Palm Harbor Local
Welcome to Palm Harbor Local—where we celebrate the heart and soul of our community by sharing the stories of the incredible small businesses that make Palm Harbor thrive.
Hosted by Donnie Hathaway, a Florida native, real estate expert, and passionate community builder, this podcast is all about Building Community—connecting people, businesses, and ideas that shape our town.
Each episode, we sit down with local entrepreneurs, business owners, and changemakers to dive into their journeys—the dreams that sparked their businesses, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the impact they’re making. From brand-new startups to long-standing local favorites, we uncover what makes these businesses special and why they matter to the community.
Whether you're a fellow entrepreneur, a proud Palm Harbor resident, or someone who just loves supporting local, this podcast is your inside look at the passion, dedication, and creativity fueling our local economy.
Because strong businesses build strong communities.
Join us as we shine a light on the people behind the businesses, share valuable insights, and inspire you to engage, support, and grow alongside your community.
Subscribe now and be part of the movement to Build Community, one story at a time.
Palm Harbor Local
How to Take Control of Your Health and Your Time
In this episode of Palm Harbor Local, host Donnie Hathaway sits down with local fitness entrepreneur Nick Nicholas, founder of Naturally Driven Fitness. Nick shares his inspiring 23-year journey in fitness, from training for high school football to building a thriving health business right here in Palm Harbor.
Nick dives deep into:
- Why personal training alone isn’t enough—and what actually helps people transform
- How he simplifies health and fitness with full-service solutions (meal plans, workouts, accountability, supplements & more)
- His honest take on the supplement industry and how to spot high-quality products
- The mindset shifts that turned him from employee to unstoppable entrepreneur
- The impact of 75 Hard, time management strategies, and how he balances ambition with family life
- Why failure became one of the best things that ever happened to him
If you’ve been struggling with consistency, direction, or motivation in your fitness journey—or you're a fellow business owner looking for that extra edge—this episode will fire you up and give you tangible tools to level up.
🔗 Connect with Nick
Website: naturallydrivenfitness.com
Social Media: @naturallydrivenfitness on all platforms
Stroll through the laid-back streets of the Palm Harbor community with this informative podcast, proudly brought to you by Donnie Hathaway with The Hathaway Group, your trusted guide and local expert in navigating the diverse and ever-changing property landscape of Palm Harbor.
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Welcome to Palm Harbor Local, where we bring you inspiring stories from the heart of our community. I'm your host, donnie Hathaway, and today we're joined by Nick Nicholas, who's the owner and founder of Naturally Driven Fitness. Now our show is all about celebrating those who've put in the sweat, overcome the hurdles and still find time to give back to the community. If you want to be inspired by how they got started, what keeps them going and what they're doing to make Palm Harbor even more awesome, you're in the right place. We'll also talk about his nutrition tips to maintain a healthy lifestyle and what he loves about his career and the impact that he's making. Now be sure to follow us on Instagram at palmharborlocal for behind the scenes content and join our weekly newsletter at palmharborlocalcom. Let's go meet Nick. Newsletter at palmharborlocalcom. Let's go meet Nick.
Speaker 1:Nick, welcome to the podcast. All right, thanks so much for having me. Round two. So, like we were just joking about, we recorded a couple of weeks ago I think three, three weeks ago now, okay, and my batteries died died. So I've since upgraded, plugged everything in. We're good to go. Greatly appreciate it. Yeah, this will be the last one, but you can always we'll come back. Right, we can always do more. But um, yes, sir, so naturally driven fitness, that's the name of your company. What do you guys do?
Speaker 2:there. So what we do is basically put all the things together that someone needs to lose weight. So we're putting your meal plan together. We're putting your workouts together accountability, habits, recipes, everything that someone needs to do to get in shape, whether you're building muscle, losing weight. We're putting it all together, even supplements. We've got meal prep providers. So I wanted to solve all the problems that an individual has to go through when they're first starting out lifting weights and make it easier process Cause I realized personal training is great, but when I was at gyms back in the day 10 years ago, all we really did was the workout. But I realized there's so many other problems that the person has to go through to really get the success that they're looking through. So we wanted to make it easier, solve all their problems for them. Uh, quick, easy plan. Show up, do the work, wash and repeat and get the result that you desire.
Speaker 1:How long? How long have you been into fitness yourself, and then how long have you been training?
Speaker 2:Okay, I've been lifting for coming up on 23 years, so I started when uh going into high school at 14 for football workouts got into it started seeing difference in my body. I wanted to get better for the sport. That was the first kind of objective bigger, stronger. Wanted to get better for the sport, that was the first kind of objective bigger, stronger, faster. Everyone's kind of heard that.
Speaker 2:Um then, as far as training, been training now for uh, almost nine years- okay we've been at our one location in palm harbor off us 19 near clausterman there for six and a half years now okay, and how long have you had?
Speaker 1:how long have you had naturally driven fitness? Has that been nine years or you started elsewhere?
Speaker 2:Started that. That's going to be about eight and a half years. Okay, yep, I was an independent contractor at a gym, uh, doing that whole deal, but deep down I always wanted to run my own show do my own thing, my own marketing, and took about two years to build up the clientele. Okay, this is working, let's go ahead and go do it.
Speaker 1:Is that typically how trainers get started? Is working at a gym, out of a gym.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, definitely. I think it's important, for if you're getting into the industry, to go see what it's like, you meet a lot of different people, learn the systems, learn what it's like being in the gym and the things you have to do. Um, basically, I did it to get paid, to get education, so I like to basically go study up, see how it was okay, what are the things that they do? And then I started crafting things in my head. What can I do better?
Speaker 2:what can we do to make this easier? They don't do this. We can do this, and that's how we set it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah did you, did you always want? Was the intention always to like start your own business, like once you got into training? Yeah, definitely yeah I'm unemployable. I say yeah, yeah, so I've been through the corporate jobs back in the day again.
Speaker 2:Good sales training learned a lot of different things. I've been a Hertz car manager, stuff, a GNC store manager, so the supplements I was trying to get back into the health and fitness I was like, all right, let's do GNC. Sitting in a store for 40 hours a week Gets kind of boring, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I learned a lot about supplements right.
Speaker 2:Uh yeah, I was out at Eastlake that one was pretty busy, okay and then rose to the ranks and then I was like, hey, can I transfer to Tarpon? And then right now GNC as a company is not doing that good, so Vitamin Shop is kicking their butt.
Speaker 1:But that's a whole different story. But.
Speaker 2:I learned a lot about supplements, all the funny games that supplements play, the industry plays. They don't put enough dosages of certain things, so I just got to learn a lot and it helped me with what I do now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about that a little bit. What's your take on supplements? Like, are they important? Should we all be taking supplements of some kind, or does it depend on that individual?
Speaker 2:So I think everyone should be taking some type of supplements, because if you're not having the perfect diet, we're not filling in those nutritional gaps and we're going to have deficiencies in vitamins and minerals Other things. If we're working out, we want to recover. If you're too sore from youray workout going into the next day or wednesday, you're not going to push it as hard. So then you start to get relaxed and not push it and that's not going to make the body adapt and change quicker, because now you're not pushing as hard because you're sore. So I definitely think the tried and true ones creatine, branched chain, amino acids, whey protein isolate um, I take pre-workout.
Speaker 2:Some people don't like caffeine. You can go stimulant free, but beta, alanine, taurine all these things are going to increase endurance, uh, bring up your aerobic capacity, meaning that we can go a little bit harder, a little longer, so we can get a little bit more out of each workout and improve your performance. Different things will help you focus. So, um, yes, but the problem with the industry is they'll put the key things in there, but not enough dosage of it to actually give you the effect, because they're trying to save money on the margin. So they'll have all the key things, but not enough. So, like what would be an example of that? Uh, different pre-workout. So, okay, they'll give you, you know, creatine monohydrate. The superior form is going to be creatine HCL less bloating, less watery tension. Uh, less of it is going to get. Uh, you need less of it to get a bigger effect.
Speaker 2:Um, so back in the day I did monohydrate, but you had to, like, preload it for a few days to get in your system, and now they came out with HCL, which is way better than creatine monohydrate. But, getting back to what you're saying, they're just putting the keywords on there, but they're not giving you effective dosages of these different things. So, like the whey proteins, there was protein spiking, where they were tricking the different companies checking their products. They were putting nitrogen in it to spike up the protein levels, and the muscle farm got caught for that Hundreds of millions of dollars. They got in a lawsuit over it. They were tricking the customer hey, it's 25 grams of protein. It really wasn't, though.
Speaker 1:Not cool.
Speaker 2:So I like to stick with companies that are going to be no artificial dyes, no artificial sweeteners.
Speaker 1:If we're going to be taking this every day, we want it to be healthy yeah, so that, and that was kind of like what my you know, my, my thought behind it is it's like yeah, like what you know, how do you verify what's in it? And I've seen that more often now, where it's like the third party testing.
Speaker 2:Yes, like there's other right informed I think, yes, yeah, like if you're, uh, someone that's a competitive athlete, a ufc fighter or something like that, and they're going to be testing you, you want to make sure the supplements you're putting in your body are certified so you don't get in trouble. For I think doping they call it. Yeah, sometimes people, uh, these top athletes, boxers they are not paying attention and they take something. They go take their blood tests and if it comes up anything, they'll disqualify them, like Ryan Garcia that was one that came up. Did he do it intentionally? Did he not know who knows who really cares? If you're going to be getting tested, let's be smart. Let's make sure what we're putting on our body is tried, proven, researched. It's not some new thing that came out. We want to make sure that this has been studied, research and proven to work yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So supplements are okay, definitely, and is can you can some clean? Supplements, clean supplements yeah can someone have like the perfect diet where they don't need supplements, or that's. That's pretty challenging if if you're like working out, exercising right.
Speaker 2:It's. It's just going to be really hard to get all those vitamins and minerals in the perfect diet no one's got a perfect diet.
Speaker 2:I don't have a perfect diet, and if you're really trying to go after it and you're an athlete or you're really you're going to bodybuilding show or you're a runner. These, these things are going to make a big difference in the way you feel, the way you recover and how you're going to perform on your race day. So I definitely, even if you're my diet's pretty tip top, but I'm still taking a good 150 worth of supplements every month, so I wouldn't keep taking it for the over the last 15 years if it didn't work and I wasn't feeling a difference and seeing the gains.
Speaker 2:What supplements do you are key for you.
Speaker 2:Protein obviously right. Yeah, protein, a clean one, right, we want to make sure. I like to take something that's pure. I don't want sucralose, I don't want gargum and stuff, these different things, emulsifiers to get the consistency right, the taste. I don't want artificial anything. So now the brands are getting better at that because they're watching the market shift. But, uh, so way, isolate a pre-workout just gets me in the zone, helps the pump. This. Uh, citrulline, it's going to like release, open up the blood veins. So can think of it like a US 19 traffic. We're all blocked up when we take citrulline. It's going to clear like a us-19 traffic. We're all blocked up when we take citrulline.
Speaker 2:It's going to clear the road for you and we're going to get all the nutrients of the muscles faster so you can feel better and perform better with your reps. Get more reps, um. So what else? Fish oil, probiotics, okay. Multivitamin, joint health, post-workout recovery. So amino acids, creatine, betaine, it's all in one powder.
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Speaker 2:Go to right now that's clean. Yeah, unmatched. So it was. It's Chris Gethin's company. He was with Cage Muscle. They had a falling out. They wanted to change formulas. Dirtier products, he said, said, forget it. He launched his own company. Yeah, and uh, it's called unmatched. So no artificial colors, dyes, no artificial sweeteners. Tried and true uh. Supplements are in there that have been backed in research and even newer ones that are coming out that are showing a lot of promise that, uh, they're. They're kind of the cutting edge right now. Yeah, so probably most people probably haven't heard of them, but they're in vitamin shop and I like Unmatch. Their pre-workout's good, I like the protein, so it's a good brand, definitely something to look at and compare to, maybe the brand that you're already taking.
Speaker 1:Like when you started training, what was it like? Um, did you start with? Like all the stuff you have now, you know, um, supplements and the, the nutrition and all that did you? Did you do that from from day one or?
Speaker 2:so day one was basically probably some creatine monohydrate. I heard all right, this is tried and proven for the last 50 years, try that. Uh. Then a whey protein. It was probably whey protein concentrate. That's a lesser form. They say that it doesn't have that big of a difference being the pure isolate or the concentrate, as long as you're getting something in it's rapid absorption, get into the body quicker. Like, uh, I told people they're like, oh, I'll just eat a meal after. I'm like, yeah, you're going to have a meal, but this protein is going to get in your bloodstream a lot quicker, lot quicker. It's going to start the recovery process faster than the food which is going to take three to six hours to digest.
Speaker 1:So that's a lot longer process.
Speaker 2:We want to get this going quick, so we want to replenish that as well as glycogen carbohydrates. So after the workout you're going to be depleted. We want to get some carbs in. There's different carb powders you can do. They call it dextrose the superior form is going to be cluster dextrin. It doesn't spike the insulin so of your body, so it gives you a better response. We don't want to spike the insulin too much because it will make you store more body fat.
Speaker 1:This is a superior form.
Speaker 2:It's more expensive. A lot of people aren't using it in the companies and stuff because it's more money for them to make it. They're sticking to what's cheapest. So these are just little clever things, but for the most part I would say just protein and uh, creatine was the beginning phases, when I was a probably 15 years old started yeah, yeah, so and I think that's what I I've been doing like creatine daily, um, and then protein like right up.
Speaker 1:So when you have protein, like after a workout, like you're done with the workout, have a protein.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right away. Yeah, I mean they talk about this anabolic window, I think. As long as you get it in within you know hour, you're fine, okay, yeah yeah, and then I so the the um carbohydrate thing.
Speaker 1:I've been taking G1M sport like BPN supplements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think they actually have cluster dextrin.
Speaker 1:I know I'm familiar with them, so yeah, yeah, they're using the better formula as far as the carb source.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to replenish you better, um, and it gives you like sustained energy better. So, like if for a run, the cluster dextrin shows is very promising. I've actually been researching it a little heavy. They showed they had like seven swimmers use water at blind test. So water dextrose and the cluster dextrin. The cluster dextrin showed 70% better results and the swimmers didn't know, they didn't tell them. So that's huge Wow. So I found out about that about maybe 10 years ago and I use it on my runs, um, when I'm really locked in for like a 5k coming up and uh, it's a big difference yeah, what about like, like, like, working out?
Speaker 1:so I like to work out in the morning, like first thing in the morning. Are you eating? I mean, especially if you're like waking up and then jumping into a workout, like basically as soon as you're up and dressed and stuff. Yeah, are you eating something before Should?
Speaker 2:you be eating something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. Yeah, Uh, can you? So I've been taking like the like the G1M sport Before Before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's at least it's giving you some carbohydrates and what electrolytes do I think? What electrolytes do I think? So, yeah, yeah, um, so that's good. At least you're getting some kind of form of energy to get going, because I know a lot of people in the morning they're not prepared or they're not hungry. Um, I think you'll feel better. Um, like the owner of the company, you'll see, he, he's access food in his truck and, yeah, he's, he's doing it and he performs well, he's a good runner, yeah but yeah, I would say I would want to eat something, definitely because we're fasting through the night, we're sleeping, the body's recovering, you didn't.
Speaker 2:You can't eat while you sleep and unless you, you're special, so when you wake up or fasted. So we want to get some fuel in the tank so we can go perform better. Now is it easy? No, but I think as long as you're getting something in like it could be as easy as uh, depending on what we're doing right, I'd say for weightlifting we could do a protein shake and a bagel and you're on your way.
Speaker 2:Okay, some protein before protein and carbs yeah, so we're getting something and so we don't have to cook eggs or something. Yeah, if I need a fast protein shake bagel, let's roll. Yeah, because the bagel is going to be a good 40 to 50 carbs. We've got enough energy for that part. Get the protein in and you're done so. When clients tell me I don't have time, okay, do this.
Speaker 1:This takes three minutes yeah, and if you tell me you still don't have time before, you just don't want to do this. So there's.
Speaker 2:I can pretty much get rid of everyone's excuses because I've been doing this for a long time and give you strategies to solve all the problems, but really they're excuses, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I heard someone. We were talking to someone recently and it was like you'll find time if it's important to you, Definitely.
Speaker 2:What's your priority? What are you spending the most time on? Look at that in your life and you can start to really hone in on someone and what they're really all about. If you're always spending time at the bar, okay, you know, so it's. I think that's self-awareness. Some people like the. I always tell people I want to put a camera on their head and watch what they're doing, cause they say I've got no time. I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. Time, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy. I'm like okay, I don't know if I believe you, because I got three kids running the business and running a business as you know, is 24 7.
Speaker 2:I'm getting all my workouts in. I'm on 75 hard right now, so that's two workouts a day. That's a whole nother talk, but there's time for it if you really want to do it yeah, just cut all the other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not important yeah, there's there's time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how are we using our time?
Speaker 1:That's huge and I feel like that's something I try to focus on often. But so often it's too easy to get caught up in just being busy and not being efficient with your time and stuff, especially when it's just you and you're holding yourself accountable.
Speaker 2:Would you say that people are like because it like everyone. Hey, how are you? I'm just super busy, super busy. It's like it's a competition or something like. How busy someone is like, yeah, I'm just busy, I'm just super busy, I'm like, no, you're just probably inefficient yeah, I think there's a lot of that.
Speaker 1:I think I think some of that there's no reward for how busy you are.
Speaker 2:I'm trying trying to be effective and efficient. Yeah, I don't care how busy you are. Maybe you are. I've met some clients that they really are super busy, but there's somewhere in there they could tighten up, and they know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cause. That's why they hired me.
Speaker 1:And I think too, like some, like the, the mindset around work and like you know, um, working hard and that sort of stuff, like you know, that's taken to the extreme sometimes and I think that's where that comes in, where people are like, oh, I'm so busy and that's like a pride thing, like I have so much to do and I have this busy life or whatever. But you know, finding balance in life, I think that's been like a more really since, like post COVID, like that, that um, like getting more sleep right and I and like how important sleep is for super important yeah, and and finding balance in work and life and all that kind of stuff, and people have kind of like backed off the the busy thing. But, um, yeah, I feel like that we all myself included like there's always things you can do to be more efficient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and going back to kind of what you said about balance, I don't know, there's not really. There's some balance, but that's not going to be this perfect balance of everything every day and it's different, and it's different seasons yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like right now, I'm going hard right now and in a couple months maybe it lightens up a little bit, but I like to stay busy because if I stay busy, stay out of, and I'm not talking about any bad trouble, but, like I'm just want to be, I'm very locked into my goals and I'm turning 37 coming up here in a couple of days, so like time is going quick. I don't have time to sit and let's go watch football games. I stopped doing that 15 years ago. So like I don't know, I'm just after it. So balance, I don't know if I want balance, I'm just going after it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If someone wants balance, that's fine, and everyone's different. I'm just kind of like no, let's go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do you have. You, have you always kind of been like that, Like? Uh like focused and and intentional, or is that like developed?
Speaker 2:Starting running the business and stuff. And then when I first did 75 hard, uh, like four years ago, the mindset changed. It really will change you up. If you haven't done 75 hard, if you don't know about it, look it up, you can find it pretty much anywhere. But that changed a lot of things, my mindset. I'm like, wow, I can get all this done and be locked in for 75 days straight. I can be a lot more productive than I ever thought and that's what it teaches you, I think because I'm getting all my other stuff done, plus this too.
Speaker 2:I'm like wow. But I think people just tell themselves the story that you know I don't have time to work out I don't have time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, does it force you? Is it like forcing you to be efficient or like intentional with your time? And because yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely yeah like my calendar is just I'm playing out everything. All right clients, all right, business at the library. We're gonna do email this like everything's listed out, and if I do a list, I knock it out and uh, yeah, like today was back to back to back to back, I'm like all right, all right, it's coming up. We're gonna finish lines coming soon for the day yeah and then wake up, do it all over again yeah, do you.
Speaker 1:Do you block out your calendar? Uh, what do you mean? Like, like you, you have time. Like you, you block off every single thing you do for the day yeah, even like all right, I'm eating, I'm eating and I'm going to read right here yeah, I'm going to be at the library for three hours.
Speaker 2:I'm going to work on emails, social media stuff, yep, um, new business ideas, strategies, networking, like yes, are you doing that the night?
Speaker 1:before or the week before the week before. Yeah, like when we talked I said I'm like I don't go out that far out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, like Sunday, I'll reach out to all the clients that that scheduling up and pretty much my schedule is pretty routine because a lot of people kind of stay within the same times. But yeah, it's like train clients, right here we're going to be at the library, here we're going to go there. It's pretty same, but it's just I go hard. I would say right now I'm 75 hard, so it's every day. There's no day off with workouts, but sunday I don't have clients. I'm taking the day off as far as the business stuff as well. So six days a week, though locked in pretty hard, but you can get so much done, like just because it's the weekend, everyone's oh, we should take off I'm like that's fine take, but I'm going to be light years ahead of you, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that's what I'm after, because soon I'll be 50, you know. And all of a sudden I'll be like, oh, I wish I would have done more. Yeah, because it's going to run out soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And who knows when we go? Could be tonight. Yeah, I I don't know. Hopefully not, but I'm just I don't know. That's the perspective I'm at, and life's too short, so we got to go.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, get it done. Yeah, accomplish what you want to accomplish, right, we might've already touched on this, right, but starting a business like did you, is that, like as a kid, so before 15, before you got into into any of that is is being a business owner. Is that something you, you always wanted to do?
Speaker 2:Nope. Uh, after I went to college, um kind of saw, oh, I'm going to be on all the student debt and uh, want to do this. I gotta listen to what they got to be here now. This is all you can make. If I run my own business, I can kind of do things the way I want. I can make as much money as I can produce. I like controlling my own destiny. I don't like people putting limits on me and telling me this is what you get, your 50, 60 000 a year, this is it. Oh, you get health care and your 401k.
Speaker 2:And I'm like I don't care about any of that because I'm like, if I'm producing so much more, yeah, I can take care of what I need to do yeah so no, I wouldn't say, I would say after, so after 20 at like 20, probably about 24, everything started shifting and the last five years has definitely been a big shift and about the mindset being productive go after it. Go after your dreams. Yeah, because, like when people are, when you're a little kid and you're like I want to be this and everyone's that's awesome, you can be that. And then, as you grow up, I'm gonna going to be this Well, let's be more realistic. Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because the anyone that you remember in history went after it, and now we're talking to them, 50 years, a hundred years later, about all their accomplishments.
Speaker 1:So they didn't listen to people that, yeah, I don't listen to anyone.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go, you can. People used to tell me that personal training is just a hobby. We silence them. You know I make you do better than them. So yeah, it's. People say a lot of things whether you're broke, you're rich, you're middle. I used to get picked on for being a fat middle schooler. Now I get picked on for being too in shape. So I just try to block it all out. Stay focused, stay in my lane and, yeah, go after my goals and don't let anyone stop me, even family members.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know like, uh, my wife's on board with it. Like I told her, I'm like if you're going to hinder me on doing my goals, we're going to have to exit. Yeah, but she's on board, so we're cool.
Speaker 1:So going back to 20, uh, it wasn't 2024, but you're 24 years old. Like that year, like what? What happened in that year? Like is there something like you read a book or anything that like stood out to you, that like transitioned your mindset?
Speaker 2:Yes, uh. So I was going to be a physical therapist assistant. I got through all the first year. On my last lab practical, uh, did not pass. You're going to have to start all over and then you're going to have to reapply. I waited three years on a waiting list to get into the program at SPC and I was like, well, what do you mean? I got to start, you got to reapply and wait again. Oh yeah, and, by the way, you need to have like a 4.0 GPA now, because the class coming in this is the new requirements.
Speaker 2:And then I started looking at what they're making and now some of the kids that I was in class they pass and I hear what they're making. And I'm like, sometimes I hear what they're making and I'm like, thank God I didn't make it. Yeah, because, yeah, let's just say it's not enough to live. There's no way. And with inflation, the way things are Right, it just would not be possible. Three kids would be on the street, yeah, so I'm happy for the failures. I learned from my failures. And school, I think, kind of teaches a lot of people to be scared of failure. School, I think, kind of teaches a lot of people to be scared of failure. I like to fail because I'm going to get better, I'm going to learn from it and we're going to hit success eventually. Like baseball, we got to swing right. You can't just sit and wait and wait and wait. You got to swing, we got to swing and maybe we get a base run here.
Speaker 1:But there's, one of them is going to be a home run, so that's what we're going after. Did you so the the, the mindset around failure, is that something like you've always had, or or?
Speaker 2:no, I grew into it from reading. Yeah, yeah, I wasn't a big reader in college. I read what I had to to get through, memorize what I need to. But now I'm reading all these different entrepreneur books about companies, um, marketing books, just a ton sales books. Just learning, keep learning. I think if you're not learning, you're dying. I want to keep learning new skillsets. Um, and that shifted my mindset. And uh, what's been your favorite book so far? Um, right now I'm currently reading shoe dog, the book about phil knight starting nike.
Speaker 1:That's a good one. Yeah, you read it. I listened to the audio. Yeah, I highly recommend reading. Yeah, yeah, that's one of the rules actually with 75 hard you you read your 10 pages a day.
Speaker 2:It's got to be read and I kind of agree with them, because if I was listening in the car with the way people drive around here, yeah, I'm not gonna be, I do.
Speaker 1:I do both, so like like shoe dog.
Speaker 2:I think was like it's like more of a story format, but it is right so I can.
Speaker 1:I can do those ones on the audio, but most of the other books it's like I like having the physical copy of the book uh, another book, I would say, outwitting the devil, outwitting the devil. Yeah, you gotta look that up, if you haven't that's.
Speaker 2:That's. That's a good one. Okay, and I would read it.
Speaker 1:Do you know who the author of that is? I would read it Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to look it up. It's very popular. It was written in the 40s.
Speaker 1:I feel like I've heard that before you probably have.
Speaker 2:It's a top one. What's the other one?
Speaker 1:How to Inf friends and influence people. I think.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's it. So I've read. With doing the 75 hours, what got me to start reading? Really crazy.
Speaker 2:And I was like, all right, let me got to do my reading and I was like I kind of like this, yeah, and I haven't stopped. Even when I'm off program I'm reading still, yeah, so, but yeah, it's always entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, mindset, stuff. I just like it now and you learn a lot from these different books and I want to learn about the successes of these people. You know, yeah, so did, you did we talk about traction before, Like that's. I haven't read that one yet. Oh, another good one is E-Myth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, good one.
Speaker 2:Uh, for someone like me, I want to control everything, and E-Myth teaches you that you're never going to grow your brand and your company into anything really big and massive without letting go and delegating and setting up people so you can succeed. I can't train all the people, I can't do all the marketing, I can't do everything and I can't do everything. And that book really put it together. And then, as I'm reading, I'm like, oh, it makes so much sense, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2:I think you said traction similar. Yeah, so traction will give you like the blueprint on on how to do do all that.
Speaker 1:That one's on my list, I actually have a picture of it on my phone to read yeah, so that one will. Um, you know it goes through like you know, just from the beginning of the year, like setting your goals, like what are your, what are your um core values of your business, like, so you break all that down, you keep track of all that. You have a five year plan, three year plan, one year plan, Um, and then it breaks it down to like quarterly meetings, weekly meetings, like what to talk about, how to structure the meetings, like it goes into into detail and all that stuff. So it's a lot, but, um, if you can like slowly implement it and I mean it's, it's pretty pretty cool Game changer for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so it's been. It's kept me organized and focused on um, just like what I want to accomplish, and and and. It stays in front of you. So it's, it's easy to um, it's easy to keep track of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah reading's huge for me now? Yeah, never was, but it is for the last five years now 75 hard, so 75 hard you have to.
Speaker 1:So two workouts a day yep, I'll go through it.
Speaker 2:Uh, so two workouts per day, 45 minutes each, one's strength training inside and one's outside. It's got to be outside, no matter, no matter the weather condition, right, if there's a hurricane tornado, you know it is what it is yeah but uh, yeah. So and then you got to take a progress pick every day no cheat meals, no alcohol, drink gallon of water a day. Yep, that's a hard one for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:It's hard. I've been so I have that gallon yeti and it's. I mean I. I started carrying that with me now because it just reminds me, yeah, to drink more, but um that's a big one for people. That's a. That's a lot.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of water yeah, uh, but I feel way better. Yeah, the weight drops and all that. It's not about losing weight. This program is not about losing weight. Some people get that confused and then people want to change the program to make it easier for them. I'm like you're missing the whole point yeah okay, that's like someone coming into my business and trying to change what I'm telling them to do. Then you can go ahead and leave, because it's not going to work out.
Speaker 2:Yeah so it. If you do this for 75 days straight, it will change you for sure. Yeah, and? And if you cheat yourself, you're only like if you cheat and like, oh, no one knows, it's just me. Yeah, I tried that before and then, like a day later, I failed anyway. Yeah, so I missed the water or something. I missed the progress pick like an idiot, but I bought their little app, so I have a checklist okay, so I'm checking it off.
Speaker 2:Boom, boom, boom, we did that. That, that, oh yeah, you got to follow a diet, so you're not just eating clean.
Speaker 2:You're following macros. I do macro based. I want to know exactly, uh, specifically, how much protein, fats and carbs, um, that I need to eat each day, and I'm tracking it and, yeah, you know our app to get the results that I'm looking for. And when you do that track by macros, you're gonna have a lot better success instead of just I eat clean, like people, oh, I eat clean. Okay, let's talk about that. What'd you eat for breakfast?
Speaker 1:Nothing.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a bad start, yeah, so a lot of people are always under eating, they're not getting enough protein, and they're always hungry and munching for carbs because they're not getting enough protein. When they get on our diet that we will customize for you based off your height, your weight, your activity, your goals, male or female, you will definitely, uh, not be hungry. Yeah, and even in a deficit, people will be like this is a lot of food and I'm like just follow me here, all right yeah, it's gonna work.
Speaker 2:yeah, all right, because everyone wants to. As soon as they sign out, they want to start doing their own thing. I'm like no, this is not Stick with it. Stick with it. You said you were going to fall, let's do it. And it works if they stay with it.
Speaker 1:When I started tracking like most recently when I was lifting and stuff I realized my protein intake was way low for the norm. So what is for someone who's like, okay, maybe I should start tracking, or I want to see where I'm at, like what are, um, what's like a baseline, like what people should be at?
Speaker 2:like I guess let's do macro wise because that's probably the easiest right proteins, fats, easy uh thing would be. So there's two different ways. You could do it off your body weight or your lean body mass. So that means taking off all the fat off your body. Like on my scale, like when we weigh people, I'll say your lean body masses x, y and z, like mine right now is, I'm like a buck 72, um, and then my lean body mass is 148. So you would base your protein uh 1.2 grams per pound of lean body mass. So that puts me at uh roughly around, I think, 170 something. Uh, carbs is around the same and the fat is 0.3 uh, the fat's pretty low because this is a deficit plan, like to lose fat. Um, it's definitely working. I haven't been this lean in the last five years, um, but granted, I'm doing two workouts a day it definitely helps get you there, yeah but yeah, a good starting point.
Speaker 2:I would say anywhere between one gram to 1.5, depending on how hard are we working out. Are we going three days a week, Casual gym goer? It's going to be highly dependent on how hard are we going. What?
Speaker 1:are we looking to do?
Speaker 2:If you're just looking to get into it, pretty easy math one gram per pound of body weight is going to be a good place to start. When you want to start honing in on a different thing and get a little more sophisticated, hire me and I'll tell you exactly what to do.
Speaker 1:So, speaking of that, how can people get more information about your program, what you do and that sort of stuff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so our website naturallydreamfitnesscom. You can click the top link, get a free consultation. We'll bring you in, show you kind of a test drive. I call it come, take a test drive, we'll go through a whole body assessment. A lot of trainers skip that part. They're just going to try to show you some savvy workout and impress you with that. I need to see where you're at, get a baseline where your core strength is lower body strength strength. Can you do an overhead squat test without compensating stuff like that? I want to get a baseline so we can then build the plan off of. Where are we weak at, where are we strong at? So we can actually build a plan that's designed off you.
Speaker 2:But on all social media it's naturallydrivenfitnesscom. We're on tiktok, instagram, facebook, youtube. It's all naturally driven fitness on all those we wanted to keep. We're on TikTok, instagram, facebook, youtube. It's all naturally driven fitness on all those. We wanted to keep it, you know, aligned with all the different platforms and not try to change it up. But yeah, that's the best way to reach out is definitely go to the website. You'll fill out a health little form. We want to learn about what you're doing and then I want to see if you're the right person to work with us, because everyone wants to lose weight but there's only the select few that are really going to do what it takes to get to the goals.
Speaker 2:And I don't have time to waste and I don't want to diminish, dilute my brand. I call it because I get paid to transform people's lives. I don't want to take people in. I don't care how much money they're paying me. I want people that are going to come in, do what I'm going to tell them, change their life, get the results. And then they walk around and they're a walking billboard for me. And that's how we get business Referrals, word of mouth. People see you change your life and they're like what did you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what we do.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they that's that's what we do, yeah, and then they feel so much better at the end of the day, right, definitely. A guy's only been with me two weeks. I've had a couple of new people sign up so he said, uh, feeling better, my cognitive and that work. I feel more focused and people just think this is how I'm supposed to feel, Like I'm just this is I'm older, I'm older yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm turning 37 and I'm going quick on my mile pace right now. Like I'm turning 37 and I'm going quick on my mile pace right now, I'm doing great, I feel great, you can feel better. You're just Americans, unfortunately. They're not exercising, their mindset sucks and they're polluting. They're kind of poisoning their bodies with alcohol and the foods that they're eating and then when they clean it all up, they feel the big difference and then they go.
Speaker 2:It's like a light Whoa Light bulb goes off. Oh, yeah, I see, right, but to each their own, right? Yeah, you got to have the self-awareness to say I need to change and take a step and reach out to a professional and get the help, because you could do it all by yourself and research it. But I'm going to give you the quick path fast and we can get you there so much quicker, um, so that's what I'm about is give you I want to get you there quicker, it's faster, safer and tell and basically put you through like a college course of learning how all this works together. And, uh, you don't got to figure it all out on your own, because there's too much crap on the internet and it confuses people yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:I mean like just with nutrition alone, like that's. You know, that's a whole nother conversation, I feel like.
Speaker 2:But we're just figuring it could be we might have to come back keto carnivore. Yeah, this, that low carb. I like a balanced diet. I don't want to cut out, because carbs aren't the problem, it's the type of carbs, and people aren't exercising right and even like the fitness stuff now too, like there's so many different like styles right like what's good for you, what's what you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, crossfit and bodybuilding and this, yeah, I like to. It's got to be based off the client's goals you know, like when a client comes in, not every workout is going to be the same, yeah, and it shouldn't be yeah, exactly, everyone's different and we don't have to run 10 miles a day and and do 2 000 burpees to lose weight. I can show you a sustainable way that's going to keep you healthy and not injury free is key, as we get older and something that you enjoy.
Speaker 2:If you hate doing what you're doing, like a diet or the workout, you're probably not going to stay on it long. I'm going to teach you how to do it sustainably, forever that's true.
Speaker 1:One of the um, um I think Marcus Philly is his name, I think, if I said that correctly like that's the workout program that I've been following and he says on there, like in the beginning, like you, like, when you're just starting out, like don't, don't um, like burn yourself out in those those first few weeks or whatever, like in those those first few weeks or whatever, like leave more on the table all the time, because then you're going to be, oh, I feel good, and you're going to be excited to come back and like, oh, I want, I want more, I want more, I want more um. So I think that's that's a key of like and that's something I've tried to adapt in my workouts like being okay with, like not completing the workout. Right, because you know, sometimes like time constraints, whatever, in the morning, or I wake up a little bit late or something happens don't try to go too hard.
Speaker 2:Some people are I'm gonna go run three miles. I'm like no you don't need to, yeah, and then they're really sore and then they don't work out for the rest of the week unfortunately these people. They usually fall off yeah, yeah so yeah, just take it easy, figure out your goals, and you don't have to go as crazy as you think to lose weight. It's, it's really going to be. What information are you getting? Is the information correct? Do we have the right foundation? Yeah, um, I'm big on form, so it's.
Speaker 1:I want to teach you the right way, and everything.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, you tell me your goals and we'll get you there.
Speaker 1:So I love it, man. I appreciate being here. Coming back for round two, we'll have to do it again.
Speaker 2:No problem, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
