The Show Up Fitness Podcast

Midlife Career Pivot: From Principal to Personal Trainer & Why Playing It Safe Was the Bigger Risk

• Chris Hitchko, CEO Show Up Fitness • Season 3 • Episode 294

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Ever feel the ground shift under a job you once loved? We sit down with a K–12 principal who built his identity around coaching kids, weathered the Paradise fire, and still found his purpose dissolving under politics, ego, and endless pushback. What follows is a candid look at walking away from a steady six-figure paycheck to pursue fitness, craft, and a life that feels honest again.

We trace the throughline from early days lifting in Chico to leading schools where every decision meets resistance, and then to the spark of a new path: training, education reform from the outside, and programs that make movement central to learning. We talk openly about comfort as a trap, the fear of starting at zero, and the mindset shift that turns practice into momentum. If you’re wrestling with a pivot, you’ll hear a practical playbook: shadow great coaches, study daily, build a routine that stacks mobility, lifting, and focused learning, and have one meaningful industry conversation every day. It’s career capital by design, not hope.

There’s a strong case for bridging education and fitness. PE gets sidelined, yet aerobic work boosts BDNF, sharpens attention, and primes the brain for class. With the right partnerships, schools can implement zero-period training, teacher wellness, and skill-based PE that kids actually believe in. This isn’t about quick wins; it’s about craft, clarity, and owning your trajectory. If you’re choosing between safe and alive, this conversation will nudge you toward the path that compounds.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with someone stuck in a comfort loop, and leave a review with the bold move you’re planning next. Keep showing up.

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showufffitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy all welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. We have a special guest today, a first, another hitchko. Welcome, Mr. Steve, Principal Steve. Let's talk about life, love, and happiness. How are we doing? Doing wonderful. How are you doing? Great, great. We were just having a conversation prior about you being six two and a half, me being six one, and who's better looking? And I think I take the cake, but you disagree.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, Jerry is out on that, and you're definitely not 6'2. You might be six feet.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, no. When I have my cowboy boots on, I'm a solid 6'4. So the doctor says six one, so he is always right.

SPEAKER_02:

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

SPEAKER_01:

So we're gonna talk about change of career, and you're gonna get a listen to what I have been exposed to my entire life. People would say to us that Steve's the big dog, I'm the little dog, I'm the talker, I'm the barker, and he's just a quiet guy. So I'm the personality, he's the arguably the looks, but we've been coming to a fork and we're thinking about changing careers. So to give you a little backstory on Mr. Steve, I remember vividly in high school at the Chico Sports Club. That's where we would work out. And Steve was probably one of the biggest guys in the gym. And we were doing a chess day. We did incline first, barbell, then we did decline, and then we ended off on bench. And he was able to do three plates at the end, and he was repping it out for 10 reps, and he was significantly stronger than me. And he would, I couldn't even do 225, and he would take off one plate because he was being the older dick brother, and he would just make me do 225, but he would just basically be doing upright rows. So it gives you a little backstory on just how massive this guy is, and then you had some injuries. And my question is why the fuck did you get into education? Because you are a principal now, but you want to change career. So, what was the motivating factor to get into teaching?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I wouldn't say motivating factors more as found out I was gonna be a dad when I was young. And it was basically the I thought it was gonna be the easiest route. So I just did a liberal studies major and then I was gonna be a teacher. It wasn't really like a goal of mine or say a dream of mine. It was more of I gotta get my shit together. I'm gonna be a dad, so this is what I'm gonna do. It allows me to have my summers with my daughter, breaks and whatnot. So that was that was the reason behind it, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01:

How young were you? 20. Pretty damn young to be a dad. Yeah, have to make some sacrifices. And I mean, I can only imagine the internal voices of what you wanted to do because I remember joke around, but there was even a time when we were at the the Chico, like the park out there, and like a coach approached you and he's like, Why don't you try out for for this semi-pro football team for a tight end? Because you were massive, and you've always kind of wanted to play sports, you sucked at basketball, but you wanted to potentially do something else, and and then it's like you have a life event that comes up and you're a dad, and now you got into teaching.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so life happens, and I remember in high school that I I specifically said that I did not want to be a teacher because I didn't want to grade papers and whatnot. I wanted to be a coach in high school, and I talked about coaching in the final four. And coaching's always been a passion of mine, and so teaching just kind of since I worked with kids right out of high school, I coached. I think my first coaching job was third graders, actually. And so I loved coaching, and then I figured since and I worked at CARD, which is an afterschool program working with kids, and so kind of figured since got a kid on the way. I've worked with kids before, it's kind of the easy transition. So it was just kind of not really, like I said, a goal of mine. It was just kind of this is what you should do to allow you to optimize your pattern with your daughter and mom and dad, you know, our educators. This kind of seemed natural route.

SPEAKER_01:

Going down memory lane, you were the head coach, I was the assistant. My when you were gone and wherever you were at, I coached three games. I was 0-3, had a few technicals, and I remember getting our asses kicked against Aaron Rodgers because he was coaching his brother. Was it Jordan?

SPEAKER_02:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they were good at bidwell. And every time we played Aaron's team would kick our asses. Chico, we were Chico Jr. and they were bidwell. No, we were Marsh. Marsh, that's right, that's right. Marsh was uh the newer junior high in Chico, and uh that's uh people don't know the story about Aaron where he went, he was pretty good at PV. I mean, he wasn't like amazing, he was okay, but then he went to uh Butes and Tedford from Cal came to check out you know my triple jump buddy Garrett Cross, and then that's how he came across Rogers and brought Rogers to Cal. And now the rest is history. We'll see if the old Chico boy with his gray beard is gonna be able to take Pittsburgh far in the playoffs. We will see, but give him a lot of credit because that's something else I want to talk about. It's gonna kind of come full circle here. But he was very generous during the the fires, and that's something that also kind of took a uh a big toll on you because you lost your house in the paradise fire. And Aaron donated a couple million, didn't he?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he did. Uh he's got a beat strong or some sort of fun he got going. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So and so that's another life event that happened. So you're teaching, and overall, before we talk about the the fire and get into that stuff, but what what has your overall experience been as a principal? What do you think about the teaching world? Obviously, it's just to California and Northern California, but how's your experience been?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, my first time I was principal, I went from peer to boss. So that was good in a way, but it was also very tricky being friends with people and then trying to tell them what to do. Educators are unique, especially in the K-8 industry. They're very they love working with kids. They're entitled, I would say, entitled, and they think their way is the best way. And so trying to tell people as the lead learner on a campus that this is the route we should go or these are the decisions I'm making, there's a lot of pushback. And I think a lot of educators today, in my experience, think that they can do your job. And so it makes it very difficult because, like a referee in a basketball game, every time you blow the whistle, they're gonna piss someone off and you're gonna make some people happy. And I think these individuals who go into education have this idea that they're gonna help kids, which don't get me wrong, a lot of them do help kids, but I also think it inflates their ego because they hear a lot from parents and kids, and so they think that they are better than they really are, and that they can't do any wrong. And so that makes it very difficult as a leader to lead the school in the direction you want to go without getting the peanut gallery saying, Well, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? And they're not willing to trust you. And so I went in with the idea of creating these relationships and improving the school culture, which I know I did the first time around. And then when I went to the high school in Anderson, it's different in the high school arena because they're more compartmentalized. Teachers, I would say, are more open in the high school, open to listening to you talk and discuss and help them. And so they're not as narrow-minded. The high school, you know, they got the English department, but they also have sports going on. So I think they're a little more trusting in that environment. And then I came back to my position I was just at. And it was a struggle working with the paraprofessionals and the teachers because they feel like they can do your job. And so that's the frustrating part because you I have the experience, I have the education, and I know what I want to do with the school. And I'm not coming in with a heavy hand saying this is how it's gonna be. I kind of sit back and take it all in, like I said, create those relationships moving forward. And there's a lot of pushback, and there's a lot of, like I said, entitlement, and there is this idea that I don't know what I'm doing, but they know what they're doing. So it's a very tricky balance, and I think it can be it's pretty lonely at the top as the leader, because you know, the principal walks into the launch room and everyone gets quiet. Or there's this skepticism behind what's this guy doing? Who's this newcomer? He doesn't know what he's doing. Granted, I was there eight years ago before the fire as the leader, and now I'm coming in as a different role. It's lonely, it's frustrating, it's emotionally draining trying to help individuals who think they know how to do your job. And at the end of the day, like I said, I have the experience, I have the knowledge, I have the expertise in that arena as the leader, and these individuals just aren't willing to listen. And so it's developing that trust, and I know you have to be patient working with educators, and it's just it's a journey that has come to, I wouldn't say full circle for me, but it's it's come to the realization that I don't think educators today and the educational system is going in the right direction. And I think we coddle kids too much, we coddle teachers too much, we coddle people working with kids because everyone thinks teachers are amazing. Like I said, don't get me wrong, teachers are amazing, and there are way more talented teachers doing great for kids. But it's those select few teachers and aides who unfortunately spoil it for the rest, just like any profession. So I've come to realize that I've made a difference. I know I've made a difference, helping kids, helping educators, helping families. But I don't think that my role as a leader is anything that I can continue to do and make a positive impact moving forward.

SPEAKER_01:

I can see your politician hat on you. You did very well talking through that. And you know, you're not playing the victim role, calling people out. But that's one of the reasons I love sports and business, is because it's a lot more black and white. Performance dictates everything. You can say that, oh, I'm the best QB out here, but you have to prove it. And if you're QB1, it doesn't matter. You have to abide by QB1 versus, you know, the, like you're saying, the peanut gallery, everyone gets an opinion and everyone has a voice. And I love that story about Elon Musk, where his executive assistant, who's probably making two, 300 grand a year, maybe more, and she confronted him saying that I run the company. Everything that I'm doing is running, you know, I do all the hard work. I should have the salary of the, I think it was the CFO, and this is in one of one of his books that was written about him. And he then said, You know what? Um, why don't we give you a week off just to kind of think about and just enjoy life? And and then he did her job and then he fired her just to show her that, like, no, it doesn't work like that. You think this is going on, but you have no idea what's really going on. And I can only imagine that frustration when you have to be political because you can't say it as is. You can't call someone a dumb fuck, or you can't say something like that, because then you'll get you know fired, or you're gonna get a written complaint, or even worse, you hurt someone's feelings. You said that, hey, you know, your work right now isn't nearly as professional, you're not doing the job you should be. Here's what you need to do. Well, now that person can complain, and now you're gonna get in trouble. So it's like your hands are definitely you're handcuffed, you can't do what you want to do, which is ultimately look out for the kids' best interest, but you have all these voices. And so when you look at the next chapter of your life and you're looking at potentially transitioning into fitness, I wanted to play a little clip from my favorite podcast, which is Founders. And this is one ironically about Les Schwab because you worked there, right? Yeah, so I think yeah, and that's I remember vividly. I I remember I think I called your boss and and had to come up with an excuse saying something happened to you, and you you got a week off or something. Oh, the Hitsco stories, you don't want to get down the the rabbit hole of all the the fuckery that we did as deviant kids. You were way worse than I was. I was an angel, you were a prick.

SPEAKER_02:

You didn't even go to school, you just were sick all the time.

SPEAKER_01:

That is true. 42 days in sixth grade, I did not go to school, and I would just stay home with mom and watch ninja turtles and all these great. Why the hell would I want to go to school when I could watch shows and mom bring me food from big owls?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, big owls milkshakes. You just you were fat, and there's just no way around it.

SPEAKER_01:

I was a little chunker, but less schwab here. So listen to this. This is pretty awesome because I think this has a lot to do. And what the podcaster does is he brings up the point of a famous talk from Bill Gurley. And Bill Gurley is like a 60-year-old now who is one of the founders, or he works with a big investment firm in the Silicon Valley. And he did he gives a talk. It's called Running Down a Dream. You can go to YouTube to listen to it, and he's just talking, it's actually ironically at the University of Texas, as you're wearing your Texas shirt right now, but he's summarizing what Gurley is talking about. So I'm gonna play that for y'all right now to listen.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna get to that. And actually, you know what before I get there, I'm gonna share some of the other highlights from this talk because it's so interesting. Um, he talks about how he he learned from three other people and what they did. So it says a dream job is a career where you have immense passion. Life is a use it or lose the proposition. That's kind of what I was just echoing there, right? Most humans take one career path. If you only have one shot, why not do what makes you happy? That's the entire speech. That's the entire reason why he's given a speech, because he obviously sees people that don't do this. Talks about uh uses the the lives of Bob Dylan, uh Bobby Knight, and Danny Meyer as examples. So I'm not gonna cover all that, I'm just gonna cover some highlights. So he talks, talks, he's like, he studies, he takes a ton of notes, he's watching the chef. He talks about this, talks about um a quote, one of his favorite quotes, I spent nearly two years doing the best work ever as a student, Danny Meyer. That's from coming from Danny Meyer before he opened his restaurants. And what Bill is saying, he's like, he's most proud of the studying he did on his own, not the studying he did in college. Bill says, pick a profession about which you have immense passion, a deep personal interest. Nothing will make you more successful than if you love doing what you're doing. You will work harder than anyone else because it will feel like fun. Remember what Buffin and Monger just told us. How do you compete against a fanatic? You really can't. Let's a fanatic. Bill Gurley is a fanatic. Everyone has the will to win. People don't have the will to practice. So, what is that? What is he talking about here? He's saying be obsessive about learning in your field. Own your craft constantly. Understand everything you can you possibly can about your craft. This is a crazy sentence. Consider it an obligation. Hold yourself accountable, keep learning over time, study the history, know the pioneers. Exactly what we're doing here, isn't it? Strive to know.

SPEAKER_01:

I really love I love listening to other people and their mindset. And he was talking about the book. Uh, you have to fact-check me on this one on Google, but Danny Meyer wrote like the it's a book about serving, he was a chef, and he had an original path that he had to go down a different route and changing the career. And there's a famous story online that you can learn about a fellow by the name of Carl Allenby, A-L-L-A-M-B-Y. And he was a car mechanic for two decades. And then when he got into his mid-40s, he changed his career and became a surgeon. And I really like the kind of juxtaposition of the two with the podcast talking about being passionate about what you want to do. And we only have one life. And what we could do is be a mechanic. Nothing wrong with being a mechanic, nothing wrong with being an educator, but you could coast through for you know two more decades and imagine the regret that you would have doing the stuff that you're not truly passionate about. I mean, you have to ask yourself, big guy, do you wake up every day fired up to go in and be a principal?

SPEAKER_02:

There was a time before the fire when I was very excited to go to work and try to help kids. And even when I came back the second time, there was brief period brief moments I'd be excited because I'd always greet the students at the gate every morning and play music. And so that was the best part of my day in the morning. And it just kind of fizzled from there. So the passion that I had no longer existed, and it just became difficult to be a boss. And you can no longer be a boss like you were talking about. You have to tiptoe around people and their fucking feelings, and it's instead of just telling them you fucking suck at your job, this is what you need to do. You have to sugarcoat it, and then you have to go to the board and talk to the board, and there's usually micromanages, the board wants to have someone who's their puppet. And so that background noise unfortunately was able to drown out my doing what's best for kids, and that was my goal coming in as a leader, doing what's best for all students every day, and circling back to that. But people's egos get in the way, and they lose focus because they become so self-centered and worried about not getting enough praise or they don't get enough free lunches, or whatever the fuck it was from the past administrator. They just want kudos and pats on the back and shit for doing their fucking job. And so it's it's super frustrating that people want to be rewarded for doing their job. At the end of the day, do your damn job, and your reward is seeing students it maybe in a day, a week, a month, a year, it might even be for 20 years. You don't know the impact you've made on students. And so I think my passion definitely fizzled, and it even started fizzling in the summer in dealing with the frustrations with the higher-ups. And so it's kind of like you only can do so much to the point where you you need to take a step back and say, hey, I still have passion helping kids, but it's just not in this arena as being a lead learner on the campus.

SPEAKER_01:

That's unfortunate because the the kids are the ones who they get the shit end of the stick. Every year, when you send us your student photos, of like it's always hilarious because just to give you an idea of kind of your teaching and leading and your passion for it, because you do have that. And every year you're gonna have some uh wolf head on, or you have a completely different outfit, or you know, your school photos, you have a mask and always gets a kick, and you know that that's the type of stuff that sticks with kids, and that's also kind of how you're you're leading in the sense that it's kind-hearted, you you gotta laugh through it, and then when you just have all this noise, it's it affects it. And and so now you're at this fork where you're like, okay, I'm I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. And most people, what they would do, and you're guilty of this as well, is you you try to convince yourself that I'm gonna give it another shot. I'm gonna give it another shot, and I'm gonna give it another shot. I can't tell you how many fucking text messages I've got from you where I'm gonna I'm gonna give it one more shot for one more time, it's gonna be different this time. But what's the difference? What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same shit over and over again, expecting different results. And so the fear now comes changing careers. And one of the ideas that you have is maybe I want to get into training. Is it something that I could potentially turn into a successful pivot? And it's a new chapter. So, what are some of the thoughts that are going through your head being a middle-aged 45, whatever you are, 46-year-old, thinking about the next chapter? What's that fear like?

SPEAKER_02:

The fear is the comfort. So going back into education, it's always that steady paycheck. It's not having to start over. So if I branch out into personal training, obviously you're starting over from grand zero. And so you think like, and so you you compare an hourly rate or whatever it might be. And so the money is in the back of your head. But fortunately, I've been blessed. The silver lining of the campfire is with the insurance we got from our house that we were able to pay off our house, so we had no bills, and so I didn't have a car payment, I didn't have a mortgage. And so the past seven years, that has been very comfortable for me, but also holding me back because I wasn't, I didn't have to push myself. It's like, well, I got a steady paycheck, I'm making whatever I'm making, and so now I don't have a bill to pay, and so now I'm just comfortable. I can buy what I want for the most part. And so now, starting over, the fear for me is my paycheck. What's my paycheck gonna be like? Now I'm gonna have certain bills I have to pay. So that fear is the comfort of just keep doing the same shit over and over again, like I've Had seven or eight jobs the past seven years and since the campfire. And I'm not blaming the campfire being the victim, but it's that comfort level that I haven't gotten out of and the fear of the unknown. The stinking thinking. And then it's the future tripping, which has gotten me, held me back to just continue to go back in education. I'll just apply to this job for six more months. And then the next, and then over the summer, I'll apply for another job. And so it's just following into, like you said, the same pattern and doing the same shit over and over, expecting different results, which I haven't been happy. So I need to do something that makes me happy where I'm not just focused on the money. And it wasn't the money that I was focused on as an educator. It was the having that nest egg, knowing that I got this certain amount coming in, and I don't have to start all over, which is what I would be doing now.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And you're making 125, maybe sometimes 150. That's a decent amount of money. And break that down per month, well over 10 grand, and that is comforting, knowing that you don't have that coming in every month. And now I think it's so important to surround yourself with positive figures. And that's when we talk about our Swift analysis. The last T has a couple of different things, your trajectory where you want to be, your threats, which are more external, whereas the fear is internal. And you're experiencing that with those. I like that stinking thinking. I've never heard that before. That's pretty good. And those can definitely turn into a snowball effect of toxicity mentally. But then when you look at your table, who you surround yourself with, you kind of know maybe the world's best trainer might be able to help you a little bit. But you also need to think about just this, what this podcast is saying, and how you need to surround yourself with positive figures who are doing, doing, doing, doing. And if you want to become the best, you have to do what the best are doing, but multiply that by a factor of 20. And what most people do when they start a career in fitness, because I've seen it for 20 plus years, they read a textbook, they go out there, they gain unsupervised experience. So they don't know what the fuck they're doing, and then they quit and they have those same stinking thinking thoughts because now they're trying to find a new career. But unfortunately, they didn't come into this with the proper expectations. So if you parlay with what the founders podcast is saying and what we're saying, you set yourself up for success with that foundation. You learn as much as you can and you shadow as many trainers as you can. Like I said, you got to get to Sacramento and link up with Nick and Joe and trainers who are getting hired at the best gyms because what took me 10 years to build my career capital in the beginning, you can skip eight years of that by doing it faster and more efficiently, where I had to do it for five months learning the wrong way because I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have someone to go to. I was one of those trainers who had that misinterpretation that I just need to gain experience without supervision. I wasn't surrounded with good trainers. There's a couple that were good that stood out, Billy and Adam from Bladium, where I first started. But most trainers are very toxic, kind of like you were saying with teachers. They can bring you down the peanut gallery by saying, Oh my God, it's so hard to make money. The gym takes all my money. But they're thinking at a C-level scale. And that's why when you get one of these textbook certifications, your thinking isn't big. Or that's where I come in and I'm going to get you to think significantly bit bigger, where you could potentially, you know, use your education background for connections and networking opportunities. Why is it that so many schools don't emphasize a lot with physical education? If you look at the schools that you've been a part of, and I'm not knocking educators when it comes to physical fitness, but a lot of the PE coaches don't even really look like fitness individuals. In your experience, would you say PE teachers look like staples of fitness? Don't you don't need to be PC. I just saw your eye roll right there. And obviously, you're not going to call people out, but I remember when I was in high school and one of my PE teachers, and he would be telling us to go run a mile. And we'd be talking amongst each other, be like, oh fucking, what's his name? Can't even run a mile. He's making us do it. So, like, there's just the kids didn't believe in the product because the teachers didn't even look like PE teachers.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, when I was a PE teacher at the school, I was principal, and I would participate in PE with the kids. I'd run with them, I'd play the games with them, I'd do everything with them. I wanted to see them, I'd lead by example. Today, PE teachers, I don't think they're they're just kind of just barking out orders. But I also don't think that the other teachers, the the mainstream teachers, so the English, math, whatever the fuck they're teaching, they don't value PE. And so they pull their kids out of PE. Oh, you'll skip P today, or P is not that important. Or and so that P is put on the back burner, unfortunately. And I've tried to stress that as a leader that, like, we need to get these kids active. Participate with your kids, and it's just always, if you're gonna skip, if you have a fucking math test to make up, no, just pull them out of P. If you have an English test to make up, pull them out of P. Because these teachers are so narrow-minded that their subjects number one, and PE doesn't matter. At the end of the day, though, we need to teach these kids that physical education is part of their lifestyle. And it it's it's way lacking today, not only from parents, but as educators who don't think PE is important because they're gonna become these grandmaster mathematicians or whatever the hell they think they're gonna do. But yeah, it's it's not valued at all, especially in the in the elementary level where we need to value it up through eighth grade, and then you go to high school. Well, and you only have two years of PE. And it's unfortunate because kids learn by example. And if a teacher's pulling a kid out of class, well, just skip PE, just skip PE, and it's just like, oh shit, I don't need to go to PE. And so then kids build that into their lifestyle and they become morbidly obese. And kids today are fat and they're not active, and so we need to incorporate that in the schools. Teachers need to be doing PE with their kids.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's interesting because when you look at the onboarding process, PE teachers have a BA, Bachelor of Arts, so they didn't go through the science side, which is kinesiology and the movement. So they're they do teach a lot of like gamification, which is good, but the whole psychology is interesting because you're absolutely right. When you think of what people do in life now, if you're stressed out with work, what's the first thing that you're gonna skip? Your workout. And we put it on the back burner. So if you're able to, you know, master the fundamentals of movement and you have that background with education, and you can stress the importance of movement by implementing superior processes that will help the kids utilize fitness for the future. There's a really cool story with Naperville, Naperville, I'm not quite sure how to say it out of Chicago. It's one of the fittest schools in the nation. And one of the things that they do is they require the kids this zero period. And they've found that uh the book's called Spark and Dr. Rate, I believe. And he was able to look at BDNF, which is brain-derived neurotropic factor, and how it's the miracle co miracle growth for the brain. And if you exercise prior to learning, you're gonna absorb more of that. It doesn't mean if you exercise, you're gonna be smart, but what it means is if you wake up at 6 a.m. and you you know do a bunch of flashcards or whatever for two hours, your capacity of filling up your brain is limited in retrospect to doing a workout high, high intense. Now you have more opportunities to absorb that information. And exercise is miracle growth for the brain, neuroplasticity, it's the fountain of youth, but we don't make it the priority when we're younger. So when you go through your learning stages, and just like the podcast was saying, you learn the basics, but you have your career capital 20 plus years in education. So you could potentially start reaching out to schools and finding out what are your PE teachers doing? Well, I was an educator and it didn't work here. Now let's incorporate this. Let's have more certifications that are being offered in school, not just some textbook, but you're teaching fundamentals of movement like what we have here. And that that would be a very lucrative side gig because states and the government is definitely they have tons of grant money out there to support good processes and good initiatives to get people to move more. And so that's the fun thing about fitness is it's not like you just have to go to a gym and be a trainer. You have whatever your brain has the capability of thinking. That's that again part of the Swift analysis, that innovative aspect. If you think that you're gonna change careers and you're just gonna work at a gym, that may not be that exciting to you. Think of it as I'm gonna master the fundamentals and I'm gonna see what this whole world is about, and I'm going to fill the gaps with my other world. You can bridge the two in the future, and you could change the whole entire landscape for fitness and physical education for younger kids on a secondary or high school level. And those are big initiatives that you can tackle on. But it begins with what can I do today to move the needle? And I need to start with mastering the basics. How are we doing with the classes? Are you going through there? How's our shoulder anatomy?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's going, I mean, I've gone over, like you said, I I instead of just dedicating myself to it, I have other instead of just staying 100% focused on that, I got another share going on. So I need to obviously be more proactive with that set times. I've I've gone over the videos several times. It's just I need to be more intent with my direction and where I want to go and just sit there and and focus and as opposed to just go, well, I could be doing this, I could be doing that. So it's it's my attention to detail. I need to the the videos are great. I I I've been working out since I've been in junior high. So I know I know what it takes to incorporate that lifestyle, but the anatomy and all that stuff can be overwhelming. So you just start, oh shit, I can't do this. And so then you go back down to it. So it's just doing it and not being distracted.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's the fun of it. So look at your schedule. Okay, I want to be, I'm gonna wake up. What time do you wake up? Five, six? Yeah, five. You start out with a a 30-minute little mobility routine, your shoulders jacked up, your your backs jacked up, do 30 minutes of some type of warm-up routine, listen to a podcast while you're doing it, and then you eat, and then you go work out, and then you spend an hour studying, and then you listen to a podcast while you go for a run, or you go for a walk, and then you find a therapist in town who you can take them out to coffee and talk about the life of a therapist, and then you find trainers who are doing it, and you take them out to coffee, you take them out to happy hour, you go to Fifth Street, if it's still there, or Frankie's, and you find a couple of trainers in town who were doing it because Chico's a small town, even though it's like close to 100,000. It's definitely back in the ages in the sense of it isn't as progressed as like LA, where there's a gym in every freaking corner. And so then you go to Sacramento and you keep on learning from other trainers who are doing it, and those seeds are going to start to sprout with what you want to do. And maybe two years from now, you're gonna be doing something completely different, but you will be doing it, and that's what you have to tell yourself, those affirmations. I am going to be doing this, I am gonna be doing this. It's not, well, maybe I should go back to that old life because that old life was toxic. And as you said, I think that's the biggest takeaway from our conversation today is I wasn't happy. So, how can you change your future and focus on being happy? And it's not monetarily, you can win. Well, I expect to win a lot of tonight, uh,$1.5 billion. And will I be a little happier? Sure, because I'm gonna be able to pour a bunch of money into show up and we'll be able to advertise more. And that's gonna give us the resources that we need. And yeah, that's going to give me new problems in the future. But you can't think of problems or hurdles as negative, and that's what I love about that podcast. I listen to it every single day. It kind of just shapes my mental mindset because I'll definitely go down little rabbit holes and be negative and we're not where we want to be, or my gym's not doing as well as it could be. Oh, I lost this gym last year, whatever. You can have those negative thoughts. But when you listen to positive things and you hear these people, it's like, oh shit, this guy started. I just listened to the one on Seagram's and he started his company during prohibition and he thought of ways that he could overcome these hurdles when they were presented. We all have hurdles. Every single person that's listening right now, you have hurdles, you're busy, you have excuses. Every part, I don't think mentality with like victimhood is like a staple for life, like a stamp for life. I think we all experience victimhood on a daily basis, but we also have the opportunity to have that growth mindset. And if you allow for that victimhood to parlay on top of it, one victim mentality to the next one, to the next one, then it cascades and then it can really just take over versus, oh, you know, I didn't, you know, today my client canceled last night. And I'm like, yeah, I'll sleep in a little. I could allow for that mentality to go into tomorrow, go into the next day. Or I say, you know, I slept in, I needed it. You know, I wanted to see how many hours in I slept eight and a half hours last night. So maybe I wasn't getting enough sleep this week. That's okay. I can't beat myself up for it. I move on. Now let's let's focus on a positive one. Okay, let's get a workout in. I'm gonna do some bench press and some heavy eccentrics today because my goal is 315 for this year. How can I reach my goal? So it's like, yeah, you can't have negative thoughts about I didn't study as well as I wanted to, or you just say, okay, those voices are there. Let's just look at where I'm at right now. What can I do at this moment? Let's study for 15 minutes. Let's listen to a call. Let's let's call, let's reach out to someone, let's do something that makes me uncomfortable, especially as we age. We don't do things that make us uncomfortable. We get into that routine. Wake up, go to Starbucks, go to your BJJ class, you get your ass kicked, and then you you do whatever. It's like we have this routine. Well, let's change that routine every single day by adding one small thing that's different. And that could be going to a different coffee shop, it could be going to a different networking opportunity, interviewing, or I say that a lot because it's exactly what they were saying in that talk with that guy when he got into his new career. I wanted to study so much. I wanted to be the best. And you're only going to be the best if you're constantly learning. If you look at the first 10 years of your career and you think of it as this is when I'm going to learn the most, the next 10 years when I'm really going to earn a lot. We don't have that mentality. We come in thinking, I need to make 100,000 this year, this month. I need to do it now, now, now you're not playing the long game. So, what can I do to learn as much as possible to be that 1%? You're already on that path. And the the biggest thing that you can do is just do it. Keep showing up. What are some other thoughts that you have or anxieties about changing careers?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's just the comfort, like you said, getting out of my comfort zone and not looking at challenges, like you said, as an opportunity, as opposed to like a challenge, like oh shit, as like uh uh. Like, all right, bring it on. Like so having that mindset shift, focusing on the aspects that I have control over, because sometimes in life you have get so worked up over what ifs or the catastrophizing that you things that might you don't have control over. But it's just if you get a schedule, you study, like you said, go out and do something different every day to branch out and get out of your comfort zone. I think it's just that repetitive process allows you to start eventually building up that and breaking those old habits. Like you said, just waking up, drinking your coffee, walking around the house, as a as opposed to being more intent and purposeful with your day and not dwelling on, oh, I didn't get enough sleep, so I can't do this and I can't do that. And so I would tell my students, look back but don't stare. You're looking back at your your past, but don't stare and let it consume you, because then you start doubting yourself, and then you you convince yourself not to do it anymore. It's that and that five-second rule, that book by Mel Robbins is fantastic. You just you got five seconds. What are you gonna do it or not? Five seconds. And I found that helpful because the longer you sit and think, you're fucked.

SPEAKER_01:

The irony behind that, though, that's exactly what you do. So you're kind of the pop calling the kettle black because you're telling the students not to do what you're doing, but that's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh no, I don't take my own advice, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

You got to take the advice of like a coach. Let's let's let's compare this to basketball. We're big zag fans, and you could you know roll over, piss on yourself because you got your fucking asses kicked by 40 points against Michigan, and you could let that one loss dictate the rest of your season. But what do they do? They they put their big boy pants on and say, Hey, we got our asses kicked, we got to learn from this. Let's get into the the room, let's watch a video. Why do we get our asses kicked? Okay, wow, we we literally got our asses handed to ourselves. I've been a coach for 25 years, and that was the worst loss of my life. Coach Phew could go out there and get another DUI like he did a couple of years ago, but he decided not to. Okay, how can we figure this out and move forward and learn from it? And now they're you know top six in the nation, and you got to use that momentum to make decisions for the future. You learn from it, you keep on moving on. So, you know, you do a good job of journaling and you do a good job of thinking about the the future, but the action is what's delayed. And so you gotta you just gotta listen to yourself. Listen to this podcast every day. It's like um my favorite show, Eastbound and Down, where he would he made motivational talks and then he would listen to himself speaking. It's like listen to this podcast every day and hear yourself saying, I was frustrated with the past, I wasn't happy, I know what I need to do. Mel Robbins, five-second rule, but you're not doing it. Why aren't you doing it? So then move, get your ass up, go out there and do something that makes you uncomfortable. When was the last time I ran five miles? I haven't done it, I'm gonna go do that. When was the last time I got a training session? I haven't done that. I'm gonna schedule that in today and I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna always be learning. And if I have days, what's gonna happen and I'm gonna have some negativity, focus on what's gonna be next. Don't look in the rear view, focus on moving forward and listen to the books from Matthew McConaughey and people who fire you up or whoever it may be. You have to get those positive voices to overcome the negative ones because we all have those negative voices. It's a matter of you letting the positive ones overcome the negative ones. Any questions for me, big guy, before we call our day? No, I think I think we're good. Appreciate your time. You can tell that you opened up a little bit, which is good. And I can tell you're a little frustrated because my biceps are bigger than yours. But if you get into the gym, you'll be able to maybe overcome your little brother one of these days. You're still trying to keep up with me.

SPEAKER_02:

That's all right, bud.

SPEAKER_01:

Remember, big biceps are better than small ones. Keep showing up.