Phil Daru | Elite Performer Traits You Can Copy Today.

What's the perfect week for— of workouts for someone that wants to feel as good as they could for as long as they could?

Well, you want to work on—

In your opinion, what's the best recovery modality?

Hands down. Daru Strong has been at the cutting edge of combat sports performance.

Phil doesn't just coach, he teaches.

And now he's here to deliver what it actually takes to dominate.

Yes, there is a lot of benefit to working hard, but out of that 18-hour day, let's just call it, there's maybe one or two things that really push the ball forward.

This goes with experience too, as well, where you're physically capable of pushing it and you're not letting your mind tell you that you can't do it because your mind is going to stop you because it's—

You've obviously trained, you know, top-tier athletes, celebrities, actors, and I'm sure you've also trained a lot of people that are, you know, not as successful in their realm. Have you noticed that people at like, let's just say Kevin's level, yeah, they have something about them that also correlates to their success in their career. What is up guys? Welcome to the show. In this episode, I'm interviewing Phil Daru. He is 5 times trainer of the year, has coached 7 world champions and over 200 professional athletes. Now there's a lot of really good information about fitness and nutrition and how to feel good and be strong, but that's not what the whole conversation is about. We actually go deep into our connection into discipline. Phil and I happen to be very close in age and have had a lot of similar experiences, so sharing the things we've learned has taken us down some really interesting paths. I hope you guys enjoy, and I hope you get a lot of value out of this one. You were saying— so, um, it was funny because I, I, growing up, I always watched King of Queens. So I was like, I grew up single mom, you know, only child, and like, that was a show we'd watch all the time.

Yeah.

So you— how did you end up, uh, getting connected with, with Kevin?

Kevin, so It's funny, you know, we were in COVID and I was, I had a gym in Boca and he, he actually just walked into the gym, him and his assistant. And I was busy at the time, which was crazy because I was, I was writing on the board and I was, I was programming. So I was like knee deep into programming. And, uh, my, the manager of the gym was like, okay, I got a couple guys coming in. I'm going to show them around. I'm like, all right, cool. Go ahead.

Yeah.

He came in the office. He was like, hey man, these guys want to talk to you. And I'm like, man, I'm kind of busy, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Focus on this. He's like, can you just, can you just handle it?

Right.

And I mean, he spent about 10 minutes with them and then came back and he's like, man, these guys really want to talk to you.

Yeah.

And I go, all right, you know, bring them in. So he's sitting down and he still had his mask on. Remember, oh, at this point, so Kevin's a little older now, right? So, and he had a hat on, so he was covered up, right? And I'm sitting there, I'm talking to him and I'm telling him about, you know, what we can do for him. You know, he's, he's Obviously a little bit overweight. So I'm okay, first we got to make sure that we identify the issue, right? We're going to organize your training process, but I want to get you moving better. And I was just going over my spiel and yeah, you know, he was just like, yeah, I like that, I like that. He kept, he kept mentioning that he had projects coming up. Yeah, I got a, I got a few projects here and there. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, so what do you do? Like, that's one of the questions that we ask anyways. It's like, yeah, you do for work, right? He's like, well, I'm an actor. And I go Got it. King of Queens.

Oh, so you kind of saw him and you're like, saw him and I recognized you?

Yeah, because he started— well, he started bringing down the mask a little bit and started to get more comfortable.

Does he still look like he did when he was on that show? I haven't seen him, you know.

For me, for me, I say yeah, but my wife— I told her, and my wife's known Kevin for a long time now with, you know, with us having the relationship, and I told her yesterday, like, you know, he did Hitch, and that was like his first movie.

Yeah.

She was like I didn't even realize that was him.

Yeah.

And because he was so young, that was his first movie. And I was like, yeah, that was one of his first. And, and, you know, obviously he transitioned and did more movies after that, but he was just doing King of Queens at the time.

Yeah. So, so he came in and just like randomly came into your gym?

Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I asked him, I'm like, you know, you know, Kevin has been—

did you have an online presence like you do now back then?

Yeah, I had a pretty good presence.

Did he like see you online and then decide to come, or was it kind of more of just, uh, the, the universe lined it up?

Yeah, he's big into like watching Instagram and looking at, you know, different training, 'cause he loves to train. He loves to get after it. He's got a combat sports background. He still grapples. I mean, him and Rogan, he was on Rogan, he was, you know, they say both of them started jiu-jitsu together, you know, at that particular time. I don't know how close, but about the same time. And so he's big into that world. And obviously that's my niche, that's what I've been in for 20 years. And so I think that that's where he found it. And then he just came by the gym. Luckily, you know, he had a spot, he had a place in Delray and I was in Boca, so it was close by, you know, and he lives in New York and comes up and down. So it's like when we started, it was just, it's like we clicked, you know what I mean? And he's a good guy. Like one of the, one of the best individual, like people that I know. So it was a good way to, to start off. You know, the, the relationship in a sense where I was helping him and we created this bond. And from now on, I mean, I mean, like I said, he's my son's godfather, so like we're super close.

I mean, that relationship, like I had when we, we moved from Texas like 2 years ago and I had built a gym in our garage and I met my trainer Dustin and he's a jiu-jitsu black belt, um, you know, into boxing and really good trainer. And you know, he's at my house 3 days a week, you know, same time every day. And we get after it. And he became like probably one of my best friends, if not my best friend in Texas. Like that relationship, you know, you dig deep together and there's a lot of good energy in that moment. And now my trainer here, I was telling you about Pierre, he's one of my best friends too. It's like the relationship with the trainer can be an amazing one.

Well, you have to have a level of connection. Yeah, with the athlete.

Yeah.

And so I think that that comes with communication, also knowing what their, their strengths and weaknesses are. So very vulnerable in a sense, right? Because I'm trying to get you to a goal that you want to accomplish, right? As trainers though, we have to be very selfless, right? So the goal is to serve, not be served, right? And so when we're doing this daily and you're doing it, you know, maybe 3, 4 times a week, right? You get a, you get a time with that individual that you know, you can't really take back. It's, it's different when you're pushing yourself beyond your limitations and you're getting better each day when you do that.

Yeah.

And that person is the guide for you.

Yeah.

And so it does create that bond and relationship for sure.

100%. I mean, and then you start to associate— like, when I think about my two trainers that I'm really close with now, like, I associate great times with them. I associate, you know, a big, um, reason for why I feel so good to them. So I think there's a cool connection there. I'm curious So you've obviously trained, you know, top-tier athletes, celebrities, actors, and I'm sure you've also trained a lot of people that are, you know, not as successful in their realm. Have you noticed that people at like, let's just say Kevin's level, yeah, they have something about them that also correlates to their success in their career?

Yeah, there's, there's, I would say, a common theme with high-level achievers One, they're very conscientious, so they want to know exactly what they're doing and why they're doing what they're doing. They're very scheduled, so they have an appropriate schedule where they know they need to be at certain places at certain times.

Yep.

And they don't waste time.

Right, right.

So every moment of their life is structured to make sure that they're getting the best out of that opportunity.

Yeah.

And the other thing is wanting to get better, right? They're very ambitious.

Right, right.

And they want to know exactly why things are working the way they're working. And how they can get better. And also, a lot of them want more than what you give them, in a sense, and you got to pull them back at times, right? Because they want to do, do so much.

Like, they want to try, like, work harder or, or do too much.

Do too much to the point where it could negatively affect the adaptation, right? Or the progression that we could go through. And that's when overtraining comes into play. So we have to be mindful of that situation.

Is overtraining a real thing?

Yeah, it can be for sure. When you, when you talk about overtraining, it's a, it's a heightened stress state. Like you would say, it's, you know, with stresses, cortisol increases. There's things like that from a physiological perspective.

Yeah.

Um, you don't want to dig yourself deep into a hole where you can't pull yourself out, right? So the goal is to get a stimulus so that you can get the adaptation, but recover enough so that it allows you to keep doing that.

Right, right.

So using things like objective indicators, like I'm wearing a Whoop device now, right? Yep. Perfect. So those things are really good from a quantifiable data perspective to understand how deep in the pain cave are they.

Yeah, right.

And so we want to monitor sleep, we want to monitor energy levels, we want to monitor stress levels.

Yeah.

And then you need to formulate the plan to allow them to get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5% better each and every week. Yeah, because if, if you try to do too much too fast, what ends up happening is you dig yourself deep into that hole.

Yeah.

And ultimately you can either lose progress or get injured. So we want to reduce or mitigate the risk of injury while getting them more progressively better.

For sure. I mean, I've been training, you know, since I'm 15. I'm 35. I call it, you know, 20 years. And there's been periods in my life where I've been more consistent, call it like you know, a year straight. There's also been times where I've fallen off. Like when I first moved to Florida, I fell off for a few months. I didn't have the gym and my trainer.

Yeah.

Um, but when I get back into working out after falling off, I'll push myself really hard. And then I'm like, the next day I feel like shit. Like, like this, it's not just soreness. It's like you can't move.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm like, that's fatigue.

That's, that's central nervous system fatigue.

Is it like are you better off doing that and fighting through the pain for the next few days to make the progress back? Or is it— are you better off kind of going more slow and steady into— it's a good question— getting into it, you know?

You know, I think that if you are feeling broken, right, every muscle is sore, you're waking up tired, maybe you couldn't go to sleep really well the night before.

Yeah.

You know, brain fog, things like that, then yes, you don't need to not do anything. Like, it's, it's not like, okay, I, I'm not going to do anything that day.

Mm-hmm.

You just want to taper it off. So bring down the intensity level, bring down the volume, move a little bit, maybe go for what— like you go, go for your morning walks, right? That helps with blood flow.

Yeah.

That also helps with clearing your mind.

Yeah.

Right. So you could still do something. You just don't want to take it to the edge like you did the day before.

Right, right.

So what allows you to recover for that day, you get what's called active recovery, and then the next day you can hit it hard again.

Yeah. I actually find out that the next day is even worse than the day before.

Yeah, sometimes, sometimes.

Like if I hit like some heavy squats, for me heavy is not that heavy, but like, you know, if I hit heavy squats for me after being off for a while, next day I'm pretty sore, day after I can't move. Yeah, third day I'm still really sore and takes like 4 or 5 days to get back.

Yeah, so that's where if, if you do have a long layoff of training, you don't want to hit it as hard as you did before you stopped. Right. So there is, there has to be another progression or what we call progressive overload. And you want to start off with your minimal effective volume that you can do. So it does take some trial and error, right? So if you know that, okay, I did 5 sets of, you know, 5 reps, let's say you're doing high force work and, you know, I'm, I can't recover for, I'm, it's taken me 3 to 5 days to recover from this thing. Yeah, then maybe next time do 3 sets as opposed to 5 sets. Yeah, or bring down the intensity a little bit to where you're hitting maybe a 5 or 6 rep, but it's not max reps, right? It's not a 5, 6 on a reps in reserve of 0 or 1, right? Maybe it's 3 or 4. Yeah, I'm saying, yeah.

What are, what are some of your favorite, um, recovery tools, like as far as, you know, just feeling good, preventing injury? You know, like, I don't know if— are you familiar with, uh, Kelly Starrett?

Yeah.

Like I, I follow his app. I do the foam rolling mobility stuff. Then some people are more into, you know, stretching, you know. Then there's people that are into like restorative yoga where you sit in positions for like, you know, 5-10 minutes plus. What, in your opinion, what's the best recovery modality?

Hands down, sleep and nutrition. Yeah, getting the quality macronutrients and micronutrients that your body needs to recover. So protein, carbohydrates and fats, and then your micronutrients, right? Make sure you're getting your vitamins and minerals. And then sleep, quality sleep, right? Getting, you know, however— as much sleep that you need. Some people are different. Some people need 6, some people need 9.

Yeah, right.

It just depends on you. And so that right there needs to be prioritized, making sure that, you know— and a lot of people have trouble going to sleep, but I would say you can utilize things like breathwork protocols, right? Box breathing techniques. Nasal breathing. What that does is that gets you into a parasympathetic state, a rest and digest state, as opposed to being highly sympathetic in that fight or flight state when you're training, right? So you're breaking down muscle, you're in a high cortisol, you want to bring down cortisol, you want to bring down your stress levels so that you can have restful sleep. The good thing about Whoop, and, and this is not a plug for them, but at the end of the day, that's what we use. Yeah, you can identify your sleep quality through that, right? Yeah. So again, objective indicator. Now there's another subjective indicator that you can use by just knowing how your body feels.

Yeah.

Like you say, I'm tired, like, or my muscles are sore, or I'm brain fog, I can't think straight.

Yeah.

That's an indicator of, yes, I need to taper off a little bit, or I need to deload for that, maybe that entire week, for yourself to get back into full play.

Yeah.

And once you do that, you know, it'll be, it'll be more beneficial.

Yeah. With the Whoop and sleep, I typically look at HRV as like a, you an important metric to kind of correlate with how life's going and how I feel. And then, you know, restorative sleep.

Yeah.

Not, you know, a plug for a product that I've been using that's literally like if I don't use it, I'm maybe getting 3 to 3.5 hours of restorative sleep. But when I use it, I mean, I sent a screenshot to my buddy that I was like 7 hours and 10 minutes of restorative sleep. That's REM and deep sleep.

Wow.

It's the Eight Sleep. You know, the Eight Sleep?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, dude. It's incredible how much more sleep you get.

Yeah, brings down core temperature.

Yeah, but it's a— I mean, I'm almost doubling my restored sleep when I use that.

Love it.

Huge hack.

Yeah, no, Eight Sleep is good. And if you have a significant other that likes a certain temperature, yeah, you can change the temperatures in one side or the other. Yeah, which is good. Like, I like to be a little bit more colder. My wife runs hot, so she doesn't like to be too cold. Yeah, you know, so I mean, yeah, that's, that's a really good way to do it. You know, supplementation too as well. You got creatine, you got essential amino acids. Beta alanine is good for, for training and buffering out lactate. There's some good studies on it, but I would also look into L-glutamine and also adaptogens, right? So that's your mushroom extract, right? Ashwagandha, rhodiola, lion's mane, all that good stuff. I do actually have that in my supplements. So my pre and my post, and I kind of formulated that for my combat sport athletes and my tactical operators. But anybody can use it. And the reason why was because really I was just sick of piecing all these things together, going to Vitamin Shoppe and GNC. And I'm in like, you know, when I do weight cuts for fighters, I have to do the weight cuts. So I have to find all these things. So I'm in the hotel room, it's like a meth lab in there. You know what I'm saying? Like trying to figure out like certain, you know, I was like, all right, what can I do to get a supplement that does it all? And so that's why I decided to get Battle Tested and just do one scoop. And you're good to go.

So when you're, you're with these athletes and they have to do weight cuts, is it— when do they weigh in before the fight? Like, how, how long?

Typically it's 24 hours before you go to the venue, so it's the morning before the fight.

And they have to make a certain weight, right? Whatever, whatever that weight class is.

Yeah.

Especially how much weight are they cutting? Call it like 2 days before they weigh in.

It depends, man. Some guys cut 20 pounds, you know, maybe 15. Typically you want to go about you know, the week of the fight, you want to be about 10% from scale weight. So 10% of the body, body weight from scale weight. And, um, the night before the fight should be the, the direct cut where you're depleting all water, maybe some glycogen. You want to get your body fat down to a good body fat percentage so that you're not struggling with that. And then it's all water manipulation from there.

Yeah, I mean, if you have to lose 20 pounds and then you, you From there you have like 24 hours before the fight typically. Yep. So then what do you do to get the athlete back to feeling really good? I'm assuming after cutting 20 pounds, yeah, you feel drained, you're dehydrated, you feel like shit. How do you get someone feeling, you know, back to optimal before a fight?

Yeah, well, electrolytes are going to be key, right? Because you're losing a lot of that. Yeah, primarily. And that's the goal, is to just, or try to just lose water, right? Not— you definitely don't want to cut muscle, right? Right. If you can cut the body fat down to say around 10, maybe 8%, you're in a good range, you know, because you don't want to cut too much body fat too as well. Yeah, you have no energy, right? And you have no armor really at the end of the day. So yeah, I would say electrolytes, some essential amino acids. I like to also use creatine too as well because you're going to deplete that. And then carbohydrates, right? So that's going to be anything that's going to replenish glycogen.

Gotcha.

So typically you would go an electrolyte mix Like I said, I use Battle Tested. It has some carbs in it too as well, so it's a, it's like a all-around good replenishment, refuel, and rehydrate. You have about 24 hours to get in several meals, but you don't want to overdo it because you can have stomach distress, right? So the first thing that you want to do is something like a light, fast digestive, digestive protein. Yeah, right. Maybe it's like maybe some, some fish or some eggs, something like that.

Yeah.

And then you want to have a fast digestive carbohydrate. Maybe it's white rice.

Yeah.

You know, I like to use cream of rice too as well. Very, uh, very fast and gets to the muscle quick. After that, once you've been, you know, fully rehydrated, you've got some carbs and protein in, then you can go ahead and throw some fats in there, some healthy fats.

Yeah.

Some more denser proteins, maybe steak, chicken, somewhere around there. And then have like a sweet potato. Keep it clean, obviously. Yeah, you want to do that consistently all the way up until you go to the venue the next day.

Yeah. And you're saying that you're in taking carbohydrates and, you know, using, uh, you had mentioned a few different things, you're restoring your glycogen levels. Is that what, what the— yeah, so it's actually happening inside of you?

Yeah, well, you deplete glycogen.

Yeah. And so can you backtrack real quick? What, what exactly is glycogen and how does it affect the human body?

Well, with glycogen, it helps with creating muscle tension or creating muscle contraction, right? So it gives you— gives your muscles energy, right? The simplistic form of it. And if you deplete that, then obviously your muscles don't have the energy to reproduce that energy to do work. So what we want to do is give that glycogen back into the muscle, put that glycogen back into the muscle so that your muscles have the ability to produce energy. Gotcha, right?

And so like, for example, if you're doing like a zone 2 cardio, is that depleting glycogen? Or is that— from what I know, it's like zone 2 is where you burn fat.

Yeah.

And that— and then if there's, um, you know, there's like aerobic and anaerobic workouts, right? And I don't remember which one's which, but after zone 2, when you're in, you know, zone 4, zone 5, is that when you're depleting glycogen?

You're depleting glycogen after around— I would say right around zone 3, zone 4.

Yeah, right.

It's a sustainable output, right? So like, let's just say when you're doing, let's just say, hypertrophy work, right, muscle building or bodybuilding work, you're doing a large amount of volume, right? So your body is relying on that glycogen to produce that energy. When you do so much volume, that's when that, that glycogen is going to, going to deplete. If it's lower intensity, you're primarily depending upon fats for fuel. Zone 2 would be more fat dominant.

Yeah, yeah, because like, you know, I've, uh, people want to lose fat, they think they have to go train extremely hard, but it's like you can do an hour of Zone 2 cardio.

Yeah, yeah. So there's— you should do a mix of pretty much all bioenergetic demands in order for you to be fully capable, right, to do work. And so what I like to do is I like to utilize Zone 2, or what's called Maffetone running, which is 180 minus your age. Right? And that's your maximal aerobic function. So that's going to get you right into that point where you're hitting still aerobic, but you're at that maximal stage of aerobic.

Gotcha.

Then you also want to hit your high-intensity interval training, right? Because that's going to give you metabolic increases, right? So with that metabolism being revved up, obviously you can burn more body fat throughout the day and after your workout. You can— yeah, yeah, throughout the day. And on top of that, you get hormonal increases, some growth hormone, you know, things of that nature that will help with body fat reduction and also build some muscle. Right now, obviously, you know, you're not going to build muscle just by doing HIIT cardio, right? You do need to obviously hit the, hit the muscle and do it with high volume and high frequency. Um, then there's a— then there's something called alactic work, which is more your sprint intervals, right? So now why we do that is because we want to be able to produce force or high power outputs for a longer duration of time with minimal rest periods.

Yeah.

So with fighting That's vital, right? Or any, any sport that's a repeat power sport, something like American football, so on and so forth.

Yeah, I— so I look at myself like as an athlete in certain things I'm good at and certain things I'm really bad at. One of them is endurance. Like when I was doing boxing, for example, I'm dead after like a 3-minute round, but some people can keep going.

Yeah.

Are you saying that that is, um, or how can you increase your endurance in those kind of high-intensity Sports?

Well, in that case, right, a lot of it comes down to efficiency of movement, right? Because you have wasted energy. Maybe you're tight in certain ways.

Yeah, right.

You kind of clench up because you're not used to that movement. You're not used to that environment.

Yeah.

And a lot of my guys at the elite level, even though they may not be quote unquote in shape or highly fit at that particular time, maybe they're coming off the couch doing an offseason, they can come in and do sparring rounds very— because they're very efficient because they're at the elite status. And still be able to sustain some output. Yeah, right, because they're used to that particular, like, work, right? With that being said though, we want to improve their fitness as a whole, right, so that it can transfer over into specific demands.

Yep.

And so in order for you to have, like, an all-encompassing high motor output, you want to work on multiple energy systems throughout the week. Yeah, that's what we call concurrent training. In conjugate style, this is what I've I've coined the term condensed conjugate, but I took that from, from one of my mentors, Louis Simmons, right? Westside Barbell. He invented basically the conjugate method where you would work dynamic effort, max effort, and repetition effort, the three methods of strength training all in one week. Gotcha. This way, what ends up happening is you're ready at all times. Yeah, right. So you could call it a hybridized style of training.

Yeah, right.

I know that that word gets thrown around a lot lately. I actually put out a program called Hybrid Prime just recently because of it. Yeah, but really all it is is just being an athlete, right?

Right.

And so throughout the week, you want to structure your training so that one, you don't have an interference effect, meaning that you're not training high strength or high force output in the same time as aerobic training, right?

Because you're not getting the same workout.

Yeah, because you're throwing the organism in two different directions. It wants to go, okay, I want to be more high volumize, I want to have longer sustainability, but then I also want to create high force.

Yeah.

And you have your fast-twitch and your slow-twitch fibers that you are building simultaneously, but one is going to outweigh the other.

Right.

So what I do is I'll typically do one day a week that's dedicated to high speed and high force output, and I'll break it up upper and lower. So the day one would be dynamic effort upper max effort or heavy efforts lower, right? So you're still working. And usually when you—

dynamic being like speed, got it, right?

Or power work, right?

Give me an example of an upper dynamic.

Upper dynamic could be like med ball throws, right? It could be landmine, like explosive press-outs, things like that. Um, and then your high force stuff could be just back squats, right?

Gotcha.

In those 3 to 5 rep ranges.

Gotcha.

And the reason why they're in those rep ranges is because the intensity is high.

Right.

When I mean intensity, I'm not talking about a feeling. I'm talking about a mathematical equation, right? The percentage of 1 rep max goes higher. So anything from like 85% on, you're going to work on high force outputs.

Gotcha.

So you're working through the force velocity curve. So with high force comes zero velocity. The highest force you can do, usually it's an isometric contraction, right? So you got several different isometric contractions. The biggest ones that we use are yielding or overcoming isometrics. Yielding is when you— let's just say you're in a squat and you come down into the deep squat position and you hold that position. So as you're coming down eccentrically, you hold.

Yep.

So you're yielding the force coming down, you're yielding gravity pulling you down.

Yeah.

With overcoming isometrics, I can use pins. Like, you ever seen like a squat rack, right? They have the two pins on the side. You can pull into those pins in an immovable object and create force through those pins. It's not moving, right? But you're, you're stimulating muscle, you're stimulating motor units, and you're driving force into that particular range of motion right now. Typically through research, they say you can, you can increase strength somewhere around 15, maybe even a little bit more now, of degrees of strength in that given range. So let's say I'm doing a mid-thigh pull.

Yeah, right.

And I'm pulling into pins in the mid-thigh section. That will help strengthen up the entire pull of a deadlift, right? Especially if you have a weak point in your particular movement. A lot of powerlifters do this too as well. It's called a supplemental lift. So you have your main lift, which is— could be the big 3, right? Squat, bench, deadlift.

Yeah.

Then you have your supplemental lift that aids or helps with the tester or compound lift that you're doing.

Yeah.

Then from there, you want to work on your accessory exercises, the small isolated movements, kind of like bodybuilding.

Yeah.

To build up muscle around the areas that are needed in order for you to actually do the movement better.

Yeah.

So you have to identify what are the weak links, right? Right. Once you can identify that, then we can get them stronger. So you want to plug the gaps pretty much.

So we're talking about athletes. I'm curious, for someone that wants to just feel as good as they could until they're as old as they get, right? Like, let's say you're starting off and you're like, I want to be able to be mobile when I'm 100 or whatever it is, right?

Yeah.

What is the perfect week, assuming someone has all the time and resources in the world? Mm-hmm. What's the perfect week for, you know, of workouts for someone that wants to feel as good as they could for as long as they could?

Well, you want to work on the foundational patterns, right? So squat, hinge, push, pull, rotate, some type of gait movement, right? So running, sprinting. A lot of people, they reach 30 years old and they stop sprinting. Yeah, they stop, they stop doing any type of running, really. And so you want to stimulate that. Also like to do crawling movements, right? Getting on the floor, getting back up on your feet, especially people that are You know, the older population, you're talking about 50+.

Yeah.

Get them off the floor. So I'm, you know, I usually have them lay down and have to roll up and get up off the floor, right? Using certain movements, techniques, muscle. And then they formulate an understanding of body awareness.

Yeah.

So increase that, you know, kinesthetic body awareness so that nothing that they do in life is going to be a detriment, right? Nothing that they do in life is going to be dangerous for them.

Yeah.

Improving on strength, which will help with calcium, right? So increasing calcium in the bones, because if they fall, you want to make sure that their bone density is strong, right? So you do that through strength training. You want to do something fast, explosive, right, to stimulate the nervous system. You want to mobilize the joints, right? So make sure that you're working in all ranges of motion and do that through each joint capsule. Up the kinetic chain.

Yeah.

So ankles, knees, hips, and for the most part, right, you want to have some level of mobility throughout all joints, but some joints need to be more stable than others.

Okay.

Typically what you would do in— and so, so there's a, there's a functional range assessment that we use, but we look at a joint-by-joint approach. So when you're looking at ankles, you You typically want them to be mobile.

Yeah, right.

But you want your knees to be stable, right?

Right.

Then you go up to the hips. Since it's a ball and socket joint, it moves around a lot. It needs to be mobile, right? Because if it's not mobile, then it's going to go up the adjacent joint, which is the low back, right? And we don't want the low back to get injured, so we have to keep the low back stable. Lumbar spine, right? Then you go to the thoracic spine, where your shoulders and your mid-back are located. Gotta be mobile.

Yeah.

Cervical spine, stable, right? That's your neck.

Yeah.

So strengthen up those muscles that surround that joint.

Yeah.

And then still work on ranges of motion so that you don't lose the range. Yeah. You don't— you don't use it, you lose it, right? So that's what happens.

So, so how would someone— because you want— so you want your hips to be mobile, right? Like sometimes you'll look at someone doing a squat and you're like, they, you know, they would assume that their hips are just not mobile enough, but it might be that their ankles just can't moving.

Several factors in that.

Yeah, yeah. Like, how would someone add mobility to a certain joint?

So I like to use what's called FRC, or functional range conditioning. But typically all you're doing is you want to— there's a difference between flexibility and mobility, first of all. So flexibility is passive range of motion, right? Let's just say I can get myself into a split and I'm using gravity to pull me down and I have something there that, that kind of keeps me there, right? With mobility, it's active range of motion, right? So being able to get into position and be strong in that end range.

Yeah, right.

So I would argue that that's more important than flexibility, right? Right.

That makes sense.

So when you're talking about, let's just say, hip mobility in a sense, I will get into ranges of motion, whether it be standing, seated, whatever it is, if they have the ability to do that with balance. I'm going to get them into a joint range to where they have less full control, and then I want to isometrically contract. When we talk about yielding isometrics, I want to use that.

Yeah.

And I want to stimulate muscle that surrounds that joint to help increase the joint.

If you're sitting in like a 90-90 and you put your, you know, your, your back foot up, like you could barely move it, but you want to hold it in that position to strengthen those muscles. Yeah, in that position.

Yeah, because if the muscles feel— let's say your body in general doesn't feel like it's safe in that position, it's going to tighten up, right? Right. So it's a, it's a defense mechanism.

Yeah.

So what we have to do is get the body strong in those ranges so that it goes, okay, I have— I'm safe here. Yeah, I'm saying.

Yeah. Kind of a random question, but just sparked my, uh, thought here. You know, when you think about the body and the mind working together, you know, you've always hear those stories of like you know, the woman who was able to lift the car and get the kid out from underneath because she needed to, or, you know, someone who, um, you know, David Goggins, right, when ran 100 miles like with training for a couple months. Um, how much more do you think people can do than they, than they actually do?

Yeah, your governor in your mind is— can play a lot of tricks on you. Yeah, right. So You have to know, and this goes with experience too as well, where you're physically capable of pushing it and you're not letting your mind tell you that you can't do it. Because your mind is gonna stop you because it's dangerous. Yeah, it's not gonna push— it's not gonna let you push that level because it's taking care of you.

It's your governor, or it's lazy and it doesn't want to feel the pain.

That's true. That's true too. It depends on the person, right? So like, if people don't have the ability to go through pain, it's going to be very hard for them to gain an adaptation.

Yeah, right.

So, and I always say, like, you know, with, with strength, right, strength is the ability to manage pain.

Yeah, right.

So when you want to gain muscle, when you want to get stronger, you have to go through that pain, right, right? Because that makes you grow. Yeah, right. You got growing pains, it happens. So yeah, it's, it's, it's that, like you said, you said laziness too as well. But you know, when somebody has a heightened sense of why right, that lady picking the car off their, off their child, right? No matter what happens, there's no way that I'm not going to be able to do this, right? So you have to dig deep.

Yeah.

And it, and it comes down to your, the faith in yourself, maybe a higher being, right? For me, obviously I've got my faith in God. What I'm looking at is what is my why? Yeah. And if my why is greater than this pain, I'll be able to conquer it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My latest why is you know, I have two young boys. I want them to look up to me. I want them to look at their dad when they're, you know, 9, 10, 11, and say, I want to be just like him. So when I'm running and I'm like, ah, you know, I think I'm gonna stop, like, that's, that's the latest why.

Yeah.

But sometimes it's hard to find a why if you don't have kids or if you don't have, you know, something to, you know, something greater than yourself. Yeah, it's easy to let yourself down.

Well, I think you have to have a why that's greater than yourself. Yeah, right. And, and so whether that be being, you know, an inspiration to others that you want to help, right? Being that guide. You know, for me, I have, I have kids, I have a wife, you know, I have people that I lead. So it is a little bit easier for me, right? But yes, you're right, when somebody doesn't have anybody that they're truly having to lead, well then figure out a way to lead yourself. Yeah, because at the end of the day, before you lead anybody, you have to lead yourself. Yeah, so Yeah, I think just finding that, having some introspection, really understanding who you are, right, and what you want to accomplish. And a lot of times, you know, for me, I'm here to serve, not, not be served.

Yeah.

You know, so whatever I can do, and I put myself in these uncomfortable situations in order for me to do that. And the reason why is because I want to serve those in need and those people that look to me and go, okay, well, he's doing 100 miles with the ruck. I can do 30 minutes on a treadmill. Yeah, you know what I mean?

Right.

So it just depends. It's, it's in, it's in stages, right? Yeah. And people have to identify, I can do this. If this guy can do it, I can do something, you know what I mean?

One thing that I learned that was always, um, that always kind of kept me going, and that I, I'll share with people when they, you know, they're trying to figure out how to grow in their business or in their life or whatever it is. I realized this a long time ago, and I remind myself of it all the time, is like We have a subconscious and our subconscious is judging everything we do. And see, they're saying, go you, or you're a lazy piece of shit, right? Like, it's like you wake up in the morning, you don't want to get out of bed, it's 5 AM, you know, you go back to sleep. Your subconscious is like, eh, you don't really deserve to win in other areas of life. You get out of bed when you're tired and you do it anyway, your subconscious like, we did it, you know. So your subconscious is where your confidence is built.

Sure.

And then you can go through life as a highly confident version of yourself or someone who hasn't built that confidence yet, and it's a totally different path. I mean, you may see opportunities as the confident version of yourself that you never would have seen. So it's like the motivation to push is the motivation to train your subconscious to build confidence, and you're really just operating at a higher vibration, at a higher level. It's like, you know, a random example. You want to build a business, you want to be an entrepreneur, but you're not keeping promises to yourself. Your subconscious isn't very confident. It won't even notice opportunities. That same version of you that just stuck to the plan and did the things that you didn't want to do, you know, maybe they're walking through life and they see something that leads them, you know, down the path of building a business they wouldn't have seen if they weren't confident. It's like that, that concept of like doing the things you don't want to do, doing the things that your mind doesn't want to do in the moment, but your true self knows you need to do.

Yeah.

Over time builds a level of confidence. And I think that, and I might be wrong, but I think that, you know, a lot of the high-level people that you train probably have done that for a period of time. They've probably built a level of confidence.

Yeah, for sure.

For themselves.

Absolutely. I mean, in the beginning it sucks for everybody. Right. I mean, you don't want to do most of the things because you're not good at it.

Yeah.

But you get good at it and you develop a passion for it.

Right.

So I think also, and for you, you know, when you're talking about confidence, the large majority of confidence comes from these little wins that you get through preparation. Right. So when you're going into a fight per se, and you're looking at it like, I have an arduous task ahead of me, right. We're not, paying attention to the task at the end of the road because that's too far down the line. What I need to focus on, what is more beneficial to focus on, is each day. How can I get better today? And so that gives you those little wins and it increases your confidence over this, whatever it is, 8 weeks of camp.

Yeah.

By the time you go into the fight or fight week, you're like, I did everything I possibly could do.

Yeah.

And so you have to almost reverse periodize how you approach the training process, right? Because I have to look at this lofty goal at the end, and, and I'm— and I always say this, like, it's never really ending. Like, a goal is good to have, but I'm always gonna go for the next thing because highly ambitious people, there's no end.

There's no such thing as being satisfied.

No, no. And so you just have to be confident in your abilities as you go through these uncomfortable situations, and that, that builds over time. But at the goal, once you get that goal accomplished, oh, I got another idea. Oh, I have another thing I want to do. I know another business that I want to create. And so you just have to be at peace with that, you know, and then from there, build the skill set around the talent that God has given you. Yeah. And that will give you the confidence to push forward.

Yeah. And knowing that those moments, those little moments— should I eat the chocolate cake or not? And not doing it because you, you've decided— nothing wrong with having dessert if you're fine with it, but if you've decided you're not going to, those little battles have a massive effect on life. But I don't think people realize that. I think they say, oh, it's no big deal, it's no big deal, and they just kind of coast. But it's, you know, maybe you're preparing for a fight, um, maybe you're, you know, preparing to do something else really big in the future. But like you said, you know, each day is, is the battle. But it's even more than that. It's like each moment is the battle. There's, there's hundreds of moments throughout the day. Yeah, should I scroll on my phone right now or not? You know, or you just do it. It's every decision you make, your subconscious is, is judging that decision and basing its perception on who you are based on those decisions. So it goes a long way.

When you— it's a question for you. So when you started to develop your businesses, right? How difficult was it in the beginning just to start out? How difficult was it?

Well, to get started when I was young, like really young, in my early 20s, I had this like this unwarranted, um, like I thought I knew everything, you know. I was like 20, I thought I knew everything. Um, but it was, it was extremely hard to make progress. What I did was, uh, I, I just made a deal with myself. I'm going to the coffee shop for 2 hours every day. I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do.

Gotcha.

And oftentimes I wouldn't even know what I'm gonna do when I get there, but I knew that by going there and at least getting the ball in motion, mm-hmm, it would lead me to either learning something or trying something else or connecting with someone or whatever it was just to keep moving the ball forward. But it's hard when you don't have the validation, right? Like, sure. So like, after doing it for a long time, I could— okay, that makes sense. But if you have never built something that's grown to what you want to be, you don't have the validation like, oh yeah, this works. So you're fighting a battle with yourself every day. So it's a lot harder than I'm making it sound right now, I guess what I'm saying.

Well, by going to the coffee shop, you made the decision to go there each and every day. And we, we talk a lot about discipline, right? We're disciplined, you know, and Jocko says a lot, discipline equals freedom.

Yeah.

But I also will go a step further and say you need to have a routine so that routine made you disciplined. Yeah, because you didn't, you didn't go away from the routine.

Right, right.

And so through that time of you going to the coffee shop, you just made things happen. Yeah, because that, that's a part of the routine. Yeah, it just is second nature, right? And a lot of people get caught up in, oh, this is hard, you know, I'm doing hard things every day. But when it becomes a part of you, then it is just another day. Yeah, but another day of getting better. Yeah. And so I think with the highest level achievers they just go through their routine, and because they're so high level, everything that they touch now with that routine turns to gold.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I mean, I've said this many times, when I feel— and by the way, anyone listening, there's nobody that's always on, right? People always fall off and bounce back and fall off and bounce back, and even the most successful people in the world are suffering through a lot of pain to figure things out and have suffered a lot of pain. When I'm in a low point when I feel like, you know, I have low energy or I'm not producing or I don't feel like I'm present enough or whatever it is, when I just don't feel good, I do 75 Hard. You know, 75 Hard? Because when you have a routine or let's just call it a framework.

Yeah.

Like these are the things I have to do. And if I don't do them, I have to start back from day one. There's no decision to make. It's like I can't— like, the chocolate cake comes out, it's like, well, I can't eat it. It's not, oh, should I eat it?

I don't know.

No, I already decided I'm not.

It cuts it out.

This is the routine. So what you said is very wise. Like, having a structured routine that you predetermine and pre-agree on with yourself makes those micro decisions way easier to make. Because if you leave it up to yourself, it's like you're gonna pick the wrong choice very often.

You know, I'm very good at not negotiating with myself.

Yeah, right.

So like, I'll write it down and I'll go, listen, this is what we're doing.

Yeah.

Now, with that being said, you have to make smart decisions.

Yeah, right.

You have to make sure when you are doing your routine, play— pay close attention to the sacrifices that you're going to have to make to make sure that you're staying on that routine. So you have to have a level of understanding of your lifestyle, right? Because I've done it before in the past where like, all right, I'm going to write down a program and I'm going to put these exercises in, I'm going to put these frequency of training sessions in, and I go, oh, maybe this was a little too much, right? So you overshoot because you're ambitious, right? So you have to think very strategic in process of the routine, right? So with, with that, take some time before you just start doing a routine. 100%, right? It may take you a week to really identify what's the best, you know, cause of action. Yeah, how to put together an SOP, right? Because if you don't and you deviate, well then what ends up happening is that your confidence comes down and you start back from square one again.

I would argue that Let's just say you're in, you know, there's, there's two paths you could take. One is you decide on a routine that's pretty easy, and one that you decide on a routine that's very challenging to get through. I would argue that had you done both of them, you might get a little bit more benefit from the really hard one, but you still get a lot of benefit from sticking to the not that hard one. Where you— but if you fall off the really hard one, you're way behind if you just stuck to the not that hard one.

For sure.

I think what you said is really important. Like, last time I did 75 Hard, I committed that, um, I, you know, for me, a walk counted as a workout. It made it a lot easier for me. It fit into my life a lot better. But doing it, I was way better off than not doing it at all. And had I not agreed with myself to allow a walk to be a workout, yeah, I probably wouldn't have gotten through it. And by falling off, I would have been way worse off than than getting through the easier one.

Yeah, every time you quit, you have to start over. Yeah, you know, so just keep it going, right? And there's ways to do it. There's ways to, to progress and still be able to auto-regulate.

Yeah, right.

So like when we're doing a training session, like you talked about, right, when you said, okay, I'm sore now for 3 or 4 days. Yeah, you can still go into the gym and auto-regulate the training that you're doing based upon how you're feeling.

Yeah.

You're still getting something done. You're still quote-unquote doing the routine, but you're calling an audible, right? You're just moving things around in order for us to stay and maintain progress.

Yeah, right. And that's— it's a comforting thing for people to feel, okay, I could fall back on that, as opposed to I can't do this, I'm giving up.

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, I talked to my mom, right? She wanted to get into working out and then she wasn't doing— she wasn't doing it. And I was like, just put your shoes on. Yeah. And then just walk out the door and then just walk down the street.

Yeah.

And now you're working out. You don't have to think about, oh, I have to do this whole thing. I know. Like I have a pretty, um, pretty aggressive morning routine when I'm really on, uh, you know, it's, it's getting up at 5:00 AM, going in the red light machine, doing some breathwork, getting some coffee, um, hitting a run, workout, sauna, cold plunge, journal, like all this stuff, right? When I'm like really on, which I don't do it all the time.

Yeah.

And if I don't like write, write it all down the night before, yeah, and have it there, you know, when I get up in the morning, it's like, all right, it's got to do the next thing. There's the next thing, next thing. But if I, first of all, if I don't write it down and I wake up and I try to remember it all, it feels overwhelming. And if I don't plan it and I get up and I think about all of it, my mind's like, whoa, that's way too much. We're not doing this today. Mm-hmm. So just making a plan.

Yeah.

And just taking the next step. That's all you have to do. Yeah, just get to the gym.

Mm-hmm.

Just start. You can make an audible if you have to.

Yeah, I like to do most of the hard things first in the day.

Yeah, right.

So I'll pick 2 to 3 of the hardest things that I have to do, sometimes the things I don't want to do, and I make sure I get them done before 12 o'clock. That way the rest of the day is set on, okay, maybe I can— now I can do what I need to do or want to do. Spend time with the family, everything else. So yeah, there's a, there's a book called Organizing Tomorrow Today. Have you ever read that?

I have not.

So with that one, you know, it was given to me by another strength coach. Um, and he, you know, he was telling me that he was having trouble trying to schedule out his days because when you're a strength coach and any of you guys that know, it's, it's, it's a nonstop grind, right? And you barely have time for yourself. So what he did was the day before, you spend about 10, maybe 15 minutes writing out what you want to accomplish the first, you know, first 3 hard things in the day, in the morning, conquer that morning. And then it gives you the opportunity to focus on the things that you need to focus on throughout the rest of the day. And what that did do was it gave me the routine necessary to free up a lot of my time.

Yeah.

And then I started realizing that I have way more time than I think.

Yeah.

Because I got all the stuff that I basically procrastinated on, 'cause I didn't wanna do it, and I got it done. And then it gives you momentum, right? It drives you throughout the day.

Yeah, I had one of those days today. I had so much shit to do today where I'm taking my family to New York. I decided I'm gonna buy a car that I wanted anyway that's in New York, and they'll have them deliver it to where we're flying into. And so, and I'm trading in my car. I gotta ship it out to New York. And I'm also going to Boston tomorrow for this, um, interesting thing that I'm doing that I need to get a cashier's check for. And I had this huge list of things and I was like, I just need to get this all done in the first hour of my workday. And you, you realize like there, there's not that much to do. Like, and I think something that people suffer with is they think they always need to be doing. It's like, if you can get the hard things done early, You get them out of the way, and the important things— it's like, it allows your cortisol levels to come down, it allows you to get out of that stress state, and it gives you the ability to feel better, sleep better. So I think it's, it's a really powerful thing to just pick 3 or 4 or 2, whatever it is, like things that are not that easy, and just do them right away. I think it's a life-changing practice.

I think as men, we're just always thinking that we have to do more.

Yeah.

You know, because we're caretakers, we're caregivers, you know, we take care of the family, we take care of the people that we love. And so if we're sitting idle, we feel like we're useless.

Yeah.

Right? And we're not doing what we need to do to be who we are, right, as men. And so I've had to really think about that within the last, I would say, 3 or 4 years now.

Yeah.

Because in my younger years, I was just nonstop.

Yeah.

Running myself into the ground, burning the candle at both ends and going, I have nothing to show for it other than a headache.

Right.

Right. And getting sick and not feeling like I want to be anywhere anymore.

Yeah.

So then you get depression, things of that nature. And so what I've realized is that it's okay to relax. It's okay to sit in solitude and enjoy maybe being around the family and not think about work.

Yeah.

Not think about these other tasks.

Yeah.

It is good to make sure that you get them done so it's not lingering, but once it's done, it's done.

Yeah, right.

The problem is, is that ambitious people, unfortunately, we think on to the next thing.

Yeah.

And so it's never-ending. So you have to find that time for yourself, um, for your sanity really, to let yourself just relax a little bit. Yeah. And so you can sharpen the sword and then you can go back to fighting the battles.

Yeah, it's, it's very wise, and I think it usually takes people in, you know, into their 30s or later to realize that. Mm-hmm. I've realized that in my own life as well. You know, I, in my, in my 20s, it was grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, go, go, go, go, go. Nothing to show for it. Just, you know, we lived in LA, and I was, I had started a business, and I was importing products from China, and I was, you know, flying around the country setting up trade show booths and selling and then taking all the money, sending it back out there and like just making enough to like look like I was doing well. It wasn't until I learned the power of letting go and surrendering that my business actually grew, which is really counterintuitive, especially in society where social media talks about how you have to grind, work 18-hour days. Actually, like, yes, there is a lot of benefit to working hard, But out of that 18-hour day, let's just call it, there's maybe 1 or 2 things that really push the ball forward. And when you're in that constant state, you don't see those 1 or 2 things. Mm-hmm. But when you let go and you can be present and you can focus on your energy and you could be— you can be the person you need to be, not do the things you need to do. Your intuition guides you to that next thing that actually moves the ball forward.

Yeah.

So when I started really focusing on you know, on a daily basis, getting out in the morning and, you know, focusing on my energy and then letting go, I would get these little, like, little bubbles. I'm like, oh, you know, I should reach out to that guy. I don't really know why, but I felt it. And it would lead— you can be much more efficient navigating to where you want to go. It's like you can go from point A to point B to point C, or in the other state of mind, it's you're zigzagging up, down, left, right, you know, forever, and never even getting to that point. So there is a— there's a power in, in letting go and surrendering, and it's actually an act of strength because it is like your intuition knows that it's the right move, but your mind doesn't want to let go because it feels unsafe. It feels like you're gonna lose control, you're gonna lose things. But if you know it to be true and you can actually do it, it shows that, you know, you're greater than your mind.

Yeah.

That's something that I've really started, you know, going full in on probably about 6, 7 years ago.

I think it's funny because when we're in our 20s, we're in that warrior state, you know, and our ego gets the best of us.

Oh yeah, right.

And you could say it's narcissism or whatever the case. I think it is. It's just we just didn't identify it, you know.

Yeah.

Now getting older, having kids, we are naturally having to step into a leadership role no matter what because you're leading your your family now at this point, and that's the most important thing.

Yeah.

And in order to lead, you have to be able to follow. And so how are you going to follow? Well, you have to bring down your ego to do so. So identifying that and figuring out ways— and for me, it's a higher power, you know, obviously I follow Jesus Christ, I follow God, you know, and, and that for me was allowed me to be a better leader because I'm now I'm leading through service.

Yeah.

As opposed to for my own self-accomplishment.

Right, right.

Yeah. And it's funny because you— you— we all get to this point. I'm like, I'm 36 now.

Yeah.

And I was not feeling that way in my 20s, 29, even in my like early 30s. Yeah, it started to really start to transition. And you start to be more mindful of yourself too as well when you get a little bit older. So yeah, yeah, it's stepping in the right direction.

Yeah. I think, you know, you mentioned faith. And I think there's, you know, different ways to articulate faith, whether there's a specific religion or different words people use. I mean, faith goes— is so much greater than words anyway, right?

Yeah.

But having a connection is extremely important to growth in every area of life. I think you can only have that connection when you let go. Like, that you can't think your way there. It doesn't come from the mind. I think that that, you know, is something that I didn't grow up with any of that in my life. You know, I'm Jewish, but I never went to, you know, temple. I didn't learn about things. And then, you know, I ended up going to church with my wife when, you know, we were— before we were married. And I didn't, you know, I wasn't into it. The words they were using didn't resonate with me. And then I would see people leaving church and like honking at each other in the parking lot. I'm like, this doesn't seem to like make sense. But as I've actually dove or spent more time and energy letting go, being connected— I've done a few plant medicine journeys that have really, like, you know, uh, opened me up beyond my mind. I've been back to church, and now the words that they say mean a whole different thing.

Yeah.

And so I think leaning into something greater than this physical world It's kind of where you, you know, where I don't know, and it seems like people that I connect with that are around— I'm 35. Mm-hmm. You know, most people kind of land here. It's like you can only grit your way, ego your way, you know, push your way through life so long.

Yeah.

But if you believe that you're here to serve, you're here to be, you know, a beacon that adds value to humanity, and that it— and if you also believe that, you know, you're, you're meant for that, you're guided for that. And, and, you know, your guide comes from your intuition, it comes from a feeling. It makes a lot of sense to, to, to let go. It makes a lot of sense to you. I mean, my way of doing is getting up early in the morning, going on a walk.

Sure.

That's where I get my connection. Um, and it's one thing to talk about this stuff, uh, you know, a lot of people listening, maybe they're younger and they're like, yeah, that sounds great and all, um, but But I can say with 100% confidence, like, I've had the validation. I've seen the last 5 years of my life dramatically change in a good way in every area when I stopped trying so hard. So it's like, it's a— it's something people will hear and they'll understand, but they probably won't be able to do. No, until they do it.

Yeah, it's letting go, right? And, and, you know, you talk about your calling, and we talk about purpose, right? Yeah. So I hope he doesn't get mad at me saying this, but we were in— we were getting— me and KJ were at, uh, a movie. He was doing, uh, Home Team, his last movie. And we were sitting there and I was frustrated about something. I was— we're in the hotel and he saw that I was frustrated. And remember, Kevin is now almost like a big brother father figure type for me, right?

Yeah.

And so he looked at me, he goes, man, what's the problem? What's going on? And I'm just frustrated about something, man. I didn't really want to tell him. I don't even remember what it was, honestly, um, but it was just something probably stupid.

Yeah.

And he goes, what's your purpose, man? And I go, what do you mean, bro? And I started getting a little frustrated. I'm like, it's to leave a legacy and do this and that, just all surface-level stuff.

Yeah.

And he goes, that's not your purpose. Your purpose is to know and love God and then understand what he's given you and then pursue that. And I go, okay, so it's that simple?

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, now that's what I live by. And so for that, my purpose is to serve through the talent that he has given me.

Yeah.

And then from the talent I developed a skill set in order to do that.

Yeah.

And that's where people fall short.

Yeah.

Is they don't know what either they're good at, they don't know why they're here. Most people don't even know why they're alive, right? Which is a very big problem.

Yeah.

And it's all a test, right? You got your highs, your lows. You're going to be happy at times, you're going to be sad. And that's the point, is how you can identify how you're feeling and then cope with those situations.

Yeah.

A coping mechanism is nothing but understanding.

Yeah. Right.

And if you can understand to a deeper degree, then you're going to be more well off down the line. In this way, nothing bothers you to that extent.

Yeah.

No matter what you go through, your losses, right? I've had plenty of losses. You've had plenty of losses too, but we know that we have the ability to overcome because we've been put here with a certain base of talent. Yeah, that allows us to do so. Yeah, so everybody has to identify that.

Yeah, and, and, you know, for a couple things to unpack there. First of all, you, you— what you said, you know, being here to serve, you know, not necessarily your mind or your ego creating this legacy. You know, our minds want to paint this like glamorous thing, like we're going to die and we're just going to be this big square work hard and we're gonna win, it's a game. It's not. Our minds are, are puny in relation to the universe. There's nothing compared to everything, right? Who are we to think our purpose? We don't know what it is. But if we can have a relationship with God, or we can be connected, or whatever words you want to use, and you can know that's your purpose, that's a powerful thing because it's always there. You can always feel it. You can always prioritize putting yourself in the circumstances to have the connection, that's your purpose. That's a powerful thing to really lean into in life, and it, it adds a lot of meaning to this existence. And it also adds a lot of fun because you don't know where it's gonna lead you.

Mm-hmm.

Right. It's another kind of thing to unpack from what you said is, you know, let's, let's say we're the, this younger version of ourselves that, that has, you know, what's your purpose? Oh, my purpose is to do this, do that, whatever. Like, I think I know everything. The problem with living that way, from my understanding, is first of all that we live in an unlimited universe, meaning things can happen infinite different ways. And if we think we know how things need to happen We're gonna be consistently disappointed because things aren't gonna happen that way.

Yeah.

And what's that gonna do? That's just gonna make our mind chatter more. That's gonna make our energy lower. That's gonna cut off our connection. That's gonna make us miss the next move that could have just been there. So it's like, it's, it's almost necessary to go down this path and understand this path, or life could just be a very, you know, painful and challenging experience.

I like that though. I like that because, you know, when I look at a situation, you, we, we tend to dissect the situation because that's what we do. You know, I strategize as a strategic, I guess, individual, you would say. I would say that it takes a lot of time to really identify who you are first, because for the longest, people don't know exactly who they are, right? So how do you find that? Like, For me, having introspection is the first line of defense. So whether it be going on long walks, sitting in solitude, or identifying experiences and how you react to those experiences.

Yeah.

When you're more aware of how you react, then you become closer to yourself, which in turn you become closer to a higher being, right?

Yeah.

Because that's the creator.

Yeah.

So Yeah, how long do you think it took you to truly like know who you are?

I think it actually, you know, changes. It's, it's a fluid thing. Um, I, you know, I personally, um, you know, had a lot of ups and downs and challenges and experiences in my 20s. Like, I, I made my first million dollars when I was 21, and then I lost it all when I was 23. I moved back in with my mom and I got sued. And like, there were these like so many times where I didn't think I was gonna make it. There was a moment, you know, when I had started Zen Drop that we were running out of money and I had to cut everyone's salary in half. And I was like, everything I built is gone, you know. It wasn't until like I ended up going and doing a plant medicine retreat. And my biggest thing that I was— and during the retreat, you're— or during the experience, there's a— you have a microphone on so you can and kind of like narrate these things that you're understanding.

Oh wow.

And like, I had two things. The number one thing I said was have kids, have them now, which was my soul yearning for, for that. My mind wouldn't let me do it. My mind needed to make more money first, to do this first, do that first. But I'm like, what am I waiting for? And the second thing was let go. And I said it over and over. And I learned that letting go is an infinite like, you can let go more. You can let go. You, you think you're letting go? You can let go more.

Yeah.

And the more you let go and you're— the more present you are, the more of a connection you have. And I think once I started experiencing that, that's when I started to understand, you know, who I am or what I am, which is really just a part of a creation and also a direct connection with the Creator.

Man, you know, when you go through difficult situations, like I've obviously, I grew up in bad times, you know, I've seen some stuff, right? And you truly identify with that situation sometimes. And people say you're a product of your environment or whatever they wanna say. But I feel like it is always, we'll go back to being, having that choice, right? Or how to decide what is right from wrong. And if I can have something to live for that's more important than myself, then it allows me to make the right decisions on a daily basis.

Yeah.

The biggest thing that changed me was when I started to understand— when I stepped in and I took over as, as a father for my stepdaughters, and then when I had my son, I really started to evolve as a man, as an individual, because I am living with more purpose than what I thought.

Yeah, right.

And I'm living to help them out now as opposed to just myself.

Yeah.

So now the why becomes stronger. Yeah, you know.

So yeah, and it's, it's like, you know, especially in, in today's society, you're on social media, there's all these young guys doing all this, you know, all this fun experiences in Dubai, partying, girls, cars. It's like And then, you know, we're here with our families and the mind can, can be tricky because, you know, this is boring, this is— but it's like, no, this is everything. And, and that stuff is like a highlight reel. But it's challenging. The environment for, for men, for young men to find the true path is hard because there's so many things that—

yeah, distractions.

There's distractions. That have been built with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of funding to make them as distracting and as captivating as possible. Yeah, with you all the time. It's like, I tend to think that social media is a worse drug than most drugs. Yeah, if you're not careful.

Yeah, well, it definitely influences in the wrong ways, right? So for young men out there, if you guys are listening, make sure that you push away anything that you want to— don't want to be attached to, right? And a lot of guys don't know— the young kids don't know what they actually want, right? So what I would say is that get away from social media. And this is hard to say this, but get away from social media because it is a gift and a curse, right? It's a gift for us to build our business and build our brand and so on and so forth. But for me, I don't linger on social media. And I, and I narrow what I watch, I narrow what I consume, that is only, I guess, around my mission, right? Because it stays focused on the mission. When you start scrolling just endlessly, you get distracted, right? Your attention span goes, and the problem there is that people start to look for these dopamine hits in order to feel a certain way. And they don't necessarily— I don't think at least that's not truly what they want, you know.

100%.

I'm all for it, bro. If you want to have expensive cars and do your thing, you've done it, right? But if you haven't gotten there yet, just get 1% better. Yeah, like work in the progressions of what you already are at, and then from there you can get to that level, you know.

And, and I say this because most people do scroll on social media. And if you think about like what we are, and our goal as a human is to be centered, calm, cool, collected, connected, right? That's where you get infinite energy from. You get tired when you're stressed, when your mind is thinking. Social media is an endless stream of things that your mind can attach to and judge and create thoughts. And it never ends. It's dangerous. Like, there's been times where I, you know, maybe I'm traveling for work and I'm not in my routine and I'm laying in bed and I'm scrolling and it's like, it's 11 o'clock at night, it's 11:30. And it's like, yeah, I'm just like burning my mind and I'm feeding— I'm just feeding the animal, the beast. And the beast is what pulls me away from exactly who I want to be.

Yeah.

And I really believe that's happening at scale. Like, I don't think it's just me. I think it's most people are doing that.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

And I really believe that is what holds most people back from, from growth. Mm-hmm. And I also want to go back, you know, what you were talking about earlier, you know, related to challenges and hard times in life, right? If we want to grow, we want to experience life, all of life, there's infinite different emotions and feelings and patterns And you can— we could talk about things all we want, and we could talk about lessons we've learned, and people can listen to that and say, yeah, I understand that, comprehend that. But experiencing it is, is, you know, 10,000 times deeper. Like, when you— we could, you know, tell a story about something really bad that happened and then how it led to something good, and someone might say, I understand that, I understand the concept. But experiencing it is, is what actually makes us who we are and what we are. So when something really bad happens, or really challenging, or really dark, or maybe a series of things happen, it's like, it sucks and it feels bad, but you can not attach yourself to those feelings. And you could— you can understand that this is something that I must go through to become, you know, the version of myself that's going to serve more.

It's the mindset you have to have. Yeah, because you get stuck in this woe is me mentality. When something does go wrong, you go, why is this happening to me? Why? If you look at, you know, the Book of Job, it's the same concept, right? It's another test.

Yeah.

And you're just strong enough to go through this situation. That's, that's why he put you in this situation.

Yeah.

And when you think of it like that, then you're able to attack and keep on attacking.

Yeah.

And so for me, I look at any downfall, any loss as a learning process, right? And then identifying that, oh, it's just another thing for me to overcome. Because at the end of this, I'm gonna become wiser, I'm gonna be more equipped, I'm gonna be stronger physically and mentally. And it's just another avenue to go to when times are, let's just say, at a standstill. Because yeah, it's all good when it's, when it's, when you're winning, you know, it's when you're losing is really when you get to identify who you are.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think that shifting your mindset in a way of understanding that this is the true test.

Yeah.

Not the, not the victories, the victories. Yeah. In, in all actuality, I do like to go through these difficult situations. Obviously they don't feel good right in the moment. But long-term I know that it's a process of me getting better.

Yeah.

So yeah, people have to have that mindset shift.

But it also ties into what you're saying earlier about having a routine, or if I call it a framework, right? Mm-hmm. Because when things are hard, it's that much harder to make the right decisions. And if you don't have the routine pre-organized and predetermined, it's that much easier to fall off. Mm-hmm. But when you can stick to the plan through the turbulence. Like, I just went through some pretty hard shit over the last few weeks with like family-related things. I won't go into the details now, but I was— it was like non-stop. And, uh, and I, I fell off my— I, you know, I wasn't getting up early and doing, you know, doing my walks. I wasn't like sticking to the plan.

Yeah.

And, and I kept going, and I actually got sick. Like, my— I physically got sick. Like, I got— I don't know, whatever, flu or some shit, I got like a fever, and it was my body's way of just saying, dude, you gotta stop. But the moment I realized that, I was like, and the hard shit was still going on, but I decided I'm gonna go back to, you know, the champion. I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna do the things I gotta do. Not only did I start feeling much better, but the circumstances started getting better in life. So I think it just, it ties in what you were talking earlier about how important routines and discipline are. If you could stick through that, you could stick through the hard times and show up for yourself. Like, that's where real growth is.

Stay the course, man. Stay the course. Connect to the mission. You know, you know that this is just one thing that you will get over, you know, because you've done it before. And that's another thing. It's like, once you go through hard times once before, many times before, you go, well, I was able to make it out because I'm still here.

Yeah.

So it gives you the confidence to keep moving. Yeah. And if you don't go through that, I think it makes you soft, right, at the end of the day. Because once it does happen to a lengthy degree, how are you going to cope with that, right? And so yeah, you want those— you want those difficult times to come up fast.

Yeah.

And you'll be able to overcome it and again stay the routine because you always have to remember the mission.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think like physical training is such an important tool to have in your in your life because you're pushing through different— like, pain comes in different shapes and sizes and forms. You're pushing through physical pain regularly. Other pains come into life and they're a lot easier to deal with.

I'll bet on myself 100% of the time, you know, because I know that I can push myself to the brink.

Yeah.

And this is where, yeah, physical training does come into play. It's a tool, like you said. It's another test that you can do consistently, right? So it allows you to go through some physical and mental pain and then identify that you have the ability to get through it.

Yeah.

So yeah, when people are depressed, when they are quote-unquote not happy, best thing to do is just do some physical activity.

100%.

Get around people that you love, you know, have some fun, laugh a little bit, and then push yourself. Comfortably hard.

Yeah. Right.

And you'll see that you will not be depressed anymore.

Right.

You know, and I think that a lot of times people get down on themselves because they don't see the end.

Right.

They don't see them progressing. They feel like they're losing.

Yeah.

And they don't push themselves.

Right.

And so they get in this rut where it's a day-to-day process. I go through it a lot with some of my guys when they're not feeling like they're progressing.

Yeah.

And then you go ahead, you bring them through a workout that did a great job. We do these, we do these corporate events with some big businesses and we run them through training.

Yeah.

As a company. And they push themselves together and numbers go up exponentially.

Yeah.

Right. There's more cohesiveness inside the group, into each sector, and they understand what they need to lead and how they need to lead.

Yeah.

All comes from pushing themselves physically.

You know, it's amazing how much life changes when you push yourself physically. You put yourself in the shoes of someone who's, you know, maybe growing up in rural, you know, middle of nowhere America. Their families are, you know, obese and, and, you know, they don't have much money and they're, you know, or whatever the situation is, they're just kind of low vibration people. Mm-hmm. It's hard for those types of people to have the, the motivation to push themselves physically because They've never seen it benefit anyone else around them. But it's so important. Like, it, it is the way out. It's the way out of what you're in. It's not— you can't— the thing is, like, thoughts exist at the same frequency at which you exist. So if you're existing at a low frequency or low energy, of course you can only see bad outcomes, problems. Little problems that are nothing to, you know, people like ourselves or whatever could seem like impossible challenges.

Mm-hmm.

The only way to change yourself, your frequency— you can't think your way out of it. You have to move your way out of it. You have to move your body. Mm-hmm. It's like the first step. I've been helping a family member who's struggled a lot, you know, with prescription pills and, you know, a whole bunch of issues for many, many years, and and he's made a lot of progress. And it's like, you know, we made a plan. It's like, just get up and there's only two things you gotta do at night. Off your phone at 9:00 PM. I don't care if you fall asleep or not. And then in the morning, get outside at 6:00 AM. You don't have to do that much stuff. Yeah, like those two things alone are gonna change your reality. Now these tiny problems that seem like, you know, impossible things are gonna not seem that impossible anymore.

Yeah.

It's like when I— I mean, when I have a hard problem, I'll go for a run. And I don't know if it's the endorphins, I don't know if it's the confidence, whatever it is, but if I'm sitting in my office and I'm thinking of this problem, I'm stressed, I don't see a way to fix it. But on a run, it's just like, oh yeah, that's what I gotta do. It's just— it's a different flavor. The problem feels different when you move your body.

Yeah, I mean, neurons start to fire up, you know. Again, you said with the endorphins, dopamine rush. So those neurotransmitters start really helping you understand the problem.

Yeah, right.

So yeah, getting out there and doing some physical activity, getting some fresh air too as well, some sunshine, that's also helpful. Obviously we're in Florida, so that's really helpful. Yeah, you know, um, and then your environment, right? And I'm not just talking about like the outside environment, I'm talking about the people that you surround yourself with, right? So like As I'm with you, right, your energy comes off on me, my energy comes off on you, right? And now we're better together, right? If you have some low frequency people around you, obviously that's going to drag you down.

Yeah.

So really, yes. And I know everybody says it nowadays, but it's your circle, right? It's who you keep around you is— you're going to identify who you are, right, in that sense. And so that's why I do like to keep high-level people around me so that I can elevate as well.

Yeah, yeah. And not for nothing, but you attract high-level people when you are a confident person. You become magnetic when you— like, you know, a version of me before and after 75 Hard, for example. The after me is— there's a different connection. If I go to an event or something, I'm a diff— I make different interactions, different connections. Like you can change how magnetic you are as a person simply by feeling more magnetic, but you can only feel more magnetic by keeping promises to yourself. That's where discipline is so important. So if you want to attract, you know, people might say, oh, I don't know anyone, or both. Stop telling yourself lies. Like it's all bullshit. Your mind is just telling you to keep you in the same cycle and your mind wants you to stay in the same cycle because it's comfortable. It's known.

Everybody likes unknown.

Scary. But if you really want to change, like, drop the bullshit. Yeah, make a plan, stick to it, involve movement in that plan, and just give it a chance.

You know, I also think that people have to have something to strive for. You know, when you, when you aimlessly go through life, even with the routine, there has to be something that they're working towards.

Mm-hmm.

But at the same time, have to fall in love with the process. Yeah, and I see this a lot with the fitness industry, especially just our general population clients where they don't want to do this thing anyways. They don't want to come into the gym. They don't want to sweat. This is the furthest thing for what they want to do, right? But once you give them a very attainable goal, a short-term goal, once they accomplish that, then it starts this trend. Yeah, of wanting to get to that. At the same time, we have to reiterate that, remember, this is a lifestyle change, right? But it's giving you the opportunity to get to that level and level up each time.

Yeah.

And so identifying what you truly want.

Yeah.

And then getting after it, but also following and falling in love with the day-to-day.

Yeah.

Is always going to be beneficial.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, their goal is to make more money. That's like what, what most people want. Eventually you make the money, you'll buy the things, you realize that the things were fun, they were cool, but they didn't fill the void. And now it's like, now you search for something else. But most people haven't gotten there yet. You know, prior to starting Zendrop, I had a coaching business in the e-commerce space and I, you know, got to coach thousands of people. And I would see a direct correlation with the people that ended up making the most money. It wasn't the people that studied the most, that knew the most, that understood the most about how to do things. It was the people that showed up that were excited, that were passionate. Yeah, like you could get someone who didn't really know anything, or maybe they weren't the smartest people in the world, but they showed up excited, they showed up passionate, they showed up and they would figure out how to do it. And then you get some really smart people and they would be, what? Skeptical, like, I see it, but it's not gonna work. Like, why is it not gonna work? And it wouldn't work for them. And so if people want to make money, if that's their goal, having the— at least take, take our word for it for now. The first step is like, there's a million ways you can get there, but the thing that you have to do is move your body. It's be— it's, it's Like, you know, I've had friends that are trying to start businesses and they're telling me about all the things they're doing and what should I do. I'm like, well, I could give you a bunch of things to do, but you're going to be on the same path unless you start building discipline. Yeah, like start working out more. That's my advice.

That vehicle of working out, it could be in so many different ways. You know, you could do a martial art, you could do yoga, whatever floats your boat, right? Whatever you think is going to be something that you can do long-term that you, um, that you're interested in.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that that's where a lot of these guys, even with like, you know, you got Zuckerberg doing jiu-jitsu now and these guys are trying to push themselves and find new ways to challenge.

Yeah.

Right. Challenges are really good.

Right.

Because challenges equipped you to understand how to accomplish or conquer the challenge.

Yeah.

And that goes in business and life in general. So yeah. When I'm looking at athletes to, in per se, the biggest problem that we have is that they don't want to train what they suck at, right? So then we find out immediately what their limiters are.

Yeah.

And we hit that first, right? Right. Once that's accomplished, we go to the next thing and the next thing, and we stay on that. As a fighter myself, when I was fighting, I hated doing grappling. I hated doing jiu-jitsu. I hated doing anything that was ground related, and I lost fights because I didn't have the jiu-jitsu in line.

Yeah.

Once I found out like this is a gap that needs to be filled, yeah, now I love jiu-jitsu. Yeah, because it became a strength of mine, right? Right. So it's always identifying with your weak links.

Yeah.

And then going after that too as well, which will help equip you for further down the line, whatever you want to do.

So when you're in the, the, you know, the fighting realm um, at the highest level, you know, there's, um, you know, the goal, right, of winning the fight, let's just say. But you're not focused on that every day. You're focused on each day, right? Getting a little bit better every day. Then you're focused on each workout. Um, so you're preparing, you're cutting weight, you're showing up to the fight, right? What is the best, um, state to show up at? Is it like? And when I say state, I mean, you know, is it a calmness? Is it a, you know, a pumped up attitude? Like, how— what's the best state that the best athletes in the world show up to? Is there a fear? Does the fear go away? Like, what is— what do winners, champions, what do they feel before and during these things?

That's a case-by-case basis, right? So you have certain individuals that are very calm, very confident, almost like they're not even gonna go fight. Yeah, then you have your guys that are very like, they're intense, right? And they're, they're enthusiastic. They want to get after it. There's a little bit of fear there, but that fear kind of helps them stay focused. I think the biggest ones, the best ones, know how to still be able to stay in and stay focused even with all the noise going on around them. Yeah, to block out the noise and stay focused on the task. Yeah, you know, Dustin was one of the guys Dustin Poirier. I've been work— I've worked with him for, I don't know, I think it was like 9 fight camps. And the one thing that I would say with Dustin was that he was so able to block out the noise.

Yeah.

No matter what was going on around him, especially later on his career, you know, after— I would say once he got to 155, he transitioned from 145 to 155, you could see a drastic change in his demeanor.

Yeah.

Right. When he fought Conor for first time he let his emotions get involved and he ultimately lost the fight.

Yeah.

The second time around, he demolished Conor. Wow. The third time, it wasn't even close. Wow. Right. So it's like, once you get to that level of understanding of who you are again— yeah, it's like, all right, now I know what I need to do. We've already done all the hard work. Let's just go out there and execute.

Yeah.

That's how you're going to be good. Another thing is having unconscious competence in your abilities, right? Right. So second nature, whenever something comes your way, you know how to combat it, you know how to defend or attack. And then also you want to have confidence, but you also want to be competent in the understanding that that person is dangerous too, right? So you don't want to be cocky or arrogant, right? Because you know that they have trained just as hard, and you want them to train just as hard as you, right? But you know that you have the skill set and you've done the work strategically enough to go ahead and execute the plan.

Yeah.

When people do bad, right, when people— when fighters lose fights, or any—

any—

you can put this in anything.

Yeah.

They go into a situation not wanting to lose as opposed to wanting to win. There's a difference. So I go in there apprehensive.

Yeah.

I go in there not pulling the trigger, right? This can go not just in fighting, in general, in life.

Yeah.

And the ones that are ready to pull the trigger, the ones that'll get after it, they're untouchable, right? You look at Khabib, you look at Jon Jones, you look at these fighters, right? They, they're untouchable, right? Because they, they know that they're going in there to win and they're fighting to win, right? They're not taking it easy. They're not playing it safe, right? They're gonna attack.

Yeah. So yeah, I mean, the same go— like, I play a lot of golf. Um, If I, you know, if I get on the tee box, I'm like, I don't want to hit in that water. Yeah, hitting in the water guaranteed.

Yeah, um, just thinking about it.

Yeah, but if I can think where I want to hit it, I hit it there. But it's not that easy. Like, the mind is tricky. It's hard to work with. It's, it's a tool, but it's, it's complex. And it's like, so how do people get better at, at, call it calming down the noise or, you know, knowing, hey, I want to focus on winning and not losing, but not actually focusing on not losing. Like, how do you get better at working with your mind?

Well, I do like to have times where you put them in the situation constantly, right? And so you have small— like, we call them smoker fights, right? Where it'll be simulated on the actual task that you're going to work towards.

Right.

So for us, Dean Thomas was our coach, uh, back when I was fighting. And Dean would always have us do these, what we call like smoker fights or simulated fights, whatever have you. And he would have all the people from the gym, general people, fighters, family members come to the gym like it was an actual fight. He would have a referee. He had your walkout music, you know, you had your lights down and you would have multiple fighters though.

Yeah.

Or let's say multiple sparring partners at this point. Come in fresh. Yeah, it's simulating you being down and out, right? So being in the worst position possible, being totally fatigued. Like, obviously a fresh guy's coming in, so they're, they're, they're ready to go.

Yeah.

And you have to adapt, right? And you have to overcome. And so what that does do is it makes you very confident when the time comes to actually go into the situation.

Yeah.

So that simulation is definitely going to raise the confidence enough to where you can stay on point and in tune with the actual, the process of the training and the process of getting the goal accomplished, which is winning the fight.

Yeah.

So a lot of times in, in any situation, you may have to call an audible, right? Something, something goes wrong. Maybe you hurt yourself in the fight. And so you have to switch it up. But if you can stay on course as much as possible from the game plan that you set out, that you've been working for, for the past 6 to 8 weeks, Yeah, nothing is going to stop you, right? The problem is, is that when something goes wrong, people don't know how to adjust, right? And coaches and fighters in tandem need to come together and go, how do we adjust appropriately, right? Again, I'll go back to Jon Jones. I feel like he's the best that does this. Yeah, because he's so good at everything. When he adjusts, it's like another— it's another strong point for him. Right, you know. So you take it to the ground, cool, he's got that, right? If you want to stand up, okay, he's got that too.

Yeah.

And in life, you have to be equipped to do so. That's why I say fill the gaps, right? Always have some— always be competent in everything, right? You may be good at one particular thing, top level, yeah, you're elite, but don't be incompetent in all those other aspects, right?

Right.

Life in general, for me, is, is is conjugate. It's like a mixed martial art, right? Because you have to have these, these skill sets, and then you can be a savant in one particular aspect, right?

You know, that makes a lot of sense. I'm, I'm also curious, I'm thinking like, you know, you're going into something that you've prepared so long and so hard for. Did most fighters or athletes, are they supplementing? Are they using caffeine or pre-workout before fights?

Are they staying like Before fights, not so much. I would say, you know, your, your basic essential amino acids. You can maybe take some creatine here and there, but for the most part, it's just electrolytes and, and, and just maintaining hydration. Yeah, you know, you know, you want to eat before you go to the venue so you're not— it's not— doesn't feel like you have a rock in your stomach or something like that. But typically it would be about 3 to 4 hours, you know, before you, you actually step into the cage. Gotcha.

So people aren't loading up with coffee before like a fight?

No, you don't actually— don't want to do that because it's going to spike your, your heart rate up and your adrenaline and everything else. Because fighting in nature, you're naturally going to have that, that heart rate increase.

But during the workouts, are they using pre-workouts that have caffeine in them?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for us, even with my pre-workout, it's a low stim product.

Okay, gotcha.

With the caffeine, it's, it's, it's not as high. It's probably like a half a cup of coffee.

Okay.

And we'll do some theobromine, which is more of a sustainable energy output. And then adaptogens.

Gotcha.

So I would stick more towards that, especially even with the special operators that we work with, you know, the guys in SWAT team, even military. They can't be too hyped up, right? Because, you know, they have to be focused, right? Um, but yeah, so it's not, it's not like, you know, loading up on espresso shots and things like that. Some, some guys do because they're just, they just became immune to it. Yeah, me included sometimes, I gotta say. Same. But, but, you know, for the most part, you want to keep the, the heart rate low.

Gotcha. Just shifting gears, are there any, um, supplements that— or, you know, what, whether it be creatine or whatever it may be— that you think the general population, most people would benefit from that they're not currently using?

Yeah, creatine is going to be one of them. Creatine monohydrate, um, micronized creatine monohydrate, something— or CreaPure, so you don't get stomach distress. I would say you could take around 5 to 10 grams per day. There's been shown not only, not only from the strength and the hypertrophy benefits, but also from cognitive benefits too as well. So with our guys, especially if you are playing a sport that has had concussions and things like that, it helps with traumatic brain injury. So the onset of traumatic brain injury. So we like to have them megadose that in certain times, especially when sparring becomes increased, right? So you may take 10, maybe even 20 grams. Yeah. And megadose Yeah, right, to make sure that your brain is functioning on all cylinders.

Yeah.

Another one would probably be vitamin D3. Yeah, with K2 for the absorption rate. Vitamin D3, you know, with everything you're talking about— energy, you're talking about just overall health in general. Another one is omega-3s, EPA, DHA, around 500 to 600. You know, that right there, immune function, inflammation, you know, anti-inflammatory, all good stuff there. And then the last one I would say is probably just an essential amino acid or even just like a whey protein. Yeah, be the basics.

Gotcha. Yeah, I keep hearing more and more— it's funny because like a lot of this stuff's new and a lot of things, you know, have studies, but you don't really know what studies are, you know, funded by who and what actually, you know, is real and what's not real. But I've been hearing a lot more about creatine lately and that like I heard a study that if you are like sleep deprived and you take 20 or 30 grams of creatine, it can actually completely eliminate the effects of being sleep deprived in your brain, which is interesting.

Yeah, yeah. So with the guys that are in the SWAT, right, where they are not sleeping a lot, yeah, we like to make sure that we mega dose for them too as well. Those studies have been— they're pretty recent. Yeah, um, but they, they're, they're solid. So yeah, we've, we've seen that. And even with myself right? If— and, and you probably would travel, you know, a jet lag. Yeah, you know, we like to mega dose with that. Um, glutathione too as well. Yeah, from an immune system perspective too. Um, I like to do the IV glutathione.

Yeah.

Um, but you can go intravenous or intramuscular or, uh, subcutaneous. Yeah, really. And they also been talking about NAD+, I do all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly there is more studies that need to come out, more research. But for me, anecdotally, I feel great on it.

Yeah, so I try everything. Like, I buy everything, I try everything, and then sometimes I'm like, well, I don't know what's making me feel good. Maybe something made me feel bad.

That's the thing, right? So you don't want to do everything all at once because you don't know what is working.

I just get so excited.

Yeah, yeah, everybody does.

Yeah, I found funny enough, I was taking all these supplements and, um, you know, doing a bunch of blood work and noticed that my, my estrogen levels were like too low. And as a man, you obviously don't want them too high, but you don't want them too low either. And come to find out, like combing through everything I'm taking, I was taking this thing called Mitopure, which is like a mitochondria supplement.

Okay.

And there's one ingredient in Mitopure that like lowers estrogen. And I figured it out and I removed it and then like my levels went back to where they were.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like, you know, there's all this cool stuff to do. And it's not a one-size-fits-all, but I was curious what those one-size-fits-all stuff, you know, for listeners. Because if you're not using creatine or you're not, you know, vitamin D3 is really important, like, it's just good to know what people should be.

Yeah, I mean, the, the most— I, I would say the most studied and researched is what you want to go with.

Yeah.

And then slowly put in those other things and see if they work for you.

Yeah.

Right. Because everybody's in the— it's an individual thing.

Yeah. Right.

Some things may work for you, may not work for me and vice versa.

Are you into saunas, cold plunges, any other?

Yeah, I do like the sauna. Um, you know, I do like the sauna for brain health. I like the sauna for mitochondrial health. I like the sauna for metabolic health, you know, um, with, you know, Dr. Rhonda Patrick talks about heat shock proteins. And I think they, you know, for me, I'll do about 3 to 4 days a week, typically 20 to 30 minutes. I do like the infrared sauna though too.

Yeah, right.

So with infrared, you're gonna get anti-inflammatory means, right? You're gonna increase, uh, what is it? You get a benefit for your cell rejuvenation, things of that nature, skin health. So for me, I'll do that. I have actually one at the house that I'm getting, which is amazing. Because I'm sick of going to other, other spots.

Yeah.

Um, cold plunge, I do like. I'm like a— it's like a love-hate relationship.

Yeah, right.

So like with the cold plunge, mentally it puts me in a good space.

Yeah, right.

You come out, you're like, oh, I feel, I feel rejuvenated.

Yeah.

Um, you get clear-headed, right?

Right.

Um, can't do it after a workout, right? Because it's gonna downregulate your adaptations. Yeah, right. When it comes down to strength and hypertrophy.

Yeah.

So you want to, you want space that out at least 6 hours, maybe even 8 hours apart. What are—

sure, what are things that— well, you know, I know you're not supposed to do cold plunge after a workout because also your, um, I believe your blood flow like is not as strong. What are things that increase your blood flow, like things that you would do to make yourself more vascular or like feel like nitric oxide supplementation is definitely going to help with that.

You can do a beetroot extract too as well. Yeah, it's going to help with vasodilation. Dilation.

Yeah.

Um, and, and they do— I mean, even if you did a contrast between hot and cold, you're going to get a pump of blood, right? So, because it's going to constrict and dilate.

Yeah, right.

And we use that primarily for recovery purposes.

Yeah.

So if somebody is getting closer to a fight and the goal is just to maintain, we'll do those contrast baths. That will definitely help with blood flow.

Is it true that, like, I remember hearing, like, bodybuilders before they get on stage would take, like, a shot at tequila or something because there's carbs. Would the carbohydrates—

it's an empty cal— it's an empty calorie. Um, there is carbohydrates in it, but I don't know if that's going to help with blood flow though.

Yeah, I remember hearing that somewhere.

You can— I mean, obviously you want to increase carbohydrate intake because it is going to pump up the muscle, right? It's going to make you fuller in a sense, only if you have depleted all of your water and sodium.

Gotcha.

Right, because you want to be more vascular, but you also don't want to look flat, right? Right.

Yeah.

So you increase carbohydrates, typically it'll be a fast digestive carbohydrate, and then you would deplete your water, deplete your sodium.

Gotcha.

That way you're vascular and you're full.

Gotcha. Well, this was a really great conversation down many different lanes.

Same, brother, same.

I, uh, I appreciate it, and you know, really enjoyed talking to you today.

Awesome, man. Yeah, you did, you did a great job.

Thank you.

I love it.

All right, let's keep it going.