LS 64 - Tony Little, America's Personal Trainer - There's Always a Way, How to Develop a Positive Mindset and Succeed in Business and Life

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. For more information and links to all.

Our great podcasts, visit hartmanmedia.com.

Welcome to the Longevity Show, Informing listeners on the important aspects of health, wealth and happiness to ensure you live life to its fullest. With fascinating interviews with top authors and gurus in the field, along with the latest news in the science and technology of longevity, we're going to reveal expert advice and amazing secrets of living a longer life. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman.

Hey, it's my pleasure to welcome Tony Little, a name you're certainly familiar with. He's known as America's personal trainer. He's author of There's Always a How to Develop a Positive Mindset and Succeed in Business and Life. He's creator of many popular catchphrases, including you can do it its technique and always believe in yourself. Tony, welcome. How are you?

I'm great, thanks. Appreciate it very much. Good.

It's good to have you on the show. You've been doing this a long time. You're a household name. Let's kind of take this interview from two angles. Let's talk about how we can improve our lifespan and our health span, if you will. Healthspan is kind of a good catchphrase. I like that one. It's not only how long we live, but how healthy are we during that life. And then let's talk a little bit about your business career as well and how you were able to achieve such success as a solution celebrity, an infopreneur, an author, and so forth. But you know, first of all, about some of your exercises. Are there some specific exercises people can do to improve their lifespan?

Yeah, very important for people to understand that, you know, you obviously have cardio exercise and you have strength training and you got flexibility and those three are the necessary categories. But really for me and a lot of people who are getting up there in years, the key to anti aging or longevity usually is to try to retain your muscle mass and your functional strength. And so I have a product that's a progressive resistance product. It's a bar called the easyshaper Pro, which allows you to use, you know, like power cords in multi directional movements so you can get your functional strength. You can build up muscle and muscle burns calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and at the same time keeps your metabolism running so that you're not gaining weight, which is also, you know, it's bad to be overweight. So that's one of the products. Gazelle is another. You Know Gazelle, which everyone saw me on in the Geico commercials and all the other stuff. That's a great product because as you get older you also want to do a lot of exercises that are way lower impact than we did when we were younger. So you want something that's gentle on the joints, but yet still again, this includes cardio and muscle toning. So that's very important because in one machine you're working your heart, you're working your lungs, you're working basically your mood as well, but at the same time you're working all the muscles of your body at the same time in a resistance motion. So that's been a gigantic hit. I think I have over 7 million people that own a Gazelle and that's the key to it, other than eating. I don't know if you knew this or not, Jason. I also probably one of the largest suppliers of bison in America. Years before it became a superfood, I was selling it on television and it's Blood body by bison. And I started with just a burger and a hot dog made out of American bison and those took off and Now I have 36 different products under the bison line. Because people, I knew it a long time ago, they didn't want the growth hormones, they didn't want the antibiotics, they didn't want all the fillers and all the stuff that comes in in our foods and our ME meats and things like that. Bison being such a high protein, low calorie, low fat, grass fed, all natural type product I knew was going to be a giant hit.

Is bison always grass fed? Is it just because the mass industrial farming world hasn't touched it yet? I don't know that we can count on that for long if there's money in it.

Yeah, well, like everything else, there's a different market for every grade of meat or item you have. That difference in the pricing usually has to do with more mass marketing. Bison seems to pretty much be staying pretty pure. The industry itself, mainly because it's a small industry. It may have expanded a lot, but it's still a small industry. They used to say that there used to be like 20 million bison in America or over that. And then it got down to where there was like a thousand. You know, after some rough times with the history of the bison and the in the wars. But now it's up to the United States. I think it's up over a half a million head and growing because bison will keep growing as long as we are actually consuming bison. Because they start to have more ranchers and more people start to build more herds, and that's a good thing. You know, bison itself too, grass fed. Some of them are. I think they got grain finish. They got all different types of ways. You know, we prefer to sell grass fed bison ourselves, but that's also with my partners who helped develop it with me.

Okay, so bison is better than beef, chicken, et cetera. Right.

Obviously, for women, it's even greater because it's higher in iron. So a lot of women out there that are feeling fatigued all the time and don't have enough iron, you know, and a lot of times don't want to eat a lot of the other red meats because of the saturated fat, the growth hormones or the chemicals really are turning to bison is a great choice. I got involved with bison early on in my life when I was a young bodybuilder and fitness guy coming up through the ranks. And I was tired of eating chicken breast. And I met a guy who actually owns a bison ranch, believe it or not, in Ohio. And he was selling these cases of like 24 burgers. So I bought them because the burgers were lower fat, higher protein, less calories than a chicken breast. And it was a burger. It was a burger. So I got kind of hooked on it in the early days. And then the next thing you know, a lot of the people in the fitness industry, the sports, athletes, even a lot of the medical profession all knew bison was the way to go because it was like eating a burger, a hot dog, a steak, and it was good for you.

Good stuff. Muscle tone. You talked about the importance of that in increasing one's lifespan and health span. But there's more to it than that. Certainly working out. No one would deny, hopefully, that that is effective. Can you drill down on that a little bit like that maybe more specifically. And what else, Tony, in addition to that?

You know, I look at myself in respects. You know, time goes very fast when you're a person who's motivated and all the time seeking for ways to do better things and help people in other ways. And next thing, you know, 10 years is gone, like in one year. And in about three months I turned 60, and I don't think I look 60. And I'm sure a lot of people always seem to say to me, are you kidding me? You don't even come close. And I said, you know, it comes back to how you take care of yourself. Your body has to be more important than how you take care of your car. And you got to eat the right things. Hey, listen, I believe in the Temple theory. I started it many, many, many years ago because I had two children from a previous marriage that I was like 14 years as a single dad. And I wanted to be a good role model for them and help them at the same time I was with them. I started this thing where it's called the Temple theory, where, you know, five days a week, it was important for me during my work weeks or during, you know, the most important times that I exercised on a regular basis. I ate right as much as I could, and then two days a week, in order not to stress out my young kids. I called it amusement days. And amusement days were days where we were allowed to eat something that was a little crazy, you know, to have the french fries, to have the ice cream, to go out and do things. And I wanted them to be kids, you know, I didn't want to be that strict of a dad that they didn't understand that everything's in moderation. And so that kind of eating has always worked for me. So I've always been that way. And it's never stressed me out. It's always taking care about it. I believe in four to six small meals a day. I've always believed in that. I believe that a person who skips breakfast is crazy because you got to have breakfast to start your metabolism and start your day. I think that people who eat three big meals a day are missing the boat because your body only stimulates so many grams of protein and so much gram of fat every three or four hours. So you want to stoke it like you would stoke some type of trains engine in the old days. You know, you want to stoke it. The key is metabolism. And keeping your metabolism up was keeping your lean muscle up through your exercise. And it all ties in. But I don't think you have to be a maniac to do it right. I think you got to love it. The only way that you get longevity results out of exercise you're eating is to do it as something that's not hard to you. You know what I'm saying? That fits in your lifestyle, that you feel like one workout de stresses you, another makes you feel you always feel better after a workout. So that type of concept. But you can't overdo it. You know, you can't overdo it and you can't underdo it, but it helps you. I don't know how to explain it. You know what? I was going with it a little bit. I'm not a purist in the Point where I'm going to tell you, this is what you have to eat, and this is how you have to eat it, how you have to exercise, and this is how you have to exercise. People just need to start looking at it as more of lifestyle exercise, more of lifestyle eating, more of lifestyle sleeping. You will perform better, you will age better, you will get more out of life if you just incorporate that type of thinking.

Good stuff. Tell us about your temple theory approach to diet and nutrition.

Temple theory is very simple to me. It's five days a week. Your body is your temple, and you eat right, you exercise right. You obviously are in a work week, so you're trying to perform at your highest level so that you can move up to the next level of where you want to achieve your life. But two days a week, whether it's the weekend or whether it's, you know, sometime in the middle of the week, you've got to allow yourself to just do what you want to do. They're called amusement days. And on amusement days, I don't worry about what I eat or what I drink or how I act or anything, especially if I'm around my kids, because you can't force your children, you know. My son was overweight in the early days. He was really extremely overweight. He lived with his mom four days a week, and I got him three days a week. But he really was overweight by a lot. And he would cry when he would come over to my place and we want to go swimming, and he forgot his swim trunks and he couldn't fit in mine. I was always very careful not to be mad at him for anything. And I never pushed him because he had a really good heart. He was a really good kid with a great heart, and he had a huge amount of sensitivity. So I never, you know, like, when he played baseball, he was a great pitcher and he was a great outfielder. But I told him that obviously we all stress out when he runs to the base, you know, so, you know, exercise a little bit more. And then when he lost all this weight, Jason, I mean, he lost a lot of weight. I got calls from all these different news agencies. Hey, you know, childhood obesity is a big thing. We saw what happened. You're on the COVID with your son on this big fitness magazine, and you both look great. How do you do it? We need it. And I had to tell him. I said, I might have been a decent role model for my son, you know, and he saw that, but I didn't push him like you would think somebody Would push somebody. So he made his own decision. So they were like saying, well, we want you to tell America how you can influence other people to help their children lose weight that way. And I said, you know, that's going to be a hard thing to do because he was around me quite a bit of the time and he saw the way I ate. I didn't push it on him. I really didn't.

Sure, sure, yeah. So being a role model certainly is very helpful. Definitely.

It's much better that way. Because when they asked me to say how I did it, I said, you know what? I'll tell you what, I think that my son lost it because he wanted better self esteem on his own. And he all of a sudden decided he liked girls.

Okay, that's a good one. That'll certainly be a motivator. What tips do you have on other people who are seeking role models, Tony? I mean, how should they do it? Maybe they don't role model in their life. Certainly we can all look out to people like yourself, right, that at age 60, I mean, you're in great shape, got a long life ahead of you, but sometimes we don't have them in our own lives that we know personally. Certainly there are celebrities out there that are doing this. You know, just any tips? I guess generally that question, really the heart of that question is how do we motivate ourselves?

I come from the generation. My dad wasn't. It wasn't a very good guy. I mean, he was not a good guy. He was a pretty mean and tough guy. Disappeared when I was 14 for like 10 years without telling anybody where he went. So he was just a very tough guy. So I grew up on my own. I did what a lot of young kids or guys do as they're growing up if they're motivated to want to be a better person or get more out of life or get to the higher level of life. And that is, I started reading all the books that were important for the growth of my mind. So I started reading a lot of the motivational books. You know, it was just really important to read all those books and to get into that positive mindset myself. So I got most of mine from books.

Yeah. All right, Well, I did, too. A lot of it from books and audio tapes and audio books. Tony, tell us about your infomercial career. How many infomercials do you have in your portfolio?

I guess I had the record of the most amount of successful infomercials by one person when I had seven infomercial hits and I have nine now, so.

So nine infomercials. I mean, those cost a lot to finance in the beginning. Did you pitch those infomercials? How did you finance them?

I was very fortunate. I. There's a long story in my book called There's Always a Way of how I. I wanted to do my first video exercise tape, right. And I wanted to do that, but I didn't know how to finance it. So I started a cleaning company that specialized in health spas on paper. And on that paper, then I was motivated and I went out and I immediately sold $60,000 in contracts to local spas, my cleaning company, that I didn't actually own or have yet. And then I went out after I got the contracts, and I created a cleaning company called TNT Cleaning Services to help me achieve getting work and doing something. Then I went down to a local television station, Westinghouse Cable company, and I said I wanted to do my own fitness show. They goes like, who are you? Because I was overweight and I'd been through a bad car accident and had been through, you know, not being in the shape I was and stuff like that. And I said, no, I'm a former Mr. Florida, Jr. Mr. America. I had bad car accident a lot of years ago, but now I'm. I want to do television to help people get in shape and feel better about their lives. And the guy said, well, that's all right, but yet it's going to cost you $5,500 for 13 shows. And it was like a 200,000 home penetration cable. And give us a context.

What year is that, by the way?

Oh, that's like 85.

Okay, so it's much more expensive nowadays, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was like, in. Like I said, I was only in a couple hundred thousand homes, so. So I started my own exercise show. And I did it through creating that cleaning company on paper. And then when I bought the. Signed the contract for the shows, which I didn't have any money, I had to wait until I get paid for the cleaning company. Then they told me that, hey, you know, you have four minutes worth of commercial time on your show. And I'm going, what? And they go, four minutes commercial time. You can create your own commercials and get more money to help you finance a show. And I said, oh, that's good. And so then I went and I started. I'd never had any television experience, but I now wanted to. So I went to, like, the local health food store and the local breakfast house and the chiropractor. I dealt with, and I sold them all airtime to my show, and they all got great benefit out of it. And the show started to grow, and then I was able to do my own first exercise video. And I didn't know how to market that. And again, what I'm trying to get at is, you know, if you never ask the question, you never know the answer. If you don't ever go out for something, if you don't step out, you won't stand out.

Yeah. So you got to go for it. You got to get yourself out there and take a risk and risk your rejection, Right?

Absolutely. I mean, now I did the exercise video, I had no idea how to market it. Right. Because back then it was rental tapes. It wasn't sell through that. All you could do is Rena Jane Fonda tape or something like that, you know. And so they told me a guy in Tampa, Florida, caught him, managed to get into. Through to the president of a video dealership, national dealership. He couldn't believe that I'd already had my exercise video. But I knew. Didn't know what I was calling gonna do with it. So we talked and he told me about a convention in Vegas called the vsda, the Video Software Dealers Association Convention. And he said, maybe you should go out there and see if you can hook up with one of the studios or something. And I said, thanks, I appreciate that. So I took my little briefcase and I went out to Vegas. And before I left that show, I had six offers with studios.

Wow.

Yeah.

Amazing. That's fantastic. What has really been the best thing for your career? Has it been the infomercials? Has it been authoring public sports speaking? What. What area of it has really been the most lucrative?

Can just tell you that a lot of people don't realize it when they see me, but I'm the first on air guest of any shopping channel in the world.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

All right. And that came from when I finally convinced HSN or Home Shopping Network to allow me. I wanted to sell my tapes, right. Because I couldn't really compete in retail. And they said that, you know, no way they're going to sell my tapes because you have to do two grand a minute, whatever that was at the time. And they were selling, you know, cosmetics and other things. So I don't give up. So, you know, I found out that the owner of the first shopping channel in the world lived in Clearwater and his son owned a gym in Clearwater.

Clearwater, Florida.

Yeah. And so I went over to the gym and Introduced myself to the owner of Home Shopping Network. Son said, listen, I'll help you promote your gym if you could get me a few minutes with your dad in the future. And it's just one of those moments, right? If you never ask, you never know, right? He says, well, hop in your car. And I said, okay. And we pulled up to the Roebling estate, the big gates opened up. We walked in the house and Bud came walking out. Bud Paxton. He's about six, seven. And he looks. And Todd was just going to explain who I was when Bud goes, Tony Little, how'd you get in my house?

Yeah.

That'S how I got on home shopping. And then home shopping. I took the leap in the infomercials from. Because a guy who came in from NBC was a, an attorney and a programming specialist from NBC came in to run a division of Home Shopping that was infomercials, right? And so he came in and he gives me a call and says, you know, listen, I could hire anybody to train me. I could have Jake, you know, and Simmons and anybody.

I want Body by Jake. Richard Simmons. That's what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah, but he said it, but I want you to train me. And I said, well, I don't really train anyone anymore. And he goes, but if you train me, I graduate. I didn't know at the time, but he said, he said, I graduated from Wharton Business School. I was a senior VP in the NBC television, you know, network areas. And I'm the new head of all infomercials in the United States. So if you want to learn something, train me and I'll teach you. And I said, I said, what's our first workout?

Good stuff. Good stuff. Any tips that you want to share as we just wrap it up and please give out your website, tell people where they can find out more any closing comments Whether they be on business and life or longevity, take it wherever you want.

Yeah, I just think that what I've learned in business or, or anything else is simply, you just got to, you know, like I said before, you have to step out the standout. You cannot be back in the pack and you've got to be never afraid to ask questions. Got to work harder than everyone else and you got to work smarter than everyone else. It's not like I graduated with a college degree because I didn't, you know, I graduated with a school of hard knocks degree. But every time I got knocked and every time I lost a path, I look for another path. And eventually I found my way. And that's what I think. People got to go back to understanding. If you want something, it's never easy.

Right.

But something worthwhile is never easy. Mm, no. So you just got to go for it. Never be afraid to go for it. That's just, you know, what I would say.

Yeah. Very good points. Tony little, website.

Yeah, tonylittle.com actually is all it is. Or, you know, tonylittlerealwitter.com that's fantastic.

Tony Little, thanks for joining us.

You're welcome.

This show is produced by the Hartman Media company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews. Please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. Exclusively.