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The Prime Parent Podcast
Episode 14: Navigating the Winter Blues — Stop Surviving. Start Regulating.
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Welcome to episode 14 of The Prime Parent Podcast, where we break down what it really takes to operate at your highest level… not just in the gym, but in your energy, your focus, and your daily life.
Today we’re talking about something almost everyone feels, but not enough people address… the winter blues. This is the time of year when January motivation fades, the days get shorter, and without even realizing it, you slip into survival mode. Workouts feel heavier, your diet starts drifting, energy drops, cravings go up, and caffeine becomes mandatory. You tell yourself, “I just need to get through winter.”
But here’s the truth… this isn’t laziness, weakness, or age. It’s dysregulation.
Today we’re breaking down what’s actually going on, why it happens, how to recognize if you’re in it, and most importantly, how to get out of it and rebuild momentum before spring even gets here. Because spring shouldn’t save you… it should reveal the work you’ve already done.
Let’s dive in.
Welcome to episode 14 of the Prime Parent Podcast, where we break down what it really takes to operate at your highest level, not just in the gym, but in your energy, your focus, and your daily life. Today we're talking about something almost everyone feels, but not enough people address, the winter blues. This is the time of the year when the motivation from January fades, the holidays are over, the weather's cold, the days are shorter, and without even realizing it, you start slipping into survival mode. Workouts feel heavier, the diet starts drifting, cravings go up, energy drops, caffeine becomes mandatory, and you tell yourself, I just need to get through the winter. But here's the truth. This isn't laziness, it's not weakness, and it's not age. It's dysregulation. Today we're going to break down what the winter blues actually are, why they happen, why they spiral, how to identify you're in it, and most importantly, how to get out and rebuild momentum before spring ever arrives. Because spring shouldn't save you, it should reveal the work you've already done. So let's dive in. This one's going to hit home. Alright, my listeners. We're back. Another episode of Prime Parent Podcast. Let's go, baby. Um, you know, this episode we're gonna we're gonna dive into navigating the winter blues. I think this is uh a beautiful time to touch base on it. You know, we're winter months. Uh we're hoping punks are Donnie Phil. You know, did he see a shadow? I don't know. The groundhog.
SPEAKER_03I think the groundhog did. I think he did. He went back in the game. He did. Yeah, I think he did. We're screwed, guys. We're in trouble. What day is it? Is February what, 27th or something? Yeah, we're in trouble, guys.
SPEAKER_00You know, we are uh gonna talk about the winter blues, spring coming around. Uh a lot of us are feeling that, you know, that that winter nonsense, excited for the the nice weather to happen, bro. Looking for the sun, uh yeah, dude, something. So uh, you know, uh yeah, we're back, man. I just I'm excited about this one. I think there's uh a lot of value in it.
SPEAKER_03And uh this is 14. This is episode 14, baby. We're grinding these out. I love it, man. I love it. But yeah, man, I I don't know about you, but for sure, I know we wanted to talk about this because obviously it's relating to us because I know I've been feeling it, bro. And especially after all the snow we've had and the winter's been cold as a hell. We had that patch where it was like, what was it, three weeks, four weeks where it felt like it was two degrees every day, windy, cold. I was saying to Daria the other day, I'm just I need to get away. I need to get somewhere warm. And I'm I'm just I'm feeling a little run down, not gonna lie.
SPEAKER_00Dude, it's silly quite well, not a silly question, yeah, because I know mine is just uh uh probably a four by four block of ice. Is your tub?
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's the ice the ice barrel. There's the other day when it got a little warm out, yeah, it was a there was a water around the rim. I just opened it up to see, but it's literally a block of ice that you can't jump.
SPEAKER_00I was so excited to continue it. It was such a good habit that I built. Yes, and now I know I gotta start back up on it.
SPEAKER_03But uh the best thing is I do like it coming this time of year, though, for the the plunges. People don't know we're talking cold plunges, but it's it's gonna once it starts to get a little bit better, dump it out, clean it out, and then you're still gonna get some decently nice 50, 60 degree days in the morning.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be cold. It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be nice.
SPEAKER_03And that's like something you could sit in and breathe. It's not the crazy extreme.
SPEAKER_00But I was liking those.
SPEAKER_03I know they were good. Yeah, there's always a point where you can't do it anymore, which sucks.
SPEAKER_00If you if if you've never done a cold plunge, there's a lot of people that that say they um they can't stand the cold. I I struggled when I first got into it, but I gotta be honest, dude. I was looking forward every day. I did them at night. I felt for me, I felt a little more value in it. It helps pull me back down and relax me at night. I love that. Dude, I would I would look forward to a whole day to get home just to jump in there for three minutes and torture myself.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that funny though? Because in the beginning, that's like one of the only things that I feel like has that weird sense of okay, something that you dreaded so much. Like, okay, you could say that maybe a little about fitness and health, whatever, but if you're not into it, but that's something even for me when I started, I'm like, I can't go on this thing. I'm petrified, I'm scared of it, hate the cold. But you do get to a point that you crave it, which is scary. Isn't that weird? It's scary.
SPEAKER_00But let me ask you this though I know for me, when I was in there, piece of cake. Three minutes piece of cake.
SPEAKER_03Yes, 100%.
SPEAKER_00But I still, because I'm in a I don't know if it's because my barrel is small, uh-huh. Every day it was still very challenging to drop it.
SPEAKER_03The drop the drop is the worst, dude.
SPEAKER_00Does that go away?
SPEAKER_03That never goes away. I think that's just the cold life, man.
SPEAKER_00Like, I don't want to go, but I'm going.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like you're excited to do it, but you're hovering over it for a second and you're about to put the big toe in. Oh man, my friend, my friend Basil always jokes with me. You remember Basil, right? Basil. He always messes with me because every time I'd make the videos of me jumping in, he'd be like, Your big toe's always snapping the edge of the thing. It don't want to go in there, bro. Start listening to your body, man. So yeah, so that that before we even get into all the winter blue stuff, though, I mean, I wish I had the one indoors. I mean, lifetime, the gym I go to has one, but I use it all the time. No, it's kind of a pain in the ass if you're at the gym and you gotta kind of go in the locker room, change, whatever. But that is something that could help. So that's something we could talk about more as we get into it. But yeah, man, what are the winter blues, Ant? Talk to us, man.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so let's just like here's some some quotes I'll throw out there, or just little uh slogans or or whatnot. The January motivation is gone. You know, everybody gets that um, you know, after the holidays, January, new new year, new me, right? That motivation's gone. Uh then you're you're just trying to survive until spring, right? You know, like we we've made it through, and then you know, some of the mindsets are um, you know, I only I got another month, you know, until the weather changes, I'll start then. Workouts start to feel heavy.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Diets start slipping even more, right? You made it past the holidays, you cleaned up for a month, right? Our cravings start jumping up. Um, the energy is down, our caffeine intake starts climbing, right? Through the room, baby. You know, and we'll talk about that later. Yeah. Um, you know, but like if you're just someone who's feeling like you're hanging on, like that this is what we're gonna talk about, and this one is coming to you. And like John said it in the beginning, you know, like this past week and these last couple, you know, weeks or days have been something that's you you've been dealing with, so it's common.
SPEAKER_03Oh, for sure, yeah. This is you know, this is not just you know, any random person, it's everybody. I don't care, like we wanted to touch on it, but I don't care if you're a freaking athlete, if you're a high performer, you're a you know, billion-dollar CEO. I don't care. You're gonna have some sort of feeling about this for sure. And for me personally, like I know the last week or so it's been like that. I talked a little bit about this on my last post that I posted on Instagram, but man, you know, like you get to a point where I was I felt like I was in a great groove, you know, and I'm workouts were there, um, diet is in check. Um like you, we talked about this on our last episode a little bit, but yeah, I've been feeling great with my content stuff, and that's really important to me. It helps build my online business and all that, all the stuff that I want to continue to work on. But when you're doing it all, especially as a parent, you know, and right now, my little baby girl, she is turning into a monster. And she is running around, energy non-stop, and this is where everyone joke with me about. They're like, just wait, wait till she starts running around that house. Animal, bro. And I love it because I see a lot of me in her, you know, but it's weighing on me like crazy the last few days.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so like that ain't even just, you know, I know we're talking about winter blues, but that's just being pulled in multiple directions. What gives, right, you know, something to just speak on, like, yeah, that's it's it's uh it's like predictable. That's what's gonna happen, right? And I think a lot of adults and a lot of parents, you know, not only go through that 365, you know, but in the winter it gets magnified due to the temperatures and the the lack of movement, right?
SPEAKER_03Lack of sunlight, lack of being outside, fresh air.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So I I think that's and yeah, I know I was saying a lot of you know, just things that are pulling me down in general, but you're right. I and I think it's magnified this time of the year right now. Because again, I we said it earlier, I know we do the cold plungers and joke about that, but I hate the cold. I love being in the sun. I love the who doesn't love the long days when it's getting dark at 8, 8.30, right? And you know, I'm a golfer. I love being outside and golfing at least once in a while and just having that being outside. I haven't been outside for more than when you golf, I'm outside for five hours, four hours. I mean, you don't do that right now. When the hell are you outside for that? I'm walking, I'm trying to walk my dog for two seconds to get to go to the bandwidth. It's nature. And I like that that yin and yang, right? Yin and yang. But it's hard, man, and it's challenging. And I know a lot of people struggle with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, it's not a character flaw. Right? So, like the first piece is identifying in that um some people get such like deep into these, you know, these winter months that they destroy themselves because they think it's something personally.
SPEAKER_03Well, see, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And I think you hit you can keep going on that. I didn't want to come back. No, a couple of years. Yes, no, you're right. And that's that's the thing. Some people may think like this is just me. I suck in the winter. I'm this is not my time of year. You build this narrative on yourself because I used to do this way back because like I said, I hate the cold, but I used to weigh that down on me, like, yo man, I I get anxious about December finishing, coming into January and February, like, man, I gotta get through these two months. And I would always joke because my birthday is March 8th. And I always say, all right, that's a l that's at least when I get happy because it starts to turn around around middle end of March. But dude, like, what am I doing to myself? I'm making myself crazy. I'm not the only one that feels this. Everybody feels this. It's not just on you.
SPEAKER_00And that's and that's like, you know, this is in today's world, you see this more with technology being so prevalent.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00And and now you can AI Chat GPT, anything, but like the Google search bar, I know so many people that diagnose themselves with with different things, like I got seasonal depression.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yep.
SPEAKER_00That's right. What else is a point of them about there, bro? I don't know. Maybe maybe there I gotta be careful when I dive into this, but like I don't know. I'm just asking you. Is seasonal depre is that seasonal depression a real thing? Or is that just is that just uh I'm I'm I'm being serious here because like we all go through it. Yeah, for sure. Should I be medicated in the wintertime? Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_03I'm not saying that at all, for sure. I mean, again, I don't want to speak on it too much because I'm not that's out of my scope, all right? You know, help you with the case. But is it though, John? I don't I I don't think it is, man. I don't think that's that's I mean, I don't okay, you're talking about medication. Okay, well that's different. You know, joke in there. I know that. But no, like guys, this is this is definitely something that we're all going through. And we're on the East Coast, we're in New York. Okay, if you're listening from somewhere else, maybe you're in Palm Springs enjoying the freaking beautiful sun every day. Different story. You may not get this, but yeah, I think we all could say that. You diagnose it as that, but we we're all going through it. But people, again, you like to personalize it, a lot to you build this narrative around yourself. And again, I hate to paint pictures of people, but the people who maybe do say that are the people who are not going to be putting their health and fitness at the forefront. Yeah, like you could almost visualize that person. And I again we don't like to say that, right? But you could, I think so.
SPEAKER_00But watch this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, tell me.
SPEAKER_00I got seasonal depression, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or uh it's winter months and there's less sunlight, and one of the most important things is getting direct sunlight early in the morning that destroys your circadian rhythm, that doesn't allow you to sleep, so your rest sucks. Uh I'm not as active.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So I'm I'm just I'm saying if this was me in the wintertime, I'm not as active, so I'm not releasing all those transmitters and those dopamine hits and all those boosts that I need. I spend more time indoors being sedentary, watching my son play video games and movies. Uh I eat a lot more comfortful in the winter time, right? I watch Johnny Fuoch's posts and I start making recipes that Johnny's got that I wouldn't eat typically eat. I eat a lot more couldn't consume a lot more sugar because it's the holidays and whatnot. Yeah, but I got seasonal depression. Right? I would love I would love to I would love to say, all right, maybe there are cases of that, but I would love to take a look at that individual that's diagnosing themselves with seasonal depression and go down the list of just four of those things where there's probably about ten two of those things. There's ten more that I could probably give you and say, yo, buddy, are you uh like how's this looking for you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. Do you get it? Did you check the boxes on a few of those? Or I'm pretty sure you didn't. Yeah, any of them.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure if you check the boxes on one or two of them, your seasonal depression may diminish.
SPEAKER_03A hundred percent. Right? Yeah. So you I think that would be. But that is the perfectly painted picture that I feel like people can visualize that really easy, and it makes a lot of sense. Like, and we always talk about going back to health and wellness because that's just what we are. But guys, like people always ask me on the recovery side of things. Like, how do I feel better? How do I recover faster? How do I do this? Sleep. Try to get it, try to improve your sleep. What do you mean? Or what how does that affect it? Exactly. It's the little things that you just named. Like, of course you're gonna be a little down. You haven't had the sun, you haven't had the fresh air, you haven't been active, or you you maybe you had an extra couple cookies throughout freaking January and December, but that's just the way it's gonna be. But if you don't have that yang, like I said earlier, if you don't have that second side of things, you're gonna struggle. And yeah, you're gonna paint that narrative and that picture of yourself that you have seasonal depression. And then when it finally turns around and you get ready for spring and whatever, you ain't gonna be happy either. And it's just gonna cascade into a constant battle with yourself, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I I wanna without getting too crazy off topic, yeah. I wanna comment on the sleepies. Um again, I go on down these rabbit holes, uh, you know, and you know, we've mentioned wearing the whoop in the past. Yeah, uh I'm I'm somebody who who who's dove into sleeping patterns and read a lot about it. And it's just like when you tell uh the average Joe that has never even you know thought about sleep being that effective. Like sleep is one of the most important things we we can do. Like if I told my wife that she would love hearing that, because her favorite time of the day is nighttime, going to bed, right? So she does pretty good at it, but like it's important now. You can value it, right? Because there is a ton of value in it. Yeah, uh, there's so dude, there's so much that if you're s sleeping, uh if you're not sleeping properly, should I say, things get out of whack. Just because you're in bed though, John, sleeping eight hours a night doesn't mean you're getting good quality sleep, and there's so many different factors that play into the why, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_03You know, like I think that's important to talk about because it relates to this. I know you you're saying, you know, maybe it gets a little it's not because it really is something that you struggle with. And in the winter, again, or in this time of year, even though we are inside more, I can find myself spending more time. Like I was joking last night with Daria because we're watching the show Trader, she got me hooked on. I don't watch anything at night. Like, I even when you call me and we talk later at night, how do I sound the phone? I'm like, hey, what's up, man? I'm I'm down, I'm low, and that's fine. I'm I'm up, whatever. But I try to bring myself down. I watched that show after we got off the phone and talked, and bro, I was like, up, you know, because it's kind of got a lot of, it's like a reality show, whatever.
SPEAKER_00And even when you do fall off, you're still firing. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03I'm still like, and I woke up, I never really wake up much at all in the middle of the night. I woke up at like 2 33 in the morning, whatever it was, and I felt like, man, I could get up right now for the day because I didn't get that fully toned down. And then I fall back asleep, I wake up and I don't feel rested, and I don't feel ready. I had a busy day, and then we're still here. It's Friday, whatever, it's late. What time is it? It's like six o'clock. I feel good now, like we're fired up. But man, it was a long day. If I had those two extra hours of sleep, I would have probably felt a little better as I was getting up through the day.
SPEAKER_00The question is, look, are you gonna go home and do that same thing tonight?
SPEAKER_03No, damn no, no, no chance. Tonight we're going home, gonna eat, babe, we're going to bed, done. The show is over, whatever.
SPEAKER_00We're putting a brick on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's right. Yeah, shout out to the brick again. You know, one day they'll be our sponsor. But yeah, dude, I think the sleep, you gotta prioritize a little bit for sure to help us this time of year, no doubt about it.
SPEAKER_00So, John, moving along. What why? Why, why does this happen? Why does this spot spiral out? What are some things that that cause this winter blue action? I know we touched pay base on some of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, I think, and I'll I'll give you my perspective on it and what gets me. It's definitely like we joked about when we talked in our last episode about the shoveling and things like that, and we were talking about you know, us getting out there, but for me, it's the food. It can be a food, a food thing for me.
SPEAKER_00Uh food's the driver, bro.
SPEAKER_03I I mean, I love food, man. We all do. I mean, who doesn't? If you don't, you know, you're missing out on a whole big piece of life. But yeah, I love food. I came in from the after shoveling those couple times. I was a fiend, dude. Fiend. And sure, did I burn a lot of calories? Yeah, but I'm eating like a pig. I'm I'm I'm excited to cook pasta. I'm excited to maybe throw a piece of toast in the oven and throw a bunch of butter on it. This time of year, it's about the food for me. I go out with my friends a little bit more here and there. We'll get some nice dinners, you know, especially during the holidays. And dude, that stuff beats you up, you know? If I'm off on that end, it kills me a little bit.
SPEAKER_00I'll be honest. I just had a week off from school. And I would say, you know, why food is food is the to me is the driver.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Right. Um, and it's funny because I had a conversation with with some guy that I'm working with, and you know, I transparency, I tell him everything.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um the winter months, now that like I've always like winter months for me are always a struggle a struggle and are a lot harder than obviously the summer months, and we um we're talking about that now. But ever since I've had like kids and like now my son and we're at home on the brakes and things of that nature, to me I value the slowdown time of just, hey guys, you want to get in a car and let's uh you know, let's go go to the they just open a a cookie shop down the street from A. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Um great cookies. Nice. You know what, man? I don't do that. I don't ever go off the rails. I would say nine to ten months out of the year, I'm a rock star. Yeah. Right. And it may be a poor thing to say like two months in a winter. I just let my hair down. Okay. And and I just kind of like I do it. Yeah, that's right. Because I I like I guess, you know, it's sad because but like the food and all that that that's surrounded about holidays and just hanging out and you know the memories. Yeah, you know, so I I I let my hair down. But the problem tell me is the just chippies leads to going to the farm cafe because they got banging chocolate chip cookies.
SPEAKER_03Shout out to the farm cafe. I went there once. I went there once.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the chocolate chip cookie.
SPEAKER_03The cookie, unbelievable. And I got that bacon, egg, and cheese little croissant thing. Oh my god. That didn't melted in your mouth, right?
SPEAKER_00But no, all joking aside, I'm so aware, and I I it's just funny. I laugh because I I I'll I'll tell myself as I'm about to go hammer something at home after I had those two rounds of cookies, yep. Bro, you get so you're so addicted to the sugar, like that sugar, you get it. And you're not even hungry, but you're going back.
SPEAKER_03Yes, right? So like clean and you go, dude.
SPEAKER_00It's just and it's and that that just leads me to sitting on a couch later at night. Yes, because let me get another one.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. And then what does that make you feel? The stomach may not feel great, you may not feel tighter and leaner and whatever. And it just keeps weighing on you and slowly weighing on you. And then you expect, and we all expect, to just do the same shit that we normally do and think nothing's gonna change. This is what you said before. Hey, I just unchecked a big box, my diet, my nutrition. You think I'm gonna feel the same way? No chance, you're gonna feel a little more tired, and then you top that with my other one, which is not seeing the freaking sun. You know, like I'm sorry, what are you gonna say then?
SPEAKER_00No, no, I was just saying, but think, what does that lead to? Yeah, if you're if you're eating like shit and then you're extending your nights, watching TV, sitting on the couch, then your sleeping patterns are off. Yes, right, you're not sleeping. Well, you're waking up tired, yep. Which then gets you to load on the on the caffeine. Yep.
SPEAKER_03Right?
SPEAKER_00I gotta get my workout in, bro. I'm struggling. Let me load up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, get a ton of coffee and caffeine, whatever. My workouts suck, and then it's a vicious cycle. That's the hardest thing in the world. And again, back to being relatable. Okay, guys. Like, I don't want to just say that out there. We're talking about how we struggle with this. We put fitness, we mold that around our lives and our health. And it's still hard. This is why fitness needs to be ingrained in your systems, right? Because if it's not, you are gonna have this cycle that we're talking about nonstop. The whole year. 12 out of 12 months, it's gonna be there. It ain't gonna be the winter blues. You're gonna get seasonal depression. You're gonna call it that because it's gonna be so bad. And it's I I can't imagine how some people do feel because guess what? I I know how I feel when I don't feel great. I can imagine if I did that every day out of the year, right? You need to get yourselves out of this cycle. And this is our next thing we wanted to touch on, whatever, but how do you get yourself out of that cycle?
SPEAKER_00What I want to add on, I want to meet that relate relatability piece. Like guys, like we're here, we're telling you firsthand. Yeah, because I don't know. I get held to a lot of people hold me to a higher, like I walk, I teach in the South Bronx. Yeah, I hate saying it, but a majority of the teachers and uh administrators and people down there don't have a clue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they're so unhealthy. And they look at me, they say, Oh, you're lucky. You got no, I'm not lucky, right?
SPEAKER_03Uh because hold on, what were you doing before we walked in here today? I saw you in the car, I took a picture of you. Uh we're gonna post this on the podcast. What were you doing in the car before we walked in?
SPEAKER_00I had a prepared dry-ass ground turkey with spinach leaves in there because I had nothing else in my fridge, but I prepped up a meal because I knew that if I didn't eat, I was gonna be ravenous at seven o'clock and I was gonna overdo it, right? That's right. And uh, you know, I still probably got some ground turkey stuck in the throat because that shit was dropped.
SPEAKER_03He needs a little water in a bit. But that that's it right there. And that's the difference. It ain't luck, it ain't it's effort, it's work, it's preparation, it's knowledge.
SPEAKER_00But but but going back to it, John, it's like, dude, we get it. Yeah, we're familiar. Like, I don't like to call myself a high performer. I'm a parent, but yeah, but high performers struggle. Yeah, you you you see a lot of that uh what they showcase is all the good times, of course, right? They high performers struggle, a lot of parents struggle. You see very successful entrepreneurs, they're not showing you your struggles, they're struggling too. But like the big pieces, guys, we get it. We feel it, we understand it. That's why we're here. We're trying to convey this message to you so you can make those adjustments.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right. And that's that's the piece, is the adjustments, you know. And and no one sees that because you just see, you know, you see the little things in the sense of like, okay, you know, no one sees you eating that meal, making that adjustment in the car. I saw it, but the teachers at your job and all the administrators don't see you doing that. They just think you got what you got because that's you. No, you've built this. It took effort, it took you putting your foot down and knowing that today ain't gonna be the day you're gonna run to Chippies and get the cookies because you had them the other day. And that's the difference, you know.
SPEAKER_00And I just want to add one other thing before we jump into like how how to like identify it and what we can do to get out of it. Yeah. Um, you know, I I don't know if you got if you follow me on Instagram, Anthony underscore Delvec. Um, you know, but I I I wro have a newsletter. Um, and I touched on in my newsletter, I don't know, I don't know why. Actually, this is what happened. I was driving into work the other day, and I I'm big on my finance world, man. I gotta get my money to start working for me. So I uh there's these guys, Earn Your Leisure Podcast. Um, they got they're all over. They got something called Market Mondays, which is a big podcast of theirs, and they're talking talk a lot about investing and stocks. And one of the biggest uh well, one stock that they were talking about was Monster Energy Drinks.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And you know, the stock I think is operating at $90 per share or whatnot, but they looked at they were just talking about its growth over the year and the five-year growth, and it was up like, don't quote me, you know, 50, 60 percent on the one year and almost a hundred percent over the five year growth on monster energy drinks, right? The the caffeine market is insane. It's ridiculous. And you know, I I'm I'm a sucker. I actually enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Um, but I know if I have two cups of coffee a day, that's that's too much for me. It starts to get it. Like the first one in the morning is great. That afternoon one then starts affecting my sleep and whatnot. But when I'm going through my rut, dude, you know, in the winter or after I just crushed some just chippies, the caffeine is needed, dude. For sure. Or I'm not uh or I I'm struggling to get through some things. I get it. And we become so addicted to these bullshit products, monster energy. Like, dude, I we could we should have a a podcast episode about all these ingredients that are in these energy drinks.
SPEAKER_03But you go down the list, there's a hundred of them, you know, thousands of different drinks, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and part of my newsletter I joked about it, but like, all right, if you're someone who's gonna be sucking down those monster energies, at least you better be invested in monster energy into the stock. So you can pay for your medical bills. That's right. At least you're making money.
SPEAKER_03And I'll tell you right now, it ain't gonna slow down. So I'm with you. Maybe, maybe I'll dabble into a little bit of the monster stock options here. But no, but hey, I mean, it it's scary because I I choked with this with um one of my best friends, girlfriends. She is into fitness, she's a fitness instructor at 45 and she works out. But lately she's been into more like weightlifting with him. Like she'll go to the gym and she'll squat, she'll deadlift. She's done like group classes, she's into all of it, whatever. She mixes it up. But my friend, my friend Pete, he crushes pre-workout. Like, and he's taken some of these got like 350 milligrams of caffeine. He'll do this at 5 p.m. at night. And I think his body is just so used to it because he's been doing it the years, it don't affect him anymore for sleep and whatever.
SPEAKER_00But all of those products have that symbol. All of it, dude.
SPEAKER_03And so what I was gonna say is that she made a post saying that they have had going away together, and she showed a video of her cracking a C4 can and drinking it. I go, holy cow, Pete's got you on the pre-workout drinks already now. Because she's like tiny. I can imagine her on 200 feet poppy tape. Oh my god, she's probably bouncing off the wall. She probably loves it. But man, I'm like, this is how easy it can get you because the marketing is great. It's perfect, it's it looks poppy, it looks good. They're smart, they know what they're doing, and there's a time and place for them. I use them too, but like guys, if you're drinking that at 4 or 5 p.m., you're shooting yourself in the foot here, man. You know, for sure, for sure. Yeah, and then you get in that vicious cycle, you can't get out of it. The caffeine is very hard to manage this time of year. I'm with you. I love my coffee. You know that. For sure. It's hard.
SPEAKER_00Johnny, what do you got? Uh so I got a um a juror that I make my coffee in. But I saw you drip. You do the drip.
SPEAKER_03So I do a little bit of both. I got I got the Breville, which I like doing the um espresso drinks in there. You can make a latte, cappuccino. That's my like every day. I'm always making that. But sometimes I'll get good ground coffee. I'll buy it from this place called Stone Street uh coffee. They're in the city and they own their own roaster, actually. And they'll send you, you know, whatever beans you want. But they have ground beans that are flavored. So they'll do like kind of like Slate to the Grind at Bronxville. You ever been there? Yeah. So whatever. They got flavored coffees. But yeah, the drip coffee, dude, they got a blueberry crumb one. Put it in there, a little drip on the water. It just pours out nice and slow. That cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00Check Johnny's. Yeah, check out the Instagram on the coffee.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's delicious. Um yeah, but where are we going with the coffee here?
SPEAKER_00All right, no more coffee talk. Yeah, yeah. Right. How do you identify if you're in it, right? This is huge. And I think like we don't have to get into like all the things that happening, like, but we just talked about the caffeine, we talked about the poor reading. The the thing that I I I always say, and it's again, we go back to it, and I could say it, is the awareness factor. Yeah, you have to be able to identify yourself that you're going through these motions. Part of it is slowing down, part of it, you know, is being present and taking a breath and saying, you know, like like if I wasn't so aware of my actions and the way I do, sometimes I'm too aware and too reflective. Um, you know, like I I I would just be, oh, I'm just uh any everyday ritual here, it's just what we do, right? And not being able to catch myself saying, oh shit, I'm this is this is the two cookies I had this morning that's saying I need these cookies later in the day. I'm not really hungry. No, yeah, right. Um so like I again I talk about it. If you're if you're somebody that's going through this, the biggest piece I would say is to pause for a second, get out of journal, reflect, try to notice if there's any different changes that are going on from when think about when you're locked and loaded and you're rolling and you're you're everything's in order. All your nutrition, your workouts, you're feeling great, you're sleeping great. Well, what are the things that you do at that point? And then look at yourself now once you're since we're present and aware, what's not showing up here?
SPEAKER_03Yep. Right? And what's off? And we have a couple things that we we just had written down for it, but a couple of these pop right out for me. And I know, like we've talked about I I like just the last you know few days, and I just feeling a little bit heavy on the shoulders, whatever. But snoozing multiple alarms, number one, right off the bat. That one hits me hard because I gotta be up early regardless, but I like having that moment in the morning to chill out, drink my coffee before I start the day. And when I don't get that time, I already that's one part of the cycle. And then now again, I'm needing more caffeine, or maybe I start to feel like I'm skipping a little bit of my not skipping my workouts, but not putting the effort I know I can put in, almost like I'm going through the motions. And I hate it because that's what I preach on. And I've heard that from freaking high school football. Stop going through the motions, you know, like just go out there and give your effort. And those things for me are how I identify it because I know, but how do you reflect on that? How do you see that? I know you said the journal thing, but what are some things that hit you where you're like, oh, I'm noticing this now, I gotta chill out a little bit, you know?
SPEAKER_00My my biggest struggles are the late time stuff, nighttime stuff.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00If I'm sitting on my couch and I'm and I'm like craving those snacks, right, then I know, you know, like the craving of snacks is one thing. It doesn't always have to be what you're eating. Yeah, it it could be cortisol spikes at night. That's what's happening, right? So I could tell that I'm I'm super stimulated. Okay, you know, uh, where, you know, again, at night, uh I'll catch myself sitting on the couch watching TV that I would never watch. That's right. Right, instead of just sitting there um unwinding, getting ready to go down. My mind is like I I I try to have a cutoff on a laptop, usually if I'm sitting there doing work for you know the other businesses or things. If I'm doing it late at night, right, I'm I'm getting into that vicious cycle. Yeah, right. So the nighttime is something where I start to see my habits, my poor habits. I'll be great all day. Minute I get home, that's where I'll start to see it. Then I know, yo, but buddy, um Hey, let's let's get something going, right?
SPEAKER_03So Yeah, and I think this is like we we were talking about the whoop a little bit, the whoop band. If you don't know what that is, it's like your fitness tracker, your heart rate monitor, all this stuff. It's got a ton of great info. And I've I've been like just trying to convince a lot of my clients to hone in on this and invest in it. Because yes, there's times you can get a little obsessive over it, but this also helps me understand, like looking at two things. The one, the biggest one for me is my resting heart rate. When I don't feel like I'm sleeping great, or when my diet's off, or maybe I'm not getting as much good effort in, resting heart rate goes up. And I look at those numbers and this gives me that feedback. I open the app, hey, it gives you literally, it gives you an explanation of why you feel like you are today. Maybe you should take a step back, or maybe you need to push yourself a little further, or maybe your sleep is a little off. But I think people, if you're struggling with that sense to find that awareness, something like this is huge because now it's instead of you just trying to figure that out, this is telling you your heart rate variability is up uh or too low and your your resting heart rate's way too high, your body's not recovering well, you're not sleeping well. And those numbers can really give you that feedback to say, let me figure this out a little bit. Why is this off? And then you look back at the boxes like we talked about and see which ones you haven't been checking.
SPEAKER_00I'm not a huge, huge, huge data guy. I feel like too much data gets us too obsessive and stuck. I do agree. I do love things like this, though, if it's done where it's not obsessive, right? You get data. Like, this is why I tell a lot of people too. Like, when I the one one good trick, when I when I'm going in it, then I'll start. I hate tracking.
SPEAKER_03Okay. But the food food. Yeah, yeah, okay, got it.
SPEAKER_00The minute I I'm I'm I'm pounding everything, oh, I gotta get back in my fitness pal. And before I I put that damn thing in my mouth or eat it or pack it, weighing it. Well, I'm I'm weighing and I'm putting not even like I don't even get too crazy on the way. I'll know what uh eight ounces uh I'd be like, Yeah, you have an idea. But I at least put it into my fitness pal the roundabouts. Again, I don't get too crazy. That's fine. But then I can look at the end of the day and say, What did I have?
SPEAKER_03Right? And I'm more conscious. What did I consume? I'm more conscious. Stay close to the mic. Oh yeah. Um, but yes, no, you're right. You're more conscious. Yes, for sure. Thank you, Dan. Real quick, did we have to get a quick little shout-out for uh Ant to get closer to the mic. I had a little too much caffeine. He's hyped up. He had a monster before, he's invested now. He's been buying cases. Uh but no, you're 100% right. And I think you're right with the data in that sense. And there's good and bad to all of it, but I think that's also something people can use as a as a tool, another tool that you can definitely use to help get you out of this cycle.
SPEAKER_00So we're in we're in it. The first piece to get out is the awareness.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Second piece we wanted to touch base on. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03Second piece. Go back to what worked before, right? And I think for me, I I just talked about this on my my last post again, relating it back to that. For me, okay, when I'm feeling down, I'm not feeling creative. I'm not feeling like my that my creative side is out. That's how I kind of also is another trigger for me. Like I'm a little off. I I can't feel like I can get going on writing things down and getting words out onto paper. But for me, it was okay. I know I'm not feeling 100% here, and I didn't want to make a piece of content and have the energy for it, didn't have the mindset for it. But I made something real simple. And I started really small. I started to get back to what worked, which was okay, what did I always do in the past? I was just consistent, yes, but let me get back to some of that consistency with something easy, as opposed to trying to make like the reels that you were joking about earlier. That takes me 20, 30 minutes, it takes me some time. Yeah, get that. That's when I'm flowing. It takes that. That would have probably took me an hour and a half the other night if I tried to do that because I would have gotten tracked. I would have never done it. So what did I do? I made, I pulled up a picture, I I wanted to explain how I was feeling, and it was easier to do that because it was true to myself, and that's what I felt. So it was easy to get that out. And then the next day I woke up and I was happy that I was able to get that because now I had that relief like I didn't just let myself go. I didn't just let it like not be true to myself and be consistent the way I wanted to. Yeah, I still put some effort there, and now today we're filming our podcast. I'm gonna put some stuff out there, and all of a sudden it's wow, I'm I'm building on it, right?
SPEAKER_00But I but I so two kind of blends into three. Yeah. We talk about shrinking the change and picking one habit, one anchor habit, and and we talk about habits all the time. One of the biggest things that I I stress when I work with with clients in coaching is let's let's hone in on one thing. Let's hone on on one or two things, Max. First, I don't care that you your goal is to lose 40 pounds. That that's the end result. We're gonna get there. Yeah. But we have to prioritize and find some of the bigger habits and and do one of those habits and get that to be something that we're consistently doing before we start worrying about the X, Y, and Z to get to the 40 pounds, right? So I, you know, I would suggest picking one of the habits, right? So for me, you know, if it's uh, you know, I'm finding myself on a couch late at night, right? Uh, you know, one habit, that phone and that computer and that TV are off by 8 30.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And from 8 30 to whenever I'm up, I'm reading a book, I'm relaxing, I'm I'm doing something that's gonna unwind me.
SPEAKER_03And what is that gonna do, like we said earlier? That's gonna build as opposed to it building the opposite way and turning you into that vicious cycle of that downward spile that we're talking about that can really get you, it's going to build you back the opposite way. Start building momentum. And that's it. That's right. And you have to build that momentum. If you don't have that, it ain't gonna turn around. And you're just gonna get caught and caught and caught. Like we said earlier, it's gonna be 12 months out of the year. It ain't gonna be a few weeks of winter blues, it's gonna be your whole life, which is what we're trying to get you away from, right? And I think also like other little things, you know, you said we have here, stop, stop self-attacking, you know. I said this a little bit earlier. Stop creating this narrative that you're you're like losing it all, or this is just on you, you know. Give yourself a little grace, you know. And my wife said this to me the other day because well, again, when I was trying to make this post, she saw me because she wanted to watch the TV show that I was saying earlier. And she's like, When are you gonna be done? Let's go watch it. I'm like, I just gotta finish this thing. She goes, give yourself a little bit of a breather here. You know, you have been doing a lot of good stuff. Don't forget that because you're missing it just today. Give yourself a little grace. Stop beating yourself up because that's something I know we both can do pretty easily, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Don't don't compound. Yeah, don't compound the problem, right? You know, you made a mistake. Okay, you made a mistake. Sure. Just, you know, like, you know, that compound interest and that comp it's gonna just build, right? You don't need to do that, you don't need to punish yourself. You didn't fail. Uh, you know, uh, did is it something that you're not really too happy with? Yeah, but sure, but let it go, right? There's always tomorrow. Don't compound the problem.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Right. I love this guy throwing out compound interest, by the way. He's really on the game, maybe. I'm trying to be a gazillion. And maybe we gotta start a new podcast, maybe a separate one for just business. I love it.
SPEAKER_00When I when I get when I get enough knowledge, we we'll we'll do like uh uh a market Tuesdays. I love that.
SPEAKER_01I love that.
SPEAKER_00Um that's funny, you know, and and then just like here's the here's the one we talk on, you know, I'll wait till Monday, right? Act immediately. The minute you identify that this is what's happening, put some action in place. Don't wait till Monday. Don't wait till uh I caught myself doing this. Um I went out to my boy's house for the Super Bowl for the cat skills, and the week up to it, you know, before it, I w, you know, I wasn't eating the best.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Let's just I'm going out to the cat skills for the weekend. I'm gonna have a couple beers out there. Yeah, you know, well, let's just have a couple beers out there and let's not destroy the week before. Right. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, so like take the- then don't lead it into the week after.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So take action, don't wait.
SPEAKER_03Action, baby. Take the action. That's right. That's the word right there. Yeah, man. I I feel like, you know, what we just said though, that action piece hits me a little hard because um I I go back to that ace group that we we've talked about. It's another men's leadership group that me and Ann have gone to some of the dinners and things like that. But that's the biggest piece that I feel like a lot of the guys there struggle with, and that is straight up action, right? Like, okay, you can identify things, you can see things, but can you act on them and can you do that? So this relates directly to this taking action, get that momentum going. You guys can do it.
SPEAKER_00You know, so just kind of concluding this here, you know, like a couple things. Let's we we we explain what they are, right? What are the winner blues and why it's happening, right? We also touch base on you know the relatability. We're we're all as all all excuse me, all as one here, right? We all understand we're not different, right? But then you need to identify that you're going through it, and then once you've made that identification that this is something that's happening, we just provided multiple tips for you to use, very simple, to get you out of it. That's all it takes. It's not like you have to go spend a thousand dollars on this new uh wellness coach. It's not a good thing. It's implement some of these small small changes, right? That's right.
SPEAKER_03Um that will always be the answer. Always. Yeah, there's nothing else you need to look for there. So that's your 100% your value right there from this. And yeah, I I I just I feel like so many people can take that home with them. Is that those little pieces seem so like minor and like, ah, you know, you know, maybe these guys are, you know, is that really what they do and get back on it, or they really feel this way. Yeah, yes, we do, we do. And it's important to have that accountability and that action and and make sure you take it so you get out of that cycle. That's all we're trying to say to you.
SPEAKER_00You know, so um, you know, in closing, right, and I think it's it's always important, you know, in my opinion, to give it some type of call to action to to get you guys going. And, you know, I want you, you know, if you tuned in today and you found some value in it, uh, I want you to pick one r you know, regulation habit or something that, you know, we spoke about and put it into play and commit it to it for, I don't know, the next week, right? Whether it's just a phone cut off at night, yeah, whether it's uh uh, you know, I'm not doing the caffeine for the afternoon. Yeah, pick one and just lock it in for a week and just just see what that makes you feel like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And don't the key to there, exactly what you said, is don't think too much about it. Because the more you hone in on it and think about what is that, what should I do, what am I missing, that's when you just start to fail from taking the action to actually do it, right? So pick something that seems so minor that you think is not gonna make a change and just start there, and you'll realize by the time you get to the end of the week of the goal that you said you wanted to do, you would have probably added two or three other things at that point, you don't even realize it because you're just in that groove now. And then you get to the following week and you're just feeling better and you're out of a little bit of that winter blues, you're battling through it, and then we're leading into March, baby. Johnny Babe. That's it.
SPEAKER_00Um, anything else you want to add before we we cut ties? Because I gotta I gotta give my spiel, bro. That I close with every time.
SPEAKER_03Give it, baby. Give it that spiel, lead them with love, baby.
SPEAKER_00Prime Parent Podcast. Yo, we're we're here for you guys, right? And the only way that this is possible, and it's like our little fuel and our energy is getting that feedback and growing. And the only way that we can continue to do this and show up with the energy that we need to provide is just spreading the if if we're giving you value, spread the love, right? And we appreciate everybody tuning in. We appreciate Mr. Media Blitz for hosting us. Um, you know, and that's it, my man. Until next time.
SPEAKER_03Until next time, baby. We'll be on episode 15 by then, baby. Love it. Thank you guys. Love you.
SPEAKER_00Have a good day.
SPEAKER_02The Prime Parent Podcast mission is for parents who refuse to just survive parenthood. They're here to lead it. We deliver the tools, systems, and strategies to help you stay ready, stay strong, and stay locked in for what matters most.