Barbell Shrugged - Julien Pineau: The Difference Between A Trainer And A Coach — The Strong Coach #11

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

Julien Pineau is a Humanist & Movement Specialist and founder of StrongFit . Sports have been a part of Julien’s life since he was young and he’s been a state and national champion in a number of sports including soccer, swimming, and wrestling. As an adult, he really found something he liked with MMA and Jiu-Jitsu and spent time traveling the world to learn from the best in the industry.   The time spent Julien spent with the best made him want to learn more about sport and movement so that he could coach others. In 1993, he began his coaching career as a conditioning and grappling coach for the MMA gym where he trained and in 2008, he opened his own gym that focuses on strongman training. StrongFit was born and has evolved from a single gym to a full education program.   Julien’s brain is wired to see faulty patterns and visualize, in space, how people move. With his knack for diagnosing muscular and strength imbalances, he has developed his own system to identify what issues are and fight the root of the problem. He now travels the world delivering seminars to coaches who have the common goal of fixing people and ridding them of pain.   In 2018, Julien’s show on Barbell Shrugged was the most popular one! In this episode, we talk about apprenticeship to master yourself and better yourself, how to be in the present without distractions, understanding the nervous system and how it impacts your training, why looking at humans as machines have caused so much injury in the fitness industry, basing nutrition on what’s going to be happen in the next few hours rather than what happened in the past, and much more.   Come join us at www.thestrongcoach.com -Mike ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/tsc-pineau ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► 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

Welcome to episode one of season two of The Strong Coach. So for the first episode of this season, I decided to bring in Julian Pinault. He was a coach that we interviewed two and a half years ago on Barbell Shrugged, and it was one of our most popular shows and one of the shows that was most enjoyable for me to have put together. So I brought him back on, and he blew our minds again. He does such a great job. You're really, really going to enjoy this. Make sure if you're a coach, you want to take your game to the next level.

Go over to thestrongcoach.com and take the Strong Coach Quiz. It'll tell you where you might need help in your coaching game. It's a really big game to consider. There's a lot of aspects, and a lot of times we get really narrowly focused on one or two things when we really need to be looking at five, six, seven, eight different areas. So go through that quiz, see where you could focus more to make your coaching business exactly what you want it to be. Enjoy the show. Yeah, so I started my week off with a challenge to myself. I wanted to take a personal retreat this week and go into the woods, but I ended up with a lot of business coming onto my plate. So

I decided instead to see how many days I could float in a single week. So these are 90 minute float tank sessions and so every day that they've been opened, they're closed on Mondays, I floated so tonight will be number five. But last night I was playing around breathwork and I was squeezing my perineum a lot which that would be the taint for a lot of you. Enough to get sore. Yeah, and I just went pee and I realized, man, I'm fucking sore. That's a lot of squeezing.

That's a lot of squeezing. So you were saying, I was suspecting, I go, oh, I'm in the tank. I can put, one of the things that I get out of the tank is I can really focus my attention into a concentrated area much better. And you started saying there's a name for this. Yeah, there's basically two thought patterns. You have what is called a task negative network and a task positive network, right? Whenever something new, unexpected arrives, you go into what is called a task negative network,

which means you're assessing the situation. For the nervous system, it's like afferent versus efferent, if you want. You're assessing the situation, right? It has a name, it's called a test negative network, and it allows you to see if you're safe or not. So you go in an environment that has absolutely no stimulus, and then you can be fully confident

and actually concentrate to, it's basically called a task-positive network, where you're fully concentrated. You can actually solve problems. You're there because you're perfectly safe because there's nothing going, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, all the time. This is the benefit of the float tank overall. Yep, exactly.

And that's why people can't get away from their thoughts because suddenly, like, your mind cannot wander. Like, when your mind wanders, it's task-negative network. It's the same thing. Your mind wanders. You're thinking about the past, planning the future, all that stuff. It's a typical thought pattern. Right.

And that's the same thing when you get stimulus and you go, oh, what's that? It's always the same stimulus. When you go into a task-positive network, basically, you're fully concentrated. And if nothing stops you nothing distracts you, your mind stops wandering eventually, and you're actually fully in the present. Yes. Yeah, that's been my experience.

So they do that by removing something that distracts you all the time, which is everywhere, right? Yeah, in the flow tank, a lot of people, they go, oh, I didn't know that, or they don't like it in the beginning. I couldn't stop thinking. I was like, well, you don't want to try to stop thinking. Yeah, you want to be in the moment, but that's all.

But now it requires energy almost from them to think because they're so used to be in that basic thinking pattern. And suddenly you take them into a fully focused in the present, and it feels very strange. Yeah. Almost to the point, because they can't get away from it, so they're waiting for distraction. Can someone please make a sound so I can let my mind wonder what's happening? Right? If it was a nervous system, it'd be like, it's efferent versus efferent.

Like, instead of your brain telling your muscle to move, it's your muscle telling your brain what's happening. Yeah. So it's the same thing, except for the brain, basically. Yeah. It's an extension of the nervous system. And to some people, it can be extremely

uncomfortable. And the further they stay, the more they go fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that. Virtually. My wife, for a long time,

I didn't realize this. She would go float with me and then she was always beating me out of the shower. I thought she was just faster at showering. I was like, what's going on?

No, she didn't finish her float. Yeah. And then she finally got to where she could do a whole 90 minutes without getting out. Yeah, because it's concentrating on being in the present for 90 minutes and it can be exhausting.

Yeah. I get out fairly tired and relaxed. I'm addicted to... I won't say I'm addicted, but in the beginning, it was one of those things like, it was like going to work out. It's like, oh, I've got to go work out.

I decided I was going to do this. This requires willpower and discipline. And now it's, I really want to get in there. I want to get in there because I know I'm going to feel good. This is the safest feeling ever, though. Because you have to be safe to go in a task positive network. So once you've done that enough, you know you get addicted to the safety feeling.

Like if you put depressed people, so neuroscience has figured this out, depressed people are stuck in a test-negative network. So try to put

someone depressed into a tank, and you'll see how hard of a time they're having. Because they cannot go to the task-positive side

because they cannot be safe, which is why they're depressed all the time. And so that, it forces you to find safety, but you can't. And that creates a number of issues.

And then the thought keeps popping up, right? Trying to figure out the stuff to find the safety zone, and they can't. And it's uncomfortable, and you can fucking lose your shit. That's how we're going to start the show today. There you go. This is perfect. And we've got Danny Rios here with us. What's up, guys? Well, he's leading the strong coach up, having a good time doing all that. So we're going to make sure that Danny gets on this show with

me as much as possible. And this is your first one? Or your second one? I got interviewed right after Train Camp for the soul. And I was just an intern back then. Just an intern. Mike gave me the title of head coach of the strong coach, which I'm blessed to have. And I'm very honored to be helping coaches all around the world. It's a dream come true. It just keeps giving and giving.

We're having a lot of fun. And we have Julian Pannot. What's up, guys? Man, we met, I guess it was about three or four years ago. It was at the CrossFit Games. Wow, it was a long time ago. Like three years ago? Yeah, we did a couple shows with you.

And they went over really well. Everyone loved it. Episode 190. Yeah. You had, you shifted a lot of people's thinking and introduced them to a lot of new ideas.

Yeah. The response was crazy, at least to me. Like, it changed everything. There was a day before the day after

that first episode. Like, the next morning, I received, I don't know, like 100 emails. The first one was from Zach Evanesh. And I'm like, the day after that first episode like the next morning I received I received I don't know like a hundred emails the first one

was from Zach Evanesh and I'm like he called me that Zach Evanesh but at the same time how many people do you know that are called

Zach Evanesh I was like maybe it's that guy because I've been you know I knew of him read his books and everything

and the email starts with my brother and then he goes on for three pages I was like oh this is so cool. I was like, I'm going to be okay. I thought it was going to be like, you know, 15 minutes of fame and, you know,

people figure, do stuff and then off you go. And instead of that, it just started something insane. Started something new. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, I never thought for in a million years, it would have the impact that it did. So what have you been up to since then?

Yeah, tell us about what's been happening. So it took a few months, but the barbershop changed everything to the point where suddenly people wanted to hear about me. I was like, really? And so my assistant Richard that you met over there, he was like, coach, we should do seminars. I was like, about what And so my assistant Richard that you met over there, he was like, coach, we should do seminars. I was like, about what? Just talk, man. Let's talk about what? Just what you do. I'm like, all right. And so we started to put stuff together.

Then he was one, then he was two. So he was just in LA at my gym, right? And then Chris was telling me, no, no, no, you need to go on a world tour. I'm like, fuck off. Where? He's like, the world. I'm like, nobody wants to hear what you mean. And then Richard was like,

no, no, no, coach, we're going to do a set of seminars. So basically, leave the gym, leave everything behind, take your daughter with you and let's go on a world tour.

I'm like, fuck off. Can you guys be serious? And then we actually did it and he started with six locations and we are at, I don't know, 30, 40, I have no idea, 30, 40. Now it's been two and a half years and it never stopped. Awesome. It's crazy. So what is, so if somebody comes to

a seminar now, what's the, because it sounds like in the beginning we had things to talk about. And we, when we were introduced to you and we started chatting, I go, oh, you do have something extremely special. Which is funny because a lot of times people go, oh, you should meet so-and-so. And I meet so-and-so. And they're okay. Yeah. And within 30 minutes, you're like, all right, I think we're running out. Let's do dick jokes.

But we had really good stuff. And so what is it how is it transformed over time too so what were you talking about back then so back then you were talking about

key log yeah and finding that highest leverage point exactly so all of it so the biggest impact

of those two episodes were people coming to me saying like how can I train without getting hurt that was literally the thing so during the first episode I make a joke about like if you can I train without getting hurt? That was literally the thing. So during the first episode,

I make a joke about, like, if you can't lift your shoulder, if it takes you 45 minutes to raise your arm up in the morning, and you're 25, something's wrong. I was joking, obviously,

making, you know, a joke. And then I get literally 30 emails saying, oh, man, that's me, like, right there. I know I'm 23, and I'm like, are you guys fucking kidding me?

So we started to push towards, all right, so let's have an assistance work, I guess, program to make sure that you can actually CrossFit, right? Which at the time, people don't remember, like, assistance work was the A word. Like, you don't do that. That changed. Well, this is what's interesting with CrossFit is there's been this conversation.

There's this – it's been positioned as functional fitness, but it's a very narrow amount of functional fitness. Let's be honest. The functional fitness, which is Greg Glassman's early vision of CrossFit, right? The training system. And then there's the CrossFit games. And we got to split those two because one has nothing to do with the other. So I was not talking to those people about the CrossFit Games. I wanted to talk about the training system

because that's 99% of people, right? There's a few crazy ones that do the shit on TV and then there's everybody else who don't care about their friend time. Cannot do friend anyway, right? So I was like, alright. So how about we help them as well? And not just promoting Lauren Fisher, but understanding that that guy

walking in is never going to do a muscle-up in his life. And that's okay. But how about we deal with him, right? So first it was movement. And then I realized something very quickly is that the coaches were in a very hard position. The fitness industry plays on people's insecurities a lot. And I realized that the coaches were in an impossible situation

where, first of all, they were feeling very insecure about their own position in the world because as a coach, are you a trainer? If you're a jiu-jitsu instructor, you're a badass. So there's something there.

If you're a dance teacher, you have a certain credit in society based on that because you have a skill, right? You mastered something. If you're a trainer, you're just that dude who bangs his clients. You know what I mean? Yeah, and if you see a personal trainer on television,

he's always the doofus. Yeah, that's not the guy you dream of becoming when you're a kid. Right. A jiu-jitsu teacher, yeah, dance instructor, all those are respectable part of the movement field, not as a coach. So. A jiu-jitsu teacher, yeah, dance instructor, all those are respectable parts of the movement field, not as a coach. So CrossFit was

a little bit better, but still, you could tell the lack of confidence coaches had. They have to have 20 weekend certifications, like, you know,

full well, it doesn't give you that much. But I realized also something is, if you're a coach and you want to get better, where do you go? Let's say you're not a person who does well in class,

in the school system, which is me, for example. And you can't sit your ass six hours in front of a piece of paper to learn what anyway? I'm still not sure. Because you can't learn to swim on a table. I don't know what's being taught. You can't learn to swim on a table, man. So what is it that you're learning exactly?

Because coaching is not about teaching the squat. Coaching is about teaching that person to squat. And that you don't learn on paper. Anyway, so you got, if you're not capable

of getting a PhD or even like a master's or whatever, where do you go as a coach? There is no apprenticeship of coaching. And so right away, I was like, all right,

so as usual, you can either bitch about things or trying to change them. So I was like, all right. So if there's no apprenticeship for coaching, like there is in everything else, by the way. Like a jiu-jitsu instruction, I got my ass beat by John Machado, choked 3,000 times because he had to pound in me that I had to stop being an egotistic little punk and start learning the art of jiu-jitsu. You know what I mean? These people are humble you

to force you to learn, especially with men, right? So where do you go? And that was the question no one could answer. So you have a lot of stuff here and there. You study online and this, but it takes practice.

It takes an apprenticeship. It takes a master whooping you, saying that's not good enough. It takes someone to challenge you, not saying you suck because I never start the conversation the right way,

but saying I want better from you. So where do you go to have someone that says I want better? I want you to go from blue to purple, purple to brown,

brown to black. I want you to master yourself before you try to master. Where do you go for that? And I realized that was a question I could not answer and neither could this.

I was like, all right, then we'll start something about the art of coaching. Nice. And a lot of it was also telling them that they are the chosen people. We do more good in this world than almost anybody else. People see the doctor twice a year. They see us twice a week. We have more influence on people than coaches understand. Like, you're not just training the mom.

Like, the kids are seeing what you do. They're seeing their mom through hard work, getting the results, getting, you know, more confident. So, you're teaching her kids hard work. That hard work pays off. So, we have a tremendous influence in people's lives. They just don't see it. One of the conversations that we're always having is a conversation that I started a while back, which is the difference between a

trainer and a coach. And the way I see a trainer is somebody who, they may be a good instructor, they may be able to show you how to do movements and stuff like that. But a coach is somebody who really sees the whole person and can communicate them as a whole. Yeah, so it's teaching the squat versus teaching someone to squat,

which is not the same. I see the trainer as a blue belt, if you want someone who comes in. So at first, a trainer, a white belt trainer, is someone who's basically selling you a t-shirt. Chest up, knees out. Oh, you look good like this. That's a good color for you. Right? someone who's basically selling you a T-shirt. Chest up, knees out. Oh, you look good like this. That's a good color for you.

Right? So they're basically selling you a T-shirt, if you look. And then from there, they start to move toward, okay, so maybe it's not just chest up. Maybe you should feel the weight. And then there and then there. And then eventually, they move toward black belt, which is teaching that person to squat. So did that person lose their dog that morning? Right?

Their dog of 12 years died that morning. So instead of the squat, you start the session by going, hey, how you feel, man? You don't look good today. Is that okay? It's like, did something happen that will change our sessions together? Because maybe then it shouldn't be about selling you a T-shirt and we're going to squat no matter what. But seeing if you being feeling like shit is going to change your movement yes it will by the way uh so that so basically

it's about teaching that person to squat suddenly so you shift from selling a t-shirt to taking care of someone which is to me that's the difference between a trainer and a coach what are the principles that you teach coaches for them to shift that mentality from trainer to a coach so well instead of focusing always on the squat, which is knees out position or stuff like that, I'm like, all right, so how about we go back to understanding that it's about humans, right? First, and not the barbell. It's not about the squat and the barbell.

It's about the human. So what makes a human a human, right? So is it as simple, for example, as saying knees are going to be here, hands are going to be there, and basically you come up and down? Because that's what they teach you a squat is. But I'm like, but it doesn't work like that. There's something called a nervous system, which is very old, which is basically controls what you do and some of your thought patterns and make you do shit a certain way, whether you're freaked out or not. So if you don't understand the person, how can you possibly make them move correctly?

The problem is we're training people as machines. You see that in nutrition all the time with macros and stuff like that, right? Where you just get 130 grams of protein regardless on how you digest, regardless if you're stressed or not. If you're stressed, you don't digest if you're not stressed. Why? Because the nervous system has an impact on that.

So if we don't understand the nervous system and what basically makes people people, how could you possibly teach them how to move? So we need to shift to only the squat to a person squatting. So we have to take the human and understand what makes people move the way they move. And it's more than just the weight.

If it was that easy, everybody would do a power clean within six months. And yet you're five years later and they still can't do it or they still can't squat or they still get hurt or the lower back always blows up, especially when they're stressed out.

I mean, that's all an aspect that we're not looking at. So we don't look at humans, which in the basically fitness industry is kind of strange. And what you're getting at is we're training robots, like you're saying, and the fitness industry doesn't really have a lot of resources for the psychological components you're talking about. Well, even the biological component,

because most of this is evolutionary biology. If you look at the nervous system, the nervous system is the nervous system is, the way it's shaped right now, is about 300 million years old. There's Jordan Peterson who made a whole stuff about the lobster. I don't know if you ever saw that. A lobster has a nervous system that is close enough to us that

Prozac works on them. If you give a lobster Prozac, it actually works, because it's serotonin based nervous system. It's actually that close to us. Funny thing, by the way, do you know a lobster never stops growing? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, okay.

So he basically gets uncomfortable in his shell, goes into a hole, break the shell open, and builds a bigger one, and then he's going to fill that shell, and then we go on and on and on and on like that. So funny thing is you give a lobster Prozac, it's never uncomfortable, therefore it stops growing. Isn't that funny? Interesting.

I know, right? Yeah, I know. We're not that far off. So the point is, the rational part of our brain that allows us to have rational thoughts and words and everything

is 100,000 years old. The nervous system is 300 million. 3,000 times older and everything. So maybe, just maybe, there are certain patterns that we have that are not just based on words. And if you look, most of what we do in the fitness industry is thinking that words, rational thoughts can impose to the body certain patterns. And no, no, no, it doesn't. So the psychological component is one, but so is the evolutionary biology.

That's a humongous part of everything to understand that people, it's not just telling them go up and down on the squat. There is a number of things that come into play to make people move correctly, but it's not just knees out and chest up. Yeah, it was interesting what you were saying about that if they don't get uncomfortable,

they stop growing. Yep. Right. And that happens with us emotionally, psychologically. There's, I think it's less prominent now. Maybe it's more, maybe it's just the people I'm hanging out with. But one thing I've noticed a lot of times in the fitness industry is there's coaches that get to a point and they stop growing.

And they stop getting uncomfortable or introducing themselves to new information or things that may be contrary. But if you look, actually, it's not that they are too comfortable. Actually, it's that they are not safe enough. So the whole like wanting to grow being uncomfortable, right? That's actually, by the way, the task-positive network. That only happens if you're safe because then you allow yourself to be comfortable. That only happens into a very safe situation. But you'll see those coaches, they're five years in, they don't make shit.

They open their own gym and they realize it's not as simple as having 100 members or all that stuff. And they get to a place where all that work comes in and they're not getting that much in return. And so actually it's a very unsafe situation they're in. And so when that happens, basically they freeze. And then it becomes about mailing it in. They switch to that, again, that's negative. And you think where you just, your mind wanders. And instead of paying attention to the person coaching,

you know, squatting in front of you, and you stop connecting to the person and it becomes about back to selling a t-shirt. Yeah, one of the things we talk about is survival. If you're not experiencing safety, the mind goes into survival. So survival is, I know what works. So I'm just going to keep repeating what works. And you know what? I get paid doing and then it doesn't take too much energy out of me

right which is very important because they fucking burn out because they're so exhausted I was talking to someone in comparing coaching to priesthood

because if you look we all started this to save people so it's a vocation not more than more than a job it's a vocation to maybe not all of them

but you know to most right and so you're putting it into it because you have faith in people, you want to help them. And then after a while, you realize that they seem to care about saving themselves a lot less than you do. That you put all the love into it and you receive not that much in return. So you always end up with somewhat of a crisis of faith at some point, wondering why you're

doing it in the first place. That those lofty goals that you had when you started basically got reduced to just helping regular people on a daily basis. And you always get to that moment where you wonder if it's enough. It's priesthood, man. And then you get to sleep with your clients.

So it's priesthood all the way. Don't sleep with your clients. Don't do it, don't do it. I've watched a few gyms go up in flames over that one. Oh, fuck yeah. Don't let your coaches sleep with people there either. But so there's always going to be that moment of crisis, right, where you go like, why am I doing this? So the stronger you start as caring, the easier that crisis becomes.

But to a lot of them, and I get it, they go like, why do I care at some point? They're not getting better at what they do, so they stop the learning process because where do you go? And then they don't make

nearly as much money as they thought. It's a shitload of hours on people that don't always care, which is, I think, what hurts the most for most of us, is putting so much effort into someone where the end goes, okay, whatever.

That doesn't seem to give a shit. That's a hard one for most coaches, I think. They feel they care about people more than those people do. I think if you're working inside of a gym, you're way more likely to have those people. They come in and maybe they have a weight loss goal. Those are the worst because they don't give a shit. Yeah, and I think what happens a lot of times, losing weight's not the issue.

That client, they don't want to lose weight to lose weight. They want to lose weight so that their husband doesn't leave them. They want to feel better about themselves. At the end, it's all that. I've never said someone who said, I want to lose 10 pounds, and they lose the 10 pounds, and I'm like, I'm good, thank you. Ever. Ever.

Ever. Ever, ever. People come to feel better about themselves. But if you don't understand that, then you're going to train them for what they ask, which is 10 pounds. I realize they're still not happy, and you go like, but that's what we said we were going to do. How many times you have someone like, I just want five kilos on my snatch.

They get the five kilos and they go like, how about 10? Yep. How about this? How about that? But that's not what we set out to do. You came to me because you said you didn't want your shoulder to hurt anymore. Your shoulder doesn't hurt anymore. And now you're trying to do Olympic weightlifting again.

I was like, that's not what we decided. Why? So, but okay. So welcome to dealing with humans. Yeah, but is there a reason why they behave like that? So maybe if we were to understand humans better, we could do a better job coaching them. And then that means our life would be a lot more fulfilling.

Yeah. What are some of the things that you've gone through that have allowed you to learn about humans more? First of all, the Barbershop podcast allowed me to do this for a living, to do seminars and look at people. Because now I don't have to manage a gym. I don't have to do the grind of eight hours a day

and all that shit. I always remember one of the main reasons I decided to go on seminars is because I haven't read a book in a year and a half. I was like, I'm getting dumber by the minute. I can feel myself on seminars is because I haven't read a book in a year and a half. I was like, I'm getting dumber by the minute. I can feel myself getting dumber as I go because my life at the time was like, wake up, 7 o'clock, so 6.37, wake up, start to wake up, so get 10 minutes to get my thoughts in order, wake up my daughter, get her ready for school,

7.45 you drive, I'm back 8.20, first session, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go like this and before I know it, so it's 7 o'clock, so she comes back to school, 7.45, you drive. I'm back 8.20, first session, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I go like this, and before I know it, so it's 7 o'clock. So she comes back to school. We spend two hours doing the homework stuff and everything, and now there's dinner. I put her to bed at night. Love you, honey. It's 9.30, and now I got 30 minutes to myself. So I'm going to numb myself watching YouTube

or some shit, and I'm in bed. It's 10, 10.15. And then this is me two years later, and I'm like, it's 10, 10, 15 and then this is me two years later and I'm like dude I haven't read a book I can't even that's even worse

I can't even read a book I'm so fucking so you think it was so stressed out or no I think it's honestly

it was such a for me like going back to that feeling of being unsafe that's a lot what it is because I'm like where am I going with this?

I work all day. Okay, I pay the bills. But that's not what I set up to do. I'm helping people. But you can't get that feeling of fulfillment anymore. Because you're like, am I making a difference? And again, with people, you are making a difference, by the way. Because you are helping people way more than you think.

But when you're in the middle of it, in the grind, and you're tired, it's hard to see sometimes. You don't feel it. You don't feel it. I remember the first time somebody walked up to me and said, you know, that podcast made a big difference in my life. And I go, oh wow, it really landed. And now when I hear it, I still love to see it by the way, but when I hear it, it doesn't

land the same way as it used to. You know what the biggest difference for me was, and actually that's in a way also what set me on the seminars, is after the podcast, I had a guy from South Africa sending me an email, five sentences, and he was like, I live in rural South Africa.

I was like, you have YouTube there? Shit. And he's like, I have a 9-5 job that I hate. What I want is to train kids to go to the Olympics. Please help me. And to have a guy from rural South Africa asking me for help to leave his job that he doesn't like to teach kids, sports, I was like, so you can make a difference. It's actually feasible.

And that's the email that changed me. Because then I was like, so you can make a difference. It's actually feasible. And that's the email that changed me. Because then I was like, so you can do it. It's not just making people lose 10 pounds. It's not putting 10 pounds on a snatch. You can actually change someone's life. Not just their movement, but make something, change the way they do their own life. And that email changed me. And so after that, it was like, how do I make coaches realize that they are the chosen people? changed the way they do their own life, right? And that email changed me.

And so after that, it was like, how do I make coaches realize that they are the chosen people? That without coaches, the MIT goes to shit. So I was like, all right, so let me go to all that. And so the fact that there was enough people doing seminars allowed me to do this for a living, first of all. So I could live the grind. And as I traveled the world, I saw different cultures, but I saw the same cultures, the same issues, the same all, so I could live the grind. And as I traveled the world, I saw different cultures, but I saw the same cultures, the

same issues, the same patterns, right? And then I had the time to study on the side. But since from the beginning, for me, it was about studying humans, not just movements. And so that's been my, the way my brain works has always been that. It's like, okay, so then I started to go, if you want to show you biology, and then in two corners that it seems no one else wanted to go into. And so I was like, all right, okay, so I'll do it. I'll figure it out.

And then as we did, because we have what we call a mentoring program, which is an apprenticeship. And so I can have like 80 coaches, and I can throw shit at them and go like, all right, try this, try that. And then I see the results on them, and that gives me data. And then we start to move the stuff forward. And then they try on their clients, and then I see the results on them and that gives me data and then we start to move the stuff forward and then they try on their clients and then it works. Then we started to see how to deal with anxiety versus depression because you have that in your gym and all that stuff.

So basically angling it toward the human aspect and then I started reading everything from evolutionary biology to psychology. I'm like, all right, but how do I make that work in the gym? Because that's the problem a little bit with that part also like the science part is a lot of times it's like talking to a lawyer. You know, they use words in a way that is not really to make sense.

It's to make sure that the other lawyer cannot catch him in the wrong position. Right. So which means you talk to them and you have no fucking clue what they just said, but they wouldn't be able, in a courtroom, it would work. So a lot of that science with the studies works in the courtroom but not anywhere else. That's the thing

with the studies is what they're doing is they're doing it in a way so that someone else cannot disprove what they just said. But nobody fucking knows

what they actually said in the first place. So now you have an entire industry that is awesome at seeing a thousand trees but cannot see a forest. Right.

And so me, I was like, all right, so let me connect the dots. Right? And then let's put people through it and let's see if the shit works. Yeah. And so that's what we've been doing.

Do you think that traveling the world and popping into different locations and being exposed to different cultures, one after another, you started spotting, oh, this is actually human nature? Yeah, exactly. I've been in rooms where people go, oh, yeah, this is, I'm Italian. The Italians do it this way. But if you talk to somebody from Brazil,

a Brazilian would go, oh, yeah, Brazilians are like this. And it's like, oh, no, I've actually noticed that that's all humans. Yeah, because at the end they go, yeah, but you all do the same shit. So you just have a different way of phrasing it. You'll end up with the same patterns every single time. So cultures will change their interest a bit more than another.

Like, you know, Brazilians, they'll want bigger legs. Like French women will want to stay skinny. More butts. Yes, which is, I'm all for it. Me too. It's the same. No, you see the same. That's the thing is you see the same stuff presented differently.

Right? That's mostly that. It's just people, it's very easy to get offended or to offend people from different cultures. So, they'll take a word

the wrong way or they'll give the wrong meaning. So, we can say, we're saying exactly the same thing except the word we're using

are somewhat interpreted differently so now we're fighting about we don't even know what, by the way. And so the culture of CrossFit, like I have that with fucking French people all the time. Because none of those fuckers want to speak English. Right? I noticed.

Yes. Or you too. Yes. I'm the one, by the way. The legend of the French guy that speaks English, that's me. So now you know. You're the one. Yeah, I'm the one.

And so none of them have fucking seen a video of Greg Glassman. So none of them know what CrossFit is. So what happened is that two guys in the South that decided to, I don't know how they did it, but to hijack the culture of CrossFit and they decide what CrossFit is. Even though they have no fucking clue. And so I go in there and I start to say stuff, and suddenly, like, all hell broke loose. How dare you say something like that?

I was like, but I didn't say it. Glassman said it. Whatever. How dare you say that? And everything. It's like when he said, well, you know, we should do strict pull-ups instead of kipping. I was like, yeah.

Yes, I've been trying to say that. But so in certain places, they lose their shit. So that's what you see. But honestly, outside of that stuff, the patterns are the same. They're all humans, man. They all move the same. They all like 99.99999% is the same problems. And in CrossFit, it's usually the shoulder.

How's your shoulder going? Yeah, my right shoulder right here is like... Yeah, that's what the doctor said. That or lower back, that is, you know, the lumbars are a little bit too developed. And spasms, that's it. It's the same shit. So when you see the same shit in literally six continents,

26 different countries, you go like, people, we need to talk. Yep. Yep, because you don't see it anywhere else but CrossFit. So to do that degree, so you go like, guys, let's talk. So why becomes a question so now you start at the movement pattern and you see but you all do this so you're all stressed out and you

go to a external talk I wonder if there's a relationship and then you start to work on that right and then at the end you're just asking why but without you know like no no no it's not just it happens no no no there's a reason there's always a reason don There's always a reason.

Don't think for a second. It's just, that's the problem. People want to stop thinking at some point? Yes, totally. That's the problem. Most people will quit jiu-jitsu as blue belts. Right? You know why?

Because as a purple belt, you need to find your own game. And that requires you to feel, to think, to find your own game. And that requires you to feel, to think, to find your own identity on the mat. And this is where people quit. Because guess what? That's where the work is. That's when you have to find yourself.

You have to feel, you have to think, you have to experiment, you have to become, you have to master yourself. Instead of mastering a technique, now you have to master yourself. Instead of mastering a technique, now you have to master yourself to find what is it that you do. Not the coach,

not repeating, creating. And that's where you see most people in jiu-jitsu quitting and that's where you see most people in coaching quitting. It's like, people just do that, man.

I'm like, yeah, sure. Why? Again, there has to be a reason. Just because no one else thought of it doesn't mean there's not one. Right? The universe existed before Einstein said E equals MC squared.

So he just explained it. I'm like, alright, so there's a reason they're doing it. Can we please try to explain it or at least make it better? Let's experiment. And so you'll see people where they're getting comfortable because they either use words or numbers. You only use words when you've failed already. That's what words are for,

is to basically mean you've failed on the fight already. So I always know people are in an unsafe place because they'll use words, and that means studies and numbers. So that means they'll start to throw studies at me. Do you have a study that proves what you say? I read a study that said that. And I can give them the number of studies

that I read in here, but they'll never read those studies anyway because that was never the point. The point was, I'm being challenged. I'm scared now. I'm not safe anymore,

so I'm going to switch to a test negative pattern, which is my mind wanders and I cannot learn from you anymore. As a coach, how do you, when you notice

that somebody is being, they're not feeling safe because they're being challenged, how do you create that safety so they can get back into growth? That's the question now, isn't it? So I try to make them safe again, but sometimes also they're not ready. I mean, maybe it's like athletes. Maybe they haven't gotten hurt enough, unfortunately, to come to see you. And some coaches, they're going to have to find their why.

So I can try to inspire you, but I cannot motivate you. So I'll try to put myself as much out there and have a true human conversation with them saying, dude, I get it. You're not in a safe place. I mean, you can't tell that to women. They react to that very well. Men don't. But so you try to find words that they don't get offended by.

But you start to do it. Let's talk as human beings. I got you. I get it. I've been there. This is all I've been doing my entire life is sports and coaching. I got you. Where is it that you feel challenged and safe? Is it because you need those studies and

the safety of someone else telling you what to do so that you can, because really you don't want to go into that dark place where you need to find yourself. Is that what this is? Are you on Dagobah with, you know, when Luke asked Yoda, like, what will I find in the dark cave? What will I find in there? And Yoda tells him,

whatever you bring with you. Is that what this is? You're afraid to go in the cave because you don't know yourself. Let's talk as human beings because I know, I got you, I understand. We've been there. Let me help you master yourself. Let's become an apprentice so you can learn what it's like to deal with all this.

But that's a human conversation. It's not a technical conversation. It's not a business conversation. It's two human beings talking about what makes you progress in life. Right? But the problem is they have to understand that that's what this is. Like the whole, I need to study bullshit.

Because if I give you the study, you won't read it. Or you'll skim the part, but you won't think about it. So that's not really what the conversation is. What the conversation is, is you need an apprenticeship.

You need to be humble, like John Machado humbled me, so that you go like, okay, maybe you don't know everything. Maybe it's not as simple as knees out. And maybe we should start wondering why that person cannot squat the way you want because you've been at it for fucking six months

and they're still hurting their knee every time. So I'm not saying you suck. I'm saying we can do better. So let's have this conversation. Why? Why is it hurting? Can we please look? And then we can look at evolutionary biology

and all that stuff. But it starts always as a human conversation. It's that moment where you go from the safety of, I've been told to, I need to find my own game. That's hard. Yeah. It sounds like you're challenging science a bit in this conversation. People are wanting to reference studies.

But that's not science. That's a problem. It's not. So this is a problem. It's not. So, I mean, this is what's happening culturally right now is we look at how people, how we're raising children and how we were all raised, which is don't trust yourself.

Yes. Only trust things outside of yourself. So what other people, only trust a doctor with your health only trust don't trust yourself don't try don't experiment don't do stiff because everything is dangerous and everything but that's not so when they go to studies and everything they keep saying the scientific way because i had a conversation so many times but that's not true because what they're looking at is they're looking at empirical evidence. Like it's a god of all things.

But that's not true either. If you look at math, so there's three types of evidence. You have empirical evidence, you have anecdotal evidence, and you have logical evidence, right? If you like logical evidence, it's philosophy and mathematics. That's basically what this is. But so, like you have something like hard science, like physics, that relies on mathematics, on logical evidence for about half of it. Because a lot of stuff you cannot test. There's two problems with testing.

First of all, some things you cannot test. Like, for example, you said in quantum mechanics, for example, how are you going to test a black hole? But still, we can know of it through logical evidence, through mathematics. And the problem with testing is who's doing the testing and what are they testing for exactly because you can basically test with the wrong idea and make it say whatever you want so you can't just rely on empirical evidence in the sense of if you just test

but without knowing what you're testing for you can make the study say whatever you want or again you'll see a thousand trees but you'll miss the forest that's actually I didn't say that, Einstein said it. And that's the problem, basically. So, you can't just rely on a study set. You have to rely

on the logical that is behind to try to basically put all those studies together so it says something at the end. And so, instead of that, and that's the internet age as well, where you're always going to find someone that will on anything say yes or no.

That's right. So it's a net zero. I broke a rule a while back, maybe a couple years ago. Somebody was talking about, I won't even get into exactly what the topic was. I threw my opinion in the ring inside this group where I said, you know, which was very, my opinion was, let's not be dogmatic. That doesn't go well. And, you know, it is a vegan conversation.

That's why. Okay, but you know what you were getting into. Yeah, yeah. And I go, yeah, please. I made the mistake of signing off with, show me your evidence. And then there was a million studies. Of course.

But it was like studies on, this is what you're talking about, studies about, they were saying that meat's not good for you, but they were referencing studies where people were eating toast with butter on it. You know, just shit like that. For example, meat isn't bad for you. All right. toast with butter on it. You know, just shit like that.

No, but even if you say, for example, meat isn't bad for you. All right, so you go to somewhere where they have cows, you know, that are basically parked by the mirror, basically. Those cows are given candy and all that shit, and the cows are sick. You've seen those pictures. They cut the cow open,

some green shit comes out or whatever. Oh, wow. Like they have cancers everywhere. Most of the cows being grown right now are not healthy. Exactly, right? shit comes out or whatever. Like they have cancerous, they have cancers everywhere. Most of the cows being grown right now are not healthy. Exactly, right? Yeah, they're bad. Yeah, so to the point where they have to put them into ammonia and then put the color and the taste back in after that.

Like literally, they do that on plants. I'm not kidding. All right, so you test that meat, that red meat. Right. Yes, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that good for you for many reasons, right? Okay, but now if I test the red meat. Right. Yes, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be that good for you for many reasons, right? Okay. But now, if I test a red meat that, let's say, is fucking in Sweden right now, eating

grass all the time and everything, and I test same person eating the meat from Sweden instead, do you think you're going to have the same results? Absolutely not. Then what the fuck is that study for? You know what I mean? It's not what you test. It's knowing why you test that for. What is it that you're testing for?

If you're testing for red meat, then you can't just take red meat from one location that might be sick and then draw conclusions from that. So the problem is not the studies. The problem is the conclusions that are being drawn from studies. And if you were so inclined, you could choose the studies that fit your opinion to basically keep making the same point. You could choose the testing that fit your opinion to basically keep making the same point.

You could choose the testing that favors your opinion. If you are so inclined, it wouldn't be that hard to build an entire science that says exactly what you want. This is something I found common in human nature, which is we collect evidence. We have a story, we're committed to the story or an identity. And then we spend our entire life collecting evidence for it. The entire life. Yeah, exactly.

Until something, until someone reaches an apocalypse. Exactly. Until someone shocks you enough to go, shit, maybe I was wrong. But then it's a John Machado who shocks you 3,000 times until you realize, huh, maybe I was wrong from the beginning. Is that possible? Shit.

Right. But so, okay. So let's take nutrition since we were on it as an example, right? There's a problem for you with all the studies. So a human being has a nervous system, right? That is divided into two things, parasympathetic and sympathetic, right? Sometimes you're in full parasympathetic. Sometimes you're in full sympathetic. Andathetic. Sometimes you're in full sympathetic.

And then sometimes the two of them work together. So parasympathetic is rest, full digestion. Sympathetic is basically fight and flight, more like hunting being hunted. When you're in a full fight and the bear is coming at you, you can't digest. Why? Because you need all your energy to go at fighting the bear.

So when you're in a full sympathetic mode, you can't digest at all. Right? So, and then there's degrees of that. All right, so let's do a thought experiment. I have Mike and John that are twins. For the sake of the argument, they are basically so identical. They have the same life exactly to the point

where if I give them, they're in full parasympathetic, full digestion, I give them 100 grams of protein, they're going to have the same amount of nutrients going through their body, right, as they start the experiment. Okay. So that means Mike and John, 100 grams of protein, by the way, it's not about how many grams they're eating, it's about how many grams they're processing, right? How much actually gets into the body.

Same state, which is full digestion, they both get whatever percentage out of that 100 grams of protein. All right. So now Mike is in parasympathetic, means socialization. He had a great dinner with his wife. He's fine. Okay. John, same basically person, right? Now, instead of that, he may have a fight with his wife.

She wants a divorce. He's stressed out of his mind. That means he's going, he was toward the fight mode. He's in sympathetic, where he cannot digest well. Right? So, I take Mike and John and I give Mike a certain amount of protein, I give the same amount of protein to John. Do you think both of them are going

to get the same amount of nutrients in their body? No way. No way. Because John was in the sympathetic where he cannot digest well. So that means that the state you're in changes the absorption rates of nutrients. So if you want to establish causality in a study,

do you think you would need to first establish the state of the person eating? Oh yeah. Are we doing it? Have you read a study where they established that? No. I haven't. No. Alright, so do we have a problem now? That means that if you don't know if the person is sympathetic or parasympathetic,

you cannot know what the absorption rate of protein is. So that means everything else that goes after that, building muscle, performance, and everything, is necessarily flawed. So we have a problem. Well, this is something I found. And getting away from evidence outside of ourselves, I've looked at evidence in my own life. And the older I've gotten, I've downregulated my system.

Because you learn. I'm way more chill than I used to be. I used to be upregulated, stressed out all the time. And now I'm very chill. I need to eat way less food. Because you're processing it so much better. I shit better. Exactly.

And I need less food. And a lot of times people go, well, how many grams of protein do I need? And I go, well, I only need about 120 grams of protein, maybe 100. Or maybe auto-regulation. Maybe some days I need more than others. How about that? The real answer is I eat what I feel. I'm intuitively going, oh, I need a little more food or I need less food.

But isn't that – why is that – by the way, how is that not – I mean, I know why it's not part of the conversation. But isn't that insane that that's not part of the conversation? You're telling me on an everyday basis your days are so close to being the same that you need the same amount of protein to the gram. Well, this cracks me up. That's fucking insane. I still watch people. They'll make a post. They're like, I adjusted my carbohydrate by 10 grams, and then I busted through my plateau.

I go, holy shit. There's no fucking way. So counting macros as a way to control your eating habits, I'm all for it. Past that, I'm sorry. Yeah. Like, how about, by the way,

why are we not teaching people auto-regulation? I think we should have that conversation first. Well, here's the thing is, I think a big part of the problem is, and people need to do macros first

or they're attracted to that is because they're measuring something outside of themselves. People, what I, in my experience, people cannot feel their body. They're not in touch with their body, so they don't even know when they're full.

They really don't know when they're hungry. All right, so can we figure out that part? Because otherwise, what are we doing this for? Can we please figure out that part? Why can't they feel? Why don't they know where their glutes are? No, me too. That's been the whole thing. The whole nutrition stuff that we started is basically auto-regulation.

It's like, how about you eat for what's coming in the next two hours instead of what happened? Because you're not going to die in the past. I got news for you. So I don't think the body is designed to deal with what happened an hour ago. I think it's designed basically, the fuel is for, you put the fuel in the car before the race, not after.

So how about we start to understand that it's about what your nervous system is designed to predict the future. So it's going to look at the past to try to figure out what's coming because that's what keeps you alive. So maybe the fuel should be based on that, on what's coming. So maybe nutrition should be based on what's happening in the next two hours instead of what happened in the last two hours. How about we teach people auto-regulation? How about we figure out why

they can't feel shit? Is there a reason for it? I believe so. And so how about we go toward that? And we need to teach people auto-regulation. Like that idea of keeping people in a childlike state of the school system which is pounding you into obeying,

that worked 150 years ago when we needed to take people, kids out of the farm and put them in factories, right? So the parents needed to go into factories. So we took the kids, put them in school and teach them to be little soldiers. 150 years ago when the industrial revolution started, that was necessary

because it was better for the kids to be at school learning than it was to be in the farm. Yeah, that was necessary, because it was better for the kids to be at school learning than it was to be in the farm. Yeah. That was my first introduction to why schools built the way it is, but it was originally from the Germans or the Polish that they started school, and they noticed that the peasants

didn't want to fight for the king. And so they go, oh, we can, if we start indoctrinating them at a younger age, they'll be committed to this nation where they'll now fight. Because, for example, like if you look at 150 years ago, look at England or stuff like that, you'll see that none of the wealthy kids went to school. Not the way it is created. They had governance.

They had people, private tutors, all of them, teaching them the stuff. Like the Japanese didn't have school system. The parents were supposed to do it. So in many, many cultures, there was never such a thing as a school system. We think it's been around for like 10,000 years. Bullshit. The way it's shaped right now, it's

150 years old. That's all. But the world has changed now. It's not the same. We don't have to pound people into obeying constantly. That's all. But the world has changed now. It's not the same. We don't have to pound people into obeying constantly. That's basically, but that's where I feel we're still there with macros and stuff like that where it's

to me, it's just putting people in a childlike place, basically. We're telling them, we're going to control your eating habits and I'm going to tell you what's good for you. On the human level, it bothers me. Again, if it's to control eating habits, and

they're getting progress, that's great. I'm all for it to start with, but at some point, it has to go past that. It's like teaching someone how to squat. At first, you're going to have to say, yeah, don't do that, because you're not going to let them die. It's basically like parenting. Don't let them do the shit where they're going to die or end up in a hospital or in jail. Right.

Short of that, they're going to have to do their own shit. Right? So that's why coaching is like, okay, you don't do that. You don't do this one either. Like that, you're going to die. And so I'm all for that part, which is necessary. Give them basically like the ground values where we're going to have to. But after that,

here comes the human being that has to grow. And then that's where, so at first you're a trainer in that sense. You're going to tell someone what to do. Exactly what? Don't do this, don't do that, because otherwise they're going to die, right? Same thing, macros, control your eating habit.

Stop having 10,000 calories. Even though a calorie is not just a calorie, it doesn't matter. At first, we're going to have to start somewhere. So then to someone who just starts, you're a trainer, which is fine. But as the person knows more, basically, you go from a trainer to a coach, where now you can teach them. You can make them self-sufficient, auto-regulation. You can tell them, look, now it's just not about the macros. How do you react to this food or that food? How about the state of mind you're in? Did you notice it kind of changes whether it hurts your stomach

when you eat and you're stressed? Then we can go into that thing, right? But we have to stop that first phase where it's just about telling people what to do. Otherwise, we'll stick as trainers always. And guess what? It doesn't work. We're not winning this.

I want to go back into the coaching conversation, which is, you were talking about the difference between a blue belt and a purple belt. And in a purple belt, you start becoming a creator. You have to create your own style, your own game. And I've been subscribing to a philosophy of that you're either in a state of survival or a state of creation. And so I think most people have never had – their experience of being a creator is very limited. And they've never – like the school system doesn't teach you to be in creation. No, it does not.

They teach you how to survive. On the contrary. Yeah. Yeah, they teach you how to survive, not how to create. So we have human beings that have 20 to 30 years of training on survival but never creation.

How do you break out of that mold? So first, it has to be a safe place. Right? Because that's, again, back to testing a tip, task positive, right? It has to be a safe place.

If they're not in a safe place, they can't do it because then they go back to survival. All right, so how do we create a safe place. If they're not in a safe place, they can't do it because then they go back to survival. All right, so how do we create a safe place? First of all is, and that's, I guess, the goal of human beings is find your own tribe and contribute to it.

So you need two components to that. You need, first of all, to find a tribe. To find a safe place, you have to be within a tribe. It won't work otherwise. A tribe is not 2,000 people. A tribe is a short number, right? So you have a coach and he's out there and he's trying stuff, but he's on his own. That's a hard stuff.

All right. So we put them in a group of, that's what we do in the mentoring program. We put group in a group of 10, 10 people. And then basically what they're going to do is they're a safe place because they start to know the 10 people. It's like, all right, I want you to do a video of you at a movement where you suck. Right? So, and then we're going to do that movement and you're all going to do it.

8 out of the 10 are going to suck. Right? And then they're all going to post a video of them doing that. So, putting themselves into a difficult situation, but seeing that all the other ones in their tribe have the same problem. Right? And they're going to go, wait, I'm not the only one with this. So, I don't suck. This is normal. I'm supposed to learn. And now basically you're giving them a tribe and they're going to contribute because you're going to make them post those videos and you're going to make them comment on the other videos and you're going to make them learn and you're going to start to help each other. Hey, you look awesome.

Don't worry. I suck at that one too. I know how hard it is. And then they start to talk to each other and they create that, basically that safety where you have your people, not too many,

just those other nines that have the same problem you do because we usually have the same ones. And then you can start building the tribe. And once you build that tribe feeling, now you're going to ask them to contribute. With what? With whatever they're going to be good at. So I was like, I want you to find something that is going to make the tribe stronger. What can you do to make the tribe that you belong to, your tribe stronger? And then they'll go, huh, let me think about it. And now you won. Because now

they're thinking about what they can do to help the tribe. And that's being creative. Right? And so now they're like, let me see what I'm really good at. And then they'll try two, three stuff. And they go, hey, that, I really like doing that. And usually when they like doing it, they're going to get better at it. Right?

And so they're going to start practicing that. And now it's an apprenticeship. Because now they're like that guy who first starts painting and goes, that looks like shit. And you come back and the light looks like shit. And you come back and the light looks like shit. Do better. Okay.

And then they do it again and then, you know, 20 times, 30 times, 50 times, 100 times, they go like, hey, that was actually not bad. And then you have, again, you have your tribe mates

in the back going like, hey, that wasn't bad. Oh, thank you guys. And then now you're safe and you're safe and now you can find yourself. Right? And so that's the way

we've been doing it every time. It's like that. And that's, by the way, this isn't mine. This is as old as the world. Find a tribe, contribute to it. So that's what an apprenticeship is, really. And then the other people, an apprentice goes like,

yeah, I know it sucks. I've been there for six months. You're going to have to do the same movement 30 fucking times. Yeah. But you're going to get better at it and then that's how you make them becoming a purple belt. But without that safety,

without the tribe, it's hard. You're asking too much. Of most, anyway. Right? And that's what if you see we lack the most, all of us is a tribe. Because Instagram is, I don't know, a billion people that are

bullshitting you left and right. That are bullshitting you left and right anyway. Except for me. I'm not bullshitting. No, not you, but everybody else is. You know that perfect life that even if the... I am bullshitting people then. No, I'm just kidding. The fitness model, even them, they tell you,

by the way, guys, this is bullshit. And it's still people, even when they say it's bullshit, people still believe it. At least it gives you... You're continuously ostracized. So there is no tribe feeling. And if you look at coaches, it's hard. They're going to have to...

They need that safety. So it has to be created. Are you doing this online? So we have a bunch of calls a month. So usually one call a created. Are you doing this online? Yep. Okay. So we have like a bunch of calls a month, right? So usually one call a week and then homework. And the homework is that, right? The homework is that. And then at first, the first two months, it's always do a video, share it.

And at first, they're like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And you can always see it in the comments. They go like, okay, guys, I did a video. I suck. First thing they say is that. I'm so bad. I suck. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. And then they just keep saying I suck and apologizing about the movement. And then they realize the other nine are exactly the same. Why do you think people feel the need to say that before they do? Because they're not safe. Yeah, because they're not safe.

Whenever you use words, that means you're in an unsafe place. When you're safe, you take action. You do stuff. When you talk, it means you're not safe. Words means you already failed. So you try to use words to go back into a fight or to drive yourself into freeze. But words mean you failed.

So that's why they're apologizing because they say, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Because they feel they failed already. Right? So what I want them to say is like, they didn't fail. They basically showed that they need improvement somewhere and that everybody else does too. It's all good.

You're allowed to make mistakes. That's the point. I want you to make mistakes so we can fix you. And so within a month like that, they start to go, oh. So, and then after that, they look for the other comments. Like, guys, I can't do that movement. Can you please help me? When they say that, then you won. Because now they're not using words to explain that they failed.

They did something. They took a video initiative and they posted it saying, please help me. Now you won. So you see that all the time, right? That comes from being in an unsafe place, which is, you've seen the fitness industry, it's not a safe place. You are, basically, you are being pounded on through

insecurities on a continuous basis. Everybody has a six-pack. Everybody looks like a Greek god. The women have huge houses and legs and this and this, even though you're not seeing the amount of work in the back that it takes, all that stuff, right? The coaches, we've always been told that we are dumb, and then with the doofus and everything,

and you're not a doctor, basically, and stuff like that. So it's pounding on people's insecurities. So when would you ever find a safe place? It's hard, basically, right? Look, even in the gyms that we have, you don't talk to other gyms. Gym owners don't talk. Like, the whole community in CrossFit, for example,

that went out a while ago. They did in the beginning. They did in the beginning. And then as soon as there was some level of competition. Exactly. But at first, isn't that what everybody loved it? Because you could talk to other people. There was a tribe in place.

Small group. It was small enough. Right. Small enough that you talked to the CrossFit gyms in your town because there was 10 of them. And then you guys have barbecues and shit like that. And it was awesome, right? Because you were part of a tribe.

And that's the first thing we lost. And that's why now the problem starts. Going back to the conversation of coaches and gym owners, as you mentioned with your gym, that you would wake up, have this long day. And I imagine that them being in the survival mode keeps them from not communicating. Of course. And we lose that human connection.

Yeah, on top of it, yeah. And something that I want to bring up is you look amazing, man. And a lot of it has to do because you got yourself away from that grind and were able to take care of yourself. Yeah, also I figured out the nutrition thing. But the only reason I figured it out is because I had the time to do it. So yes, in that sense. You had the safety.

Exactly. Because I built my life, by the way, I built my life at 42, just so everybody knows. So it's not over, guys. I just want to put it out there. I rebuilt everything. So a single dad at 42 and I still rebuilt everything. So it's feasible. I still rebuilt everything so it's visible but yes

so it was two and a half years ago you're 42 now I'm 45 now you're 45 now so two and a half years ago when we met I was 42

that's when you say you were 42 and you go that's when you rebuilt your life because so many people I have people who are

you know 25 and they feel like, oh, it's too late. I've done it five times already. I haven't achieved it yet. I've done it five times already. That was my fifth.

At least I was my fifth or sixth life. What are some, I want to hear about your other lives. So I, okay. So I moved to Africa when I was 14. So basically ran away from home. And from, yeah, broken childhood. So I ended up with my uncle. You ran away from home and from yeah broken childhood so

I ended up with my uncle in Africa my grandparents we kind of figured it out so he's in the in the bush

in a town named Katiola which is a fucking village right and there's two high schools there there's one high school where all the teachers kids go

because all the teachers are from France so all the teachers' kids go because all the teachers are from France. So all white teachers, all black students, right? But they send their kids to that basically rich high school. And my uncle teaches in the local high school. He's like, no, no, no. You're going to the local high school with me. So I was the only

white student ever in that high school. Ever. I walk in, that motherfucker dropped me off at the front gate. He's like, you walk in. What? Sorry. okay. I come from Paris. I grew up in the Latin Quarter. I'm as fucking soft as you can be.

My father is a movie director, my mother is an actress. I'm as fucking soft. From the Latin District. Yeah, the Latin Quarter. It's called Odeon. I'm an artist, man. I'm a hippie. Borderline. I got the called Odeon. I'm an artist, man. I'm a hippie, borderline. I got the flowing hair and everything.

I'm a fucking hipster before there was hipster. I'm as soft as you get. That motherfucker drops me at the front gate saying, you're walking. I'm walking. The entire high school, 400 kids stopped and stared at me. I'm like, I'm in the middle of the bush. You have to understand,

this is mud, pieces of metal on top and everything. It's a fucking cliche that you see in the 50s movies about Africa. That's where I am right now.

And so I walk in, everybody's laughing, they're like, this is Africa. I'm walking, dead silence. Everybody's like turning around.

I'm like, oh my God. I walk in and say, can I sit here please? So I sit and everything and I'm like, it was. Everybody's like turning around. I'm like, oh my God. I walk in and say, can I sit here, please? So I sit and I was sitting and I'm like, even it was so bad, the teacher comes in, he goes, whoa, what are you doing here? I was like, I don't know, man.

My uncle dropped me off. He's like, is that, are you supposed to be here? I'm like, I think so. So first recess, I'm like, oh my fucking God. They all stand up. I was like, that's it. I had 14 lives to live and that's the end. They all got in line

and all introduced themselves and shook my hand one by one. Wow. It was so sweet. Oh, I was crying. Like, I love you guys. Thank you.

And so I spent a year in Africa in basically the world it was 300 years ago. Like they were all studying on the streetlights because they had no water,

no electricity. There was just fucking mud and a piece of metal, right? All cooking in the stove, not a stove, like fucking fire, in the middle of the ground and everything. It was insane. And so that was the world two, three hundred years ago. Like the shit I've seen over there was insane. So I go back to France, I'm 15 and a half or whatever. And my life has changed.

I'm in France realizing how soft they all are. I must have PTSD from it because the next two years were so rough, right? So now I'm 18, 20. I have no idea what I want. Everything found MMA. That changed everything. Moved to the States.

Moved to Brazil. Came back to the States. And so it goes on and on and on like that, man. It was cool. But so yeah, at 42, I was like, fuck it. I don't want to do this anymore. When did you start training people? From the beginning, since I'm 19.

So how did it start? I started to do MMA, right? And I fell in love. How? The first time I do MMA, there's a guy sitting on top of me who choked the fuck out of me and I panicked.

I had a panic attack. I went like this. My face must have changed color because the guy went, oh, let go, going like, you should walk it off. And so I have battery acids in my veins at that moment because I can't fucking breathe. I had a full blown panic attack. I've never felt like this in my life. So I'm walking around like, what the fuck was that? I can't move my hands. I'm cramping everywhere. And I'm like, all right. But I've never felt like that. If I can control that, I'll never be scared again in my life.

So I'm coming back tomorrow. And so I was like, fuck it. I'll come back tomorrow. And so I decided to get good at it, right? And so within three months, I'm like, okay. So I just don't bodybuilding because I'm fucking 19, right? Or whatever. What do I do?

So I need to do body weights. I start to do push-ups. That's not enough. And I found those tapes. A guy gave me tapes of a guy named Kazeka Muniz who was a gymnast who started to do jiu-jitsu. And he had all those animals movement. Oh, cool. And so

I'm in my grandparents' who happen to have a big apartment and so I basically sweat it on that fucking carpet for like a year straight. So at the time, like for three months, that's all I do every day for an hour. It's the animal movements and I'm getting good at it and it's so fun. And one day I'm using it as a warm-up, right? And the teacher sees that and he's like, hey, that looks cool. So I make it once or twice and he's like, all right, so I'm going to make you a deal. This room is very small.

We should be 12 max. It's 20 of us right now. So what I want you to do is you're going to do the warm-up for 20 minutes and you're going to murder everybody so that we go back down to 10. I was like, done. So I start training people and for three weeks, I fucked up everybody. I was like, I'm

going to destroy all of you. Three weeks later, there's 40 of us. And my coach comes and says, what the fuck did you do? He's like, I don't know. But then I realized, maybe I'm good at this.

And then I realized, torturing people, yeah. And I was like, you're like pain. Okay, I get this. And then I discovered I was really good

at torturing people. I was like, oh, I'm going to do this. And I was like, so that's who I am. That's interesting. And so I was always more on the coach side

than the athlete side always always always so I've been coaching people since I'm 19 but that's all I've ever wanted to do like I I see my daughter

like she's playing hockey and everything she helps the younger kids she you can tell some people are just coaches man and so that's all

I've ever wanted to do so I had small jobs here and there but always in the mind of wanting to coach people so that's why I've ever wanted to do. So I had small jobs here and there, but always in the mind of wanting to coach people. So that's why too, so you put the work in and then you've once you find who you are, it's a lot easier too, because then you start the practice.

You watch, you know, it becomes something you do non-stop, all the time, continuously. And when you think about it, say you watch a movie you go like, oh, that was, I mean like, and that's really how you get good at it. When you do the shit 24-7, you know you found your thing, right? Because then it's not work anymore.

It's just something that you do. It's play. It feels like play. It's, yeah, it's who you are. Like, that's what you do. I mean, I don't know if you ever watched the documentaries, like the, there was like Ramen Heads in Japan, like the guy who won like the best ramen noodles in Japan

like four years in a row. That dude is fucking insane. That's all he does. By the way, he's at his restaurant, so he starts serving from 11 to 5. And he doesn't break for those six hours. He doesn't go pee. He doesn't eat.

He doesn't do anything but serve every single bowl he has to make himself. If he's not working, the restaurant is closed. You have to see documentaries. But anyway, but that dude is obsessed. So he doesn't even teach his apprentice anything. They have to steal knowledge from him. He says it out loud.

He's like, yeah, you steal it from me because I'm not giving you shit. He just works and everything. Like he did with his coach and everything. He's like, well, do you want it or not? Right? So you watch the documentaries and you go, that's why he's who he is

because that's what it takes to be a master at anything. So you might never be a black belt and that's okay. But there's always that moment to be a purple when you're going to have to find your why. To find that stuff that you go,

oh, I want that. Because once you say, I want that, now you're learning. That's literally the thought process, the task positive pattern that allows you to learn is safety. Because when you say, I want

that, now you'll feel safe. It's such a good feeling. Me, when I started coaching and I did MMA, I was like, oh, I know exactly what I want. I want that. I want to torture people for a living. That sounds like fun. Like to see that look on their face, I was like, oh yeah. I want to see people making that face for the rest of my life.

That's a good feeling right there. You remember the workout? I was like, I'm good at this. So you find your way. So after that, you go like, okay, so how can I use that to actually make people better and not just kill them? And by the way, can I actually make a living?

Done. And so there was that. So you found your passion. You found your why. And it sounds like in your 20s. And it was... But you still found yourself in survival mode.

Yeah. Up until 42. Was it like one thing just stacked on top of another and one day you woke up and it was like... No, you know what it was? Until that email, until the Barbershop podcast, I never believed I'd make a difference. You enjoyed yourself, but you didn't think you were going to make a difference in the world? Yeah.

I thought my life was going to be a small gym. That's always been since I'm 20. I'm going to have a small gym, get 20, 25 clients, make a difference in their life, and that's it. And I would have been perfectly happy, but still from the grind of it in survival mode, except I would have never known. I don't think I would have been happy, or at least at the time I thought I would be happy. I would have been content because I was like, I'm making the difference that I can make.

Never in my wildest dreams did I thought that I would do what I do now. It never even came to me that you could. That's for other people. That's for those people. It's not for you. You can't make a difference what you mean. And he took the barrel of shock to go, shit, you can. And I was like, alright.

And then suddenly my mindset switched to, then if it's been done before i can do it and if he hasn't done then i'll figure it out right for for yourself um you know you mentioned between 19 42 uh you go on this interview then people start reaching out to you to start knowing you we work with a lot of coaches who oftentimes are looking for that one thing that's just going to launch them. Yeah. But they often don't get one thing.

They often don't see everything that had to happen for you to have that conversation on the mic to the masses. And then all of a sudden you get launched. That's what they don't understand is the reason it was successful was the Barbershop podcast. But that's not why it was successful. It was successful because I had something to say. Why did I have something to say? Because I spent the last 20 years perfecting my craft with no ever an expectation of making anything out of it but a normal life. And normal in a good way.

You know, like make a living, get your house and stuff like that. That's about as far as I wanted anyway. And, but even though that was the goal, I was still trying to master my craft to the max of my capacities on a daily basis. With the grind, it's harder, obviously, than I can now. That's why I figured out so much shit in the last two years than I did before. But the point was no one was watching

and I was still obsessed in mastering my craft. So every day I would like, let me try to move better. Let me try to look at this client and see what he's not doing. So I was always trying to understand why people were hurting their knees squatting or stuff like that. So I was trying to master my craft every day, even though thinking no one would ever get to see it. But it didn't matter because I didn't do it for others to see. I did it because I'm a craftsman. That's who I am. I want

to master what I do. I found my field just like that chef, that ramen noodle guy. Even if he's not... By the way, his meal is $10. So, you know what I mean? And so, he just feeds people. It doesn't matter who comes through his door. Obviously, $10 and everything. He gets the stuff

but even if he doesn't get the applaud, he wouldn't change who he is. His thing is, he's going to make the best women in the world he can, and that's the only thing

that matters. And to me, I was like that. The only thing that matters is I study movement and humans to the max of my capacities. I just saw the max

of my capacities were not that far. So therefore, I wouldn't be that much better than anybody else. But it didn't matter. I was going to be the best at what i do so i was going to master my craft and so i spent 20 years doing that so i learned jujitsu and then i learned coaching jujitsu and i learned how other coaches the mistake they were doing i did that with body building i did that with body weight exercises that's why i did a fucking year and a half of

the gymnastic movement in my grandparents sweating on their carpet because I was going to know that movement, not just do the movement, know the movement. Every single inch of a single movement, every single variation, I was going to know about it. So I've done that for every single thing I could basically put my mind to was I'm going to know that. And so I would spend a year of my life doing the shit.

People are like, why would you do that? Because I don't know it. That's why. But I'm going to know it by the time. And so it was, I guess, a long-term mentality because there was never an ending process to it because I was never doing that for something. I was doing that because that's who I am, because that's what I want to do. So I'm going to master myself. I'm going to master my craft. And I spent 20 years, every single sinking moment, trying to do that. And so I've learned through everything in life.

My ex was a samba dancer. I watched her dance because, first of all, she was gorgeous dancing. But her and her friends, because I was like, how do you move like that? So I'm looking at the feet. I'm looking at you. And I'm like, OK, in boxing, I would do this. But that's not what they do. So how do you move like that?

Do you guys have stronger abs? How the fuck do you move your hips? So I don't know, but I'm going to figure out. And so you look for hours of them dancing, appreciating the the dance but there's a part of your brain that goes huh i need to understand that movement and so even though i can't dance myself you you know i mean like it's that it's that thing where you just look and you go how how does that work i want to know i need to know more than i want to know i need to know how they do that and so you start to study humans and you do that every single of every day you walk they walk in the streets and you go

right foot turns out left shoulder is up is that a pattern and then once you've seen 20 000 people walking around and you see one pattern that pops up you start to go there's a pattern there why is there a pattern then you can read studies and shit and figure out to figure out no one talks about it and it's weird but one day you watch that video of that guy who talks about it and you go hey that's a good idea and then you go back to that pattern that you remember from two years ago when that guy was walking and but he's not the only one and then you start to go huh then you have a chalkboard and you start to write down and you start to draw a pattern like you saw at the gym and everything and that's what you do for 20 years. And then once you've done that,

and then you basically have that one stuff that you try to master, one day the barber shrug knocks on your door and says, hey, you want to do a podcast? And you're like, yeah, sure. Let's do this. And now everybody's like, oh, my God. Yeah, because they don't see the last 20 years. That's what they forget.

So then they're like, oh, I could be on the barber shrug. Yeah, and you would have nothing to say because you have no life experience to put into it because you're basically stuck. So that's the problem with that survival mode is it puts you in a mode where you don't experience.

You don't experience. You have no life experience. You're never going to make anything out of it. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So you're going to have to find safety, but to find safety, it's hard when you're survival mode. I mean, so then you're going to have to learn to jump. You're going to have to learn safety but to find safety it's hard when you're survival mode I mean so so then you're going to have to learn to jump

you're going to have to learn to have the balls to do things you're going to have to but first you're going to have to find your tribe you're going to have to find what you like you know what I mean so we always go back to the same thing man yeah so but that's what it takes to be successful

on a Barbell Shark podcast right and having the balls to say so not playing it safe either right to say like you're going to say Atlantis shit because that's what you believe in and then you go for it. And God knows I got me in trouble once or twice on other stuff, but I was like... But I'm willing to discuss with

anybody because the point is not being right. The point is being right in the sense of, I just want to know the truth. I don't want to be right. I want to be right in that sense. I want to know why humans do that. So as long as I know the truth, even if it comes from somebody else, I don't care. I I want to be right in that sense. I want to know why humans do that. So as long as I know the truth, even if it comes from somebody else, I don't care. I just want to be right in that sense.

But I don't care about being right. And so I was like, all right, so let me study. Let me do more stuff. And then so the barbell shrug was not the starting point. But it started something else in the sense of allowing me to just basically go around the world and push the boundaries of the system even more, knowing, okay, let's see how far I can apply it. And so he went movement, and then he went nervous system, and then he went basically neuroscience and nutrition

to see how far can I go to help people, right? How far can I take this? It will always be within the fitness industry because that's what I do, but how far can I go to help people? Can I basically figure out workouts to help with depression and anxiety? Because that's a nervous system thing. Like, alright, so

that's why I've been working on that as well. And you start basically just pushing to the next thing. And the next thing and the next thing. But most of it you'll never see. Right? It's all those sessions in the gym that you spend with nobody else was watching, man. Right? That's what when you someone is squatting and instead of being like because you know it's 600 clients you have who's doing a squat and you can look at it like oh my

god just break parallel man you break parallel you go back up it's a squat fuck it right that's when you're still selling a t-shirt so instead instead of that, you can make it into, okay, this is the worst squatter in history. What can I learn from it? And usually you can learn a lot more from the worst squatter in history than you can from Lauren Fisher. Yep. Right?

So you're like, all right, so how come he's doing that, by the way? There has to be a reason. How come he's so crooked? How come like half of my clients are crooked on the squat anyway? Like, do they all turn the foot? Or do they have one hip?

And you know, they they do Friday night thing where one hip pops up first before the other. And you go, what the fuck? And so you don't know. So you send them to the physio or whatever. But how about we figure it out? Why are they doing it? And no, it's not just knees out.

Maybe there's a deeper reason why that happens. So then you start to go into movement. And then you start talking to them. And then you wonder, all those people are really stressed out. I wonder if there's a relationship there. Or maybe they start to stuff like that. And then you start talking to them and then you wonder, all those people are really stressed out. I wonder if there's a relationship there or maybe they start

to stuff like that. And then you start reading about a guy named Willem Rijks, who was a student of Freud, so 1920 Vienna, who had the entire idea of basically trauma

being stored in the body and not in the mind. Yep. And you start to go, ooh, that's an interesting idea there. We've been down that rabbit hole pretty deep. Yeah. And then you start to look at people and to go, ooh, that's an interesting idea there. We've been down that rabbit hole pretty deep.

Yeah, and then you start to look at people and you go, so you all have sexual trauma and your left shoulder hurts. Huh. And then you just keep going, even if it's rabbit holes where other people don't want to go, where they tell you it's not scientific or do you have studies to back that up? But the point was never do I have studies to back that up? But the point was never do I have studies

to back it up because I never did this to prove anything. I just want to know. Yeah, you're doing it for you. Yeah, I want to know. I just want to know. Right?

And that's the 20 years of me just wanting to know. Right? Never in a million years thinking the barbell shock was going to happen. But that's why it happened. Right?

So when they want that big break, they want to go on your podcast, then the problem is they don't realize they have nothing to say. Because in your head, it's always very clear, by the way. When you start talking about it, it's not nearly as good as you thought it was. Everybody's a writer until you actually have to write something, and then they go, shit. So it's the same thing.

And by the way, half of that is life experiences. Do you have life experience? I fucking went to Africa. I lived in Brazil. I lived in the States. I lived in France, unfortunately. I lived in, like, did you do that, right?

And they're like, oh, I can't go live in Africa. Yes, you can. I ran away from home, so that means you can do it too. I mean, there's that too. Did you take the chances in life? Did you jump?

Or did you bullshit yourself about it? You know, there's a few chances in your life you could have jumped, and you didn't. We all do. All right, so maybe you should stop burshing yourself about it and go get life experience, because that's what will make you successful anyway. It's not how many studies you anyway. It's not how many

studies you read. It's not spending two hours on the internet as a vegan terrorist telling everybody they're wrong. It's not that.

I mean, right? It's the life experiences. You as a human being, right? Are you interesting

as a human being first of all? You want to go on a podcast? Okay, so there's a thing for you out there. interesting as a human being, first of all? You want to go on a podcast? Okay, so there's a thing for you out there, be an interesting

human being first. If you want to go on a podcast because nobody gives a shit about the other stuff, like they heard it a million times anyway and you're going like, yeah,

so the study says that 63% is like, oh my fucking God. I was giving a talk a year ago. It was last April. I was at Paleo FX. The day before, there's a lot of year ago. It was last April. I was at Paleo FX the day before. There's a lot of the entrepreneurs. There's an entrepreneur day. And I was one of the speakers. And I

was talking about using podcasting. And I was talking about podcasting and marketing. And there's some fans in the crowd. And someone raised their hand and says, what would it take to get on your show? I said, well, first you've got to be interesting. Everyone laughed, and the guy turned red. But that's true. And there have been a handful of people I've interviewed where I didn't post the show.

It has to be interesting. And sometimes I post a show knowing it's not going to be up to all the way to the standard that I want it. But that's one of the things that I've had to do over time is I have to sniff out whether somebody's interesting or not so I don't waste my time. It's storytelling anyway. This is how we've been before the school system.

The only way there was to communicate knowledge was apprenticeship and storytelling. So it's not even a talent. It's a human... It's part of the human craft, right? To be able to communicate a story and stuff like that. But so there's so much more that goes into coaching

and all that stuff than just having a wicked certification or having read stuff or being able to quote someone or using words, it goes back down to as a human being. It's like, did you...

And to be... Usually, if you're an interesting human being, that means shit happened to you. I don't know. You notice? There's a pattern there. I notice. It's funny how that works, right?

And you know when shit happens to you? When you go do shit. I remember in Finding Nemo, when they say, like, if nothing happens to little Nemo, do shit. I remember in Fighting Nemo when they say if nothing happens to little Nemo, nothing will ever happen to him. That's a little bit of stuff.

So you're going to have to go jump first. Do some... Go do stuff. Your CrossFit coaches, you could go coach one year in Dubai right now.

If you are half decent, there are plenty of places where you could go spend a year to coach. Like you're telling me that going to Europe for a year somewhere just to coach, so to be paid to basically live in a city in Europe and discover the European culture while doing CrossFit is not something you would jump on. Then you're fucking crazy.

I would agree. The opportunities are abundant. We had – what was it? I've had – we've had two students now. One student that came through our program day one. Danny was on the call. I was doing a one-on-one coaching call with him. He was 22, 23 years old. Not going to drop his name.

He wouldn't care if I did, but we're in, we're in a car, we're driving, uh, out into the mountains and he's, I, it was probably in the first 10, 20 minutes of the call. Yeah. He came pretty early on. He said something. I go, oh, well you just got to leave town. He'd lived in, he'd lived in the same town his whole life. There you go. That's step one. And anyone who joins the program wants to be – we teach a lot of –

it's basically personal and professional development for coaches. That's important. So a lot of self-reflection. What is it that you really want? And what's it going to take to get it? First question. What do you want? Yeah, so first call, he really want, and what's it going to take to get it? First question, right? What do you want? Yeah, so first call, he's like, I want this.

I want to own a gym. I want to do this. And he's, you know, very little experience. I go, well, you need to go study under somebody. You need mentorship, which means you have to leave town. And we could hear it on the call. You could hear the gulp like, oh, shit. Very rarely do I give somebody the answer.

Very rarely am I going, here's the answer on a silver platter. But that was – I go, you know what? If you take action on this, now I know you're serious. And he did. Good for him. Before the program was over, he had moved, found a job at a gym. Good for him. That's awesome. He took massive action.

I think one of the biggest things, he went from thinking to taking that action. That's the one. And if I could, you know, I'm working with him now. And by him taking action, he realized he didn't want to be in the fitness industry. But he wouldn't have known that. Exactly. Yeah. But now what you don't want is a big one, by the way.

Oh, yeah. At 20, that's what you should. Don't figure out what you want. Figure out what you don't want. Because you're going to need to do that first anyway. Oh, yeah. When I was that age, I was 23, and I was in the Navy. And I had discovered what i did not want

i was like i'm getting out and they go what are you gonna do i go i have no idea but it's not this something else exactly well that's what i did in my 20s basically going from place to place going like i don't even know the do you even know who you are in the 20s jesus christ i think i think a lot of people have an expectation that they're going to have the same life their parents have by the time they're 30. You know? Yeah.

I'm always amazed at that. It's the taking action. Like, what does it take for someone to actually decide to do this stuff? You know, like, you have a few forks in life where you can go left or right. There's not that many. You get four or five.

But there's a price to pay if you go right versus left, and you know it, and they still go right. That's the part. I've seen people like this. The right side is obviously the self-destruction. It's not going to go well.

You could go left. Yes, it's not comfortable. Don't get me wrong, but you're going to have to jump. But they choose right. And to this day, I'm like, you know where this goes.

Like inside, you know. And you're choosing that anyway. That's the part still that baffles me to this day. It's like that, yeah, no, I'm going to stay. Yeah. Exactly.

So that's, you know where this goes. Yeah, yeah, but I'm going to stay. So you're not going to jump? No. All right. All right then.

Especially to me, you know, who's jumped so many times. So that's probably to me the hardest part is that, is to tell people to jump and to tell them,

okay, you have to do this, you have to do that. And because to so many, they just can't. I think that's something that you and I probably have in common

is that I jumped a lot when I was young. There was... Yeah, there's probably that too. There's probably a moment where it becomes too hard. But the idea of not doing it is still alien to me.

But at the same time, and again, I say it out of love for everyone, but I'm 42, I'm a single father, I just moved to San Diego. I got a good gig going, working with CJ and Invictus, building my own business. I'm going to put my daughter to school.

And that's safe. Actually, it's not, but that's comfortable. It's not safe, but it's comfortable, right? So I have every reason not to do the seminars. Why would you? Maybe you wait a year until everything normalizes and then you're more stable and then you can do maybe a few seminars in North Carolina

instead of South Carolina. Maybe you can go to other states because why would you go outside? You know what I mean? There's a million ways to think like that. Or you say, fuck it. Or you're going to take your daughter on the road,

I guess online school, I don't know, you'll figure it out as you go, with six locations in mind, and see what happens. Yeah. Okay, so that's what people don't see, is that part. Where you go, fuck it.

Where a, not rational choice, but a more comfortable choice would be like, why would you do it? Right? So 42, single dad,

right? And decide to go to do a world tour on the road and everything. Okay, so do you have the balls to do it? If you don't,

then you won't do well on the Barbell Shrug podcast to do it. If you don't, then you won't do well on the Babel Shrug podcast. Love it. That's what it comes down to. What do you tell the person that says, well, I don't have very much money? When they say the money is the problem. No.

You can find a coaching job for CrossFit. It's so easy right now. 20 years ago, where do you go outside of Equinox or some shit like that, right? So teaching Jiu-Jitsu in France. So you know what it would take? I mean, you would have to go to Brazil, right?

To earn your at least purple, brown, or black belt or whatever, come back and open a gym in France and everything. So it's feasible. It's just going to suck for a little bit. But at the same time, if you do what you love, it doesn't suck, right? So they're just looking at the amount of problem here and there.

If you tell me in today's world, you don't have money, you just don't want it. It's bullshit. So it's not that you want it. It's complete bullshit. You could find a coaching job almost anywhere in the world. You can go to South Korea. It's developing like crazy. There's, I go to South Africa.

I go to a fucking new country every year for the next six years. You have a girlfriend? She can come with you. You can do that and get a decent wage learning other cultures, learning to become a better coach. Come on, mate. Coaching CrossFit while discovering a new culture.

Does that sound hard? Give me a fucking break. If that sounds hard to you, we're not the same person. What's next for Julian? What's exciting for you right now in your life? The depression, anxiety stuff. Because we started to,

especially in the last week, I had someone that I worked with for the last year and a half. And I'm starting to make breakthroughs because I'm starting to figure out basically how to use certain workouts to target more anxiety or depression, stuff like that, to bring them out of it. That's the whole test negative, test positive.

I can target one or the other. Basically, in certain workouts, I can push the button to a test positive. And there's a certain workout that I use to help people that are more toward depression. And it seems to be able to take them out of it not forever but at least it's a jump up i was like all right if we could figure this out imagine the number of people in gyms we could help because depression and anxiety is what 70 percent of people working in the gym a lot of people train to get out of either.

Almost everybody. Almost everyone I come in contact with, they'll say they have anxiety or depression. By the way, how many people go train to say, I feel better when I train? By that, they don't mean 10 pounds. By that, they mean either depression or anxiety. They have either one or the other.

That's one of the things that my friend Mark England and I have been talking about is people using training as therapy. Yeah. And the problem is the training they're using as therapy is not therapeutic. Exactly. So we're trying to find – we're doing some similar work, which is trying to find what is – how do we create a workout that's therapeutic? Exactly. Not just an escape. So we've been working on it with Rich for like a year straight now, and we've been able to test, and I had

some insane results, especially that specific one for depressed. Anxiety, I know more or less how to deal with it, but that particular workout, especially the last two weeks, I fucked up everybody on it. In a good way. One didn't do that

well. That's very interesting. Let's talk some more. That's what interests me because you train pro athletes and you make absolutely no difference in their life. If they remember your name a year from now, it's all ours.

I had clients that to this day, even like three years after leaving, still send me emails, still send me messages saying, hey, can we just catch up?

You know, like you made a difference in their life? Yeah. Right, so imagine if we could figure out humans to the point where we can actually do workouts.

They walk in the gym, they have emojis from, you know, like extremely happy to extremely sad and you go like, all right, based on that, choose a workout. And we could bring them to a socializing mood set so that when they go home, they can actually enjoy their wives or their kids.

I love that idea. That's amazing. Imagine that alone. If we could give the world a good night's sleep, imagine what you could turn the world into, right? Imagine if you could get people that when they walk through the door, they can actually enjoy the time with their spouse or their kids. Imagine if you could do those two things. Imagine the difference you could make

in their lives. So that means that instead of being in a freeze mode, which is a part of your nervous system when you get home and you're in an asocial behavior, how many trainer coaches out there are going home and for fucking an hour and a half you're staring at the wall we've all been there like this blank face staring at the wall usually your spouse doesn't like it it's funny how that works right all right so she'll complain is there a reason for that yes yes there is you're in a freeze mode what if i could have a workout that basically allows you to freeze at the end of the workout for just five minutes so that you can reset while you're in the car

and you walk into your house, you're back in a socializing mood. That means they actually can enjoy you and you can enjoy them. Imagine the difference in people's lives if you could do that. Imagine in coaches' life where they fucking burn out

because they spend an hour and a half every night staring at the wall. So there's a workout we have for that. We have the phylogenetic hierarchy. He's understanding the nervous system. I can reset them

at the gym so that they can go home. Instead of resetting at home for two hours, I can reset them at the gym in 10 minutes. So imagine what you could do for coaches

putting that out there. So now, again, if we figure out, so I figured out nutrition because I've never been a good sleeper, basically,

to allow people to have almost full night's sleep, right? But targeting the nervous system again. So imagine if you could do that,

like, because when people walk into your gym, they're not feeling all the same. We give them all the same workout, like they're all

feeling the same, like they're all fucking machines, but they're not. They're all coming into a different state. How many times did you have a class

of 10 people and one fucking ruined everybody? Because he was in a pissy mood. Or whatever the fuck he was. And he ruined everybody's day. Because that happens all the time, right? So, what if he could have a workout for that guy? Or maybe a warm-up or something

that brings him back into a socializing mood so he can be part of the tribe and help everybody. Put him in the corner for 10 minutes then let him back in exactly right so make it i can make him do some shit based on where he's at right for 10 minutes so that he comes back in and he's now part of the tribe instead of ostracized from it and ruining everybody's day i love that so how about we focus on that? Because that's what you see in gyms. You want people to go home, of course

fitter, but more importantly being able to be a productive part of their life. Instead of murdering them during a workout to the point where they went through so much pain and so much anxiety because it's so fucking open right now, that they go home and they're incapable of enjoying their family for the next two fucking open right now that they go home and they're incapable of enjoying their family

for the next two hours. And then after that, they freeze for another two. And you know what I mean? Like that's not the point, right? We're dealing with humans. First, we have to make sure that their life is better, I guess, right? So that's what's been exciting me the most is working toward that. For people, even like the emoji stuff, like four workouts, all right, choose one.

Where are you? Are you depressed? Are you super angry? Are you, all right. But you're not going to tell me that if your dog just died, you show up and he says, Max, snatch today. That is going to happen. What are the chances?

Did the chances of injury go up? For sure. Right? So is it the day for you to snatch heavy maybe not right how about that right so things like this right which is i believe is truly what a coach is right is the guy decides no not that one man let's do so your coach your dog died how would you deal with a workout if it's not a max snatch? All right. So that's what we've been working on.

All right. So instead of a max snatch, what should we do? So we understand that it's not a max snatch, but that doesn't tell you what. All right. So how are we going to choose what to do instead? Right. To do that, you have to understand what depression means on the neurological state. And how do I change that state?

So depression is toward the dorsal vagus nerve, so we're in a task negative network, alright. How do I put you into a task positive one? What do I need to do with your nervous system? How do I need to address it so that I can change your state? Can I use nutrition to do that? With other stuff as well, is there a certain movement pattern

that will help you versus another? Is there a workout that's going to make you worse versus a workout that's going to make you better? Right? And there is because that's what we've been doing for the last year and so we found those

more and more and more like patterns that we start to see on how to make people better versus anxiety versus depression. They don't react the same to workouts.

All right. So that means there's a pattern. Let's figure it out. That I think will help humans a lot more than this is how you snatch and catch with your wristband or all that shit. I love that this is the work you're doing. Yeah.

So this is really meaningful. Yes, exactly. That gets me excited. Love it. Looking forward to it. How can we experience this? Is this something that you're studying now and you imagine in a year you're going to be teaching? Yeah.

A lot of it is on the mentoring program right now, right? So I'm going to start with nutrition because that's the thing where people are the most emotional about. Yeah.

Like, that's going to be awesome. I can't wait to get those fucking haters because it allows me to reset the signals, right? So what I want to do is I want to do auto-regulation.

I want to teach people to understand how they feel. So a lot of it has to do with nervous system. So I need to reset the signals and people to understand how they feel. So a lot of it has to do with nervous system. So I need to reset the signals and make sure

the signals are clear. So nutrition helps me to start with that. And from there, basically to teach them auto-regulation, they're going to have to play with the stuff.

And so we'll attack probably depression and anxiety because that's the easiest way to get people to feel or not feel or understand themselves. But so right now, it's in the mentoring program.

So I'm guessing, yeah, six months to a year, something like that. And then we'll start. But mentoring, I'm starting to get pretty comfortable with most of it. So I'm guessing I'll start to have 80 coaches doing it and then use on their people. And I've seen mostly the same results. So what I'll do is I'll take like two, three people myself, like on a one-on-one, put them through the stuff for like two, three, two, three people myself like on a one-on-one, put them through the stuff for like two, three months under like strict guidelines at first

and see how that works. And if I'm happy with that, then I'll start to basically release it more. Something like that. But at first, it'll be a lot of one-on-one or stuff like that. So we can see where to go with it. Because if I put it out there too fast, people will take it to monetize it

and will fuck it up and hurt people. That happens all the time. Some of the stuff that are within the mentoring program I've leaked to other guys that are actually selling it. And of course they fuck it up because they don't understand the principles in the first place. So what I want to do is more than

give those workouts to people, is I want to give it to coaches that understand the workout. If I can give it to coaches that understand the workout, they can make their people do it correctly. Right. So I'm not going to give it to people because they're going to fuck themselves up because they're not going to take the time to learn themselves. Right.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give it to coaches. And those coaches, when they understand the system, why it works, then they can apply it to their people. Because most people won't take the time to learn themselves. That's why the nutrition stuff, we started, I was like, three months. You pay up front, but I

want six months, but no matter what, it's strict guidelines for four weeks. You're not interested? Sure, don't do it. But if you do it, you do it my way. Even in my mentoring program, I was like, guys, four weeks, my way. You don't get to fuck with it. You don't get to game it. You don't get to try your stuff.

You get to do what I suggest. All I'm asking is four weeks until you have very clear signals. Then you can start playing with it, but you're going to put the time in it to experiment for yourself, to know how it works. Don't know the stuff. Experiment the stuff. You can't learn to know how it works. Don't know the stuff. Experiment the stuff. You can't learn to swim on the table. You don't get to read life in a book.

You're going to have to try the shit, right? So you're going to have to ask people to commit to something, right? And if you don't want to commit, that's fine, then you're not ready. But you're not, I'm not giving you the shit. Not like a workout like that.

Not like nutrition. So I did a podcast with Tyler. And I did an entire episode on nutrition. It's going to come out in two weeks. But I'm giving the guidelines.

The precise stuff, I'll do, come on the group. Pay for it because you're going to have to show me your commitment and you're going to give me three months.

And you're going to experiment and then you're going to learn something. But it's not on a piece of paper like, oh yeah, I get it.'re going to experiment and then you're going to learn something. But it's not on a piece of paper like, oh yeah, I get it. No, you don't because you haven't tried the stuff. So that's why those workouts, same thing. Do you know how it is? People will rush into

it so I don't feel anything. Because you didn't go correctly, you didn't commit to it. People have to commit emotionally to something for it to work. If you're not doing that, it'll never work anyway because, again, you're not committed emotionally, right? So that's the

ticket in. That's the buy-in. You're going to commit to the program in a Jason Bourne kind of way. Because if you're not willing to do that, then I know you're not ready anyway. Or maybe you don't give a shit enough anyway. Yeah.

People always say, oh, I really want it. Really? What people say? Yeah, exactly. Then when you ask them to take action, they don't. I tell people if they want, a lot of times I ask them what their values are. And they'll, oh, I value this.

I value that. I value this. All these things. And then I say okay well compare it against your bank account yeah go look at your

bank statement last month is that where you're spending money yeah or are you spending money on on beer

instead of instead of your health it's like oh you don't you actually don't value your health you're just saying it

yeah it's very easy to use words yeah exactly so that's why this only way to judge is through actions you actually don't value your health. You're just saying it. Yeah. It's very easy to use words. Yeah, exactly. So that's why, this only way to judge is through actions, always. That's why words to me,

I take it as already failed so I don't listen. So the more they talk, the more I know they're not doing it. Yeah. So that's all. It's commitment-based now. It's like, all right.

So I put them into a certain situation. I did that a lot on mentoring program. A challenging situation and then I see how they react right some of them are like fuck it I'll try

I'm like okay good and it's like yeah but coach I've got to study I'm like ah there you go I know so it's like okay

you're not ready let's talk that means you're not safe okay what is it is it you or is it me right am I not communicating this enough did I not put you in a situation where you feel safe enough to try this, what is it? Is it you or is it me? Am I not communicating this enough?

Did I not put you in a situation where you felt safe enough to try this stuff? What is it? Where did I fail you in that sense? Since you're part

of my tribe, that means I failed you somewhere. Okay, so where is it that I failed you? And then I can have a conversation. But I know right away.

So they start with a certain word, they study the stuff. I'm like, fuck. I failed you. Let's talk so literally message

let's do a call what's up tell me because I know that means you'll never do it you know right and so after I'll find a way

I'll put a gun to their head and say okay like try don't no don't ask me try it like give me so much time

try tell me how you feel because then they'll try and say how you feel what do say, how do you feel? What do you mean? How do you feel? Am I speaking English right now? How do you feel? It's like, did I do wrong? That's not what I said. I didn't put a value on it. I didn't say it did right or

wrong. I'm asking, how do you feel? And every time it's like, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? How do you feel? Danny's watched this go down yeah danny's danny's watched me uh get in it with people over 30 minutes trying to get them to tell me how they feel sometimes you go like i'm like i'm like am i speaking french is that what happened is that did i what the fuck am i doing like i start to question myself saying like did

i not say anything? What? And I get confused, and I'm like, and then you go on and on and on, and it becomes the weirdest conversation ever. Like you're in the twilight zone. What do you mean? So remember, what do you mean, you people? What do you mean, you people? You're a pig thunder, right?

It's literally the conversation where it's like, how does that exercise make you feel? Eh? What the fuck does that mean anyway? And so, but again, like on the human level, that means when it happens to my coaches, I'm like, okay, I failed somewhere. I'm the tried leader.

That means I failed, right? That means you did not create the proper environment for people to go there. I'm like, all right. So we need to fix that first. And then it's a human conversation. But a lot of that stuff is that. Yeah. Awesome.

Julien, thanks for dropping so many bombs on the show today. Always. People are going to re-listen to this, I imagine, three or four times with a notebook. Yes. They'll listen to it in their car and then wish they had their notes out. So I really appreciate you taking the time. Pleasure always, man. And I look forward to having you back on again.

Whenever you want. Where can people find what you're up to? Instagram, on strongfit1. And on strongfit.com,

we're starting to do more stuff now. I started a podcast. We had like episode four, I think. So I can talk

about the back end and all that stuff, like the reason why I do it. And so slowly but surely, we're starting to grow, but I'm doing it

in a slow way, I guess. Right. I'm interested in growing a tribe, not a business. So it takes, yeah, so it's slower.

So the podcast, like, you know, on YouTube, it's like a thousand views. I think the episode 191 is like 80,000 or whatever the fuck it is. I'm at 1,000.

I'm like, all right, it's 1,000 people that are interested in what I have to say. That's good. Yeah. So it starts like that now.

So there you go, folks. Go subscribe. Yeah, it's on YouTube. The podcast. The Strong Fit, yep. Yep. It'll be cool. Excellent.

All right, thanks for joining us today. Thanks, man. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. All right, since you love this show, iTunes, Stitcher, Himalaya,

you know, hit it up. Give us a five-star review, positive comment. We've been getting a lot lately, and it is helpful to help us rank. If you are like me, then you know the more people listening to this show, the better the world will be. So knock it out. Make it happen. And go over to thestrongcoach.com.

Hit that application button. Go take the quiz. Get on the phone with Danny. Man. Hit that application button. Go take the quiz. Get on the phone with Danny. Man, there's so many things you could be doing. So go over to thestrongcoach.com. Look around. See what you like, what you don't like. And if you have any questions,

I am wide open on Instagram. You can hit me up with any question. I will answer it. All right? See you next week.