Your Best Year Yet: 3 Life-Changing Fitness Hacks to Ignite Your 2024 Transformation

If I inflicted pain upon myself and it was positive pain for a workout, I could flip this kinesthetic switch. I called it my pain switch, and I would flip that pain switch. I can now push it harder and realize, why can't I apply that same thing to nutrition? This is an opportunity, an opportunity to move more, an opportunity to move tomorrow. And that's not having this transactional relationship again. Because what you don't want to do.

Is say, welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Louis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to a to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin.

The holidays are back at Starbucks, so share the season with a peppermint mocha, Starbucks Signature Espresso, Velvety mocha and cool peppermint notes topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls together is the best place to be at Starbucks.

The Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid has a bold design, a spacious interior with 232 horsepower and a 12.3-inch panoramic display to keep the adventure going and fit with.

The way you live.

And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, the sports talk and podcasts that you love right in your vehicle or on the Sirius XM app. Every SiriusXM equipped Kia Sportage Turbo Hybrid includes a three month trial, so the experience begins the moment you drive. Learn more@kia.com sportage-hybrid Kia Movement that inspires.

Being smart with your money is one of the best ways to invest in yourself and your future. With State Farm Personal Price Plan, you can create a competitive price just for you. When you choose to bundle your home and auto insurance. That way you can keep more of your money focused on your goals. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

For people that don't have that type of discipline, how can they be consistent on the nutritional intake over a lifetime and make it their lifestyle and not just a diet?

Yeah, I mean it's such a basic good question that people always want to bring it back to like tracking and things like that. I think that that doesn't. That that works, tracking works. But you're talking about it at a deeper level, right? Because I experience the same thing. I can have the most steadfast meditator monk that I'm talking to, and they will still battle with this.

Right?

Really?

And it's something to the point where we have so much things, so many things that are just available at our fingertips that are just temptations, not in alignment with how we've continued to evolve. As, you know, it's like we just. Technology and food production and the food industry is growing at an exponentially faster rate than how we are changing, right? So we have these things that are available that just simply shouldn't. And outside of putting yourself in a. In a locker and, like, away from these foods, total echo chamber. Like, you are fighting temptation all the time. And we have to recognize that there's only so much power in your prefrontal cortex.

There's only so much willpower.

Like, it's a finite resource. So with that, you have to kind of change your way of thinking. And the way that, like, this occurred to me, like, three years ago or so when I had. I had a really, really big bad, like, sinus infection. And I've always had some kind of recurring sinus infections ever since I was little, but I had one that was really bad, and I couldn't taste or smell for, like, two months, right? And that was something where I realized, like, why am I still craving these certain foods? I can't even taste them, right? And it was like this aha moment where I'm like, this is clearly a mental thing because something sweet hits your taste buds. It's not just the taste of it. It's what it's doing in the brain. So changing your relationship with food, changing your relationship with struggle has been a very big thing, right? So for me, I always had this kinesthetic awareness thing with my workouts, right? With workouts, it was like, if I inflicted pain upon myself and it was positive pain for a workout, I could flip this kinesthetic switch that was like. I called it my pain switch. And I would flip that pain switch. And, you know, as an athlete, like, that's sometimes just what you do. And it happens inadvertently. Sometimes you visualize it, but visualization is huge. So for me, I'd visualize flipping the paint switch. The switch is off. I can now push it harder and push it past my normal aerobic capacity. Anaerobic, whatever. I realized, why can't I apply that same thing to nutrition? Without becoming robotic, but becoming very, very aware. And so I've changed my relationship with how food makes me feel. And that's taken a lot of work.

What do you say to yourself? What's the conversation, the inner dialogue, the mental strategy you use to do that?

As simple as it sounds, whenever I would eat something for about two or three months, I would simply say, food is fuel, Food is fuel. And that sounds very. Because you don't want to take the fun out of it. I still love food, right? So when you do that, but you have to train yourself to believe that. Like, okay, if I'm eating this sugar, that's okay, but remember it's fuel and I should use it, right? Or if I'm. And that's the thing here, if I.

Want to eat it, make sure I move my body, go for a 10 minute walk, walk upstairs, move it a little bit, just get it out.

When you change the relationship with food, you're not abstaining, you're. You're changing the reaction, right?

So like, and I should never have a bucket of ice cream and then just sit around.

It's just the thing, right?

It's like if you're going to do.

It, eat it in the morning, eat.

It for breakfast, whatever, and then go move all day.

Exactly. It's so that relationship, I mean, it gets much bigger than that, right? But that relationship with food is everything. And so many of us have a distorted relationship with food. And for me, being, I've been on opposite ends of sort of the spectrum, right? Like when I was younger, I was practically, you know, as a runner, I was practically eating disorder category, the other direction. Like, I have to be as light as possible. Oh, I don't want to eat that. I don't want to get fat. And then it kind of went the other way. It was almost like masochistic where I'm just like, I don't care, I'm fat already. Let's just go all.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Now it's kind of like find a little bit of that middle ground. But the pendulum probably swings much more towards how I was when I was younger. Got to stay lean, got to say this. But I also have recognized that like food, food is still reward. And we are constantly told that food shouldn't be treated as a reward. Don't reward your kids with food. I call on that. The reason is, is because food has always been a reward.

Right?

It's always been a reward for us.

You get the hunt and you get the food. Yeah. You go gather, you get the food.

Yeah.

It's simple, right? What you have to do is you just have to once again change the relationship with the feelings attached to food. Recognize that those feelings are there, but do something with them rather than just let them be and consume you. If I am going to go and eat that ice cream, then I'm aware of what that's doing in my body, and I'm not going to let that turn me the other direction and get depressed and go eat more. I'm going to say, you know what? This is an opportunity. An opportunity to move more. An opportunity to move tomorrow. And that's not having this transactional relationship again. Because what you don't want to do is say, I'm going to eat some pie and now I'm going to punish myself by going on the treadmill. That's the exact wrong thing to do. Right. But you do say, okay, I'm going to eat this pie.

Great.

I've got full glycogen tanks. I'm going to go work out. I'm going to get the best workout of my life. Having kids has really made this apparent because kids constantly. I want a snack. I want a snack. It's like they have five stomachs. I don't understand it. And like, how do you. If they're reaching for like a Larabar or something that I would still consider healthy, but has a decent amount of sugar from dates and stuff, right? Like, kids just crave these things. And how do I teach them that? You, yeah, you can eat that, but we should really get out and move, you know? And, you know, it's kind of like how I translate it to them is, hey, it's fun to feel good. It's fun to feel good, right? Like, you've got this energy from that bar. Doesn't that feel good? Like, let's. Let's get out and let's use that energy. Let's go have fun. And now it's to the point where my kids are like, can I have a lar bar? I want to go outside and play. I'm like, this is awesome. Like, without actually, like, molding them in any weird way, I've helped them light a spark to understand that when they eat this and at a young, subconscious level in their brain, it's probably forming something that's beyond what we even know in research where maybe they taste something sweet and now they naturally want to move versus saying like, oh, shame, guilt. I shouldn't have eaten this. It's terrible. No, we're going to go have fun.

We're going to play.

But I teach them that with not just sugar. I teach them that with fats, too. Because I think it's also fundamental to learn that all food is fuel. But be in touch with how it makes you feel. So how I retain that discipline, it's the exact same way. It's like, how do I feel? What do I feel after I eat this? Did I feel crappy? Okay, well, then that's probably a pretty good articulation of what that's doing in my body. And with that, it's really turned into this intuitive eating. And that's like, I guess. I mean, it's a great segue to talk about how fasting has worked. Right. Because fasting has allowed me to have more flexibility with my diet in the confines of still, like, appropriate discipline. Because I can flip that switch on and off a lot easier. Fasting, not fasting. Fasting, not fasting.

And you're one of the. There's a few things I want to talk about here before I get into fasting. One is the mantra. It sounds like you had the mental switch. The mantra of food is fuel. So is that something you would think about right before you were making a decision of what to eat?

Usually while eating it.

While eating it.

So it wasn't helping you make a decision of like, okay, here's a candy bar. Am I gonna decide this? Is. Is this gonna help me and fuel me in a positive way or a negative?

Fuel that's too willpowery, that takes too much energy.

So you would still eat the candy bar if you needed or if you did Walla Walla.

Yes. And granted, this was happening three, three and a half years ago, so candy bars weren't really in the equation anymore. But that being said.

Because of an apple or whatever.

Yeah.

Or something like, because I still crave fruit or, you know, whatever. But yes, exactly. It's like, while I'm consuming it, it's like, really trying to teach my body and understand, like, this visualization, you know, the power of visualization. Obviously, just yourself and the guests you've had on. It's like that visualization with eating something can be just as powerful.

So you would say this as you're having a bite of the apple or whatever it might be having an internal conversation. Food is fuel. And then having a positive relationship with something that might be looked at as negative before. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Precisely. Yup.

And training your body to appreciate the food and to say, okay, I'm gonna go act and move my Body after I eat this. And it's going to help me, it's not gonna hurt me. And I don't need to be shameful about eating this. Is that kind of the process? Because a lot of people that eat something and they feel good because it tastes good, but then they feel shameful.

Yes.

And that doesn't help them because then they have more of that to have the good feeling and then feel shame again and the cycle continues.

Because what is happening here is much different than what's happening here.

Yeah.

And you know, in our world, like we get this instant gratification from food. Especially like the translation of. I see a direct correlation with my time scrolling social media and my addiction to my phone. Direct line item correlation to how much I crave snacking and things like that. It's the same firing, you know. Right. It's like that same dopamine itch that needs to be scratched. And just in the same way I get addicted to looking at my phone or checking my email, that usually correlates with how much my addiction to food is at that point in time. But like, you don't just say, like, I am going to like, resist the urge to check my email. I'm going to resist the urge to check my email. Sometimes it takes like, what is the response? Like a lot of times, you know, you'll check your email first thing in the morning, you'll get a negative email and it hits you. Then you're like, this is how I'm starting my day. Like, this is what I'm going to do. Like, screw that. And that's your catalyst. But like with food, you eat a Snickers bar and it feels so good up here.

You feel like you're doing the amazing.

Everything is telling you in that immediate moment that this was a good decision, Louis, like, you did the right thing.

Your belly afterwards is like, oh, why is it digesting weird? And now I feel like lethargic. And yeah.

And you go out and you move and you try to do something with it and yeah, you're going to have some fuel, but you're going to be like, you know what? It's crazy enough that didn't feel as good as when I had that apple. And you start creating this internal, like checks and balances, if you want to call it that.

What was the moment that was the make or break moment for you that you said, enough is enough or never again or I got to start this journey the real way. Like, I'm going all in. When was that moment?

There was a period in 2002. I had fallen in love with this girl when I was 16, and we were really, really good friends. She says we were best friends, and she had zero interest in me romantically.

You were in the friend zone.

I was in the friend zone, yeah. Fine.

16 years old.

16 years old.

What was your weight like then?

I was heavy, but I wasn't quite as heavy.

200, 250, 300.

You know, I wasn't even then. It's like I wasn't getting on scales often.

Right.

I certainly wasn't £500. I actually have a picture of us from when we were 16 and we were hanging out. And I'm a heavy guy, but I'm not morbidly obese. We became romantic in 2002, and. And there was just a. A moment where I was like, oh, if I'm gonna make this work, if this really has a shot at longevity, I gotta change. Because she likes to do stuff like take a hike and spend the day at the beach and go to museums, and I can't do that, you know? So that was kind of it. It was like, I wanna have this relationship with her, so I must change. It was a bizarre kind of counterintuitive conversation that I had with her too, because having it, I was scared. Like, if I have this conversation, she'll know how. That I'm overweight, like, that I'm obese. As.

She didn't know.

As if she didn't know. It was like this thing. If I show her that this is something I want to change, not just like this masculine thing of, like, I'm showing weakness. It wasn't that. It was. This is the hardest. This is. This thing is so unconfrontable. I never think about it. I push it away. It's. It's almost become something subconscious. So if I bring it to the forefront and I say, let's address this, that's a very scary and narrow path to walk, because failure. I figure life is failure at that point, you know?

Yeah. So that was 2002. Did you start going all in? Was it dabbling a little bit and kind of lost weight, Went back off the wagon? What was that like? For the next 18 years till now.

I went all in. And I'm a sober guy, too, so I went all in in a very. In a similar fashion to achieving sobriety, which was admit that I'm powerless and turn my problem over to somebody else and go like, I am incapable of figuring this out right now. I'm gonna do exactly what you Say, until we get to the point that I can take over. And she was like, great, here's what you're gonna do. I've went and found a guy who has a liquid diet. You can do it for up to two months. Why don't you do that? You don't have to do it for two months. You can do it for one month. You can do it for two. Let's see how this goes. And I crushed that. Two months liquid diet, 80 pounds.

Wow.

Two months.

This is not like drinking cokes all day. Liquid diet.

This is no sugar.

Liquid diet.

This is like. I mean, the calories were so low. It was like three weird protein shakes with some green powder and a ton of supplements that were, I think, mostly fiber and some vitamins and as much water as I could drink. And that's it.

£80. Two months.

£80.

But that's still in the 400 zone.

Yeah. But I will say this. Of all the weight I've gained and lost, I never dipped back into those £80. Never once. So that it was such a prize that I've never gotten close to back into that zone. And I followed that up with. I don't even know what the diet's called. It might have been like a blood type diet or something. And it was kind of on that where I realized, like, well, I'm gonna have to try different diets. And I tried basically every diet that exists.

What worked the best for you?

The easiest thing was keto.

Yeah.

Because I just didn't have to think about anything.

You need lots of meat. It just eliminates certain things and eat as kind of as much as you want of other stuff, Right?

Yeah.

And I think.

And that worked to a degree. As I had less and less weight to lose, I found that I had to, like, mess around with what I was eating. Because, you know, when I first started, it was like, you can eat bacon and Swiss cheese all day long. Like, okay, well, that's easy. And I. I would. And I'd lose weight, and I'd be like, this is a magical diet. I'm putting mayonnaise on everything, and I'm losing weight. How is this possible? You know, my little salad would have four cups of salad dressing on it, and, you know, no sugar, but, like, a ton of fat. And that did work, and I was able to do it. And it was super easy for traveling. You just rip the bread off stuff and eat steaks. And, you know, it's actually, I think, designed to be easy to get around the world and eat this Way. Once I got really close to. There were. There were two periods. There was a period in 2012 where I was super into cycling and I got really lean. Much smaller than 190 or something or 1. I was just about 200. But that's tiny for me. And, you know, you think about 200, that's still. You're a big dude. But that was really, really small for me. And I just noticed that if I was eating only fat, I was suffering on the bicycle. Like, I wasn't as efficient on the bicycle. So some sugars, gels.

Yeah.

Some carbs entered my diet and, like, I would fly up hills, you know, which was really cool. Then I had a bad accident. My wife told me that I wasn't ever gonna make a living riding a bike. You know, I thought we were rich and that I could retire and just ride my bike at like 3:35 years old, forever. That was not the case. She said I had to go work again. So I went back to acting and the bike kind of fell away and I started doing like, CrossFit and rowing machines. I was. I could crush a full marathon on a rowing machine, no problem. And then at some point, I was kind of having trouble finding work and kept hearing like, well, you're not the big guy, the heavy, lovable guy anymore. So there was a point where I was like, okay, I'm just gonna eat and lift weights and see what happens. And I ate whatever I wanted for about a year and lifted weights and got pretty near £400.

Wow.

Yeah.

The school of greatness is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. The holidays are such a special time to travel and gather with loved ones. Think about some of your best trips. Those cozy spaces, thoughtful touches, and the feeling of being right at home wherever you are. Now imagine getting to provide that same experience for someone else. Because when you travel, your place is just sitting empty while you're away. Hosting on airbnb can be a no brainer. And in a season where new experiences creating lasting memories, it's a unique way to help others make their own. And Martha and I both travel a lot, especially with her family in Mexico and mine all over the usa. So we know what it's like to be on the go during the holidays. And from our experience, hosting has always been easy and straightforward. And whether you're traveling often or just once in a while, it can be a simple way to earn a little extra while you're away. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com Host life is.

Unpredictable and sometimes we're hit with an unexpected purchase after another, and I've been there before. One day the AC in your car decides to stop working in the middle of the summer, and the next day your cat got into something that they shouldn't have. So now the same week you're stuck with a large bill from the car mechanic and another large bill from the vet, neither of which you accounted for in this month's expenses. This is not a fun position to.

Be in, but the U S Bank.

Split World MasterCard can help make it a little easier in the moment. The Split Card is a new type of card that lets you pay later on every purchase. All purchases are automatically divided into three payments and placed into a payment plan to be paid back over three months. So if you're looking for additional flexibility, you can extend your plan to six or 12 months with equal monthly payments for a low monthly fee. So whether it's an unexpected vet bill or something more enjoyable like a last minute concert ticket, you can pay later on every purchase with the U.S. bank Split Card. Learn more@usbank.com SplitCard the creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. bank National association pursuant to a license from MasterCard International, Inc. Some restrictions may apply. The holidays are here and with them comes all the cheer and the spending. And I think we've all felt the.

Pressure of finding the perfect gift for the perfect price.

And those prices are sure giving us.

A run for our money.

You know how it goes. One gift turns into 10. You're trying to stay on budget and.

Before you know it you've spent half.

A day scrolling, comparing prices and wondering if you should have just gotten everyone gift cards.

It can feel a little stressful trying to make it all feel special special without breaking the bank. But luckily you can get the holiday savings at Metro with the most wonderful deal of the season. Get one line of 5G for only $25 a month and a five year price guarantee on talk, text and data.

The best part is that you can keep the phone you love and keep.

Your number and no activation fees. And that's what I'm talking about. A deal that actually lasts five years locked in. That's peace of mind right there at Metro. Get that more for your money feeling, visit your local store today. $25 a month with autopay $30 your first month guarantee. Exclusions apply. C Site for details.

You gained 200 pounds within a year.

Close well, no, it was really from like 2000 three years was three years. Yeah.

How long were you.

How long did you Pause from acting?

2010. And pause is not quite the right word. I did a few pilots that didn't get picked up.

Sure.

But I was putting no effort into it. It was like if they called me and said, please come do our pilot, I would do it.

Right. But I.

Going on auditions, you're not.

I was really just riding my bike. When you've been in how many movies you've been in and TV shows, I've never counted. I actually have no idea.

Plus, you think, yeah, at least, right?

Yeah.

When you've been in that many movies or shows, do you have to audition anymore?

Yeah, sure.

You still have to audition.

Yeah, definitely.

Really?

Even if they've seen all your work, they know what you can do.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes it's just a matter of the director wanting to see if you're exactly what he wants for this specific project or now that I'm physically different, what is that gonna look like, you know? But yeah, yeah, I still have to audition.

What was the. When you look back, what do you think the thing is that drew you to eating as a bad habit or an addiction or a mind numbing process that was a part of your life for so long? Was there a number of events, was there moments? Was there something that connected you to that?

I've tried to do like self psychoanalysis on this and I get to a point where I'm five years old, I go to visit my grandparents in Vermont and their reaction to me. And if I look at a picture of myself as at 5 years old today, I see just like a normal, healthy kid with maybe some chubby cheeks. Right. Their reaction to me was like, oh my God, what are your parents doing to you? You have gone to crap. Right. This is out of hand. We need to get this under control. And my favorite food was lasagna, which my grandpa would always make me. Yeah. And he had it cooking as I arrived. I could smell it. And I'm there visiting them for the first time without my mom or dad in Vermont. Like, super excited. Their reaction is this. And then they basically were like, we're not. You can't have a second helping of lasagna. So in that day was the first time that I snuck food and it was clearing the table and eating food.

Off their plates at the same time. Like clearing and like.

Yeah, just stuffing in a few bites because I was not allowed to. Like, I reached for a second helping and got my hand patted, like at 5. Yeah, that's off limits. You eat what we tell you to do. And then the next day they weighed me first thing in the morning, which I've never been on a scale before, and I'm being weighed. And then it was like, okay, we're going on a one mile walk. That is for your benefit. And this did a number of things. It developed the sneaking food habit. It developed the habit of wanting to eat privately and the idea that people witnessing me eating was not good. And it also created a weird barrier to me just naturally wanting to be outside and active because at 5, I was very active running around. But when it was enforced, when it was this point of like a punishment almost. Yeah, this is. We're not consulting how willing you are to do this. We're not saying, is there something you'd like to do outside? We're saying, you must go march on this. It was like a mile to their mailbox and a mile back. And like, this is not for fun. This is for. Because you have gotten so overweight. That really pushed the idea of physical activity into another punishment type thing where I just didn't want to do it anymore. So it was kind of this wild confluence of new mental structures that I built where it was like, well, I'm going to sneak food now and I'm going to not do activities.

How insecure were you about your weight when you got older and started recognizing it or seeing maybe someone make fun of you or realizing like, oh, I can't go on a hike with my, my girlfriend or my friends and do these certain activities? Did you feel insecure about it ever, or is it more of just this.

Is who you are? I definitely felt insecure about it. I also got into a lot of fights as a kid and was like, you know, there were a few times in elementary school where like some preschooler would say, like, wow, look how fat he is. And that obviously wasn't gonna fight. Fight a little preschooler and you come to learn, like, well, avoid little kids at all costs because they just say they see something and they just talk about it. And I didn't. That made me terribly uncomfortable. But if like another 10 year old said something like that to me, we would just have a fight. And then people would know like, oh, he's like not a nice guy in that circumstance. We're not gonna say that to him, you know?

Yeah. So how did you get into acting and being such a successful actor while also having this kind of insecurity or knew that you stood out in a different way than most the Other actors.

In Hollywood, there was, like, in school, there were. I didn't really like school either. I didn't. I grew to really dislike anything done from a point of authoritarianism. I just was not for me. So if it's like you're going on a diet or you have to do sports or you have to study, I was not into it. Which is really bizarre because now I love nothing more than a diet I find for myself and studying something I'm interested in and finding a sport to be interested. Like, I can become obsessive about these things and do them 110% if it's my own determination. But from a point of authority, it just didn't fly. And I noticed a couple of things. I was never, like, a class clown, but we had an actor in my school. And so much more attention was paid to the fact that he was an actor than any of his physical attributes, any of his other accomplishments in school. It was like this. This distraction, this, like, here's who this person is, but, like, here's this weird identity that actually has nothing to do with him, that we're all going to focus on that. And there was something kind of magical about that. Like, I can't, like, kill people with jokes. That's just not what I do. But what if I had that, too?

Not super sexy and attractive.

I'm not going to do any. Yeah. But I could create this other identity that would distract people from how fat I am and talking about that or poking fun at me or even wanting to talk to me about it. Because, like, I'll just show them this. What if I do this? So there was. And it got you out of school because this dude would leave school for weeks at a time and go hang out on sets and, like, guess what's on a set? Craft services on a set. And free food all day. And you got a trailer. Like, you can fill your pockets with food and go back to your trailer and eat it. Like, it's this wonderful place. It was like, unlimited food supply. Oh, my God. And then there was also, like, always going to be, like, some grip who had a prescription to Percocet that you could, like, give a wing to. And, you know, like, you're my. And by the way, it always started legitimately. Like, my feet hurt, my ankles and my knees hurt. Like, these are real things.

You're on set 18 hours a day.

You're doing this over and over. Like, none of it is just irrational.

How do people get to consistency where.

They'Re not in blame mode?

They're not in beat up mode. When they fall off track, when they miss a workout or a meal that they know is healthy for them. And how can they actually make it their identity and a lifestyle as opposed to something they do once in a while?

My running coach, his name is Jeff Cunningham, he's based on Austin and he has this thing that he says, and it's better to be consistently good than occasionally great. And you can apply that to fitness, to your goals, to your diet. Where you see a lot of people fail is they go 180, they decide, today's day I'm cutting everything out. I'm going. They attach to a training style or a diet. Today I'm going all keto. Today I'm going all carnivore. Today I'm going vegan. Today I'm just doing CrossFit. Today I'm just training for a marathon. They eliminate everything else they were doing that was possibly working for them because they flip it 180, they go all in on something and then they realize it's not sustainable. They burn out, they don't enjoy it. There's no passion, there's no fun. So how do you become consistently good rather than occasionally great? Maybe, maybe I flipped 180. I started a new training program and a new diet and I lasted for five days. Those were a great five days. But then for the next 360, nothing. So how do you become consistently good? It's this small implementation of changes that compound over time. And what happens with consistency as it compounds to become greater and greater and larger and larger greatness. So maybe next week I'm going to add one extra run into my week. Let's see how that feels. Maybe next week I'm going to eliminate soda or processed foods. Just see how that feels. I'm going to change my breakfast, I'm going to change what time I go to sleep. You slowly start incorporating, adding these positive benefits into your life and they become part of your routine over maybe 3, 6, 9, 12 months, but not overnight. Yeah, I think it's where a lot of people miss.

But when people struggle with just being consistent on those things, even if they add like a small thing or eliminate one small thing. Why is it so hard for people to be consistent with one thing, let alone, you know, everything? And how can people learn how to be more consistent? I feel like that's a skill in itself. Just doing something every week for a year is a skill.

I think part of it is what are you choosing to be consistent with? You Actually care about what you're doing. You know, we just entered a new year, and a lot of people will set New Year's resolutions. And I bet you most people that set these resolutions are choosing things that they don't actually want to do or care about. One of the best ways to be consistent is choosing things to be consistent with. And about that, you can stick to that. You want to. Don't choose running if you hate running. Maybe you like hiking, maybe like walking, maybe like going to the gym. Choosing things that you want to be consistent with is the first step, I believe. And then why are you doing it to prove others wrong? Are you doing it to be healthy? Are you doing it for your family? Do you, you know, is your baby due in a month and you want to be a better parent for them? Is that the reason why? I think those are the first steps.

Yeah.

Are we doing things to spin our wheels? Are we doing things to be intentional? Because lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest. And it's easy to be inconsistent.

It's very easy to be inconsistent. What are three skills you wish you would have learned before entering the army?

The power of true delegation and elevation. You know, being a doer, wanting to lean in and work on things that you can do because you believe in yourself. It's great for the short term, but it's unsustainable. I've had to learn that in business over a long period of time. That there is so much power in delegation and then empowerment. When you empower people to do a job, give them more responsibility, more accountability, people thrive. They thrive in empowerment. That is part of building an amazing team culture and brand. Delegation. Elevation is. Is number one. I'd say the second skill is patience.

How much patience do you have?

How much patience and how do you handle that in front of yourself, in front of others?

Do you have a lot of patience?

I do now. You did it then in certain things. I do now. You know, building a business has taught me a lot about patience. Running marathons has taught me a lot about patience.

You're not gonna get there fast. You gotta take it ease, slow and steady. Yeah.

You know what's funny is when I first started running marathons, if I had a seven mile easy run for that day, I'd go run that, that seven miles as hard as possible. Running marathons, you can apply to a lot of parts of life. And my running, my coach, my triathlon coach, her name was Natasha Beth on Austin. She would respond to my stories. Before I started working with her. And she would say, you're running too fast, you're running too hard, you're not going to get faster.

Interesting.

So I decided to work with her. I was like, well, help me get to where I want to be.

So she's telling you you need to run slower in order to be faster.

Right. So we sat down, we talked. She said, I understand what you're trying to do. You know, you want to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. And you would think that running those seven mile training runs as fast as possible will correlate to running a really fast marathon, but it doesn't. What you need to do is you need to run below your max aerobic heart rate. You need to run truly easy. You need to be in an aerobic state. You need to run slower to get faster.

Why?

Because you're building this foundation. You're building a strong foundation that you can build a house upon. If you lay no foundation, no aerobic foundation, you can't get faster. All these track workouts and these speed workouts and these tempo workouts, they mean nothing in a marathon. In a marathon, because you're not building it on top of this foundation. 26.2 miles is a long time to hold a certain heart rate, a certain pace.

Yeah.

So to run slower, you lay this foundation, you lay this base and it's strong, it's bulletproof. Then you build upon it. That is patience. That is having the patience to run slower in order to get faster. You're taking a step back to get two steps forward. You apply that to everything, your life. Yeah, everything.

The school of greatness is sponsored by Capital One. Nowadays, most people subscribe to everything. Music, tv, even dog food. And it rocks. Until you have to manage it all, which is where Capital One comes in. Capital One credit card holders can easily.

Track, block or cancel reoccurring charges right.

From the Capital One mobile app at no additional cost. With one sign in, you can manage all your subscriptions all in one place. Learn more@capitalone.com subscriptions terms and conditions apply. Cold mornings, holiday plans. This is when you need your wardrobe to just work. Stuff that looks sharp, feels good, and you'll actually reach for. Quint makes gifting easy when everything's worth keeping for yourself. By partnering directly with trusted factories that maintain high standards for craftsmanship and ethical practices, Quint cuts out the middlemen and markups. That means premium quality at half the cost of other high end brands. So you can give luxury pieces without the luxury price tag. And it goes beyond their clothes. Quint also has incredible home and bedding options to make your home cozy this season. Martha and I have the European linen duvet cover set from Quince. And let me tell you, the duvet set is so soft and high quality. We highly recommend get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quint. Don't wait. Go to quint.comlewis for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com l w I s free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com Lewis.

You know, now having a kid and being married and leading a team without patience, you're. You're struggling.

Yeah, I like that. Okay. So patience and the third skill, the.

Third skill, it is similar to the two and it is that you can go really fast alone, but you can go so much further together. I learned this by leading a platoon. I learned this in ranger school. You learn a lot about yourself. You learn a lot about other people. You know, a few years ago, I did the Leadville 100 ultramarathon in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. It starts above 10,000ft of elevation and it's a brutal course. And that's one of those races that certain people can do by themselves. But me, I needed support.

Yeah.

I had a crew that would go from checkpoint to checkpoint and they would tape up my ankles.

Wow.

They would feed me, they filled my water. And we titled that documentary More than the Miles. You know, those 100 miles in an ultra? Yes. It's going from point A to point B. But what you don't see is what gets you there. It's the support, it's the people, it's the distance that everyone else achieves and goes through. That was a big pivotal point, my life to realize. And I think a lot of people realize at some point in their life that you can go really fast by yourself. And early on in building my business, I had to. Had no choice or option. By yourself as fast as possible gets you to a certain point. But for longevity, for endurance, for durability, a group of people will go so much further.

Yeah.

If, you know, I apply that now to building my family and building my business and team. And it pays off because there's no way I could get my business. Now, the point, it is by myself. Yeah, I got it off the ground. I got it to a certain point, but it's here now because of the people involved.

Absolutely. So you said it Was more than the miles. Is that what he said?

It's a documentary that we released about the miles. Yeah, it's our team going to Leadville, Colorado. It was. It was a great experience.

That's cool, man. So when did this mantra of go one more come about?

It's 2018, and at the time, my wife and I lived downtown Austin and I was on a training run for a marathon. And that day I had to do 18 miles. This is early on marathons. This was not like me current day endurance conditioning. So 18 miles for me, sitting at 230 pounds a lot. Being this bodybuilder, it was a struggle fest.

Yeah.

It was a pain cave.

Clydesdale's up in here, you know?

Yeah. And there was this one day that I was running down by Lady Bird Lake in Austin. Beautiful course, 18 miles on the schedule. And I got to mile 10. And I was like, today's not the day. I'm calling it quits. So I started walking back to our house.

Today's not the day to do 18.

Right. Just not feeling it. Start walking back to the house. And I'm in my head thinking, if I quit on this training run, what else would I quit on? In life, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So I went back on the course. I finished the run for the day. I went one extra mile. I went 19 that day.

Wow.

And I came back to my house, took my hat off because I always wear a hat. And I wrote one more under the bill, took a picture of it, posted on social media, and it went nuts. People were taking their hat. They were writing one more on the bill. They were taking photos, they were posting it. So in my head, I was thinking, well, this struck a chord with a lot of people. There's something here that is pushing people beyond what they believe they can achieve and do. That turned into go one more. I got a tattooed on my arm.

Let me see. Yeah.

And then now there's hundreds, if not thousands of other people who have go one more tattooed on their body. Wow. Because of the message that it creates. And it's not just one more mile on a training run. It's not one more rep in the gym. That doesn't do the. Doesn't do it justice, doesn't describe how powerful it is. But when things get tough and challenging, you hit obstacles and resistance as you will throughout life. It's pushing past that obstacle. It's pushing through that resistance to get the other side and realizing how much confidence that brings, how powerful it is. You do that over weeks, months, years. The power and that consistency of going one more, it compounds and puts you well beyond where you ever thought you could be.

Yeah. I just think one of the greatest things that any human can do for themselves is give themselves more belief in themselves. And the way you build more belief is by doing the challenging things and overcoming obstacles and following your mantra of going one more consistently. And when you do that, you feel bulletproof. Like you said, you feel unstoppable. Even when there's pain and chaos. You feel, like, I can handle this because I've always done one more. So. I love that mantra, man.

Well, the reason I put it on my arm here is it was before going into a big endurance training block, Ironmans and marathons.

Look at your watch.

You got to look at it every moment.

Ultras. Yeah. So I knew, you know, this is the ultimate for me, ultimate placement of accountability, just running in them.

Oh, there it is.

There. When things get hard, like, you know, you have no other choice than. Yeah. To push through.

Wow. Who are the. The two or three most inspiring people in the, you know, mental toughness, physical fitness world right now, in your mind that you're inspired by or you respect or you feel like they're living a, you know, a lifestyle that you really can watch and be like. That's inspiring. It pushes me to do one more.

To be honest. It's. It's my team at bpn. You know, what's so powerful about the culture that we've created there is, you know, we're a health and performance supplement company, but everyone's living and breathing the lifestyle in the motto. You know, we went out last weekend, we supported Jordan, my media director's wife, at a ultra marathon in Bandera, Texas. We have another one of our employees, Austin, who's doing a 100 mile race in Huntsville, Texas in two weeks. Someone's always training for half marathon, marathon ultra. Someone on our team is training for an ironman right now. Being surrounded by that team of people who are constantly pushing in their professional and personal life motivates me. My mom, like I said, was a huge foundation in my life. And I mean, she applied go on more to every part of her life. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and 2019, stage four ovarian cancer. And it was one of those things that I thought, well, my mom's gonna get chemo and she's gonna get through it and she'll be living down here in Texas in six months. That was the plan. That was the year she Was gonna retire, move to Texas, and live the rest of her life with her boys. And she got cancer. She got diagnosed. It was extremely aggressive. She passed away six months later. But she never gave up fighting, you know, even when she was in the hospital, even when she was in hospice, it was looking up and saying, what can I get you boys? Like, mom, you're good. Just chill out for a second, you know, she applied that to her work with special education, coaching, Special Olympics, helping the community. If there's one person I respect in this world, it's my mom. 100%.

That's beautiful, man. Why do you care so much about your business and what you guys are creating?

It's more than a supplement company. I've poured my heart and soul into this business for the last decade of my life. I mean, everything. I think any entrepreneur can relate that when you start something you're so passionate about, you become what it is. You don't know who you are without it to a certain point. And we do a lot of in person events. We do pop ups, we host athletic clubs in Austin for our community. We celebrated 10 years in business this past August. We had a big event in the city and it's when we get to meet the people. You know, like I said, it's more than being a supplement company or mission driven or community driven. And you meet these people who, by watching the content, by attaching to the brand, by getting going more, tattooing their body, they've lost 100, 200 pounds. They become a better father, they become a better husband. It's hearing those stories in person. There was a story that I heard when we were celebrating our 10 years in business that forever changed my life. And it was a single mother, she's probably my age, and she had a daughter with her who was probably 7 or 8 years old. And they pulled me aside because they wanted to talk for a second, and the mother said, you know, my daughter doesn't have a father figure in her life. I'm a single mom raising my daughter. And because she doesn't have a father figure in her life, I show her the content that your team produces, the videos and the podcast, the interviews. She uses that content as a mentor and a father figure for her younger daughter. That for me, that was heavy. Or this is the responsibility that we have. These are the lives that we have the ability to change. This is who's listening to this content. We have to be a role model in a space that is notorious for not being role model worthy. Yeah, that's my Guiding principle now.

That's cool, man. Yeah, inspiring. People can learn more about it@bearperformance nutrition.com, right?

That's correct.

You also got great content on your social media and your show as well that people can check out. It's all linked up with the website, right?

It is, yeah.

Before I ask a couple final questions, I gotta acknowledge you, Nick, for your commitment and consistency over the last decade for your service not only with the military, but also your service to helping people transform their lives. I think that's one of the greatest services that people can have when they're in service, to helping people impact, grow, overcome and become healthier. That's the highest currency is our health. So I acknowledge you for how you've used your some of your biggest obstacles to be an opportunity to serve and how you've used, you know, the lessons you've learned from your parents and unfortunately your mom passing and using that, finding meaning to serve other people and be open hearted and generous and giving. It's really inspiring to see your journey from, you know, the first time I saw you reached out to me to where you were then making, you know, a couple thousand a month to now being a massive business in your business. So I acknowledge you for the consistency, for showing up and for the journey you're on, man. It's really inspiring.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Of course, man.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show.

Notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the information, important links and I want to remind you of no one has told.

You lately that you are loved, you.

Are worthy and you matter.

And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

Streaming is changing the way we watch live sports and your Internet connection can be the difference between catching the game, winning touchdown as it happens or hearing about it from your neighbor's cheers. That's why Comcast is building the network of the future. Using cutting edge AI and edge computing technology, we're bringing fans closer to the action in stunning high definition with ultra low latency. It's not just fast, it's game changing. Learn more at comcastcorporation.com sports did you know that skincare can start in the laundry room? Allfreeclear is the number one laundry detergent brand recommended by dermatologists, allergists and pediatricians for sensitive skin. Allfreeclear is 100% free of dyes and perfumes. It provides an effective clean that's gentle on skin while removing impurities like dirt and body oil without leaving irritating residues. Plus, all freeclear liquid is safer choice certified by the US EPA for a clean you can feel good about. All you need is all free clear.