Barbell Shrugged - The Relationship Between Physical, Mental, and Behavioral Health w/ Johnny Martin, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson - Barbell Shrugged #452

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Host the One Ton Challenge at your gym: http://shruggedstrengthgym.com   Learn more about FitOps at http://fitops.org   In today’s episode the crew discusses why behavioral health is at the forefront of health and wellness and how to implement it into your program.   The global crisis of mental and behavioral health Why PTSD is so prevalent and how to help The difference in reacting and responding  Taking ownership of your life and the outcomes How to help others find purpose How to carry out a mental and behavioral health program for people in need  And more…   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   John Martin on Instagram   TRAINING PROGRAMS   One Ton Challenge   One Ton Strong - 8 Weeks to PR your snatch, clean, jerk, squat, deadlift, and bench press   20 REP BACK SQUAT PROGRAM - Giant Legs and a Barrel Core   8 Week Snatch Cycle - 8 Weeks to PR you Snatch   Aerobic Monster - 12 week conditioning, long metcons, and pacing strategy   Please Support Our Sponsors   Paleo Valley  - Save 15% at http://paleovalley.com/shrugged   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   PRx Performance - http://prxperformance.com use code “shrugged” to save 5%   http://kenergize.com/shrugged use Shrugged10 to save 10%   Masszymes http://maszymes.com/shrugged use Shrugged to save 20%

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Save 20% on your Mass Dynes friends. This is my buddy Johnny Martin. We share a very mutual friend named John Cena. And Cena put us in touch together. To do this show. And he's a big piece of the FitOps operation that we were down in Arkansas hanging out with. So enjoy the show. Johnny Martin's the man.

We've got one more sponsor at the break. Welcome to BarbellStock. I'm Anders Varner. Doug Larson. Yeah. Johnny Martin. Yeah, let's go. Behavioral health.

Dude, I love the fact that we actually get to sit down and do this. We've been tracking each other for like three years now. John Cena put us in touch. And I know why he put us in touch now. As do I. It makes a lot of sense. It seems so easy. I feel like I should have met you a decade ago. I know. But the reason

we are here, we're down in Northwest Arkansas. There's no real name of it, just Northwest Arkansas. Undisclosed location. Undisclosed location at a kids camp. Truly. The FitOps Foundation, raising money, raising awareness, and giving military vets with PTSD a future

in the training business. And you have found yourself in the behavioral health, mental health aspect of this from meeting the vets where they're at today yeah um kind of creating and reshaping some of the stories that they have um where did you get into this this world and um why were you the one that they chose yeah so uh first of all it's awesome to be on with both of you guys i certainly echo what you share share in that we've talked for so many years

now through John and I followed your pick that back up just a little bit. There you go. There it is in front of your mouth right there. Awesome. Followed your guys's stuff for a long time. So for us to be able to you can tell when you connect with like minded people that getting together and meeting is essential. And so I'm glad it's finally happened. And I'm so appreciative you guys are willing to come down and share this experience. For me, it happened honestly by accident. I have been involved in the mental health field primarily as a school counselor for the last 21 years. So I have a background in mental health.

And with the adolescent population and their families, you know, the issues that arise with the kiddos varies. And it just really depends on so many different factors. But I have always, always been drawn towards why people think, feel and act the way that they do. And I think the most growth comes professionally and personally when you're working to practice the same things that you're working with your clients on, right? The space is no different for you guys. You host and have a huge platform of a podcast by which you talk about strength and conditioning, all things physicality, but you have to practice it. So for the last really five to 10 years in earnest, I've really been looking at myself more closely than I've ever looked at myself in my life.

And in turn, I've realized I've gotten much better at working with the kids and clients and families I serve. So, you know, fast forward to about a year ago, I was in New York City with John. It was WrestleMania weekend. And you know how John's schedule is. He's all over the place. So we had a chance to go to Performix House, which you guys are familiar with Performix House. Had a chance to go up there.

I knew it was going to be sort of a meet and greet for John and to do some stuff with the Performix brand, but I really just wanted to go get a workout in. I had no idea. FitOps was going to have a space there. I had no idea uh fit ops was going to have a a space there i had no idea about the presentation i was going to see just you know tagging along get a good workout and meet some new people and create another experience so i went to uh performance house and that's when i met uh bobby summers who um you so you met him first before matt and team yeah cool so i you know you guys know how it is in the business space matt was super busy when i So you met him first before Matt and team. Yeah. Cool.

So, you know, you guys know how it is in the business space. Matt was super busy when I got up there. Yeah. It was a very brief, hey, how you doing? Nice to meet you. Thanks for allowing me in your gym. But then, you know, they went off and did their business, and I kind of just moved around, got a sweat going. And then Bobby ended up speaking, sharing his story.

This is Chef Bobby? Yeah. got a sweat going and then bobby ended up speaking sharing his story and sharing the story this is chef bob yeah so so chef bobby here on camp where you guys have met and i'll have a chance to talk to um he'll be one of the best sit downs you i mean it won't be specific to the strength and conditioning space but man you talk about just authentic growth through discomfort, he epitomizes it. So he speaks, and part of the surprise that Matt wanted to present with Bobby for coming to New York and speaking to all of his staff at Performance House was for John to walk out. I remember every piece of what you're talking about. Yeah, so it was pretty amazing to watch. So Bobby, who's a Purple Heart vet, had two major incidents in Iraq in 03 and 04 when he opened up Iraq.

He shares this story, but really the strength isn't from the deployment. The strength isn't from what he experienced in war. What I was drawn to from a psychological perspective is the amount of grit this guy showed afterwards. And every time he fell down, his willingness to get back up and continue to grind and fight. So I'm watching this guy. Never met him in my life. I'm crying.

And I'm crying because, A, what a blessing it is to watch this. Because, shit, man, if you can't get better by drawing inspiration from someone else who's been through way more in my life, in his life, than I've been through in mine. So I'm crying. And the only thing I could think to do afterwards was I walked up to him. I introduced myself. And I said, I just want you to know I love you. And if there's anything I can ever do, I don't know what that is. But just know that I'll answer the call. I'll answer the phone every time you call I won't have all

the answers but we'll find them together and just know you have another support system that's how the relationship with he and I started um did you even know outside of like that ceremony or that kind of meeting with Sina and being there and the presentation, did you know what FitOps was, that Sina was working on it, anything? The only thing I knew is, you know, John and I talk all the time. So he talked a little bit about what FitOps was, you know, and that he was, you know, in initial talks with Matt, founder and CEO of FitOps, to kind of see where the relationship was going to progress in moving forward.

But, you know, you know how John is. He's all over the place. And I've been to so many different events with him. I figured it was just another one of those events. Like, he's good enough to bring his buddy along to experience what he gets to experience. Was yours on there? No. He didn't come?

No. WrestleMania weekend he typically doesn't come to. Yeah, a little bit too much fun. Well, you know, I do bring him to some other events, but not yet, not that one. So, no, that's when I was introduced to Fit Ops. I learned about Fit Ops through Matt's introduction of Bobby and then through my conversation with Bobby. So I gave him my number.

We exchanged information, and there really has not been a day that has gone by since that day that we haven't communicated. I'm now the godfather to his daughter. Oh, wow. I mean, so you talk like it's amazing. Yeah. It was one of those moments in life where people talk all the time about life changing moments. Right. Yeah.

For a lot of the people we share space with, those moments occur sometimes underneath the barbell or in pushing themselves in a race or challenging themselves physically. But for me, it was one of those moments where I was like, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the military, but for me, it wasn't just because he was in the military. It was the power of his story is what really attracted me to the foundation. So then subsequently, you know, long story short, had a chance to talk to Matt, told him a little bit about what I did, was very transparent with him. Listen, I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist. My background is in counseling. My work over the last 10 years outside the school has been around leadership development, growth, human performance on the

mental side. If there's anything I can do, I'd love to be able to help. I went to Arkansas a year ago for the first camp they invited me to. Just asked if I could present. Did a presentation on sort of filling the pages of your book with the shit that's most important for you yeah um some employable skills from the military that transfer response was really good and I've been coming back ever since yeah what is like the the training that goes into becoming a counselor and I maybe not even the training but some is it kind of like a system that you develop over time of 20 years in the in the field like where does that system start from meeting somebody on day one sure and how do we build trust and start creating not unraveling the past is like we have to deal with that but making a step to

move forward yeah i mean it's such a you bring up such a great point, too. When people are hurting in any way and they reach out to somebody for help and they view that person as a professional, their pain in that moment, whatever it is, whether it's trauma, whether it's mental health, their pain in that moment is very real, it's very powerful, and they want it to go away quickly. Yeah. And so every credentialed psychologist, therapist, counselor, this whole life coaching movement has gotten really big, performance coaching. I think like any other good coach, we know we're not going to fix it on day one yeah and the most important thing you just you just echoed it is establishing a relationship based on trust yeah so my approach is i try to be

as transparent as i can especially with the veteran population that i'm so blessed to work with they're very good at seeing right through the bullshit yeah and so i think it's critically important that i am absolutely up front with them honest with them and and my big thing with them is getting them to understand that all of the data that they've compiled like us guys or anybody else on the planet we come we compile this data from the day that we're born. Yeah. So when we meet with trauma, obstacles, anxieties, the word of the day, right? We think that if we just talk to somebody once, there's this magic recipe for change.

Yeah. I am a huge believer in finding joy in the process. I think people skip the process because the process is really, really hard. I tell people all the time, the recipe is super simple. Right? The recipe is super simple. But the work is really, really hard. It's transferable to anything that we do in our life.

So I really start with that premise. Like if I'm the guy that you want to talk to and you think you're going to feel better over the long term based on one hour we spend together, I'm going to let you down. I'm probably not the guy for you. If anybody sells you on the fact that they're going to make you better

after an hour, I would be very skeptical of them as well. not the guy for you if anybody sells you on the fact that they're gonna make you better after an hour i would be very skeptical of them as well yeah so it's about getting your clients your athletes your people i think to find joy in the process joy in doing the work yeah right like nine o'clock last night you put me on the squat rack. That's hard work. Yeah. But, man, is there so much joy in that. Yeah.

Right? And so we have to look at our mental health and changing that data the same way. Yeah. And understanding that it's not just because

one day is awesome. Right? You didn't build that data overnight. You can't build that data overnight. You can't change that data overnight. Yeah. And I think one of the really interesting things that I've noticed, and it's kind of like the base of the talk that I'm giving tomorrow,

I've been dying to just talk to you slightly about it because we get to have this cool moment tomorrow night, is shifting people's viewpoints and being able to objectively view how much attention they spend on things that are unhealthy in their lives and we were talking a little bit about it on the way over here we met a kid that's clearly has a lot going on but it has become his identity because he pays so much attention to the injuries and the problems and the seizures and this and that and everything as soon as he looks bad he instantly like diverts to oh that's my problem and it's the hardest thing to get to the base of the pyramid saying your attention is the most

important thing you have and if you can shift that to something positive or start reading something that gives you an advantage or gives you a little bit of a leg up to move in the right direction and it's really hard to get people to objectively view how much time and energy they focus on the negative aspects of where they're at so i think what you just highlighted is really the the crux of what prevents people from continuing to grow, right? Neurologically, as people, since the beginning of time, we are designed neurologically to stay in a place that is safe and comfortable. Even if that place of safety and comfort is chaos, is anxiety, that becomes our normal.

What we feed is what continues to grow. Right? It has to grow. You're constantly growing. Right. But growth is not always positive. You could be growing the wrong thing. Yeah.

And so the example you just gave, and really the crux of the work I do, like if you really strip it all down, you could, a psychologist could point to different pieces of the work that we all do in different arenas and tie it to psychological principles easily. But at the end of the day, what you just spoke on, Anders, is precisely what prevents people from growing, in my experience. Our story, whatever it is, whatever story we feed the most, whatever story is most powerful, that's the story that defines us. In the same way, you guys have worked with the most elite athletes in the world right if one of those athletes gets a devastating career-ending injury for a lot of those athletes if you sat down with

them and asked them tell me who you are how would you define johnny martin or Anders Varner, tell me who you are. Yeah. What would they say? Yeah, be hard for them. I'm an athlete or whatever. I'm an athlete. I was the best whatever I was. No, no, it's not what I asked. In this

moment, as we sit here together, there's no rewind button in life. Great. Great accomplishments. You should be very proud of life. Like, great, great accomplishments. You should be very proud of those. But now you can't move. Who are you today? Do you no longer have any value because you can't do what you did with a bar?

You can't run like you ran before, right? So we find and see the same thing with our veterans. They are defined, right? They're our world's best warriors. They just happen to live in the same country we live in. We're blessed to have the finest fighting force on planet Earth. When that service ends. Who are they?

Who are you? Right? Yeah. service ends who are they who are you right yeah i had a vet say to me last year and this was another one of those moments where i knew i'm going to do this work for as long as they'll have me he spoke to me privately and he said johnny man i'm really trying to wrap my head around this stuff that you're sharing with us but i'm struggling bad so i said what's up he's like when i finished my deployments uh in the middle east and this guy was an operator he was outside the wire he was running and gunning and he saw a lot and he did a lot and he said one of my command staff said to me when I was leaving the Middle East, you're one of the best warriors I've ever had the opportunity to lead,

but now is the hard part. Now you have to suffer in silence. And he started crying, and he said, I don't want to suffer in silence. I don't even want to suffer, but I don't know how not to. That is precisely what we are looking to identify, and not just me. The foundation is supported by, not just internally,

supported by just phenomenal people. But we also have to outsource, and we have to reach out to the best and brightest to continue to help us with that fight. But it goes back to what we were just talking about before in that i am a warrior i am a war fighter yeah that's what i do that's who i am on that note i've heard people coach coach their athletes or their students or they're mentoring somebody and when they're they're kind of consciously coaching them on identity,

where if you are an athlete and you blow your knee out, then all of a sudden now you work a regular job, you're not an athlete anymore, you have that identity level issue about who the hell am I, it's happening with the soldiers like you're talking about. Absolutely. And they coach their people, their students, so to speak, on identifying with character traits versus kind of external labels. So if you identify as a

person who um who enjoys physical challenges or you identify as a person who um who just likes to work hard i'm i am a i'm a person who fucking always gives 100 effort sure that's how you identify that now now it's transferable so many different areas. And I think your point is such a great one, and we share that with our vets too. I tell the vets all the time, you are the same warrior that you were in the military. You're the same warrior. Your mission is just different. When you think about the word service, right, all these guys and gals you guys have seen the last day that you'll spend the next two days with. When they joined the service, for a lot of them, it was just that.

To be a part of something that is bigger than me. To give back, right? That's for a lot of them. That's why they did it. Okay. Do you have to wear a uniform to be of service to your fellow man? Right? Do you have to have had a combat deployment to be a warrior?

There's a lot of reading out there around the warrior spirit right well the warrior spirit isn't defined by whether or not you were in the army or a united states marine or a sailor right so what we work a lot on with these guys doug is exactly what you just talked about like what do you love right not not this is who i am but what do you love? Right? How can we take those soft skills and help them become transferable into the workplace, back in their family system, in their communities, where they feel like unless they get connected with a group of veterans, where they feel like nobody understands what they've gone through or nobody understands the skill set they bring to the table because as strong as they are in so many ways just like the rest of us we're all cloaked in insecurity yeah right the reason i walked into a gym for the first

time at 13 years old was because i was i had braces braces. My face was full of zits. I was skinny as hell. I loved playing football and I was picked on every day. And I'm like, okay, I need to do something different. Right? Like something has to change. Something has to change. I got to grow. So we're all cloaked in insecurities.

A lot of these guys and gals, as you've seen and will continue to see, are some of the most beautiful people in hearts and minds that I've ever met a lot of these guys and gals, as you've seen and will continue to see, are some of the most beautiful people in hearts and minds that I've ever met in my life. But they feel like other people don't see that. Well, you've said the word a couple times, and I think it's one of the most important pieces to this development is the word love. And it's very hard for people i think to one know what that means if they've never like truly felt it or they don't feel it for themselves and then accepting it from other people and that is really when like the the alignment of your life brings in fulfillment and

when you're doing something you love for other people and they love you back for that work, that is the thing that actually, to me, when they're inside FitOps over the next three weeks, they're surrounded by people that love them. It's a strange thing for these people, I would imagine, to walk in here and go, holy shit, everyone here is on my team. It's probably the first time they've felt it in a very long time and that's why in a way like this whole thing works is this foundation that you kind of create of trust and love of being able to get a kid in here or adults um and just say hey whatever you're going through we just got to move forward but we we got you. Yeah. And I think that piece, just like what you guys have already spoken on

and you're both so spot on, is it's not just the acceptance of love as we know it and we – I'm a guy who freely gives it out because, A, I believe it guy who freely gives it out because A, I believe it's going to come back to you. Yeah. And it's a much, for me, a much healthier way to live my life. Yeah. I would rather take the time, regardless of where you come from,

I don't care how much money you make, what your background is, what your obstacles have been. That shit doesn't matter to me, right? We're all sharing the same space. If you tell somebody that you love them, if you tell them that you love them, you may change their day for 10 minutes or an hour, but if through your actions you show somebody that you love them, there's a huge difference between saying and showing, right? I think we get hung up on the word love, especially males,

because there's this connotation that we're alphas and we're gym guys and we don't throw that shit around. If you tell somebody that you care or tell somebody that you love them, you may change their day for 10 minutes or an hour. But if you show them, if you show them, that's where trust is developed, and that's where love is reciprocal, I think. Right? We can say all we want.

Anders Varner and Doug and Barbell Shrugged can say, we really care about FitOps and we really want to learn more about this foundation. But, you know, instead, we're coming to FitOps. Yeah. And we're going to get on ground with you guys, and we're going to show, not say, we are going to show you how much we care. That was the thing that really stood out to me

when I talked to Kyle on the phone, is that the insecurities. It was like we talked training, and he was just, like, bouncing off the walls, super excited, and as soon as we started to get into, like, the actual business side of him becoming a trainer, getting clients, the insecurities crept in. The imposter syndrome shows up.

He doesn't really know how he's going to talk to people. And that was really like the place where I realized, oh, there's a real spot for us to be down there because we've, we all feel that the difference is, is like, I have created a coping mechanism in a way of just assuming I'm going to show up from a place of love and just be happy and fill the room with that. And it'll cover up all of the other feelings because you just, once you, once you put it out there, once everyone feels it, then the trust begins. And that's because you just, once you put it out there, once everyone feels it,

then the trust begins. And that's how you can, like I was just on the phone with him saying, look, dude, all you need to do is know that that person is already more insecure about their life,

their health, their body. That's why they're coming to you. Because they're coming to you to ask for your help. Like think about how hard that must be for somebody to admit that they cannot control their life. They can't control the future of their health.

And they need you to do it. And all they're asking is for you to love them back. That's right. Help them. And it just, the next day, he started his job. And he had two or three clients

by the end of the week. And I don't know where or what's going on with him now, but it was like, that's where I really felt like there was a piece for us to be down here to like really be able to just keep sharing strength and it's about that's right and it's about repetition and and giving these guys and gals the understanding that failure is such an important part of the process and the daily work and not only is an important part it's inevitable and it's essential yeah remember though when you have a group of people that for years in some cases i mean we have vets in this room right now over two decades of their

life have been spent in uniform that means i'm told where to go when when to go, what to do, how to execute, what our fail-safes are if we don't. And I have a team of people around me that are going to ensure that this job gets done. Now, I've got this unbelievable love for fitness. But now I'm transitioning into a civilian world where a few things present themselves that I think add to that insecurity and really make it a fearful place, right? Yeah. And this is why it prevents anybody, but especially this population, from really growing the way that they're capable of growing

because their skill set is unbelievable. They don't view it as transferable from the United States Marine Corps or the United States Army to the civilian world, right? I was really, really good at my job when I was in uniform. Really good. I can't walk into Anders Varner's gym and take that same approach with clients who don't understand the world that I've just come from. So now what happens is they ignore all of the soft skills that they have that would make them so good at walking into a gym or a box or any one of those spaces and be really good.

But what do we do as people? We go back to that place that's safe and comfortable. What we continue to tell ourselves becomes our reality. I can't go. They'll never understand. Well, it's super lonely when you have to leave that world like this is actually something i is my favorite time um in in meeting people is in these transitionary phases like i'm so excited to talk to them tomorrow because i don't think any everybody in there right now thinks they're just a part of this thing and they don't

realize the power that they've taken on their own life to actually fill out the form and hit submit and then show up the hardest part right thousands and thousands of people that are searching the internet right now that have the exact same issues that they do that aren't here but they actually took the step they created the opportunity to be in the room to have the conversation and it's okay to realize that like yeah there's a little bit of us but when you get out of here it's going to be super lonely because you're at the bottom of the totem pole you're brand new just like when you started out in the military you're brand new but if you're okay and you don't go back to the old place and you just keep moving forward sooner or later you create your own niche own niche your own vibe

your own tribe and this is like the place where it starts and that's the hardest part not reverting back to that old place because that's what we're programmed to do it's easy it's safe and comfortable even if it's the shits it's what we're used to so i mean there's so, everything that you bring up is, is leads me to think about something else, but this population, when you get a chance to speak with them tomorrow and present, you're going to see that everything that we're talking about is so spot on with where they're at. But now you take some of these folks, like I said, they've been in, in uniform 10, 15, 20 years, some of them. And remember some of them right now are I said, they've been in uniform 10, 15, 20 years, some of them.

And remember, some of them right now are going back to home environments that are wonderful. Great family support. They've got great jobs, right? We don't ever want to paint the picture that the FitOps Foundation and what we're doing here is, like, nobody, nobody in that room back there. Nobody feels sorry for themselves, and they don't expect us to feel sorry for them either. That's why I love working with this population so much, because they have so much ingrained in them already relative to grit, perseverance. What we have to find a way to do is bridge that gap between the grit, the perseverance,

the camaraderie, the commitment that they all shared and all understand in uniform with what that would look like on a team with you two guys or with me. And that's the challenge. I think a lot of it, too, like when you're in the military, you have rank. You climb the ladder. It's very obvious. You go from this to this to this to this, and you can clearly see the upward mobility.

And it's just like being an athlete where it's like my times are getting better, my scores are getting better, my placement's getting better. Everything is better. And then you hit the end and you go, well, what's the next ladder to climb? And the next ladder is, well, you can go find your own ladder to climb, but what's going to help you get there is already all of the soft skills. Soft skills are so hard to connect with because you don't know that you're building them in the background to be because you don't know that you're building them

in the background to be able to climb to whatever rank you're getting to in the military that's right and when we don't accomplish them in the civilian world as quickly as we think we should yeah most people 95 of people they do what they give up they go back they quit yeah i'm chasing this thing i want it so bad well then you really get a chance to measure how badly you want it right when it's mission driven when it's team driven and mission driven you do the job that you're supposed to do and the team is going to accomplish that mission together now i i leave that structure i really want to get into the fitness space, which is very difficult space to break into and really make a living.

Yeah. Right. Like, so the notion that, wait a minute, you're telling me I can operate multimillion dollar pieces of equipment from the United States government at 20 years old, 21 years old. Yeah.

They put me behind the wheel of a multimillion-dollar piece of equipment, and now you're telling me where I need to start is at an ex-fitness facility making $15 an hour. Yeah. That's what you're telling me. Right? That's a tough pill to swallow. Yeah. PaleoValley.com forward slash shrugged.

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and continuously remind themselves, Kyle's a great example. Kyle's got all the tools. And just so everybody that's listening knows, Kyle's a guy that I connected with. Anders, he was great enough to take him on and take a conversation with him. He was a kid that left one of our other camps, had gotten out of the Navy. Phenomenal young man, great shape, super hungry. But I don't know enough about the business to help kyle on the way that i thought he could be helped but he's a perfect example like man i was really good at my job yeah but

how come nobody gives a shit about that now yeah you were really good at your job in a different space yeah right this is a new space i go back to what's safe and comfortable i can't do it i'm not gonna pay my dues all over again yeah right after 21 years i've been in the same job for 21 years scary as shit to think that maybe i won't do this anymore maybe this fit ops foundation is what i need to do the rest of my life scary yeah scary but where does the most growth come from right there's a huge difference i think people from from a psychological perspective your your story is so similar right you were working corporate like doing really well but that's the shit that was the easy way but but the journey afterwards that's the shit that is inspiring and that's the stuff that like you didn't die you're okay

there was a ton of failures along the way yeah but we have without getting too clinical and psychological our fear response in our brain comes from a part of the brain called the amygdala, right? That's where our fear response comes from. But what we don't understand is that we can very, very beautifully and gently learn to dance with that amygdala. There's a huge difference between standing on the cliff, right? And you can't see what's below the cliff on either side, but below one part of the cliff is a ledge, and it's only four or five feet down. So if you jump from that part of the cliff,

even though you can't see it, you're going to be scared shitless, but that's a safe, calculated jump. It still comes with fear. I'm still scared shitless because I have to trust, I have to trust that there's going to be a ledge right yeah the other part of the cliff when you jump there's no ledge you jump and you die yeah right the person that learns to understand that fear is such a natural part of growth yeah and our response to fear is what helps us grow anybody that says they're fearless is full of shit. It's psychologically impossible.

So when I listen to these people, I'm fearless. I'm not afraid of anything. It's garbage. We're not neurologically able to be free of fear. We can't. We talk about this all the time where we talk about meta emotions. Do you coach people on

meta emotions? A little bit, yeah. The whole concept to me is that you can't control your emotions at all. They simply arise in consciousness. It's 100% true. Like if you feel nervous or fearful or happy, like it's just there. It just shows up for you for whatever reason. Thoughts and feelings are completely out of our control. Right.

Neurologically impossible to control. Right. But how you feel about how you feel I do think is very much within your control. 100%. So to bring it back to what you said a second ago about basically all growth comes when you're outside your comfort zone. That's when it happens. And so if you are feeling like you're very uncomfortable because you're outside your comfort zone and you feel bad about yourself because you're labeling yourself as being a pussy or whatever negative thing you want to label yourself as versus saying, I'm really uncomfortable right now, but that's actually a good thing because that means growth is inevitable.

If you can have that reframe and control your meta emotions, then all of a sudden it's a whole new world. That's right. Sam Harris uses this example. If you have this really deep pain in your quads and you think it's from cancer, well, now you feel really bad. You're scared and whatever else. But if it's because you just did a set of 20 rep back squats, well, now you feel good about yourself because it's the same pain. That's right. But where it came from, how you label that pain, et cetera, et cetera, really influences your state of mind.

Without question. We live in a world right now that is driven by catastrophic thinking right the media drives it um if it's around us all the time when we have two choices right those two jumps no matter even if you know with 100 certainty on one side of that cliff. There is a ledge. You're going to be okay when you jump We as people have been programmed and have learned that both are equally bad I'm so i'm just not gonna jump I'm gonna take a step backwards Where if you're on the cliff and you shifted to the left 10 feet

And you learn to pivot and shift and you jumped you're completely safe you you were just talking a little bit Doug about the power behind self-talk and self-checks it's a huge part of the work that I do not just with my clients but a huge part of the work that I do on myself it was a psychologist older psychologist back home that I work with for a long time. I still see him. He's a phenomenal guy. But he gave me this very simple exercise that you can work on that most people skip the most important part.

If I say to you guys, based on what we've been taught in our lives if i say to you stimulus what follows stimulus response right so simple stimulus i.e that that fear provoking thought remember that we have no control over cannot control our thoughts and feelings stimulus pause yeah response Stimulus. Pause. Yeah. Response. We have been conditioned as a species to stimulus response. Stimulus response. I even like the word react as well. React is great. Where you just go.

Yes. Snap, whatever it is that comes to your mind. Of all the choices you could make. Even if it's terrible for us. Yeah. And it takes us years sometimes to realize, holy shit. your mind instead of all the choices you could make even if it's terrible for us yeah and it takes us years sometimes to realize holy shit i have been banging my head against the same wall yeah based on the same stimulus for years no wonder i'm not moving forward yeah that simple

when we do self-checks or self-talks some of my clients and i'm very fortunate that i get to work with i work with a lot of folks outside of my school setting so i work with a lot of uh really high performers high level athletes corporate folks that we bounce ideas off one another but it's a it is a huge huge piece if our fear controls us, right, if I believe that that ledge is endless, I'm not going to jump. So I've thought that through. Well, why wouldn't we do the same thing with other areas of our life that can allow for growth? Stimulus, pause, pause react as you said or respond respond is a better word it is you're choosing it's a choice the reaction is like

the quick first thing that pops into your brain of you're not even thinking about what's coming out it's just you're reacting and it's based on repetition that's why it's so hard for people to get out of their own way responding is empowering in a way right i get to choose how i go about because i've taken because i've taken the moment to think about what the most effective solution is for me in this situation yeah being able to pivot i think is just a huge skill it's like you know that we've heard the quote forever as we were growing up we're all of similar age practice makes perfect it's bullshit practice makes permanent right because yeah you guys teach the science of moving weight and the science of human movement and so if you

take if i go into the gym with you and you're my trainer and you've taught me something wrong repetitively and i think i'm killing it i'm training with anders varner like i'm yeah but i'm not being taught correctly well practice doesn't make perfect yeah it makes permanent and what we do as people it you know the rut that we all get in, that's why. It's like the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing repetitively and expecting a different result. How hard is it to get kids, or not even kids, but anyone, and since we're here, vets specifically,

how hard is it to get them to create a vision for themselves that's beyond tomorrow or beyond today and actually say, hey, in a decade, I'd like to be X. In a year, I'd like to have something. I'd like to be somewhere. That idea of creating a vision for yourself and having just like a true north of where you'd like to be aimed to create some sort of trajectory in your life of where you'd like to be aimed to create some sort of trajectory in your life of where you'd like to go. Do you find that very difficult here or just in general population? Yeah. So I think in this population, you actually have the most potential for upward growth because

these folks are all mission driven already. And there's a lot of different ways we can go with this part of the discussion. But short version is with this population of folks that we're so blessed to be able to work with, I think you can be way more effective because they understand, they have a really, really good understanding of why the moving parts matter at the end of the day. They understand why you're only as good tomorrow as the effort you put forth today. If we don't get mission A accomplished today, then mission B tomorrow might be very difficult to accomplish. And in their line of work, in their business, remember that mission is at the expense of human life yeah right it's not i screwed up the

back squat yesterday i gotta correct myself tomorrow and do some different movement because i don't want to get hurt their mission for a lot of these guys and gals has been completely driven around war so in terms of their ability to comprehend the process, the doing of the work, I think it's a phenomenal population to work with. The biggest challenge, I think, is what we've talked about for a lot of this discussion, which is how can I not see

or how can I not understand that the soft skills that I've learned in my experience in the military are very transferable into the civilian world and then the other piece is and you you touched on it I think it's an awesome point is that I knew if I did this this and this in the military which is very systematic I am going to become from an e1 I'm going to be an e2 and then I'm going to be an e3 and then I'm going to be an e4 if I do what I'm supposed to become, from an E1, I'm going to be an E2, and then I'm going to be an E3, and then I'm going to be an E4. If I do what I'm supposed to do, if I stay out of trouble, if I stay relatively fit, I'm going to keep climbing the ladder.

As we know, in the civilian world, especially when we're talking about dollars and cents, it doesn't work that way. Yeah. Right? This whole idea of fairness. Yeah, that's a tough one. Man, I mean, listen.

That's a word that should not exist. You know, John taught me. John's taught me. It's not fair that he was built like John Cena. Yeah. I should have been built like that. Yeah, right? Yeah, it's completely unfair,

but here's what no one could ever say about him, that he has not maximized all of his God-given gifts. That's the hardest working dude in the world. That I've ever met in my life. But we share this all the time through text. He's taught me so many lessons about growth in life along the way. if you can consciously remove the word deserve from your vocabulary and insert the word earn, you will be amazed at what you're willing to accomplish and what you're willing to work for. Because here's the thing.

We start throwing the word deserve around, right? And you could certainly make an argument that all of us in our lives have worked really hard, done some good things, and maybe we deserve the relative success that we're having right now. But the problem with the words like deserve and happy, I'm not a huge fan of that word. Uh, they are dependent on other people, places, and things. When I leave my growth up to other people, places, or things, I have given other people power that I could be investing in myself. Right? My attitude, my concentration, my effort has to be on the things that I can control. Present, in the moment, Northwest Arkansas at quarter of two in February, this is what

I can control. When we start saying I deserve this, that's dependent on other people. Yeah. You know what's really interesting about Cena is that I don't know, I'm sure this has been going on and you've known him significantly longer, but the stage of his life that I got to sit under a squat rack with him or sit around a squat rack with him was the transition out of wrestling and into entertainment. Sure.

And I don't think many people get to see the behind the scenes of the work. And for a freak chance in my life that he walked into my gym and I was oddly prepared to be there that day and work hard, and he saw that this was a good place to train. That's just who you are. Yeah, I mean mean all of it um but watching him work his way out and transcend wrestling into entertainment um he it doesn't matter if you're like in that room and you're at this camp and you're trying to get better or your name's john cena and one of the

most important questions that we were out to dinner one night and I was like, dude, how many people like say no to you nowadays? He was like, all the time. Are you kidding me? He's like, I wouldn't be working hard if people just said yes to me. He's like, I wouldn't be pushing the limits. I wouldn't be growing. Like when you start hearing yes, that's when your life ends because you're not really growing. You're not really seeing what's capable. And I was like, oh, shit. Like, you do this. You're committed to the journey.

You're not looking for, like, the next payday. You're not looking for the next commercial. Like, you're seeing how far we can go versus just trying to check a box. And that's a dude who could honestly, if he chose to, surround himself with people that said yes all the time. Yeah. I mean, if he chose to. Yeah.

One of the things that I, there's a million things I admire and respect about John and the very few people I've spent time with in my life that are like John. And all the characteristics of all of those people are synonymous. the very few people I've spent time with in my life that are like John and all the characteristics of all of those people are synonymous. It's what we're talking about right now. Will you show up first and will you leave last? Yeah. What,

what a lot of people don't realize about his journey, like we know him, we know the man, these vets in past camps, his affinity for this foundation is ridiculous but you know he's a dude that he does what he says he's gonna do yeah he shows up he does the work like if you asked him for the recipe and i talked to him about this all the time if you asked him for the recipe, and I talk to him about this all the time, if you asked him for the recipe for significance and growth,

it's everything that the three of us are talking about right now. We complicate simple shit. That's why at the beginning I said the recipe is so simple. It's the work that people are afraid of. If you get out of your own way and are willing to remain humble, humility, I think, is so important. We haven't touched on it. But this notion that I can learn from everyone.

I can learn from everyone. Yeah. That was actually the thing you brought up at the end of interviewing him was the thing that your big takeaway was just like – His level of humility. Yeah, absolutely. I've only met him one time. We did a show with him, and he was very humble.

I didn't know what to expect specifically. Sure. I basically know John Cena through Anders. Through Anders, yeah. And, yeah, he was extremely humble for what a big name he is. The biggest shock for our vets when they come to see him is that in their minds, like anybody's mind, like, oh, my God, there's this mega star that's going to show up and spend time with us.

What they don't realize is that it's a way bigger thrill and joy for him than it is for them. Yeah. He's able to do the thing that he wants to do and give back. Correct. To the people that have made him what's going on. And also do it in a space that he loves, that he's passionate about, where he's earned every single bit of it.

Yeah. It's really true. Everybody thinks he's been like the golden boy. They need to go back and watch The Marine. Dude. Got you, bud. Yeah, man. Got you, bud.

It's just a bad movie. So you don't even know what it is. It's just a bad movie. But that dude going into work every day, and I mean just in the wrestling business, when he first started out, you got, I mean, this isn't going to be a wrestling conversation, but if people knew the lineup of dudes that he went into wrestling with, like he was. The big ones. Bro, he was.

They're all over movies right now. He was the long shot. Yeah. But even back then, I mean, I met him when I was 19 years old. He was one of the first kids I ever met in college. He was that dude back then. He's Mr. Cushing. Like his real life. I'm going to

the gym and I'm working out. I'm gonna eat well. I'm gonna treat people with the same level of respect that they treat me with. He's never been an asshole. He's never been too big to spend time with people. Do you want to know what the most... There was two moments when i went down to his house in tampa that

literally changed my life i'm gonna call it three i'm gonna tell them as fast as possible it's crazy down there i tell rob all the time rob mcintyre you see what it looks like it's a life-changing place i saw there was three moments in a 48 72 hour-hour window that changed my life where I literally saw it happen multiple times in three days. You go, holy fuck. We're eating breakfast. We're drinking coffee. And he's on his phone trying to post a bench press thing to Twitter. And he's coming up with cool taglines.

And he's like, yeah, but I really want this one to go super viral. This is going to be good. I'm like, dude, just post the video. Let's go lift some weights. I don't even remember what he writes, but he benches like 480, 460, something insane, and then he's got this, he puts the Twitter post up, we go lift weights, we go eat dinner,

everybody hits a one-ton challenge, blah, blah, blah, it's great, we're partying. Celebration. We get home that night. Game two of the World Series is on. Guess who's the second story of the World Series in the pregame? That story's unbelievable. John Cena. John Cena was the second story because he bench pressed right over there where I was at leading into it.

So we party all night long. Big celebration. Everything's amazing, right? Everyone's having a great time. We all got our names on John Cena's garage door. Incredible. We go upstairs to watch TV, to watch the World Series. He doesn't know how to turn his TV on. You know why? He doesn't fucking

watch TV. He's doing things. He's focused on where he's going at all times. And then I was like, man, that's really weird. John Cena doesn't know how to turn his own TV on. He's not in his house very much. Yeah, no, that's a true story. But it was also, the reason he doesn't is because he knew the next day, which none of us knew.

He's got time to celebrate the thing, but he doesn't have time to be hungover. That's right. He doesn't have time the next day to let yesterday carry into today because he's got to move forward. So when we wake up, it's 730 in the morning. I'm strolling downstairs with a hangover, stoked on my life, trying to look look for a cup of coffee that dude's in the kitchen with a chinese tutor yeah speaking mandarin and i like those that that window 24 hours from the twitter to seeing him speaking chinese and i just went like whoa like my life like radically shifted in that moment of like what it takes to literally chase greatness at every moment that is possible. And in a way, like going through grad school and doing all the things that you can do to become smart,

there's no better way than to absorb that dude into your life and become a piece of what he does. Yeah, he does. My biggest takeaway, and I'm so fortunate to be able to spend the amount of time with him that I do, but the biggest takeaway for me is always his ability to find balance, right? And I don't mean work-life balance balance because everything it's all just life like at the end of the day you guys right now are working this is what you do but it's it's what you but it's it's what you love it's right so but his balance in terms of the self-discipline required to navigate his life but still find those moments of where the moments are so visceral,

they're so sincere, they're so real. Like I get to watch my buddy Anders lift over 2,000 pounds. For him, that's the joy. Like, man, this is the best. Like that's for him. It's as big as anything he's accomplished professionally, you know? Um, and so that's really the takeaway. I think that's, what's awesome for our vets here on camp when they get a chance to spend time with him is listen at the end of the day, if we're blessed enough to wake up in the morning and to feel that first breath,

then we're all starting on the same playing field, right? Yeah. He's the same dude you and I are, just exists in a different arena. His line of work is different. Yeah. But I think it's the intangibles that draw people like us together

that John has always had, that it took some very difficult moments in my life to realize that it was about the process and about doing it every day. No one's going to give me a sticker because I did it for one day. No one's going to tell me I'm a good guy because I was a good husband and father for one day. Or my body's not going to change because I decided to train really hard one day he is a great example and the people I really want to surround myself with are great examples of doing the work yeah well I think that

something that's super important about what's going on here right now is like the the idea of mentorship is something that uh like he has clearly filled that role for all for for you and i um and just and many other people just being in the presence of but the idea of mentorships and just being around people that are doing the work sharing the vision is is something that comes out of here and uniting all of the fit ops grads together but how do you take that and carry that through once they leave the three-week period sure so it's it's hands down the biggest challenge that faces our foundation right now hands down fit ops is only about two and a half years old my role within the foundation is to do just that, right, to try to create a structure of aftercare so that the, for lack of a better word, the high that our vets are on when they leave camp with armed now with a certification, but also a skill set on how to tap into their own growth and potential, when they get back into their homes and communities, even if they're phenomenal places,

again, we revert back to what's safe and comfortable, right? So usually we see it within the first 30 days, they come out of the gate and they are just busting ass. Like, you know, I'm- Right up until it gets hard. Yeah, man. So, right? So I'm going to send 100 emails and i'll get 10 back that rule

of 10 but i'm gonna do it because i'm fit ops has got me ready to rock yeah kind of like that fresh kid that comes right out of boot camp and their uniform has never looked better and they don't care that they're the lowest rank in the military man they just accomplish something yeah like they get to come home look at excuse me they get to come home look at all their buddies and they're in their new uniform. Same thing happens here. But what I'm really learning is like, so this is not the Vietnam era, right? The draft has not existed in this country since 1969.

Every man and woman that we work with in this foundation made a choice to serve. The reason for those choices vary as much as the candidates that we have in the room, vets we have in the room but at the end of the day they all chose to serve the connect that where we really want to make sure that we're taking care of our vets is that just like in any other segment of the population in any corporate structure in any work environment in any community you're going to have a percentage that need more help than others, right? We can't exist where we think that we are the magic solution for every vet that comes through FitOps. We only hope that you come to FitOps because you have a passion for fitness and that we want to help you in some way redesign and and refabricate um your purpose

through fitness what we realized and where i came in i think at the right time with matt is that you know we're giving these guys and gals this awesome experience but they're leaving and a lot of there's almost 4 000 military non-profits in the united states of america right there's almost 4,000 military nonprofits in the United States of America, right? There's a lot of them out there and a lot of really, really good ones. What are we giving to our vets when they leave? Okay, so initially it was, well, you know, they have a certification. And just like you and I and you and I, Doug, at the end of the day, you have this now. How bad do you want it?

Yeah. I love personal training or just the training business because you have to be good. Yeah. You're not allowed to suck at your job. And really, there's a lot of other jobs where you can hide and get by. Plenty. Plenty. But I think in the fitness and wellness space,

it's really hard to fake it for a long period of time. Like, there's too many options for people, right? So what we're trying to instill is that continued set of beliefs and values that this is not the end of anything, that this is the start of something new if you so choose it. The reality of the situation is a lot of our guys and gals will leave here, they'll go right back to their homes, families, lives, jobs, and they'll be just fine forever. They'll use some of the new stuff that they learned from Rob McIntyre and you guys.

They'll use it, and it'll help them improve their own fitness. And what we all know is because of that, it'll improve other areas of their life, right? That's what fitness does. If you take care of yourself first, then you're much more likely to be better for the people around you. For those that choose to enter the fitness space, part of my job is to help support them in connecting them with people like Anders Varner and connecting them with

continued relationships with other gyms around the country. But just as importantly for that 10% that are still going to struggle mentally and emotionally, listen, if they came in with those issues, they're not leaving without them. That would fly in the face of everything we've just talked about in doing the work and changing that data, right? So we can't expect that they're fixed, if you will, in quotes, when they leave FitOps. My role is to continue to support them while they continue to work on their mental health. I think that that's what's so important about getting everybody together for three weeks in this specific place because we go back to the very first thing that we talked about, which is attention. And when they're here, everyone here cares about them.

They're fully focused. There's no distractions. There's nothing that can take you away from this. But then when you have to reintegrate into society and reintegrate it back into your life, now you have to make the choice. You know what 100% feels like. So how much are you willing to give to said person

that's not really on your team? How much are you willing to give to said person that's not really on your team how much are you going to give to said meal that isn't really ideal for you moving forward and you start to notice well i was at a hundred percent but now i got a family now how much percentage of that 100 has to go to being dad how much is to husband how much is to wife and how much is to wife? And how much am I? Reprioritizing. Yeah, like the attention piece has changed so much in my life becoming a dad. Of course. Like a husband didn't really change it that much. It's easy to like blow by. And you've got a best pal that you get to see every day now.

But when the kids get in the mix, it changes everything. Five o'clock shows up, I'm not allowed to go to the gym. That's right. That's dad time. When I wake up in the morning, if I want to get work done early, that's like a 4.30, 5 o'clock a.m. wake-up call because when six hits, it's dad time. And that's when the self-discipline and what's really important, right?

So John says this all the time. He said it to our last camp of vets. I still work with so many of those vets daily. And their biggest takeaway, I was speaking with a vet last week. She lives down in Florida. Amazing young lady. She said, listen, I just want to share this takeaway with you that has stuck with me and has helped me so much, right? The gifts and the small moments. We try to overanalyze everything. I said, what was it for you that really resonated with you? She said, John sat with us, and he told us all one thing that I'll never forget.

If it's important to you, make it important. Right? I've read hundreds of psychology books. He's good. He knows how to say things. Two master's degrees. I've gone to of psychology books. He's good. He knows how to say things. Two master's degrees. Like, I've gone to a lot of school. I've done this 20 years.

I think I'm okay at it. Yeah. If it's important to you, make it important. You will know very, very quickly where your passions lie. Right? Yeah. Like, oh, this fit ops thing seems really cool. I'd really like to meet matt and i

okay come to arkansas you're gonna live in a cabin you're gonna present can't pay you anything um you still in now you start to like right because every we live in a world now where everybody wants something. It's a culture of entitlement. Showing up is enough. No, bullshit. Not only show up, do it better than everybody else in the room. Or at least do it so that when you walk out of the room, you can say, I gave it every single thing I have. Never call one in.

Never. Not when it comes to your own growth. We can sit around all day, shoot the breeze, cut it up, have fun, have some down moments. None of us are robots. That's not how we want to live. There's no enjoyment in that. But if I

get a chance to sit on Barbell Shrugged and talk with two guys that are really good guys, really good at what they do, well, I'm not going to call it in. I'm going to give it everything I have. If it's important to you, make it important. That's not just a disconnect with our vets. That's culturally.

I want it all, but I don't want to do much for it. And when it gets hard. Well, it's really easy to lower that standard. The easiest person to let off the hook is yourself. Of course. It's the only person you truly have to answer to. Well, it's really easy to lower that standard. The easiest person to let off the hook is yourself. It's the only person you truly have to answer to. You can hold everyone else to a really high standard of how they should treat you, but how do you treat yourself?

It's really easy to let yourself down. That's right. And then you just create that practice. Like, oh, just a little bit here, a little bit there. And then all of a sudden. And practice makes permanent. That's where we're at. Practice makes permanent.

Where can they find you how uh tell me how people can uh find fit ops do some fundraising how do we help and and just make this thing even bigger cooler yeah for sure so uh the best thing to do if you want to learn more about fit ops or to donate really simple just go to fitops.org f-i-t-o-p-s.org um there's a link where you can donate right from from the website if you are a veteran listening to this and you have a passion for fitness and you are intrigued by any of the things that we shared here on camp please go to fitops.org check us out apply for a upcoming camp you can reach out to directly. It's jmartin at fitops.org. I respond to every single email I get, and I will continue to.

If you want to find me personally on Instagram, it's just at realjohncmartin. So that's it. Doug Larson. Right on, brother. Yo, I appreciate you coming on the show. Oh, man, it's been such an honor. So much fun to talk to you guys. Yeah, and for having us out, of course.

You can find me on Instagram at Douglas C. Larson. I'm Anders Varner, at Anders Varner. Thank you. Thank you so much, man. We've been like three years in the making to make this thing happen. I've been sitting across from you guys for this whole hour being like, man. We made it work. We finally got a chance to connect.

Just needed something big enough to make it work. That's it. That's it. And this cause is absolutely phenomenal. These vets are the best. And so if you want to help the cause, you know where to find us. Yeah. We're the Shrug Collective at Shrug Collective.

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