The Transformative Power of Wellness

Boundaries are structure. If you structure your days around ways that are going to enable you to thrive and ways that will enable you to give back in ways that will fill your cup so full that it's overflowing and you want to give back, that's, in my opinion, the way to live life.

Welcome everybody. I am Jeff Duden and we are on the home front. As always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands. Simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform. Encouraging entrepreneurs to take action and transform their lives, impact communities and enhance the lives of those they care the most about. All the while delivering enterprise level solutions to local business owners out there on the home front where it matters. If this sounds like you, check us out today@homefrontbrands.com and start your next chapter of greatness, building your dynasty on the home front. I will be looking for you here. And today we have an incredible guest, Eric Hinman. On welcome Eric.

Thanks for having me, Jeff.

Eric is an accomplished endurance athlete with five Ironman competitions under his belt. Beyond that, he has established himself as a captivating content creator. Eric has attracted sponsorships from numerous well known consumer brands including Vital Proteins, GNC10000, Beam Lane 8, Chipotle and Whole Foods. Eric's entrepreneurial spirit encompasses the domains of health, wellness, technology and hospitality. He is a visionary co founder of Original Grain, a thriving chain of health conscious fast casual restaurants, as well as XO Taco, an exciting Mexican eatery located in Syracuse, New York. Eric has become an angel investor supporting innovators, disruptors in the industry. Notable angel investments are 10,000 well well and swerve Fitness, all of which embody his commitment to pioneering advancements in the field. Eric, welcome.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, 100%. If you don't mind. You know, our our listeners are people that are at an inflection point in their life. They're looking to do something different, maybe leave corporate America and really change something. And what's really interesting about what we're going to talk about with you today is when people are going through a change in their career and their business life, I also recommend they go through a change in their physical like change one thing, change all. If you've gotten out of shape or you hadn't been working out or you haven't taken care of your wellness or your mental ACU duty, make a wholesale change, right? Be a better you all the way around. And I think you're going to have a lot to offer in that regard. I'm super excited. So Eric if you don't mind. Where'd you grow up man? What's your background?

Yeah, so I grew up in a really small town in upstate New York, Pulaski, New York. I grew up snowmobiling, salmon fishing, bass fishing on Lake Ontario. I enjoyed sports. I played basketball, I played little league, I played senior league, I ran cross country, I ran track. So I did all the team sports in, in elementary school and high school. You know, then I thought I was going to be a professional basketball player. My every single night playing for three hours in my parents backyard. I was just thinking about being a Chicago bull and playing alongside Michael Jordan someday. Obviously that didn't come to fruition. When I didn't grow past 5 10, my dreams were stunted. But you know, I always enjoyed competing against myself even at a really young age. And I think that's carried through, through with everything I've done. I've just always been really interested in progress and bettering myself and having a full cup so I can give back to others. So early on it was, you know, team sports where I was competing against myself but also competing against others. And then I went off to college at Geneseo, a small state school in Rochester, New York. During that time period I studied business management and I got into weightlifting. But it was very vanity based, you know, having a big chest and doing bicep curls to have big arms and to look good on spring break. I wasn't doing any cardio, I wasn't doing any functional lifts like deadlifts or squats. It was very just bodybuilder type lifts leaving out the functional lifts. You know, I hadn't made the correlation yet of exercise and well being. You know, during that time period I was partying, you know, drinking, going, you know, I thought that that was the way to meet friends and be vulnerable and to be your authentic self was to consume alcohol. And I think a lot of us in our late teens and early 20s do that to figure out who we are. And in my early 20s I started my first business which was a property and casualty insurance business. And I was driving 50,000 miles a year thinking that subway was my healthiest option. When I was on the road and I was sitting a lot and I started to get pretty out of shape. I, you know, maybe graduated college at 170, 175 and by my, I don't know, 23rd birthday I was probably 200, 205 and had a little gut and you know, certainly didn't have the, the look that I, that I have now from my years of training. So I hired a personal trainer in my late to mid to late twenties to help me get back into esthetically good looking shape. And it was during that time period that I started to make the correlation between exercise and energy and mental clarity. I just realized how great I was feeling all day long. I didn't have to take a nap in the afternoons anymore. I didn't have this lull in energy. And then I got into triathlon. Triathlon is what really changed my life. And it was during those years that I made the correlation between like, wow, like I have so much mental clarity now, I have so much energy, people want to be around me. I'm attracting so many opportunities into my life. I'm meeting the type of people that I want to be around. Risk takers and you know, people that invest in themselves and you know, then can invest in others. Because prior to that it was so much just like chasing the public perception of success, you know. And I think many of us get stuck in this hamster wheel of chasing the wrong things that only make you feel like you're insignificant and you keep, keep trying to like chase it more know at the detriment of, of your well being. So you know, those years are when I realized like exercise is fills my soul. Like I really want to figure out a way to build businesses and build my life around wellness.

Yeah, incredible. There's so much in there. So movement is transcendent across all aspects of our life. And if you want to move your business or you want to move a relationship, man, you need to move your body. And you know, being static or in a status quo is not a great place to be. And it's interesting you said that. So my last book is called Discernment but it's the business athletes regimen for a great life through better decisions. And no matter what you're doing, you need to work out. You know, if you talk to comedians, they, you know, when they go into clubs man, they're working out, that's what they do. And they feel like if they don't work out five days a week, they lose their edge. It's the same thing for, you know, you in business. And people can say, well I'm not going to take the time to do that away from my business. But I don't think you can afford not to take the time to be as healthy as you possibly can be if you really want to be a high performing business athlete.

Can't agree more. You know, my friends and I, we We talk about the hybrid athlete, but in the sense of building businesses around, you know, doing the things that you enjoy and also, you know, having enough energy, clarity to build those businesses because it's hard. You know, you need to have emotional well being, you need to have stress resilience. And so many of these, you know, hard CrossFit workouts, sitting in cold water, sitting in a hot sauna, they're, they're teaching you to be resilient and they're teaching you delayed gratification and they're teaching you to set mini goals to achieve this major goal down the road. So those are all things that can be carried over to so many other aspects in life, from owning a business, to being a good dad, to being a good husband, to being a good employer. So I do think that the hybrid athlete is something that we should think about and how we live our lives. And you know, also making the correlation between our ancestors and us. Like we've created a lot of comforts in our life to our detriment. And you know, some things you have to bring back into your life so that you're, you thrive the way our ancestors were, you know, designed us to thrive. You know, and encountering an animal and having to run and having periods where you don't eat and you know, there's fight or flight responses from things that scare us. So there's a lot of things that I've incorporated back in and just kind of associate them back to like how a caveman would have lived and how we're designed to thrive. And I don't know that we were designed to have these massive networks and you know, to just chase money and capitalism. Like we were designed to be outside a lot and we were designed to get sun and we were designed to eat animal based products and we've created a lot of stuff that hurts us.

Yeah, you know, it's, that's such an interesting observation and I haven't thought about this for maybe 20 years, but recognition at some point in my life, and I don't remember exactly when it was that every innovation was focused on making our life easier. Whether it's air conditioning or cars or you know, even getting up to change the television channel or I don't even have to do this now, I don't even have to get up and change my air conditioning. I don't have to do. Every innovation is just to take away to make things easier for us. So people want to change their life and they're looking at a business. They're like, okay, Well, I mean, how hard is this going to be? You know, am I going to be able to accomplish this? Well, yeah, it's going to be hard and yeah, it's going to be long. And there's probably going to be a thousand obstacles that are going to come in your way. But every time you overcome one of those, you're getting some percent better, you're getting some percent more resilient. You're going to. You're going to have more confidence in yourself. So challenging yourself. Because by the way, Eric, none of this stuff is fatal. So how did you get into the Ironman from. From where you were? At what point in your life did you say, I want to compete at this level and. And this is what I need to do next in my life? Sure.

So, I mean, it really started with the personal trainer. In my mid-20s, what ultimately got me into triathlon was a bunch of my friends signed up for a Half Ironman, the first one that was coming to Syracuse. And they bought these fancy bikes that had four handlebars. And I saw one of the bikes and I'm like, those look so cool. What is that for? And they're like, we're doing a Half Ironman. I'm like, what's a Half Ironman? I like a triathlon where you swim 1.2 miles, you bike 56 and you run a half marathon. And I'm like, you can do that in a day. And they're like, yeah, people do it in four hours. And I was just like, mind blown by that. I almost drowned in the swim. I had to sidestroke and backstroke my way through it. Cause I had no swimming background. I passed a bunch of people on the bike because I had strong legs from all of the CrossFit type workouts. And I passed a bunch of people on the run, which was empowering. And I ended up finishing third in my age group in a small local triathlon. So it was empowering. I'm like, I think I can be good at this. So then I signed up for an Olympic distance. And then my first Half Ironman came along a year after doing my first sprint distance triathlon. So I had ambitions of just magically going out there and like ripping this half marathon in Cambridge, Maryland, called Eagle man and qualifying for the Ironman World Championships in Kona. I think there were going to be like two spots for my age group and I was going to have to do like a. A 420, which is really fast. I always was pretty bad at the swim. That was where I Just kind of hung on. It was my warm up into the bike and run, passed a bunch of people on the bike, had a pretty good bike race. And then I went out on the run at about a 6:36:45 pace. I had no business doing that. I was at a 7 minute per mile pace on mile 2, and then a 7:30, mile 3 and then the wheels fell off. 8 minutes, 9 minutes, 10 minutes, 11 minutes, 12 minutes walking. So I finished the race, my time was 5:13 and I had to stand under a fire hose for about 30 minutes to cool down. It was a hot, humid day and I just, you know, I, I blew through all of my glycogen way too early because I was going too hard. Like we only have so many matches to burn. So tell my girlfriend at the time, I'm like, I'm never doing that again. That was the dumbest thing I've ever done. That was so hard. Like, I'm miserable, I'm sore, I can't walk. And then like an hour later I told her, I think I'm going to sign up for Ironman Lake Placid next year. So it's amazing how the sport sucks you in. I missed qualifying for the world championships by one place in one minute. And that was my motivation to do it again the next year, 2013. I qualified for Kona. 2013, had a horrible race in Kona, and then that was my motivation to do it all again over again in 2014 to. I had a great race in Lake Placid, went to Kona, had a great race in Kona, and then I kind of felt like I was going through the motions after that. And one of the things, you know, that I like to tell people is that, you know, we all have these various life chapters where, you know, we're going to have passion and purpose for a while. And then when you start to lose that passion and purpose, it's time to close that chapter and move on to the next one. And you know, I started to lose my passion and purpose for the sport. You know, I wasn't able to be as involved in my business endeavors anymore because of the long training hours and the recovery and all of the other things. Yeah, I mean, it was time for me to move on in 2015, 16 and you know, 2017 is when I kind of really landed on my feet again and said, okay, I, I just want to feel good day in and day out and I want to share these things I've learned over the years with others so that they can implement some of these wellness routines into their lives so you know, they can perform at a high level physically, mentally and emotionally.

Yeah, I've said many times that observationally, people that have lived a life well, in my opinion have had many lives within their life. They've had many different phases, they've had many different businesses. They've. There's clear demarcation between them starting something and then going to the next thing. Because to get the next thing you sometimes you got to give up something, right? Nothing's free. You gotta, there's always a, there's always a trade off and we all need adventures in life and if we want to maintain, maintain our, our excitement for the life that we live, man, we gotta keep identifying new peaks to climb and things like that. So when you were going through the Ironman, is that when you started with the social? Like were you starting to build a business following while you were training and doing the events and then that was something that you were able to leverage into your next phase?

I was, but there was no intention to it. You know, I was just posting sexy bike photos and all the food I was eating and my run split.

Now what was the bike sexy or.

The bike was sexy? The bike sexy. To me it was really sexy. So yeah, I mean there was no intention behind it. I didn't think of it as a brand. I certainly didn't think of it as a business during those years. But you know, I picked up a bike sponsor during my Ironman years, meaning I got a bike for free, which was nice. After Ironman a few brands started reaching out here and there, inviting me on different experiences or sending me product, you know, maybe paying me a couple hundred dollars to post a picture and you know, I'm like that, that's really cool. But I still wasn't really thinking of it as a business or a brand. And then Oakley reached out to me in 2016 and invited me to spectate the Ironman World Championships. And I, I wasn't competing anymore. I, but I was still in the sport, I was still running pretty high volume and biking and they wanted me to promote these new sunglasses they were coming out with. So I said yes to that and jumped all over it. And that was really the aha moment of wow. Like brands are going to start allocating marketing budgets towards people with niche followings. So then I started learning photography and you know, figuring out how to take good pictures that captivated people. I started adding more value. I started thinking about, you know, what kind of emotion I wanted to evoke with the images I was posting, which was generally, you know, inspiring people and, you know, then more brands started reaching out as I started adding value for them. I started sharing on my stories and feed posts like, brands I loved and whose products and services I loved. And then they would message me and say, hey, we'd love to send you more. And like, hey, would you, like, post something on your feed in exchange for this? And I'm like, yeah. And then in 2017 or 2018, I was on the summit of Mount Morrison, which we actually look at from our backyard now. And I sent a voice message to a friend in New York City, Dean Statman, who had recently left his position as the head editor at Men's Health, and he was starting his own PR firm. And I said, hey, Dean, I'm on the summit of Mount Morrison right now. And I just. I had this thought as I was outside with my heart rate elevated, which is usually when I have my best thoughts, and I'm like, I'm starting to have a lot of brands reach out to me. And, you know, I'd love to have someone represent me as an agent to help negotiate these deals, because I don't think I'm placing nearly enough value on myself for what I'm delivering to some of these brands that I'm working with. Like, generally, I'm just trading posts for product, and I'm like, also, I think I could add value for you. And a lot of the brands reaching out, they need pr, and you could probably work them with a with on a PR front. So, you know, he sent me a message back, said, let me think about it. The day after he said, let's do it. You know, we'll give it a whirl. And that's when things, like, really went off to the races, you know, because then I could delegate contract negotiation, invoicing some of the things that I didn't want to do because I was living my best life. I was out playing in the wilderness in Colorado and mountain biking and trail running, and I didn't want to screw that up. And then, you know, it's really evolved over the years into more of a consulting role. Now, most of the brands I work with, I'm helping them build their ambassador programs. I end up investing in them. I introduce them to investors. I introduce them to retail channels, to buyers. I put on community events almost every week now. So I'm giving product out to people. I'm building my own ambassador program where I seed product to people to really amplify awareness. I'm starting to host and co host wellness events. And I have this container of founders that I work with where I allow for them to interact with each other. And I put on experiences for consumer brand founders so they can interact with each other. So, you know, now, you know, what you see me posting is 10% of what I'm doing for the brands I'm working with. More of it is this consulting type role. And you know, that was me putting my business hat back on of like, I think I can really add a ton of ROI for brands because I've built businesses, I've co founded businesses, I've, you know, helped businesses raise money. Like I can do a lot more than just, you know, move the needle by posting photos and videos on social media.

When you expanded your team and you got somebody to do the business side of it, but when you were taking the pictures and all of that, did you have a team working with you or were you kind of doing it yourself?

I was doing it all myself. I've been doing it all myself up until the last four or five months. And you know, I got to a point where I was hitting my head on a ceiling and I went through the ceiling and I'm like, I'm doing way too much myself. I can't do this anymore. So, you know, the last five or six months I've started to delegate some things. And you know, I have photographers and videographers and people that help me with content strategy that are working with me now. But yeah, up until six months ago, everything was, was me. It was me learning how to, you know, shoot photos on a fancy camera, how to edit photos. And then when Instagram turned more to videos, it was understanding how to be a film director. And you know, once you learn the, you know, how to use a camera and aperture and depth of field and all of that stuff, then there's a whole nother creative side of like how to make a captivating video. That's a whole nother skill. So I've had to learn that on my own. And you know, it's reps and sets like anything in life, the more you do something, you know you're going to learn it. And I've always been good at surrounding myself with people that can help me get somewhere faster. So, you know, if there's any superpower, someone, someone can have, it's finding those people that are doing what you want to do and adding value for them so they'll add value back to you. And, you know, that's helped me along the way to you know, pick up skills faster.

I've heard you talk about sets and reps and kind of as it relates to taking risks. What times in your life have you, you know, taken some risks and, you know, it's worked out really well for you or how do you think about risk in the decisions that you make every day?

Today never worked for anybody. My whole business career has been starting my own businesses, co founding businesses, investing in businesses. So you know, kind of from day one out of college, I was taking financial risks and you know, I, I also do a lot of things that are uncomfortable. You know, from my workouts to Ironmans to Leadville 100 to sitting in hot saunas to jumping in cold streams. Like all of those are very uncomfortable in the moment. But they teach you delayed gratification and that's a lot of what risk is, is just delayed gratification of knowing that you're not going to get something immediately, you know, there you could fail. But you know, if you try enough things or you, you do the same thing long enough, like you're going to be successful at it. So it's a combination of those things. And yeah, I mean, investing in businesses is super scary. Starting a business is super scary. But the more you do it, the more you realize it doesn't, it doesn't hurt as much as it did the first time. Like when I lost my first client in my insurance business, I thought it was the end of the world, you know, now I don't even know when I lose a client now, you know, you know, those things come and go. So you have to practice your risk tolerance in all aspects of life to get better at taking risks and to get better at uncomfortable things.

When we talk about top performance, you know, keys to top performance or you know, how people can get started that maybe haven't been, you know, they've been in corporate America, they've been grinding it out. Maybe they're raising kids and they haven't taken care of themselves. You talk about diet, you talk about exercise, you talk about sleep. All of these things are about total wellness. And for me, so I'm a 55 year old guy and this year I've lost 30 pounds. I got a trainer starting in November. Well, you know, truth be known, you ever heard of traveler's diarrhea? So I was in the Dominic the last eight pounds I hope I gained back because I was in the Dominican and I came home with Montezuma's Revenge. So, so yeah, so, but like you want to lose weight, eat, eat an Ice cube in a country that you shouldn't or something like that. Eric, it was the most amazing experience of my life, I got to tell you. It was four days of absolute joy. But, but no, I mean, but literally I lost about 25 pounds this year. The mental acuity that I have and the ability to be present with people and the ability to think and later into the day, it's, it's amazing. And I've been in and out of shape my whole life, but really I really hadn't taken it seriously until, I mean I'm in the best shape I've been in since college. I was a college football player, played around 232. I was a running back and a tight end. So I was about 232 and I'm sitting here at about 225 right now. I was 255 to 6. I would never thought I was going to see the 220th again.

So.

But you know, like, you know, I'm not sure exactly what the trigger was for me in terms of that other than the fact that I knew that. Well, I can tell you what the trigger was for me. I was embarking on a new journey. We've launched this new franchise platform. We're bringing on 10 to 20 new franchise owners every month. I have to be there for them. It's going to take more energy. I've got to travel more, I've got to be in front of the camera more, I've got to lead more. So these types of things really motivated me to, to be my best self. How do people get started when, I mean when you know they're not, they're not going to be to where you are overnight. Like what are some simple things that can impact performance that you would recommend for people in any of the spectrum of diet, exercise, supplements or habits?

I think of the four main pillars and the four main pillars for me are movement, specifically lifting moderately heavy, heavy weights, doing anaerobic conditioning and doing some aerobic conditioning. That's number one pillar and that's at the top of my food chain. Number two is nutrition. Dialing that in and putting food on autopilot. I think we all know what things to eat, you know, animal based products, fruits and vegetables, things that you can find in nature and you know, finding those things that you enjoy that are satiating, that provide you with energy and mental clarity and then building structure around that so you don't have decision making fatigue around food. Three is sleep, dialing in sleep. It's so important. It's your number one recovery tool. And then four is recovery practices, meditation. For me, it's contrast therapy. You know, getting outside in solitude I think is super important. So those would be recovery forms. And for me, it was really tackling one thing at a time. Mine started with movement, hiring a personal trainer just so you have that accountability, you have discipline and you gain knowledge. Once you can put that on autopilot and you have the motivation and you have the knowledge to understand, you know, what workouts to do and you found your tribe and you found things that are accessible to you. I think that's super important. You know, move on to the next thing, move on to diet and, you know, find those foods that work for you, that you don't have to think about food all the time. You know, the only times I think about food are maybe one day a week when I go out to dinner, when I'm, you know, picking something off of a menu. Outside of that, like I know exactly what I'm eating and when every, every moment of, of the day. And then sleep is dabbling with different sleep routines, different sleep supplements, Magnesium, L theanine, Gaba, melatonin. And figuring out what works for you to get at least 7 hours and preferably 8 hours of sleep and good sleep. You know, waking up at most one time throughout the night, sleeping in a cool, dark environment, wearing earplugs, wearing a sleep mask, avoiding highly stimulating environments late at night. Those are some of my keys to sleep. But I tinkered with it for six to eight months before I finally dialed in my sleep. And then the recovery routine, sauna contrast therapy. I'm combining that with meeting new people. Someone reaches out to me, I tell them to come over in sauna. That's where I take all of my meetings. That's where I bond with close friends in the sauna. We have a rotation of people that come here every single night to sauna. You know, I combined human connection meetings, meeting new people with that sauna time. And you know, this sounds like a lot, but a lot of it. You can also combine with other things so that, you know, you're productive during those time periods. But start with movement and then, you know, focus on the next of those pillars and know that it's a journey. You know, this could be a five year journey. And you know, it was for me, I focused on one thing for a year and then I moved on to the next. And I then moved on to the next and just have it stacked over time. So it's not trying to do all of it at once. It's figuring out one pillar and then moving on to the next pillar. And then, you know, once they're all on autopilot, you're going to free up so much more decision making bandwidth and you're going to have so much more energy to pour into the things that, and people that you love.

I tell you, man, it like this is like a playbook for success for the people. It's movement, nutrition, sleep and recovery. So if I go back over the last seven months, the first thing that led to where I am today is I had really, I needed knee replacements and I had put them off for years. So I got double knee replacements. It took me a good 6 to 12 months to fully recover from that. Then I realized that I had lost, I was atrophied all my muscles. So, you know, I was like, well, I got to get back. And they, my family convinced me to get going with this trainer, which I started maybe seven months ago. Nothing happened good. I started going twice a week and then I started to feel better and I started to really regain some of my college, you know, athlete type muscle. And then all of a sudden about three months in, I'm like, wow, this is, this is really helping. So then I, I realized that I was really dragging in the afternoon. So I went and had some blood work done, realized that I needed some hormone therapy. So I got a little bit of hormone therapy. So I got that balanced out, right. Then I started eating three meals a day, three eggs in the morning, go to Whole Foods for lunch, piece of salmon, some broccoli and stuff like that. And then I will eat a pretty big dinner, you know, whatever, whatever I can get my hands on, but you know, try to make sure there's some lettuce inside of that. But then the other thing that I incorporated was infrared sauna. So I'll train three days a week with a trainer. I'll do probably three days alternatively on the rower and do core work at home. I'll go to a sauna four times, sit in the infrared sauna four times a week and then making sure, and then, you know, a couple of different supplements and whatnot. And I don't, I don't know, I don't want to stop any of it because I don't know which of it's working or if it's a combination of the entire cocktail. But I think sleep is the one that I'm horrible at right now. So I'm going to focus, I'm going to take that one Next and see what I can do to improve my sleep. So I really appreciate that.

Amazing. Yeah. Try magnesium L Theanine Gaba. I take a supplement called Beam Dream. It does have melatonin in it. I know that, you know, a lot of people are talking about melatonin not being the best thing to take. It is a hormone. But I feel like, you know, there are a lot of hormone replacement therapies out there at this point. And it's not like I'm spending $5,000 a month on melatonin. It's a pretty cheap supplement. So, you know, I'll do. I'll do almost anything to get really quality sleep. And Beam Dream their. Their product. I don't wake up groggy. It's not a massive dose of melatonin, so that's the one that I've been taking lately. But you can just play around with. With magnesium L Theanine Gaba. Those are some of the really good ingredients that help with sleep. But the big one for me is that avoiding highly stimulating environments late at night. I very rarely go out to concerts, even though Red Rocks Amphitheater is just down the hill from our house. And, you know, I'm not entertaining super late at night. I'm not on super late at night because that's when you wake up with your mind racing. And I think that's a common problem amongst people that are really busy in Type A is that you don't give your mind a break before bed. So your mind continues to think throughout the night, and you wake up in the middle of the night and you're wide awake and you got to write stuff down, and then you look at your phone and that screws up your circadian rhythm. So that's been a big one for me. And then the cool, dark environment and wearing earplugs, like controlling your sleep environment is huge.

Do you build up a resistance to melatonin or the Beam product or anything like that?

I have taken Beam for three years, ever since they launched it, and I have been taking melatonin since 2010, 2011. So there have been a few times where I didn't have melatonin and I slept fine. I don't think I slept as well as I do with melatonin, but it's not like I was, you know, scratching my head in bed and couldn't get to sleep at all. I was still able to get to sleep, sleep. So, you know. Yeah, I mean, a lot of studies are saying that if you take melatonin for too long you're going to have to keep taking melatonin because you're, you're going to develop a addiction to it. But again, it's not something that is super expensive. And yeah, I mean, in my 13 years of taking it, I haven't seen any negative side effects.

And you don't feel like you have to take more?

No, I mean, I take my same scoop of Beam Dream every single night and that is fine for me. I sleep like a baby.

Oh, awesome. I have this concept of creation versus consumption. And you're a creator, you've created businesses, you create content, you create experiences, you create economics for companies and you're busy moving around doing things versus maybe consumption. Not all consumption is bad, but as Americans, we do tend to over consume lots of things. You know, telephone, social media, food, alcohol, drugs, all of that kind of stuff. One of the things I talk to my kids about is observationally, people that are more fulfilled tend to have a higher creation to consumption ratio. So, you know, for me, I'm happiest when I'm presenting, when I'm talking, when I'm coaching, when I'm writing something out, when I'm coming up with a new concept or an idea. Have you ever thought about that and like what really makes you, you know, on fire or what really lights you up in terms of how you balance out those activities?

Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, for me, there's a direct correlation between anaerobic conditioning, lifting heavy weights, a certain amount of aerobic conditioning and my ability to create meaning. If I am sitting all day long or I'm on a plane, like I get the least done, I am just consuming and I feel like. But if I get my morning CrossFit workout in 90 minutes, you know, heavy lifting, anaerobic conditioning, all I want to do afterwards is be completely present in what I'm doing and who I'm with. And I'm all about creating. I'm not looking to consume anything. And then, you know, if I do that for three hours, like I need a little break from it. And then I go off into the wilderness and I do my aerobic conditioning, generally about 60 minutes. And then after that I have another two hour block of all I want to do is create. You know, my mind is clear, I have lots of energy and I'm ready to just get shit done. So I feel like I have this nice ebb and flow of fueling content, creation, fueling creation, fueling presence, fueling captive conversations with people, fueling creativity, and then taking a break, doing what makes Me creative again and then doing it again and then, you know, winding down in the evening because I think we need that reset period. So yeah, I found a nice balance between that and I consume for maybe 45 minutes in the evenings. That's my wind down routine. I'll watch something on YouTube, you know, generally something I can learn from and then I go to bed. So I try to build my day around, you know, the things that make me crazy creative and then a little bit of consumption but not consuming the wrong things and not consuming all day long because it is easy to get trapped on like a down day if I'm flying all day into this just constant consumption. And then you find yourself endlessly scrolling TikTok and 45 minutes later like you didn't do anything productive. And I'm not knocking that, you know, like there's a time and a place to just mindlessly consume, but it's really easy to get in the trap of mindless consumption with no real benefit. And then comparison creeps in and jealousy creeps in and am I enough creeps in and that's, that's the wrong spiral to be in.

Yeah. So envy is the enemy of enlightenment. You stop learning when you, when you start being jealous and it's, it's really counterproductive. What have you learned about setting boundaries?

I mean, structure is my boundaries. My days are super structured. You know, I block off my workout times, I block off my outdoor adventure times. I block off my, my sauna and bonding with other human time. I block off my time with Sarah. I block off my time for when I'm going to be smoking meat on the yoder smoker I'm staring at. So my days are super structured. So it doesn't allow for much unnecessary to creep in. It doesn't allow for, you know, other things to take hold of my day. And I know when I want to work and you know, that's my work time and I know when I want to schedule my calls for and also when I'm going to be my best on calls. You know, I'm not. And also like meeting with people. Like I often, people reach out to me often to work out with me and like that's my time to work out. Like you're not going to get my best and my complete presence if we're working out together. You're going to get my complete presence in a sauna when my phone will overheat if I'm using it. So that's when I schedule, you know, those sessions. And I like Doing things like, like this, where we get to have flow state conversations where we're both adding value for each other. So yeah, I mean, boundaries are structure. If you structure your days around ways that are going to enable you to thrive, in ways that will enable you to give back, in ways that will fill your cup so full that it's overflowing and you want to give back, like that's in my opinion, the way to live life.

Well said, well said. So what's coming up for you, Eric? What's your next chapter going to look like?

Lots of community events. I've really been enjoying that, you know, more and more wellness retreats where, you know, I'm curating the experience and I'm curating the people, knowing that everyone there is going to add a lot of value for everyone else. You know, long term. We host a lot at the house. God bless my girlfriend for allowing so many people to come to our house and work out here and sauna here and stay with us. But I think eventually I'd like to have a retreat type compound where there's lots of saunas and cold plunges and an outdoor workout area and easy access to biking trails and running trails and rucking trails and a cold stream flowing through the property just to entertain the way I enjoy doing it and then just building more. I love building things, I love building communities, I love building brands, I love helping other people build brands. So, you know, ultimately I've figured out how to live life in a way that attracts opportunities. So, you know, I would be lying if I told you exactly what my life is going to look like five years from now. But I know if I continue living my life the way I do now that five years from now I'm going to be stoked where I am just based on how I live life each day. And I think it's important to design, you know, these perfect days for yourself. And obviously things are going to get in the way of that. And that's why I think you do these hard things so that when, you know, life sucks, someone gets sick, a business fails. Like you've built up the stress resilience to overcome that and realize that it's a speed up, speed bump in life. You know, life is just a series of ups and downs and the more you can smooth it by putting good stressors into your life, the better you're going to be when these shitty scenarios come up. So, yeah, structure. Figure out your perfect day. Figure out how to monetize a large portion of it.

Are people coming to you these days for these events or you travel a lot?

I travel a lot. We do a lot in Colorado. For sure. It's easy and, you know, it's a beautiful place for people to come to here. And we have a big, big network of people that enjoy doing the same things here. So we do a lot in Colorado. But I'm headed to Nashville this weekend, hosting a sweat crawl in Nashville, which is doing a workout at a buddy's gym and then running a mile and a half to the normal brand, which is a retail store I work with right on Broadway. We'll have ice barrels set up outside the store and everybody will do ice baths and shop and mingle and eat afterwards. So I'm doing a lot in different cities as well. Sweat crawls, community workouts, community cold plunges, community rucks, and then these wellness events. I've co hosted one in Denver with my buddy Brian Maza recently called HPLT High Performance Lifestyle Training. And we're chatting about me doing more of those on the west coast for him. And I'm doing another Founders Day experience in Palm Springs in October. I'll be doing more and more of those. So I like going to places that, you know, beg you to be outside where I have built in networks where the sun is shining and where there's access to cold water.

Clearly everybody needs to follow you so that they know when you're coming to a location near them. We actually, I got introduced to you because you were working out here, right in Cornelius, North Carolina, right near my hometown. If you ever come back this way, I'd love to host you, take you out on the lake. We could do a little bit. I bet you you can wake surf. If you've never done it before, I bet you you can do it the first time. Have you done that?

I haven't, no. I grew up skiing, water skiing, kneeboarding, solo water skiing, but I haven't tried wake surfing. I have a friend who has a boat here in Colorado and he's invited me and I really want to go. I will 100% take you up on that. Your neck of the world, just beautiful. I was honestly blown away with how much I enjoyed my time in Huntersville, Cornelius and just outside of Charlotte, Lake Norman. I mean, that area is absolutely beautiful and you have a great wellness community there.

Yeah, it's great. It's great. And you would crush it, I'm sure. I am sure. So, Eric, how can people connect with you? How can they? What's the best way to follow you and stay plugged into what you got going on.

Yep, Instagram is the best place. Just my name at Erick Kinman on Instagram. My website, erickinman.com we're building out a new website right now which is going to list all of the different community events that are coming up so you'll be able to see when those events are coming to your area. But yeah, Instagram is the best place where I'm posting often about different experiences that are happening.

Yeah, you know, you got a great Instagram account. You know the difference between yours and mine?

What's the difference?

154,000 followers and a shirt.

I love it. So funny. My bio used to read, retired at 34, exploring the world most days shirtless. And that very much was my life eight years ago when I was. When I was 34. But I have a shirt on more, more often now because of all of the. All of the meetings I'm taking. But a lot of the people still know that I may show up, you know, in the middle of a mountain bike ride or on the top of a mountain with my shirt off for a brain call.

Yeah, as you should. As you should. And I encourage everybody to follow and see what's going on there and get involved with these events. Last question for you, Eric. If you had one sentence to make an impact in someone's life today, what would that be?

Movement is medicine. You know, that's that I live by. Movement has brought so many positive things into my life. You know, the environment that I'm in now was because of my wanting to move often. You know, being out here in Colorado, my friend group now is because of. Of movement. So many of the business opportunities that have come my way in the last six or seven years have come from movement, and how I feel every day has come from movement. So movement is medicine.

Fantastic. Thank you, Eric. And thank you for being on today on the Homefront.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, this was great. This was great. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by Homefront Brands, simply building the world's most responsible franchise platform. So if this sounds like something you are interested in, check us out@homefront brands.com today and start your next chapter of greatness on the home front. I will be here looking for you. Thanks, Eric.

Thanks for having me.