The Dad Bods and Dumbbells Podcast
The hosts Mitch and Bart discuss fitness, fatherhood, and guy stuff to help men live a great life, have fun, laugh, and get a little more fit in this weekly Podcast.
The Dad Bods and Dumbbells Podcast
Michael Mercieca’s Story: "How Pinewood Judo saved my Life"
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Michael Mercieca shares his powerful story of transformation through judo and how a tough-love coach changed the trajectory of his life from a bullied, anemic child to a champion athlete.
• Former professional athlete nicknamed "The Silver Moose" by his judo coach at age 11
• Found judo at Pinewood Judo Club after being bullied at school and within his large immigrant family
• Coach Don Werner built champions through high expectations and no-nonsense approach to competition
• Pivotal moment when his coach disqualified him from a tournament for poor sportsmanship
• Competed in heavyweight categories despite being smaller, developing strategic fighting approaches
• Transformed from constantly losing (11 silver medals) to becoming a champion
• At almost 64, maintains 12.5% body fat through consistent training and disciplined habits
• Currently works in technology sales but applies judo principles to business success
• Credits writing down goals daily since childhood as key to maintaining focus
• Believes in finding your "why" as motivation for fitness and life goals
Take control of your health through consistent habits - you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. What you measure, you manage. Start with small goals, track your progress, and keep moving forward.
More info About Don Werner:
- 55 years as a coach
- Coached 4 World Champions
- 132 Black Belts
- 296 National Champions
- 822 National Medals – Gold/Silver/Bronze
- 1 Olympic Silver Medal – Four Olympians
- 9 European Title
- 2 Commonwealth Medals
- 28 World medals
- 144 National British Squad Members
- Coached a National Champion Every Year since 1968
- …and 5 Dogs (Chows)
Barton’s RIVIAN Referral Code: BARTON16694413
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no-transcript, but today we have a guest who's an international man of mystery. He is a former professional athlete, a current member of the Fundify Investment Group. I believe he's from Australia. Based on his accent, this is Michael Meshier. Welcome, michael.
Speaker 3G'day everyone. I will say that I didn't know about that hair loss treatment and I've got to get on it because clearly I've been missing out. I don't really know if I can get back to where I was.
Speaker 2We've done a straw poll. The ladies love the bald head.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Just keep rocking it. It's all about how you use it, I think.
Speaker 3So apologies to the sponsor Solutions Pharmacy there, okay it started early.
Speaker 1often my wife and I have been talking about taking a trip to Turkey because, that's the popular thing to get your hair replaced, and so yeah, mark Norman made a joke.
Speaker 2He and so Mark Norman a joke. He went to Turkey with his, with his wife, and he was the only one on the plane that didn't wasn't involved, because everybody else was going to Turkey for the hair transplant.
Speaker 1It's the way to go. I have a buddy that did it and his hair looks good, but I don't think I'll need it because of solutions pharmacy.
Speaker 2So thank you, Solutions pharmacy save me a trip out to Istanbul.
Speaker 1So, well, let me. Let me start by talking. I met you here at the office and you told me, first and foremost, when I met you, that you were called the Silver Moose.
Speaker 3Ah okay, Let me clarify that. My nickname given to me when I was 11 years old by my judo sensei coach, equivalent to coach Don Werner from Pinewood Judo Club, was moose. It still is. I mean, that's what he gave me and it morphed. It turned out to be a pejorative term silver medal moose because the backstory of getting into judo was real simple. You know, I came from a large, pretty poor immigrant family. My parents are from Malta. I was born in South London but I did move to Australia in my 20s, so you picked up on the accent, Excuse me.
Speaker 3And you know, look, it was a different era. You know, I was kind of bullied within the construct of my family because I had two older brothers and I have six sisters and I was the seventh, so I and the sisters could give it as good as the brothers and, uh, in the neighborhood I was, I was anemic. You know, we we didn't have a lot of money. There's always somebody worse off, so let me be clear about that.
Origins of the Silver Medal Moose
Speaker 3Um, and yeah, I was anemic, I couldn't run like 30 yards. I was bullied at school and I got fed up of it. It's like when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, it's like nothing changes if nothing changes. And I heard that's a longer story which I won't avail you of now but I ended up going to the equivalent then of a sports center. I walked three miles and they had a judo club. And September 1972, just turned 11, I walked into a judo club and it changed my life.
Speaker 1I mean.
Speaker 3I'll be serious. It changed my life. It saved my life.
Speaker 1That's great.
Speaker 3And that's when I got the name Moose. I ended up being pretty successful. I just found I had a natural. Did it click right away? You know, honestly, I got to tell you I think it was a lot of pent-up anger getting beaten up. And suddenly I was on this judo mat where I had an equal chance and I could be.
Speaker 2I wasn't beaten up or bullying but I could fight and get that out yeah, and then, um, it gave me.
Speaker 3It gave me a focus. There's a lot of people at that judo club a very successful judo club in a small town you would never even think you, you know and there were a lot of people who had similar stories. They had like trauma, childhood trauma. Martial arts is great for that, I'll, you know, pin that to one side, but I found it was a competition club Don was all about winning. No apologies, none of this. Taking part in sport, none of that no participation.
Speaker 2It wasn't.
Speaker 3No, no, no, no, no no, none of that, and uh, so I'm aging myself, I know but uh but you know that's a whole other podcast that that's.
Speaker 2That's the beauty of sport and of martial arts is like you know, you go, you go to a competition, you know, or a tournament, like to win, and there's a clear winner and loser, and that's okay and that's how we learn and that's how we get better. And if you, I mean my son, does karate and he, he went to a karate tournament a couple of years ago and didn't do that Well, didn't show, come home with medals and stuff like that and it just lit a fire. That's's cool. And the next year he came back.
Speaker 2He's like silver, silver, gold that's cool and all three of his of his different uh competitions there you go.
Speaker 3That's just. That's a similar story. That's all you want to see you just want to see that type of transformation well, the thing I loved about judo is there's lots of things and you know we don't have the time to cover it, but it it just gave me a focus. Um, your listeners can't see this, but there's a moleskin and I write down, and I've been doing this since I was 11. I would write down listeners he's holding up a diary.
Speaker 3Pinewood has a lock on the judo club the greatest judo club in the world, because they're going to listen to this when we record it that's awesome.
Speaker 3Um and Werner, what a great coach. I mean, he's a coach right up there. I did an article on him. He's up there with Sir Alex Ferguson, who is the soccer coach at Manchester United. He's up there with Belichick sabian all of these people that you all know. You americans know bear brian just just great, great coaches. I would stack his record at judo against any of those.
Speaker 3Yeah, he was just phenomenal the way that he could develop people and it gave me. It gave me something that was mine and I would write down things every day and I would like started walking to the library and looking up judo and where it came from, from the samurai warrior and jujitsu, and it gave me a focus. So that's why I don't take it lightly when I say it changed my life, but it saved my life. It gave me boundaries, it gave me a focus, it gave me camar, gave me boundaries, it gave me a focus, it gave me camaraderie, it gave me a reason, it gave me purpose and, uh, that was really important to me. And the silver medal was I started going to tournaments because he was all about competition club. Uh, I'll put it in american parlance because he would say every year at an awards dinner.
Speaker 3He was great into stats, which is another reason why I write things down Heart rates, weight composition, all of this. I'm neurotic about it but I love it. And what you measure you manage. That's always important too. It's really important what you measure you manage. But he would make no apologies. He said this is not a club that you come to for rec, for rec judo. There's no recreational judo here. You are expected to compete, even if it's beginner level tournaments. You are expected to compete. No crying.
Speaker 3Mum and dads are on the side, don't talk, I am the mom and dad. Um again, I love quotes and movies. If you remember, remember the titans coach boone yeah, denzel washington god bless america for that movie alone I just love it.
Speaker 2I love that movie and he would.
Speaker 3He introduced himself and he said this is not a, this is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. Yeah, I am the law. And that was dom werner in the nicest way. He wasn't a screamer, he wasn't a bobby knight and I love bobby knight, by the way just for the record. I love bobby knight. I've learned about him, but he was about competition and I started going to tournaments and I got into 11 finals and lost them all. So my cohorts in the club. It went from moose to like, oh, that's silver medal, moose.
Speaker 2You're going to get another silver medal.
Speaker 3Oh man Dang and then you're like I'm a choker I didn't know that term, choker back then, but you know it was the equivalent I'm like I lose it, I bottle it bottle, that's an english term. It's like if you've got bottled, you've got moxie, you've got you know the stones kind of thing you know, this is all dad.
Finding Purpose Through Judo
Speaker 3So I'm like, okay, um, and then I can remember there's a town in Wales called Porthcaw it's a beach town, and I entered my weight category, or the club entered me, and I lost in my weight category but I still wanted to carry on fighting and because I was kind of like fifth level in my weight category because it's a weight category sport there were great competitors back then Derek Patterson, peter Fricker, gerard uh, gerard taylor, um couple of others I was and I just said, coach, put me in this heavyweight. Yeah. So I was like scrawny, couldn't run 30 yards because I was anemic.
Speaker 3Yeah, fixed all of that.
Speaker 2Started eating liver and eggs americans hate liver, I love liver it's a for all you dads out there eat liver. It's great for you well, you know a great example of uh the how healthy that is the liver king wow that's just an influencer who, like claimed he was, he ate a bunch of organ meat and he was natural and he was all on so many steroids he finally came out and he's just a psychopath.
Speaker 3no, you, no, you don't need the steroids, you can just do it with your liver.
Speaker 2I remember a neighbor of mine always ate liver and I was like this has to be good because he was pretty jacked.
Speaker 1And I was like oh God, this is horrible.
Speaker 2And I lived in West Africa and when people would get malaria, they would just feed them liver and organ meat. That was the best way to get people healthy is just get all that vitamins and nutrients.
Speaker 3That was the best bit of Dancing with Wolves when they got the buffalo and then they just sliced it open and they cut out his heart and then they took a bite.
Speaker 1I was like, yeah, we need more of that, that's what we need. That's what's happening to men these days we need to eat more.
Speaker 3Like you know, it's funny because, like some of that stuff.
Speaker 2I mean it's just it reminds you of how kind of far the pendulum is along yeah because there's probably stuff from from when you were growing up and and even when we were growing up that, uh, that like we probably needed to move from because, there's probably a little bit too much, you know, just kind of like over overbearing you know, like a kind of abusive type relationship between a coach and player.
Speaker 2But you know, then there's somewhere there was the like everyone gets a trophy no coaches are allowed to have any real influence because the parents are just kind of watching out and like and with everything, and hopefully we're going back to a place where you know, we, we, we understand that like a really strong coach who has a great relationship with their students, like wow yeah, I made a note and I've got, I've got a, an influencer story about that.
Speaker 3But just to round off the, the silver medal thing, um, I would just tell my coach I'm like, put me in at the heavyweight. It's like we don't have somebody in the heavyweight so we're going to lose that. I said, put me in. And it made me tougher. It made me stronger. It just gave me a whole bunch of tools, Determination more than anything. I'm not a natural athlete. I am not a natural athlete. I'm not a natural athlete. I don't think I've found myself having a natural aptitude for anything. I learned in judo. You know objective work measure. I naturally then gravitated to sales and I apply everything.
Speaker 3I love sales because it's a measure. You got a quota, you make it, you win you don't you lose.
Speaker 2It's really easy. You've got a quota, you make it, you win. You don't you lose. It's really easy. You get up in the morning.
Speaker 3You know exactly what you have to do that day. Make a million dollars in that year. Make a million dollars in that year. I know where am I. I'm half a million.
Speaker 1I'm halfway there, I love that and I won that.
Speaker 3I eventually I won that Porthcore open heavyweight category.
Speaker 1Really, even though I was a lighter weight, you won in the heavyweight In the heavyweight.
Speaker 3They called it the open weight which you'd get smaller people like myself who would compete, but it was largely heavyweight, yeah, so you had to have. Then you start developing strategy tactics within that strategy. It's like, okay, I've got to hit the guy, move, because if I, if he gets two hands on me, I'm done. Yeah, yeah, it's over. Yeah, it's like, no, I can't even get a grip and all of this stuff.
Speaker 1So silver medal moose died that day, yeah, it's awesome and I still have the trophy. What about, uh, I mean, when I mean I, you told me this story, um, when we first met what? For me, people, at least in general, if they've failed multiple times, let alone 11 times, it just becomes a cycle of failure. It becomes a I will continue to get silver medals. That's just my lot in life yeah what I mean.
Speaker 1yeah, you moved into the heavyweight because it's like, hey, let let's do this, but you knew you were going to get beat up.
Speaker 3You knew you were going to probably lose. Yeah.
Speaker 1What was the motivator and what was kind of the kick in the pants that kind of got you to go? I don't want to give up, I want to be better.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a great question and you know, again I'm going back to Dom you know I love this guy. I mean to give you context again, really small town, like small small town in England. Sadly, he passed away in January 2014 and I went and sat with him on his, you know, in bed in hospital. We had a conversation and I knew I wrote him a letter and read it because there was no way I could say all the things I wanted to say okay yeah so that I mean there was standing room.
Speaker 3People were outside the, the church, yeah, watching on tvs. That was the magnitude people came from. I went, I came from America, people came from Europe, yeah, all over the came from America. People came from Europe, yeah, all over the world. You know, to pay homage to this guy that made so many champions. But there was, there was one tournament I was, it was the Northern Home Counties. So that's for the benefit of the Pinewood people who are going to listen to this, I hope, and I was about 13. And it goes. You talk about the pendulum bar. You know the coach relationship and true story. I'm not proud of it, but I am proud of it because it was a changer. And I had a broken toe and I was fighting this guy and I had a tape on my foot and I was winning the fight and this was a qualifier for nationals. So you had to get top force, county, which is equivalent to state. Then you had to get top four gold, silver, bronze in region.
Speaker 3So like, let's say, like texas, oklahoma, louisiana, arkansas yeah, yeah then you went to nationals and all the regions, so it's the best of the best over about a six-week period. And, uh, he held a high bar to the kids, he treated us. He would tell us that we were like we, as we are professional, we're better than professional athletes because we ain't getting paid. Yeah, we're doing this for the love of it, for the club, for the badge, that's it, for the sport. I'm fighting this fight. I'm winning. Some guy yelled um, get his foot. And this guy we were. We were grappling on the floor. We're 30 and he hits my foot and I'm like you're a broken toe and it was broken. Yeah, I just lost it and I slammed the mat and I just said I'm going to get you for that.
Don's Transformative Discipline Moment
Speaker 3So I'm standing up, I'm ready and I'm winning the fight and I'm heading towards Nationals representing the club at Nationals. Suddenly I see the referee walk between us, go off the mat, couldn't see him, comes back, turns around and he says a Japanese word called hansokumaki. That means disqualified, and disqualified me, and I'm like what gives what? Do I do. And he said I'm sorry, son, it was your coach. Oh no, boom, what would?
Speaker 2you say now, that's a mic drop moment.
Speaker 3That's an inflection point moment. That is a life-changing moment.
Speaker 2So the coach disqualified you because of how you reacted.
Speaker 3Yeah, wow. Two days later I'm at the judo club. He stands me up. This would never happen now because you get sued. And he's like Moose. So my parents are on the side, all the other parents, all of my cohorts, and, uh, he, he said moose. If you ever disrespect this sport, me or this club, again I could see all my Pinewood people, you know they know this story because it happened one time only to me.
Speaker 3If you disrespect me, this sport, this club, ever again, you will never fight for this club. I will make it my business that you will never fight for another club in this country. Wow, I'm 13. Wow, I'm crying.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I'm embarrassed. I did everything. Shame. I'm crying. I'm embarrassed. I did everything. Shame, it's horrible.
Speaker 3And then I spent the next two and a half hours like training my while I'm crying, training even harder. Fast forward to that conversation on his deathbed and I said, don, you know, I got to ask you it's always bugged me, yeah, yeah, why you did that to me. And there were other people that did worse. Okay, yeah, and he never did that. And he said who? And he's like Moose who? And I went, well, I don't know. And he said you said you saw other people. I'm like yeah, but I can't remember their names. He said, okay, where are they? I don't know. What did they achieve? They win any nationals? Did they win any world medals? It's like you won three national titles, three world medals. You represented the country you've capped in the country.
Speaker 3He's like what did they achieve? And I went, I don't know nothing. And then he poked me in the chest and he said that's why I did it. That's so cool, because I bet you were either gonna quit or you were gonna double down. Wow, he saw something in me and others, not just me, all of my cohorts there at Pinewood. He saw things in people, in kids. They didn't even see themselves. And he said you're either going to quit or double down and I bet you're going to double down and look what you've achieved on the mat and off the mat. And he poked me in the chest. He said you were worth it.
Speaker 1That's awesome, wow, that's powerful.
Speaker 2Well, and the bet he made that you were the right person to do that to Also, everyone's watching, Everyone knows his relationship with you and if he's doing that to you like, I'm sure they're all thinking like, what is he going to do to me if?
Speaker 3I fail him, but it just occurred to me. He never had to do that again. No, he did it with me. He set the standard. He set the standard.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly he took his, probably his, like you were probably the most diligent, like pupil I mean, obviously. One of, One of, but you know you were one of those who were probably like setting a standard, you know, trying to be be what he wanted you to be yeah others probably not quite as much. In terms of the, the discipline, yeah, and he brought, he brought you down a notch oh, so that you could raise. That's amazing, I was looking.
Speaker 3I well, I want to be fair. I mean again, I want to give a shout out to the people who kind of inspired me as my yeah peer group.
Speaker 3I said you know derek patterson, for example, he was a guy, he was, he was a national junior champion. He was phenomenal. I had one fight, um and uh, he told me at that funeral. We had dinner later and he said moose. He said I don't know man. He said you just kept training and training and training. You were always training. He says you wanted it more than me. And I said well, derrick, and I finally beat him at the club tournament and then, you know, I think he left shortly after that and he said I didn't want it as much as you and I said, well, derek, I said don't sell yourself short. It took me five years to win that fight.
Speaker 3But yeah, people like who were like a few years above me and I would look across the mat because we would arrange ourselves in like black belts down to the lower grades, and I was on the lower grade side. So there were people like Paul Knight, kevin Murphy, mark Fricker, lynn Tilly, ray Tilly. Just Paul Knight, just phenomenal judo people that you know, porky Walters, you know just great, great people. But I don't know he saw something in me. You know, I was a lost kid and I just needed direction and Pinewood made me feel like I belonged and he inspired and he empowered me and he believed in me.
Speaker 3And then, 40 some years later or whatever, like you're worth it, that's and now on this podcast, I realized like he didn't need to do that to anybody else, because everybody else was petrified.
Speaker 2I also think to like it's. Everyone has a completion point of their potential and probably their talent, their work ethic and their potential.
Speaker 3And.
Speaker 2I think, based on what emotions you have from being bullied or just being a smaller kid who's with an anemic kid, all those things kind of told a story of who you were and how much drive you were gonna have to go to the part, and I think everybody you know. It's not that these other people didn't care as much as you do, necessarily.
Speaker 2It's like they probably reached the potential they wanted to reach in the judo and then moved on, whereas, like it meant so much to you because it was the only thing that you had, it was everything. It was everything. It, yeah, it was everything, right it?
Speaker 3was like just everything. Guys. I started my day in my bedroom writing down and I'd write down the same things. I mean, if I had a laptop and a spreadsheet I could have cut and pasted it, but I still write it down. I don't. I'm in technology sales. I still don't use a spreadsheet. I still write it down because there's something Novak Djokovic talked about that he says I like, I like to journal, I like the feel of the pen and the paper. It connects with me. It's not a computer and I would start my day doing 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups and 10 squats and stretch. And now I do the same in the afternoon and Mondays, wednesdays, fridays, 5 pm after school I would do a two and a half mile run and because that's what don told you to do and I'm like, well, if that's what he told me to do, I've got to do it.
Speaker 3And then you win a medal and you get stronger and then suddenly you go to school and you are running 100 meters and you are running cross country and you're not quitting. You actually finish. And then you finish like third. I can even remember bobby purser, torsten lake were one and two and then I came third. I'm like, how did that happen? But it was a journey. And then you start to like, you're like okay, I've learned this. I want to rinse and repeat and replicate um, I'm not special, but you know, everyone will tell you. Know, you go in linkedin and they talk about leadership and whatever, but you've got to have people who believe in you and it's like you know, uh, it's a lot easier to raise a confident kid than try and fix a broken adult.
Speaker 3Yeah, and don was don believed in me, believed in us. He, he treated us as professional athletes. His expectation of us was way, way above what we even thought for ourselves. Yeah, and then, when you taste that, you know, I got him a t-shirt once. I think it was a Nike t-shirt. I shouldn't give him a shout out.
Speaker 3They don't need my shout out, but it said something like this If you think losing is bad, oh sorry. If you think training is hard, try losing. Yeah, he built a team of winners. And whether we were working at a tech company selling, or whether we were on the judo mat representing, or whether we're just trying to be the best version of ourselves, I'm still a Pinewood Judo Club fighter, even though I haven't fought since I was 57. I'm turning 64. I'm 180 pounds. I'm 12.5% body fat. I'm at the same, if not better, body composition than I was as a teenager or early 20s. Am I special?
Speaker 3no, it's because don's with me every single day go on facebook and follow pinewood judo club. We are always talking about that guy and he hasn't been on this earth for 11 years.
Speaker 1That's crazy what a legacy man and I, most people don't have the ability to have. First and foremost, face the challenge that you did at that young age and then see the the work that you've put in to reach the goals that you did. Most people I'm probably a good example is once time, once they get a little hard, or once it I mean even to the extreme of the call out and being disqualified and being humiliated all those things.
Building Champions Beyond the Mat
Speaker 1It's a lot easier for me to back away and be like you know what that it was. You know it's the coach but, instead, you leaned in, you were the guy that you thought he was, and then you get that opportunity full circle to be able to for him to say you were worth it, like most, most. That sounds like a movie script, you know.
Speaker 3So I I think that's awesome I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna cry. Yeah, I'm not gonna cry. I feel like. I feel like jerry mcguire at the end of the movie where keep a good, I'm not gonna cry man I'm not gonna cry but all the people who know this story, I mean I could spend weeks and I want. I mean nicola fair brother, and uh, anisa mahmoud ali and uh, just lynn tilly. She was the first european champion. Um, you know, we talk about, like you know, gender issues and stuff.
Speaker 3We didn't have gender issues. The girls trained with the boys. Connie armstrong, richard armstrong, her brother, was there. We had a. We had to again, there was no Paralympian Porky. Walters was an international Tony. They called him Porky because he was a little porky, but that was his thing. But his sister, julie, she was born with one arm and she had like a stump below the elbow, so she had the crook of the elbow and she trained with us that's cool she wasn't over in the corner going oh there's the one arm girl you train.
Speaker 3No, no, she fought with us. She won tournaments in regular tournaments. That's cool, because he just went yeah, now you do realize you're going to have to compete and you do realize we don't have any other one-armed people, so you gotta go talk about come up with strategies yeah, right, and you're problem solving and, yeah, coming up with tactics and strategies and managing your time and making choices.
Speaker 3I mean, you've got peer groups who you know they want to drink and smoke and do all the usual things that kids and teenagers do we didn't do those things, we just didn't you know.
Speaker 2I think purpose, you know you're. I'm just imagining you 11 years old, 12 years old Dick. You just without purpose, you know you got brothers and sisters scared worried about being bullied how?
Speaker 3do I fit?
Speaker 2in who am I? Am I worth anything? And you find Dawn, you find this club, you find purpose. Joe Rogan talks about that. With kickboxing or taekwondo or whatever sport he got into in middle school, it was the same thing. He was sick of getting beat up found it. And all of a sudden it shifts yeah, you see that with kids that that have have more going on in their life than just kind of like the day-to-day because the drugs and the video games and all that like waste of time.
Speaker 3Shit, that's out there, yeah is so enticing for that person who doesn't have something deep inside of them.
Speaker 3Yeah look, I, I think you know, I know that that there's a strong Christian element to this okay, and I think that I mean I'm sitting here thinking about it as I'm talking to you guys and sharing this story with the people out there, and I just think there's got to be a higher power. And I walked into that judo club in that little town that nobody's heard of and you've got a man who devoted his time to teaching people and he wasn't raising boys and girls. That's the other thing he was raising men and women who were going to be great athletes and then go out into society.
Speaker 3And I know he was proud. I know he was proud of every single one of us, not just me, and you know you touched on, you know talking about failing and you know, yeah, I mean I think it's somebody was telling me my best friend Bob, he's great christian guy and and, uh, he was sharing booker james. I'm not a diligent reader of the bible yeah, guilty as charged but booker james, I love it's short and he sticks it yeah, he does, yeah, and it's like be thankful for the trials.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah I don't know the exact quote, but it's like be thankful for the trials. Yeah, I don't know the exact quote. But it's like be thankful for the trials because they're the things that you know. You're steeled in the fire.
Speaker 3That's what you know. If you want to make a strong sword, you've got to stick it in the fire. That's where you really get the character. I mean, if I could just like take these experiences, you know I could talk for america and england and australia, but I just when you can see somebody and touch somebody and go and you see that spark, and he must have got that every single time he touched a kid's life yeah, yeah and it was just it's it's, it's just phenomenal.
Speaker 3I'm eternally grateful, eternally grateful, and don and judo, you know you have these bracelets. What would jesus?
Speaker 2do yeah I've got to have one it's like I'm always thinking what would don do. We're all like what would don do, what would don do? And he'd be like moose cool heads prevail.
Speaker 3yeah, that's fail. First attempt in learning. Move on, yeah, move forward.
Speaker 1That's good.
Speaker 2All right, so you're 64, you know.
Speaker 3Not yet in August. But okay, okay, almost 63. I'm 64. You look great, by the way. Yeah, you do look great. So you know, for the 40 to, 60 year old listening to this podcast.
Speaker 2You know. You know they've lived a lot of the life already. They've made a lot of mistakes. They've had some successes, wherever they are, but maybe they're feeling like they are a bit stuck in a rut yeah and listening to you talk, listen to your story, uh, what? What's a couple pieces of? Just like just deep, great information oh, wow.
Life Advice for Middle-Aged Men
Speaker 3Well, I think that you know that that that's a lot of pressure um, let me what would don say look yeah, look, I I that that's a great question. What he would say is is you know, moose, you know you don't have to like it, you just got to do it yeah goes back to that quote of uh the dental hygienist in australia. She was great. He's like yeah, you don't have to floss your teeth, just the ones you want to keep yeah if you want.
Speaker 3You know, uh, and, and, and that other quote of you. Know people are looking for the secret okay, whether it's get rich, get the relationship. I want a great body, I want to, I want longevity. That's the thing right now, you know, and, and as it should be, we're living longer, you know, and um, and the secret, and the answer is work I don't have a silver bullet, yeah, it's like I.
Speaker 3I burn more calories than I consume. Yeah, okay, I do eat carbs, but they're healthy carbs. It's like, find out what your why is. You know Simon Sinek talks about that what's your why? What do you want to do? And it might be whatever. You find your motivation where you find it. It's like I want to be a better husband. I'm assuming it's just dads listening to this, so women too, but with the dads. More dads, right, more dads, dads, okay. So, because I don't want to upset anybody, because it's equally applicable, but you know, I want to be a better husband. I want to be a better father I want to play with my kids.
Speaker 3I don't. I want to be engaged, move, you know. Just like, find your why. And then, just like I'm a big fan of the moleskin journal, write it down. Yeah, write it down and it becomes real, even if it's a sentence. And then just start. Just start, I'm a big fan, for example, you know I can. I can open my book now and I did a hit this morning and it was workout number. We're on day 183 of this year and I completed my 292nd workout. That's 160%. My goal is to do about 600. Well, that's a lot of volume. Not everyone wants to do that. And can you? Don't have to do that. But I'll get up early and do a 30-minute hit. 30-minute hit is only about five minutes of actual hard work five minute warm-up, five minute cool down, then the, the slow intervals between the 15 second hit. It's five minutes of actual flat out work in that 30 minutes burned almost 400 calories.
Speaker 3now my metabolism's racing. Yeah, this afternoon about 5 o'clock I'll get on my stationary bike. You don't have to have a bike, you can go for a walk. There's lots of places here in Austin you can walk, lots of green belts and I do a zone two. Love the zone two. I mean the demographic. You were saying 40 and above. Zone two is your friend. Yeah, a walk at zone two heart rate. I train with a heart rate monitor that cheap, cheap, cheap to get these days it never used to be.
Speaker 3I've been doing it for 35 years. Zone two is your friend. It's fat burning. You don't stress your joints and you know though you know you've got to do it have an objective, write it down and measure it. Track your progress. What you? What you measure. What you manage, what, sorry, what you measure you manage, yeah, okay, so you can see the progress. You will get setbacks. That's life. Keep moving forward. As Don would say, you don't have to like it move.
Speaker 1I just gotta do it, yeah, and so that's great.
Speaker 2I hope you know.
Speaker 3I hope it.
Speaker 2I think also, I think you at some point, you what I always try to get my clients and people to ask me like how do you like you know, what do you? How do you stay fit? Or like, what are you doing at the gym that keeps you motivated? And I'm just like I'm not about the way I look in that moment. It's a. It's always about like I love the process.
Speaker 3I love working out.
Speaker 2I love the challenge keeping track of like and figuring out what my next goal is, whether it's a weight goal, you know, something I'm lifting, or we just did a power lifting show and that was six months of really like just setting the objective and just putting the work in. Yeah, and, and you know, that's the fun part.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Once you get through the like frustration and hard work of like trying to start. Yeah, you know, I just like if it's about the intangible, like life that you're experiencing in the process that's the best if it's only about, like, I gotta look good for the beach yeah, on in, you know, in july that's gonna come and go so quickly and you'll lose your motivation well, yeah, I mean, I'm going back to the hygienist again.
Speaker 3You can, you don't? You don't have to floss your teeth, the only ones you want to keep you. Don't just say, oh, oh, I'm going to look beautiful on the beach. I want a beautiful smile. I'll floss between July and September.
Speaker 2It's got to be part of your life.
Speaker 3And the beauty of it, even as a kid. It's reminding me that when my mates back then would go hey, Mike, we're all meeting up and we're going out, and whatever they were doing, and I'm like, no, I've got to run, no, I've got to lift.
Speaker 2No, I've got to go to judo tonight.
Speaker 3It simplifies your life. I mean, you know I can't. You know I'm not sitting on self-righteous Pius Mountain and saying this is what you should do. But it's like when you've got a goal and if it's like I want to stay fit and got a goal and you've got to, and if it's like I want to stay fit and I want to stay fit for my wife, I want to stay fit for my family, so that family is your goal. Anything else that tries to distract you, if you're set on that goal, you're like does it add value to that? That's good, it's extraneous. And he's like no, I'm not doing it. Yeah, I'm not doing it because it takes away from my me, my wife, me, my family, yeah, and you just hold on to that. And then you know you don't have that FOMO, that fear of missing out. I'm trying to be cool, we are collectively not cool?
Speaker 1yeah, I'm not missing out?
Speaker 3yeah, when I'm on my bike or when I'm doing my hit, I'm not missing out. I'm doing exactly what I want to do.
Speaker 2People say, oh man, you live in Austin. It must be so fun to go party downtown 6th Street and I'm like I wouldn't know. I haven't been there in 10 years. I'm jealous.
Speaker 3People when they you know, I know they'll eat their burger. Hey, go and have your burger. Whatever, I'm cool, live like you want to live. But when I'm eating clean, I don't. I don't look at it and go, I'm missing out.
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm going hey, I'm having some celery sticks or celery sticks with, uh, some celery sticks with some Himalayan salt as a quick snack and I'm like this tastes good, this feels good, I know it's doing me good and I'm like I feel good, not just physically, and I can wear the things I want to wear, I can do the things I want to do, I sleep better and all of that. I can do the things I want to do, I sleep better and all of that. But the big thing, and I think the big challenge that we all have, is the mental stuff. It's like you can have the best body out, but I think, for me, judo helped me physically, yes, but I think what it did it really helped me physically, yes, but I think what it did it, uh, it really helped me. And exercise helped me, uh, mentally.
Finding Your Why and Setting Goals
Speaker 3So, to round up your question about that, it's like get your why, work your plan and just, you know, just have small things, measure it and just keep going, keep going. It's like, oh man, I suck today, I didn't. It doesn't matter, you're doing it. If you're taking a walk every day I don't know what the stats are, maybe we chat GPT it if you're doing a one-mile walk consistently seven days a week. I bet you are ahead of like 80% of the country almost guaranteed.
Speaker 1yeah, I would say 90% Guaranteed.
Speaker 3And think of yourself as an. I'm an athlete. I'm almost 64. I'm not competing. I want to find something that I can compete in. I go to my primary care. I'm like I'm an athlete. Treat me as an athlete. That's good and that's what I want, because that's how I see myself.
Speaker 1Man as an athlete. Yeah, it's good and that's what I want because that's how I see myself.
Speaker 3So, man, mike, great place to wrap up.
Speaker 1Yeah, no joke, you do. You're a great guest, Love talking to you. Thank you for sharing those insights. For me it's very challenging and I think it's simple enough, but also a practical. It's a practical start step for most people and so thank you for sharing. Thanks for opening up about the Pinewood experience and Dawn. We're so grateful you're here To all our listeners. If you want to find Mike, where would they?
Speaker 3find you. I don't have a website so they could, if you've got contacts and you know, email you.
Speaker 2Are you on social media?
Speaker 3Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. Yes, I am onin. Yes, I am on linkedin. Uh, I am on facebook, but I'm not a real big facebook, you know? Yeah, uh, person, I'm not on instagram and there's a true possible possible book, something where, yeah, you know, I've been talking about this for a while and I've and, and I've got to I think this is also kind of like a a god-given thing meeting josh in fundify. Uh, I didn't realize that esther was his uh sister.
Speaker 2Yeah and I'm like I know her.
Speaker 3I met her like 15 years ago when I was gonna do the silver medal moose book so I think that, uh, the heat is on and I I want to get that out there.
Speaker 2I want to get that out there for kids. I want to get it out there for schools.
Speaker 3Yeah, I want to get that out there. I want to get that out there for kids, I want to get it out there for schools, I want to get it out there for Pinewood and I want to get it out there for Don, because the opening leaf is going to be this I'm dedicating it to him and everything that he gave me and everything he's given to hundreds of thousands of people, and his impact. I'm sitting here in Austin, texas. They're all back home in in england, but his, uh, his legacy is worldwide. That's awesome, literally that's cool.
Speaker 1Well, the silver moose uh children's book coming out soon with the fed agency.
Speaker 3I like that yeah, it's gotta happen. Let's make it happen I love it well.
Speaker 1Thank you guys for listening for to dad bods and dumbbells. My name is mitch. I'm bart. Thanks you guys for listening to dad bods and dumbbells my name is. Mitch, I'm Bart. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.