Barbell Shrugged - The Midlife Male w/ Greg Schienman, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash #768

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Serial Entrepreneur - Greg Scheinman has had not one but two seven-figure exits. He is a former partner at Insgroup, acquired by BRP (NASDAQ) and the founder and former CEO of Team Baby Entertainment, acquired by Michael Eisner of Disney. He was also the founder and CEO of ROW Studios, producer of two successful feature films, and advisor to multiple CPG brands. He is now the Founder & Face of Midlife Male, the premier digital media platform for middle aged men and the brands that want to reach them. Investor & Brand Ambassador - Greg is an investor in Huron, LMNT, Hone Health, MUDITA and Dish Society, and a brand ambassador for Rhone, Athletic Greens, Sunlighten Saunas, The Cold Plunge, HYDROW, CLIMBR and InsideTracker. Podcaster & Writer - Greg’s podcast The Midlife Male includes interviews with some of the world’s top performers, and is one of the most highly rated podcasts in the world. His weekly Midlife Male Newsletter has earned over 10,000 subscribers. Trusted Coach - Greg has coached more than 100 individuals, executives, and teams and helped them go from mediocre to maximized personally and professionally — from brand-new startups to massive organizations and most importantly for themselves. Work with RAPID Health Optimization Links: Subscribe to Midlife Male Newsletter https://midlifemale.beehiiv.com/ For Coaching & Speaking GregScheinman.com The Midlife Male Website & Podcast Midlifemale.com Follow on Instagram @gregscheinman Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family, this week on Barbell Shrug, Greg Scheinman is coming to the podcast. What's super great about Greg, you're going to love this. You're going to love this. He runs a company called Midlife Mail, the Midlife Mail. And guess what? There's a whole bunch of midlife men on this podcast talking about being midlife men, which if you're 18 years old listening to this show, get ready for your future. It's actually really awesome.

Super enjoyed having him on. And as always, friends, make sure you get over to rapidhealthreport.com. That is where our friend TJ Timothy Jones has a free case study on him cutting his cholesterol in half and getting super shredded in the process. You can access that free case study that was actually first posted on Men's Health and Apple News, which is really, really cool because those are giant publications and we didn't even know that this case study was getting written. So I'm super stoked about it and get to go check that out over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends,

let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Anders Warner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Greg Scheinman. Welcome to the show. Hey, it's great to be here. I don't know why anybody would want somebody that runs a podcast called The Midlife Mail to be hanging out with three other midlife males, but it sounds like we have a lot to talk about. It sounds that way. Any afternoon with a couple of middle-aged guys, you know, you got weights in the background. If my 22-year-old self was tuning in to Barbell Shbell shrug today i'd just hit the skip next button these old guys talking about being old guys here how boring their life must

be with those kids instead of going out and partying and having all the fun but before you hit that button realize i'm still stronger than you 22 year old kids there's that. And also on top of that, not realizing that when you turn 41, life is phenomenal. It's actually way better, in my opinion, than all the chaos. I thought that all the chaos was so much fun, and now I look

forward to as a... Oh man, I'm drawing a blank. What's the guy out in California that we interviewed that lives out, picks the rocks up all day long? Oh, Paul Cech. Paul Cech.

Now you spend all your time and resources trying to build a moat around your family because we're in the kingdom phase of life. That's for sure. We're in the warrior phase of life. Greg, what is new life? To be sure, referencing Greg's comment from prior to the show like i don't feel as old as i thought i was gonna feel when i was 22 and i thought like 41 that's old as fuck

like i'm gonna be an old man but i feel pretty dang good i'm still healthy like not as strong as i used to be the things have changed for sure but uh to greg's point like middle age or the perception around middle age and what a middle-aged person is like these days is radically healthier than it was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. Greg, am I on the right track here? No doubt. I mean, first of all, we're extending, I mean, life expectancy. Everyone's out here talking about optimization and maximization and longevity and sustainability. And why is that happening? Because we probably all grew up reading, you know, muscle and fitness and men's health and all these,

and who was on the cover of all those magazines then 20 something year old ripped jacked models and bodybuilders right there. And what happened to us? We grew up, we aged out of it. So we thought we did. And what do you see now on the covers? Now you're seeing guys in their forties and fifties every month that are on there. Wahlberg, Clooney, Statham, The Rock, Tom Brady, LeBron. I mean, the faces of middle age have changed. And these are guys that are relatable, credible, aspirational, you know, and these guys in the twenties that you were saying may turn, tune away, not, not the wise ones. The wise ones are listening because they want to know where the puck is going. They want to see, and they're paying attention

because I didn't in my twenties and for most of my 30s. And my dad was 47 when he passed away. Oh, man. I'm 51, but it's 52 in December. So this shit goes fast. It sure does. And if you want to extend your way and you want to live happier and healthier and wealthier and stronger and have more fun in life, you better pay the fucking attention to what's on.

Sorry. I got excited. He got excited. I heard. Yeah. I heard an awesome quote. It wasn't too long ago. Sometimes sometime a couple of months back.

And it was essentially by the time you hit 40, your face tells the story. And if you kind of look at the majority of people, when they hit 40 years old, you can 100% tell not too much judgment, but you can 100% tell what kind of food, what kind of weightlifting, what kind of exercise, what kind of stress, like all of those pieces kind of start to the compounding effects of all those decisions really start showing up right around late thirties, early forties. And it becomes a very easy thing to, to tell that story or to see it in the way people just like, is it really just the face though?

Isn't that like the total package? You can kind of look at somebody and the face tells it, but really the whole body is telling the story there. I'd say to them, the beard is definitely showing it in mine. Going back to school, I mean, literally, in 2020 when I went back to school to get my master's, it was full color. And then here we are four years later gone. White, white.

But I'm through school. I've got a lot of white in it too. I mean, I can't grow it up here anymore, but the beard when it comes in, it comes in pretty good. But it's got a, it's got quite a bit of whiteness these days. I think I'm going to let go like you. I'm really thinking about taking the big move and just shaving it off. Evergreen, buddy. Evergreen. You know, maybe, you know, this is the stuff that's getting talked about now that didn't get talked about for a long time, you know, breaking down some of these stigmas and stereotypes and guys that I work with and I hear from that are in

their 30s and 40s and 50s, these conversations about hair transplants, you know, do I color, not color, Botox, TRT, what we put on our bodies, in our bodies, that's there. You know, they start, you know, they want to lose some weight. You mentioned, is it just the face? It's not just the face. No, yeah, for sure. Not just the face. Get back in shape. Then they want to up their wardrobe.

Then they want to, you know, then they may want to do some other thing. I mean, this stuff is coming up and it's prevalent. And guys are more, I think they're paying much closer attention to perception, you know, and how they perceive themselves and really how they want to be perceived by others. And when they get into their 40s, and their 50s and beyond, they want that appearance, they want that perception of strength and stability and confidence. You know, these things resonate. Preparation, discipline, accountability, consistency.

You can tell. Yeah, 100% you can tell. Definitely when I'm with my group of friends that I grew up with, you know, there's two of us. My best friend, KJ, he owns in Nashville. He owns a big corporation. And like the two of us still kind of looked apart and we're still the same two people.

We're still a little wild and edgy and then we're watching our friends slowly bowing out. And like, it's, you know, I don't want to bow out. I don't want, you know, I don't want us to stay who we are. So, yeah, I want to tap into the wisdom here. The, how do you kind of navigate this process from getting, you've had multiple business exits, which is very impressive. Congratulations. Obviously the fitness side of things, but really also turning this into, I would assume

kind of the next mission in helping men kind of navigate this time in life. It is. I mean, the mission with Midlife Male is really to help men maximize middle age. And that started out as a very, quite frankly, very selfish personal mission. I was 47, the same age as when my father passed away. I had my 10 year anniversary

with the firm that I was a partner in. And I remember that day. I'm sitting in the parking lot of the office building and I've got the big book of business and the partners and the office overlooking downtown Houston and all these other things there. And the wife and the kids and all of it from the outside looking in is great, but I didn't feel that. You know, something was missing. You know, you talk about, was there an exit before? I had a great, you know, children's sports video business that did really well and then got out of that

and then got lost again and then went back into another business. And yeah, we were growing it and scaling it. You're doing all the things you're supposed to do. But at the same time, I found myself not sleeping very well, chasing salary and title, if you will, all these things that were supposed to be what men did. We had the private schools and the cars and the houses and all that other stuff. And you're just chasing and chasing. And you're out a little too late. You're entertaining a little too much. And the way

that you lifted when you're in your 20s and 30s, you're not getting the same results anymore. The answer isn't just to buy bigger pants. All these things are happening. And I'm like, wait a minute. I can squander these opportunities that I have. I can continue to perpetuate this feeling of mediocrity under the auspice of outward success, or I can make some changes. And to your point, Andrew, I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know what the wisdom was. I'd been making this shit up as I go along.

I'd been the typical guy thinking he has to do it all by himself, push the boulder uphill, not ask for help, you know, not, I got it all figured out and covered. That's there. And what I opted to do was interview, and we're even doing right now, I started interviewing high performingperforming middle-aged men. I said, what am I interested in and where do I need to improve my life? Shark Family, I want to take a quick break. If you are enjoying today's conversation, I want to invite you to come over to rapidhealthreport.com. When you get to rapidhealthreport.com, you will see an area for you to opt in, in which you can see Dan Garner read through my lab work.

Now, you know that we've been working at Rapid Health Optimization on programs for optimizing health. Now, what does that actually mean? It means in three parts, we're going to be doing a ton of deep dive into your labs. That means the inside out approach. So we're not going to be guessing your macros. We're not going to be guessing the total calories that you need. We're actually going to be doing all the work to uncover everything that you have going on inside you. Nutrition, supplementation, sleep. Then we're going to go through and analyze your lifestyle. Dr. Andy Galpin is going to build out a lifestyle protocol based on the severity of your concerns. And then we're going to also build out all the programs that go into that based on the

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

I said, what am I interested in and where do I need to improve my life? I said, okay, family. I could be, how do I become a better husband and better father? How do I get that wisdom from other guys who even have had relationships with their dad, have their dad around?

A lot of these things that I lost when I was a teenager, I'm gonna be better in family. How can my fitness be better? Fitness, health, longevity, sustainability. How could my finances be better? What does success really look like? What does wealth really look like? All of those things. How could my food and nutrition be better when I put in my body? How could my fashion, even my style, be better? I didn't like what I was wearing every day, going into this office, playing this art, personal brand, identity, confidence. And ultimately, what could fun look like if I

started to have the right kind of fun and not the kind of bullshit fun that I was having, doing things I didn't want to do with people I didn't really want to do them with. And they became my six Fs. And I swapped salary and title for these six Fs. That was the new definition of success. Could I start turning these Fs into As? Let's hear them. What are the six Fs? Yeah, you have family, fitness, finance, food, fashion, fun. Got it. And those are the guys I brought on my podcast because I thought if I put a microphone in front of us, now I really could ask the questions I wanted to ask. I didn't look vulnerable. I didn't look weak. Now it was my obligation to ask these questions. And I started learning from these experts, guys like Troy Aikman, guys like Adam Nelson who won the Olympic gold medal in the

shot put. I mean, we had Olympic champions. We had actors. We had James Beard award-winning chefs like Seamus Mullen. I went to all these guys. And the cool thing was they said yes. I mean, there were thousands of no's, but a lot of amazing guys said yes because they wanted to share what they went through. Not so much even all their successes, but their failures, the situations and circumstances that could have defeated them, but ultimately defined them and got them to where they were.

So I did 200 episodes of that from 47 to 50, spent three years interviewing these guys and applying what I learned. And that became a newsletter. So i would write every week about what i was learning and what i was experiencing and then at the end of it the newsletter and the podcast combined became my book i got approached by a publisher who was interested in what was going on and said we should make a book out of this i said i don't write what are you talking about i'm not an author he's like you have the book you have these incredible conversations with wisdom from all these guys in all of these areas. We'll break it up into these six sections. And then you've got your take on it. What you've aggregated from these conversations, curated down to what works for you

and eliminated what didn't. That's the book. And that's how it happened. And, and at 50, I started speaking because of it. The book took off guys started calling me from all over the country and saying, Hey, would you coach me? You know, and how you did it, this whole midlife plan. I don't have a map, midlife action plan. Give me the map. And, and that's what happened. and now here we are i'm about to be 52 midlife male has become a a we're reaching thousands of men every week with our sunday newsletter we're building a community we're changing the face of the way men see middle age we're taking events and experiences that and taking guys into amazing different places to do different things and trying to shine a light on kind of how to master the middle.

Because there's a lot of white space between doing nothing and being sedentary and embracing that midlife crisis or being super, super extreme and thinking you've got to be, you know, Huberman and Atiyah and Johnson and somebody's got, it's like, we're all about mastering the middle. Yeah. When you were running businesses, did this stuff never like come to you? I feel like I couldn't even imagine trying to run a company and not be focused on my, my health and training. And that's, that's like, that's like home base. I, I don't, I could one it's, it's been built into me for so long, but to not having your health be something that is like a just stable and realizing that I could probably go to work like

300 days a year and not be sick. And like, I couldn't even imagine not being able to function on that level with the additional stresses of being in business. It sounds like just utter collapse as far as like your life goes, not having those things in place. I agree with you. I think the key word that you mentioned was stable. You know, I call it stability. And I was unstable for a long period of time. It was more of the high highs and the low lows. There were periods where I was irresponsible and unhealthy and smoking and drinking too much

and just in perpetual motion. And there were other times where, again, I went to that other extreme where I was, you know, knee deep, you know, or in the CrossFit world, you know, and I got super healthy, you know, and I almost broke it, you know, went to the other extreme. It was a lot of high highs and low lows, again, to your point of trying to figure it out. You know, how do you manage? How do you manage being a husband, being a father, working in businesses, generating income value, staying in shape, keeping up with whoever the proverbial Joneses are, you know, all of these different things.

It's all in the bucket. And I wasn't doing a great job of it for a long time. It's a lot of plates you're spinning and you can only keep them all spinning at the same time so long before it starts coming down. And that was that day in the car where it felt like it was starting to come down. I can't spin these all around. I'm not super unhealthy, but I'm not healthy enough. I'm not super successful, but I'm definitely not unsuccessful by societal metrics. I'm really not unhappy, but I'm definitely not unsuccessful by societal metrics. I'm really not unhappy, but you know what? I ain't waking up happy either. Yeah. I'm going to have a bad marriage, but I want to have a great, great marriage. I want to be a great father. I'm saying I am, but am I really present and intentional

with this stuff? And those things, they mess with you, the guy in the mirror, because you know, you can't really lie to yourself. You can't fool yourself there. That's that thing with authenticity. When you chase it and it's not there, it's exhausting. What does the day look like for you? I'm just curious. There's a lot of things in the six Fs. So how are you able to fit enough time for all of these elements? Yeah, I love this question. I think it's not about what I'm doing, it's what I'm not doing. It's what I'm no longer doing. When I stopped doing so many of the things that I didn't want to do with the people I didn't want

to do them with and the places I didn't want to go, it opened up so much space. I don't think guys realize how much time and space they really have if they strip away everything and start only putting back what is really essential to them, what is really important. I say rule number one, knowing what's important is what's most important. Rule number two, if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. Rule number three, aggregate, curate, and eliminate. Rule number four, show me your calendar. I'll show you your priorities. And rule number five, grace, gratitude, and latitude, because we're way too hard on ourselves along the way. And that's what I did. I stripped it back to the bare minimum. You know, look, I wouldn't wish a global pandemic on anybody, but COVID was one of the best things that ever

happened to me and my family. Because it forced us to take away everything. And from there, you know, I no longer had to put a suit on. I no longer had to go to all these client meetings. I no longer had to entertain people. I didn't want to entertain. I didn't have to fight for a corporate wellness program. And it's to your point that we should all be working out. I didn't have to do all that. I didn't have to network the same way, shoot anything.

So you got all your time back. There were no benefits to go to or gala's to go to or school event to go to and smile and wave and everything. So I was like, okay, what's really important? So what do I do with my time? I work out five days a week, two days of rest or active recovery.

I recover well three, four days a week, two days of rest or active recovery. You know, I recover well three, four days a week. I love my sauna and my cold plunge. My workday now is 10 to 4. I host a podcast like you guys. I write a newsletter. I coach 10 guys at a time, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. An hour spot in there. You know, I spend time with my son. We have rules and standards now. I attend 80% of all my kids' games. Hundreds seemed like a crazy

standard to keep, but 80, I want to beat it. And I will beat it. But the minimum is 80% of their games. We have dinner together. Take the dogs for a walk. I write about this stuff right now about simplicity and simple is really, really hard, which is why most guys don't do it. They complicate things. I did it. But the basics work, man. The fundamentals work and you got to have standards. And if you can set your own personal standards and adhere to those standards, well, then the goals become inevitable. Man, you, by the way, I just described your newsletter. That's how good this is going to work. Thank you. That's a wrap. Okay. Make sure you get on that automation email. Click that first one,

buddy. Get that man, sign up for that man's course. I don't even know what's in there. I'm going to sign up for everything. You will get, drop in your inbox right now, my guide, how to maximize midlife. It's literally exactly how I did it, man. And steal it, take it, you know, and that's what I want to do is give this stuff away as much as possible.

I even subscribed to the other ones that you recommended once I joined. That's how good you're doing. Thank you. Well, I think it is possible. And I think it's probable more than possible. I think it's probable if you're willing to do the work and, and I'm nothing special. I am not particularly big. I'm not particularly smart. I'm not particularly anything. The thing that I started to do well later in life, I'm a slow learner and a late bloomer. The thing I started to do better later in life is simply make better choices. And when you make better choices, the majority of the time, the majority of your life gets better.

Do you go through the drive-thru and order shitty food, you know? Or do you meal prep, you know, the night before or eat a healthier meal at home? You know, the stuff I talk about. Do you kiss your wife good morning, you know, before you get out of bed? Or do you just roll out and take a piss and take her for granted because you've been married for 25 years? Like, these are basic things. Do I get up and go to the gym today or do I sleep in? You know, you ask yourself this stuff, better one or better two over and over again.

And when you start making the better choice, look at what happens. You said it before, compound it. It's like compound interest. You stack them up one after the other, after the other, and you make better choices. All of a sudden these things compound. And when you ask, how do you fit it all in? Because they're all connected. The family, the fitness, the finance, the food, the fashion fund, there's no separation between any of them. You get in better shape, you want to dress a little

bit better. You get in better shape, you dress a little better, you want to show up a little better for your family. I want to let you know something real quick. The better. You get in better shape, you dress a little better, you want to show up a little better for your family. I want to let you know something real quick. The better shape I get and the less clothes I'm wearing. Okay. Exactly.

You go and ask my neighbors. I'm the guy that doesn't ever have a shirt on. Kind of feels a little creepy sometimes when the kids come to the cul-de-sac. That's the only time the shirt goes on.

Every time else, I'm the half-naked dude outside trying to play kickball. And all the other dads wish shirt goes on. Every time else, I'm the half-naked dude outside trying to play kickball. And all the other dads wish they could be. Right. Right. Every time. I have no problem with that.

And if you check out my Instagram, okay, I'm with you on that. But I think it's back to that. One, that's pride. That's discipline. You can't buy that. You know, they talk about now the real CEO flex is not the watches and the cars and the yachts. It's being able to take your shirt off and feel good about yourself. Amen.

I mean, that's what you can't buy. You look at these guys like Bezos. You look at these guys like, you know, Zuckerberg right now in his 40s. You look at. Zuckerberg's on the juice. I don't care what anybody says that whatever yolk right now he's got whatever rolls he's got he's got trendy he probably went on the fashion part too he's got these trendy shirts on dude i know plenty of people on trt and they

still don't look like that so he's all right man good for him yeah it's bigger now there's a great article on the transformation of zuckerberg in the wall street journal today and it talks about what you're exactly saying look i mean the guy got on the health bandwagon yeah whether it's drt optimization maximization but he goes look here i am at 40 okay and i'm changing it up's not what you do when you got all that money, but you can also do this again, any age, any stage with or without money. What we're talking about is free. Doing pushups, doing squats.

Okay. Getting out in the park, getting yourself in good shape. You know, a $10 t-shirt looks great on a guy that's in shape that fits well. Better than a $100 t-shirt on a guy that looks like crap. You can't put lipstick on. No doubt. You know, it's not about the money aspect of things. You want to make more money,

I'll tell you, you can make more money when you get yourself in better shape. You have pride, you have discipline, you have consistency, you have accountability. That will show up in your bank account. No doubt. You can't disconnect these things. If I think about my own personal experience

about kind of what makes me happy, the model I usually operate on is health, wealth, and relationships, which if you're in the kind of the information marketing world, those are kind of the big three mega niches that people tend to, once they make their own choices

about how they want to be educated, health, wealth, and relationships seem to be like the big buckets. But if I look at your six Fs, family, fitness, finance, food, fashion, and fun, if I think about my own experience, at this point in my life, you got three little kids, run a business, very busy, et cetera. Friends, friends is like the missing link in my life. You're meeting all of them right now with me. Yeah. I see my friends over Zoom on occasion.

In real life, seeing my friends is pretty sparse. How does interacting with real friends play into all this? I put friends in the family bucket. Friends and family, I put them in that bucket. My best friends are our family there. And I can't choose family, but you can't choose your friends. I'm closer. Some of my friends are truly a family, really, really, really, really are. You know, something that you also touched on, Doug, that I think is really true. I mean, at the stage that you're in too, my boys are now 21 and 18. So we got a lot

of time. You got a lot of time back you know my schedule my day like you talked about travis also these things have changed over the years you know for a long period of time we were just chasing my wife and i were two ships you know we're passing in the wind we're taking these kids everywhere we're doing anything our lives are like that you really you know you don't see your friends as often it's absolutely right you're focused on business and providing and being a good parent and being around and then you also inherit these other people. You inherit like the other dads from the schools or the play groups, or some of your wife's friends, or maybe as they get older in the leagues and the teams that they're playing on. And you don't always, they're not your people.

They're around. Maybe you click with a lot of them, but they're not like your people overall. And I think the geographic boundaries are gone. Some of my best relationships now are over Zoom. They're guys that are spread out all over the country, but they're like-minded guys. And I know what they're doing every day. And we can go days, weeks, months without speaking. But when we reconnect, it's like, okay, I know Doug's doing the work. I know Andrew's doing the work. They're still my North Star. They're still inspiring. We can put some things on the calendar. Hey, we'll get together every quarter or we'll do this.

Now they might be nearby. I used this example last week. I used to invite people over to work out with me every Sunday. I opened my garage up every Sunday. Door goes up at 9.30. All I ask, you're either there or you're not there. It's completely scalable for anybody. That's it. Come one, come all. We take out all the toys. I used to invite guys over all the time. Again, the guys from Little League, the dads from the school, guys that I worked with, everything else. Nobody showed. They tell me.

Almost nobody showed. Wow. Almost nobody showed for a while. Then, of course, I felt I was tired of getting rejected. I felt like the outlier. I was trying to make these changes and do it. You can't, you know,

try and get people to jump on the bandwagon or be with me. And they, and they didn't want to. People, not bad people, but just not the right, they weren't into what I was into. You know, it started happening every Sunday. I'd put the garage door up. I'd just start doing the work. And then one Sunday, somebody drove by and said, can I join you? Are you a trainer? And then a couple, and then other people, okay. And then those people a trainer? And then a couple and then other people. And then those people had friends. And then I started going to other gyms and taking classes and getting around because I wanted to be around this feeling that I had, and get involved in more community. And I met people there. And what happened also a lot of those places were closed on Sundays.

So guys, come on over. And that's what started happening. And now we have between, you know, five and 15 people that show up in my house on Sunday mornings. And we attract and repel exactly what we deserve. What does your garage look like? 15 people. That's a big old garage. So it's actually, it worked out a little bit well. One, the garage is a decent size. Two, I've got this half basketball court in my backyard. I'll send you a picture of it that we built for my boys. And we can pull a bunch of equipment out there too. And then the last piece is I actually live across the street from a shopping center.

Because I had built a gym in that shopping center years ago. It was a passion business project, a rowing studio. So I bought a house 400 meters. It was literally a 400 meter run from the shopping center to the front door of my gym. So I bought a house 400 meters. It was literally a 400 meter run from the shopping center to the front door of my gym. So I didn't always have a garage gym. COVID was when I built it out because I had sold the gym, built out the garage, but I'm still close to this parking lot. So we can throw the sleds in the parking lot, all the other stuff. So we've got like a big area and people just kind of drive back and forth sometimes and just look and they're like

what are these people doing on sunday mornings out there getting jacked what are you doing exactly we're doing uh we're doing the best we can you know that's uh that's our sunday sermon i guess as they say all right so so kind of a slow build but like but building a community in this case based on uh a love and passion for health and fitness is it's kind of the solution to seeing your friends and when you're when you're too busy to do anything else yes i mean in in one way i think it's also being guarded and and valuing your time also one i like this notion of sweat working over networking. I don't have time to do both, quite frankly, separately. I've swapped a lot of those later nights. I don't drink anymore. So early mornings have taken the place of that. And yet, has it cost me some friends? Yeah. Did it cost me some clients

from all? Yes. Have they been replaced? I think with a higher quality and more like-minded individual clientele. So yes, I think those things happen for, for a reason. But I'm also at this, at this stage too, I don't have the same sense of urgency, you know, to see people all the time or as frequently, or I'm not maybe as needy and maybe even as insecure as it was. I still am. Um, but maybe not as much, you know, there's, I just appreciate the open space more. And I think that quality over quantity is really, really important.

So maybe just being more intentional with kind of who I spend my time with, where I spend my time. And the last piece I'll add to it is now like, like you guys, I'm on all the time. You know, with the coaching and the speaking and the podcasting and the writing, like by Friday, like I'm talked out, man. Like we stay in my wife, we grill Fridays, we stay in, hang out. Most times it's Saturday nights too. You know, I see

Saturday mornings, we go to the farmer's market and see our friends in the industry, you know, all the purveyors of all the stuff that we like, the meat and the food and the bread and the fish and all that. And Sundays we train a little bit and maybe that's 50. I don't know. You know, 50, 51, 52. I don't know. This is what's working right now.

Plus it's an individual thing, you know, like I know with me, I'm with Doug, you know, like getting that quality time with, you know, my friends, luckily you guys, I see you the most. And then my, my best friend, KJ, that I talk about a lot. Like we, there's a moment where he called me and he's like, you got to answer my phone call. Like he's like, you know,

we, it hurts me. And he was like really intentional about telling me, you know, like, man, you got to call me back and we got to talk. I need you.

And then from that moment, that was like last year. And then he had this health scares like this. He had this melanoma, you know, his mother died pretty early of cancer so it's it was a big shocking scare for me and like it that's when i started getting more intentional with all my friends like when they call me i pick the phone up and like um so you

know like your six your success just like that needs maybe fit in there and it depends on the person you know for me like that's a big one well there and it depends on the purse you know for me like that's a big one well that's more than a lot of things you know like again knowing what's what's most important who are the people in your life that are most important to you exactly like still i'm with you the my wife and kids uh that is important i feel like i do that one good it's just a lot of the other f's I'm going to be working on. I mean, that's where it ranks. It's like, okay, priority one, you know, priority one, wife and kids, you know, providing where's the bandwidth for how many people and which types of people. And again, you're curating down to that, you know, this, this happens and loneliness

is real, you know, for, for guys, you know, we get on this wheel, you know, and, and again, we get in this wheel you know and again we get in this wheel we go after all this stuff and then 5 10 15 years goes by and you look around you go wait a minute like it's lonely at the top you know like who's around yeah i want my people back i want the right people you know around and we get hit up for so much wasteful interaction to, Hey, I want to pick your brain or, you know, you have any free time, let's meet for coffee, you know, or let's do this. And it's like, I don't have any free time, valuable time. I don't have any free time. Right. Who we choose to give it to is really, really important. Right. I feel like for people like that, if they would just learn that if you want time with someone, create a value, have something of value, and then they'll want to be, you don't have to ask me at that point.

I'll probably ask you. And you can give them windows of opportunity. This is kind of, I think, kind of interesting too. You can give them windows of opportunity and see if they take it. Hey, you know, absolutely. Listen, I'm happy to meet you. I'm going to be at this gym at 7 a.m. every Tuesday morning. Come and meet me, okay? And we can grab coffee for five minutes or 10 minutes on the way out.

Yeah. You know how many people pass up that opportunity? If you're too damn lazy to get up at 7 a.m., then yeah. No, let me, oh, what you were asking was you'd like me to reorganize my entire schedule. Around you. Right. Because you'd want me to. But instead, if I tell you exactly where I'm going to be, when I'm going to be there and give you the slightest opening for you to earn the opportunity

to have some time, you won't take advantage of it. Then you won't be the person I want to talk to anyway. Exactly. Exactly. I can tell you, meet me 9.30 in my garage and the doors open every Sunday. You are the guy who won't come. Then you'll be asking people for opportunities your whole life and you'll never take them. Go back to it. There you go. Don't look yourself in the mirror.

It's like, do I want to give this person that or not? You know, this stuff, it's not that hard. The hard part is having the conviction to stick with it. Right. To not feeling like you have to please everybody, to acquiesce, you know, that you're a bad guy for saying, I'm sorry, like, I just don't have time for that right now. Or unfortunately, that's not a priority to me at the moment. Or how about, you know what, I'm in fourth quarter right now and I'm 20% behind my goals. Talk to me in January. Okay. Because I'm heads up to make sure I finished the year as strong as I said I was going to and start the next year off on the right foot. Anybody who's super successful,

efficient, effective, productive, healthy, wealthy, they should be hard to reach yes i respect that i respect the nose like anybody gives me too easy of a simple of a yes like i almost question that no doubt why you have so much time yeah yo curious you you said a stat a second ago, 80% of your goals or whatever it was. And then earlier, you said something about getting to 80% of your son's sports activities or whatever events he's taking part in. To what extent do you have like a personal dashboard and or do you like keep metrics on these things that are most important to you? Yeah. So in some areas, very much so in other areas, not so much. And I'll open that up. So like, for example, I don't count calories. I don't count macros. Okay. I don't track any of that stuff as far as my workouts or anything go. I tend to this point to go on feel, go by what I look like in the mirror. I have enough spreadsheets and enough things to track, you know, narrow, narrow and deep, you know, there on that stuff, I stay pretty shallow and wide.

I put things on the calendar specifically that I'm training for. And then I kind of reverse engineer back to like, okay, what kind of shape do I need to be in to climb this mountain? What kind of shape do I need to be in to do high rocks, that kind of stuff. But I don't track that stuff in any detail. When it comes to my family, when it comes to the finance side of things, I track that stuff really, really carefully. And even still, though, not necessarily down to the penny to micromanage, but go, okay, here's the framework or here are the standards. You know, I need to have enough to do what I want, when I want, with who I want for as long as I want. Okay. So what does the portfolio look like? How much is invested?

How much is coming in? Where are we with, you know, I've got one son in college. I've got another one that's a senior in high school. Where are we with the, what is the, you know, what does the runway look like? Paying attention to that. So I allocate time for that every week to go narrow and deep into that area. On the family side of things, also games to attend, visits to our son who's in Colorado at college, family vacations. Those things are measured and quantifiable. Say, okay, we have a standard and a standard there that we want to spend two months out of the year together. You know, at this point, they can't be consecutive. So like, when you add up the vacations,

the time and the trips, but like our goal is, okay, we want to spend two months a year together as a family, because they say when your kids hit 16, you have already spent, and there's 80% of the time you'll ever spend with your kids. I might be butchering the stat a little bit, but by the time your kids are 18 years old, I think it's like 90 something percent. Yeah. You have spent like something percent of all the time you're ever going to spend with your kids. And I take that stat and I show it to my boys all the time and go, we are going to be in the other side. We want to be in the minority. We want to be in that small percentage of people who are beating the stat.

So here's how we're going to do it. So that stuff I take too seriously. And that's back to more of the holistic metric of success. Does that cost me money? I'm sure it does. You know, did it for years back in my own. Could I have had a bigger book of business? Yeah. Would I have had to stay at the office later? You know what I've had to miss a lot of those games, not coach some of those teams. You know, I had a partner in my firm

tell me at one point, he said, you know, I haven't been out of the office for more than two weeks in a row in the last nine years. And I had to stop him for a second. I said, wait a second. Are you telling me this because you're proud of it? Or are you telling me this because you're ashamed of it? Yeah. That's going to affect how I answer you. Right.

What was his answer? He was proud of it. And the expectation was, hey, you're not pulling your weight, Greg, as a partner. The point he was trying to make is you're not pulling your weight. We're going here. We're doing this. These are the sacrifices we're making. And you're not willing to make them.

No, I'm not. I'm not. And that's why when we sell and we exited, you made a shit ton more money than I did. You paid the price. You earned that. I left early. I said, this was enough. I would be with you. I will not, I will not sacrifice time with my family, not for anything or anyone will not. So, and you know, it depends. Look, here's the other thing. And then they say that it depends. It's not, we always want to put our family and stuff first, but go back a minute. Also, you know, when my kids were younger,

when I was in my thirties, you know, there's that time to hustle and grind more. Sure. Oh, I totally agree with you. It changes in stages. You know, it's not that your priorities have changed but what you need to do to meet your priorities change adapts over time right communication becomes more important the older they get for sure when they're young it's like they're just young and like they don't remember how to say anyway but as they get older it's cool my son just turned 10 just having conversations that are meaningful is like so much fun to me. It's like, I love the treasure of those moments.

It's awesome. I mean, it really is. I say all the ages and stages are amazing. They're all different. All the cliches and stereotypes are true. And I can't believe that my youngest is a senior in high school and next year will be empty nesters. And what is that page turning?

Greg, this has been fantastic. I think you're on mute right now. There you go. Where can people find you? Where can people find the podcast? Midlifemail.com. You can go to midlifemail.com. I know, I love it.

You know, subscribe to the newsletter. We drop it every Sunday. The podcast is there too. As I mentioned before, you'll get that How to Maximize Midlife Guide dropped in there. I think we're doing some really, really interesting stuff with some really amazing guys right now and covering those Fs every week. And we've just been really, really fortunate to be in a position where men like yourselves are out there that want to share their wisdom and want to share their experiences and want to pay it

forward. And we try not to give advice, try to share experiences. And again, let our, let our readers, you know, really think for themselves and say, Hey, what's going to work for me? You know, but can we, can we challenge, can we press, can we innovate, you know, can we, can we put things out there? So, you know, that's, that's what we're doing. I love it, man. Coach Travis Mash. Mashlead.com. We're about about to we're bringing back our online team so it's going to be super cool everyone's going to get their own velocity-based training or you can read all my articles on gym wear gymwear.com that's right doug larson right on greg dude i

resonate with basically everything you said just now so you uh You hit the sweet spot coming on this show. I am your avatar. You guys have done amazing, amazing work. It's a privilege to be here. Anytime I get a chance to chop it up with guys like you is freaking awesome. So don't be strangers. We're all trying to help people that are out there. And I just started following all you guys too. I've been listening to the show. So keep going, man. It's better together. You know, we're all doing this. Yeah, absolutely.

I'll be checking out your podcast here later this week. You can find me on Instagram, Douglas E. Larson. There you go. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner. And we are Barbell Shrugged, Barbell underscore Shrugged. Make sure you go over to RapidHealthReport.com. That is where you're going to find a free case study about our boy TJ. Cut his cholesterol in half, got super ripped in the process, and Men's Health and Apple News ran an awesome case study for us,

which is really nice. You can access that free case study over at rapidhealthreport.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.