The Anthony Amen Show

You Don’t Find Yourself, You Build Yourself By Devon

• Anthony Amen • Season 5 • Episode 43

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What if peace isn’t something you find by accident but something you build—one habit, one decision, one identity shift at a time? In this episode of The Anthony Amen Show, I sit down with Devon, our Fitness Manager at Redefine Fitness, to walk through his journey from numbness and depression to becoming one of the strongest leaders in our Stony Brook and Mount Sinai studios. His story is proof that who you become is the result of the traits you put into practice every day.

Devon opens up about the early years—overtraining, overlearning, and grinding through session-based pay—before moving into a salaried leadership role built on service, reliability, and standards. He breaks down the system he used to rebuild himself: choosing identity traits like hardworking, kind, and dependable, and then hitting those marks through small, repeatable wins. We talk about the neuroscience of motivation, why it peaks right before achievement, and why momentum comes from ten push-ups, a made bed, or any action that proves to your brain: I’m moving.

He also shares why he avoids alcohol and most over-the-counter meds due to a family history of addiction, and how that fear pushed him toward whole foods, honest tradeoffs, and a coaching style rooted in transparency. That mindset now shapes how he leads the team at Redefine Fitness—standards first, shortcuts never.

We pull back the curtain on premium coaching, too. Real assessments. Deeper accountability. Long-term progress that outlasts trends. When clients invest more, they get more: better programming, better communication, and professionals who have the time and skill to solve real problems—like chronic back pain—through deliberate evaluation and tailored one-on-one training. This is exactly why Redefine Fitness has become the go-to studio for people who want results, not fads.

Devon’s long-term vision is simple and bold: build the most educated, dependable coaching team in the market, raise standards so high that it becomes harder to get in, and scale impact by developing coaches who multiply excellence across both locations.

If you’re ready to build yourself instead of waiting to be “found,” this conversation gives you the framework and the first step. Subscribe, share with someone who needs a push, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll start this week.

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Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com

SPEAKER_03:

Hello and welcome to Health to Fitness Redefined! I'm your host, Anthony Heyman, and today we've got another great episode for all of you today. Before we get started with today's episode, some really exciting news. We are transforming the show after almost six years running, moving away from our hotile of Hell to Fitness Redefined, and changing it over to the Anthony Heyman show. That way we can get different content, more stuff out to you guys, more raw footage, no editing, and really show you the insights of what's goes on here at Redefined and inside of my life. But without further ado, let's forget to first guest. We have Devin Man. Devin, for those that do not know him, started with me a few years ago. He is our fitness manager for us here, so he takes care of a lot of stuff. Over like 60 hours a week, usually he's in and out of the business. But before we dive into what you do here, let's go back. So tell us a little bit about what got you into the Health of Fitness World.

SPEAKER_01:

We started like when I was in high school. And uh, you know, I the only thing I had going for me was that I was smart, thankfully. But I didn't really like, you know, I didn't have that much friends, I wasn't really into that. You know, I just wasn't the most popular kid. And uh I was a depressed teenager at the time. And then like roughly junior year of high school, I hit my growth spurt and I got into sports. And then right when I got into sports, it felt like things changed a lot for me. Uh I was captain of the track team my junior year, I was running all the time. I was like, you know, I was on the soccer team, not that good at it, but I ended up being a three-sport varsity athlete, and uh, so I was really into fitness at that time. Uh, not for like any good reasons, only because it made me slightly more popular and slightly less depressed. And then uh I went away to school. Uh yeah, I went away to school, like I didn't stay home, and that was a mistake because I just got more depressed there. I ended up uh dropping out my first semester, coming back home. Once I was home, uh just started working like bullshit menial jobs, like I was working at a beer distributor, I was working at like a junk removal place, and I went back to a local school, and I was still depressed because I just felt like I didn't like I didn't know who I was at the time. Like I had went to school for political science and sociology, and I was like, none of this really speaks to me at all. You know, I was lucky that I had who was my now wife at then was my girlfriend. Uh I felt like I was like floating through life, like life was like an ocean, and I was just like sitting in it and letting it take me wherever it went. And my wife was like kind of like a lifeboat where she just had a lot of joy and passion for life that I didn't have, so I kind of like clung on to her and I never had it for myself. And uh after like a year or two of being home at school, I had realized something that you probably relate to, something that changed my entire life. Was I was like sitting around waiting to find myself, but then I realized like your sense of self and your sense of personhood, your peace, your joy, your love is not something that you find. It's something that you build. And I, over the course of the next few years, built myself from scratch. I found things that I wanted to be. I wanted to be a hardworking man, I wanted to be a good man, I wanted to be eventually a good husband, a good father, I wanted to love and forgive and be kind and sacrifice, and I just started doing those things more. I wanted to be in good shape, so I trained every fucking day. I didn't miss a single session, I took every set till failure, I didn't skip a single meal, I didn't miss a single macro, I didn't miss a single calorie for years. And uh I just became a new person. I once I had realized that, like that realization in my life changed so much for me. I was able to love deeper, I was able to uh apologize easier and forgive myself for things that I did when I was depressed in the past, it really changed a lot for me. And uh being able to build myself up was a beautiful experience. And then why in the process of building myself up, I got really into fitness. And I've always been like a smart person and an intelligent person. It kind of sounds really cocky to say in this context. It's like, guys, guess how smart. You know, it feels like a little silly thing, but I have always been luckily intelligent. And when I got into fitness, I decided I was gonna know everything about it. So I was just nonstop researching and I became like an authority figure in like my local community. Like people were reaching out to me, like, hey, what do I do here? This hurts, what do I do for this workout? Can you give me a meal plan? And I was just giving it to everybody for free, and then I eventually changed my major over for exercise science, and uh that that was it. It was all I all I did, really.

SPEAKER_03:

I want to stop you there. Yeah, because you there's a lot to unpack inside of that.

SPEAKER_01:

I could have gone for the rest of the 45 minutes if you wanted.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. Let's let's go back. You mentioned quite a few times, and after knowing your last couple years, I was depressed. I was depressed. What drove you into depression, and why do you keep relating yourself back to being depressed?

SPEAKER_00:

I wouldn't say anything. I would say depression is not gonna matter.

SPEAKER_01:

Like everybody that I know and I'm really close with struggles with at least a little bit of depression. And for me personally, the way it presented itself was that I felt really numb throughout like most of my life. Like nothing really mattered to me that much. Like I wouldn't really swing down like some people who get depressed. Like, I think temporary depression that's not really built into your brain is just when you swing swing down, and you're like, Oh, I'm depressed, I'm sad, you know. But I had what I think was more of like a clinical depression where I didn't swing down, I didn't swing up. I felt nothing, like nothing mattered to me. And uh I ended up like I went to therapy, I got on medication for it, and I'm at a point now where I'm lucky enough that I don't need the medication for it. Like I found things that balance my brain better than the medication was balancing my brain for me. Like if I just uh stay incredibly busy, I stay active, and I do things that give me hits of like serotonin and dopamine, I really don't need it anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

Could it be a family dynamic? Was were your parents and your family like sitting in that kind of soaking, depressive state?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it's interesting to mention that. I would say that my family dynamic is like almost picture perfect. Right? Like if you imagine like what's a good childhood, what are good parents? Like, my parents are that. Like they were taking us out, doing stuff all the time. My dad was working all the time, my mom was taking care of us all the time, and I don't really feel like anyone was ever sulking in it. It was more like beneath the surface. Like, I didn't know that my dad suffered from depression until I told him how I was feeling. And he was like, Oh, I've struggled with this my entire life. Here's things that I've done with it, and then like over time we would learn, like my younger brother would be like, Hey, I'm struggling with depression. I'd be like, Oh, dude, I've been through the same thing. And it never really was like a household of depressed people. Everyone kind of did it under the surface and kind of put on maybe uh like a not a show, but like a pleasant face for everybody else.

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe as a kid and being around it all the time, you saw through it.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, possibly, yes. Like to give an example, when I was younger, uh, I really didn't like myself, right? So I would sit in my bed and I would just like tell myself things to make myself feel better. I would be like, no, you are smart, you are popular, you are athletic, you are these things. Like I would just reaffirm that within myself, even though I probably didn't believe it at the time, but I like would just say it over and over again. And I would hope that like, oh, maybe someone will come in and they'll hear me saying these things. Like, why is he saying these things? He's probably struggling, right? And uh never once was I thinking, like, oh, maybe someone else is struggling similarly to me. Like, I wasn't like, oh, I should go check on this person because I think maybe my mom's depressed, or I should go check on my dad because he's probably feeling like a similar way to me. I don't think that ever clocked in my mind. I think I was just born a certain way and like the brain just didn't fire right. And uh I have to kind of manage that every day. Like, even to this day, if I really start fucking up and I'm not strict with myself, I'll fall back into a similar feeling.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I can totally understand that. So, what gave you that realization you mentioned that you need to build yourself and you can't rely on other people to make you happy?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was uh not like one beautiful moment, but I just felt like I needed to be a better emperor. It was my now wife, and I was like, okay, what would someone want in a partner, what would someone want in a husband, what would someone want in a father?

SPEAKER_00:

And I just found traits that I thought were exemplary. Like uh I really modeled a lot of it after Superman for me.

SPEAKER_01:

I was like, okay, it's gotta be someone who's hardworking, someone who's self-sacrificial, someone who does everything for everyone else and never complains. And I was like, I'm just gonna start doing those things. And then over time I realized like, wow, you can change so much. You can become a completely different person if you just try and set your mind to it. It was uh it was really powerful for me.

SPEAKER_03:

I feel like a lot of people uh in society and especially young men, they struggle with this fact that they're taught that life comes to them instead of them going for life. So if you had uh someone 18 years old in front of you right now thinking that you know I want the happiness to come to me, it's everyone else's fault, and putting an outward blame. How would you direct them to change their views to start working themselves?

SPEAKER_01:

Like wrong, like me at their names like what I would say. I would tell everybody to start smaller, like you can't reinvent your entire life in one night. Like you gotta start one step at a time. Like when I know somebody that's drunk, I'm like, it's just starting. Every morning you wake up and your bed is a mess, and you make your fucking bed. And then the next day you wake up and now you make your bed and you do something else. Maybe you do 10 push-ups, and you're like, okay, I made my bed, I didn't have 10 push-ups. I'm slowly becoming a different person. Like you're trying to start overnight and be like, tomorrow I'm waking up and I'm fucking James Bond, dude.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm the cool channel, I'm wearing a suit to school, but it's like what are you taking? You gotta take it one step at a time.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like building small habits instead of working out or starting a new diet. It's small little steps to kind of build that uh momentum going forward.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I wanted to go on and feel like a renaissance every few years rather than recognize what it was, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I saw a really cool standing online. It's uh sedentary men is depressing. Because as men were designed to constantly do better, do more, help ourselves, build our own control, and that's even linked to studies, which I know we've talked about previously, where the best levels of dopamine and serotonin you get hit are right before you achieve a goal. It's not before, it's not after, it's right before, and then after you hit it, you dissipate it. And then you have to find a new goal and reset yourself back. I don't know if it's even possible. Exactly. So we protected you from getting into the exercise and helping people into your first training job and then did you have the support from your from that wife and your family.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if you're gonna make money in the video. Like my parents always thought of me as someone who was going to be successful. My mom was a little man in my junior year when I started doing homework. She was like, You could have been like Valley Corinthians or something, look at you and you're like, you know, but when I changed my major, I was a little concerned about that.

SPEAKER_01:

But I knew like in any field, if you're passionate enough and intelligent enough and hardworking enough, you can find success. It doesn't matter what the field is, you just have to be better than everybody else in it. And uh that's why I would just keep telling myself. I'm not sure if anybody really believed it, but when I was in my senior year of college, I was uh I started I had always been like a soccer coach, like part-time on the side. So I was working kind of in the field, but not really. I got a job as a strength and conditioning coach after I got my certification, and uh that kind of changed a lot for me. It was a very like high-paying, fast-moving, strength and conditioning coach position, with actually like some of the best in the industry, and I was lucky to get it like right out of school. Like it was my first one. You know, I lied and told them it wasn't my first one, obviously, because that's what you should do. And then they were like, Oh, this is an established young man, we'll bring him in. And I just kind of had to figure it out. Like I was throwing the people who are like running strength and conditioning programs now at like major universities, and uh it was good for me. I feel like I learned a lot and I learned fast. My first day, I was supposed to shadow one of their uh like tenured coaches there, and he actually called out six, so I had like teams of like 20, 12-year-old boys come in, but I never trained anybody in my life. Like, all right, we're gonna figure this shit out. And uh yeah, that was huge for me, and it was relatively high paying, luckily. Like the hourly rate was very competitive. So, like when I told my parents and I told who was my girlfriend at the time, they're like, Oh, that's amazing. You just gotta work all the time, and then we'll be able to buy a house, which was our main goal. But I realized you can't buy a house without a salary and proof of like steady set income, where they're like, you know, it's you're just gonna lose your money the next day.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean a lot of people don't understand how most trainers get paid, so when you specify that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so uh the way training works is typically you just get paid per session. That's how any job I've had in the past has been like you you train a client, you get paid as you're training that client because the client's paying to train you, and then you don't do shit after. That's it. So like I had a very competitive hourly rate of training when I was at the last place I was at. But like, say a couple of my clients went on vacation, or really what happened to me all the time is I would have baseball players and preseason, I'm making a shit ton of money, and then baseball season comes around, they all go to their respective universities and teams, and then I'm left high and dry and broke again. And that's really what drove me here was because it felt like I had looked nonstop. I was like, I need a salary bad. I need someone who will pay me a salary to do what I'm doing in this field, and there was like nothing out there. I was almost the strength and conditioning coach for Bay Shore School District. They ended up giving that to someone a little more established than me at the time. And I told my wife, I was like, I'm gonna get a job here and I'm going to move up very quickly. Like, I'm gonna tap out whatever the top rate is, and I was like, and then we'll get a house, and then we'll have our kid, and everything's gonna be fine. And uh luckily that came to fruition.

SPEAKER_03:

Like uh if I remember correctly, I'm not the one who hired you with somebody else at the time, but even like your first day, you didn't truly believe it was a full salary.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it didn't make any sense. Like I was uh when I came in for the interview, uh I was positive that it was wrong, because I interviewed at like three other places that advertised, like, oh, we have like this is the yearly pay, and then I would come in and I was like, okay, and they would always just get yanked out from under me. So I asked him to interview twice, and then I asked you on the first day too. I was like, this is you're for sure, right? This is like uh like an annual salary, like I'm gonna get paid this, and you were like, Yeah. I was like, Alright, that's fun good, I guess. Yeah, it was uh it was a relief for sure.

SPEAKER_03:

And then when you got hired, a a lot of things started changing within the first three months. Yeah. And you mentioned previously that you were trying to move up as quickly as possible. So I think this is a really good segue for people to understand what hard work looks like and how you can excel the company. So walk us through that process and what you did.

SPEAKER_01:

So before I had even gotten to the interview, I had done a ton of research on the company. Like I realized you had a podcast, so I listened to like five or six podcast episodes preparing for you to interview me, and then I was gonna repeat back talking points to you that you had said so you would like me more and more likely to hire me. That was my game plan. But then I did an interview with you, so that got thrown out the window. Uh and then once I started, uh the way that the pay structure was at the time was the higher percentage of your day that you were booked, the higher you could get paid. So I realized all I needed to do was get as many clients as I can and make sure that none of them leave. So uh, whenever a client asked for anything, I would do it. Like we were only open at 6 a.m. at the time, I was coming in at 5 a.m. for people. Uh my shift was ending at like 2, I believe. I was coming in late for people, I was doing everything. Anytime anyone needed coverage, I covered them in hopes that their clients would like me and leave them and come to me and fill my schedule as quickly as possible. Uh I never sat down, say I had breaks between clients. I was always standing and moving just in case someone looked at the camera and saw me, they would be like, oh, he's always standing and moving. This guy's trying really hard. I was like, okay, I'm gonna clean everything, I'm gonna scrub everything down, and then quickly I was able to uh succeed. I think for the first year here, every month, I got a raise for my first year straight. And that was huge for me because it was like just getting me closer and closer to my angle of getting a house. And then by I started in May, and by October, uh the head trainer position opened up, which you only had one at the time now. There's gonna be two, like a second one for the second location. And I was like, I fucking need to have that. Like and it wasn't even coming with a pay raise at the time, I don't think, and I was like, that doesn't matter. I need to move up, I need more responsibility, I need to make myself as important here as possible, so I can eventually uh, you know, if I can request more, get more. Like, I just need to do as much tasks as possible to become like the face of this gym, and then everything had to work out, is what I told myself. And luckily it did work out.

SPEAKER_03:

I think so. I think so.

SPEAKER_01:

I remember talking to Dom, who you've had on, and uh we had started around the same time, and I was like, we were talking about moving up and like tapping up the pay scale, and I was like, Well, I'm positive I'm gonna do it. I was like, I'm already like stacking up clients, and he was like, How are you doing it? And I was like, Well, if we're being honest, I'm just covering everybody and hoping they leave and come to me. And he was like, So you're stealing clients? And I was like, I wouldn't say stealing. Like, they're gonna get paid the same amount whether or not they have it. I was like, but I've I want them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and I feel like uh uh throughout the process I learned a lot about you, but I just want to still address a couple of things I learned along the way. So, first and foremost, demeanor. Yeah, right? So you bring a very specific demeanor to the club and your personality situates a different way, and I'm trying to get a full understanding of what's that like. I think a lot of people would like to understand this as well. So starting with music choices, you put up music that for those that don't know, imagine sitting in an elevator and you're trapped in there, and the music in this hotel is from like 1960. And you just want to blow your brains out of how boring it is. Um, that's the music Devin likes.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I uh I'm a pretentious fuck if we're being honest. I really like uh things that I think are admirable. So a joy of mine is going back and listening to old music and like finding an old artist and discovering them and like learning who they were, their personality. Like I really enjoy that. And uh, even if I don't like the music at first, if I like a person enough, like I'll just force myself to like the music over time. And uh so I really gotten into like some old school country music. I was playing like a lot of Willie Nelson at the time, and uh everybody hated it except it kind of became synonymous with me and when I was in the gym, and I think people started to enjoy almost like uh like I forget the name of the butt like Pavlov's Dars a little bit, where you like start to salivate at the sound of the bell. Like they knew that when like the country music was playing, they were like, oh, Devin's in, it's an easy day, like it's gonna be a hard as fuck workout, I'm gonna be in a good mood, and then I'm gonna leave. And it was unique, it was singing at the last place I was at. I would always play my music when I was in training my clients, and it made a big fucking difference. And now I have clients that are like I can't work out unless it's just jazz music, like, and it's it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_03:

What got you into it though?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well my dad is big into music, and uh he would always play like classical music in the mornings uh like every Sunday, or he would even play like country music later on, and uh he would play jazz music. Like he loves music, he plays the trumpet, he's great at it, and uh he would share a lot of it with me. And at the time, when I was a teenager, I was a kind of a piece of shit, so I just listened to like whatever piece of shit listen to. And then eventually, after I grew up, I was like, wow, the music he was playing was like beautiful and stunning, and then I kind of rediscovered it for myself, and it's been amazing, and it's brought me and my father closer. It's great. You would like it if I think if you gave it a chance.

SPEAKER_03:

I've given it a lot of chances. I've given it enough chance. I listened to a lot of hours of your music. And then eventually I hit my threshold and I'm like, I'm done.

SPEAKER_01:

I remember the Spotify raft after my first year here. It was like the most played artist, it was uh Tyler Childers, and I was like, that's a beautiful thing, isn't it? I'm only here like not as not that often, but it's just like he's played all the time. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh man, it makes you question that. A more serious topic, I think, for people are more interested, which I'd like to a little to dive into a little bit, is you don't smoke. No drink, and I'm talking coffee. I think you've had three cups in your entire life. I had a couple research. Where does that stem from?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well I have never drank or smoked or or smoked, sorry. And like any drug is petrifying to me. Uh I my family, addiction runs in my family. So it is scary to me the thought of like something changing the way my brain works just because I've seen people with their brain changed. And it scares the fuck out of me. So like, say I get sick, I can't even take like an Advil or an Alib or something, or like a Dayquill, I can't take it. It scares the shit out of me, I start freaking out. My wife will have to like make me take it. Uh so it's not like something I'm doing out of like a sense of honor, like, oh I'm better than you, I don't drink, I don't smoke, or whatever. If like you would have to hold a gun to my head to get me to take a sip of alcohol. It doesn't tempt me at all, it scares me.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, why does it scare you?

SPEAKER_01:

Because of what I witnessed growing up.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like what?

SPEAKER_01:

So I don't know if you've ever had a family member who's like going through addiction, but you'll get your things stolen because they need money to go buy more drugs, or you'll just talk to them and you realize that they're not really the same person they were anymore, you know, and they're like having delusions and they're talking to you about things that you know are not true, but they're so convinced of it. And they start to become a different person in your eyes. Like uh you know like the Uncanny Valley concept? No, like if you see a person and it looks exactly like a person, then it doesn't scare you. But as it slightly looks less and less like a person, it becomes really terrifying and there's this middle ground where it's like, okay, this is close enough to a person that I'm kind of familiar with it, but it's not like a teddy bear. So it's just like really fucking scary. And it feels like when you meet a family member who's going through something, someone you know really well, that's going through something so hard and it's changing them, they kind of enter that uncanny valley, and they're just like really fucking scary.

SPEAKER_03:

So who was that in your life specifically?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I don't want to say any specific names of the people that they were in my life, but they were people very close to me. Like, not within my immediate household, but people that I would see regularly. Like at every family event, or even like once or twice a month, just like getting together, and uh that can leave a big impact on you. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03:

But that even carried over into just over-the-counter drugs.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's uh it's obviously something unreasonable, like it's some form of uh delusion in my mind where it's like I'm associating everything with that. Like the first time I had caffeine, uh, I was I had just gotten home from work and I had my daughter, and my wife was working until about 10 p.m. And for context, I work like 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. and then I would grab her. And so I knew I had like eight hours left with her, and I'm like falling asleep. So there was coffee in the house that was my wife's at the time. And I made a cup of coffee and I'm sitting there, and my daughter's in the high chair eating, and I'm forcing myself to drink this black cup of coffee. It's fucking disgusting. It's so gross. I'm in tears drinking this coffee as if I'm like breaking something within me. Like I'm breaking like a like a law that exists within my mind. It was like one of the hardest days of my life. And then since then, if something's really hard, I'll go and have some coffee if I need to, but it still scares me, so I really try not to.

SPEAKER_03:

But how did that carry over into the gym world, right? Because a lot of things are pinned around supplements, so where do you clarify that in your brain?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, uh, for me, I've always struggled to take supplements. I would recommend them to clients all the time, or even before I had like real clients, just like friends of mine, like, oh, you should probably grab like a protein supplement and a creatine and take that, you know. But for me, it just feels so similar that I just can't get past it. So I have an approach that a lot of people find admirable, but I'm not doing it for the admiration of just like whole foods and shit. Like, uh like I'll tell somebody, like, oh, I don't use a protein supplement, I just eat like extra protein, and they're like, Oh, that's good, whole foods. And I'm like, I'm not doing it because it's whole foods, like, I'm just doing it because I can't make myself do the real, like the thing that would probably be better for me if we're being honest. I just can't bring myself to do it.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, it's a good example of like the protein powder for me. Yeah, most 99% of them I can't digest. Yeah. So I'm just chugging egg whites.

SPEAKER_01:

People are like, oh dude, that's awesome. Egg whites are great. I feel like I wish I could just have some fucking protein powder.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm just chugging curklin egg whites. I have no choice.

SPEAKER_01:

I just can't do it. You know, I've had people buy me like multivitamins, they're like, oh, you have benefit from multivitamins, and I'm like, oh thank you, Mom, and I'm like, I gotta throw this out. I can't fucking take a multivitamin.

SPEAKER_03:

Do you feel like even after having coffee though, that it's helped you, or it still scares you enough that so it obviously has helped me because I've had it since.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, like that day I was able to be more present with my daughter and play with my daughter more than I would have been able to if I hadn't had the coffee. But it still terrifies me, and part of me feels like I'm being bad when I have it, you know? And it's like if I'm gonna drink it, I kind of don't want her to see me drinking it, or she's gonna be like, oh, dad drinks coffee, dad does a drug, and I'm gonna do a drug like dad does. And it's like obviously that's an unreasonable leap of logic to make, but it's just where my brain goes, and I can't fix that for some reason.

SPEAKER_03:

So where do you clarify lab-made candies? Like foods. I don't I don't eat candy. I don't eat like bags of chips or anything, like nothing processed.

unknown:

Not really.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, I wouldn't like run away from it, but I just don't enjoy that part. Like, even like like sweets and stuff. I'm not a big chocolate person, like I don't really like that. Like Halloween, I don't eat any candy or anything. Like, it just doesn't tempt me. That's not for like the same kind of fear or anything, it just doesn't tempt me much. I just don't give a shit about it, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

That's fair enough, but it could be relatable, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Because there's chemicals in there, you don't know what they do, you don't know you would think it would be similar, but for some reason that kind of stuff, like I don't know, like I know you are very well aware of like the issue of like dyes and everything and all this stuff, and like you know, red forty and everything. But if someone gave me like a glass of Kool-Aid right now, would I drink it? Probably, you know, because it's just like it's different for me for some reason. I don't really know what. I don't understand all the mechanisms of my brain. I'm still unraveling them, you know. I'm only 26, I gotta have a ways to go.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know, everyone always thinks you're older.

unknown:

Every single guess is like, you gotta be what, 35? I'm like, yeah, I guess.

SPEAKER_03:

Look at me, you gotta be what, 50? It's like, no.

SPEAKER_01:

I've always gotten that. People always thought I was older than I was, and like my friends tended to be a little older than I was, and I don't know, something about it.

SPEAKER_03:

I think something really cool I want to talk about, or just different. You always seem to have I forgot to put this in words, so bear with me on this one. I'm gonna I'm gonna give a story instead of asking a question. That sounds great. So that will help me. So we had a conversation about a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago. It was about grit and whether grit was teachable or not.

unknown:

Oh, that's a beautiful topic.

SPEAKER_03:

I love that topic. And then I took that topic and then did a 45-minute uh episode on whether or not grit was teachable or not back and forth. Now, what I want to relate to that is when I compare you to let's say even your family or the other trainers we have here, you have a different way about you that doesn't seem to fit. Yeah. And it's not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01:

No, but I understand almost exactly what you're saying. Okay, so explain. Uh I pride myself on my work ethic. Right. I feel like I can grind through anything, but I feel like I also pride myself on being like a friendly and approachable person, and I want like my anything that I'm exuding to be like warm and kind and like soft, and I try not to be too rambunctious and like get people riled up. I like to think of myself as like a calming presence, but I also really value the fact that I could push through like any adversity that comes my way, like, no matter what it is, I'm gonna get through it. And I think those two things can be kind of contradictory. So my personality can shift day to day based on kind of what I need to get through the day. Like, ideally, I'm just being kind and soft and warm with every single person I see throughout the day. And then sometimes that'll kind of fade a little bit, and I'll just kind of fall back on the grit that I value within myself. So I think my like when you're saying that I'm a little different from some other people. kind of feel that way. I think it's gotta do with that, where I really try to portray uh someone who's approachable and and soft and kind. That is important to me.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah it comes across. Yeah well that's nice of you to say so I I just to kind of move on and kind of see how that relates to what we do here. How does your personality and what you bring to the table help with our company and what do you where do you see your values bring in the company as a whole?

SPEAKER_01:

Something I love about our company is how different everybody who works here is. Like I'll have clients who will be like you know I come in here and it's like a TV show. Like there's this very unique person I've never seen before. I have a client who's mentioned that uh every time he comes into the gym he feels like it's an episode of a TV show with a bunch of different characters. Like everybody is someone unique that he's never seen someone like them before. Like specifically you're referring to like the Stonebook morning team because like that's the one that like this client was in. But like I don't know if anybody who's watching knows Meredith or Andrew or myself. We're all three very distinctly different people but you could come in and get three very distinctly different sessions depending on who you work with and I like the variety that it brings to the team. I think when like my personality serving a role within the greater company like say we have a management meeting I always feel like I'm the one who's staying calm or say we have really any meeting at all I feel like I'm the one who's staying calm. Everybody else is very excitable I think. You know and they're like oh that's fucking exciting they get kind of amped up and start amping each other up and I feel like I'm the one who's kind of like alright let's all take a deep breath for a moment and let's try to you know collect ourselves before we start moving forward and uh that's how I feel I fit into the team but you know you need a variety of personalities. And if I if it was like five me's running this place it would be a fucking disaster if we're being all the variety.

SPEAKER_03:

Get it from different perspectives because I've always believed in something I've always said is I'm the dumbest person in the room.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's a very humble thing to say I don't think you're the dumbest person I always think I'm the dumbest person.

SPEAKER_03:

I would rather hire people that are smarter than me.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you could say like I want to be the dumbest person in the room but I don't think you could say you are the dumbest I can say I've I'll digress.

SPEAKER_03:

I'll say it's for specific categories in related I've hired people that are smarter than me so in relation to those specific categories I am not as smart as they are.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's understandable I was saying I don't remember who I was talking to but we were talking about you how it's like every field of the business is so pointed and yet you know like enough about every one of those fields that you can hang in the conversation and like it'll be completely fine. Like you know enough about like the specific training science that I'm talking about all the time and the sales shit that Dennis is talking about all the time like every aspect of the company you're like I know enough about that that I'll be able to step in and participate and cooperate. And I think that's an admirable thing that you guys self-taught. He knows more about marketing than like so many people that's mind blowing isn't it you know and it's uh he just dives in and does a lot of research and that's admirable I like that about you.

SPEAKER_03:

Appreciate that well that's kind of what I liked about you and I heard you not to be like we're like each other it just the access to trying to figure out more information when it comes to training and stuff like that you devote a lot of time for it outside of work. I think about us a little bit from my wife and daughter but but take this for an example and maybe we can take this to help other people. It's there's one thing to come into work clock and click out leave right but who you truly want working free or the people that constantly try to better themselves in their field outside of work but most people get so caught up in this phenomenon that they call work life balance that just to be frank I don't flat up believe in if you enjoy what you do why do you need a work life balance or breakdown?

SPEAKER_01:

I think those people are probably only thinking about pay as like dollar per hour. You know and they're constantly mapping out they're probably mapping out purchases dollar per hour like this cost me this amount of hours of work this cost me this amount of hours of work and that's all they're thinking about. And then once they're out of work and they're not getting that dollar per hour anymore they're like I don't even want to think about it. Like I am now not getting paid at all. But me and yourself are in a position where we're lucky enough that's like if we invest more time we will get paid more. And I don't think everybody has that same luxury so I can maybe understand it from like say you're working at McDonald's and you're just like clock in, I'm working, clock out I go home and you're probably not going home and like researching ways you can improve the way McDonald's is like running the friars or something. Like I don't hold that against them. But as you move up and you want to do like a a more rewarding job or maybe even turn it into a career you know dedicating a little extra time and becoming better at it to outperform the people you're competing against is almost necessary.

SPEAKER_03:

I will argue go back to the McDonald's worker. I agree maybe not looking to figure out to make the fire work better but if they wanted to make more money they could use their free time to learn different skills. Yes and become more specialized in something that's not even inside their industry. Because truly and this is the crazy stat is you are five times more likely to make more money by job skipping and working your way up than you are working through a specific company up the ladder. But you need to be investing those hours outside in order to learn and what one thing I always like to reflect back to is there there's three ways to learn and if you break them down into really specific general categories. The first way you could pay someone to learn college right you can learn for free internships or you can get paid to learn.

SPEAKER_01:

Which option would you rather and I feel like the latter I would definitely rather get paid to learn if you could pick one that's the most appetizing of the three I think learning is such a unique experience for every individual and like the way I learn is so different from the way you learn and I can for a fact I know for everybody on staff because I'm trying to teach them all the time that everybody's learning so differently and I think I am really really capable at learning something on my own quickly. Like if I need to understand a concept I could read it once the night before and it's like I know that concept really well and I could explain it to somebody else really well. So for me like to learn more outside of work honestly doesn't take up that much time.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like I could just research something a little bit and it's like I fully understand I could disagree give an example you specifically if I told you to research what a pixel was and how to access it you would not retain it the first time. There's a specific type of uh knowledge that I retain really because you trained yourself to learn except that category and even general knowledge to build off of it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I can't I struggle with even like updating my phone. That's a great point. There's things that I am being capable of learning and there's probably one specific type of thing that I've dedicated a lot of time to that I learned really well now.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's a learning curve right so like the specific topics that you just look at me and like art yeah you could teach me art a thousand times over I'm just gonna blink at you. But everything else business related I pick a block quickers have a lot of good general knowledge that I've already self-taught myself.

unknown:

That is a good point.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's important to be a well-rounded person who'd like to draw something every now and then you know I failed art in seventh grade I'm not surprised but I think maybe it's not drawing maybe you'd like to write something.

SPEAKER_03:

No my teacher literally told me she's like Anthony this is not for you and that's that's a rude thing of the teacher to say I'm gonna be honest I think encouraging everybody English I did so bad that I had a teacher pull me aside in this college she goes Anthony I gave you an 86 on your final but I can't let you go home for the year without telling you this you know you didn't if I graded your paper like I graded everyone else you would have failed. But because of your improvement it's an 86.

SPEAKER_01:

Well how sweet is that that sounds like a good professor better than your art teacher she said she cares. That's nice. She probably could have fostered even more improvement in you if you had wanted to at the time.

SPEAKER_03:

But going into math yeah I would sleep Monday to Thursday take the test and get 100 on on a Friday. That's a beautiful thing with no calculator.

SPEAKER_01:

I had a problem well not a problem but like in high school I never studied for anything ever and in college I never studied for anything ever and then it was like I when I was taking anatomy and physiology too there was a test where you're basically just like walking around tables and there's like here's a bone and it's like you have to name each part of this bone and it's like here's a muscle you have to name each part of this muscle and there's like nerves on this same test cells on the same test everything. And uh I had not studied ever before in my life and I took that test and I was walking around and I was like maybe I'm a fucking idiot I can't retain anything right now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yet again going back you can learn a new skill which will then help you make more money and you don't deserve anything. And I think that's so important going back to we talked about earlier is you nothing in life because you do something means you deserve a really happy life. You have to work for it. Because truly as humans if we were just to take a snapshot picture of a general person's life right now this we're better off than we were 100 years ago 200 years ago right just a general scratch across all people so you can give specific examples but averages will dictate otherwise most people have a smartphone in their pocket so they've access to things most people have access to more education now than they've had their entire lives with AI, YouTube, everything is so easy to learn yeah people are definitely healthier smarter more access like but yet people are now lazier and feel like things are earned that are supposed to be given to them and refuse to go out to get information to learn a specialty skill to make more money to move up to feel happier because yet again pursuing your goal is what's going to make you happy.

SPEAKER_01:

I've noticed similar things like when interviewing people here that want a job here like I can tell right away the way someone's brain works if they want more for themselves and they crave to know more or if they just are kind of coming in and expecting to get a job because they have a certain degree or something. And I can normally tell also who didn't use any of their thought process while getting that degree like they just shit it out with AI or something and it's like oh here's my ChatGPT essay and then they come in and they take our interview test and they are absolutely blown away just bomb and I admire when someone comes in and takes the interview and they come up to me after and they're like that test was really hard like I want to learn what's on that like can you even go over it with me? Like show me this show me this and those people have gotten hired every time like I really admire that in somebody when they want to learn more and the people who come in they tank it and they're like well thank you and they leave and I never hear from them again. Thank God we have this test to kind of wean out the people who can't think.

SPEAKER_03:

Where do you see the company heading and I think the test is a good explanation. So our interview process right now I would say it's extremely hard especially having an in-person written test because most I'm gonna train there is some quotations there for those audio big AI certification and they don't study and they're coming in and people seem to care about certifications we want to be nothing. So where do you think the company's headed as a whole from one the employee side and then two the client side of things.

SPEAKER_01:

I love I feel like every change we've made has gotten us closer and closer to like the end goal that I see in my mind.

SPEAKER_03:

What's that end goal for you?

SPEAKER_01:

I think we have eventually just the highest quality product in the like on the market like you cannot get better training than what we are providing here. You're not gonna get more progress you're not gonna get more money you're not gonna get more information you're not gonna get anything better than what we're doing. And I want clients to not only have like the best experience possible but also the extra time that's dedicated from the trainers. Like I want it to be not hard to get here but maybe just hard to get I want it to be hard to get from the trainers and from the clients in. Like it should be people who are really dedicated people who are spending a lot of time like I want to for every time we get in I want to spend hours I want to sit with them I want to pour over their body I want to learn what's bothering them I want to go over every joint I want to go over every muscle I want to do everything I can to get people to the next level and we that requires shifting away from like uh the business model of a lot of the gyms that people would know which we've done a great way of shifting away from them and not playing the game of like who can get more clients that don't come in and just like spend the money. Like we're competing with different people now and I want to even move past them and just become like the best in the world at what we're doing ideally.

SPEAKER_03:

So I may mention that's like really specifically sitting with the client understanding for those that aren't clients here I mean I would address even our price point from a standpoint like we aren't considered cheap right from a hole in a wall. So how does that correlate from a client experience?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah well I have that they have grown to appreciate what we're charging and hold them accountable where at first they're like oh maybe this is a lot of money and then afterwards they're like if I wasn't spending you know whatever I'm spending to come in here and train then you know I would skip it. I would do it all I would just do it uh whenever I feel is convenient but the financial obligation helps a lot and then because they're spending that much we can afford to pay and recruit the best trainers like on the island right now and hopefully in the country later. When we're paying high quality trainers we can get high quality product out on the floor and that's going to require on the client end to pay a little bit more to supply that and I think everybody has been really understanding and at times even appreciative of the quality that we're putting out so they don't mind the price end of it. And they'll uh not like blank check for us but they'll pay you know they would pay a lot to stay with the people that we got here.

SPEAKER_03:

So if you were talking to someone that's on a client right now how would you explain our value add and justify what we charge?

SPEAKER_01:

Well I would first try to find somebody near us that is providing what we're driving and see if you get your price wrong. The good thing is there's nobody near us that's providing what we're driving. So there's no like uh like price block that we gotta compete with this guy because they're doing the same stuff we're doing. Nobody's doing the same stuff we're doing so uh the value that you're getting when you're coming here is like say you come to me and you had a back pain your entire life and nothing can fix you. Go on a chiropractors you had everything a lot of the time I can figure it out for you. And you're trying to figure it out for you because we've spent hours after hours after hours like nonstop pouring over this shit and we're you know uh we've changed a lot in in my opinion in this industry already and uh I look forward to doing more and just justifying the price point even further the more value we can put in to the hour you're with us and then the hours you're not with us then uh the happier I am yeah I totally agree so for the company standpoint you see us becoming even separatists even more to have the best service at that just doesn't exist anywhere else and I really think we've pulled away from everyone else done a great job of sure I wish we could do it even faster like we'll talk sometimes and we got like lofty expectations and dreams and it's like we can only get there one step at a time and we're planning for 10 steps ahead but we gotta we gotta get there.

SPEAKER_03:

So I'm gonna correlate that into you yourself as an individual where do you see Devin on a business and a personal side being in the next five or ten years.

SPEAKER_01:

Recently I dedicated myself to becoming just in my opinion the absolute best of father and husband and I sacrificed like personal things to do that. Like I would do anytime there was an overnight I would make sure like I'm at least volunteering for it and I'm taking over as much as I can and I'll make sure like I leave work and I'm just with my daughter nonstop and I'm doing as much as I can for that and I would like to as she gets older and things get a little bit easier get back into my personal fitness. I think it's kind of something sacrificed to be better at work and better at home but not better for myself. And I'm excited to be better for myself on a personal level. And then on a business level I would love to get like in ideal world right I'm training clients all the time but I would like to now slowly step away from that so I can make every other trainer that we have here provide a better experience. And then I'm helping instead of helping like 10 people a day I'm helping a hundred people a day because the 10 trainers that I just taught these things are able to provide that and that's a step that I'm looking forward to taking because I think it uh provides exponential growth instead of just like one person at a time.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah focusing on building growing a team so you can help hundreds and hundreds of people at scale. Yeah it's gonna make a big difference for me now when I'm helping dramatically more people in the day than I am now currently right so we always pitch that you need to prioritize your health even in all aspects of your life and you always need to put that first so five years from now if you're talking to Devin now how could you explain to yourself hey I know I need to be the best father for my daughter I know I need to care for the financial side of it but how do I prioritize my health because that's what I'm preaching.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the challenge I've had where I am a very obsessive personality so like when all I cared about was it was it was all I did.

SPEAKER_01:

Like I spent every hour doing that and that's what it was it was like my life and then adjusting like it is just a part of my life instead of my entire life has been hard for me. Like I just kind of put it to the side because right now my entire life is two things right it's working as my family instead of being even just one thing that it was in the past and then working another thing into the folder is uh not impossible obviously but I just need to carve out specific times. Like I need to uh when I have a moment of free time instead of just uh collecting myself and trying to enjoy it I should try to further and better myself which now you know I'm saying that it sounds horrible it's not impossible I just gotta do it.

SPEAKER_03:

So we tell everyone else carve out the time you gotta take care of yourself before you take care of other people.

SPEAKER_00:

Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap this up no I would like to mention back to something I mentioned earlier when I talked about changing yourself I would just like to reinframe as well 100% possible I wish I was happier.

SPEAKER_01:

I wish I was able to provide a better experience for my partner I wish I would I was able to be in better shape. You can do that you can do that it is not impossible. Peace is not found it is built love is not found it is built happiness is not found it is built you are not found you are built you just have to build yourself get out there take your first step and start building a better person I couldn't really couldn't said that better myself so appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03:

Devin thank you for coming on thing guys for this week's episode of Help to fitness redefined don't forget couple months we ran until next time and don't forget fitness is medicine.

SPEAKER_02:

Thanks y'all

Contributor

Anthony Amen

Host