Fitness & Seeing War First-Hand ft. Tee Major | Ep 113

People seem to forget if you change today, today will change your life. For a limited time only. For those of you enjoying the podcast, I'm offering a free coaching session. That's right, a free coaching session for those of you who want to improve in their performance or their business or their relationships or any other area where confidence is a key ingredient. Then on the Self Belief Chief site, on the podcast page, self belief.com podcast underneath the episodes, you'll be able to book your own coaching session for free with me or wherever you're listening to the podcast. In the description, there'll also be a link to be able to book your session. I look forward to speaking to you soon. And let's get on with the podcast. T thank you very much for joining the podcast. We were just talking about obviously the very strange world we're living in, but how's your business? How's your work going? How have you managed to pivot during this time with all this? I don't know what you describe 2020 anymore, but I'm sure you got your own word which maybe we don't use. How's your business been going during this time?

Yeah, you know, fortunately fitness in the fitness industry is. It's kind of twofold, right? There's the brick and mortar side of the industry that really got crushed in a lot of countries that had the stay at home orders or went into complete lockdown. But fortunately, back in 2008, when I started Teamajor Fitness, I knew that online was going to be absolutely tremendous for the health and fitness industry. Fortunately, I had a couple of models to kind of base my business around at that time. This wasn't pre Internet or anything like that. But 2008, when I started, you know, Beachbody was big. I don't know if you're in the UK, so this has got like P90X and insanity programs that were pretty international worldwide phenomenons for the industry. But they were even based on the old Tae Bo, you know, and aerobics programs. But, you know, you know, the workout at home craze has always been something. So for me during the pandemic, fortunately everything was fine because I was already, I had already pivoted towards bringing my programs into people's mobile phones for a long time, I suppose.

Good, good. I'm glad to hear it. And so for people who might not be so familiar with you, maybe in the uk, tell us your background, tell us your journey up to this point because it's always great fun for me doing the background research on people you've you've lived quite a life as well. But I got, well, I've got some really, hopefully some really good stories and experiences to share. But what's been your journey up to this point?

Thank you for asking. So I'm born and raised in Houston, Texas, or Pearland, Texas, just outside of Houston, and lived there for most of my life. I had a brief stint where I lived in Colorado and got a chance to experience some mountains and seasons, and that kind of gave me the bug and made me want to venture out after high school. So when I graduated, I was fortunate enough to have an offer to play collegiate football at Bryant University. So that led me to Rhode Island. So I went from the smallest state to the largest state to the smallest in the US And I played all four years there, graduated with a degree in business administration, studied marketing, communication, bit of psychology there, and played all four years of football there, was team captain, special teams player of the year. So I had a pretty good high school and collegiate career through sports. Once I graduated from uni, I went right into sales for a pretty large corporation called Cintas, at the Time was a $4.2 billion company. Now it's, I think, around $20 billion. It's done quite well over the years, but it wasn't a glamorous sales job. I sold shirts and pants to auto shop workers and airline attendants and sani cakes and air fresheners for restrooms, you know, products that you need and use every single day but you don't necessarily seek. So it was a hard sell. A lot of cold calling, a lot of knocking on doors, a lot of convincing people to try something besides the status quo. And I did quite well at it, but also decided that that's not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And so after only 3 years, I kind of cashed out my 401k and all my savings and started Teamajor Fitness in 2008 in the middle of our economic recession, the global recession. So I'm no stranger to hard times, austerity and hardship, I suppose.

So having been an athlete myself, talk to me about that transition. Maybe, you know, it depends what your way, your headspace was as an athlete, whether you sort of wanted to make it to the league and, you know, go through beyond college and all of that type of stuff. But I know how difficult that transition is now. Part of it is, you know, you still get to have the fitness aspect to sort of, you know, you have that kind of resistance, I guess. But in a different way. How difficult was that in terms of a mindset, transitioning from an athlete to. Right, I'm pivoting to a new. A new. A new career here.

For me, it was a pretty natural and smooth transition. I'm sure you can say, too. I mean, for me, like being an athlete, you really had to embrace change. You had to embrace sort of being a role player at times. At least I did in my career. Depending on the situation and the team that I played for or played on, they needed me to do a couple of different things. And because of my size and because of, I guess, my attitude, the coaches kind of use me as a Swiss army knife a lot of the time. You know, I played corner, I played free safety. Sometimes I even played outside linebacker. For my people that understand gridiron football out there, not because I was a particularly gifted athlete, but because I. I understood my job, my responsibility, and I took it very seriously, and I tried very, very hard at it because I like to win. So all of those traits, all those skills and things that bode me to be a pretty good athlete lends me to be a very good athlete. Transitioned quite well to entrepreneurship because, as you probably know, like a lot of these skills, lessons and things you have to learn on the job, these aren't things that are easily taught to people. They're not things that easily learned. Even going to a business school, a lot of these skills and lessons that I learned weren't taught to me. I had to learn on the fly. I had to make a lot of mistakes. And so being an athlete teaches you how to make a mistake, how to get knocked down, how to get back up and keep it moving. Especially football. The average play lasts about eight seconds. So I got kicked in the nuts a lot of the time, and I had to really just take it and go, okay, next play is coming. Right now, there's something else to do. You got to go after it. So find it interesting.

And not to say you weren't a top, top athlete. What I mean was like, you know, the 1%, the very best. Yeah, that when you. When you're in those places, and I had the similar sort of career where, you know, I'm not in the one, but I was good, but I'm not in the 1%. When you're not in that sort of top bracket at the level that you play at, you have to look for the kind of margins, you have to look for those improvements. You have to look for how you can be useful in different ways. You have to look for understanding that the game and the strategy better.

That's right.

Often fine with it. Especially when I, with athletes that I work now, the ones who've just got natural talent who never really have to look for those other little things that they actually kind of go, well, I've got the ability, if I do this, it works. That's cool, that works for me. And I find that to your point, I absolutely agree that stuff with athletes, they can take that board to different places, but sometimes it's not the top, top athlete, it's the one who actually is just in the sort of tier below that who kind of has to learn all these different skills and the nuances and everything else. And often why they make the better coaches. Sometimes you see people like Michael Jordan, who's now not the best NBA owner, unbelievable player. And then you got a Steve Kerr who is a phenomenal coach but just sees things through different lenses.

Great example.

With that kind of skill set and attitude that you have, what is it that you see with people when it comes to fitness today that you know, what are the trends that you see? You spoke about people, you know, wanted to work out from home and that's always been a trend. Now it's a sort of a necessity for people to be able to do that.

Right.

What is it you think people really need fitness wise going forward? And what is it that people just absolutely miss it. They just don't get about fitness that prevents them from seeing the sort of results they want to see.

Oh, that's a, that's a really good question. And it depends, it depends on people's life stage. It depends on what they are personally looking for. But I think if we're going to generalize or we're going to talk about, I think people miss out on actually establishing their why of what they do. I think everybody wants to be fit, everybody wants to be the best version of themselves. You'd be hard pressed to find somebody that's like, you know what, it's time for me to completely let things go. I think I have my best days and now it's time to let things go to shit. You know, that's, that's not the case. There's. I think most people want to find a way to optimize at least some part of their fitness. But most people don't dig down to the next layer and decide why do I need to do this or why do I want to do this? And that's important because that is what's going to give you longevity in this game. That is what's going to give you the reason or something to turn back to whenever your motivation wanes, because your motivation will wait. There's always an excuse, a reason, a hiccup, a roadblock, an appointment holiday or something that's going to derail you or cause you to kind of miss or get derailed. But if you can always kind of tune back into that, why, that'll keep you going back. And I think that that's what most people miss out on because you're completely bombarded, right, with this message. The same message. You need to be in shape. You can be in better shape through magazines, through commercials, through Facebook ads, through products placements, whatever it is. Right. Everybody knows about peloton, everybody knows about program at home programs. And so there's no shortage of, of options for people to optimize. But most people are doing it because they don't have their own reasons why they should be doing it.

Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, I've had, I've had clients come my way who, you know, talk about losing weight and they'll go off. I've tried everything. You go, okay, well name them. And they'll go, oh, well, maybe I've tried like 10 things. Okay, name them. And then you find out they've tried like one or two things and they find. And they. So it's always kind of the same story. So I think you're absolutely right. It's. I had a, had a woman who reached out to me and I, you know, I'm not a, you know, I do life coaching. So when people come to me on that subject, it's more of the psychological barrier that might be in the way for them, you know, say, permanently losing weight as opposed to losing weight in the first place. And I had a woman who came to me and she said, you know, she wasn't even a client at the time. She just reached out to me on social media and said, david, I want to lose weight, but I keep putting it back on every time I lose a little bit of weight. I want to lose weight for this reason. For this reason. I said, that's great, but why do you have to lose weight?

Yeah.

And she goes, well, I want to lose weight because of this. I said, no, no, no. Why do you have to lose weight? She goes, can I come back to you? I said, yeah, that's fine. I didn't think anything of it. Thought she probably wouldn't do so credit. She came back two days later and she says, david, I have to lose weight. Otherwise, I won't see my kids graduate next year. And now she has that reason. And then, you know, then from that point on, she loses like a stone in two months or whatever. But she's also got a reason, a compelling reason beyond me, working with me that's gonna keep that up. So the next thing I have is I totally agree on the why. No doubt you will have had clients who just. You're, like, looking for that little bit more from the. It might even be, like, as much as 10% more from them. And you're probably the same attitude. We're probably Nowhere near giving 100% at any point anyway. We're probably well off that maybe you got some stories about how you got some client, you know, some clients who just. They just didn't have that why it just wasn't up to the level. They say, I want this really bad, but it's like they don't quite want it enough. How do you, when you're actually working with that client, make that shift for them?

Yeah, you know, that's another great question. You know, it really depends on the individual, because in every situation, it's been different, you know, and. But the example I can think of is somebody that I was training once that it didn't matter how much I barked at them, you know, And I mean, barking by just trying to speak, speaking loudly and motivating you, as one would, you know, let's go, let's go, let's go.

That didn't work.

You know, they didn't want. They didn't want the trainer, the coach. They wanted somebody that was compassionate and empathetic to speak with them. And it was just completely different. It was completely out. It was that out of my wheelhouse. But I just didn't expect that from a client. But as soon as I shifted towards being the softer guy, like, hey, listen, you know, I know you don't feel great today, but I'm here, you're here. Let's use this time best that we can, and let's try to make the most out of it. I understand you're hurting. You know, when you start speaking like this, all of a sudden, this person just completely switched their attitude. So oftentimes, when I can't find out how to pull something out of people, usually I have to adjust my communication style in order to find out what that is, you know?

Yeah, it's the difference between empathy and, I always say, communications to E's, it's either empathy or expectation. And, you know, the empathy thing is so I had a really great guest on it maybe a few months back on conflict resolution and just says, you know, about disarming people with empathy. But people like the reason why, I guess that word is lot of people don't see that coming when you go to that, like they're expecting, like it's, you're gonna raise the temperature more and.

More and more and more. Yeah.

And you took that off and then. Oh, hang on. And it just shocks them out to their usual pattern. And I guess a lot of fitness is breaking that person's pattern to introduce.

Like, it works like you wouldn't believe. It really does. And you know, I've trained military and so this was for me like a crash course. And using that skill, we call it bullets in the gun. Right. It's having tools and, you know, there was times where I would have to train and lead some very high ranking military officials, people that are used to being in charge and do not like taking orders, they rather give them out. And so I learned that, and I didn't learn it at first. Like, I thought long and hard about my position and with the responsibility that I had and how I wanted to accomplish the job and accomplish the mission. And I decided I wanted to approach this not from a standpoint of like, I'm way more in shape. I'm Mr. Military. You know, I'm not in the military. Don't need to be. They hired me to train you guys, so you need to respect me. And I approached it like, hey, listen, you have to be in shape for your job. I don't have to be here. I want to be here. I desire to be here because I want to serve you. That's my mission, that's my responsibility. And instantly it was like I had people that were willing to listen. And that was a, that was a huge way of reaching people just through understanding their situation. You know, they're away from home, they're in an austere environment, six months, sometimes 12 months away from their family and friends. And I said, guys, I get it, I'm here too. I'm with you. And I'm just here to help and to serve. And yeah, it ended up being the best way to approach it. And we have amazing, tremendous results.

And so what is special? What does special force training look like? Because for a lot of people, they just, they almost can't get their head. Wouldn't necessarily be able to get their head around this. You know, most people train for strength or they trained in terms of their cardiovascular fitness or whatever it might Be where Special Forces training is just the relentless accumulation of all of those things for all types of scenarios. What does. What just. I'd love to know myself. Just what does that kind of training look like?

Yeah, sure. I think there is a misconception, right? People think Special Forces individuals need to train like professional athletes, or they have to train, you know, seven days a week or there needs to be some sort of crazy boulder throwing or, you know, it doesn't have to be that. What I found is that because of the variety of the missions and the variety of body types and variety of fitness levels that Special Ops would have, is that I would need to structure their programs in the way that tackles all facets of fitness. So in that regard, you know, you would maybe for a football player, you would have what's called specificity, right? You would have to train him for the nature of his particular job functions. So the same thing with Special Ops guys, right? They have to carry sometimes heavy loads or heavy bags of gear and heavy equipment on their body for long periods of time. Sometimes they have to be crouched for long periods of time. Sometimes they have to be on their feet walking for long periods of time, jogging for long periods of time. Sometimes they're in very hot environments, sometimes very cold. So, you know, you have to, I think if you tackle it from a standpoint of they're going to need endurance, muscular endurance and cardiovascular endurance. So we would train and tackle both of those. They would need relative strength. You know, they would be able. Need to be able to pick up heavy objects. They would need to be able to lift their own body weight extremely well over walls, through different objects, whatever it may be. And they would need to be mobile, for sure. They need to be able to crouch. They need to be able to take the strength that they have and move it in a variety of different planes of motion. So a lot of the workouts we would do are very functional based. So a lot of kettlebells, a lot of rope work, a lot of tires and not much running. You know, for example, we wouldn't do much sprinting or much, you know, jogging and running around the base. We would work cardio and in a variety of different ways. Lifting heavy weights and swinging around heavy objects.

Yes, yes, A sense of specificity with it. And so the. Especially with Special Forces. But I always say to people when I work with them, the hardest way to try and change your mind is to try and change your mind. The easiest way to typically do it is through your physicality, through your body, through the actual Movement that changes the blood flow and the biochemistry. In terms of what it does to someone's mind and their psychology and their health, how much consideration do you play to the psychology of the sort of the individual? I know we've spoken about the why, but in terms of it might not be the, you know, talking about how to coach people, psychology or anything like that necessarily, but how much of an ingredient is that part when you think about the training and the setup?

Yeah, I mean, again, fortunately for me, I've gravitated towards, you know, from training your everyday people from everyday walks of life to athletes and military. So what I noticed was that that psychological part was a bit easier. When it comes to athletes and special forces guys, you know, and understand this, they've already been coached and trained on this, and it's been kind of drilled into their head like, there is a rhyme and a reason for this. You don't have to convince many athletes or military people of the reason why. They already have the reason why. They already have their intrinsic motivation and they're gonna. And they put their trust in you and they go, okay, let's. Like, they're just used to taking orders in a way. So there was not a real psychological aspect to it besides maybe pushing them to the next level or to the next point. And oftentimes that it's also very easy because you can play into the competitive nature of people. At least with athletes and military, you can always spot that person where you can kind of pull on those strings a bit harder to get a bit more out of them. And you know, that type of person when you know they're an alpha male or alpha female and they're just totally headstrong, you don't have to give them much coaching. But then when you go over to them and you're like, hey, listen, you know, out of 10 out of 10 sprints or out of 10 lifts, you know, Megan or John over here is beating you on like two. Are you off? What's going on? Are you okay? And they're like, off me off.

No, no, not off.

And then all of a sudden you see a different gear out of people, which is really. Which is really cool, I think.

When you. When you set up team major fitness and as you said, during Great recession, and we'd talk about another part of your business, which you've managed to set up during a pandemic as well as I know in your website, in terms of maybe you enjoy. Maybe you enjoy adversity, the way you talk about fitness, maybe you can See, that's clear. But just in terms of a business standpoint, setting up that business, setting up Team Major fitness during that time, which side of all of the shit happening in the world did that happen? Was it like, I knew this was. I could, you know, that this was happening and this is the right time to strike, or was it that you were going to set up and then this recession here and you thought, fuck, how do I manage all of this? Tell us about what that story, that. What that year was like for you.

Yeah. You know, David, I wish I can take, you know, credit for having any kind of foresight or into anything, but I was completely young and naive and had no idea what I was doing. You know, in fact, at that time, this was probably the hardest and worst period of my life. I was actually going through a breakup. You know, I lost my dog, I lost my apartment in the breakup at the time. And the worst flood in 100 years came through Rhode Island. And, you know, my training studio that I had at the time was underneath five feet of water. It was really a rough period of time for me, so. And I was a bit burned out on the sales. Sales job at the same time. So I was just crushed. I was being crushed by depression and by everything else that was happening in my life. But in the back of my mind, I always kind of knew that once I made up my mind that I was going to leave this sales job, I always had in the back of my mind, you need to do what you would do for free, because this is your calling, this is the thing that you will do well. And so for me, I always was the first guy in the gym and the last guy in the gym, regardless of the sport I was playing, because I really loved the training aspect of it. Right. I loved the studying and the training behind being a good player. And we talked about, we briefly touched on it. I wasn't the most gifted guy. I actually got started into athletics, I think later than a lot of people. And so I always had to go the extra mile and work a bit harder. In fact, my best friend and I in high school used to break into the gym at like 10 o' clock at night to get a second training in. Yeah, we got busted once because we broke some areas in the gym and we thought we were going to get murdered and punished. But fortunately one of the coaches caught us and was like, you know, yeah, guys, here's a key. And we were like, wow, this was the type of people I had around me at the time, which was really Great. But, you know, so in 2008, when all of this stuff was just crushing down on me, I just kind of turned back to what I knew that I could do well. And so I moved to Boston and I started doing. Started an outdoor boot camp because I had no money, no equipment, and I just knew, okay, I'm just going to start recruiting people. I'm going to give them free sessions. I'm going to train outdoors so I don't have to pay rent for a space. I'm not going to buy equipment because I have any. I don't have any money. I'm just going to focus on body weight training and I'm going to make this work. So I started bartending at a bar in Boston in the Irish district, you know, with two Irish guys. And I moved to this little tiny suburb with a bunch of old people around. And just outside of Boston, very quiet, not so much action, so I could just focus on things. And I just got after it at the time. And I spent, you know, the next year really developing out that concept and developing out the body weight training. And then wintertime hit. So this was. This was really tough because, of course, there's not much training outdoors in Boston when it's, you know.

Yeah.

So I always, at that time, I always went back to Texas for the holidays. So I went home to Texas for Christmas and my aunt was there at the house. We were having a conversation just about life and what she was up to. And she was working for a government contractor as a recruiter. And then she started, she just said, hey, you know, why don't you. Why don't you go overseas and train military? She just said it, like, very matter of fact, you know, I was like, what are you talking about? She said, yeah, there's. There's a lot of opportunity over there. There's bases, there's bases with gyms. The troops need training. Maybe you should really consider it. And I did. You know, she directed me in the right direction. I looked into it, and next thing I knew, it was February, I was on a plane to Iraq.

Wow. Jesus. So it was literally just off a conversation where someone casually said, maybe that's something you should do.

Yeah. I mean, a light bulb hit when she said that, though, because for me, you know, I kind of run the gamut. Like I said, I trained, you know, normal, everyday people. I trained young children at that point. I trained young athletes at that point. And for me, I always really desired to train professional athletes. I wanted to be the best of the best trainers. That I could be. And I never really thought about military. I didn't, I didn't know how to get into that. But when she said it kind of matter of factly, it's. I lit up like a fire inside of me lit up. I was like this, this would be the most amazing thing I've never heard of anybody doing. Sounds dangerous. You know, it sounds challenging. And, yeah, I'd be interested in learning more. And the more I dug into it, the more I wanted to do it, the more I had to do it. And so, yeah, it was that quick. By February, I was on a plane to Baghdad on a, they call it a C135 aircraft. It's these really big ones you always see in the movies that carry, you know, 50 troops. They're in the cargo nets and they're strapped in and it's just metal and people inside. Yeah, that was my first experience.

And what, when you're out there, what is, what is that experience like? I mean, does it, you, you go there, you've got to, you don't know, but you've got some picture in your head of. I guess it's going to be like this. Does it, does it look like that picture once you're there? What?

Oh, yeah. David, I have a story for you, brother.

Go.

So day one, I land in Baghdad, right? On the largest base there. It's called Liberty Base. We land there about. It's 11 o' clock at night. And I'm, I went through basic, I went through all of my training and all of my, all of, like, everything I had to do to prepare to go to Iraq. Like, I had to go through counter espionage training. I had to go through all kinds of stuff, right? So there was a small, very small group of us that left together. We flew into Kuwait first, and then from Kuwait, we flew into Iraq. And then from Iraq, we flew through, through military aircraft to this base. When we get to this base, it's 11 o' clock at night, right, where everybody's exhausted. And we get on this small bus. We're on the tarmac, we get on the small bus and we're, we're about to leave to go to our living quarters. First we had to go through another security check. And then we were going to get escorted to our living quarters. So we're waiting on this bus exhausted, and the bus driver stands up and he turns and he goes, okay, everybody, we have, we have a choice. We can, I know you guys are hungry. We can drive over to the dfac, which is Called the. It's an acronym. Dfac Dining facility. We can travel over there. I can drop you off, circle back around in 30 minutes and pick you up, or I can wait for you for 20 minutes, and then you guys can come back out. As he was saying this, I'm looking at the clock, and I'm in it as it turns 11, because I'm thinking about how hungry I am and, you know, just dying for food. The loudest siren I've ever heard in my life goes off. And it's funny because we. This. This alert, this sound is on the iPhone, and it still terrifies me to this day. I can't even listen to it. I think you froze for a second here. Can you still hear me?

Yep.

And so to this day, you know, so this sound is on the iPhone, and to this day, this still terrifies me when I hear it. So, you know, he gives this feel over, you know, asking us what we want to do, and I hear incoming, incoming, incoming. And I'm just looking around at everybody like, what the hell's going on? And then you just see these flares of lights flying by, And one guy goes, get off the bus, get off the bus. Get off the bus. So everybody stands up, and we just start marching off the bus, like, single file, as fast as we can. We hit the open air, and we start. I just start following everybody. We sprint to a bunker. More bombs are dropping. Boom, boom, boom. And we end up getting into a bunker. And I'm like, what the hell's going on? They were just like, yeah, it's incoming. You know, it's incoming. They just kept calling it myself and maybe 20 people sandwiched literally in this bunker, side to side, shoulder to shoulder, like, butt cheeks to butt cheeks for an hour and a half as, like, intermittent fire just comes into the base. It was hot. It was hot as balls, man. I mean, it was really hot, especially next to all these people. And then we have, you know, what they call battle rattle on, right? We have this bulletproof vest on. It's heavy. We have this helmet on. It's heavy. Some people have their bags. We're just crowded in this bunker. And, yeah, we had to wait that out for a bit. And then finally they give an all clear, and you get to come out of this bunker, and we're like. Everybody's still wondering what the hell's going on. Some people are traumatized. And the point is to get back to your first point. Like, what was this like on the first day? And what did I expect? And what was the reality of it is, is my aunt didn't tell me any of these stories, right? Nobody is around to tell you these stories. It just kind of plant the seed. Like, hey, you can go over and trade military, right? So a lot of, like, nobody expected this. And if you haven't been there, you just don't know what it's like and you don't expect it. And for some reason, this information is not out there, what it's really like being there. But for me, it was startling, but not a surprise, if that makes sense. I knew that I was going to an active war zone. But you cannot mentally prepare yourself for what it's actually like. I mean, when you start, when you actually. I don't know if you've ever been around an explosion or control detonation or anything like that. When you feel the power of an explosion, it shakes your entire world, man. Because you then realize, like, ah, as big and mighty as I thought I was. Humans, we're on top of the food chain, man. You're no match for an explosion, brother. Like, this is real power. When you feel the ground shake and you feel the energy of that blast, you go, yeah, okay. I wouldn't make it through something like that. So there was a lot of people, man, that literally turned around the next morning and said, get me out of here. Yeah. I mean, probably half of the people that I came in with after that experience turned around and went back and said, I quit. I don't want this job. I'm out of here. And they weren't all trainers, right. These were people that worked in food service. These people were like drivers. They worked in logistics. They were engineers, just contractors that were there to do a particular job. Normal, everyday civilians, you know, who I thought also knew what they were signing up for. They just. They turned around and left and went home. For me, man, I just. I went. I went to bed and I woke up the next morning and I said, what's. What's next? You know, that's. I guess that's the athlete in me. And when I met with my liaison or the. He was the head of what's called the mwr, the Morale and Welfare and Recreation manager of the entire base. I asked him, how often does something like this happen? And he's like, well, here at this base, we probably get incoming three to four times a week. I was like, oh, man, that's. That's quite a bit, huh? He was like, yeah, but it's more. It's. It's more in certain areas. He goes, actually, where you're going, it's. It's quite a bit more. And I was like, what do you mean?

What do you mean?

Yes. What do you mean, where am I going?

Oh, geez.

Yeah. You're only gonna be here for a little bit of time. I'm gonna try to keep you here as long as I can because I like you. And you're also from Texas, and that's gonna be fun for me. But you're heading down to southern Iraq, and that's. That's a bit more dangerous. So, yeah, that's. That's. That's what happened to me.

Jesus. I mean, so that decision where half the people decide, no, this isn't for me. So what's your talked about, kind of the feeling around deciding what to do? What. What do you decide to do?

What.

What is the. What is the journey for the next six months? What is, you know, what do you decide is best for you and your interest and how, you know, you spoke about. It's the athlete in you, and you spoke about, I guess, when. Well, how often does this happen? But beyond that, how do you make a decision like that Again?

It was. It was my. Why. You know, I made up my mind before I got there that I was going to accomplish a particular job. I was going to accomplish something. And part of it was, you know, I started out making my decision not to do this, and it was a very. For very selfish reasons. I knew that I was going to go there because this was going to place me amongst the cream of the crop of trainers in the United States. I knew that if I did this the right way, I would be one of the very few trainers to be able to say that I trained in an active war zone during a particular time in history that nobody will ever get to replicate. And I wanted that story, I wanted that experience because I knew that it was going to propel me and my career to different levels. But after I got involved with the job and I got to meet the people that I was training and working with, it became a very selfless thing for me. My why became service to others. And this was transformative for me. You know, um, so in hindsight, I knew after all the bombs dropped after that first day, I wasn't going to turn around because I didn't accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. So that was the reason why I stayed initially, but the original reason why I stayed longer. And in fact, once I finished, after 10 months in Iraq, I took another contract in Kyrgyzstan for 18 months. I stayed There for the exact same reason. Because I love training and serving a population of people that understands what service to others means and I believe they are underserved. I believe that military needs to train like athletes and that was my new understanding of it and my reason for, for staying and training them.

What's, what's your feeling towards the military now?

I mean I've never been pro war. I didn't think that we, we needed to be in Iraq, I didn't think we needed to be in Afghanistan. And I actually, I'm from Texas and I don't own any guns, you know, which is really surprising probably for a lot of people. I would, I would consider myself pretty, not a pretty non violent individual. I've only been in a handful of fights in my life where I needed to, needed to fight, not didn't want to fight. For me, I think war is a necessity in certain situations and that wasn't my thing, you know, and this is part of the reason why I didn't serve. My grandfather served World War II, my father was ROTC, my uncles served. So we have a history of people serving in the military, military in my family, but for me it wasn't in the cards for one, because I played collegiate football and I got a degree. But also because it's just, it's just not my, my particular belief. But as I said, I believe that this demographic is a demographic that needs proper training and needed someone that had their best interests in mind when it came to health and fitness. Because in the US we have an all volunteer armed services. We don't have to draft anymore. Our ranks are completely filled by people that signed up to do it. And most of these individuals come from all walks of life. They are plumbers, they're electricians, they're doctors, they're nurses, they, they have their own particular jobs and functions and skill set. Most of the time being a fitness expert is not one of them. And I found this out much later. You know, once, once I knew that, you know, civilian population can go over and do that job, I said, yeah, it makes, it makes a lot of sense. Let me serve in the best way that I know how and the best capacity I know how so that they can go out, do what they do best.

I mean training people to essentially keep them alive, I mean is a, I can't imagine what that feeling, the sensations I get from people and to talk about your selfish and selfless thing. It's interesting when you work with clients and I think the reason you often get into things is because, well, actually, you know, as much as it, when you start out, as much as I know I help someone, well, it's going to have financial value for me or it's going to have a sense of, create a sense of significance for me or, you know, and there's some other motivating factors there. And you know, speaking when you have a client who speaks about, you know, you changing their life and, you know, obviously nowhere near on the sort of scale that you're doing when people say things like that. I wasn't really remember the first time someone sort of said something along those lines and not actually being, knowing what that would feel like. If anyone ever said that to me, you're lucky enough for someone to say that and then actually you don't, you don't really feel anything for yourself. And I didn't expect that. I thought, oh, there must be something in there where you kind of go, oh, you, oh, this means I'm good enough. It means I'm. This, it means that this. And, and maybe there is a bit of that in there.

But.

But there is so much, especially in, in my world where if I get that sort of feedback from someone, it's. Well, actually we. I can give you direction, but I can't help. I can't make you take action. I can't make you do that. We give you the direction, you know, you get the direction that now it's in your world, in your life to take action. So, no, it's very nice for them to say that, but you just have so much pride for that person taking action when so many people don't. For you, when the feedback or stuff that you get from people when you're doing things where in that type of scenario where genuinely having the fitness to keep alive, I'm going to assume you've had positive feedback from people. What's that feedback like for you? What's that experience like when you hear, when you hear stuff like that?

Well, one point I want to make on what you just touched on. I think that this is probably what made you a good athlete and makes you a good coach, is that you don't like. You take this feedback and instead of internalizing it, it's more like a mirror for you. You know, you kind of reflected back on the individual, individual's accomplishments. I think this is a powerful, powerful, subconscious thing that you do that probably makes you really great at your job. And I think it's what makes great athletes. I think it's what makes great coaches and great leaders, people that have the ability to take this sort of feedback and say, yeah, all I did was give you the tools to. To empower you to be great or to do something great. And so I appreciate the recognition that we did this together as a team. But, yeah, if you don't feel any particular way like you needed that pat on the back or it's validates you in some sort of way, I think you're actually onto something great, to be honest with you. So for me, whenever I would receive this sort of feedback, in a way it was expected because that is exactly what I set out to do, is to change people's lives through health and fitness. And when it does come, it's rewarding because oftentimes, I don't know if you can attest to this, but sometimes it's a thankless job, especially when you're dealing with large groups of individuals, teams or military, in this case. You go in, you've thought all night or all day about how you're going to structure this class. There's one particular class to make it the best absolute experience for people. You go in there, you're in front of 50 people, you give 100% energy to keep them focused. You put them through this thing, and then they pack their shit up and they leave. And you go, all right, next one's coming in 15 minutes, you know, and you do it again, you do it again, you do it again. And sometimes all you get is the shit. You know, people that come to you with problems, right, oh, my leg hurts. Oh, I'm injured. Oh, I need this. Or actually, I don't feel good. It's this and this. You're a problem fixer a lot of the time. And so for me, at least, when the one person comes up and is like, hey, you know what? There's a small victory that I want to share with you, or whatever it is, then I'm like, yeah, okay, it's. Yeah, it's. It's that drop in the. It's that drop in the cup that keeps you above half full. Right.

I do agree with that. I think I was lucky enough to have an experience early on that taught me a few valuable lesson based on kind of what you just said of, you know, a room full of people and you sort of thinking, is it making an impact? So right at the beginning of all of the work that I've done, I remember doing a. Remember doing this talk, maybe about 100 people, something like that, and. But they were young, they're probably about 18 to 22. And there's this kid heckling me. I'm like, I'm not a fucking stand up comedian.

Why would we. Heckling really, what the hell is happening?

And he's like trying to like finish, like he's trying to finish my sentences and shit. So we have a bit of back and forth just to keep it kind of light hearted. But I'm like a bit like you. I was like, I've planned this for weeks. We're already fucking this up right now and having this back and forth. And I just. And this was very odd. This maybe only like third talk I, I'd ever done at that point where you're really like, I've got a vision, I've got a picture, I think I can do this, but I need to sit. In the early days, you kind of need to see something to prove that it works, what you do works.

Yeah, that's true.

And that's not just about validation. It's just about proof that, okay, I just need feedback to make sure that I'm ironing out the kinks, I'm working out the bits that don't work. So I remember this talk ends. Everyone is leaving the room except for this one kid who'd been heckling me. And so he's look, I can see he's like looking around and all these other people are leaving the room. I think, oh, for fuck's sake, what is gonna happen? I really don't need to deal with this. And everyone leaves the room. I'm sort of typing away on my laptop at the front. He waits for the last person to leave and he walks down to the front and he says, I've been labeled with depression, anxiety, load of other things by doctors and medical professionals my whole life. And he said in the last hour, you reminded me that I label myself. That whilst there are other things that I need to deal with or take medication for or whatever, the impact that other label people, other people's labels has on me is if I don't really label myself. And he said, you reminded me I have to label myself first and foremost as a way to know who I am so that other people can't define it for me. And he said, I just want to say thank you. And then he left. I remember the valuable lesson I got based on and it reminded me because of what you were saying was I realized from that point of view, from that point on, that it isn't for a room full of people or whatever, even the people that you think it means nothing to them is. It means Something. And from that point on, I realized, you know, I'd got that bit of feedback. But from that point on, I've not really felt the need to be validated because, you know, all the things you do, you work, watch things online, you attend, things you go to, how many times do you, like, walk up or like, how many times do you actually do the thing or say thank you, or you buy a product and you go back to the shop and go, oh, this is the best product. You don't. And so that need from that point on, I never really felt it. But early on, I think for people listening who early on in their business or early on in their athletic career or have just got into the first team or whatever it might be where you kind of. You do need that little thing early on. But it is very much about, I think, how you define and label yourself first and foremost, which sounds very cliche, but I think is important. Which leads me on to want to know a little bit more about your kind of next venture, which is around Hero DNA, which you've sounds like has been a creation this year. So you've picked another great year to make progress in your business. So what. What was your decision around making that progression in your business?

Yeah.

So tell us more about it, obviously.

Yeah, sure. So Hero DNA is essentially a holding company for Team Major Fitness and my new venture, which is Squad, and Squad is a Hurt training app. Hurt is an acronym for High Intensity Resistance training and full disclosure. And leading up into 2019, leading into 2020, I was actually looking to start a brick and mortar facility here in Berlin, Germany, where I live. And so come January, you start hearing the murmurs around things and we had gotten as far as to looking for locations and then boom. Covid hit.

Oh, thank God he hadn't got further.

Yeah, really. I mean, it was a dodged bullet. And so I had to. I had to quickly pivot. Not that my other businesses weren't already taking a lot of time and doing well, but I didn't have a product that I felt like fit the current situation as well for my particular following, you know, and for the people that I've been training with and serving for since 2008. You know, I released one app back in 2009, 2010, but it was really. It was really more like a shell of my website, kind of. Yeah, it was more like a shell of my website, to be honest with you, a mobile version of my website. But it was in an app for. I wanted an app that actually works like an app. I wanted A native product that had high design and high functionality. So that's what I did. I quickly shifted focus to putting resources towards the development of Squad and we released back in October. October 26th was the date that it launched. And yeah, I'm very proud of the product and of the project and the people that I've worked with worked really hard on it. Yeah, it's doing quite well. But the reason behind it is because as gym shuttered across the country, people were looking for a new way to train. And we already had a very large demographic of people that were bodyweight training at home. But once I started seeing dumbbells and kettlebells go completely sold out for months at a time off the shelves, I knew that my following and other people's followings were of course going to be looking for ways to utilize these tools in their own home. So that's the product I put together. It's a, it's a. You know, I'm already a calisthenics expert. I've been preaching bodyweight training for such a long time, but my foundation of strength was based in weight training and resistance training. So I've taken everything that I've learned and I've put it into this app, into small bite sized workouts where people can diversify and totally take control over how they train in their homes with very minimal equipment, but still accomplish what they want to accomplish. And for most of the most people that's to burn a little bit of body fat or a lot of body fat and to gain a bit of lean muscle or maybe a lot of muscle. And so yeah, that's, that's the direction that I took and that's the product I created.

Well, I commend you for pivoting in such a way. I think lots of people can get caught up in why is this happening to me. And you know, in terms of I'm about to do this venture and it's life has just fucked me and whatever else and it might still, I'm sure for you, maybe it's still, you know, you had other plans, maybe it still feels a bit of that for you, I'm sure, But also sometimes it's happening for you and you pivot and you find that new option. It sounds like a, you know, for people who you talked about it being native and a high quality design, I think those things are so unbelievably important and sometimes when people are starting things out, they sort of go for one or the other. They either pay for someone for like a really super Fancy website, but haven't really thought about the content. There's other people who think about the content but don't really think about the design. So it's great that you do both those parts before. Tell people about where we can, where people can sign up for that and where people can get more information about you. I just wanted to ask one more question, which is what I ask most people. So when you started out, you would have had a picture in your head of what you would expect your business to look like. And you know, when you had that conversation about the military, but maybe before that you knew you want to get into fitness, you just had this picture in your head of this is where I'm going to get to, this is what it's going to look like, this is how it's going to feel. So it's a two part question. One, at this stage in your life, how much does that, does it look like that picture or not? And the second question is, in terms of leaving footprints in the sand for other people to follow in the future, what footprints do you want to leave behind? So the first question is, does it look like the picture that you, you wanted?

Yeah. You like stories, David? I'll tell you a story. 2008, as I was on my way to Houston on that trip for Christmas, my father worked for Southwest Airlines. So I used to fly free on what's called buddy passes. And the stipulations to be able to fly are if there's available seat on the flight, then you get on right after all the paying customers. So sometimes I would get bumped from flight to flight to flight. You know, I would be listed on a flight at 6:00 in the morning, but it would be completely sold out so I had to wait for the next flight. So on this particular trip I kept getting bumped and bumped and bumped and bumped and bumped. I ended up being at the airport all day long until I finally got on a flight that was that night. So this was like a 12 hour day sitting at the airport, you know, buying expensive airline food. I'm the last person to board the flight. As I'm getting onto the plane, there's one seat that's in the very front in between two individuals. I sit down before I sit down, I see a book that's there and I pick up the book and I asked the flight attendant, is this free? Does somebody leave this? And she said yes. And it's a book on entrepreneurship, which is very cool. So I sit down and I'm going to read this book on entrepreneurship, which I know you're already smiling, right? Like, how crazy is this that I. I'm on a random flight and there's a book about entrepreneurship as I'm picturing myself being an entrepreneur. So I pick up this book and ended up being the E. Myth, if you're interested on the title of that book. It's called the Entrepreneurial Myth. Very good book. And so the guy next to me is in a suit, and he's maybe 10, 15 years older than me at that point in time, but he's not like an old man or anything. And he's. He sees my book, and he's like, oh, are you an entrepreneur? And I was like, well, I kind of. I want to be. Not at the moment. And he said, well, what kind of entrepreneur do you want to be? And I said, well, I mean, I don't know exactly. Right now I'm in sales, but I believe I want to be a fitness trainer, and I want to start a fitness business. And he said, whoa. Well, a professor of psychology, but I'm also a life coach. Maybe I can help you. And this is before the flight even takes off. And I'm like, okay, yeah, like, how can you help me? You know, thinking this guy might try to be. You know, he's trying to sell me some services. But he reaches into his briefcase, and he pulls out a yellow notepad, and he turns to a blank sheet, and he goes, I do this all the time. It's called a mind map. He says, here's you in the center, fitness trainer. And we started talking, just like you and I are just really kind of casually about what is a fitness trainer? What do they do? Where do I want it to go? And by the end of the conversation, he had drawn out this very abstract and rudimentary mind map with fitness trainer in the center, a variety of different businesses and accomplishments off of that. So in this very brief amount of time, he had taken what was, you know, like just this painstakingly difficult process for me of imagining where I wanted to be and how it was going to take shape and what it was going to do. And he mapped out strategically exactly what this looked like. And so for me, this was the very first time that I had a visual representation of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I mean, literally, I wish I still had this paper. I can't find it anywhere, and I might still have it because I don't feel like I'm so, you know, useless to just throw it away. It's probably in a chest somewhere, you know, like in between a book stuck in some, you know, in a basement. But he literally drew off of, like, no fitness model off of there. And in order to be a fitness model, first you have to get portfolio, you know, and just all these little tiny parts and components and almost every single thing that I discussed. And he said, go ahead, dream big. You know, everything that I discussed, I accomplished everything. And I really attribute it to writing it down, making it real, making it concrete, getting it out of my head and writing it down. I mean, to the point to where in 2013, I mean, 2008, like I said, I based my business off of these people that are already very big in the fitness industry, right? Billy Blanks, you know, the guys that are at Beachbody who built multimillion dollar businesses being fitness personalities on screen. The primary model that I took after was Jillian Michaels. I really took a hard look at her business because she did reality tv and then she used this to catapult herself into building this mega $100 million brand around herself. And so I said, that's the benchmark, right? Jillian Michaels. Fast forward to 2013. I had worked with Nike, Puma, Reebok, Adidas. I become a fitness company model for all of these mega companies. I've trained young kids, celebrities, you know, professional athletes. I've done that. Check that box off. I had put so many different bullets in my gun of different certifications that I want to get TRX certified group fitness certified personal trainer, sports nutrition. I've been a Nike certified Spark coach, right? And now I'm training military. I take a break from training military. I'm in Thailand. I'm learning some kickboxing. And where do I get an email from Jillian Michaels? Jillian Michaels finds me, finds me. I didn't reach out. Finds me off of a YouTube video and says, wow, we think you're the next big thing. We want to work with you. So if there's anything that I can say about the visualization process, the process of imagining where you want to be and the process of actually writing it down and mapping it out to where you want to be, this, to me, is one of the most powerful things that you can ever do. And I'm a firm, firm believer of.

Emotion.

Creates motion, right? All of these things I really felt like I really wanted. And I focused on those things obsessively, and whether directly or indirectly, they ended up happening in some way, right? I always knew I was headed in the direction of becoming a Jillian Michaels, but I never could have imagined that she would be knocking on my door saying, I think you're the best thing ever and I want to work with you. So from there on, I ended up moving to Los Angeles. I ended up working with her. I was on her reality show and have created a fitness program with her. I mean, I truly believe the sky is the limit. Whenever you actually sit down and have some focused attent on where you want to go and where you want to be, that's the end of my story.

That's a wonderful story. I mean, if that life coach on the plane was terrible, then none of that would have happened. But that's. That's a great story. So at this point, you've. That picture looks like, hey, how you'd planned it. Yeah.

And even beyond it, man. Like now I have two amazing, beautiful kids. I married the woman of my dreams who I met in Thailand on that trip that I did that I just mentioned. I've traveled the world. I've helped a lot of people. A lot of people. I'm still helping people. And yeah, sorry to interrupt, but yeah, the picture, to answer your question, the picture, it looks exactly how I wanted it to look. And it keeps getting better. You know, the more I keep visualizing and imagining, it keeps getting bigger and better.

It's been a. I mean, the story's been great. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. For people who want to join your audience, people who want to know more about you and also want to learn the lessons that you've shared today and want to up their fitness game. Where can people find out more about you?

So my personal website is T major dot com. It's T E E M A J O R dot com. You can find me there. Also my email address, I keep it open. I don't hide from anybody. It's tia T Major major dot com. Pretty simple. And of course, Squad, if you want to train with me, you can find me in the app store. Only for iOS, unfortunately. Sorry, my Android users. I do love you guys too. The development is moving a bit slower on that side, but for iOS, just search for Squad in the app Store. Sqwod. It's a combination of squad like squadron of the military and wad or workout of the day, which is a popular term amongst workout individuals or fitness community. So yeah, you can find me in those places. And yeah, please look me up.

Thank you very much for your time.

T. Thank you very much, David. I appreciate you, buddy. Thank you.

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