Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 108 - Fitness, Finance, and The Inarguable Similarities.

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

In this episode, coach Danny shares some of the commonalities he sees between those who have built wealth and those who have built/maintained their health. There are tons of behavioral similarities between both groups, and there is lots of overlap!Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Sign up for the trainer mentorship HEREFollow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!Support the Show.

Welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matrenga. And today, we're going to take a look at some pretty cool stuff. It's going to be more of a philosophical episode, a little bit different from what we normally talk about when I'm answering questions about different training and nutritional nuances. This one will be a little bit more philosophical, zoomed out, if you will. And I think it'll be very enjoyable because we're going to talk about two things that are probably integral to your life in some capacity. If you're listening to this podcast, I can assume if you're a subscriber or a listener that generally speaking, you enjoy fitness or things that are related to fitness like like nutrition or wellness. But you also might be

pretty financially inclined by virtue of the fact that you are a human being who exists. In the modern developed world, it's pretty hard to live a life where finances and money don't at least play some pretty darn important role in your well-being, whether that's your job, your relationship with investing, your relationship with debt, your relationship with the expenses that you have. Money is constantly on our minds. And I think there are a lot of interesting parallels between the habits that we've developed, at least here in America, culturally around money, as well as fitness. And I think that there is a lot of socioeconomic stuff that we don't talk about in the fitness industry, such as the interplay between your income level and your ability to have access to things that

will help you be fit, your geographical location, and how that might tie into your access to different kinds of food or nutrition. And this isn't going to be one of those episodes. We're not going to dive too much into the socioeconomic or the statistical stuff with regards to income levels, race, or things like that in fitness. This is going to be a little bit more philosophical, where we kind of unpack some of the habitual things. I'm going to talk about seven things that I think fitness and finance have in common, particularly from a behavioral lens. And so starting off here, guys, with number one, I find that in fitness and in wealth creation, or with financial fitness, people want results now. But here's the thing

that I find quite interesting. Only 55% of Americans own stock. And per the CDC, and many of you probably stopped listening because the CDC has been under quite a bit of compression in the last 18 months. But per the CDC, only 23% of Americans meet exercise guidelines. So that means looking at this, we know that 55% of America own assets in the stock market or some form of stock, right? And that is an asset to them that might be an investment vehicle. Maybe they just like buying stock, but that leaves 45% of Americans who do not. And then per the CDC, only 23% of Americans meet exercise guidelines, which means 77% of Americans do not. And the reason that this is under the umbrella of people want it now is because I think that once people

acknowledge that wealth creation takes time, considerably quite a bit of time, if you don't have maybe a successful entrepreneurial venture in place, or, you know where you don't have a massively high earning job, wealth creation can take time for a lot of people. And that is very discouraging. And getting in good shape takes time. And for people who want to get in shape for perhaps aesthetic reasons more so than health or philosophical reasons, knowing that something's going to take a long time can be relatively discouraging. And I found that a lot of people's reasons for not engaging in these more, what we might call long-term behaviors with regards to their finance, whether that's investing, paying down debt, building up an emergency fund, or in the contrast, something related to fitness, right? Like losing

20 pounds, building a little bit of muscle, learning how to do weightlifting. One of the big barriers for people is that once you start, you realize, oh, wow, this isn't going to happen fast. And we live in a society right now where instant gratification and wanting things fast is really, really challenging. And that's actually going to lead me to my second point, which is FOMO or seeing other people make it happen quickly and how that can pull us into things that might not necessarily be in our best interest and how that might make us more susceptible to scams and misinformation. get fit quick schemes to get rich quick schemes. And there's certainly no shortage of get rich quick schemes. I'm sure you're familiar with many of your friends, colleagues, contemporaries who have engaged in what we might call, quote unquote, get rich quick schemes. And even more recently, on the national level, there have been quite a few, let's call it investment movements that would

be categorized as FOMOE or getting rich quick scheming. In essence, if you remember the whole GameStop short squeeze, a lot of people wanted in on that, not because it didn't have the ability to get you rich, but because they thought that it was a vehicle to build wealth really quickly. And unfortunately, the later you get in on these short squeezes, the later you wait to play the game, the greater likelihood you have of being left, quote unquote, holding the bag. And nobody wants to be left holding the bag. And a lot of this was evident with things like the recent cryptocurrency boom that we had, where we had securities like Dogecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin reaching massive heights, heights never before seen with these securities

or these, you might not want to call them securities, but these investment vehicles, right, these stores of value, we'd never seen anything like that before. And so you had a lot of people wanting to get involved because people want to create wealth quickly. And they see these things as a vehicle to do that. And I think the less you know, the more susceptible you are to, you know, maybe engaging in these things incorrectly and getting burned. short squeezes as a whole or shorting stocks as a whole, but investments designed to help you get rich quick. I think that more often than not, people get burned by them in the same way that they get burned by these get fit quick schemes. Like, you know, oh, I'm going to try a 72 hour fast or, oh, I'm going to get on the ketogenic diet and burn fat without being in a deficit. Oh, I'm going to take this fat burner and burn a ton of body fat. I'm going to get a Brazilian butt lift. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get this waist trainer. I'm going to do this detox. I'm going to take these

pills. And a lot of times those things don't just do nothing positive. They actually end up doing like actual harm. And so it's not so much the vehicles, but the way that people are inclined to use them in a society where getting things fast is our number one goal, like fast, convenient, instant gratification. We've really moved towards that more quickly. And we'll talk about that in a minute, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to have convenience. It's not necessarily a bad thing to be able to get things quick.

And none of the things I talked about are inherently bad with the exception of maybe some of the tack I talked about are inherently bad with the exception of maybe some of the tackier fad diets. But what you will often see is people who do not understand the fundamentals diving in here first. So it's not to say you can't short a stock. It's not to say you can't make money in crypto or hold crypto for a long time and use it as a store of value. And it's not to say that you don't believe in blockchain technology, none of that. Same thing with just investing in general. Having a base of understanding

protects you from getting burned from your own impatience. The same thing can be true of fitness. The longer you've stuck to the basics and learn the fundamentals, the less susceptible you are to getting burned by fads and bullshit. And so unfortunately, people wanting things now, our first tip, creates an environment of instant gratification, or the two are kind of inextricably connected. It's our instant gratification behavior that's created this environment of people wanting it now. And that led to our second point here, which is the illusion that things can happen quickly, FOMO and nastiness that comes from that really oftentimes leads to people getting burned financially or buying stuff that's simply silly because they're spending their most

formative years or the earliest time they are in something feeling like they deserve something that they simply shouldn't have, right? You're not supposed to get rich overnight. You're not supposed to get in shape overnight. And so sometimes these learning lessons are getting burned can be helpful, but the best thing to do is to start with a solid base. One more thing that they have in common, this is number three, is that the long game is almost always less risky, but people tend not to want to take it. And so in fitness, what this looks like is, you know, for fat loss,

if you've been lifting for a long time, or you've been training for a long time, that the best way to lose body fat is to lose it slowly, by being in a manageable deficit, not a super intense deficit, by focusing on muscle building or progressively overloaded resistance training that's going to stimulate or maintain your muscle while you're dieting to maintain the metabolic environment for fat loss. So you don't just lose a shit ton of muscle to and end up, you know, with some severe metabolic adaptation, being patient, adding in supplemental cardio, focusing on the supplements that work with investing. Generally speaking, if you are investing very simply in things like S&P 500 index funds, for example, that just return at anywhere between 6% to 8% or 8% to 10% per year,

if you can just be patient with that, you'll probably reach a millionaire level of income with a modest amount of weekly or monthly investing. But the problem is it takes a little while and people really struggle with things taking a little while, which of course plays off one and two. But one thing that fitness and finance do have in common positively is that doing things the long way or taking the long road almost always increases your ability to see success. It's not to say that you can't find quick fixes and shortcuts. I find that's more true in finance than it is in fitness. There really aren't any good shortcuts in fitness

that don't open the door for serious health complications, issues, whether that be mental or whether that be physiological, right? You want to take shortcuts in fitness, you better be careful because you can burn yourself, particularly with things like steroids or supplements. We see that a lot or with fad diets or crash diets. And you can definitely burn yourself in finance too. But in general, the long run and taking a longer, more, let's call it structured, systematic approach, that tends to work really well for both of these things. And one of the things I like about focusing on my personal finances is regardless of where my income level has been, whether it was years ago when I was making significantly less to where I'm at now, where I'm living much more comfortably, the habits have stayed the same. And just as is the case with

weightlifting, whether it was many years ago where I was lifting perhaps less intelligently because I didn't know as much versus now where I feel like I'm doing a lot better. Most of those good habits have stayed the same. I'm still going to the gym regularly. I'm still investing regularly. I still take time off when I need to recover. I still have an emergency fund, you know, in case something bad happens. You never deviate from the basics.

You really focus on the fundamentals and plan for the long run and both fitness and personal finance. That's a really good approach. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. Number four that I find is big. A big correlation between the two is simplicity tends to win the day in both areas, right? So when it comes to just base level fitness, like the big rocks, I think it's like an

80-20 rule or 20-80 rule or 20% of the things you focus on yields 80% of the results. And so truthfully, you know, if you eat mostly whole foods, practice balance, prioritize protein, occasionally have foods that you enjoy, but don't go overboard, maintain a healthy relationship with food and stay hydrated, you'll be good to go nutritionally. If you can find a way of movement that you enjoy, that's challenging and progressive,

and that makes you move better and feel better, you're probably gonna be good to go on exercise. And lastly, if you spend a little less than what you earn, you have some savings for a rainy day or an emergency, you invest a little bit of what's left over and you manage your debt intelligently, hopefully keeping it as close to zero as possible, right? With the exception of assets that bring debt along with them, like maybe homes. But you get what I'm saying. If you follow those very simple rules in fitness, nutrition, and training, you'll probably do pretty damn good. And so number four, simplicity tends to win the day. And focusing on those big

rocks, those 20, 80 rocks, the 20% of habits and behaviors that yield 80% of your results. that yield 80% of your results. Number four, or number five, my apologies, number five, tracking helps both, right? So tracking calories, tracking sets, tracking reps, tracking your supplementation, tracking your sleep habits might seem tedious, but it's something that people who live very healthy lives and people who have very high level performance are all comfortable doing. You keep an eye on things. They often say what gets measured gets maintained, what gets managed gets maintained, right? So I think you might have a better time with your fitness results if you're paying attention to what you're doing. And the same can obviously be true of your finances,

right? Balancing your checkbook, which nobody does anymore because most checking accounts are automated. But the habit of engaging with your income slash expense stream so you know what's coming in, you know what's going out, making sure that you have maybe your investments automated. If you're somebody who is in a position where you can invest, automating your investments and tracking them might be a really good idea. Setting up automatic bill pay as well so that you don't miss bills or also doing the same thing with your credit cards so that you don't carry massive balances or into the next month or even if you're in a position where you have a lot of debt and you just want to make minimum payment so it doesn't ding your credit, right? All of that tracking, systematizing really, really helps

both fitness and finance. Number five, and this is an interesting one. Gosh, this is number six. I have the numbering off here, I think. Number six, projecting wealth and fitness versus actually obtaining wealth and fitness, right? And so I'm gonna open this one up with a quote I love, which is people buy things they can't afford with money they don't have to impress people they don't like. And that

kind of summarizes what I mean when I bring up wealth projection. You know, people who really have no business getting massive bloated car payments will often go out and get massive bloated car payments so that maybe when they drive by people, people think that, wow, that person has a lot of status because they drive a super nice car or wow, that person has a lot of status because they have super dope shoes. And I've been a victim of both of these games in my time, particularly when I was getting into, you know, just making a little bit of money as a personal trainer. I definitely wasn't super intelligent about how I spent it. And I definitely spent some of that money projecting wealth, trying to, you know, let the world know that I had status, which is really, really not the most financially savvy

long-term behavior. It's never a bad idea to live below your means, right? And with fitness, a lot of people like to project fitness and or project aesthetics. And one of the things that concerns me about that is that in our space, in the fitness space, we see a lot of augmented physiques where people have had plastic surgery or people have used photo editing software. And I'll say this. I think both are completely fine. If you want to edit your photos, if you want to get a body augmentation surgery, that's totally fine. Those are things that are available to you and choosing to engage with those things doesn't make you a bad person, but especially the body augmentation stuff. Like everybody has, in my opinion, the right to do what they want to their body, period, end of story.

However, I think that it's really important that we have transparency in those areas. And a lot of people will get augmentation done, or they will have photos edited in a way that makes them look genuinely better. And it would be one thing if these photos were used exclusively for their own well-being, but generally these things get posted on the internet and people will leverage them to sell followers or to build followers or to get clout. And I think that just showing off your physique in general tends to be okay. But I think where I have a problem with it is maybe when you're showing off a physique, let's say you've had body augmentation done to your butt. you know, you've had your butt enhanced using surgery, again, totally your prerogative. But I think it's a little bit nasty to then turn around and sell glute building programs. And this kind of stuff actually happens in our space. And it's really frustrating, right? Because it's a projection that even though the financial projection of wealth mostly hurts the person

who's projecting it, a lot of the people who project their health or their wellness or their fitness hurt the people who follow them and fall for their tricks if they choose to kind of be a charlatan about it. And that's just too bad because we see this stuff happening a lot. Number seven is behavioral change, whether it's behavioral change relating to money or behavioral change related to fitness, they tend to be pretty difficult, right? Changing spending habits and budgeting is not something that happens overnight and neither is picking up long-term investing behavior. You have to learn. Exercising and nutritional habit change takes forever too. And anybody who's listening can tell you like more people will start and stop than start and stick with it. But it all boils down to starting and sticking with it. And that can make it really hard because

we know that behavioral change, there's a lot of friction. It feels uncomfortable. It feels unnatural. But at the end of the day, it is really, really about the process. And it's about the journey, not the destination, right? I truly believe that learning the behavioral changes, destination, right? I truly believe that learning the behavioral changes, like, I guess all of these fall under the umbrella of delaying gratification, right? With exercise, you're saying, I'm going to go punish my body instead of playing Call of Duty. Or I'm going to, with nutrition, I'm going to eat this nutritious salad with protein instead of eating this cinnamon roll. Or with finances, you might say, I'm going to pay off my credit card debt, or I'm going to invest in a QQQ and VOO and VTI, whatever. I'm going to

buy some Apple stock. I'm going to buy some Amazon stock. Instead, you go, oh, you know what? I really want these new shoes. I know I have them in three different colors, but I got to get them. And so delaying that gratification and understanding and acknowledging that the behavioral changes that are worth it will take some time. There will be some friction is really important. And both of those two things have this in common. And I've actually found that people who tend to be good at one tend to be good at the other, which brings me to my last point. Point number eight is that people who are interested in money number eight is that people who are interested in money or have money and people who are interested in fitness and half fitness tend

to love to talk about those subjects amongst each other to share ideas. Um, and people who are not particularly, uh, financially savvy or do not have a good relationship with money, which is understandable. And people who do not have a good relationship with their health tend to avoid having those conversations, whether that be with friends, family, or people. We all know people in our lives and our families who just will not talk about money. I don't talk about money. I hate talking about money. It stresses me out. I don't want to talk about eating. I don't want to talk about this. I don't want to talk about that. When it comes to weight loss or, you know, managing their disease, if you know anybody who's living with a disease, but isn't taking very good care of yourself or their self, you know how frustrating it can be to try to communicate with those people because you want to help them, but

you understand that it's their body, their decisions, and you want to be caring. But a lot of times people just don't want to talk about it, or they want to look away from it. And a lot of people have similar relationships with their health and their fitness when they get into a kind of rut where they've fallen out of their health and fitness that they do when they're in debt or they're not making a lot of money or they're struggling with money. And on the flip side, you have people, like I said,

who are in good places with their finances. They will often commingle and share what they're working on, what they're doing in their businesses, what they're doing with their investing, what they're doing with their savings habits. And the same thing is true for people who are in really good shape. They love to share things. And so surround yourself

with people who inspire you to take proactive approaches to health and fitness and financial fitness. I think that that's a really good place to start. Maybe spend a little less time with the people who don't. So guys, this was kind of a philosophical one, kind of a quick one, squeezing this in between clients today. It's been a wonderfully, wonderfully beautiful week here in California. Like I'm talking 79 degree days every day. Beautiful. You can see the sun. It's awesome. So the eight things that fitness and finance have in common is that people tend to want things immediately, but they aren't going to do the work to make it happen. Number two, people are really drawn into things that look like they could make them or help them get to where they want to get more quickly and they often get burned. Three, the long game is

almost always safer and almost always leads to results. Number four, simplicity wins. Number five, tracking and staying on top of the numbers helps a ton. Number six, projection versus actually making something happen and creating it is incredibly common for both wealth and for fitness. And to always be careful of who's projecting what and try not to project when you

could actually create. Number seven, behavioral change is challenging and takes time. And being able to delay gratification is one of the best tools you can have for both wealth creation and staying in shape. And number seven, people who like these things tend to commingle and talk about them and people who don't tend not to. So try to have more people in your circle who inspire you to do the things that you want to do with your money and with your fitness. All right, you guys, that will do it for today's episode. If you enjoyed this one, do me a favor, share it to your Instagram story and tag me.

Leave me a five-star rating and review on iTunes. And if you have any questions for the podcast, be sure to engage with me on Instagram or click the link in the show notes here to leave your question. Hope you guys have a good, safe day. If you're not subscribed already, be sure to hit that subscribe button.

It really helps me out and enjoy the rest of your walk, your commute, or whatever you're doing.