Train For A Great Life
A Great Life doesn't happen by accident.
I'll share my own experiences, thoughts on training, mindset, life and how to build a great life of your own.
Train For A Great Life
Daniel Purington: From Surgery to Sweat & 3 Pillars to Building a Great Life For Yourself
All right, here we are. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Trained for a Great Life, a little bit of a different one. Here we have Dan Purrington Purrington.
Speaker 2:Yep, there you go, you got it.
Speaker 1:I asked you before and I even did it. I guess what you have in your head is going to come Dan Purrington, purr like a cat. There it is Dan, welcome. We're going to get into some good stuff, but first I'm just going to get you to introduce yourself and a little bit about you.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah Well, first, thanks for having me on taking the time out to chat. So where to start? I'm a dad. I've got two kids nine and six so anybody that's a parent knows that's a job in and of itself. I'm married to a scientist that's much smarter than I am, which is fantastic. She's actually in the other room working semi-private gym, going on working in year eight now, which gives you an idea. We opened up, you know, just a little bit before COVID, so that posed its challenges as well. Before I got into fitness, my background was really heavy in medicine triage medicine, organ donation, transplantation, surgery spent about a decade and a half in that. Before there I was a farm kid, so my family owns the oldest functioning dairy farm on the east coast of the United States. We're somewhere north of 235 years old. Still have the headstone that's etched 1784 when you walk in there. So that's a little bit about me I love trail running.
Speaker 2:I'm a two-brain mentor with you.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, that's about it yeah, that's, um, I mean just just that intro right off the bat, like farm kid to medicine, to like gym owner. Um, you, even when we met you've struck me as an interesting guy. So I had a you know handful of people throw their hand up to come on here and I was like we've talked a bunch. So I was like I'm going to talk to Dan. First I thought of this one, I didn't even, I didn't even ask you this before. I just wanted to ask you talk to me about like leaving, leaving the field of medicine to to like open a gym, like what does that look like? And I guess, where you know the, the idea, like the, the podcast is trained for a great life, like I'm I know that you love your life these days, but like that must have been a big step, a little unconventional.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely unconventional, like it looks a lot cleaner on the outside than it is on the inside. And by the inside I mean like you know, in between my ears. You know I love clinical medicine, I love surgery. It's definitely my number one passion. I've done triage in surgical medicine.
Speaker 2:I went to Haiti for the disaster relief and went to Guatemala four years and did surgical medicine there where we erected facilities and did all that in my late 20s, early 30s. I mean, critical care medicine is one of the things that is just most passionate to me. But, um, when I transitioned out of it it wasn't serving my home life, so I I started out in just general surgery, um, learning you know just just how to operate within that. So degree in surgery and then a degree in behavioral neuroscience, and so I did surgery, just straight surgery, for about five years, everything from the top of the head to the toes. Got a little bored with where my ceiling was there, pivoted over into organ donation and transplantation, worked as a surgical dissector in Boston and then became the subject matter expert in pediatric cardiovascular recovery. My wife finished her PhD in Boston. We went to the Bay Area where she's from in California, took a higher level position there, with the transplant center there, and that's where I pivoted over into the clinical role, managing people with non-survivable neurological injuries.
Speaker 2:So going into the ICU when it's chaos and facilitating A conversations with the family. B optimization of the organs, allocating them, placing them and then inevitably running the OR when the surgical teams come from around the country. All of that took me 15 years to get there and I loved every minute of it. Brutal call schedules, though, like I've been on call. I was on call for, let's say, 18 years. That would be including, you know, my internship and schooling Um and it. It really kicks the crap out of you, especially in a a field like transplant. I mean, I've been on man.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I've been on way more private flights than I have. Commercial flights, like we fly, you know, we fly all the time, no matter what, because you need to be gone quickly and it the novelty quickly wears off when you realize like some of your days are 30 plus hours with no sleep. Right, you know you're sitting in ICUs. You're you're making really amazing. Right, you know you're sitting in ICUs. You're making really amazing life changing things happen for everybody but yourself. Yeah, and so we had our first child, mabel, who's now nine, when we were in the Bay Area, and then I transitioned to a position up here at OHSU, which is the academic medical center, and throughout that time I kind of tried to pull away from the clinical side, not because I didn't love it, but because it wasn't helping at home.
Speaker 2:Um, I built out a, uh, an education position at OHSU, got that accepted and then it was presented to me and offered to me. Uh, but that around that time is when, um, our second child was was going to be born. Um, I was already training about a half a dozen people in our garage, just normal CrossFit stuff, and so something had to change. I was at a seminar in Washington it was actually where I met, or where I first heard of Two Brain. I met oh, I can't remember his name. He owns a gym in California. He was one of the first mentors through Two Brain.
Speaker 1:And he was speaking there.
Speaker 2:Jay Williams. Jay Williams, yeah, and he was speaking there and that guy you know him is gregarious and charismatic and just an amazing storyteller. And he was telling this story and I stood up in the middle of that, I went out. And I stood up in the middle of that, I went out, I called my director of operations at the hospital and said I have to rescind on this position of this stable six figure full benefits and this was associated with the VA, so our retirement funds were north of 14%. I mean this was I'd worked for 15 years to get this and I was like I need to go all in on this, jim.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I just my life isn't going the direction that I want to. And hung up the phone and so people have asked me this before, like what's that process? And I would say it's like it's an ongoing grieving process for me, because that area of fulfillment, that part of my brain, doesn't get tickled quite as much. I do get to help people. On a day to day, my life balance is better. I get to go to gymnastics and soccer and swim and and all those types of things.
Speaker 1:I have my weekends off, we get to travel Super cool stuff, but I would say that part of the grieving isn't closed and it's just because it it means that much to me yeah that's a long story no, I, I mean clearly, like I I knew you sort of came from that world, but I didn't know exactly exactly what or what depth and um, I mean clearly passionate about it, um, your kids, now nine and six, like I'm I. I feel like I could answer this for you. But would you trade it like? Would you trade it for back? You know, like?
Speaker 1:you mean trade going back to yeah like what you know, like even, even, even if, um, man, I, we've been on these parallel paths for for a while now. Like I've owned a gym for coming up on 13 years, We've both been involved in two brain for two brain for a while. Um, it can be great, it can be very difficult at times and, like we both went through, you know, covid pandemic and all that and a whole lot of uncertainty, um, but, like I, I guess what I'm saying is like, given the, the, the time and availability you have for your now family and kids that are growing up with you around and knowing you, like, there's no way you could trade that, you know I get offered a few times a year to go back to that like that.
Speaker 2:That world and as I should be. I was, I was very good at that world but I had 15 years experience, so it wasn't like I came in and it was very good, and that is. That position is hard to fill. It has a high attrition rate. So as far as like being able to walk back to it very quickly, 100%, and even with how passionate I am, I would not trade the time that I have now I wouldn't trade. The big one is I wouldn't trade my weekend flexibility. I wouldn't trade the ability to lay down with my kids at night like that. In and of itself it it displaces how passionate I am about something and replaces it with like something that I love even more. If that makes sense, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and I didn't know that it was like I mean, that could still be an open door if you chose to to to go back to it. Um, let's talk training a little bit. Like I I know you've been involved in athletics, uh, for, for you know forever and gone deep into that too. Let's talk about, like, physical training and just how that's sort of shaped. You know, parts of who you are and and, and, um, you know, led you down this path, of that you really enjoy yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 2:It's really cool to see, if I look back on the evolution of that. Like we started just always playing sports in the backyard because, like I said, I grew up on a really rural dairy farm and I'm one of five, and so we played baseball and football and we played a ton of hockey. We had fire ponds because there was no firehouse and so if your barn never caught on fire, you need a place to get water. Well, they made awesome hockey rinks.
Speaker 2:I've been playing hockey since I was like two, um, and in probably the first, like you know, two decades of my life it was all about being competitive, like competitive with my brothers in the beginning, and then competitive on the football field. I played, you know, pretty competitive football after high school and did some travel hockey and things like that. Really enjoyed that. And once I kind of hung up the cleats not so much the skates, because I never had any place to go with that anyways but I got into just weightlifting and probably chasing a little bit more of the aesthetic side of things, like in my early twenties. And then I found a CrossFit when we moved to the Bay area and, interestingly enough, concurrently found a mountain. Running through a failed backpack trip that I went on with some buddies, somebody got hurt. We had to kind of spur out and I saw these trail runners just running up this ridiculously steep mountain at 8 000 feet and they were doing better than we were doing walking down. I was like I'm gonna do that like that's that's my jam.
Speaker 2:um, and so you know, was was, you know, had that little pipe dream that everybody does in crossfit or like, oh, I'm gonna, you know, go to regionals, I'm gonna do this and and got you know pretty decent, but but couldn't get away from the volume of running that I really liked to do. Um, yeah, and kind of battled back and forth with that in the sense of like, do I want to commit, and I never decided not to. And then once, like, kind of the like, my early 30s hit my, my mindset around fitness changed a lot, especially around running. And now I I run 25 to 30 miles a week, um a hundred percent for mindset, a hundred percent for stress relief. I don't and my, my wife laughs at this and so my running partners I do not consider it fitness.
Speaker 2:It is not like that. That is like that is how I reach like homeostasis. If I don't, if I don't do that, I'm like that puppy that's waiting to go outside and pee on the pee on the hydrant. You know, it's just like I'm going to go nuts, and so I use that in the other room.
Speaker 1:Yep exactly.
Speaker 2:Right. And then when it comes to like the CrossFit side of things, that's where I come into the community side. And you know like working out in your own gym can be kind of tough because like everybody looks at you like the boss and that screw that's loose over in the assault bike, you're like I'm going to fix that. So it was like, hey, I just want to stop you that I spent the last year or so getting everybody to go through my operations person so I can integrate within my gym again and not be the person. So now people don't ask me about memberships and whatnot. So I've been able to get the community side of fitness out. And then I do quite a lot of just strength training. And that's mostly because I like to feel powerful when I stand up or when I carry my kids or when I wrestle with my kids or just all the things like that. And so fitness has evolved, but it's always had such a critical, critical piece of of my daily life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said we were. We were having a conversation in Nashville recently and you said you said something that we were. We were talking about just relationships and and the I and, like you know the idea of. I think you've been with your wife for 15 years um married, married 15, maybe, probably with longer than 18 years.
Speaker 1:And uh, yeah, married, married 14 yep yeah, and, and we just talked, we're talking about kind of working through challenges and you talked about the idea of the stable relationship that you can have with a partner, like and the more stable it is, the more it can be over leveraged and I'd never heard it yeah, I'd never heard it sort of talked about that way that, like the person that you, that you sort of expect will, will never leave you, like you can stack a lot of maybe unwanted things on that relationship. Um, and I just had it was such a succinct way and I'm like dude, where did you get that from? You're like that's, that's trail running, right.
Speaker 2:So like I, I can imagine I, I, I get it, I, I, I don't I don't do nearly that much, but I know that just that that time spent out in nature and like kind of working things through your head, I mean you go out there and you can solve the world's problems really yep, that's great yeah yeah, I mean, I think, like we, we when you've been fortunate enough to identify your person and you're so comfortable with them, and and for me, in order to be super, super comfortable, then I have to be comfortable being vulnerable with someone, right, and that goes like in two directions where you're like, okay, well, well, I'm vulnerable, but how much of that vulnerability am I putting on my person's shoulders and then being able to consciously check in and say, is this okay? Or at least having that conversation of like, this is why this is happening? We have so much at least in my situation, I feel like we have so much confidence in each other, we have so much understanding, we have so much history that, for lack of a better term, I can get away with having more than one bad day, or I can get away with not pulling my weight, or I can get away because of the equity that I've built up. But getting to a stage where it's like, okay, you're stretching this, you're over leveraging this a little bit further than you should.
Speaker 2:Absent communication is kind of a sticky situation, right, and so, um, that's what we, we try to do when we get in those situations where you know, my wife, like I said, is a scientist and they have different rollout times and so she'll get really busy and have a lot of travel and have a lot of expectation and and I'll need to do a lot more as far as being involved with dropping the kids off or just just things like that. And to go back to the flexibility of owning a business, I can make that shift, I can do those things, um, and it gives her just that little additional space. I can do those things and it gives her just that little additional space. But also being like having the confidence to be like, hey, this is a lot of pressure on me I'm not saying this for you to feel bad or anything of that nature but just like the gives and takes here and confidently knowing she's not going to take that though the the negative way. It's just me communicating.
Speaker 2:And earlier in our relationship I think we both thought like, okay, we're so stable, we can just kind of like push this to the bounds. And then you're like oh, oh, shit, we're a little ways out, you know. So, um, yeah, that's kind of when I was, you know, thinking yeah, there's, there's things that that that can happen and come up where you just realize that that's not the case.
Speaker 1:Things are really dynamic. Sometimes it's like the boiling frog thing. You just wonder how you got here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in Nashville I had mentioned that Lace and I were working with a couples therapist, couples counselor, and it's been fantastic and like I obviously like there's reasons why you might seek that out. You know we've got a couple things to work through, but it's been so, so good. Like it's so forward facing and so like we're getting coached on how how to be in a relationship which, like man, things that people give themselves way too much credit for, I think, is relationships, communication, nutrition, sleep habits, like it's because we're just doing them all the time. But like do you actually, are you actually even being intentional? You know, half the time? Um, and there's two words that you said I mean you mentioned over leveraged and equity that you've built up. I mean these are things like you're I, I when you say those words, I see measurements in my head and so like one of the things that we've we've learned how to do is like just completely open communication about, like what we desire out of our relationship, like really going pretty deep.
Speaker 1:And then it starts it's like, wow, we're on fire. This is amazing. And then you're like how do we keep this going? You know, because you can have that drift happen. So it's like setting up little checkpoints and things like that. So I mean, that's kind of what I'm picking up on. What you're saying is that you guys have these little things, that you're paying attention, and when you see things, when you feel things maybe slip from like a nine to an eight, there's a, there's a conscious taking note of that and I'm like hey, let's, let's work our way back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think the the the thing that I've learned the most is like, when you feel that slip is, don't be defensive and judgmental.
Speaker 2:Question like ask questions, be curious about why that's happening. I mean, there, there it is. You know, being curious about that, like you said and to me that's what being open is is like can I ask you a very intimate question? And I mean you should be able to ask that to your partner, but there's varying levels of intimacy of a question that you're going to ask, right, and we all have that apprehension of. Like am I going to ask this and this is just going to blow up in my face, having the confidence and having that ability to have some discourse, but knowing like, okay, we're doing this for for a reason, like you know, cynthia and I my wife's name, um, we've always had rules around how we can argue okay, like you can, you're and we have, we have adhered to these for, as you know, as long as we've ever been together, and it's like you can never, you can never be mean to someone, ever doesn't matter it doesn't matter what that person is.
Speaker 2:You can never be mean to someone ever, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what that person is. You can never bring any foul language into any argument, no matter what. It doesn't matter how it escalates. You always have to be open to questions and so like those I mean I know they sound really benign, but for us it allows us to keep our communication on like a six or a seven of intensity.
Speaker 2:So then when I ask a provocative question, or she asks a provocative question that I might have seen as challenging if my adrenaline was at a nine, I can now absorb that question, be curious about am I doing something to elicit that question or is she confused? So it gives me the opportunity. And so putting those rules in place, or essentially safeguards or bumpers or whatever you want to call them, allow us to have discourse, but not let it get out of hand, and that may not work for everybody. Some people might just need that pop-off hand, and that may not work for everybody. Some people might just need that pop-off valve, and that's totally cool, as long as you know how to get back to baseline, right for us you know, that's how we get back there yeah, that that can.
Speaker 1:When emotions are running super high, I mean, yeah, figuring out ways, um, I I've noticed, um, that when we're, when we're kind of working through something or having you know sort of like on a separate page or something, I've noticed that we can, we can talk and talk and talk. But when we like, when we're, when we're physically close to one another, like when we're actually physically touching again, is when everything kind of like calms down, right, so like that's I mean, and and there's times that in in you know, a disagreement or something in our argument or anything where, where that might not be how it's getting, just hugging each other through this whole right, right, right. But but uh, I have just noticed that that's really when things kind of subside, shifting gears a little bit. I, I, I there there was. I shot you a couple of questions.
Speaker 1:I wanted to touch on this one, but maybe like a little bit different way. Has your definition of success evolved over time and and what shifted it? And of course, I mean, I think to anyone would say, of course, right, maybe can you be a little bit more specific on, like what might Dan have said? How old are you now?
Speaker 2:44.
Speaker 1:44. So what would Dan have said at 24, 34, and 44 in terms of like, what would be the definition of success?
Speaker 2:At 24 and 34, I would have said, holy shit, you're successful.
Speaker 2:And I would have said that 24 to 34 and 34 to 44, if I were, to look to myself currently, and so trying to take that into into like consideration of like, oh wow, where does that come? Definitely, and this, really, you know, one of our close friends, ashley, has been my mentor for a good bit at Two Brain Engaged me quite a lot in the lifestyle group, our lifestyle group, where we get to talk about that and learning over the years that money is a tool to give me the opportunity to make my life happier. So I'm not necessarily buying happiness, but I'm buying opportunities to be happier. And so being able to say yes or no to situations with my time, with my acumen, with my expertise, because it's in line with how it's going to make my life happier, would be something that I probably, over the last three years, have defined as being significantly more successful than what's in my bank account. And, interestingly enough, when you do the latter, it goes up. Like your bank account goes up.
Speaker 2:Like the happier you are, at least in my experience, doing the things that you love, my bank account goes up and so my financial wealth, I'm finding is very heavily tied to my just general time, equity wealth. But the time equity wealth has to go first. Before, when I was trading all my time for money back in the operating room. I was making a lot of money right, but I wasn't happy. So once I started to focus on being happy, it took me a little bit of time to get back to that, to that earning potential. But once I got back to that earning potential, now I was putting money towards things that were making me happy and not trying to buy happiness, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean mean money. Money solves a lot of problems to a certain point it does, it solves the money.
Speaker 1:It's like financial stress sucks, um, and I'm thinking about that stuff all the time and you know just that I, I guess I what what financial stress would is sort of to me is you're not necessarily seeing a a brighter tomorrow in terms of like working, like getting yourself ahead right, and and you think that as you get older, you should be able to sort of work yourself ahead, um, but yeah, no, that that makes total sense. That, like, when you pass that, I mean past a certain point and it, and it's probably lower than what people think, when you're able to just focus on doing things that make you happy, like, of course, that's going to attract, that's an attractive thing, it attracts people to you, yeah Right, and then creates opportunity.
Speaker 2:I mean, I and I'm not going to misquote any studies, but I've certainly read many, many articles on this so, like, one of the most sought after traits in a mate is someone who has a nice smile, right. So we are likely, on a primal level, attracted to someone who is inherently happy, sure, right. And so it's just one of those things to keep in mind where you're talking about, like, you know what that level of financial stability is, and certainly it's going to be dependent upon where you live, what your hobbies are, just all the things. But yeah, that that like money doesn't buy happiness, I don't, that doesn't resonate with me because, like you said, money's a tool. Money's a tool to put yourself, put yourself in that position.
Speaker 2:So, if I figure, so we just, we just put in an offer on a house that I never when I was 34, if you said you're going to buy a house for this, I'd be'd be like no way in heck. And we put an offer in two days ago and it got accepted. So it was like it's a pretty big deal for us. Um, yeah, and I was talking to my longest.
Speaker 2:Thank, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a pretty, it's, it's pretty. We've been searching for a house for about three years. My house is very small here. We bought it. We needed to get rid of some money from when we moved up here and we bought this home and then we got, you know, had two little kids and was like last thing I'm gonna do is move, so we just end up staying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but one of my longest uh term mentors actually a private training client of ours is one of the very few that I have hung on to. He's owned a legal practice for 20 years. Um, he and I have talked a lot about using money, um, being okay with, like, I put in all this work. I'm going to use this money to make my life more enjoyable, being able to see that as, like, I'm not going to buy happiness. I'm buying a house that is three times the size of my current home so that my wife and I can have our own individual.
Speaker 2:A house that is three times the size of my current home so that my wife and I can have our own individual offices, so that we can have the outdoor kitchen that we've always loved. We absolutely love to entertain. The kitchen and the dining area is three times the size of my current one. These are the things that fill me up, so I'm buying and I'm spending this money so that I can bring more joy in for entertaining. I can bring more joy in because now we have a separate toy room. Stupidest thing the laundry room in this new home is on the second floor, so there'll never be laundry on my kitchen table, which is great. I mean, when you have little kids, you know like oh my gosh, and so like those simple things. So starting to view money like that really, really has made a huge difference for me yeah, I mean we.
Speaker 1:I think we just built our home that we're in right, we've been in it for about a year and a half and I've got an office that's kind of tucked away and it's it's great.
Speaker 1:I've got an office that's kind of tucked away and it's it's it's great. I've got lots of natural light here and it's it's a very open like. So, whether we're and I mean, I love, we love having people over entertaining as well it's a very open setting, but one of the best things. So right, and we've got a newborn Calvin, seven weeks old today.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:I'm yeah, we're right in the thick of it.
Speaker 2:You're right in there.
Speaker 1:Uh, I, I cook. I mean, I cook our dinners almost exclusively, like I couldn't tell you the last time that Lace did and I've really come to enjoy it. I like, I love it. And what allows me to love it is the setup. Like I'm like. You know it's a big, wide. You know the back of the house is wide, it's lots of windows. We live on a pond so it's very calming. It feels like a cottage and the kitchen merges right into the. You know we have like a dining table there which merges right into the. You know we have a like a dining table there which merges right into the family room and like we're just together, even you know, like in a separate room doing so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that and that was very intentionally set up the way, and we have laundry on the on the second floor, I mean simple things, man like those make a big deal yeah and and uh, you know we have.
Speaker 1:We've had this property for a long time it's been. I mean, we bought it in 2013, so it's been 12 years and we lived in like a little tiny cottage that was on it like a you know it was. It was a teardown when we bought it. I would have loved if we could have just run over it, but like it was beyond the point like the, the foundation that we've been starting from scratch. But, um, yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's uh, you get used to living, you know, in this new spot and it feels like we've been here for a long time, but it's. I mean, I still kind of like pinch myself that like we're able to actually do this thing. It was a lot of sacrifice for a long time. We leveled up to some degree long before, but it was just be patient, just be patient, and then let's build during COVID and pay way more than we have to.
Speaker 2:It's never an optimal time, right, we actually were off the housing market 100% and so like to kind of go into. One of the other things is this was a pocket listing, and one of our members who's just a wonderful friend of ours, both my wife and I my wife runs with her a lot, my wife runs with her a lot Her neighbor sent her this house and said, hey, we're looking for a family to move in, we want to close very quickly, we want to not go to listing this and that and the other thing. And so she thought of us and sent us a message. We got a private showing with this house, with the owner for an hour. He's his sued to be grandfather, just wonderful stories throughout the whole house and our member is one of our now to be next door neighbors and so being able to leverage those relationships that this would have never happened had we not had the gym, had I not been able to actually foster a relationship with members in the gym, you know, by building systems out and people out and having intermediaries and having the weekend to go trail running.
Speaker 2:I'm I don't want to say good friends with her son because her son's a lot younger than I am, but we trail run when he's back home from school, and so having this really cool relationship, put this opportunity like if this home had went to the market, there is no way we could have afforded it. Okay, not a chance. Um, and so just being able to, uh, to leverage the different styles of wealth, you know, whether they be a relationship, whether they be time, whether they be financial, and all those things, um, those are, those are things that I don't think I realized the value of when I was 34 and 24 what's up?
Speaker 1:I'd like to dig into this one a little bit. What's something that that you used to, maybe, maybe used to chase, or used to feel was important, but doesn't necessarily feel as important anymore?
Speaker 2:Status outside your house. Like if I'm my kid's hero, I win, that's it. Like that's the end of the story and like obviously that changed once you become a dad or a parent. But when I think back to it, like my dad was always my like hero growing up, like it just was like he, just like he. And for no, he didn't do. He wasn't, you know, a professional sports player or anything like the professional athlete of any of that nature. He was just. He was kind to everyone, he met, he always helped people, he worked very hard, he made me feel calm and comfortable and all those really like amazing things that had nothing to do with finance, had nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 2:I had no idea how poor we were when I was growing up. Like no clue. Um, we we took a bunch of stamps when I was a kid and we like stuck them all over this wall and little did we know they were food stamps and my parents got like super frustrated. We didn't know why we're like, oh, we were just playing with stickers and it was like that was how we got our week's worth of groceries. I I remember they were green, little you know, with red things on, but I didn't know it because we were just kind of super happy and so like realizing, like okay, can I be my kid's hero regardless of anything else that happens, like my dad was mine, that would be like a huge thing.
Speaker 2:So, instead of you know, trying to be the hero to everybody else, and it's certainly still a work in progress there, I would have to say, as far as like interesting, like to to bring like the gym stuff into it and bring into like social media and organic marketing, if you will like. Recognizing like who I'm talking to and who I'm trying to engage with online is not the personal trainer down the street, it's not the person with a kinesiology degree, it's like a mom or a dad, just just like me, and so learning how to talk to that person in more of a human way versus like trying to like oh, I'm the best, like I have all the knowledge I need to project that out there.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, so like, yeah, like, rather than showing people like this is how smart I am and this is all the stuff I know, just being like relatable Dan.
Speaker 2:Very authentic. Yeah, yeah, and so, and I think that takes, I mean and for me it just took time. It took time. I mean, you look at my resume and you see, like, time over time, over time, I've done different things and been successful in different areas, but there's still that internal imposter syndrome that you have. I remember Bonnie, when we were in Columbus, she stood up and she said if you think you have imposter syndrome, if you think you're an imposter and you know you have imposter syndrome, you're not an imposter. It was like this great, like, oh, like, oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, right, right, does it?
Speaker 1:doesn't make it go away, um, but I think you know, being being patient with that and kind of just learning, it's been a pretty big component of it I don't feel that you mentioned the word curious in a different respect earlier, but just like just being curious about people and getting to know them, and and you know it's that's. There's a there I'm going to butcher this. There's, there's a story that that that Chris Williamson tells on. He's told it a couple of times now and it was these politicians in and they spoke to the two wives of the.
Speaker 2:I'm butchering this thing basically they were, you know the one I'm getting at yeah, they were running against, they were running mates and, uh, a socialite a well-known socialite went out to dinner with them separately on different nights.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yes, this was it. Yeah, and and so they, they asked the first one, like you know just how did it go? And, and and and she, like I, came away thinking like he was the smartest person I've ever met, the most interesting person I've ever met. And then they asked the second one and she said he made me feel like I was the smartest and most interesting person he's ever met.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's like which one do you want to be Right, like, do you want it to be all about you, or do you want to be right like, if, do you want it to be all?
Speaker 2:about you or do you want, like like some, you could do that for someone else? Right it's? It's really cool to to be able to have that like ability to receive information, and because that's that's how you learn right, like every time you and we learn this as mentors, it's one of the one of the skills that I've really been able to hone, even more further than than my previous career, is when you, when you open your mouth, you tend not to learn anything because you're the one talking.
Speaker 1:Now.
Speaker 2:I work through a lot of challenges and things like I'm definitely a verbal, like I problem, solve verbally Like I'll talk to him. If you see me trail running, you'll see me talking to myself. It just works for me Right. But having that curiosity and having so for me the goal is is when I'm talking to somebody new, my risk trying to respond with a question. Almost every time that gets me to get a little bit deeper. So that episode you're talking about is what charles de grugue, who wrote super communicators um, yeah, yeah, that guy is, that's it, that's his his book is dynamite, like that is.
Speaker 2:That's who I. I don't aspire to be charles de gr support, but I aspire to be a super communicator, like I love and you've known me for long enough I love getting into the intimate details with someone and actually finding out, like what's really salt, what's really your problem, like what's actually limiting you, cause I, I, I, I enjoy emotion, I enjoy behavior, I enjoy like learning about what makes people tick. And then I love that stage where you figure it out and all of a sudden their face just goes oh, I gotcha.
Speaker 1:Like that.
Speaker 2:And I just love it Right, and and he, he writes about that, and the only way you can do that is to be curious, so that's cool.
Speaker 1:So I asked you things that maybe, like you mentioned, like chasing status, and that doesn't really feel any important anymore. What are things that maybe have like in terms of someone trying to build a great life for themselves? What are things that maybe have like in terms of someone trying to build a great life for themselves? What are some things you can point to that do have like very high leverage, like what obviously like we're assuming?
Speaker 1:what someone would want and they would define a great life for themselves. But what are some things that people should be doing?
Speaker 2:what are some things that people should be doing? I mean, kind of obviously it's going to depend on the age you're in, but I think one of the things and I don't know about you, but in school I didn't get much of this is like learning about money and learning how to use it. Right, Like you know, we've been investing in our 401k since I was like 22. Right, it's really cool to know, at 44, if I stop investing in our 401k since I was like 22,. Right, it's really cool to know, at 44, if I stop investing in my 401k. Now I'm set for 65 North, as long as I don't spend a crap ton of money I was going to say that's probably that's your life, that's probably served you very well.
Speaker 2:And it's great for leverage when you're buying a home.
Speaker 2:That's what we're buying. So understanding why and how to use like, why you're earning money, how money's created, how to use money People often say money is a tool, but you've got to understand the backstory of that, and so I would say that is a huge component, because you think about how many arguments, disagreements, sleepless nights, missed meals over caffeinated, whatever it might be, whatever your crux is in there, that's due to either a misunderstanding of money, or when my next paycheck is coming in, or revenue cycle, or all these things. And understanding how money works, all these things and understanding how money works, that because for a long time, I just accumulated money, because we didn't have money when I was a kid. So I thought like, oh, I'm just going to accumulate money and I traded so much time for money. I can tell you right now I wouldn't do it any differently, but I sure as heck I'm going to have my kids do it differently if I, if I have any hope for that, right, well, so what, what types of things might you have them do?
Speaker 2:So I mean I probably, you know, similar to a lot, a lot of people.
Speaker 2:I had to work a lot in high school to get my clothes and things like that, and that went all the way through college and it took me a little bit longer to get through the different schools that I went to because I was needing to work. So showing up to class. So I was full-time surgical dissector my junior and senior year of my behavioral neuroscience and so I piled all of my labs on Mondays and I was working seven on, seven off at that stage. So seven 24 hour shifts in a row and then you get seven 24 hour shifts off. So every other Monday I would take a vacation day and I did my labs like that for a full year. But 75% of the time I was showing up to class in scrubs, probably not having slept for 25 hours, and I thought that was a badge of honor because I was grinding. I want my kids to work while they're in school for like four hours and not after like nine o'clock, and not having it affect their ability to move forward.
Speaker 2:Um like for four hours a day yeah, like something like that, where it's like you don't like, for me I lived in Boston, like I needed to make a lot of money, right, I didn't. The choices of work that I initially did weren't necessarily like oh, I really, really want to do this. Fortunately, I fell in love with it, but it was like this is what I need to do to make ends meet Right, okay, to make ends meet right, okay, um, and so I think there's there is a time and place for, for grinding and grit and things like that. But when it starts to influence the things that are really important for me it's education or experience um, then I want to. I want to make it so my kids don't have to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause I certainly would have gotten places a little bit quicker had I not been trying to learn on half an empty stomach or no sleep, or okay, I can rush to this class, and then I get paged halfway through the class and I got to go out again and I'm trying to finish assignments in you know the, in the limo or in the airplane or in the, whatever that picked me up to take me wherever. Essentially, I was prioritizing the company that I worked for's goals versus my own, and so what I want to be able to do is have my kids identify what their goals are and then support those.
Speaker 1:Okay. So just very intentional Forward thinking Okay yeah, Okay, 100% yeah, I imagine it's so common people just not getting financial education, and I mean it's probably it's you know, it's probably different socio. It's just like someone that grows up, you know, maybe really wealthy, like they just have they're taking care of, maybe, or maybe they're taught lessons along the way, I don't know Like like we we we were wealthy growing up by any means, Like we're mental, you know, like we have one for a while, Like I didn't play. Like I didn't play some sports just because they're too expensive, I didn't play hockey I wanted to um, but you know, we didn't travel.
Speaker 1:We did one trip, um, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I was in grade four we did the disney trip yeah my younger brother too, and uh, I know that was painful for my, my, my, my parents I not they love the trip and like it was, it was amazing, but I think that they were paying that off for a long time. So, anyway, like, but then I did. But when, when I did go to school, like I had I had, I went through and had the, the, so we had a. I had a, uh like a co-signed loan, basically by from my parents, and that was sort of like my safety net. I didn't work, didn't work through school, I just all I did was a mess of debt the whole time and man, it took it, took another for for me to really kind of get started. The financial education, I think. I think until you have like skin in the game, with like responsibilities and bills and like stuff, like shit can go sideways and and like and the buck stops with you. I think that's when lessons can really sink in yeah it does.
Speaker 2:I think it sinks in there, or you could get into that scarcity mindset where you're always afraid, right like you, don't open the mailbox you don't right and we've all been there and and and so I think, like really understanding why, like, why and how to use money and how.
Speaker 2:Like, as I've ascended in my earning potential, I didn't for a long time I didn't know how to use money to make my life easier. Right, how to bring somebody in to fold laundry for us once in a while. How to, like, now, prioritizing date night. Like date night, as you know, costs a lot more now when you have babysitters come in. But like recognizing, like well, yeah, that seems like a big ticket, but that was a big ticket when I was making x. Like now it's not. And so you know, one of our, one of our former member mentors, uh jeff, used to say like money can, money can solve those problems of somebody coming in to mow your lawn and to fold your laundry and to do those simple things. And like that's not a, not a sign of arrogance, like it's a sign of like this is where I value my time over here. Yeah, and I'm, I'm working my butt off, like this is what I need to do with that to make me happy, and being okay with that.
Speaker 1:Um that just understanding too. Maybe where your shortcomings are like like we, we have a cleaning company that comes in, maybe like, well, I think they're once, I think they're like every other Friday and just does the house top to bottom and and, uh, in the summer I, legitimately, I enjoy, it's like it, it's like it's, it's, it's enjoyable, it's outside, so but I know myself and and I know how I think and my mind just does not go to maintaining things like that Sure. Yep, yep, yeah, should be doing something else, really should.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing Learning how to use money as a tool. Because, as a farmer and where we live in rural, rural Massachusetts, you literally are the epitome of you know, jack of all trades, master of none, because a just to get someone to come up there costs too much money. Forget them to actually have to do the work. So you just learned how to do everything and if you, if you didn't know how to do things, you're kind of like a weak link in the chain up there.
Speaker 1:Right, but that's not where I live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's not where I live, and that's not how I live now. And so I remember the first time I had somebody change my oil. I was like, oh my God, what would my dad say? Right? But it was just like I've got two kids in the car and I'm like I there is no way that I'm going to do this in the middle of my yard on a Saturday, that I'm going to go to the park and throw a tennis ball with the short hair and play with the kids or something. That's a mindset.
Speaker 1:Just this past weekend we had to get to my nephew's hockey game on the other side of Toronto. Driving through Toronto, it can be a nightmare. Nightmare, I mean, it can take you easily twice as long as expected if you had some traffic. And there's a, there's a highway, it's a toll road called the 407 that basically goes up and around and like if the my mind's like I there's. There's two things that I hate doing is paying tolls when I can avoid them and paying for parking. I don't know why I will like.
Speaker 1:I've gone away from it now just because, I mean, you know, like when you're an adult, that's like you know, making a living. Now you can only get so many parking tickets before you're like okay, like just smarten up, but we had to make it to the game and we were going to be late. And then, like also traveling with a three-year-old and a seven-week-old in the car, like do you want to get there in an hour 15? Or do you want to be two and a half? Like what's more valuable, do you want to get caught with him in a seat, in a car seat, and he needs to feed? Like no, so pay a few bucks and then do it so, so, okay, so financial education and learning money as a tool um, definitely a a pillar, and I would 100 back that. Um, yeah, we touched on a lot of different things there. Um, what else? What else is something that you know kind of a a pillar, something that's going to have like a size in terms of like building a great life for?
Speaker 2:yourself, and what I mean by that is being curious and open-minded again, to learn about people from the get-go, because that in and of itself is you're getting new ideas, you can learn more about yourself, you can live, sometimes vicariously, through their experiences and sometimes their failures. But for me, it allows me to help people in a different way, and so recognizing like that doesn't cost me anything. But in order to do that, I need to have time in my day, and so recognizing like okay, well, this is how. And so the reason I'm saying all that is like identify, identify the things that that kind of light you up and then make space for those and make those be a non-negotiable Right. So I love having conversation, like I talked to a lot of our, a lot of our colleagues, both on the mentor side and the thinker side, throughout the course of the week, not because we're solving any like massive problems, but it's just I like to learn from them, I like to to have that experience, and I value that over making a dollar or something of that nature. And so for me, I'm really comfortable in knowing like yeah, like that's where I want to spend my time, and so learning about that and then understanding what it takes to get there, because that's not going to happen tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Right, that took me 18 months of getting a very, very sound operational team in in my business, so that now, when you asked me to do a podcast at 11 o'clock like yeah, I totally can do that, that didn't happen overnight, like you, and I just didn't chat like hey, can you do it? No, it's like I have those systems and whatnot in place because this is what I want to do, right. If somebody said, um, you know, can you do a private training session today at 11?, I would say no, because this is my Wednesday. This is the day where I get to learn about myself and whatnot. So a big part of that learning what really makes you tick and then setting your days, your weeks, your years up for that but also recognizing that takes intention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, things don't happen. Funny, I was just in the Tinker Breakout calls and I was in a different room and there was a guy that spoke up of having challenges with you know, and not being in his gym quite so often and having to. I mean having a few comments like oh, you know, it must be nice this, you know it must be nice to do a podcast at 11 o'clock on a on a Wednesday. You know, two o'clock for me and yeah, I mean, that's that's, that's something that's. There's phases that you're going to go through and there's you're, you can't, you're not going to be everything to everybody, and I think that there's like when you, when you especially like you and I starting gyms, like there's there's a point in time where you are that yeah.
Speaker 1:And and if you want to get to a point where you could actually do this and make a living from it, you're going to have to. You're going to have to move beyond that a little bit and start to build a team, which is just a completely different skillset. And I mean, I felt like I've been in a pretty good place with this for for a while now. I don't really get questioned too too much on like how much are you working?
Speaker 1:Like I work a fair amount. I'm very flexible and but I've also so my my. My point to him was, like you know, he's like, like he's like how do I navigate this? And like you know, like and Bonnie was jumping in the resident psychotherapist, she had a lot of really great things to say. I made a point to him that, like you can talk about these things and don't tie it back to living a great life, he was feeling guilty for taking a vacation and this and that and I mean in past episodes of this I dig into things that I wouldn't necessarily have been comfortable talking about five or 10 years ago, but I'm doing it in a.
Speaker 1:I coached one night last week and I had someone booked for 6 o'clock 6 pm which is normally a time when I'm not going to be in there on Monday and she no-showed me. Not only no-showed but said hey, I'm stuck in traffic, I'll be there in half an hour. I waited and waited, and waited. Then I did get an update. She just no showed me and then I you know whatever sent back a response and I didn't really get the.
Speaker 1:I didn't really get a conscientious response, and so like if she wants to book another time, it's not going to be in the evening, right, and if we can't do that, we can't do that and that's fine. But but I guess what my, my, my point to him was like you can talk about these things in a way where you have something that is desirable, you have some, some freedom of time and not everyone is going to be able to reach that. You know people will be able to do it in different ways, but you can be, it doesn't. It doesn't have to be all about that, right, like I? I mean, I still do.
Speaker 1:it's not like I don't have to work in the evenings ever but, like, what I'm trying to do is be present with my family, and I have young kids and I'm really prioritizing that, and so like. I'm inviting you into, not Jay, the CrossFit coach and business owner. It's I have. I'm a dad now.
Speaker 1:I and I want to be a great dad and like these are the things that are important to me and let's, it's. I have, I'm a dad now I and I want to be a great dad and like these are the things that are important to me and let's, let's maybe talk about that and and and, and. We can shift the conversation over to that or like doing so in a way where you're not you're inviting people up with you, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, if that makes sense yeah, yeah, I mean in a, in a, in a situation like that, and we certainly get to have these conversations when we, when we have our meetups about this, and I'd say this is relatively common, especially as you, as you, you know ascend within your business, it's also a. It's a fall-off point like if people can't get by this, then they can't grow their business right and, like you know, like this is first part of valley of death where it's like, if you can't get by this, then they can't grow their business Right.
Speaker 2:And, like you know, like this is first part of Valley of Death where it's like, if you can't get past here, and that doesn't mean that it's easy. And so for me the question would come into like, why does it matter what someone else thinks? Because the problem at hand is emotionally, he's tied to what someone else thinks, right. Why does that matter? Why are you letting that matter? Because you get to choose. Now, that doesn't mean you can all of a sudden say I don't let that matter, but that does mean that I can do some behavioral conditioning, that every time something like that comes up I can just stop and say, why does this matter? That's it right, like a simple thing. Like that will bring and I'm sure I stole this for Bonnie, so I don't want to improperly cite it, but bringing some awareness to that knee-jerk reaction, that knee-jerk emotion that we have built into our psyche, whether it be our amygdala being super hyperactive or all the things of that nature that are causing us to react this way we're in the beginning. That served us well, but now does this really matter, and so it's not a quick solution, but identifying it really, really has helped. Like I have that, like it's still so.
Speaker 2:I coach, probably similar to you, a couple hours a week and I'm I am very, very protective of my evenings, like I'm done at 4 30, done, done and out, like every once in a while, you know, coach gets sick and people are on vacation and whatever um, and I'm also relatively uh, protective of certain mornings because I love to bring my kids to school, um, and there is a little bit of of uh pushback there.
Speaker 2:But one thing that I and I I don't have any like strong data, so I'm going to say this is a correlative is by telling my story. I mean, if you've ever followed me on social media, read my emails, it's always like as a 43 year old, you know, dad, husband and business owner, I struggle with X. So I'm identifying to the people in my gym, the people in my sphere of, like, hey, I'm doing all these things and I'm prioritizing this because, right, it's not because I don't need to work anymore, it's not because I do this, it's like I tell people, like I now spend a good portion of my day mentoring other businesses so that they can live a good life, so they can do these things like and so, like you said, it's okay to tell people right, but at the end of the day, why does it really matter?
Speaker 1:I mean you could be still in a place where it's so new to you and you don't feel deserving of it. Totally. It can be hard to let go, like when I think of you know, I, I my day, uh, like I, I didn't coach anything today and I had a meeting earlier on and I saw some people at 10. Did they have a worse experience because I wasn't there? I would certainly hope and I mean, if that's the case, then I need to do something about that. But like it's almost like get caught up in like your own importance when you have been the coach to everybody and that that can be. I mean, that can be to it. It's, it's. It's a great feeling to to lift people up and like be a great part of their day. But you're, you've still built the thing that is and, like you, you have your I mean your your DNA is like woven into every part of what the gym still is. So it's, it's. It's a challenging. It's a challenging phase for sure.
Speaker 2:It is, I would say it is. Of the phases that I've experienced, I would say it's probably the most challenging and as you continue to remove yourself, I would say the next one is like when you inject that management layer in between you and your staff, or you and your members, where you're completely off. That one is similar in nature, where you kind of you lose touch with what is comfortable. So you're going to get uncomfortable in that regard and oftentimes, as humans, we push back against that because we don't know what to do. And it's easy to be the hero when you know what to do. Sure, right, like, and so, yeah, like those, those changes in our business when we're, when we're trying to grow it is, they can really be limiting, and it's not. I don't know anybody who has done it without, like, being very intentional. I'm like, okay, I may get this, this and this, but this is why I'm doing it Right. So that's a tough one, that's a. I'm glad they were talking with Bonnie.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not in that phase and I don't I don't have intention of going there. I mean, I think that's absolutely important when you start to get into multiple locations. So you need to sort of like a number two in place, right, but um, okay. So finances. Sort of like a number two in place, right, but um, okay. So finances, financial education, understanding money as a tool, relationships, being curious, and we took that in a bunch of different directions.
Speaker 1:How about, like? How about like physical mental health, like, where did your mind go when I, when I kind of say that yeah, yeah, like so.
Speaker 2:I I write to my, my newsletter and my, my social media about this about every six to eight weeks, where I, if I'm, if I'm feeling like I'm in a slump, or whatever, I'll do a, I'll do an audit have I been eating the way that I want to eat? Am I getting enough food in? Have I been drinking enough water? Have I been getting enough sleep? And then I'll look at like what's my caffeine cycle? Like Right, have I been moving my body enough? How is my body feeling so optimally? I'm not changing anything, I'm just going back, assessing, like am I doing all the things that I know that work for me? If the answer is no, in any one area, that's the first thing that I'm going to change, because I know I can't show up for my relationships, I can't show up for my financial, I can't show up for all those things if I don't take care of myself. And I know for me.
Speaker 2:Well, I eat a lot of food because I move my body a lot, and I move my body a lot because it helps my mind relax. If I move my body a lot, then I need to make sure I drink a lot of water. I need to make sure I'm getting enough sleep so I'm recovering to little kids. Sometimes that doesn't happen, like, okay, well, I've had a really rough week. Okay, well, I'm drinking three times as much caffeine, so I'm not sleeping as well. So it's like being able to identify and having that honest question of like okay, this is all out of whack because of that, only because I prioritize my nutrition, my fitness, my sleep as much as I do. So that's a huge, huge one. So if I'm having a tough time, that's the first thing I look at Would be like nutritional and sleep habits.
Speaker 1:if I'm having a tough time, that's the first thing I look at. Is would be like your new, like nutritional and sleep habits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll do that audit of, like, what's my food been like, what's my fitness been like, what's my sleep been like, and it's really easy.
Speaker 1:Go to the workouts, cause I mean really just layer more stress on it, and 100% yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely 100%. Yeah, yeah, it's. The workouts are great, but because the workouts I mean and you'll probably agree with me the workouts for me are easy, because I just always work out like working out easy. Nutrition is hard, sleep is hard. For me, water has always like just fluid intake, which sounds ridiculous for a runner, but it's always one of those things. It's like it's just one of those things that I forget to do. And so if I'm more intentional with those, um, and I try to write about those really consistently, because I know most of my member base has the same struggles and they get frustrated because they can't identify it, and so I talk a lot about doing audits when I'm not feeling well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, I mean, I feel like I talk about similar, like. I feel like we have a very similar sort of mindset in terms of like coaching and how we want to influence people. Like you're not trying to sell them, like the next, you know, like what are we going to package? Like some, like some six-week program on drinking water, like right, it's. Like it's just, you know, be in the sphere of this, this gym and this community, and like we're gonna do workouts that are wicked effective, but like we just want to help you do the things right you know, and and I'm not gonna just try and keep selling the next thing, the next thing we don't sell supplements.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's just a total sidebar, but, like I'm, it's hard enough to get people to pay attention to like, do the things like dude, let's focus on the 95 before we go into the five oh, yeah, yeah, that that is so, and that's why, again, I talk about the odd.
Speaker 2:I'm like, more often than not, you don't need to change something, you just need to go back to what was working yeah, funny though I think I recorded um every, almost every episode I've done.
Speaker 1:It's been like a solo recording and I just did one that's going to release.
Speaker 1:Um, well, it'll be before this one releases, but it's. It's kind of contrasting the idea of like 75 hard versus like kind of how you know what, what we're talking about now, just like, and I said, take any six to eight week period and look and like what have you been doing? And you're going to have days that are off and you're going to have days that you need rest and the whole. You know 75, you know it's like days don't need to be necessarily looked at as like perfect or failure.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, but but yeah, it's themselves.
Speaker 2:It does and it's themselves, it, it, it does, and and it's it's tough to maintain that right because you see, like, if that stuff tells and the thing about it is probably similar for you as it is for us is like you end up cleaning up the mess that some influencer or some, whatever like you're, you're, you're, you know, you're like no, that's not a thing, yes, you should eat whatever. Like you're, you're, you're, you know, you're like no, that's not a thing, yes, you should eat. Yes, you'd like. You know you're in up like cleaning up the, the, the shrapnel mess that you know people get in their mind's eye. It's like no, you're not going to do that in 30 days. Find.
Speaker 1:I do find that when someone tells me like you do you know this person, this person's YouTube channel, this Instagram like what. I'm just what. I'm meeting them and talking about, you know, getting started the gym. The more that type of stuff comes up, the more I just like they're. They're actually not in a good place with what they're doing at all, yeah yeah, facing chasing that quick, that quick fix, it's a tough yeah.
Speaker 1:What would you say for the average person is would be like a like, a minimum standard in terms of like. Obviously, nutrition and sleep are going to be very individualized, but like for someone that is like starting.
Speaker 2:It's like what, what? What is like the what's going to move the needle? I mean we'll start right from like drink a little bit more water, eat a little bit more whole based foods, be outside a little bit more and move your body slightly, right, so it's like slightly more than you already are. So like for our protein challenges that we do at our gym, we say our protein challenges, to take two more bites of protein at your next meal. That's the deal, like let's just start there. And so at the foundation of it is just the simple habits, done, consistently, compound and so that that, I think, is the biggest thing. The other thing and this is the one that nobody wants to hear is it just takes time. Like I mean, fitness is hard. You know from the sales side of things, like we're selling very delayed gratification. It just takes time.
Speaker 1:You almost need to forget about it, you do.
Speaker 1:The best thing that you can do and I think it's something that can really like part of why CrossFit can be so effective functional fitness CrossFit something where people can be very focused on performance in one way or another, or leveling themselves up Like I want to have five pounds, or leveling themselves up like I want to pull up, I want to, um, just be able to do something new, learn a new skill is that that stuff takes time, and then you know, a year and a half later you're like holy crap, I lost 20 pounds right, right it almost happens as a byproduct, and and you and I are not impervious to this I've been on some great diets recently, like protein.
Speaker 1:alcohol is way down. Sleeping is great. I'll figure, even with a newborn.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It is quite good. I've always protected my sleep. You know, right now I'm sleeping at least half the night, basically until he wakes up to feed him, but then, when he does, we don't both need to be asleep, so I go into my sleep. Anyway, this is all to say. I'm doing things in the gym that I haven't done in six plus years in terms of a few numbers here and there done in six plus years, like in terms of a few numbers here and there, and I've hopped on our in-body machine, like probably two or three times.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh, baby like here we go, I'm gonna see, I'm gonna see a steep drop right, and it's just not there yet and it's like yeah, it's. I'm just reminded like okay, so now what? Like right, are you do?
Speaker 2:you. Why does that mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like it's going to come Like, yeah, right, do I like ease off my workout? Do I eat less protein? Do I start having drinks Like no, just you know, and I'm excited for when I do see like a number where I'm like, holy crap, I haven't seen that number in a while either. But you have less and less control of it.
Speaker 2:There's so many inputs to that and I think the interesting thing is you've identified I start to feel better, I start to do this, I start to do this, I start to do this Yet we get that objective metric that is on the in-bodybody scan, which really doesn't mean a whole bit of anything and it's like, oh shit, but I do all the fitness things to feel good, which I already said that I felt good, right, and it's like that battle, and even you and I because I'll do the same thing like you and I battle with that and we've been active for our entire lives right right, you know, like I'm not, I'm not tasting the in body, but you know it does when you hop on it, like you have to catch yourself, like hey, tell me, you're doing this to feel better, you're doing this to you know.
Speaker 2:Um, so it's not just, not just the everyday fitness person, I can only imagine what's going through.
Speaker 1:You know, when you say the average person, like you know when you say the average person, like you know, 30, whatever percent body. Like I can only imagine what's going through their head and what they, what they, what they, they need to do as a change. But like I guess what we're kind of coming to is in a, in a bit of a, a roundabout way is like find something that you love to do, like that you would find enjoyable, just do it and yeah, let other stuff happen as a byproduct yeah, I really think that it gets.
Speaker 2:It gets over complicated. I mean, um, greg glassman didn't invent, like, functional fitness, he just made it cool to do with your friends, which build in like a high level of accountability, and then people were consistent, right, like I mean, certainly there's a lot more method. And he defined fitness and which build in like a high level of accountability, and then people were consistent, right, like I mean, certainly there's a lot more method. And he defined fitness and and everything. By the end of the day, like he gave people one more reason to go do something A hundred percent Right, like I mean, yeah, we inherently like to suffer a little bit, but it's way more fun when you're doing it next to somebody. Doing it next to somebody. It's even better when you like eke them out a little bit, right, you know, I mean, there's like, and that gets you back tomorrow, right, um, and so I think, like you said, finding something, whatever it is, that you enjoy you can consistently do, right, that's the winning past like five to seven years or something like that.
Speaker 1:It's the people that, the people that you do with, makes it so interesting. I mean, your trail running is probably very similar yeah like very and and I I mean that there's people are wired differently too, like I like to do that stuff solo. But it also means I'm not going to do it all that often because, right, I'm relying on myself, I don't have it scheduled, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely that social component. That is a huge, huge piece of it. I suspect that's one of the reasons why both of our gyms are very successful in that we integrate people into that and we do it very deliberately right, and so it certainly is a huge piece of the puzzle that I think people that struggle with fitness haven't quite figured out yet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cool. Well, man, I think that's a good spot to wrap it up. We've been going for a little while here. Perhaps the most important question left for the end Are you sponsored by Patagonia?
Speaker 2:No, I just wear a lot of their stuff.
Speaker 1:I think every time I've seen you there's been at least one piece of it.
Speaker 2:Likely most of my running attire.
Speaker 1:It's good quality stuff, it fits your vibe and it's great on the trails.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it, that's perfect.
Speaker 1:That's perfect. Yeah, awesome, there's a lot of good takeaways here. I appreciate you, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man have a great day.