Barbell Shrugged - It’s all in your head: How to build a business, reset your mentality, and crush your limitations w/ Mike Bledsoe — Real Chalk #59

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

Are you ready for this?! It’s a crossover episode—with Mike Bledsoe, the OG host of Barbell Shrugged and the creator of Strong Coach. He's got a lot to say about, well, just about everything—from entrepreneurship strategies to open relationships and what the future of information looks like (spoiler alert: it features brain implants and the ability to communicate feelings). 🧠   Throughout the years Mike’s gained some crazy-valuable insight into the athlete mindset and how to successfully tackle obstacles by identifying what's holding you back from your goals. He explains what drives him (it's definitely not money) and talks about the process of developing Training Camp for the Soul and his newest endeavor, a mindset course for athletes that will be launching soon, so keep an eye out! 💪🏼   Mike has been into podcasts since way before they were cool, so he knows who's got it and who doesn't and what makes content worth producing. He also knows who the Hugh Hefner of podcasting is (did you know there was one? Surprise!) and that you probably shouldn't start your own. But don't turn off this episode yet—Mike still believes the best way to have a positive impact is through business, and there are still plenty of ways to do that. Plus, you wouldn't want to miss the stories we've got about insane DMs, the things gay guys are willing to do to me, and how we're all going to be robots in a few years. 🤖   It's Real CHALK on steroids—without, you know, any actual steroids. There aren't any shortcuts to the turtle shell, sorry fellas! 🐢   -Ryan 1:00 💥 The Barbell Shrugged story 8:30 💥 Don’t start a podcast. Make a YouTube channel. 16:30 💥 The entrepreneurship mentality: your 9-to-5 is a half day 22:00 💥 You lack discipline, and that's why you aren’t gonna look like Ryan Fischer even if you take steroids 24:00 💥 Dating apps. And the most ridiculous DM. 32:00 💥 Short-term and long-term goals for your business, and why collaboration is probably a good idea 42:00 💥 What’s your limit? Where are you setting the ceiling for yourself? How many more people could you be impacting? 44:00 💥 Legacy, self-sabotage, and how to reinvent yourself 50:30 💥 A day in the life of Ryan Fischer 58:45 💥 Two different ways to create change: do to become, or become to do. How do you be the person who does the thing? 1:09:00 💥 Finding a better way forward 1:14:00 💥 A success story, and the difference between information and coaching 1:21:00 💥 New big things! Mindset course for athletes 1:25:00 💥 Where Training Camp came from 1:32:00 💥 From disposable cameras to implantable neuronets (Elon Musk knows some shit), and an uncomfortable question: Are you producing value, or mindlessly consuming? 1:39:45 💥 Levels of labor: physical, technical, creative, interpersonal 1:43:00 💥 How is communication going to change, if we can actually understand someone else’s experience? 1:47:00 💥 Ryan Fischer is not actually a monster 1:53:00 💥 Oh yeah btw listen to Strong Coach #6 first + where to find Mike Bledsoe on the interwebs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc-bledsoe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Support Our Sponsor: @bioptimizers: www.BiOptimizers.com/realchalk  “realchalk” to save 37%   ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

Chalk Nation, it is your boy, Ryan Fish, coming back at you right now. Currently, I am in Miami, Florida. I'm at the Wadapalooza Fitness Festival. It's been going down. It's been so insane. I've been just walking around. I probably have seen at least a few hundred of you that listen to this show, and it has been amazing to walk around and say hi to every single person

and have them tell me that they love the show and they follow all my stuff. And man, I feel so much more fulfilled right now than I did, I think, when I competed. It was like such an amazing time just walking around this whole weekend. It has just been absolutely insane. So I'm very, very thankful for that.

I'm very thankful for all of you out there who are listening to my show when you have so many to listen to. The podcast world is getting crazy. And I was on a bunch of podcasts this weekend as well. So I'm really, really excited to just be collaborating and growing with everything that is going on around us that is CrossFit or it is fitness or whatever it is. So I had the chance to sit down for this episode with Mr. Mike Bledsoe. He is the original content creator for you guys for Barbell Shrugged, which eventually turned into the Shrugged Collective, which eventually picked me up. And you guys are now listening to me. So with having Mike on the show, I was very interested in how he approaches business and how he started Barbell Shrugged and then kind of asking him kind of like where he sees the future of everything because everything right now be in the forefront, might be a couple years behind us. You don't have that experience or whatever, and it's good to

listen to us talk about kind of the things that are going on now. We even hit social media, a lot of the business ventures that he's looking into, a lot of things that I'm doing right now, the reasons things are working really well for me right now or for him. So this is going to be a great episode for you to just pick up all sorts of crazy knowledge. Plus, a lot of you guys who are on this show, you guys have been fans of Mike Bledsoe for probably longer than me. So it's going to be a great episode right now. You guys are about to listen to, but before we hit it, we have to hit the sponsors. We have to hit the people that make all the love go around. So I don't know if you guys listened to my last episode, but I highly interrogated the bio optimizer crew and they smashed all the questions that I absolutely asked them, which was insane.

And I did a lot of research going into that one because I really wanted to kind of be like, you know, I don't really believe in this. Not like I didn't believe in it, but I, I really wanted them to force me to believe in it more or like force me to, to like want to take these enzymes. So after listening to all the things that they said and doing a lot of research, it really did make a lot of sense. And a lot of the feelings that they were talking about when it comes time to like eating too much protein, or you get that like kind of bloat in your stomach when you eat too much or with gluten or this or that. And a lot of times I think it's just kind of like a mental thing. But I started taking their products and it was

something I took for a while before I had them on the show because you guys know how I roll. I'm not a big fan of a ton of sponsors even on my show in general because I have to really, really love them. And after a few weeks, I actually felt incredibly different by taking their Mass Times product. And a lot of you guys have been reaching out to me on social media and you've been asking me about it, or you've been telling me how much it's been helping you. So I know that this product does work really well. So I feel pretty good about marketing it for you guys. I'm a huge fan of it. The reason this mass time stuff works a lot more than pretty much anything else I've ever taken out there. I can't

say pretty much. It definitely works more is because they were telling me on that last episode that I just did that more than 80% of the probiotic products out there are actually dead products. They're just people trying to make money with the whole supplement world. That's why I have such a hard time like bringing sponsors on the show from supplement companies because I'm like, oh, another supplement company. And it's like someone else trying to make money. It's another big name trying to make money. It's like another avenue for them. And with these guys, they actually started as bodybuilders and they were just trying to figure out

how to get the most bang for their buck out of their protein. So two, I mean, both of these guys right now are still eating protein diets of only 100 grams a day. And they're making it work for them. They both have significant amount of muscle mass. And the reason that they're able to do that is because of these mass sign products and the way that they have them specifically formulated so that you guys are absorbing more of the proteins. And there's different enzymes as well, but that one particular helps you absorb your protein. And someone like your boy here, Ryan Fish, I eat a lot of meat. And I know

for a fact that I don't absorb all the protein every single time that I eat it. I'm fully aware of that. I just like to get really, really full, but if there was a way that I could absorb more of it, you better believe I'm going to try. After taking their product, I definitely do feel quite a bit better, and I can promise you guys that with all of the love in my heart for you guys. The other product that they have that's really, really cool, especially right now that I'm in Miami and I'm with a lot of people who want me to have a good time and hang out with them. And I'm going to be going on the WOD and the Waves cruise actually tomorrow. So there's going to be a lot of people having a pretty big party, messing around. I'm going to try to hold my own and keep the best diet I absolutely can because that's how I roll. But I'm going to give in here and there.

And usually I bring these little gluten guardian pills in my pocket. And nobody knows I'm about to pop them in. But when you do pop those in, you eat a whole bunch of gluten, you feel so much better. You don't even have that gluten hangover the next day. You feel like you didn't eat anything really all that bad. You just have a little bit of mental sadness. And I think we all have mental sadness for various reasons on different things. Even if I don't work out for a day, I get crazy mental sadness. Man, I should have a whole episode on just mental sadness and how we're all mental for thinking that we have

mental sadness. But anyway, if you guys want to try out their product, they have a 365 day full money back guarantee. And you guys can try any product you product, they have a 365-day full money-back guarantee, and you guys can try any product you want. You can even send it back and say that you want to try a different product because what you tried actually wasn't what you really needed. So that is a thing that they do around there at their business, their place of business. They will return it for you for free and give you the new product that you think that you might do better on and give you that for free also, which is crazy. So all you have to do to get a 20% off discount code, which is insane as well,

they're offering that up for us at the Shrug Collective. It's CHALK20, C-H-A-L-K, all caps, 20. That'll get you 20% off all their products. And if you hate it, you can just send it back and get your money back. It's like the Nordstrom of clothing. There's just like a no question, no questions. I mean, it's not that I do that, but if I did want to buy a $500 pair of shoes, wear them to a dope ass party, and then bring them back to Nordstrom,

it's an option. I may or may not have done it before. Anyway, we're about to have Mike Bledsoe on this show. We're about to get into all the things, and hopefully these are your two favorite humans on the Tralk Collective, uniting as one, creating a giant megaforce of knowledge into your ears. And without further ado, here we go.

Here we go. Sound levels are good? Yeah, I think we're great. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Real Chalk Podcast. This time, I am really excited to announce that we're going to be sitting down with the original Barbell Shrugged OG. The original Barbell Shrugged CEO, if you will, Mr. Mike Bledsoe. I'm actually part of Barbell Shrugged because of this man.

And he has his own show, The Bledsoe Show. And he also is part of the strong coach or the main man behind strong coach. Yeah, I created the strong coach. Yeah, that's been fun too. So the first thing I really want to get into, and I don't actually even really know this story, is I would say, could we say that you're first and foremost known for the Barbell Shrug podcast?

Was that like the original thing that you're most known for? Or were you known for something else before that? Yeah. Yeah, that was when I started that podcast, there was maybe a few hundred people that would download it in the beginning, you know. And was there a lot of podcasts at the time? No. I mean, I had listened to Rob Wolf, which was pretty dry content.

Loved the guy. I mean, I'm addicted to his shit. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm also a nerd. He's a saltine cracker. Yeah. He's a saltine cracker with no water. Yeah.

Anywhere. And then I heard Joe Rogan, and I realized that a podcast could be whatever you wanted it to be. Yeah. He's like the Howard Stern of podcasting. And I actually think he's more close to the Hugh Hefner of podcasting. Oh, right on. I like that. Yeah, I've been watching American Playboy, the Hugh Hefner story.

I haven't seen it. My wife convinced me to watch it. She goes, you're going to love this. Has he actually had sex with everyone, or does it just seem like that? I think he had sex with an enormous amount of women oh good for him yeah good for him i'll remember that when i go to bed tonight um what i'm already derailed well you i think i derailed myself too that's what's bad i was talking about what were you first known for and we talked about how many people were actually podcasting at the time. Yeah, there weren't that many podcasting.

I think the only person I am aware of in fitness that was podcasting before us was Ben Greenfield, and he'd been doing it since 2008. Wow. I didn't even know he was around that long. Yeah, he's a real – I feel like I just heard of him recently. Like this year, I was like, oh. Yeah, he appeals more to the biohacking market.

So it's like unless you're wearing the blue blockers. I don't really love his vibe though. Like when I look at his Instagram and stuff, I'm like, this guy's – I don't like it. Ben appeals to people who love gadgets. Yeah. Right? And you're not a gadgety guy. I'm not a gadgety guy.

I mean, we probably have way more gadgets than the average person but that's probably because we get them for free or people like oh check out my gadget and i actually love the gadget i really do but i would prioritize movement and getting out in the sun and being in nature over some of these gadgets. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. But Ben's a gadgety guy, and he's always pitching. And so I've never – I'm not a big fan of his vibe online, but when we hang out in person, we're buddy-buddy. Oh, yeah.

I can see how in person. People do seem to like him in person. But, yeah, I've never dug his vibe on Instagram. But anyway, moving on. So you start this podcast. How long did it take before it actually got big? People ask that a lot. I don't know.

You don't even know when it happened? Was it years or months? It was years. Okay. So it was a slow build. I've even had people put on events and they go, can you talk about how to create? Because we also have 185,000 subscribers on YouTube, which used to be a bigger deal than it is now. There's a lot of people that

have surpassed us. We've just been in that game for a long time too. And which we have not been putting effort into that. And that's one of the things we're changing in 2019. We're going to put more effort into YouTube probably in the second or third quarter of the year podcast. We really want to get that. We still, even though we're like the best, one of the best, I still feel like we could do it better. But, yeah, it was just, it was consistency. And one day I woke up and I realized that we were number one. You know, I think one of the guys on our team was like, we're actually number one, ranked number one on fitness and nutrition.

And whoever's ranked number one in iTunes is constantly moving around from like second to second with the algorithm. However, you can look up who has the most positive comments and the most five-star reviews. So that's your consistent ranking. So we were consistently ranking for years as number one in fitness and nutrition. I go, oh, I guess we're big. I don't know. But I know people who have bigger reach and make less money. And I know people who have less reach and make more money.

Why is that? And so, like, for me, a lot of my focus, like, when I started podcasting, like, I always wanted to be a radio show host when I was a kid. So, like, when I would hear people on the radio, I was like, fuck, that's a cool job. So cool. And it was, podcasting was one of those things where like, I get to live out a childhood fantasy right now. So I'm going to do this no matter what, while simultaneously understanding how powerful this tool is for business specifically.

And for me, when I talk about business, it's about how much of an impact can I make in the market where I see cultures. Like I want to make a positive impact on culture. I know that business is the number one way to do it. Some people think being the president of the United States is that, but I say nay. Look at Elon Musk. He's impacted the economy more positively than any president ever and advanced us technologically than anyone in government ever. So I believe that entrepreneurship is the number one way to make a large impact on the planet. And so for me, you know, if people hear me talking about business

and you said on, when I was interviewing you earlier, you're like, you don't seem like you give a shit about money. And yeah, I don't put a lot of attention in my communication around money but i really see it as energy uh as a useful it's energy for a business and business is impact culture and so that's where i'm always coming from and so that's why it interests me and people either make more there's this idea that i've recognized this it's even more so with Instagram right now. It's like followers equal money. It's like, fuck, no, it doesn't. I know people with a million Instagram followers that have no idea how to turn it into much money at all. And I know people with 2,000 followers that are making six figures off of it. Right. And so it's all about leveraging that and

then also creating the right type of content to leverage that. But for me, it's like, how good is your business model? And then also like, I'm not going to go out. I could be making 10 times more money than I'm making right now if I sold supplements, right? So if I wanted to make a pre-workout and rock you with 300 milligrams of caffeine and, and beta, put some beta alan in to make you itch, then you're probably going to think the shit works, right? And it cost me about 29 cents to make, and I'm going to charge you 600 bucks for it. But the thing is, I could go out and seek out, okay, this is the best business model for generating the most amount of dollars. So I think that with a podcast our size, if we did that, it would work really, really well.

But yeah, some people just don't know. They don't know that they should be building a business around their podcast. So that's why they might be bigger or more popular but not doing so well. And I think those days are over. I was just going to say, what do you think about the people out there? Because I have my own opinion. Those days are over because podcasting is no longer new. In order to be ranked high, you have to be able to invest enough time.

And the only way you can invest that amount of time is if you have money. And that means that that needs to be generating cash in some way. But I was just going to say, what do you think when someone's like, hey, I want to start a podcast. What do you think when someone's like, hey, I want to start a podcast. What do you think? This, that, blah, blah, blah. I discourage most people. I think it's ridiculous at this point.

There's so many. It's really hard to differentiate yourself. I think it is definitely more beneficial. We talked on your podcast about putting your time into YouTube because then you can kind of win people over with your personality. Yeah. Because maybe your voice. Yeah, you have to want to podcast.

You have to be all in. If you want to stand out as a podcaster, I only encourage people who go, I want to podcast because I love podcasting and I have a really unique view on this topic and I have this kind of access. To that person. I go, oh, shit, please podcast. But if it's like, yeah, I just, you know, it's the only way I know how to get my voice out there. I'm like, yeah, you're right. YouTube is if you want to sell a thing, I think YouTube is the most powerful tool out there right now.

It has the longest shelf life. Yeah. It's searchable too. Podcast has a good shelf life too, but the YouTube is crushing it. Well, the problem with podcasts is there's so much volume. So I looked at – one of the reasons we created the Shrug Collective is I was – I'd say for about a year before we launched the Shrug Collective, I started noticing that our rankings were, we were falling down in the rankings. And when I look at other people's

shows, I go, look, we're fucking better than them. Like our, the quality of our content's better. Our quality of our audio is better. We're putting like, we care. We've been doing this for, and we've been doing it for a long time. And I go, why is, why are our rankings hurting? And I noticed that everybody that was passing us up was doing more volume. They were doing four or five shows a week. So I really, I had the conversation with myself for a long time, you know i do i want to do four shows a week because one show was a lot of work because we do high quality shit you do high quality shit too you know what it's like and it burns you out like a good show yeah a good show takes a lot of energy and so i was looking at that i was like fuck i don't care i don't care if i make less

money i'm just not gonna it's not worth it to me worth it to me. I want to live this kind of life, and this kind of life requires one or two shows a week, and that's how it goes. And so I actually was – I actually thought about shutting down the entire business a year ago. I remember that. That's when I was first getting on board. Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. I was going through on board. Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. I was going through a huge life change. I was going through some personal stuff that was really beautiful.

And the people who knew me, if they didn't understand what it was like to go through a metamorphosis, would be terrified and go, oh oh shit, he's gone crazy. And the whole time I was going through, I was like, yeah, I just, I need, I need some space. And so I, I considered shutting down the business altogether because I wanted space, but we were able to like run, we were able to run shrugged on fumes for like six months. And while we were doing that we you know me Doug and Anders were having a conversation of how do we create more of a network because I said

the only way this works is if we pump out more volume on the podcast and it's not me you know I think a lot of times in my business up until this point, the businesses that I've been associated with, when people go, we need more content, they look at me. I go, all right, because I'm a content generator. I'm like, fuck, man. There's only so much content I can generate here. Of course. It's hard. And then because I had gone through this personal transformation, I recognized that I had this lone wolf mentality that I had been living with for years.

Well, my whole fucking life. Yeah. That's me right here. I would even build a team. We would build a business, a team, and then I would end up pulling the rug out from underneath, I would do something stupid because like I, there was something about being a lone wolf and then also being an underdog that I was attached to. And then I did a lot of work around both of those things. So I, so in the last year and a half, I had to let go of being the underdog and let go of being a lone wolf.

And so that mentality got me to building a seven-figure business. I had two different businesses that were doing seven figures, and I did it with a lone wolf mentality, and I did it with – and I did it with – what was the other thing I was saying? Fuck, I don't remember. But from that place where it was hard for me to ask for help. I had team members, but anytime anything went wrong in the business, I would shut the door to my house and I would think about things and I would try to problem solve by myself. I do that now.

Yeah. It's very common in entrepreneurship because it's, it's what makes you successful until a point. So that's where I'm at right now where I can't, I don't have enough hours in the day to get everything done, but I also don't believe that I have the right people to help me. Like, you know what I mean? Like I have people who will help me and they will try very hard to help me, Like, you know what I mean? Like, I have people who will help me, and they will try very hard to help me, but I don't think it's not going to come across

the way that I need it to, and I've asked, hey, make this for me, or whatever, and then we'll kind of see how it goes. And I don't have enough time to really tell them what I'm, like, even, like, making, like, a program. Yeah. I can't convey to you, like, what I'm thinking

so that it comes out on paper the same for you. And what you're giving me is just, I can't give that to the world. You know what I mean? That's just not – so everything is me all the time. Are you – And I really want help in the worst way. Yeah, and it's interesting because you have a brand that's attached to your name. And Shrugged has been heavily associated with my face so it's it can

be a challenge um one of the things that one of my big realizations that i've that i've gotten to adopt is that um it's not about me and if my bit if something if something goes out that people don't like, or if, I mean, shit, you're on the network. You know, if Ryan Fisher does something that I, and I don't agree with everything you say or your philosophy on things. Like, it's not how I would do things or how I would convey them. Yeah.

Or even the advice I would give. And I have to let go of like, you know what? The truth is, is he's reaching people I would never be able to reach. And your overall thing is good. And I don't fucking know better than you. I don't know better than anybody. And one of the things that I got to do over the last year is,

A, I was talking about the lone wolf. I got over the lone wolf piece. I became much more open to collaboration. And when I started collaborating more, I noticed that one of the things that really helped me be able to collaborate was letting go of how well my business was doing impact how I felt about myself. And so there were so many times that my business was not doing what I wanted to do, either reputation-wise or money-wise.

If it felt like my reputation was being hurt, if either reputation wise or money wise, if some, if it felt like my reputation was being hurt, like the reputation of the business, or we weren't making the money that I thought we should be making, then I would take it very personally. And I would have an emotional day. That was the day where I felt depressed or I would get angry easily and my wife would walk on eggshells around me because she knew that I was having one of those days it's easy to do especially in our space

because you're being reminded of how good you're doing pretty much every day you should be every post, every this, every that for most people who have 8-5 you have your quarterly review or you have this or you have that. And it's just like I don't think a lot of people understand what it's like to own your own business versus working for a business.

It's two totally different things. I just talked about this on my Instagram today. I was like, your fucking eight to five is a half day for me. Not even. It's a half. You know what I mean? Like the only eight hours that I don't work, I'm sleeping. And when I'm sleeping, I'm fucking thinking about working.

I'm thinking about the next day. Dude, people probably, people who know me well would know that, you know, I party every once in a while. Yeah. Dude, I'm working at a party. Yeah. The conversation I'm having at 3 a.m., I'm talking New Year's Eve. Perfect example.

3 a.m. You know who I'm talking to? I'm talking to a guy who, well, I don't want to give him away. He runs a very successful online business. We're talking nine figures. Wow. And so that's who I'm talking to at 3am. We're talking about girls. We're talking about life. We're talking about business.

That's who we are. So it's like, you're right when it doesn't turn off for the entrepreneur. There's the, there's the constant thing going on. I definitely can be present with people without it always having to be about business. But the best stuff happens at odd times. Definitely agree. I went to the dentist yesterday. And I sit down and she goes, oh, she made a comment. I'm like, oh, you got off work early today, huh? I was like, the comment was so strange.

I don't hang out. Almost everybody I know knows what I do. huh? I was like, it was just like, it was like the comment was so strange. Yeah. Like I don't, I don't hang out. Like almost everybody I know knows what I do. And so it's like for someone to make that comment or, or if they don't know what I do, they know that I'm at least an entrepreneur. And so she's like, what do you do?

And I'm like, I don't really know how to answer that. It's like, I know how to answer. If someone's an entrepreneur and they asked me what I do, I'm like, 20 seconds later, they're like, Oh, I got answer that. Yeah. It's like, I know how to answer, if someone's an entrepreneur and they ask me what I do, I'm like, 20 seconds later, they're like,

oh, I got a map. Yeah. But if I said that same thing to that person, they'd go, I have no idea what you just said. Yeah.

It sounds like a bunch of random shit. Sometimes when people ask me what I do, I'm like, well, you better sit down and listen to this one.

You know what I mean? It's like, it's a lot of stuff. It all started in 1981. It's a lot of stuff. I actually get get sad like to break up with a girlfriend to me is sad yeah not only because it's it actually is sad but because i'm like fuck i need this next girl to understand so much about me so that i'm not weird how do you think i feel with my wife of nine years? At least she knows everything. That's what I'm saying.

You know what I mean? It's like, so if, I've played this game, is, all right, if Ashley and I broke up, and I was going to start a whole new relationship.

They don't get it. Dude, it's going to take them years to catch up. Yeah. For me to have that person that really gets me. And so there's, I see what you're saying now. Yeah.

It's like, wow. Um, but I liked like some of the beginning stages of my life, like where I didn't have anything and I was grinding my fucking balls off for like, you know, these small paychecks or how much I was beating the fuck out of my body to compete

or you know nights i spent just really upset because i didn't really know what i wanted to do with my life and like anders was around during that time when i had nothing and i was stealing food and just like my life fucking sucked you know and like for someone to come into my life now and be like oh like tell their parents oh he does like really well he has a great job like his business is really good like blah blah blah like they say all these nice things about me and it's like that's great but I would much rather them know where I came from and like I'd much rather you know where I came from and I'd much rather you respect me for who I was then than for who I am now.

And that's really, really hard for me because I think people might look at my job and be like, oh, his job's cool. He gets to work out all day, talk about fitness and this and that. And it's like, yeah, maybe what I get to do is really cool all day, but it's really fucking time-consuming. Well, I think what's more valuable for people to know is how far you've come yeah that's important doesn't give like i don't give a shit necessarily where you came from it i like it as a reference like oh you were there and now you're here oh i see your trajectory forward now yeah i go i get it i see what you're doing that's why the low is important

yeah the low is important yeah yeah when i i've had people you've probably had this happen to people make comments on instagram or youtube like oh it must be nice like uh there's one guy one day was like oh must be nice you know you're probably born in california with rich parents and all the shit yeah i was like fuck no dude i was roofing houses in memphis tennessee and when i was 13 years old and the fucking sun was blazing down and humidity was 99%, like, I joined the Navy. I fucking went on two deployments. Like, I fucking did some crazy, like, I did, like, the hard,

what's the hardest thing? That's what I'll do. It's like I was going out of my way to find it. Or equally as painful to me is like when someone's like they'll see a photo of me like super shredded or i look good in a photo and it's like steroids like what's his cycle or whatever and it's like dude even if i was on a fucking giant fucking cycle you still or even if you were on the most ridiculous cycle of all time you still couldn't look like me because you can't say no to the same things that I say no to.

You can't say no to staying up late. You can't say no to not hanging out with your friends. You can't say no to the fucking pizza enough. You can't fucking do all the things that makes me look that way. And you can't work out hard enough. And all of the things that go with it. There's no such thing as a pill

that gets anybody anywhere. Because if everybody wanted to be Mr. Fucking Olympia, they would just take all the pills and get there. The people who are pointing at you and going must be nice or you're doing steroids or something, that person is fucking delusional.

They are delusional. They are looking for excuses on why they're not as good as you. And it's really all about them. They're really – because who gives a shit if you're on steroids, right? They're still putting their attention on you and they could be putting the attention on themselves. Yeah.

That's why they're not happy. That is the social media world for you. Yeah, but I think the social media world for you. Yeah. But I, I think, I think the social media world, I, I'd like to see people evolve from that and realize how much they're projecting onto other people. I think there's a, I think,

I think social media may offer a big opportunity and we're just in the, the shitty person stage. That is, we're, we're in the dating phase of, of right that's right we're just swiping left and swiping right yeah those apps are pretty interesting by the way i've i've got i've had a few i'm like i'm curious what's happening on here my favorite thing is to go up to like a new city or a new place and be like i'm just gonna fire this up real quick yeah and just kind of see who

pops up and what they say and all that stuff. But my DMs are the best. My DMs, like when I go to a new city or something, oh, my God. Oh, really? My Instagram DM is like what Bumble should be. Are there dating apps you like to use or no? No, not really. I've tried Bumble and I've tried Tinder.

But what I really want to do is I want to pull up this message that I got recently on my Instagram DMs. And you're literally going to die. It is the best thing ever. This girl says the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Oh, man. this girl says the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen oh man she says like i want to wipe oh here it is i want to clean up your sweat with my pussy you're fine as fuck seriously any woman would be lucky to twist those nips and smack that ass that was my DM. That can't happen on a dating app. Where does she live?

That only happens on Ryan Fisher's DMs. That's true. That's true. I didn't ask her where she lived. My response was, this is the best DM I've ever had. Well, close actually. It's definitely the best one I've had in 2019.

And I said, well played. Nice, nice. And I didn't respond anymore after that because it's a little bit terrifying. I feel like the condom would disintegrate along with my penis as soon as I inserted on that one. Not that I would. It's interesting. It's interesting. Fuck.

I don't know what to think about that. I don't get propositioned on Instagram, which is probably a good thing. You probably know that you're married. It's probably a good thing. That's probably part of it. That's probably part of it. Even though I get hit up by married women all the time, it's very interesting. Yeah.

The DM world is so insane. Like that hip-hop song, it goes down in the DMs. Oh, it's for real. Oh, my God. That guy did it because he literally fucked 700 women in the DM. Damn. I mean, that's what being black rappers are all about. This is actually one of my chief complaints in life right now.

My problems are not real people's problems. No. But my problem right now is I'm married. No. I'm married. That, I'm married. That's everybody's problem who's married. I'm in an open relationship and I'm non-monogamous. What's the rules on that?

What's the parameter? Are you allowed to sleep with another girl once? You can't sleep with them more than once? You can't cuddle? Is there anything that is off limits? It varies from relationship to relationship. So there's a constant checking in. So there's no rules, really. There's more considerations and requests.

So I've gotten a really good beat on what I know is going to be really uncomfortable for Ashley and what's not going to be uncomfortable for her. Like, Oh yeah. And some women just will trigger the shit out of her and some women don't. Um, but my, my chief complaint isn't the marriage.

The chief complaint is like most girls don't want to be with a married guy. So that's, that's all. Yeah. All right. Hence the, you know, not much action in the DMS are just like, Oh, you know, I'm not going to mess with him because he's married.

And we're very – like Ashley on her Instagram is always talking about relationships. So I have dated – I've dated a couple girls who were like – they were – the entire time, the reason we stopped dating is because they were scared they were going to impact my relationship with my wife. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Well. I know why I'm talking about this on this show. Yeah, I don't know how.

I tried not to get there. How did we get there? I probably took it there. It's just where my brain is going right now. Well, I think it was just like really about the DMs. I don't get as many DMs when I'm in a relationship, for sure. I mean, I've never been married, but every time I have a relationship, they're usually in my story and stuff, and people stop.

I mean, except for gay guys. They're really aggressive either way. They come at me at all angles. They would fuck my armpit, fucking underboob. It wouldn't matter. They're all about it. Oh, shit. Anyway, back to business stuff.

So you start this podcast. It starts getting really, really big. You probably had no idea where it was going to go, that it could even be lucrative, that it would wind up being one of the biggest social media platforms. It kind of is a social media platform now. Totally. You're giving just giant pieces of information out for free all the time. But what I think is the coolest part is you get to meet people that you could never meet normally. just giant pieces of information out for free all the time. But what I think is the coolest part is you get to meet people that you could never meet normally.

It's really hard, like for me, for instance, to hit up the owner of Power Crunch Bar and say, hey, I want to have you on my show so we could talk about how your business started and this and that. And we get 1,000 downloads a month or whatever. And he'd be like, well, fuck you. I don't have time for that. But now I can say, hey, I work for Barbell Shrugged. We get like a million downloads a month or whatever. And he'd be like, well, fuck you. I don't have time for that. Yeah.

But now I can say, Hey, I work for Barbell Shrugged. We get like a million downloads a month. You plus trust me. You want to be on the show, blah, blah, blah,

blah. And they're like, Oh yeah. Like when can we meet up? Yeah. So now you get these connections with people. Well, what's funny is there,

there was a period of time and podcasting where I had people say yes to me. They didn't even, they didn't even know enough about podcasting. Ask me how many downloads we were getting. I go, you got a podcast? Okay, I'll go on it. And now, yeah, people are hip because they're like, fuck, everyone's got a podcast.

I have a minimum amount of listening. I do give some people a pass if I'm friends with them, but there's got to be a point where you have to start practicing discernment. Yeah, for sure. With time and energy. I ask people all the time because they'll ask me to be on their podcast and the first thing I say is, how many downloads do you have? If it's in the hundreds or even thousands, I'm like, I can't. I can't. Unless it's

100,000 or something like that. I don't know. Just the bandwidth as you get more into this and you start getting older and more connections happen and that bandwidth just eventually, there's only so much you can do. Yeah. You can only grind at just a ridiculous's only so much you could do yeah and uh you can only grind at like just a ridiculous effort for so long you know like i i always want to be considered a grinder

the person who's really putting the most effort in all the time but as i get older like i need to enjoy my life at some point i don't want to be like 70 and enjoy my life i want to do it now you know so i mean i don't think in terms of effort anymore. I actually, where I'm at is how can I apply the least amount of effort and get the greatest result? So I used to be very effort-oriented, but over the years I've become much more result-oriented. And I started saying that before it started coming true. I am more concerned about results, while in reality I'm in the background just working my dick off. And then over time I was like, I had to instill that new way of thinking. And now it's, it's true. Like I work, I work an incredible amount of hours. I think if people, you know, people's impression of what I work and how much I work, I have no idea what it

is. But, uh, if I am, um, yeah, I don't even know what it would average out to. Because there's some weeks where you know how it is. It's just like you wake up one day and go, I haven't had a day off in like three weeks. I've been traveling every weekend for these gigs. I've never had a day off, I don't think. And then. Even when I'm on trips, I sit down for a couple hours on my computer and I have to get shit done.

Yeah. Well, one of the things I found as I've been doing this shit longer is the days off actually help me be more effective. Again, it's like how can I – when I become more results, when I'm measuring things by results instead of how it feels, then I go, oh, it doesn't need to feel hard. It can feel really easy. I can just apply a little bit of pressure, give a little bit of guidance over here, and then I can just let it go. I don't even need to feel hard it can feel really easy i can just apply a little bit of pressure give a little bit of guidance over here and then i can just let it go i don't need to be there okay i can go over here and i can work with this team now which allows me to do more things and be more effective but i mean i'm still testing my limit my capacity like there's it's it's just a different type of capacity than it was before. Before it was like that grind capacity.

How many consecutive hours can I just keep pushing and I can beat out the other guy? And now it's like how many different teams can I run effectively where everything is just running smooth, smooth, smooth. How smooth can we make this? So once you get to that point, what things are you implementing to make your life easier and yet get a higher X in return? A lot of focus on communication. Because that's my problem right now. It's not about communication for me, but I'm just trying to let go of the reins and having people help and accepting that it's not going to be what I would do. Yeah, I think it may be communication. And so the first thing I really like to focus on is vision.

Where do you see the business in three years from now? So if you're an entrepreneur and you're running a business, having the ability to communicate what the business looks like in three years clearly where everybody understands and can adopt that, yes, that's where we're going. And then the key is letting go of how it happens. And so if I can have a room full of people. So we had our executive retreat last week, Doug Anders, Tyler. So we had four of us in the room and then we had some other people come in for on different days for different meetings. But by the end of three days, we refined our plan for the rest of 2019 because we had started talking about, we're always, you know, kind of keeping a one year range in mind. Um, we have a-year range in mind, but the one year seems to be what fluctuates. And

then we create our quarterly, like, this is what we're going to execute on this quarter. Even I have execute, like, deliverables. It's like, I need to be networking in this way, and the result is that I introduce so many people with companies that are of this size to get sponsorships. And I also am in charge of creating specific types of content. And I'm also at what part of my deliverables is going on other people's podcasts is, okay, how many, how many new people did you get in front of? So that's like part of my job. I really want to get on more podcasts, like really bad. It's easier. It's easier when you have other things in business getting done for you.

Yeah. And now it's like, oh yeah, I'm, I'm networking more. So a lot of times I'll get on a podcast because I went to a conference or a mastermind. I went to something, I went to a business related something. And then I meet someone else in the fitness industry that's doing a podcast and they go, Oh my God, you're cool. I didn't even know this person, right? Brian Nydell is one of these people. He's getting, uh, 15 minutes of freedom is his podcast. He's doing really well. I didn't even know about it because I'm busy working on my thing. He didn't know much about me because he's working on his thing.

But we happened to be in the same room. It was a dozen influencers for a mastermind in Austin. And I go, oh, you've got a cool story. I want to interview you. And so he interviewed me too. And so I think freeing up, like finding out, like what is it that you're uniquely gifted at delivering? And then trying to get people to do all the other shit is the key and part of that is is painting this vision of the future that

everybody is excited about moving towards and then what I get to let go of is how it happens and really watch my team go oh if that's where we're going I think we should run the strong coach like this and I go you know what that's a we're going, I think we should run the strong coach like this. And I go, you know what? That's a way better idea than I thought. You know, I had an idea about how we would do this, but that's actually better. And so, uh, there's this old military quote of, uh, if, uh, if they help plan the fight, they won't fight the plan. And so, like, including those team members in a planning phase of what we're going to do to execute.

And the first time I heard that, I was like, okay, I know what we're going to do, and I'm going to let them plan it. You know, I'm going to, like, help guide it. Like, I was going to guide them towards my ideas. But it kind of worked but it works best when i legitimately let go when i legit go i actually don't care how this works at all you guys make it work and these are these are the results we need to hit you're responsible for making this happen and when we meet weekly someone's going to ask you did you do your thing

and now just now things just happen. But we build things. Most of what we do that works well, it was not my idea. I'm just saying, hey, this is the direction we're going. This is our message. This is our branding. And this is the type of products that we want to sell. That's pretty much what I do.

And then I get involved in certain parts of the process where I'm really good. But what I'm not good at, I don't touch it. What about when it comes time to spend money on something that you're kind of hesitant about? So like for me, it was hiring someone to run ads for me. It was a big expense that scared me. Yeah. I've got one right now. I'm going to tell you some of mine, and then you will hit yours. So that was a big thing for me.

And actually, I'm at the point now where that paid off very, very well. I'm happy I did that. I'm also happy that I picked up a desk person at my gym to do little tasks that were taking me an extremely long time and then now my big one now and i'm such a content driven person like everything i do is basically because of content so now i'm like all right i think i'm gonna there's a good chance that i'm gonna give somebody like almost a six-figure salary a year just to permanently make content for me all the time. Yeah. And I'm terrified to say yes to it.

You can always fire him. I know. It's not an exponential amount of money to the point where I'm like, holy fucking shit, it's going to change my life to pay him that much. But I'm like, it's enough to where I'm thinking about it.

And I'm like, okay, this is a significant amount of money. This better be dope. How much are you spending on creating media now? Probably like a third of what I would pay this guy. Yeah. I'm just wondering if there's a way to slowly increase that. I like working with contractors and be like okay you're working about one day a week for me right now what's it

look like if we add a second day like what would we actually be doing and slowly ease in that way for for some things other things it's like I got to jump in with both feet I like to go all in on everything yeah well I think you can afford to and And here's the thing is, you know, that's one of the benefits of being a small business is you have agility and you don't have a big team. So it's not like, I've made mistakes

where I've had to fire, you know, eight people at once. Yeah, that sucks. That sucks. So I, like you don't have that many, I don't know if you have that many

people you could fire, but like, like there's, close. Like being small I don't know if you have that many people you could fire. No. Close. Being small has a lot of advantages and experimentation. I can experiment with this. Okay, we're 90 days in. I dropped 25 Gs, and it's just not working.

All right, we're going to bail on this. So as long as like, I like to experiment with something and not embed it too deeply into the expectations that we're keeping this forever. It's like, this is an experiment. You know, I remind people of that. It's like, we're going to try this out and see what happens. So what's something that scares you right now that you want to invest in? So I have not, um, I have not had a coach. I've had a fitness coach and like a health. Yeah, I was going to say, what kind of coach are we talking about? I've had a health coach in the last couple years, but it's been two years since I had a business coach.

So I was talking about I had quite the transformation last year. I went through this phase where I didn't know what I – I was questioning everything in my life. So hiring a business coach during that period of time, it would be kind of dumb. But, yeah, so we're going to hire a business coach. $25,000 for six months of coaching. It's actually not that bad. Six months, that's a pretty good deal.

Yeah. It's not even $ bad. Six months, that's a pretty good deal. Yeah. It's not even $5,000 a month. I think it's like, I don't know, $4,100 something, something like that. Yeah. So. What do you hope to get out of it?

But I'm also paying out of my own pocket for this. I have multiple streams of revenue, but I'm not pulling this out of my main business. In the past, like for business coaching, I would pay for it out of my own business, but I'm not pulling this out of my main business. In the past, for business coaching, I would pay for it on my own business, but I'm going to be paying for this. It's one of those things where I see this as so valuable. And the coaching is not... He's technically not a business coach. He's a capacity coach.

So this isn't one of those things where it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to coach you on marketing. And I know that I've taken people from making $100,000 a month to $1 million a month. It's not that type of a person. This person is Dr. Matt. He's more about increasing your cognitive and your, we'll just say capacity overall. Like how do you increase your capacity to hold more, to be able to manage more money, uh, more people, relationships, messaging. There's, there's so much happening at an energetic level of like, a lot of times people hit the, you know,

they'll never make more than 50 000 or 60 000 a year they hit it's like this fucking number in their head and they just like bump up against it or they'll never make more than a hundred or they'll never make more than a million like there's this like these are all fucking made up numbers it's like a 300 pound power clean yeah you can clean 295 like 100 times and then you go to 300 and you just can't hit it. Exactly. There's something there that's limiting you, but it has nothing to do with what you think it is. And so, yeah.

That was $100,000 for me. What was? I used to think $100,000 was like a fucking boatload of money. And I was always like, if I made $100,000, that'd be so much money, you know? Yeah. And lo and behold, I mean, some things happened, and that's no longer an issue. But it's weird to get past something that you didn't know you could get past and then actually have to look at that as a small step to get to like some ridiculous

number that you didn't even know even existed or was even possible yeah if you would ask me 10 years ago I was like you know um are you even interested in running a business that does 10 million a year I would have said no like that doesn't even make any sense. Why? Now I'm like, I'm not trying to do that, but it interests me. I'm like, oh, wow. What does a business look like that does that? Yeah, I'd like to run that kind of a business.

That's a lot of influence. That's a big impact. That's helping a lot of people the impact is cool not even like on a helping type of level it's not like i get stoked on just helping a giant amount of people i like that i'm the person who created this or i'm the person who like like the reason you're doing that is just because of this person. You know what I mean? Like that's what I like the most.

I mean, everyone's getting benefit out of it and that is like, you should be excited about that. But I like to be like the inventor or the creator of something. And like, I think that's fucking, it's just so cool. Like I remember growing up and just knowing that, you know, someone invented snowboarding or greg glassman invented crossfit or you know you hear the term hit training high intensity interval training and like everybody's

getting all excited about it and then like now like i have my own thing where it's called the high intensity interval bodybuilding and it's like if you hear that term ever that's fucking mine yeah you know what i what I mean? Like that is mine. You know, like that is so fucking cool. And I love that. And I like that is why I'm here. Like I want to be the person who created something really, really great on some level and that people remember for a really long time. Yeah.

And I want to change the way people work out. Yeah, that's fucking cool. Yeah. I like, I really like global coaching, like giving advice and then watching a large group of people all go towards the thing. And I'm like, oh, shit. I really like the, I like, one of my favorite things is removing blocks for people. Like helping people with a blind spot. They're like, oh, I'm, it's the coach in me. It's like, oh, I want this thing.

And I'm like, oh, shit. Like the thing they want, they think that they're going to get there by doing this, but they can't see that it's this other, there's this thing in their life that's like, there's this belief they have or there's this identity that they're holding as a human being that is that there's this like this at a subconscious level they're sabotaging their goals in some way or their ability to get somewhere and i go oh and i'm shaking my head because like that's why i podcast one of my favorite things to do is to just help that person discover what that is and pull that little block out and then watch their whole world shift.

And they go, oh, shit. And then two months later, it's like, I thought this was going to take 10 years to happen, and it happened in two months. I'm like, yeah. It was like you had it in you the whole time. So that's one of my favorite things. And podcasting allows that to happen on a very broad scale. Yeah, you're getting literally the cliff notes of every dope book you could read from one person. And you're just getting like the absolute best part of the book every single time you podcast somebody.

And that's what I love about it is I've opened up so many doors in my life just from listening to someone tell me something that benefited them in their eyes and it's it's massive yeah i mean we've talked about things already that you know i needed to hear about you know just uh delegating tasks and and and how a lot of your idea your best ideas weren't even yours you know i mean and that like that might help someone like me who's super fucking type A. I mean, fuck the way I'm sitting here in this chair right now. You can tell I'm type A. And, like, it's just, you know, there is a point where I – my vision of what I want is not possible alone.

Right. It's just not. And I just need to find the right people. But I have a really hard time trusting people to put out what I need. You know what I mean? I want everyone to be so much better than they think they are. This is where I'm going to do just a fucking straight up promotion. Do training camp for the soul. And I'll give you your money back if that doesn't get solved for you.

What exactly is it? It's a six-day retreat. Is that your thing? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. And you help open people up for what? Possibility.

Okay. Whatever it is that they want. So we spend six days finding those blocks and then just removing them one at a time. There's more than one. Yeah. For people there's, there's usually,

you know, well, everyone's different. Um, some people have the way they are as, um, there's a lot of parts of them that they learned at a young age that is still working for them.

But then there's a large part of those things that they learned how to be from when they were a kid that just doesn't work for them anymore but it's like we're operating from our subconscious so heavily so it's like even if we consciously want to do something that i mean if you're 30 years old 95 of your behavior is subconscious it's not a conscious action and And so. Is that true? Yeah. 90% of it? 90, 95%. So what ends up happening, that's why you can drive to your gym from the house and listen to music and be on a phone call and all these things. It's because the act of driving is subconscious. The how you get there is subconscious. You have moments of conscious choice making, but it's few and far between.

Okay. And so this is driving how you respond when someone asks you a question. Or, you know, if something upsets you. We're all familiar with triggers. How you respond. How many times has someone done something or said something and then the thing comes out of your mouth and you're like even 10 seconds later you go why the fuck did i say that i regret it already and it's not because it wasn't conscious it was a subconscious reaction likely tied to something that how you started reacting to somebody in your youth and you know like five years old so now you

got a five-year-old running the show and And so it works for a while because whatever environment you grew up in, like that was your survival. It's weird, though, for me. It's how you got through life. And now when you change environments, and our culture is evolving so quickly with technology and interconnectedness that if you stay the same, you used to be able to go back 200 years ago,

you could be the same person between the ages of 20 and 70 and you're fine. There's no challenge. Like you're, you are that person. But now if you're not reinventing yourself constantly, you're going to fall behind. That is definitely true. So it's what we do is it's a,

it's a, we teach people how to reinvent themselves in a really effective way. For me, my life is so much different now than when I was a kid. Yeah. I mean, I'm like a polar opposite, but I have – You have tendencies, though. I mean, I do, too. Yeah. I have a lot of stuff to learn 100% on sharing businesses and getting help. Fuck, I talk about it on every episode how I need help so bad. Everyone's probably like, fuck, this guy needs fucking help.

But it's fine. Today, for instance, we're sitting here, and it's 420 right now. And since I woke up this morning at 6 a, I wanted to work out so bad. I didn't have any time to work out. I know that in the next three hours, I have a long YouTube video to make. And I know that we still have time left in this podcast. So I'm thinking I am not going to get to work out today. I have to post some stuff for multiple social media streams. And I have to put workouts up for all of my subscriptions and all the things that I have. And I'm like freaking out because I know that I only have like two and a half hours to really do that. And realistically, something is not going to happen.

Totally. So working out is probably not going to happen um because the other things are more important you're still gonna have a turtle shell yeah on your belly though the thing though is there has to be a way to be okay with that for me because i'm not okay with it so what's gonna happen is like 10 o'clock at night's gonna roll around and i'm probably gonna think about working out even though i'm fucking dead i'll do something i just will and do you is that serving you or do you think it's serving you or not it'll give me a little high it'll be like i don't know yeah a drug for somebody who's like fucking getting their drug in right i guess i don't know what it is but i wish i wasn't

like that and i wish that i could find a little bit more trust in people i just feel i'm like really upset with the general population not wanting to be better at all times like i don't hang on so i don't see the line i don't understand how you don't want to be better all the time. I just, I fucking cannot fathom it. And I've only talked about this. So if there was a moment in your day where you weren't trying to be better the whole time, you'd be hard on yourself. Fuck yeah. Right? So like, you're projecting what's happening to you internally onto everybody else.

I can see that. Yeah. And so that's your whole world. That's all you can see. But they don't see that. But it's not about them. It's like the bum though, that they don't. Right.

Why don't, why don't they see things the way I do? So because, because you're seeing it this way, like, because that's, that's where you're coming from. You're killing off possibility.

So if you don't perceive somebody as being that way, you won't work with them. Because you see everybody that way, including yourself. See, how you see yourself is how you'll start seeing everybody. So what you judge yourself most harshly on is what

you judge other people on, and then you won't accept them. So you'll never be able to find like the team that you need until you learn to go easier on yourself first. And so let that go. And that's deeply ingrained from something, you know, something, something like probably like four or five years old.

And there's, and here's the thing is there's nothing wrong with it. You could live the rest of your life like that and that's fine but you don't have to either so it's not like there's nothing wrong with you it's just that's how ryan is ryan fisher is doing ryan fisher things and he thinks in the ryan fisher way and i've been i've been impressed by some people with some things you know yeah um it it does it's not impossible to happen for me like it's definitely i'm sure there's people who like exceed it sounds like this person the woman who's running your ads has exceeded your expectations oh right so perfect example she is fucking crushing yeah and i i the happiness that she gives me on like every day it's not even about

her generating like income like she'll just write me a message and says hey like uh or i'll write her and say hey i was thinking about doing this and this and this and she's like oh yeah i already have some bullet points for that that i already thought that you would like and i think that you should do this and you should do that and all by the way i was already like started this ad anyway that's like kind of what you're going to do. Just put a little bit of money in it just to see if it worked or whatever. And I'm always just like,

oh my God, this is like this lady literally just like made me dinner when I got home from work and like had my outfit ready for me the next day and left me a fucking love note. You know what I mean? Like talk about love languages. This chick is crushing.

Yeah. She's married and has a kid, but if she's ever not into that, then I'm there. She's probably going to listen to this and be like, he's out of his mind. But, yeah, like, little things like that are huge for me. Yeah. And it makes me so excited. Like, you can even tell right now from my own body language,, like I'm genuinely excited for somebody who wants to fucking work hard. Like if you want to work hard and you want to get after it and you want to fucking like change the world together in like my vision, like let's fucking go.

Like let's go. And like I will take care of you. I just will. Like everything will be fine. Like I, I, I've given bonuses to people that were like outrageous, like just because I'm so happy that they're happy. And now they're like on this path. And sometimes some people have been grinding to a point where they just need a little bit of extra motivation to, to be like, you know what? That was fucking worth it. And then once you know that things are worth it

and then you know you're worth it, that's when all of the barriers just fucking shatter and then all of a sudden you look at things the way that I look at things. Yeah. Because I can look like, okay, $20 million house. You can't ask me how to not get it.

Yeah. You know? It's debatable whether or not I want a $20 million house. The answer to that question is absolutely no. Because I'd rather spend $20 million doing cool shit and have like a $2 million house. But like, and that's the honest truth. Yeah. But I used to look at the house. I'd ride my bicycle at like 16 years old or whatever.

And me and my parents would drive through expensive neighborhoods during Christmas and look at Christmas lights. And you just wonder what these people did for a living. How did they get that? You know, like, I don't even drive through neighborhoods anymore and think, what does that person do? What does that person do? Like, sometimes I have a rare thought of that. But I'm like, I look at that. I drive through that same neighborhood now, and I think, if I do this and this, I could have that.

Or if I do this and this, I could have that. Or this person probably did something like this. It's no longer a mystery. Right. And there's a point in your life where that just it just fucking happens and i i fucking dream for that day for everybody to happen because then we can hang out we can have conversations and you'll be my new best friend because it's just like we are intuitively on a level that doesn't happen until that happens yeah you know and for some people it could be like a psychedelic experience where all of a sudden

you can talk to somebody who's had that experience and you guys are just like, you know. Right? Or before you fucking had sex with some girl for the first time, you and your buddy are just jerking off forever and then all of a sudden you actually have sex with some girl. You start talking to somebody else

who had sex with some girl. You guys know. Just wait until you have sex with the same girl like oh yeah so like there's just these things that happen like once you get to a certain level and then once you actually have sex with a girl then you start talking to other girls in a whole different language you know i i think there's i think you're really good at i think of uh creating change in your life from two different there's two different ways to do it, right? And you're a powerhouse. So you're going to like – you create change with brute force.

You just fucking like I'm going to hammer, hammer, hammer, hammer, and I'm going to get there, which is great, which is fine. That's actually my – that's my original method. And I got really far with it. And it works. So there's like – What's your original method. And I got really far with it. And it works. So there's like... What's your new method? And does it work better? It's easier.

It's easier. So there's the doing and then there's the being. So there's the... Okay. I mean, the planet, the universe is in a constant evolution, right? It's constantly changing. Nothing is the same from evolution, right? It's constantly changing. Nothing is the same from moment to moment. It's in constant flux.

Now, I may have a vision for how I want things to be different, right? And so there's like seven other people, seven billion other people on the planet in which I have to now compete against them in a way. Like my ideas need to win out over someone else's ideas in order for my way of living, the way I want my life to live and how I want other people to live their lives to win out. And so there is this,

okay, I have a vision of how this is going to go. So now I'm going to get there by doing more. I'm going to outpace everybody else. So if someone's working eight hours, I'll work nine hours. So over time, I'll chip away and I'll just fucking, and I'll achieve, I'll evolve this, my part of the universe into the way I want it by just sheer work, right? And what's really happening is I'm changing myself because every time I have a conversation with somebody and I win them over

to my way of thinking or my, I sell them something or I just get them to agree to meet me at this bar because I want to go to that bar or whatever it is. I'm, I'm shaping my universe little by little by little by, by having to figure out the thing I want to happen. I have to like map out each stepping stone and I go, okay, I got to do this, which will lead to this, which will lead to this. I have to have this map, right? Of how it works. That's doing.

Now there's the, you can get there by doing, and that's how I live most of my life. In the last few years, I adopted more of how do I be the person that does the thing? So instead of, instead of doing to become, I become to do. And so now I go, what is it about me? How is it that I'm being that is allowing me to show up as this person or not? And a lot of it's tied into identity. So then you're teaching this basically to other people? I do teach this.

No, but I'm saying this is what's getting you to where you're at this, basically, to other people? I do teach this. No, but I'm saying, this is what's getting you to where you're at. Because you want to be. Right. Like, okay, yeah,

so. So you're trying to tell me, basically, how can I convey myself to other people so that they can help me? Not necessarily. No.

so what I'm saying is, instead of, instead of going, how do I, say I want to get to a million subscribers on YouTube, right? It's like how – it's like what are the tactics? What are the strategies and tactics?

So we need to go – all right, we need to get a videographer and we have to – all right, we got to find a strategy. What's the SEO strategy to make this work? All right. Boom, boom, boom. Like we can map it out and then just keep on hammering away. And then this worked or this didn't work. Oh fuck. You know, and then never feeling like I got there. And then when I, when I do get to a million subscribers on YouTube or a million dollars in the bank, it's like, okay, what now? So instead of the, the coming from a place of being is now

what I do is I take time in the morning and reflect and I go, okay, what kind of person has a million followers on YouTube? What kind of person runs a million dollar business? What kind of person? What are the attributes? And you may notice that, say, someone who's running a-dollar business, there's certain conversations they're not having. And I could sit there and I could make a fucking list of a hundred things of things to do and not to do that someone with a million dollars that's running a million-dollar company does and doesn't do. And you could go through and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore. Okay, I'm going to spend a month creating this new habit.

I got this habit where I'm going to stop doing this thing or I'm going to start doing this other thing, right? It's like, okay, we're going to change one thing a month and that would be effective. That would be the doing. But like, what if I just in the morning said, I'm the guy that has the thing. I'm the guy that runs a million dollar business. I'm that guy. And throughout the day, I remind myself that I'm that guy all day long. So when someone comes to me and goes, Oh, do you want to go do,

do you want to go out for drinks? And I go, no, it's easy. I go, I'm not, I'm the guy that runs the million dollar business. And the guy that runs a million dollar business. And the guy that runs the million

dollar business on Wednesday night, he's in bed and he gets up early and he, and he does what he has to do to make the thing happen. I don't even have to think about the habits that gets there. People, a lot of times I go, well, what's your morning routine? I'm like, it doesn't even fucking matter. I have a morning routine because I'm the guy that lives the life I want to live. I'm being that guy. And that guy wakes up and he journals and he gets a workout in and he eats really healthy breakfast. And he knows that he has to fuel his body optimally if he's going to achieve what it is that I do. I am that guy.

And I'm not thinking about – when people start asking me about morning routines or nighttime routines, it's like, oh, I remember what it was like to think that that was what mattered. People think that matters so much. It's ridiculous. I'm like, you know what? My morning routine does start with journaling. I think it's important. It's a time to reflect. But I don't do that because I'm trying to you know what? My morning routine does start with journaling. I think it's important. It's a time to reflect. But I don't do that because I'm trying to achieve anything with it.

I'm not like, oh, if I do that, then I'll have a company that does this or I'll reach all my fitness goals or whatever. I do that because I know that I have, like, my goal right now is, you know, I didn't really, like like math it out financially, but, you know, we'll be doing like $10 million a year here in a couple years. And I know that in order to be doing that revenue with a strong coach that I know that there's going to be a number of coaches underneath me. There's going to be working with me. There's going to be marketing team. There's going to be a number of coaches underneath me. There's going to be working with me. There's going to be marketing team. There's going to be all these things. Who do I have to be from moment to moment for that to work? And so, so when I wake up in the morning, I go, oh, I need to be running. If I want to run a $10 million company, then how does, how does somebody who be, how does someone

behave that runs a $10 million company? Now my decisions throughout the day are really easy. I don't get distracted. Like the bullshit doesn't come up because I have taken on that identity. That is how I am being now. I don't even have to think about like the doing too much. The doing is automatically happening because I'm focused on who I have to be. So like build an avatar, put it on because everything we are, everything we think we are is only a story about something that happened in the past. For sure. That's a, that's the, a massive reason why I'm successful at this point. Yes. It's a story. Yeah, it really is.

Get really good at letting go of the old story and putting in the insert story that I want to live into. Fuck it. But most people, what they do is they go, all right, they get this concept now. They go, okay, I'm going to let go of the old story and insert the new. And then when they write down the new story, it doesn't feel good. It's like, oh, it's scary. I can't achieve that. There's a part

of their body that disagrees. And so there's like memories and emotions and all these things are stored in the body. And so there's this, there's this, this is why breath work becomes really handy and there's all the, and EMDR and there's all these things because a lot of the subconscious is residing in the part, the limbic part of the brain, the part of the brain that reacts quickly. Um, and so if you don't handle that shit, if you don't handle what's going on in the body, then, then even though you consciously are going, I've got a new story. It's like, no, you don't because you, and you can, you can override the old story. You can override it.

You can make it happen. It's just more effort than getting to a place where – there's just different levels of this. So it went from doing to being, and then there's different approaches to changing how you're being. And what I mean by that, I think that's a little woo sounding, is changing your identity. Like really buying into it

can be challenging for people. I mean, if it was easy for people to buy into a new identity like that, then people would be doing it left and right. But people try to do it all the time. I'm going to be this person. People do it. They make the mistake of thinking,

I'm going to buy the house and I'm going to get the car and then I'll make the money. And it's like, but the truth is, is there's, there's too much of part of their own identity, identity that does not believe that that's true. So it won't actually happen. I could see that for sure. And it, it really depends on the type of person too as well. Yeah, you're the type of person that you're just going to keep plowing. I'm not even sure. I mean, it sounds like you know exactly what needs to happen. You know what needs to happen tomorrow,

and you're just going to check the boxes. Keep going, keep going, keep going. You're achieving what you want. But I think it's a harder way to go about it. It is, but I don't know for sure that it is because I don't know any other way. But one thing I do know about the way that I do attack things is it has worked very well for me. And, I mean, you're talking just X's and X's each year on what I've been able to accomplish, not only income-wise, but just sheer volume of stuff.

So for me, it's all that I know, and it works really well, and I definitely get scared to change things. Well, it's like training. If it's still working, keep going with it. But like anything else? But it's the thing that's going to keep you from getting... People get confused sometimes.

They go, oh, this got me to where I'm at. It's like, yeah. And it's the exact same thing that's going to hold you back going forward. But if it's like five sets of five, if you're still fucking putting weight on the bar, get after it. But I think like anything else in this world, it's not really all that fun by yourself. Working out by yourself is not that fun.

Making money by yourself is not all that fun. And doing it without a significant other is not that fun. So all of those things, I would love to be crushing this with somebody else who equally loved it as much as I did. Whether or not they make as much money as me is irrelevant it's just the wait now you're talking about the happiness factor yeah I mean it's just we don't have to

get into happiness but I think that I enjoy everything doing it doing it the way I do it now the way I approach life now is way more enjoyable than what I was doing before. The collaboration, doing it with somebody has become easier over time through a lot of things that I've learned about myself. It's weird how people think collaboration means devaluing yourself. You guys have a subscription workout program, The Vault. I have my own subscription workout program but yet i'm still part of your right business right right and i bring people on my show who have subscription based programs and people would say to me like why would you have that person on your show and it's like they have something cool to say and out of the 130 35 000 followers that i have

obviously not all 135 of them thousand of them are buying my product or I'd be a gazillionaire, right? Like I'd be making like tens of millions of dollars a month. And that's not the case, but maybe someone in that interview, it does like get them excited and then they just go with their thing. And then maybe when that person promotes the podcast and they hear me on the show, maybe they check out my stuff and one of the persons on their list starts buying my thing. Yeah. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that's good is really broadening yourself and making yourself connect with

more people, getting more impressions. So that is the most important part of business is networking, making connections. Well, you're also practicing a level of trust. Yeah. Because you know it's going to come back. Like, you trust that you're going to be taken care of, right? And so. Hopefully.

Yeah, I mean. Some people suck, but. But you're operating mostly out of faith. There's no ROI on a lot of your behavior, but you know that if, like, I operate the same way. It's like, I'm going to keep putting good out there. I'm going to advise people. I give people the best advice every time.

I don't hold back one bit. I know people do all the time. I know people hold back their best shit. But if I'm talking to someone else about their business, I tell them exactly what I'm thinking. I don't hide, like, oh, I found this new thing that I'm implementing in my business. I got to, like, implement it before other people do. I'm like. I don't hide like, oh, I found this new thing that I'm implementing in my business. I got to like implement it for other people to don't like, fuck it. I'm just going to put it all out there because I cannot execute on everything for one. And then for two, um,

I'm all different. It doesn't matter. We're all different. I've helped, I've helped so many people in the fitness industry that I was telling you before the show is like, I used to run masterminds. You get 20 people in a room for three days and people pay good money to get in that room. And it's a lot of people were able to get in that room because I gave them business advice before they ever showed up that made the money that allowed them to pay for it. And now they're turning around and giving it to me. So it's like, it's like the only reason I was able to pull off a mastermind is because I had created value for people before they even, before I asked them for money yeah they trusted me and I also trusted that like you know what I know that if I was the only game in town I'd make more money for sure

who gives a shit yeah for sure I I mean one of my favorite people I've ever advised is Travis Mash out on the east coast and um unfortunately yeah he dude, he was like the WPO champion in 2006, 2007. What's WPO? World Powerlifting Organization. Oh. He's like – he went back and forth with Ed Cohn. I know who that is. I met Travis Mash.

He was a weight – he's still a weightlifting coach. We sat down at lunch at the American Open, and we're just chatting. He starts asking me about business because he had been on John North's podcast, and they were doing some stuff together. He starts asking me about business. I gave him everything. Thirty days later, he was making money online, coaching people online, and had ebooks

and stuff he did exactly what I told him to do and up until that point I knew who Travis Mash was because I was like this dude is a fucking good weightlifter he's a great powerlifter he's like world champion right

he's the best and to me I'm like yeah I'm just like a crossfitter weightlifter I'm pretty good but I'm not like an outstanding popular athlete and I've been doing barbell shrug for a couple years at this point and I just go dude you're the cool guy like by the way if you want to coach online like like we do here's all the information he goes he does he starts making money and he calls me up he he's like, what's next? I said, I was on the phone with him for an hour, I told him what to do next, he went and did that.

Travis Mash is, like, one of the coolest weightlifting coaches out there now. Like, and people follow him, people love him, and if I, we're friends, if I need a favor, I'll call Travis. Like if there's something like that – like I know that that's going to happen. I don't know if he's ever paid me any money for anything. And it doesn't matter. But there's all this goodwill that I've built up in the community.

And I didn't do it on purpose. I wasn't like, I'm going to help people out so that I can build up all this social equity and yada, yada, yada. I just did it because I fucking felt like it. Like when people ask me questions, there was a part of me that said, hide the information. And then there was the other part of me that said, tell everybody.

I go, you know what? I'm just going to keep telling everybody everything. And what I found is the more, anytime I hit information, it stopped the flow of new information coming in. And every time I shared information, I would get new information. So it was like this – That's like the craze right now on social media is just giving away as much as you can for free.

Well, I know that that's what's happened. The entire market – I've been paying attention to what's happening on the internet for a while now. And everything is becoming free. All information is becoming free. All information is becoming free. Now how it's packaged. It's not. But you can find everything for free online. What people are going to.

And it's not like one of those things. Where it's going to stop. So the key is to be the leader. To be the first one to give it away for free. In my opinion. There's degrees here so giving information away for free is one thing giving away coaching that takes time from you and your staff that's a different thing so i think everything's moving towards coaching everything everyone's gonna know pretty soon ai and some bot and all this stuff is going to tell you how to squat right.

Every technical coach is going to fucking be shit out of luck when it comes to having a job. The people who are still going to get paid in fitness are the ones that know how to help people on a much deeper level. Have a relationship with them, help them change habits, help them see themselves more clearly. Like more of a life coach. Yeah, I hate the word life coach because it doesn't mean anything. Mentor.

But I think all coaches are moving towards life coaches. I've had business coaches, I've had sales coaches, I've had, and it's like, they're really teaching you life. It's always life coaching. And the best fitness coaches are life coaches too. They may not call themselves that.

I don't like life coach because of the inability to market. It's a good staircase of evolution though. But I think every fitness coach, if they want to make it a career, they have to be a life coach. I wouldn't call yourself a life coach. But if you want to be the best fitness coach, you got to get deep in a lot of aspects of your own life so that you can see things clearly for your clients as well. But I do think that starting as a trainer and then slowly going through all of the phases,

especially like we did, like owning gyms and then having multiple different other businesses along the way, you kind of just become a life coach because as soon as you get to a level of success that everybody admires, they all are asking you questions. And then basically you become a consultant on some level. And then that's when everybody starts seeking advice from you. And then all of a sudden before you know it, you're teaching them life skills, and you're making everybody else better. It's not the evolution for everyone.

It's probably 5%. It isn't like more than 90% of entrepreneurs fail. So be happy that you're there. If you're out there right now, and you're listening to this, and you're in that position, don't be overwhelmed or pissed when people ask you questions.

Be grateful and be like excited that you're the person that they're that they're coming to of all the people they could go to you know that people could be asking questions to anybody yeah and but that having the experience helps but at the same time uh a lot of things that you can go get certified in now, like NLP and things like this. These are things that people traditionally only thought that psychologists had access to. But what's happening is the life coaching market is opening up a lot more deeper conversations between coach and client. And I think it's inevitable. And if someone else isn't going going to do it I'm already doing

it so it's happening so like that's part of the strong coach is giving coaches ammunition giving them the the giving them like leapfrog in a way so that they can get their own personal development going because you can't you can't guide anyone anywhere you haven't been yourself. And so doing the deep work on your own, you can speed that up by finding like we're coaching coaches. Like there's a mentorship process happening where they could either stumble around and figure this out on their own over the next several years or they can leapfrog a lot of this in 12 weeks because I've been there and I go,

oh, well, these are the things that I found to be the most important for somebody who's building a coaching business to know. And also communication skills. This is the style of coaching that I've noticed is the most sticky. If you're a coach that's not asking tons of questions, you probably don't know your clients as well as you think you do. Just things like that. That's cool. So of everything that you've done,

it sounds like the most exciting thing for you is the Strong Coach program, right? Is this probably your most exciting thing that you've done to date? I think everything I'm doing right now is making you excited, is making me super excited. I can't say it's one thing because there's, there's something that I haven't released yet. Um, that's coming out in a,

I don't know, a week or two. It's, it, I, I was trying to release it in December, but, um,

we're, one of the things I've learned in business is not to rush shit and to do things well the first time and get it dialed in, even if it's late. So, um, there's a program called the way of the enlifted athlete. So if you go to, uh, and lifted.me, the website's not up right now. I don't know when you're posting this. This might be like next week and it's not up yet. That's fine.

Um, but that website will be up. Um, but the way of the enlift up yet, that's fine. But that website will be up. But the Way of the Unlifted Athlete is a mindset course. That's getting big right now. A lot of people are doing mindset stuff. Yeah, but I've looked at what's going on and not too

closely. I don't like to look at other people's stuff too much because I don't want to pollute my mind. But I teamed up with some guys that have been in personal development for over a decade each. And we created a course that's – it's one of those courses where – I'm going to have to put like a trigger warning on it. There's – it gets deep. There's a lot of stuff we took out of the course because it was just too much.

We go, this is – I think we're taking people about as far as they can go here. So we've got way more material. So I'm really excited about that. I'm mentioning that because I haven't mentioned it on the show yet because it's not out yet. But I am very curious how that takes off. I think that that course has the possibility of spreading like wildfire. Because it's 10 minutes a day for 21 days,

and people will see a radical shift in how they relate to their bodies, health, and to their training and food. They're going to see like a core shift when they go through the course. And if they do the exercises, they do what they're supposed to see like a really a core shift when they go through the course and if they do the exercises they do what they're supposed to do everything around training is going to get easier and people are going to be less likely to get hurt there's a lot of things in there

that are going to shift for people that I'm not seeing anyone else talk about the things we talk about in the course I'm not hearing anyone else talk about. The things we talk about in the course, I'm not hearing anyone else talk about. It's not a mental toughness course. It's not like, oh, we're going to make you more mentally tough. We're going to help you organize your mind, make you smarter. You're going to train smarter.

Man, I can teach you mental toughness all day. Let's just go put your dick in the ground. Yeah, just fucking lay it out. Yeah, people do it all the time it's not meditation it's not mental toughness this is this is really how how you think and giving you an opportunity to say hey try this on try approaching life try approaching training try approaching food from this perspective and see what happens in your life. And so, and it's only 21 days. So once people, and we put.

And it's 10 minutes. That's pretty cool. And we put comedy in there. We had a little comedy sketches in there. You get, I have an alter ego named Billy and Billy's an asshole. And you get to see Billy make a lot of the common mistakes that people make as athletes as they're training through time. So I'm excited about that. Got the strong coach.

I have training camp for the soul. The way of the unlifted athlete, that is for athletes. The strong coach is about developing coaches. And training camp for the soul is if you want to fucking just go there, if you want to like if you want to see what's at, you know, what is lurking in the shadows of your own mind and what's sitting there. That's for you to like that's that's a possibility. Is that just something that you created through a series of things that you've been through and seminars that you've learned from and people and all the podcast knowledge? Or is this like something specifically that you did at one point that you kind of want to teach to others? Both.

So I bring a whole lifetime of experience. And I'd say over the last five, six years, I've gone deep into personal development and spiritual work. And I've done some stuff that I would recommend other people never do. And I've tried a lot of stuff. And I've gone to a lot of trainings. And I accumulated all that. And then a year and a half ago, I did some work with a woman called Anat not Perry. Her name is not Perry. And I go, holy shit, out of everything I've done, this is having the most meaningful impact on my life. How can I help you? And she was simply a coach who was like, I just take clients as they come in, no marketing, no nothing, just referrals. And, and I go, wow, more people should be exposed to this. And so

we started the conversation of, and simultaneously I go, look, I see some, I see where this could be better. And I have all this training from all these other things that I've done that I think will compliment very, very well. So we teamed up and that's what training camp training camp for the soul is is really a combination it's primarily her stuff i mean if uh i'd say 80 20 it's 80 her stuff and then i've brought in my own little um i brought in a lot of pieces that have that have filled some holes uh so it's yeah and i'm i'm a co-facilitator. She is the main facilitator of that retreat. So we do it every two months for, it's six people for six days, and there's three facilitators.

So it's me, Anat, and my wife. It's a lot of fun. Oh, wow, your wife's part of it too. Yeah. That's rad. She's killer. She's, yeah, it went from one person running a five-day retreat to three people. And it creating, we created a lot more depth.

Yeah, every time we do it, it gets deeper. And that's the thing. We're developing the retreat every time we do it. So every retreat, halfway through, we're looking across the room at each other like, holy shit, I didn't know. Like we got deep fast. Or like, whoa, this is interesting territory. So we're definitely prepared for everything that comes up. But it's been a really cool journey for us. Because obviously, we wouldn't be able to take people there if we're not going there ourselves. And so between the three of us, we're constantly doing personal work. And so I think that's likely a big part of it too.

That's one reason I'm excited about the coach I've just hired. Is I know that by doing the work with him, that that's going to translate into training camp for the soul. It's going to translate into the strong coach and lifted. It's going to translate into the strong coach and lifted. It's going to translate into all those things. That's cool. So these are things that you probably never even saw yourself doing along your beginning parts of your journey of being a trainer and gym owner. Oh, no. If you would have – go back 10 years and you gave me a snapshot of – if you would have said this is the stuff you'd be training people on, this is the experience – I'd be like, what the fuck happened? That stuff is stupid.

I don't understand it. I've lost my goddamn mind, which makes it kind of cool. Do you think it's because you've changed or do you think it's because the population has changed or is it both? Both. I've changed dramatically. Like age-wise or experience-wise? Experience-wise. I've packed a lot of shit in a very short period of time.

I'm very aggressive. This is where we're alike. I'm very aggressive about like, oh, I think this will make me better. I will go all in and go nuts on it. And sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I've changed drastically. And culture, because of the internet, people are being exposed to ideas that they just wouldn't have been friendly to before. Yeah, I mean it's insane right now with the reach that people have.

I can Google anything and watch a video of it on YouTube or get some free information on Instagram on someone's video or IGTV or articles that people write. There's so much free information out there. There's so much tools that are given to you for free that help you build whatever it is that you want to build. You just need the motivation and the connections to make it happen. Well, I think that people also need context. Because there's so much information, it's like, what do I do?

Do I eat vegan? Paleo? Which one's the right answer? That's a really good point. Because they all make sense. That's where coaches come in handy. Because a coach has sifted through all of the information, and they go, okay, I know all this information. I see your situation.

This information is going to be applicable to you right now. A good coach is going to be able to make that match. And I think that's one reason it's growing in popularity as a profession. That is a really good point because there is an antagonist to literally everything. Everything. It doesn't matter. Like cold bath, warm bath. You know, this, that.

Sauna or ice bath. Yeah, sauna or ice bath. My answer's always both. Yeah, I mean, and depending on which culture or which person you're talking to, they could have PhDs, they could have written New York Times bestselling books. It doesn't matter if there's a New York Times bestselling book

for the exact opposite. Exact opposite. And there's a study that shows the exact opposite, a fucking 10 year study. That's like so legit that you have to believe it. People, people are always citing studies. I'm like, I don't even care anymore. I don't care anymore either. I, I only care about things that genuinely make me happy at this point in my life. It's insane how much different it is and how much easier it is and how much more clarity i have in it and it's something that i get jealous when i see someone who's like 20 and they already know oh that that happens that's happening more frequently all the time i meet someone like how are you they say something and they're like 25 years old i go wow that, wow, that's some advanced shit, man.

Yeah, like how did you even get there? But I mean, when I was a kid, people asked me all the time about like, you know, where's your favorite place you ever went traveling? Because I've been traveling a lot. And I'm like, you know, I really liked going to Australia and New Zealand when I was 18 years old. But I don't even remember that much of it because we didn't even have fucking phones with cameras on them. Like real cameras weren't even cool yet. I had a fucking disposable camera that got broken on my way home. So I have no photos of that trip.

And it just goes to show that like at that time it was still dial up internet. You know, I'd want to go on the computer and like pull up a nice little porno. I could jerk off to when I'm like fucking 16 years old. And it took like 10 minutes. Like I could have whacked off three times before that thing even pulled out.

Terrible man. I'm just waiting for this picture to load and like hoping my parents don't come home before I get the nipple. You know, I'm like, where's fucking, where's the Victoria's secret magazine. I'm just going to envision her nipples.

Anyway, not only did dial-up not give me the connection that I needed to get the most information that I needed in the shortest period of time so I could learn. It also, the technology wasn't there for me to even take photos to remember things. It wasn't there to give me everything at the like instant that i clicked enter and now not only can you get the information like that not only is the information coming to you faster than ever it's available in a video format where someone is fucking feeding it to you dude feeding it In our lifetime. Feed. Isn't that a funny word? Yeah. Now that you think about it, it's fucking me up.

Yeah. Yeah. Your feed. Wow. So just, yeah, reflect on that for a day. I will. Or five. Actually, we talk about that in the Enlifted course.

Shit, what was I going to say? Feed. Before the feed. I was talking about information. Oh, the instant information. In our lifetime, you will be able to implant a neural net inside your skull. It will give you instant access to all information on the internet at one time. The moment you want it.

That'll happen before, like if we live to 100. So you're saying instead of me having to look it up, I'll think about it and the answer will be there? Yeah. Wow. You have instant access

to all information, which will free the mind up to do a lot of other things. And I think this is why, look folks. Where did you hear that? Elon Musk. Oh, okay, right on.

I believe you. So like, well there's a guy that's already installed an antenna where he can transmit pictures out of his mind to a computer and receive them. So this technology is not that far out. The brain will work with whatever hardware you give it and will start making meaning of it. Your mind will start making meaning of it. And this is where I think that we're already experiencing it. There's a divergence in the culture. There's a divergence in human beings.

And so in the United States, at least, we will say that one set of human beings are consuming content and another set of human beings are creating content, right? And you use your phone as a tool to generate value, but most people use their phone to consume other people's value, right? And so when you get this, when you get this neural net in your head, and I'm not saying I'm going to do it, but imagine that if your mind is, if you're already subject to distraction from other people. Say you're subject to like, you can't stick with one thing very long or you're checking your phone constantly. Or when you get off work, you sit down and turn on a television for hours.

Or there's always a television running in the background programming your mind. If you're allowing the outside world to dictate what's happening to you internally, what's going to happen is when that technology becomes more available. So it's slowly happening. The phone is the highest level right now. But say you get the neural net. Now you're going to be a slave to the information. People are slaves to information. I know my mom's not going to listen to this.

So when I went and visited for Christmas, my mom and her husband, they have two TVs in the living room. Both of them are on at the same time. That's crazy. I said, why? The first question I asked when I went home for the holidays, I said, why do you have two TVs? And her husband goes, well, because it's important that we know what's going on in the world.

I said, why? Because it's important that we know what's going on. And I go, he has no good answer. And knowing that he, what he doesn't know is that what he's consuming is a story that someone's created about what's happening in the world. That's not actually what's happening. That's a single perspective. And so, um, when, as technology advances, if we don't get better at controlling our own internal environment and then using that to create our reality, and we let the external environment create our internal reality, the more powerful the tool,

the more susceptible we become. So, alright. That is very interesting, actually. I'm trying to think of a way to come back on that. So basically, these people... Yeah, this is going to free your brain up so you can legitimately start using more of your brain.

So if you're already not... You need to be in the practice of directing your attention. Your attention is the most valuable thing. It's not time. It's where's your attention from moment to moment. That is the most, if you fail to master your attention, the more tools that come into play, the more susceptible you are to being controlled versus creating your own reality. So this is the new technology that's going to help us probably get to some insane levels of technology. But then also, this is great principles that we can build on as business owners and coaches.

It's applicable already. Yeah. Because the iPhone or Android or whatever device that you have in your hand, we're already cyborgs. We've already melded with this thing. If I leave the house without this, oh, shit. Right? I don't even know how to get to your house. Like, if you

would have said, find my house, this is the address, or CrossFit Chalk, I would have to stop at a gas station, get a map book that was geographically correct to this place. I can't get over how much different it is now. Yeah. It's wild. But this thing allows me

instant access to the information I need to get shit done during the day. And I transmit my ideas out so that people that find it valuable then can do business with me. So eventually they're going to make it even more convenient and just implant it. Yeah, and so what's going to happen is – and people go, well, I'll never do that. It's like no one thought they'd be carrying around computers in their hand either that instantly transmit and receive information at speeds that just weren't even possible. Like people wouldn't even imagine it. So, yeah, I think that a lot more people will adopt that technology than they think will. And I think there's going to be a divergence.

There's going to be those who dictate what happens in the world and those people who go along with it. But that's already what's happening anyway. It's just going to change. But for the first time, you have an opportunity to do it. And it's not who your parents were. It's not where you were born. I mean, those things are still impacting us.

It's not what school you went to. It really is what can you do with your attention? Because if I can be the creator of things versus the consumer of things, and I'm being given this really amazing technology, now I'm going to be able to create value. And that's real wealth. Being able to continually create value. Creating value through physical work. I think craftsmanship is going to come back because everything is going to become automated to build. Every table in this room could be built by a machine.

Probably not your tables. These are actually nice. Craftsmanship is going to come back because there are four different categories of value that are produced in the world that people pay money for. There's physical. That's labor. The only people who get paid really well for physical labor are usually professional athletes. They fall in that category. But most physical labor is paid at the lowest level.

The next level up is technical labor. This is computer programmers, accountants, things like that. That's going away because we're automating more of that. Yeah, that's a sad industry to be in right now. So then there's creative work. And so that's art, that's writing. There's a lot of things in business that are creative in nature, problem solving. And then there is at the fourth category of creating value in the world is interpersonal skills, leadership, sales, coaching, things like that. And so each one of these categories, as you go up, the interpersonal skills are the most valuable.

People pay the most money for those skills. The second is creativity, technical, and then physical labor. So physical labor and technical skills are going away in the next decade. So either a physical robot is going to replace a lot of the physical tasks and then technical tasks are going to go away. Things like blockchain are already, like we already know that that's going to replace

a lot of like accounting. The way accounting is done now is based on having to use paper. And so it's just like the whole system is pretty antiquated. So it's going to be a major shift when the financial systems have to shift off of the old like ledger system. But what we end up having is there's going to be this huge swath of people that don't have work anymore.

And so I think we're going to have to do something really creative to, to compensate people. So it's just not fucking chaos. But, um, as we move into this, if you want to stay valuable, you have to improve your creativity and your interpersonal skills.

Because say you, people are getting that. And communication skills in general. Yeah. And that neural net gets installed. And then, but here's the other thing. Talking about communication is me taking my thoughts and feelings and informing a word.

So it starts with a picture, right? There's a picture in my head and there's a feeling. And I want to create a word that's going to be able to make that mean the same thing to you as it does to me. But it will never mean the same thing to you as it does to me, but it'll never mean the same thing to you as it does to me, right? And so like I am now, that's one reason I focus on communicating better all the time is how do I create more clarity with my words? And so I'm going to tell you about my experience and then you get to listen to my experience and then you make sense of my experience through your filters by what those words mean to you because those words mean different things to you then you relay back to me

the truth is is we're not even having a real conversation because i'm probably hearing five percent of what's really coming out of your mouth and you're hearing five percent of what's coming out of my mouth you get something like a i'm just going off the rails now here folks yeah we definitely went off but it's still a good tangent. If you get the neural net implanted, what kind of information does that allow you to share? Because right now, I am limited by my vocabulary. And by the way, in English, the word love is overused. There's not that much variance.

But in other languages, there might be like 10 different ways of saying love. And this type of love is this. And this type of love is this. And this and this. So what happens when we even don't need language anymore? These symbols that create meaning for us in our minds, what if we remove that and we go to pictures and feelings? And I actually get to see Ryan Fisher's

experience when he was 10 years old when you start telling me this story about you. And now what I get is to a first person view into what was happening and how you were feeling. Now I understand Ryan Fisher. Now I get what happened.

And now I have that's just so much different than you telling me a story. Yeah, that's gnarly. And that's what they're trying to get at right now? That's a possibility. There are people... That would make me getting girlfriends a lot easier. I know some smart... That's what we started at the beginning of this conversation. I do think that

people would connect more easily. Oh, yeah. Connect more easily because so much is lost in language. And, like, you know, like Republicans and Democrats, they all want the same thing at the end of the day, but they don't know how to talk about it. I had to pull politics in.

That's fine. I just didn't want it to go off into a tangent. That's why I was like, I'm going to be mute. Well, I don't know where we started before we hit that but basically we are talking about being able to juggle more tasks and see where our future is headed but it all it's all basically coming from being good coaches and being confident in you know what we're good at and then executing. And I think executing is really what got us both to where we're at. I mean, I've made some things on my own before I was part of Barbell Shrug,

and even now I continue to do other things, and I do it in the aggressive way, so Mike here says. What about the doing way? The pushing way, I think he said. You do doing way like the pushing way you do it so you can be it versus be it versus so you can do it yeah and i like either way i mean i'm a fan of aggressive behavior yeah aggressive aggressive behavior is always good i mean i'll still always be the guy that tried to murder some judge i'm actually so upset that i never capitalized on that and like made a t-shirt that says i'll fucking kill you you can't now though it can't now right it's too late it's too late yeah it's the wave the wave is gone i probably could have crushed on that but

it's fine i still wonder if like if uh dave castro was like he sees me on social media, and he's like, I fucking hate that guy. I just, I wonder. You know, like, I wonder if he's just like, how is he doing well? I just, I hate him so much. But I would love to run into him at Waterpalooza, for instance, when I go next week and just see him. I don't think he goes to Waterpalooza.

You don't think so? No. I think he goes to the big events. I've never seen him at anything other than CrossFit. But if I did see him, I'd love to ask him to be on my podcast. Yeah? That would be a gnarly podcast. Yeah.

Dave Castro makes me nervous. He doesn't. He's whatever. Like, I just don't. He has a lot of power to do whatever he wants. I don't know what is. There's something about him that I'm like, the upside and the downside don't match. It's like what's the potential upside of having him on?

Oh of having him on the show huh? Yeah it's like very little. Downside? Huge. Yeah. Yeah it's just Now I see why you're scared of him. You're scared of him on an interview basis. Yeah I'm not. I wouldn't say I'm scared of him. It's just that

No it's exactly what you said. The downside is way more than the him. It's just that... No, it's exactly what you said. The downside is way more than the upside. It's just too risky. Yeah. It's too risky because if you look at his track record... It's not good. It's not good. That's what people think when they think of Ryan Fisher, though.

True. I may meet Dave at some point and be like, best friends. I mean, that could happen. That could really, really happen. There's a lot of people who think by hanging out with me or being on my show or whatever is like a dangerous thing. Really? Oh, yeah.

All the time. You know what? You know what? Fuck it. I'll interview Dave Castro now. I have people all the time that are like, dude, I did not think you were going to be like this at all. I had such a different vision.

And like Scott Panchik. Yeah. You know, big time CrossFit Games athlete. He came down here and I saw him on Instagram that he was like working out at some gym nearby and I hit him up and I messaged him. I was like, bro, you should come to my gym and work out. Like my gym's dope and like I'll work out with you

and whatever. And he's like, yeah, for sure. And he comes. And then we worked out for like three days together and he loved it. He kept coming back and texting me. And by the time he left he was like dude i have to tell you like i i had heard so many horror stories about you and like

i genuinely can say like you're like one of my favorite people i've ever met and he's like and i'm so bummed that people have like this different view of you do you have you changed would you say that that would be an accurate way of describing you at some point? But now you've straight, like not straightened up, but like you've evolved where maybe you wouldn't tell someone you'd kill them now. No, I still probably would. I think I'm exactly the same person. Like, and I think that just like everybody else in the world, I had a moment where I

fucked up, you know, and I still don, I had a moment where I fucked up, you know, and I still don't even think of it as a fuck up, to be honest. I don't really feel all that bad about it. It's, it's, there's people who've done it since me.

I heard Sam dancer recently just fucking lost it on somebody cause they kept no repping him or whatever, but because they fucking have his fucking dick so deep down people's throats that are in the closet community that he didn't get in trouble and that's fine but like you can't make a huge fucking thing about someone like me and it's not i mean it's not like you just were like you know you slapped me on the wrist and you know it wasn't a big deal i was like no you like publicly tried to humiliate me you publicly tried to like ruin me and not only that you had no idea of the story that was behind this person like if you knew what i did to get to where i was you would want to fucking kill yourself

like if dave castro knew what i had to fucking do to get there. And then everybody there, that stupid judge with the long hair, whatever the fuck his name is, and my judge, who does feel really bad to this day about it, because I've met him afterwards. He came to my gym opening party. I mean, the whole space, if they knew what I did, I hope they listen to all these fucking shows. I hope that they follow all the shit that I do.

Because I gave up more than almost anybody in the CrossFit community to be in this community, shed light on the community, spread the word that it's fucking badass, create an amazing community of people that not only makes CrossFit money, but also shows that CrossFit's fucking cool. And I do it in a right way and I do it better than 99% of the gyms out there. And they tried to fuck me. Not in a good way.

Only anal. I never got vaginal. So, like, for me, it was just such – it's such an emotional experience that is just, like, so unfair. I can tell right now you're getting fired up about it. It's ridiculous because all I've done is positive back. But these things – You're building up good karma.

It's fine because these things are going to happen to all of us, and what you do in moments like that is really what makes you become whoever it is that you're going to become. Because I could have easily let that take me down. I could have stopped competing. I went to regionals three times after that, got completely fucked all over again. I was good enough to go to the games, and they just let me look like shit. I kept my composure, whatever.

I'm still the same person. I still fucking freak out in the gym when I want to hit big lifts. I still say things that are probably not super appropriate, like the rant I just did in the gym like when i want to hit big lifts i still say things that are probably not super appropriate like the rant i just did in the last five minutes i i'm not exactly always you know the person that everybody wants me to be but i am who i want to be and because of that people look up to that and they respect that and i think that's what really grows like a great relationship and i think when people ask me like how does your program do so much better than mine why is Ryan doing so much better than me

it's because I'm fucking real and I don't care you know what I mean I want you to see what I see sounds like you do care you care about making an impact but you don't care how people if you don't like my shit then don't follow it that's fine yeah you know what I mean some people will be like you don't like my shit then why like I want to know why

blah blah blah it's like well no no you don't like my shit then move on bro go yeah go ahead like my shit works i'm fucking i look this way i don't do anything wrong i don't take drugs i i live this fucking life i mean i i could be easily every day like eating fucking macaroni and cheese and putting it on my instagram and saying i'm still shredded but no i'm always eating the good meal i'm always going to bed on time. I'm always getting my work done. Like I won't go on vacation unless everything is right. Like I won't put out a product unless it's dope. Like it just is what it is. So if you don't want to follow it, I've already put as much energy into it as I can. So go fuck yourself. Go find somebody else. But I promise you you if you look at my shit and you follow my stuff

you're gonna like it yeah i tell everybody you can have 100 money back guarantee on anything i have anytime i've never had anybody ask for their money back ever because they know this shit's good and that's fine with me and i'm i'm fine with the people that i have i hope to grow i hope to make an impact that's like forever i I think it's on its way. And yeah, fuck, we just hit everything. We did a lot. We just did. Everyone's mind right now is blown.

You ever see like that Max? Remember that old like Maxwell commercial with the cassette tape and the guy's in the chair and it's like, oh, and the music is like blasting on him? And he's just like flying backwards? Well, if they listen to the shows we recorded back to back, for sure. Oh, my God. Yeah. This needs to be a part one and a part two. Like, what episode did we just do just now?

We did Strong Coach episode what? Six. Six. So if you listen to Strong Coach episode six, and then you listen to this one. But we're telling them at the end of the show to listen to that first that's not really gonna work that's fine so i'll put that in the intro so if you guys listen to this this is a full circle to the intro but anyway back to the world and where we are which is my kitchen um

i think you guys have learned just an overwhelming amount of things. Is there anything that you'd like to add right now to full circle the whole thing? And to also highlight things that you have going on and where people can find you? Man, I think I've said it all, man. And I'll repeat. Yeah, if you're an athlete, man. I mean, I'm excited about 2019. 2019 is fucking awesome. It's already awesome, yeah.

I've been in this game for a long time. You've been in this game for a long time. It's the perfect culmination of my experience, my experience of the people I'm surrounded by, and technology, and where the world is at right now. I had a tough couple years in business in 2016, 2017. Got a little lost. And I gave up everything in 2018.

Traveled the world with my wife for five months and then had the inspiration to start The Strong Coach. Had the inspiration to start Enlifted. And I started putting together Training Camp for the Soul to help my Strong Coach, had the inspiration to start Enlifted, and I started putting together Training Camp for the Soul to help my friend reach more people. And I really spent 2018 playing. Like, I was creating things, I was building products, I was creating curriculum, but it wasn't to make money. It was simply because I was traveling around and I saw that people needed this. I go, I see where people are and I want to help them. And what I'm excited about is a lot of the stuff

that was created in 2018 is I'm now building the structure and the business around those things in 2019. And I've never been so excited to build things in my entire life. This is the most, I'm 37 years old. I'm, I've never been so excited to build things in my entire life. This is the most, I'm 37 years old. I'm fucking stoked. And I'm already like, I'm a happy, I'm a hundred percent content and happy where I'm at. 2019, we're going to crush.

It's going to be a good time. And by the time we get a 2020, holy shit, the amount of momentum that we have right now rolling into 2020, it's going to be sick. I know that I am doing my best to imagine what it's going to be like, create a vision, and then communicate that to those who I'm enrolling and helping me achieve it. And I know that it's going to blow my wildest dreams out of the water. So that's badass. If you participate in anything that I'm doing, you will really enjoy it. If you take what I'm saying and you take the things that I'm building, you take it seriously, your life will change. That's all. That's cool. I like it. That's kind of my philosophy. Take it or

don't. Let's talk about your Instagram handle. mike underscore blood so mike underscore blood so and you guys also know you can find a little bit about each and every one of us on the shrug collective on shrugged collective instagram on the stories um you guys can come on my story come on my story that didn't come out right you guys can check out my story um ryan fish R-Y-A-N-F-I-S-C-H. And in my highlight feed on my profile, you can see all of my favorite episodes of podcasts. You also see a lot of stuff that we're doing with the Shrug Collective in general. We're all going out to everybody except Mike.

We're going to Wadapalooza. And I'll also be on WAD on the waves with a bunch of your favorite CrossFit Games athletes interviewing them. So if you guys have anybody specifically you want to hear from, let me know. DM me. With or without your clothes on would be nice.

Ladies. Anyway. I see how you do it now. Shameful plug. Hey, ladies, if you want to send me pictures in the DMs, I will not complain. Yeah, I may or may not send back someone else's penis. So with that being said,

I hope that I see you guys on next Tuesday for another episode of the Real Talk Podcast. And I hope you guys learned so much on this one. Thank you again for listening to my show when there are so many other ones out there and choosing to spend your time with myself and Mr. Mike Bledsoe over here. From everybody at the Troy Collective, thank you.

Over and out.