266 Chris DiVecchio: The Middle Way

I think taking inventory is important for people to look back and reflect on lifestyle situations, habits, traumas. I mean, that's kind of where I've gone with helping people take inventory and being able to learn from past experiences and dissect some of the emotional turmoil that they've been through without allowing themselves to get stuck in it. There's a real skill in being able to peer back at an experience that you had and extract the value and the learning lesson from it and then moving forward with it as opposed to staying stuck in it. Right. I think sometimes people why they don't go as deep to go in and do an inventory to try to clean house is because they're afraid of what they might see and they might get stuck in that.

That's Chris De Vecchio, and this is episode 266 of Wellness Force Radio, where we discover the physical and emotional intelligence.

To live life well.

In this special edition podcast, we're talking with Chris De Vecchio, my friend and the founder of the 5x2 method and the creator of the Emergency 7 protocol. Chris is a fascinating health pro. He is a cut above. He's built his training practice on these five senses that we have, touch, sound, taste, sight, and smell. Where in his book the 5x2 Method, he actually breaks down each sense in detail to help us understand a bit more about how these senses can be used to shift our body and our mind into a positive state. That's the key, isn't it? For anything we want, for how our body looks and how our body feels, this is the key, is to shift ourself into state. You can do this as many times as you need with the tools we talk about on the podcast today. Because let's face it, as a society, we've never been more stressed than ever, which is now why it shows up in so many people in weight gain. It's why 75, over 75% of people in a recent report from the CDC are dealing with obesity and weight issues. So if you personally have been dealing with weight gain or someone you love is dealing with excessive body fat, there is a part of your psyche that knows, your soul knows deep down it's from stress. This stress is actually the cause of love handles, big thighs, extra fat in the body. The body does not feel safe to let go of the weight. So how do we do this? How do we convince the body from a psychological and physiological perspective that it is safe to let go of the weight? This episode is for you. If you've been struggling with this concept of letting go of the old weight. This is a special conversation that was recorded live at the booth from Life Aid beverage company at the National Products Expo west conference in Anaheim. It's really cool. You're going to be on the couch with Chris and I and in the booth you're going to feel like you're with us the entire time. Chris does an amazing job of explaining why he does what he does. And in this episode you're going to get a clear understanding of decades of Chris's work in the trenches working with Hollywood celebrities where he talks about the middle way. This concept we've heard from Paul Check and many health and fitness pros on the show. But Chris talks about both the emotional and the physical aspects of walking this middle path. How and when someone is looking for weight loss. All roads will lead to self love and belief patterns. And my favorite belief pattern about myself is I am worthy. I'm worthy of good nutrition. I am so worthy and so are you. This is why we partnered with Organifi to get the most powerful superfood plant adaptogens into my body and into your body for less than a few bucks a day, every single day. Because we're worth it, we're worthy. We're claiming this worthiness through these micronutrients. And and because you're part of the wellness Warrior community here at Wellness force, you get 20% off your entire cart. You can buy as much as you want. You can save on every single item group all together. All you have to do is go to Organifi.com WellnessForce and enter code WellnessForce. You get 20% off the Organifi products which they have some really exciting gut, health and brain nootropic products coming out. You know, my go to is the green red gold. Every single day, multiple times a day. Instead of coffee, I'm sipping on my micronutrients and my plant adaptogens. You can do this too on the cheap. Just save a bunch of money by going to Organifi.comWellnessForce and use code WellnessForce for 20% off. If you are not a VIP, don't wait another second.

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A Wellness Warrior vip? I'll tell you why. You can get direct access to myself and the Wellness Force team right there in your Facebook messenger. Do you have a question for us? Do you have something for feedback that you want to talk about that you were inspired by or that you thought of when listening to a podcast? You can do this. You will get direct access to me and the Wellness Force team by clicking over to wellnessforce.com VIP make sure you join us in the group. You're also going to be first in line for new announcements and special stuff that only the warriors, the Wellness warriors get@wellnessforce.com VIP now let's drop in live and in person on the showroom floor at Natural Products Expo west in the life aid booth with the one and only Chris d'. Avecchio.

You're a really well seasoned man. Like, you've had quite the career. Former actor, hockey player. There's a lot going on for you. And now you're this voice with the five by two method that's totally different than when you're playing hockey at the Connecticut. Right.

Yeah.

That's where you started to play hockey.

Yep.

So give people just a really micro story of you being the hockey player, the traditional jock.

Yeah.

Who's now gone into this head to heart connection. Way more to do about wellness than anything else. I mean, that's kind of the undercurrent of your book.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting, you know, I guess it's hard to try to condense it all down. And, you know, I'm actually still in the process of, of kind of detangling and unwinding some of the inner makings of like how I've evolved. You know, when I think back to my childhood, you know, I was raised in a very loving, supportive family. I mean, hugs and kisses.

Close with your mom.

Close to my mom. Close to my dad.

She cried when you went to college.

Yeah. Yeah, she did.

You were going out of the driveway at 25 and she cried.

She did that. That was actually going to California.

Oh, you're going to California.

Yeah, I was going to California. When I left to go to California, I was pulling out of the driveway.

Okay.

And you could just see in her eyes, she knew that my son is never coming home. I mean, who goes to California and typically comes back to the nest, you know? I mean, it's an amazing place. But. But yeah, I mean, my family was incredible, man. I mean, I was raised in a very loving family. And I. And it's interesting when I look back now and think about it, I, as a child, in a way, I almost saw myself being desensitized because I had so much love, so much affection, so much support. So I Sought out. I sought out intentionally, friends, fathers or friends, family lives that were kind of rough and tough as a way for me to somehow develop what I felt was probably. I needed some callous to get through life knowing that being sensitive and it was going to be a challenging way to kind of get through the world. And I want.

So you felt like you were sensitive as a young man. Like you felt overly.

I was overly sensitive.

Consider yourself to be HSP at that time. Like a highly sensitive person.

For sure. Hsp, That's a.

That's a psychological term.

Cubed.

Is it really?

Hsp?

I thought you just made that up on the fly. I'm like, that's genius. We can make T shirts with HSP on it.

I'm that way, too, man. This is why I was stoked for our conversation because, like, we operate in a world of service to other people in health and wellness. You in nutrition supplementation.

Yeah.

And in fitness. But coming from this childhood, where did you feel like you were a little like. Like there was a cover over?

You know, it's interesting, I'll tell you honestly, I'm only discovering this now as an adult, looking back, because I'm always. I'm still. I'm. Listen, I'm a student of life, man. I'm sol. Right. Shit out of luck. Student of life, whatever you want to call it.

Right. Yeah.

And I'm always looking back to try to just better understand me and how I. How I am, how I got to the point that I got to today in my life, and why. There is a bit of a dichotomy. Right. Because I was. Grew up playing hockey. Then I went into competitive bodybuilding.

Yeah.

And then I went into, you know, the world as an actor. And then from there took my 20 years of fitness and nutrition and knowledge and spun that into a business that takes a much different overlap and an overlay of what I consider to be more of a holistic health and wellness approach. And it's like, how did I end up coming full circle back to this? And it. I think it all goes back to the roots of how I was really raised. And I didn't know it at the time as a child, like I said, I was raised very sensitively, very. I was cared for and nurtured and told how much my parents and your mom. My mom and my dad. I love you. I love you. Was just like a regular thing in our household.

Oh, man.

You know, I mean, good on you.

That was not the case.

I mean, I could have. I could have come home with Fs, or, you know, been the worst kid on the hockey team. And my dad or my mom are like, look at our son. Isn't he. Isn't he great? He's the. I mean, this kid, right?

I was like.

I was almost. I couldn't do no wrong. And by the way, if my parents, they listen to every podcast, so when they listen to this, this will be the first time they've heard this analytical breakdown.

Oh, cool.

But again, as a child, I didn't know I was doing this. But now looking back, I'm realizing I sought out my friends, parents who had. Who. Who had provided a much tougher upbringing as a way to offset what I felt was going to be a sensitive, you know, way of carving through life.

To get, like, the contrast you weren't receiving at home.

For example, a good buddy of mine, you know, to go over his house after a workout and eat a bowl of pasta and meatballs, that was, like, one of our things to do. But I couldn't do that unless I went out back and chopped wood by demand of his father. And I thought that was, like, the coolest thing ever. I was like, I gotta go chop wood to earn my meal. Let's do it. Yeah, let's go to battle. Roll up the sleeves, like. Whereas, you know, my. My meals were. Chris, the manicotti's here. We've got. What would you like to drink? Like, I mean, it was just red carpet layout. Oh, man.

You know, it's. But it's beautiful, though, because I would say that's really rare, Chris. Like, most people, they deal with a lot of trauma. A lot of. Not necessarily physical abuse, but just trauma in general. It's interesting. Right now there's so many types of trauma that affect people, right? Like, one type of trauma being neglect. The other type of trauma being maybe that person didn't receive, like, the kind of coaching or the kind of support that they really need to succeed. Yeah, but that wasn't the case for you.

And I'm telling you, it absolutely wasn't the case. And it's interesting. And I. I think I first had this realization in my journey as an actor when I was a method actor, and I had some of the best coaches that I. That I still reach out to today. Method. Not familiar with the term method actor.

What does that mean?

So there's different types of approaches and studies that actors use. And method acting is being able to tap into past experiences as a way to draw up and recreate those same types of emotions to portray into Your character or scene or whatever it might be. So, for example, if I was crying over my girlfriend leaving me in a movie, it might. Maybe I've never had an experience of a girlfriend ever leaving me, but I'm tapping into the time when my dog died at 7 years old, and I'm. I'm drawing from that experience as a way to pull that emotion and place that on the scene of my girlfriend who just broke up with me after three weeks.

The really interesting part of that is probably what makes you a great trainer is, Is to be able to have your acting experience. There's so many people. Look at, look at Rob's story, right? Like he was a. You guys have a very parallel story. We do, but your story took a different turn because you went into being a published author, having a different lane for yourself. Like, why did you write the book, man? Like, who decides one morning, like, I'm going to write the book?

So I had. I had the moment of realizing this, like, sequence or system that I was using in my own life, and it was tapping into my five senses. I mean, I came in my acting days, you know, I had some great. Some great months, great years. And I had some years and months that were really hard and I was struggling and I had to find a way to bridge the months and years when I was struggling. And those ways were getting really simple with the things that can make me happy and bring joy. Because it wasn't going to be money at the time, that's for sure. Right. I wasn't. Since I didn't have money, I couldn't afford to take trips. So traveling and experiences, that wasn't going to be it. So it was small little victories and wins on a regular basis that were filling those gaps for me to get to the place of just being okay. Yeah. And that. So when I realized that I was using those small little inserts of whatever it might be, I was able to trace it back to its smell, its taste, its touch, its sight. It's what I'm listening to. It's my five senses. I was like, I'm using my five senses as a way to consciously drive myself in a direction and not just let my feelings and emotions go wherever they want to go and buy into that. I want to actually take control over that. So I thought at that point, I'm like, man, I'm like, I've got. I've got something here. And so I came up with that concept and I call it the five by two method, because I do it first thing in the morning, which. And then I'd also do it the last thing before I go to sleep first thing in the morning as a way to set my trajectory for my day. And last thing I do before I go to sleep as a way to set my subconscious for my sleeping hours. Because our brain is still working and functioning while we're sleeping. And so those felt like two really crucial moments to kind of bookend my day and set me up. So this was a setup, right? This is the whole thing. I'm like, I got something. The five by two method. The five by two method. And so for two, two and a half years, I'm telling people, oh, I've got this book, the five by two method that I'm writing. I've got this concept.

Oh, you were playing it up for two years?

Yeah, but I hadn't actually written it. I was just. I had intentions to, but I was just talking about it and I would share it with people. They're like, oh, my God, this is great. This is cool. It was just like a talking point, right? And then I met my girl. And of course, when she and I met, we swipe right on Bumble. By the way, that's how we met my fiance now.

Nice plug for Bumble, man.

That is Bumble. Bumble. You just got. You owe me some money.

Thank you.

Right, so we get going, and I'm using this kind of like a little brag piece. Like, talk about some things I got going on. Yeah, I got this book in the works. And so she's very direct, which I love about her. She calls me out, she's like, where's the book? I'm like, I don't actually have the book. And she's like, oh, okay. She's like, you got to write that book. I'm like, yeah, I probably should. She's like, no, no, no. She's like, let's start writing the book now. And so I took that to heart. You know, I was a little embarrassed I didn't have it. And I felt like, you know what? There's a reason why she's really forcing me down this road right now. And she came into my life at the right time. And so she and I got off and worked with a ghost writer to help us, you know, and we went on and learned how to self publish on am and within three months, from start to finish, self publishing and selling books on Amazon in three months, there.

Had to have been a big fire in you, because, like, writing a book, I don't care if it's 100 pages or 500 pages? Like, writing a book is not easy. Now, there's a lot that goes into it. What's the undercurrent of this? Like, essentially, man, why do you. There's nothing so much.

There's nothing I do that doesn't have fire and passion, you know, Otherwise I wouldn't do it. I swear. I mean. I mean that sincerely. Yeah, there's. I mean, there's days when I'm. I get to the end of my day, I'm like, how the hell did I just get through my day, man? I don't even know how I just did that or what did I even do. I'm, like, trying to, like, thank God. I keep notes of and I keep a task list of everything I need to knock out every day so I can go back through and look and see what I checked off and what I didn't. But, you know, it. I'm just. I'm just insanely passionate about my methodologies and the things that I do because not only do I feel like they help my life, but I feel like they're things that can really add value and help change and enhance other people's lives. And that's what I'm most passionate about, is helping other people find some direction that brings value back for them. I want to. I want to leave mark on this world, man. I want to make. I want to make a difference. I want, you know, I mean, listen, profit and revenue and all that is important.

And it's nice of how we make the difference.

It's nice. But what's great for me personally, what I love about what I do is that I can make a living doing something that I know is making a difference. Yeah. Making a living to make a difference is like, I don't know. I don't know if it gets any better.

Well, then don't you think really, money is. And it's a bit of a left turn, but I promise we'll come back to center. Money is a conduit. Money's energy. It flows like water. So it comes and it goes.

Yeah.

So there's so many people out there with money stories like, I can't afford a trainer. I can't eat healthy. I can't. And the subconscious mind is always listening. It's like a radar dish.

Yeah.

It's constantly listening, messaging. I'm flashing back to a time that you had where you're like, listen, when I was broke and I would, like, literally have $500 in the bank, and I was about to go to get this big movie, and they denied me. I would just remind myself that, like, that wasn't who I was. Money didn't define you at that time. What defines you was taking some deep breaths in the ocean and looking at the sun or.

Cause. Cause then it would turn into conversation. I mean, I remember talking to some of my friends who were killing it at the time in their careers, but meanwhile, they're like, what'd you do today? I'm like, oh, man. I was down at the beach. I took a nice walk. I did this hike. I spent some time.

Like, they're jealous of your.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, right? And I'm looking at them, and they're, like, frustrated about not hitting deals and they got quotas over their head. And it's like. I mean, it's different for everybody. Everybody's got different things that make them tick, make them happy. Right. But for me, what's been great about that journey that I took there was that I. What I was living at what I consider to kind of be bottom of the barrel for me, when you look at, like, financial. Right. But I was able to find peace and happiness genuinely and be totally cool and comfortable and composed.

How. How did you.

In that state. Using the tool I was talking about with the five by two and just getting simple.

Yeah.

Try redefining what I actually. And understanding and clarifying exactly what it is that I needed to be happy.

What was one of the tools that really took you there, though? We'll go over the five, but, like, what was one where you're like, okay, I'm in that moment of, like, I don't actually want to, like, work anymore. I just want to lay in bed all day. I just want to put the covers over my head. I don't actually want to do anything. Like, which one of the five takes people from laying to doing, you know.

Kind of going off the trail of the five by two. I think one of the things that I found a lot of joy and peace and comfort in was writing was because just even just sitting quietly and listening to my own thoughts and exploring and letting the stream of consciousness just go. Was. Was probably one of the most powerful tools for me, because I did. I never let it really. I learned how to control it. Right. I think that there's a lot of people out there that when they have a feeling, they connect immediately to the feeling. And they think just because they felt that, that that's what they have to feel Instead of learning how to control their mind and Take control of their emotions a little bit more and redirect it in a place that actually works more in their favor than works against them. Do you understand? Yeah.

This.

Just because practice is big, it's huge. I mean, there's a quote, there's a meme that I saw. It says, you know, what happens after you're offended? Nothing. Move on. It's like you can feel offended and then allow yourself to stay offended and then follow the chain of events that comes along with the feeling of being offended. Or you can feel offended, catch yourself and go, all right, whatever. Change. Shift my focus. Replace that thought with a different thought, and then you go a different direction.

I feel like a lot of this came from you getting rejected. Like, most actors get rejected 90%, 100%. So you had.

I was conditioned. I was conditioned to learn, keep moving forward. Thank you, sir. Can I have another?

Don't you think, in a way like that, acting training, getting denied, learning how to take it is not personal. Like, it wasn't actually that you had less talent, for sure. It had way less to do with that.

And that's not to say that I. There weren't times that I took it personally because. And still to this day, there's times that I take things personally. But what I learned, what I developed, was a skill set on not to hang out in that space too long. You know, I'm human. I'm still going to feel those things. Right. I'm not like a robot. And, like, I can shut it off immediately. I'm also, you know. What was the term? Hypersensitive.

You're an hsp?

Yeah, I'm hsp, man. Hypersensitive person. So it's natural for me to feel all the same feelings. Right. But I shorten that window because I recognize that staying in that space for that long, I call it sitting in the quicksand. Doesn't serve me.

People are listening and they're like, okay, he obviously has gone through some thresholds. Definitely.

Absolutely.

What's something that you're the most proud of when you look back on that? I mean, let's dig into the book after this. When you look back on the journey, was it building, like the cage in the back with the lumber that you got, the loan with, the friend with? Was it actually going through the acting journey and learning how to take. Rejection is not personal. Like, what was the biggest thing you got from the past?

I would say that probably to date, the biggest milestone for me is starting this business literally out of my backyard. That to me, it just resonates so hard, and it's really my sword in the ground, man. You know, it's one of those moments for me that it was a turning point in my career because it was not an easy decision for me to walk away from acting. I mean, acting was something that let's. I'll take it back and then I'll bring it back full circle. Right. As a kid, growing up as an athlete, hockey, I mean, I was on skates at five years old. I learned how to skate on double blades on a farm down the street that flooded in October and then froze over. I mean, that's where I learned. I didn't even learn, like, in a rink, right?

Yeah.

So I was raised with that. But there was always something about me that had a passion for the arts, for acting. I remember as a kid, we came out to California when I was seven years old. I fell in love with Disneyland. I fell in love with the magic of making movies. We had my parents first video camera. I couldn't let it go. I was. I was making movies on my own. I was. I would turn off the volume on the TV and I'd record and I'd make. I'd speak and create the voices or like, come up with whatever dialogue I thought the people were saying on, like, a show with two nuns sitting next to each other talking. And I just make comedy out of it. Right.

That's a cool memory.

Yeah. I mean, so there were things that I just loved the camera, but. And even when I got into high school, I was really, like, drawn towards theater, but I never engaged because there was that, I guess, kind of peer pressure as a kid. Right. It's like, are you gonna be a theater geek or are you gonna be a jock? You're gonna be that guy, you know? And like, the theater geeks just weren't as respected. And I enjoyed both, but I just never went down that road. So my first venture into theater was when I went to prep school. I did four years of public high school. I did a postgraduate year at a private school on the east coast to play another year of hockey because I was trying to get recruited to go to a better school. Doing a postgrad year at prep school is very common in the sports world on the East Coast. And so in prep school, I didn't know anybody. There was my. I was the only one there. Like, you know, my high school, I grew up with all these kids, so it was like, I'm not going near theater, but now I'm somewhere kind of safe. Where nobody knows me.

Judgmental.

I know one of them. So they're right. So there's that peer pressure as a kid. So, anyway, so I ventured in, took my first theater class, loved it. Got to college, thought about it again. But Now I'm playing D1 college hockey. I'm like, you know, I got a reputation. Like, I don't want to even go near it.

Put the acting to the side.

So the acting just. It just didn't touch it. I didn't go near it.

Yeah.

And this isn't something that people knew about me. This is just like my own inner Right. So. So then I got into bodybuilding. Bodybuilding trained into a little bit of a fitness modeling career. And so from fitness modeling got into some commercial work, and then the commercial work spawned into, hey, I can do this as an actor. And so my ability as a HSP to tap into the emotional depths of my personality became this place that was so safe as a vehicle for me to just express and tell stories and draw people in and take them on a journey. And so I saw this as like, man, like, all I've got, all these years of repressed feelings and emotions and storytelling that I want to use, and I can use this to make a living, because this is what great actors do. They take you on a journey. I'm like, this is a great place for me to do both. I can actually kind of work through some of my own personal shit at the same time. Tell a story, take somebody on a journey, and make a living out of it. How much?

I remember you saying something from a show that I heard just a week ago, and you were talking about how this repression of emotions, it actually shows up as a physical manifestation. And I've heard this from Gabor Mate, the model of the hungry ghost.

Yeah.

No matter how much food they eat, they have the distension in their belly, yet they're never full.

Right.

And I think when we look at the fitness industry, it's essentially broken and it's healing right now. I think the fitness industry is going through a healing. Like, I was a trainer for 10 years back in the day.

Yeah.

And I got caught up in the whole energy of, like, well, if I look perfect and if I have the great body, then, like, everything else will work out. Little did I know that I was working towards wellness. And that's where everyone else is working. Yeah, everybody's working towards wellness.

Yeah.

But for you in the fitness industry now, like, what's your different message? How do you differentiate yourself from fitness?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's all about how you look. But that's not your M.O.

Dude. No, not at all. I mean it's look, the, the, the how you look shows up by proxy. Right? And I think we touched on this back when, when you and I spoke about when we were going to do the interview. It's my whole philosophy on 1 verse 23. The one hour you spend a day in the gym is much less impactful than the other 23 hours that you dedicate to lifestyle, to stress management, time management, nutrition, supplementation, rest and recovery, how you're treating yourself and self talk and energy and reaction response. All of those things. And so my programs that I, that I build for my clients in my 90 day programs are all based around high level lifestyle design and not solely based on training and supplementation where a lot of the, like you said, a lot of the fitness industry is hyper focused on that. You go to any one of these fitness expos, you know, and they're trying to sell you performance enhancement supplements out the door. And look, they have their place. But I agree with you. I think the healing process right now is really trending towards showing people that people care more about how they feel now than how they look. And that's where things are going because they're recognizing if you feel really good. Yeah. 9 times out of 10 your body's gonna match that.

This is the biggest.

And vice versa, like how we feel.

It's the biggest. Report card 100. Because I love that there are, there are people that look great on the outside. But if you really get down to it, and a friend of ours, I think you know about Drew Manning. Fit to fat to fit, or maybe you've heard of his work. A friend of mine, I know Drew.

Yeah, yeah, my publisher, I used to work with his publicist.

So Drew is one of the most, I guess you could say emotionally intelligent men in the fitness space. Because he talks about his demonstration, he talks about what's really going on. Because look, everyone listening. We all have our shit.

Yeah.

And this is what I felt from you the very first time we got on the phone. I'm like, okay, this guy did not have some kind of like financially funded perfect path with like a golden staircase leading him towards success. And I really felt you when you said you were at the beach that day. And you're like, I was broke. I had $500 in my bank account and I really needed to figure out, like, how do I just have the wealth that I actually know I deserve now without it being in the Bank. But not just Law of Attraction, because Law of Attraction, there's a lot of people that talk, but there's not a lot of doing in Law of Attraction. Like, what's your take on this contrast of you being at the beach, not having the financial wealth that you knew you deserved? How did you actually call it in, man? Like, how did you use the Law of Attraction or however you want to describe it?

You know what? I attribute it more to just trusting the process. Just trusting. It was an insane amount of trust that I'm doing the right thing. I'm in the right space. For me to freak out and panic or allow myself to buy into any type of negative thought pattern I have going on right now, it's just not going to serve me. So I have options. I have choices. But why choose this? If this, if this, if going in this direction that has a much more positive outcome is just as viable as going down the direction of poverty and illness, whatever it might be? Why would I even choose that? It just doesn't make sense. Because if the one thing that I have control over is how I look and how I feel and how I take care of myself mentally, emotionally and spiritually and physically, do that at least. Okay, that costs me nothing. Yeah, I don't have to pay a cent to register and process and choose my thoughts and feelings. That's all on me. So I use a lot to be on. I use a lot of visual aids. You know, I mean, even right now, the clients that I work with, the start of every journey of every 90 day program, my clients, I have them send me one word that defines the journey for themselves that they're about to embark on. And then I have it engraved on a giving key. I'm familiar with the giving key.

No, giving them.

Giving them a plug right now. Yeah, the giving key is phenomenal. They.

Oh, it's a key on the necklace.

On a necklace. And so I send them in. So, for example, I have a client right now in Massachusetts that just jumped on board the program. His word is alive. Alive is what he's trying to, like, carry with him as his mantra through the next 90 days.

What's your word?

So in three days, in three days, he'll have a giving key showing up on his door with the word alive engraved in the key. Then he wears that for his 90 days. And the concept of giving key is when you feel that you have fully enhanced and become the word, then you gift that key to somebody else that you feel needs to embrace that message as well. So What I do with my clients, because I want them to keep that, that necklace as a keepsake. I asked, I encourage them to. To pay it forward to somebody they know and purchase them a key and find the word that might be fit for somebody else and do it that way.

I'm gonna get a key that says allow. My word for 2019 is allow.

Is it?

What's your word?

You know what? I don't know. I haven't really thought of a word for this year. Interesting. Give me. I'll have one for you.

Steadfast.

Yeah. I don't want to just throw an arbitrary word out, you know, I want to. I want to. I want to take. I want to take a moment with that because I really thought about it. My this year, really, my head has been down and I've been grinding on a. On another product that, That I created, which we can chat about at some point, but we're live. We have actually a launch party this weekend. I don't know how long you're up here in la, but if you're here, I'd love to have you come up and check out the event. It's right in South Bend and Manhattan Beach.

Well, look, if people are like you that are going to be there, they have a different mindset. And this is why I enjoy talking to you. Because your mindset when it comes to letting go of old weight has a lot of emotions wrapped around the actual physical act of working out. Like, look at the metaphor, lose weight. I got this from Sean Stevenson, actually, the model health show. People don't need to lose weight. They know exactly where it is. Like, everybody knows where the weight is. They're in the process of letting go of old weight, which has this emotional component that you touch on in the book. And I think you called it taking the Adult Inventory, which I love. We've talked about the concept of emotional inventory in the show. A bunch of. What's your take on this, the adult Inventory as it relates to letting go of weight?

Yeah. Well, I think taking inventory is important for people to look back and reflect on lifestyle situations, habits, traumas. Right. I mean, that's kind of where I've gone with helping people take inventory and being able to learn from past experiences, learn and dissect some of the emotional turmoil that they've been through without allowing themselves to get stuck in it. Right. Learning how there's a real skill in being able to peer back at some. At an experience that you had and extract the value and the learning, the learning lesson from it. And then moving forward with it as opposed to staying stuck in it. Right. I think sometimes people, why they don't go as deep to go in and do an inventory to try to clean houses, because they're afraid of what they might see see and they might get stuck in that. And so the fear of not having the skill sets of being able to go in and open up a closet and see what's in there and feel some things that might be uncomfortable and scary and have the confidence that they can just learn from that and do something different with it, moving forward is challenging for people. And that's what inhibits people from taking inventory and doing an audit.

I'm almost curious if you could just say off the top of your head, like out of your clients, if you had 10 clients, how many of those clients eventually in your process share with you something from the darkness of the closet?

Every client from the very beginning of the program.

So 100%.

100%.

10 out of 10.

My, I set my program up that way. So, you know, I thought, I don't, I don't really disclose a lot of this in my programs, but we're here, man, we're wide open, we can talk about it. My program is really a front, like the training program, Premier mind and body. It's really a front.

You're a fucking Trojan horse.

I am, man. I am. I am. Yeah, you're a trojan horse. I really am. Because as soon as I get in, the gates open and the whole army comes pouring out, oh my God.

You get, you get them with what they think they need and then you give them what will actually give them the healing.

So when I say it's a front for the real operation, the real operation is that I'm coming in and doing some massive house cleaning with you. Yeah. And through that process you're going to have, you're going to develop the highest sense of self awareness you've ever imagined or not imagined. And, and that is going to be the catalyst for why you get such amazing physical results. And so in the beginning of every program, I send out a intake sheet, a profile sheet that asks 25 questions. The first questions are, the first few are very basic and easy. So, you know, kind of fluff them up a little bit. Age, weight, high, food, like, dislikes. Yeah. You know, medical history, injuries, you know, and then I go into things like, if your adult self could go back in time, what advice would your adult self give your 10 year old self right now?

Yeah.

And it's like, boom, they just got Smacked in the face.

Do some people get a little tripped up there? Like they don't know how to answer it?

Some people say na. I'll come back and say na is not an option. Fill that out. I want to know. Like, I push people, I stretch them, because when they hit that moment in the questionnaire, and then trust me, that's. I mean, that's the easiest of the questions. I mean, it gets deeper. But I ask those questions because I want to know who I'm working with and I want to know the real person. Don't sell me on the. Don't give me the sales model of you. I want to know what's really going on and what's really causing you to have reached out to me. Because it's not the 50 pounds overweight. It's not that you don't know how to work out. And you need somebody to tell you a few exercises. Everybody can go on YouTube and Google and find out how to get a great chest workout or how to get a great leg workout or hit high intensity interval training. All right, enough of that. Yeah. Let's get down to the real shit. Why have you been. Can I swear on this?

Absolutely.

Well, all right.

I don't know. You want to bleep that out?

No, it's fine.

I mean, I cuss all the time from Boston.

Swearing is part of Boston.

It just comes out. So I'll try to. I'll try to contain myself, but I get going on this stuff. I get really heated about it. Yeah. I push people to unravel in front of me in a very safe, trusting environment because that's what needs to happen.

Through.

Through the breakdown comes the breakthrough, Right?

Yeah.

And like I said before, I think too many people are afraid to go there. So through my process, in the very beginning, I'm letting people. I'm giving people a very safe, trusting place to open up and reveal the truths of what's going on so that we can get down to fucking business and finally clean shit out. And. And that truthfully, and I say it very humbly, is why I get such great results from my clients that are sustainable. I talk to clients two, three years after they've worked with me, and they're doing even better because they've been able to maintain. And life is so dynamic, their lives are so dynamic that things have changed since we worked together. And they have figured out how to adapt and adjust to those changes based on the skill sets that they developed in my program of us working together. Now, it's not Like I'm some genius. It's just I've been able to provide them with a path and a skill set of how to learn, how to listen to their bodies and give them the knowledge of what they need to do to adapt and adjust. So, you know, so through this process of understanding who this person is, through my questionnaire, the cracks have been. Have been open. I can now see as we're working together, whether it's in person or I'm working with my remote clients, it doesn't matter. I know the cracks and where to look and where to go and where to wedge myself in there, but I do it in a way that's, you know, compassionate.

You're not like the ultimate drill instructor. Like, you're not. You're not shaming people.

I tell everybody, I'm not your parent. I'm not your drill instructor. I actually use that word specifically. I'm not going to yell at you. Here's the deal. We're grown ups. I do photo updates with my clients every two weeks for two reasons. One, because I want to use that to track and trend and measure what's going on with your body. I don't need a scale and I don't need body fat calipers to see whether or not your body is progressing. I can see through images, what your posture looks like. I can see what your body composition looks like. I can tell whether or not you've been doing your cardio or not, or you've been on your diet or not.

So you've gotten really good at looking at photos.

I analyze photos like you wouldn't. I can see it in two seconds. Yeah, okay, so that's one reason. The other reason is for accountability. We're here to develop some skill sets that you're. Most people are lacking. Self esteem, self worth, accountability, integrity. I mean, these are basic pillars that are. Are basically right, building people back to be the person they talk that talk about wanting to be.

We got their not being. We got to pause right there. Because the pillars of honesty and taking the inventory, they seem like almost too simple to be true. Or they're almost like, well, yeah, of course, if I just tell the truth in all phases of my life, then yeah, I'll get the results I want. But that is actually what deserves a coach, a mentor, somebody to walk someone through that process.

They're common. They're common words and phrases that I don't think people take seriously enough.

And the truth is in plain sight. Like, this is not a platitude. Like the Truth hides in plain sight. So if somebody's 50 pounds overweight, they feel it every day when they buckle their belt. Like that's their truth.

Well, the most interesting point of the program for me, always, it never fails, is when they have to do their first starting picture. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. I'm like, why not? Yes, Because I don't, I don't like the way I look and I don't like the way I said. Exactly. That's exactly why we need to do this. Because you've been covering up your body and you've been covering up all of your reasons why you shouldn't be doing this. Yet you reached out to me. So you know you should be doing this. So game on. Like, you gotta face your fears right now and deal with the truth of what you're really dealing with. Your physical body is not because you don't know what to do. Your physical body is because you lack the self esteem and the self worth to do anything about it.

I want to come back to self worth because that is a big one, man. Like, I would say that in the industry of weight loss, the weight loss industry, no one's talking about self love and self worth. What they're talking about is like how to lose the weight by doing this PDF guide on lunges and supersets and blah blah, blah and keto. And that's great. Like, we're all doing the best we can with the consciousness we have at that time. But what I've heard you say that I love is you talk about when somebody has a higher stakes for why they want to actually lose the weight. That's a different conversation. Because when something is at stake, there's something to actually lose. So how cool is that of a metaphor for you to unpack that?

It's great and I agree with you 100%. And I'll bring, bring that back around to the point that you were making earlier about there's being, there's a massive reform right now in the, in the health and wellness industry.

There's a healing of sorts, right?

So, so when we talk about the stakes being high enough, discipline is just a bullshit phrase that everybody thinks, like, you gotta be disciplined. It's like, no, you know what you need to do? You need to fucking care. All right? Forget about discipline. Discipline doesn't mean anything. Discipline is not a strong enough hook to keep people in it. If it was, everybody here would be walking around shredded at 8, 10% body fat because everybody's disciplined. The people who are walking around here being at the top of their game, optimal health and wellness are the people who care enough about themselves and care enough about their bodies to take care of the things that attribute to a healthy looking vessel. Right. I mean, I care about the food I put in my body, which is why I pay attention to the foods I eat. Not because I've got this insane amount of discipline. It's because when I think about putting this in my body versus that, it's because I care about what that's going to do to my body versus what that's going to do to my body. Yeah. The discipline is. Whatever.

How do you apply the model of like discipline kind of being bullshit and it's actually more about self care.

Well, because discipline. Because discipline has like a negative connotation to it.

Yeah, but how do you apply that? How do you apply that stuff? Thinking. I love this thinking.

Yeah.

How do you apply it, though, to the higher stakes model? Because they seem like they're a bit at odds where if somebody's like caring about themselves, but then there's also something of higher stake. Don't you think that, that.

Well, not necessarily because. Well, I, I hear what you're saying, but here's. I'll give you an example how they, how they go hand in hand. Because the high stake, let's say, for example, now I'm 42, 43 years old. Right.

So you look like you're 32, man. Yeah.

I mean, you're not just saying that. We're not just saying that.

I know. We're on a podcast. We're taking a photo.

Thank you, I appreciate that. But so at 43 years old, my stakes, my high stakes have become. I want to make sure that I'm taking care of my liver, kidney function. I want to make sure that I'm taking care of my heart and cardiac.

Yeah.

I want to make sure I'm taking care of my skin. I'm staying away from melanoma. Right. So that's my high stake, which is associated to how much I care, which means I'm going to pay attention to how much alcohol I'm consuming, how much stress I allow my body to absorb. I'm going to pay attention to wearing sunscreen when I go outside. I care so much that it, it matches and resonates with my stakes versus being shredded at 8% body fat all the time, which I could be doing things that are counterintuitive to my health, which is my. How much I care. Right. Things that could be hitting my liver and damaging my body in some way to hit my high stake of 8% body fat. That doesn't necessarily line up. Why do you think people.

Why do you think people stop caring?

Because I think their care is in the wrong place. They care too much about money or they care too much about what other people think, or they care too much about being 10, you know, 10 body fat for what? I mean, if you really. One of the things that. One question I love, like, and just when I'm talking to people and asking them, they're like, hey, man, can you help me get down to like 10 body fat? I just had this the other day from a guy. This guy approached me at my gym. He's training with another trainer, and he's bitching about this other guy. And I'm like, all right, man, just, you know, give me a call. It's chat. So we talk. And he's like, well, I'm currently at 14% body fat and I want to get down to 10% body fat. I said, so what happens when you get to 10% body fat? What does that do? Well, I just want to. I want to prove that I can get there. I can hear in this guy's voice, there's. There's so much lack of self worth and self love underneath the phrases. And it's not a judgment thing. I just, I get it from a very deeply compassionate level. And I tried to explain this guy in a very indirect way, like, that's not what my program's about, But I think 10%, that's a fine goal, but this is what I do, and this is where my focus is. And I think that if you focus on these things and pay attention to some of this stuff that I do, that you got a pretty good chance at getting that 10%. But that 10% doesn't come from just adding in a few extra cardio days or modifying your diet a little bit more, adding in a. A fat burner, you know, because at the end of the day, the difference between 10% and 14% is just a number and no one will be able to tell the difference. What do you get? Just like a pat on the back when you get to tell somebody you're 10% body fat?

It's like working with him.

We haven't, we haven't decided yet. He wants to, but I actually, I'm. I got a knot in my stomach, man, because, oh, I know the guy, the trainer that he's working with, and I just, I just moved my business over to a new facility. So I've been at this new facility for a month and a half. And so I'm just. I'm just getting to know everybody there. And, you know, I love everybody. This place is great. But I'll be the first one to walk up to somebody and introduce myself and be like, hey, man, how you doing? And this trainer that he works with, he's just such a nice guy. I love the guy. He's great. And this guy came up to me on the side and was expressing how he wasn't happy with his trainer and his trainer injured him. He's not really listening to him. He shows up late to sessions and I'm like, look, he's got his own issues there. But at the same time, too, I said the only way that I would feel comfortable doing this arrangement is if we both talk to the trainer and we let him know and you just explain to him that you want to try a different style and. And if we get his sign off, great. But aside from that, I'm not. I'm not going down that road. It doesn't work for me.

I love.

So we have not done anything.

I loved when you said there actually I could feel within him the lack of self love like that. To me, it's why I like talking to you, man, because that. Where you can have this intuitive sense as a super shredded guy yourself, like somebody who's known for. I think you even helped a poker player lose like 150 pounds or something in six months, which is a whole nother story. Like, you went on a media tour.

That one was crazy.

You went on a media tour for like Dan bilzerian's friend losing £100 or something. But that's. That's a separate conversation. Like, what hits me the most about you?

That's our next episode.

Yeah. What hit me the most about you is you have this sense that you've built up over time to see into people's hearts. You actually can see, like, what's the truest motivation about why somebody wants to look a certain way and how you can tap into that. Like, what about your upbringing and training actually gave you that skillset?

I'm being a hundred percent honest. I honestly don't know. I don't have a good answer for you. I mean, this is the best way I can explain it is that there's some people in life that we know that talk about like they were just. They just have a certain gift. Right. There's certain people who are born that can play a piano. There's Certain people who, you know, can pick up a basketball and never miss a shot. Yeah, people and understanding people and connecting with people and being able to see people and be able to communicate with people. It's just something that I've had, and I don't know how to explain it, but it's something that gets me out of bed in the morning. It's something that makes my day. It's something that I'm just insatiably passionate about and to be able to have context behind what I see in people as a way to help improve their quality of life and their quality of experience while they're here, whatever that might be. And everybody's different. Everybody's life experience is different. Every person I work with and the goals and what they're aiming for is different. I mean, I just. I feel so fortunate to have been able to build a. A business that can provide a life for myself and a living for myself doing something that just fuels my. It's. I don't. I'm not trying to demean it, but it's like, as easy as waking up and taking my first breath, it's like, it's that easy for me to engage and, like, talk to people and see people and listen to people. You know, there's some people who have see me and watch me work that admittedly so would say, man, I. I don't know how you do that. Like, I don't have the patience to sit there and listen to somebody talk about all their problems and this and that. It's like, dude, I love that. I'm like, that's why you're great at what you do. Then I'm like, tell me more.

Absolutely.

To keep going.

Half of being a great trainer is being a great listener. And that's actually, like, half of a great interview is listening to what someone said.

One of my. One of my favorite definitions of. Of what being a great listener is, is making sure the other person feels heard. That's what a great listener is. A great listener isn't somebody who makes eye contact and sits there and nods their head and stays quiet while you talk. But a great listener is someone who makes the other person feel heard. And, you know, and you can tell when somebody else feels as though they have been heard. And it's something that I. It's something that I do. I mean, because there's no way for me to be able to see into people or to understand people unless I'm really listen, Listening and watching and seeing. Like, when I do my consults with Clients, I'll only do FaceTime. I don't like to do phone calls, even though I can. I have the same skill set there. I prefer. I want to. I want to see people, man.

Yeah.

You know, you want to see how.

Their body reacts, how their face twitches when they talk to you.

Everything. And I want them to see me too. You know, I mean, I feel like the message gets delivered, you know, through my voice, obviously, but I don't know. I mean, I just. I'm so sincerely passionate about the work that I do. Yeah. And, you know, all the things that I'm fighting for right now and developing and con and products and programs and everything is. Is I'm. I'm trying to use these as vehicles to get on a bigger platform, to reach a bigger audience, to have a bigger impact.

What's your ultimate dream? Like, if you could snap your fingers or if you could wave a wand, what do you think that might look like at this juncture? I mean, dreams change, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can have a different dream in a year, but in. In this current moment, like, what is this current moment?

I mean, I think getting on a TEDx stage would be interesting to me. I think that'd be great. I'd love to be able to talk about some of my theories and methodologies that I have on the five by two method in mastering the art of adjustment. These are things that I talk about with my clients. My 1 verse 23 model. One of my favorite TED talks was the crow vending machine. I'm going to send you a link. This guy did a TED talk on a crow vending machine to speak about the intelligence of crows and how we view crows as just a pain in the ass. Just shut up. Get out of here. Like, they serve no purpose.

And this guy flies.

Yeah, right, exactly. And so this guy proved the intelligence levels of crows and how that if we embraced and actually took the time to study and understand crows, that we might be able to find a way to utilize them as a way to move forward in advancement in human technology.

What did you take from that? You personally, from that video, to spend.

Like, do a little research before I judge something or say no to something. Like, I pay closer attention to the things that I dismiss or the things that I say I don't like. That was really the takeaway from that. But it was really interesting. I mean, he had videos. So what he did is he set up a crow vending machine in the woods, and the crow vending machine was like a dispenser. To release nuts. But it would only release nuts if a coin was dropped into the top of the vending machine. And so he did this thing where he set up coins and the crows figured out how to pick the coins up, drop it in. It was the only. They knew that the only way they could extract nuts from this machine is if they put the coin in the machine.

Crows are resourceful.

Resourceful. He showed crows after. Once they got the nut, some nuts had shells. So if they had a shell on it, the crow would then fly with the nut in its shell to a urban environment, drop the nut on the road so that a car coming by would run it over, crack the nut. They would sit on the side of the road and wait. And then when the car ran it over, crack the nut, the shell, the crow would hop in, grab the nut, and bounce.

You have a deep connection. That's so crazy. And as I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking about. You have a very unique connection to animals. Like the eagle on your arm.

Owl. Yeah.

And there's a whole bunch else going on.

I mean, there's a whole. That's a whole story, man. This is a whole. This is the story of the first 40 years of my life right here, man.

All on one arm.

All in one arm.

But you talked about this in the book, man. You talked about how animals used. Because the 5x2 is our five senses, engaging those and doing it twice a day like humans do. Like, just like humans do.

Yeah.

And. And when I look at your arm and I think about your connection to animals, where did that come from? I mean, that's. Not. Everybody's as connected to animals, I think, as you are. You talk about the eagle having like 50 times the eyesight of other animals.

Yeah. Yeah.

What is this connection with you?

Well, I was. I was trying to use. I was trying to. I was trying to build more scientific evidence around. I mean, this is my theory, my methodology that I came up with for the 5x2 method. But, you know, anybody can come up with a theory, right? Or a method. And so I wanted to back it with some science based research. And so a lot of the science research that you find out there actually is related to animals because that's where we do a lot of our testing. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So that's where that. A lot of that came from. But I'm really big on. On symbolism, you know, in my own personal life. And that's really what my tattoo reflects, is a lot of symbolic meaning. And I put a lot of These, all these tattoos on my arm have very specific meaning as lessons that I have learned and lessons that I need to continue to keep learning because I forget. And I just need them there as constant reminders. I'm big. You know, I. Talking about the giving key. I'm big on having visual aids to continue to keep me driving and working and remembering because I forget and I need to come back home. And. And so a lot of these are all represent. Representative of different life lessons to stay connected to.

I think I connect with bears. I think a bear is like my spirit animal. People like that.

You like to sleep, hibernate, I like to hibernate. You like to eat one big meal and then go crash for four months.

I mean, that'd be fun. But I probably wouldn't be in good health if I did that. Yeah, but, but what I love about bears is they have this pillar of strength and longevity. Like nobody fucks with a bear. Like bears, they kind of have their own domain and they're very tough. They can go in cold water. I guess what I love about a bear the most, man, is their resilience. And I feel like in my life I've become resilient and I've learned about this art of resilience. And it's also the very thing that I'm learning is the very thing that I'm always teaching.

Yeah.

And that's just real. And I think you've mentioned this too, coming from a place of like, listen guys, I don't have this thing completely, completely wired like I'm doing the best that I can. So in that regard, man, like what, what is the biggest lesson that you're also learning and teaching at the same time?

Wow, that's a great question. I mean, I'll start off by saying.

That I agree with more than one.

Yeah, this, I mean, obviously, I mean there's a lot that I'm always constantly learning and teaching, but I, but I agree with that. 100. I think that, you know, one of the things that's helped me connect across several different personality types with people that I work with is the fact that I feel like I've really lived a thousand lives in my 40 something years. You know, I grew up, I was working. The first job I ever had, I worked on a farm, you know, picking corn, if you can believe that.

But I could see you with like, you know, corn husks. Yeah, yeah.

I mean I was. I'd have to put on a rain suit at 5 in the morning and I grab a burlap sack. And I would walk backwards and my job was to count the ears of corn as the guy was running towards me, just ripping them off the stalks and burying them into the bag. And there was a hundred, a hundred ears of corn per bag. So I have to count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 as he's throwing them in there. And then we drop the burlap sack of 100 and I'd run back to the truck, get another bag and we just keep on going. And then, and then we go back through the truck and load them back up into the truck and we've got a hundred bags of 100 years of corn in each bag, taking them back to the farm stand and getting ready for distribution. I was 11 years old. I mean I was a kid. I was working at 11. You know, then I've worked in, in fast food restaurants. I was a head chef at this pizza delivery place. And I was the delivery guy too.

Oh wow.

And then, you know, then I went and graduated college and I worked in. I was selling telecom. I was selling voice and Internet telecom solutions to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And I was doing residential door to door sales. My first sales gig, I was selling phone, cable and Internet door to door in residential neighborhoods. I'd get a stack of 500 addresses and I would literally knock on a door and say, hi, my name's Chris, I work for rcn. Are you interested? And so I developed a way to best optimize that process. People were gone during the day, most often at work. And so what I would do would go to Kinko's and print out my whole sales pitch on the most obnoxious neon colored paper you could imagine. And I would paper every single door in the neighborhood. And then I'd start getting phone calls at like 4:35 o' clock because they couldn't avoid reading the paper. And I just start booking appointments left and right before you know it. That was, that's, you know, I was.

Closing deals left and right, one lesson after another. But now from the platform that you have now, like what, what's your biggest lesson that you teach and that you also learn?

Yeah.

What is that for you?

I would honestly, I think I would have to say it's two combined. It's patience and trust, you know, and that goes back to what we talked about, about being able to. How was I able to transition and feel so comfortable at that stage of my acting career when I was struggling was because I was trusting the process. And I was also patient. I mean, I really genuinely believed that I was going to break into the industry. So when I heard 15 O's in a week, it was like, okay, it's happening for a reason. You know, I was never fair weather with the whole everything happens for a reason. You know, I genuinely subscribe to that philosophy. So therefore I. That means you have to accept the good with the bad. So when. When things aren't going your way, if you genuinely subscribe to everything happens for a reason, it's all good. Yeah, it's all good. It's happening for you.

How about things happen for a reason and you're the one that chooses the reason?

Yeah.

It doesn't have to be the world choosing the reason.

See, I like that because that actually it gives you a sense of empowerment. Because, you know, if you choose the reason, then that means that you actually have control over it versus this is something that's happening to me.

I'm going to go to a place with you that I feel. I feel it's going to be really fun.

Here we go, baby.

And it comes from like half my spiritual side. I feel like we're half spirit, half beast. Right. You've mastered the art of being in your beast, like the physical self. The spiritual self, though, is a completely different skill set. Do you implement, and if not, that's fine. But I'm curious how you implement the spiritual side of just this life that we're all living into. The training side, the beast side. Do you implement spirituality at all with clients, or is that more reserved just for you?

No, I do. I mean, I guess it's funny, I'll use like a phrase with clients to kind of get to that level of what you're talking about where a client will come in really hot. You know, I'm big on like energy. You know, I tell clients, be aware of the energy you bring into the room. But a client will come in super hot and really quickly. I'll let them get it out, vent, say whatever they're saying. And then I'll say, do you realize that we're like just a speck of sand on a speck of dirt floating around in spit? Like, I try to just like deduce it to like, it really doesn't.

What am I angry about?

Doesn't even matter, dude. It doesn't even matter, you know? Yeah. And you know, I'm human again. Like, I let things hit me and I'm not perfect by any stretch, but because I've used a lot of those approaches and systems to help bridge me through situations, the time I hang out in that space is this. I have my business partner who's here floating around. His nickname for me is Glasses Half Full Chris. Like, glasses always half full, man. Like, I can't just let him have a moment. He's always. I've always got to be like, yeah, but, you know, it could be better, you know?

Sure.

That's just naturally what I gravitate to.

But devil's advocate, you also have the skill set to go to the dark shit if you need to. It's not. Sure you're not talking about spiritually bypassing. For sure. Oh, good vibes only. It's like, for sure. That does.

Not at all. No, I mean, I gratefully allow myself and willfully allow myself to go to those dark places because I know that that's where a lot of the information. The answers are. Yeah, right. The information. The answers from. They don't just gloss over you and, like, jump in front of your face like Google Glass, you know? Like, you got to go explore that stuff. I mean, for me to figure some things out from my childhood, it didn't just pop up for me. I had to, like, go back in time and look at that. I had to realize, like, wow, my issue as a child was that I had too much love. I had too much love. It was. I was too soft as a kid. And so I.

Is that really a thing, though? Too much love? Can that be a thing?

For me, it was. But you know what? You know why? You know why that was a thing for me? Because it set the bar so high for love that if I wasn't being loved to this level, it didn't feel like love.

Oh, your love meter was like, you.

Know what I'm talking about? And I realized that through early. Early relationships in my, you know, my early adulthood, that. That these girls that I was dating and spending time with, I mean, they were loving me the best that they could and as hard as they could, but it wasn't matching the level of love that I was conditioned to feel as love, so it didn't feel like it to me. So I would abandon relationships and walk away because I'm like, you don't love me enough, or, like, it didn't feel like love or you don't care or. But really, it was. It's. It's different. And so that's where the. Too much love, you know, I wouldn't change a thing. By the way, looking back on my. I would never go back and change a thing with that. Yeah, but that's When I think about where some of my struggles or issues in. Because I've had challenges in relationships, you know. Yeah. That's where I feel that I kind of had a little bit of a gap was that the love for most people is not as high as I was raised with. So that, that threw things off for me.

There's another.

But now that I have the awareness of that, it allows me. It's kind of like the, the, the book of the five love languages. Right. It's like understanding each other. It's like, like my fiance right now, you know, she's. She's acts of service, you know, that's one of her love languages and how she gives love. Right. But her, her receiving love language is quality time spent. Right. So. So she'll do things for me and buy things for me and, and whatnot. In her way. That's her loving me. But my love language is words of affirmation. I need to hear. Thank you and I love you so much. I want to be acknowledged. And so. But because I brought that, I read that book 12 years ago and so I brought that into a lot of my relationships since that book to where I want to us to be able to have communication around this so we better understand each other. I'm not saying that your love language has to be the same as mine, but if I understand that your gifts, your love language is gifts. But I'm giving you words of affirmation. I know that I'm going to give you combination of what is natural for me, which is going to be words of affirmation. But I also know in order for you to feel love, you need gifts. And so I'll find ways to bring that to you. Or I'll say, you know what, I'm not really into that. That's not really a love language that I want to work with and I'll bounce.

Yeah.

But I've got that knowledge and I can make decisions and I have choices, which is empowerment.

This is the ultimate self awareness practice, man. The five by two. Just meeting you is like, hey, this whole thing is about who am I really.

Yeah.

Right. So the spiritual element's always there if we want to look at it or not.

Yeah.

How do you think this is going to grow, man? This. Do you want the five by two to grow or do you want you as a brand to grow? Like what do you actually want?

I'm trying to grow me as a brand. There's a lot of other things that I'm doing. Like I talked to you. I Told you. Can we talk about some of the stuff that I got going on?

Right, absolutely.

So there's a program that I developed called E7. It stands for Emergency 7. It's a seven day protocol to help people drop weight by their target date for a specific event like a wedding.

In a healthy way.

In a healthy way.

Okay.

That. Well, that's what I was going to get to is that. Yeah, you know, people talk a lot about, you know, the magic pill or the magic bullet, right. Everybody, whether you've been training for three months, a year, or whether you're a last minute person where it's like, I've got a wedding coming up or I'm going out to a Vegas pool party, I'm going on a vacation. The seven days before your event are always critical for everybody because you're doing something to tune your body up to get it dialed in for that event day.

Right. Those people are probably doing it wrong.

That my point is that most people use risky maneuvers and starvation tactics, whatever it is, right. They feel like they don't look the way they want to look when they come into the event. Their bathing suits are falling off them, their faces are gaunt, they have no energy. So I took a kit and developed this kit. It's got three supplements in it and I've got a 22 page program that I break down the science of how it works, why it works. And it's a seven day dog detailed program to give you the step by steps of how to get there that incorporates nutrition training, supplementation, and then there's a water loading and a water cutting technique incorporated in there to show you how to properly lose weight and look and feel the way you want to look and feel for a specific event. And so when I talk about the magic pill, because there's loads of stuff out there that's last minute, lose weight in five days. The magic pill is knowledge. The magic pill is information and knowledge and knowing what to do and how to do it safely and effectively. And that's why I developed this kit which fully aligns with who I am, what my brand is, what I do with my 90 day clients. And I stripped it down into what I found to be a need at which I discovered through a lot of people that I've worked with, with my own personal clientele. They've got weddings coming up, I got a vacation. What can I do in this last week I'm supposed to be dieting for. I haven't been. I'm like, great, this is what I want you to Do. I'm like, there's a massive need for this, man. But I want people to do it safely and I want to make sure that they're doing it effectively.

Where do they. Where do they pick that up? Do you have a specific.

Yeah, emergency7.com. And that's what the. And that's what the program this is. I'll show you what this is, what the kit looks like. So when you order the kit, this is the box. It's a nice, beautiful, soft touch box, kind of like an apple out of the box. It's great. It comes by, they're gonna bring it back.

I have a photo of this on the show notes page.

But these are the supplements that come with it. And this is the 22 page booklet that you take off. And when you open it up, we got a. When you open up the box, got a nice little quote in there, get you fired up.

It's time.

It's time, baby.

It's always time, isn't it?

It's always time.

What time is it?

And the supplements are being. Yeah, the time is now. And the supplements are great because they're all natural. They're herbal. They're herbal based supplements. And they're designed to help support metabolism. They're designed to help act as a natural diuretic, to help extract more water out towards the very end of the seven days, and also to help increase energy and mental acuity and brain function. So these are things that they're not risky type of fat burner type of products or performance enhancement. This is something that I'm trying to do to help solve a real problem. If people are being honest. This is a very vulnerable conversation for people of what they do to get ready for something like this. People don't like to talk about it, but people are doing it. So let's do it safely.

Yeah, let's stop the eating disorders and the body dysmorphia and wearing.

Wearing sweat, you know, sweatsuits or whatever, plastic bags and sitting in a sauna for five hours.

Really what this is, man. What I feel like this E7 and just you as a force of wellness. That's kind of how I see you, man.

Like, you're.

You're a true force of wellness. Like, and I love why you're on Wellness Force, where we explore this physical and this emotional.

When Rob connected us and I saw that, I'm like, this is exactly where I need to be right now.

It's been a joy to talk with you, dude. And I'm really excited to have people dig into your work, because this is 2019. It's not going to get any easier to let go of weight. And I would even say I would challenge the people listening. If you want to let go of old weight, it's time to do completely different things. When you look at the darkness of yourself, the emotional intelligence of yourself, because doing the old adage of diet and exercise, it's not going to work. It's not going to work at all.

It's teaching people how to rewire a whole new way of thinking, acting, being, and doing and getting away from their old stories that they have and their old stories that they have about themselves.

Ain't that the truth?

Yeah.

So then this new story. How do you define wellness for not just you, but for people listening? The last question for you is. It's this intersection of the physical and the emotional. It's. It's wellness, man.

We're all here.

We're all. We're all trying to live our life well. Yeah, that's what everybody's trying to do, is live their lives.

Yeah. I think I see wellness as. As how do you talk to yourself? What is your self talk like? Because when your self talk is. Is in a positive space and not. And that doesn't mean, like, occasionally you don't, you know, talk shit about yourself or, like, have those conversations or negative thoughts. But 90% of the time, you know, you're waking up, you're feeling good about the person that's reflecting back at you in the mirror. You're feeling good about the decisions you're making in life. You're feeling good about the way you treat people and the way people treat you. You're feeling good about the way your body's functioning and moving. You know, that to me, is wellness, you know, because when you're doing those things and when you're paying attention to those things and if all of those are elevated, you know, 8 out of 10, the body shows up. It's not the reverse to our point. Right. There's plenty of people who are walking around that look like tens and feel like twos. So what's the point? Yeah, what's the point? That's a short Runway.

That's a beautiful way to end the show.

That's a short Runway, man.

Let's make the life we live have a long Runway. That's not based on exactly how we look book. It's how we feel. It's like, what's going on upstairs? What's the self talk? The self narrative that really is going to give us this continued life of wellness. So thanks for coming on the show.

Hey, man, it was an absolute pleasure. I've been looking forward to this since January, so it's been a minute. Yeah. Yes. Next time we do it in Thailand.

Thanks for meeting me here at the expo.

Pleasure.

And also huge thanks to Life Aid.

For having life a big what up. Thank you so much.

Thanks to Aaron.

And check these out where they're selling. Where? In Whole Foods.

He said, yeah, Aaron, where do we.

Get life a whole Food sprouts, Walmart. You got to try these, man. They taste great. The ingredients is all natural.

Really good. The one I'm, the one I'm drinking has valerian and chamomile. That's why it's been such a chill conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yes.

All right, guys, we'll talk to you soon. And we're talking about this more in the Wellness Force group. So Chris is going to be having all his resources on the page as well as wellnessforce.com forward/group. So we will talk to you soon. But until we do, I'm wishing you love and wellness.

Hey, my friend, thank you for hanging.

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