Barbell Shrugged - 157- New Year's Resolutions: Do's and Don'ts

Episode Date: December 31, 2014

Happy New Year! This week on Barbell Shrugged, we're going to talk about goal setting. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. The real problem. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson and Chris Moore. We got CTP behind the camera. We are hanging out at a gym called Physical Culture 101, a.k.a. CrossFit Lucadia.

This place is cool, man. This gym is the shit. In Encinitas, California. They were gracious enough to let us come in and do some recording. I actually joined the gym and started working out here a little bit. It is legit. They have a really cool design going on here. It's an open gym.

It's a fun mix of old power building stuff. There's a leg press and some old equipment. And then the inside is a little CrossFit area. And the outside is all nice, well decorated. It's a good mix. Yeah. And they play good music. And then this cabinet right here, they have these old, awesome magazines.

We're pointing out from like 1930, physical culture, 25 cents. I want to read those because God only knows the cool information that's in those magazines. You know? It'd be awesome. Today we want to talk about setting goals, it being New Year's and all. There are tons of people out there making New Year's resolutions. I would say millions of people. I'm personally not a fan of it.

How many of those goals would just be complete shit? We're going to fix that. Yeah, man. I'm not a big fan of it because usually the types of things that people are wanting to achieve are probably a little outside of their reach. And then they set the same goal every year. Every year I want to lose 50 pounds, and then every year I'm disappointed. This will be the year it happens.

Yeah. So, yeah, we're going to talk a little bit about goal setting. Before we do, go to barbellstrug.com, sign up for the newsletter, and CTP will send you only the most epic of emails. Pressure's on you, bud. Yeah. So we've got a few points. Doug is actually

our goal-setting genius on the team. Dare I say it? Doug. I talk about goals a lot. You do. I rarely follow my own goals. Is that how it works?

Do as I say, not as I do. That's right. That's not necessarily true. What do you think the number one mistake people make when setting goals?

The biggest thing that I think where people go wrong is they set a goal that's actually outside of their control. And so where people go wrong is they set a goal that's actually outside of their control. And so what that means is they set a goal like lose 10 pounds. By the way, I say that Doug's our goal setting genius guy because he's the one that's in charge of setting up all the habits. Yeah, the programs. And the programs that we run. So anyways, just want to

throw that out there. Yeah. So we try to set goals that are within your control. So what that means is that we try to set behavior goals and not outcome goals. So lose 10 pounds is an outcome goal. You don't actually have control over whether you lose 10 pounds. You have control over the things that you do to hopefully lose 10 pounds. So if you train five days a week or if you eat 80% of your meals as a perfect paleo meal or you only have one cheat meal a week, those are things that are within your control. The losing of the weight in this example is not within your control. So, so point number one,

whenever you set a goal is that you want to set a goal that you actually have control over. So I'm going to advise you and suggest that you set a behavior goal as your new year's resolution goal, not an outcome goal. So squatting 400 pounds is an outcome goal, not a good goal to set. That's right. No. So let's say I want to squat 400 pounds. What is the. That's an outcome goal. Not a good goal to set. That's right. So let's say I want to squat 400 pounds. What is the goal I should set in that case? So easy goal would be, say you have found a program that is a squat

heavy program or whatever you want to say. Say you're falling 5-3-1. Do the 5-3-1 program. Make sure you hit at least three days per week following this program. Maybe you can miss one workout every two weeks or something like that. You have control over that. I think another you kind of alluded to a little bit too

is people biting off more than they can chew. Not only are they setting goals that are outside of their control, but they're setting goals that are kind of outlandish. It might be like, I'm going to show up to the gym. So they've been showing up to the gym on average twice a week in 2014. And in 2015, they're like, the behavior's not there

to start. They're like, I'm going to hit the gym five days a week every week of 2015. It's a big difference. Yeah. Like,

you don't realize how much of a swing that is in their behavior. Yeah, so if I've been showing up to the gym on average twice a week, what should I do there?

So I like to set goals that center around getting started with something. So rather than say, I'm going to work out five days a week for an hour I do there? So I like to set goals that center around getting started with something. So rather than say, I'm going to work out five days a week for an hour or something like that, I'm going to do the whole workout all six days a week. Like that's, that's a lofty goal and you could do a really good job and get in really good shape, but not hit that goal, right? You can work out four days a week for 60 minutes and, and, and do great. And your body would have no idea that you intended to work out five days a week. Yeah. Right. So I would rather you do something along the lines of if you're doing two days a week right now or

three days a week right now, say I'm going to do four days a week and I'm just going to go into the gym. Like I'm going to walk through the door four days a week. And if you don't do the whole workout, who cares? But more than likely, if you go to the gym, you're going to do something, you're gonna do something meaningful. And if you don't do the exact, the exact thing that you have written down, no big deal. Maybe you have to skip the to do something meaningful. And if you don't do the exact thing that you have written down, no big deal. Maybe you have to skip the last 10 minutes or you don't get your mobility work done or something like that.

But you're going to get more than you had last week if you're saying one more day per week you're going to walk through the gym door. Yeah, the acute little incidents don't matter much if the behavior is taking you there every week. I think my only point on that, Doug, I'd say, is people seem to really get focused on pushing intensely as quickly as possible and aggressively towards this new goal. Like, fuck it, I'm going to quit all or nothing.

Start like go hard, not thinking of what is the pace I can maintain, what is reasonable for me. Like then sticking that goal out far enough to where they can keep it up until it becomes a reality, which it will if you keep the pace. But pace is big. If you can't maintain five days a week, you know that up front. It immediately feels like a struggle. You kind of overshot the pace question. And even though we already kind of addressed the behavior versus outcome goal, sometimes people do set that goal, like I want to squat this amount of weight.

And they feel good one week, and they make this huge jump. They're like, oh, I'm going to add 20 pounds in my squat this week. In reality, especially if you're following something like 5-3-1, it's heavily suggested. Any coach that writes a program that's worth their salt, you know, that's been doing it for a long time will suggest just add five pounds this week.

Even if you pop out of the bottom really fast. Just because you can't doesn't mean you should. I'd say most of the goals I've ever kind of set that were outcome-based, I've achieved them in like the first quarter say most of the goals I've ever kind of set that were outcome-based, I've achieved them in like the first quarter to third of the year. It was by March to April I had accomplished it because I make it achievable. Yeah, as far as your own personal happiness goes,

if you set a series of small goals and you hit all of them, maybe you surpass all of them, you are going to be much happier with your progress than if you just say, okay, this year I'm going to, we're talking about outcome goals just for a second, say I squat 400 and I want to squat 450. I'm going to say by the end of the year I'm going to squat 450. You only have one opportunity that year to be happy. Really.

You know what I mean? Rather than say, okay, in the next six weeks I want to squat 405. And then if you hit it, maybe you try to max after six weeks, you need to get 410, 415. Well, fuck yeah. You go tell all your friends, like, I was trying to hit 405 and I got 410. 415. Well, fuck yeah. You go tell all your friends, I was trying to hit 405, and I got 410. And they're like, fuck yeah. High fives all around, right? Then you just do that over and over and over again.

Yeah, and I mention that because it's almost impossible not to have outcome goals. Yeah, you have an outcome goal. It's in your head. But then you set behavior goals to lead you to the outcome goal is really what you're doing another point i always hated about um setting a specific number goal is that if if i if i got to it and i got so successful i would always be led to want more of it or if i set a hard number uh it would act like a barrier like i got closer to it and because i felt like this is the thing i said i was gonna do i'm getting closer that it almost acts like a barrier That if I focused on just the habits and the rhythm and getting together with a stronger group of people and just building the repetition, getting in the flow of just being a strong

person, I usually just blow past those goals. Like, setting a specific goal sometimes over behavior is kind of a limiting force. At least in my past, it was. Like, the hard number is a hard threshold. Yeah, the other really interesting thing about outcome goals versus behavior goals is if you tell all your friends about your behavior goal, I'm going to go to the gym four days per week or something like that, or four days each and every week. I'm just going to walk through the door. Well, now all your friends have the opportunity to help you with that goal.

They can ask you about that goal. They can hold you accountable for that goal. Hey, buddy, still going to the gym? Yeah, you've been going to the gym four days a week? Oh, really? Why not? Oh, you don't even have a ride? I'll give you a ride or whatever, right?

And then the other interesting thing about outcome goals is, this was a really good TED Talk by Derek Seavers, the guy that started CD Baby. He, I think it was him, he talked about how, yeah, Google this and go watch it on TED. He always does really short talks. It's probably like a four-minute talk. He says the really interesting counterintuitive thing

about outcome goals is if I tell you, hey man, my fucking goal this year is to squat 450. And you go, whoa, no way, really? Bam, I just got satisfaction, recognition, and approval. It's like I already did it. I already got that acceptance for this thing that I haven't even done yet. And it actually demotivates me because I already got that. You already got that feeling you were going for. Yeah, you're trying to squat 450 for a whole lot of reasons, but one reason that is undeniable with everyone is you want someone to go, whoa, that's awesome.

Man, that's incredible. You really only sing out loud because you want approval or you want attention. That's really why you're fucking marketing. Maybe, but I've also known people that have, AJ Roberts is a really good example of this. He talked about, he had an outcome goal of being able to squat, first guy to squat over 1,200.

And he said – Your friends go, what? He said the moment he racked 1,205, the moment he got off the bar, he immediately was done. He couldn't even finish the meet with enthusiasm because the happiness lasted only a few seconds, and they moved on. And that wasn't a behavior goal. If you think you've hang all your hopes on a specific outcome when you get it, you might be really disappointed in it. Versus if you say, I'm going to do this, your friends can't really always

identify with, like you say you want to bench 400. They go, oh, wow, okay. But they won't hold you accountable. Like you say, I need your help, help me keep these habits up. It's an abstract idea for some people too, you know. Yeah, they're like, oh, you're not a 400 yet? Well, good luck. Cool.

What are they going to do? It seems excessive. They might say, oh, okay. Good luck with that. Yeah. Another thing people have trouble with is when they kind of, like, say they do have a behavior goal and go, I'm going to go to gym three days a week. They didn't make it all three days this week. And now, like, a lot of times people just want to throw in the towel after that.

I see people, sometimes in in our programs, they go, oh, I missed a whole week. I got sick or I went on vacation. I didn't get to train like I thought I was going to get to train. And it's like the motivation to restart is like the toughest thing. Do you guys have any advice for that? First thing I would say is you got to learn how that happened. It was outside of your control getting sick or like if you get

slammed at work and then one week of effort got displaced, you got to say, okay, well, let me back up just a little bit, not just jump back where I was and then just restart reasonably. Just starting again, backing up a little bit and starting again. That little acute event, even if it's a week, doesn't matter much over the course of a month, three months, a year.

It was just one thing, your body. Plus, a lot of people, if they had a tough week, it might be just what you need sometimes, a little bit of rest, enforced rest. If you just back up and resume, it's fine. I know a week feels like such a big deal in such a long period of time because we got 52 of them in a year. And so, you know, it's, what, 2% of the whole year. Yeah, the one thing, one event that didn't matter at all really. And a lot of times people have like weight loss goals or weight gain goals.

And, you know, if you miss one week and say you're on track losing one pound a week or something like that, you know, a lot of people say they have a weight loss goal. If you lost one pound a week for 52 weeks, that's 52 pounds in a year. That's a lot of weight to lose. That is incredible. Most people listening to this probably don't have 52 pounds to lose, right? And if you missed a week, big deal.

Yeah. Like just lose 51 instead of 52. Don't let that one pound discourage you. Or the moment of weakness, you went down the street here and you bought 15 shrimp and beef tacos and you're crushing me. You feel like a fatty. Well, you can get on from this acute event.

It's just one thing. Learn your lesson. Get the habit back. You'll be fine. You got to have a short memory. By the way, these tacos are fucking great down here. Bull taco. Bull taco.

This is fantastic. There will be many more trips trips down chris is visiting encinitas for the first time his mind has been blown any place where there's just taco shacks every mile or so is like a utopia is it not i mean is there one meal you if i said three meals a day for the rest of your life tacos you'd be like fine i'll be honest i'll be honest i have a hard time not getting tacos more frequently than I probably should that's my resolution this year

more tacos it's got a behavior goal I've fallen in love with the SBC the shrimp bacon and chorizo with cabbage taco

it's fantastic man go to Bull Taco and get the SBC tell them Doug sent you they don't know who I am but tell them anyway and just so everybody knows there are a lot of regulars

going in there I got a feeling. The California has tater tots on it, and it was fucking worth it. Tater tots on the taco. It was so worth it, dude. I saw that. I was like, there's a thing. I could go there for 10 years, once a week for 10 years,

and I would never dream of ordering anything with tater tots on it. That's this one, you and me. You don't take risks. Your first time. I don't even see that on the menu. I'm just like, tater tots discounted. I go, oh, tater tots. That's unique when you and me, you don't take risks. I don't even see that on the menu. I just like tater tots discounted. I go, Oh, that's the first time ever taking a risk. That's the thing about goals. You gotta learn to take risks. Sometimes the number one New Year's goal of all time is to lose weight. And we're talking about tater tot tacos. Uh, the other thing I want to

talk about is, uh, progress. You know, a lot of times people are making progress and before they can even, it's like they're making progress, but they already want to start getting more aggressive for some reason. Change the program. It's like, it's like they're doing a program and they're getting,

they're adding five pounds of their squat a month or a week. Yeah, which is insane. Which is, yeah, which is insane. Yeah, which is insane. Trust me, at some point, that shit's going to stop. But then they're making progress, and then they're looking for things to change already.

It's like, so did you make progress? And it's like, all right, then just keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, identify what works, then keep doing it. It sounds so simple. I was at CTP, actually, actually made the recommendation the other day. We were talking about a shiny object syndrome and he was like, you know what? We should probably just tell people to go for it. Look where shiny object syndrome means.

We're promoting shiny object syndrome. Yeah. I mean, we, we've. In a way, I think there's an argument for that because we tell people all the time, don't have shiny objects, object syndrome and stick to one thing. But in many, many ways, most people I know that are very successful they did have shiny objects syndrome for a long a long time and they tried lots of things and because they tried lots of things they learned lots of things and that was a big key to their success so that's a good point in

in a way in the beginning you you do need to try lots of things but you should try lots of things for a chunk of time don Don't try for two weeks. Set some boundaries. Realize it's working really well. Realize that it's amazing and then stop doing it. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, get on that wave and ride it until it stops working and then go try something else.

I feel like people don't do that sometimes just because they're bored but it's working still. Yeah, on the daily side if you type in the power of 531 you'll search it. We posted a story we got from a fan that I thought compelled to put up because it's basically that. Man, I had got into training.

I had skipped around a bunch. I tried to compete at regionals and stuff. I was super frustrated. I finally said, fuck it. I'm just going to take these dudes' advice, the dudes being us, the three gentlemen around this computer. It is shocking that people follow our advice

around the world. He listened to our Strength Progression podcast and then our 531 episode we did with Jim that was been last Christmas season or just after Christmas

that episode one or 98 maybe or 97. It's in there. Search it. Yeah, but he said, basically, I learned the lesson

I've looked at. Pick a program that makes sense. Stick with it. Be patient. He said, he like fucking went far beyond his wildest dream of a strength goal.

Like the guy went like 100 pounds beyond all lifts just because he said, fuck it, I'm just going to be consistent. Stick with it and be patient. He said got these five-pound jumps at a time, and he got lost in the rhythm of training. He said, look, I'll stick to it. I'll do what the fucking program says do. And he had this massively amazing result.

And now he's looking at going to these big time regional competitions. They're doing well. That was never even part of the agenda. The power of patience and progression and the cumulative work ethic is fucking huge. But I do agree. You've got to fuck up a little bit and go, okay, this is not working. What's the better thing?

And then discover and appreciate the power of patience and progression. Whether you really truly stick to one thing for a long time or you switch around from one thing to another, this is not working. What's the better thing? And then discover and appreciate the power of patience and progression. Yeah. Whether you really truly stick to one thing for a long time or you switch around from one thing to another, you can't really argue that being incredibly consistent across many weeks, many months, many years or decades in a row really is the key to your long-term results.

And when I was talking to James Clear a little while back, we were talking about, I can hear the whispers in the background. He was basically saying that the number one thing that he recommends for people, or at least one thing he recommends for people is to, um, regarding consistency is to change the scope, but stick to the schedule. So if you're going to work out for five days per week, then if something comes up and now you can't do your whole workout, don't be like, well, I mean, I could go to the gym, but I'm only going to be there for like 20 minutes. Well, I'll just skip it today because skipping is so much worse than just doing 20

minutes of something. Even if you can't go to the gym, you still said you were going to work out that day. So you should go home and do 10 minutes of burpees just so you still worked out that day. Even if you were supposed to do a one RM squat and you ended up doing burpees drastically different, you should still stick to the schedule.

I've seen a lot of benefit just from i mean uh being physical like when i can't train hard but still getting out and doing physical activity just going for a walk on the beach like going for a light swim or something like that i mean you've encountered that recently where like you know even if you're not going out there and just crushing it with a lot of intensity just frequency and i have i have some like coaches out there and just crushing it with a lot of intensity, just frequency. And I have, I have some like coaches out there that fucking hate it. When I say this,

that like they go, what's the most important thing? They're like, I'm like, no, I don't think so. I really think it's frequency. Like if I get in there and do something at moderate pace,

two to three times a day, I'm going to be in over overall better condition over a longer period of time than the guy who like goes in once a day, I'm going to be in overall better condition over a longer period of time than the guy who goes in once a day, four or five days a week, and just goes balls deep every time. Yeah, the more you spread things out, like if there's an amount of work you're going to do in a day, the more you can spread it out and do it at a higher quality with less fatigue and less skin. You get a better result, and you can keep that up more often. Yeah, more frequently, you can do less up more often. More frequently, you can

do less volume per session that way too, which means you can approach it with more intensity with high quality movement. You can look at the Bulgarians and that fact. They would train for half an hour every hour on the hour for eight hours that day or something like that.

They were splitting it up. The frequency was part of the magic there. They weren't training two hours super hard and then just sitting at a desk sedentary the rest of the day yeah i remember and it goes into like just doing something is a lot of times way better like you were saying like when we were really competing heavy and power things go back to that point about doing something like i would lead the group training and dude if you if you fucking like missed a session and you said well you know it's just that near like i would lead the group training and dude if you if you fucking like missed a session and you said well you know it's just that near like i fucking wanted you gone because like that once it was okay to fucking quit a session then it would be much easier for you and now everybody

else saw that well if i got busy i could fucking skip but there can't be any room even if you come in just for a few minutes to get a stimulus that means you won't get any weaker if you all you had time for was five minutes of barbell just do that you won't get any weaker. If all you had time for was five minutes of barbell, just do that. You won't get any weaker. You did something. And you didn't admit to yourself it's okay to fucking quit. That's what you fucking did if you skipped the workout. It's okay if I don't do this work. It's not okay if you don't do it. You said you're going to fucking do the work,

do the work. Yeah, you got to train with a team that's going to keep you accountable. That accountability I don't know. I think having a team you train with accountability, if your goal is fitness, then I don't think anything can beat that. It think having a team you train with accountability, if your goal is fitness, then I don't think anything can beat that. It's having a real team. Not a group of people you work out with.

If your kid gets sick or something serious happens, obviously there's priorities. So I think, well, let's get into this. Let's take a break, and then we're going to talk about how to set those goals. I want to get into the team thing a little bit. And we can also talk about different types of goals to set. Not just training goals.

Not just training goals, It may not be fitness. Not just training goals, but things that make you better at training. This is Andrea Ager, and you're listening to Barbell Shrug. For the video version, go to barbellshrug.com. Barbell Shrug is brought to you by you. To learn more about how you can support the show, go to barbellshrug.com and sign up for the newsletter. Three, two, one, go.

And we're back. Goal setting extravaganza. Oh, don't get too dizzy, folks. I want to wrap up one point real quick about what we were saying right before the break. Something kind of unrelated, but now I fucking forgot what it is. Oh, man!

We'll make this up man I was going to say I think the no matter what your goal is the best thing you can do is surround yourself with people that have a very similar goal and like build a team effort around it not like I said not around like not a group of people you work

out with but like a real team like alright we're all going to get in this together the 12 of us or something like that. And there's going to be a group text message or a Facebook page or something where like there's interaction going on, even if we don't see each other face to face that day. I think that's, to me, I think that would be the most, the thing that would motivate me the most is the team aspect of it. You know the point about that?

You remind me of a point I put into our goal a few, I guess now a few months ago, if I'm projecting backwards. But I thought it was important. You want to really maximize the pace at which you can achieve a goal, and people around you are incredibly important, like accountability and all that.

But I also thought, just like in this situation, we complement each other, and that's why we strengthen each other. I thought, if you really want to make a goal real. You wouldn't just surround yourself with people, but you might be very keen on surrounding yourself with people who are very good at what you aren't good at. I think they'll help really kickstart changes within you. Like the same way in a business partnership, if you're scatterbrained, you want somebody who's not,

and that way you come together and your forces unite to be something like one plus one equals three. I think in a training situation, that's also probably a really awesome thing. If you fucking suck on accountability, something really time-oriented, like, no, we've got to be there. It's 12-on-one. We said 12. Something like that would really be helpful. And if you're real like this, having somebody who's like, we've got to try something new, that could also be helpful. A complimentary set of training partners is a really cool little hack that somebody could probably put into practice pretty quick to accelerate the pace, you know, get more out of their training.

I like your use of the word hack there. If I say hack, people will listen. He said hack. Is it on blog? So here, actually, I remember what I was going to say. Finally. Good job, Doug. We always suggest, you know know doing something over nothing and

i always use the example of burpees or going for a jog or you know going surfing or doing something physically active but if you're a powerlifter or a pure weightlifter and you're thinking like well fuck i don't want to go for a jog like that's not really going to help me or you don't believe that's going to help you for whatever reason and it very well may not help you if you're a high level weightlifter powerlifter a pure strength athlete or whatnot, you still can. You probably don't have a problem with goal setting. Yeah, maybe not. You still can since we're sticking to the schedule, but we're changing the scope a little bit. If you can only do 20 minutes as opposed to the whole workout,

you still can do something that is relatively similar to what your sport or your activity was going to be. So if you're going to do a bunch of cleans or snatches, you can now do max height vertical jumps. You don't have to go for a jog. You can run a full speed sprint. You don't have to do a bunch of burpees. You can do something that's going to help your original goal without doing some type of just boring cardio because you have nothing else to do.

If you spend the afternoon jumping with max effort because you're in a hotel room, that's all you can do because you're on the road, guess what? When you get home, you're going to be just fine when you lift with max effort. That's a strong training stimulus. Plyos and single leg plyos did wonders for my weightlifting. Get in a hotel room, do

push-ups and handstand holds and then jumps and bounds. You'd be fucking great. Handstand holds have been great for my... A lot of handstand progression stuff has been great for my weightlifting, my overhead work. You can always find something that's going to help you, even if you don't have the typical tools at your fingertips, as Doug is suggesting. Also, we were kind of discussing, we wanted to touch on this.

Even though this is a fitness podcast, much of you are going to hate us for this, probably not. We'll say up front that if you do this stuff, you'll get better at training. Now I'm setting people up for whatever. I'm going to bring it up, even though this was Doug's point when we were talking about what we might talk about. I'm stealing it. Is there three things that people should probably set goals up for

that's health, wealth, and relationships? Yeah, that's the big three mega niches in the self-help world. People tend to want to get in better shape. They tend to want to make more money,. They tend to want to make more money, and they tend to want to have better relationships with their spouse or their friends, or they want to find a girlfriend, or they want something to fulfill their personal life. I want to make a note of this, too. K-12 education in the United States does not address any of these things at all.

They may have a health class, but it's not really about health. It's about avoiding sickness. It tends to be what people want to learn the most about. If you actually measure the amount of money people spend on self-help type books. Right.

That's why there's these huge markets for adults afterwards. It's like, all right, now I'm an adult. Now I have to learn how to be a healthy adult. Money, health, and not screw up my relationships

because the people you learn from are just the people you watch. Sometimes they don't know what's going on. The foundation comes last, doesn't it? Yeah, the foundation is coming last. Anyways. It seems like that. But yeah, I mean, if you watch the show,

obviously you're interested in your health and more than likely, if you're really interested in your health and you enjoy working out and you like CrossFit and you follow people like us, then I'm going to suggest that your health may or may not, may not be your biggest problem, right? Because you focus on it because you enjoy it. So what other areas of your life do you need to work on that are going to bring more happiness and fulfillment to your, to your life as a whole?

And then as a result, hopefully can help you train harder and train more frequently. And then you can get more, get better results for your fitness, your health, and your strength. This is all a link. They can't separate one part of your life from the other. That's a big mistake you just made, right? I've seen this happen with the highest level athletes. They're so focused on athletics and then they've got their eye on just that

and their relationships and money are just kind of like, they just do whatever it takes to get by in those things. They incur an injury. They have to pull back on on training for some reason and then their whole status as an athlete kind of starts to fade yeah and then they realize then what do you have yeah they realize my relationships aren't great or you know they could be better you know maybe i just been maybe not not great but just you know there's been some neglect there and then on the money side of things is it's like I've been getting by. I knew, and I think nobody is, I don't think it surprises the athlete.

They're like, yeah, because when you go that deep into something, you know you're making these sacrifices as you go. But sometimes they pull back and they kind of shore up those things that they were not as strong in. And now, like training becomes much more productive and efficient. Well, people don't realize, man, in terms of the cumulative effect of the stress, that is if your relationships are going sour or your job is not what you want or you don't feel like you're moving forward in those areas of your life. Like, how many times I've seen guys come in, like, guys I train with, you probably, we both, all of us can probably identify some story

because somebody's like, man, I have a shitty workout, man, I'm just, and they start beating themselves up over the fact that the training's

not going well or they didn't do well at competition. If you dig and scratch a little bit, you know, they're fucking slammed at work,

they're fighting with their girlfriend, girlfriend cheated on them, but whatever the fuck happened. Yeah, and they can't sleep because of it. And they act like

that's not even something that should affect the way they train. It's not fucking important. Yeah, that's happening, but this is a gym. It's fucking linked, man. If you go home when you should be rejuvenating and resting and telling somebody you love,

hey, man, this is what happened to me today. Oh, it'll be okay. If you don't get support and rejuvenation and a good meal and rest and recovery at home, you cannot fucking be optimized out in the world. How could you possibly be your best self? You can't. How? How could it be? If you're stressed about How could you possibly be your best self? You can't. How? How could it be?

If you're stressed about money, you're not going to be able, I mean, I've been there before. I'm training and I'm like, jeez, how am I going to pay rent? You know,

stuff like that. Yeah, especially the thickest of days back in CrossFit Memphis, right, was just starting. Some days are a little bit dark. How are we going to pay rent for the gym we're in right now?

It's okay when you're like 20 and you're broke as fuck. That's just the way it is because you're a college student. But, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people who are trying to make it in CrossFit and powerlifting, weightlifting, what have you. Yeah. You name the sport. But if you're struggling to make ends meet or there's no – you can't see what you'll be doing with your life two years down the road. I mean, this is all not the best situation. How can your life be optimized

if it's so out of balance? So Doug, how do we get this in balance? What's your suggestion? I mean, the older I get, the more I want. You should say, well, fuck if I know. Yeah, how am I supposed to know? He's the one that was like,

before the show, he's like, we should talk about that. I was like, we're all like, yeah, we should. Not fix it, just talk about it. I was like, we should talk about it. Doug, you should we're all like, yeah, we should. I was like, we should talk about it. Doug, you should probably

have some sayings to say about this. Okay, sure, I have a lot to say about it. So yeah, the older I get, the more I want to be around

people that really have their shit together. And basically, what I'm looking for is someone that has their health together. They're making good money, but more importantly,

they're taking the money they have and they're using it usefully. And they're not just totally blowing it like an immature child, right? And then they have good relationships.

Sailboats. Sailboats. Boats are the best. What do they say about boats? The best day, the two best days of your life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

Don't fucking buy a boat. Don't buy a boat unless you're like a really rare boat person. We got $5 billion. You just don't fucking care. That's right. Well, that's actually the point I'm going to make. So an expression in business

is that you can never save yourself in a profitability. And that basically means that saving money is never going to make you successful I'm going to make. So an expression in business is that you can never save yourself into profitability. And that basically means that saving money is never going to make you successful. You have to make more money. And I think that's kind of the downfall of most personal finance advice is they're like, all right, you got to set a budget and you got to put away 10% of your income and you got to do all this stuff. And that's true.

You should do that also. But if you neglect the try to make more money somehow part, then you're never really going to have any, any substantial wealth, right? So a lot of people that make $35,000 a year, they don't have enough money for anything. Well, I mean, you could just neglect buying that, that coffee that's, that costs you $3 every single day. And if it costs you $3 every single day, and that costs you like, you know, $84 a month or whatever it costs you, well, who gives a shit? It's $80 a month. When you probably could find something that could make you a thousand extra dollars a month. You could, you could come up with something. If you have a job where your, where your salary is

capped, well, maybe you should go talk to your boss and figure out a way where if you can make the company more money, then you can, you can get a bump in your salary. You got to say, how can I contribute more value, sir, madam, so I can get more. I mean, most people, I think the area in your job is most people just don't say what they want. Like, here's what I need in my life.

Yeah. I asked my ideas about how I can contribute more value. Do you think we could make something work? I mean, most people, no one's just going to fucking, if you work hard every day at your job, as hard as you can.

Great. Good for you. But then if you, if you can't expect things to return, if you never say, hey, here's the new things I'd like to try. Here's some new things I think you can push us forward, save us money.

Here are my needs. How can we get there? If you don't tell your manager, he doesn't fucking know. He doesn't know what your needs are. Yeah, other expressions in the business world is you don't get what you deserve. You get what you can negotiate, right?

And so you only deserve more money when you make more money. You don't deserve more money for working hard. That's the mentality that you've been given throughout school and as an employee. Gene Simmons wrote his book, Me Inc. It's pretty cool. It's fun. There's a lot of good information

in that book. He says, you get paid for what you fucking do. That's a beautiful comic. You get paid for what you do. If you don't feel like you're getting paid enough, what are you doing that's causing you not to get paid enough? Are you just not saying what you want? Are you just not actually contributing as much value as you think you are?

That's advice coming from an entrepreneur who makes his own money. Whereas if you're an employee, it's a totally different story. No, but you're sitting back and you're just expecting without thinking about how you can contribute more value. Even if you have a job, you need to do something to trigger an action. But if you had a job, you can work harder, but then you also have to be in the, in communication about negotiating something higher. You got to, you got to have that meeting.

You got to reach out. Yep. So the answer again is you should have a budget and you should not blow your money on stupid shit and you should have some type of emergency fund and backup money if anything ever happens to happen to you but but really making more money should be the goal in some capacity so i don't say i have like a new year's resolution goal to give you but that's the mindset around forming that goal is how can i make some extra money this year not that i need to convince anyone that they need extra money everyone wants extra money but but i think it's extra money this year. Not that I need to convince anyone that they need extra money. Everyone wants extra money, but, but I think it's extra money. Yeah, it is more money than last

year. So, so the framework for this or the mindset for this is go into next year, not trying to save more money, but trying to make more money. And then, you know, you can still save it, but making more really is the point. The most important thing you could probably do is not necessarily finding the perfect way of doing that, but changing the mindset to say, I need to look for opportunities. Things I'm uniquely qualified to do that I could take and make.

Just like $100 at first. It doesn't matter. Write a little book, make crafts, bake cookies, like my wife does a little bit on the side. Anything that you enjoy doing, doesn't seem particularly hard, people value. Anything people say, man, you really do good at that. You could probably take that and make a little bit on the side like anything that you enjoy doing doesn't seem particularly hard people value like anything people say man you really do good at that you could probably take that and make a little thing out of it get some success talk it up maybe blog about it in time it can grow to something but at least if you're looking for opportunities to how

you can create value yeah and with the whole money wealth thing it's it's again uh not it's a behavior goals you want to set. So I don't know. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. A behavior goal, because the way I do things is a little different than most probably. You're a little bit eccentric. Yeah. Yeah. But go ahead.

So as an example, in many companies, salesmen often make as much or much as the CEO in some cases. Right. Not in every case. And if you're a tech company and you're making hundreds of millions of dollars, you don't need, you don't need any salesmen that are making like hundreds of millions of dollars, like the CEO might, but in a lot of companies that really is the way it is that the salespeople that are on commission, um, they have control over the amount of money they're making. And so they can make as

much money as they want. If they can go out and sell more stuff, they get a chunk of that money. So if you can put yourself in a situation where you can earn some amount of commission, or you can sell something that you a hundred percent own, you know, I mean the fucking lowest level examples, like throw a garage sale. Like if you can sell stuff, you get money for selling stuff, right? You don't need to just like try to rely on a garage sale specifically, but, but putting yourself in a position where you actually have the ability to control the income you get by usually selling something is a really good idea. A lot of people are,

are afraid to do that because that's kind of a scary thing to do off the bat. And, and just like fitness, there's a whole learning curve that goes into that. People were never taught how to sell. yeah. Most people, it's like a dirty word even.

Well, most people's associate association with selling is the only sales they remember is when it goes horribly wrong and they have a really bad experience every time they buy something that's a really good experience they don't they don't they don't perceive that they got sold something right it's almost like it didn't even happen it's like an unpowered baseball game he does a really good job he wasn't even there but if there's a bad job then then now you recognize he's there and you hate him that asshole yeah i was the same kind of thing i think the my favorite way of explaining good sales is it's just good advice.

If you give good advice, someone needs something, say hey. I mean, people sell things. What's the book called? I forget. It's called Spin Selling.

Ah, man. Is that one of those sales books that's more like conscious selling? Start with Y. I think it talks about

what spin selling might be. Start with Y. It just talks about like, or, there's like all these books talking about what you're talking about. It's a Daniel Pink book. Oh, To Sell is Human what's a daniel pink it's a daniel pink book oh to sell as human to sell as human he starts it off with like everyone sells all the time and it may not be for monetary value

but it's like just giving advice like i sell people i like i sold you guys i'm moving to california like yeah it wasn't making a suggestion you want me to follow it. I was like, oh, these are all the good things about it. I set up all, these are the features and the benefits and so on and so forth. Beach and tacos.

You should have seen him. He was like, you want to move to California? We were like, yeah. And he was like, done. It was so hard.

I know. Greatest salesman. Got a good product. But that's a good example. Like, you know, if you're trying to date somebody and they're not sure about you.

Yeah, you're selling yourself. You're selling yourself, you know? It you're trying to date somebody and they're not sure about you. Yeah, you're selling yourself. You're selling yourself, you know. It sounds silly, but it helps to demystify, defang this intimidating process of having, like, be this master, you know, scheming businessman that's going to manipulate people in order to pull money out. Like, that's not what you have to do. Even in our gym, we've given the suggestion that like if somebody is looking for something that they need and they think they're going to find it in our facility,

but it's obvious to the coach or the salesperson like this is not the right place, just sell them on someone else's stuff. That's okay.

Yeah. They may need to be sold, you know, you know, chiropractic stuff or something. It's like, this is not the place for that.

Sell them on somebody else. People will sometimes go, but they're not buying shit from me. But the point is, if you give to them and they go off saying, hey, thanks, and they have a result, they come back to you in the future and they'll buy other things from you. They'll contribute value in other ways. The more you can give, like, you can want more shit. Like, I want this resolution.

Give me, give me, give me. It could be your best thing you could do is set a resolution. give like is a hit you can want more shit like i want this resolution give me give me give me it could be your best thing you could do is set a resolution topic maybe i'm just gonna volunteer more give give give me that creates so many new opportunities for you in the year that you just fucking get overwhelmed with how your life could change for the better reciprocation like the most powerful phenomenon that mammals experience i scratch your back if i need help you're gonna feel like a real asshole if you don't help me. The giving helps create opportunities. If you give, give, give, it's easy then to sell because people now feel like they owe you.

I got to help you. You help me some. It helps. Yeah, it helps. So big picture, try to set some goal around money and wealth. We went way down the rabbit hole there. We did, didn't we? Sorry, guys.

So try to make some more money somehow. And then number three, out of health, wealth, and now relationships. So try to set some type of behavior-based goal around strengthening some of your higher quality relationships and or not letting some relationships that, or a particular relationship that you used to value and that was a really big part of your life, dwindle away. You know, an easy example for us, we just moved to California. We have many, many friends back in Memphis, Tennessee. It'd be really easy to be really busy all the time and let those relationships kind of fade away.

So this actually is my goal. My goal right now is to, whenever I drive and it's more than a 15-minute drive, I call somebody. I don't just listen to an audio book or, um, or whatever, um, which I typically do. I'm sacrificing my future today. You're going to get dumped. I'm sacrificing my future intelligence to, to maintain some relationships. So anytime I drive and I'm by myself and as long as 15 minutes, then I, I try to call somebody, um, either, you know, from Memphis or a family member of mine, or, or even just friends from back in, like in, in college in Oregon,

trying to maintain those old relationships so they don't needlessly dwindle away and die. Yeah. This one seems easier than the money one on setting a goal. I don't know. Some people are really tight about reaching out and contacting people. But my goal, for me, I can think of a dozen behavior goals. One is like, for me, is like when I sit down and eat food, a behavior goal would be like no electronics.

It's like no TV is on. iPhones are away and put on do not disturb. They're not ringing. You sit there and you have a meal with your wife and your kids or your your you know uh your family or whatever and that one like that i think that would enhance i mean my wife and i have done that like sometimes we still like we'll be at a restaurant or something just cross over and we'll just be like staring at the other one while they're on their phone yeah like what are you doing and you're like oh shit sorry i broke the rule like yeah like one date per week where you

both leave your phone at home would be a phenomenal date compared to most dates where you're on your phone the whole time yeah I think if people left their phone in the car when they went in for a meal

they'd be surprised at how much they'll talk about that they would normally be on Instagram and I love Evan's goal of like when it's time to sleep

the sleep ritual begins and no phone is going to be allowed in the bedroom in the bedroom where the sleeping happens. But that's a behavior goal that has a direct profound impact on the relationship goal. If you have time to just honestly just communicate and unwind with the person you need to communicate with the most, getting that shit out of the way is going to be the easiest way of enforcing a higher quality of exchange.

For sure. So wrap it all up. You should set one behavior goal for fitness, one for money, and one for relationships. Make them reasonable. Be patient and cumulative in your efforts. Fucking stick with it. If you have to just do a little bit instead of the whole thing, that's okay. The next time you might get the whole thing done, or you will, and it'll be fine.

You don't have to freak out about it. Should they tweet us their goals and hashtag barbell goal i want to i want to see what your goals are barbell goal hashtag dare i say what's my goal i just told my goal my goal we'll also compile those and we'll make sure if you if you hashtag barbell goal now you tweet at us we will answer you if you have if we can help you we will all right well if we can tweet you some help i'll do if we get a thousand people i'll fucking sit there all night and do it i'll do i'll commit to it i like chris will contact you that's my role you might get it by the end of it you might get some two words that can't help you sorry

tweet uh my goal this year uh the biggest thing, the fucking number one thing, especially after Kirk partially scared the shit out of me over the sleep, enforced sleep ritual is like one of the biggest things for relationships and also my physical well-being. That's going to allow me to then build the foundation back to then pursue training this year with real intent. I have a goal by summer or October of being able to put up a big total maybe of a palatine meet. I want to get back strong and I want to get back fit,

kind of like in my peak football shape. I'm going to see what I can do to do it. I'm kind of reinventing myself. Going to tear it all down, rebuild the foundation, go right back up again. So the behavior goal for that is what? The behavior goal is the daily small rituals actually. It's back four days in the gym, in the actual gym, not necessarily my garage gym.

Back amongst people, training hard, but also there's the small things like the nightly rituals. So it's the small behaviors every day that are going to take me to that October goal. Cool. That's where I'm going. Now it's on record. I'll be the asshole if I don't do it. My fitness and relationship goal. Actually, my money goal.

More masturbation in 2015. My fitness and relationship goal. Actually, my money goal all goes into one thing, is to travel less in 2015 than I did in 2014. Do you think that's also a good goal? It's like not necessarily going for more, but maybe peeling things away from your life. That's a good goal, too. Well, yeah. I mean, that's exactly what it is.

Yeah. Travel less in 2015 than 2014. I'll get more sleep at home in bed. I'll be able to hit the gym more frequently. I'll have more time with my wife. And more time to surf. And then also have more time to just work on the business. And being on the road, it makes that really difficult.

It sure as fuck does. Word. Podcasts. Nailed. I was going to say nailed. Podcasts nailed. Quickly. I was going to say nailed. Podcast nailed. Quickly, we have a few minutes left. I'm just going to stick with the one that I already said.

For me, the biggest one for me, fitness is more or less handled. That's kind of all automatic. I could always get better at it. He's the fittest dude he knows. I'm going to train always. I'm going to eat healthy always and automatically. That's not like a big thing for me. Like it's, it's handled.

It could always be better, but I'm not going to worry about it for the most part. There are no Cheetos in Doug's house right now. I can attest to that. There are no Cheetos in my house. There probably never will be. And so the big thing for me really is, is I tend to get really busy and I, and I tend to want to want to just fucking work and grind all the time. And so relationships are the, are the big one for me. Keeping in contact with friends back in Memphis,

with talking to my family more often than I do right now, just calling people from my past or even just people that are around, but I just haven't talked to them in, say, even a week. Just reconnecting frequently. It doesn't have to be like, well, I haven't talked to you in six months or a year or ten years before I have to call them. You know, I don't ever want to get to that point with some people that I really care about. Maybe I just call them, you know, weekly or monthly.

That way I don't spiral down that path. So I'm going to use the 15-minute drive thing to call people. I'm going to listen to podcasts and audio books just a little bit less. Awesome. There you go. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Both of you.

Yes. This was a very productive meeting we had. Thanks for joining us. Happy New Year's and good luck on your... Start the resolutions tomorrow. Resolutions, yeah.

Get fucked up tonight a little bit. Have a good time. Yeah. You made it another year. You survived. Tweet, Instagram. Barbell goal. Barbell goal.

Barbell goal. Tell us what you plan on doing. We'd love to hear it. We'll get some interaction. Yeah. Later, guys. Cheers.