The Leader Mentality
The Leader Mentality
The Path to Self-Discipline: Transforming Goals into Action
What drives us to keep pushing forward when motivation fades? In this compelling conversation with Ben Furtwengler, owner of Anytime Fitness in Murrells Inlet, we uncover the powerful distinction between fleeting motivation and enduring self-discipline.
Ben shares a revolutionary perspective on joint pain and tendonitis that challenges conventional wisdom. Rather than complete rest, he explains how improper movement patterns often cause these issues, and how proper assessment can restore function while building strength. Through inspiring success stories—including a nonagenarian who progressed from struggling with curbs to performing single-leg TRX exercises, and a 63-year-old deadlifting over 500 pounds—we see how fitness transcends age barriers and transforms lives.
The heart of our discussion explores what happens when motivation inevitably wanes. Ben articulates how goal-setting creates the framework for self-discipline, which carries us through low-motivation periods. We examine how supplements, workout gear, and music serve as psychological triggers that reinforce commitment, and how finding enjoyment in exercise transforms it from obligation to anticipated pleasure.
Ben's personal journey from pharmacist to fitness entrepreneur offers valuable insights for anyone contemplating career transitions. After ten years watching patients maintain medications without improving health, he pivoted to fitness—his lifelong passion and personal approach to wellness. His advice? Start turning over rocks without waiting for perfect timing or flawless plans.
We conclude with a holistic approach to health, identifying five key elements: exercise, sunlight, nutrition, sleep (which Ben calls "the biggest stone left unturned"), and strategic supplements. Whether you're just beginning your fitness journey or seeking to rekindle motivation, this conversation offers practical wisdom for sustainable progress and personal transformation. Remember: the best motivation often comes from inspiring others.
Welcome to the Leader Mentality Show. This is Rob Clemens, and we are at a special location today. For those of you who cannot tell it's not the normal leader mentality sign in the background because it's even better we're actually live at Anytime Fitness in Merles Inlet, south Carolina. We've got a great guest, but before I get to him, I want to talk a little bit about what you're trying to do as a leader. Part of great leadership is learning yourself. You've got to know yourself first and foremost if you're trying to do as a leader, and part of great leadership is learning yourself. You got to know yourself first and foremost if you're in leadership, and then you can spread your knowledge to other people. Sometimes it's encouragement, sometimes it's motivating people, sometimes it's just helping somebody get grounded. But what do we do when we're trying to motivate ourselves? Where do you find your motivation? And so I've got a great guest today. He is the owner of Anytime Fitness, mr Ben Furtwengler Furtwengler.
Speaker 2:I was so close.
Speaker 1:Oh, you see now here's the thing, ben. I spent some time in Germany and it would be Furtwengler over there.
Speaker 2:It would, and it used to have an umlaut over the air. An refert Wengler over there, it would, and it used to have an umlaut over the end. See, I'm trying to save it with my German.
Speaker 1:I spent like two weeks in Germany. He sounded much more official than the actual man.
Speaker 2:That was great. Well, hey, man, welcome to the show. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Good to have you by and by the way, everybody can see what's going on in the background, so you know how authentic this is. It's really exciting to be here. Ben even gave me my own hat earlier and you guys know I love repping with a good hat. So, man, this is cool man. I really appreciate that. Welcome on in.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for being on the show, man. You've got a lot of stuff going on. Really cool club, great location here. I'm a fitness guy myself. This is the kind of place you want to go to if you're working out what all has been going on. Man, what have you been?
Speaker 2:up to yeah. So we right now we're heavily focused on trying to build out some of our training programs. So we're big proponents of having direction, using assessments as a way to track progress. One of the things we always say is, if you're training without assessing, you're just guessing. Okay, all right. And so we really stand true behind how our training programs work.
Speaker 2:We have one called the A12 program. It's its own separate business thing, so it's all A12-branded stuff and we have one trainer who's certified in that. It is a body transformation 12-week program. So it's the amazing 12 program body recomp, building muscle, losing fat and we've seen some incredible transformations in the club from that. And then we have a second separate program that we're working on building out right now, called Golf and Sports Performance, and that is specifically for our golfers in the area as well as people that have lower back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain. It's a little bit of a rehab program but also then turns into power development, so rotational power. And again, all of it is backed by assessing the progress, as we're going to make sure that what we're actually doing is what you want it to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got you. Well, I like it. If you're not assessing, you're just guessing.
Speaker 1:I think, that could apply to more than just fitness either. Right, it sure does Metrics and life and standards. But you said something there that was kind of interesting to me. You mentioned about people who might be having joint pain and things like that. I find that very interesting because one of the things that happens, especially if you are physically fit, sometimes you get joint pains. And what is something that you would say to somebody who you know they have some joint pains and they're trying to make them better through the process of fitness?
Speaker 2:Sure, sure. What is real easy and what a lot of people will do is completely stop. Yeah, you know they'll halt progress. They'll have tendonitis is your biggest one, right? Yeah, yeah, and it's painful. Tendinitis is no joke, you know. And they will just completely stop working out. Rest ice, the rice protocol, rest ice, compression, elevation. Unfortunately, that's probably one of the worst things that you can do. What we focus on is working with connective tissue and soft tissue, assessing movement, again assessment.
Speaker 2:You're going to hear me say that a lot probably, and looking at how the body is moving, a lot of people when they get tendonitis, it's actually from improper movement. So either your knee is a big one, right, if your hips are not mobile enough, your knee will not track properly. And you get a? Mobile enough, your knee will not track properly and you get a it's. It's like a door hinge that's being pulled down by a heavy door and over time that movement wears down on.
Speaker 2:You know the door hinge, or your knee in this case and so we look at how is movement breaking down? How do we then manipulate those tissues to allow for proper movement in the hips and the ankles Hips and ankles are two very big ones to allow for that joint to then track in its proper position. A lot of times that in and of itself takes time, which means you're now stepping away from heavy loads, which is where people typically tend to experience that tendonitis, and you're taking a look at overall functional movement, which means okay, we've lightened the load, we're really assessing how our body's moving. That takes, you know, a few weeks. Usually, by the time that's done, the tendonitis has kind of calmed down. Now we have you moving properly. Now we start adding the weight back on and all of a sudden, magically, the tendonitis is gone. We're now moving more weight than what we had before and we're doing it pain-free.
Speaker 1:Man. So if you're out there and you listen, you have tendonitis. Yeah, that would be one of the things right there you should be listening to, and that makes a lot of sense. I like what you said, because when a door is too heavy on the hinge, it has to relieve itself some way or another, and a lot of times what you see is you might see a little cracking or a little pulling away from the, from the hinge, from because it's got to give somewhere. So our bodies are the same way. Really cool, man. Um, and then you talk about, kind of like fixing the problem and then building up on top of it. Um, give me, give me a success story. That's happened at your club here. You know what? What's something that you've seen.
Speaker 2:Um, well, we've seen so one of our. I don't know if I can say names. We keep the names on the yeah. So we have a lady. She's in her 90s and she when she first started coming in here, we have a little curb over there. She could barely step onto it by herself. Now she comes walking up, she can walk right up on top of that curve. She doesn't have to go around to the ramp anymore. She can open the door just fine. And you know, with her it wasn't let's stack a bunch of load on top of her. With her it was more of a quality of life thing she wasn't trying to beat up.
Speaker 1:She's not squatting 350.
Speaker 2:That's where I wanted this story to end up with.
Speaker 1:She's now bench pressing.
Speaker 2:Professional bench pressing. Professional power lifter. Yeah, no, not at all. Uh, but no. But now she knows exercises to do on her own, as well as stretching techniques and mobility techniques that allow her to stand up and sit down on her own. You know, we we have her over there on the trx bands doing a single leg squat, whereas she couldn't even step up onto her curve when she first came in here. Yeah, yeah, um, and so it's those small successes that honestly make the biggest impact in people's lives.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think it's like it's an amazing thing. You know, the leader mentality show is about that, and that's why, when we talked the other day and we'll get back to some of this stuff, but you know, we were talking about what is leadership and how do you inspire others, and that's part of leadership it's inspiring others and it's helping others grow. I think a good leader helps everybody in their domain get better, right? So you're taking people who maybe sometimes might feel like I don't know if I have any hope, and you're giving them hope through this. The coolest part of this story, though, is she was 90-something, or maybe in her 90s. Yep, that's incredible, man. I feel like so many people. They get to a point where they feel like, oh, you know, I'm too old for this, I'm too old for that, and she said, no, the heck with that, I'm not too old for anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, we have one of our members who's here every single day. We track our members and how many times they're swiping in throughout the month. Yeah, so on a day-to-day basis. If you swipe in, that counts as one we three months. He's been here every single day for three months. He's 63 years old and he deadlifts 518 pounds. Wow, okay. So, you have a mixture of those things. You know, there's some people that are in here for performance, right, he's obviously on a different level than the other lady we were just talking about.
Speaker 2:But we're able to help everybody, and the reason that we're able to help everybody is because we take our time understanding your goals, setting those small and achievable goals, smart goals I'm sure you've heard that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure For sure, and it helps us stay focused on what is it that you're looking to get out of this place? You know it's easy to come in here and hop on the treadmill for 10 minutes, do every single machine that's in here and walk away from it, accomplishing essentially nothing except for you know you've burned some energy, but what was the actual goal behind that? So we really help people sit down and focus on. I'm going to a gym three days a week. How do I maximize the potential of that time that I'm putting in already?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I dig it, man Lay, the course Don't just come in and kind of haphazardly do things, but I had this image in my head of, you know, the guy who comes in with a two liter bottle of water or whatever.
Speaker 1:It is a two gallon, I guess you know and and and you know they're, they're going to every machine, but there's a whole lot of talking involved and a whole lot of theatrics involved uh, where, versus you know, just coming in and being like here's my game plan. I believe sometimes a short good workout is better than a long not good workout. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but I think that's a problem sometimes. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and seeing that progress, then you know harking back to what we initially were talking about seeing that progress then becomes its own motivator. Yeah, it can be really tough in the beginning if you come in here Most people, if you've been sedentary for a while, you come into the gym and kind of do anything and you'll find some success. But then it very quickly plateaus and it becomes very hard to move the needle on that unless you do have a plan in place and unless you are focused on what is the goal of me coming in here? And it's really easy to lose motivation if you start coming in here, see a little bit of progress and then that progress halts Whereas you create a behavior and create a habit and it's centered around one goal and you start seeing that continued little progress. Over time it becomes its own motivator. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's true. I do think there's that natural thing. Or sometimes you don't immediately start seeing success, you know, and then you feel like, oh, what am I doing here? But the metrics are more than just your weight 100%. So I think there's a lot of great stuff here. Well, let's kind of move on to some other topics, but before we get into it, I do have to say, me and this guy, we did a little bit of dragon boat a couple weeks ago we did yeah, and we did not win.
Speaker 2:No we did not.
Speaker 1:But now here it goes. So we're training all year long. We're going to come back strong next year.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, you got to keep the goal in mind.
Speaker 1:Right, got to keep the goal in mind. We're going to have to get some strokes going and the whole nine yards, but anyway. So yeah, but man, we're going to hit the dragon boat. We'll make sure we do some good stuff with that. Talk about just that scenario, though, when you have a because this is all about motivation what is something you would tell somebody that you know they'd come in and maybe they haven't had that success right off the bat? How's a way to motivate them to? You know, make sure they are staying in the gym and coming back. That.
Speaker 2:How's the way to motivate them, to make sure they are staying in the gym and coming back? Sure, well, you run into that situation all the time. You run into periods of high motivation and periods of low motivation. Again, goal setting is absolutely huge If you don't have a goal and you're just coming in here with nothing in mind. Some people are able to do that. It's not like it's impossible to do, but typically, once the motivation wears away, if there is no goal in mind, a lot of times you see people kind of walk away from it, right, um, whereas our job in here is to reach out to those people.
Speaker 2:So, that is something that we do, we will constantly. We we have ways to track like who's who's? Uh, coming close to a training.
Speaker 2:So, uh, and then we'll reach out to them and try to get them to come back in here All of our members. They get a monthly meeting with a coach so they can sit down, but largely what we do in that monthly meeting is we have a body comp scanner to kind of catch a baseline of where they're at, yeah, and then we're able to see if any progress has been made and if it hasn't been made, we also can load a program into their app and give them something to follow. Now, as far as someone who doesn't have any motivation at all to come in here, it's a tough one, you know. You do have to find self-motivation and it can look like a lot of different things, but honestly, the people that are the most successful in here are the people that have self-discipline, which that is what will stand the test of time, whereas motivation is fleeting. And people see that in their day-to-day life. People see that in their gym life. People even see that in their relationships.
Speaker 2:It's really easy to be a great husband when everything's rosy and both of you are in good moods and you have time for each other. It becomes very difficult when now you both are stressed out. Maybe you have a new animal, or maybe something's happened with the house or with the finances. The thing that holds all that together is the self-discipline to one understand what the goal is In a relationship. The goal is to be partners in life and to lift each other up and be successful In the gym. Having a goal of is it weight loss? Is it muscle gain? If it's building a healthy habit, even just having that goal in mind will then create the self-discipline that will get you through the times of low motivation. I dig that dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense. Well, because it's everybody doesn't have the same goal. Sure, you know I, you know, as you know, I own a real estate company too and I always tell people you know you. When somebody says I want to sell my home, it's like the first thing we have to know as an agent is well, what's your goal? Are you trying to maximize the price of your home? Are you trying to sell really fast? Are you trying to meet some midway in between? And if you don't know that, you can't really guide them properly. Where do supplements come into play? Because I've always kind of found and now you'll know, we don't pre-talk about this stuff because he may be like supplements, ah.
Speaker 1:But, I've always found they're a great motivator. If you hit a little lull, you just need that extra little something. I mean what? What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:yeah, uh, well, actually it's funny you say that. So when I when I was the guy walking around with my gallon of water, jug doing all the machines in here all at once, because I definitely lived that life for a long time uh, and part of that is just the fun behind it. Right, you have that like arnold schwarzenegger mentality. That's what I wanted to be. It's so true, though, man, because it does, it gets you in the mindset It'll carry you through six months.
Speaker 2:It won't carry you through 10 years, and I totally forgot what you asked.
Speaker 1:Well, it was about supplements, Sorry, sorry.
Speaker 2:So yeah, he was taking a different form of supplements than what you're talking about?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, maybe All natural those are in their own category.
Speaker 2:But no, I think supplements are a great tool, and I used pre-workouts when I was younger as a way to motivate me, because and it's funny this also ties into several other things. But when I was in college I didn't have a whole lot of money. So if I spent $60 on a pre-workout supplement and then I take a scoop of that pre-workout supplement, you better believe I'm going to the gym. Oh yeah, because there's skin in the game, right? $60 doesn't sound like a lot now, but when I was in college I was scraping by.
Speaker 2:Hey man, college students, we feel you, I've been there, Yep yep, and so that was something that I found that was a motivator. It was like, all right, if I take this thing, it means I'm going to the gym and I went to school in Toledo, ohio, so sometimes it was negative 13 degrees out there and I was walking a couple miles to the gym, oh yeah. So motivation was low. But if I take that it was jacked was the supplement of the day. If I took that scoop of that, it was at least a mental trigger of like, all right, this is in my system now.
Speaker 2:I paid good money for this thing, I'm going to the gym, I'm not going to miss. And you can use supplements, you can use food choices as a way to fuel healthy habits. So a supplement doesn't necessarily a lot of them don't do a whole lot, because a lot of us lack sleep, a lot of us eat poorly, a lot of us don't go to the gym, and if you're not turning over those big rocks, the supplements aren't going to turn them over for you.
Speaker 1:I totally agree.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I used to work at a general nutrition center back in the day.
Speaker 1:That was my college experience and you know. But people come in and they're looking for the supplements to do all the work and I think it's more of a tool. And you know we're making some fun of the water guy and, you know, maybe the big headphones guy but the truth of the matter is is, I think whatever you need to do to get yourself in the mindset to go do work and I think sometimes you know as much as you know we're you know it's fun to pick on them, but the truth is, when you go out there and your your, maybe your gym attire makes you feel a way. The music you're listening to makes you feel a way that supplement that you took that you're like man, this is going to turn the corner. That supplement that you took that you're like man this is going to turn the corner.
Speaker 2:That is where the best things happen. Yeah, yeah, absolutely well, and it's the same thing, you know, if you wake up in the morning and you have a giant stack of pancakes with a bunch of syrup all over it, not that, hey, I love pancakes. No, no, I get you, but it starts out your day kind of in the hole. You're like all right, my first decision out of the gate was sugar and carbs, you know. And if my goal is weight loss, I've already flown in the face of you've already done it and probably that's your second decision of the day.
Speaker 1:Your first decision was hit the snooze button right. Second decision was right, pancakes, it's like oh man well, what turn around here?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. So to me it supplements. Honestly, they play a large psychological role of and the same thing with food where, like, if you start off your day and you have some type of protein or you know a healthy green shake, or one healthy decision typically cascades into several more, and how you start the day typically is how you end the day. So, starting off with that right mentality, if you start off and you have you know a green supplement that you take and it makes you feel like you're on top of the world when you take it, who really cares what it's doing internally If it puts you in that mindset to continue making those healthy decisions?
Speaker 1:That's a win for you at that point. No, no doubt about it. Well, cool stuff, man. I mean we could talk about this all day, but if we do, we won't get to some of the really interesting topics here. Finding your motivation that is our theme of today's show. We talked a little bit about this so far, but for you, this wasn't your first career, as I understand it right.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about how you got here, man Sure, so I shared. I was in Toledo, ohio, for school. I went to the University of Toledo. Shout out Toledo, there you go.
Speaker 1:Actually, we have a lot of Ohioans in the area. I know there are a ton of them. We're in Myrtle Beach for those who don't know. But yes, it is crazy the amount of people Myrtle is in it, to be specific. Yes, Okay.
Speaker 2:So I went to school to be a pharmacist. I got my doctorate and then graduated from that, worked for Rite Aid, worked for Walgreens, did that for 10 years and over the course of time I felt my motivations waning. Some of the things that we were doing didn't feel like we were setting people on the right track for health, which to me was the overall goal as a pharmacist. My mother growing up she had cancer. That's kind of what motivated me to become a pharmacist. My mother growing up she had cancer. That's kind of what motivated me to become a pharmacist.
Speaker 2:And so getting people healthy, explaining their medications and kind of setting them on that right track was what the whole goal of this pharmacy thing was For sure. Nice, Ten years into it I was seeing the same people every single day, or at least once a month. Their lab values were staying the same, they were on the same medications, they weren't really moving that needle at all. It was the same thing as coming into the gym and working out without a clue of what your end goal is, and to me that just didn't feel right, and so I felt that pull in a different direction and at the time, and obviously still now today. This was always what I did for my own health to keep me off of medications which to me should be kind of.
Speaker 2:The end goal of medications is we should see people come off of them and get healthier.
Speaker 1:It makes sense to me. You know you're not trying to sign a lifetime contract to take whatever. This thing is right, right yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, over the course of time just working with different people and seeing them in this kind of state of unwell they weren't necessarily on their deathbed, um, and they were taking medicaid medications to keep them from being on their deathbed, but they were never really progressing into a state of health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it was there's a lot of miserable people day in and day out, and it wasn't everyone, you know there were definitely exceptions to that rule, but, um, at some point in time it just felt like, uh, I want to try something else. Um, and this is what I've always done to keep myself healthy, this is what I've always done that, uh, you know, it's transformed my life in a lot of ways, both mentally and physically, no doubt. And so when COVID hit, a lot of things changed and we definitely don't have to dive into that. Good old COVID, it keeps on giving Right, but that was kind of the catalyst for all right lot about it. But I really like anytime fitness as a franchise. I really like what their view on working out and health is, and I think I want to open one of those yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Tell me just in summarize their view on working out. Help, what would you describe?
Speaker 2:it. So it's very much so. It's the main motivator behind anytime fitness is making it easy and accessible for everyone. Okay, so, whether you're a power lifter or a bodybuilder, or whether you're 90 years old and just trying to walk up on a curb, um, it's a gym for everybody. And the way we break down those barriers is by being open 24 seven. Uh, it's by having, it's by having over 5,000 locations and it's by making a personalized plan for every single person that comes in here. I dig that man.
Speaker 1:Look, I've been a workout guy for most of my life and I think even for anybody. Sometimes it's intimidating. Walking into a gym for the first time, you don't know what you're walking into. You don't know if there's going to be some guy named Brutus at the front. What are you looking, you know, and so you go in and you're automatically like there's that little aversion, even if you're do it all the time. So if you're at home and you're thinking I don't know what I'm walking into, this little nervous, I'd say you see a guy like Ben here and you see his other staff members. They are inviting, they're welcoming. There's nobody in here judging anybody. You can tell it's just kind of a good place to be man. So I think that's powerful.
Speaker 1:Talk a little bit about the medication. Some people have it. We know you need it for something or another. But what are some things people are doing wrong instead of doing like? So, for example, you know you're focusing so much on the medication and it's like well, this makes me feel better. Therefore I need to do it Right, spend all this money doing it, see a doctor and get it all done. But what could they have been doing? Uh, you know, obviously working out would be one, but what are some other things that people are missing that you're seeing out there Well, so you look at, I mean, there's a pill for everything these days.
Speaker 2:Right, we have cholesterol medication, we have antidepressants, we have medications for bone density, we have you know, there's a pill that you can take for everything, and the tough thing and it goes back to motivation again is it's really easy to have high cholesterol and take a pill every day to try and fix it. It is not easy to become motivated to change your diet. Start resistance training, get sunlight, get good exercise, move more. Those are all habits that you have to implement, but it's a choice that you have to make to become healthier, instead of the doctor saying just take this and you'll live, hopefully, longer.
Speaker 2:Um and and that is, it's tough because there isn't an easy button Um, that none of this stuff is easy. You know, and that's one of the things that, again, I think anytime fitness excels in is, is meeting people at that junction of this. Stuff is easy. You know, and that's one of the things that, again, I think anytime fitness excels in is, is meeting people at that junction of all. Right, you've made a choice. Now let us support you in that choice. Let us make it easy to come in through the doors. Uh, anything we can do to make it easier for you to get in here and at least just do something, um, is really our goal I think it's super cool.
Speaker 1:So so let let's make kind of like a top five list Sure, things that you can do not top five, but five things you could do. So you're talking about working out whether that's anaerobic, aerobic, whatever you need to do get the heart running a little bit, get to the joints feeling better. Sunlight you said that was kind of a biggie. I think the sunlight is an underrated factor. The more research we do on it, the more we find in that vitamin D received from the sun is the best way to do it. Three you talk about eating right. I think that's kind of a biggie. I think that the problem with America today is sometimes it's so easy not to eat right. Everything in front of you is not right. You got to spend a little bit more time planning the other way, say, maybe supplements. Potentially it may help you get over that hump that you're at at one point. And then I think that, just in general, just restfulness is a big thing.
Speaker 2:Sleep is probably the biggest stone left unturned for most people.
Speaker 2:And it fuels a hormone cascade in your body that not only makes you feel better mentally, but it also, you know, for men people who get an average of eight hours of sleep a day they have a significant bump in testosterone. You know. It's what allows your tissues to heal. So if you have that tendonitis and you're getting two hours of sleep a night, it's going to take twice as long for that to go away. It also helps your mental state. So it's been shown that people have a higher propensity of depressive symptoms if they have a lack of sleep. So it literally supports everything in that ecosystem that you were just talking about.
Speaker 1:Man, I love that, and even you talk about what happens when you're working out maybe a little dopamine release from accomplishing a goal, these kinds of things. So, and I'm always a big fan of to go back to, we talked all about motivation today. Set a goal, that sometimes creates the motivation in and of itself, and I've had some business leaders who came in to me and they talk about imposter syndrome. You ever hear about this imposter syndrome, rob? I'm feeling like everybody's looking to me to be this thing and I don't know if I'm that thing. It's like, well, you are, you are, you're just going through a struggle. But set yourself a goal and it might be a small one, it might be something like every day. This week I'm going to walk one lap around the community. Fine, there's a goal, go do it, you go, do it, you do it.
Speaker 1:And, uh, it's been shown that you release a little bit of dopamine. Here's a little fun one and we're gonna go on a different path. But you know, when you go to vegas, vegas has got this figured out, so you're gonna spend more money. And what vegas figured out is sometimes when you're playing the slot machines. Have you ever seen the one where, you know, maybe it's a one dollar. I don't even know how much slots cost these days. But let's say you put a dollar in and you pull the little lever and it goes oh, you won. And you win 50 cent, and what they figured is you're losing. But when you hear those bells ringing and the congratulations, all of a sudden that little dopamine release comes out. Oh, and you feel good. So you do more of it, right? And so they just figured this out. Figure it out for your own life.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely Well, and that's what we were talking about with the supplements. Like the, the whole goal behind a supplement could just be one small motivating factor that's easy to do right in the day. That then you know, you get that little dopamine hit. You go, hey, I'm, I'm starting out on the right track. And then boom, you just keep going on the right track.
Speaker 1:Keep taking those supplements, baby. It was funny by one of the owners of GNC when I worked there. He used to say, and he would pick out other places that he considered not to be legitimate. And he'd say, yeah, you go over there, you're just going to pee it all out. That's why, you know, I'm like, oh man, all right man.
Speaker 1:That's a good sales tactic hey, whatever you got right. So, man well, super cool stuff today. I think there's a lot of things that we tell people that you are doing for yourself on a day-to-day that I like to do on a day-to-day, but this is about finding your motivation For you. This is such a part of your life it's probably not even really that hard to get the motivation. Yeah, sometimes it is.
Speaker 1:But you and I were talking during the Dragon Boat Race and we were talking to somebody who said, hey, what would you recommend for me? I'm trying to get into working out. I said well, here's my big takeaway Everybody has to have their own little mantras. I said when I work out as much as I do, it's kind of a lifestyle. I have learned to be like that. But sometimes you go home and you don't want to work out. You just honestly don't have it in you. I said that is the time when I know I most need to work out. It's not even close. You know, if I go home and I'm feeling like, yeah, let's go do this thing, I just drank my you know, whatever, then it's easy. But when you come home and you know, maybe you feel like the world is on your shoulders. Maybe something didn't go right at work and you just want to go get in bed and watch a TV show. I'm like man this one is game on.
Speaker 2:I got to go do the workout. That's my recommendation. You know what I'm saying Absolutely Well, and I think a lot of this can be grounded in fun and play.
Speaker 2:You know, it might sound weird, but as an adult having fun playing it's huge. That's why you see a lot of grown men like us. We go out there and play golf right it's. It's a mental break from all the stresses of the day, and if you can start incorporating that into any type of healthy habit, uh, it's. For me, it's something that I've been able to do over the last 10 years in the gym. I started out and you know I was not doing the assessment part for myself. I didn't have any specific plan that I was following it, but it was just an enjoyable thing. It was a social interaction.
Speaker 2:Yeah so if you can find some piece of this that is fun and that is a break from your day to day and turn it into almost play, then it doesn't matter so much what you're doing. Almost play, then it doesn't matter so much what you're doing. Eventually, that will lead its way into okay, we've made it this far. How do we start pulling those levers, maximizing things that you know again, taking our time in here? How do we now get the most out of our time in here.
Speaker 2:But if you can just make your way into a gym or build a gym at home, go take a walk outside something. Make some part of it enjoyable. That way, when you hit those times where, man, I really don't feel like doing that today, it was a long day at work, or man, I'm exhausted because I just didn't sleep right last night Once you find that enjoyment in it, let that be the thing that kind of leads you into the rest.
Speaker 1:If you can make it something you're looking forward to for sure. I agree completely, and there's a thing that I tell a lot of employees and I believe that great businesses it starts with a foundation of leadership that understands human needs, and I believe that in the business setting and we talked about this the other day I believe that you have to take care of your clients and your business people. You have to make sure that you're making money and that you have a great model, but you also have to take care of your family. You can't just spend 24 hours a day at work. You got to take care of your family, but the third part of that equation is you have to take care of yourself, and sometimes that means look, you worked hard all day, you spent some time with the family, but sometimes you need some personal time too and, depending on how you like to use your personal time, do something constructive. Man, Go to the gym, get that blood pumping and you know it's the old cliche like oh, I love the burn and it sounds silly and people think it's cliche, but truthfully, it is actually a thing that you can start to look forward to. You know you're making progress. The burn creates the process Yep, yep. Progress. The burn creates the process Yep, yep, absolutely so. And then process leads to progress and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:All right, listen, man. You know you, you get a lot of value today, but one thing I want to emphasize. I don't maybe even want to kind of leave off. You know we've got a few minutes left. You made that career jump, yeah, and the way I look at it is, at one point in your life you knew very much that you want to be a pharmacist. You're probably a hell of a pharmacist, and so you were successful at it, and but you then found that it wasn't really moving the needle, it really wasn't where you're finding your passion. Tell me about that journey, for let me rephrase that, give me some tips you would have to somebody who thinks they might be making a journey, that they're not finding a satisfaction in what their career is and they might need to make a change. Tell me about how you did it, what your tips would be for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Well, and it goes back to kind of what we were just talking about. If you've lost all enjoyment in something, if you're finding yourself at rock bottom in terms of your motivations behind something, or maybe something that you at one point in time believed in is no longer the thing that you believe in, you just need to start turning over rocks. It's going to be messy, it's not going to be perfect, there is no science to it. I can't reach out to one of your viewers and be like this is the step-by-step process for what changing your entire life looks like, because nobody knows what that's going to look like. Uh, but as you start to turn over those pieces for me it was. I got my personal trainer certification while I was a pharmacist, Cause I was like all right, I want, I want to take some people and turn them into clients and see if I can be successful at this other thing, you know. So I spent some money doing that, found out, hey, I don't really have time to do that, you know.
Speaker 2:So, oops, mistake one Sounded good, but yeah, but it got everything in my head turning, you know, it got all the wheels turning towards. You know, I really am interested in this and I already put some money down on trying to make this happen and it just it led into a bunch of other decisions that weren't necessarily easy to make and they haven't all been perfect, but it was just starting to do something. You know, if you've been sitting on something that you're like I think this would be awesome, I really want to do it, but now it's just not the time. There's never going to be a perfect time yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's never going to be a perfect plan around it. The important thing is just to start the journey towards whatever that thing is and just take a chance on yourself. Yeah, because nobody else is going to take a chance on you.
Speaker 1:Man, I agree completely. And you said you don't have a step-by-step, but the biggest step-by-step should be the first, for everybody. You know, the first thing is acknowledging that you do need to make a change. Sometimes it's just, you know, if you're not feeling the joy, you're feeling like maybe things are going beyond your career, into your personal life, that's a good giveaway that maybe something's not quite right. The next thing is, you know, turn over some rocks. I love that you said that because, at the end of the day, how do you know unless you start trying some things and then hopefully find something you actually have a passion about? Maybe it's photography, maybe it's working out, maybe it's, you know, for all we know, knitting sweaters.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but you got to find something and take that little incremental step to it. I really think that's powerful, because sometimes you're out there, you feel like again the weight of the world's on your shoulders and you say but, but hey, this is my little channel. Human beings, man, they live on hope. We live on hope, man, and. And so if you have no hope, that might be the sense that that's leading to your depression, and whatever may be the case not saying anybody's depressed, but you get the idea. So well, man, that's really cool stuff. Ben Mr Fertwinger Fertwingler.
Speaker 1:You're so close God man, I don't know why I can't get this Fertwingler.
Speaker 2:It's not that hard.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to edit that one. Maybe I'll leave it in. But no man, listen. Anybody wants to get into your gym. Tell us about how they can find you and what it's all about.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, you can look us up. It's anytimefitnesscom and then you just search Merle's Inlet. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. Anytime Fitness, merle's Inlet. Nice, check us out. All right, man?
Speaker 1:Awesome, thanks for being on the information today. As always, thanks for the hat, and for those of you at home, that's what I want you to take away. Motivation is everywhere around you and sometimes it finds so hard to really to grasp. But look at your life, look at how you can change it around and always look to inspire others. Sometimes the best motivation you can get is in finding somebody else that you can inspire, and there's always somebody you can inspire. So go out and be your best, and I would like to say thank you to all of our viewers. Please make sure to continue to like and share us on social media of your choice, thanks to some of our sponsors, carolina-based real estate and construction, greg Rolls, legacy Theater, and look, we'll see you all next time on the Leader Mentality Show with Rob Clements. You.
