Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 350: 7 Life Lessons from 2023

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the dynamic dialogue podcast. Amazingly, this is episode 350. It's crazy to me to think about having recorded 350 episodes, you know, some of these are with guests. Many of them are solo. But it's been a tremendous opportunity to put my thoughts into a format that I think allows for depth and allows for greater discussion. much of what we talk about on the podcast is related to health, fitness, enhancing performance, maybe productivity, maybe scheduling. Given that I've been coaching for over a decade now, getting into year 12, which is crazy, I feel that that is, of course, the number one thing I have to give via a medium like podcasting, which is mostly about depth. But when I hit these milestone episodes, whether it be 300, 350, 100, 250, whatever they may be, I want to attempt to make a moment to just reflect on things that may add value in your life may add value in your life outside of health and fitness. And, um, you know, the world does not need any more 20 to 40 something dude bros with a microphone communicating, uh, pseudo intellectual wisdom, pontificating and projecting. Uh, so I'm entirely aware and sensitive to the fact that this may simply just not be for you.

But one thing I've picked up in 12 years of working with real people, many of whom are two, three times my age, is a unique amount of wisdom for a younger person and certainly some perspective worth sharing. You know, the last couple of years have been substantially different for me. A lot has changed. And when I started this podcast, it was March of the pandemic, 2020. And I look at how much it's grown, how many subscribers we have, how many episode downloads we've eclipsed, over a million downloads, which is just crazy to me. And I'm struck with this kind of opportunity to reflect on just how much things have changed and just how much my life has changed and how much I've changed.

So 350 is about seven things, specifically seven lessons I've changed. So three 50 is about, uh, seven things, specifically seven lessons I've learned in the last year, seven things that I would love to share with you. And what I would ask of you, if you're a subscriber, if you're a listener, if you've been, you know, received this podcast from someone who is a subscriber and been told, Hey, check this out is for feedback. I would love if you sent me a DM on Instagram or an email, uh, so that I can get feedback on how these less fitness and health focused episodes land, if they add value, or again, if it is just noise in a very saturated space, because I am entirely sensitive to the fact that in the podcast,

social media, internet age, everybody gets to have an opinion and it may or may not be good, but I'm of the impression that some of what I have to offer is. So I hope you enjoy this unique episode today and I'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks. This podcast wouldn't be possible if it wasn't thanks to support from our awesome partners, one of whom is Vivo Barefoot. Vivo makes the best barefoot training shoe on the market. For years, I stayed away from barefoot training shoes, despite knowing the benefit of low cushion, wide toe box shoes for the health of our feet, the intrinsic musculature that helps support everything that we do. I stayed away from these shoes because I thought they were ugly,

but that was until of course, Vivo started producing some absolutely gorgeous barefoot training shoes. These are low cushion, lightweight, breathable trainers that have a ton of bend, a ton of flex, low cushioning to provide for optimal stimulation of the proprioceptors at the bottom of your foot. Fun fact, 70% of the proprioceptive cells in your body, the cells that tell your body where it is in space to help you be coordinated, to help you create movement, balance, stability, all of these things, they're located on the bottom of your foot fighting to make contact with some kind of surface so they can get the tactile feedback they need to help you optimize and coordinate movement. That's why when you're barefoot, you probably feel more stable and more

connected to the ground. And I have never found a shoe that feels better to train in, not just train my clients and stand around in for eight hours a day, but literally train in. Tons of fantastic mobility out of my toe box, the ability to spread my toes, all in one beautiful climate friendly package. I'm a huge fan of the Primus knit lights. I have them in obsidian. I have them in bright white, and I absolutely love this shoe. I have been raving about it for three or four weeks straight. I've never had a better training shoe in my life. You simply can't beat these. They feel great. They look great. My fiance even said, wow, those shoes, and I quote, make it look like you know what you are doing, which that's all I need to hear. Not sure exactly what

that means, but I'm guessing it means good things. All the trainers and coaches at my studio said they make my calves look great. And I think this is because when you're wearing a barefoot shoe, you're using more of the intrinsic muscle of your foot and ankle complex that is so imperative for movement. Trust me when I say you've never had a better pair of training shoes than you will when you try Vivo Barefoot. You can't beat these. And Vivo is offering listeners of this podcast a special 10% off order by using the code DANNY10 on vivobarefoot.com. You can just scroll down to the show notes and grab a pair. But these shoes are fantastic. They're beautiful. They train are fantastic. They're beautiful.

They train incredibly well. They're durable. And I promise they'll be the best pair of shoes you've ever had in the gym. Again, that's vivobarefoot.com. And check out using the promo code DANNY10 to save 10% on the best pair of shoes you've ever owned. you've ever owned. Okay. So getting into one of the perhaps most immediately impactful lessons I've learned, uh, in the last year and really kind of just sourcing, you know, Hey, where did this come from? Uh, it's to spend more time outside in nature. Um was unique in that it was inspired by a movie.

I recently rewatched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which many of you probably know was filmed in New Zealand, which is a particularly beautiful location, not just for filming a high fantasy trilogy, but just in general, New Zealand is a place that is renowned globally for its natural beauty. And I'm a bit spoiled in that I live in another part of the world, California, particularly Northern California, that is also quite renowned globally for its natural beauty. I'm currently living in Sonoma County where the weather is pretty gorgeous year round. We have redwoods. We have multiple different regional and state parks. I'm 40 minutes away from the coast. I'm three hours away from Yosemite. I'm so close to all these naturally

beautiful locations. And for many years, I just did not engage with them at all. It wasn't until more recently when I got the dogs and the exercise needs and requirements of the dogs are, of course, pretty substantial, as many of you are aware who have dogs. As they get older, their exercise needs, they come down. But when they're young, they need quite a bit of exercise. And one of the things that's fascinating to me is, you know, not only is getting them out in nature extremely stimulating for them, and clearly it just enhances the quality of their life, it's very stimulating

for me and enhances the quality of my life in a pretty marked and tangible way. And I think when we talk about health and wellness, we talk about nutrition and we talk about training and we talk about sleep. But there are other components to well-being that aren't talked about so much. Some of the primary components of health that aren't talked about as much, your social health and perhaps your spiritual health. And I think one of the most unique spiritual experiences you can have as a human being is getting into nature and allowing yourself to be awed by nature. I think about experiences I've had in Yosemite or the Grand Canyon or Muir Woods or Hawaii or many of the places I've been lucky enough to travel, where the natural world is so awe-inspiring, the visuals are so powerful, they almost don't look real. And you are overcome with a sense of wonder and awe that, quite frankly,

sense of wonder and awe that quite frankly, you can't feel in many other contexts and situations. And so this is one of the unique and powerful things about getting into nature is this connection with wonder. And I think it is incredibly powerful for your health. And I know that sounds woo woo. And I know that sounds hippy didippy, but there is absolutely no denying that one of the most impactful, powerful, and let's call it easiest ways to access this component of our health that may be spiritual is by getting closer to the beauty of the natural world. And many of you are, you know, practitioners of faith. You have a religious connection. You know, you may or may not be somebody who practices a more concrete religion. Maybe you're Catholic, maybe you're Christian, maybe you're Jewish, maybe you're Hindu. You know, maybe you are quite mindful and engage with meditation. Um, you know,

there are so many different spiritual practices that one can engage with and I'm secular in my thinking, you know, I'm pretty critical of most religion and I'm not somebody who believes in God. Um, you know, you could very well make the argument that in nature, surrounded by beauty in an awe-inspiring situation, how could you not believe in God? How could you not wonder if in fact there is some type of divinity that created this? It's so beautiful. how I operationalize the world. It's just never been a part of my operating system. I've been secular most of my life. My mom's extremely religious. My dad is agnostic. But religion has never been something that appeals to me. But I have found a tremendous amount of spiritual connection, or let's call it spiritual boosting, from just being in nature. There is something incredibly powerful about that. And I think more people now than ever are secular. There is less engagement with the spiritual.

There is less engagement with religion. And you know what? There are plenty of thinkers in the world who will tell you why that is bad and how we are paying the price for that. the world who will tell you why that is bad and how we are paying the price for that. And I won't even argue that, you know, as a secular person, that the kind of drop-off in religious engagement is bad or is good. But I do think the drop-off in our engagement and time in nature is. That's something I'm very confident in with increased screen time, increased work hours, especially here in the Western world, you know, a significant drop off in what many people will describe as a work life balance. I feel that we have reached a tremendous disconnect, um, in our connection with the natural world. And to me, that is dangerous because not only are we

living through what I believe to be a pretty substantial period of climate decline due to some of our behaviors, we're also living through a unique period of mental health decline, anxiety, stress, depression, perhaps loss of purpose, perhaps having a difficult time finding purpose. One thing that we all lack, I think, is perspective. And getting into nature, I think, can help in many ways kind of eliminate some of these problems. Being in nature provides tremendous perspective. It puts so many things into context. It's hard to be standing at the foot of a massive towering Redwood, uh, and not think, man, you know, how small are my problems really? It's not difficult to look across the grand Canyon and

see the breadth and the width of this incredible geographic wonder and go, man, like, how do I not, you know, feel a little bit less important? And sometimes that's a good thing. It's hard to look up at the night sky and see, you know, stars that dwarf the earth light years away and go like, man, I'm just hurtling through space on this rock. And are these things that I'm stressed about, worried about pursuing, are they not a little bit less important or a little bit less likely to drive me crazy or cause anxiety when I just put it all into perspective, that I'm only here for a little bit? And for faith-based thinkers, you might think, hey, I'm here on earth for a little bit, but I have an eternity waiting

for me at the end of the finish line. Sure. That's always there. That's, that can be very comforting, but I think it's also uniquely empowering when you think about your problems. And if you zoom out far enough, you can't even see where you're at on the planet. It's remarkable in my opinion, how small some of our problems begin to feel when we connect with the greater natural world around us. And the more time I spend in nature, the more my small problems seem to kind of disappear. A second lesson I have from this year is to think about the conversations that you may be avoiding or the conversations that you may have a difficult time having and attempt to make time to have those conversations. I feel like a lot of

anxiety, challenge, and disconnect is driven by avoiding hard things. Of course, this is easy to frame in the context of exercise because so many of our health problems, so many of the kind of chronic issues that plague Americans, these issues are driven by the avoidance of temporary discomfort. Like diabetes, type 2 diabetes specifically, can be completely eradicated with regular resistance training and dietary modifications. Um, yet it's one of, if not the fastest growing metabolic disorder in the country, because it is really challenging to say, Hey, I'm going to put my phone down and work out, or, Hey, I'm going to eat protein and fiber instead of hyper palatable ultra processed foods, or I'm going to track to be in a deficit instead of eating what I want when I want. These are difficult things to do. So

exercise and dietary restriction are great examples of, you know, seeing and identifying the harder path and choosing to take it. But one area where I think a lot of people really suck at this is personal relationships, conversations, business relationships, you know, intimate relationships, whatever. And just being like, okay, how much of the stress in my life could be eliminated by having a couple hard conversations? And maybe you can look at your life and go, damn, I have like four or five things that really just bug the crap out of me. They irk me. They make me uncomfortable. They make me anxious. They just kind of sit with me. I just feel them. And I could eliminate this feeling entirely by simply having some discussions that I know I'm avoiding. And I would imagine for

many of you, there's at least three or four discussions you need to have with people in your closer circles that if you had them in the right frame of mind and in the right space could eliminate a huge chunk of stress from your life. And I think the best way to think about this is, you know, if you look at your circle of influence, you know, you probably have the people closest to you. Maybe that's five people. Could be parents, siblings, loved ones, maybe some particularly close friends. And then you look at the circle of influence beyond that, like one degree of separation past, maybe it's immediate coworkers, colleagues, et cetera. Inside those two circles, I would imagine, you don't need to go any further out than that. This is like, oh, that neighbor of mine who pisses me off, who doesn't turn their

light off at night. So it shines into my window. I'm going to go have that hard conversation. I'd say get a little closer than that circle of influence. But inside of, you know, the first two circles of influence in your life, there's probably three to four meaningful relationships that need a little bit of TLC in the discussion and communication department that would benefit greatly from just a small dialogue, a small bit of dialogue, a small discussion, a hard discussion specifically that you've been avoiding. And so I would say get really clear on that. And if you can, I bet you find yourself with substantially more peace, substantially less stress, and with deeper, more meaningful relationships. So the lesson is to audit those first two circles of influence and ask yourself, what are the difficult conversations I'm avoiding? And I think the truth is this can extend to just work. Like what is the work I am avoiding? This is something that you'll probably hear quite a bit. Like there is without a doubt, um, a substantial amount of work that gets procrastinated on and avoided because it's simply uncomfortable. But so oftentimes, um, it is exactly the work that needs to be done. So as you head into starting a new year, ask yourself,

what are the conversations that I've been avoiding? What is the work that needs to be done that I've been avoiding? And make the time to do the work and to have the discussions and watch how things change. What's going on guys? Coach Danny here, taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming, and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has

multiple years of experience working with clients in person online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations and your goals. Nothing cookie cutter here, as well as easy to follow macronutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get customized support directly from your coach's email,

or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals, as well as provides you with accountability in the expertise you need to succeed, as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the stuff that you need from your coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today.

The third tip I have for you, this is one that I've gotten particularly good at, and I only know this because I have a few people who have given me feedback on how helpful this is for them. And everybody's different, so I wouldn't say to fake this, but I think a lot of you have this in this, but I think a lot of you have this in you. And I think a lot of you are probably faking being the other kind of person, but it's to be the honest friend, uh, over the multiple other types of friend that you can be.

And so, you know, you'll so very often hear people who take pride in being the empathetic friend, the cry on your shoulder type of friend, the fun party friend. But I have a particular friend who regularly will come to me with things that they do not come to anyone else with. And they will ask for my brutal honesty. They will say, hey, I'm asking you this because I know you will tell me how it is. You will tell me the truth. You will give it to me straight. And I think that that is, in many ways, a superpower in driving deep, meaningful connection.

deep, meaningful connection. It's one of those things where I think it is almost always more convenient to just tell people what it is that they want to hear and avoid the discomfort that is so often associated with maybe judgment. And oftentimes it's not judgment. It's something that could be perceived as judgment. And you don't have to do this when it's not warranted. But one thing that I think will be really powerful for you in the new year is to become someone who, when called upon, will be honest about the state of things and about how you think things might work out. And this is so different from being a hyper judgmental person who goes out of their way to insert yourself into people's life I think that kind of person is in many ways the opposite It's somebody who people avoid because they're like, oh, they're so opinionated. They're always going to tell you how they feel

But I think if you can become somebody who the people closest to you turn to Who they go man, I know I can trust them to tell me how it is. And I think that this is easy when people come to you and you get people to come to you by staying quiet when they're working through things, instead of inserting yourself and being judgmental. That's something I've gotten better at. I think initially I was the type of person who would insert myself, no pun intended, with judgment. And now I'm one of those people who I think people come to with questions. And that is the opportunity to really tell it how it is. So I would say avoid being hyperjudgmental and lean into being honest and a confidant for the people who are closest to you. And I think you will see that the quality of your relationships really blossoms. Good advice

when asked for goes a lot further than bad advice or judgmental advice that nobody asked for. The fourth tip that I have, and this is certainly not unique, and I'm certainly not the first person to say this, but I think thematically it shows up a lot in my content, and that is to do the work or to do the thing. And I think so many of you are abundantly clear on what the thing is. You know damn well what it is that you need to be working on to drive the outcome that is most important to you. And I think it's really, really difficult for many of us to get clear on what that work is. I think it's really, really clear for many of you in your heart. Okay, I need to do the workout. I need to do the healthy eating.

I need to do the meal prep. I need to do the book work. I need to study for this class. I need to do this. I need to do that. And oftentimes, oftentimes, we end up avoiding that work, procrastinating, finding other small, semi-meaningful things to do instead of doing the thing. And if I could give you guys one piece of advice, it would just be to dedicate yourself for a number of months consecutively to consistently doing the thing. And this ties in really well with the second tip I have. You know, it's like I said earlier, have more hard conversations or have more, um, you know, honest conversations with yourself about the work that you're avoiding.

The thing, when I say do the thing is almost always the work you have a tendency to avoid, or it's the work that you have the tendency to just lean into a little bit. I think honestly, if the, this podcast is a great example of the thing for me. It performs extremely well when I nurture it, spend time on it, create thoughtful episodes, maybe like this one that have direction and it doesn't grow as quickly or resonate as deeply when I don't lean into it with all of my capabilities. And so for me, with the goal, like a goal I have in the new year is to grow the podcast. That's not going to happen unless I put my ass in the chair and do the thing. Steven Pressfield is somebody who is often quoted.

He has a great axiom that, of course, I can't remember. But it has something to do with like discipline is like sitting your ass in the chair or it might rather be, um, you know, like direction is sitting in the chair and discipline is staying in the chair. It's this thought that like, it's one thing to sit down and do the thing. It's another thing to like commit to doing the thing extremely well and diligently. And, uh, that's really tough. And so that would be something from the previous year that I've learned that I really want to take with me into the new year. Um, another thing that I've picked up on that was inspired by Oliver Berkman's book, 4,000 weeks, um, which is essentially like a critique on human mortality.

You know, it's, it's pretty remarkable how many people think they're going to live to be a hundred years old. I mean, that's a nice round number. We like nice round numbers. So we tell ourselves from a very early age, like, Oh, I'll live to be a hundred. And that's just mathematically improbable. Most adult men live to be like 76 and like most adult women live to be around 80. So, you know, if you give yourself 80 years, that's about 4,000 weeks. And when you think about your life as being 4,000 weeks, it'll fuck you up pretty hard. And it's one of those things that when you realize like, Hey, I only get to say next week, 3000 more times, 2,500 more times, 2000 more times. How many times are you going to let yourself stay next Monday? I'll start the diet next Monday. I'll start the workout routine. Or, you know, next week I'll have the hard conversation or next week I'll, I'll do the

thing. And I think just, it's really hard to face our mortality because it's deeply uncomfortable and disconcerting to realize that I'm not going to be here as long as I thought I would. And then when I zoom in and look at my life in a number of weeks, like, man, it really doesn't seem like that much. And I think the truth is it's not that much. You know, we've been around for 200,000 years as a species and you'll be lucky to live 80 to 100 of that. That's a fraction of the humanity that's ever lived. And that's like a deeply disconcerting thought for a lot of people. But for me, the idea that, hey, I might live only 4,000 weeks and if I'm lucky, I'll live 5,000. So if I have four to 5,000 weeks to live,

that's only four to 5,000 weeks of workouts. It's only four to 5,000 weeks of picking and choosing how I want to interact with food and people and all of this stuff that matters. And every next week, not this week, next Monday, not this Monday is losing one of those very valuable weeks. And when you frame things in years or don't frame them at all, you can just quickly wake up one day and realize like, holy shit, I wasted a decade or 500 of my weeks, uh, not taking care of my body, not taking care of my health. And now the number of weeks I have, if I'm lucky, will still be 4,000, but in all likelihood, it will be lower because you cannot guarantee longevity that you did not earn.

And some of us know people who are going to smoke cigarettes their whole life and live to be 100. And, you know, that kind of spits in the face of this ideology. But the truth is, for most of us, we get exactly back what we put in. And if you put in, you know, consistently more weeks of working out and more weeks of eating in a way that nourishes your body, then you do the opposite. You might guarantee yourself slightly more than 4,000 weeks, but if you do what most people do, you're going to get about 4,000 weeks on earth. And that will really wreck you if you haven't thought about your life in that way. And for me, that's been a really powerful frame to look at things. And it's changed the way that

I interface with the world. Uh, sixth thing is, um, about stuff, about things, about items, about materialism and just how wildly unimportant I think a lot of the stuff is. Uh, about things, about items, about materialism, and just how wildly unimportant I think a lot of this stuff is. Like I said in the intro to the podcast, so much has changed for me since the pandemic. One of the main things was I moved out of a home that I had lived in for 10 years. When I moved to go to college, I hadn't even reached 18 yet, and I moved into a room, the smallest room in a three-bed house, about four blocks from school. And I lived in that house for nine years, almost 10 years. And every two or three years, I would move from a small, the small room to the next biggest room until ultimately I ended up in

the master bedroom. And those felt like real level ups, but you know, in time through working, through investing, through making good decisions, I was fortunate enough to save up, to be able to buy a home. And I don't say that to brag. I know how hard it is for many people, especially in today's interest rate climate. And just with the cost of housing post pandemic, like I know how hard it is to buy a home. And I will tell you this, um, buying a home is not a gateway to happiness. It's certainly not, didn't make me as happy as I thought it would. You know, it's one of those big American dream accomplishment things that, oh, I finally have a home. Like I have the keys, like it's such a big deal. And much like getting a new car after a couple of weeks, it just becomes a new place that you're

sleeping. And this isn't an attempt to discourage you. I think thematically it goes well with what we're talking about, which is just like stuff. And when I moved out of the house that I'd been living in for many, many years, I did what I could to kind of corral up the stuff and get rid of it, whether it was stuff of mine or stuff of many of the roommates who we'd had over many years. I just wanted to get a bunch of the stuff out so that the people that would be living there after me would have as clean a slate as possible. And I think I made like seven or eight trips to the dump, uh, with a full, you know, 2,500 truckload full of shit. Um, and one of the things that dawned on me during this experience was how much of the stuff I was comfortable throwing away, getting rid of, disposing of, never seeing again, that at the time of acquiring it felt like it mattered. I felt like I wanted it. I had to have it. I really want to get this. Whether it was shoes, collectibles, figurines, furniture, books, you name it. I was cut throat when it came to

moving on from a lot of these items. I am talking like audios, see you later, throw it in the trash. The amount of stuff that at one point mattered a lot that within just a couple years, I could not even give away or did not even want to attempt to sell or would just happy to throw away, really shifted how I look at stuff. And something that was really powerful for me was when I felt for the first time that the stuff I had once enjoyed to buy, consume, and purchase so much never gave me the happiness that getting rid of it did a couple years down the road. Like it absolutely blew my mind that I got greater happiness and satisfaction out of

throwing shit away than I ever did out of purchasing it to begin with. way than I ever did out of purchasing it to begin with. And that to me was such a huge indicator that we are driven to consume, to purchase, to buy, to project, and that that is just the ultimate gateway to short-term satisfaction. Nothing that you earn, whether it's health, satisfaction, nothing that you earn, whether it's health, fitness, you know, investments feels good to lose or get rid of when you've gotten it and you've earned it. But a lot of the shit that we buy and consume that just piles up feels better to get rid of than it ever did to acquire. And that was such a mind fuck for me. So I'm so much less enthusiastic about stuff and so much less of what I do in life now is done in the pursuit of getting more stuff. Um, and the last thing is just like, and this is so obvious and like probably just

makes so much sense given the context of this podcast, but, um, it is that like your health and living in the absence of pain is far and away the greatest asset that you have. I have seen so much, uh, in, you know, living with a dad who has a chronic illness, a mobility-specific illness. He now lives in a care home. And going and seeing the way that the people in that space live. And then just in the last couple months, I've had some pretty substantial nerve pain due to an injury.

in the last couple months, I've had some pretty substantial nerve pain due to an injury and just my own pain. And then just seeing what it is like for people who do not have their health and mobility writ large. It is such a good reminder that when you do not have your health or you are living in pain, so much less of the shit that you think matters, matters. So much less of the shit that you think matters, matters. And like the amount of shit these people would trade to have in the tiniest fraction of their health is crazy. And, you know, I was sitting once with my dad at this facility where he lives and I asked him the question. I didn't even, I didn't even think about the question.

I was just like, yeah, you know, he was telling me like, man, I w what I'm really working hard with the physical therapist to be able to walk. I'm working hard to be able to walk. And my dad has said this for a very long time. And he has gotten no further, no closer to walking. If anything, he's gotten further away. Um, you know, he falls multiple times a day and I said, I said, good for you. Keep trying. Don't quit. And just as an effort to try to encourage him a little bit, I said, what would you do if you could walk for a day? What would be on your list? What would you go do? And he looked me dead in the eyes and he said, if I could walk for a day, I would walk for a day. And that just made it all click. We take so much of our health and our fitness and being free from

pain for granted in the pursuit of aesthetics, in the pursuit of, again, going back to the previous point, a particular projection of fitness. Like I want to, I don't care what it takes to look, I just want to look good. I don't, you know, I want to be thin. I want to be skinny. And man, it is just like, when you do not have your health, when you do not have your wellbeing, when you are in pain, you would trade almost anything to get out of that. And I'm going to do everything I can to keep that as I age and as I grow. And I would encourage you to do the same and hopefully you learn something and you know, you can take some of these concepts and these thoughts with you in the new year. Again, I'm painfully aware that none of these

ideas are particularly novel or original and I won't go so far as to say they've been said before, but they've certainly been said close enough by different people who are smarter than I. But if you did enjoy the episode and, and, you know, discussions like this add value, I'd love to hear from you. And I'd love to in some way, uh, work more of these podcasts into the greater episode framework of the show. If there's a reason it's not called the Danny Matringa fitness podcast. I, like I said, in the intro, it's just fitness is the thing I believe I'm the most gifted or qualified to talk about, but I have more to add. And if you enjoyed the episode, I'd love to hear from you via DM or email about how it improved your life and what you might look to implement. So thanks so much for tuning in. If you haven't

yet hit subscribe, share this, leave it a five-star rating and review. It really helps the show grow and growing the show is my main goal for 2024. So I hope to see you on the next episode and catch you on the next one.