FITNESS Will Change Your Entire LIFE! | Doug Elks

No matter who you are, there's got to be some component of health and wellness in your life. And I truly bring this back to faith. I truly believe it's a way we can honor God being a good steward of the temple, that we have the body that we have, and it truly sets the tone for everything else that we do. And you know, people are like, well, I'm not motivated. You know, I don't have the motivation to work out or to eat healthy. And I'm like, well, no, it's not, it's not motivation. It's, you don't have the discipline. And if you want to take it a step further, it's really, you don't have the value enough in yourself. Because I truly believe that if you don't value yourself enough and don't understand the value of these components and how they're going to help you, you're not going to have the desire to do it. And so it really comes down to how much do you desire and value yourself?

Welcome back, everybody. Look, the reality is we have guests from time to time that we don't know that should be guest. We meet them in the concourse of hallways and live events and all kinds of stuff. And then we see there's hidden genius. And as I said at a recent event, the greatest messages and speakers have yet to be heard on the planet. And in doing so, I met this young man who's a former D1 athlete as well as one of the highest ranking, fastest growing athletes. When I say athletes, I mean like, he helps you become an athletic freak of nature with his experience, his methodologies, as well as even some supplementation. And as a result, I love people with a heart of excellence. I love people with a heart of service. I love people with a heart of wanting to offer value and to should they make that no end. It's your turn. We're going to help offer as much value as we can to help you get peak performance today on Unstoppable with my good friend Doug Elks. Doug, welcome to the show, homie.

Steven, thank you so much for being here, man. I just want to first off thank you for who you are. I've had a chance to get to know you over these last few months and your heart and the position that you're in to serve and help others. Especially for a younger guy like myself. Man, I'm just so blessed to know you and I'm so honored to be here today. So thank you so much for having me, bro.

Sincerely, our pleasure. You know, it's One of the things we do here on the show is with unstoppable specifically. So when I first started the show, the concept behind the show was taking the word unstoppable and making it not like a tributary word. Like, you know, it's be unstoppable.

Totally.

No, it's more like, okay, unstoppable is a lifestyle. And as a professional athlete and all the things that you're doing now, you're also the living definition of unstoppable. You. You just don't give up, right? You, we. We say one foot in front of the next, one foot in front of the next one. From the. You just. You don't give up, no matter what comes at you. But I also realize that there's a lot of mental things in my own journey that by definition, create that unstoppable mentality. And a lot of times you get those insights, if you will, in the areas. Well, we'll call them the toughest moments. So while I know how super successful you are and how big your heart is and how much you serve and I know about. We're going to talk get some of the new cool stuff that you've recently done, literally in the last few days, which is awesome.

Still recovering.

Yeah, I bet. I first want to start with where are the moments where you wanted to give up? Maybe one that comes to mind where, whether it's faith or whether it's an insight or whether that helped you push through to obviously get you where you are today.

Dude, I love the way you frame all that. And the preface, just to preface this, like the way you designed and just talk about the word unstoppable with this show, I think is really powerful, and I think it's something every single person needs to understand and be aware of in their life. Because we. We all have different journeys, we all have walked different lives, we all have different paths and different things we've gone through, but you have to be unstoppable. You have to have that mindset, and it's a commitment, and it truly is a choice. And I just want everyone listening to know that whatever you've gone through, whatever you have gone through or are going through, you can make the choice whether you keep going or you quit. And so I think, to answer your question, there have been many instances and journeys and places throughout my life that have been really tough, and I've really had to make that decision to be unstoppable. But. But the first one was growing up in a really tough environment with a father who Was addicted to drugs and alcohol. And this is my story. It's not to shame him or anything, but I think that's where I first got that first glimpse of this is real life. And real life is hard, and it's not all sunshine and rainbows. And that's when I had to make that decision, to say, okay, am I going to feel sorry for myself and maybe go down a path that's not going to lead me to be the person I want to be, or am I going to try to toughen up and, you know, be grateful for the mentors that were being positive in my life and try to pursue that path, and super grateful that God had grace on my life and really kind of had his hand on my. On my life and kind of got me through that initial phase. But that's where a lot of the things started for me, and that's when I first had to kind of make that decision, to be unstoppable in the midst of that environment.

Yeah. It's interesting because one of the things that comes up, even as you share that to me, is I remember about three specific instances where I had a choice in that moment, you know, and I believe in this. This arc, right? So you have this arc of, you know, you're plugging along, life's going, whatever, and then you get to make a choice. And then that arc either takes you a little bit up or a little bit down. If it takes you a little bit down, then it's. Then another arc gives you the opportunity to come back up, but it takes a little bit longer because you. You have a down arc. And, you know, one of the ones that comes to my mind is a guy by the name. You know, my audience has heard of his name bazillion times. A guy name is Steve Myrick. My first mentor.

He actually stepped into my life to have. And I didn't know this until, obviously, decades later, where I would refer to as a pattern disrupt. I was operating on the same pattern because my. My father was very similar. I love him to death. He's. He's an amazing granddad now. Got healthy and saved and healed and all kinds of stuff. Super proud of him, Right?

Amazing.

But during that season, I was operating on many of the same behavior patterns, right? So how we handled money, how we handle belief, how we handled what future could look like or the hope of the future, right? And then Steve Jobs, you know, obviously jumps in one afternoon, and he asked me a pretty profound question, which a lot of my audience has heard a thousand times. But it's, I think it's still relevant today. What is the difference between a rich man and a poor man? And I was like, well, duh, of course it's money. He's like, absolutely not. It's absolutely not money. It's the way they think. And then he said, do you want to learn to think like me or do you want to continue thinking like your father?

Wow.

Now, keep in mind, Steve was very wealthy, very generous and very hard working and very astute businessman, which I didn't realize at the time, but he had developed that in such a way that came from a place of learning on the fly, which is very much my story. Right. I say all that to say, is there a key moment in time that you can look back where a specific mentor came into your life and did a pattern disrupt for you to bring awareness to, hey, I have an amazing choice right now in this moment, in this. Because I had, I had that moment in that time. And people ask me all the time, I was like, well, how did you get there? It was that moment. It was, you know, it's one of a bazillion now, but that was the moment in that, I guess that pivot point, if you will.

Yeah, that's. That's a great question. You know, there have been several, several different seasons of my life where I've seen different strides of growth and different, you know, kind of breakthroughs or openings that I could touch on. But there's one that's actually really relevant and actually pretty recent I think would be appropriate to talk about. And it's kind of a big part of my testimony. And you're involved in this? Actually. Yeah, there's a lot of really cool answered prayers where I really just, I got really intentional with my prayer life the last couple months and really just came to God with like, man, like I. I really desire community. I really desire doors to be open for me, to be surrounded by men that can build me up and strengthen me and sharpen me and challenge me. And I think a lot of times we go through life we want to be comfortable and we want to coast, but I've just seen that that doesn't bear the fruit I want to have. And so, you know, through some doors being open, you know, getting a chance to meet some really cool people, get to come to Founders Con and meet you, these people just started to come into my life and it just started to kind of just transform my heart and kind of give me this new activation of my faith. But one in particular, man, that Came into my life in the last few months is Ste. Steve Weatherford, who I'll probably talk about later in the show with this 100 miler we just did. But, man, he's just a man after God's heart and former NFL player won a Super bowl with the Giants. But I went to an event at his house after only two weeks of knowing him, and that is where, dude, my. My heart's in a whole different place right now in terms of just wanting to build the kingdom, make disciples, and honor God with everything I'm doing. I love business, I love fitness and these things. But I. That's. That's the pivotal moment in terms of a mentor coming in, just disrupting my thought pattern. And I think that was a very divine interruption from God and the way that God used Steve in my life to shake that up.

But Steve's are awesome, man.

Steve's are great. I love Steve.

Triple street threat.

Just want to give him some shout there. But, yeah, that's happened in the last couple months. But, man, there's been several mentors in my life that have really kind of given me some encouragement and spoken life into me, and I'm just grateful for mentorship. It's really, really important to have strong men that you give authority to speak into your life, but you got to be very careful who you allow to have that authority.

Ain't that the truth? I narrow gate all day long. One of the other things that comes up in my mind specifically is. And I'm kind of using my journey and your journey kind of your specialty now, that will continue to morph and grow as the years progress, which is the importance of physiology. So when I was in my most darkest moment back in the day, and I've had a. You know, I've had a few. What do they call the dark night of the soul? I've had several of them, right? And so much so that if I can almost feel that a dark night of the soul or a low energy is kind of like, so to speak, kind of coming into my life in that moment. I know, okay, all right. You just need to get ready to prepare and whatever. So it's more. More preparatory now than it used to be.

But I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. The stuff that I was eating was terrible for me. I wasn't working out. I wasn't walking, I wasn't lifting, right. And then one of the first steps of that really dark period of my life was like, the first goal was to get out of bed and walk around the house, literally for the first day. And then that became walking around the block and that became what you know, and then it progressively got me back in the gym working out, and now it's, you know, I feel weird if I don't work out in a day. What is it about working out and health and wellness specifically that allows us to maybe have less of a setback and more of a growth spurt?

Yeah, I love that you bring that up because it's so important. And I would say if you're looking at a spectrum of maybe someone who doesn't work out at all and someone who's like kind of crazy and does 100 mile races and things, I probably end on the more extreme side. But no matter who you are, there's gotta be some component of health and wellness in your life. And I truly bring us back to faith. I truly believe it's a way we can honor God, be a good steward of the temple that we have, the body that we have, and it truly sets the tone for everything else that we do. To your point, you talk about this kind of holistic approach of all these different components that all feed into the person that you are and what you're capable of. And I think when we take out certain ones and we neglect them, we're not completing that puzzle that we have access to. And so I think it truly just sets the foundation and it's what you can build upon. And you know, people are like, well, I'm not motivated. You know, I don't, I don't have the, I don't have the motivation to, to work out or to eat healthy. And I'm like, well, no, it's not, it's not motivation. It's. You don't have the discipline. And if you want to take it a step further, it's really, you don't have the value enough in yourself. Because I truly believe if you don't value yourself enough and don't understand the value of these components and how they're going to help you, you're not going to have the desire to do it. And so it's really, it really comes down to how much do you desire and value yourself?

Yeah.

And then once you get to that point, you'll start to be disciplined. And that went in turn, increase your motivation. So you gotta, you gotta understand the value of it and how important it is to your life.

What are some techniques that you can think of? Because doing the work that I do now.

The vast majority of the people that I come in contact With, I would not say truly value themselves or truly even see themselves. Right. I always. I always. It's not even a joke, it's more of a statement. But I find that most people are living someone else's life.

Yeah.

You know, living the life that someone said they should have or whatever. They're not being authentic or not being congruent.

What are some. What are some things to maybe bring awareness to.

Growing that, that healthy identity? Right. Because.

I'll do this next question in a second, but what are some techniques to grow the identity and also have a healthy representation of who you are? Therefore, to quote, unquote, love yourself without, quote, unquote, loving yourself. You know, like, you know, like, we're just like ego in the way.

Totally. Well, for me personally, I'm, you know, I'm a Christian. I believe in Jesus, my Lord and Savior. I. My identity comes straight from Him. So I don't. I don't even want to give you an answer that, you know, obviously maybe not everyone listening believes the same things that I do. So, you know, what I look at is what God tells me, and that's the truth, and that's the promises that I truly build my life.

Well, let's talk about the promises for a second. My audience is 50. 50, right. They're either faith curious or they're faith filled. They're one of the two. Okay.

Let'S talk about some of the promises that God says about us. What are some of the things that God says about all of his children?

Yeah. You know, a big verse that I hang. I hang a lot on is Ephesians 2:10. God created us as a masterpiece. God did not create us as a mistake. There was no error. He made us a masterpiece, an image of Him. And through Jesus, we're made anew to do all the good works that he has for us. And so I think that's just something that just every time I read that verse and every time I declare it over my life, it invigorates. It just fills me up with energy and passion because I'm like the God of the universe that made the heaven and the earth, the stars in the sky, that every animal, every. Every human on this earth made me a masterpiece. And I've fallen short of perfection. But through Jesus, through His perfect son, I can be made anew to do all the good works he has for me. He's not. He didn't make me just to sit on here and roam around. And so I get super passionate about sharing that because I want people to Be activated.

Yeah.

I want people to be filled up and fired up to go do the good things that God has for them. And that's where it truly starts with me. And when I, when I declare that, when I really get intentional aware about awareness about that, it, it, dude, it gets me going. It gets me going a lot.

So I want to talk about the, the, the performance aspect of being an athlete. Okay.

In order to go D1 at anything, there is another level of commitment required. Talk to me a little about a D1 mentality versus Pop Warner mentality. Like, you know, like, like you really helped me understand because I. Here's what I know about the audience. They all want to be elite performers in whatever their, whatever their genre is. They all want it. Some of them are like me in that they're in their own way. Probably most of them are like me in their own. In their own way. Right. So what does it take to become an elite athlete? And I'll use the word athlete as a metaphor for excellence in your genre. Right?

Yeah.

So talk to me about some of the mental things specifically that. Kind of breathe light into that.

Yeah. Well, first off, when you say, you know, they want it, my question would be, how bad do you want it? Because I think a lot of people say they want things in life, but it really boils down to how bad you want it. And what does that look like talking about? It's one thing, but when you put in the action, when you make the sacrifices, when you are saying, look, I'm going to do everything in my power to actually do, do this thing, I think that's a very different situation. And so I think there's a couple things. I think it comes down to a lot of sacrifice. You know, there are going to be things that you're going to have to give up now in order to get what you want later. And I think that's true for all people. You know, if you're an athlete or not, if you really want something bad enough, you're going to.

That actually came up today in our, in our direct to camera footage for Social.

It's. It's so true and it's. It's really hard to do. And you really have to see. You have to. This is kind of where my mind goes and I'm not, you know, I haven't mastered this, but it's something I'm working on. You have to be present in the moment and be very laser focused on the next step in front of you. But you also have to have the mindset to take a step back and zoom out and see the big picture. Because you got to understand they're going to be highs, they're going to be lows. They're going to be days where you feel great and you're crushing it. You score 30, the college coaches are on the baseline, they're writing your name down, they're calling you after the game, and they're going to be nights where maybe you had a couple extra turnovers and you were down on yourself and there were other things in your life and you got to be able to keep moving forward and know that you have a bigger plan and a bigger purpose on your life, and that's what's going to carry you through. But I truly believe it boils down to being able to make sacrifices and just to keep your mind strong enough to keep pushing through the highs and the lows at a level head.

Yeah, dude, I love that. I love that. I'm also the only thing I see with, you know, I've been very blessed to be around a lot of very successful business people and athletes, for sure, and entertainers in some cases. And one of the commonalities I see amongst all of them is the pursuit of excellence, the willingness to have a sincere commitment, the ability to zoom in and be uber laser focused.

I think maturity teaches them eventually to kind of zoom out. Like, it's more, you know, it's like, okay, is this really for me kind of thing?

Yeah, totally.

But on top of that, there's this. There's an identity play. A lot of. A lot of the. And I'm asking this. This is going to be in a bit of a question in a second.

Absolutely.

A lot of them that I've seen have went through what I call an identity wall. So they've put all their time, their energy into honing a craft.

For some reason, God says, okay, that time of that season of honing that craft is done, I'm going to position you or reposition you to do something different or a morphed version of what they were doing. And they go through the identity wall. It's almost like they have to re encompass or recircle their identity. Have you had to face that particular dark night of the soul going from obviously sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports into now what you're creating, which is a major athletic and health and wellness brand?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, this is something that I think is super relevant. And I actually talk about this a lot on our show. And, you know, I'm blessed to still be have great relationships with a lot of my teammates in college. And, you know, I was super fortunate that God put something on my heart that I'm about to share that, you know, made me have this transition from where I was going to doing what I'm doing now. But a lot of athletes, I think, in particular, struggle with that transition post sport into whatever that next season is, because they're all in on that one thing. But kind of going back to what I was talking about earlier with identity, like, when your identity truly is in Christ, if God puts something on your heart and he changes the direction of your life.

Yeah.

That your identity didn't change. It's still in Christ. He just has you doing something different. And so I think there can be a lot of peace in that. And that's certainly what happened for me, because growing up, my whole dream, my whole goal, what I felt like God had called me to was to be around the game of basketball. I grew up here in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Now, out of curiosity, I don't mean to interrupt you, but was that your dream or was that someone else's dream for you?

It was 100% my dream. And I think what it. I think what it stemmed from is I saw the power that coaches had in my life and how they took me out of dark times, how they took me out of, you know, my tough childhood with a dad, you know, that wasn't present. Like, that's what I saw. And I saw the impact that it had on me. Obviously, I loved the game, and I loved everything about it, the competition. But it was like, man, these coaches have changed my life forever. They've believed in me, They've spoken life into me. So I wanted to do that at the college or the NBA level. And that was my whole dream until I got to college. And it was actually during COVID when I felt like the Lord really put it on my heart to start Ambition of mind aim, which is a platform we now have. We have our show, we have some other things we do with that, but just to bring people together and just help people break walls and to have the most ambitious life they can. And so that was a really big, pivotal moment for me. But thankfully, God was completely in it and gave me a lot of peace. And so, thankfully, the transition wasn't as hard as it is for some people, I'd say.

The other thing that I think happens a lot, too, is the season that we're in always sets the foundation for the season that we're coming into.

That's so good.

When I look at what you're building now and then the earlier version of yourself. Right. I've told you before, I'm a big believer in serving the person you used to be. And I believe that you're actually living that purpose thing out.

Right.

So I believe that's where people find purpose actually is when they're actually creating value for the person that they needed back in the day.

Absolutely.

Kind of thing. Right. So I look at the wellness brand that you're building, I look at the faith component and how outspoken you are. I look at the supplementation that you're recommending and the reason behind the supplementation that you or yourself are using and then recommending to your audience and really support. I look at some of the motivational aspects and even apparel and things that you've gotten yourself into and I see complete congruency that would not have been there had you not been a professional athlete for as long as you were in the, in college and beyond. Right.

When it comes down to looking at the holistic approach of aim. Right. What does the five year legacy look like for you? In five years? How will you know if you, or if you are achieving or managing success, if you will, based on, you know, kind of the value your audience is getting? How are you going to measure it?

So when I, when I started aiming, I didn't have a clear vision of what it was going to be. I just was trying to be obedient to what God put on my heart. And it was to step out in faith and to build a community and bring one person at a time into this group where we could say, listen, I don't know what you're going through, I don't know what you've been through, but I know for a fact that if you live your life with ambition and you keep pushing and you don't make excuses and you take ownership of the things that you can control, I promise you, your life will look different, your life will be better. And not only will your life be better, but the people around you's life will be better. And that was big for me because, because I saw that just everything stems back to my childhood. But I saw how one person's actions and decisions doesn't only impact their life, but the people that they touch and the people that they love. And you know, that was my mission and that was our team's mission. And it was so cool to say, look, God, you bless this and you grow this how you want to. It's fully in your hands. If it gets to millions of people. That's amazing. That's obvious. I would love to reach more people, but I want my heart to stay pure. We can help one person at a time. That's all that matters. And it was that first DM I got where we started posting content, and I got a dm and someone said, dude, I've been struggling, and you got me out of bed today. And I didn't feel like moving today. And I saw one of the videos you guys posted, and literally I went for a walk and I got up out of my bed and I just got my stuff together. And it's like those moments where there's no dollar amount that you could ever put on that. It's like that. It strikes that internal core, that internal fulfillment that drives you and keeps you going. And so that's our mission. It's to help one person at a time and just to continue to see where God leads it.

It's crazy to me that this is something I want the audience to fully understand.

It's crazy to me how much value and significance and meaning comes from the simple act of wanting to offer value to somebody else. I believe that that's one of the reasons that God put people on the earth and not a person on the earth. I believe that's. You know, when. When he saw Adam's, like, all right, Adam, I'm not sure I can trust you with yourself. Let me. Let me get you. Let me get you a friend. Right. And then. And then that turned into family, and then that turned extended family, and then that turned to population. Now it turns into a world full of people. Right. But I also find that every single person on the planet has a unique set of gifts, strengths, and value that they can offer yet another person with unique gifts and value. And that compounding effect. Right.

Yeah.

When it comes to kind of shaping that future, what are maybe three pillars? Obviously, we know God and Christ are like pillar number one.

Absolutely.

But what are their three value systems that go into peak performance? Whether it's in being an athlete, in a mindset, being an entrepreneur? Like, what are some of the key pillars that you see?

Yeah. For me, personally, like, what I'm. What I'm. Most passionate about is helping people develop and strengthen their mind. I think there's so much value in that because I truly believe. And this is going back to our kind of slogan with aim, it's a mindset that creates a lifestyle. And so I truly believe if you can master your mind and you can understand how to leverage that and use it and not let it use you. You're going to be able to accomplish and do things in your life that you would never have dreamed of, obviously with God being involved in your life. And so that to me is really, really powerful important. And I want people to understand that a lot of times in life, the things that are holding them back are themselves. It's those self limitations, it's those self walls. It's those things in their mind that they're not, they haven't figured out how to break through or it's fear or doubt or it's these things that were not meant to be in our mind. We were not created to hold those things in our mind. Those are of the enemy. And so I want to help people break those things down. I also know how important, like we discussed, health, fitness, wellness, taking care of your body, how that plays into it. So it's a mind, it's your body, it's your physical body, and then obviously your spirit. So I think those are my three pillars.

Yeah, no, I love it. In fact, I was, you know, most people, most people don't understand that the, the brain itself is a servo mechanism. Like it's, it is both physiologically driven energy impulses. So you got energy signals going from one, one sector of the brain to another sector of the brain. And they underestimate the importance of having brain health. Right. And I know that exercise and being physical, obviously it raises serotonin levels. It actually makes dopamine receptors easier to manage without going down the dark side of dopamine, where it's like dopamine hit dopamine, hit dopamine hit dopamine kind of thing. Talk to me a little about the supplementation that you're currently recommending. I mean, you brought me some really cool stuff myself, which I look forward to chowing myself. But why those supplements? Kind of what was missing?

Totally.

Yeah.

Well, first off, I'm excited for you to have your first cup of Kaiser's. I'll have to check in and see what your thoughts are. But yeah, so, you know, about a year ago, we're a little over a year in now, my best friend Lucas and his wife Brinley Joiners, we came together and we decided we wanted to bring a product to market to help people. And you know, we're all pretty into and passionate about health and fitness and wellness. But we saw this massive gap in the market for a product that helps you one with sleep, but it acts as a multifunctional product. But we knew that sleep is One of the most important recovery elements that we have today.

And brain health.

And brain health, it impacts everything. Your physical recovery, your brain health, your cognitive ability, literally everything you can possibly think of in terms of health, in terms of your body. Sleep is the best recovery tool. And so we're like, if we can create a product that genuinely helps that part of your recovery be enhanced even more, that would be a huge win for us. And doing it in a way that honors God, builds a community and helps people. And so the very first product we brought to market is a recovery cocoa blend. We wanted to create a product that was tasty, that tastes amazing. It was like a substitute for a dessert. A lot of people, tons of people, actually struggle with late night sweets. They want to eat ice cream.

I don't have a sweet tooth. I have like, sweet teeth.

Yeah, 100%.

I get it.

So that was big for us. We wanted to create a product that tasted good but used no artificial sugar. Our product's completely all natural. And like I said, it hits those main four components. Better sleep helps you with your gut health. There's a digestive enzyme blend in the product to help with your gut health, which is where a lot of diseases are formed. So people need to be very cognizant and aware of making sure they're taking care of their gut health. There's fruit powders in the product to help with your immune system, your antioxidants, and there's some collagen with muscle recovery, hair, skin and nails.

And so clearly I need more hair.

Dude, I promise you, man, it'll help you. But that's what we brought to market. And then the big thing I just want to touch on for sleep is there's a lot of sleep products out there. Where we entered and we wanted to be a little differentiate is we do not use cbd. We do not use melatonin. There have been so many studies that have come out about the negative impacts of melatonin. People have weird dreams that wake up groggy. But Andrew Huberman and. And I'm drawing a blank on his name, Andrew Huberman. And I think it was on Joe Rogan's show. I think it was the interview on Joe Rogan, but they went on and just bashed melatonin because of the negative impacts it has on your reproductive health and on testosterone and all these different things. So there's a lot going on with that particular ingredient. So we use magnesium, ashwagandha, chamomile, different things that are all natural to help your body Calm and relax. And man, the product tastes really, really good.

That's awesome. All right, so I'm sold. Like, I'm.

Let's go.

So I'm going to consume my first batch right here.

Okay.

I usually call it batch. So you're going to have to tell me, like, all right, how do I consume it? When's the right time to, you know, to mix it, take it? Like, how do you. How do you personally use it?

So like I said, the product is designed to help you sleep, to help you calm. You know, we call our calming cocoa mix. Now we kind of adjust it because.

Cocoa makes me sound like hot chocolate.

Yeah. So what's cool about it is, you know, we have a large, large demo of our audience that loves to drink it hot and make hot cocoa. So you can totally do that. You can do it in water, you can do it in a milk, either an almond milk or normal milk, or you can drink it cold. And so a lot of people drink it cold. They'll put it in a milk, they'll froth it up or blend it up, and it tastes like healthy chocolate milk. So depending on the time of year, depending on kind of how I'm feeling, I'll do either one. But the versatility of the product actually allows you to bake with it. You can make it.

Oh, that's cool.

So we have an ebook on our website where people are. Brinley, my co founder, she's unbelievable. She's so good at content, she's so good at cooking, nutrition. But she'll put it in brownies, she'll make it in mud cakes, she'll put it in pancakes. She makes some of the best desserts ever you could possibly think of with kaisers, which is cool, dude.

I'm looking forward to it, dude. I have to. I have to get Chass to take you a lifetime. Chassis is a fantastic cook in general, and I have to get her to, like, test it out.

And we'll send you. We'll send you the recipe book, too.

Yeah, no, we'd love that. That'd be awesome. Well, man, I love that, you know, most people. I'm going to talk about sleep as well for a minute because I. I didn't know this back in the day. I used to struggle with anxiety a lot. Like, I used to be a very, very anxious person. And there were three components, settings that I ran into. The first component was unresolved emotional. You can call it trauma if you want, but I had an unresolved stuff that I hadn't Dealt with, right? And you need a professional to help you kind of walk through that, right? Could be a life coach, could be a strategist, could be a counselor or whatever. But you need someone to help unpack things because that will keep the stuff just spinning in the brain. Just you're. You basically, your brain doesn't shut off because it's going in a. It's going in a crazy loop. I got crazy loops is the wrong word. But it's going in a loop. That's not helping you, it's not serving you. The second aspect of that anxiety was trying to control the uncontrollable. So I had to get to the place where I was like, really? I have no responsibility or I have no, I have no act. There's no actionable action I can take to deal with this. In other words, whatever is going to happen is going to happen kind of thing. Now I can be the best person in myself for that and kind of move on from there. The third piece was sleep. The third piece was sleep. And when I was super anxious, it was really hard to sleep.

And I had a hard time getting off that loop. Right. So, you know, if the anxiety was intensified because of the lack of sleep, but then I couldn't sleep. So then the anxiety intensified and then I couldn't sleep again. Then the anxiety intensified again and then I found myself as a kind of like shaking in the corner sometimes, you know, which is another reason why I like, I like the, I like healthy supplementation that's not going to have negative effects on the body or the serotonin or the dopamine. The things that your brain needs to function, to feel, to feel good.

Totally.

Right? You're feel, your quote unquote, your feel good chemicals in your brain, if you will.

When it comes to the product itself.

How many folks are currently using on a regular basis, what is the feedback you're getting from them? Like, are they, are they having what I'm thinking? Because I'm imagining myself. Like if I was, you know, 15 years ago when I was struggling majorly with anxiety, I'm taking this product for the first time I do it, I do it consistently, you know, three, four months later, am I sleeping better? Like, am I legitimately in a deep sleep and can get some rest? Because I know for a fact, yeah, that was a key piece of the type of anxiety that was feeling for a fact that I was not sleeping.

I'll tell you this. So I have almost an eight year old grandfather, he loves me, he believes in me. Obviously, but he takes it every single night. So you have someone, like, on that side of it who, you know, is, you know, at that point in his life, and he believes in it so much. He truly is, you know, has the greatest testimony of the product all the way down to, you know, some people are giving it to their kids, you know, at a parent's discretion and saying it's helping their kids calm down, you know, as they, you know, need to get to bed and stuff. So we have a really wide audience, you know, that kind of consumes it. But what we've seen is, you know, a lot of people say that they've maybe taken other sleep products in the past with melatonin or other things, and they switched to kaizos, and not only are they sleeping better, but the quality of sleep is really good. Yeah, we haven't done an official, like, data study with, like, whoop or something like that, which would be really interesting.

Yeah, I think it'd be kind of fun to do it now. You guys are far enough along now or. Makes a lot of sense.

I think it would be. But what we have seen is some people have done it kind of on their own and just. Just shown the depth of sleep. The quality of sleep has even increased. So not only there's a lot to look at. Sleep is kind of a complicated equation because some people are like, oh, I just need to sleep more. Not necessarily. Sometimes you need to get better quality sleep because you can be a light sleeper and get no certain types of. Because there's. Obviously there's rem. There's all these different types of sleep within your sleep cycle. But if you're not getting quality sleep, that's something that you really need to understand. And so what we've seen is that people are getting better sleep, quality sleep and feeling up, are waking up refreshed and recharged and sharp. That's another big thing. You don't want to wake up groggy. You know, a lot of sleep products will make you wake up groggy and you're kind of disoriented, you want to be ready to go and firing.

Well, that's the thing, too. I mean, if. If. If you're an elite. When I. When I refer to it, when I refer to someone being elite, meaning you're absolutely committed to your goals, essentially. Now, a good coach and strategist will help you, help you understand whether or not your goals are healthy goals and all that kind of stuff, right?

Sure.

But if you don't get the right kind of Sleep, you're not going to be ready to attack those goals and really go after it. I had, I'll tell you this morning, I got up this morning. I, you know, I've shared with you that I'm, you know, relocating and I'm on, my body's on different time zones right now. Like every time I get established to a time zone, it's time for me to go back to the other place and then I'm back in the time zone hopper and whatever. So my body's like way jacked up totally. Whereas, you know, part going into 2023, I wake up every morning at 5. I would pray and meditate to about 5, 5:30 or to about 5:30. I would then, you know, get ready in the bathroom. I'd go get my, you know, pre workout ready to go hit the gym, off to the gym, have a great workout into my day.

Recently, because of the time zone shifting, I've woken up last, probably this week specifically a little groggy because I'm like, my brain's like, what time zone am I on? You know, I went to the gym today at seven and I normally go at five, you know, so it's kind of like, you know, trying to figure that, you know, kind of figure that out. It seems to me that the quality of sleep is as important as the quantity of sleep, if not more so.

Totally.

Yeah. So I think everybody should definitely check it out.

Thank you.

It's not going to hurt anything for sure to kind of really get yourself together because again, I believe, and this is maybe something you, you can do a study on, but I, I firmly believe that one of the biggest, the biggest benefits of sleep is the reduction of depression and anxiety. I really, really believe that after being on the other side of it.

Totally.

You know, so. And I know if melatonin, for example, is monkeying with your testosterone for males.

Specifically, I don't want any part of that.

Well, yeah, no, well, not only that, your, your testosterone plays an important integral role into your sleep.

Absolutely.

Low testosterone, your mood, everything. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah. So anyway, I say all that to say they're about to check it out.

Thank you.

It's not going to hurt anything for sure. I look forward to getting my first dose if I can help myself get back on my, my time constraints here with my coast to coast travel recently. I want to pivot a little bit.

Let's do it.

So you just finished what I think is insane.

In a good way. In a good way. Like, praise God. Yeah. I.

I don't know that I've got the drive and the ambition to go through 100 miles.

I think you do.

Yeah.

If anyone does that, I know, I think you could do it, man. I really do.

Well, first of all, help me understand why and what did it teach you?

Yeah, I'll dive in that. But listen, if you ever want to do one together, I'm more than happy to pace you or take you through one.

Probably drag me with a cord.

Yeah, whatever you need to know.

But I'll be a rug pack before.

You even dive into it, man. I have to give all the glory to God because I truly and I genuinely mean this and I hope everyone believes that. I say this like, I could not have completed that race, that 100 mile run if it wasn't for the strength of the Lord.

How many days was this over?

So this hundred miles is a long way. Yeah. So we started on December 2nd at 7am Central Standard Time and I completed it in 24 hours and 58 minutes. So that took me almost to 8am on Sunday, December 3rd, Central Standard Time. So right under 25 hours of non stop running.

How are your knees and your ankles?

So, yeah, I'm recovering so everything is getting better. My feet are pretty swollen, so my ankles. You know, the very first thing that was the most, I guess painful thing that I was experiencing through the recovery process the day after was my hip flexors got really, really banged up, really fried and I literally couldn't lift my feet off the ground. So I would like drag them and shuffle them to move very, very slowly to different, you know, A to B. But if I had to sit down and like put my legs on a bed or get in the car, I would literally have to put brace my hands under them and lift them up like there was no function in my legs.

You probably took the milk, you probably took the muscles to failure, I would think.

I took a lot to failure, man. I went to some new places I've never really experienced before mentally so.

Well, help me understand why. Why did you decide to do the race? Like what were you hoping to gain out of it? And then what did you actually get out of it?

Yeah, so I met a guy. I was down at a running event, funny enough, I was at a running event in Georgia called. It was called Running Man. It's a running festival put on by a company Jesse Isler owns called All Day Running Company. Yeah, and I was down there.

I met Jesse.

Yeah, he's, he's.

Yeah, he's a good dude.

He's crazy, dude.

He is crazy.

So I think when you put. First off, I'll say when you put yourself in the environment with crazy people, you're probably gonna do some crazy stuff.

So watch your relationships, guys.

That's just something to consider. But I met a guy named Alex Hill, who's unbelievable guy, such a servant man, loves the Lord and he owns a coconut, a coconut business down in Florida. And he helps hydrate a lot of these really cool race experience. And so we just start talking, one thing leads to another and he says, hey man, what are you doing in December? And you know, I had nothing planned yet because I was at the time focusing for this challenge called Project 7, which is something I did with one of my friends who's a two time cancer survivor. And that's awesome. It's a whole nother challenge we did, which was pretty epic this year. But he was like, listen, man, if you don't have anything going on, me and a couple buddies are going to be doing this 100 mile race if you want to come out. And I was like, dude, I haven't been training for that at all. And this is like in like a month and a half. He's like, listen, if you want to do it, come on. I said, dude, I'm in. I didn't even, I didn't even think twice, dude. I was just like, I'm in and trained for about six weeks, four weeks of real training, two weeks of taper and just sent it, man. But I think it, you know, it's the 100 mile was, it was a big decision to attack that, that goal and that, that distance. But to me it's, it's the same thing as I've always done. It's like I want to be uncomfortable, I want to suffer. I think suffering is a privilege. I think the majority of people have such a negative relationship with suffering and actually run away from it. Or to me it's like, it's such an opportunity, it excites me. And so I was like, this is an opportunity to suffer and to grow and to really.

Suffering is a privilege. That is an unstoppable principle.

Dude, come on. I mean, I mean, it's biblical. It really is. And I think it's in our weakness that God's power is made perfect and his power is made stronger. And to me, I was like, man, if I have an opportunity to do this with some incredible people that love the Lord and that are going to challenge me and push me, yeah, I'm all in, dude. I'M all in to send it it.

I love it. Well, no, you know, I always find that big things like that, right. And it could be, it could be 100 mile run, it could be an iron man. It could be a lot of different things. Right. Anything that's going to really push you past, you know, going in is going to push you past your limits, no matter how much you train.

Absolutely.

Or prepare. And that could be for your first speaking gig, it could be for your first podcast. Like, it's, it's the same kind of in emotional response. I'm climbing a mountain.

Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

Okay, now it's time to go down the other side, right. Of the scary we. Right.

And knowing all of that, right. I kind of look at stuff like this as a metaphor for life.

Totally.

Right. And what I just heard you say was, is one of the metaphors that you heard was, you have to embrace suffering. You have to as a gift, not as a curse.

It's perspective, man. It's perspective. Because I think that's, it's, again, it's these, it's these little things. There's, there's a fine line. And a lot of times people don't understand how close they are to making the shift to change their life forever. And it's like, dude, the same situation, you can look at it in two ways. You can be like, oh, I have to run a hundred miles. How am I going to do that? It's going to hurt. It's going to get dark. How am I going to fuel? Like, you can start to let your mind just take over, or you can say, whoa, I know I'm going to do this. I'm going to make the commitment. This is one thing I'll tell you really quick, that I learned from Steve Weatherford that has changed my life forever. He told me, he said, and this helped me get through the race. He said, he said, amateurs make decisions on their feelings and in their emotions. He said, professionals make decisions on their commitments. And I said, dude, I said, I don't want to be an amateur. I want to be a professional. It's not meaning I'm ever going to be perfect, but it means that if I commit to something, there's nothing that's going to stop me from completing it and accomplishing it. And I'm not going to let how I feel or my circumstances get in the way of that. And I think that's really powerful and hopefully that helps some people.

Dude, I love it, man. It's crazy. We we covered a lot of ground. We covered sleep, we covered perspective, we covered suffering, we covered meaning and purpose and identity. Covered a lot of ground in a very short amount of time. Where can everybody find out more about you and kind of what you're doing, man?

I really appreciate you having me on, man. You're an incredible guy and I'm really grateful that we've been able to build this relationship and this has been a blast. But yeah, I'm on Instagram, TikTok all socials, uggelks, I've got my website, Duggelks.com and then Kaizos is K A I Z O S co. That's our supplement brand that we're, you know, we're excited about. We want to really, we really want to help a lot of people and you know, beyond just bringing really healthy products to market, we want to build a community of people that want to get 1% better. And so, you know, those are our missions, those are our goals. And with it all, man, we just want to, we want to make disciples and further the kingdom of God.

I love it, dude. Well, the cool thing is we're going to do, we're going to do all that and then some. And of course we'll put all the stuff in the show notes and you guys will have complete access to Doug and what he's doing. Really cool dude. Really cool things he's got his hands in. You guys absolutely want to follow and kind of like keep track of Doug and then engage with Doug as much as you possibly can in the meantime. Final question. What does unstoppable mean to you?

Wow, it's a great question. To end on unstoppable means to me having a mindset and a pursuit of letting nothing get in your way, continuing to press on and having a drive and a meaning to your life that is going to keep you moving forward each and every day, no matter what is stopping you or what is trying to stop you. I think it's just that it's a commitment, man. It's a choice and it's truly moving forward no matter what happens in your life.

So to become unstoppable, just simply keep the commitment you make to yourself. Love it.

Be a pro. Pros make make their decision based on their commitments, not their emotions. So you want to be unstoppable, you got to be a pro. You got to make commitments and you got to honor your commitments and that's how you grow your self confidence. That's how you grow yourself. That's how you make people around you better man.

Love it man. Dude Doug, thank you so much for coming on the show man. We'll definitely do it again. I can't wait to continue to follow your career and see all the cool stuff you're doing. Yeah there's a lot, there's a ton there and your heart to serve is immense and I know it's going to take you really really far and you're going to grow a big business because of it as well as a great big audience and community of like minded individuals that will help you scale the very heart God put in your chest. So thank you.

Praise God. Thank you so much for everything. This has been a pleasure.

I hope you liked that video and if you did make sure you check out this next video right here. And I think a lot of times when you see people who are incredibly.

Success where you think there's got to.

Be some really complicated mysterious code it's not.