One Thousand Gurus Podcast
Everyone has a compelling story to tell with insights we can all be inspired by. J.R. Yonocruz is a software project manager, self-improvement blogger, relationship coach, dancer, stand-up comedian, and serial hobbyist with a passion for learning. He interviews unique guests from various fields to distill the strategies, habits, and mindsets we can use in our own lives. Each “guru” has a chance to give the audience a peek into a new world.
One Thousand Gurus Podcast
#13: Ryan Tern - Fitness Tips, the Importance of Coaching, and the Power of Gratitude
Struggling to find a balance between your mind and body? Ryan Tern, a dynamic personal trainer from Oakland with a fascinating blend of psychology and fitness expertise, shares his compelling transformation from aspiring school counselor to fitness coach. His story reminds us live pivots can sometimes steer us towards our true passions, and his insights into setting realistic goals and embracing challenges will surely resonate with anyone on their fitness journey.
Together, Ryan and I tackle common misconceptions about fitness and nutrition, emphasizing the importance of realistic goals and the perils of obsessive calorie counting. Through the lens of coaching, Ryan talks about the rewards and challenges of guiding others, and how becoming emotionally invested in clients' successes and struggles can be as fulfilling as it is demanding.
We explore the transformative power of gratitude and mindfulness, revealing how these practices can enhance both physical and mental well-being. The episode wraps up with insights on building healthy habits, the joy of embracing discomfort, and the profound impact of martial arts on self-confidence and ego management. Whether you're looking to improve your fitness journey, develop a healthier mindset, or just enjoy a good story, this episode promises a wealth of inspiration and practical advice.
Guest Bio:
Ryan Tern is a Personal Trainer is a Bay Area native based out of Oakland, CA. He has a B.A. in Psychology, is ACE certified for personal training, and Pn1 certified for nutrition coaching. Aside from working out and powerlifting, he also practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a little Muay Thai, participates in obstacle races, and enjoys spending time with his dog and cats.
Socials:
IG: @ryanternfitness
FB: @ryanternfitness
Email: ryanternfit@gmail.com
Website: www.ryanternfitness.com
Links/Resources:
- 5 minute journal (Amazon affiliate link)
- The Alchemist by Paolo Cuhelo (book summary)
- You Can’t Screw This Up by Adam Bornstein (book - affiliate link)
One Thousand Gurus Podcast:
Everyone has a compelling story to tell with insights we can all be inspired by. J.R. Yonocruz is a self-improvement blogger, relationship coach, and serial hobbyist with a passion for learning. He interviews unique guests from various fields to distill the strategies, habits, and mindsets we can use in our own lives. Each “guru” has a chance to give the audience a peek into a new world.
www.onethousandgurus.com
Instagram: @OneThousandGurus
TikTok: @onethousandgurus
YouTube: One Thousand Gurus Podcast
Email: onethousandgurus@gmail.com
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, j Ariona Cruz. Today's guest is Ryan Turn. Ryan Turn is a personal trainer from the Bay Area, based out of Oakland, california. He has a BA in psychology, is A certified for personal training and PN1 certified for nutrition coaching. Aside from working out and powerlifting, he also practices Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a little Muay Thai and participates in obstacle races, and enjoys spending time with his dogs and cats. So this was a particularly insightful episode, as Ryan is a fitness coach, and so he knows a lot about guiding others and imparting wisdom that can improve people's lives. Fun fact, even though we follow each other on social media and have monthly check-in conversations over the phone, this was actually the first time we've seen each other live over a video, even after working together for the last year and a half or so. Of course, in this episode we cover fitness, nutrition and coaching, but we also cover some other big things, such as gratitude, habit change and finding the courage to try new things. Like most things, even though this topic might seem a little specific, this is an episode I feel like everyone would gain a lot of insights from, so, without further ado, hope you enjoy this episode with Ryan Turn. Hello and welcome back to 1000 Gurus. Today's guest is Ryan Turn. Hey, what's going on? Y'all Cheers. We love applause, nice Well, thank you, ryan, for being here. I really appreciate it. You're my first remote interview, so this is going to be a fun new experience for both of us. So let's see, I'll just start off with you know how I know you and whatnot.
Speaker 1:For those who don't know, ryan is my online fitness coach, so I've been working with him for about a year and a half. It's been since April 2023. So I was referred to you by my friend, justin, who knew you. And then you know, I saw that your contents that you put out and your website and I was like, okay, this guy definitely knows what he's talking about. He has abs, or at least in one of his photos. I'm like okay, so he knows how to work out, he knows how to lose weight and all this other stuff, and you have a lot of clients and you have a reputation of success, and my friend Justin is like pretty fit too. So I'm like, okay, if my friend has a coach, he probably definitely knows what he's doing and so you have a record of helping clients find success. You were recommended by my friend, so for me that's like a recipe for being sold. And then I think, when I was looking it up, you also do brazilian, brazilian jiu-jitsu, powerlifting, and you do obstacle races. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:yep, yep, that's correct. I'm pretty much a jack-of-all-trades, you know I like to do a bunch of different things that are new to me fitness wise yeah, anything else that you like doing for fun or for fitness, or even outside of that yeah, you know, honestly, recently I've been getting really into golf, so another like fitness thing gets me outdoors. I get some sunlight and you know it's.
Speaker 1:I just like being a beginner at things, you know it's hard same like golf, like a range or like a full golf course or like mini golf oh, I'm on the golf course.
Speaker 2:I suck, like my, I suck, but I'm still going out there.
Speaker 1:You know, nice it's all good yeah I think, we're probably the same like they. Just like, being a beginner is always nice, right, because you get to try something new and there's only up from there, right? That's for sure cool. All right, so I guess wanna I'll go straight into it. So first topic is basically just your origin story and then kind of like fitness and nutrition. I guess first question is really you know, where were you born, raised, family dynamics, and what did you study or what did you imagine your career would be when you're younger?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure thing. So I'm born and raised in Oakland, california. Yeah, family dynamics, you know I'm an American. We're kind of like a small ethnic tribe that came from Southeast Asia and because of that, you know, we're pretty like tight knit in terms of family. So growing up we had 13 people living in one house and I just thought that was normal. We're just all crammed in one house, like always noisy things like that. And yeah, I went to college, I studied psychology. Growing up, you know, I mean, I kind of always thought I was going to be everything. I would tell people I'm going to be an astronaut, I'm going to be a lawyer, I'm going to be this, you know, just typical kid stuff. But when I started kind of trying to weave a path, I wanted to be more of someone who can give back, because in high school I had a lot of teachers, a lot of mentors who helped me out and I wanted to do the same thing.
Speaker 1:So I went down the psychology route, hoping to go into school, school counseling, and, yeah, I ended up in personal training. So how did you okay, how did you go from college psychology into training? Could you explain like that sort of transition from there? Did you graduate and be like you know what I like working out? Let me just do this, or was there like a catalyst that led you down that route?
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So after I graduated for psychology, you got to go back for your master's to get into school counseling, and it costs some money to go to master's school, you know. So after college, you know, I was like, all right, I got to make some money. So I tried to figure out what job I should get and at the time I was really into fitness, I think. At that moment I was really into the power lifting stuff, so I was lifting really heavy in the gym often. So I just thought, all right, let me give this a try. I went and got my personal training certification and basically tried to see if I could make a hobby into a passion or basically make some money before I go back into school counseling or going back to school.
Speaker 1:So then, how did you start like lifting weights and stuff like that, like where did you work out with friends? Or just like, oh, I want to get fit, or did you do sports or something like that?
Speaker 2:Okay. So the origin story with that is when I was a kid growing up in Oakland. I'm the specific area I grew up in, it's a majority of black and brown folks, so I was like the one small Asian kid that just stuck out a lot. And, yeah, luckily for me, I had an uncle who lived in the same house who was really into fitness. You just do push ups, sit ups, things like that, and I, you know, growing up I just didn't want to get picked on. I was like, alright, what should I do? Alright, I should probably work out With that. I just worked out with my uncle, did whatever he did. You know, back then fitness information wasn't as readily available as it is now. So we just, you know, just hammered out a bunch of body weight stuff, pushups, sit ups we would just run around the block, and so that's how I got started. In middle school, high school, I just thought I was the buffest guy ever doing pushups and sit ups, but if you look back at my photos, I was pretty scrawny.
Speaker 1:So you were since middle school and high school. You were kind of like active in fitness, whatnot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I basically tried. You know it gave me some confidence and that's kind of key growing up where I'm at. You know I wanted to make sure no one messes with me.
Speaker 1:Nice Did you do any sports, or is it like? Or did you? Were you mostly like school studying or like, aside from fitness?
Speaker 2:aside from fitness in school, I was actually doing a lot of community organizing in high school, so I was a part of this non-profit called afal and we were working at the time to try and get ethnic studies become a requirement to graduate high school so I was kind of doing a lot of random things, yeah okay, and then?
Speaker 1:where did you go to school? Like our college college.
Speaker 2:I went to community college, first laney college, valamita, the whole peralta college system here in in oakland, and then I went to u, to UC Davis, to complete my bachelor's for psychology okay, okay, okay, cool, nice.
Speaker 1:So then I guess, getting back into fitness. So you said that you started off, you know, working out or learning from your uncle, from like middle school, high school, and then study psychology and then after you graduated, then you're okay, um, I need to make some money. Let me just try to turn this hobby into something I can make money off of. Was there anything else like in that journey that kind of led you down to this, or was there a certain point where you're like you know I could do this like more seriously, or whatnot?
Speaker 2:Thinking back on it all. No, I think fitness was just a big part of my personality. At the moment I didn't talk about it much, but during college is when things started getting a little bit more serious for my lifting. I went to the gym more with my friends and that's when I started to really get into learning how to actually lift and build muscle, nutrition, everything like that. So the college years is kind of where it's really formative on on all my education with fitness and yeah, I think that's pretty much what led to where led to the decision where I wanted to go into this as a career.
Speaker 1:I see, I see. Did you have any aside from your uncle, like any mentors or like resources that you where you learned, like actual fitness and nutrition and whatnot?
Speaker 2:right around the time I started becoming a personal trainer, I had a mentor. He's my cousin. His name's William Seichal. He owns a gym out in Oakland and luckily he took me under his wing when I was trying to get into this all. So luckily I had someone to shadow at the time, just to learn.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's good, just like a quick tangent. But then, like, how did you get into like Brazilian jiu jitsu and like obstacle races and I think you mentioned Muay Thai in your website Like, how did that all come into play?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot of moments in my life where I, where I pivot pretty randomly. I do a bunch of random things, as you can tell. You know, I went from psychology to personal training, so I think there was this moment where I was. So I was working at a big box gym. At the time it was fitness 19. And one of my co workers were was practicing Brazilian jiu jitsu and he was talking about it. And you know, growing up I always wanted to learn how to fight. I did a little boxing in high school, but nothing too crazy, and I think that was like a perfect opportunity. When my co worker mentioned it, I was like, oh man, I always talk about wanting to do something, so I should just do it. So I went and signed up for a class and from there I just kind of didn't look back. I'm still trying to go consistently, still trying to learn and, yeah, I just like doing weird pivots like that.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite part about doing? Do you mostly do jujitsu or do?
Speaker 2:you kind of just do everything equally, oh no, yeah, I'm much more heavily focused on jujitsu. So I'm going to muay thai classes like here and there, but most of my focus is trying to learn how to grapple better oh, I see.
Speaker 1:I see is do you like compete or anything, or is it more just, you're just there for the classes, just to learn there to learn compete.
Speaker 2:I've only competed once, so after my first year of doing brazilian jiu-jitsu, I kind of wanted to see where my skills were. So I went and joined a competition nerve-wracking, you know heartless racing, and you know I didn't get submitted, but I did lose the competition pretty bad oh I see, I see I was about to ask, like, how it went.
Speaker 1:I'm sure competition's tough yeah, I.
Speaker 2:There was a specific moment in my first match where I knew that I wasn't ready to compete. This is, like this, really buff guy he's like 160 and he grabbed a hold of me and I knew I was gonna get tossed. I was like that was, this was a bad idea. Yeah, he threw me in the air, judo threw me dang.
Speaker 1:You're like mistakes are made. How do they pair you up? Is it by like skill level or is it weight like? How do they do that?
Speaker 2:yeah. So when it's, when you're at a jujitsu competition, they pair you by your skills. So white belt, blue belt, gotcha, purple, brown, black, and then they also do weight classes. I made the mistake of not trying to actually join a proper weight class, I just thought, thought, oh, I'll go there for some experience. So I joined, basically like a weight class above me I was 142 at the time and then that kind of put me in the bracket of the 141 to like 160 class, so I was rolling with some bigger folks.
Speaker 1:I see You're like. There you go. You gained all the experience on the floor.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice, okay, so I think let's pivot back. So one of my questions that I guess in terms of like fitness and nutrition. So, like I mentioned, like you definitely know what you're talking about, you service clients all over when you help them get results. So I guess what are some of the most important things that you learned that maybe other people get wrong about? Fitness or nutrition or weight loss or strength training? In general Could be multiple answers, but what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thoughts on that. I think one thing for sure, just going off of fitness, one thing that folks get wrong is that they think they have to work out like super often like six days a week when they first start out. And that's kind of not the case. When it comes to my approach or, yeah, my approach to fitness and nutrition, I honestly like to focus on what's realistic for you at this moment in time. You know, all those six days a week can be really great for progress right out the gate. If it's not realistic, you're not going to stick to that plan. So I always I think that's a common misconception Everyone tries to start real fast and then they'll burn out and end up trying again in two, three months.
Speaker 2:So I always say, as long as you approach it nice and slow, you'll. You can kind of build a level of confidence in yourself, Like, okay, I can make it to the gym, Okay, I can eat a little bit better, and from there you just build on. So that's definitely one mistake I see a lot of folks make just trying to be go too hard when their motivation is high.
Speaker 1:Was there a specific unlock for you in your journey let's say, before you became a trainer or something like that, where you're like, oh wow, I never really realized this and I was doing this wrong. Was there something like that for you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think one. One major thing for me was getting into calorie counting. At the time, I think, when I was learning about everything. It was, if it fits, your macros movement. So I was getting really into the nitty gritty of weighing all my food and things like that, and it got to the point where it got really obsessive. I would weigh out like 28 almonds or something like that, make sure it's like down to the T, and whenever, yeah, and then whenever someone wanted to take one, I like kind of freak out a little bit my brain. Oh man, I'm gonna have to recalculate everything. I think that was one huge mistake I made. Is one thing of course I do advocate, you know, trying to track all your food every now and then like maybe do a week or a month where you see what you're eating. But I got really obsessive with it and there was no one there to really pull the reins on me and tell me, hey, I think things are getting kind of crazy here. You should, you should dial it back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I few things there as really resonated with is like the whole. So, like I also used to I used to, but I still do weigh out my stuff, so my meal preps are weighed, so I want to know exactly what I'm getting out of that, right? So I know the macros and stuff. And so sometimes when I'm like my girlfriend comes over and you know we haven't eaten yet, I'm like, oh well, I have something to eat. And then she hasn't eaten and I'm like, okay, and she's like looking at me, like my food. I'm like, do you want a bite? And she's like, sure, and I'm like, great, now my macros are off, thanks, and you know, but it's fine, it's whatever.
Speaker 1:And the second thing is too, because I don't know if I mentioned to you before, but like back in 2018, I had another online like a fitness coach as well, and he had me on like the similar thing which weighing everything, dialing in all the macros and the calories, and I did it for a year and it definitely worked. But, like you said, the obsessiveness was it kind of made it more I don't know how to say like bothersome when I have to go out and I know that I'm like definitely not dialing it in for that day, and so it's a lot less flexible and a lot more stressful in that sense, like not crazy stressful, but just enough where I'm like this is kind of annoying and I can see why it's not sustainable, which is why I really appreciated, like your approach, which is okay.
Speaker 1:Generally, we try to get the wins where we can and the more you dial it in, the better your results will get, and that's what I found to be true. Yeah, I can have a leeway here and there, but if I dial it in, I'll get better results. But also don't be too hard on myself. If I don't dial it in for a couple days or something like that, just get back on the horse. And that's what I appreciate about your approach too yeah, it's definitely.
Speaker 2:It definitely comes down to managing everything you know like life changes. There are going to be moments where you have to get really what's the word that I'm looking for. You'll be really unbalanced. So, like you said, you might want to lock in on your nutrition and that might mean that your social energy might change because you know you won't want to go out as much. So, just as long as you're managing your expectations with everything that you're doing in your life, I think that's where you'll find the best. That's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:You'll like better results if you find that balance that works for you yeah, and then I guess overall you'll just be less stressed out.
Speaker 2:That's that's what I was trying to say, because, yeah, if you're constantly thinking about trying to stay on top of things, you just stress yourself out and then you just burn out over time yeah, definitely quick, tangent, while I have this random thought that popped into my head.
Speaker 1:So a couple days ago I was hanging out with my friend and he's like can I have a hug? I'm like sure. So I gave him a hug and he's like dude, jr shout out to your trainer because, like your back muscles, like are just crazy. And I'm like it was so, yeah, so that compliment to you. And then I was like, wait a minute, I'm doing all the work, though, like I'm doing these pull downs, like I get it, I get the guidance and everything, and I appreciate it. But that was my response at the time. And he's like, oh. And I was like, yeah, we love when our friends objectify us as, like I was joking. And then I kind of gave him a look and I was like no, I'm just playing, I like being objectified. That's why I go out to work out.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, just so. Yeah, shout out to my fitness coach, ryan, because I got a compliment, so it's always a good thing. Anything else on fitness or nutrition or or something that maybe you learned on your journey that you feel like people get wrong.
Speaker 2:Let's see. I think definitely one thing that a lot of people get wrong is I'm just keep trying to hammer this idea in. It's like you can't mess it up. You know, a lot of people always beat themselves up Like I didn't, I couldn't make it to the gym, I couldn't stay on top of my diet. This week we got the rest of our lives to practice this. You know, and if you just keep beating yourself up, you just prolongs how, like, the difficulty it makes it harder for you to actually reach the goal that you're trying to reach. So if you just reframe everything you know, just tell yourself yeah, I can't mess this up, I made a mistake this week, but next week is another week to try, I think as long as you have that mindset, you'll be less stressed going into this whole fitness journey.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned that. My first question is what made you want to transition into being a coach? But, I think you were you're mentioning that like you wanted to help people and give back and then maybe turning this like sort of hobby into a career. Were there any other sort of factors that made you look into coaching seriously?
Speaker 2:I think it just goes back to me wanting to be a teacher too. To be honest, I'm not the best teacher, I'm still learning how to coach better. But yeah, I wanted to challenge myself, like, okay, let me see Like I'm able to give myself results in the gym and help other people. At that time, you know, I wrote programs for some friends or just brought them through workouts, but I've never actually worked with someone to try and reach their goals. And a funny story I have about that is when I first started my personal training job at the big box gym, fitness 19.
Speaker 2:You know one people, one thing people don't tell you about personal training is there's really no, there's really no guidelines. You're not going to be prepared for your first client. I felt like I got thrown into the wolves on my first day. So they trained us. You know you do your certification, they. You know they're like Alright, you should, this is how you strength train, this is how your nutrition should look. But the moment you get on the floor and you work with your first client, they're like okay, here you go.
Speaker 2:My first client that I worked with was like this 60 something year old woman. She had knee pain, back pain. You know something that as a young person at the time and people that I worked with didn't have too much, so I'm just like, all right, shoot, what am I supposed to do with this person? And yeah, it was a pretty scary experience and you just, I think you learn as you go and no one's ever really ready. It's basically what I'm saying. I felt like I was not. There was no roadmap on how I should do this properly.
Speaker 1:Nice, so then? So what did you end up doing? And or did you? What did you learn from that experience of having a client that was out of your normal, like demographic of people you've coached?
Speaker 2:I think I learned to definitely at the time regress and learn it. It really taught me that general population looks a lot different than what I expected, which is a lot of people are injured, so you should learn how to accommodate for them. So during that session I just tried my best to regress movements. Again, like I said at the time, I was a power lifter, so I'm just only thinking all right back, squat, deadlift, bench press those like the main things that focused on easy, you could do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just put that barbell on your back, no problem I'll load up the plates for you but now I definitely had to learn how to regress movements better and that was the starting point, so I had to just do some box squats. We did some trx work and it ended up being fine. But yeah, it was a definitely a scary experience.
Speaker 1:I see, I see so regressing movements on that are there. What do you think are the best parts of being a coach or coaching, and what do you think are some of the biggest challenges on your end?
Speaker 2:I looked in the mirror today and I like the way I look, and you know that's all I can wish for. You know, rather than trying to focus on certain things like you know, body weight, things like that, I do want folks to basically feel comfortable in their skin. Everyone wants to feel comfortable in their skin at the end of the day, whether that's however you want to look like. So that's one thing that I really enjoy about coaching. Another one is when I give proper instruction and I see a light bulb turn on in my clients. It happens a lot more now, but in the beginning it was like, okay, I didn't, what kind of cue should I give them? So yeah, just being able to teach things properly makes me pretty happy. And what was the last part of your question?
Speaker 1:Yeah. What are some of?
Speaker 2:the biggest challenges that come with coaching, or maybe specifically fitness coaching, but anything in general, yeah, okay. So I think one of the biggest challenges with coaching, or the biggest challenges that I've run into, is becoming too invested into clients. So, like I said, I get really happy when clients are doing right, they're doing what they're supposed to do and they're seeing results. And then, on the flip side, you know, when they're not doing things properly and they're starting to feel down on themselves, I can't help but empathize and, you know, feel what they're feeling. You know they're really sad. I'm like, oh man, how can I change this? And it's I'm still. It's still a work in progress, but I've been working on just trying to take a step back. You know, understand that this is part of their journey. I shouldn't feel super invested in it. I am there to help guide them, but I can't solve their problems. I'm just there to give them. Just give them the proper guidance to reach the answers that they're looking for.
Speaker 1:I see. Do you ever come across a point where you feel like, okay, I think me and this client are probably not a good fit. Have you ever come across that before?
Speaker 2:yeah, I came across that point one time. I had this client that I was working with who was was really swamped with a bunch of work. Stress was just overloaded and every time we would meet up for our sessions this client just wouldn't be there. They needed a lot of guidance when it came to proper, proper movement, but they just weren't listening anymore. At the end of the day I would give instructions and they just couldn't process it. And it got to the point where I just realized, yeah, this is the point, they're not ready to do the coaching. And it was kind of tough to come to that realization but we kind of took a step back and decided not to work with each other anymore. But yeah, that definitely came up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would imagine that happens too, because as much as you want to help everyone, sometimes maybe as a coach or trainer, okay, maybe we're just not the best fit or, like you said, maybe you're not in the right space for it or whatnot. I'm not trying to blame the other person, right, but it's more just maybe it's not a good fit.
Speaker 1:There might be some better coaches out there that are more you know, better fit for you. Yeah, okay. So then I guess my last question on this topic is so, let's say I'm just a. The question is why should people get coaching or fitness coaching? So someone like myself, for example you know, I've been working out for a while now and I've learned from, like my dad and like other mentors or friends and stuff like that or maybe I think, or maybe I could be someone else who's like you know, I've worked out here and there and I think I can just get by without a coach and coaches are expensive, obviously, than just having a gym membership or I can just work out at home. Or maybe I am an athlete or a power lifter. I'm like I don't need a coach. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think people need a coach or what are the benefits of that from any of those stages or phases?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for sure getting a coach is helpful. It's not necessary. I'll say that right off the bat. You don't need a coach, but there are just so many benefits of having one. So let's just use my my whole fitness journey as an example.
Speaker 2:I didn't have any coaching. You know, I had to do all the research, meaning, okay, I had to figure out what's the proper way to work out. Am I doing this right? You just do a lot of like plug and chug. Okay, that hurt my elbow. I probably shouldn't do that with food. It's like okay, protein, how do I get that in? Let me look it up. Okay, cool, this is what I'm supposed to do. Oh, oops, I developed a slight eating disorder from tracking my macro so often. Let me figure out how to dial that back.
Speaker 2:You can do everything yourself A lot of trial and error but ultimately, if you had a coach with you, it just shortens the process. If someone who's a professional in whatever they're doing whether that's fitness coaching, financial coaching, you name it, whether that's fitness coaching, financial coaching, you name it Having someone who's done the thing and kind of knows what kind of pitfalls usually pop up in the whole journey helps lessen the amount of stress that you're going to go through to reach your ultimate goal. So, yeah, I mean I'm all for coaching. I still get coaching myself. Yeah, I was recently working with a nutrition coach probably two years ago and it just helps add an extra layer of accountability. You know, even though you can do it yourself, having someone there to help keep you accountable is just it's just a huge win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely second that, especially as a. So I'm a relationship coach. I don't know if I've mentioned that to you.
Speaker 1:Like I got certified recently and one of the things I learned through my coaching program is that you should never or you know, to your own risk, tolerance, but it's never a good thing to hire a coach who does not have a coach that they say that they're selling, and so I think I I see that too. I believe in the power of coaching, like whether or not you can do it yourself. I think you just save a lot of, like you said, the headaches of trying to figure it out yourself. It's like a shortcut way of getting advice from a mentor or a coach or something like that. Someone who's done it will save you so much time. But even more than that, like, for me personally, the reason why I have a fitness coach is the accountability, because the workouts, like how to do them, and the nutrition like I've done all that before, like I've gotten results from my last fitness coach and the thing that I've been missing for these last five years is the accountability, and for me, that's what I'm mostly paying for.
Speaker 1:I think I've mentioned that to you and you know to the audience is, for me, paying the extra amount that I'm paying for coaching on top of, like, my gym membership, is completely worth the accountability because, like, why would I pay for, let's say, a $20 membership and get zero results when I? But if I pay for a coach, that's more than that but I get the exact results that I want because of the accountability. Why would I not do that 10 times out of 10? Because essentially, I'd be wasting money at just the gym anyways. So I might as well pay extra to have accountability, to have those, you know, best practices and shortcuts, and then I get the results that I want. I think I'm paying for the results, not just to have a membership for fun, you know. So yeah, that's my little spiel and I also really believe in coaching and just finding guidance and mentorship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really kind of Go ahead. I was going to say I really resonated with you when you said that you know it's kind of weird if you have a coach that doesn't have a coach. I think you know, being in the whole coaching space, you're always trying to learn how to be a better coach, how to help guide someone. And working with other coaches in my life, I've kind of got a lot of different, you know, nuggets of knowledge from them, even though different fields, is okay, I never thought about moving someone in this way and I'll take that from them and try and put that into my own practice. Yeah, I'm, yeah, I'm all with your statement there. You know, get some coaching from a coach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as a coach, definitely, especially if you want results. Right. If you're not getting results you want, then you have to do something different. So might as well get a coach, okay. So maybe quick pivot then, if we're on that topic. Last topic is gratitude, mindfulness and habit change. So I know this is something that you mentioned in our forum that, like you know, you might want to speak on. So first question, just easy, is what is the importance of gratitude and mindfulness?
Speaker 2:I guess in your own life, but also, I think, maybe in general, for people out there. Yeah, I think so the value of gratitude for me, specifically, growing up I had a lot of anger issues. They might have not shown, you know, out out in the open, but I would just always be upset with myself, just be mad at things. You know, especially I would fall into the comparison trap a lot to compare myself to other people, and you know that's just a bad, negative cycle you don't want to fall into Somewhere around like college time is when I started looking into gratitude and mindfulness and you know, when I first started practicing it it did feel kind of weird. You know you just like. So, specifically, what I use to practice gratitude is a journal called the five minute journal. You can buy it off of Amazon. It's a great little little journal. Takes like it's like the name implies. It takes five minutes to do every day and you have to list three things that you're grateful for in the beginning of the day. So as soon as you wake up you pull your journal out and you start writing so three things I'm grateful for.
Speaker 2:And when I first started this I felt, you know, I was just writing some random stuff. It didn't feel genuine. I think I am grateful for, grateful for, you know, a house to live under. I'm grateful for fitness. You know, I just didn't really feel attached or I didn't really feel into doing the whole gratitude stuff and then, over time, as I just kept practicing it and practicing it, just really writing every day what I'm grateful for, I don't know when the moment was where things started feeling different in my brain, but I guess one day I just wrote it down and I did just feel grateful for what I had, like I would write down.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm grateful for having a functioning body. There's some people who don't have, you know, limbs and who don't have who can't walk, and I can walk. And just kind of reflecting on that every day helped me out. And I think also with fitness, I'm a big believer that you know the body and mind are connected. So that's why I work out. I work out and I wanted to get my mind right too. So I did the whole gratitude practice to make sure that my mind was in on point too. So that's what gratitude means to me. It really helped me out with being a more happier person and I do think that more people could benefit from practicing gratitude Again, even if it feels kind of silly at time to reflect on it, and I think having a practice like that, just reflecting on what you have does make you overall more happy.
Speaker 1:I love it so, like happiness. Have you heard that of that? Maybe it's Tony Robbins, maybe it's someone else, but that quote of the best attitude you can have, like attitude of gratitude, or the most powerful attitude you can have, is gratitude, and or, since gratitude is centered in, like the present, and all of our negative emotions are either future focus, like anxiety, or past focus, like depression, when you can kind of take a step back and just figure out what you're grateful for in the moment, it kind of recenters you what you're saying. I totally agree with that too.
Speaker 1:I'll have a similar journaling gratitude practice where it started off with like you know five to ten things, and it started off with like you know five to 10 things and I just do a free form, you know, on a like a digital, like a word doc. But then now in my daily journal entries, like I do minimum 30. And I don't stop until I hit 30. And then sometimes I go to 4045, 50. But usually it's okay, I'm not stopping till I get to 30.
Speaker 1:And then, looking back, when I recommend this to people, they're like how do you get to 30? And I'm like it is hard, it's like a muscle right, like it's like you don't do 50 pound curls immediately, but when you get to that point it's not hard to realize that I'm grateful for my health, my finances, my family, my friends, my relationship, my car arriving safely, a bed to sleep. You know like you can just keep going on like water to drink oxygen, to breathe. There's so many good things that's like. When you do that sort of daily practice, it gets difficult to get so angry at things when you're like but I have so much already, what makes you there's another saying that I really like, which is what makes you think you deserve that thing that you want, when you don't even you're not even grateful for what you have. Yeah, that's you know. So I totally agree with that um I do yeah sorry, how does that?
Speaker 1:how does grad? I know you mentioned like for happiness, but how does gratitude, mindfulness, play into like your clients or like with coaching, and, for example, do you feel like there are some clients who might need that little coaching outside of fitness to be like you know? Mindfulness or gratitude, has that ever come into play?
Speaker 2:I think it does so when I'm thinking about how I think. When it comes to working with my clients, although we are focusing on the fitness, we are focusing on the nutrition. It is good every now and then to slip in these little nuggets of gratitude, like reminding them that, hey, even though you might not feel happy about your body today, look at what you did. You lifted 25 pounds with the Romanian deadlifts, or something like that. Just constantly reminding them that, hey, even though right now you might not be feeling it, you still are this, you still are doing good in this part of your fitness. Even though you feel like you should be eating more protein, you're still getting this amount of vegetables.
Speaker 2:Just trying to reframe things rather than being like, oh, I didn't reach this goal. Just focusing on the positives rather than the negatives. I see and I think, yeah, and I was gonna say just with the whole gratitude, journaling is like that right, rather than focusing on the negative aspects of life, like you said, are focusing on the future, past, you're focusing now. This is what I can do and I should. I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Definitely. Yeah, I like that. Another thing I want to go back to is, like you mentioned, like the mind and the body is connected. One thought I had from that is I'm a big believer that your body is a reflection of, like, your inner. You know, like your mind, what's going on inside. You know, like your mind of what's going on inside. So I feel like you know maybe it's not a really a good generalization, but kind of like a quick judgment of someone when it's oh, they're fit, they, you know, like how do I say this In a positive way? When I see someone who's fit, I see like discipline, like delayed self gratification, someone who can commit to something, something, someone who is willing to go through the pain for something else.
Speaker 1:And you can obviously spin it in a negative, allowed or narcissistic, whatever right, but I see it as if I see someone who works out consistently and they're fit and they, they like, appreciate their body and they treat it like a temple. I think that's a good reflection of their inner self. Right, and what you're saying, too, it's you can't also have those outer results that you want if you don't also work on your inner self, which is like the mindfulness and gratitude, because if you're angry and stressed out all the time, you probably can't do your best work and then do the things that you want. You know what I mean. I think that was like very insightful, sorry.
Speaker 1:Another thing I wanted to touch on is habit change, something that I think you're really good at helping your clients with. And I think you're really good at helping your clients with and I think that's part of the game, right, of getting people to their fitness goals how do you see like habit change and maybe what are some of the biggest insights you can pass along about how to develop good or better habits?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when it comes to habit change, it is I kind of view it. It's pretty simple to change a habit, but it doesn't mean that it's easy, you know. So the main thing that I really like to focus on when it comes to habit change is making sure that you make it as easy as possible. You know, going back on the idea of trying to start too many things at once, when you're getting into your fitness journey, usually, once you again, once you burn out, you lose confidence, and once you lose confidence, you don't really feel confident about yourself anymore. You're like, oh man, maybe I can't do this. You don't really feel confident about yourself anymore. You're like, oh man, maybe I can't do this.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to habit change, I do like to hammer in the fact that let's make it. I like to use a scale of one to 10 when we're trying to figure out how easy or how hard this is. So I'll always ask clients okay, let's say, if you want to work out, how realistic is it for you to work out twice a week? If it's a nine out of 10, perfect, we'll do two times a week. We'll schedule that into their workout sessions. But let's say, we say, how realistic is it for you to work out three times a week and they're like, oh, probably a seven out of 10. At that point I'll say, okay, let's just do two times a week then and build on that.
Speaker 2:So you want to give yourself as many wins as possible so you can feel like, hey, I'm a person who goes to the gym, so the more rocks you put into that basket of I'm a gym goer or I'm a person who eats more protein, you build up this image of yourself in your head, which is what ultimately habit change is, because no one just wakes up one day and decides I'm a bodybuilder or I'm a powerlifter. You know, you kind of work towards that and I think that's the trap we fall into a lot. We want immediate, we want immediate results, but things don't work that way. You have to delay that, like you said, the delay gratification. It takes time to build a new habit and, yeah, that's one of the ways I would say habit change is done making it easy.
Speaker 1:I see, making it easy. I was going to ask, you know, putting myself in the shoes of, let's say, someone who I come across a lot of people who aspire to. Let's say, I want to work out four or five days a week, and they're not necessarily focused on like how they want to feel, they're just focused on the activity so that they can, let's say, lose the weight. And so I know you mentioned make those, try to get as many wins as possible and lower the bar so you can get those wins. Is there anything else that you would advise for those sort of people who want to get to that like four or five days a week, but obviously starting off is really hard. What would you advise them?
Speaker 2:I would probably advise them to be patient with themselves, just like I said before. I'm sorry, could you ask that question again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no worries, I guess, aside from the gym thing. But like maybe let's pivot and say let's like nutrition right. Let's say you know that obviously they need to do the macros and the calories and stuff like that because they want to lose weight. But that needs to be habit changer, like kind of reframing how they approach food. Do you have any sort of best practices to start off with if they want to, you know, recomp their body and kind of have better eating habits?
Speaker 2:I think, when it comes to something like that, I would say there's an activity that I do with some of my clients called the five whys, and it's a very simple activity. All you do is just ask yourself why. So, when it comes to nutrition, I want to eat healthier. You just basically ask yourself all right, why do I want to eat healthier? And you just keep asking this five times or even more, if you want to get into the deeper root of why you want to do something, and I think by doing that it gives you a deeper why and makes you more committed to what you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:You know, let's say I have a client do that and they end up with. They end up with the answer of you know, I want to eat better because I want to be a better parent. That's like the one thing they fall on. By having that deeper why, it'll be much more easier to commit to this goal of eating better for the week, because you're not doing it because you want to be healthier. You're doing it because you want to be a better parent. So finding a deeper root, deeper purpose, is a good way to make sure that a habit is followed, or especially on a day where you don't feel great. I think having a deeper why to look back on is helpful.
Speaker 1:I see so like finding the purpose in what you do helps you commit to those actions a little bit better. I love it. Cool, all right, anything else on the topic of mindfulness, gratitude or habit change that you feel like we left out, that you want to throw in there before we switch over to rapid fire?
Speaker 2:Nothing that I want to add, but just I just want to hammer in the fact again that you know you should. I advise everyone to practice gratitude. You know it makes you it'll. It might not seem like it's working at the moment, but if you just keep practicing it, I promise you you'll reap the benefits in the future. Maybe it's a month from now. Maybe it's a month from now.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's a year from now it'll do wonders. Fully agree, I will gratitude every day. I am grateful to almost have a six-pack and then cool all right, yeah, I gotta, I gotta up my gratitude.
Speaker 2:I'm journaling too. I'm only doing three, you're doing 30. I'm kind of bumping up the fire or something.
Speaker 1:I've just been doing this for longer. You got it. It's fine, wasn't sorry? A quick tangent. It's like big things and little things too, so it's. Oh, my friend bought me food today. That's one thing I can be grateful for.
Speaker 1:You know, I live in California, which is great because I could be living in a worse place. My family's healthy, you know, I arrived safely the other day. I have cell service, you know like it's like trivial things but also the big things, and I kind of just mix it in and I kind of go on themes and so sometimes they loop together. Oh, I'm grateful to have a phone and a laptop and you know all this other stuff. And then I have to have gratitude for my car, because I can't leave out my car if I just said my phone. So I have this weird sort of thought process.
Speaker 1:But it's, 30 is not that bad. But for someone who like for you know my friends who don't do it at all like they're like wow, I can't even think of like three things and like, trust me, you can, but it just takes some work. Yeah, I hear you Definitely, and you're on that too. I'm like I'm grateful to have a great fitness coach. I'm grateful that I had a workout routine. I'm grateful I made it into the gym. Like sometimes I'll sequence it into that too. All right, Ready for rapid fire questions?
Speaker 2:Wrap this up, let's do it.
Speaker 1:Cool, and these are rapid fire questions, but you can answer them in as long as you want. Cool. First one is the billboard questions. So if you could put up a sign for millions of people to see, what would it say?
Speaker 2:Do the thing that scares you. I think I put that on there.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I like that. I like that a lot. Any clarifications on that, or you think that's enough?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can clarify for sure. I think I forgot who. I was listening to a podcast of a while back and I heard this very insightful quote, which is you know, everything you want is on the side, on the other side of discomfort. You know they were explaining like when you're a kid, you know you don't know how to walk yet you don't know how to walk yet, you don't know how to crawl, you just cry. You know, that's all you know how to do at the moment.
Speaker 2:But from a little kid, you're learning how to do these things that are uncomfortable, which is, you're learning to walk, you're learning to try and talk and communicate with all these people, and I think after a certain point in a lot of folks' life, we kind of tend to lean more into comfort. I don't know when that usually happens, but lean more into comfort. I don't know when that usually happens, but it's. I mean, it's kind of what we're built as humans. We want to be comfortable, but I do think kind of trying to chase after something that seems unattainable or something that's scary is really helpful.
Speaker 2:It's how you grow as a person and that could look like anything, which is you know, maybe I'm scared to swim. I haven't learned how to swim yet. In maybe 20 years, I should go take a lesson at the pool and conquer that fear. It builds a base of confidence, which is a common theme I'm talking about right now through this whole podcast. Confidence is key and, yeah, I do think you should just continue to do more scarier things. I love it and that quote was amazing.
Speaker 1:That's a really good quote. I and that quote was amazing. That's a really good quote. I was going to say yeah, for the listeners there, just rewind the last 30 seconds. That's. It's worth your hour already just for that, All right. Next one is what is one of the hardest challenges you faced in your life and what did you learn from it?
Speaker 2:I think one of the hardest challenges I faced. I wouldn't look back to my childhood Again. Like I mentioned, growing up in Oakland is kind of a tough neighborhood and I remember there was just this moment in time where I was starting to get bullied Happens to a lot of folks, you know you get bullied but it was kind of a very formative moment for me because I was like all right, what am I supposed to do in this situation? Do I, you know, stay a scared kid? Do I confront this person? I ended up going the route of trying to, you know, befriend everybody, trying to make everything funny at the time. That's how I solved the problem. But I do remember just being really scared for my life at the time. You know you're a kid, this is. You got to go to school every day and I just couldn't. I just I got faced with something very like a big, big challenge in my life and that's kind of how I got over it.
Speaker 1:Nice, love it. This is a new season two question, but this is called self-inflicted wounds. So do you have a story about something that went wrong in your life that's your own fault? You can't blame anyone else because you did it to yourself.
Speaker 2:Right off the bat. One thing that comes to mind is when I was going to school at UC Davis. I got put on, I almost got kicked out of school. Yeah, I mean pretty self-explanatory. I transferred over, started taking new classes and I just kind of wasn't applying myself academically, just you know, going out partying, things like that Definitely a self-inflicted wound. I was like this close to getting kicked out.
Speaker 2:I remember the morning of the meeting I had with the counselor to talk about my I think it was I already forgot the terminology academic probation. Yes, that night I had stayed out all night, wasn't drinking, just hanging out. And I was like, oh man, I'm kind of tired, I'll just cancel on this, I'll just cancel on this meeting and just reschedule it. And I remember sending the. And then the counselor wrote back oh, no, worries, basically you're out of school. Whenever you can schedule a meeting again to come talk to us about next steps, let me know. And then I panicked. I was like, oh man, why did I lie? So I immediately emailed her back. I was like, oh, don't worry, I can come make it to this meeting. Yeah, so went in there, had a talk and had to really reassess my, my decisions at that moment.
Speaker 1:Luckily, I didn't get kicked out. All right, if you could redo one thing.
Speaker 2:what would you do differently In in life in general? Yes, life general doesn't matter. I think, going like building off of the whole billboard question, I would do more things that scare me. I think I've done plenty of things growing up that I was, I felt like I wasn't ready for and I grew from it, and I think there were plenty more opportunities that were present that I could have just jumped on and try to improve.
Speaker 1:Just facing your fears and whatnot. Cool Next one If you could give your younger self advice, what would it be now? Any age, any time period.
Speaker 2:If I could give myself advice, it would be to seek out more teachers. The more you have, the better. Luckily for me, I did have a lot of mentors and I think there are plenty more opportunities to find more. There's never a shortage of mentors to help you out in life. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:I believe that. Hence why I'm trying to collect 1000 gurus to share with people like yourself. Oh yeah, cool. In the last few years, what new belief, behavior or habit has improved your life?
Speaker 2:This is a tough one. Can you repeat that question again?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the last few years, what new belief or behavior or habit has improved your life, if anything?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I would say owning. I mean, I don't even know if it's a behavior or anything but owning animals. I don't know if that answers the question properly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally fine.
Speaker 2:How so? I mean, growing up in an Asian household, we weren't didn't really show emotions that much growing up and we never had any animals. We had fish. You can't pet fish. I guess you can like fish, but you don't really grow an attachment to them. And, yeah, I just wasn't really good at expressing my emotions growing up and I think that's the biggest thing that really changed my life for the better is having an animal learning unconditional love, pretty much. You know like just coming home and seeing this thing like excited, excited to hang out with you, just changes your perspective on life, at least for me yeah, I feel like a lot of like pet owners would say the same thing.
Speaker 1:Um, who would you call successful and how do you define success?
Speaker 2:I think. I mean, there are a lot of successful people out there. I, they guess a better. What I would define as success is just someone who's happy. I mean, ultimately, I'd say you're successful, you're practicing gratitude a lot. I'd say I'm successful, you know. It's just, ultimately, we're only on earth for so long. You know we don't have a long life and I think the sooner you are happy about your life, the better. And as long as you're happy, you're successful, the more you can ask for it. You can continue to strive for more goals, reach more goals, but you ultimately want to be grateful for what you have.
Speaker 1:Nice, I love that. If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you try or what would you be doing right now?
Speaker 2:Oh, probably I think I would go the route of the astronaut. I mentioned it earlier. Yeah, I would love to go to space. It's like the new frontier. Imagine just floating in space and seeing the Earth.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, that's like the reason why I don't want to be an astronaut. To each seeing the earth. Oh my god, that's like the reason why I don't want to be an astronaut. To each his own, I'm just saying, but you're, the call for adventures is more for you than for me oh yeah.
Speaker 2:If I knew there was a clear path and it wasn't super competitive to get up there, I would. I would do it in a heartbeat, yeah yeah, you're like, it's like that.
Speaker 1:You know that asian astronaut who's like a doctor, like navy seal, and now he's an astronaut. And you know those memes are like this is the guy that your parents compare you to all the time I've seen that meme.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's you right it's a super asian right there yeah man, you know sometimes this is low-key. I only told, I've only told a few people this, but now I guess all my audience will know. Sometimes when I watch movies about space, I, like low-key, get a panic attack because I'm like I don't, I do not want to be in space. It just seems so, I don't know, unnatural for humans to be in a vacuum. But again, to each his own, that's just me. Okay, what is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've ever made, for example, in time, money or energy or etc. Anything like that Best?
Speaker 2:investments. Honestly, the best investment I've made so far is going on the whole martial arts journey, jujitsu, things like that. First of all, it's good to know how to defend yourself. Hopefully you'll never need to use it in your life. But having that skill really, I think, especially as a male, I've always had a big like. I was always.
Speaker 2:I don't want to say I had a big ego, but the ego would always talk in the back of my head. Like I look, ego would always talk in the back of my head. Like I look for fights when I'm drunk or something like that. You know you're just looking for trouble. And then, after doing the whole jujitsu, martial arts stuff, muay thai it kind of calmed it down. I don't need to go seek out a challenge. I know that, okay, I could probably handle myself if something happens. So don't go seeking trouble. Huge, huge. Yeah, that was. That was one big investment that I made that I love and it continues to pay off. It's not only does it keep you fit, you learn how to fight. It's a huge puzzle, like learning to grapple. It's like learning how to walk. Again, you know, yeah, being on the ground and having someone on top of you, you just realize oh man, I don't know what to do with my legs. It's something simple like that.
Speaker 1:Definitely I legs or something simple like that. Definitely I'm sure it's like the self-confidence right of being it. It's like you said, the physical part of it, but the self-confidence of you know you can handle yourself. I feel like it's big. That was a big reason why I like in high school I also took I took taekwondo, mostly to learn how to trick and look cool and stuff like that. But it was because I had this dream that I got into a fight and I couldn't fight back because I also didn't have really any formal training. And so the next day I was like mom, you gotta sign me up for something because I need to learn how to fight, and the rest of the history from there. But yeah, highly recommend that. All right, last couple Any favorite recent purchase under 50 to $100 that has impacted your life in the last six months. We can change the parameters. It can be any sort of price range or timeframe, but anything that like a recent purchase that's relatively cheap that changed your life or impacted.
Speaker 2:Let me think about what I purchased recently. This is the consumerism question. Oh yeah, I'm like blanking. Okay, it's not that, it's not that recent. This is the first thing that kind of pops up into my head as a game changer. It'd be an air fryer. It just changed my life. It's so easy, you know, rather than having to bake something or pan fry something, just throw it in the air fryer and it makes it super crispy. Yeah, chicken thigh has never tasted better for me. Sounds so good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, so last rapid fire questions favorite any favorite movies, books, videos, articles or media that you share or recommend the most a book that I really like recommending to a lot of people is the alchemist by paulo coelho.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a quick read. I think you get engaged in it. Yeah, love, love the story. They try, or the message, is trying to impart on the book in terms of fitness and nutrition. One book that I really been pushing out a lot, or wanting people to read, is it's called you can't fuck this up by adam borenstein, and it's a you know it's a great book basically detailing how you can be successful with your diet and your fitness throughout life nice, I like that.
Speaker 1:um, yeah, for any of those, any of you guys who don't know, I have a book summaries website, marleyunikerscom, and I do. I have reviewed the alchemist, highly recommended. Like Ryan said, it's a short read but it's very. It's fiction but a lot of people you know a lot of famous and accomplished people, have recommended or pointed to that book is like a very concise but impactful read because of the message that it comes across, so highly recommend it. Okay, all right, so let's go into ending questions like kind of on theme gratitude.
Speaker 2:Got this from my mom and it's something we both practice. But, ryan, what are you grateful?
Speaker 1:for?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I'm grateful for I might do I need 30 things right now, as many as you want, as little as you want Big things that pop up into my head, you know'm grateful for my animals. I'm grateful to have a working car, you know, as a mobile trainer, super important for me. Grateful for having clean water you know, our tap water appears great. Grateful for the internet you know it connects people like you're out there, you're out there in socal, I'm in norcal, we're talking. Grateful for having shoes to wear, you know. Know, keep my feet protected. I'm grateful for our functioning body. Yeah, I'm just grateful, man.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Oh, man, on the walking thing too. Man, okay, quick tangent again. So many people you know, so I tell you I do 10,000 steps a day on average, if not 12,000.
Speaker 1:And people are like why, Like walk and I'll have to go downstairs. Let's park closer. And I'm like, guys, you do know there's going to be a day when you can't walk, and so why don't you just walk and walk with gratitude because your legs work. You know what I mean and it's also good for you and your health and everything like that. But I'm like, dude, just be grateful that you have legs to walk with and to complain about not using you know what I mean. I don't know, it's just difference in mindset mindset.
Speaker 2:Try not to go hard on on people for that, but that's just how I see it.
Speaker 1:You find different ways to motivate people, man. Yeah, exactly, exactly, and that's just my hard charging type a personality, I guess um any final ask from the audience or any final takeaways that you'd like them to have from this conversation for sure.
Speaker 2:Final takeaway is to go, go, start the thing you know. Just do it in whatever capacity you you can. I mean specifically if it's fitness and thing you know. Just do it in whatever capacity you can. I mean specifically if it's fitness and nutrition. Go, you know, take the step, break it into a very easy step to follow. If that's, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go walk the neighborhood for five minutes. Boom, start with that. If it's I want to eat better, you know, maybe I'll add some vegetables in every meal, or maybe I'll drink a glass of water with every meal. Just do the thing.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes people overthink you can sit there and try and create the best plan, and the best plan doesn't matter if you don't follow it. So take that step. And if you don't know where to start, I really advise you to follow me. I've been trying to put out content on Instagram and Facebook. You can follow me at Ryan Turn Fitness If you're looking for coaching. If you're in the NorCal area, oakland, I am a mobile trainer. Feel free to hit me up on my website or shoot me a message on Instagram and we can get connected. Otherwise, if you just like accountability in general and want to work with the online trainer. You can also hit me up for that.
Speaker 1:Nice, thank you. That answers my next question of where they can find you, but I'll have all the links to your socials and your website and everything in the show notes. So thank you, and I think that should be it. So thank you, ryan, for being here. Like I said, I really appreciate it. And then to the audience, my final sign off. Thank you guys for joining. I really appreciate that as well. I'm really grateful to each and every one of you, even if it's a small amount right now or a larger amount later on when you listen to it. Just a reminder to always be kind to others, especially yourself, and that's a reminder that you can always learn something from someone if you just take the time to listen. So thank you for tuning in.
