Barbell Shrugged - Real Chalk  — The Reset Button w/ Joe Di  — 28

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Joe Di Stefano  CSCS, RKC – “Joe D.I.” as he is referred, is an international speaker, fitness expert, entrepreneur and coach. Joe is the Director of Sport at Spartan Race, the world’s leading obstacle racing organization. He is also the Founder of RUNGA, an off-the-grid experience designed to help people achieve their highest potential. Over the years, Joe has consulted with major fitness brands and hotel chains on their approaches to fitness. He has instructed more than 100 seminars in over 10 different countries on topics inluding OCR, kettlebells, breathing and mobility. Joe’s work has been featured by TEDx, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Outside and SELF Magazine. In this episode, Joe opens up on how he struggled to find direction early in life until he found his passion. He also walks us through his daily cold shower routine, carefully explaining the details of what he learns from each experience with cold. Joe also touches on his morning routine, which typically begins with morning sun exposure while he is having coffee naked in his backyard, and much more.   Enjoy! - Ryan and Yaya   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_di ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ► 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

Hey there ladies and gentlemen, this is Doug from Barbell Shrugged. I just want to let you know that we now offer 11 of our top training programs as a part of a single membership site that we're calling the Program Vault. We used to launch training programs every few months and people were always bummed that they couldn't sign up at any time. You had to be around for the launch. The launch was only 4 or 5 days. If you missed it, then you had to wait 6 months or a year depending on what training program we were offering next.

And it was kind of a hassle, even when people signed up for training programs to switch to a different program when they got to the end of their current program or they just happen to be in a new phase of training they hit their their past goal and now they have new goals and new goals require different training programs so inevitably it was a pain in the ass for people to switch programs so we took all that feedback and we decided to just put all of our programs together on this thing we now call the program vault that way all shrugged athletes could have access to all the workouts that we have and move from program to program as they saw fit for themselves makes sense so there's 11 programs three of them are long-term very comprehensive programs where there's you know a warm-up and there's mobility and there's nutrition added in there all the workouts are there there's a cool down there's there's stuff

to do on your off days they're super super comprehensive and those programs last for over 18 months if you want to stick around for that long and there's also eight short-term programs these programs are three months long and these are basically add-on programs so if you are already doing classes at a gym and you don't want to stop doing your classes but you want to work on one particular thing maybe you want to like work on your shoulder health or you want to work on your conditioning like your your aerobic capacity or maybe you just want to work on your squatting strength or your pull-up strength or something like that then we have these short-term add-on programs that are super low

volume but they're just like an extra you know two or three exercises at the end of your workout to help work on whatever those very specific goals are that you have. So the three long-term programs are flight weightlifting. That's a very weightlifting specific training program. It builds you from someone who's more like beginner intermediate at weightlifting and builds you up to be a more technical professional style weightlifter you know over the course of 12 or 18 months now we also have muscle gain challenge if you just want to put on muscle mass and you want a higher volume training program this in my opinion is more of an intermediate program if you don't have good technique on the olympic lifts yet you're going to kind of be throwing right to the wolves so to speak that It doesn't ramp you up like flight does.

Flight has very specific progressions for weightlifting to let you learn all the technique over time. Muscle gain challenge kind of just throws you right into it. So ideally, you already have some experience with Olympic weightlifting before you start the muscle gain challenge. And there's a very high emphasis, of course, with the muscle gain challenge on gaining muscle. So that means you've got to eat a lot of food. So there's a lot of emphasis on course with the muscle gain challenge on gaining muscle so

that means you got to eat a lot of food so there's a lot of emphasis on how much to eat what to eat and your recovery as a part of that program so that way you can get bigger and stronger also we have shrug strength challenge which is more of a traditional kind of crossfit program if you if you do crossfit classes at a crossfit gym you probably do some strength movements at the very beginning of class you know maybe do front squats for five sets of five, and then you do a Metcon that's, you know, 20 or 25 minutes or whatever it happens to be. That's more typical of the shrugged strength challenge where strength is the goal, but certainly conditioning is a key part of that as well. It has more of a strength bias than kind of a regular generalized CrossFit-y type program.

So the eight short-term training programs, these are about three months long and they're kind of an add-on program so the first one is boulders for shoulders that's a shoulder health and stability program health mobility and stability program that doesn't mean you're going to be doing a whole lot of jerks and overhead presses necessarily this is again an add-on program so're going to be doing a whole lot of jerks and overhead presses necessarily. This is, again, an add-on program. So you're going to be doing a lot of assistance work for your shoulders, your thoracic spine, etc. That way you can have the healthiest shoulders possible. There's the aerobic monster program, which is adding in a bunch of extra mostly aerobic conditioning. You're going to be on the airdyne a lot. You're going to be on the rower a lot. You're going to be doing a lot of monostructural stuff. So if if you already have your regular workout you do strength you do your metcon and then

you know as a very overly simplistic example you do you know 20 minutes of rowing or you do 30 on 30 off for 10 rounds where you're doing a hard 30 and an easy 30 or whatever it is just a little bit extra aerobic work there's the squat the house program where you know we add in two leg exercises three days a week. So you might squat and then do some lunges or something like that. Depending on what your regular classes are like, you might already be doing a lot of squatting. But if you're not currently able to do a lot of squatting and you want to do some more squatting and you just want to add that onto your current training, then Squat the House is a great program.

Anaerobic Assault, that is a high intensity interval style program where you're doing very fast Metcons. So you might be doing airdyne sprints, you know, 30 seconds on, 100% full speed, and then take a three minute break and do it again. Or even, you know, five touch and go deadlifts followed by, you know, 10 burpees, rest two minutes and then do it again. But you're doing it all 100 full speed really teaching how to kick it into high gear and move very very quickly when you're doing your metcons there's my first pull-up which is not going to give you a whole lot of actually doing pull-ups these are this is a program for people that can't do a pull-up yet so there's a lot of assistance work

for pull-ups and there's a lot of extra assistance work for just all the muscle groups involved in doing pull-ups everything from just doing extra extra lat work extra scapular attraction rhomboid lower trap work extra bicep work etc to help get you to the point where you can do your first pull-up there's a strongman accessory program where you can be doing yoke walks picking up stones pulling heavy sleds and things like that and then there's two more programs that are kind of a little bit higher volume. You could do them on your own if you wanted to. And you also can combine these.

You could do Aerobic Monster and Aerobic Assault and My First Pull-Up all together if you wanted to, if you just wanted to add extra volume. But the last two, Open Prep, is exactly what it sounds like. Just gets you ready for the CrossFit Open or other similar competitions. You'll be doing a lot of Metcons. And the last one is Barbell Beginner to Meet. It's prepping you for your first Olympic weightlifting competition. Each program is scheduled between three and five days per week.

There's videos explaining all the programming. There's demos. There's technique explanations for everything. And then also you have access to the private shrugged collective facebook group that way you can get advice from ourselves we'll be in there hanging out our guests from our shows we also have a bunch of athletes coaches and strength experts that are friends of ours that are in there too to help you out if you're interested since i've been talking long enough you can go to shruggedcollective.com backslash vault for all the information. Again, that is shruggedcollective.com backslash B-A-U-L-T.

That spells vault. Go there, check it out. If you have any questions, email help at barbellshrugged.com and enjoy the show. Welcome to Real Chalk, a Shrugged Collective production. Mike Bledsoe here. Stoked to be launching this network so that we can introduce you to amazing content providers like Ryan Fisher. We'll be posting new shows every weekday, so be on the lookout.

As a thank you for listening, Thrive Market has a special offer for you. You get $60 of free organic groceries, plus free shipping and a 30-day trial. Go to thrivemarket.com slash real chalk. This is how it works. Users will get $20 off their first three orders of $49 or more plus free shipping. No code is necessary because the discount will be applied at checkout. Many of you will be going to the store this week, so just hit up Thrive Market today. Go to thrivemarket.com slash real chalk to get set up. Many of you will be going to the store this week, so just hit up Thrive Market today.

Go to thrivemarket.com slash realchalk to get set up. Enjoy the show. Alrighty, kids, boys, and girls, you know what it is. Yaya here at Real Chalk. You guys are tuned in to The Shrug Collective, and we got a brand new episode for you guys. And I know I say this a lot, but I promise you I also mean it every time I say it. This week is one of my favorite episodes, not just because of the episode, but how much fun we had with Joe recording this episode.

Ryan and I headed out to Venice for the day, had an awesome day out there, and then headed out to his little crap shack, his little house right in Venice. And first of all, Joe made one of the most amazing coffees I've ever made because him and his wife wake up every single morning and sprout their own almonds and make their own almond milk. It's absolutely incredible. I can't even put it into the same category as normal coffees. And as you can tell, I've been having wet dreams about that coffee ever since. We had an awesome workout right after the podcast. We were able to sit outside in his front yard recording this episode. It was just a blast all the way around. If you guys don't know Joe, he is now the director of sport at Spartan. But even before Spartan was Spartan, he was one of

the first 10 people to join onto the team and start this huge movement that is now just taking over the world. Now, as the director of sport, he is responsible for new obstacles, new challenges, new tasks that the athletes have to go through. But at the same time, working with Spartan, he realized that the whole nine to five and always having to be available type of mentality was really burning him out. And he started a new thing called Ranga, which is basically a retreat to unplug from society, technology, all those things. We had a super long conversation with him. I think the podcast is an hour and a half long.

And we dove into all kinds of topics kundalini yoga optimizing breathing just unplugging from technology red light blue light impact of technology and my favorite thing that i've been doing ever since is controlling your morning but i will let joe take that a little bit more from here he has a way better um skill of explaining how to explain the morning since he's been doing it for way longer and he actually has a fun twist on it too which i'm sure you guys are going to love as always you guys we want you to be able to follow ryan and i in our workouts and not just us but the entire chalk gym so you guys can do that now. Actually, we have hit a huge milestone in the past few weeks.

We were able to secure 1000 members for Chalk Online, meaning 1000 members all over the world are following the Chalk programming that is CrossFit. And you also have a sweat class, which is more of a conditioning based program. So to celebrate, we're giving away a full free month. So all you guys have to do is head over to CrossFitChalk.com, sign up for Chalk Online and use the code REALCHALK, all caps to get a full month for free. Literally, you have nothing to lose. You get to see our workouts. You get to see what I do, what Ryan does, what the whole gym does every single day, and you get to follow us along. So once again, CrossFitChalk.com, sign up for Chalk online, and use the code REALCHALK. That's it from me.

I'm Yaya. You guys have fun with this one. Other than that, no limit to the show. You can cuss. You can completely rate it R. Sweet. Say whatever you want. And yeah, we're off to the races.

All righty, kids. How we doing? We're sitting down. We're out in Venice today. Fish has got his shirt off. We're outside in the street. Beautiful day here in Venice. It's so nice.

It's so fucking awesome. Just had the best coffee possibly ever. Oh, yeah. Our guest actually made it for us. Actually, we had to hand grind it. Yep. And then he did all the things. Earn your coffee. So we're going to lift a blanket. We're at Jody Icehouse.

Yeah. The Spartan guy, the breathing guy, the fitness guy, the whatever. We linked up at Paleo FX. Yeah. That was the first time we crossed paths. And then we decided since we are so close, we're not going to take that weekend. We're just going to come out here and take a little bit more time, sit down with you at your home. Maybe check out your new project that we're going to bring up in a little bit as well.

For everybody that doesn't know you. Right. There's a lot of people out there. Yeah. Well, hopefully a little less after today. Real quick, let's go over the porch real quick. We have an assault bike. Dude, I know.

This setup is probably my favorite podcast setup. We got at least 10 kettlebells and dumbbells. We got a D-ball. I mean, all I want to do, as soon as this podcast is over, I want to get after it for sure. Yeah. We're sitting outside in the sun. This is my favorite setup we've ever had. But, guys, I'm really, really excited because this man's done a lot of cool things and then he's turned

a lot of the things that ruin our lives into a very more like zen type of experience. So that's really really cool. So let's talk about the first thing that really changed your life a little bit, which is probably the Spartan race. Well, before you take the stage from this poor man. Oh, jeez.

Yeah. I'm just excited. The coffee fucked me up. The coffee fucked you up. And maybe a little bit more than that. We'll give Joe the stage first. You can introduce yourself, say whatever you want. And then obviously, for the rest of the show, we're going to talk

over you. Perfect. This is great. Get it out now. I'm psyched to have you guys in my home. This is funny. I rarely leave home. I'm psyched to have you guys in my home. You know, this is funny. I rarely leave home. I've spent the last decade traveling the globe and never spending more than two weeks at home. And now I've got, you know, it's funny that people call this the crab shack. Yeah. And it's just this little house in Venice.

It's 450 square feet. It's very minimalist. We've got a – It's really small. And even when I drove up, I was like, man, it's a tiny little house. Is that where we're going? And then I walked up and I was like, I immediately loved it. Like it's the greatest little house of all time.

But just driving around here with your truck was fucking terrifying. Oh, my God. Every fucking turn we took. I felt like a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the land of Polly Pocket. Just like rawr, like the Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. Well, it's hysterical because everyone on this street hates me. Really? Yeah.

Because I'm the only guy. We're one block off Abbot Kinney, which is, you know, the hippest block in America or whatever they like to call it. And I'm the only guy on this street with a driveway. And I'm the only guy on this street without a vehicle. So my driveway has a fan bike in it, a bunch of kettlebells, dumbbells. I have people over. Oh, every day.

Every day people ask if they can rent my driveway. And I say, where else am I going to put my fan bike? So it's kind of funny. Well, and for those people who don't know, you also don't have a car. So you're probably the person on the spot that leased extra parts of your driveway. You can probably lease that for like $500 a month for just like one car. I've had the offer. But you know, what's funny is I let one guy park in at once and, um, it drove me nuts because it's funny when you're in your house

and you just think like energy, when you know, there's a random car in your driveway outside your house. No, I could totally see that. Especially when they pull up to and you're home and then some random person starts parking in the driveway like i could see how that i mean especially joe d because he could be naked yeah in the sun you guys i'm talking over you i have to tell you this story i have not told anybody this story because it was 24 this happened 24 hours ago uh so so as you guys you know when you came in you saw i have my back door that you know it's funny where we are we're right right in Venice. The sun, it rises over there, and you can see this massive tree. So the sun doesn't hit this deck, this porch, till noon. That drives me crazy because sun exposure in the morning is one of the most important things that we can do.

Right. So I've got the back door, and the back door, I've got a little stool back there, and nobody can see me from the street. Nobody can see me from the street. so that's my naked sun exposure area. And most mornings while I'm drinking my coffee, and sorry I over-frothed that almond milk there. To make this clear, guys, he's literally opening his back door, moving his stool all the way up to the edge of his property, basically. Butt-ass naked. Butt-ass naked, and then he's sitting there with this little stool and this little laptop holder thing. And that's where he does his work in the morning.

That's it. That's it. You know, it's important to get the sunscreens. If any of you guys wanted to live in California before, now you really want to live in California. You're like, these motherfuckers are outside naked, drinking coffee, handmade. They have driveways with no fucking cars. This story is about to end with Obama. So that's a teaser.

Now we're going to go back to the beginning, and I'm naked in my house. So I'm in my kitchen drinking my coffee, and so once I get the sun exposure and I'm walking around the house and the windows are open, I put boxers on until about noon, right? It's like so casual.

So I'm in my boxers, and yesterday it was funny because I'm meandering around, and I left the gates open, right? The gates were open, which is rare. And I'm on a phone call in my kitchen, and I see a guy pull into my driveway, and he's on the phone. And I'm like, who the hell is this guy? But then I go about my business. I'm in my kitchen, and I see a guy pull into my driveway, and he's on the phone. And I'm like, who the hell is this guy? But then I go about my business. I'm in my underwear.

I come to the door. He's on the phone. I'm on the phone. He clearly sees me in my underwear. My call, I go in the house. I have another 20 minutes on this phone call. When I hang up, I come out to the front again, and he's still in my driveway. Still on the phone.

He's still on the phone. And I'm like, what the hell, the hell guy like obviously this isn't cool so now i have to go get clothes on to kick you out of my driveway right i'm not gonna walk out like this even though that would be cool uh so i go in the house that'd be the real like that's more like a texas thing though i guess coming on you underwear with a shotgun right right that would have worked it would have but here this is the funny part i could tell he was like an intellectual and he was, you know, I didn't know what was going on, but what I did deduce. An intellectual. What?

He means snob. Well, yeah, yeah, that might be part of it. I mean, he looked like an asshole. I'm going to call him an intellectual. Let's be clear. He was better than me. And so I was like, you know what this guy you know i know it's street sweeping day so i bet this a-hole just couldn't find a spot and he decided his call was

so important that you know my driveway would suffice because you know the guy in his underwear is not going to kick me out the guy with the bike in the front yard yeah so anyways i come out and he's like signaling me and then eventually he gets off the phone, and he goes, hey, I'm so sorry. I got a call from Obama, and I needed somewhere to park and take the call, and I had nowhere to go. And I'm like, oh, dude, that's cool, man. I would have done the same thing. Hold on, though. Is this a real Obama phone call, or is this guy like –

No, it was actually Barack Obama. Jesus. You never know. So, no, seriously, I'm like, oh, my God. I feel like that guy found the one response that he could have given you where you just go, oh, no, you're cool, man. No, well, that was the thing. So then he's, you know, we're cool, and he introduces himself. And I won't say his name because you can Google him, which I did as soon as he left.

Yeah. He worked for Obama. He was in the White House with Obama. He was in Obama's cabinet or whatever. And yeah, so we parked here for a better part of the afternoon. I was like, oh, dude, you know, it's cool. Obama's calling me in a little while. No, so he went shopping or whatever,

came back an hour or two later and left. But yeah, it's a pretty funny story. Wow. That's really awesome. You never know. You never know. You never know. You never know what the fuck happens to you when you live in California. It's crazy.

I guess that's the point. When I grew up in New Jersey, that would never happen. No way. If someone in New Jersey parks in your driveway and then they say that they're taking a call from Obama, someone's getting their ass beat. Oh, for sure. A hundred percent. A lot of fighting.

I mean, yeah, nobody calls the police. No, definitely not. Well, that's the beauty of the sun. And, you know, honestly, like one of the big selling points of this particular kind of property for me is the fact that almost every week I have friends over. We have, you know, we do Sunday Funday a lot where when people are in town, I told you, Amelia is a raw vegan chef. So whenever friends are in town, we have them all over on Sunday. She cooks raw vegan desserts and we do coffee. We do a workout, the ice bath tanks right here. Uh, so it's, it's a lot of fun. And you know, this is such a transient area, right? That every week there's someone in town that wants to come hang. So, uh, we've done some pretty Epic workouts in this driveway with

some pretty heavy, uh, names in the industry. So, uh, it's a lot of fun, but we're going to add Ryan fish to the list. Oh yeah. No, we have some signature workouts. So it's a lot of fun. And then we're going to add Ryan Fish to the list right after this. Yeah. No, we have some signature workouts. So I think we're going to make him do a little bit of an endurance workout. Oh, I love it. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes. I already worked out twice today, so I'm taking the pass on this video, this one.

I'm okay. Awesome. All right, so let's start with the Spartan thing. I think that's really, really exciting. I think for a lot of people in the world, they can't really comprehend starting something like that. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people have heard of the Spartan race or a lot of people actually nowadays probably already have done Spartan race. Right. Everyone sees the stickers on the cars. Right. The Spartan finisher shirts. Yeah. Everywhere. But yeah, I actually never thought about the business side of it as well.

Oh, my God. It's got to be just massive. Like, what does it take to run a race? Organizationally? Yeah. It's an outrageous amount of work. That's what I'm assuming. It's, you know, obviously the production itself, this course that we have to build across, you know, depending on the venue, sometimes you've got two weeks to build this thing, but other times you don't,

especially the stadium races that we now do. And, you know, we just had dodger stadium a couple weeks ago and when you're going to do an event in dodger stadium you got less than a day to set that thing up how much is rent for dodger stadium for the day a lot astronomical oh yeah is it a five digit number or a six digit number um i actually think it is a five uh sorry no it's six digit number yeah sorry i when i heard that question i was like he asked six or seven. That's why I went with the lower one, but you said five. So, no, it's six.

But, yeah, so it's quite a production. It's a ton of work. Obviously, the obstacle builds are, you know, it takes pretty trained professionals to build those things up to code and to make sure that they're going to be safe, yet can be teared down in the following week. And, you know, the amount of marketing that has to go in, you know, that is probably the biggest engine in the company is, you know, you got to get people signed up, but then you got to kind of nurture them leading up to that event that's scaring the hell out of them. And then you got to follow up and try to get them to sign up again. And, you know, it's an impressive machine. What's the marketing budget for, like, one race? Well, actually, I don't think I can disclose a lot of that stuff.

Just, you know, I don't know. I just wonder, like, things like that just kind of blow me away. Because I think people are like, oh, I'm going to do an obstacle course. Right. Because I've heard people say, like, I really want to do, like, a children's obstacle course. I've heard this before. Right. Like, oh, we should do, like, a little mini, like, a 1K or, like, a 2.5K,

like a short little 5K race, but for, like, little kids. I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. We can get into that. But then I'm like, I don't think you guys understand. You have to, like, rent, like, a whole area. You have to, like, market it. You have to have insurance for it. Yeah.

I mean, you can go on and on. Yeah. Yeah. No, but it's a lot bigger than people think. Even running a gym, people are like, oh, I could run a gym. It's super easy. It's like, oh, can you? Right. It's all the little shit, too, oh, I could run a gym. It's super easy. It's like, oh, can you? Right.

It's all the little shit, too, that you just don't think about. You and I talk about all the time how much money you spend on toilet paper a month. And it's all these hidden expenses that when you open the gym. That's because people steal the toilet paper. Oh, yeah. Or the amount of toilet paper. I've seen people use an entire roll and throw the actual roll into the toilet. I'm like, but that's exactly it, right?

They created an actual poop chute into a poop chute. But, you know, and that's the toilet. I'm like, but that's exactly it, right? They created an actual poop chute into a poop chute. But, you know, and that's the thing. And, you know, we all know this, you know, I think we all run businesses and it's, it's always, it's, it's always so much more expensive than you think. But your, your customers or your former customers or your not customers, they always want to say, man, he's charging $200 a month for his gym. Imagine he's got 100 members and they're doing this quick math. Right, totally. It's like, dude, I spent $350 last month on pens.

Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. You know, so that's always just the nature of being a business owner. And it's definitely a challenge at any business. So let's get back to the beginning of Spartan Race. When we were chatting before, you mentioned you were like one of the first 10 people basically into the business, like right when you were starting. Now you're the head of sports running it today. So where did you get your foot into the door and then how did you get to where you are now?

Yeah, you know, it's hilarious. And, you know, this industry and this world, it's all about who you know, right? Totally. And back when I was in college, so when I went to college, I didn't do that well in high school. And when I went to college, I was undeclared. I, you know, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I couldn't get into any science programs. I definitely couldn't get into business. And so, you know what, I actually went. You guys talked about t-shirts a little while ago.

I actually went. I think I was a graphic design major, but that was just the thing that I could get into college to do. Right. And, um, and you can keep smoking pot while you're a graphic design major. You can do whatever you want. And, uh, you know, so, so funny. So, but in my mind I was very undeclared and I was like, I got to do business cause I'm kind of good at running businesses. So anyway, about two weeks into my career at college, I bump into this guy. And he looks kind of fit. He looks healthy in the eyes. But I wasn't taken aback by the look of his fitness from his body. But he's like, yeah, I got 100 miler next weekend.

And this is in Boston. So he's got the Boston accent. And I'm like, 100 miler next weekend. And this is in Boston. So he's got the Boston accent. Yeah, that was good. And I'm like, 100 miler? What the hell is that? Because when I was 18, a marathon is as far as the body goes. Right. And that's when you die.

That's the edge. You know, the 26.2. The.2 is there because you die at.3, right? That's actually how it started, actually. Right. The guy who did that, yeah. Right, in Greece. So it's actually funny that you bring it up because for me, I played football for so long,

that limit is at exactly 100 yards. Once I get to 101, I die. So heaven forbid you're in the back of the end zone when you start. Oh, no, no way. That was the best comparison of all. I'm writing it down. I'm going to write it down and laugh at it later. But these are the self-imposed limitations.

For sure. So when I went to college, I played baseball as a kid. And when I was in high school, I fractured my skull, and I didn't do many sports after that. But I was pretty out of sport. But I remember thinking, why the hell would anybody run if they're not in a sport? Like, why would I run if I'm not flagging fly balls? Why would I run if I'm not tackling somebody?

Yep, totally. And when I was in high school, my view of people that ran for fun. It's like the carrot on the stick type of thing. Yeah. It was like, what on earth is that about? And then when I heard this guy, you know, and I had been out of sports for a bunch of years because after the skull fracture and my neck was a little messed up, it was just not a good match. When he said he was running 100 miles, I was like, if that guy can run 100 miles, I'm running 13.1 right now. Like I can do a half marathon right now.

So I signed up for a half marathon and suffered through it. I think it took me like two hours and maybe, maybe even longer. And I was like, I was pretty sold. And then I kept talking to him. His name was Jeff. And he was the head of the exercise physiology department at the university. And so I ended up talking to him and he took me under his wing and i became an exercise science major and um you know what is that what you went to school for yeah so anyways this was in the early 2000s 2004 i'm a junior in college and he says at the time i'm running marathons and doing a little bit of triathlon stuff and he says to me you want to do this

event it's called the Death Race. And I said, the Death Race? Hell no. Sounds like fun. I like living. Like, what do you even do in a living race? So the Death Race was actually Joe DeSena who started the Spartan Race's first project. Oh, okay.

So every year Jeff Godin says, hey, you want to do the Death Race? You want to do the Death Race? You want to do the Death Race? No, no, no. And I don't want to meet this lunatic in Vermont who's named Joe. Yeah. And then long story short, maybe 2007, I kind of stopped talking to Dr. J for a little bit. 2010, he calls me, he goes, hey, and at the time I have a gym where we're flipping tires and doing a lot of like high intensity stuff. He calls me in 2010 and he goes, hey, you know that lunatic that does

the death race? And I said, yeah, I don't want to meet him still. I don't want to do it. And he goes, well, there's a new race he just started called the spartan you should come down and so he's like it's 5k you'll be done in an hour but it's all the elements but it's all the elements they changed the name well no no no the death race continued and now the death race is back oh no the death race was a 24 plus hour just suffer fest wow uh. I've still, I've done one, I did one death race camp like in 2011 or 2012, which is this 24 hour prep, which I won't do again. But the, so that was the start. Dr. J kind of dragged me in.

And again, I never in a million years in 2011 or so thought this would ever be my full time job. I thought it was cool. It was fun. It's not really a business. You know, Joe's not making any money. People, how long are they going to do this? You know, we're just making them run under barbed wire.

And at the time, we had literal wrestlers that looked like you guys that would prevent you from crossing the finish line. Like, you'd come in, and they'd be like, no, no, you're not. I actually did one, and that happened. Yeah, but they had, like, the bags. Yeah, like gladiator sticks. So I never thought it was going to grow legs. And then, you know, 2012, 2013 specifically, just boom.

And that's when everyone came on full time. Everyone gave up their other jobs. That's when soon after Reebok came in. Yeah, 2013, I did a Super Spartan. Right. Or the Beast one. Temecula or something. Yeah, in Temecula. Exactly, and it Super Spartan. Right. Or the Beast one. Temecula or something. Yeah, in Temecula.

Exactly, and it was fucking terrible. Yeah. So that was a start, and that's it. So, yeah, here we are. A million participants a year later. Wow. We got, I don't know, 60-some-odd events in the U.S. this year. Nearly 200 global events.

Do they always sell out every time? Not real. Pretty much. I mean, sell out is kind of a, you know, sometimes we probably go over our projection, sometimes we go under our projection. We always make it out the other side, and we're still in business. How many employees does it take to put one event together? Well, so now there's actually, it's a, you know,

we have five crews in the U.S. alone. So the West Coast, right, that's a crew. And that same crew flies everywhere and does all that? That same crew will either drive or fly or move around. And, you know, there's a handful of people that are preparing the festival. There's a bunch of people that are doing build. There's leadership. There's oversight.

There's foreman. And then there's a lot of volunteers, which really help a ton, just in terms of the little stuff. Yeah, like CrossFit competitions, got to have the volunteers. They work. They do. They really do. We're actually going to a Spartan race, too. We're going to the one in Tahoe, which is, I think, like,

is that the original one, or why is that the, it's a big one, right? It's a big one. It's called the World Championship. Oh, that's wild. I should have done my fucking research. Yeah, I know. So the world championship Used to be in Killington, Vermont Oh yeah, rad place to go skiing

Yeah, but like just Gnarly place to have a race That mountain's only 4,000 feet high But it's steep as all hell That mountain will spit you out Again and again and again and again And I think With the world championship, it's also a little tricky to get to.

If you live in Switzerland, you know, to get to Burlington or Killington, Vermont, you've got to fly to Boston, drive four hours and all this other stuff. And then just the infrastructure surrounding the mountain isn't terrific for the scale that we've grown to. So Tahoe provides Squaw Valley. I mean, the 1960 Olympics were there. All the infrastructure is there to put on an amazing experience, festival, and event. And then the mountain, you know, you're up over 10,000 feet. There's a ice frigid, there's a frigid swim at the top of the mountain that we use every single year in Tahoe. So you're

at 10,000 feet, you're 10 miles into the race, you're freezing your ass off and you're going to jump into 40 degree water. Uh, so, um, yeah, we can go into that if you'd like that. That's, that's an experience for anyone that's run Tahoe that, that swim is the race. You know, it's the race kind of begins after that swim for most people. Um, it was, you know, that water is it's cold cold i do a lot of cold immersion stuff and that started the first year we went to tahoe 2015 because i was racing at the time and i went into that water and it was crazy i've never had hypothermia before but i like to say that leonardo dicaprio died happy in titanic he didn't suffer at all because when I jumped into that water and it was freezing cold, I was frantic, just frantic. Get me to the other side.

Get me out of this. And about halfway through, I had this wave of calm. How long does the swim take? Swim's probably four to six minutes. That's a good, decent time. But you know what's funny about that is I was running with a former professional athlete. And keeping up, that was 10 miles into the race. But I was probably at threshold for that entire 10 miles just to try to keep up.

So I think I was already kind of beat. So I jump in the water. And like I said, I'm frantic, just going crazy. All of a sudden, I have this wave of calm. And it was like a psychedelic experience. It was all of a sudden I hear the birds and I stop and I go, oh my gosh, I wonder what birds making that noise. I start to look, I'm like, this is the most beautiful place I've ever been. And sure enough, I had hypothermia. So I was slowly dying after a couple of minutes.

No, but i stopped dead after that frantic behavior to try to get to the other side and i sat there for a minute two minute three minute wow and then somebody was like dude move like you gotta go and then i get out of the water and i was shivering for eight nine hours after that i went i finished the race. My time for the first uphill 10 miles was equal to the next four downhill miles. Wow. I was like the walking wounded coming down. And I ended up in the medical tent. Then someone threw me into a shower with the hot water on for a couple hours. I was shivering all night almost.

Wow. So it was an interesting experience. Yeah. That race is no joke. No, it's no. For sure. And that's the importance of cold immersion. You know, I think that I've become, become you know i started doing cold showers after that and started to you know really kind of get into it because i said that shouldn't have affected me that way i love cold showers people think i'm nuts but i'm just like i love it too it's the

best thing ever yeah my favorite part of the cold shower and i'll let you take it in a second too right because we were talking about your morning routine before yeah before you made us this amazing coffee yeah but my favorite part of the cold shower and uh chris from deuce since we're in venice it was actually his quote that he put on his instagram like a while ago talking about his morning routine and how he always takes a cold shower and he says that the cold the thought of the cold shower is always worse than the actual cold shower right and taking the cold shower first thing in the morning kind of sets me up with that thought throughout the rest of the day where going into anything i feel like us as humans we tend to just overthink and we're having

conversations in our head that aren't actually happening at all right you have like a fight with somebody or an argument or something before you actually have the conversation right and i think that whole cold shower thought is the same thing because you're you're standing there and you're like oh my god i don't want to do this i don't want to do this right and then eventually you do it and it's never as bad as you think it actually is absolutely well and i think exactly what you're saying said a different way would be and i was tempted to do this but i didn't know about the microphone. But when you were in that thought stream and you were talking and we were listening, I wanted to just go to you and go, or just splash some water on you. Because it's the same thing. Like the cold breaks all

those patterns. So exactly what you're saying said a different way is when you wake up, you're like, shit, I got to check my email. I got to do this. I got this, this person hates me. Oh shit. My, you know, I forgot to sprout my almonds. If you're me, you know, it's like all these different things. You have all these thoughts and then you get in the shower and it's like getting slapped in the face. And then all of a sudden you're here. Yeah. Now you're, now you're down. Now you're in the moment and you're right. It's never as bad as it, you think it's going to be. It's like going to the dentist, starting a business, whatever it is. Very, a lot a lot of the negative is some kind of projection into the future. Yeah.

And we fear a future that never arrives, as I think Alan Watts says. Yeah, I like that. And that's where a lot of the anxiety and all that stuff basically comes from. It's just overthinking the future and overthinking what might happen, even though you have no idea if it actually will. So besides the kind of mental aspect almost of the cold shower, what are some other maybe like the physical benefits that you get from it also? Or the cold plunge, if you prefer that one. Yeah, you know, well, the cold shower is a morning kind of ritual. I think that's the ice baths is, you know, that's next level.

It's funny, both Amelia and I, you know, the cold shower is just a thing. It's like we barely even talk about it anymore. Yeah. But I think the big thing is that, you know, it's kind of a reflection of your nervous system in many ways. So that initial mammalian dive reflex, right, that's when you get in and you first get your face wet, you first get the back of your neck wet, and you of get that, like that first shiver that, you know, what, what that, what that's doing for you is, is profound. And it's also giving you, it's, it's telling you where you're at from a nervous system perspective. So in other words, it was, um, I love this. I know where this is going. Yeah. It's, it's kind of funny. It's

like, and I don't even know if I should say this and she might kill me, but like when girls go to get waxes, they say don't drink coffee in the morning before you get a wax because they don't want your nervous system hopped up. It's going to hurt. It's going to suck. And it's, you know, the same thing with the cold shower. It's like so much of it is this expectant pain that if you're taking cold showers regularly and occasionally you have that like exaggerated, man, this really sucks today. You can't handle it type of situation. Right. You know where your nervous system's at. When you're cool, calm, collect, you can walk in there and it's like nobody's like you're just chilling.

Yeah. And just like you said, I think that has so many it shows so many different aspects of your life. Right. If you're not sleeping well, if you're not eating well, alcohol the day before, maybe too much caffeine the day of. There's so many factors and it all shows. It all shows. It's a lie detector test. And this is super interesting. You know, we were all at Paleo Effects and I met this doc that I have my blood work,

but I didn't know this doc, so I didn't want to give her my blood work. But I met this doc and she did all these different assessments on me from like muscle testing to just like you know looking into my eyes and like asking these questions and like poking and prodding me it was kind of weird but i was into it and she that's how i feel most of the time she held me all these recommendations based on what she found and this was you know truth be told this was over an hour she spent with me like you know watching different ways that i worked and and she sent me a like laundry list of things that i needed to do and supplements i needed to take well and um i was like man this is kind of interesting so i sent those recommendations along with the blood work

that she should have been using to ben greenfield is a good friend who's also I would trust him more than almost any doctor on the planet yeah and he goes dude these are all awesome like these are all perfect recommendations so she crushed her recommendations without actually without blood work the blood work right wow just by doing what we're saying and it's kind of like what we're saying with the ice baths and I think that there's so much that we can glean from just our behaviors and our attitudes and our that we don't put stock in and you know I think that there's so much that we can glean from just our behaviors and our attitudes and our, that we don't put stock in. And, you know, I think that yoga has been around 5,000 years. So is HRV. But now like all of a sudden we can quantify why yoga is cool.

And it's this whole new world. It's like, I get to get into breath work. I get to start holding, I get to start exhaling. So, um, I think generally, and this is part of Rungo, which maybe we'll talk about is, you know, it's back to the basics and putting faith in some of that because everything you need is inside you. You just got to believe in that. And that's why the driveway is the best gym in Venice. Yeah, there you go. I was thinking about it. I was like, where is that? I was like, oh, we're here. Yeah, we are. We're sitting in the driveway. Yeah. I think it's really cool how the fitness world is gravitating towards, and maybe not just fitness, maybe health in general, mental health also now. It used to be always just how fit are you and how fast can you run

and how far can you throw and how much weight can you put over your head. And now, how long can you sit in silence is the completely opposite spectrum of that. But if you can find a way to do both you know and maybe almost combine them i always talk about like active meditation while i'm working out and being able to stay connected to the workout that i'm doing and how much that has helped me inside of the gym instead of just completely blown out and being a zombie and then after the workout you wake up and you have no idea what happened right right and then after after those workouts also i just feel trash for the rest of the day.

So I work out really early in the morning. I work out like 6 a.m. usually with the class. And if I have that experience where I just go full zombie and I'm just kind of going through the motions, the rest of the day is just a grind, right? When I have the workouts where I feel really connected to the workout and i'm breathing and i can i have everything under control right i walk out of the gym and i feel like a million bucks right right i have so much energy just right going through so i think it's really cool that the mental aspect of gym life but also outside gym life is becoming more and more important and people are finding a way to merge those two together also absolutely i mean health fitness wellness they're all different verticals yeah uh they're all

different and all you have to do is go to the la fit expo when it comes around again i could not find one food there were 60 000 people there there was not one food inside the expo hall that i would have put in my body right that's the worst and it's health and fitness are vastly different things absolutely and i mean this is like with the panel and paleo effects that i was on with ben and mark and you know it's athletes don't live any longer than regular people when you're competing at the highest level i like that yeah when you're competing at the highest level you're you've bypassed health like just because the guy on the couch is here and the professional athletes on the other end of the spectrum,

if you want to live a long time, you got to be somewhere in the middle, uh, mentally and physically. Uh, so, so no, I think that that's a huge element. And, you know, uh, a guy that just left, I just had to talk with him because he came over and, you know, as he knows, it's like, we do the BYOB ball work that I came up with and he starts doing it. And then he starts doing his breath work and I'm like finishing up and I'll be out in a sec. But I told him, I was like, you realize that like these don't go together. Like you don't walk into a restaurant and say, I'd like breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yeah. Right.

So like your breath work should be in the morning. Like that's breakfast. And your workout might be in the afternoon. That could be lunch and your dinner might be your mobility work right but like you're you're gravitating in my opinion and what i tend to teach is that most mobility issues are nervous system issues so if you're tight in your traps every freaking day they don't need stretching and they're not short because of they're short because of the way you breathe, or they're short the way that you're holding on to tension or whatever. So if I want your traps to relax, I get to chill you out.

But if I'm about to put you through five-by-two deadlifts on a straight bar, do I want to chill you out? No, I want to slap you in the face and tell you to go get it. So this is breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You have breath work, you have mobility work, and you have exercise. And only in travel, busy, strange, whatever, only situationally should they ever go together. Because before a workout, I want to heighten your nervous system. And to get you more mobile and pain-free, I want you to lower it. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, yeah, it's a, it's an interesting, it's an interesting concept, but, uh, the last thing I'll say, and, you know, I think I've spent the last decade trying to tell

athletes that workouts are the gas station. Like that's not where you put your car on the tracks and see how fast you can go. That's what the race is for. Right. And, uh, in fact, I've actually, I I've said repeatedly like your goal is to get hurt every race that's your goal yeah and that's your goal because you want to see where the limit is right yeah and you want to go past it ideally exactly and you can only earn that right if you've paid your dues going to the gas station you can only do that when you have a full tank yeah but if you've been treating the gym like a racetrack every Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning, you've got microtrauma all over the place.

You've got back pain. You've got this. You're trying to get fit for this event. And then you're 89% at the start line or 79% or worse. I can't tell you to go as hard as you possibly can because you're going to blow yourself out. Yeah. One of our other guests, he calls it put money in the bank.

Right. can because you're going to blow yourself out. One of our other guests, he calls it put money in the bank. He said that with everything, with meditation, with his mobility work, all that stuff is putting money in the bank so then when game day comes, you get the full payout of everything. It's just a different analogy for exactly the same thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, that's

it, man. And I think especially in the CrossFit world, I think it's getting better but it's still a big problem where, and I see it at our gym every single day, where people are racing, as you call it, every single day, right? They're competing against themselves. They're competing against the leaderboard. They're competing against the guy that's right next to them. And their form is breaking down, you know? So instead of focusing on the little things, they're just focusing on putting five more pounds on their back squat. And then they're all hyped that they got five more pounds.

And it was like, yeah, but it looked like shit. And now you can't stand straight for the next two days. And now your hips are all out of place. And what's the price for those five pounds? Instead of taking a step back, maybe going 30 less pounds, making sure it's perfect, and then working your way up from there. And I think the really, really good CrossFitters, the people that are going to regionals, the people that are going to the games, the people that are winning the games, are the people that understand that.

They're the people that understand that 90% of the time you have to slow down. 90% of the time you have to sit on a box and work on your clamps, for your rope clamps, for an hour right without getting your heart rate up without flying through a medcon right right if your chest to bar suck right and i talk about this all the time there's no point in doing 100 chest to bars four times right right because you're going to fatigue after five and then it's just going to get worse from there right and then the whole muscle memory stuff it's just getting worse and worse and worse i've heard this analogy once with golf that it takes a hundred

good swings to make up for one bad swing. Right. So you can apply that to weightlifting. You can apply that to CrossFit where your body gets used to moving badly. And the more you do it, the more it just gets ingrained into you that now if you're moving correctly, it almost feels weird. Right. Right. Oh my gosh. I mean, amen. Like, yeah, I feel like that can go with anything. Like even just the way you breathe or even just the way you wake up in the morning or even just the way that you like decide to even start your workout or end your workout or the way that you do the workout, not even just the movements. Like, it's like, there's so many things. Like we have people who come in the gym, like with, with, without any effort, they come in the gym like with with without any effort they come in at exactly 15 minutes late every

single day yeah you know it's like no effort just perfectly late 15 minutes late every single time and they'll still go in and take a shit like like bill yep and throw a whole roll of toilet paper yeah for sure and then they come and hit the workout and like everything just looks like a complete yard sale. And just it's crazy to me. Like people will literally have that same. That's like that same exact path every single time. Oh, my God. Not willing to change it. Like not at all. Oh, my gosh. Now I'm in like idea overflow. So, yeah, no, the fitness industry is wild. And, um, it's, uh, you know, I spent a

lot of years either, or they're owning gyms or managing a franchise of gyms and, and looking at, at clients, it's so funny how, uh, let's, let's face it. It's like, you know, 10%, 15% of clients in gyms are achieving their stated objectives. Right. So it's like I want to weigh 149 pounds and climb Kilimanjaro next April. If that's their, right? And it's like next April they're like fatter than they were this April and they're settling for, you know, Mount Monadnock. And how many of those people that walk into the gym fail within the first two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, right?

Same day. And then same day. In my opinion, they fail the same day. They were weeks, four weeks, right? Same day. And then same day. In my opinion, they failed the same day. They were late to their consult. Yeah. For sure. They ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes,

which could have been them just walking to the gym potentially. And then I love when the cardio room is just completely, completely packed and there's no one on the way. It just blows me away. I'm like, you could have just walked here. Right. You could have jogged here. Right.

That was free. Yeah. And then let's do some exercise. Like, I went to Gold's Gym when I was in Paleo FX in Austin. And literally, like, I saw some things because I haven't been in a regular gym like that in quite a bit of time. Yeah. There was people doing things that I literally wanted to go over to them so badly. I was like, do you know what you're doing right now?

Because no one does. Like, I could tape you right you know what you're doing right now? Because no one does. Like, I could tape you right now and put you on my Instagram and like literally within 10 minutes it'd be on a fail blog somewhere. Yeah. I mean,

people, just like this guy was on like a cable and he was just like as hard as he could. It was just unbelievable. I was like, oh man,

like where are these people getting this from? And there's so much information out there for free. Right. That it's amazing that people do things like that still. It is. I got to tell – I'm going to tell a quick story, and this is hilarious, and I'm not going to use names because maybe she still follows me on social.

But there was this lady that years ago – oh, my gosh, this woman, she – I graduated college with no loans, no nothing because of this person. We're going to call her we're going to call her Miss Venice. And so so what happened was this is this is it. Right. So at the time I became a trainer and I was working at the front desk and I was working at the front desk to make a little bit of money because I didn't have any clients. I was new. I was in college. And this woman comes in, and she literally goes, hi, I need to hire a personal trainer. And I'm at the front desk. I'm like, oh, perfect. You came to the right place.

Yeah. Perfect. And she goes, all right, great. I'd like to come in tomorrow at 6 a.m. And I'm like, okay, great. That sounds perfect. Yeah. Meanwhile, I already had a guy at 6 tomorrow that I ended up moving. It was like a great client that I had trained a lot. And so I called him like, Pete,

do you think we could do seven tomorrow? Cause I got this lady at six. I really got to meet with, I'm not even kidding you. You guys are going to laugh or not think I'm telling the truth. She goes, Hey, so how do people usually do personal training? Like, do they buy packages? And I said, yeah, you know, a lot of people do packages. And she goes, how many should I buy? Like a hundred. Oh my God. And I go, yeah, most people do a hundred. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most people buy about a hundred upfront. So she pays, she literally, I don't know what kind of business she was in. She drops cash, pays for a hundred sessions. At the time I was $52 an hour, five grand, uh, drops it down. And I'm like, Holy shit, definitely moving Pete for this. Yeah. Right. So she comes in at the time I was a national Academy of sports medicine trainer.

In other words, I was, I was really excited about stability balls and upper cross posture. Uh, so she comes in and the overhead squat assessment. So she comes in and I go, all right, how you doing Venice? Um, Hey, we're going to do a quick squat assessment. So what I want you to do is put your hands over your head and just squat. And let me see how, how well she's like, all right, how you doing Venice? Hey, we're going to do a quick squat assessment. So what I want you to do is put your hands over your head and just squat. And let me see how well she's like, oh no, I don't do squats. Oh, okay. And I'm like, no, we'll see. It's not loaded. It's just an assessment. I just want you to do a squat to see, you know, how you move. She goes, no, no, I don't do those. My knees aren't very good. What else can I do? Long story short, this lady made my life horrible she trained

with me monday wednesday friday she had another trainer at another gym across town that worked with her tuesday thursday saturday and every time i wanted her to do anything she'd be like anthony would never have me do that no way no way it was insane but guess what she paid cash she bought packages a hundred at a time yeah i trained her every single day for every single week for four years. Eventually, I leave that big box gym. I go open my own club. And it's all group training except for guess what? Venice.

One person, Venice. So she comes in. And one day, like now, I'm like, I got money in my pocket. I'm not in college anymore. I own a business. She said something to me. And I just kind of snapped. I'm like, that's it. I'm like kicking her out tomorrow. Like I'm done. And so

she leaves. I go to the bank. I get all the money that she's owed, a couple grand, whatever, however many sessions she had left. I put it in my office. And the next day she comes in and goes, I go, and I'm trying to use her real name. I go, Hey Venice, uh, Hey, can we have a quick chat in the office? She comes into the office. I throw down like the couple grand and I'm like, this just isn't the right place for you. Like you don't like me. Like you don't like the things I try to do with you. Like it was like a bad breakup. Yeah. Right. It was like a bad breakup. And she was you, not me. Right. Right. No, I was like, you know, this relationship, like you're actually, my big point was I'm in the business of changing people's lives or trying to, right. I'm

in the business of transformation and you look the same to. I'm in the business of transformation. And you look the same as you looked five years ago, and that's not anything about you. That means I'm not doing my job. That's how I interpret that. If you're in the same pain complaining of the same issues as you were five years ago, I'm bad. Or I'm just not the right fit for you. Just not a good connection. Not a good connection.

So five years i couldn't get this lady to squat right we would do like trx stuff we would do other stuff so i throw the money let's go like bye group training now um so she goes two weeks later i'm telling you it was a bad breakup she's like she's like hey um i was thinking about what you said i really want to come back i'm gonna fire all my other trainers i really want to work out at your gym. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, for like a month or two. And then finally she's like, I'll pay you twice your rate. I want to come back. I'll do anything.

Rejection breeds obsession. Right. So I go, all right, Venice, I've got 1.30 in the afternoon. I have a half-hour session that you can pay the full rate for Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Yeah. Right. She comes back day one, squats, ass to grass day one. Hey, look, like check this out. I've been working on this. All of a sudden she could do pushups. She can squat. She can run. She can push sleds. She can do everything. So now I was like, oh, my God, if I just kicked her out five years ago, I would have had a stress-free five years. I probably would have had a transformation.

And this transcends. So when there's clients doing that, I kind of look at myself. And the last story I'll tell is just yesterday a lady emailed me for private coaching. And I don't really advertise it. I don't do a lot of it. And she says to me, hey, it's like an inquiry form. Hey, can you call me at 4 PM Eastern time at this phone number? I'm interested in private coaching. Okay. And in my head, I'm like, no, I'm definitely not calling at 4 PM. I'll email you and come up

with something creative because even if we're going to work together and I'm going to be your coach, I got to change this relationship. This is not how we're going to work together and I'm going to be your coach, I've got to change this relationship. This is not how it's going to work. Because if I call you at 4, now you're the customer. Yeah, you're the customer and you're always right and I'm something else. So my email to her was like,

hey, I'm not accepting clients at the moment, but I might be able to take you on July 1st. If that's agreeable, please tell me a little bit about yourself so I can decide if we're the right fit for each other. Send. And that was last night. So we'll see what happens. But it's, I think in the fitness industry, we lose sight of the fact that we're results-driven consultants. And if a friend says, hey, I want you to get me off drugs, I'll smack them in the face. I'll scream at them. I'll do whatever it takes to get them off drugs.

But if someone says, I want to lose 30 pounds, I'm like, hey, did you enjoy your workout today? Or how was your kid's soccer practice? Or all of a sudden it becomes about something else. And I think that's the big issue. So I think we got to look at ourselves as coaches and be hard on our clients. And it's tough from a business perspective. but long term, 80% of your problems are gonna come from 20% of your clients and it's cancerous at times. I do almost zero class. I coach two classes literally a week at my gym right now.

Yeah. Mainly because the other coaches need hours. I actually love coaching classes. Right. Way more than personal training. Right. But I make money personal training and people pay me a lot.

Right. But I did have one lady, the same thing, where she was paying me a lot, and I really wanted to hang on to it. And one day I was like, I cannot do this anymore. It's stressful for me to figure out things for you to do. She'd be like, I can't squat. I'd be like, all right, let's do push-ups. I can't do push-ups.

My wrists hurt. And then I'd be like, okay. I'm like, we're going to do wall balls and she would do wall balls and I'd be like okay and she would do burpees I'm like alright you can't push up but you can do a burpee

and you can't squat but you can do a wall ball so I would have to get really really creative and then some days she couldn't do those it just kind of depended on how she felt but what it turned into was just monostructural all day. Just bike and slam ball. And then row and slam ball. What's so cool, I think, about both of those stories, though,

and this is one thing I always tell myself when I'm coaching class or when I'm dealing with clients, is that if your client or the person in class is not accepting whatever you're handing out, if you tell them, hey, don't move your feet that far on your snatch, and then they keep doing it and they keep doing it, you're to blame. It's all your fault.

And you said that perfectly and Ryan said it perfectly. Well, you guys understand that it's actually coming from them, but you're good enough trainers to look at it the other way and just go, how can I get through to them? How can I get them to do what I want them to do while still thinking that or letting them think that they're right and you're in charge and you're totally fine? So I think there's a lot of coaches out there that just go, oh, he's just uncoachable. He just doesn't want to hear it. He's just here to do this and he doesn't care about blah, blah, blah, right?

And I think for a lot of people, it's just, no, you just haven't found the right trigger yet. You haven't found the way through to that person, right? Right. Some people love to get yelled at. Some people need to be comforted, right? Some people, you need to tell them how awesome they are. It's the love languages of fitness. Yeah, 100%.

And I think it takes a great coach to be able to work with a person like that and then figure out, all right, what button do I push in order to get the reaction that I want. So all of this basically is kind of turning into what you do now, right, which is called? Well, Runga. I'm still with Spartan. I'm still the head of sport there, but Runga is a passion project that's kind of just exploding. It's been one event a year, and this year we sold out the event in two hours. And it's 35 spots to go to the Dominican Republic.

Oh, wow, that's cool. And last year we sold out in three days, and I was kind of pumped and I was surprised. I was like, wow, three days is pretty good. And so, yeah, two hours was pretty nuts, and we just launched the first immersion, which is what we were teasing at Paleo FX, which is three nights in Napa Valley. It includes coaching with me and Ben Greenfield and two sessions with Scott Dolly, who's a good friend of mine who does a lot of manual therapy. And that was the I mean, that is a truly life-changing event. It's 12 people.

It's six industry experts. And it's a full immersion. You're going to get spit out the other side 180 degrees from where you are now. And the big thing with Runga is, you know, I think a lot of folks, the attention to detail is like you'll never find anywhere else. And that's why we can only do a handful of events a year. We've only done one event a year until this year. We decided to do another weekend.

Oh, okay. But the attention to detail is like nothing you'll find. And what I mean by that is, you know, last year we were in Panama seven hours from anywhere anyone's ever been. Right? You're not going. It's a digital detox, right? So no cell phones, no computers, no screens. So we were seven hours from the Panama City airport.

You basically take a left out of the airport, you drive till the road ends completely. And no one's ever going back there. It's a beautiful place. But when we were there, you're swinging Dragon Door kettlebells. You're drinking dry farm wine. You're juving. Who the hell would bring four

juve maxes to Panama and do all the shipping, all the customs, all that? What's a juve? You don't know what a juve is? Oh my gosh, come on. We've got to get the ju, all that. What's a juve? Yeah, I don't know. You don't know what a juve is? No. Oh, my gosh. Come on. Maybe I will after you explain it.

So we've got to get the juve out here. So it's red light therapy. Get the juve. Oh, okay. Near and far infrared. So essentially you're creating just like our home. That's Runga. So everything that's in that house right there from the coffee to the juves

to the fan bikes to the kettle bells, wherever we go, no matter how hard it is to get it there, that's what we do. We would never drink some local, you know, some Panamanian wine that we don't know the whole story about. We would never have coffee that we don't know the whole story about. We would never go get some kettlebells that we don't know if they're the best in the world. So Kettlebell Kings, Dragondor, these are bells that we're all right with. So it's really unique.

The food is, again, we bring chefs. We bring chefs that are famous in the United States with us because we don't want to rely on whatever chefs might be there. That's awesome. So it's a pretty unique event. You know, there's one event, two events a year. They sell out in a day. And, yeah, it's a ton of fun.

So what are, like, all the main things that you guys are focusing on? Like, it's a lot of the stuff we're talking about, right? Like de-stressing and... Yeah, you know, Runga started because, you know, when obviously with the growth of Spartan that just exploded, I was just burnt after, you know, 10 months of flying around the globe nonstop. Yeah, you said it's 70 flights, 75 flights in 10 months?

Yeah, exactly. 70 plus in 10 months. For me, because I don't travel a ton, I've been doing more recently than I've ever done in my life. Right. I think most people are like, oh, that sounds awesome. Why was it not awesome? Flying fucks you up, dude.

When we flew to Austin, I got to Austin, and that's not a long flight at all, right? And for a day and a half, I felt puffy, and I just didn't feel good. And my stomach was all off and you just don't feel great coming off of a flight. And when I fly home to Germany, which freaking 11 hour flight, I get off. And if not, I don't think it's just a jet lag, honestly. I think there's a lot more to it for like two days. I'm just not there. Well, yeah. I mean, you're radiated, you're, you you're you know you've been exposed to all kinds of germs and and whatnot the time zone i mean that's huge just from

an evolutionary perspective i mean it would take a lifetime to move across two time zones now we can fly across all of them yeah in a day yeah right saying the thing about and uh and i think that you know honestly at the time too my training i fly to – I remember one time flew to Paris and got off the plane and immediately did this, like, just ball-busting CrossFit workout. And that was one of the things in my mind where I was fucked up for the rest of the day. Yeah, dude. Like, and I got to teach a three-day workshop after this. And so that's what I was doing, really. You know, we have a certification with Spartan called SGX, which is for personal trainers that want to become certified in training people for obstacle racing.

So I would fly to Paris, teach a three-day, two-day workshop, go to Spain, teach a two-day workshop, then go to Australia and teach a two-day workshop. And it was just nonstop, right? So long story short, I was hired to speak at an event in Costa Rica. And I was like, you know what? I need a break. Then that event ended up getting canceled. But I was like, I got to keep that on the docket. Like I got to take a break.

I got to go down there. Left my phone, excuse me, left my computer at home, charged my phone, but didn't bring the charger. Because I was like, I got to take a week off the phone. And if I charge it and turn it off, I know that if I'm posted on social media or something, that's my lifeline if I get hurt hiking. Yeah.

Right. So phone was off, battery charged my lifeline if I get hurt hiking. Yeah. Right? So phone was off, battery charged. Battery charged, okay. No computers, went off the grid, did hot yoga, AM, PM. In between those yoga classes, I would go whitewater rafting, rappella waterfalls, zip lining, hiking, running, whatever it was. Dude. I ate amazing food.

Just completely a lot of working in, a lot of reading, a lot of hammock time. I want to talk about this vacation after the show. Dude, 100%, bro. Yeah. So that's how it started. And then, you know, I said I felt like the reset button that I needed heading into the following year to do it all over again because that's what I've been doing since even before Spartan, my previous job at Travel Life. So for the last 10 plus years I've been traveling and I was like, I got to do that every single year.

And, you know, obviously like you guys, a lot of my friends are in this industry so i started to invite friends uh and then we started let people sign up for it four or five years ago yeah and uh cool so so in answer to your question um there's there's all sorts of different verticals at runga um yoga kettlebells meditation food uh surfing free diving uh we do adventure right whether if we're doing ziplining or anything like that and there's a world-class expert that comes with us for every vertical single thing so if you're learning to surf you're learning to surf with somebody that's fucking awesome at it if you're swinging kettle surf, you're learning to surf with somebody that's fucking awesome at it. If you're swinging kettlebells, you know, I brought Andrea Duquesne last year, who she owns Dragador Kettlebells. Ben Greenfield is the biohacking weight loss expert. Scott Dolly, who is called the scraper.

He's this guy who does a lot of iStim. He does all the manual therapy. Amelia teaches Kundalini Yoga. So it's this, we call it this environment of possible failure, because if you can't find what you're looking for off the grid with no phones surrounded by 50 people that are just like you in the same, in the same zone, in the same, you know, world trying to hack their health, there's, this is it like, this is the place. Um, and yeah, and we've just seen just outrageous transformations uh people just whether they want to reset and go back to what they were doing yeah it's not

uncommon that people leave reset and want to go chart a new course they want to have a new job they want to you know we've had a lot of uh corporate folks i was gonna say do you have like people who like need to be on their phone and their computer, and they're either, one, losing their mind, or two, come back and they're like, fuck that thing, I never want to do it again, and their life is completely different? Well, that's the thing, because everybody insists that they need it. But the reality is we have satellite phones if we're off the grid, and everyone's got the number at home and email,

and there's an iPad that's available to contact home at any time. So there's safety measures. But a lot of people say they need their phone but it's that's bullshit you know it's it's fear-based stuff it's like well what if my dog gets hurt what am i well that's what the ipad is for yeah um so a lot of those people switch and the other thing is after five and a half or six years of taking people's phone away for a week, I can tell you at least 50% of people when they get their phone back, because we literally have taken them, when they get their phone back, at least 50% of people make a joke about not wanting it back. Yeah. And that means something. Like there's something in there.

And it's led to a lot of people that now take weekends off their phone or like I was telling you earlier uh two first two hours of the day no phone um and why exactly is that let's explain everybody why you do that uh because it's never good news you either you know you have an email you didn't finish something yesterday there's uh you know someone you know whatever someone commented on your instagram and didn't they were offended by your post. You didn't get enough likes on your post last night. Like whatever it is, it creates thought streams. So in the morning you have to control these first two hours of every single day are the most important two hours of the day, in my opinion. So it's, it's about, it's about listening to music that doesn't create thought streams. It's about, so you would never wake up in the morning and like put on Eminem.

Yeah. Right. You don't want to get into, unless you're going straight to the gym, I guess. But if you're like me, you know, you want to kind of get in the zone,

get yourself into a nice, thoughtful place. So we'll put on mantra. We'll put on, um, uh, Kundalini yoga songs that aren't in English. And they're just this like uber chill music just like

you'd hear if you were like getting a massage or taking a yoga class and then we're hand grinding coffee beans making almond milk i really like that i want to get into that it's it's all of a sudden you know like i said it's those first two hours you get in some naked sun whatever it is it's like you've got to do it and um it's it's super important so in case, we're addicted to our phones, and it's no different than gambling. It's like I've got to check my email again. Why? You know, why? Why?

Right? And I remember in Tim Ferriss' book, I think it was the first one, he said, you know, check your email at 10 and 4. Yeah. And that's genius. Like that's what everyone needs to do. Because I think a lot of us in jobs, corporate jobs especially, it's like you're on email so much you're never actually doing shit. 100%. It's like, when are you actually getting things done if you're just on email all day or if you're just on social all day or whatever?

So I just think there's this balance. And here's the big thing is the words moderation, the words balance, those, like, people don't have the right to use those words until they've experienced the ends of the spectrum. So in other words, uh, from a dietary perspective, I want to, I want to use balance, right? If you're in a hole, it's not the time to use a smaller shovel. Yep. Right. You don't know what balance is. So until you've gone a week or two weeks with absolutely no tech, you don't know how much tech is healthy or you actually need. Yep. Exactly. So it's, and this is the same thing with nutrition. It's like whatever nutrition plan you like, whether it's Vigo V V gone, whether it's vegan

or keto or, or plant-based or paleo, it's like until you go hog wild for a month, like true paleo or true vegan, like you don't know what balance is until you go hog wild for a month, like true paleo or true vegan, like you don't know what balance is. Until you go low carb for a month, you don't know what low carb is. Until you eliminate gluten, sugar, lentils, whatever, then you don't know what eating them in moderation means because one bean for some people is not moderation. It's crazy that the low carb thing gets me every time. I try to tell my mom that even.

She's going to listen to this show for sure and yell at me. But I'll be like, Mom, try to just like, you know. At one point she really wanted to do like paleo stuff. And she's like, well, can I have sushi? And I was like, Mom, I just explained to you. Fruits, vegetables, meats, and nuts, right? I just explained it. Does rice come up in that at all?

Well, sushi is fish. And I'm like, but Does rice come up in that at all? Well, sushi is fish. And I'm like, but the rice, mom. Can we talk about the rice? There's shit around the fish. She still kept going. Sashimi. I'm like, well, it's got rice underneath it. But it's amazing what people think for sure.

Yeah, it's amazing what people think for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. And I think a lot of that stuff nowadays at least comes from being stuck in the busy trap to me, right? People want to feel all day like they're kind of doing something. Yeah. And they're just kind of clinging on from little tasks to little tasks to little tasks to get them through the day. And then at the end of the day, you actually look back and it almost feels like you accomplished nothing. Right. Because all it was, was just an email here, text message here, call there. And it's all these people roping you in all these different directions, but there's not actually any focused work going on at any point. And I

fall into that trap all the time as well. And my best days where the end of the day comes along and I kind of look up and I'm like, wow, today was amazing and I feel amazing are the days where, and this goes back to Tim Ferriss' theory as well, the whole batching, right?

So batching big tasks together and kind of blocking out 90-minute blocks throughout the day that are uninterrupted. Right. And those are the days where i one am most productive and then two 6 p.m 7 p.m 8 p.m comes along and i can keep going i'm not burned out i'm not tired i feel great um i get home i can make dinner probably something healthy

you know what i mean and it just it feels like'm in this flow, whereas on the other days where I'm just email here, text message here, text message there, right? Not getting anything done. And then 4 p.m. comes along and I'm like, I can't do it anymore. I'm so tired. I'm calling it a day. And then you go home, eat some shitty food, probably order pizza because you feel bad for yourself. Right.

Right. And to me, it's the busy trap. And it's so interesting because – and Ryan falls into this category as well, and I'm sure you do as well. The life that I've built for myself, I'm my own boss at all times. And if I want to sleep in tomorrow, I'll sleep in tomorrow. If I want to wake up and the waves are good, I'll go surfing. And then I start my day at 1130. There's nobody that can tell me that I can't do it.

But it's so interesting talking to other people. One, they're afraid of doing it themselves because they will feel judged by everybody else. Right. And then two, there's a lot of people that tell me, oh, you don't have a real job. Right. Or you don't work hard. Right.

Or you don't do this. Right. Right. Ryan and I had a fucking amazing day today in Venice before doing this podcast. Right. And I promise you the stuff that we got done today in between the fun activities and the work stuff, I accomplished more than 90% of the people in America because you guys are just sitting at a freaking cubicle wasting time from 9 to 5. How much work from 9 to 5 are you really getting done? Besides liking my photo on Instagram

which I saw you do not you personally but like there's 3,000 people that liked my photo today that I know were in a cubicle for sure

one of my best friends and they'll tell me a story about tomorrow in class when I'm coaching this video they saw on YouTube and I know it was on their

those are the people that know every single thing about your Instagram every single thing you post they know the details about your story you post to coffee shop and they look it was on there. Those are the people that know every single thing about your Instagram, every single thing you post. They know the details about your story. Cause that's what they're doing. You post a coffee shop and they look it up because they don't fucking, they're not doing anything.

And I love you for it. All of you guys. Yeah. Keep doing it. My, my best friend and him and I actually graduate the same day and went completely different paths. And I went kind of like the graphic design.

Yeah. Super like, right. I do whatever I want., lazy affair type of thing. And then he went consulting, which is the complete opposite spectrum, especially when you're a young consultant. You're just getting hammered, right? So he tells me of days where, yeah, dude, I got to the office today at 7 in the morning and it's 2 in the morning now and I'm still here. Yeah. And I'm thinking in my head, I'm like, there is no way in hell that from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m.

you were actually productive this entire time. Because if I was productive the way I'm productive when I feel like my 90-minute blocks, right? From 7 a.m. to 2 a.m., I wouldn't have to work

for the rest of the year. I am done, dude. There's so much work getting done. Right? But in that seven to two, how much fucking time wasting is going on? Right.

How many meetings are you going to where nothing gets done? Right. How many phone calls do you get on where nothing gets discussed? And it's because people

love being busy. Right. People love going to meetings. Right. They love it. Right. Oh, I got a meeting. I can't.

Oh, that's not the best. I got a meeting. I got a meeting. I got a meeting. I can't do it. What actually gets discussed in these meetings, right? And I think –

And how far in advance of the meeting was the meeting booked? Because if it was booked in the last 48 hours or the last four hours, like it's a bullshit meeting. Yeah, 100%. 100%. So I think a lot of that circles back to the phone thing, right? It does. And always being on your phone. You know what the one thing is too that I've noticed? It's super interesting to me.

If you're in a public place and you're by yourself, let's say you're at a bar with a friend and your friend goes to the bathroom. Why are you sitting at the bar by yourself, right? If you're not on your phone and you're actually just sitting there and just kind of like looking around, people look at you weird. People are like, what the fuck is wrong with that guy? And you're actually just sitting there just kind of like looking around. People look at you weird. Right. People are like, what the fuck is wrong with that guy? Right? Because they expect you to. As soon as your friend gets up, I'm like, oh, here's my chance.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to take out my phone and check my Instagram. I'm missing a meeting. Yeah, exactly. I got to check my emails. Right. There's a Facebook Live right now. If someone else is meeting, I could be in on it. Yeah.

I'm sure Obama is trying to call me. Right. You should just have a video of you sitting there, not being on your phone, just like looking around. So other people are watching, other people that are by themselves at a bar are watching you be by yourself at a bar. On their phone.

But no, like you nailed it, man. And what's so funny is, you know, it's like the you don't use it, you lose it principle. And that ability to be alone is actually a really important skill for a human being. And it's something that, you know, at Runga, you've got a lot of folks around, but you also have a lot of places to go be yourself and find yourself or whatever. And maybe that sounds a little cliche. It's so weird when you're young. You're just like, I'll be by myself.

And you get older and, like, you hear someone say they want to be by themselves when you're younger. And you're like, that's fucking weird. Yeah. And you get older and you're like, I want to be by themselves when you're younger and you're like, that's fucking weird. Then you get older and you're like, I want to be alone. And being alone and being lonely is like a big difference too, right? Like choosing to be alone can be very healthy. Oh my gosh. Well, that's the thing. If you're not an independent person, you're not a very productive person.

In a relationship, you're going to have trouble being an active member of the relationship because it becomes a dependency or whatever. But, no, I think a lot of the things you just said are absolutely spot on. And I think this being busy mindset, I think one of the things I was going to add when you were talking about, you know, feeling really accomplished and productive, you're also going to sleep better that night because you know you did shit and wrapped it up A to Z. It's done. It checked the box. And I think so many people with sleep issues, if they wrote down the five things they need to get done today in the morning and just got rid of their phone and did those five things,

and even if that was batching or chunking or an hour here, half hour break, an hour here, you could work five hours a day if you go an hour straight on the first one, go do 25 minutes on the bike. An hour straight on the second one, go do 25 minutes on the bike. An hour, like you would accomplish more in a day than other folks do in a week, and you technically only worked five hours. And also doing one thing at a time, right? You're not on the bike answering emails, listening to a podcast, right? You're doing one thing, and then you're moving on to the next. Right. Well, I break that

rule quite a bit. Well, that's the beauty of the fan bike. That's the beauty. Because I can be on a phone call. I can be in a meeting at 50 RPM on that thing, and no one knows that I'm on the fan bike. And no one knows that you're not actually in the meeting. That's how most meetings go. Most people are

on the fan bike. We had a phone call this morning where 90% of the people on the phone, like it was a phone meeting, and 90% of the people were not there. Because when someone called their name, it would take like 20 seconds, and you would hear like the voice in the background, and they're like, yeah, yeah. He was like in the middle of

wiping. Yeah, exactly. Whoosh. He's like, fold! The whole phone thing is actually a huge topic to me and i would love to jump into that yeah um because i struggle with that a lot as well and i think that generations to come are going to struggle even more because now you see kids um sitting at dinner with their parents and the parents just hand them an iPad. Yep. Right? So from so early on, they're introduced to technology and introduced that it will kind of take your mind off of real life and what you're focused on.

So I struggle a lot with it. I feel like I'm on my phone way too much. I feel like I'm wasting time with Instagram way too much. And the worst part about it is, and this is where I kind of notice that it's an obsession and it's an unhealthy addiction. I can go home and I will take my phone and I will leave my phone in my room upstairs. And I'll be like, okay, I'm going to get away from my phone. And I'll go downstairs and I'll do something. And my mind is still with my phone the I'll go downstairs and I'll do something and my mind is still with my phone the entire time right so even though I'm physically disconnected from it I'm like oh I wonder who

texted me or I wonder who liked my picture my phone's flipped over right now and I've literally thought about yeah what's on it for it's you're a while now but I haven't flipped it over a while I'm like a while I'm like I'm doing it the whole podcast I'm not gonna flip it over yeah yeah and it feels so good when you accomplish it but then you you pick it back up and you're like, oh, my God, thank you. Dude, it's going to be fucking Christmas morning when I flip this thing over. Dude, that's what drug addicts do, dude. They're staring at the drugs and they're like, I'm not going to do a drug. I'm not going to do a drug.

I'm not going to do a drug. And then they make it through like 45 minutes. I'll just do a little bit. Yeah. They make it through 45 minutes and they're like, I did fucking great. I'm doing a bunch of coke right now. You know what I mean? It's the same thing.

This podcast just took a turn. Oh, sorry. We're in Venice. Douche rooms. Is that better? Yeah, yeah. Ayahuasca, La Saipan. Yeah, there you go.

It's not a blowjob. It's fellatio. So where do you think it's coming from? Where do you think it's going? And what do you think are the best practices for someone who maybe

can't go on a retreat, can't get away for those days? Best practices throughout the day is to implement to kind of, yeah, cure the addiction, I guess. Right, man. And I mean, it's the habit loop, right? And I think Charles, what's his name? Charles Dunig has a book called The Power of Habit.

And ultimately, if there's a habit, it's a loop. And it's no different than somebody gambling or anything else or doing drugs. It's a reward. There's, you know, it's it's a reward. There's a reward center. Yeah. Right. And what's interesting about gamblers is they've shown that the reward in the brain, the release of the different chemicals is the same whether you win or lose. So whether you have not enough likes or too many likes, you have not enough comments or more comments than you're expecting. Wow, you're getting the same positive kind of dopamine rush, right? And that's why we're addicted to our emails because we're actually seeking bad news, right?

It's like we're waiting to see what we didn't do. Oh, man, that's fucking crazy. You know what's crazy is I have so many emails that I unsubscribe. I'm like, I don't want to see this anymore. But then there's some that I'm like, I'm just going to leave it. Even though I know I'm going to delete it every day, I'll look at my emails and be like, I have 74 emails. I'm like, I don't want to see this anymore. But then there's some that I'm like, I'm just going to leave it. Even though I know I'm going to delete it every day, I'll look at my emails and be like, I have 74 emails. I'm really important.

49 of them are complete bullshit. And I should unsubscribe, but I'm not going to. Yeah. No, but it's – and you know what's funny? And I think there's important stuff, right? Like the way my email is done. And by the way, I probably have 30,000 emails in my inbox right now. Okay, that'd be my 74. No, but the thing is it's because I don't give a shit about 30,000 emails.

Yeah. So in other words, the people that are likely to be emailing me, their emails get sent to a separate folder. So I have like my VIP folder. And the people who email me regularly, I know it's going to VIP. And like the world ends if I don't answer these emails and that's automatic. And then if I finish those emails, then I'll go peruse the 30,000, right. And I'll go back a day and see what I missed. But, um, 90, you know, 80% of your problems come from 20% of your shit. So like do what you can to get rid of that shit.

Right. Um, I think that's the biggest thing, But also, you know, we all deal with it. It is an addiction. And you're always going to have to recalibrate. And that's what I said, like, with Runga. It's like you need this every year. Like, even if you have a 180-degree experience, you live in 2018 when the phone and there's people designing the elements of that phone to get you more. Right. So it's like you're going to have to keep coming back.

It's just a matter of what are you going to do to counter it. Right. And where's your consciousness? Because I think that's the biggest thing is just vigilance. You know, you've got to you know, one of the big parts about me moving to Veniceice you know i lived in boston for 32 years and uh one of the the reason i moved to venice um was that i wanted to control the five people i spend the most time with which is a big kind of thing that i preach about the tim ferris thing you are the average of your five people or no yeah that's actually that's that's actually somebody else i think but he talks about talks about it. I think it's like Aristotle or something, right? But it could be Tim Ferriss, too. Tim Ferriss is like the model of Aristotle, so we'll go with it.

For this episode, if you look up in the sky, it's Tim Ferriss. If the wind blows, he strung these lights for me. Oh, of course he did. While he was on the phone with Obama. Oh, damn it. And he was on the bike. And he was on the phone with Obama. Oh, damn it. And he was on the bike. And he was on the bike. In a meeting.

So, you know, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you have to be vigilant about that. And that includes your phone. That's the thing, is that I want, if I want Alan Watts, who died in 1973, if I like his vibes and I want to have that, I can get him into my five people. You want to know how? Listen to him more often than you spend more total time throughout the day than you spend with somebody else, with your boss or your coworker or whatever. So you can control the five people, but it's vigilance. And that's why I never leave my crab shack.

I invite the people over that I want to hang out with and, and that's it. Um, because it's, and it's been pretty life-changing because you don't realize, and, uh, you don't realize the damage if you're going, um, you know, to, and I'm not saying this was my experience, but I think the, a lot of people listening in a corporate environment, uh, if you're going to an office every day and you don't like your boss, that is actually a really kind of, that's a reptilian stressor. It's like a really deep stress to go interact just like my client Venice. To go interact with somebody every single day that you don't feel adds to your vitality or your energy is a detractor. And if I'm following people on Instagram, maybe it's a positive thing. Maybe the people that follow you really resonate with you and they're globbed onto you because they hate all the other people around them or they wish they

weren't sitting next to this guy or whatever. Right. So, but I just think, you know, the biggest thing is awareness and vigilance and protection. Right. So protect the first two hours of your day, protect the average, the people you spend the most time with. And that could mean, if you can't prevent it, that could mean on your weekend, like I was telling you about Sunday Funday that we do here, I invite a few people over every Sunday, Amelia and I, and we have the people over that we would love to spend time with.

So I just think that's important. And then obviously ditching the phone whenever possible is huge. So, you know, I think I'm the only one without my phone on the table right now. Yeah, you are. You're crushing it. I'm crushing it. Yours is up, though. Mine's down.

I know. Mine's not too disturbed, though. And I've been trying to do that more. I think it's such a killer to productivity, and I think one theory that I've kind of came up with, and tell me if you guys think this sounds logical at all, I think it's such a killer to creativity also because everything that gets created nowadays, and you can look at all the different forms of art, is very fleeting, right?

It's cool now, and it gets super viral on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, and it gets blown up, and this new album came out, and this album is not the greatest album ever for two days yeah right and then no one ever ever talks about it again right and it's the same thing with movies and it's the same thing with any form of art that you look at and it's so crazy to me because when you look back you look at titanic people still watch titanic nowadays right there's not a lot of movies that are coming out right now that you even think about a year later. Right. And it's the same thing with music. We still listen to the Beatles. No one's going to listen to fucking Post Malone. No offense. In 50 years.

I don't even know who that is. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's it's killing creativity because it makes everything has to be now. Right. Everything has to be super instant and the instant gratification factor. This is cool now, but it's not going to be cool in 20 minutes anymore. I'm so upset that there's not real rock music anymore.

Dude, it blows me away. I'm like, how is someone not broken into that right now? Yeah, even hip-hop, dude. Fish and I have been listening to this old-school hip-hop station on satellite radio driving up here, and every song that came on...

You're just instantly bobbing your head. Bobbing your head and i told him like dude this makes you feel something yeah instantly the song comes on it puts a smile on my face yeah and it makes you feel better about yourself right you know like it it it provokes emotion right whereas with the music nowadays it's just kind of like background music i'd rather listen to a podcast right now than like almost anything yeah dude like man yeah like super super amazing insight and um i think that this is that is the danger i think earlier you had a question that i didn't answer and that was about youth and like the fear of like where they're going and and that's the danger right there absolutely it's just this

this um this expectant uh kind of attitude towards everything, that the grass is always greener. There's always something else. There's always something better. I think that's super dangerous. And you know what else? And I just thought of this too. At Paleo Effects, we had these business cards for Runga

that had a beautiful picture of the Dominican venue that we got. And this kid, Baby 3, picks up the postcard, right? It's a 5x8 and goes like this. shut up trying to zoom in try to zoom in like it was an ipad yeah right so when you take your thumb and you're obviously we're not a video here but the way that you would show make it and it was a piece of paper and it was like oh like that kid doesn't know what a picture is. That's insane. And it was absolutely, absolutely insane. And I think that honestly, like you talked about anxiety and productivity. And it's like if you're not in the present, you're anxious. Yeah, absolutely.

Like that's almost like the definition. I think the Devil's Dictionary says it best. It says the future and the definition of future is where your friends are true, your affairs are prosperous, and your happiness is assured. Yeah. Right? Because we're always projecting ourselves there. And that's exactly what you're saying here. And it's this attitude of just always, always something else and never being satisfied with the moment ultimately.

Like I'm not satisfied. My friend goes to the bathroom. I'm not satisfied with the moment. Yeah. I think that's really really sad and dangerous But exactly what you said and I think about like Jim Morrison I think about you know Elvis like I think about

Hendrix Hendrix like part of the reason they had such an impact is that they were only around they came in there were flash in the pan Jim Morrison comes in just amazing music that no one had ever heard before with so much just emotion and creativity and spirituality and all this stuff behind it and then he was gone yeah and he was immortalized i mean imagine if um you know i've maybe said this before but like if michael jackson died in 1989 he'd be right up there i I think he's still up there. Right. I know what you're saying. But for everyone that thinks he's up there, there's 50 other people that think he's a weirdo.

You know what the other thing – Everybody died at 27. Yeah. Eric Cobain. You know what the other thing is that goes in with the same kind of thought process? If you – like I like to think about Prince, for example, right? If you think of Prince, that guy's an alien, right? Yeah.

Like he's nothing like you and me, right? Like, if you just, the way he is on stage, the way he presents himself, he is so just out there, and he's a rock star, right? And it makes you gravitate towards him, because it's like, oh my god, he's Prince, right? It's like on his pedestal. Nowadays, I know everything about every single artist that ever lived, right? Or like that lives now. Sorry. In like our generation, right? Because they all have Instagram and they all have Twitter and they're letting me know when they're taking a shit.

And they're Instagramming their food. Right. And they're doing this and doing that. So they become more human. Right. Right? You're like, oh, that guy's just like me. He has a lot more money in the private jet, but he's just like me.

Right. Right. With Prince, you have no fucking idea who this guy guy is he lives in this amazing house and he throws these outrageous parties right and that's it right right so i think that also plays into it that because of social media we know so much more about everybody yeah that we're all kind of on the same level now right right it's actually a good observation. Yeah. Sure. So if I want to. When everybody is something, nobody is anything. There you go.

I like that. When everybody, oh, sorry. For the people at home that maybe are like me and want to get away from this a little bit more, how can I bring the Runga lifestyle into my everyday? Yeah. Actually, you know, what's funny is I made a, or somebody made me a picto chart or whatever you call it, where it's like the eight steps. Because ultimately Ranga is about controlling your day. So it starts by controlling the first two hours. Cold shower, right?

All the stuff we've talked about today, taking breaks from your phone, getting movement in, you know, a big thing is several movement sessions throughout the day, not sit on your ass eight hours, crush it for 40 minutes, right? That's not a thing. It should be just routine. I wrote an article last night, the three issues, the three problems with standing desks, right? And it's because, you know, ultimately you use it as a sitting desk half the time anyway, you know, you're standing not in a very good position. And standing isn't the opposite of sitting. The opposite of sitting is walking. Moving.

Yeah. And moving. So I think moving consistently throughout the day, not taking phone calls, sitting down, taking cold showers, figuring out what is your – we use the term. You should call it active meditation. We use dynamic meditation. So if you're holding your breath underwater for as long as you can in a free dive, you're in the moment. If you're swinging a 53-pound kettlebell, you're in the moment.

If you're meditating, and that was a big thing with me in meditation because I was never the type. I've been prescribed attention deficit medication since I was five. Yeah. Right? And it's, you know, my world was always just 1,000 miles an hour. And sitting on a mat and meditating was never something I was able to do. Never.

Now I'm finally, you know, 33 years later, finally able to do it. But what's funny is in the yoga community, you know, silent meditation is actually for the very advanced yogis. Oh, wow. Right? Because ultimately your brain does wander and does go places. And you don't want to be more stressed when you finish meditating than when you started. And if you're thinking about 50 things, then that's going to happen. So use things that are dynamic in nature that bring you into the present moment until you get there.

And don't feel bad that if you can't sit on the mat and breathe. Yeah. But breath work is critical. And I think where I started with breath work was actually breath holds, like 30-30. So 30 seconds of breathing, 30 seconds of holding, 30 seconds of breathing. And do that for 10 or 20 minutes. Almost anyone can do it. And it's just a super relaxing breath.

So do that 10 minutes a day. Walk 15,000 steps a day. So there's a lot of these little things that you can, even if you're in a corporate environment, you can get up and take a cold shower. You can not look at your phone for the first two hours that you're awake in the morning. You cannot check email profusely 50 times a day.

You can walk 10,000 steps. You can take the stairs. You can breathe for 10 minutes at some point. So there's so many things. And I think we talked about personal training clients and, you know, there's always an excuse. There's always, there's always, we're always busy, but it's like, no, you have plenty of time. Actually chart out the number of hours in the day and the number of hours you're at work and see what the left, what's left. Absolutely. And you were conscious and awake

for seven hours today that you weren't at work so what were you doing you know where did they go where the day especially the writing down thing that's one thing that i've learned in college where you're thinking about all the stuff like oh my god i gotta do this i gotta do this and it's all just floating around your brain and then you put on a piece of paper you're like oh that's not that bad it's just like four things i can totally do that absolutely absolutely and i think that's the that bad. It's just like four things. I can totally do that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that's the actually, and thank you so much for bringing that up. That's huge. Is when you have, and this is something I've struggled with, and I'll get overwhelmed at times just like anybody. Yeah.

And it's like sometimes you've got so much on your brain, you feel super stressed. As soon as you write everything down, you're not stressed anymore. It's such an easy task. It's such an easy task. It's such an easy task. And there was one day that you can see I have the whiteboard. It's not on the wall right now, but it's a three-foot by five-foot whiteboard I have in my living room. And one day I was super overwhelmed, and I just started writing,

and I filled the entire whiteboard with shit that I was thinking about. To-dos, things I forgot, odds and ends, stuff I wanted to get done in the next week, the next month, the next three months, stuff I was thinking about. To-dos, things I forgot, odds and ends, stuff I wanted to get done in the next week, the next month, the next three months, stuff I'm thinking about creating, blogs I want to write, content that I'm going to need. You know, just all these things. And as soon as you write it down, it's like,

de-flate, right? And I think writing in the morning and writing at night is when you're in that space is just essential nighttime for sure right before I go to bed is when my best ideas come up I hate it but yeah it's really a great time for me right yeah all right how does that that was really really good yeah it's really good do you have anything to add um so how can people find you a little bit more the runga movement yeah so runga runga life.com uh we also have more, the Runga movement. Yeah. So Runga, Rungalife.com. We also have Instagram.

It's Runga Life. I'm Coach Joe DI on Instagram and Facebook. And Spartan, of course, Spartan.com. Okay. That's about everything. All right. Cool. And in the little Crab Shack in Venice.

Yeah. Crab Shack. I love that. Yeah. All right. Cool. You all good? Yeah. You guys know where to find me at. yeah crab shack I love that yeah alright cool so you all good? yeah

you guys know where to find me at you guys can check me out on crossfitchalk.com we have about a thousand people right now on the CrossFit Chalk program

which is awesome and completely you know blowing up all over the world I get messages from people all the time who are

tagging me in their workouts and I love it. And if you guys ever want to go ahead and sign up for that, you get a mobile app and you get to follow us along in the gym and see what we do every single day. And we do affiliate programming as well to make gyms better. Yaya? I'm all set.

Good to go. You're all good? All right. Dude, super fun. Thanks for coming by. I had an awesome time. Loved it. Yeah, I'll come by a couple more times and get one of those amazing coffees of yours. All right. Oh, man, yeah. good all right dude super fun thanks for coming by yeah i had an awesome time loved it yeah i'll

come by a couple more times and get one of those amazing coffees here all right oh man yeah i forgot about it almost all right thanks brother thank you yeah later guys all righty y'all that will do it from us i hope you guys had a fucking blast listening to this joe is such a cool character just all the way around so make sure you guys check him out on his social media at Coach Joe DI. Always posting super cool just mobility stuff, breathwork stuff, Kundalini yoga stuff if you guys are into any of that. But if not, his Instagram is even entertaining if you don't care about that. So make sure you guys give him a follow. Hit him up.

Make sure you tell him how much you love this episode and if you ever see him at the spartan race uh give him a little tap on the butt and tell him it's from yaya sure he'll love that if you guys are in venice um just break into his house and make sure he makes you uh one of his almond lattes coffee things i can't even call it a coffee it's just just way too good. So yeah, whenever you're in Venice, any time of the day, just break into Joe's house, tell him I sent you and I'm sure he'll make you a coffee.

Other than that, guys, make sure you guys sign up for that Chalk Online thing. Honestly, free month. You guys have nothing to lose. Head over to CrossFitChalk.com. Use code ATREALCHALK, all caps, no at, just real chalk, all caps.

And get that full free month to try it out. And we'll see you here next week. Thanks for tuning in.