Never Skip Leg Day w/ Paul Fetters

In this episode of Programming Lions, guest Paul Fetters dives deep into finding your true passion so it doesn’t seem like actual work. Before personal training was a true occupation, Paul found his happiness as a professional body builder and trainer at a California gym. Engaging with the public and making people feel productive and happy instilled his entrepreneurial spirit into opening fitness facilities, creating diet plans and forming healthy habits for his clients.

Aside from his love in lifting weights, family is no distant second when it comes to having a healthy lifestyle and building skills in personal freedom. Communication played an important role, and spending quality time together empowered the amazing relationship Paul has with his three children, who each also own their own business and see the benefit of being their own boss.

In our world of fast paced fixes, a goal Paul speaks strongly about is that success is built upon; think, what can I do today to build on my success everyday, and therefore remain strong throughout my entire life.

Links mentioned in episode:

https://linktr.ee/papafetts
https://balancedhabits.com

00:00 Intro

02:16 Bodybuilding Start

06:36 Don’t Skip Leg Day

07:56 Gold Gym Stories

10:00 Starting a Business

14:15 Working w/ Family

16:20 Doing all Roles

17:35 Family First

20:05 Dad Advice

22:57 Heart Scare

28:00 Heartfelt Horizons

30:05 Gaining an Edge

34:30 Rapid Fire

36:00 Summary

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Programming Alliance podcast, where we are on a mission to be more productive humans. Today, we have an incredible guest on, Paul Fetters, a. k. a. Papa Fetts. A family man, an entrepreneur, and a fitness expert. Today, we're going to talk about everything from finding your passion, to raising kids, building a business, dealing with setbacks, and much more. And a little bit about Paul. He's got an incredibly decorated career. He's been working out with the best at Gold's Gym like Arnold, The Rock, and many other big names. And personally, he has competed in over 44 bodybuilding competitions over the last 40 years. He has won state and national championships all the way from his youth into master and grandmaster categories. So we've got a lot to talk about. Let's get right into it. Paul, welcome to the Programming Lions podcast. It's great to have you on. The boys and I have had a chance to look at your impressive background, bio, and I'd love to have you in your own words for the audience's benefit, maybe describe a little bit about yourself and, your story. Grew up in Michigan. Family of eight children, six boys, two girls. My dad was an All American lacrosse player at Maryland University, so he was an athlete. He was 6 4, 220 pounds. All of our toys growing up in my town, in my house. Was in our basement, we had a wrestling mat, boxing gloves, a weight set, and everything was we did was athletic. And so it's interesting that each child picked something different. Mine was weightlifting. I just love the feel of the weights and building strength. And I just got hooked. I moved out to California when I was 19 so I could sign up at Gold's Gym and create a bodybuilding career because that's really what I wanted to do. And I did that successfully for, which is crazy, literally 40 years. I competed, I did a lot of shows and it's what I love to do. And I knew that in order to be happy, I needed to figure out how to make a business in a gym without necessarily owning a gym. So that's it's when I did. Got you into bodybuilding. It's funny because I didn't start out knowing about bodybuilding. I just knew that I loved lifting weights. I loved being strong. I wrestled in junior high and high school, so I figured the stronger I was, the better I would be at it, right? And then it got to a point where I started to see muscle develop on my body, and people started reacting. I remember I had a brother, Who went away for a year and he came home and he saw me, he's holy cow, like you really putting on some muscle and I'm like, oh, I am. I said, yeah, I guess I am because it happens so slowly. You don't really think about it. When I was 19, some guy in the gym, he goes, Paul, you should really think about competing, getting up on stage. I'm like, okay what do I do? He goes there's a show in 2 weeks. You just diet by eating this, and this, and learn a posing routine. And you get up on stage. I'm like, all right I'll do it. Cause there were a bunch of other guys in the gym around my age and we decided to all do it together. Yeah, it'd be fine. Let's do it. Whatever. And so I remember I was cutting out pictures of poses of other body buildings in the magazine. And I would move them around and try to figure out, Oh, this is a good pose and I'll do this one, and so I put it together. I ended up going out on stage and I loved it. I got so much feedback from the audience yelling and screaming and I ended up winning a trophy for being the best poser, which was hilarious. Wow. Yeah. I just felt natural on stage and they were given a trophy out from first place through fifth place. And the first four guys were so light years ahead of like the rest of us that, there was just wasn't even a chance there, but there were like 10 of us. Hoping to get that fifth place trophy and buddies of mine were coming up and saying, Hey, don't worry if you don't get fifth place, you did great. You should just be really proud and yeah, whatever. And then they called me for fifth place. I was like, I felt like I won the show. I got a trophy about three feet tall and people were going crazy. And when I came down afterwards from the stage. People came up to me and said, man, you've got great genetics. You should really think about doing this. And I was like, yes, I'm going to do this. Okay. So that's what got you hooked. It sounds like you had a big rush from that first event. Yeah. Oh yeah. So speaking of that 40 years, so that was 1977 and in 2017, 40 years later at 61 years old, I competed. In the grandmasters national championships and won that. Arnold competed maybe 20 times in his whole life. I competed 44 times on stage because I just loved it so much. Wow. Wow. That's pretty cool. Whoa. Yeah. That's wild. So then from that event you got hooked and what triggered you to make the decision to move from Michigan out to Venice beach, which is a massive change, Yeah. And to put yourself in that environment where. I guess in one hand you're putting yourself into the lion's den of the best of the best. And maybe that's part of why you went there, but like how did you make that leap? Yeah. So it was a hundred percent. I I did that. So when I was 18, I went out to California to visit and while I was there, I sold the buddy that I was visiting. I said, I got to go to Gold's gym. I got to see, what that's like. So I went there, it was in 1975 and that was the year that Arnold. One, one of his Mr. Olympia titles, which is the very biggest contest you can win Arnold Schwarzenegger. And he was probably a month away from competing and who's the first person I see is him standing there. I was like, Oh my gosh. That was just blew my mind. I'm like, that's what I want to do. And I couldn't wait to get home. And I told my parents, I said, I am moving up to California as soon as I can. And I did that and I signed up at a gold's gym before I even got a place to live. I was so excited about being there. That's incredible. Arnold's had an impact on a lot of people's lives just by what he brought to bodybuilding. And it sounds like that is what happened in your case too. To walk in as that's the first person what a wild experience. Yeah. And I had the pleasure of getting to know him over the years too. We'd even hang out and got to a point where I'd see him around all the time. He became a friend and it was great. Wow, that's crazy. Another topic you can see I obviously work out. What's your strongest and weakest like lift? So in order to be a good bodybuilder, you had to have good legs. Because we've seen plenty of guys around the gyms that have great upper bodies, but it looks like they forgot to train legs. So I picked the guy that had the best legs in the gym, and I started training with him. And he just crushed me for the first six months, and I finally just, Got stronger and better and stronger and better. And it turned out that legs were one of my best body parts and I really helped me in my career. So that turned into one of my strongest lifts. So you never skipped leg day? Never. I talked to Will about it. You never skip leg day. It's the most important. And you just confirmed that from the expert. So that's good. Especially as we get older. You guys don't know anything about this yet because you're not my age, but men, the foundation of our strength and our quality of life is our legs. We need to have strong legs. What became important in bodybuilding for the look became important as a quality of life for me as I got older to have really strong legs. I can do things I'm 67 that 50 year olds, 40 year olds can't do still. And I'm proud of that because of that strength training. Nice. You worked out at Gold's Gym for, what did you say, 18 years? About 18 years. And that was like full time 18 years. Like I was there twice a day and then I started my business there. So I was there like all day. So I got to see everything going on. It was a blast. Yeah. So all the legends, including Arnold, which is the most well, probably well known legend. You get to work side by side with those folks. That's incredible. I tell you why it was so fun because the Los Angeles Raider football team came to Los Angeles around that time in the late eighties. So those guys would come in and train. So to see Howie Long and Lyle Alzado and Terry Bradshaw. Wow. Terry came in because he was friends with some of the other guys because he was a Pittsburgh Steeler guy, but the football players would come in and train and that was always fun. And then the WWF, which is WWE now the wrestlers. So Hulk Hogan would come in and The Rock would come in and Andre the Giant. You'd see these guys. And they fit right in because there were so many characters in that gym to begin with, and so many monster bodybuilders walking around, but these guys felt really comfortable there and we made them feel comfortable because no one was asking for autographs or anything else. It was just a fun, fun environment, but I'll tell you, Andre, the giant was the biggest human being I've ever seen. He would barely fit into the machines. And he would put the whole weight stack down and lift it. Like he was warming up. He was so strong. Jeez. That was funny. I remember watching him wrestle. He was a massive human being. All these guys were huge. That's unbelievable. And The Rock was just such a good guy. So it's fun to see his success now, in the movies and everything that he's doing. He was just always just such a good guy. Yeah. That's really cool. And maybe this is a good transition because a lot of these gentlemen you mentioned, like The Rock, has transformed his Wrestling and bodybuilding career into a business, which you've also done. So why did you choose the path of owning your own business? As I mentioned earlier, I knew that I was the happiest in the gym. That just made me happy. So I had to figure out what could I do to create a career where I could be in the gym and make a good living. And in 1983, before that word personal trainer even existed, it was just something that I would do. I would just automatically help someone in the gym if I saw they were struggling or if they were new to it, and I could just tell that they didn't really know what they were doing. I'd say, hey, you know what? Maybe you should think about this or that, just whatever it was. And I had this woman say to me one day, he goes she said can you help me? I said, yeah, I'm happy to help you. Every time I'm in here, I'm in here a lot. She goes, no, can I hire you to specifically? Walk me through a routine and meet me here and help me work out. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know that I have time to do that. And she goes how about if I gave you like 40 bucks? And at that time I had a job where I was making 5 an hour. So I was like 40 for one hour. When do you want me to start? And that literally started my career because once I started doing that, she said, Hey, can my girlfriend come in? She wants to do the same thing and can you help her and you make 40 bucks. So by the time I had three clients working three days, three days a week, I was making more money in nine hours than I was making in 40 hours at the other job. So I was thinking like, okay, there's something to this. I'm going to really start pursuing this. And that's really what I did. And I did that for my whole career to the point where once I started having a family, my wife and I, we moved down to Huntington beach. I decided to open up my own facility. It was a personal training studio, so I could really take care of people and just give them an experience that was above and beyond anything that they would get in a normal gym. I feel extremely lucky. Because I felt like I never had to work because I enjoyed doing it. And honestly, I would do it for free, but I got paid really well to do it. Nice. All your kids, I think have business businesses, right? Yes. Yeah. Why do you think they chose to do that? Make all the, all of them have their own business. It's interesting entrepreneurship, which is owning your own business, being your own boss was something that just felt good for me to do that. And I knew that was a good path for me because it gave me a lot of freedom to own my own gym. I could set my own hours. I could go in, I could leave when I needed to. I could spend a lot of time with the kids as they were growing up. And I think my kids saw that. And also I was very forthcoming in a sense of communicating with them. What that was like owning your own business, as opposed to maybe working for someone else. Now I told them. From a very early age, I think it was important for them to work for other people, to try other jobs, to see what you like and what you don't like. Trust me, I had a million jobs as a kid growing up and there were certain things I knew I never wanted to do. I never wanted to work in a restaurant. I never wanted to do this or do that. I had a hard time in this type of a business. So it helped me develop my own career and what I wanted to do and the person that I wanted to become. So my kids saw that. And even though I never pushed them in that direction, they just fell into that. So my son, who was like first born, who actually worked with me for a while in the gyms, ended up opening up his own facility with his wife that he currently has right now. That's super successful. It's fun to see. Nice. One of my daughters opened up a hair salon. She's was 12 years old. So it was fun to see her pursue that. And they, the rest of them just pursued what it is, whatever it is they loved. Yeah. Again. And turned into an entrepreneur. So that's a great thing to see. Very cool. I do. I think that's a great idea in terms of having, kids get different jobs because you learn pretty quickly what you like, what you don't like, what you can tolerate, what you can't. Taking orders versus, being your own boss, is part of that learning curve. It's it's good advice. What was it like working with family? Was it like harder or easier than you thought? Your son worked with you for a while, right? And he did for 10 years. Okay. Yeah. So I'll tell you how he got started when he was 17. He wrecked my truck and it was going to cost a couple thousand five, 6, 000 bucks to fix. Okay. And I told him, I said, I'm going to fix it, but you're going to work it off. Yeah. And you're going to start by cleaning the gyms. So he showed up the first day. He goes, okay, what do you want me to do? I'm like, clean that toilet and that sink. And then come and talk to me. So he felt like, I really, I need to do this. I need to work off this debt. And so the more time he spent with me, he seemed to enjoy it more. And honestly, it was so cool for me that he never complained. He just, Just did what he was told to do. And it was really great to see but once he started coming in when he was 17 and seeing how everything was being done, he comes to me one day and goes, yeah, I think I want to start working out. I'm like, that's great. And he goes, and I want to learn a little bit more about your business. I'm like, I'm happy to help. So I started showing him some different things. And he says, I think I want to become a trainer. And I said, so don't do it because I did it. Don't do it because it looks easy. Do it because you really love doing it. I'm not going to let you just go out and get a weekend certificate to be a trainer. If you show me that you're dedicated to doing this the right way, then I will help you progress. And he, to his credit, did everything right. He did great in school. He was a great study at work. He helped me like crazy. I think it was an ideal situation. He ended up running the whole show. Being my general manager, I could remove myself from the business and just sit back and be a leader. And he would run it with three gyms going on and he was. Amazing. But it's funny because I kept on saying to him, I go, Matt, don't do this because you think I want you to or because it's he goes funny. One day he goes, Papa, can you stop asking them or telling me that this is what I want to do? I said, okay, I'll stop saying that. I thought that was pretty good. Boys, did you hear he had his son cleaning toilets and equipment as his first duty at the gym? So I like that. And that he didn't complain. The best thing about that voice is that now he understood that business from the janitor to the owner because he did every single job. So he knows how to speak to that person that is there. The cleaner, which is a very important role, by the way. Having a clean gym is really important. Having someone at the front desk, who's friendly and inviting is a really important role. Everybody thinks, Oh, the owner's the most important or the trainers are so important, but if they don't get past those two people, when they walk into a business, they'll never even get to me. I think you made a really good point in terms of knowing all the elements in a business and just as somebody who came more from corporate America and now we're starting our own thing. Knowing how to do everything gives you a lot of respect for the role and how you treat that role and what kind of talent you may or may not need in that role. And so you touched on a lot of those points and that definitely is a huge building block I think for being a successful business owner is is knowing the whole spectrum of roles that are required. It is. And can I say that I am, I was so happy to come on here and talk to you guys, because I wish that I had done this with my kids. I think it is the best thing ever building this relationship. These guys are getting a great education, hearing it from different people in different walks of life. I'm so happy for you, Matt. I'm so happy for you boys. I just think it's so great. Such a neat thing. I get a little bit emotional because I just have the kids is just the best, yeah, it's really fun it's a really special thing for us and I appreciate that. It's obviously why we started this so we can spend more time together tackling whether it's tough issues or talking to motivating and inspirational people. Being able to do that together is such a cool experience. So yeah, it is amazing. I ended up having four, four kids. I don't know if you knew that or not, but my, I had a boy and then I had three daughters. So all four kids within six years. Oh, that's tight. So they grew up together and it was fun together. And I see pictures and it's just so awesome. Family and being together and helping each other is just everything. I grew up with eight kids. You heard that eight, seven siblings and we always took care of each other. And I instilled that in my kids, especially my son. I go, listen, you're the oldest, and you got three sisters, like you need to be there for them and they'll be there for you, people will come and go in your life, but you will always have each other. I see that now as adults, they're all four are married. They're all having kids, and it's just a beautiful thing to watch. Congratulations to you. It sounds like a wonderful family. You guys are buddies sometimes and sometimes not sometimes, they wrestle with this dichotomy of love, hate, but over time, I think it'll forge a bond. It does. It does. And even that will make you get closer because I had five brothers and we fought. My dad would say, take it downstairs, put on the gloves, get on the wrestling mat, beat the heck out of each other. And come back up friends and no matter how mad we got or how much we beat on each other, we knew we loved each other and we would always take care of each other. But that's just natural. You just, there's just, you're just going to fight sometimes. Just made myself a note by some boxing gloves. We're getting some good ideas today. I like this. A good portion of our listeners are dads I'm just curious as you've been a very successful father, as we just talked about, what are some tips or advice that you would want to give the audience? The first thing is just spending time together. We had dinner together every single night. I made sure I never worked and I didn't want to miss dinner. And that was such a good time to just talk about life. Thank you. Talk about what's going on in their life, talking about what they're excited about their fears. And we also started this game, which I would say, you should have some traditions and some rituals, some things that you do. So I'll tell you what we did, and it started because we would go out to eat quite often. We went to a Mexican restaurant, there'd be the chips on the table and the kids were just like pounding the chips. I'm like, all right, stop. Everybody's I don't want you to just pound all the chips. So we're going to play a game. I'm going to ask you a question and if you get it right, you can have one chip. And they're like, Oh, okay, great. Let's do that. And I could make the questions as hard and easy as I wanted to. So I started asking questions, obviously that they knew. And they could have a chip, so it just slowed everything down and it gave them an opportunity to learn a few things because I would start telling them, like I would ask them okay, who can name my oldest brother? And so if they didn't know what it was, they would learn what it was. And they learn, right? So the next time I asked that they knew it. And so they learned about my siblings. They learned about my life. They learned about my first dog. They learned about my first job. They learned about their moms where she went to grade school. So playing the guessing game was just a great way for them to learn about their mom and dad and how they grew up and what was going on. And it was fun for them to play this game to the point where everywhere we went, they would ask us, Hey, can we play the guessing game? So traditions and rituals are very important, but spending time together is everything, and quality time, not just oh, I'm going, we're going to watch TV together. I couldn't wait till my kids were your age, I could really talk to him, right? Talking to a five year old, it's a little bit hard. They don't really understand everything, right? You're trying to teach them things and you hate to keep saying, no, don't do that. Don't touch that. Don't do this. I just wanted to be able to say, Hey, this is why we don't touch a hot burner. Or this is why I'm asking you to do this because I could reason with them and then everything would start making sense. So where you guys are in your age right now, for me was some of my favorite times. Absolutely. I didn't think I needed to punish my kids. I just needed for them to understand what they did wrong, where the boundaries are, and how they can be a better person, and how they can be a better part of the family, because everything for us was the family. So many things together and I think that's super important. I heard that you had a heart attack and a major surgery as a fit person. How did you basically recover from that? That's a great question, Max. I'll tell you what, first of all, my kids, especially being a bodybuilder. So in 1997, I won Mr. America when they were still in, when they're like your age. So when they went to school and said, my dad's Mr. America, they weren't kidding. Like I would visit their school, bring the trophies in, kick out a big bicep. And that was the show and tell they bring their dad. They thought of me as Superman. And I thought of myself as Superman. Like I, I hardly ever got sick. I didn't get injured. I could do crazy stuff, backflips and things, it was just that guy. So for this to hit me was extremely difficult in my life. It happened because my family, genetically, it's tends to have heart problems. My dad had open heart surgery, two of my older brothers had to have open heart surgery, even though we live a perfectly clean life. It's just, that's, we just got that gene that we have to be careful. I didn't think that would ever hit me because I was the most fit of all the siblings. And yet it did. And it was bad. That surgery was crazy difficult to recover from. They cut my chest open seven inches. Oh, I don't want to, I don't want to get too crazy, but they basically spread you open, right? They did. They had to open up my chest and they had to stop my heart. I was on a machine that kept me living. They had stopped my heart so they could work on it. And fix it and then put it all back together. It took seven hours of surgery. I don't even know how they do it's unbelievable. What doctors can do. And they put me back together. And they told me that I couldn't lift weights for three months. I couldn't lift five pounds. I couldn't drive for three months. I haven't missed working out for two weeks in 40 years, let alone three months. So that was difficult. You must know that sitting home for me, just trying to get better was really difficult, but I had my time. Yeah. I had my kids. I had my friends. My wife was amazing with helping me, keeping me down to make sure I didn't do anything crazy so I listened to the doctor. I did everything he said, took all the medication he told me. I was a perfect patient. This was in 2019. What is the build back recovery? Because I imagine not only do you take that, that three months off But then you've got to now build back all the strength You probably lost muscle mass a number of things and then of course as you're getting older It's harder to build some of that back and recover as fast. Incredible mountain to climb. I think because I had such success in business and in life and in bodybuilding that I could draw from that. And I'm like, okay, I know how to do it. I just have to do it. I don't care how long it's going to take me a year from now. I want to be able to look back and go, man, I'm glad I spent that year training because I'm a year further along and I'm this much better. And that's the attitude that I took. And it's the attitude to any big goal is to not get caught up with the end result. Not get Oh, I want to be here. It's what can I do today that can help me be successful? And what can I do tomorrow to be a little bit better? It's just try to get better 1 percent every day and work towards something. And that's what I did. I started slow because I didn't want to. Put myself back, but I started doing a lot of videos, talking to people about how difficult the mindset was, how your mind wants to almost work against you Oh, you can't do this. This is too difficult. You it's going too far and you were, you lost too much muscle, but I wouldn't listen to that. I would think just the opposite of those things. I'd wake up in the morning. And I would think about the things that I was grateful for. I was grateful I didn't die as grateful for my children. I was grateful for that. I could get back into the gym. And when I started speaking about the things that positively my attitude changed and I couldn't wait to go to the gym. And I knew that every time I lifted, I was further along than I was the day before. And that really helped me through because when I speak to other people that had that surgery, they really suffer from depression. And a lot of people don't feel like they can recover because they were in such bad shape going into the surgery, right? They don't even know how to even begin. I've been helping a lot of people. Yeah. And this actually is a perfect segue into the next topic that I wanted to go over is your current business is, now you've owned and operated gyms and personal training for years, but then you've also opened up, Heartfelt Horizons, which helps heart surgery, recovery. And tell us a little bit about that. In my recovery, I signed up to some survival groups on Facebook and different places. And I eventually had to get off of them because everyone was so negative., I can't listen to this. It's, it was so negative. So I thought instead of ignoring those people, I'm like, how can I help them? I started responding to some of them and helping them through thinking more positively. And I got a pretty good response. And I'll go, there's a real need here. I put together a 17 video series on how to recover your mindset. In other words, how you think about things, your emotions, because your emotions are all over the place. I was helping people not hide their emotions, but how to regulate, how to deal with their emotions, how to eat better. Without giving up the foods they like and then how to begin a strength training routine. So there were four parts of it. Okay. And I did a four different series of video speaking to them. Say, listen, this is how you start strength training. You don't go every day for an hour. You do it maybe twice a week for 20 minutes and you start this way and you make it easy for them to go, Oh, I think I can do that. And then once they do it and have a little bit of success, then they're more willing to listen to me. Maybe I'll listen to what he has to say about the emotions or the mindset or nutrition. So that's how it started. So I created this program and just put it out there for free. At first I started selling it and I thought, you know what? I don't care about selling it. I just want people to have it. So that they can recover in a way that is empowering instead of being a victim. I love that. And we'll drop a link to the description of that in the chat for anyone that wants to check it out. Obviously, we encourage that. So in addition to the heart surgery recovery plan, you also have balanced habits, which looks like custom nutrition plans and fitness plans. How's that working? The interesting thing about health and fitness. And what I do is it never stops, right? I'm never going to stop training with weights. I'm never going to stop eating good. I'm never going to stop trying to feel great all the time because it's so powerful and the payback is. I feel great all the time. So when we opened up our facilities, my wife and I, Carolyn would get together at the beginning of every year. How can we reach more people with the benefits of strength training and health? So we decided to start building more on nutrition because strength training, it was almost like an acquired taste. Not everybody wanted to do strengthening, but everyone had to eat. And a lot of people didn't know how to eat right. As the whole country started gaining weight, it seems like more people had a weight loss goal than a fitness goal. So we thought if we can get a nutrition program where we're not telling people what they can't eat, instead we're giving them portion size of things that will help propel them forward, whatever their goal happens to be. We can reach more people. So we built that company within our gyms, helping our own customers. It got so popular that other gyms around the country said, Hey, can we use your programming in our gym? So we turned it into a licensing program that was in 150 gyms across North America and Canada. So that we could help other people. So we've helped over 200, 000 people over these last eight years. Wow. Reach their fitness goal. Wow. That's incredible. It's got to be a pretty rewarding business to have. Yeah. It's the best part about my job, changing lives. And especially Matt, if I can change. a dad's life to be more fit, more active, happier, being able to go out and play with his kids. If you were a hundred pounds overweight and your boys wanted to go out and kick the soccer ball around, you'd last 10 minutes, you're like, I gotta go sit down. That changes everybody's life. Yours. There's coworkers, everybody. So when I change your life, I touch other people's lives and I just love that because when you do change their life, they just, they can't thank you enough so guys, here's the thing. You start strength training, you will automatically get stronger and every kid your age that's not strength training, chances are you're going to be stronger than them. So whatever sport you do, baseball, soccer, football, wrestling, whatever it is, you will have an edge up on those other kids because. You're stronger and you've been working at it. And the other thing is as you get a little bit older and you pay more attention to your nutrition, that's another part where you can set yourself apart from someone. Imagine how if you ate, good protein, you're eating chicken and you're eating good carbohydrates, whether it's, cereal or fruits or vegetables. Your body runs really powerfully off that. It's like putting really good gas into a powerful engine runs really strong. And then now you're playing against a kid who had Twinkies before he came into the game or a donut before they came into that game. And that's thrown in lousy gasoline to a powerful car. It's going to it's going to choke. It's going to barely be able to work very well. So I learned that really early. So when I was strength training and I was eating good as a, as in my adolescent years and then into my teenagers years, I felt like I, I had an edge on every other kid, my age and it's really showed, I excelled in wrestling and I excelled in football and in some of my sports. So it's super important. Right now it can be like fun and all oh, why should I do this? But if you start thinking like, oh, this is gonna make me this much better in my sport, that's fun to think about. Yeah. That's cool. Good fuel boys. That's an interesting thing to think about. Guys, you wouldn't pee in your gas tank, right? No. No. Why would you do that? You want to have good fuel in your gas tank. Yeah. That's right. Think about it that way. I think that's good advice. How about we transition into a segment, Paul, that we like to call Rapid Fire. Excluding us. Who is your idol? Arnold Schwarzenegger. Coolest invention in your lifetime? Boy, the phone. Crazy. Have you ever been stuck in a bathroom stall without toilet paper? No. Whew! Whew! Lucky. I check first. If you had super power, what would it be? Flying. For sure. Okay. Would you rather, fight a 1, 000 pound duck or 1, 001 pound ducks? Oh boy. I think I'd rather fight the big 1, 000 pound duck because I could probably outrun him. Dad, would you rather die to a great white shark or a flaming hot volcano? Oh, for sure a shark. I, yeah. Afraid of fire. Sure. Sure. Good job. Wow. Okay. That concludes rapid fire. Nice. Paul. That was that was incredible. With that, why don't we wrap up. Paul, I really appreciate you coming on the show. You bring a lot of. expertise. Your 40 years in the health and fitness industry, is incredible. I really appreciate some of the stories today. And what I appreciate maybe even more is some of your advice in terms of how to build good family unit and habits around, Tightness of your family. I want to thank you again for coming on the show. Your links and bio and information will be in the description. So for those that are interested, want to check out Paul's information more. It will be in the description. I encourage you to do that. So the last question we have, Paul, is Any final words of advice for the GSD nation that you could leave us with? Yes. So there is no bad stage having children. You hear people talk about, Oh, it's a terrible twos. And then it's Oh, this, and then all the teenage years are terrible. If you're communicating with your kids, if you've built a relationship with them from day one, instead of waiting until they're 15 years old, you'll have the best family you could possibly have because you'll be communicating to each other. I loved the teenage years. They're discovering, it's, they're discovering themselves, right? So you don't want to inhibit that. You just want to give them boundaries, right? And when you use certain boundaries early in life, you don't start when they're 16 years old. I think most people thrive, including adults, knowing their boundaries, knowing what's the right and what's the wrong thing to do. Thank you. Thanks again for coming on If you enjoyed this content, please subscribe comment, share. It really makes a difference for us. Thank you until next time.