Barbell Shrugged - Building a Nutrition Coaching Business in 2024 w/ Jason Phillips, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash #728

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Jason Phillips is the founder and CEO of Nutritional Coaching Institute. NCI’s mission is to empower and inspire a global community of health and wellness enthusiasts, with the goal of positively impacting the lives of 1 billion people. They are dedicated to equipping nutritional coaches with cutting-edge knowledge and resources to transform lives through optimal nutrition and holistic well-being. Drawing upon their extensive expertise amassed over the years, they have become renowned for their exceptional certifications and evidence-based approaches in the field of nutrition. By fostering a culture of scientific rigor and innovative learning methods, they strive to provide world-class training that empowers coaches to guide their clients towards healthier and more fulfilling lifestyles. NCI is committed to cultivating a vibrant network of passionate professionals who share our dedication to advancing global health and wellness. Together, they aim to create a ripple effect of positive change, helping individuals and communities embrace vibrant well-being and embrace the joy of living a nourished life.   Work with Jason Phillips Website: https://ncicertifications.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nutritionalcoachinginstitute/ Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, our good friend Jason Phillips is coming back. We dig really, really quickly. Jason's a good friend of ours. We've all been in the same circles for a very long time now and been on the show many times. If you wanted to go back and listen to some of the old shows where we dig into more kind of like the nutrition coaching and nutrition or implementation of nutrition strategy. But today, a very cool show because many people probably don't know that he almost sold his nutrition company 2023 or at the end of 2022, been slowly rebuilding, kind of revisioning everything and is having a big rebirth of Nutritional Coaching Institute, which is one of the biggest

nutrition coaching businesses that I know of. He's been around for a very, very long time and really kind of like revolutionized nutrition in the CrossFit space. And then got into more of the business coaching side of it from his own successes and making much, much larger impact by helping coaches that are coaching clients and just kind of like scaling out from there. But the rebirth of his business has been super interesting to me. And many times I could just call my friends and ask how they're doing, but it's way better to kind of like watch

and then think through these things on podcasts. I think we get a lot of learning out of having just like a real conversation in the same way, asking the same questions I would if I was just sitting around having a cup of coffee with a friend about their business. And that's very, very similar to kind of how this show goes. So as always friends, you can head over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are

doing a free lab lifestyle and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive. You can access that for free over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Marner, Doug Larson, Jason Phillips. Dude, it's been five years since we've had you on. And you know how I know that? Because we were specifically at the Fitness Business Summit in SoCal, standing on a balcony overlooking the harbor, and we just laid it down. It was awesome. And then, now we're back five years later. I can't believe it happens that fast.

And we're all in different places this time. We are. We are. We should all go back to SoCal. Nobody is in SoCal. We should all go back just for this podcast. Dude, you've been through quite an experience over the last, call it, 12 to 18 months. And what I have noticed most is a reigniting of the engines, a new passion,

the new fire for where you're going with NCI, which is always my favorite time to talk to somebody because they got a whole lot of like new energy going towards a new goal, whether it's a new goal or just a new framework on that goal. But I'd love to dig in, man. What's happened over the kind of the, call it the last year that has gotten you to this place? Yeah. Well, all right. So I'll give you a little update. So five years ago, um, I don't even, I think NCI was in its infancy. Um, cause goodness, that would have been 2018. So we were in fiscal year number two. and i really didn't know what i didn't know uh nci our first fiscal year was you know we did really well we did like 1.2 million our first fiscal year uh largely because i had the crossfit following and everybody wanted to get certified in something new and then

our second fiscal year we only did like 700 grand which is a pretty significant drop off and i was like man like i either need to learn this marketing shit, or I should probably not think NCI is going to be a thing. And, you know, as it turned out, I was pretty good at that marketing thing, because three years later, we had an eight figure company. And so, you know, this last year has been interesting. So as you know, right, you're aware, it wasn't really public knowledge, but in 2022, I received an LOI for the company and, you know, went into diligence on the exit, ended up not going through with the exit. And a lot of things happened in that process and in that time. And so as I'm sure you you can imagine like when you're in diligence uh the pressure is on to make money and it was probably the first time i had ever looked at my company as

a money-making vehicle quite honestly like obviously i made a lot of money and like i uh i was really excited to have made a lot of money and it was a very cool like byproduct of what we were doing but like the mission was always the mission the mission was never cash right um and so all of a sudden like your indiligence and you're like cash cash cash like it's all you think about because you're like we have to show these numbers every month and so um i'll be honest it was it was a time of burnout um i i didn't love what i was doing anymore and and i think it started to show quite honestly. And so, you know, 2023, we pulled out of diligence, December, 2022, 2023, we started and you know, we got some momentum and I just, I still found myself not loving everything.

And I kind of did some introspection this summer and I was like, what don't I love? Like what, what's really changed. And, you know, NCI at its core on day one was founded under the billion person mission, right? We want to change a billion lives through the vehicle of health and fitness. And, and what we never said is we never said, I want to help a million people make a million dollars. And, and I think that a lot of people had watched what I had done and been like, man, I want to do what he did. But they looked at it through the lens of money instead of the lens of impact. And so I was getting hit up more on the business side than I was on the nutritional education side. And my personal passion today definitely lies on the entrepreneurial side.

Like I love all things, you know, finance, entrepreneurship, like I genuinely love the game of growth. But I don't ever want that to supersede the real mission, which is to change lives. And so I felt very out of balance. Then I kind of looked at the landscape and I just, things have changed, man. Like, you know, I'll never forget, you know, Doug, I think we met the first time at Barbell Mastermind, you know, and honestly, it's so funny that I talked to AJ last week on the phone. Dude, he's trying to bench press a thousand pounds. I know he's back at it. Crazy ass human. I'm sure he will. It's like probably next week. He's just a fucking psycho, but I love him. He's like a daddy bear psycho so that's so

true yeah like honestly when you see him give him a big hug like come give me a big hug you're like how about a half hug because i can't get my arms around you so um but you know like i remember those days man and like those days were so fun dude like honestly like you know we hiked and like we it wasn't this like dick measuring contest of like my mastermind's better than your mastermind and fuck that mastermind and like it just it was never the vibe man like i'll never forget you know we were talking about frank and and you know um like other people that had masterminds and there was never like the shit talk and it was never this like i don't know it never felt like the cesspool that i think things have become today. And so, you know,

now, like when you look around, instead of becoming fitness coaches, all these people are becoming fucking business coaches. And most of them have never, most of them never built a million top line, let alone a million take home. And most of them have never done half of what they're teaching. And what they're teaching is borderline unethical. And I just like, I felt like I was in this game where like, I was being looked at like other people that were doing things that I didn't align with. And so I woke up one morning and I was like, I'm done. And, you know, for context, right. I woke up one morning and I shut off a $6 million revenue stream is what I did. I was generating $6 million annually through

the business side and I walked away from it. And so, you know, I recognize, so there's, there's a couple of reasons and we can unpack them if you want, but I recognize really it was a, it was a passion play. And, um, I think anybody that's intelligent when it comes to entrepreneurship will also recognize there's an enterprise value play. Um, and, and so, you know,'s impossible to do anything for a very long time and try to be good at it and not get burned out at some point uh whether that's the training side of it the business side the business training side like it's there's endless things that you do them so repetitively to to get wherever you're supposed to be that you just go i just can't do this again um was when you were going through that diligence process did did that just beat the crap out of you? Because in a way you have one person on the other side of the table

that you're supposed to be on the same team with going, yeah, your business isn't worth that much. I'm trying to save a couple million bucks here. And you're going, no, no, no, no, no, it is. And then you go back and you have to go find every receipt for everything you've done. And you're like, this takes all the fun away from what I started this for.

Yeah. My favorite, my favorite time was when we were on the phone with their, their finance team, right? So they hired Grant Thornton to do a QAV. And, and so, so quality of earnings for people that aren't in the private equity world, but they, basically, they were trying to look at, you know, some like what somebody was paying versus our fulfillment costs and really trying to just get granular as to how much they could increase margins and things like that. And so we have a program that is lifetime access. And so their guy was like, well, can you explain what lifetime means? And I was like, forever? He's like, well, how long is forever?

I was like, until you die? And he was like, so what does that mean? I was like, it never ends. And he was like so like what does that mean i was like um it never ends and he's like how long is that and i was like what the fuck are you asking just ask i literally like i was just like how do we stop this conversation what what ultimately he was trying to extrapolate was how long does the end does the average user connect with the product and i was like well that's a different question yeah but so it was uh yeah like dude it was how long does the end, does the average user connect with the product? And I was like, well, that's a different question. But so it was, yeah, like, dude, it was never ending. Again, like, I don't, I'm not sure. I mean, listen, you do a lot of calls, exchange a lot

of documentation. It's a ton. You know, I don't think that like having to produce all of those things was that bad. And listen, like I had an amazing COO at the time and he handled the majority of it. So like, I can't even say it was me, it was him. And he did a phenomenal job. Like I cannot say enough good things. Shark family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work. Now, you know that we've been working at rapid health optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually

mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. And then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the most severe things first.

This truly is a world-class program. And we invite you to see step one of this process by going over to rapidhealthreport.com. You can see Dan reading my labs, the nutrition and supplementation that he has recommended that has radically shifted the way that I sleep, the energy that I have during the day, my total testosterone level, and my ability to trust and have confidence in my health going forward. I really, really hope that you're able to go over to rapidhealthreport.com, watch the video of my labs, and see what is possible. And if it is something that you are interested in, please schedule a call with me on that page. Once again, it's rapid

health report.com. And let's get back to the show. Honestly, I just think it was the notion that like, it became less about impact, and it became more about finance. And like, you know, you think about this thing, right? Like if we fast forward 20 years, what's the legacy of NCI going to be? Is it going to be an entity that was, you know, oh, Jason's last six months, all he cared about was money? Or is it going to be this thing where it's like he helped as many people as possible and then, to exit one day. I've always said that. I said it literally in person at my first ever certification in Chicago in 2017. I said, I'm going to sell this company one day. And so that's never going to change. But I want that to be a byproduct of doing things right, not an emphasis on revenue. And I think there's just a different path. Where are the holes that you see coming from the last five years, building a company and then being in a place mentally, like the

framework that you're going to sell it, backing out of that deal. And then now you got to reframe everything that you've kind of already done. But there's something about entrepreneurs. I feel like we never want to go like recline the same mountain. It's like not work. There's, there's no way the top of that mountain is the same, has the same value to you as the first time. So like, you're like, I could just go open a CrossFit gym and you're like, you're going to hate it in about a week and a half. But yeah, you know, the playbook, um, where, where's like the whole, or the, the thing that has re-inspired you to want to recline the mountain?

Yeah, a couple of things. So one, I see, I still see a gap in the marketplace. Um, I still see that if anything, I see the bigger gap. I think that coaches are so driven by finance right now that they've forgotten that having a really good product is the real key to finance. You know, the best coaches in the world don't make lots of money because they're the best marketers in the world. The best coaches in the world make a lot of money because they're the best coaches. And I still think that's being forgotten right now. I also think that

the entrepreneur hat that I put on says, when I go to exit, there's significantly more enterprise value on the intellectual property that is NCI than there is the time of Jason Phillips. And so there's not a single coaching platform, right? Single coach in the world that can command enough money to sell their business for a significant multiple, right? Because when the coach dies, the business dies. So nobody's going to invest in Jason Phillips coaching. If I die, then they

have nothing and they wasted their money. Whereas the IP of NCI will live on far beyond when I leave this earth. So I think that there was opportunity for that. And I just, I really think it's the right time. I mean, combine that with a few strategic moves that will be unveiled in January. Um, you'll, uh, you'll see why I did what I did, but I believe, well, I'll say I'll go on record and say like, come January, we become the most, the most valid evidence-based application-based nutrition certification in the world. And I don't even think it'll be disputable when you see what we've done. Is, is most of the core team still intact or are you, you're restarting the whole engine again, like from zero?

I think, I think any, I think every entrepreneur can say what got, who got us here will not get us there. And I think any book you read, any high level, nine figure, 10 figure entrepreneur will have similar stories at critical inflection points. It's often staff. I think a lot of times when you study revenue inflections in a business, it's following staff turnover. Um, and, and I think that like, this is not to discount anybody that's ever worked here. I love every single person, um, including people that have wronged me. I genuinely hope that they are doing well. Like, like I am, you know, that's another thing in my life, man.

I'm at a significant point of peace where, um, I would actually argue like as a person, I'm in the best place I've ever been in, in my life. Uh, and I want the best for absolutely everyone. I think anybody that's watched me on the come up and I was like, I lived with a massive chip on my shoulder and upper weighed me down for a long time. And so, um, yeah, like I actually just think I'm in a much better position now. So, um, wisdom now. Yeah. Like, I know, like I feel that, right. Like it's like, we can joke about that, but I feel that. Like, I feel, I feel just, I just feel like I see things better, man. I think I see things differently.

Like, I'm just, I don't know. Like, I think that I look at the world as a place where I want my daughter to grow up more so than like where I'm living. And I want to, you know, I don't want to ever be a person that I wouldn't want her to be associated with. And I think, you know, my younger self, me and like, this isn't like we all grow up. And then I think entrepreneurs have to have a chip on their shoulder, right? I think you have to want to prove people wrong. And I think that was one of my greatest strengths. But I think that, you know, having the balance that I have today will also become a great strength. So, um, yeah, I think that's, that's kind of it.

Dude, you made a, you made a post that actually, um, I don't know what you're building in January or launching, but you made a post that actually really resonated with me. And it was all about, um, we have lots of people that know how to play macro calculators and we have lots of businesses that know how to play macro calculators. And we have lots of businesses that are saying, here, take your macro calculator, build a high ticket program, build the training programs, and then launch it all at once. And here's how you sell it. I would imagine that you could also be like a 20 year old that has two years of experience training and you go sign up for that. And all of a sudden you do hit the goal of your first 10 K each month.

Because you have this group of people that are following on Instagram that like love your work, but that's really a grand total of like three people, four people. But if you sell a three K paid in full, you're rich, bro. And I don't have any real problems with like all of those models together. They all are fantastic. like four of those. But the part that really got me about what you were talking about was how people implement these strategies and all of the information into actually meeting a person where they're

at and getting them not just the losing 20 pounds, but the long-term results that one are going to keep them as clients and to actually change their lives, their clients' lives. Is the implementation thing, I think was the big piece of that post. I'd love if you could just dig into that and like places you see that we, we may be failing coaches that are coming up and telling them a story that's not real. Like, why is that so important to you? Yeah. So one of the things we talk about in level one is I openly say, I'm not going to judge

you as a coach based on the results you get your clients in 10 weeks. I'm going to judge you based on where your clients are in 10 years, which means, yeah, great. Get them a result in 10 weeks. Anybody can fucking do that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to starve somebody lean in 10 weeks. Anybody can fucking do that. You know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to starve somebody lean in 10 weeks. It doesn't take somebody overly, overly educated to reverse diet and get somebody healthy. Like those things are pretty commonplace today. You know, I think that it takes a very good coach, right? And I'll use that word specifically. It takes a very good coach

to truly connect with a human being and to truly take them to a place where they feel equipped with a skillset that they can use for their life. You know, I also see that on the business side, by the way, as well. You know, all the things you mentioned, like make the 10K, run this tactic, run this play. I don't think it's that difficult to monetize your services, but I do think it's extremely difficult to build a business that has any sort of longevity. You know, I think, you know, Ryan Dice right now, I don't know, Doug, if you still study any of his stuff, like he's, he's running around and, you know, his big stat is like 80, what was it? 80 to 85% of the businesses that hit the Inc 5,000 are out of business in the next two to three years. Right. And I think he was

the first one to expose that, which is wild, right? So if you think about this, businesses that are hitting the Inc. 5,000 are on a significant growth trajectory. And all of a sudden, within two to three years after a growth trajectory, they fall off. How many fucking coaches have you guys seen? Because you guys have longevity in this industry. How many coaches have you guys seen come and go? It's a ton, right? How many of their clients pay them and then ghost? It's a ton. Does that mean you were a good coach

because you took somebody's money? They fucking ghosted you? No, that means you were a shit coach. It means you never connected, like you never built a result. And that person 10 years from today still has the same number of questions as when they handed over their hard-earned money.

And that's not acceptable, right? If you're a business coach and you teach somebody to make money, cool. Like I might as well have taught you to rob a bank. I need you to teach, I need you to like learn how to be wealthy in the next 10 to 15 years. That's a different skillset. And so, you know, I think the game has to change, right? It really has to, it's something I'm extremely passionate about. Just because I think that, listen, there's more nutrition coaches in the world today than ever. We know that. I think you, that's your fault, by the way. I certainly contribute to it. It was like strength and conditioning and it was like the coolest. And then also I was like, Oh, but how about this eating thing that you should probably like,

you know, the other 90% of this puzzle. And you were like, yeah, I got you right here. I'll teach you. We contributed to that. I'll feed you baby. I will own my side. But, you know, I think, you know, with all these new nutrition coaches,

we also have a very large prevalence and increase of obesity. We have not seen, we have not seen a flattening of the curve, right? To use a 2020 term. We haven't seen it. Like we have not seen it happen. And so we are continuing to see linear trends upward of obesity, of people being overweight, of sickness, of disease. And it's like, what the fuck are we doing then are we just out there collecting money from these people because if that's the case like that's not okay and i'm a i'm as capitalist as they come i fucking love money right but like at the end of the day i like people that earn money i don't like people collecting money and there's a big difference

what do you see what do you see as the main problem there like nutrition coaches if we're looking at like the population level of obesity on the incline nutrition coaches aren't going to solve that problem like there's just it's a numbers game there's way too many people out there getting unhealthy from many directions uh compared to the number of nutrition coaches so is nutrition coaching really the solution to the global society problem of obesity and unwellness? I think it's, I think it's one, I think it's one of the solutions. You know, listen, I don't think that, I just don't think you're ever going to change human desire for simplicity and to avoid discomfort. And so, you know, I think if you observe human behavior over a period of time, what you'll see is anytime a human is encountered with challenge, they quickly find something new. Right. I won't even say something different. I'll say they find something new.

And it's because the human brain loves simplicity. And then the beginning of anything is easy. You know, us three, we're entrepreneurs. We could sit here the next 35 minutes and we could brainstorm out the next hundred million dollar business. And I bet we'd come up with several of them, all of which are my favorite thing to do. Exactly. Right. So we can do this. The problem is, I would like look at a traffic cone on the highway and I'm like, dude dude i bet the competition for traffic cones is gnarly i do that shit too but yeah thousands of them on the street in one little mile and you're like ah how do i sell that five dollars here's the problem as soon as we start looking into the logistics we're like yeah there's a reason there's that one reason

so we're wired to find simplicity. Like we're not wired to find complexity. And so I think that we're never going to be able to beat that. You know, so I think nutrition coaches have to be several fold. We have to lead from, we have to lead by example, but then we also have to advocate for other things. And I think we're several generations away from nutrition coaches being like real strong advocates into other industries. There is zero crossover right now. Zero. I cannot think of any, any nutrition coach in any vertical

that has crossover into, you know, advocation for, you know, laws changing for restriction on, on certain things. Like, like I just, I haven't seen it not saying, you know, laws changing, for restriction on certain things. Like, I just haven't seen it. Not saying, you know, maybe it exists somewhere that we haven't seen, but it's not significant. And listen, I still think nutrition coaching, it really, it's in its infancy. I mean, we're maybe a decade in. It's still in its infancy. So as a vertical, I don't even think we have figured it out yet.

I don't think we've figured out the best way to operate. I don't think we've figured out the way to reach the most people to change the most people. You know, in today's society, 2023, all they're trying to figure out is how much money can I make from it? So, you know, I think it's a grassroots thing, man. I think that somebody is going to come and want to do crossover, you know, but it's like strength training, man. I mean, strength training was on for a very long time. When, when are we going to see it change? The world's understanding that lean tissue is not Arnold Schwarzenegger. That lean tissue is actually something that every human being should try to maximize for quality of life. You know, I think we're just starting to scratch that surface and we're what, 50, 60, 70 years in to those other things?

So, I mean, you tell me, dude. Like, we got a runway of 50, 60, 70 years before nutrition coaching scratches the surface on being able to contribute to, like, better overall health as a global population. Of all those years, I'm 27 of them. And I looked at my father-in-law last night i went with like a big bowl of beef and i was like dude if you eat this like twice a day every day for 27 years you can look as average as me that's terrible i wanted to be like arnold that's not who that's not who you get though on the other side you get someone that's functional and knows how to run and jump and play and do all that good stuff um what's that so weird yeah crazy huh it actually matters um do you feel like on the uh like when it comes to kind of implementing this do you feel like uh the conversation of really call it like the calculator, the macros, how we're shifting between carbs and fats to reduce caloric intake to get people to lose weight.

I would imagine at the beginning of this, you just, I actually remember you just introducing carbohydrates to CrossFitters was like world changing. It got me hated for a long time. Yeah, you were so so people were like no way that's way outside of here's a good story for you i literally i was supposed to be um i was supposed to be with ben greenfield yesterday and my team sent over a bio to him that i guess was a little older and it said jason phillips introduced carbohydrates into post-workout of nutrition and ben's like what the fuck is this and i'm like like he texted me and he's like bro can you explain this statement and i'm like like 10 years ago i could have but like right now no and he's like oh got it but like yeah like

that's that's how ridiculous because we've come so far from that, there aren't many like tactical things that coaches don't know. Like the X's and O's are pretty easy and you can get them from millions of sources on the internet. Is it the softer side of coaching and being able to connect with people that is really lacking? Like where do you feel like that hole is in being able to keep a client for two, three years? Yeah, it's interesting. So I just had a conversation with Lane back in October. Dude, we are dropping some names here.

So Lane and I are sitting in Orlando and I'm interviewing him and he said something about how over the years he has shifted towards understanding how human behavior is a significant portion of coaching. And I think that that summarizes everything because there's nobody from a nutrition side, from a science side that is probably more valid or knows more than Lane, right? Like super intelligent. And I would argue for a long time, and I think he would agree, my client retention was better than his. And, you know, numbers are numbers. I made more money than him. And so it's not because I was smarter than him. The dude's forgotten more than I'll ever know. And the reality is, though, I understood that coaching was significantly more than just nutritional ever know. And the reality is though, I understood that coaching was significantly more than just nutritional knowledge. And I have plenty of nutritional

knowledge and a significantly more than the average person that's ever going to undertake a diet. So it was never that I was short on knowledge, but what I was great at was connecting to the individuals and so honestly it's why nci exists you know 2016 uh john romanello and craig valentine challenged me and said you know you need to go help more people because i was like my business we're a million dollar business we were helping about a thousand people a year and and they're like figure the fuck out and i was like are you talking about certification they're like it's exactly what we're talking about and i'm like pn exists how can we be different than pn you know john berardi is a genius and like you know thankfully i've become good friends with jb but like he's a genius and i'm like how the fuck like science is science

physiology is physiology and i'm like i can't reinvent science right i cannot overnight change science and reinvent it like science is not marketing it doesn't have a unique hook like it is it's fucking a fact and and they're like figure it out and so i was like okay like i'm never going to win the game on science but one thing that pn nasm issa nothing else out there taught was application nobody ever said this is how you meet a client where they are this is how you you actually get them to comply. And I mean, we've all coached people. If they don't do what you tell them to do, there's 0% chance they get a result, right? I don't give a shit how good your program is. If they don't do what you tell them to do, they're not going to get a result. If they don't stick to it, they're not going to get a result. And oh, by the way,

textbooks assume all things normal, right? So textbooks assume no deviation from homeostasis, basically. So when the energy expenditure equation is taught, it is taught assuming homeostasis. So somebody's at homeostasis, put them in a 500 calorie deficit. In theory, they lose one pound per week, right? Put them in something slightly larger, they're going to lose a little bit more weight. And don't push the point of diminishing returns. Like that's basically what is taught nutrition. Well, you know, my thing was like, this is 2012, you know, this is what, 2017, when we're putting the cert out. So, you know, all the way up until 2020, the majority of cases coming to nutrition coaches were not somebody at homeostasis. It was somebody that had over-dieted.

It was a CrossFitter that had done paleo and fucked up their nervous system. There were so many things showing up. And I'm like, where does the textbook talk about this? Where does the textbook tell you, okay, when Mrs. Jones walks through the door and says, well, I'm only eating 800 calories a day and I still want to lose fat, that you're supposed to tell Mrs. Jones, hey, you fucked yourself up. So you might gain weight before you lose weight. Like, where's that in the textbook? Because I haven't seen it. Right. And so all these coaches that are afraid to have those

conversations, they're afraid to implement accordingly. And so what do they do? They put somebody in a starvation diet because that's all the textbook taught them to do. I knew when that hadn't been addressed publicly that we had an opportunity and i knew that that was that was really like the crux of nci and i think honestly today more than ever uh i think we need to reinstill those values man i think um we've been we've been really fortunate man like we've had andy speak on our stage but like we've had you know we've had lane we've had alan we've had bill campbell and like i've i've always been very humbled by the notion that they come to our events and they're like man you know what we love about nci it's so different than like these science conferences like

you're not just there spouting off facts you're there actually helping people and the fact that the guys that are like the head of the science-based movement are coming to our event saying that we're helping more people than just the science, validates every single thing that we're doing. And man, like we're just on that mission to see it happen. Yeah. Do you feel like you are comfortable in the space of not being the science guy? Oh, fuck yeah.

You like that? I'm not the science guy either i'll openly tell you i'll openly tell you that i mean i already said it like lane's forgotten more than i'll know like wait till january wait till january i don't need to we can put this out first week of january let's go tell me everything as long as this isn't coming out by january 1st first week of january look at that it's not coming out january It will be after you tell me it's okay. Let's talk about it. Do it.

Go. This is how we negotiate on Barbarian Argonne. What's that? Barbarian Argonne is officially dead in the NCI. There you go. So when you look at the nutritional knowledge being the most valid science-based evidence-based knowledge, probably not another human on the planet that can hold a candle to what he's done. And so if we're going to be the movement that we say we're going to be, I had to bring in that

level of validity. Um, and so he is now fully on board, um, in support and making sure that every piece of information goes out. I don't think... Well, I know. I know there's no one out there that can challenge the level of information that's going out. If you're thinking of an entity to get your information from, there's no better entity at this point than NCO.

You want the best certification in the game, we just leveled it up. There's nothing better. For the people that aren't familiar with Alan, tell everyone want the best certification in the game we just leveled it up there's nothing better for the people that aren't familiar with alan tell everyone a little bit more his background and his significance in the field yeah i mean i would say he's like the leader of the evidence-based movement um you know if you're not familiar with his research review it's one of the best things ever i think he pioneered the research reviews so there's several out there now but i think he

really pioneered that um honestly dude he was one of my earliest influences in the game in fact if you read the original l1 manual i talk about finding daily energy expenditure with like you know the harris benedict equation um to get you know uh bmr multiply times intensity factor but then i also talk about multiplier formulas and then i talk about alan aragon's formula because he has one that he has from like his old stuff so i i've credited him from day one as somebody that we looked up to as kind of like the godfather of what we all know to be true. Um, and he is the most up-to-date, uh, non-biased and, and very straight factual, uh, leader in all things, evidence-based nutrition. And so, you know, if we're going to put a cert

out, that's going to help the most people, man, like we, you're not going to find anything better. Like I'm, I'm so excited about what it brings. I felt like our ability to constantly adapt and be very cutting edge with what we want to do. I don't want to call it a whole, but was limited. I'll give you an example. We just funded Bill Campbell's next research study. So he's doing a research study on rapid fat loss. And so NCI is funding that. Bill Campbell's next research study. So he's doing a research study on rapid fat loss. And so they, you know, we, NCI is funding that. And so NCI will now have funded the first ever public rapid fat loss study. And so, you know, our ability in getting involved with things like that is now allowing us to put out masterclasses and things that are extremely evidence and science

backed. I don't see anyone else doing that, right? And for me, it's like everyone's resting on their knowledge and their textbooks, and that's cool, except for like the world evolves every single day. And I still think science is science, but I think what people need to understand to be successful is the understanding of science needs to continue to evolve. And I think that's where we're looking to continue to level up. Where do you feel like you spend most of your time on and say,

continuing ed probably, it's not like you're sitting down and taking nutrition courses, I would imagine, but like, where do you, where do you feel like you spend most of your time when it comes to getting better? Like what, what resources are you looking at? For me right now, it's personal development, to be honest. I think that admittedly, I'm a terrible leader. And as a CEO, that's not a really good trait. But I also think it takes a strong person to openly admit that, right? I mean, millions of people will hear this and I'm saying I'm a shit leader. So I have a very good COO and i defer most things to him and uh you know i

think that i'm trying to be better about that i tend to i don't do it like i don't do it intentionally but i tend to just very much be in my lane like i you know i don't do a good job of like checking in on friends like hey man Hey man, how's your day? Like, I'm not here for small talk. Like it's not still like, I'm very bad at that. Um, and so I'm, I'm just trying to be better overall, man. Like I, I, you know, my daughter is so much, my family is so much and it's, uh, that's probably where most of it is.

Um, yeah, the world of nutrition, like we brought in resources there. So I don't, I'm just going to ask out. No, that's, that's specific in, um, uh, that, that bringing in Alan is what kind of sparked that question in that, um, it's not necessarily like resting on your laurels, but like, I feel like I know a lot about strength conditioning. So I don't want to spend an enormous amount of time going in, like learning more about the thing that I probably already know, like an enormous amount to help most of the people.

Gary V was really big early on in that self-awareness is key and and i couldn't agree more i think that you have to be massively self-aware and i think you and i could both agree you can know more about strength conditioning i could know more about nutrition but i i also don't necessarily want to like yeah i'm not interested in learning more about like hormonal shit and you know other pathways and like it just it doesn't interest me anymore quite frankly yeah um that being said i'm also intelligent enough to recognize the value that it has to our clients and so either we find a resource for them or we die because if we don't evolve they will find the resource elsewhere and so it's my job as somebody at the head of the

company to say listen our company needs to be able to provide this resource. How can I get the best resource and the best information available for our clients? And that was, you know, that was my thought process going out. I always actually, you know, this has been a little over a year in the making for me. Like last October, I actually had this vision of building like this board this like nutritional science board for ncaa and I wanted to put a lot of really big names together but as you know big names were hard to put together because they all have everyone's busy everyone's busy thank you so that that didn't work out so well so I kind of kept thinking about it and um you know fortunately for for us it was really excited to um to forces with Alan, to have him come in.

And it's been really cool, man. It's been really exciting. That's awesome. Does that equate to lots of new courses coming out or just kind of having like a head of science as a part of the company? A little bit of both. I won't say a lot of new courses. I'll say one or two. I'll say, you know, updating, citing, things like that.

So there will be like, we just did a revised level one. So our L2 will get revised very soon. Our hormone course is up for revision. Our mindset course just got revised by a PhD in psychology. So I would say that two of our courses are up for revision. We do have one course kind of in the pipeline that's being built right now that will allow us to partner with another company that we're pretty bullish on. So yeah, I think some smaller products that allow us to have some unique partnerships

that I think will help boost visibility. We've also started partnering with some influencers who are excited about nutritional education. And so, um, we just got into the Australian market. Um, Jenna Louise just came on as an Australian rep for us. Um, and so we're, we're starting to kind of branch out that direction as well. So really cool stuff there. Yeah, man. Yeah. By the way, on the leadership front, I was actually surprised to hear you say that a second ago. Like I, I personally view you as someone who, who has some leadership skills

and I would have never put you in the binary category as a bad leader. I actually heard that and thought that's ridiculous. Why do you think about labeling yourself in this binary fashion

in that respect? You've obviously been leading a large team for quite some time. I've had a lot of success and you have to have some leadership skills in order to do that. I feel like you should give yourself more credit. I appreciate that a ton.

I guess when I look, I have a very high standard for myself. And so when I look across my skill sets, I feel leadership is the worst. And so I think that that's why I always rank myself so poorly as a leader. I think transactionally speaking, I have the ability to lead in any situation. I think like from a global perspective in terms of like remove, you know, micro situations and put me like in the macro, I don't always think I'm the best. I tend to not delegate as well as I should. And therefore, I tend to create expectations that are not always articulated the way they need to be. And, you know, some of that just comes from like, get the

fuck out of the way, I'll do it myself, instead of, you know, helping people through things. You know, some of it for a very long time is one of my most toxic traits growing up was very conflict avoidant. And so I would avoid conflict with my team in favor of harboring shit internally, allowing them to harbor shit internally. And then it would fester. It would really blow up instead of just addressing it and having difficult conversations early. So that's something I'm continuing to work on. But yeah, I mean, I think those are, those are really like the big things I think, you know, as, as a visionary, um, I don't think there's a lot of people that can do what I can do.

Like I tend to think I'm one of the better ones in the fitness space from that perspective, but being a good visionary doesn't make you a great leader. Um, you know, I think that I've gotten to become extremely good friends with Alex Hormozy and Layla Hormozy, Alex is my mentor. And so getting to know them made me more at peace with my lack of leadership. Because if anybody has seen behind the curtain there, I would argue Layla leads that company more than Alex does. And I think Alex would say that. And Alex is absolutely the visionary there. And so I think for me, it allowed me to lean more into the visionary role. And I think that by just freely being okay with not being a good leader, it's actually made me a better CEO. It's made me a better owner what i'm truly good at which is you know taking a step back looking at the marketplace as a whole trying to understand the trends and trying to be ahead of the trends so um again like i greatly appreciate that i mean like i hope that some

people do see it that way but i think that knowing where your skill sets are is super important yeah yeah i think you're spot on by the way about about leila i i fucking love leila's content like as far as like applicable things that i can do to grow my company i feel like i gravitate more and more and more toward leila stuff over time she's a fucking gangster she's a beast man like you'll uh spend enough time around that man you'll gravitate towards her for actionable things and you know um yeah i think alex will tell you the same you know i think that that's the beauty of it i don't think alex has the ego where he needs to be you know seen as that i think you know he's he's extremely gifted when it comes to vision um that she's extremely gifted when it comes to operations

man she is she's fucking to the point and she's really good so scares the shit out of me so there you go um have you set hard goals uh kind of in the in the rebuild here of where you guys are at the end of the year this this new vision i know exactly where it will be it's not even a goal we're just yeah are you allowed to share any of these things i don't need hard numbers what do you want like revenue targets or like, No, no, no, no. I mean, sure. That's always cool, but we can do that offline. The more, more like is it, is, is the focus more people going through the level one? Is it?

So I'll give it to you this way. I will, I will double the output of NCI in the next 12 months. I can tell you that. Factually, the road to doubling is there. And so that means, that probably means 60% more people will graduate. So we did over a thousand graduates this year. We'll push to almost 2000 next year.

But we also have an internal structure where those 2000 graduates will become more educated. So more people will now take more educational courses, but more people will also learn the skills of monetization. And those people learning the skills of monetization

will also have access to more resources. And so when I look at double the output, I genuinely believe double the impact. That's kind of the lens that we view it through. And so I would say we're going to become the hub for all things coaching, which means when you look at the needs of coaches, well, coaches need leads, coaches need staffing,

coaches need mentorship, coaches need additional education. Coaches need, you know, growth. And I can tell you that NCI will have all those solutions soon. Fantastic. For coaches that may or may not know about you that are listening to Barbra Shrugged, which I feel like would be weird. There's tons of nutrition coaches out there. We've talked about the implementation side of this thing, a little bit of the business side of it, of how these companies kind of push the 10K a month thing at you, and you've got this kind of warm traffic in your Instagram

that nobody really actually knows about until they asked for money. Um, how do they not fall for the scam of those things? Or is there a scam? How, how do they like choose NCI over kind of every other Instagram? That's actually a really good question, man, because I've always said we, we have left significant amounts of money on the table by not being willing to play the quick game. We've always played the long game. We've always played the truth game. And that's a much slower growth game.

We've never partake. We've never taken part in the scam of we're going to make you 10K quickly because easy come, easy go. And I guess that's the answer is like do people take part in the scam i don't i don't think and maybe i'm wrong but like call me naive or call me an optimist but i think genuinely all the people pushing the get 10k quickly are not trying to quote unquote scam you out of your money like i don't um I do think that they're misinformed. I do think that it's short-sighted. And I think that honestly, it's probably the extent to what they know to be true in that moment. And so if I took one of those coaches and I explained to them that a capital

injection of 10K can hurt the business as much as it can help the business, and I simply just altered their viewpoint, I would be willing to think a lot of them would be open to it. Now, it doesn't mean that they may not market it differently, but they may not know it. You know, I think, and also, you know, for the majority of people that enroll in these courses, they're desperate. They're looking for a way out of what they're currently in. They're a broke trainer. They're a broke coach. They're somebody looking for a career change. You we we see the you know our company tracks personas that come in as leads every day and it's like we know who's who's looking at these certifications and you know unfortunately man like it's hard to tell somebody you know uh that's really broke

that a rapid cash infusion is not good and and that the manner is not good because they're like i don't give a shit if it means you know whatever like i'm if it's 10k and i can live for a few more months like you know with no worries then i'm gonna do it so i i think it's a very steep curve man and i think that honestly again like we've been we've been okay with growing slower um we've been okay with not playing that game. Not to say it's not frustrating at times. It most certainly is. It's one of those things where we've just kind of lived with it, I guess.

But I always live in truth, I guess. That's the real answer. I also feel like there's a period in your career where you're you have to go just like grind for a long time and get reps and I feel like you can go by the course and jump kind of to the end of the line but you skip all of the grinding and learning all the places that you fail um like Doug and I took one with John Swanson and radically changed an enormous amount of stuff in our life. And,

but that, that comes off of the heels of like up until that point, eight years of grinding and doing the work. And then all of a sudden you, you like learn a new thing and you go, Oh, got it. I coached John for a little bit.

I like him. Yeah. Um, he's, uh, he, it was, it was an awesome, awesome course. Like it literally changed, changed our lives. Um, but there's, I joke with him all the time. I'm like, I'm by far your best client. Like you need a testimonial. I gotcha. Um, but there's no way if I had been, you know, look at us and maybe we're just getting older but like i look at us as like a group that kind of came up together and there was never a never a fuck them it was always a let's all do it together and and i think today there's a lot of fuck you and fuck them and and i think that you, we all helped each other. And I think that like, you know, in today's world, that has gone out the window. That being said, you know, I often attribute people leave other programs all the time and they come to my program.

And I try to remind them, I'm like, your success with me is equal parts what I've done with you and what you experienced in another program. And so just because you didn't make the money with them doesn't mean it wasn't impactful. And, you know, people that leave my program and go to other programs and experience bigger success. And I think that the success they experience there is large part to foundation that we created. And I think that it's the sum of the whole, man. Like for me to sit here and say that we are the And I think that it's, it's the sum of the whole man, like for, for me to sit here and say that we are the be all end all. And I think for anyone to say that they are the be all

end all would be largely mistaken. I don't think anybody, anybody that's like actually good would never say their program is the only place in the world. And I think that, you know, it takes a, it takes a bigger person to be able to admit that but uh i guess you know when when you ask about like personal growth and personal evolution i think that's something that i've been really caught to speak about because there's a lot of really good programs just some shitty ones don't get me wrong there's some shitty but like every skill you learn good bad ugly or indifferent is is learning and i think that like you get to where you're going to be because of how smart and how intelligent and ultimately your ability

to apply that intelligence so yeah you know dude when you when you're talking about uh how we all used to be friends and then we all started to not like each other i think you just said like 2000 2011 crossfit when we would just drive up and down the state of California to just find another gym and somebody else that spoke the same language. Then all of a sudden there's like four of them in your town. You're like, I hate all these people. I hate them all.

Get them away. Those were, those were fun times, man. Everybody's on the same time. It's real. I tell people all the time, like if I could go back man

if i could if i could rewind to like i mean shit i think we were all hanging out 2016 2017 like the very first time i ever came on if i could ever get back to those days man i would like it like freeze time like that was the time dude like everybody was on like i remember i came out to memphis and like we all worked out and like dude like it was just it was fun you know now it's like it's this fucking game of like who can piss on each other and you know it's just not it's not what it was and i think you know it reflects in my business man like the the business clients that i work with like i genuinely if i can't hang out with you for a half

day like we're we're not like we're not working together i don't care how much money because i work so closely with my clients that it's like i need to actually like you and you know i think that again like i just i have so much respect for everyone that's in this space too that's like trying to create impact you know like i said earlier i don't think anyone's intentionally trying to wrong anyone so yeah i don't know man call me a again call me an optimist but i think that people are trying to do well and i want to support that i agree with you um where can people find you and since this is the new year now where can people find everything that you got going on 2024 yeah man um instagram is probably the easiest place with me nci underscore ceo underscore jason the worst handle of all time um because i had so many hackers claiming to be me

dude i got my first like three the other day i felt good about it they make my sister said my sister sent it to me she was like are you famous well no they make and then they report your account saying that you're impersonating them and they get so wait till that shit happens and if it happens i got the plug i got the guy that can get you back up in 24 hours i like it i like it this has happened so many times no shit the first time it happened i lost 20 grand i had to i spent 20 grand getting my account back um so yeah, so I got the guy, but that's the place. Instagram, NCI underscore CEO underscore Jason,

or of course, Nutritional Coaching Institute, Instagram. Most things are there. Send me a message, hit me up, whatever. I'm not that hard to find.

I'm not that cool, but I'm here for it. There you go. Doug Larson. You bet. I played the getting back the Instagram account game two years ago. It's good. It's good times.

We got a good guy for that now too. Yo, dude, five years. It's been a long time. It was really good to see you and stoked that you're doing big things in the world and that you're like beyond excited for 2024 with the big changes bringing in Alan Aragon.

So very cool, man. I'll have you back on the show. Let's do this again like in six months or a year. And I want to hear how the growth is turning out. We'll do it.

We'll do it end of 24 and I predict another massive announcement. There you go. Oh, yeah. I'm in. I'm on Instagram. Douglas E. Larson.

I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. And make sure you get over to RapidHealthReport.com. That's where Dr. Andy Galpin and Anders Varner. We are barbell shrug to barbell underscore shrug to make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That's where Dr. Andy Galpin and Dan Garner are doing a free lab style and performance analysis that everybody inside Rapid Health Optimization will receive.

You can access that free report at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, I'll see you guys next week.