in colleges that they are always there for them. But once they, once they leave the college, they don't have these coaches around because telling them what to do. So usually they fall apart because they didn't— they don't know what to do really. So I have a lot of football players, baseball players, and basketball players that fell apart after college and help them to learn how to practice, what to do with the body, how to live long life and good life and so on. They would not know that at all. So the transfers is not so easy. But if you achieve something like you were a drummer, so you practice and you had that practice in you. So then you understand the practice, you understand the progress, you understand increments, you know, slow increments in the skills. So you understand all of it. So it's easier for you to accept the idea that it will take 2 years or 5 years. To create something great for yourself and deliver it. So that is more important than actually what you do. So I usually juxtapose the what needs to be done with the area when people are great in. If there is a VC guy, then It has discipline, has the plans, has strategies, and so on. So then, I juxtapose this with what we are going to do, how we are going to do with the body. We need that too. There's no difference. So, I tell, you know, Nobel Prize winners, you know, the same thing, that Nobel Prize winning is not different from Nobel Prize winning of a great body that you want to create. Yeah, it's as hard. It's hard. It's not easy. It's not something that is simple to do and simple to understand.

No. And I think your slogan, I can see it in the background for those that are watching, hard choices, easy life, easy choices, hard life. Really great. We all get it. Yet so many people take the easy choices. You know, they're eating the crap food, not moving their bodies, not pushing themselves. Why do so many people know that it would be good to do the hard thing but don't actually do the hard thing?

Well, we have in the mindset that, um, it's hard to, you know, deliver. It's hard to practice. So if that mindset is that way, so we need mentors. We need other people to help us because it could be that what we want is complex and it takes years to deliver. So, if that is that way, we need other people to help us, other people to guide us, other people to be all the time there, those who are professional in that area. Like you had probably drummer, you know, teachers, right? You know, and you had those, you had also the team around. And so you practice with other people, practice with, you know, mentors and so on. And after a year or two, you didn't need that. You kept going without. But in order to integrate the new lifestyle, new way, we need this help for about 2 years, 3 years. To integrate completely and practice and fire from within. And we don't need then, you know, parents, we don't need mentors. We are just becoming the thing.

That's beautiful. And Jersey, I think mindset, when I look at the clients that I work with, often the way they see the world is greatly influenced from their childhood, first, you know, 12 to 15 years of their life. So you grew up in Poland, which was a communist country at the time. What was that like? What was the experience of that compared to what you now know?

Well, the one message I had when I was 15 years old, that in order to get out of there, you would need to— and the message was clear by other people who delivered that you either educate yourself or you become great athlete. So the business was not there at all, right? Because there was not allowed and was, uh, uh, you, you always are on a narrow path, uh, with the business. If you made a little bit more money, then, uh, you could have a problem. So there was no such thing as, uh, allowing people to grow business and become billionaires like in America. Forget about, right? Or millionaires. So, education. That's why in the Soviet bloc, there were so many scientists, but scientists not with technology alignment, but with mathematics because mathematics you can study and you don't have to have technology. And technology was impossible, but technology was not there. So, it was really hard for people to study such a thing. Like medicine, let's say, was limited by technology in Poland at that time. So, whatever they had, they could only use. But athletics, also athletics was not limited because Athletics is something that people can train and usually the communist government supported the athletes with whatever they needed to compete because the pride was national pride around it. So, it was that time that I understood that That education was important and I kept educating myself and athletics was important and this too I embrace. Later on in my life, I understood, you know, Stoicism and different perspective of why to keep improving yourself to the end of your life. So, Stoic's theory is that nature brought you here, and in a way, you are a part of that wholeness. And that's why you are responsible for caring for that wholeness with becoming, you know, the best version of yourself. And it's possible that one of us will be the solution for the planet, right? For the nature.

That's beautiful. I love, Gersi, that you've brought Stoicism to our conversation. So for the last 6 to 8 years, I've been really going deep, particularly with Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. And I really love how they see the world. I love that it's about self-improvement, reflection, introspection, accountability, and responsibility. And when I read your quote in the background, I'm going to read it again for the listener: hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life. That's very Stoic. The Stoics would absolutely look at that and be like, "Jerzy, we agree with you." So in Poland, you could have stayed there. Life would probably have been very different. But you didn't. So 40 years ago, I believe you came to America.

Right. Yeah. Well, you know, I had to escape. So, uh, I was involved in Solidarity. I was, uh, uh, at the, uh, Fire Protection Academy in Warsaw, and the government wanted to use us, uh, against demonstrations and color water and and spray on demonstrators. And to do that, they had to change a law. And we said no, and we stood up to that. And of course, we could lose our lives by doing that. But because of what I did, I had to be underground for 3 years. And when time came to me really close that I could lose my life, I escaped. So, well, I love my country and I escaped in '85 and I didn't leave my country because I wanted to get better somewhere else. I left because—

And talk about escape, like that's not just jumping on a train and moving across to the next country. I'm sure there was a little bit of risk involved and a little bit of kind of moving quite covertly.

Yeah, so there was a, uh, at that time there was the situation in Poland that, that the government didn't want any more troublemakers. So you could, you could leave, you know, you could go somewhere. And then that was the time. And I was, I was, uh, scared that I could be stopped at the border, right? But I was like, so that's why my wife stayed back in Poland as a guarantee, because we could live, we could leave the country together, but that would be more dangerous for me to live together. So she stayed. So that, that way, that way I was under the radar. To live. And I was lucky, I went through. And so if it was today, I would not go through because AI knows everything and AI is everywhere. So you could be found very easily today. But at that time, the blacklist was not so fast moving.

Jerzy, what did Poland teach you about discipline and freedom?

Well, there was no freedom, right? So first of all, so discipline was important for us. So the discipline was something that we could have during the pursuit of science. And pursuit of athleticism, right? So, uh, either way, but, uh, I really like to, to improve, to get better. I had that mindset already, and I, I was, uh, I was craving to know more. It's like I couldn't sleep to learn more. So today, after, you know, 50 years, I'm the same way and my wife the same way. We— 4 years ago, my daughter left to college and she went to Portland. And I said, okay, it's time for us to do something new. So we started PhD program. And she started with mind-body medicine and I did with psychology. And we've been already 4 years. So, our daughter is studying in Portland and we are studying. So, 3 of us are students. That's so good.

Student for life, Jersey.

Yeah, it's a hard choice, right? But at the same time, it's a so fantastic journey, you know, like when when you do something that adds a little bit every day to something better than you are. Just a little bit, not much, right? Read another article or exercise, do the snatch that is better or movements that you do. You do the sprints and you beat yourself like 100th of a second. That's what it's about. And it gives amazing feeling, right, when we actually do that. So, living without numbers. So, one thing that, you know, I really loved in my life, numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. So, you know, and I have all the numbers always to my clients and they know the numbers, I know the numbers, pursue the numbers, numbers, numbers. That's transparency. I coach Cerebellar Palsy people and they are not different than we are, right? They need to improve and they improve and they have to improve. So I am the coach that this kind of coach that when somebody doesn't improve, I'm getting nuts, crazy to find out the hard choices. Where is the hard choice, right? Where is it that somebody doesn't get better? Somebody has to get better, right? Said, there is no way with me that you cannot get better. That's not going to happen. That's not happening to anybody around me. Everybody gets better. Everybody has to get better.

That's a mindset in itself that everyone has to get better. I will guarantee it. And I like what you said. Where's the hard choice? Where's the thing that they're doing and letting themselves off? What's the shortcut that they're taking? How do I find that?

Well, you know, you can find it that they don't deliver anything, you see. So, once people live life and they don't improve, that is the easy choice that they make. They're all the easy choices. The hard choices is happening when we actually want to improve something, to get better in something. And as soon as that happens, we have to design the plan, the strategies, have certain disciplines, certain routine, daily routine, because we want to deliver something. The delivery is a really, really hard choice. I really love the movie Stunt and Deliver. So that's about the teacher in Eastern LA. Who went to a high school and devoted 2.5 years to take students from really people that didn't believe in themselves at all. The parents didn't believe in them, the students didn't believe in themselves, and teachers didn't believe in them. The only one, one teacher who believed that he can take the students to, you know, to study calculus and pass the exam. He devoted 2.5 years to deliver that. It was 16 students and all of them after 2— and then he inspired them, he motivated them, he changed the attitude of parents, changed attitude of teachers. And after 2 and a half years, 16 students passed the calculus exam from the high school that nobody has ever passed.

It's amazing.

So, when it happened, the education board sent two agents to find out how they cheated because there is no way that they could be that way, right? So, they came. And then, uh, they of course didn't find it. They only found that they made the same mistakes because, like the teacher said, that their mistakes are because they were taught by the same teacher. So they repeated the, the exam and all passed. And after that, every year that school delivered more and more students that pass the calculus exam. That is the delivery. That is the hard choice of the teacher who made the hard choices every day with the vision for the students to deliver that calculus exam for them. He had to have the vision that every day when he went there, every day was devoted to something forward, something forward, something forward. Whether it was about talking to one student or the other, or talking to the teacher, or to other teachers, or, or parents, he did it all. That is the mindset of a teacher, of the coach, of a mentor, of anyone that works with other people to help them to become better version of themselves.

It's beautiful.

It doesn't matter what is it.

I'm, I've so connect with that, Josie. So often when I'm on stage speaking about my story, there's one person I talk about and it's my headmaster from primary school in Northern Ireland. And he looked at me not as a problem. A lot of teachers probably did see me as quite a problematic child. He seen me as a possibility. And instead of giving me detention, he gave me a set of drumsticks just to see how it went. Wow. And that changed my entire life. That one teacher. So he's the same as that guy you're talking about.

Yeah. He found a solution for you to engage you in something that would wake up the fire from within. And it was so intuitive that could actually see the link between the drums and you. Wow, right?

100%.

That's a beautiful thing. That's an amazing thing that the teacher had it. Because if you didn't have it, if you didn't have that teacher, the teacher would not appear in your life. Who knows what will happen to you, right?

I often think of that. You know, I grew up in what they call, you know, the Troubles or a war zone, Northern Ireland. And there was lots of different paths I could have taken.

Yes. Yeah. So you were lucky. And I was, you know, I'm always saying that I was blessed in life because I met so many mentors. Yeah. They appeared in my life. And it's a blessing. It's a blessing that, you know, you can find people like that.

Yeah, I feel blessed that I found you today because I personally want a happy body. And I know there's lots of listeners that want a happy body. You have a whole program, a world-renowned program called Happy Body. What is a happy body and how do we get a happy body?

So when you think about the program of the Happy Body, it's athletic lifestyle medicine. So to explain athletic lifestyle medicine, First, we need to see that when we live life and when we change for worse, our lifestyle is doing it. So if you want to actually get better, we want to change that lifestyle. That lifestyle has to have a different plan, different routine, different actions of the day. Why medicine? Is because when we get worse throughout the life, we need to heal the body. And then one is athletic. Athletic is because athleticism is really hard choice all the time. It means that improvement has to happen and accumulation and adaptation to the more in the future. It's like this saving money and have the compound interest. So this is the compound effect of athleticism that is needed in our life. Because once we coach ourselves that way, practice that way, so actually we become more flexible, stronger, and faster, and better posture. All of it that really gets worse normally in our life. As we go with life, we get stiffer, we get weaker, we get slower. And our posture breaks. So that's what's happening normally. So in order to actually do something that would stop that or reverse it, we create the Happy Body Program, which we call it athletic lifestyle medicine.

That's beautiful. And if you were to step me through that, if I was to spend a day in the program or a month or whatever, what are the things you would start me with? What would be the first few habits and steps that you would take me through?

First, you would need to know about yourself. What is your height? What is your gender? What is your body weight? And what is your leanness? How much fat you have? How much muscle? And then once you look into that, then you know what to do. If you're overweight, you need to lose weight, you need to gain muscle, and because of that, you need certain program. If you are underweight, You need to gain the body, right? And then you need to eat a little more actually to make it happen. People that need to lose weight are not different than people that want to gain weight. You need to, right? So it's a really hard choices on both sides. But as soon as we know more about ourselves, what happens to us, and how much weight we need to lose or gain and how much muscle we need to lose or gain. Then there is a situation, what is the plan, what is the strategy? And that strategy comes with the exercise system. And then there are 18 exercises in the program that you do every day for 30 minutes. And that's what you do on daily basis. And during this 30 minutes, you learn, you get to accumulate data and data about yourself. Data accumulation is that amazing tridimensional brain you develop that in every exercise, eventually, you feel the body that is either tensing or sore, and you know what to do and how to release it, how to heal it. So for athletes, it's very important because once they do the Happy Body After, they really check the whole body system, every inch of it, whether there is any inflammation, any soreness, any tightness that needs to be released. And if it is, they have this capability to do that because once they go after about half a year, one year of doing this every day, You know the body, you know, like you have this mind in every inch of your body, like you would be an awesome yogi.

That's powerful. And these exercises are very specific and you do them in the same order every day.

Yes. It's like, you know, you would play Mozart every day, right? So it's the symphony of 18 exercises that check every inch of your body or even improve every inch of your body or heal every inch of your body. Designed to move, to press, to squat, to bend in certain ways that check everything, whatever we need to be 100 years old and go and surf.

That's the dream.

Yeah. Well, that's a— it's in a way dream, but also very valid. Very something that it doesn't have to be a dream. It can be, you know, something that will happen.

Yeah, I agree. And with these weights, these exercises, are they weight-based or bodyweight or a combination?

These are the weights that FreeWays dumbbells that we lift. And so, it's important for the body that we don't have machines, but we have the weights and only dumbbells. And if the dumbbells are not there, so when people travel, we tell them to go through the system without the weights at all. So, it's just like, you know, without any Wait, but going through the movement.

That's helpful because last year I traveled 100 flights. This year will be a little more than 100 flights. I'm constantly in hotels and that's always my excuse.

That's my excuse. Yeah, exactly. So we do it differently. We say, you know, tell our clients before you open the door to your room, you stand, you set your mind. How you are going to be when you open the room and walk in. So, as you, as you then, before you set yourself, you set yourself and you open the room, you put the luggage, you take the towel, you roll it and you start the Happy Body program. You are usually tired, mentally tired, right? But not physically tired. So as soon as you do the happy body movements are very alive and very joyful in a way. So in 5 minutes, you're not tired physically, mentally at all. You're physically connected. You like it. Then you can switch TV on if you want, but not before. I love that.

I really love that, Josie. Yeah. Something I've really struggled with for years is just consistent strength workout. Like, that's— if I could change that, that would be arguably the most impactful thing in my life. And I'm 40, I just turned 40 a few weeks ago, and I would love to be sitting at, you know, 50 and be stronger, 60 be stronger again, and at 72 look like you. My goodness.

Yeah, well, you have 32 years to catch up.

100%.

I always tell my clients that. It's a good joke. Yeah, I get it.

I like it.

Years to catch up. I'll Yeah, it's like when you have the happy body also, you can have different days, light days, heavy days, right? So, if you don't feel good, you are tired, you are overwhelmed, you're depressed, so you should go to the gym or do the happy body, but joyfully, very lightweight, mindfully. So, you restore yourself, but you have to know it, you have to you know, in a way be a self-mentor, self-coach, self-regulated person that actually make this happen. But where you can learn that, right? When you engage in something that you keep learning the self-discipline and self-regulation and self-love and self-compassion and self-kindness, all of it is needed really because we live life with so many years, 30 years, right? 40 years. So, We need to learn all of it because the body, body is a beautiful thing, but body is the result of how our mind is. If you want to create the body that is happy, then you need to deliver whatever that body needs to be happy and be okay with that.

Yeah. And when I look at you, I You put your arms out a moment ago and you just look so young. You look youthful. Youthful is the word I want to say. What are the qualities that you look for when you see someone that's youthful? When you see, you're like, James, it's this, it's that, they're doing these things to look youthful.

Well, so flexibility is the most important, right? The flexibility. Then the body weight. The body weight has to be certain weight for the gender and and the height, right? So then, then also the leanness have to be there. So you have to have enough muscle because if you don't have enough muscle, you can have too much fat. And also there is a situation with losing weight that the weight loss has to be slow so the skin elasticity of the skin can catch up with the muscle. Otherwise the skin starts hanging and my clients are I always like, they joke that the curtains, they have curtains. Well, so the strength is crucial, right? Because sarcopenia happens to us. So as, and when people are 35-year-olds, then after that, we start losing the muscle and we start losing the strength, we start losing the speed. And bad posture happens. So, all of it happens during this normal aging process. And in order to work with it, that we need to really foster in our brain, in our mind, the joy of getting stronger, the joy of having more flexibility, and the joy of being faster, running 40 yards or 100 meters faster. And then because of that, then there is a side effect. And the side effect is this life that you walk and you don't have any feeling that you aged.

That would be beautiful. And I've got elderly relatives who struggle and who are at danger of falling and breaking things. And when they wake in the morning, it's sore and it's slow. And I don't see them moving like you and you're an inspiration.

Yeah. Well, you know, thank you. And I hope that, you know, uh, that spreads and people, you know, see what can be done. And if we see a person won, for me is enough. If I see one person, wow, I want that. So then I pursue that. It's something that is in us, that the believing that is needed to see another person.

Yeah.

To see another person that is possible. Is it possible? Right? Because, you know, We created the happy body, but doesn't mean that the happy body has favors for us. And now we need to practice too. So it's like no way to have favors. But 30 minutes is really not long time during the day. People exercise anyway. It's like people, you know, make money, right? And how, what to do with money is important factor because it can be after 30 years $70,000 or can be $1 million and this with the same money. So when we go to the gym, we exercise and we can exercise and never change for better, actually even for worse. So why not to practice the way that we actually get better, accumulate, do the right thing, improve, make microprogression, and actually create for ourselves that kind of a life. Why not? You know, there's a Zen saying, you know, you go forward, you get better, and you die. And, you know, and then there is a— you go backward, And you get worse and you die. So the punchline is, why not to go forward? Right?

Getting better, getting stronger, happier, more fulfilling life. I'm with you. And you and I are geographically separated by the Pacific Ocean. Many listeners will be not in San Francisco, but many listeners right now will go, actually, I want to do 30 minutes a day, I want to do the Happy Body program. Can we do it remotely?

Sure. Our book is designed as a textbook. So everything is inside that what a person needs to actually create this fantastic way of life. Just the book. There is also the videos that people can get. But even from the book, when somebody doesn't have much money, $25 is enough to get the book and practice that way of life to the end of the life. And that will deliver fantastic body system and fantastic mind too.

I'm ordering multiple copies today, Jersey, and I'll put a link in the show notes. Anyone that's listening that wants a better body, a happier body, a longer life, they want to look like Jersey at 72, Get the book and even better, go and get the video so you can see how to do it accurately. You're known for a slogan, hard choices, easy life. What does that actually mean to you, Gersi?

Well, I think I said before that the hard choice is presented when the improvement or delivery is needed. Of something that needs to be created, a better us, right? A better person needs to be created. Without the hard choices, that one is not going to be created. So if you want something, if you want something beyond the knowing today, that you have to step into unknown. Is going to be the hard choice. And I remember it was Kennedy who was talking about the civil rights movement, and then his brother was saying that would be hard to actually deliver the change. And then Kennedy said, We are not here to do the easy ways. We are here to do the hard choices, hard ways, right? So, you know, something with the hard choices is to— whenever there is a situation that something needs to get better, it will come as a hard choice. And the easy choice will be not to do it. The easy choice would be to, why bother? Or we are too old, it's not for us, right? Like my father was saying that studying at college is not for me because these children, you know, of railroad workers are not designed not destined to go to college, right? Should all of this is in our mind. So if it is, then it is, right? So personally, everyone will have this different way, different places of hard choices. And for every person in every moment of life, that hard choice will mean something else, but will always mean one thing. That getting better is at stake, the improvement is at stake, that going to unknown is at stake, the goodness is at stake. And when that happens, if we align with the hard choices, we get better. And that's why our life gets easier and easier because of that.

Yeah, so beautifully said. It's, I've heard, I've learned so much. A couple of things I want to kind of summarize and highlight. One, we don't have to accept an aging body that, you know, we're going to be frail, that we're going to be weak, that when, you know, you're 70, you have to look like this and you'll be on a Zimmer frame at 80.

Easy choice.

Easy choice. Easy choice. Exactly. I'm hearing that No matter where your station is in life, where you started, it doesn't matter. You can learn, you can grow, you can be curious, you can read the book, listen to the podcast, you can do the work. Easy choice to not do it, right?

Yeah, right. So there is a huge gap. You know, I will add that there is a huge gap between where people are and what is possible. So when you imagine world champions, weightlifting champions, that they go from 35 to 90, And every 5 years, the records are going down and down and down. So there is somewhere where I am at 72, right on the top of that. And then there is another— there is another 72-year-old somewhere there. And then the gap between me and that one is huge. But it means one thing, that the possibility is huge. It's not to be overwhelmed by that, but to see the possibility. Oh wow, so my '72 jersey is over there, so I am here, so it means that I can get a lot of better. For me is a lot of better. For me is not better because I'm the— I'm, I'm really going on that world champions, you know, descent. So, I am the best on that level, right? So, for me, it's like depressing, right? It would be depressing. But I am really great version of that depression, right? But for other people, it's very inspirational. You know, when I tell people there is this gap that actually they can really narrow down. People start liking that and start seeing it. That is actually, wow, there is actually, I can get better because people think that they cannot get better, right? So if they see this gap, say, wow, there is a gap, so I can actually get better. And that message can be enough for a person to fuel that person forever.

Gergely, I want to say thank you because I believe in possibilitarian thinking, thinking through the lens of what's possible. And you've just described it perfectly, that there's the gap of where I am and then actually what's possible if this human could do this. Who was the guy that did the 4-minute mile?

Oh, yes. Yeah. From Hungary. Yes. He did it.

And then all of a sudden everybody's then going, it's possible, right? I'm looking at Jersey going 72, looking like that. I mean, it's possible for me then maybe 45 to start moving towards that. You know, the next, if I keep working today, 30 minutes a day, by 45, I might look a little bit better than I look now and get closer to what Jersey—

Or even pass because your other one, you know, when you are 40, your other 40, is higher than me, a lot higher, right? So, we go, you know, I was 40 and competing, right? 45 and 50 and so on. Your 40 is a lot more powerful than I am. So, the gap, your gap is a lot bigger than the gap between me and you. What's possible for you is a lot more than I am.

Yes, that's wild.

Actually, which is really beautiful thing because there is a possibility. And once there is a possibility, then there is only one thing that is needed, the mindset to deliver it.

The action. I like that. Getting the work done.

Yeah, the practice, the practice. My daughter was saying to me over and over, That is just practice. Keep practicing.

She's right.

Like, she's spot on. Practice. That's all there is. Practice.

That's beautiful. Well, Jersey, I just want to say a huge thank you. I could speak to you for hours, and I hope that you'll come back on the show. There's many other things I want to talk about with you.

Fantastic. Well, I'll be glad and happy to come. You know, like, I love to talk. So, you know, like, like my wife and I, you know, we talk 50 years ago. We've been married for 48 years. Beautiful. But we've been always talking a lot. And 40, 50 years after, because we met 50 years ago, we do this PhD now and we talk endlessly. And there's problems in different research and different articles and we have different opinions and we go, right? And it's really a great fact, you know, when When we stop talking, then the life becomes, you know, not fun at all. You know, we need the talk, we need the dinner that, you know, with people that we like, they like us, we like that dinner is around people that they are interested in talking about something, subject on something that You know, like Socrates' dialogue that you constantly talk about something and you are interested in something. You are not competing with proving anything or, you know, it's about getting better. It's about talking how to get better. It's about the plan to get there. It's the strategy to create. We talk about that. We talk a lot about that. And then we need to learn how to talk, how to talk that You know, it is not really about the person. It is about the subject, about something that we want to improve, something that we want to get better in. And that needs to be our goal, our collaborative goal.

I have to say, I've interviewed 500, 600, I don't know, hundreds of people from all walks of life, from prime ministers to Formula 1 guys. And I have to say, this is one of the most inspirational, motivating conversations I've personally ever had. And I can't wait to go and talk to Caroline, my partner, about this because I'm super motivated. I'm excited to do Happy Body, do the program, be an advocate, be a student, and learn from the best. So, George, I just want to say a heartfelt thank you.

Thank you so much. I appreciate, you know, possibility and talking to you about, you know, how to live a good life, right? The purpose of the philosophy.

It's beautiful. Thank you so much. And we shall chat again soon.

Yeah. Thank you, James.

Pleasure.