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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Mastering Self-Transformation
What does it really take to thrive in life's most challenging moments? Rand Stoess joins Anthony Amen to explore this question through lessons drawn from decades of entrepreneurship, mentorship, and personal growth.
The conversation quickly dives into the critical difference between seeking external validation versus developing internal clarity. Rand emphasizes how our greatest strength comes from looking within first—understanding our values and boundaries—before seeking outside input. This self-awareness creates a foundation for resilience when life inevitably throws obstacles our way.
One of the most powerful insights revolves around our sphere of influence. Rand shares his personal evolution from believing his success came from controlling everything to realizing he only truly controls four things: attitude, effort, behavior, and chosen actions. Everything beyond that is influence rather than control. As Anthony adds, this influence isn't neutral—it pushes people in either positive or negative directions, making our choices profoundly consequential.
The discussion takes an especially practical turn when exploring how we become the average of the five people we spend most time with. Want to develop grit? Surround yourself with resilient people. Need more optimism? Spend time with positive thinkers. This principle extends beyond physical relationships to include the podcasts we listen to and content we consume—all shaping who we become.
Rand reveals seven research-backed qualities that lead to life satisfaction: zest, grit, mental toughness, optimism, curiosity, social intelligence, and humor. Each quality creates a foundation for bouncing back from setbacks—like a rubber ball that temporarily deforms upon impact but always regains its shape. This resilience isn't just innate; it can be developed through mindset shifts, forgiveness practices, and viewing life as a series of experiments where not every attempt succeeds on the first try.
Ready to transform how you respond to life's challenges? Listen now and discover practical strategies for becoming your most resilient, thriving self.
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen, and today we have another great episode for all of you. Just a quick note didn't find a big at home with my lovely guests here today, so I am actually at one of my studios. So if you're watching on video and you're like what the hell is going on in, we're here in the studio but you're slamming, it's trainers working out the clients. They're having a grand old time. That's not the important part. The important part is today we're here with rand. Rand, it's a pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much for tolerating me to get this episode up and going here at the studio. It's a pleasure to have you on, oh thanks for having me as your guest, Anthony.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love this. We're going to have a great topic to talk about today all about thriving, being a better you. So everyone knows that listens to the show and has been for I just told him five and a half years Crazy long time, but thank you for everyone that's been there since day one. Brent, tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what inspired you to write this book.
Speaker 2:Well, I have had many different hats I've worn in life. You know all the way from getting serious in high school and being the yearbook editor to, you know, jumping in after I got my MBA at Stanford and being an investment banker. And I said, well, I don't like meetings, I don't like a boss telling me stuff. So I started my own firm, one of the smartest decisions I ever made. So I've been doing that for a lot of a long time now. Really good, but part of what I decided to do when I set up my company I designed around what I really wanted and that was to be able to have time to spend with my family. It gave me time to be on boards. So I've been on a lot of different boards. I've been a scoutmaster, a little league coach, and it just keeps going and you know, it all has created a lot of energy, a lot of excitement and I saw a lot of people I met a lot of people worked with.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't know impossible to count the number of people and I began seeing that there were a lot of challenges that people were facing Good people, smart people, well-intentioned people who you know were going through some kind of transition, or maybe earlier in life, just trying to launch. You know, maybe they were going through a divorce or, you know, a breakup of some sort, Maybe they lost somebody important to them, and then all the way forward, you know, then they're really wondering what to do about retiring. And I say, don't use that term, use rewiring so you can create a whole new chapter of who you are and what you're about, how to live life. You know, I say Shakespeare and good old Hamlet. You know, to be or not to be, that's okay, but it's how to be and how not to be. That's really a lot more powerful, a lot more important, and that's what I'm talking to folks about.
Speaker 1:I love that because you see it a lot and it's a topic we talk about a lot, where people get caught up, right? Mia is a great example of getting caught up in the business sometimes, or whatever, and an obstacle hits you and it just whacks you over the head and you feel like you get totally defeated by it, right, and you're just like you just don't know where to go. And then most people not that there's anything wrong with this, it's just what I've noticed look for someone else to tell them the answer. Where you're going to a therapist, you're going to your parent, you're going to your spouse, they shoot for someone else to tell me what to do, because I don't want to make this decision on my own.
Speaker 1:Yeah, boy, you really nailed it. Two of us do it on our own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you really nailed something with that, Anthony, and you know you might get some good advice I hope people do but the really big part of the strength comes from knowing you, looking inside yourself and saying this is what I'm about, this is what I stand for, this is what I won't stand for. And then maybe you come up with your solution or a couple of solutions, and then you can road test it. You can ask some people who really know you, who really care about you, who are not saying, well, you should do this. You know the should word is another problem. You know I don't want to be using should. You know, if they get you, they say I'm hearing what you.
Speaker 2:Let me repeat what you just said. Here's what I'm hearing about what your idea is. Did I get that right? So you're listening with a whole different level of interaction and care. And then they can say would you like to know what I think about that? And you said, no, no, I'm fine, I'm just sort of wanting to hear myself. Or you say, yeah, I do, I really respect you, I care about you, so I'd like to get your feedback and at that point you can give the answer. But if you start with that boy.
Speaker 1:You're so much more grounded I'm going to add to that because I think this is important. I use the example. You wouldn't go ask a plumber how to do the electricity in your house. Yeah, so they could give you advice, but it's not the silver device. So if you're depending on what your issue is, should be dependent on who you ask. If you want to work on your relationship and you're having an issue with your wife, don't have someone who just got divorced.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go with someone who you think has a really happy marriage, who also knows the ins and outs of your marriage. If you're looking for details, yeah, no, it's good.
Speaker 2:It's good. And you know, I recently heard somebody say, when they're especially when they're talking to their teenage children, do you want me to give you advice, or do you want me to listen, or do you want me to give you a hug? And I thought, wow, if you ask that at the front end and the answer could be I just want to hug, then you could do that and your job is done. If they want advice, totally cool. If they want you to just listen, then that's what you should do. Oh, I, that's what you it'd be nice for you to do. I shouldn't say should, yeah but it's because.
Speaker 1:It's because, as a society and this is where I think we can get deep right is that's what we're programmed to do is to go talk to people and then get advice back. And let me give an example, because I think that helps. When you go to school, you give an answer to the teacher. The teacher just says whether you're right or wrong. Yeah, and you go give a problem. The teacher gives you the answer to that solution. You come home.
Speaker 1:What do your parents typically do? This is the right way to do it, this is the wrong way to do it, and you're always pushed and pulled in different directions, obviously speaking, when you're young. I have a six-month-old at home like he has no freaking idea what he's doing. So it's my job as a parent to point them in the right direction, to kind of help them out. But as kids get older and they graduate from moving from mom and dad, this is an issue I'm going to get killed for saying this, but I've learned to speak from my mind. One of four siblings, me and one of my brothers remember yeah, one of my brothers. We make our own decisions, we do our own things and they get kicked back from my parents by the siblings.
Speaker 1:Two of my siblings can't make a decision for a whole little while without talking to their parents and they still think that, like, their parents are supposed to give them the right decisions on what they're doing in life and they're almost 40. So it's like at some point you have to become independent and say thank you, mom and dad, I appreciate you, I love you with all my heart, which I do and I respect my parents 100 percent. They were amazing. But I need to make my own decisions. I can't constantly come back to mom and dad, because that's my role to do it for my kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, let's add. Let's add another ingredient to this, and that is each of us. Each of us is different and there is the same piece of advice could be 100% solid for one person and only whatever 80%, 50%, 20%, helpful or good for somebody else. And it's not necessarily easy and obvious to see that from the outside. You got to really dial in and this is why I recommend starting with you and then I recommend to people map it out, use iJournal.
Speaker 2:You know, especially when I'm going through some complicated thing multiple parts I'm not even sure how I feel about things. I got to, you know, put a pen to paper and write it down and I began to see ah, this connects to this. The reason why I was upset about this was because of that. But you know what? I played a big role in that as well. So own up to that part. And then I could say, once I've got it mapped out, then I could say here's the solutions, here's what I could do that would help, and maybe I need to have a conversation with somebody else, or maybe I need to just sort of give it a little little break, a little pause, that's, that's okay too yeah, it's like great example of what you said is talking to yourself, giving a little understanding of what I do, which is very similar actually.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's a stimulus, something happens right and I get distraught. Yeah, like I am a mental wreck for an hour or two. That's not a long time, but it's not super short. After an hour or two I take that same thought. It's okay. What can I do to fix the situation? And this is why my wife and I kind of disagree, which is kind of funny, but I'm always like I need to fix this. Now it's my fault.
Speaker 1:Let me see what I can do, because I've learned in life I can control what I can control. I can control things and make them controllable. So I can control, I act, I control, I respond to things, I control my tonality, I can control what my hands are doing, like whatever I I things I can take control of and fix. Right, and if I could fix a certain thing about what I'm doing to make the situation better, I should be doing the fact that I have to, especially with my wife. So it's take control of it and then you process it to something where you can step in and where you can help it or you can fix your own emotions and then, as if I really need to deep dive I actually don't do journaling, I'm not a fan of journaling personally, but I think it's great.
Speaker 1:I like I have an eight foot whiteboard in my house, eight foot by six foot, and I put on music with no uh audio like tone, singing, so it's all the background noise, and I just whiteboard it out and I'm just going like a madman. I have things crossed off, double backed and I process everything in my head going on and then usually about like an hour later, I was was just like this, is it?
Speaker 2:That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you found a tool that really is great for you. That's good. You know a couple of things that you mentioned here. I mean like every sentence. I want to add something else.
Speaker 2:One thing you said is talking to yourself. Right, and there's a big difference between talking to yourself and listening to yourself. So a lot of people have these tape recordings going on. It could be from the parents, it could be, you know, some teacher, it could be a boss, it could be their own sort of self-sabotaging sense of things. If they're listening to themselves, oh, a lot of I've just seen this so many times can really not be a good thing. If you talk to yourself, you can talk to yourself with encouragement. You can say, hey, you know it's tough right now, but I'm going to get through this, I know I can, I believe in myself, I love myself, okay, and so that's the talking to yourself Very different than listening. The other thing that you talked about is control, and one of the three main things that I like to talk to people about is being emotionally healthy, and there are three of them I talked about.
Speaker 2:One is stop self-sabotaging. That's just, you know, listen to yourself when you're kind of getting down. I can't do that, you know. No, toss that away, just put it away.
Speaker 2:A second one, though, is to forgive. You got it, you got. I mean, I see people who are, you know, past middle age, getting older, and they're holding on to a big, heavy rock, and it because they haven't forgiven. They haven't forgiven somebody, or maybe they haven't forgiven themselves. So you got to reach deep, you got to really take that story apart, find out what's going on. I say, maybe the person isn't around anymore, so you write a letter anyway, don't mail it. You say, hey, this is what happened. Here's how I felt about it, and I forgive you. I think you owe me an apology, but I'm going to forgive you and just unburden yourself with that forgiving. And then the third one is now.
Speaker 2:In baseball, we call this the long windup is letting go, and I used to think because I've had this big career and you know a lot, of, a lot of success defined in various ways uh, that I was in control. The reason I was successful is because I was in control, but my wife and my terrific adult children, uh, began showing me that I did not control nearly as much as I thought I did. So I took a look at that and I said you know, what I control are four things, and only four things. I control my attitude, I control the amount of effort I'm going to put into something. I control my behavior and I can control the actions I decide to take. Everything else after that is somebody else that I don't control. I might, if I'm doing a good job, influence them. If I do a poor job, my influence diminishes. So this is the control thing.
Speaker 1:I disagree with that, I'm going to start to cut you off. Yeah, the influence diminishes. I don't think your influence diminishes at all. I actually think influence puts them in a negative direction. Oh interesting, it's not not that your influence disappears, but it now becomes more in a negative direction, like not doing something is influencing someone to not do something.
Speaker 2:I like it. Thank you, no, no, no, I like that. I like that. This is kind of why these podcasts this is my 84th guest appearance on a podcast.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:I keep learning. It's so great, so, yeah, pushes you in another direction. That makes perfect sense to me, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because an employer standpoint like me and you can relate from that right, I know a lot of people who own businesses me personally as well has done this. If I let an employee get away with something, I'm influencing them to not feel like they can always get away with that and that behavior is going to get worse in my head and it's going to bother me more than it could do. But they're going to keep doing it because they think it's okay, because I never said anything, and that's just going to influence the negative feedback cycle.
Speaker 2:Very good, very good.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Another thing you mentioned which was a little at the beginning of that the self-sabotaging. I have a question for you, because I've asked this question to like seven guests. Right now myself, I don't think anyone has an answer, so maybe you do. Well, let's find out. Yeah, we'll see. So this is the question. I'm going to give a little backstory before I ask the actual question.
Speaker 1:When I don't self-sabotage myself anymore, because what I say to myself is you've been through worse. That's what I've always said. So it's it doesn't matter what happens, like COVID shut my gym down. The next day I started a podcast and started doing other things, because I've been through worse in my life and I've gotten over it and been a better person because of it. So nothing has been able to impact me for long periods of time, because I know I've been through really hard times that I've gotten through. So that's why I help over and I try teaching these people, but they don't understand it. Because I feel like if you've never been through hardship and you've never had something like really bad happen that you've picked yourself up from, then it's impossible to teach somebody how to self-motivate and how to get over other things, because they never did it for the hardest thing or never had anything traumatic happen in life at all. So how do you teach it if no one ever even had anything traumatic happen before?
Speaker 2:well, let's, let's take a step back for a moment, because self-sabotaging shows up in a variety of clothes. One is I can't do X, another is I won't try because there's no point. And a third is I'm not going to apply for that job, that position, the promotion, because they aren't going to take me. You know college kids going through high school and thinking about the next step, and maybe college have frequently have that. Why bother with that school? Because you know they're looking for somebody smarter or different or whatever. And so each of those, you know the, the response to each of those a little bit different. And so the advice can they help themselves if they've never been through it and seen the light at the other end of the tunnel? I believe the answer to that is yes, and I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:So when I was in college, I have a degree in mathematics and I was a tutor and I'd have office hours in mathematics, and I was a tutor and I'd have office hours and, um, you know, people would come in and they would, within a minute or two, they would say I'm not good at math, that's my wife, I'm not good at this, so I'm not good at math. So I say, okay, I understand, let's go through a few problems together. We'd go through it and they'd be watching and yeah, oh, they see the answer, they go, you know, oh, that's interesting. And I said, come on, let you try it and I'll give you some hints and yeah, and encouragement along the way and then they, they get there, you know, I might have to kind of say, oh, you know, look at that, you know.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, and then I say, okay, I think you're ready to try it, without me saying that, and they get it and they go. Wow, I like math. I mean, it took several sessions, didn't happen for some Some of these students that happen within 45 minutes, but others that took several. But what was happening is I was giving them guidance and encouragement. I was just ignoring the. I can't do tape recording and I was saying what I'm seeing is this and that's a pattern, and that pattern is repeating and you've got to get rid of that pattern and replace it with this pattern. And they go oh, I never thought of that, that's cool, okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so this idea and another message that I've seen I've seen this in a lot of people. You know, I've had CEOs and owners of companies as clients. They say, well, you know, there's no point in trying to do this, go for this product or this service, because we're, we're really, you know, we're full up now and I don't really understand how to do it anyway, and I go OK, those are good reasons, and I don't just say no, that's what you just said is not worth listening to. I hear it and I sometimes repeat it back and I go. You know, there is some logic to that. And let's just put that aside for a minute and say, if you added this, if that was workable, would that be a good thing for the company? And they go yeah, I'd really been wanting to try to do that for some time, but I haven't known really how to do it, so I just kind of dismissed it. We can't. And I said well, would you like to have a conversation about how it might be possible? They go thank you, yes, that's what I want. I said I'm here to help you and help your company move up so it's more valuable, so that I can meet the objective you established, which is you want to sell your company for more value than it's worth now, and so this is an avenue that is could be really valuable to you. They go how much time do you have? I want it, I want it all. So we map out a game plan and I'd check in with them every step of the way. Is this, do you think this makes sense? Is this possible?
Speaker 2:Sometimes it would involve them very directly and they'd have to move something away and bring something closer, like this new idea. In some cases, they had to think about maybe somebody else in the company they thought well of and reposition them. In some cases, they had to think about maybe somebody else in the company they thought well of and reposition them. In some cases, they need to go out for a search. I said, okay, these are different avenues, different kinds of things. How are you feeling about this, jazzed? I'm excited about this, I want to do it, but I didn't know really how to do it.
Speaker 2:So I just kind of just said, no, I didn't have, you know, anthony's big whiteboard. I didn't know really how to do it, so I just kind of just said, no, I didn't have, you know, anthony's big whiteboard. I didn't know how to dance around making sense out of this. So these are two examples and I so yeah, they had, they had struggled, they had had some problems, but I don't think in either of those cases the math student case or the CEO case they had suffered through it and come up with an answer on their own in some other way before you know, maybe in history.
Speaker 1:But my point being like you helped them through it right Exactly Big voice of encouragement. How would someone do it by themselves?
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I think I've done it for myself several times, but I think I'm not your average yogi there.
Speaker 1:Is it possible to teach someone to do them for themselves without going through some, just for your sake and for those that don't listen to every episode, like yeah, yeah, my point was I got to the point I was going to kill myself and that's literal, not figuratively it was suicide or change who I am as a human being. I obviously chose the left, but now everything that happens in my life has been easy for me to get over with because in my head, nothing was harder than that decision. So, like it's so easy for me to be like okay, I can get over this. Okay, you get over this. I've already had my low point in my life. Like, who gives a shit about everything else? I'm going to figure out how to make it work the best I can. I don't know how to teach that to people for them to do it on their own without getting help. Like, how do I get people to just understand that on their own and be like oh, I can get over this, you know? Like how do you do that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's really getting a person to embrace the idea of a mind shift. You know how they're holding on to something. So let's pick an example being grateful, right? So a lot of people. I just was visiting somebody, a really terrific guy, and he said he about three months ago he was broken. And I said, well, what happened? He said I realized I lost all my gratitude. I just was not looking at anything from that lens and I said, okay, and so you observed that you weren't doing that. What did you do? He says I began being grateful again.
Speaker 2:I knew how important it was. So people say, well, how can you be grateful when you get really bad news? You just got the call from the doctor's office and the news was bad. I said okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry you got that news and I feel for that and could it have been worse? Start thinking about the people who are around you, who are supporting you. Think about the quality of your doctor, or that you have insurance, or think about a lot of things that you can be grateful for. And so, if you hear yourself complaining, immediately think of something to be grateful for. And so gratitude is available to us all the time, and it's kind of a habit.
Speaker 2:I think it's a habit, it's a choice we can make. It's a choice like are you optimistic? You know, I am relentlessly positive. I've been that way for as long as I can remember. So, you know, people could say well, it's easy for you to say, but I make a choice about it in the face of a lot of contrary stuff, and I've seen people a lot who are angry, who are cynical, who are just kind of fed up, who are cynical, who are just kind of fed up, and I go. You know you're making some choices about what you're listening to. You're making some choices about getting yourself in this place to feel those things rather than being positive. You make a choice about that. Which choice would you pick?
Speaker 1:Like, well, it's obvious, I just uh, I haven't got there yet, it's okay you mentioned a pre-show that there's a couple of ways to change your mindset right, and one of the ways was who you're with. Yeah, and I'm a really big believer in you become the people you surround yourself with, wow, yes, all aspects of your life.
Speaker 1:And not only do you become them, you become the average of them, yeah, so just as a business example, right, just because I think that's easier for people to process before the emotional side of it. Just because I think that's easier for people to process before the emotional side of it. As a business owner, I surround myself with people who are more successful than me Because it makes me feel like I can do more and if they can do it, I can do it. And I'm getting advice from people going back to what we talked about in our previous show from people of where I want to be. On the flip side of that, I don't take advice from my parents uh, business advice, not that they're like they own a business but they're not where I want to be. They're in a business or they're not an entrepreneur. For those that don't have difference, I'm not going to stress into that.
Speaker 1:But I surround myself and it doesn't have to be physically, it can be listening audioly me listening to podcasts, me listening to youtube videos. I'm still spending time with those people because I am observing and understanding what they're saying, even though they're not physically here and they physically don't know who I am. It's a different way of looking at it. If I want to be more optimistic, I have to surround myself with optimistic people and that'll become the average of them. If I want to be more athletic and I want to lose weight, you have to surround yourself with people who are athletic and don't have weight to lose. If you spend time with me and change nothing else in your life, just spend time, I promise you'll lose weight, because I am a fanatic.
Speaker 1:So, my habits are just going to rub off on you and you're going to lose weight.
Speaker 2:Oh, anthony, this is brilliant. You're bringing this up. What I've heard and I tell people you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, which is exactly what you're talking about, and what does that mean? That covers a lot of landscape.
Speaker 2:You know, are you the funniest person? Well, you might be, but if nobody else around you has any humor or doesn't even think your jokes are funny, well, maybe you need to add some new folks who have a little more humor. Are they good listeners? This is so important. Oh my gosh, you gotta have people who are good listeners and they model it. They, they and they, they can do a process which I've done a couple of times already on the show, where you, you sort of did I get that right.
Speaker 2:What I hear you saying is this before you weigh in with your own stuff, hear them out, make sure you got it right. Listening, listening really hard, being kind, being respectful. These are all domains, important domains. Are they learning? Are they sharing? When they come and visit with you, are they telling you about something they just learned? Some? Are they reading? Are they listening to something? Are they, you know, where are they? Do they watch some cool movie and they had a takeaway that was more than them just having fun. What you know? What are they sharing with you? These are all things.
Speaker 2:So I, I, I track everything in my life and the you know, and I have a lot of people in my life a lot of people who I consider close and friends, and sometimes, over over a period of time, some people drift away or in some case, I encourage them to just thank you very much. It's been great for a number of years and now I have other people in my life who are now filling other needs I have and I'm filling needs of theirs. There's a reciprocity which is so important in relationships. So one of the lessons I learned from my dad is have friends of all ages. So think about having somebody who's half your age or somebody who's 20 years older. Different kind of way of looking at life, different language. They can, you can learn from them and you can uh do a little teaching, mentoring of them.
Speaker 1:It's a cool as long as that person is where you want to be for that specific situation, while you're hanging out with them, there you go. I agree. I think that's important to add.
Speaker 2:I I like your addition, you betcha and I.
Speaker 1:Just people just get caught up in thinking they have to be friends with people, even though I think that's important to add. I like your addition, you, betcha. People just get caught up in thinking they have to be friends with people, even though they just do themselves a disservice by bringing them down because they've been friends for so long, which I don't agree with. If you have people that bring you down and make you a worse person, remove yourself from that situation. You can outgrow friend groups, you can outgrow people, but on the flip side of that you're you mentioned relationships like spouses in particular.
Speaker 1:I love this like you're. My wife and I are polar opposites and I did that on purpose because I have extremes in like the super outgoing eccentric and would say stupid shit all the time and she's like really reserved. So after 10 years of together, we're way more like in the middle of both of us and really found that happy medium. So now I'm listening to people better, I'm understanding people more, I'm not jumping around off the walls like a lunatic. So it's what I needed in my life and we came together and worked together to be the average of each other in a better place.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice. You know this is the opportunity that waits all of us to continue to evolve. You can evolve with your whiteboard and my little journaling. You can just understand yourself. You can evolve by making that commitment to you know, seeing somebody, bringing somebody else in your life who is really good at whatever they're good at listening, they're good at learning, they're good at whatever and you say I'd like more of that. So bring them in. Bring them in Doesn't mean you have to be super best buddies forever. It's just you know you have a relationship in that arena. It's cool, I love you have a relationship in that arena. It's cool, I love it.
Speaker 1:What else is in your book do you think is important to help people thrive and be a better person? It's a big point that you'd like to stress off of it.
Speaker 2:Well, so my book is. It has some stories about me, but it's really not about me. It's about the walkthrough life that I've had, which has been good. I've had to overcome some obstacles, so I talk about those. It also has some research in it and studies that I point to because I want to ground this in not just somebody giving an opinion, but serious work over, in some cases, longitudinal, long periods of time, where people have been lots and lots of hundreds and thousands of people have been checked.
Speaker 2:So one of these is the seven personal qualities that lead to life satisfaction and achievement. And when I'm doing a talk I say, would anybody like to know what those seven are? And everybody's like, yeah, me, I want to know, tell me what's that. So the seven, in no particular order, are zest, grit, mental toughness, being optimistic, having you know, being relentlessly positive, curiosity, being a lifelong learner and in difficult circumstances, and social intelligence, which leads to better communication and better relationships. And I say because I'm an author, I get to add an eighth one, which is humor, where you can laugh at the situation or laugh at yourself.
Speaker 1:I think a highlight on that one, the one that like stuck up and slapped me across the face, is grit, which, for those that listen to the show, I took grit and asked the question is grit teachable? And then broke it down during the show to come to an answer that For myself and for the audience about whether or not grit is something that's actually teachable.
Speaker 2:And Do you?
Speaker 1:want to know the answer.
Speaker 2:Well, I know I have my answer, but I want to hear yours, Anthony.
Speaker 1:So the simplistic way to explain it, without diving into everything we talked about, is there's a study on rats with tension pulling on a wire. Do you know this study?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Keep going? Yeah, so they put a reward in front of a cheese, see how much it pulled, pulled a little more, took the cheese away, put cap hormones behind it, pulled a little more this time than just going for the cheese. And then they did the interesting thing they put both and that's when the rat pulled the hardest. So the answer whether or not, if grid is teachable, the answer is yes, but it can't just be a reward. You have to have something pushing you from behind to make you keep going forward. A great example is entrepreneurs who have lost everything, need this to work or they end up starving, broke on the street, and the reward is knowing how much money and they can make in a long run. And there's many examples through many different aspects of life associated with grit.
Speaker 2:But it's definitely teachable as long as you have reward and hardship behind it I like that and, and you know, part of having grit, which is being mentally tough, is it just gives you resilience. And I like to talk about resilience as a ball. So if you're resilient, it's a rubber ball and if you saw a ball in slow motion hitting the ground, it deflates for a minute, sort of you know, doesn't have a round shape, and it makes that sound depending on what kind of rubber it is and what kind of floor it is. Okay. So, so being right, okay, but if, if, if you had a like a bowling ball and you dropped it on the ground, it's going to make a very different sound. It's probably going to dent the floor and then it's going to roll away. It's not going to bounce back up.
Speaker 2:So you know, resilience is something that's part of having grit, that you, when you have grit, when you have you're mentally tough, you're able to bounce back, you can come back. The rubber ball is part of who you are and how you think of yourself. And yeah, okay, you say I had this problem. It was about five years ago or two months ago, whenever it was, and you know, I got through it and I had to kind of pull myself together. I had to use my whiteboard. I had to use rand's. You know journaling technique. I had to, you know, and I went for it and I got through it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's an important component to have something pushing you from behind, scaring you away, and then you're chasing something else, and that's really what defines and makes grit stand out, and I think it's important for people just to understand that. All those points you made all seven of them, his humor, which I think is super important I laugh at myself.
Speaker 1:I think I'm the funniest person in the world and no one else thinks so. That's great, that's how you know you're doing well, right, but uh, I do love all of that. I think it's important. I don't think you mentioned anything that was like a stand out. No, I think everything was great, just especially. Uh, what was the word you used?
Speaker 1:Self-control.
Speaker 1:I think self-control especially in society now where half of all marriages end in divorce like you could take the easy way out and go cheat on your spouse if you find a new like matrix example woman in the red dress because you think it's going to be better.
Speaker 1:But realistically, it's way better of a life to have the self-control, to not jump at an impulse and instead work on your relationship with your wife. And then, all of a sudden, life starts becoming better and happier because you know what Doesn't matter how pretty someone is. Everyone has their issues, everyone has their flaws and it's just a different pile of shit you're going to deal with. So why not work on the one that you spent time working on, that you love and you appreciate, who's been there for you forever, and make that person a star, to make them feel better, to make them better humans, to make yourself a better human and then ultimately have a better life, not only for yourselves, but now you have a great example to your kids. So your kids could pick up that example and take that 50% divorce rate and let's bring it all the way down to zero.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. You know you're going to love this, Anthony, given that you have two gyms and you have this fabulous podcast, Health and Fitness. I define self-control as exercise, exercising restraint over yourself, exercising restraint over yourself, your emotions, your desires, your actions, your impulses, exercising and, as I say, especially at difficult times. Yeah, totally couldn't agree more Rand.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you for coming on the show. We definitely learned a lot. We went 41 minutes, so it's been awesome. I want to ask you the coming on the show. We definitely learned a lot. We went 41 minutes, so it's been awesome. I want to ask you the final two questions I ask everybody. The first question is is it worth to summarize this episode in one or two sentences, Whatever you take on message?
Speaker 2:Well, one is. Without being sounding self-serving, anthony, you're a great host, you're cool, I've enjoyed it. I've written down a couple of things that I'm going to borrow, and the first couple of times I'm going to borrow them I say, well, this great guy, anthony, told me about them. And then, after about the third time, I say I came up with it myself. So it's good. I'm hoping that, because we've covered some interesting topics. It's not the topics I thought we'd be talking about, so maybe we'll have to have another visit. You know that we covered some stuff that I think can be very valuable to people.
Speaker 2:People do get stuck. That's just the nature. I like to tell people that life is a series of experiments and we know from whatever seventh, eighth grade science, not every experiment works the first time. Some need some, you know, tweaking and redoing, and some never work. So that's what life is, and so you know we've gone down this path of looking at you know what some of the things are, some of the challenges and how to deal with them. So I hope it's a gift. I hope people get some benefit out of it yeah, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:I definitely appreciate my second question, easiest one of all how can people find your book, how can people get ahold of you?
Speaker 2:they want to learn more well, the easiest way to to find me is by going to my book website, which is wwwrandsalesandsamcom. There's a whole lot of information there about the book, some unbelievable testimonials, information about me. There's, I think, 40 of my favorite quotes by chapter. So people download those and then pull them out and say, okay, today it's this one and you can contact me. And, of course, you can order the book through Amazon or through your, you know, an independent Barnes, noble or whatever.
Speaker 1:All right. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for this, guys. So this week's episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. Don't forget, subscribe to the show, share with a friend. Thank you for tolerating with me at the gym today and I hope you all really appreciate this episode. Don't forget fitness is medicine. Until next time thanks, anthony.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Outro Music.
